Coffee With David

With things quieting down at my normal full time job, I am able to return focus on to y second full time—writing. If you have read my previous posts, you will have noticed that I intend to launch four web serials staring in August. The first of the four, Dark Medicine, has entered editing stage. Once I have finished with my editing, I will be turning it over to someone to edit prior to publication for my readers to read.

I have also returned to producing short fiction for publication. I am re-editing some of my short stories that did not publish yet and I will be producing more. I am mostly focusing my fiction writing on Horror, Hard Sci-Fi, and Space Westerns—the same genres as my web serials.

Additionally, I am producing my poetry again. I have one piece that is being published in an e-zine, more on that soon. I am sending out more of my poetry for publication consideration. You can find my poetry as it is published by going to my website and looking under poetry. Some of my poetry I will be putting online for my readers to enjoy, knowing that I will not be able to send it out for publication.

I have also restarted my freelance writing. I am currently writing for an online site, but I will be looking to branch out to magazines and other journals soon. Please look at my website under non-fiction for these articles.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more articles, blogs, poetry, and stories that I write.

Over the last few weeks I have expanded my article writing to expand my presence on the web and to continue to build my readership. I am now writing weekly articles on three new topics: self-defense, writing, and locations in the St. Louis Metropolitan area to go on a date without breaking the bank. The links can be found on my website at www.davidalanlucas.com under the nonfiction section. As I write this blog, there is at least one article up in each category.

I have also restarted my poetry writing with five new rough drafts thus far this week. Four of them are inspired not by the health care law that was passed, but by the method and attitude of government (all parties) and the reaction of my fellow Americans. One of these is further inspired by the television shows Caprica and Battlestar Galactica. I do not know if I will send that out anywhere, but I will read it at an upcoming open mic. The fifth poem is about something special that has happened in my life recently—something that returned faith to me. I cannot go into details at this time.

I have also finished the rough draft to the web serial or web opera Dark Medicine and am in 2nd draft as I write. I will begin work on the other three that I will start posting in August after I turn Dark Medicine Series 1 in to an editor to review. I will be posting a new blog in Dark Medicine and starting three new blogs related to these four stories. Please keep an eye open for them.

Once I have all four in 2nd draft form, I will begin the 2nd draft of the sci-fi novel, The Guardians. Additionally, I am also working on more poems and short stories.

As if all of this on top of my normal job didn’t keep me occupied, but on April 16-18 I will be attending and presenting at the Missouri Writers conference.

Do I ever slow down? Sadly, I don’t think I know how. There is just too much to write.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on articles, blogs, poems, and stories that I write.

I apologize that it has been a number of weeks since I have had the chance to place an entry into Coffee With David. My full time job was tied up with a huge project and I found myself juggling so much that if I did not set down my writing and my karate, everything would shatter. The time away from writing was sad—and often I felt like a drug addict missing his fix—but it gave me time to reflect and to research the market. Sadly, the market for new authors appears to be dried up right now because of the economy. Publishers and agents are looking for authors who have a track record of sales, which you do not have if you are brand new.

I also noticed that for some of my writing, most especially my vampire stories, the market is saturated with teen fantasy vampires that would not put much fear into anyone. Clearly they are popular and I will not besmirch them any more that my previous statement. I write about the monster vampire—the one who may either reveal or loathe his existence (and sometimes both kinds of characters), but are an expression of our dark side.

Along with this observation, I looked at my other main market: Science Fiction. There are so many out there that the market is hard to break into.

So, what is a new writer to do? There are a few things that can be done—but you need to be creative and believe in yourself. As a result, I am going to launch four ventures of my own and start a Web Opera. I am using this term to break away from the term Web Serial as those tend to be more video oriented. In a few months, I intend to begin placing monthly episodes of four stories: Dark Medicine (A gothic Vampire Horror), The Haunted (A horror about an exorcist), The Indebted (a Science Fiction based on my novella, but greatly expanded), and Herne’s Law (a Space Western). These stories are being plotted or replotted to fit this new format.

The downside of this plan is simple: no publisher will want these stories. They will already have been self-published. However, I am ok with that. I am no longer looking for a publisher at this moment. Instead, what I hope they will do is create a readership and thus a track record that I can use to demonstrate in regards to other stories.

This is a bold gamble and maybe I foolishly have too much faith in myself. However, being a writer who had to overcome learning disabilities and teachers telling him to drop out of school and not even think about college, I learned that if you do not believe in yourself no one else will. As proof, I have a Masters Degree and graduated with it with a GPA between 3.5 and 4.0. (actually, I have a Bachelors with minors, a Masters, and a certificate along with a teaching certificate. See my web page for a little more information) I have done what I have been told I cannot do—and like the oak tree who had to fight for water and room to grow, I am stronger for it.

Please visit my blogs and website for updates. This is going to be an interesting ride!

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for information on the stories, articles, and blogs that I write.

I will be redoing most of this website over the next several weeks. Blogs will be back on schedule after March 15th. Thank you for reading!