Moving Forward

I know-- this blog has been overdue of an update for a while now. My career's taken a few sharp turns in recent months, and truth be told, I wasn't sure where these bumpy roads would take me. I'm still not sure, but most days I find comfort in the fact that I'm moving forward bit by bit and take it from there. I think that's all we can do at times.

I'm still writing for Rift Junkies and Junkies Nation when I get a chance to do so, but as some of you may have noticed, those chances haven't been that frequently lately. I've been having to spend a great deal of my time looking for copywriting/freelance work wherever I can find it. The good news is that I may have some good news regarding a new client (and a cool site) in a couple of weeks. For now, I'm trying to keep on keepin' on. I did finally add my portfolio link to this site, though!

In the realm of fiction writing, I've actually had a bit of a breakthrough in a side project I recently started. The piece I'm working on will probably end up a novel, but for now it's kind of taking the shape of an erotica-based series of stories. Yeah. Me, erotica, right? My protagonist's kind of like a female version of Indiana Jones but with a bumbling, goofy side. It's an adventure story, but also one embedded in romance and erotic elements. We'll see how it turns out. ;) For now, I'm content with the fact that working on that project soothes me like nothing else quite can.

I'm also in the groundwork phases of a new collaborative fiction project with a friend. It's shaping up pretty nicely. I'll toss out one hint: Outer space!

Oh, one last thing. If anyone's going to be playing The Elder Scrolls Online, lemme know. I'll be playing and writing a few guides along the way.

Journeying Into a Writer's World - One Year Later

I'm not normally one to talk about myself. I'm not sure if my random seven and a half Twitter followers know anything about me. I think most of my family members and Facebook friends see me as a weird, quiet reader who plays video games and kind of leave it at that. It's all true, of course. I am quiet, and generally content observing and listening. I am weird, but not as a result of my quiet nature. I'm just me-- at times goofy, eccentric, and nerdy, yet oftentimes lost inside my own head. I am, of course, a reader and gamer.

And I am also a writer. This part still causes me to blink a bit, which is odd, really, when you consider the fact that I have a B.A. in English. I've been writing since middle school, yet not consistently, and not professionally, until July of 2011. Now, at age 30, more than a year later, I finally have the confidence to say, "Yep, I'm a writer." There are a lot of reasons behind both my natural position of disbelief and my late-in-life acceptance. For me to explain those reasons... well, you're going to have to put up with a bit of my blabbing.

The years following my time spent at U.C. Davis were a bit unusual from the normal 22 year-old career-aspiring graduate. I didn't spend them frantically job-hunting or searching for internships. I didn't concentrate on my writing career at all. Or any career, for that matter. I didn't fall in love and get married. I spent them taking care of my mother-- the most kind and generous woman ever to have graced my life-- until she passed away in 2007.

Less than a year after that I also found myself burying my father, who died of cancer after I spent his last month with him as we watched old black and white Westerns stream across his television set. It was just him and I and the outrageously terrible medical care he received, even as a former Vet. I don't regret a minute of the time I spent taking care of both my parents during their final days, but let me tell you-- that year, and the following years-- were the darkest in my entire life, and will always be.

It took me until July 2011 to finally have the courage to face the world outside my grief-colored box and remember what the hell it was I wanted out of my time on this planet. If it weren't for my three lifelines-- my sister Debbie and my friends Angel and Chris Kyler-- I may never have braved the sunlight.

 

Now, my journey back to the world of the living-- and writing-- was kind of ironic, in a sense. I took my love for getting lost in video games and MMORPG worlds and finally... did something with that passion. I saw an ad and offered to become a writer on a popular RIFT fansite, Rift Junkies. The position was paid. I doubted myself for days, and was sure I'd be no good, yet I tossed out the application anyway. And somehow my editor had faith in me. And still does more than a year later.

I've since gone on to become a writer on multiple sites within the same network. I toss out new content between the three sites on a 5-night-a-week basis. My editor offers me all the freedom I could ever want, and along with that freedom, the job has given me one very precious gift-- confidence. That's not to say I, uh, am truly confident yet. I still struggle with confidences issues daily, but I am on the mend.

During the past year, that confidence gave me a glimmer of hope, and with that glimmer, I reached out and grasped my true writerly passion-- fiction writing. I've finished one novel, fully edited it, and had it accepted at Musa Publishing. I've also written about five short stories, four of which are currently circling the speculative short fiction market. I have quite familiarized myself with the concept of a form rejection this year, and I've yet to have a short story accepted for publication, but hey-- I'm on the mend.

Captive by the Fog, my upcoming novel, will be released October 26, and I'm excitedly awaiting its high dive jump into the wide, open world. A huge part of me rests in between the pages of Captive along with a large host of goofy characters, an alien species, a blossoming lesbian romance, and an encompassing hope for freedom. For those of you who plan on picking it up, I hope you enjoy the leap.

In the months to come, expect some pretty cool updates about Captive. In the meantime, I've got some more journeying to do, and I hope everyone who reads this has their own journeys to continue, begin, or lovingly recall (or all three!). Remember, the journey is everything. And yep-- everyone better have a Journey song in their head right now (A Jerry Maguire song's acceptable, too).

A Completed Novelette, Some Star Wars Puns, and I R ON TV (Sorta)

It's been a pretty good couple of days for me and my writing, and just typing that kinda makes me blink. I'm so unaccustomed to feeling good about things.  It's pretty awesome, I must say!

First off, tonight I off my entry to the Writers of the Future contest.  It's come a long way since I first wrote the first draft back in college, and I must say I'm pretty happy with how it ended up.  It's long enough to technically be a novelette, and it could be longer honestly, which is amusing to me since it started out with a specific intention to be a short story.  Ah well.  I just wasn't happy with it being so short.  I'm not entirely sure it's what the Writers of the Future judges are looking for, but we shall see!  I'm happy with it, and I think that's what matters.  It's only my second time entering the contest-- and the first time doesn't really count since it was 8 years ago.   Since then I've went to college, graduated from college, started 2 novels, finished about 5 short stories (I know, that really doesn't sound like many), read a lot, lived a lot, lost a lot, and experimented enough in random genres to kind of begin to get an inlking as to what my own style is.

For those who may read this who don't know what Writers of the Future is, it's a science fiction/fantasy short fiction contest that's been held for years.  To enter you must be an unpublished author, which makes it an excellent starting ground for writers like myself.  Professional writers judge it; it's not a popularity contest.  It's also held 4 times a year, which is nifty.  The top 3 winners per quarter get their stories published in an anthology, and get paid a nice little chunk in prize money.  They go on to a grand prize competition against all the other winners of the year, too.  The judges also give out Finalist, Sub Finalist, and Honorable Mention awards, although those don't grant publishing rights or prize money.  The contest is definitely a great way to get my foot in the door, though, if I do get anywhere with it.

I don't have high expectations at this point.  I just kinda wanna see what happens.  I think it'll be about 2 months before I hear anything.  Waiting sucks for things like this!  I suppose the smart thing would be to start planning ahead for next quarter's entry.  Possibly... maybe... probably... not yet.  I still have a nagging habit to wait until the last second to do everything.  It's awesome.

In other news, this morning I had another Star Wars: The Old Republic article published.  You can read it here.  I had fun with it.  It's rather amusing writing articles for a Star Wars game.  I get to insert all these silly Star Wars puns and hope that someone out there, somewhere, maybe appreciates them as much as I do.

And speaking of articles, my Editor told me today that my Rift Junkies article from last week was featured on a popular RIFT podcast called The Sanctum.  It was actually pretty amusing, because I'm generally not a very big fan of podcasts, so I don't even listen to this one.  If my Editor wouldn't have told me, I uh, probably would never have known.  Needless to say, I listened to it after he told me!  It was kind of interesting.  They just mentioned it, my byline, and what it was about, then used my article to discuss their own opinions on the matter.  I R FAMOUS!!2%  Not really... but hey, I'll take what I can get!

Go, Stars, Go!

I finally decided it was time to start a real writing blog.  I've attempted a few over the past five years or so, but at some point they'd all end up being kind of... dead.  So, here's hoping to keep this one alive.  I plan on using it to track some of my writing projects and post random motivational blips and musings. I may also babble about books I read and video games I play.  I do tend to be pretty random, as a warning.

I feel like I should start with some kind of self-summary, and I'm notoriously bad at those in general, but here goes: 

My name is Laura, and I'm a professional freelance writer and aspiring professional fiction writer.  I've been writing since elementary school, and have a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from UC Davis, California.  I'm currently floundering around, attempting to earn a living with this writerly stuff.  

In attempting to decide whether to focus this blog primarily on my freelance or fiction writing adventures, I decided that at my very core-- I am a fiction writer.  This freelance writing thing is actually relatively new to me, and while I do enjoy it, my ultimate silly, sunlight-hued dream is to become a published fiction author.

I've currently got a number of writing projects going.  I have a sci-fi novel in its editing stages, another one in the planning stages, and a couple of short stories/novelettes floating around in between various stages.  I tend to stick within the sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction realms, and I really enjoy adding a queer edge to much of my fiction.

My most current project is one of my old sci-fi short stories from my college writing workshop days.  After shoving it away into the dark abyss for a few years, I realized it was time to finally dig it out again and do some heavy editing and rewriting. 

As far as my freelance stuff goes, I'm currently writing articles for Rift Junkies and FORCE Junkies.  I'm a big MMORPG gamer, and it's definitely my forte.  I do some content site freelance writing as well.  I'll eventually post up some links and stuff to some of my articles.  For now, hello blog!