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For Writers: How I Self Published Hearts of Prey

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Whenever I go to book signings or vendor events, I always meet at least a few other writers. Many of them are not yet published. They often tell me their plans to send out query letters to agents and publishing houses, to which I say, "Cool. I hope that works for you. If it doesn't you can always do what I did." I then shamelessly tell them that after querying 20 agents and getting a steady stream of "your book just isn't quite what we are looking for" letters in reply, I decided to self publish.  I've heard that you need to query 80 agents before you give up, and I've also heard you have a 1 in 1,000 chance of landing a literary agents. I don't like those numbers at all, and after getting rejected twenty consecutive times, I didn't doubt them either. About that time, self publishing started to sound like a pretty great way to bring my manuscript from the messy place of word documents on my computer to the realm of published fiction. No, I di

A Review of Dr. Moreau

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Things are at a bit of a stand still with my writing right now. The sequel to Hearts of Prey (I hesitate to reveal the title just yet) is being edited and I am holding back on starting what will be the third and probably final book in the series. I thought maybe I would use this time to write about one of the books that helped shape my writing. There are so many, but this one had a pretty palpable influence on Hearts of Prey, despite being published in good old 1896. Though there are many stark differences between my book and this one, they have two things in common: first is that they both have characters that are both animal and human. Second is that Wells successfully uses sci-fi to thoughtfully examine human nature, and not to mention it's incredibly well written, both being skills I aspire to do. Of course I'm talking about this classic:        I read The Island of Dr. Moreau in my early twenties and it has stuck with me. It's about a shipwrecked traveler who ends up o

You Call Her Fear

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 This will be short. I am going to try out a writing exercise and invite anyone interested to try it as well. It's pretty simple. Here are the rules: Make a list of the things that scare you, then choose the one thing that trumps all others. Then write a short piece in which you visit this fate on one of your characters. Here's my list of mostly irrational fears: Angry spirits Bad guys in dark alleys Being buried alive Being sunk in the ocean Loss of meaning to life And here we go: Arnold never spoke about his time in Vietnam. Those close to him knew not to ask. His wife had feared that if he went back in the telling of it, she'd loose him again. When he had returned he was sullen and moody for the first year. He could often be found drinking in the dark in their garage. Then, one spring day, he poured out the contents of his whiskey bottles and joined her in the house. Over the course of that summer he slowly returned to the man he'd been before the war. His wife was s