Author Brent A. Harris writes a guest blog for Altered Instinct on the process that saw several friends encourage one another in their writing - and led to the publication of the debut anthology for Inklings Press.
“That writing process went well…,”
said no writer ever.
Writing is difficult. As such, we’ve
all had to create our own system, from staring down that blank page,
to borrowing a fresh set of eyes for critiquing. Many authors have
turned to support from others. Mary Shelley had her writing group,
Tolkien had his.
In honor of Tolkien, several friends
from around the globe and I created Inklings Press, an Indy ebook
publisher. I wanted to share with you who we are and what we hope to
help you do. We are not hoping to become, “the next big thing". Instead, we are a niche group designed specifically for the aspiring
writer, stuck on a page that’s going nowhere. We would like to help
new writers break through the difficulties of the writing process in
order to produce a short story, from conception to final revision,
until it is ready for inclusion in a themed ebook anthology. That’s
it. We are a simple group with a novel idea. Get would-be writers
writing…and published.
Our first Anthology, Tales from the
Tavern, (available here: http://amzn.com/B014LCYGDE) has done just
that. It features five fantasy stories from five fresh authors,
including mine, A Bear Trap Grave. It’s both the culmination of a
long ordeal and a first step into what we hope will be a long string
of successful stories. Though I have been writing for many years,
I’ve never forced myself out of my comfort zone of writing for a
larger audience. I made a goal two years ago to start producing work,
and now the first results are coming to fruition. Helping to create
Inklings Press was a fulfillment of sorts of that goal, as was the
completion of my first novel, A Time of Need, still in the end stages
of tinkering.
I found myself in the unique position
of both needing help from others as well as being able to help other
authors that were in the same position as me. Of course, I turned to
my friends, Ricardo Victoria and Stephen Hunt and we all found
ourselves wondering how we could use self-publishing to create
content outside of our small circle of friends. Thus Inklings Press
was created.
Stephen Hunt, author Leo Mcbride, was
already in the industry, so to speak. As an editor for a major
newspaper, Stephen possessed the skills needed by all new authors — a
keen set of eyes and a knack for improving upon the written word. His
self-published, Quartet, was an instrumental experience in figuring out
how to edit, compile, format, and import our Anthologies to ebook.
Createspace and other programs will only get you so far. At the same
time, Stephen is also a novel storyteller and was kind enough to
include A Taste for Battle within our anthology. It reads like a
film with fast paced action, witty dialogue, and a nice twist at the
end. We are lucky to have Stephen guide us through our Anthology
series.
Ricardo Victoria has a Doctorate of
Sustainable Design. As someone who consistently reads through
doctoral thesis from inception to publication, it was a natural fit
for him to combine his hobby as a writer, marketer, graphic designer
and his profession as a professor, to help out other writers with
their work, including mine. And, did I mention he’s bilingual? I
can barely write in one language…let alone two! His work, Silver
Horn, is a comedic tale of friendship and trope-turning. It already
won an award for best story in a state sponsored fantasy short story
contest and he was kind enough to let us include it with our
anthology. He also designed our cover, and provided all our authors
with countless hours of feedback. And it’s pretty much his fault we
are all here today. But that’s another story and I only wrote this
one
Matthew Harvey and Alei Kotdaishura,
our guest and ‘new’ authors, hardly needed any help at all. We
gave them a prompt — Tales from the Tavern, some guidelines…and
they gave us gold. We are lucky to have them, and I think they might
be sticking around for the long haul. So, as their experience grows,
so too does the help they provide for our next batch of victims…er,
writers. Matthew’s story, Battle of Veldhaven, is as close as you
can get to an RPG in short story form. It’s an intense read with
intense characters and an action-packed finale. And finally, Martha’s
story turns every convention of story-telling on its head as she
asks, “Do you really need to hear the truth?” Sometimes the truth
isn’t nearly as fun as the fiction, in her debut, True Story.
We hope you will not only enjoy our
work, but also be excited by our mission and what we hope to achieve.
We are already hard at work on our second anthology, Tales from the
Mist, featuring new and returning authors, to release this October.
Lastly, we hope to be taking submissions soon for our yet unannounced
third anthology. If you are interested in learning more, or wish to
write with us, please visit our website at www.inklingspress.com
or connect with us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/InklingsPress or
follow us on twitter at @inklingspress.
Blog post by Brent A Harris
Connect with him
on FaceBook at www.facebook.com/pages/Brent-A-Harris/445435242306215
or follow on twitter @brentaharris1
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