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Writing is my passion, but I also like to collaborate. I love to share ideas and work together to make something none of us would have created alone. I don’t get to do that nearly as much as I’d like. My critique groups come close sometimes. Their focus is building up a single work by one author at a time. I want to try something new.

In my experience, writing is often solitary. We have to reach out after the work is drafted at least to get feedback from others. I’m not talking about that kind of format. What I envision is a more collaborative effort from the start. I’m not entire sure what this will look like, but here’s what I have so far. I’d like to set up a video call, with about four or five other authors, and share a google doc to work on.

The work would probably be best among authors of the same genre. I’m primarily a fantasy writer, but have some science fiction leanings, too. I can’t be the only person to think of this, but I haven’t found another group like it in my limited search for a good format. If anyone has a good example or a place to look that I haven’t come across, please reach out!

That brings me to the crux of this post, I’m looking for other writers to join me. If what I described sounds interesting, or you have more ideas to make it better, I’d love to hear from you. Maybe it doesn’t sound right for you. But if you know someone who might be interested, please share this post with them. You (or they) can comment here, email me at SteveAnderson@thesorcerersrealm.com, or find one of my social media profiles (Twitter, FB, Pinterest, Tumblr, or LiknedIn). I’m out there, looking for collaborators!

In my debut novel, Fantastic America, that’s just how the international TV News coverage begins. Ashley Monahan is on hand to make a live report as Salt Lake City, becomes a focal point for magical energy unlike anything in recorded history. Experts scrutinize events like it around the world, government agencies, and private citizens alike. None of them understand what they see.

These events are only the beginning of a longer period of change that humans have not seen in thousands of years. The return of magic also heralds the return of creatures of myth and legend, along with people who can use magic. Magic is inherently dangerous, even to those who can wield it. Magical creatures or any creature empowered by magic can be deadly.

The earliest news from magical event sites make no mention of magic at all. Modern society is so far removed from all things mystical, that no one reporting on the events recognizes magic. Even after hordes of zombies appear, the scientific (and medical) communities find it impossible to admit magic is at work. Only Ashley’s reporting finally breaks through the modern sensibility that magic might be responsible.

As more creatures appear and the first hints of magic users reach law enforcement, the truth becomes impossible to ignore. Phantom animals that disappear, fires that burn without consuming any fuel, shadowy monsters that fade into the night, and ghosts that hold conversations with the living are just the first signs of change. Folk remedies and mystical guidance once thought superstitious becomes essential to survival. No one ignores the spreading weirdness for long, as paranormal bumps in the night become actual menaces to society.

I’ve been taking on writing challenges lately. My last foray gave me Torthal, and the mysteries outsiders have been unable to investigate. I spent most of July developing that story into an ongoing series. This month I’m starting a new adventure, the Centriole.

The Centriole is a building, but it’s also home to the Society for Exploration. They are a social club of interdimensional explorers, scientists, and adventurers. Together the Explorers have mapped, sampled, and catalogued trillions of worlds. In some cases they have acted as diplomats on behalf of their far more advanced civilization to other primitive cultures.

The Centriole exists in more than one dimension, but physically, it exists on the planet Fractal. The origin of the club’s charter members, and the original source of civilization throughout every iteration of the universe since they began keeping track of big bangs. Fractal is a ‘folded’ planet. The technology that allows a single building to house the Explorers Headquarters allows Fractal to house trillions of sentient beings.

Fractal is a unique world, connected to many other planets throughout this universe and many parallel realities. Through the Centriole and the Society for Exploration, the number of worlds connected to Fractal has continued to expand for hundreds of Universal Cycles. The destination of the latest expedition to leave the Centriole through it’s interdimensional Dive Chamber is a primitive backwater planet in an otherwise unremarkable galaxy called Earth.

1 – I really can come up with 365 things to write about. (Even when I’m sick.)

2 – I can never predict what will resonate more with my audience. Sometimes it’s a post about writing, sometimes it’s a poem. So I quit trying. I write and hope my meandering ideas are enjoyable to my audience.

3 – Research is critical to sharing authentic experiences. It is also a dangerous trap that can consume more time than the research is worth. It is better for me to research before I write than while I’m writing, but sometimes I don’t know what I need to research until I get to that point in my writing.

4 – Editing is best done after filling the sandbox. I need to throw everything I can think of onto the page before I start to polish anything. Most of the time I’ve found my best ideas come during the editing phase once I have a deeper appreciation for the characters, setting, and plot.

5 – Writing habits are a double edged sword. You can develop a terrific writing routine that works perfectly for you. If that routine is disrupted, it can ruin all your progress. I have to be flexible, and kind to myself if I don’t accomplish as much as I planned.

6 – Inspiration comes from literally everywhere. A song, a book, a movie, a TV show, a conversation, or any number of random thoughts can inspire me. Even weird dreams can spark my imagination in ways I hadn’t expected. I try not to close myself off to any avenue of inspiration.

7 – Hope, my muse. She is a generous but fickle mistress. Hope can give me everything I need, or withhold any words she might otherwise share. I still have to write whether she is cooperating or not. The only way to do that is to settle in and write. Procrastination won’t help, waiting for her to come along won’t work either. I have to write. Sooner or later she’ll peer over my shoulder and add more of her influence to what I’m working on.

8 – Updates about what I’m writing are more interesting to me than to my readers. They want a finished product, not my gushing excitement about the latest chapter or short story I am writing.

9 – Querying is my greatest struggle. Writing a book, or a series of short stories is easy. Finding a publishing professional who believes in that work, and will work with me to build a business relationship together is far more difficult. I’m still searching.

10 – New work is always going to come from sitting at my desk. Even if I scribble a note for later, or jot down ideas on my phone. The outlines, timelines, and actual prose comes from planting my butt in the chair and writing. Nothing else will substitute for that.

11 – Reviewing where I’m at is helpful, but only to show me what else I can accomplish. I can’t navigate in reverse all the time, planning where to go based on what I’ve already done works. I won’t limit my vision based on where I’ve already been either though.

12 – Using the real world versus my version. Early on while I was writing Fantastic America, I got a lot of feedback about setting my books in a different version of the real world that didn’t use actual living people, businesses, and so on. I resisted. That was in my mind, part of the appeal of the stories happening in a contemporary setting. Once I embraced the idea, my version of the real world made the story better. I was free to manipulate the world we all know and fit my story into better settings, with better characters, and a history that preserved my ideas.

13 – Poetry has been my communication style of choice since I was in high school. I drifted away from it, but always circle back to some couplet or another. Sharing my poetry has not always been a great experience. Friends and family may love my words, but I’m convinced professional poets are on a different level than most humans.

14 – Writing during the pandemic. Lockdown hasn’t felt all that constrictive. I’ve gone where I wanted to for the most part, and done the same kinds of things. I’ve lost friends to the virus, but for the most part, I’ve stayed safe. I wouldn’t wish the kind of suffering it causes on anyone.

15 – People love lists. One of my go to blog ideas is to write a list of things people might enjoy. This post is one of those lists, in fact. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. As I close in on 365 posts in a row, I thought it would be a good idea to examine more than just how these posts were viewed. I enjoyed writing it, looking for details from other blog posts to create it, and sharing it with the folks who follow my posts. Thanks!

In the world of Fantastic America, wizards of the last magical age created familiars. These were human followers who were drawn to serve a specific wizard. Each kind of wizardry has a ritual for this purpose. In general, the wizards and familiar entered into a pact. A magical contract where the wizard empowered a newly created familiar with abilities from their kind of magic. In return, the familiar was linked to the wizard and pledged allegiance to them and their interests.

Each kind of wizardry created a specific kind of familiar. Life wizards created paladins who defend life and impose order. Sorcerers created apprentices who seek knowledge above all else. Aqueous wizards created water warriors who prefer to spend their time beneath the waves. Necromancers created obedient fiends who stalk prey for their cruel masters. Lithic wizards created beast lords who in turn, bonded to one or more land dwelling animals to protect their wizard. Fire wizards created hellions to burn away weakness and sow chaos.

All familiars created this way have a single overriding mission. To protect and serve their wizard. The pact that empowers them continues till the death of the wizard or the familiar. Though in practice, the familiar often died at the same time or just before their wizard. The ritual that empowers them does not remove free will from the familiar, but it does subtly influence their behavior.

In the world of the Magic Unleashed series, wizards have yet to re-discover familiars and their empowering rituals. Readers won’t encounter their fist familiars until book two of the series, Midwestern Magicians. Like familiars of old, those with a calling will seek out a wizard and make a pact. Their power comes at the price of unswerving loyalty, but it is one they are willing to pay.

Coming up with interesting topics every day has been exhausting. Sometimes, I’ve needed help. I’ve scoured other bloggers posts for ideas, and read lists of their favorite topics. Not all of that has helped or made into this blog. But I have managed to get a post of some kind rounded up for almost 365 days in row now!

That may not be a huge accomplishment, but I’m excited to cross it off my writing bucket list. I have no idea if I’ll post that frequently after I pass the one year mark, but right now I’m leaning towards cutting back to one post a week. Maybe special posts for special events or announcements. That makes more sense to me.

I have more projects coming up too. Gari in Torthal is continuing his journey. As the plot has expanded, I’ve needed to rewrite his introduction story in, “Gari and the Pox”. Expect an update for that when I have it polished up. I’m working on some new short stories unrelated to Gari or my Magic Unleashed series. The ideas are still percolating, but I’m excited to share more about them as they come together.

I’m also still querying agents for Fantastic America. The process is torturous for me, but I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. My critique group is also still writing and critiquing. We added a new member this week, so I’m excited to read her work. I have plenty to keep me busy at any rate. And I’ll have more to post about now that I have all these projects coming together.

Magic, or the potential for magic, is always present in the world of my debut novel, Fantastic America. Even in the bleak times of no magic, there are means (some more abhorrent than others) to work magic. The majority of these means are difficult to achieve, or unpredictable in nature. This is especially true considering most of the knowledge was passed down in spoken form. Writing actual magical instructions poses numerous dangers, some more obvious than others.

Still, magic is powerful, when it works, even in the bleak times. Traditions from all over the world have persisted, despite the dangers their knowledge represented, with wildly different mystical practices. Most of these groups adopted some form of secrecy to maintain their legacy. Few of them retained a full understanding of magic in the absence of flows from other worlds.

The return of those magic flows to the modern world, brings a new dilemma to people who still hold any magical knowledge from long ago. They must decide whether to remain in hiding or reveal themselves to the world at large. For most, enforced secrecy is too integral to their identity, and sustained magic is too new to reveal themselves. However, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Summer in Iowa is a little different from the season I grew up with in North Carolina. There isn’t as much shade in the middle of farmland as there was under the pine forests I wandered in as a child. That said, Summer is still my favorite season. Seeing it draw to a close is bittersweet for me this year.

Until this year, my son spent the season with us before going back to school in Colorado. This year he’s more focused on the next steps in his life and I’ve missed him terribly. In his absence, the house has been filled with grand children, there have still been hours of pool parties, and visits by friends. Cook outs, story time by the fire, and our annual Fourth of July party also bounced back from the pandemic.

One thing that has been missing over the past few weeks (or longer) is new fiction writing on my part. I wrote the introduction to Gari on Torthal, and am rewriting that. Otherwise, I haven’t put nearly the effort into new writing that I expect. I plant my butt in the chair as always, but I’ve worked on other projects. I’ve caught up on critiques, read books on my TBR, and found every other excuse to keep busy without writing new material.

The end of Summer means the house will quiet down again. Kids go back to school, my wife goes back to teaching, and maybe the solitude will help me get back to what I love, creating new adventures. The characters are there, my muse is patiently waiting, and new worlds await my fingers on the keyboard. I’ll be sorry to see the cold weather return, but I’ll be glad to get back to the strange company I keep with my stories.

I write every day. At least the post for this blog. I may not post here every day for the rest of my life, but I’m almost to the end of a 365 day cycle. I wanted to prove to myself that I could write original content every day for a year. Like Bruce said, “I see this as an absolute win!”

Most days, I also work on other projects. I still have my toes in the water for Ashley Monahan and Fantastic America, and more than that in Gari Garcia in Torthal (a project that is changing as I write it). I also read and write critiques with partners in a couple of groups each week. So I’m never far from my keyboard for long.

Good Habits are helpful.

That brings me to the topic for this post, the habits you develop as you write can help or hurt your writing. Every author is different, like every person is unique, but there are a few constants in writing that I’ve found helpful. There are far more that I’ve found distracting or harmful, but I’ll get to them in a minute.

The first helpful habit to get into is the most basic advice I give throughout all my posts, write. Put your butt in a chair (or on the floor or stand if you have to) and put words on the page. Daily. It may help to write at the same time every day, structure is great for many writers. But I write at any time of the day or night that suits my lifestyle. Each to their own in how you live and fit writing into that life. Just write.

I need peace and quiet to write, my wife and I have a lot of grandchildren here in the summer, so that time is precious to me. If you need quiet to focus on your words, find some. Children sleep, pets sleep (we have four dogs and two cats), and devices can be silenced. There have been times, I had to get work done but couldn’t wait for quiet to fall at our house. Headphones and music is a good substitute for me, at least it masks the majority of the chaos around me.

Bad habits can ruin the best of intentions.

Procrastination is my kryptonite. The worst excuse I make about writing is to put it off for some other task, or to find a reason I can’t put words on the page. Most of it is nonsense, and this is true of most of the procrastination in my life. Once I am in motion to get something done, it takes far less time and effort than I built up in my resistance. But that brings me to another point, resistance.

Resistance in writing usually has another source. I hesitate to write a scene I’m not completely comfortable with, or tackle a project I haven’t thoroughly examined in my mind’s eye. Uncertainty can manifest as doubt, it can cause delays or avoidance (for me) to even attempt to write. So I spend some time examining where resistance is coming from.

Outlining helps me overcome this problem, I can settle the doubts with a plan and get words on the paper. They don’t always survive, but effort build momentum, writing and rewriting move me toward completion. Even if the words are terrible, I’ve found what doesn’t work, and can write something else till I find something that does work.

Find what works for you.

Develop your routine with what you want to accomplish in mind. I have a different mindset for ‘exploratory writing’ on a new subject versus the sandbox method I use while writing the first draft of a novel (pile everything you can into the sandbox edit it later). Both of which are different from blogging, writing poetry, or editing work that needs more attention. Only you can find the methods that fit your writing style.

Maybe you need to shut off devices, close browser windows, and tune out the world around you to do your best writing. Music in the background (or other noises) may help you. Turn off your phone, or set a timer if you think you might write for too long (gasp!). Read blogs to find other suggestions, for every problem you encounter, another writer ahs probably written about their experience along the same line. Help is out there, if you seek it out.

Ultimately, my advice is unchanged. Write. Write well. Repeat until you have something to share with the world. Find people and places to share. Then write more and share that, too. Writing can be solitary, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, I’ve found the best of my writing came when I planned to share it with the world. You may find the same thing.

This is the opposite of the Chosen One. An ordinary person sees a need and steps up to help. They don’t have an agenda, or ulterior motives, just a sense of right over wrong. Maybe it stems from all the 80’s movies I watched as a kid. The group or lone wolf who wants to change the world for the better still resonates with me.

Destiny forces the Chosen One into saving the world. The reluctant hero decides they have a moral obligation to risk life and limb. Of the two, I’d prefer the latter over the former. Both are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The reluctant hero can be any of us though. The Chosen One is set apart. Destiny doesn’t care how they feel about it.

I’ve lost track of how many Chosen Ones bemoaned their fate. “Why me? I didn’t choose this!” The Reluctant hero doesn’t ask why me, they ask, “If not me, who will?” It has a more honest, more human, feeling to how any of us might respond given the situation. That is the core of the idea for me. Whether it’s the lone office worker stopping tanks on their way to Tiananmen Square, or the guy fed up with red tape taking on the system directly, defiance is my jam.

I’m not trying to encourage random acts of violence either. The movie, Turk 182 comes to mind when I think of this trope. Non-violent protest and civil disobedience can still bring change. It may not be as sexy as a kill-dozer, but not every story has to include death, destruction, and mayhem.

In my lived experience, the right person, in the right place, at the right time, can make change happen. Others have to embrace what begins with one voice. The chorus is powerful because they sing together, not because of the soloist. No matter how great that single voice may be.

I’m on the writing spectrum some where in between a pantser and a plotter. I like have things planned out, but I also like to see where the flow of words will go naturally. When I wrote the short story introducing Gari and Torthal, I pantsed. When I started a follow up story, expanding on that introduction, I tried to pants it again, but failed. So now I’m plotting out his next series of adventures.

So here I am, writing a new story bible, filling in the blanks I left, and following an outline. Gari has a bigger story to tell (or show) than I expected. One that is appropriate for the times we are living through. Although he is as far from those events and ideas as possible, the world seen through his eyes will be hauntingly familiar. Gari examines prejudice, fear of change, and what it means to be human. Heady ideas indeed!

I’ve also expanded my ideas for Torthal. The kernel was already there in, “Gari and the Pox”. Now I have a deeper purpose behind how I approach this strange new world, and the distant civilization it represents. The world of Torthal will be a character in Gari’s story as much as any person he encounters.

But my revision of the second installment is where my mind is right now. I want to bring the world to life around Gari, and my first attempt fell far short of that. The great thing about words on the page is that they can be rewritten, deleted, or replaced with new words. So that is what I’ll be doing for a while, rewriting for Gari’s sake.

Not that my head had grown too big for my hat, lately. If it had, one of the writers groups I’m in would gladly have brought me back down a size. Having critique partners is invaluable. Not only have I learned more about writing from them, but they’ve kept me grounded after making progress.

There is a kind of magic critique groups can wield. When you find a group that wants everyone to improve, whose members offer more than a casual read of your work, that’s golden. The best critique groups lift up writers who are struggling to find their voice, and share the tools to set them free.

Admittedly there is some terrible advice out there. Some writers have it all figured out, and anything that upsets their view cannot be tolerated. Others honestly believe every rule they learned should be followed every single time they write. Grammar trumps story for these folks, but they are pretty easy to spot. When you find them (especially if they are running the group) RUN!

I can’t stress enough, especially for new writers just starting out, find your tribe. There are people out there who want to hear you, who need to hear you. Those people will enrich your life as much as you will theirs, but you have to make your way out of the wilderness. You have to sort through the good and bad advice, learn the fundamentals, more than just mechanics. Then you’ll be able to reach the readers who need you.

In my quest to write stories that entertain readers, I often go through multiple iterations of the same ideas. Sometimes I mix and match those ideas to give them a fresh look or spin. But in the end they are just variations on a theme.

The worst situation I find myself in as a writer, is when the mixing and matching has written me into a corner. Complex situations make it problematic for me, even if it’s not always a problem for the characters. When I’ve had some time to sort out why a scene is bothering me, it usually comes down to unnecessary complexity.

More than a few times I have leaned into that preposterous complexity. It can be fun to see how absurd I can take an idea while keeping it somewhat believable. The easiest solution is usually to cut out the complications and simplify everything. Easier, from an editing point of view, but not from a writing perspective.

I the Magic Unleashed series, the first four books in the series happen at roughly the same time. Scenes from one book have immediate repercussions in the other books. The characters don’t all meet right away, or interact much at first, but when they do, it caused me some logistical problems. How does character A get to location B in only X number of hours? Can they still be back in location Y in time for event 76? Spreadsheets saved the day, but so far, it’s taken almost a month to reconcile everything.