It was time for the school bus. Following Benji, I stepped into a beautiful Autumn morning. As though someone spoke to me, this line popped into my head.
A day bright, and full of promise
I stopped in my tracks, my brain beginning to answer the question I no longer had to consciously put into words: “What happens next?” Even after so many years of writing, I continue to be surprised by the amount of creativity sparked by that simple question. Most notably, What if I paused my writing about the lost prince and started a female-centric story about his sister?
It’s a tip I use not only for writing, but in my office job, as well. “OK, we have an issue. What happens next? And then what?” And so on.
The following is about 2 minutes’ work. It’s a minor piece of writing, but I wanted to capture it because it helped inspire me. It’s about having days ahead of you that you want to spend writing. It’s the promise that you’ll create something worthwhile. It’s the power of positive thinking, if you will.
OK, I’m going to be completely straight with you. I forgotten I’d been working on this series. It happens. Best laid plans and life gets in the way and all that. LOL
Recently, the previous posts (Post 1, Post 2) have seen an increase in traffic, so I thought I’d share a few other stories. Before I do, let me restate their purpose. For a gaming and whiskey weekend, I’d 3D printed characters for my friends to paint. To serve as inspiration for their characters, I wrote some quick backstories that they could mix n match as they desired. More info can be found here: Prologue: Stories for Whiskey Weekend.
Now, let’s meet Molli and Noe (painting by Whiskey Weekend guys).
Molli McGillman sighed. She stopped her nomad’s journey and studied the young person’s face. Another death. Perhaps, this is the one I can prevent.
One year ago, Molli had taken a strange path through the woods and fallen into a time paradox. Of course, she wouldn’t have put it into those words, and she was barely aware anything had happened. The next day, she came upon a drowned man on the riverbank. Making her way upstream, she heard cries ahead. There struggling in the water, though she told herself it was a different person, was the man whose body she’d seen. A few hours later, she saw him a third time as he crossed the river on slippery rocks.
This week I received a surprising notice on my website. I’ve passed 10,000 views! And I’m now on pace to have my best year ever. Considering I do only a little promotion, aside from sharing links on my social media accounts, this feels pretty good!
The website has served as marketing tool, a place to practice my writing skills, a fun way to share tips and traps I’ve discovered, and an opportunity to share a few personal stories. Some posts resonate with my growing audience; some don’t. And that’s fine – it’s a good learning experience, if nothing else.
Even more rewarding, to my writer’s heart, is that I’ve seen a significant uptick in traffic since I started sharing chapters of the completed novel, The Starfall Omen.
That post still has a ways to go to reach the Number 1 spot, however. Nothing like a heartwarming family story to get readers to show up: Fourteen Weeks and Fourteen Years, which has 265 views.
To everyone who’s visited, commented, shared, and subscribed, thank you so very much. I’m thrilled to be able to share our world with you, and I can’t wait for you to see what happens next!
If you’d like to keep an eye on my activities, feel free to check out my Progress Tracker!
Mike
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OK. Time to get serious again. Starting my novel on the path to publishing. Current step is putting it on my website while I look for a cover artist. First four chapters are here, with more posted every 1-2 days. Our hero Tildy is a neurodiverse teenage girl who can’t control her shapeshifting abilities, and she’s about to learn what happens when you refuse the call to adventure. I think this will scratch your itch for fantasy!
I’ve shared updates on social media, but weirdly enough, didn’t announce it here to my subscribers (whom I value very much!) So here’s the latest, especially for you!
The prologue and 11 chapters are available here: The Starfall Omen. We’ve had about 100 readers visit the site, with more arriving every day – even when I haven’t shared anything, which is gratifying. I’ll need to figure out how to manage that landing page when the chapter count hits 30 so it doesn’t look daunting to visitors. But I suppose that’s a good problem to have.
I’ve put out feelers for cover artists, with an email to one already. I’m also talking with a mapmaker to see if she can turn sketches into something that brings my world to further life!
In a future post, I’ll describe why I’m getting serious again, and perhaps I’ll explain what’s taken so long to get back to this point. It’s a thing I’ve held very, very close to my vest, but it’s probably time to put it in the open, much like this book.
To end this post, let me offer some encouragement to other writers. The work is hard but it won’t only be hard. Don’t give up on your story or yourselves.
Thanks for reading!
Mike
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I recently discovered a post from 13 years ago while reviewing some old websites I’d created. Some pages were worth saving, such as those I created for Boy Scout trips. The following is another such post, which I’d written to capture some observations and opinions that formed while watching coverage of protests in Wisconsin in 2011.
OK, so this is 13-year-old content and not seemingly relevant. However, the timing of my rediscovery struck me, since it’s back-to-school time and the subject of teaching and education is a topic on the national stage.
Without further preface, here is the article, lightly edited for 2024 (family changes, new info, grammar).
NOTE: My wife is a teacher. My parents were teachers. My older son and his fiancé work for the Special Ed department. My younger son’s special needs mean he is dependent upon adequate education funding. We have friends who are teachers and work in school districts. I have an obvious bias. Despite that, I consider teachers an investment in the future of our children and our country.
Watching the events in Wisconsin — the protests, the speeches, the commentary — I think I finally figured out why teachers need unions.
It’s not to ensure that these teachers working with our children are treating the kids respectfully, sometimes better than the kids’ parents.
It’s not to ensure teachers get out of work at 2:33 so they can go home to spend the night correcting papers, developing lesson plans, or buying supplies with their own money.
It was late 1998. I worked for the Suncoast Motion Picture Company, which sold movies and related merchandise. I’d recently transferred from the flagship Mall of America store to the Southdale Mall in Edina. The commute was longer, but I didn’t mind for a couple reasons. The one I’ll articulate here pertains to the clientele.
The Mall of America location was great for people watching. At the time, tourists came from around the world to see the spectacle of the largest mall in the Western Hemisphere. But Southdale, due to the prestige of Edina, attracted a number of celebrities. I was thrilled to learn Janet Jackson (whom I’ll call Ms. Jackson cuz I’m nasty) shopped there when she was in town. And she bought her movies from Suncoast.
The Suncoast where I was now a manager.
In 1998, I was still that small-town kid who’d grown up in a town so tiny it was technically a village. I’d never met a celebrity, and the prospect of meeting Ms. Jackson, someone whose music I absolutely loved, hyped me to a ridiculous degree. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was on the lookout on many shifts.
I grew up loving her albums Control and Rhythm Nation 1814, the latter of which I owned. Back in 1990, I knew everything about that album. You see, I didn’t have many albums as a kid, so when I got a new one, I poured through the liner notes, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor beside my cassette deck. I memorized the lyrics, tracked the music labels, and learned about every musician or other person connected with the production of the album.
If you’re familiar with Janet’s music, the headline of this post is beginning to make sense.
Back to 1998. I’m working the checkout in our third-floor location, when two well-dressed men came in. I offered the usual greetings, made small talk, and helped them as best I could.
These two gentlemen were Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. And they were aware that I didn’t recognize them.
It must have been an unusual experience, especially in the Minneapolis area. Here’s why.
When it comes to the Minneapolis music scene, it didn’t get much bigger than this duo. They formed the band Flyte Tyme, which became The Time under the influence of Prince, and the group would go on to help define the Minneapolis sound in the early 1980s.
After being fired from the band, they started Flyte Tyme Studios, and their partnership went on to earn more than 100 gold, platinum, multi-platinum, and diamond albums. Over their storied career, they’ve worked with some of the biggest names in the biz, including Lionel Richie, Herb Alpert, TLC, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Boyz II Men, Usher, Patti LaBelle, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Mariah Carey, Bryan Adams, Spice Girls, Vanessa Williams, Rod Stewart, Gwen Stefani, and New Edition. I particularly loved George Michael’s “Monkey” and The Human League’s “Human” songs. But those weren’t the only memorable tracks.
Forty-one of their songs reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. They won five Grammys and got an Oscar nom for their work with Janet Jackson on the song “Again” for the movie Poetic Justice.
EDINA, MN – SEPTEMBER 1989: Singer Janet Jackson poses for photos with music producers Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam during the opening of Flyte Tyme Studios in Edina, Minnesota in September 1989. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
And speaking of Ms. Jackson, they won a Grammy for producing her album Control. Their follow-up collaboration, Rhythm Nation 1814, dominated the charts with seven hit singles and became one of the biggest albums in the world from 1989-91.
Most of that album work had been done at Flyte Tyme Studios, a convenient 5-minute drive from Southdale.
As I look back upon their visit to my store, I like to imagine these world-renown producers were taking a shopping break from their busy studio schedule. Perhaps, the perfect movie would be a nice diversion, or provide some inspiration for the their next movie project. Little did they know they were talking to a guy who knew every beat and could sing every lyric from Rhythm Nation1814, many of which they’d written.
A guy’s whose memory was about to betray him, despite his brain containing most of the information I just shared.
This is the second in a series of posts I’m sharing about quick little backstories I wrote for a recent retreat. We were doing a painting session and I’d wanted to help my friends bring their characters to life with some brief prompts. To get them to start telling the story, if you will.
It was satisfying to watch them read through these vignettes, sometimes laughing or reading portions aloud. I heard a lot of positive feedback on the names, which was gratifying because I’d hoped to present names that were unusual, but not too awkward. In this post, I’ll share a few stories for which the characters’ names garnered the most attention.
Delish Monté slowly blinked her eyes. Another twelve hours had passed.She didn’t move, preferring her trusted routine of letting her eyes adjust.
Delish frowned. She shouldn’t have been able to see this well. The closet was in an interior room with no windows. By the usual math, it was now midnight, so it should be pitch black.
Delish stood, stretching her limbs and noting that the louvered doors of the closet were intact, but no light filtered through. She looked up to see a ceiling crisscrossed with cracks through which the illumination came. Something had happened.
Her nostrils registered a strong odor of smoke and burning substances. Someone had tried to burn her safehouse down while she was incapacitated. Their intel was good, but not good enough to know she couldn’t be harmed for the twelve hour she waited in suspended animation. The closet doors fell away as she pushed on them, landing in ash and the muck created by water from firehoses. She knew she should worry that the Collective had finally caught up to her, but this was actually a reprieve. No one would be chasing a dead woman. Eleven hours and fifty-five minutes to find a new hiding place.
Delish Monté is my favorite name of the characters I created. There’s a fun rhythm to it and it’s somewhat provocative in a couple ways that could influence the story you start to tell yourself when you hear it. Similarly, the next character, Jonny Gunsel, is evocative for fans of gangster noir (gunsel: a criminal carrying a gun; I assumed it was short for “gunslinger”, but the word has a Yiddish origin instead). It’s also occuponomous, if you believe in that sort of thing.
In my last post, I described this amazing retreat that I attend every year. It’s probably 75% gaming, 25% whiskey, and 100% fun.
I promised to share the short backstories I’d written as part of the swag I was giving everyone. But before I get to that, let me describe the writing challenge I gave myself.
I had limited time to prepare, once I’d decided on my plan. I needed to print at least a dozen miniatures, then clip, clean, cure, and prime them all. I did the same with another dozen bases or so (I had some failed prints, I mean, some were battle damaged! Waaagh!) I also printed labels for each story card and for the bottom of each base so you’d remember the name of your character and the event where you got it.
And then I needed a dozen backstories of about 200 words each, which after printing, I’d affix a label and laminate. Buuuuut, because I’m a writer who needs to challenge himself, I ended up with sixteen. It wasn’t that much of a hardship because I had more than twenty ideas that I thought would be fun. So let me get to the challenge.
Every year for the last four, I’ve attended a tabletop gaming and whiskey retreat that we call Whiskey Weekend. I wouldn’t be exaggerating much if I said we played games from sunrise to midnight.The titular game of the weekend is a double-blind tourney where we pit our whiskeys against each other.
Entries in the blind whiskey tournament, placed from 12-1.
It’s an unbelievably fun time filled with camaraderie, laughter, self-deprecation, and good conversations about gaming of all forms. The event is in its 16th year, having started as a Dungeons & Dragons getaway for a few friends. Over time, the event has morphed into the amazing experience it is today. We have a social media following and even have swag sometimes.
This year, I was no longer the rookie, as we were adding two people to the invitation. I figured it was my turn to bring the swag. So, when the event organizer suggested we take some time to paint tabletop minis, my partially formed idea sprung to full life.
My idea was to not only 3D print some minis in resin, I would also give people the option to choose a custom base and a backstory. The writer should use his skills, right?
A selection of tabletop minis and bases.Sampling of the backstories I wrote. Printed, labeled, and laminated.Choose your character, base, and story!
3D Models source: Adaevy Creations (except the tall Viking, which was created via Hero Forge)
Within a few hours, I’d whipped up sixteen 200-word stories. I’m never sure whether I should tell people just how quickly I created each one: I worry that their response will be disbelief or a derisive “well, obviously“. Each one sprung to life relatively easily, which is partially due to their nature. They’re not intended to tell a complete story, but to inspire my friends into considering what comes next. Each one centered around a simple concept, like these:
A curse is causing a village to forget their entire spoken language. The town chronicler is trying to choose the last word he’ll think about before it’s also forgotten.
When he sees his doppelganger, a man with a strong regenerative power wonders, “If I can regrow a part, can a part regrow a body?”
She slipped into a time paradox which causes her to see stages of a tragedy in reverse.
He thinks he randomly turns invisible. Often he’s right, but that also means, sometimes he’s not. He can’t tell the difference.
It was a ridiculously fun writing experience, and not just because the stories came effortlessly. No, it was also freeing, a way to re-engage my creativity, which has been dormant a few months. And, it was a gift to friends that I hoped would make their weekend experience better. It worked.
Over the next week or so, I’ll be sharing these stories in a series of posts. It’s partially a way to showcase a project I’m proud of, but also, like the stories themselves, I’m hoping to inspire you to consider how else you might use your writing skills. So, tell us….what comes next?
It’s a word of Yiddish and German origins, and for some reason, it popped into my head this morning.
If it’s a word unfamiliar, it’s often used to describe a bit of unidentified something on a person. Usually their face. For many of us, that’s followed by your mother wetting her thumb with saliva to wipe it away.
Ah, mothers. So loving. So sanitary.
In my part of the world, it’s an uncommon word, which usually means I’m going to work it into my book (and apparently, a blog post).
And then my writer’s brain was off to the races.
In 45 minutes, I whipped up about 550 words, or a page and a half, inspired by the idea that Tildy has schmutz on her face, but due to her ability to unconsciously shapeshift, the schmutz avoids her mother’s efforts to clean it away. It’s actually a pimple, and it disappears and reappears across Tildy’s face.
I immediately fell in the love with the scene, and not just because writers often fall in love with their writing (a PAINFUL truth, except when they hate it). No, it’s because it accomplishes many things in service to the story.
It fits into the first chapter of Tildy’s second book, helping reintroduce our characters to the Reader with things like Tildy’s abilities, her relationship with the witch (her adoptive mother), and a little bit about their personalities. Additionally, we get the melodramatic woes and annoyances of a teenager.
But to me, the best part is the humor. You see, it’s actually an outbreak of acne, but Tildy’s skin is trying to prevent the pimples from surfacing.
“I no longer think it is a simple pimple moving around your face. I believe there are many, but your skin is resisting the outbreak. I wonder what would happen if you stopped doing whatever you are doing?” the witch mused, as she turned Tildy’s face, that way and this, as she looked for the next pimple’s appearance.
Tildy didn’t particularly care, but as the thought entered her mind, her face grew red and itchy.
“Oh ho!” the witch laughed, her face delighted. “Now they are everywhere! You really are a sight.”
I think it also creates some tension for Tildy. She has the ability to fight acne, something that many teens would be jealous of, but she can’t control it. Quite the opposite. Ironically, her efforts only seem to make it worse. Her struggles, however, eventually result in new mastery of her abilities, which is a recurring theme throughout the series. It helps us see Tildy growing up.
Sometimes, inspiration comes as simply as that. A single word demands several hundred in response. If only it was always as easy as that.
It’s a good start to a day, and as I write this, it’s now time to get to my office job. Good luck with your own writing (and that other work that pays the bills).
Mike
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The Lost Royals 