Smashwords Again

I am going to expand my library on smashwords.com. From what I've seen around on the site it is possible to get a fairly large following, but it just takes some time. Since I have a few old short stories that are no longer under contract, but have been previously published, I think smashwords would be a great place to put them up for a wider audience to see. The problem is some of these works are not as polished as they should be, especially considering that they are already published. With a little editing I think they will make a great addition to what I am already offering on smashwords.

In addition to these old short stories I have quite a bit of poetry that is all ready for an audience. I have looked around various places to see if i could find some markets for them, but in general I don't really like many of the places I see, or they wouldn't like my kind of poetry. Therefore I am going to sort through my various poems and make a selection from amongst them in order to put another collection on smashwords.

All of these are going to be free, since not many people are really all that willing to pay for poetry (especially since the masters of old are all in the public domain at this point) and because the short stories I have already published are already available for free elsewhere. I've also decided my first collection of short stories on smashwords should be free as well, given that not many people seem willing to pay for it anyway. I'd rather it is read than to be paid for it.

Thoughts on Writing

I've spoken to people about being a writer before. When they ask what I want to do I usually tell them I want to write. With a certain amount of self-reflection though, this really isn't the best answer I could give. It seems to me that writing isn't something that I simply 'want' to do. I enjoy it, in much the way one enjoys a meal. There is a certain amount of pleasure that I derive from writing, but at the same time if I went without eating for too long I'd starve.

Writing is more than just something I feel that I want to do in my life. It is more of a necessity. When I go without writing for a long while I tend to become jittery and agitated. I start to get annoyed with people practically for no reason at all. So I've come to the conclusion, that whether or not I publish, I will write. I don't think I can go without it.

So, even though writing is something I enjoy I believe writing is an affliction. Living without writing is like living without food, I find I can only last so long. Even if all I do is ramble onto a piece of paper and discard it, I feel better. I write for myself, and this concludes me to the assurance that I won't stop writing, regardless of how long and how fruitless this pursuit may prove. This urge to write is a curse that I bear happily, despite my dependence on it.

Fire Gate rewrite nearing editing stages

I've put Fire Gate through a major overhaul, as in I've completely re-written it. After getting some feed back from a few different individuals I decided that certain aspects of the first write up needed to be changed. I've altered the way in which Celestial wizards use magic, making them more reliant on prepared enchantments so that they are significantly less powerful, making the Ardytes more of a threat. I also changed the main character himself, since  he was more or less a tool I used to drive the plot on the first write up.  The original main character felt quite flat to me by the end of the story. So I gave  Gaelen, the new protagonist, all of the character traits that he would need in order to fulfill what I needed him to. The plot follows the same basic  course  as the first write up, but I'm ending the story  about half way through the first write up. I think I may change the title to something else since the Fire Gate does not yet play much of a role in the story. Perhaps, "The Elorean" or something similar.