Good
morning, and Happy New Year (it's still January, so I think technically I'm
able to say Happy New Year without seeming like a crazy person … or crazier
person). Hank Edwards here, very pleased to have been asked to post on the
Writer's Online Network blog. Congrats on launching the site, WON!
The
theme for this month is Beginnings and/or Fresh Starts, and I'd like to write
about a combination of the two. I've been writing gay fiction/gay erotica/gay
erotic romance for a number of years now. I was first published way, way back
in the early 2000s. My first published story was a gay erotic short story
titled "Police Escort," and it appeared in Mach magazine. A number of
short stories followed, more than 50 to be exact, which I shopped around to a
variety of men's magazines. I was a writing machine, coming home from my evil
day job and sitting down at the computer to write, and sometimes managing to
squeeze in some writing time while I was AT the evil day job. I was inspired, I
was on fire, and I was on cloud nine when I published my first novel in 2001, Fluffers, Inc., a mash up of hot, steamy
sex and laugh out loud comedy. Sales didn't materialize for that book, sadly,
and it went out of print in 2006. But then it was picked back up and is still
available to this day, along with two just as funny sequels, A Carnal Cruise and Vancouver Nights, thanks to Steve Berman at Lethe Press.
Flash
forward fourteen years, and I have written a number of books, available from a
variety of publishers, as well as many self-published titles. Many others,
however, languish in my Dropbox folder, in various states of completion. I need
to figure out a way to once again strike those creative flints together and fan
the spark that originates between them, keep the inspiration going. A number of
the stories I have completed in the past few years have been prompt driven
stories. I'm part of a group of writers who create stories based on weekly
prompts and post them to our blogs as free reads. We call ourselves Story Orgy,
and we've been doing this for more than three years. I find that the weekly
prompt, and the knowledge that every Monday I'm supposed to post a
"chapter" or a new story, gives me the drive to get my writing done. It's
the deadline, you see, and the bit of a boost from the prompt. And, of course,
the family feel of our private Facebook group. There are no words to convey the
importance of having a support system to help with your writing. Other authors
to bounce ideas off of, give your work an honest beta read (and treat your work
with the respect it deserves), grouse about the writing process or writer's
block, and rejoice in the victories of hitting a targeted word count for a day,
or a week, or a month. Or even share in the excitement of receiving that
acceptance email from a publisher. That never gets old.
So,
to help myself focus, I'm setting goals. I will have a weekly post done for my
Story Orgy story to post on Monday. I will set goals for other writing projects
at different days of the week, and, if I'm stuck, I may borrow a writing prompt
from past Story Orgy projects to help me over the hump. I will let the DVR fill
up and I will "show up" to my dream of, one day, being a writer who
no longer needs an evil day job to pay the bills and provide health insurance.
I owe this to the readers waiting for another book in one of my series, the
characters left hanging in mid-action on a page, and, most of all, I owe it to
myself to keep following that dream. Here's to a fresh start for us all in
2015!
Links:
Facebook
Author page: www.facebook.com/hankedwardsbooks
Twitter:
@hanksbooks
Website:
www.hankedwardsbooks.com
Amazon
Author Page: amazon.com/author/hankedwards
Email: hankedwardsbooks@gmail.com
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