Ren J Dorian

[Blog]

[Y]

I have been procrastinating this post for way too long.

I wrote Y when I was still in high school. Technically I published it on September 4, 2013, less than three months after my eighteenth birthday. At its heart, it’s not a bad story. It’s just that the book itself was a mess. The one review it has explains this well:

“The shame of it is I think a decent beta reader, or editor, could have pointed all these issues out to the author [and] fixed them before the book was published. I think if they had been caught the story could have easily been 4 stars, even 5. The basic idea of the book, Lyva’s quest, it kept me reading. I had hoped the writing itself would have improved, but at the same time I still wanted to find out what was going to happen at the end. I think this author shows promise. [Their] story idea was intriguing and the book itself just needed polishing to pull it together. [. . .] The issues with the book just overshadowed the idea of the story itself.”

Overall, I still think that publishing it was the right thing for me to do at the time. I learned a lot about what NOT to do, gained some experience, figured out how to self-publish, and settled on my writing name at the time. I can see some of my writing strengths trying to break through, but the problems overshadow them. Most of those problems are ones I’ve since learned to look out for and resolve before they get to my betas. At this point, I look back at Y and recognize that I had a lot to learn. The review did include some kind words:

“Again, and this is to the author personally. I think your book was a good first try. I’ve seen worse, way worse. You have an amazing way with words. You’re word choices and how you put them together was poetic. As I said above there are just some things you need to work on. I really don’t want you to see the low star count and get angry or, worse, discouraged. I think if you keep writing, find some dependable beta readers, ones who aren’t afraid to hurt your feelings and tell you the truth, or a good editor, I think that you definitely have a promising future in the literary world.”

I am not discouraged; I have learned and improved.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

(I’ve turned off the distribution channels on amazon. Technically it will still be listed on there, but they won’t print any after the current few print copies sell. I left the kindle distribution active. This is mostly because I can’t figure out how to turn it off and it’s only 99 cents – if someone really, really wants to read it they can.)

Note from the future: [6:10pm EST November 18, 2019]

[Extras]

[It Began with a Dream] [The Man on the Stage] [To Be Decided]

When I first attempted steampunk, I found the subgenre very intriguing. There are a lot of opportunities in it, and it has a very distinct flair. However, ultimately, I found it too restrictive for my personal writing tastes. I know there are people out there who would disagree with me on that, but that’s just my personal experience.

The Man on the Stage (TMotS) started as my first attempt at steampunk. A friend who read it at the time said it felt very much like Oliver Twist. I can’t say I disagree. But it has evolved since then.

Now, granted, it’s only at ~7.5k words (at the time of writing this), so this story is far from completion.

It’s still evolving, and a lot of it still feels like an idea that’s testing itself out.

Ultimately, when I decided to do my own thing, I molded TMotS’s setting into the one I’d loosely created for It Began with a Dream (IBwaD), forming the hybrid that is Victory Dreams of Techno Sleep.

Where did that name come from? That’s a good question. And it’s a bit weird to explain.

“Victory” hints to the steampunk roots of TMotS (since steampunk’s loose real world basis is in an idealized Victorian England). This also ties into IBwaD since I initially drafted it while taking a Victorian literature class. I can look back at some early draft passages in IBwaD and clearly see how much I enjoyed Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White. Thirdly, anyone who’s done enough poking around this site has probably learned that I find etymology fascinating. Victorian England refers to the reign of Queen Victoria. Her first name is of a Latin origin and means victory.

“Dreams” hints to the roots of IBwaD. That’s mostly my mad (yes, in that sense), half-sleep brain scrambling to type in the WestMo basement when I should have been fast asleep. A significant amount of that original draft was written “at some ungodly hour” when it’s difficult to tell if you should call it late at night or early in the morning. Dream also honors the title: It Began with a Dream. This was the first draft I’ve written that surpassed 50,000 words. I initially drafted it before I published Victim, so I could also view it as expanding my dreams of being a published author.

“Of” because, well, why not. Besides, people tend to dream “of” things. Like monsters and sugar plum fairies.

“Techno” because . . . uh, because . . . science fiction! Right. I can’t say I drafted either of these to techno music, but IBwaD initially involved a lot of dark ambient. There’s not really a strong reason for this word being in here. I think my brain just thinks it sounds cool.

“Sleep” is where this gets weirder. When I was a teenager, there was a web comic I loved reading. I honestly don’t remember it that well now, and I don’t know what I’d think of it as an adult. Considering how my brain works, it baffles me that I remember so little of the details of this comic, just the premise and the feel of reading it. But I do enjoy the basic premise: it’s a sci-fi world where people have to pay for dreams. I don’t remember if this extends to sleep, or if it’s just dreams. But I found that intriguing enough to think back to it (and the influence it probably had on me at the time). Hence “Sleep”.

Also, you have to dream of something, right? Just dreaming of techno doesn’t flow as well. Also, “Victory Dreams of Techno” is a seven. I write in an older melodic writing style, so a seven hits the reader more strongly. It has to be very profound to earn that shift in rhythm.

“Victory Dreams of Techno” just isn’t strong enough.

And sleep helps capture some of the restlessness that is present in both works. You can feel it in Goren and his attempts to escape the monster. You can also feel it in Dmitrya and her quest to die a little differently.

Therefore, “Victory Dreams of Techno Sleep”.

Here are the various categories for this world descript:

[Being Sensible in How This World Works]

[Ekzers and Enbies] This includes Ekzer tech.

[Technologies seen and their restrictions]

[Victory Dreams Attire]

[The Language of the populace]

[Ghosts and Other Supernatural Happenings]

[Sppaaaaaacccee]

[Blog]

Here’s the short answer: control.

I tend to obsess over my stories. I’ve spent months, maybe years, preoccupied with every finite detail and nuance, sensory detail and room set-up, plot point and motivation, hair color and presentation, etcetera. I map out characters’ bedrooms, how my characters walk, outfits, family histories, and so much else. However, as I understand it, a traditional publisher could dictate changes to my books. They could request I change a character’s gender, for example, or maybe key plot points. I cannot see a traditional publisher allowing some of the creative decisions I’ve made. For example, I created the narrator’s voice in Into the Unknown from an ungendered base. The character does admittedly lean a bit feminine (that happens sometimes), but I never officially assigned them a gender. I want the reader to decide how they perceive this character, which is an important decision for me. I doubt traditional publishing would allow them to be as they are right now.

Also, I get to set my own deadlines. If a lot happens in my personal life, I can push a publishing date back a bit without that much issue. I am already extremely productive (seriously, I have to remind myself to eat meals and take breaks), so convincing myself to do the work is not an issue. Occasionally, I might procrastinate something marketing related by working on something else, but I will get it done. In the world of traditional publishing, it takes a lot longer to get books actually published and someone else gets to set those deadlines.

I would also be expected to do a significant portion of the marketing work on my own anyway. I’m still not that great at marketing, and have a lot to learn in that area, but I get to move at my own pace as a self-published author. Some of the marketing I expect traditional publishing would do, or expect me to do, would likely leave a bad taste in my mouth. For example, Into the Unknown includes a deaf character as one of the mains. I refuse to use this aspect of this character as a buzzword or a lure to pull in readers. If a review does it, that’s the reviewer’s decision. But I refuse to exploit that character trait for the sake of marketing.

I’ve never gone through traditional publishing, so I may be wrong in some of these points. But, as I understand it, self-publishing is the better route for me.

Update: I’m surprised this post is this old. Since 2015, I have been more involved with the traditional publishing world. I actually apply somewhat-regularly for anthologies. Several of these entries have been accepted, and I’ve had an odd array of experiences. Most professional anthologies use editors that don’t always agree with me. I can accept criticism, but there’s a reason I like controlling my work.

For example, not all publishers allow authors to use they/them pronouns in author bios. I have a pronoun-free author bio I’ll use when publishers outright refuse to include my correct pronouns. I pretend this isn’t erasure so that at least my story can be included.

And I always feel like I break a little when I admit that.

It should also be noted that editors in the traditional publishing world still tend to fight me on the inclusion of LGBT characters. I can only think of one editor who was actually okay with me including queer characters, but she was editing a trans charity anthology. I’ve heard from other writers that things are getting better. I have, admittedly, seen more openly queer writers, but I wonder if that’s because I’m more aware of them. I haven’t seen an improvement in my personal experiences in the traditional publishing world.

Note from the future: I have since moved from public deadlines to pendings. This better reflects (in my experience) the unpredictability of the self-publishing world. I still maintain my own deadlines, but you’ll no longer see them on my site (at least for the time being). I know my own work habits well, and I can still decently predict how long it will take me to accomplish something. What I can’t predict? Other people and the things I cannot always control in my personal life. Want an easy example? I’m typing this during the COVID-19 lockdown.

[Novels]

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: [Not yet recorded]

Word Count: ~57k

Publishing Date: [Put on hold indefinitely. I’d have to clean up so much old writing that I’m not sure when (if?) I’ll be returning to it. I put way too much pressure on myself when writing it initially and there are some major pacing issues. It will likely remain unpublished.]

About:

My second book! At approximately 57k words, this work had been my secondary project for a long time, since before I even started focusing on Y. Wing has been through many rounds of editing, and seen multiple side-plots and chapters added to it over years. However, less than a year ago, I decided to make it my main project until its completion.

It is set in the World of the Mystics, the same setting as Y. Although the two stories are not part of a series, certain events from Y are mentioned (because of how large an impact the events of Y have on the setting). For example, the disappearance of the stars during Y is mentioned in Wing as having happened before the story began. However, you can still understand Wing without reading Y.

I continued with self-publishing for Wing, and had already created my website before Wing’s publication. I still have a lot of work to do with marketing, so I decided to try something a little different when Wing is published. The effectiveness of social media may soon be tested.

 

Summary:

[Summary has yet to be written][Whoops]

 

Daeya’s song is NeedToBreathe Something Beautiful. You can [find it on youtube here].

 

[link to excerpt]

[link to amazon page]

[link to return to novels]