I grew up with stories; when I learned to read I consumed as many stories as I could. Somewhere along the way I wanted to tell my own stories and write them down. Somehow that goal was never quite true, for I also wanted my stories to be complete, and somewhere I got it in my head that a story is not complete unless it has been published. I am beginning to question that: what does publishing do?

I used to think that publishers were a sort of filter but I have books on my shelf that flagrantly violate the rules of grammar and I’m utterly shocked; I was taught that we should use complete sentences, and every sentence must have a verb. Some authors and publishers disagree. So this cannot be true: bad books get published.

I have also caught myself thinking that publishing in some way validates a man or woman as an author. Put another way, you aren’t a “real” author until you are published. Does publishing validate the writer as an author? Am I something less if I never sell a book to a publisher? Does self-publishing not count? Does self-publishing only count if I function as both a publisher and as an author, and publish authors other than myself? And if publishing does validate, does a small-press count, and if so, how small can I get away with? Here’s a good one: do you have to publish to paper, or can you publish electronically?

Some time ago I concluded that being published means only one thing: your particular story is marketable. If a story is published that means that some person (or persons) believed they would be able to sell the story for a profit. It does not guarantee a fan base, although it probably does guarantee that a few people will at least read your manuscript.

As someone who would love to call himself an author I really only care about one thing: I want an audience. I’ve given up on the idea that I’ll ever make a living at writing. I have a day job, and that is consistent with all the writing advice I’ve ever heard. So if I only care about having people read my writing I’m seriously wondering why I still have this pipe-dream to one day be a published author, although I now no longer know what that means, nor what it would mean.

What does it mean to be published, and what does publishing do?

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend of mine reportedly owns Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which I have heard about and summarily dismissed as it sounded corny and a bit cheesy. Upon discussing it tonight I may have changed my mind. The idea of a victorian gentleman having to fend of zombies is immanently interesting to me. There is a great juxtaposition of victorian mores and the usual zombie tropes. There has got to be some really fun conflict inherent in that, not to mention all manner of ending possibilities (does the hero give in and abandon polite society never to return to it, or does he succumb to the horde and die a martyr to his ethics?).

And then a second and more light-hearted possibility sprang to mind: a steampunk zombie hunter. Battling zombies with the lasted mechanical inventions that only the steampunk genre can provide could make for a not-so-horror but quite action oriented tale. Sort of a steampunk version of Army of Darkness and how could that not be cool?

Here’s another thought: why not use this as a basis for an RPG? I would love to play either a victorian gentleman or a steampunk lad faced with zombies. Any takers?

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It dawned on me tonight after I finished reading yet another short fiction horror story. Horror is too broad of a category and is more often a miss than hit with me, and so I thought about what kind of horror stories I really like: ghost stories. I like haunted house stories too, though those are largely ghost stories, but I’m realizing that most anthologies and magazines of horror stories have quite a lot of stories that just don’t interest me at all, and yet even the oldest and most classic ghost stories still keep me coming back to read them. Maybe I need to find some modern ghost story anthologies.

Addendum: Upon further reflection I can add what I call “creature” stories to the list as well. This would include stories like Frankenstein, the Mummy, wolf-men, and Dracula. The more imaginative the monster/creature the better, which may be why Lovecraft is quite fun.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe I’m alone in this, or in the minority, but I cannot play any kind of horror video game (survival horror or FPS horror) when it’s bright and sunny outside. The juxtaposition is just too great. I have a small collection of horror video games I’m itching to play, and now that the October has arrived bringing with it dark clouds, grey skies, and the nearing of an end to this accursed Daylight Savings Time, I will have plenty of time to indulge myself in some zombies and monsters!

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All stories have a climax, a high point. Most stories put this at the end, leaving only a little room to allow the reader to climb down off the metaphorical mountain. There is good reason for this: when the point the reader cares about is resolved, they lose interest. I cannot help but wonder how, or even if, that point was missed with the latest Batman movie (The Dark Knight). We just got back from seeing the movie and I thought the movie was over and wrapped up a good 20 minutes (or more, I didn’t check my watch) than it actually was. I spent that last bit just sitting there wondering why the movie was still playing and how I could have misread the signals. I’m not sure I did; either the climax came too soon, or I assigned too much importance to a minor plot point.

Did this ruin the movie for me? I’m not sure. It did leave me with a very different experience than with the first movie, and I will need to re-watch it in order to really judge it, now that I know how to watch it. I will have to conclude that for a first-time watcher who knows a little about the Batman universe, I thought the story was over before the director did, and that is probably not a good sign as far as I’m concerned.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)