Why is This Here

Some of the people who went to school with me might remember that I dabbled with writing and on some occasions, brought it to class so a small pool of people could critique it.

This went literally nowhere. I have completed no more today, three years later, than I did then. Which is to say, I have completed exactly three short stories and the last one was finished in late 2009. For someone who would one day like to be a published writer and has delusions of Stephen King or J.K. Rowling levels of success, this is unacceptable. So I have finally decided to start this blog.

The purpose of this blog is two-fold: to provide a reason and audience for me to write to, something that will hopefully help me sit down and actually write every day and complete some of the various projects that are sitting on my hard drive. The second is to give a place for people to criticize my work and help improve it.

To that end, I'll be trying to make a story post of at least 1000 words every day. The genres will primarily be speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, that kind of stuff) though I might throw in some creative fiction from time to time and will also be putting in world-building posts if there is an idea I think deserves that much treatment. Each post will end with some author's notes stuff, explaining the inspiration, rationale, or anything I think could be interesting/helpful about the work. I'll try to keep them all categorized by genre or universe, whichever category is more relevant to each piece.

The second and equally important part of the process falls to the you, the readers. Please feel free to comment on any and all pieces that catch your interest and you read in entirety or to the point at which you can no longer stand it. I absolutely love criticism and will happily listen and consider any you throw my direction (I also enjoy compliments, but would prefer the criticism).

This little experiment can only be more successful the more people participate, so feel free to link friends, family, and random strangers on the Internet to this crappy Blogger page (Also feel free to criticize the page if the format or coloring or something is horrendous). That said, I don't really write about light-hearted stuff. I don't feel my writing warrants an adult content warning, but I would at least give most of it a PG or PG-13 rating, so keep that in mind if linking to a younger sibling or nephew or something.

It can also only succeed if I'm actually writing, so if I fall behind and don't have a legitimate reason, give me a swift kick in some fashion until I get back on the horse.

Finally, the blog's title comes from a really terrible production of a decent play I was a part of in high school. At one point, the play's main character, Edgar Allan Poe, says that there is nothing more terrifying than an empty page.

He was right.