Akting Out

Life has changed a lot since I became published, not all of it for the better. Suddenly I’m fielding a lot of questions, none of them I mind, and none of them are stupid. What I do find rather grating, however, are the common misconceptions that writers have it easy. I’ve actually been told on a number of occasions that writing a book is easy. My personal favorite is; “I don’t see what the big deal is. You sit, you write a book. How hard is that?” Oh, I don’t know, about as hard as it is to keep myself from throwing you out the window. It’s pretty flippin’ difficult.

Thanks to Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Patterson, and the like, there seems to be some myth that we writers sit at a keyboard and whip out bestseller after bestseller with little to no effort and spend the rest of our days doing whatever we wish. We write these books, sleep till noon, and spend our free time doing whatever it is we nerds too. Well, I got news for you. Not even close.

So here, in my very first blog of 2011, I’d like to present ten hard truths about writers and writing. Those of you who labor under the delusion that your work will make you millions, I’m not saying it’s impossible, but consider this your reality check. Those of you who think we have it easy, read on.

5). Most of us never see a dime from our work. Most of us don’t do this for the paycheck. Most of us do it because of an impossible push from our imagination, to see our work in print or on screen, or both.
Once again; MOST OF US WRITERS DO NOT GET PAID FOR OUR WORK.

A little side-note to that last one; if you ever bought a book with the front cover ripped off, the author didn’t see a dime of that money.

4). It’s never, ever easy. We drive ourselves, and our families, crazy because we are perfectionists, what we do is never good enough, and we have to keep refining over and over until we’re too tired to go on, or if we’re lucky, it comes out right. Nothing of the process is easy.

3). Finishing a book is sometimes the greatest thing we can hope for.

2). It’s a 24/7 job. Very rarely are we doing something that doesn’t tie back to our writing. We can’t help it. It’s how our minds work. And we normally get the best ideas when we’re furthest away from anything that even resembles a writing tool.

1). Behind every bestseller is a killer marketing team. I mean the type of marketing team that runs on millions of dollars. For every “bestseller” you’re aware of, there are a million titles that may be a million times better that you may never heard of. If you’re a writer, there’s a very good chance that you will be one of the millions people never hear of.

Now, for those of you who’re new to writing or considering a career, please don’t let this discourage you. I love writing, I love everything about the storytelling process, I love the research, the rewrites, the late-nights, and the continuous refinement of what we do. But have no illusions. Unless you’re incredibly lucky, talented, or both, you’re not going to get rich doing this. At least, not right away. But you can indeed generate income as a writer, you can even make it a full-time profession if you’ve got what it takes to make it happen. But don’t think for a second that it will come easy, or overnight. It will take years. Maybe a lot of them.

And for those of you who think we have it easy…we don’t. In fact, there are times we envy you because you seem to be able to relax on occasion. We can’t, even if we wanted to. We do it because we love it, because we can’t imagine doing anything else. We don’t have dollar signs in our eyes, and pounding out sixty thousand words is as draining as an hour at the gym.

Those are my five hard truths about writers and writing.

Thanks for reading, and good luck.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

I started writing two or three years ago; up until then, I was only bitching about my childhood on myspace. Somehow, I found out about the wonderful world of web fiction, and it was off to the races. I’d been living with Universal Warrior, in one form or another, for almost two decades. I had originally wanted to start the story in the modern period, the era I knew best, but I had never explored the actual battle between Angels and Demons before, so Uprising became my first public venture as a writer. By my own standards, it started well, but was a disaster by the time the story finally wrapped up last year; suddenly, I’m managing blogs, promoting the story every which way on every social networking site I can get my hands on, and most importantly, writing copy. The story was released as a weekly serial, and cramming everything into seven days turned out to be more than I could handle. I kept pushing things back to the point where I walked away from the story altogether for almost a month. By the time I came back, I had no idea what was going on, and, well, let’s say the comments stopped coming as quickly. I’m glad the story wasn’t eviscerated. To my face, anyway.

Then, amidst the blogs, stories, and delays, something amazing happened; someone found my work and shared it with the world. Suddenly I was meeting all sorts of people who were just as creative and passionate about it as I was (mostly in Australia). I was introduced to this very supportive network of writers and artists who just wanted to make it, plus, they were willing to help anyone else along the way, once they saw one was willing to make the effort. Through this network, I met someone from my hometown, ironically, who was putting together a horror anthology and asked me to contribute.

There was no way I ever imagined seeing my writing in print, holding it in my hands. Suddenly a dream and hobby turn into a very attainable career. And now that I’m here, I’ve found myself asking what the next step is.

I’ve never thought you could stagnate and be successful. You have to keep growing, keep acknowledging your own weaknesses and then overcoming them. You have to keep challenging yourself.

I’ve never been good at planning, that’s where I’m weak. I still struggle with the fantasy that I’ll write a miracle best-seller that will land me the world’s fattest payment, allowing me to walk away from whatever job I may have at the moment and spend the rest of my life doing what I love. Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen.

I can write, though. I do have several goals in mind, and someplace I’d like to be in six years. Instead of wishing on a miracle (because let’s be honest, even for people who work hard, miracles are hard to come by), I can plan to see my dreams through…one step at a time. Patience is something else I’d like to be better at, anyway.

Honestly, it’ll probably be a long time before I’m able to quit my job, but luckily, I’m good at it. Here’s what I’d like to do next year, and I’ll have to flesh this out on my own this week.

• Complete at least two books, which includes the nearly-complete Atherean Defenders, due out early next year.
• Complete one screenplay (which will either revolve around my own IP or DC’s Blackest Night)
• Develop a Writing Blog
• Explore other storytelling mediums, such as podcasting and machinima
• Earn a certain amount of money on my writing)

Doing this will allow me to develop a backlist of titles and provide my readers with a catalog. It’ll also allow me to expand my skills as a screenwriter, and maybe sometime in 2011, I can finally get into animated filmmaking. It’s not much, but it’s something to build off of.

Thank you for reading, and all of the support thus far.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

I own none of the images in this blog. All of them are copyrights of the DC Universe.

This may be the best impulse purchase I ever made. This book had been staring at me, taunting me in its plastic-wrapped glory from the top shelf at Barnes & Noble (where you’re sure to see it), since I had started coming in to complete the Batman/Superman crossovers. Hell, I wasn’t even that big a fan of Green Lantern. I am now.

But here was this magnificent cover, entitled with part of the Green Lantern’s oath, completely in black, featuring Hal Jordan encased in a force field. Not a hint of fear in his face as he casually observes the horde of zombies very hungrily reaching for him. Like I said, at this point, not really all that big on Green Lantern, but I do kind of like the Justice League, and…wait a sec, is that Martian Manhunter? Wasn’t he killed in Final Crisis? God, is that Superman?!

The book was twice as expensive as the one I’d come in for, but what the hell, I make a pretty good living. Although there’s nothing worse to me than a bad story (I’d rather sit through overtime at work than deal with a crappy story), a cover like that begs your attention. So I bought the book.

I read the Death of Superman, the Broken Bat series, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, all of which were stellar reads…but Blackest Night is the greatest story I’ve ever read in a comic series. The story revolves around Barry Allen (Silver Age Flash) and Hal Jordan (Silver Age Green Lantern) as they mourn everyone who died in Final Crisis, including Batman and Martian Manhunter. Simultaneously, around the DC universe, both heroes and villains are taking personal time to remember everyone who’s been lost over the years. Something I thought was really cool; rogues who don’t get along meet in secret, putting aside personal differences for a moment to remember their colleagues. No one is immune from mourning.

In the midst of all this, black rings, similar to the one Green Lantern uses, fly throughout the universe, sounding like flies, saying only “Flesh.” These rings raid the graves of everyone in the DC universe (and I do mean everyone) who’s died, plant themselves on the finger of a corpse, and, well…”RISE.” And these newly animated corpses are in a foul mood indeed. They want to trigger an emotional response out of their targets so they can tear out their hearts when their emotions are at their highest. That’s right. Zombie super-heroes and villains.

There’s so much more to it than that, this is an epic story, but that’s the gist. Although the story centers around Flash and Green Lantern, it gives supporting roles to some lesser known characters in the DC universe and then tears the place apart. The real draw of this story is the human aspect, which is why I love comics in the first place (especially Batman); it doesn’t matter if you can run at the speed of light, have bullets bounce off your chest, or create anything out of sheer willpower; you see someone you loved rise out of their grave and come at you, you’re gonna have a reaction.

Ultimately, this makes for a very, very triumphant ending, even if you have no idea who some of the characters on the page are. I made the mistake of reading this at work, and I lost track of how many times I burst out with “HOLY SH*T!!”

And I kept thinking to myself, “this would make such a kick-ass movie!”
It’s one of those ideas that’s been bouncing around my head for months now, but I never touched it; too busy with Universal Warrior and work (yes, I take the job somewhat seriously, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be there), and, well, THE STORY ISN’T MINE.
But I think to myself; I know this universe, I grew up with these characters, I can make a movie for next to nothing with existing software, hell, I BOUGHT THIS COMPUTER just to do that.

I don’t imagine it’ll be all that good, if I can make it happen, it’ll be my directorial debut. I won’t charge anything for it. I will plaster across every screen that this story is the original property of a multimillion dollar conglomeration that I hope doesn’t sue me into the next century. But fans get together and do this kind of thing all the time, right? I mean, have you seen the mock-up Green Lantern Trailer on Youtube? I think it’s almost better than the real thing.

So yeah, I’ma give it a shot, start writing the screenplay at night.

Thanks for reading. If you’re interested in the book, here you go.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Ywriter: I cannot believe this software is free. This may be the most comprehensive novel-writing software on the net today. Ywriter allows you to create a novel from beginning to end, even allowing you to create notes that encompass the entire project or individual scenes. That’s just the beginning, though; Ywriter allows you to create major and minor characters, complete with JPEG imagery and goals you can rate your own scenes based on tension and problem resolution, there’s even a built-in reader that will read your work aloud on command. What I’ve listed here scratches the surface of the best novel-writing software you’re not using. If you’re even considering writing a book, you won’t do better than this. I’m hoping for smartphone and Evernote integration, but as long as it stays free, I won’t complain.

Warning: Occasionally, especially on battery power, Ywriter can become slow and unresponsive, especially if you have other programs running. It’s a good idea to run Ywriter by itself if your computer isn’t plugged in.

Celtx: You may want to snag this software while it’s still free. While a number of its extensions require purchasing, the core product is still free of charge. It’s also among the best scriptwriting software on the internet. It functions in the same manner as Ywriter, only Celtx is geared for screenwriters. You’re allowed to create and detail characters, note individual scenes or the entire project, and tag characters for easy reference when your script gets lengthy. You can also upload your completed script for free to the main server for critique.
A vast number of add-ons start from $2.99, and you’re prompted to get these when you initially download the software—which leads me to believe that Celtx may not be free forever. Right now, it’s a great alternative to paying hundreds of dollars for final draft, so again, if you’re even thinking of writing a script, go get this now.

Evernote: Every writer needs to be using this software. In my opinion, this is the best note-taking software ON THE PLANET. Put simply, you download it, open it up, jot (type) down whatever it is you want to remember, close the program, and move on. What makes Evernote stand out is that it integrates with most browsers, including Chrome and Firefox, which allows you to ‘clip and save’ entire webpages (graphics and all) to the program. You can also create notebooks to better organize your thoughts.
Where Evernote really sets itself apart is in its portability; Evernote is available for both the iphone and blackberry. While a premium membership is not mandatory to run the applications, if you want to sync your notes across your platforms, you’re going to need one. Even then, it’s a steal at five dollars per month. If you’re a heavy user, you can go with the yearly option for forty-five dollars.

This is, in my opinion, the best free software for writers. If you have a resource of your own, I’d love to know about it. Please comment or contact me directly, and I’ll take a look! Best of luck and thank you for reading!

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

So you’re new to writing? You probably already know that a lot of your success will be based not just on your writing, but by the number of people who read your writing. That being said, you may already have a twitter account (and if you don’t, go get one before you read any further). Here are the top ten writers you need to be following.

10). @problogger
Darren Rowse may as well have written the book on professional blogging. Anything you want to know from writing compelling material to discovering an audience can be found, either by following his tweetstream or checking out his site, which you can find here.

9). @jchutchins
Famous for his Seventh Son series as well as hilarious one-liners on his Facebook page, Mr. Hutchins found success by turning his novels into a free podcast series. Friendly, funny, and very much a nerd, you may be better off friending him on Facebook than following his tweetstream; he updates Facebook more often, and it’s almost always good for a laugh.

8). @AngsCopywriting
Almost every writer needs to know what SEO is, and very few know more than Angie Nicolychuk. Angie is a professional writer who provides consulting, coaching, and copywriting services for a fee. She’s listed here because she is very friendly, engaging, and willing to pass on what she’s learned. Follow her tweetstream for the occasional article on SEO writing. Check out her web page if you’re interested in what she does. If you’re trying to set your blog apart from the pack, you need to be following her.

7). @lauraeno
Laura is a perfect example as to how one delivers quality fiction on a scheduled basis, thus building up a loyal fan base. Her page, A Shift In Dimensions, boasts nearly two hundred fans, with good reason; Laura’s writing is excellent. Check out her latest entry into her series, Under the Sea, to find out what I’m talking about. Laura also engages all of her followers (provided you have something good to say) and regularly supports the Friday Flash tradition by retweeting the works of others.

Also, her take on the Immortals is a great example of bite-sized, quality writing. All of her stories standalone and the character’s plights are both tragic and lighthearted. A wormhole at the bottom of the sea? You need to be reading this story.

6). @Keikomushi
Dianne is a great example as to what can result from hard work. I first met Keiko through Universal Warrior, and we’ve been friends ever since. Our friendship demonstrates what twitter can do for you when you put something into it; Keiko is a gamer and fantasy author who deftly blends mysticism with the old west. Keiko is also an avid learner and researcher, and truthfully, I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for her support. I recommend Keiko because I enjoy her work, she’s very easy to relate to, she’s a geek (and she’s married, sorry). Her interests are varied and she’s very open. Pay attention to her and what she does; you may learn something. Read more about Dianne at Keiko Online.

5). @AlanBaxter
Alan has completed two self-published novels (which I need to get around to reading) and parlayed his success into his own small publishing firm. He’s another example of what you can do when you put your mind on something. I also appreciate Alan’s blunt nature and low tolerance for self-pity; it’s served as a reality check on a couple of occasions. If you’re trying to write action-based fantasy (and I am, which is why I shared), then following Alan is a great start. He also occasionally posts dark Flash Fiction on his blog, with is always worth a look.

4). @Jsubject
Jessica is kind enough to give me #WriterWednesday and #FollowFriday shouts every week, which is what led me to her. Jessica authors the Mark of the Stars series; I share her because her blog features interviews with authors, book recommendations, and reviews.

3). @MeiLinMiranda
MeiLin Miranda is one of the founding mothers of Web Fiction. She brings so many things to the table that it’s difficult to name them all; follow her, and you will learn how to attract a fan base (I believe hers is at 10k and growing), write a story with such depth and breadth that it attracts fan art, create a blog that anyone can read (her entries from life excerpts to recipes) and even do the impossible; make money from your writing. Check out her page here, along with one of the web’s best stories, An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom.

2). @CPatrickSchultze
Mr. Schultze regularly posts excellent articles on the art of writing, everything from writing convincing dialogue, the importance of setting in a story, and working with agents. His posts are must-reads for anyone trying to turn their writing into a full-time career. Check out his web page for the goods.

1). @thecreativepenn
The lovely Mrs. Joanna Penn easily gets the top-spot. There is not a single writer, published or unpublished, who should not be following her. Through her extensive podcasts, articles, and interviews, Mrs. Penn has dedicated herself to helping writers advance their career, and much of what I’ve learned on being a writer comes from her. If you follow no one else on this list, you need to be following the Creative Penn. You need to be signed up on her web page, you need to be hearing her podcasts, you need to be listening to everything she has to say.

Hope you find this list, which is a fraction of the great writers on twitter, useful. Thanks for reading and best of luck in your endeavors.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

As writers, we all feel it. It’s inevitable.
It may start as a tingle at the base of our spine, a mild pressing at the back of our skull, or in my case, a growing weight at the pit of my stomach. We may try to ignore it, block it out (no pun intended), or press through it, but as we reach our trembling fingers for the keyboard, we find it more difficult than we imagined to ignore our ever-encroaching nemesis, that which acts as a dam against the spring of inspiration and keeps us from expressing our imagination on paper. I speak of the dreaded, tyrannous writer’s block.

Oh, how I despise it so. It usually comes at the worst possible time, after I have spent days, or even weeks planning out an epic drama to the most obscure detail, only to find that I can’t think of a bloody word when it’s time for execution. Even if I have all of my notes right in front of me, my mind is a new chalkboard; completely blank.

It took me months, a lot of banging my head into the wall, some spackle and a ton of ibuprofen before I came up with a solution that works, for me, anyway.

Walk away.

I don’t mean some halfhearted attempt to forget your work, i.e. leaving your computer on, or your pen and paper laying around while you figure out what’s for dinner that night. I mean walk away. Put away the pen and paper, as though you won’t touch it again that day. Fold up the notebook. Turn the computer off. Find something else to do.

I find that my best moments come when I’m doing manual labor, especially the dishes, for some reason. I say this to say; find something else to do with your time. Do something that keeps your moving, but has nothing to do with your writing. Try to make it something you normally don’t like doing, because you’ll find that undertaking this chore may put your mind further away from your writing. Trust me on this. Clean your house. Do the dishes. Plant a garden. Go for a walk. Ground the kids; more than likely, they’ve done something you didn’t catch along the way.

I mean it. Completely walk away. Don’t even do research. Let it go. Don’t wait for the muse to pay you a visit, because s/he never will.

Then, something miraculous happens. During the time you’ve had writer’s block, you’ve actually accomplished something, maybe several things. You may have actually learned something. The point is, you have completely forgotten about your writing when the muse strikes you like cops with a search warrant.

This is the time to return to work. Finish the task at hand, pull out the paper, pen, notebook, computer, or whatever it is that you use and get back to work. You may find that you have a hard time stopping.

This is how you make the most of writer’s block. You put the object of your frustrations out of your mind for a moment, because it’s very difficult to be creative when you’re frustrated. You accomplish something else, it doesn’t matter what, because you’re still getting something done. During this time, you find that your frustration subsides when you’ve stopped worrying about it so much. Then you return to work, stronger and more refreshed than when you were when writer’s block struck.

Thank you for reading.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

We all have our moments, or places, when we do our best thinking. For me, it’s either on long walks, or when I’m doing the dishes.

In my socks.

On the tile floor.

But we’ll get back to that.
So there I am, doing the dishes, minding my own damn business when my old, familiar, finicky friend, the Muse, decides to drop by. And oh my, the things she has to say. Utter brilliance, they are. The kinds of things that would make old Will Shakespeare himself stand up and applaud.

It’s always a sequence. I freeze in mid-scrub. I no longer notice how hot the water is. My eyes widen as the Muse pours inspirational gold into my mind. The words. Such words. They must be recorded and now.

And I’m off. I’ve learned to keep my computers on for just such an occasion. I go racing out of the kitchen, looking like Daffy Duck going downhill. In fact, I’ve actually fallen flat on my face before. But the pain doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters but getting the Muse’s words on paper.

But I have learned that the Muse plays a dirty trick on you. As she speaks, she’s actually placed a time bomb in your imagination. There’s no timer, although it seems to go off the second you’re ready to bring her words into reality.

So I sit at the computer, raise my hands to the keyboard, and then…pleh.

The bomb goes off. The Muse is gone. The finicky little…we won’t go there…took her words with her.
I hate those moments; those first few seconds when my mind has frozen and I can’t think of anything to write. It’s like being abandoned on date night by someone you were really excited about seeing.

I have ways of coping. I pace. I talk out loud, trying to remember what she told me while questioning my own sanity. But it’s okay, I tell myself. I passed crazy a long time ago, but if I get these words out of my head and into the real world, it’ll all be okay.

So after wearing a groove into the carpet and having full-fledged conversations with myself, convinced that I’ve plucked the important aspects of the Muse’s visit out of the pit, I take my seat at the computer, and then…pleh.

At this point, I usually scream, cuss, moan, or turn on the 360 and lose myself in somebody else’s world, but since the latter isn’t an option anymore (yet) I had to find another way around it.

And then, just last week, it hit me.
The Muse may be finicky, but she demands hard work and total dedication. As well she should, considering what she brings to the table. You don’t just walk into the mine and picking gold off the walls. You have to dig for it.

So now, I sit down and just start writing. It only has to be relevant to what the Muse has told me; it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to make sense. It just has to be out of my head and in the real world. I’ve churned out five pages of crud not even the sanitation department would touch. It doesn’t matter, because no one else has to see it.

Then, when all the crud is out of my head, I go back through it, sometimes tracing the words with my finger, and there. That one sentence, quote, or scene. That’s what I’ve been looking for. That’s what the Muse was trying to tell me.

When the Muse hits me now, I try to let it happen instead of making mad dashes for my computer (it keeps me out of intensive care). I get to my computer and pour my imagination onto the screen. I mine later and keep the good parts.

Thanks for reading, and good luck in your endeavors.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I had this tiny little space in my room between my dresser and bed where I could hide; my father wouldn’t see me if he was casually passing by. I began to stock notebooks, pens, legal pads, and colored pencils back there. Mostly, I’d create really crappy superheroes inspired by my favorite comics. The drawings were horrendous, but the stories weren’t so bad. It provided an escape from my daily life, plus it gave me hope, creating these characters that were beyond mortal pain and suffering.

I think the best of the worst was a combined effort between me and an artist friend; inspired by our love of comics and action movies, along with an uncanny knack for getting into trouble, we did a series entitled “The Legendary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. It was based off the existing property, crudely drawn (even the panels were badly drawn) and the story was, well, crap. It put the turtles in a much darker, modern day. Each chapter was ten pages long. Oh, what crap that was. I think we just wanted to be a part of the fictional world we loved so much.

I belong to a local writers group. During our monthly meetings, someone will almost always mention a famous author or some great literary work, and I always feel three steps behind. It’s not that I haven’t read any great works (who’s Tolstoy?); I’ve read mostly fables, fairy tales, and Shakespeare. I’ve pulled something away from most of them, but the fiction that hit me hardest (aside from a short story from my mother’s collection) came from the visual medium. I feel a little pedestrian in saying this, but I can’t name ten books that had a profound impact on me. I can readily name ten movies and video games that will stay with me the rest of my life.

Take Chakan: The Forever Man, for example. Here was a man who boasted no one could beat him. He challenged death and won! This was the first plot twist to ever hit me. Death gave him his reward: immortality until he cleansed the universe of all evil. And then you, the player, take over, in this beyond-difficult game for the Sega Genesis. You play through this man’s curse, cleansing the world of all evil in hopes of dying.

Without taking anything away from books, I find the visual medium fascinating and amazing. Worlds are vividly, literally brought to life in ways one could never imagine otherwise. When I first envisioned Universal Warrior, I never had a book series in mind; it was always intended to be seen and played through. Writing the story has allowed me to rediscover my passion for reading, though, so I’ll follow this road to its conclusion.

What inspires you? What brought you to where you are now?

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

I don’t like writing some things down. I’ve realized that when you put something on paper, it takes on life of its own; it exists outside of your head, in the real world, and even if no one else ever sees it, you certainly will.

Writing makes it real.

So here goes.

I’d like to be writing full-time by the time I’m forty. I want to get up and head to an office located somewhere in my own house. I want to have my hand in books, video games, and movies. I want to be getting paid to write stories.

There, I said it.

I know the odds are against me in this. I listen to the podcasts, I follow a ton of inspirational people on twitter, I read everything I can get my hands on when it comes to my chosen profession. I’m not going into this with dollar signs in my eyes. No one should chase their dreams with sole objective of getting paid. I think that hastens failure because it’s phony. But, if you do what you do because you love it, the rest will follow.

I also don’t think Universal Warrior is the end-all-be-all of great storytelling. It’s a story; it’s a good story, and I think most fans of the fantasy-action genre would like it if they were aware of it. I can safely say, however, that I know plenty of writers who are putting together much better stories. I’m not the best out there. But I’m doing the best I can.

I may not succeed. Ten years from now, I may be working for someone else. If I can look back and say I gave this endeavor everything I had, to the point where I had absolutely nothing left, and I still didn’t make it, I can live with that.

I know that this is what I want to do with my life. If I don’t get this, it will not be because I didn’t try.

I chronicle my journeys so people don’t repeat my mistakes; I figure this journey is no different. My first goal is to get Universal Warrior published. Whether it happens or not, I’ll write about the process here.

So tune in, comment, follow along, and I’ll try to make it interesting.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.