Alternate Reality Story Began

Earlier this week, I posted the first, if brief, portion of an alternate reality story I’m writing spontaneously on my Simple Asphyxiation web site. What is going to make this an interesting project is the fact that I’m not giving any indication that it is a work of fiction. It’s intended to be very realistic, and I’m hoping the reader will figure out that it is indeed fictional. If they don’t figure that out, hopefully they’ll do a search on Google or some other search engine and turn up this entry so that they’ll come to understand it isn’t real.
Yes, I know that this may cause me some headaches, and part of me is loathing the potential police investigations that are likely to come about as a result of the progression of this story, but overall I think it will be beneficial for me as a writer. If nothing else, it may draw attention to my talents if I pull it off.
I want to make iit clear to everyone that reads this as a result of any propaganda, and/or media story: the articles posted in Joomla @ Simple Asphyxiation are fictional, and in a perverse way intended to entertain. No one is being chased, persecuted, hounded, harassed, or murdered by me or anyone I know. And no, there is no cover up or conspiracy involving the site. Other than an advertising conspiracy that is; I DO have ads on the site after all. How likely would it be that a person on the run would put advertising on their call for help?
Any way, I think I’ll mosey on over there and make another post…

Reading and Writing

As I’ve been watching the days go by over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking alot about what I’m going to say in this new forum of mine. Part of me wants to plug a web site I’m in the process of writing (via my web programming talents). Another part wants to start posting writing tips that I’ve been compiling over the last year. Still another part of me just wants to take time to sit back, relax, and spew out a spontaneous short story, or substantial fragment there of.
Frankly, I’m not sure what exactly will come to appear here at Broken Fingers in the coming weeks, months, and years, but it’s part of me nonetheless.
And so I’ll move on to cover the topic of this post.
I’m sure that there’s no small part of each of us that loves to read. Although it would be self-indulgent and egotistical to say that we write to read our own work, I think there is some truth in there. We imbue our writing with a bit of ourselves, some aspect positive or negative, real or imagined, literal or figurative. It’s there, a positive and/or negative reflection of our own psyche, waiting and begging to be discovered by some like minded individual reading our work.
I think saying that we’re writing for some specific person out there is going too far in most cases, but as readers we know that electric thrill of realizing exactly what the author had in mind when he or she wrote something that triggered a story related epiphany in our soul.
Take this for example… I have played Dungeons and Dragons for close to twenty years now, and I have been reading the related novels for nearly as long. R.A. Salvatore, my favorite author and unwitting mentor, is one of Wizards of the Coast’s most celebrated authors, whose most recent book in that universe is The Orc King. (There is a point to this, I promise you.) I started reading this most recent book not long ago, after finishing two other books in the Forgotten Realms setting, the two books in The Lady Penitent series by Lisa Smedman. Now, all of this ties together because I have always had a fondness for playing Elven, especially, Drow or Dark Elf characters in D&D, and almost as a universal rule, those characters have worshiped Eilistraee, who features prominently in The Lady Penitent series, after decades of basically being ignored in the Forgotten Realms. Within the first few pages of The Orc King, there is mentioned specifically that something that greatly disappointed Drizzt Do’Urden apparently happens to or with Eilistraee and her clergy. Given that this is Mr. Salvatore’s first reference to her in the Drizzt books, as far as I can remember at least, and that the goddess’ name has been popping up a lot lately for me, it seems as if he was speaking directly to me, warning me of what I began to suspect: Eilistraee is in for some seriously dark days in the near future.
These coincidences, and that’s all they truly are, made me feel a connection to both authors, and it’s the same sort of connection I seek as a writer to make with my audience. I suspect, that it’s the same for you as well.

Why Broken Fingers?

Although Cliff Burns pointed out the exact reason that I originally chose the name Broken Fingers for this blog, there are other reasons. Foremost among them is the fact that I have a long standing history of interrupting my work on stories for one reason or another, and either never resuming work on that story or delaying it for long periods of time.

For instance, earlier this year, I had begun work on a short story that I’m currently calling Team Omega. There is no realistic reason why this story isn’t done now, and hasn’t yet been shopped around to various magazines. Yes, there are my excuses: family responsibilities and work have put limits on my free time. But those are really just excuses. I should have been working on the story instead of playing World of Warcraft. I should have been editing it instead of watching Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis. I should have been reviewing my target magazines instead of reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

But I didn’t. Something in me must be broken; I must have broken fingers if they didn’t willingly do what I love to do. If not, then I really need to look at the reason I didn’t do what I needed to do in order to make it possible to start my writing career. When I choose to be honest with myself, I suspect the reasons. But I often can’t bear to face my own self-examination on the issue. It’s much easier to just blame it on my responsibilities. See, I can be in denial while being completely rational…

Broken fingers are also what I will have, according to my best friend, if I don’t stop putting off finishing Team Omega and some of my other stories. I’ll get right to work, Maxx, I promise! :p

Broken Fingers

Welcome to Broken Fingers!

While I’m not sure yet where this blog will go, I wanted to create a place that I could share with the world my thoughts regarding writing, the writing industry, and most importantly, getting published. While I have a general purpose blog already, on my personal web site that I’ve written myself,  I wanted a place where I could just get my thoughts out, without having to worry about a lot of the ugly little details that my own web work sometimes requires. (There’s a fairly simple story behind this desire: When I first got interested in creative writing, I didn’t have a word processor or even understand what one was — I was 13! — so I started trying to invent something that would allow me to write my stories, and that lead me into programming, which lead to web programming, etc…) This is that place.

So, ultimately, this place, Broken Fingers, is about pure writing, without the programming aspects of my life. Hopefully, I’ll say a few things that catch your attention and possibly inspire you. If not, well, at least you can have some fun calling me an idiot. Either way, my words will be here, and you can read them as you please.

Please feel free to leave me some comments, link to the site, and/or give me advice as you see fit. Oh, and porn, don’t forget to leave me lots of spam porn links… Just kidding!