With us today is C.S. Boyack to talk about his approach to
speculative fiction. Welcome, C.S.
Thanks for the invitation today, Sandra. It's always nice to find
new places to promote my work. I'm here with something a little bit different
today; it's a book of short fiction.
Last year, I released a collection called The Experimental
Notebook of C. S. Boyack. This time I got extra creative and called this book
The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack II. If this one goes over like I
think it will, I can call the next one III.
There is kind of a theme in the covers too. They are weathered
tomes with alchemy wheels on them. One on the first book, two on the second
one, and if I produce a third one there will be three wheels.
These stories are speculative in nature. There's a little bit of
science fiction, a little bit of paranormal, and one that might pass for
fantasy.
I'm a big believer in living documents. I keep several going for
story structure, editing, writing lessons, and more. Now I keep one for short
story ideas too.
When I write my novels, sometimes I burn out before I finish for
the day. This usually involves a plot element, or some continuity issue that I
need to spend time with. For a long time I allowed that to kill my quality
writing time.
Now, when I still have a few hours left, I use one of the ideas
from my living document and work on a short story. I get to remain productive,
and keep my word count up.
I stashed them away for a long time, then noticed interest in
short fiction on Amazon. Many authors were writing a short story that tied in
to a novel they were promoting. This is a great idea, because a 99¢ book could
lead to sales of the novel.
I used to read a ton of short fiction before it was used as a
gateway drug to novel sales. That's when I decided to release my own
collections. I priced them at 99¢ anyway, and maybe they can spark interest in
my longer works too. The difference is I'm selling myself, not a specific tie
to a novel I'm promoting.
Check out my Experimental Notebooks. There are stories about
murder, hauntings, magpies, aliens, and even Chupacabra.
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Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Virgilante
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColdhandBoyack
