Writing Handguns By Clinton A. Love (@AuthorOfGehenna)

If you're writing guns in a story, most often, it's going to be a handgun. They are the most common type of firearm used for self-defense. But what if you have never so much as touched a firearm in real life? How are you going to write your MC’s weapon without it turning into cringe?

People that know firearms will know the difference between a story that is knowledgeable and well-researched, versus one that is written by someone ignorant of the subject. Even people with a passing knowledge will be able to spot something off. It will discredit you as a writer, and you don’t want that!

The good news is I am here to help. I was raised around guns. I was Uzis and AK-47s before I could drive. I have handled just about everything you can think of, either as a civilian shooter, or while in the military. I will give you everything you need to know to make your MC a straight shooter!

Let’s start with the basics.

Handguns

A handgun is defined as a short-barreled firearm, designed to be used with one hand (hence the name). The two most popular types of modern handgun are revolvers and semiautomatic pistols. 

Revolvers

A revolver uses a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers. Each chamber holds a single cartridge (a cartridge is the combination of bullet, powder charge, case, and primer). When the hammer (the pointy thing at the top) is cocked back, the cylinder rotates, aligning one of the chambers with the firing mechanism and the barrel (the tube where the bullet flies out). Pictured above is my Ruger Redhawk revolver.

Here is a view of a revolver from the front. As you can see, each chamber holds one round. In this case, you can see down the barrel where one round is lined up to fire. 

There are two basic types of revolvers. Single action, and Double action. 

Single action revolvers must have the hammer cocked back manually each time you fire it. You cock the hammer with your thumb, the cylinder rotates, you aim, pull the trigger, and the round is fired. Then you repeat the process. Think cowboys and Western movies. The Colt Single-Action Army revolver below is a typical single action revolver. 

Repeatedly pulling the trigger on a single action does absolutely nothing. You have to cock the hammer each time. 

Some single actions are modified to be "fanned", meaning you hold the trigger down and repeatedly slap the hammer back. You can shoot fast this way, but unless you are a professional trick shooter, you probably won't hit shit. 

Single actions are slow to reload. You half-cock the hammer, rotate the cylinder by hand, extract the spent cases, and reload new cartridges one by one via the reloading gate. Your other option is to carry a second cylinder and completely remove the old cylinder and install a new cylinder full of fresh cartridges. Slow.

Old West gunfighters, such as John Wesley Hardin solved the issue by carrying a whole bunch of guns. In modern times, this is referred to as “the New York Reload”. Load new rounds? Fuhgettaboutit! Grab another gun!

Double action revolvers can be fired simply by pulling the trigger over and over. Most modern revolvers are double action. My Ruger Redhawk at the top of the article is a double action, .44 magnum revolver. 

When firing double action, you simply aim and squeeze the trigger. The act of pulling the trigger also cocks the hammer back and releases it at the top of the pull. It takes more strength to fire double action. Trigger pull is around 12-17 lbs depending on the gun. A single action pull is more like 3-1/2 lbs. The good news is you can also fire a double action revolver in single action mode if you want to. 

Firing a double action revolver in single action is smart if you want more accuracy. My .44 has a long trigger pull and bucks like a Brahma bull, so a crisp single action break is nice for accuracy. If you’re writing a character that has one, you can illustrate this by having him cock the hammer first to aim at something far away. 

Double action revolvers are quick to reload compared to their single action cousins.. The cylinder swings out on a hinge, an extractor rod pushes all the spent cases out, and you can drop in all new ones via a speedloader or one by one. Here is a Smith and Wesson .357 with two speedloaders. 

You know that Mickey Spillane thing where they load the cylinder, spin it, and then slap it into place? Guys who shoot revolvers and know what they are doing NEVER do that. It will fuck up the lock work of your weapon. Sure, spin it if you want, then close it gently into place. Revolvers are tough and reliable but they aren't impervious to abuse. 

Semiautomatic Pistols

Semiautos are the world’s most commonly used handgun. Pictured below are a Springfield 1911 clone (top left) and a Glock 21 (bottom right). Both are .45 caliber semiautomatic pistols, though in function, they are somewhat different!

"Semiautomatic" means the gun goes bang one time for each pull of the trigger, and then automatically loads the next round. In terms of what you get for your effort, it's no different than a double action revolver. One squeeze, one bang.

The difference is both their appearance and the mechanical means to get the "one squeeze to one bang" rate of fire. They also are fed via removable magazines versus a fixed cylinder.

All semiautos have the same basic function. You load the cartridges into the magazine (basically a spring-loaded, little box that holds the rounds). A spring keeps pressure on them. You insert the magazine into the magazine well, which is usually inside the grip of the pistol. The Glock above has a magazine already inserted. The spare magazine is below it.

You charge the pistol by pulling back the slide and releasing it, a nice, quick SNAP. Another way is to lock the slide back, using the slide stop, insert the magazine, and then press down the slide stop to release the slide. The spring slaps the slide shut, chambering a round.

When the slide closes, a round is peeled off the top of the stack in the magazine and pushed into the chamber. The pistol is now ready to fire. Squeezing the trigger at any time will fire a round. 

When a round is fired, the powder explosion throws the bullet out of the barrel. As we know in physics, every action has an equal but opposite reaction. The same force, through one mechanism or another, throws the bolt and slide back. An extractor grabs the rim of the spent cartridge case and throws it out. When the slide is pushed all the way back, it readies the pistol to fire again, by either cocking the hammer or resetting the striker (more on strikers later).

The spring throws the slide and bolt forward again. Another round is peeled off the stack in the magazine and loaded into battery. Once again, the pistol is ready to fire. You can continue to do this as long as there are more rounds in the magazine. 

When the last round is fired, typically, the slide will lock back into the open position. This allows you to drop the empty magazine, insert a new one, and press the slide stop to close the action. Once again, you are ready to fire. It makes reloading fast! 

Above is a picture of a 1911 clone and some of its parts. Check it out. See the safety lever there, on the right, below the hammer? Clicking that up, prevents the hammer from falling, so no bang. What's not labeled is the piece right below that; the one that looks like a tail sticking out. That is a second safety, called a grip safety. If your hand isn't on the grip, holding it down, the pistol will not fire. You see that on 1911s but very few other pistols. Cool, huh?

Types of Semiauto

There are three basic types of semiautomatic pistol. You have single action, double action, and striker-fired. 

As in revolvers, a single action automatic can only be fired if you cock the hammer back first. As mentioned above, racking the slide does this automatically. With a single action auto, however, should you choose to carry with a round in the chamber and the hammer down, you can't fire it unless you cock the hammer first. Not many people carry this way anymore. It makes the pistol more awkward to deploy. 

Most people actually carry them with a full magazine, a round in the chamber, and the hammer cocked. In this case, the thumb safety is engaged, preventing the pistol from firing. Upon drawing the pistol from the holster, you drop the safety. The benefit here is a quick, easy single-action trigger pull every time, which is good for accuracy. 

A few people do carry with the chamber empty and rack the slide as they draw. The downside to this, is if you are already engaged in a conflict, and don't have two hands free, you're screwed. You basically have a small club and not a gun. This is particularly true in drawing from concealment, like a holster in your waistband. 

Once you fire the first round, the slide action  automatically recocks the hammer every shot, so there is no need to keep cocking it, like a single action revolver. 

Popular single action autos are the Colt 1911 and its clones, and the Browning Hi-Power. As the name designates, the 1911 pistol has been around since the year 1911. This makes the famous single action, semiautomatic .45 more than 100 years old! The first semiautomatic pistol was patented in 1891. 

Double action semiautos can be fired with the hammer down, just like a double action revolver. When you squeeze the trigger, it also pushes the hammer back and then drops it at the top of the pull. Most people carry double action autos with a full magazine, a round in the chamber and the hammer down.

As with revolvers, the first double action pull is a longer, heavier break. For every round thereafter, the movement of the slide will have cocked the hammer. This means all following shots will be lighter, single action pulls. The Sig Sauer p239 below is a double action semiautomatic pistol.

Important for writers: Some double action autos have safeties and some do not. Some have a de-cocking lever, which allows the shooter to drop the hammer without firing a round. Let's say you fire 3 or 4 rounds and want to holster the weapon, but you do not want to leave the hammer cocked. You engage the de-cocker and drop the hammer. Now you are back in double-action mode with a round in the chamber. Some pistols do not have this, so look it up, before you write about it. 

The third type is the striker-fired semiauto. These pistols do not have an external hammer. Instead, there is an internal spring, which activates a striker pin that strikes the primer of the cartridge and fires the bullet. Striker-fired pistols are relatively new, and are now the most popular type of handgun on the market. The Glock 17 below is one of the world's most popular striker-fired pistols. As you see, there is no external hammer to cock. If there is a cartridge in the chamber, it is ready to fire.

The benefit to a striker-fired pistol is that you get a fast, light, consistent trigger pull every time. The break is similar to a single action pull in feel. Striker-fired pistols, like the Glock line, are very user friendly and therefore popular with new shooters as well as experienced ones.

As with a double-action pistol, some striker fired pistols have safeties and some do not. A Glock pistol, like the one above, has no active safety. Instead they placed a passive safety on the trigger. Your finger presses it down automatically when you place it on the trigger. You can't click it on and off. Movies and writings screw this up all the time. If your character has a Glock, the only way to make it safe is to keep your finger off the trigger and place it in the holster.

Some people do not like having a pistol with no active safety and a round in the chamber, ready to fire. Because of this, some choose to carry their striker-fired pistol with an empty chamber, and rack the slide when they draw. As with other automatics, you still have the problem of needing two free hands and more time to deploy the pistol.  

TLDR.  How do I write it?

The good news is, unless you are writing a very “weapon-centric” type of story, You won’t need 90% of this information. Readers who know will understand if you write, “He saw the black grip of a small semiautomatic pistol sticking out of the man’s waistband.” Or “She drew a large, nickel-plated revolver and aimed it at him”. This is simple and much more descriptive than “He had a gun in his pants.”

Knowing what you do, however, you can now be confident writing, “He drew a Glock 17 from his shoulder rig” or “She cocked the hammer of the old single action revolver, and took aim”. It adds a nice dimension to otherwise bland writing. 

Where this stuff really comes in handy is when your character has to use his or her weapon. “She fired the last round from her Glock. The slide locked back. She swapped magazines and dropped the slide as she took cover. The last rounds blasting from her partner’s revolver made her ears ring. She took a breath, rose and fired to cover him, while he fished for a speedloader.”

Now the reader can really see what the character is doing! Also, you won’t make noob mistakes like, “He lowered his Glock and put the safety switch on.” (No active safety, remember?) Instead you can say something cool, like. “He dropped the thumb safety as he drew his 1911”.

Here’s a list of things that will earn you bonus points with readers, as well as some common mistakes to avoid.

Bonus Points

These things will make gun savvy readers go “Hey, cool!”

Capabilities. Know what a certain weapon can do. Can a ballistic vest stop it? A lot of people don’t know a car door will not effectively stop bullets. How far away can you hit a target? How hard does it kick when you shoot it?. A .22 is less effective, but can put a lot of rounds on target fast, due to low recoil. A .44 magnum hits like a ton of bricks, but very slow to get back on target.

Survivability. Most people don’t know that seven out of eight people shot with a handgun survive. Now you do! What really happens if you get shot in the leg? Hint: You won’t be getting up and spin kicking anyone. Firing a handgun indoors is LOUD. After the first shot, kiss your hearing goodbye, at least temporarily.

Silencers- Real silencers don’t make that Hollywood “blip” noise when you shoot them. They just reduce the noise by around 20 decibels or so. Great if you have to shoot indoors and don’t want to go deaf. With some mods, the right caliber, and right subsonic ammo, you can get a pistol pretty quiet, but reliability and effectiveness is reduced. 

Realistic scenarios.  Most gunfights, between citizens, or involving police happen at a distance of three to five yards. That’s scary close! They last about three seconds and they are over. They also miss. A lot! Why? Stress. Lack of time needed to aim properly. One person trying to escape. Better training can improve your odds, but if your MC fires five rounds and four go into the walls, that’s normal and realistic. 

Combat reload. Having your MC reload on occasion is more realistic. A combat reload is when you fire most of the magazine, but leave the last one in the chamber when you swap mags. That way, if someone jumps on you while you’re going for your spare mag, you still have a shot. You also don’t have to release the slide to chamber the first round. It’s already in there. In my book Hunters of Gehenna, the character T-Bone does this with a pump-action shotgun. 

Signature weapon. Learn the hell out of your MC’s (or villain’s) favorite handgun. Go to a range, rent one, and shoot it. Find out what cool stuff you can do to customize it. In my novel Babylon Creek, which takes place in the 1880s, the MC uses twin Colt 1877 Thunderer revolvers. Besides having a cool name, the 1877 was one of the first successful double action revolvers. Unlike other characters in the story, he doesn’t need to cock the hammer every time so he’s super fast. 

Common Mistakes

These are a few basic things that will keep you out of hot water with your readers.

A magazine is not a “clip”. The two words are not interchangeable. Clips are used by very specific types of weapons, such as the M-1 Garand, that have a fixed, internal magazine. Removable magazines, however, are common to most semiautomatic pistols. Google “How to load the M-1 Garand”, and you will see what I mean.

Bullets do not fly out of the barrel still in the cartridge case. Yes, people do depict this occasionally. It’s cringe. 

Revolvers do not have safeties. This is the epitome of derp. Some semiautos don’t either. Know it before you write it. 

Dramatic gun cocking. Don’t do it. Maybe if it’s a single-action revolver, because you have to cock it to shoot it. I have seriously seen a character cock the same weapon three times before firing it. It’s dumb. Also, if your character has a single action semiauto like a 1911 and repeatedly pulls the trigger on an empty chamber, it doesn’t go click, click, click. Gotta cock that hammer, remember? If you need someone to be frantically trying to fire an empty gun, use a double action auto or revolver.

Endless magazines. There is a limit to how many rounds a magazine will hold. There are also a lot of options in magazine capacity. I own several Glock mags that hold 30 rounds. It is highly unlikely you will see this with a 1911. They usually hold seven, plus one in the chamber. Custom and aftermarket mags that hold more do exist, however. Just know the difference. 

Thirty-shot revolver. They usually hold five or six. That’s all. Make ‘em count. Some specific models can hold more. Mention this if you write it. If your MC is a revolver-wielding badass, have him quickly reload using a speedloader. Look on YouTube for “Jerry Miculek 12 shots 3 seconds”. He uses a specially tuned revolver. He fires six shots, reloads, and fires six more, putting them all on target in under three seconds.

Revolvers do not self-eject spent cases. I have seriously seen a show where a guy is firing a revolver, and the camera pans to spent cartridge cases hitting the ground as he fired. Tactical face-palm. 

A semiauto is not a machinegun. A semiauto: One squeeze, one bang. A machinegun will continue to spit out rounds as long as you hold the trigger down. Some assault rifles can do both. Know the difference.

I could really go on all day with this stuff, but the point is to just take it easy and write what you know or have researched. If all the reader needs to know is “black semiauto” or “chrome revolver” then it’s all good. If you need to know more, just refer back to this article, or do a Google search. There are thousands of YouTube videos of people handling various weapons. 

Good luck, and happy writing.

If you liked this piece, please follow Clinton A. Love on Twitter @AuthorOfGehenna.

An Experiment By Mark Gelinas (@elderac)

For my blog post, I am trying and experiment. For many, many years, I have been aware of talk to text programs such as Dragon Speak. However, for some reason, probably a reluctance to try something new, I have never used them. 

Recently however, I have started using Microsoft Word 365. Among the many features of this program, I have discovered it can translate words space directly to text. To me this eliminates the need to install additional software.

After discovering this feature, I gave it a quick test. I decided to give it a more extensive test at about the same time the opportunity opened to do this guest blog post. Therefore, I chose to use the blog post as a more complete test of this feature and see if I could use this for something meaningful.

Ordinarily I prefer to type and can touch type which is much faster than using this feature. However, I am getting older and realize eventually my fingers may not work as well as they do now. Therefore, I may need and alternate means of writing because I intend to continue writing as long as I am able.

This program is not perfect, but it will do the job. One of the problems I have encountered is it misunderstanding the words I am saying. Another problem is sometimes it does not start a sentence with a capital letter. 

Sometimes the program does not perform the edit functions like I want. For example, to remove a word or punctuation mark I should be able to simply say undo. But when I do, I may get a string of undos before the program realizes I want to delete the previous word. This is somewhat frustrating, but it is not insurmountable.

I have decided that this feature works well enough that is worth investing the time to better learn it's abilities and spend more time practicing with it. I expect that with practice it shall become easier to use. I think perhaps my next experiment will be to write a piece of flash fiction. If that works well I may move up to a short story. I do not know if I will attempt a novel length piece unless I have no alternative. But that will be for the future two determine.

In writing this, I did use one hand on the mouse. But using a mouse it's easier then typing. If I ever find the need to do something completely hands free I may have to find a different program.

In conclusion, I find this feature of Microsoft Word to be useful and have potential. If in the future I have a need for talk to text I cannot positively say I will not upgrade to something such as Dragon Speak, but for now I find this sufficient for my needs.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Mark Gelinas on Twitter @elderac.

Untitled By Jamie Thomas (@thatjamiethomas)

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.

Emily Dickinson

I’ve spent the better part of the last seventeen months in my house. It has been both a privilege for which I am deeply grateful, and a source of helpless frustration for all the while as I’ve stared at the same four walls and walked the same wood floors and slept beneath the same dusty chandelier, the world outside has been burning. I am generally a happy person, though prone to anxiety and catastrophic thinking, even when there is no definitive reason for it. There has been little cause for happiness of late, and more than enough reason to worry. 

It seems impossible under such circumstances to hope for joy, to say nothing of the guilt in seeking it when so many have lost so much, but of all the lessons these seventeen months have forced me to learn, it is that joy is essential, else living is just surviving, and it is not as difficult to find as one might suppose when faced with such tremendous fear and futility. In fact, it is in the face of such demons that our defiance to yield becomes our joy. 

Through this defiance, I discovered happiness in the small and insignificant, and in things that I had forgotten, or pushed aside, casualties of a life that drives one to exhaustion: An evening hike; a trip to the farmer’s market; the weeding of a vegetable patch; the brewing of a cup of tea. I listened to albums in their entirety, and spent hours working on a puzzle, a thing I have not done since childhood. I rolled my own beeswax candles and collected moth wings and Mabon bags and botanical prints, littering my workspace with them not because they served any real function, but because I liked to look at them. And I started collecting crystal champagne coupes even though they are impossible not to spill from, because they are also impossibly beautiful. 

Perhaps the most wondrous of these discoveries old and new was the rekindling of my love of reading. Since becoming an author, particularly one with contracts and deadlines and expectations, I’ve set less and less time aside for the stories of others in order to write stories for others. What a marvelous thing it has been to become reacquainted with books again, to find those which captivate you so fully that there is a certain sort of heartbreak at their ending. 

Best of all, I have spent untold hours with my family, sometimes in laughter and sometimes in easy silence, and it has been all the sweeter for knowing how precious it truly is. Difficult times bury some, but for others, they are the blindfold that heightens the senses, the rush of adrenaline that accompanies a brush with danger, reminding us of the precarious nature of life, and to cherish it.  

I have spent the better part of seventeen months in my house, and I am certain I will spend many more here as the world continues to burn and I continue to defy. Someday, when we are past this, if we are ever past this, I will seek joy outside these four walls. Until then, within these four walls, I will find joy in a life well lived.  

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Jamie Thomas on Twitter @thatjamiethomas.

What Inspires Me By Renée Gendron (@ReneeGendron)

Many things inspire my writing. I enjoy walking among farmer’s fields, watching the stalks of corn and cattails sway in the breeze. I like picking out animals in the clouds and watching them chase one another across the sky.

I enjoy learning about history to understand the geopolitics of the time and the cultural dynamics that led to decisions, dilemmas, and solutions. For example, the Pirate Republic based in Nassau, Bahamas, wouldn’t have been as threatening had it not been for all the furloughed privateers after the War of Spanish Secession. 

Conflict (interpersonal, cultural, and war) interests me. I like exploring the psychology of a person and picking apart what makes them tick. I like comparing how cultures address the same problem. It’s also interesting to see the differences in decision-making between cultures. One critical decision leads to peace or war. One piece of information shared or withheld leads to catastrophe. 

What inspires me? Grand arcs and personal conflict, the one line I pick up from a conversation two tables away. A chance encounter with someone on the street leads to a short conversation that sparks a story. 

Reading inspires me. I listen to audiobooks as I walk. I tend to favour historical romances, but I’ll listen to mysteries (detective, hard-boiled, cosy), sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, and non-fiction. 

Travelling gives me grand opportunities for adventure, exposure to other places, and insight into different perspectives. 

I’m a resourceful person. I’m good at scrounging and finding things. Through my *coughs* years, I’ve applied these skills to help people see a problem differently. I apply those skills to writing. I take two or more tropes and play around with them. I intentionally twist them in different ways to see the result. Sometimes the bending works. Other times it doesn’t. However, I view those times as opportunities to further my writing skills. There’s always a way to fix a story; I just haven’t thought of the solution yet. 

Most crucial to my inspiration is my willingness to take two or more things, mash them together, and see what kind of story I can make. I do this with tropes as well as genres. I intentionally play around with settings to see what unique stories can emerge. I write a lot of historical romances, and most recently, I’ve started writing historical westerns. In the historicals, there’s a duke or an earl, sometimes a prince. In a western, there’s a ranch. What else exists in these worlds that can be explored in creative ways? I make it a thought exercise which usually turns out to be a series. I have 16 series I need to develop. 

I intentionally branch out into other genres. When I took up writing again about ten years, I thought I would only write high-heat fantasy romances (second world fantasy romance). The more I wrote, the more I drew inspiration from various sources, and the more I tested the waters in other genres. I wrote historical fiction as it’s quite close in tone to fantasies. COVID struck, and my brain broke. To get out of my rut, I wrote my first contemporary romance (which will be released in Fall 2021). I was very pleased with how the contemporary turned out, and I branched out further into the western historical romance. I wrote a few sci-fi short stories and even a cyberpunk. 

The more I dip my toes into genres, the more creative I get. Creativity is also based on confidence. Creativity is about taking risks and venturing into new territories. It’s hard to do that when you don’t have confidence. To keep my confidence high, I take writing-related courses. I belong to a professional association, and I network with authors. I make it my intention to get better every day. 

I often get harsh but well-intentioned feedback. Is it easy? No. Does it help me? Yes. The more I understand the fundamentals of the craft, the more creative and inspired I become. I’m frustrated when I have an idea but can’t articulate it in a way that makes sense. The solution is simple—get better at what I do to ensure the words come out easier and better. 

Inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. It comes at inopportune moments when I’m trying to fall asleep, and it comes at surprising moments when I overhear a barista chatting with a colleague. I consciously look for ways to be inspired and jot down notes (when my app on my phone hasn’t crashed stealing all my notes. I have a new app now, and it’s a lot like the old one *winks*, but this app backs up to the cloud. Never again shall I lose my one-liners). 

Inspiration is something active. I go out and engage with the environment, the creative content of others, and people. Inspiration is work, but oh, what fun work it is.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Renée Gendron on Twitter @ReneeGendron.

What Brings Me Joy By Paulette Hampton (@PauletHampton42)

Nothing brings me joy.

Joy isn’t brought to me.

It’s already in me.

Deep within, under layers of worry and stress.

A lot of times I keep it in a dark corner, letting things like deadlines, arguments, and everyday irritations take center stage.

I can even ignore it by overlooking the tiny soft moments or someone’s kind word.

But it’s always in me.

It comes alive when I stop for a moment, when I’m still and quiet and notice the gentleness and awe of existence.

Joy leaps from my heart when it recognizes itself in the outer world.

But 

Only

When I take

The

Time

To 

Acknowledge it.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Paulette Hampton on Twitter @PauletHampton42.

Write for Joy By E. J. Dawson (@ejdawsonauthor)

When Gillian asked me if I wanted to post again for her wonderful blogging event, I had to go back and reread what I’d written the previous year. It left me very objective of what to post for this year, because much of the past blog post was six months into intermittent lockdowns, the desire for “it” to be over. I don’t even have to explain what “it” is anymore. 

And in this new world of normal, and in keeping with this year’s theme, I’ve kept my joys small.

The local juice place.

Reading all my old favorite books.

Getting through TV series from the 90s my parents never let me watch.

But recently I’ve had to learn to take a different path with my writing journey, and that’s writing with no intention of doing anything with the work after it’s done.

I’d lost myself in personal demands to have a project finished and ready to submit. To ensure this story went to my publisher, but another one I’d try to get into pitch wars and query. For certain books to end up in certain places.

It left me conflicted and confused about where to spend most of my efforts.

And while I’m still working on all those scripts, I decided I needed to do some writing too. I longed to get back into a couple of projects but found myself reluctant to work on them. Those had already put me off with the expectations I’d placed on myself for where those books should end up.

I’ve been writing long enough to know what books I’d probably keep to myself to self-publish. What books I think my publisher would be interested in. Other work that I’d see if it was high concept enough to pitch to an agent.

Because this year I spent some time on working on my craft, taking courses to become a dev editor. Became an intern with my publisher. I learned more about the querying process doing this than I ever had from reading all those “how I got an agent” posts. 

About genres, word counts, high concept, strong plots, relatable characters. All the things that made a book good or bad. During all this learning it had a huge effect on the way I wrote stories. The tone and structure, flow and effect, all better than I’d written before. My stories then had to have these tools I was learning, and I worked very hard to apply this newfound knowledge to my work.

It was interesting to compare current drafts to the polished book I have coming out on October 1st, Behind the Veil.

Because I’d written that book in twenty-five days with absolutely no purpose behind its creation.

I had an idea, wrote the first chapter, gave it to a friend who told me it wasn’t a short story, and by the time I finished it really wasn’t. But I had no plans for that book so the expectation of what it could be was entirely removed from me until after it was done. I decided, at the suggestion of someone else, to pitch it during a pitch event. Literary Wanderlust was one of the presses that liked the tweet, and later sent an offer of publication.

In preparation for Behind the Veil’s launch I’d realized something critical about the creation that went into this book. I’d written it in a break from the massive fantasy series that I had to put on the backburner due to self-publishing costs. I needed something else to funnel my creative energies into, had been watching an awful lot of Penny Dreadful, and I just wanted to write about the ghost stories I’d obsessed over as a teenager.

But this was something far darker, a scary story that was subtle, exciting and infinitely different.

When I remembered that feeling, that sensation of what it was to write the story just because it wanted to be written, I decided I needed to do it again.

Cue Beasts Within, a semi drafted retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and I can’t stop thinking about this story. I keep going back and adding more bits to it. To twist the characters through perilous times and utter angst.

And I have no idea what will happen when it’s done. Whether I’ll see an opportunity for it later or give it to a friend to read. I think it might just sit in the drafts pile and I’ll look at it in a year or so. But I’m not setting myself up for publishing or querying it. It has no other purpose than to bring me joy.

To indulge in bitchy witches.

To let me giggle over spiky verbal sparring.

To be here for me right now, in this moment, in all its angsty glory.

Writing is meant to be fun, it’s meant to be for you, first and foremost, but when you spend a lot of time doing it, the goalposts around who you’re writing for shift and change. Different projects end up in different places than you expect, but that shouldn’t mean we forget that we’re the ones who spend the most time doing it. We’re the ones who will create and create and have much less of what we envisage ever make it into a reader’s hands.

That’s why the joy of just writing what sends your heart fluttering is what matters. That not everything you do should be for a reason, because the story may never go as far as you expect. That there is no agent, zero editor interest, and no publication contract waiting for every project.

Because those things aren’t in your control. Anyone who does this will tell you that no matter what path to publication you pick, each comes with a lot of challenges, and it won’t always turn out how you envisage.

But those things are all what happens after you finish it. Nothing should take away the joy of just being in the story, writing it with heart and soul because time is precious. Writing is an escape, you are the traveler, so if you are going to do this, then remember to live in the moment.

Write for a joy only you can give to yourself.

E. J. Dawson on Twitter @ejdawsonauthor.

THE A.P. MILLER GUIDE TO WORKPLACE MAYHEM (Or: The I’m Tired of Being Gainfully Employed Manifesto) By A.P. Miller (@Millerverse)

FOREWARD: Many thanks and much gratitude to Gillian for allowing me to participate in her Writing With Others Event! I had a lot of fun last year, it was a great opportunity to get my work in front of others, and stretch my wings. Thank you, Gillian, and may your enemies always be reminded that their parents had sex at least once!

Gillian’s theme this month was “joy.” I’m not the type of person who can just sit around and be joyful — blame it on watching raunchy TV shows on MTV in the 1990’s, or a steady diet of brain rotting video games for the Sega Genesis console, but I’m someone with a very particular funny bone. To sit and think about what makes me the most joyful, only one answer comes to mine: family friendly mayhem!

Mayhem comes in many forms and my favorite flavor of mayhem is the light “you weren’t hurt, but now you’ll always wonder what I’m capable of” kind of mayhem. My favorite place to get my daily dose of mayhem is the workplace! To celebrate my joyful feelings, allow me to present to you: the A.P. Miller Guide to Workplace Mayhem.

[DISCLOSURE]: the author is not responsible for your untimely, and well deserved, termination from your job. Should you elect to engage in such workplace antics, you shouldn’t be trusted around income practices anyways. You’ve been warned.

Tactic One: The “Oh, You Didn’t Get the Email” Gambit. Every workplace has that one asshole who is always in everyone else’s business. If it weren’t for this one person the sun would shine brighter, grass would be greener, and you’d might actually win the lottery. Chances are this workplace hemorrhoid noses in everyone’s business and has a fetish for gossip. In order to battle this workplace busy-body, take the following steps:

1. Walk into their office/cube/workspace with a grin like the cat that ate the canary.

2. Say to this person: “Can you believe the email we just got? I can’t believe so many people are being let go!”

3. When your colleague (who we’ll call “Dances with Douche”) says “What email?” you get stone faced and say “Oh. ...nothing.”

4. Leave the office and avoid them for the rest of the day.

You may be thinking to yourself “but A.P., it’s cruel to make someone worry about being terminated,” and you’d be right. However, I’d like to counter your sentiment with a question. Has this person ever cut you any slack? If not, then f*** ‘em.

Tactic Two: Religious Reasons. Admittedly, this tactic works better if you’ve already invented a fictional religion like I have. You can’t use an actual religion on the off chance the recipient of your chicanery is a practitioner, so you have to come up with a loosely plausible faith system, which you can quote at a moment’s notice. For this guide’s sake, we’ll assume I’m a practicing Homerite — a follower of Homer Simpson.

Don’t want to try Martha’s Potato Salad at the company picnic? You have to abstain for religious reasons. Our most venerated leader, Homer, was a man of labors and we can’t eat of the fruit of another labor while we labor. Think your boss’ joke sucked? Don’t laugh. Laughing at a joke that starts with “two guys walk into a bar” is sacrilege according to the Testimony of Bart.  You think Mildred looks like two sloths are fighting to get out of her green dress on St. Patrick’s Day? Green is a sacred color, as our most venerated leader, Homer, toiled in the glow of green warmth.

This IS NOT making light of folks who have to abstain from things because of actual religious reasons. In fact, your workplace mayhem might even make an easier time for your faith-diverse colleagues. Maybe Jeff in Accounting will think twice before whining how annoyed he is that people are offended by his jokes. Maybe Marvin who delivers the disposable bidet tips won’t subtly cat-call the others in the office. If people have to wonder what may offend you, they will wonder what offends everyone. If your co-workers are offended because people are offended, then f*** ‘em.

Tactic Three: the Landmine. We all have that one co-worker that talks like they’re waiting for the paternity test results on the Maury Povich show. Let me be clear, this person is not your target, but your ammunition. Your target could be anyone, for any varying reason. Here’s how you set the landmine:

1. Wait for a moment when you, your target, and the landmine are in a communal space, or at least one where everyone is in earshot.

2. During a moment of pause, you pick a topic that the landmine is passionate about, and you tell the landmine that the target was asking about that subject. (Ex: “Hey, Tim, Henry over here was talking about global warming, you follow that, right?”)

3. Walk away, leaving the target in the blast radius.

Sure, the target can also walk away, but they’re getting heat no matter what they do. If they walk away, they look like an a**hole. If they stay, they have to endure a marathon ear-f***ing. That’s why it’s called the landmine.

Tactic Four: Job Shadowing. It may seem like old-hat, making someone fear for their employment, but hitting someone in the wallet is how you make it hurt. For this tactic, you need some time where you being away from your job duties won’t be noticed. You approach a co-worker you dislike, with a pad and pen, and do the following:

1. Ask them what their daily duties are.

2. Ask them where they keep their lists of clients & contacts.

3. If they ask why, you tell them that Dave Benton, the Regional Supervisor of Processes asked you to compare your position to another, and then say nothing else.

4. Randomly ask your co-worker if there isn’t a more efficient way to do that task.

5. Curtly say “I’ve seen all I need to see here. Thank you for your time,” and leave without explanation.

What makes this even better is that your co-worker is going to go to their supervisor and tell them — the supervisor won’t have the first clue who Dave Benton is, and then your co-worker looks like an a**hole twice. If their supervisor approaches you, you ask “Who is Dave Benton?” This is Multi-Layered Mayhem © (2021-2022 A.P. Miller)

Finally, Tactic Five: Micro-Mayhem. Everything we’ve discussed so far requires planning and strategy. Sometimes you need single-serve mayhem for one-use chicanery. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Cut out paper spiders or roaches and tape them to the inside of lamp shades.

2. Cut a square of post-it and put it on the bottom of an optical mouse.

3. Take a picture of the president of the company, and cut out miniature versions, and tape them to conspicuous places in the bathroom. It weirds people out.

4. Take all of the condiments in the communal fridge and arrange them alphabetically, OR, numerically according to their calories. Co-workers will notice a difference and won’t be able to figure out your reasoning.

5. Take blank pieces of paper, fold them in an envelope, and label them “two week notice.” Leave these hanging out on your desk. If your boss opens one, you know he’s an a**hole. Regardless, he’s going to sweat it out.

Thank you for reading my guide to workplace mayhem! Don’t blame me when you get fired, it’s your own fault.

Thank you again to Gillian for the opportunity to be seen on her blog and I’ll look forward to doing it next year!

Sincerely,
The Reigning Archduke of Mayhem
A.P. Miller

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow A.P. Miller on Twitter @Millerverse.

Word Count is the Boss of Me By Annika Barranti Klein (@noirbettie)

Last year I wrote a beautiful novel. I had a detailed outline and I wrote the novel out of order, so I had absolutely no idea how long it would be until I finished. It was, um. thirty-eight thousand words. I don’t know if you know this (of course you do) but novels are more like sixty to eighty thousand words; young adult (which this one is) can be on the shorter side, but the current trend is longer and certainly nothing is getting traditionally published at under fifty thousand words, let alone under forty thousand. 

And yeah, okay, I tend to write short drafts (I’m a flash fiction author at heart), but this was awfully short. It was a novella and I knew I could write novels. I had already written one the year before, a contemporary retelling of The Three Musketeers that had a fifty-one thousand word first draft and came out at just a hair under sixty thousand after revision. I couldn’t understand what had happened this time until it finally dawned on me: I had quite simply forgotten about B plots. I literally forgot they exist. Was it because The Three Musketeers doesn’t have a B plot so much as it has a whole lot of shit going on all at once? I don’t know. It didn’t really matter — the only book I was writing was this one, and it was too short. I was…frustrated, to say the least. 

I decided at the beginning of this year, while I took a break from my novel, that I was going to let myself write the shortest version of any given idea; I wasn’t going to push myself to make anything longer. In fact, with shorter work, I would aim for the shortest possible version. Why write a short story when I could write flash? Why write flash when I could write a poem?

This worked great…until it stopped working.

I wrote a seven-hundred word flash that was utterly perfect, and all I wanted to do was expand it into a longer story. So I did! It ended up being over five thousand words. It dawned on me then that I am not the boss of my word count; my word count is the boss of me.

I shouldn't have been surprised! I had written another story not too long before that I expected to be around six thousand words, maybe ten thousand max, and it ended up being over fifteen thousand. This summer I wrote a story I thought would be about the same length as that one, maybe as much as twenty thousand, and it came out to thirty-six thousand. THIRTY SIX! That’s almost as long as the too-short novel draft!

It’s time I came to terms with it: I have absolutely no control over what length my stories end up. I don’t mind it so much. I believe it will be okay. Somehow. 

Now, back to that B plot.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Annika Barranti Klein on Twitter @noirbettie.

The Irish Novelist By Joseph P. Garland (@JPGarlandAuthor)

Hospital, County Limerick, Ireland

“Don’t be worrying. She’ll be gone in no time.”

“Jimmy. You’ve been saying that for a month now.”

This was the truth. Jimmy Donovan had. The subject of his observation and the others’ curiosity was a short woman, a girl really, of medium girth and frizzled hair of some variety of light brown and rust. She had a name, and it was Kathleen O’Rourke.

The place in which his observation was made yet again was a small tavern in a small town dab in the middle of Ireland, and he was its proprietor. Jimmy gave it the name “The Golden Calf” when he bought the place some four years earlier.

Though there were those who considered it blasphemous, to him it was a mere play on the fact that the neighboring farms survived on their cattle and cows and it was what allowed them to weather the Famine. Jimmy Donovan was not much concerned about the church-going sorts who crossed the street rather than acknowledge his establishment since they were not the sorts that would cross the threshold no matter what name he gave it. No, those would never enjoy his little laugh, though even Father Crowe was known to make an appearance on a Saturday night after hearing a round of confessions, confessions consisting chiefly of coveting various things of thy neighbors, and sometimes coveting said neighbor herself.

And then there was Kathleen O’Rourke. Her fate was sealed the Monday evening when she was born just over seventeen years before. England or America. Those were the choices she would have since she was unlikely to catch the fancy of the eldest son of a family who would be inheriting his father’s leasehold. No. England—Liverpool or maybe the factories in Manchester. Perhaps America, most likely New York or Boston.

The Golden Calf was dark even in midday. In the summer, when Kate O’Rourke was engaged in her venture there, its windows were open and the sounds of those passing by entered and, worse, so did the smells of the horses. But everyone in Hospital—that was the name of the place—was long accustomed to it so paid it no mind.

The room where she sat was reached through the bar. It had a low ceiling with beams up/down and across, and groups of small tables and chairs were sprinkled about. There was a small stage, on which the boys sat with their instruments on the weekend, performing their impromptu concerts of the ballads of the hopeless causes that the Irish Catholics seemed heir to—that everyone in the town was long accustomed to hearing—and the town folk would join in the periodic singing accompanied by a dram or so of Guinness or whatever other ale that Jimmy could get cheap from the vendors who passed through every week or so.

But Kathleen was never at one of those sessions. She had taken about a month earlier to showing up early in the afternoon. No one knew why she started doing that, and all assumed that it was with her mamma’s permission. Which in itself was strange since there were always chores to be done and it was universally acknowledged that idle hands were the devil’s workshop.

Kathleen’s hands were never idle. Each afternoon, she walked in.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Donovan,” she would say with a nod, then walk through to a table in the corner in the rear and sit in a chair with its back to the wall and a view of the side street. She carried a satchel, which she placed on the chair by the wall. She removed a stack of blank papers and put them squarely on the table. She reached into the bag and removed some four or five pencils, which she arrayed in a row to the right of the paper, their tips pointing up. She reached in again and out came a small sharpener, which was carefully laid above those tips. Finally, she extracted a small stack of papers on which there was her neat script. This was placed to the side of the original stack of blank pages opposite where the pencils were.

We know this routine because it was observed by everyone else in the tavern. Those at the bar in the other room stood at the entrance to watch, and all were silent as Kathleen O’Rourke did what she did, ignoring what they did. When finished, she lifted the satchel from the chair and put it on the floor, and then nodded at her handiwork. This was the signal for the others to return whence they came except for Jimmy, who stood a table or two from the one selected.

“Mr. Donovan. May I have a pot of tea and milk, please?”

“Right away, Miss O’Rourke,” was the answer, and off he turned to the bar where the makings of a pot of black tea awaited him. When the water was at a boil, he poured it into the pot and placed it on a tray. He positioned whatever biscuits he bought in the morning at Mrs. Ryan’s bakery on a small plate and added them to the tray with a cup and saucer and cruet with milk, which he carried into the tavern and to Miss O’Rourke’s table. There, he put the pot on the table before lifting the cup and saucer, the milk, and finally the biscuits and put the lot one by one on the bit of free space on the table. He placed a strainer across the cup and poured the tea, then shaking the strainer slightly and lifting it to a small plate on the tray, his movements carefully watched by the girl, impatient with the interruption. 

“I am much obliged to you, Mr. Donovan. Now I must turn to my work.”

With that, Mr. Donovan nodded and returned to his duties.

There was rarely another soul in the room where Kathleen sat at that time of day, lunch having been served and cleared earlier. If anyone was there, they will have been forewarned to leave Kathleen’s table alone. No one was sure how that began, but it did, and it drifted into the law of the Golden Calf.

Once, early on, Mrs. Ryan herself was passing by when she saw Kathleen through the window, it being a nice fall afternoon and Mrs. Ryan being done with her bakery for the day. 

“What are you writing dear?” she asked.

“I am writing my novel, Mrs. Ryan. Don’t you see?”

Mrs. Ryan saw but did not see if you know what that means. It was enough, though, for word to get about Hospital that Kathleen O’Rourke was writing some sort of novel, and the view as to what it was about varied among the townfolk.

Peter Walsh, who was in Kathleen’s class at school, asked her some days later straight up: “I hear you’re working on some sort of novel. What is it about?”

It was a question in the minds of everyone in the village other than Kathleen O’Rourke, who had no thought of what it was about. It was her novel. She had read a number on her own, sitting in the barn’s hayloft or squinting by a candle in the living room or in the bedroom she shared with her younger sister and thought that if these other women and this Dickens fellow could write a story, surely she could too.

But, she thought, to do a proper job she must do it seriously. She told her mama that if her chores were done and school was out she would head to the Golden Calf and write her novel. Her mother took this declaration as a joke and told her daughter that as long as her chores were done and school was out, Kathleen could write her novel. Her father was not so pleased but would not cross his wife on matters concerning the children; when she decided something he gave his tepid approval for the plan. 

Kathleen accumulated bits of her allowance for this purpose, and when she accompanied her father to Limerick City in the summer, he accompanied her to a stationery store. She told a clerk her plan to write her novel and after the clerk received a nod from Mr. O’Rourke he proceeded to array what he called the “tools of the trade,” and assembled them on the glass counter. Spread across were reams of paper and pencils and sharpeners. 

“Would you like some pens too?”

“I haven’t used one,” the girl said, “but I should like to try,” and with that, some long and short and medium sized pens and ink were added to the items. When the clerk totaled them, Kate found herself short by several pennies, but her father agreed to “lend” her the difference, and the clerk gave her a satchel—no charge—to carry her possessions in exchange for her promise to provide him with a copy of the novel when it was published, which promise she readily gave.

As she sat at the table at the Golden Calf the first day, with Jimmy Donovan confused as to what the girl was doing there, she had the paper and pencils and sharpener arranged as she thought best. She, of course, had no second stack of papers since she had, of course, yet to write a word of her novel. But there was room enough for that stack as it grew and grew, as she expected it would.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Joseph P. Garland on Twitter @JPGarlandAuthor.