Wait… isn’t there supposed to be fiction here somewhere?

Remember when we used to post fiction here? Way back? Yeah. I miss those days, don’t you?

I stopped writing shorter fiction as I tackled my novel. Well, for the moment, that’s done. And then I was all ready to tackle another novel. Except, it appears, I’m burned out on that world for the moment. Every time I sit down to write, very little comes out. Then I decided to just write… and out flowed a ridiculous tale.

I think, for a little bit, I’m going to just write shorter stories. And, after a little polishing, I’ll post them here. So, fiction shall be returning in the next week or two!

If you do a Google search for “And the peasants rejoiced,” you get this woman and very little from Monty Python. I have no idea why that is, but I’m betting it has something to do with a conspiracy of anti-anglophiles.

“You were made to be ruled.”

Loki’s kinda cute like this, isn’t he?

Loki: [to crowd] Kneel before me. I said… KNEEL! Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.
German Old Man: [Stands] Not to men like you.
Loki: There are no men like me.
German Old Man: There are always men like you.

(quote taken from IMDB.)

I went to go see the Avengers again. At one point, Loki attacks a crowd of fancy German types. As he forces them to bow, he makes the speech you see right there. And both times I saw the film, I wondered at the subtext.

Loki is meant to be the bad guy. He’s got no problem killing people if he wants. He aches for power. He loves mind games. In short, he makes a delightful villain that you enjoy rooting against. And then… he makes this speech.

Does the speech sound familiar at all? It does to me. It’s a Christian speech, cruelly twisted.

Historical Science Fiction

I read a nifty beginning of a story, and I thought I’d share.

In 400 AD, Roman soldiers are attacking a group of Visigoths. The Visigoths have been pushed off their land by invaders (Huns, if I remember correctly) and are simply looking for a place to live. As they explore, the enter Roman territory. Well, the Romans aren’t too interested in Visigoth settlers. Battles ensue.

Aric is the chief’s son and a little brash. He’ll go into battle even when he father has commanded retreat. During one such battle, the Romans circle around and attack the Visigoth support camp — which includes some important people like wives and children. Also, Aric’s wife. The Romans take most of the women and children captive — they’re worth more as slaves, after all — and take off. Aric chases after.

Thus far, the story is historical adventure. The book even opened with a nice infographic showing how life was different. 

“There’s only one God, ma’am.”

So, this past Sunday, a group of ninja gorillas invaded my home, crushed all my potato chips, and kidnapped me. No fear gripped my heart. I knew that ninja gorillas are bound by 80′s cartoons standards of violence, which meant that I couldn’t die. I was more intrigued than anything. The last time ninja gorillas had kidnapped me, it was in retaliation for my forcing their entire family to watch Dirty Dancing. It should be said, ninja gorillas have no sense of style. When you’re 400 pounds and wear a plaid bandana, you don’t need style. So I’m told.

ANYWAY…

They forced me to watch the Avengers. You know, that big movie that everyone’s loving? When you combine Joss Whedon and comic books, it’s usually a safe bet that something good will come out of it. And, yes, I enjoyed the film. Go see it.

This isn’t a review, though. The ninja gorillas said I couldn’t write a review or else they would force me to watch every season of Power Rangers without a bathroom break.

So, two of the characters in Avengers are gods: Loki and Thor. At one point, Loki has been captured. Thor breaks him out, looking to beat him up some. Captain America can’t allow that, of course. An ally shouts, “Those are gods!”

Captain America responds, “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

Perfect character moment. Captain America speaks volumes there about who he is and what he stands for. There were actually cheers in the theater when that was said — and it wasn’t because any ninja gorillas were threatening anyone.

Personally, I was amazed. First off, this is a big Hollywood film bankrolled by Disney. Saying something like that in a Hollywood film, even as a throwaway line, is a pretty big deal. But, even more, the film was written and directed by Joss Whedon. He’s an atheist!

And you see, this is what makes Whedon such an amazing writer and director: he lets his characters, even good guys, espouse beliefs he doesn’t agree with. He lets them go with that and not get shouted down or proven incorrect. No one tried to correct Captain America. No one laughed at him (in the film, at least). The line was said, and then they got back to the plot.

Examine your writing. Do you allow characters to have views that you disagree with? That’s good character writing. You may have noticed that not everyone in the world agrees with you. Let that disagreement seep into the worlds you create.

And go see Avengers. Don’t make me send ninja gorillas.

I’m giving up.

When searching for “giving up” on Google Images, you get three “inspirational quotes” over and over and over and over and over again…

Tomorrow, in theory, I should be sending in a short story to a writing contest. It ain’t gonna happen.

I had thought I could just take out an old story, dust it off, shine it up, and send it on its merry way. I found that I had no stories I believed publishable within the word count range. I thought I could take a different story and leap off and tell a new story within the word count. It didn’t happen.

Alas.

I wish Brandon luck, though, as he entered!

Average Joe

Average Joe
By Troy Meeder

The book’s subtitle reads, “God’s extraordinary calling to ordinary men.” The back of the book advertises, “The revealing truth is that God chooses ‘ordinary,’ faithful men to do His most important work – regular guys like Peter the fisherman, David the shepherd, Stephen the waiter, Gideon the farmer, Paul the tentmaker, and even Jesus the carpenter. In this engaging book, Troy Meeder blends stories about biblical characters and contemporary men to show that an ‘average-Joe’ life, an ‘ordinary’ existence, shapes a man’s integrity, moral stability, resolve, and strength.”

I really wish I got to read that book. That book I’d be interested in. Drawing the line that shows that God used ordinary men to do his extraordinary work would be a useful book to have. Peter was just a loud guy. David really was just a little brother who had something to prove. Gideon was a scared farmer. Showing their stories and then applying them to today’s men would be an awesome book.

Yeah. That’s not what I got.

What I got was good, but not what was advertised. Instead, Meeder tells about all sorts of “average Joes” who taught him about life, living, and sometimes God. A lot of the lessons have to do with plain old living with a spiritual sheen. For what it is, this book is fantastic. It reads like a slightly more spiritually-grounded “Chicken Soup for the Manly Man’s Soul.” As I said, fine for what it is – but not what was advertised.

We get some fantastic examples of normal men who greatly influenced Meeder. Some of these sing. Meeder’s first employer at college, the groundskeeper, teaches him about God’s cutting us to help us grow better. His description of training horses cause some deep thought. Some of the chapters didn’t work for me. He paints a vivid picture of deep-sea diving, but the lesson limped in that particular chapter. The bulk of the book focuses on modern men and then alludes to the biblical examples. I’d rather look at God’s Word and investigate those normal Joes first.

Again, for what it is, the book is fine. I just wish I’d gotten the book that was promised.

Legal nuts and bolts: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

If you want to check out chapter one, you can read it here.

The Butterfly Effect is Even Worse for Writers…

I really wish my writing station looked this cool.

Writing is like time travel.

So, I’m tackling this massive expansion of a short story. I’ve added complications galore and made it a far more interesting story. And, as the story involves time travel, it’s fairly complex. However, as I work my way toward the end and ask more questions, I look back and see I need to add more clues throughout the story so it’s all fair to the reader.

Which means that I have to go back and change the story as I go. It’s all fairly common, of course. Most people call it revising.

But here’s the thing: as I change the ending, I need to go back and change the body of the story. It’s time travel in reverse. Changing the ending means changing the beginning.

It’s all very complex, timey-wimey stuff.

Not as easy as I thought.

This is not me. My typewriter is far more archaic.

So, I’m going to submit a short story for this competition. I thought it would be fairly easy; take one of the short stories from the blog here, spiff it up, and send it out.

Alas, no such luck.

The contest calls for stories between 5k and 20k words. Most of my stories here are nearly flash-fiction length (one thousand words or less). A few definitely go over that, but I don’t consider any of them sellable in the contest’s market. For instance, Philia is long enough. Yet, I don’t expect Christian fiction would be a good bet for selling to this company. I’d love to send in Joy Eaters, but that fails for the same reason.

Now, wait a second! Am I hiding my Christianity by not submitting those two stories? Not at all. I’m taking a look at the requirements of this particular contest. I’m sending a story that I think fits that particular format. Sending a Christian science fiction story to a place that does not publish Christian fiction would as good as me sending a Western in to this competition. It would accomplish… well, pretty much nothing.

Moving on…

The Least of Men is long enough, but I  really don’t consider that my best work.

Which leaves a bunch of stories that I think have a much better chance of being bought, but aren’t long enough. This… well, I’m taking a story that was roughly 2k words and more than doubling it in length by adding new plot complications, shearing off the ending and running it far longer. Which story? Sorry, I won’t say until/ unless it’s rejected. It’s a story with a twist ending, though. I simply took off the ending and kept going with the same characters.

I’ll basically have an entirely new story with the same characters and hook, but a very revised plot. I’m hoping this will allow me to shop it around some more if it gets rejected here; usually if a story’s been published on a blog, no one will buy it. However, with this much work done on it, hopefully it appears as a new story!

…which means, in the end, I’m doing a lot more work than I’d expected to do for this contest.

Ah, well!

You probably think I’m a bit unhinged.

And once I am successful, I will buy an Uruk agent to make sure I continue writing.

It’s done!

Last night we finally sent in my novel to Angry Robot. Do you have a novel? You’ve got a week yet to send it in here. If you have a genre young adult novel, they’re also pursuing those. Check it out here.

And what am I doing to celebrate? I’m going to submit something else somewhere else. See, there’s a short story competition that closes May 5. Here’s the page for that one. The thing that makes this competition unique: It doesn’t say anything about previously-published material. So, I’m hoping to brush up one of the short stories on the blog and submit it. (Any suggestions on a particularly good one to send in? It’s 5k to 20k words, and most of my work here is around 1k, so anything would need SOME work at least.)

So… am I insane, looking to submit something different so soon?

I dunno. Maybe I’m just a writer.

And so it ends…

Today I send in the pitch and the first 15,000 words of the novel. I’m waiting to hear back from a last few editors on last minute things, else it would have gone in last night. That’s right. I’m excited about submitting. Don’t hear that very often, do you?

Do you have a novel? You have the chance to send it in! Here’s the submission guidelines, and here’s the submission form. They’re looking for classic fantasy novels. Go for it!

And once I send it in… well, I’ll probably stare at the screen for a while and try to figure out, “What next?”