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Joseph K Little

Joseph K Little

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Joseph K Little

Radio Silence

December 11, 2021 by Joseph K Little

I’ve had my head stuck in the sand for the last several months. Life’s been not-bad, but I have to admit, I’ve had a negative drive to do anything, but I feel like I’m coming out of that now.

Currently the family and I are in Mississippi due to a death in the family. My wife’s father passed away this past weekend after his health had been in decline for the past couple years. He was a man of strength, and his presence will be felt and missed.

I’m working on a short story and getting back to work on book two of Charlotte. The itch is returning, and I’m ready to begin the discipline once more.

Later folks!
~Joe

This post was first shared on my Locals account at https://writerimpostor.locals.com/

© 2021, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Diary of Charlotte – How She Came to Be

August 27, 2019 by Joseph K Little

Origin Story

Upon my wall I have a one of my more prized possessions, the judgement of a short story I wrote that later became the basis of my first novel. At the time of writing, that novel is yet unpublished, but I have the manuscript back from the editor and a cover, so it is all but done.

The contest was the San Antonio Writer’s Guild short story competition back in 2014 (I think). Joe McKinney judged the horror entries. A handwritten note at the bottom of the page states, “Joe, Yours went to the finals but did not place.” I cannot say that I did not wish to win. I can say that I did not expect to win, or even place. I had only been doing this writing thing for less than a year by that point. Well … I had only been doing it for a year for the first time in near 30 years, but I wasn’t very good back then. I cannot pretend that I really, really hoped I would win though or at least place. How cool would that have been?

Super cool. Don’t lie to me.

Anyway, here’s what Joe wrote about my piece…

Notes on “Charlotte”

This piece manages to create an environment of creeping dread that has the reader cringing in anticipation of the conclusion. I especially enjoyed the description of the gluttonous aristocrats. Nicely done there. The choice of first person narration here is problematic, though. There is nothing wrong with the “main character has been dead all along” storyline. A number of successful books, stories and films have used it. But the trick is to figure out a way to do it that doesn’t fall into the trap of straining credulity while still making us really care for the fate of the person involved. I think what’s needed here, especially as the opening paragraph tells us that this is only the first half of the story to come, is for the author to establish up front some reason why a dead person is telling us her tale. That isn’t clear in this version. If you get the fact that she’s dead out of the way up front, you open yourself open to all sorts of storylines. As it is, with the death of the protagonist coming right at the midway point, you pretty much lock yourself into some version of the revenge tale, and that will be telegraphed to your readers. A story like this needs to upset the reader’s expectations, and the author of this piece clearly has the skill to do that.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that’s a pretty amazing critique for someone who’s struggled with reading problems, ADHD, and language in general for much if not most of his (then) forty-three years alive. When I received my judgement all I could think was, “Wow. Just wow.”

And then my ego struck.

OK, so maybe I did not go full on Stewie, but I disagreed with Mr. McKinney. Revenge was not the obvious route for the story to go, at least not for me. So I decided to write the rest of the story which I hadn’t to that point. I hadn’t finished the tale because I imagined it being a bit of ‘found footage’ style story. You see Charlotte dies in the story. Yes. But she does not stay dead. I wasn’t rewriting The Lovely Bones. I was doing my own thing, but therein lay the real flaw of my story. The ending was too obscure.

Everything starts somewhere. Writing, like plants often starts in a pile of shit.

The Origin of the Origin

To explain how my ending became to obscure, I have to go even further back, to Gen Con 2014. It was my first Gen Con, and I was super excited. I was even more excited to learn that they had a sort of writer’s workshop going on at the same time, and I had JUST started thinking about giving my writing an honest attempt. One of the events that I purchased a ticket for was a “Critique: Read & Critique”. Basically each person attending would read a piece they have written and have a panel of editors give their opinions. I’ve always been the kind of person to do first and learn second, so I figured, “why not?” Well for one, I needed something written.

At this point I began trying to come up with a story to write. Now at any given moment, I can drum up a story idea from the ether without a problem, but this time I had an inspiring vision. Yes, a literal vision. No, I’m not the kind of insane that sees things that aren’t there. I am the kind of person that sometimes gets an image in mind so strongly that I experience it just like I might if I were there. And yes I am or was awake when this happens. OK. Maybe I’m a *little* bit of that kind of crazy, but just a little mind you.

Anyway, I saw clearly a dungeon door in front of me. The stone was an old grey that was almost black except the highest edges where wind and God knows what brushed the stones clean. I could almost see the humid air clinging to the stones despite the almost nonexistent light. The door itself was wood almost as dark as the stones, and it stood ajar. I knew that above my head and to the right, just out of sight of my snapshot vision was a hook in the ceiling. I also knew, somehow, that just outside of the door there was a girl and a large man. The girl was in a poor maid’s dress and the man looked like a combination of Lurch from the Adam’s Family and Solomon Grundy. I also knew the girl’s fate. She was destined to be clubled over the head, hung upside down from the hook, and bled to death.

I have only had a handful of these “visions” in my adult life, but they are profound. I figured, “That’s a good starting point.” And began thinking about my story. Why was the girl coming down into the dungeon? Who was that man that escorts her and kills her? Why is she killed? Well for me the answer was obvious.

Ghouls.

Now I know many people have a rather distinct idea of what ghouls are and how they look, but I kind of have an odd opinion about ghouls. I once read Lovecraft’s “The Outsider.” I took the story to be a man who’s lived and died and risen as undead. I assumed that since he resided with ghouls at the end of the tale that he himself was a ghoul, but I don’t believe that was never stated. Still the thought struck me as interesting, “What if ghouls did not know they were ghouls? Or what if they didn’t see anything unusual despite the drastic change in their ‘lives?’

For years I ran my ghouls in DnD as thinking creatures … that just happened to love eating human (or demi-human) flesh. Fresh was preferable to decayed, but decayed was still really, really good. So these were my bad guys, and this was the core of my short story’s plot. One ghoul, the butler was set to find more food while the two other ghouls, a count and countess maybe, feasted on their previous capture.

My first incarnation had the two ghouls talking to each other over a meal. The reader would not initially know that there was anything unusual about these two. Then as the story was to unfold, the two would say more and more disturbing things letting the reader in on the secret. Then eventually their butler would bring in a new victim, she’d be killed, and they’d tear into the new meat like the monsters they are.

I liked the idea of the story, but I hated my version of it. I honestly did not have the skills (or maybe the patience) to work that version of the story into one that wasn’t silly. So for version two, I changed the point of view to that of the girl. She’s homeless and being led to a “new job” underground … in the catacombs so I guess it’s in Paris, yeah, because she’s hungry. There were hungry people in Paris at some point wasn’t there? I seem to remember a movie or two with that kind of theme. Hunger … ghouls … WIN! So yeah, the girl is led to the room with the aristocrat ghouls and then she’s killed.

Then one of my readers said, “So she’s led to where some ghouls are and she dies. That’s pretty much to be expected. Otherwise not bad.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!

OK. So I changed it up. She’s led down into the catacombs, is killed, and then turns into a ghoul! And the same reader came back and said, “Yeah, OK. She’s killed and becomes a ghoul. Right. That’s about the second most likely thing I’d expect.”

*Sigh*

So I changed the ending again. This time I lean hard into the imagery. I ramp up the dread. The girl is writing this herself, and in my mind the pages are written in blood. She has two supernatural beings in her head Hunger and Reason. Reason is trying to get her to run for her life, but Hunger tells her lies of all the things she’ll be able to get if she keeps with the ‘grey man’ leading her to work. She asks herself, why do they live underground? Well maybe they went into hiding during the Revolution and don’t know it is over. At this point, she’s cast aside Reason and under full sway of Hunger who she now calls her Mistress. She meets the count and countess, but blows the interview when she starts screaming at their horrid visages. So she’s killed, hung from a hook, and bled to death. I end the story with…

I assumed my hunger would disappear once I died, but as I drifted toward oblivion my Mistress was there with me whispering in my ear, “I will never let you go.”

And she did not.

Now to me this suggests many things. Many, many things. To the “glorious and judgemental” Mr. McKinney, it screamed “revenge plot!” Well sir, I would have you know that I wrote the ending that way just to make you wonder what might happen in the second half of that diary. Ha! Check and mate.

Except that’s not how writing works.

If the reader is confused by what they think is happening and what the author intended them to think when they wrote it, the writer failed to do his or her job. I wanted to leave the reader with wonder. Instead I left the reader thinking, “I know where this is going.”

Yeah, That’s great. So what?

Well I told you all of that just so I could tell you this. I started writing my first novel with a teenaged female protagonist set in Paris around 1820 just because I wanted to prove Joe McKinney wrong. My story is about a girl who … umm … gets killed and turned into a ghoul … and then tries to live a normal life? It’s a slice of (un) life story.

*Laughs nervously in Peter Griffin*

OK to be fair I originally had no idea where I was going to go with the first novel, and my first draft showed it, but once I figured out the end I set upon the last revision which – I think – is much better. The reader who I talked about earlier said he liked it, and as you’ve seen, he’s the kind of ass that would tell me if he didn’t.

Also let me say, I realize the written word conveys sarcasm and kidding poorly at best. I admire and respect Joe McKinney for his body of work and how he judged my first ever contest entry. Again, I have the write up hanging on the wall where I write. It inspires me, and I’ll always be grateful for it.

Thanks Joe!

© 2019, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: Charlotte, Origins, Writing

Things to Remember

July 1, 2019 by Joseph K Little

The hard things …

Nothing easy ever made us more than we were before we conquered them. The cliche goes something like, “Nothing worth doing was ever easy.” We’ve all heard it countless times, and it is easy to lose the meaning in the repetition. That’s the problem with cliches, but they are cliches for a reason. Typically, that reason is because the saying is simple yet holds depth. Therefore, people repeat the saying until the meaning is lost in the repetition. So I’ve reframed the cliche into the following:

The hard things make us who we want to be.

Remember this the next time you resist doing something because it is difficult. Remember this the next time you want to avoid something unpleasant. Remember this when you forget why you would even consider starting to begin with.

If you have something of value to say…

This one has come from my writing, but I like it a lot and think the idea behind it is true. I can be loud and boisterous at times, grabbing everyone’s attention and holding the spotlight. This saying reminds me to slow down and be quiet more often. It reminds me to listen to still my tongue until I have something to say. I don’t need to be loud to be heard, and if I do, I’m probably saying the wrong things to the wrong people.

If you have something of actual value to say, you can whisper and be heard around the world.

OK, mostly I just like that one because it sounds like something someone wise might say to a screaming lunatic.

That’s all today. I thought I had more of these but I should probably learn to …

Write down things you wish to remember. Memory is only reliable until you need it.

© 2019, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Musings, Personal, Shorts Tagged With: Remember, Sayings

Joe’s 2018 Audiobook Year in Review

January 17, 2019 by Joseph K Little

These days I don’t read much, but I do have 60 to 120+ otherwise boring minutes during my commute. So I listen to audiobooks.

I have die-hard reader friends that simply (OMG) cannot! listen to audiobooks. And if that’s you, that’s fine. I understand. But for the past decade or so, I’ve had trouble reading. Not trouble knowing how to read or the trouble with the mechanical process of reading. (Although come to think of it, the drop off in my reading habit started about the same time that my eyesight decided to go all 40 on me). No, after about twenty-five or so years of loving to read after discovering that was even a possibility in high school, the act finally became common enough that my ADHD decided to say, “Nah. Let’s do something else instead.”

It hurt to admit that. It really did. I love to read. Or more accurately maybe, I LOVE having read. I love the characters. I love being fooled by an otherwise obvious plot. I love figuring out the plot and watching it come to fruition. I love when a book puts me into a space, and I live there for a time, the memories every bit as real as my own – or near abouts.

So yeah, having lost the will to read has been a sad, almost painful experience. But I do not have my friends’ aversion to listening to stories. First of all, I’m partially an audio learner. Second, I’m a naturally slow reader. When I do read, I slowly stroll through a book and savor each experience as it comes, not mechanically like some uppity grammarian who gets his rocks off from excellent spelling and a clever turn of phrase. No instead I enjoy the experience of being in the place created by the author imagining all of the sensory input given and implied. Therefore when an audiobook narrator is clear and the book is good, audio is an excellent option for me when I have the time. And an hour commute one way is quite the time.

2018 had me completing thirty-six audiobooks. Granted, not all of them were full-length novels (50,000 words or more), particularly the writing craft and self help books, but others were quite long indeed, particularly the Bill the Vampire collections which were a steal at one Audible credit for each collection of four novels.

Craft writing books were big last year (most of Chris Fox’s works) as were LitRPG books (marked with an * in the list below). LitRPG is the sub-genre of sci-fi that involves people being pulled into game worlds. Usually the game worlds are video games, but sometimes they are also pen and paper games like DnD. The mechanics of the games are very important to the genre, and often the books deal with the main character’s progress as much or more than the central plot – usually how to survive long enough to get home. It’s a fun genre. I’ve completed all the LitRPG books in any series I started this year. I just have to know how the characters progress!

I have a least favorite book in this list, but I won’t point it out. I’ll just say that of the books I completed in 2018, the one at the bottom of my favorites list (not the literal list below) is there because I did not find the ending satisfying. So if you’re a writer, let that be a warning. Good endings are what bring readers back for more.

So here’s my list of audiobooks I completed in 2018. No. That’s a lie. I listened to Bird by Bird and Monster Hunter: Vendetta too, but I purchased those in 2017 instead of this year. I listened to both this year as well. Both were excellent. There are also some books that I started but for one reason or another, I never finished. I did not include those. So, here’s the list of audiobooks I purchased and completely listened to in 2018.

Warbound By: Larry Correia
Spellbound By: Larry Correia
Port of Shadows By: Glen Cook
War Aeternus 3: The Culling * By: Charles Dean
War Aeternus 2: Sacrifices * By: Charles Dean
War Aeternus: The Beginning * By: Joshua Swayne, Charles Dean
Ritualist * By: Dakota Krout
The Land: Predators: A LitRPG Saga By: Aleron Kong
The Land: Raiders: A LitRPG Saga By: Aleron Kong
The Land: Swarm * By: Aleron Kong
The Land: Catacombs * By: Aleron Kong
The Land: Alliances: A LitRPG Saga * By: Aleron Kong
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 * By: Rick Gualtieri
The Land: Forging * By: Aleron Kong
The Land: Founding: A LitRPG Saga * By: Aleron Kong
Write to Market: Deliver a Book That Sells By: Chris Fox
Launch to Market: Easy Marketing for Authors By: Chris Fox
Six Figure Author By: Chris Fox
NPCs * By: Drew Hayes
Plot Gardening: A Simple Guide to Outlining Your Novel By: Chris Fox
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 By: Rick Gualtieri
The Weirdest Noob * By: Arthur Stone, Mikhail Yagupov – translator
Lifelong Writing Habit: The Secret to Writing Every Day By: Chris Fox
The Haunting of Blackwood House By: Darcy Coates
The Darkening By: Paul Antony Jones
Super Sales on Super Heroes 2 * By: William D. Arand
Critical Failures V * By: Robert Bevan
Dungeon Calamity * By: Dakota Krout
Prosperity for Writers By: Honoree Corder
Super Sales on Super Heroes * By: William D. Arand
Tamer: King of Dinosaurs 2 * By: Michael-Scott Earle
Tamer: King of Dinosaurs * By: Michael-Scott Earle
Dungeon Madness * By: Dakota Krout
Write Like a Boss By: Honoree Corder, Ben Hale
5,000 Words Per Hour By: Chris Fox
Dungeon Born * By: Dakota Krout

© 2019, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: Audiobooks, Reading LIst, Year in Review

Writing and The Lack Thereof

August 6, 2018 by Joseph K Little

I haven’t written a lot lately. In fact, I haven’t written in the past three weeks except for one day. That’s a whole hell of a lot of not writing. I’ve even gone so far as to put my ass in a chair and my fingers on the keyboard and  … nothing. I’m really disappointed in myself. I’m going to have to do a whole lot better than this if I ever want to do this thing full time. So what’s my problem?

I’m pretty sure I know what my problem is – I don’t know what I’m doing.

That sounds like I don’t think I know how to write, but that’s not the case. I feel confident there. I don’t have a well enough flushed out plot is my problem. I have my beginning and I have my ending. The story seemed simple back before I added a new secondary character that I really like. I’m going to kill this character as part of setting up the climax, and the death needs to be impactful. My current plot only has like six more chapters before I’m through, and I have SO much more to put into the story. There’s a conflict that needs to brew more between the BBG and the hero, there’s a budding romance that I need to develop more, there’s tension I need to deepen between the protagonist and her BFF, and then there’s the mystery that binds it all together. 

It kind of feels like I’ve written everything BUT the book in question. Ungh. How disheartening is that?

Very. 

I’ve been trying to chop things up into smaller and smaller pieces. That seems to help me wrap my mind around the things I already know, but not the unknowns. Lately nothing gets me less excited than thinking about writing than thinking about writing. 

I know this is hard. I know I’ve gone through this several times before. I know that I can do it, yet damn … my motivation was better when I was suffering with full on depression. 

I’m going to try two new things. First I’m going to try to list out all the actual things I think need to be addressed in big picture ideas, and then break them up into smaller and smaller thoughts which I’ll put into Trello. This isn’t exactly a NEW thing actually, but it is something I’m going to have to relearn. I think my plotting ability and my pre-work need to advance before the writing can come more naturally from start to end. Second, I’m going to try meditation. I’m hoping this will help me clear my mind of distractions. At the very least maybe it will help me calm the f’k down. I have some Xanax, but it makes me sleepy. I should exercise too … but ungh. 

OK. That’s it for me today. 

Don’t be like me. Go create something new.

© 2018, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

NaNoWriMo and Booze (or How I Write When Buzzed)

December 6, 2015 by Joseph K Little

NOTE/EDIT: I’m posting this a month after I wrote it because I like the post and I’m not very good at following through with things. So shame on me.

I haven’t posted since my dismay at the Hugos. Let me say, if it was unclear, that I’m not disappointed that the Hugos did or did not allow the Sad Puppies and other ne’er-do-wells to have their day, rather I’m disappointed that these people would act so childishly concerning the entire situation. In my opinion they should have done one of two things: 1) openly acknowledge what happened this past year and what it entailed, how the voting turned out, and why the organization did or did not think this was a good idea or 2) simply performed the ceremony as it was without the inside jokes, without the snide digs, and without the exuberant glorification at shutting down those that think differently than they. Basically I expected that regardless the outcome of the night, they would have acted like adults. I was disappointed at the results.

I do admit that I am more “Sad Puppie” aligned than not, but I’m trying to remain neutral as I only recently started to become familiar with the publishing world and the movers and shakers within. I say that so that you might know me more fully for who I am. I hope that you will accept me for who I am rather for what you think I would be considering what I have admitted, because I can guaran-damn-tee you that I am NOT what you think I am. I refuse to allow anyone to put me into a single categorization other than “Joe” – assuming the Joe you are categorizing me with is me.

With that out of the way I have to announce that IT’S NANOWRIMO TIME YA’LL!

That means that for thousands of people across the country in all age categories will be attempting to write a novel in the month of November. How anyone can do this while also juggling their everyday lives is beyond me. There are even some that are attempting to grow a fabulous mustache this month as well in the attempt to bring some awareness of prostate cancer and funding to research a cure for such because unless you are the most die hard lesbian, we can all appreciate a nice solid erection.

Oh. Sorry. I have to note that I’m slightly drunk while posting this. I’ll tag that or something. But I’m likely to say things I wouldn’t normally say. Like ‘erections’.

I tried the whole Movember thing once and determined that only a couple of my friends were concerned with prostate health, and I look ridiculous with a mustache only. I mean look at that link of me. I look like someone I wouldn’t trust around my kids.

So here I am stuck at the beginning of NaNoWriMo and I have written maybe 400 words in 3 days. <sarcasm>What an excellent turn out!</sarcasm> Yeah. I have to admit that I’m in the middle of my story, and I want to be done with it. I’m not really the “see the long project through to the end” kind of guy, and that’s got to change. It has to change for my writing life, and it has to change for my professional life. I want to excel at each and frankly that means focus and determination, what some might call “hard work”.  I haven’t always been the best at working hard, sometimes but not always. In fact my pattern growing up was to be very lazy. I’m simply bored by anything too familiar. I’d really like to overcome that pattern, but it is really hard. I want to say that I simply have to forgive myself when I’m not following through as I expect, but at the same time I have to exercise a level of discipline that I don’t normally hold for very long.

NaNoWriMo is exactly what many people need to help them get through the kind of problems that I have with discipline. My wife won NaNo last year, and I couldn’t be prouder of her. She wrote almost 15,000 words in a week to catch up and win. Way to f’king go! Me? I get 2000 words behind and I’m all, “meh, there’s always next year.” The reality of the situation should rather be “2000 words? I can shit that for breakfast and come home for dinner and do another 2000.” I know I can do it, but something is always holding me back, pulling me down.

One day I’m going to haul up this anchor that holds me down, cut the line, and throw it over the side of the ship of destiny. Then you mother f’kers better watch out because I’m going to be coming for your position on the best sellers lists.

You have been warned.

 

 

© 2015, Joseph K Little. All rights reserved.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Booze, Hugos, Late Post, NaNo, Very Late Post

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