I've decided to try an experiment on this blog. Before we get to all that, first some back story.
In the last couple months (since my return from Oregon in October), I was invited by Amazon.com to become one of the reviewers of stories under development by them.
Frankly I have no real idea why they did such a thing.
The barely-restrained conspiracy theorist in me is certain it all has to do with the frequency with which I take Jeff Bezos' name in vain here and elsewhere around the web. And, while there may actually be something to that, my somewhat more firmly grounded suspicion is that someone at Amazon decided there just might be something to the proposition that the amateur opinion is the audience and figured anyone who buys as many books and DVD's - and presumably reads/watches them - as I do, probably has an arguably informed opinion to offer there-on.
In any event, I accepted and thereby discovered Amazon Studios, which is their in-house effort to create original content for them to produce and sell. I should note that the two Amazon-related activities aren't directly linked to each other, in that you don't have to be an aspiring story teller to
Someday.
Whereby we close the bloggish circle. I'm having difficulty getting started with the story I want to tell first, so I'm going to try telling (at least a good portion of) a different story here on the blog. To that end I've created a new label, "my original fiction", which I will be using exclusively for this project. My hope is to use the Blogger format I'm reasonably familiar with to develop the basic writers habit of writing something every day. Yes, I know, how is that different from ordinary blogging? Well, aside from the obvious distinction that this will be deliberate fiction, as inflammatory as what will appear is going to be, I hope to avoid at least some of the sillier accusations and suspicions that might otherwise arise if it wasn't labeled as explicit fiction.
I expect to write as much about my experience of the process of writing a story as I do actually telling a story. [It's my blog; go write your own if you want it done differently.] As introductory, what follows is my not-too-terribly-original premise:
At some undeclared point in the near future, there will be an explicit effort made to take advantage of the current societal discontent within the United States. This effort will comprise an organized group of criminals funding the creation of a "resistance" (based rather loosely on my understanding of the experience of the French efforts during WW II) aimed at continuing their (probably drug related - at least in part) criminal enterprise, whatever the political climate within the US.
All details subject to authorial whim and inspiration, but I intend to use real people's names in a "ripped from the headlines" style of story context. If you are also a blogger and would
Topics I hope to excite discussion on will include: story formatting, character development and presentation, quirks and idiosyncrasies of some specific aspect of life (law, motorcycle mechanics, welding, what-have-you, etc, etc, etc.), proper grammar ... well, you get the idea. As to the story itself, it is what it will be; I kinda don't care if you care for it or not, and I'm quite confident you can write a better one, but I want to tell this one so as to get good enough to tell the one that's sloshing around inside my head and won't come out yet. If I offend you (as seems likely) I'm not all that sorry. Its not that I want to especially, it's just in the nature of this particular story, that's all.
More tomorrow ...
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