#FridayFlash - The Mighty Warrior

Dylan slept, restless and moaning in the throes of a nightmare. A shadow leached out from under his bed, looming over his small form. Cold followed it, a hint of frost creeping across the bed covers. The boy cried out when it touched the little finger of his right hand.

Tedward leaped into action, swinging his sword at the monster. The blade connected to a scaly forearm. The creature snatched its limb back, snarling. With its other arm it swiped at Tedward. He launched himself into the air, flipping head over heels and landing on the headboard, sword at the ready. The monster blew a mighty gale of frosty breath at him. Tedward dodged to the left, nearly crashing into the Batman lamp on the nightstand. He slapped a paw against the wall and pushed, using the momentum to fly at the creature.

He got in one good strike right across the monster's face. The monster got in a strike of its own, though. Its claw opened a gash across Tedward's midsection. He fell to the floor, dropping his sword.

Dazed, he lay there for a moment. Sitting up gingerly, he inspected the wound. Not bad enough to be fatal, but bad enough there was stuffing poking out. He tried to tuck it back in as best he could and retrieved his sword.

Dylan still slept, oblivious to the battle. If Teward couldn't vanquish the monster himself he would need to wake the boy and hope he screamed. That was a sure-fire way of dispelling monsters. The only trouble with that method was that the boy would then remember enough of the nightmare to be traumatized, giving it the power to return. If Tedward could slay the beast, Dylan would settle back down into a deeper sleep and never be the wiser about what happened.

Tedward steeled himself,  gripping the sword hilt tight. The monster was once again looming over the bed, spreading it's cold nasty darkness closer and closer to the sleeping child. The mighty warrior surveyed the floor to see what might be useful. Dylan's old mini trampoline sat in the corner, now covered with various Star Wars Legos.

YES. That will do.

Tedward moved stealthily to the back of the room, then took a running go and jumped onto the trampoline. Legos went flying. So did Tedward. Through the air, sword held high, bow tie flapping. He landed on the monster's back, sinking the sword deep into its hide. It jerked, roaring in anger, but Tedward held on, twisting the sword in deeper. He kept up the pressure and in moments the beast sank to the ground, its shadow dissipating as it died.

Tedward slumped to the floor, exhausted. He lay there until morning when Dylan woke and found him injured.

**

"Mommy, Teddy needs surgery." Dylan held his favorite bear up for his mother.

She examined the bear carefully. "What happened to him?"

"I don't know. I found him that way. Can you fix him?"

"Of course, baby." She ran a hand through Dylan's hair. "Let me go get the sewing box and I'll fix him right up. Why don't you go get a snack? I cut up an apple for you."

He got the apple and carried it back to his mom's work room, standing in the doorway. She had Teddy on the table, leaning over him while stitching the strange cut across his tummy. Dylan had no idea how that happened, unless maybe he caught on something when he fell off the bed. Dylan couldn't remember. He took a bite of apple and was about to leave when his mother spoke.

"What kind of monster was it this time?"

"A frost beast. They're rare but dangerous."

Who said that?

"You did a wonderful job, Tedward," his mother said. "As you always do."

"I am charged with the boy's safety, it is my sacred duty. But I love him too, you know."

She smiled, cutting the end of the thread. "I know. We are so lucky to have you. Dylan is such a special boy."

"The strength of his imagination draws these creatures. They will never relent. Neither will I."

"You're a mighty warrior, Tedward." She picked up the bear carefully and made to leave the room.

Dylan ducked around the corner into the bathroom before she could see him. His breathing came in short choppy gasps. Was that real? Did he really just witness his mother having a conversation with his teddy bear? What in the world?

He crunched another bite of apple. As he chewed he thought things over. There was only one conclusion that made sense. Dylan whispered to himself, "My teddy bear is a mighty warrior. That is the coolest thing ever!"

Writing and publishing are not the same thing, part three

Part One
Part Two



How long have you been writing? Do you remember what that first rush was like? Putting pen to paper, letting the words flow first in a trickle, then a steady river, and finally - best of all - a wave you can't control but can only hope to ride into the safe shore of a completed story. Is there anything better than being deep into the story, so deep you're untangling plot lines while washing the dishes, working on your characters' back stories while in the shower, zoning out in front of the TV because the story in your head is so much more engrossing. The writing itself is always exciting, full of unexpected revelations no matter how detailed your outline was. Your characters surprise you. The plot twists and turns into new and different shapes and patterns. That story is a living breathing entity that you are midwifing into existence.

Storytelling is a passion, an addiction. It's not just what you do, it's who you are. It's part of your DNA just as much as the color of your eyes. The stories you tell are a product of both your environment and your insatiable curiosity. The best of your stories will be the ones you have an emotional connection with, the ones that made you cry while writing them, that made you laugh and worry and sweat over and dream about. The characters whose voices would not be silenced are the ones who stick with you and demand their stories be told.

That's a lot of emotion to pout into your art, but then that's how art works. It's made of our dreams and hopes and nightmares and fears. It's made of us. It can be all-consuming to feel yourself almost disappear into a story because you're focused on it so much. Frightening too.

Every person is built differently so every writer handles this in a different manner. Some are able to keep some distance between themselves and their stories. I think the ones who are exceptionally prolific are probably like that, though I could be wrong. Please don't think this is a criticism. As I said in yesterday's post, I wish I could be more prolific. Over the past year I've tried my hand at writing faster, at writing stories that I didn't feel as much of a connection to, at writing to the trends. I want the art of writing, but I also want the commerce of publishing. What I learned was that I can't write if I don't feel a connection to a story, at least not well. Not anything I'd be proud of. I have to have that emotional connection, even if it makes the writing more difficult. I guess that's just how I'm built. Creating a story is such an emotional commitment for me, it can be all-consuming and exhausting. To be blunt, I don't have anything left over to write something I don't much care about just because it might possibly maybe be popular and sell.

There is a great deal of pressure in publishing to build a backlist as quickly as possible but the truth is, not every writer can do that. There are also writers who are never going to write anything trendy, never going to write anything that appeals to a mass audience. There are people who will write stories that are a blend of genres, another thing we're told not to do. If the work is so much a part of you that you can't let go of your genre-blending ideas or other things that might get you rejected by agents and editors no matter how good the story is, that might get passed over by readers no matter how good the book is, you're going to have to make a decision at some point. What do you want more, success at publishing or success at writing?

Which is not to say every writer should be a special snowflake, but every writer is a person. We're capable of different things and different levels of commitment. It takes a lot more to write a book than stock a shelf in a grocery store and I don't think it's fair to any writer for someone - even another writer - to say that we should just be able to write whatever. If your heart's not in it, you run the risk of the story being crap. If you can treat your writing in a workman-like manner and still create something worth reading, more power to you. Not all of us can do that and I think it's okay to admit that, just like it's okay to admit that some people write for money.

Being a success at both writing and publishing, art and commerce, is a great goal to have. It's a goal I've had myself. If forced to choose though, I'll take writing and art every day and twice on Sunday. If *you* choose differently, that's fine too and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The important thing to remember is that every writer forges their own path. Yours doesn't have to be like someone else's.

What I've tried to do with these three posts is discuss the difference between writing and publishing and I hope I've made some sense. What I especially want to stress is that being less successful in one arena is not the worst thing. If publishing doesn't work out for me I will continue to write, even if it's just online serials. I wish I could make a little money at this but if I can't then at least I'll know I'm writing something I'm proud of. Besides, how could I ever stop writing when I'm so addicted to storytelling?

Writing and publishing are not the same thing, part two

Part One


You want to be a success at the publishing side of this coin. Obviously you do, you hit send on that query/submission. So you do your due diligence and research all the things you as a writer need to do beyond the actual writing. You join various social networks and try blogging and have business cards made and bookmarks of your cover art and plan blog tours and swag giveaways and maybe if you're lucky even real world events. You are proud of the novel you've written and you're going to do the best you can to promote it and make it a success.

And it doesn't work. Then what? First, ease up that death grip on that bottle of tequila. Second, you can only watch Firefly so many times in a row before the urge to write fanfic hits, so be careful. Stop at two marathon viewings. Third, go back to work.

So the book you wrote didn't connect with readers for whatever reason. You will spend a great deal of time trying to figure out why. There's no way around that so I won't even try. The best thing you can do is keep writing, but you may find yourself at a crossroads.

The typical advice you will see is to write from the heart, write the stories you care about, write what only you can write. And that's the best advice. But if you look around the book world you're going to notice some things. You're going to see a hell of a lot of brooding vampires, virile shapeshifters, erotic romance, young adult paranormals with love triangles, and some other trends. You're going to ask yourself, do all these writers really have a vampire/werewolf love triangle as the deepest story of their heart? Or are they writing this trendy stuff because it's what brings all the readers to their yard? And is that a bad thing?

I used to think so but I've changed my mind. Think about it this way: plenty of actors will do big movies that pay really well so they can do off-beat indie stuff that barely pays their gym membership. Plenty of musicians play sorta-secret corporate gigs for ridiculous money. Painters and photographers will take work on commission. So will jewelry designers, sculptors, any number of creative artists. Why should writers be any different? You may scoff at the author that has as many as three or even five or six releases in a year, but do you ever stop to think what drives them? Are they paying their mortgage with that money? Feeding their kids? And what else might they be working on that they don't talk about publicly? Is that "book of the heart" waiting in the wings while they build a name for themselves, pay off bills so they can be more selective about what kind of contract they sign for it, while they hone their craft? If we can understand that a talented photographer took a few suburban wedding gigs to pay for a trip to some beautiful place where they could take really amazing photographs, why can't we understand when writers essentially do the same thing? Not only have they earned themselves money, they've made a customer - a reader - happy, and isn't that one of the big reasons we do what we do?

The difference between writing and publishing is the difference between art and commerce. It's perfectly okay to want both. It's perfectly okay to straddle the line between the two. I certainly wish I could write a book every six or eight weeks that's in one of the hot selling genres and have more contracts than I can keep up with. The desire may be there but I've learned over the past year that not everyone can do this. I haven’t learned how to focus on the publishing and commerce side of things to the extent that I could do it.

Tomorrow in part three of this series I'll talk about writing and art and having a passion for storytelling.