Writing Again (and I'm done with themed anthologies)

Following a minor bout of cancer (featuring surgeries and 6 months of chemotherapy), I'm writing again! Having spent some time reviewing my writing career to date, I note with a degree of dismay that while I've had some material published, I'm not super happy with all of it. In the past I've pandered to the whims of the industry in order to get stories out. Well, I'm done with that. Now I'm writing what I want to write. No more < 5,000 word stories about "blue aliens on exoplanets", simply because a publisher somewhere decided that's what they wanted for their next anthology. I know it may seem a little hypocritical, given that I helped come up with the theme of A Hand of Knaves (and I stand by it), but I'm allowed to be hypocritical if the mood takes me. And the mood does take me.  From now on I'm writing whatever the hell I want. It might not get published, but it'll be mine and I think I'll be a lot happier with that.  Let...
Post a Comment

New Gamebook Titles

I've been really busy in 2022, mostly writing for a mobile platform called Tales: Choose Your Own Story. It's a great, new(ish) app that I believe offers a lot to both readers and writers. 

In early 2022 I put the finishing touches on Cat's Claw, a small 's' superhero who finds herself in a huge pile of captial 'T' trouble. As far as I can tell it's going well on the platform and as such is getting promoted by the app managers.

I'm currently writing the final episodes of Darkendore, a young-adult (kinda grimdark) tale about reapers, and what they get up to in their downtime, and their uptime I guess. In fact, it's pretty-much about what they get up to all the time. I'm loving writing Darkendore as I originally tried to get a grant from Screen Tasmania to produce it and was knocked back. But the first game company I pitched it to greenlit it immediately. Unfortunately, that means it's not set in Tassie now, but I love it anyway. 

Tales has recently provided me with the cover art and also created some killer interior art and sets for the game. I'm very happy with the way Darkendore is coming together. Only have a few episodes to finish now. Got to get back to writing...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flies in the Soup: John Scalzi Part 2

Image
  Interview: John Scalzi Part 2 By Chris Large Interview first appeared in Aurealis #82. Welcome back John. At the moment your new book Lock In, [discussed in the last issue] is a standalone novel. Are you considering writing more in this world? Or is this it? No! I’d be happy to write more in this world if there was a desire from my publisher and from my audience. I don’t ever write anything but standalone novels. Old Man’s War was a standalone novel. I wrote that one book, right? And then it took off and my editor said, “You need to write another one,” and gave me some money. I said “Okay. I see how this works.” That’s how Old Man’s War became a series. Android’s Dream was supposed to be a series. I’d signed a contract for a second book but when I started writing it, it was terrible so I stopped doing that and wrote something else. So Lock In is currently a standalone book but if my publisher comes to me and says, “Yeah, I want you to write the second ...
Read more

Aurealis #74 - Out Now

Image
Aurealis #74 is a great read, and of course, contains some thoughts from me on The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark . The blurb reads thus:  In this issue we feature Imogen Cassidy’s ‘Soul Partner’, an urban fantasy gumshoe pastiche with some original touches, and Leife Shallcross’ creepy and engrossing ‘Music for an Ivory Violin’. Chris Large brings some thoughtful silliness* with his ‘When a Jedi Should Think Twice About Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight’ , and Stephen Higgins continues his SF’s Sacred Cows with Asimov's Foundation. *Read: awesomeness!  BUY IT.
Read more

I Decided to Make Money From Writing - And it's Working

Image
I've always wanted to be a full-time writer, but I've never had a clear understanding of how to make enough money from my writing to survive. In fact I read an article on the ABC news website this morning stating that authors in Australia earn, on average, $11,000 to $13,000 per year , which sounds about right. I can't live on that. No one can. So my fears are clearly justified. Regardless, in 2017 I decided to throw caution to the wind and try to come up with a way to make enough money from writing that I could start to think about transitioning from my regular job to the coveted holy grail of full-time writer . I had this vague idea of combining two of my great passions, writing and gaming, to see what would come of it. I had no real understanding, at that point, of what I was getting myself into. The answer, of course, is interactive fiction. Interactive fiction - or digital gamebooks - are the modern version of Choose Your Own Adventure stories, which were among m...
Read more