Vaughn A. Jackson's Blog

Oh dear god, it has been forever hasn't it? Over a year since I've been on here. But I come bringing fantastic news!

Touched by Shadows is coming out in 11 days! December 10th. Mark your calendars, because that's literally right around the corner, and I am incredibly excited. I'm a little bummed that I didn't get to do a cool build up to a fancy cover reveal, but here it is in all of it's glory. The art was done by Don Noble of Rooster Republic Press, and just...wow. I know that Up from the Deep holds the place as my first published novel, but Touched by Shadows holds the place of my first written and first accepted novel, plus it's my first REAL horror novel. So there are hundred new layers of excitement when it comes to sharing it with you! Touched by Shadows is my debut horror novel and follows a young girl as she navigates the horrors inherent in her unnatural abilities, the advances of a demon who wants to possess her, and the racist machinations of a cruel reverend. It blends science fiction and cosmic horror together, while also grounding both in the real world terror that people of color still experience to this day. While the protagonist is a younger character, I would suggest this book for adults or teens, not kids.

​Purchase links coming soon!
Here are some kind words others have said about  Touched by Shadows:

"Jackson does not mince words, and he does not pull punches. What claws from these shadows is both an unflinching confrontation with a violent world and a much-needed meditation on what it means to be fearless." - Hailey Piper, author of The Worm and His Kings

"An exhilarating ride! Vaughn A. Jackson knows how to keep readers on the edge of their seats." - Samantha Kolesnik, author of True Crime

"A creepy, fun, thrill ride, perfect for the lovers of supernatural scares" - V.P. Morris, author of ShadowCast

Oh man. Look at that poster. Look at it! It's beautiful. I will never not be excited for a Godzilla movie. I mean...giant radioactive lizard smash! Am I right? Oh, and I guess Kong will be there too. Which brings me, kind of, to the point of this blog. Recently I got asked why I didn't like King Kong as much as Godzilla. And aside from the obvious answer of... ...it got me thinking. I mean, Kong is cool, I guess in his own way, smart monkey, but then in the same vein, why was the original American Godzilla (hereby stripped of honor and referred to as Zilla as it should be) so hated. I mean...it had a cool design. And an ever cooler animated series. So what didn't work? I mean, come on, that's cool, right? Godzilla climbing the Empire State building?!

“Monsters are tragic beings; they are born too tall, too strong, too heavy, they are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.” - Ishiro Honda

When I wrote my Kaiju novel ​Up from the Deep, it was with this quote in mind. It's also a point that the original Gojira! movie drives home and is, I think, even more apparent in the more recent Shin Godzilla, since that abomination is constantly in unholy agony and was forced to exist against its will. Like a teenager, but with a violent purple death beam.

So what does this have to do with Kong vs. Godzilla. Well, they're both monsters and in their respective first appearances they are tragic figures. Godzilla is in pain and angry so he attacks Tokyo/humanity for the sins of the nuclear bombs that created him. Humanity then, in their infinite wisdom uses another untested weapon to kill him (This totally doesn't come back to bite them in the form of another monster named Destoroyah). Kong makes the mistake of wanting an interspecies romance and gets shot down by planes for it. But remember, it wasn't the planes, but beauty, that killed the beast. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, trying to be objective here. Kong was dragged to a strange place, and in his fear searches for the one friendly face he can remember. And then we kill him with planes.

It's not really until after these origin stories that we start to see a shift in the type of stories these monsters seek to tell. And this is somewhat unfair because Kong only gets remake after remake after remake and occasionally something like Son of Kong which...yeah. Whereas Godzilla gets 36 movies, and at least one statue in his honor. But here's the big difference. Ignoring Kong: Skull Island, Kong always dies, and that's it. He doesn't come back. Sure his movie is remade, but it's supposed to be the same Kong and he meets the same fate. Godzilla, on the other hand, shows back up every few years like... ...and it's the same Godzilla (usually, I'm generalizing a bit here)! So why does Godzilla get to come back over and over to wreak havoc and dole out radioactive smackdowns left and right, and Kong is always doomed to make a huge chalk outline on a New York City street. And while popularity is a technically correct answer, I'm going ignore it. I think it's a difference in what monsters represent and how monsters are viewed by their respective societies. I would like to point out here this is all my opinion, and while it will be based entirely in what I know, I don't know everything, nor do I claim to...out loud. You can also disagree. I can't stop you.

Godzilla - Initially represents a living incarnation of mankind's blantant disregard of the effects of nuclear radiation. More simply put, he represents the atomic bomb and all it's badness.

Kong - Represents a savage untamed wilderness. 

Again, generalizing here a bit, but boiling it down, you can say that Godzilla as a monster represents "the sins of mankind" and Kong represents "the unknown". I mean, he's called the 8th Wonder of the World for Godzilla's sake.

Kong represents the unknown, and Kong is a particularly American creation and idea. This is important because, well...what does any proud American do when they discover the unknown? They conquer it and claim it as their own. Like America. Kong is a force to be conquered. Not just because he represents the unknown, but because he is everything we say we aren't: primal, savage, wild.

We have to show that we are at the top. The our science and progress and military might will always triumph over such things. Because if we lose to that, what's going to hold the order. Order must prevail, and Kong is disorder. As a society, America wants to see themselves win. To come out on top. Because we think we always will. We like victory. If we win, it doesn't matter how much destruction there was, because we won. By force. This is equally apparent in the 1998 Tristar (God)Zilla movie. With the power of bridges and missiles, the American military defeated the monster. It's for this reason that Shogo Tomiyama named the monster Zilla. In his words TriStar "took the 'God' out of 'Godzilla'". They made him just another animal. And they killed him.

So why didn't the original American Godzilla work (for Godzilla fans, I should clarify)? Because Zilla wasn't anything special. A true monster in size alone, it's just a big lizard (And let me just add, I do enjoy this movie as a monster movie where I pretend its not supposed to be a Godzilla movie, and I love the monster design, just...again, not as Godzilla) doing big lizard things in the wrong place. And he's defeated in the same way he's created: violence. No one learned anything. Sure New York was pretty beat up, but they won. They can rebuild. Zilla is no more. We blew up the thing that we created by blowing up the thing! Woohoo! Now lets look at Godzilla. The real Godzilla. I said he represents the "sins of mankind". Sins are a weird concept. But in this case, I don't mean it in a religious sense. More that, humanity fucks up...a lot. Read a history book, pretty much every chapter has at least one moment where you just have to blink and wonder what the hell happened. Humanity is "sinful" in that we always fuck up. We cause destruction, death, poverty, war, slavery, etc. Again, religiosity aside, we make mistakes, and sometimes, we make them on purpose, and that, is what Godzilla represents. In particular, he most often represents humanities sins towards nature...

"Nature has a way sometimes of reminding man of just how small he is. She occasionally throws up the terrible offspring of our pride and carelessness, to remind us of how puny we really are in the face of a tornado, an earthquake, or a Godzilla. The reckless ambitions of man are often dwarfed by their dangerous consequences. For now, Godzilla, that strangely innocent and tragic monster, has gone to Earth. Whether he returns or not, or is never again seen by human eyes, the things he has taught us remain." -The Return of Godzilla

...though in one case he is distinctly a revenant of mankind's sins towards mankind. Looking at you, ghost/zombie World War II angry spirits Godzilla from GMK.

Regardless, Godzilla is less an animal, and more a force of nature. Sure he's a living creature, bu he cannot be stopped or killed (permanently). His motivations change on a whim, which explains why sometimes he's a hero sometimes not (the same rain that waters your crops can devastate as a flood). And he always comes back. Because mankind keeps causing problems. It's a different perception of monsters. In this case, they aren't things to be conquered or destroyed, though you might try. They're reminders, equalizers, punishments. Monsters show up when humanity gets too big for its britches, so to speak. And yes, Godzilla has been purely heroic, but even in those situations, he's protecting the planet, more than he's protecting mankind. We just happen to be here, and he still wrecks a bunch of our stuff in the process. Hell, in Destroy All Monsters (one of his more heroic movies) he straight up refuses to fight on mankind's behalf because of all the problems we cause. Mothra has to intercede on our behalf!
​ And this is where the new Legendary Godzilla movies get it right...mostly. They swap up Godzilla's origin story to him being a pre-prehistoric creature that existed when the world was a hell of a lot more radioactive. And the Bikini Atoll tests were attempts to kill him. Cool. Sure, we once again sweep the nuclear horror we caused under the rug there, BUT we get a new Dr. Serizawa who is there to remind of us of those particular horrors. Which works out really well in part to Ken Watanabe's acting but also character pieces like his stopped watch. He carries the tragedy with him, not Godzilla. And it works. Why does it work? Because we assign Godzilla a similar but different role while still keeping him a force of nature. We learn that as the Apex Predator, Godzilla acts as a natural balance for his territory, which happens to be the whole damn world. Ah, balance. This Godzilla in particular is still more animalistic than his Japanese siblings, but he is every bit the force to be reckoned with that they are. Humans can't do anything to hurt him (again, without repeating the mistakes of using untested weapons that work out so well), and while the other Titans give him a fight, he ends up on top and shakes off the fight like a champ. And here's the thing: Godzilla isn't on our side in these movies, not really. He's on Earth's side, which, in G14, is kind of our side because the MUTOs are dangerous, but he DEVASTATES San Francisco, which causes problems that carry over into G:KOTM, where again, he's fighting with us because King Ghidorah is a huge threat and we really aren't. Here we see Godzilla's intelligence also displayed in that he can distinguish between "friend" and foe. And from what we can tell from Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla isn't on our side anymore...presumably because we did something to upset the balance, and that's what Godzilla represents balance. Sometimes it's in your favor, sometimes it's not.

The storytellers for the Legendary Godzilla understand that Godzilla is meant to be something more than just a big animal (and also that if they had fucked this up they would never have the chance to touch Godzilla's rights again). And they run with it. He's the King of the Monsters, in a more literal sense than ever. Once he pulverizes Ghidorah, the other Kaiju literally bow to him. And he seems able to dictate how they act, in the way a mother standing at the door staring down her misbehaving kids gets them to act. There's respect there, that isn't present in Zilla.  All Hail But Alex? What does this have to do with that quote about tragedy that you started with? Yes. Right. Getting there.

This is actually a point where I think Kong and Zilla succeed, maybe even a little more than most of the Japanese Godzilla movies (exceptions being Gojira, The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Godzilla vs. Destroyah, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, and Shin Godzilla). You feel bad for the monster in these movies. Both Kong and Zilla are just animals out of their element, trying to do animal things (we're gonna kind of ignore the weird Blonde/Kong romance here) and getting killed for it. Hell, Kong literally didn't even want to be there. He had no choice. The tragedy here is that these creatures are just trying to survive, to eke out a living just like us, and we kill them for it. Zilla needs a nest? Kill it and it's babies. Kong was brought here against his will and is seeking out the one positive human connection he ever had? Shoot him full of holes. It's tragic. Personally, I always find myself close to watery-eyed during Zilla's final moments. But I'm an emotional wreck, so take that as you will. It hurts because you know the creatures aren't doing anything wrong, they're just out of their element. Same reason I feel bad for foxes that get killed for attacking farmer's chickens...the fox is only wrong by our standards. It's just trying to survive the way it knows how to.

You do get this in some of the Japanese movies, particularly in The Return of Godzilla, where in order to keep Tokyo safe they drop Godzilla into a volcano and all the human characters lament this because again, Godzilla wasn't trying to cause destruction. It's not his fault he eats radiation, it's ours. And you see it again in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah where. in an attempt to get rid of Godzilla via time travel (yep...time travel), not only do they cause his extended suffering, Godzilla still ends up being born, only stronger and somewhat more emotionally wounded. Damn. To be killed by the creature that saved you so many years ago... And in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla you see the disrespectful lengths humans will go to, when they defile the corpse of the original Godzilla to make a new Mechagodzilla...and it knows, on a DNA level it feels what's been done to it and it both hurts and infuriates it, causing it to rampage out of the control of its human operators.
the red line is meant to represent a tear running down its face ​You pity the harm and trauma done to these creatures. We made them evil via our perceptions, our need to be superior, or our own cruel indifference. Yes, even Kong. Neither he nor Godzilla chose to be what or where they were. Me personally, I prefer my monsters as unstoppable forces of nature that humanity can only hope to deter or survive. Forces of nature we make by our own failings. But I like them to be sympathetic as well. I want to feel for them.

I think this is why I dislike King Kong so much...in 99% of his movies, he goes down like a punk. And yes, there's the tragedy of his death, and perhaps the greater tragedy of humanities penchant to kill things they don't understand without stopping to think about it. But no lessons are learned. Nothing changes when Kong lives and nothing changes when he dies. His death is...treated as a good thing. A success. But Godzilla...he just keeps coming back. Like Hurricane Season, but with a radioactive lizard. Godzilla Season. Every year.

So how can you feel bad for a hurricane? Simple, make the hurricane represent something. Bonus points if it's something bad that humans collectively feel guilty for. Global Warming has caused an uptick in more powerful hurricanes that cause tremendous damage. And while we as people don't feel bad for the hurricane per se, we feel bad that it exists and that it's our fault...BECAUSE it's our fault (I guess I'm generalizing here, because not everyone does). Similar with pollution, and animal extinction. Our fault.

Monsters are a black mirror that we look into and see the wrongs in the world...or in the context of the more modern Godzilla movies, they act as a reminder of where humanity stands in comparison to nature. And the wrongness of challenging that. Either way, they reveal something about us. Something deep and ingrained that will always be there unless we work to change it. These are our tragedies. And the monsters are our tragedies brought to life. And sure, maybe you kill the monster...but the thing is...sometimes, they come back. That got a little dark there at the end. Monsters are deep. It's just my opinion that monsters, at their best, deal with tragedy, either ours or theirs. And sometimes both. And man this was a long form way of explaining why I don't like King Kong that much.

Lastly, I don't want to discredit monster movies that don't plumb into dark psyche of humanity. Pacific Rim is a good and fun movie. I love it! But while the characters literally jump into each others psyche, the movie is just giant robots punching giant monsters. That's pretty much what it was made to be. And that's awesome!

On the other hand, Colossal deals with trauma and tragedy on a more personal and individual level. Focusing on abuse, and grudges. It's also a really good movie.

Even the Tristar Godzilla is a good movie, separate from what it claims to be.

Or most of the 60s/70s Godzilla movies, are kid-friendly and campy and don't really touch on too many deeper, darker themes (again, there are exceptions), but they're still enjoyable and some of them are quite good.

At the end of the day: MAKE MORE KAIJU MOVIES!

So, um, did I mention I have a Kaiju novel out? Check it out!

Welcome back, me! That's right, I'm back. Again. With a long-ish post this time. I'm going to talk about the idea that writers have to write everyday in order to...I guess be writers? And it will tie in a bit to why I haven't been posting as frequently or as actively.

So yeah, I've been MIA. No blog posts, not much social media presence, just sort of absent.

Why, you may ask?

I've been overwhelmed. Nothing wild, but within the past year I finished, edited, submitted, and got contracts for two novels and a short story. On top of that I wrote and submitted several other short stories. I would come home from work and write for at least two hours everyday. And you know what, it worked. But I feel like it kind of fried my brain a bit. Throw that in with the fact that now I'm trying to plan and do marketing, and live my life in the middle of a fucking pandemic, and my brain is a bit scattered (read: *the sound a balloon makes as it deflates*).

I started three novels this year so far and reached around 5K words across the three, which I'm proud of, but damn was it a slog to get that much out. Nothing like what it felt like when I was writing before. Different, and clunky. Like I was out back pushing my brain-mobile instead of just flooring the gas. I didn't feel rusty, or out of practice, I felt like I was trying to tap a source that ran dry. Same thing for blog posts and social media (which admittedly I've always been terrible at), nothing felt right to post and I really didn't want to waste people's time with whatever half-baked idea leaked out of my left ear.

So I took some time to myself.

All things considered, I guess once February ends it'll be three months of break. It's been nice, save the anxious voice in the back of my head telling me I should be writing everyday lest something terrible happen. I got back into gaming, one of my other passions, got my basement redone thanks to a ridiculously hardworking friend, caught up on/started some new shows, and otherwise just did...nothing. It was great. And during all this I let my brain recover. Now, I'm not a full time writer. I don't really have deadlines so it isn't imperative that I hop immediately to my next writing project. Take the rest of this post with that in mind. The rules change when there's...well, rules. But here's what not writing made me think about writing. “If you want to be a writer, write everyday.”

I hear/see this a lot as a huge piece of writing advice. It's on lists, and in books, and broadcast from the glowing writer hive-mind that floats in the sky (what do you mean you can't see it?). It caused me a lot of anxiety early on when I started writing because “oh god, I've missed a day, hope is lost, the world is burning, I can hear their screams”. Yeah, exactly like that. And even up until recently I would get really freaked out when I missed a day of writing. I had to forcibly extricate myself from that way of thinking. See above.

So why do we tell writers this? Is it accurate? Is it fair? And most importantly, is it healthy?

Like I said, when I had projects, I got off work and wrote for 2 hours a day. Everyday, from 7pm-9pm. I could do that. My work schedule allows it and my job is not so exhausting that I was unable to do so. Plus I don't work on weekends. Those were just free writing days. All of that is...honestly quite a privilege. Not everyone gets that. Some people don't get free writing days, or they work much longer stretches than I do, and come home exhausted. Certainly not in a writing mindset. And sure, I often hear people say stuff along the lines of “well if you really want to do it, you'll make time”, which I agree with, to a point, and I'll get to it shortly. Writing everyday is a tall order for someone whose schedule may not be consistent or who works long, intensive hours. Especially if that person also has other responsibilities: kids, pets, family...the first and last ones I guess fall under the same branch, but you catch the point. It just may not be feasible for them to carve out the time to write without overloading themselves.

And I think that's okay.

I (now) don't think you need to write everyday to be a writer, or even to be a successful writer. Not for an hour, or for ten minutes. It's okay to write once a week, or once a month. It's okay to write when you can. I'm not particularly convinced that GRRM writes everyday, and he's still one of the most successful/well known writers around at the moment. People are still hanging on, waiting for the next book in A Song of Ice and Fire. Sure there are jokes, memes, and impatience running rampant, but I'd be willing to bet that when that book finally drops...everyone's still gonna run out and buy it. So no, you don't have to write everyday to be successful. You just have to write well. Or maybe just hit the bullseye on what the market is looking for. It all depends.

Now...are there reasons to write everyday? Of course. If you write everyday, you'll probably reach certain milestones faster, since you'll finish projects faster and so on. Your skills will get sharper faster. If you have a goal set for when you want a piece finished or published, then yeah, you probably should write everyday to meet it. But otherwise, you can write at your own pace and still reach certain goals if you put in the effort.

Which brings us to “if you really want to do it, you'll make time”.

Yes.

Agree.

100%.

Make time for writing if you're passionate about it. Look at your schedule, see where you have time and write then. Maybe that is everyday. Maybe it's once a week. Or once a month. Or on that odd-night when everyone else in the house is asleep for work or school and you're off the next day so you sneak to the computer and write until the sun comes up. As long as you write, you'll finish your project. Writing, publishing, authoring...none of them are a race. And a book finished in a month can be just as good as a book finished in a year and vice versa. And if they're rough drafts, they'll both be pretty bad. So a book re-written­ over the course of a year can be just as good as a book re-written over the course of a month. The amount of time it takes really doesn't matter. What matters is the amount of effort the author puts in.

“But won't I get rusty if I don't write everyday?”

Yeah, probably. Writing is like working out. You stop and lose your progress pretty quick. But the one thing I never see brought up is muscle memory. Yeah, when you stop working out and lose your progress it's difficult when you jump back in, but in general your body remembers and personally, for me at least, once I start again I get back close to where I was rather quickly. Now before this workout metaphor goes on too long, back to writing...it's the same. Sure, as the book gets longer you'll have more to familiarize yourself with when you pop back in, but remember this is your passion project, it's the story you long to tell. You know what happens and (ideally) what will happen. It'll come back to you the second you dive in. And if things get jumbled, THAT'S WHY WE EDIT. Rust only becomes a problem if you let too much of it build up.

“But real writers write everyday”

No.

Real writers write. That's it. They write when they can, how they can, and for how long they can. Forcing yourself to write everyday on top of everything else in your life can burn you out. Then what? That thing you love and are passionate about sours every time you think about it because yeah, you've written everyday but it's just been gobbledeegook to meet the requirement. And that doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel like progress. It's ticking a box, and nothing more.
​
Writing is work, hard work, but it isn't just hard work alone. It requires that passion and joy you feel when you put pen to paper or fingers to keys. And forcing it...putting down words for the sake of putting down words with no quality or real progress can take the passion and joy out of writing. And everyone knows that having to work hard for something you're not passionate about sucks. Hard work doesn't bring joy and passion, joy and passion make hard work bearable.

So don't let ridiculous standards burn you out and smother your passion for writing until nothing is left but all the hard work. Find a schedule that works for you and stick to it as best you can. You'll probably miss a day here or there, you'll be sick, the cats will need all of your attention, or your friends will want to hang out. That's life. You may be a writer, but you have a life to live as well. Finding time for it is important for your well-being. So, no, you don't HAVE to write everyday to be a writer, you just have to write. And if you do write everyday, make sure to find time to take breaks. Do other things. Relax and recharge. Your ideas will still be there when you come back. And they'll be better if they're fueled by life.

So my advice: Write as much as you can, when you can. Take things at your own pace. And take care of yourself.

I should say writing advice is always given with the inherent bias and privilege of the advice giver (even this). As with all advice it should be taken, analyzed, dissected and then, whatever parts are useful and work for you and your life, should be stitched onto that shivering mass of other stolen pieces of advice to make up your own shambling writing style. IT'S ALIVE!

So my break is coming to an end. I feel rejuvenated and the writing itch is back scratching at the walls of my subconscious. So I'll leave you with some teasers: 
My current projects are a horror comedy that involves accidentally ending up in Hell, a civil war era vampire hunter, and a fantasy story with a familiar disposition.

And thanks for being patient with my sporadic schedule (if you have been patient that is...if you've been frustrated, uh, sorry, I guess). Regardless, I hope you all are well!

Greetings! I know I've been absent (again). Life has been insane and there wasn't too much to report. Until NOW. NOW I return, and I return with exciting news! That's right...another book announcement! Last year I finished my second novel, a kaiju (that's giant monster) novel titled UP FROM THE DEPTHS, and submitted it. I'm pleased to announce that the contract has been signed and things are in motion to get this baby published. A huge thank you to Severed Press for picking up this story! "​​When an Interpol operation accidentally awakens a giant sea monster from its deep slumber in the Mariana Trench, kaiju groupies Devonte Rhodes and Dr. Skylar O’Hara must work with the military to find a way to stop its reign of terror. Caught between their fascination with the creature and horror at the destruction it causes, the two work tirelessly to find a means of deterring, or killing, it. Meanwhile, in the shadows, the criminal organization Tempest plots to control the monster for their own plans of world domination. With threats both colossal and insidious closing in on them, they'll have a beast of a time coming out on top."

UP FROM THE DEPTHS is a fast-paced, action-packed kaiju romp that pays homage to many classic and modern giant monster tales. If you're a fan of classics such as Ultraman and Gojira, this story is written with you in mind, but even if you're new or have little experience with the genre, the colorful cast of character, witty banter, and compelling story might just make you a fan. Its a book I wrote so that everyone could enjoy my love of giant monsters.
I don't have an official release date to give you guys yet, so I'm hoping that COMING SOON ​will suffice for now. Stay tuned for updates.

P.S. What's your favorite giant monster? For me it's either the Baltan Aliens from Ultraman, or the big man himself, Godzilla.

P.S.S Godzilla beats Kong in a fight, hands down. No, I don't care what happened in 1962. The fight was biased and you know it. Godzilla doesn't...monkey around. Oh god...I should go back on an unintentional hiatus for that one...

It's December 27th, 2020. In 5 days this wild year will be over, and 2021 will begin. I can't wait. Now I'm not under the delusion that 2021 will come and everything will just miraculously return to the way it was before. Covid-19 still exists and we have to make it through January which I'm sure will be a really fun month...that was sarcasm. I also can't say that 2020 was all bad for me. I mean my book got accepted for publication as did a short story of mine. I've also managed to avoid getting sick, knock on wood. So yeah, 2020 has hands down been god-awful, but there have been some bright spots. Still, a new year is symbolically a fresh start for people, so I want to try and remain on the optimistic side of things.

I've never really been good at New Year's Resolutions. I'm great at making them, but not so much at keeping them. I've tried the weight loss one and usually make it until the first time I miss a workout or overeat. Or I say I'll try and eat better and then I smell a broccoli and want to hurl myself into the road. Yeah, I'm bad at them. But I'm gonna try them again this year, like I always do and maybe, just maybe, by putting them on the internet for all of you to see and hold me accountable, maybe I'll do at least one. I've broken down my goals into two categories: "As a Writer" and "As a Person", because if you didn't know, in order to write I must temporarily shed my humanity and become a god of dark creation who brings suffering to all he creates...or something like that. So, without further ado... As a Writer: 1) I want to finish a novel. Between January 1, 2021 and December 31st, 2021, I want to finish a book. I don't know which one, but I would like to have a finished manuscript before the end of the year. Pretty simple. And I know I can do it.

2) Connect more with other writers via Social Media, and, Covid willing, conferences and meet-ups. I'm not a people person, which is to say I love people but I have zero idea how to engage them half the time. Do I say hi? Is shaking hands still a thing? What if they hate me? What if I hate me? Any, I see all these writers and I want to get to know them and sit with the cool kids. So I'm going to really make an effort on that part to really throw myself out to the wolves and hope to god they are friendly.

​3) Have a successful book release. Touched by Shadows is coming out in September and while I think every author hopes that their book will hit the bestseller list (and I am no exception) I really just want the release to go well. Well is a nebulous concept, but I guess I just want to see people excited for and enjoying my book. As a Person: 1) Obligatory weight loss goal. I could use to lose a few. Quarantine gave me some extra. I'd like to make them disappear.
 
2) Do my emotions better. This ties in with me not really being a people person and not knowing how to engage with them. But I'd like to get better at communicating my feelings with my friends and family. I'm working on this one already, but they get muddled and confused and I come off as either distant or uncaring sometimes. So as a starter, I'll put it here safely behind a screen and buried in a blog post: "If you're my friend, or family, or an acquaintance or even someone I just chat with every now and then...I love you and think you're awesome." Never mention this to me.

3) Read more. Look, I can't remember the last book I read that wasn't mine. I burned halfway through about 3 books on writing this year, but I would like to get back to my roots. Reading for fun. I used to be able to burn through books pretty fast and now it's like hiking uphill through molasses, backwards. So I think I'm going to try and read a book a month. And I'll probably talk about said book here. So yeah, these are my "New Year's Resolutions" both as a person and a murderer of fictional characters. What are some of you guys Resolutions? What Resolutions have you succeeded at in the past?

Also, what was the last book you read? I'm always looking for suggestions.

Phew! It's been awhile. Between trying to handle a backyard that wants nothing more than to try and go for a swim and take my basement along with it (something that still isn't fixed, mind you), managing all that stuff that I got in order to "pimp out" my basement because I thought it had been fixed alright, removing shorted light switches, writing and edit short stories to meet deadlines, and trying to organize and secure my Pokemon card collection to keep it accessible but out of harm from the water. I've not had a lot of time. Oh, and I got sick...during a pandemic. Not Covid thankfully, but the scare was there. So I think I counted three more gray hairs in my beard yesterday but I'll have to confirm it wasn't just a trick of the light. And it's almost Christmas! Luckily I have almost all of my shopping done. Just two more people to buy for. Which I should probably do today...

But, moving on! I do have some good news to through on the pile! I announced it on Twitter and Facebook, but didn't make it here, so I will now...not only do I have a book (Touched by Shadows) coming out on September 24, 2021 through JournalStone Publishing, but also, my short adventure horror story, "The Thing at the Top of the Mountain" is going to be included in Off Limits Press' FAR FROM HOME anthology! I am beyond excited to share a space with so many other high quality authors. No release date for that quite yet, but I'll be sure to point it out when we know it. I also may have some other news coming up soon, so there may be an off-schedule blog post in the near future, so keep an eye out for that! Speaking of schedules...once a week was a lofty goal, and it was fun, but life, uh, finds a way...to make that difficult. So, going forward, and barring any important news I need to freak out over, the new schedule for the blog will be every other week...bi-weekly...twice a month. However you want to phrase it. It will give me more time to prep quality posts for you all to enjoy and also hopefully make maintaining the blog a bit less stressful in conjunction with all of the life happening around me. Thank you in advance for understanding!

Since this is mostly an update post, I'll give you guys a bit of a peek into where I am in regards to writing projects. Most of the ones I've been laboring over are done. As you know, Touched by Shadows is out next year, "The Thing at the Top of the Mountain" will be in an anthology next year, I have another short horror story writing specifically for a submission next year (I know, look at me, not procrastinating), and of course the other potential news I mentioned is well...a potential. Those were my big 2020 projects. So what's next for Vaughn?

Well...
1) I started working on a Hard Science Fiction novel, tentatively called Spire. It's been fun doing all of the research and stuff to solidify the science in my fiction, but oh god it's a lot, and so progress is pretty slow on that front. Still I would like to have a draft of it done by the end of next year.

2) I have several ideas (and a few words) for a potential sequel to Touched by Shadows, with more of an occult mystery feel to it. That's all I really want to say on that because spoilers.

3) I want to write a Sword & Sorcery fantasy novel. I love epic fantasy, sprawling over several books, but sometimes I just want a nice, self contained adventure. Maybe some swashbuckling. And more fun. Grimdark fantasy (which I do love a bit of from time to time) has become more popular as of late, but I'd really just like to write a fun fantasy novel. I don't have too much in the way of ideas on this front at the moment, but it's on my list of things to get to.

4) Short stories. There used to be a point where I swore up and down I couldn't write short stories to save my life. I submitted three short stories this year, two rejections and and an acceptance. I recently submitted an edited version of one of the rejections to a different publisher, so it's up in the air. But I'll probably write some more in between working on the above novels and hopefully get some more submissions out there. I may also dive into some of my older ones as well and see if I can give them a new, better life. Who knows.

These are all pretty vague because they're all super early on in their life cycles, and destined to change, fall through, die, reincarnate and so on, as projects often do. They're more here to highlight that "yes, I'm still working on things, I've just exhausted this years allotted word fund and will likely be working well into next year before I have anymore big updates.

Any thanks for following along with me, and I hope you'll continue to support my writing and read my random thoughts. An early happy holidays to all of you!

Okay, maybe I did. But I had a good reason. What was it? Uh, well, Ikindagottheps5andendedupplayingitallweekend. Okay. There, I said it. Happy? Anyway, I'm back. And it's almost Thanksgiving! I can already taste the mashed potatoes. This month I've been trying to blend together things I'm thankful for with things about me. I've also tried to really hammer home a bit of my personality (read: all over the place, thinks he's funny, and also, all over the place). But I think this one is going to be a little different. I'm thankful for my family, my friends, my cats, the person reading this, and so on, but there would never be enough time to go through every person I'm thankful for. I'd have either a novel of a blog post or I'd still be doing thankfulness blogs by the time next Thanksgiving rolled around. So, I'm going to focus on the other half. A bit about me as a writer. I often hear writers talking about where they struggle with writing, but I hear less about where the excel. And while it's great to commiserate over where you suck, I think it would help a lot with imposter syndrome and the overall confidence posture of new writers if they were encouraged to talk more about what they are good at. So imma do both. Because it's my blog. And encourage anyone who reads this to do the same. Bit of advice though...do the stuff you're good at AFTER the stuff you think needs work. Pays dividends to end on a high note.  P.S. It's a list...TWO lists. Could Use Improvement
I don't like saying that anyone is "bad" at things in writing. Some people may disagree with that statement. And I can certainly point to a few questions where it has been a struggle to use a nicer turn of phrase. Saying you're bad at something implies an inherent inability to do it well. And writing, like anything, can be learned and improved. So here are three places I know that I can use (and am trying) to improve in.

1) Plotting: I am a panster. I probably could leave this entire point as that statement, but I won't. When I start a story, I have (usually) a character, an idea, an ending, and a setting. And not much else. I'm this as I write... ...always. And while this works for me (I've finished two books this way), it also presents challenges (I'm stalled on two books because of it). Since I only know where I'm going and not how I'm going to get there, sometimes I get stuck or sometimes I write a whole bunch of loop-de-loops that eventually get me back on track but bloat the story. These often get taken care of in edits, but it makes the editing portion that much more difficult and when I par them down/cut them out I still get stuck with how to get from Point A to Point B. It can slow down the writing process and also can mess with the pacing of a story. I'm slowly trying to mold myself into more of a plantser to fix this problem but my aggressive rejection of all things organizational makes it difficult. What the hell even is an outline anyway, am I right?

​2) Editing: I'm really bad at editing. When I finish something, no matter how long I set it away for, when I come back, I can't see the problems. Not there aren't any. God knows there are, but it's still my thought process, my logic. Which I can follow. So it just...makes sense. Often times I rely on my beta-readers to be the ones to call the broken pieces to my attention. And I have conversations like:
"This doesn't work because X"
"Oh, but my thought process was this."
"Yeah that wasn't clear"
"Oh"
Not only do I struggle with seeing through my own logic, but an edit for me is almost always a rewrite. I know there are people who only edit the broken chunks, but it doesn't work for me. Because now, in my head, that section stands out. For better or worse. So I have to fix everything around it, and then everything around that. You see where this is going. It eats time. I've tried plenty of strategies and tried doing it differently, but at the end of the day, it's what works for me. I don't think it's the best way to go about it and hope I will find a more efficient way (I'm currently reading a book on editing, so maybe) but who knows.

3) Small Scale Motivation: I am pretty good at the large scale motivations: "this character wants to survive", "this character wants the girl", "this character revels in the explosive vortex of chaos". But scene by scene, piece by piece...I struggle. Chances are that if I rewrite a scene, it's because it just doesn't fit a character's motivation. And it happens a lot. Because sure, maybe they want to survive, but that's an overall goal. When they're sitting around a campfire with the group that picked them up, what do they want then. Their survival needs are being met. So that minutiae, those small personal desires often elude me. I find myself spending more time on character backstory than will ever be revealed in context in order to ensure that my character always has active desires. They don't come naturally to me, I guess. I have to craft them and it can be a struggle. 

The Good Stuff
Make no mistake. When I say "I'm good at this" I am not claiming to be the end all be all. No one is. No one should. I'm just saying I'm damn proud of my ability to write these particular aspects of a story. I've got a lot to learn, and always will. And I'll never be perfect. I'll just be a little bit better than I was before. And a little better the next time, and so on.

1) Dialogue: I love snappy dialogue. A great one liner can take a character from meh, to awesome in my book. When it comes to movies, if the dialogue sucks, that's the biggest detractor for me. I sat through all the Sharknado movies in some part because the dialogue was surprisingly good for something so nonsensical. But characters like Mal Reynolds ("If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears."), Han Solo ("No reward is worth this.", Ellen Ripley ("Get away from her you bitch!", and Jules Winnfield ("If my answers frighten you, then you should cease asking scary questions.") alongside the entirety of The Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl owe to my desire and ability to write dialogue. And I think I've learned pretty well. Not every line of dialogue should be a burning one-liner, but every line has a mark it needs to hit. Note: These are all movie examples, mostly because my brain remembers movie quotes three times as well as book quotes, but the point stands. Dialogue is probably where I spend a large portion of my editing time. Because I want it to feel right. To hit that mark. If bad dialogue ruins things for me, surely it'll ruin things for readers. So I've gotten good at it. 
  
2) Character Relationships: This does tie up into dialogue, since dialogue is the simplest way to show how characters interact, but beyond that I think I do a good job at showing how relationships grow together or grow apart. The plot may be what is happening to and around my characters, but the story progresses based on how the characters interact with each other. If the hero and villain realize they agree halfway through the novel, that's an entirely different story than if the villain tries to seduce the hero and gets rebuffed in the process (yes, I can hear you saying "duh"). My point is that being able to craft character relationships and navigate them adds depth to a story. I point to the relationships between Will Turner and Jack Sparrow, or Loki and Thor, or the Father and Son in Big Fish. All complicated relationships. All a driving force in the plots of their respective stories. I try to really pin down how characters would feel about each other based on their life experiences. For example, in my current WIP, there is a soldier who gets stuck escorting a civilian. At first he's irritated and treats the civilian dismissively because he views him as a liability. Once the civilian proves his usefulness and his bravery, the irritation turns to respect. A simple example for sure, but still. Not every relationship needs to be complicated, some relationships are pretty low maintenance and easy to navigate.

3) Action: You've probably guessed by now that I'm big into movies. I love them. I also love anime. When storytelling I often try and approach things from a cinematic point of view. I ask myself, "how would this look in a movie or anime?", and fabricating that scene allows me to write down what I "see". Not only does it help me write, but I do think it makes action scenes in particular read well in my writing. They come across as high-energy, quick-paced, and exciting. While this visualization may not mechanically describe exactly what is happening in an action sequence, it gets the point across and drags the reader in. Most of my beta readers point out how well my action sequences go and how engaging they are. So I'm inclined to believe them and list it under this section.

So these are some of my strengths and weaknesses in the writing craft. There are certainly more things that I could include under each. I think we should encourage writers to talk about their strengths as much as we do their weaknesses. So what are some of yours? Where do you shine as a writer?  Vaughn A. Jackson

​Vaughn is a neophyte author of speculative fiction. His debut novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS will be released via JournalStone publishing on September 24, 2021.

So I really enjoyed last weeks format where I tell you guys a bit about me as a writer, while also taking a moment to thank the people who have helped me along the way. I think it worked, and thus, I am doing it again. Now, every writer has a process. Some are more clearly defined, and others are a bit more slapdash, but it works for us. So this is my process, and the people involved in it. They'll know who they are, but I don't want to throw their names out there without permission, so I'll refer to them by what they do to help me. It takes me a while to finish a rough draft. I'm not Stephen King, I can't write 5000 words in a day (and believe me, I've tried). My upper limit is around 3K and that will take me literally all day, something I can't afford often while maintaining my full time job. So even if I could write 5000 words a day it's not sustainable. I tend to aim for about twelve hundred, which oddly enough I can usually pull off in around two hours. So that's my projected daily word count, but as long as I hit in that general ballpark I feel successful. I find that too rigorously holding myself to an absolute word count sets my wheels spinning but gets me nowhere. While I love the concept of NaNoWriMo, I find the structure and the timing of it just place extra stress on my writing and after having done it three or four times with only one official victory, I learned that it may just not be for me, at least in its default form.

So that's what I do for my rough draft. I try to write just over a thousand words a day until it's done. Barring any extra chaotic circumstances (vital elections, family crises, cats laying on my keyboard looking too cute to move) I can finish the draft of a short novel in two months. "Can" being the operative word. It rarely happens that way. But it could! Anyway, counting circumstances, days where time is not on my side, and writer's block (yes, I believe it's a thing, but I do think beating it often comes down to an act of will, or an act of strategy. Regardless, sometimes it wins and I stare at the blank space on my document until my whole world is white and words aren't real anymore), let's say I start my draft and finish it in three-ish months. This is probably where I should mention that I am Lord Regent of the Pantsers, so if you ask me how I plan a novel, I will cry...and then laugh....and then SMOKEBOMB! Outlines don't work for me. They suck the joy right out of writing. And I've tried them several ways at this point. So to back up, my "plan" for a novel is usually more of an elevator pitch (ie. The first human colony on Venus discovers an ancient alien artifact and accidentally wakes up the god of a lost civilization). That's it. That's the plan. "Well, how do you get a plot out of that?", you may ask. Honestly, I just think of what could go wrong in that short scenario. Is the god real? Venus is dangerous, right? Are these people desperate for something to believe in? And I come up with story beats as I go. Some stick, some don't. It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it's done.

Okay, so with my first draft done, what's next? I think this is where my process differs from a lot of people, because I take that first draft and I give it to three people that I trust and ask them to look over it and tell me what they think. Each of these three people has a specific role in the critique process, but I'll get to that later. You're probably wondering why I would hand the proverbial dumpster fire of my first draft to anyone without so much as an edit. Well there are really three reasons, so it's time for a...
A LIST 1) Perhaps the biggest reason is because I think the first draft is the easiest to take criticism on. As a writer, I know it is a flawed piece. I put in the time and effort to make it, and I love it for what I think it can be, but it's a first draft. It's never going to be good. So even if the feedback comes back overwhelmingly negative, it's not a spear to the gut. It's more of an "yeah, okay, I can see that". No one is ever going to offend me by pointing out where and how a first draft is not good. Quite frankly, I'm often surprised at how much positivity comes back from this round of beta reads. This also ties into my willingness to edit. Imagine, as an author, you wrote something in three months and immediately sent it off to people to review. They come back with a list of things that didn't work for them, maybe some suggestions on how or what to change, and a copious list of your grammatical errors. Your response as you read through is probably "okay, some of these make sense, and like, yeah, I was a little stuck here so I just did XYZ, etc." Now imagine this is your fifth draft, painstakingly crafted through several iterations until you think it is pure refined awesome...and you get the same feedback. Your ouch and oof sensors are going to be going off a bit more. "But I worked so hard on that", you'll say. Or, "I thought that was clever!" You're more attached to the decisions you made, and thus, less likely to want to take any advice or make anymore changes at this point because you've dug into it 5 times!

2) I assume people edit similar to the way I edit. Whether or not this holds true, I can't verify, but I know, if I'm reading a story that is very obviously well put together, I'm more willing to ignore or more likely to miss issues and errors. But if something I'm given has pretty glaring minor errors, I crunch down and get a bit more nitty and gritty with my editing. My hope is that by providing these three readers with the easy and obvious issues that inherently exist inside a first draft it will also make them pay a bit more attention and catch on to bigger issues they may have otherwise missed. Because I never want anyone to come back to me after reading a first draft and just go "It was good." Doesn't help. A first draft inherently has mistakes and weak points, and any reader will notice them.

​3) The time in which these people are reading my draft is time in which I will not acknowledge it. Almost every author I've read, talked to, heard speak, etc, has said that once you finish a draft, put it away. Some say for a week, some say for a month. I put it away for as long as it takes at least two of my three readers to finish it. I often give a flexible deadline, because I'm aware that life happens. This usually means it's about two to three months of separation from the story. Long enough that I can forget enough of the finer details to go back in with a fresh set of eyes, armed with restored energy and thoughtful critiques.

I'm not saying that everyone should start yeeting their first drafts at people. It just happens to be a system I've found that works for me. I did it for TOUCHED BY SHADOWS, I'm in the process for doing it with another book I'm prepping for submission, and I'll probably do it with the book I'm working on right now. I'll keep doing it so long as there are people willing to read my first drafts for what they are and offer thoughtful criticism on them and establish a dialogue that helps me craft a better book.

Alright. We've made it to the thank you part of this. I've mentioned that I currently have three readers that each fill a different role. The first is kind of like a hype-woman. Every review is pretty much a rave review when it comes from her. It does wonders for the self-confidence, I'm not gonna lie. Most of her critique comes in the form of asking questions about portions she didn't understand, which really helps me see where I've been too vague, or esoteric, or went down a rabbit hole of jargon understandable only to me and a secret cabal of men without hats. Depending on when her response comes in compared to the others, I'll ask to gauge her thoughts on criticisms that the other two brought up, to get her thoughts on it as well, if it doesn't come up naturally. The second is my middle man, he toes the line of harsh critique and praise. He'll point out where he thinks the story really works, but also point out places that it didn't, picking up threads I may have missed or dropped or tied in a knot. When it comes to bad grammar, it's his pleasure to burn. Almost nothing escapes his eye in that regard. While I may have picked up a lot of it during my own edits, it's helpful to just have it there already so I can focus on the story edits. And last, but certainly not least, the grim reaper of all things bad in my story. She's by far my harshest critic, and she's my girlfriend. She's not mean about it, but she definitely doesn't let me get away with bullshit. At. All. Because she wants me to succeed. She focuses mostly on the story perspective, and how it might (or might not appeal to readers). I often get asked "Okay, but why should readers care about this?", which sounds rough on paper, but I'm the kind of writer who easily can slip into the "people will love this because of the pew-pew cool science-fiction gobbledeegook"...in part because I love the pew-pew cool science-fiction gobbledeegook. And she's never asking me to get rid of the pew-pew...I'm not typing that all again, and none of you better remind me about copy/paste. But it's her way of pointing out that my characters have fallen flat (or that I'm being melodramatic, which also happens). Her questions, while pointed at time, draw attention to where my story is lacking in her opinion (and when I go back and look at it, she's almost alway right, and I don't know how she does it).

So, to the three of you who have chewed through the flavorless gristle of some of my first drafts and have yet to flee from our respective relationships yet, I offer a deep and hearty thank you! I'm not Santa, but if I was, you'd be on my nice list. What can they say except, "you're welcome"? During this time in which I've sent my child off in the world to learn it's harsh realities, and have all of its shit dragged into the light, I do what any parent does after sending their child to middle school Once I get it back, I work with my Legendary Sannin of Critique Partners to try and get ideas on how to fix up what they've pointed out. And then, I rewrite, and I revise, and I edit, and I rinse, and I wash, and I repeat, until I feel there's nothing more I can do. I start with the big glaring issues that have been pointed out and I jiggle those around independently until I feel like they work. I'll also bounce around and fix any connective tissue that needs fixing in relation to the changed idea. Once all of those are done, I start on page one, and line by line, burn through the story, cleaning, fixing, connecting, and polishing. Usually at least two times. And then when all is said and done, I hide it in a folder on my computer until I feel I can send it out into the even realer world of professional critics who may or may not like it.

So again, many thanks to my beta readers. Without you, my stories would not turn out the same. Your help and advice is irreplaceable!

​Vaughn A. Jackson

Vaughn is a neophyte author of speculative fiction. His debut novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS will be released via JournalStone publishing on September 24, 2021.

At the end of the day, everyone writes for their own reason. More realistically they write for a whole myriad of reasons that blend together into one super-reason. While I have many reasons why I write, I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about two of the people along the way who fed what eventually became my passion for writing. Thanksgiving is this month, so this is a way of saying thanks to the people who've probably had the most impact on me as a writer. The real OGs. Mom and Dad, don't read this unless you want emotions. This post will probably be a bit more anecdotal than my previous ones, since it's hard to thank people without highlighting what they've done, and also a little bit less directly related to writing as a whole but more specific to my evolution as a writer. Feel free to skip if you're only here for random brain drippings and not a little bit of Vaughn Lore. (Yes, it is the blog equivalent of yelling "Hi Mom" into a Television camera) My dad and I are exceptionally similar, apparently even down to the way we walk. It wasn't always this way, since little Vaughn was far more wild and unruly than my dad would have liked, I think, but I mellowed out with age as most people do and now we see eye to eye on most things. I don't remember the first book my dad ever gave me. I know a lot of people have stories about "the beat up copy of [insert life altering book here]" but I don't, mostly because I don't think the book itself was what mattered in that instance. It may have been The Hobbit or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but part of me thinks it could have just as easily been The Phantom Tollbooth or the first of the Deltora Quest books. I don't know what came first, because I read randomly as a child. But again, the book didn't/doesn't matter, the insistence that I read is what mattered and still does. As did my resistance to be handed books larger than I felt like reading. I still haven't read The Lord of the Rings series, does that discredit me as an author? But in time I came round and read most of the books he gave me, after I found that "yes, these books are long, and yes, I am lazy, but they're also good and well worth the read".

I know for a fact I read the first four books of The Dark Tower series younger than maybe I should have (Twelve maybe? Thirteen?) or maybe I imagine myself younger than I was because it was the first time I can remember reading a book so obviously for adults. I remember going to my dad after reading the first parts of The Drawing of the Three and asking him, "Are you sure it's okay that I'm reading this?" and simply looking at me with a laugh and asking "Detta?". So yeah. He also got me into Sherlock Holmes, and gave me the only Agatha Christie book I've read to date, And Then There Were None. At one point we tried to do a Dune read together, he finished and I clocked out maybe 130 pages into the first book. Oops. We both read Ender's Game either together or one after the other, and while I do love the book (and prefer Ender's Shadow), we collectively agreed that it's pretty "WTF". Oh, and I still need to read the copy of The Eye of the Dragon that's sitting on my shelf. So not too much has changed in that regard. I'm always behind on reading. But it's on my list! He says, knowing that list will grow next time he sees a bookstore.

This education carried over into other media forms as well. I've mentioned before that comics are a source of inspiration for my writing, and I have him to thank for that as well. I remember going with him on Wednesdays to the comic book shop that used to be over near the Bowie Library (I want to say it was Alliance Comics, but that could be wrong). Eventually he started letting me pick out my own comics (initially I think because he didn't want me messing up his), so I would pick comics that looked like what he was reading. Particularly The Batman Adventures comics based off the animated series. Not only comics but television and movies as well. My dad is why I like anime. Princess Mononoke being the one that started it all. Then later, Akira, and so on. Or shows like The Twilight Zone, and Babylon 5. Hell, my dad is the reason my family got into Doctor Who which remains one of our favorite shows to this day. Even video games, DOOM (which, since I was a child, didn't last long per request of my mom), Spyro, and Crash Bandicoot, my love of speculative fiction can be traced back almost entirely to these suggestions from my dad. A writer is influenced by the media he consumes, and when it comes to what I consumed, my dad was usually the one handing me new things to broaden my horizons. Now my writerly upbringing was not solely in the hands of dear old dad. If my dad influenced the consumption of media that charted the path to my style of writing, my mother was always there to encourage the writing. (This is of course, not saying that my dad didn't, but that my memories of my mom involve a more direct form of encouragement in regards to the writing).

From a young age, I was a storyteller, or what parents call "oh my god he talks so much". I would talk to just about anyone about anything at length until their eyes glazed over and, well... One of the funniest running gags in Airplane! ...you get the idea. And my mother would listen. It could me going on an in-depth explanation of what I was doing in my Pokemon game, or why this Pokemon card was awesome, or a recap of the most recent Pokemon episode. You probably noticed a theme there, so yes, I admit it, I love Digimon. And she'd listen. Sometimes I would just make stories up, usually involving me and my Pokemon and tell them. I distinctly remember an in class school assignment where we had to write a story based on a prompt, and the prompt was "You discover an egg. Tell a story about what hatches from it". I was determined not to write a story about a dragon hatching from my egg, so instead, a Gyarados hatched from my egg. so painfully not a dragon Definitely not a dragon, right? The story ended up being something along the lines of "A Gyarados hatched from my egg, and everyone thought I was awesome because Hyper Beam. The End." Riveting. I told my mom the story and she pretended it was good. Which of course elated the little elementary schooler who spent all of fifteen minutes on this masterpiece. It may have been at this point that I declared I wanted to be a writer, since my story was so good.

If you're wondering, this habit of going on about my interests has not changed, but, like a frugal vampire, I talk only until I see the first hints of glaze form in their eyes and then back off, so that they might live to listen to me another day.

We had composition notebooks for school, and in my periods of boredom (all the time as a child) I would scribble little stories in them complete with all my necessities: Pokemon, me (by any other name, just as sweet), and spelling and grammar mistakes. As I got older and more serious about writing, my mom would buy me notebooks and journals to write in, which in classic writerly fashion I still have and cannot write in because "the journals are so nice I don't want to ruin them". Ah to be able to approach journals with that childlike confidence of slanting writing that ignored even the lines there to guide you.

My mom is also the one who found what has become my favorite, and in my opinion, the best Writer's Conference: Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity after I had lamented at having missed all the spring and summer writing conferences at a time where the lack of a writing community had left me somewhat stagnate and flailing. It was here that I met the fantastic S.A. Cosby whose support and encouragement reignited what I had worried was a fading flame of passion for my writing, and, in my second year of attendance, a friend with whom I now do a bi-weekly writing group. Truly everyone I met there was wonderful and encouraging and as passionate as I had been and now am again. I attribute a lot of my forward thrust to this conference, and without my mom I may not have found it.

Bouncing back to childhood, if my dad was the one suggesting new books for me to read, my mother was the one facilitating my personal desire to read (ie: "mom can you buy me a book?" *holds out a stack of definitely more than a book*). So libraries became our friend, and from libraries I would mostly get books on real things: dinosaurs, the ocean, airplanes, ROCKS! I used to love rocks. I still love a good rock. They rock. And then in the spirit of the above GIF, I would recount this information to anyone who made the fatal mistake of asking me about anything. This part is important because where my dad definitely influenced the genre that I write, my mother facilitated a lot of the extra-curricular self-teaching I did. Not to say that my dad didn't also, but if I really liked rocks one year, my mom's gifts to me for birthday or Christmas would often incorporate that interest. And she would ask about them. I sometimes wonder how much information my mom got from her motormouth five year old that she never wanted. She also claims to be the one who got me into watching Godzilla movies, which I can neither confirm nor deny because in my mind I've always been watching Godzilla movies. They are intrinsic to who Vaughn is. So I just attribute it to both of them!

Whether or not this parenting style was a coordinated and decided upon effort, or if it just worked out that way, I don't know, but it worked, because here I am. Typing. A lot.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't have ended up a writer had my parents not been the way they are. Obviously it goes beyond that. But I will say that they deserve so much of my thanks for encouraging and facilitating my passion even in the times that it waned, or I wanted to give up. They've asked me recently why I never let them read any of the things I was writing/wrote, and I always just kind of shrug it off, but honestly, I wanted them to be able to see the culmination of my passion as an actually realized dream, and not just a work in progress. And now that's happening. See, I'm much better with words like this than I am with words from mouth, so...

Thanks, Mom.
​Thanks, Dad.
Look, I made it! My favorite type of rock: Hematite. It kind of bleeds. Which is cool.
Vaughn A. Jackson

Vaughn is a neophyte author of speculative fiction. His debut novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS will be released via JournalStone publishing on September 24, 2021.

I think in a lot of ways, fear is inherent in writing. Not in a "I'm writing because I'm scared what will happen otherwise" way, and certainly not in a "Dread Cthulhu has taken the reigns of my soul and commands I write these apocalyptic words" way (no judgment of course if Dread Cthulhu is your muse and he does command you to write, inspiration comes from all sorts of places, but if your next novel is going to end the world, I think a warning might be fair). But in the writing process, or at least in my writing process, I have to deal with a lot of fear. Overcoming that fear is one of the harder parts of writing for me as an individual. And what do I do when something terrifies me? I write about it. Fair warning, this is a long one. Enjoy! You sit in front of a laptop you bought specifically for gaming. A black cursor blanks on the snow white surface of an untouched Word document. You type one word, a title. You hate it, but it will do for now. The passion is there. The story idea is there. But the words buzz around your head in a cloud like gnats. You consider a glass of whiskey to calm the nerves, but remember the last thing you wrote that way, shoved in the dark, potentially forever. This is in college, before you really understood moderation, or good whiskey...so you don't. In the background, your roommate, also working on a story is reading off a litany of the newest in a long succession of changes to his magic system. You ask him what his story is about. He blinks and says, "I have to figure this out first". You look back at your one word title, and the words still refuse to cooperate. What if you can't do it? What if you used up all your good words writing something you can't bear to look at? What kind of writer can't write?

That was the first three days of "writing" for my upcoming novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS, back in 2015. Simpler times, before the world seemed to be on a rollercoaster to hell. Ha. Haha. Ha. Anyway. While I'm not sure "terrified" would have been an appropriate word to use, there was a certain degree of anxiety in my thought process. I mean, I had all the components of a story, idea, characters, plot, and I had all the dressings of a writer, something to write with, lofty goals, and a burning heap of exhaustion (do I need to point out that the last two are sarcasm?). So why weren't the words just appearing where they needed to? I'd done it before, right? Kind of? But that blank page just stared at me, mocking. I honestly considered giving up because "fuck it, if writing isn't easy for me then obviously I'm not meant to be a writer". Do you ever want to go back and slap your younger self? I do. A lot. Eventually I typed something on the page: "Everything that happens, happens for a reason." That was it, my opening line, looking back I'm not sure if it was finally getting that first crappy sentence out or if I actually thought the line was brilliant, but it opened the flood gate and the first draft was finished in a week. All 26000 words of it. My complete story. Or so I thought. I was so proud of it that I immediately put it away and moved on to another project. I had learned something though. That first sentence, for me and probably a whole lot of other writers, was a sticking point. I could sit for days worrying that it wouldn't be perfect. Afraid that it would set a downward trajectory for the rest of my story. If I wanted to write, I had to put something down, good, bad, or ugly, just something. Once that was done I was free to move forward. Now, whenever I have an idea for a story, I spend a good day or two thinking about an opening scene before I even put myself in front of a computer. Only when I have something in mind, do I confront that blank beast, armed to the teeth with words.

Editing scares me. Less now than it used to, but still. It's like a horror movie to me now. You'll be scared, but you'll probably enjoy it once you sit down and get through it. Unless it's bad. It can always be bad. Editing scares me so much that I didn't come back to the story that would become Touched by Shadows for...3 years? I think I finally cracked it back open in 2018. Not of my own choice mind you. I had a conversation that went something like this...

Person who definitely wanted to smash my dreams and totally wasn't trying to help me further my career: "You're really good at finishing stories, but you never go back and edit them"
Me, offended: "Excuse me?"
PWDWTSMDATWTTHMFMC: "I mean, most of writing is editing and rewriting, right?"
Me, trying to run away from a text conversation: ...yes...
PWDWTSMDATWTTHMFMC: "So maybe you should edit that thing you finished?"
Me: ​But what if bad???

After some back and forth like this, I swore to take a break from my current WIP and re-open those 26K words. It was bad. Bad bad. Spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, plot points and character motivations that didn't make sense, the works. I was devastated. But I set to work turning the scalpel to some parts while outright butchering others until almost a year and 20K more words later I had something that was not quite the same thing. The main story was there but characters dropped or were added. One had both a race and an alignment change. I was done, right? I mean I edited it. But after seeing how bad something I thought was so good was, I didn't want anyone else to look at it, because what if I was wrong again? So I went through it again, line by line, snipping, cutting, changing. Now it had to be good. I gave it to the person who'd told me to edit in the first place and asked them to look over it for me. Do you know that feeling when you hand in a paper that you're really proud of, and the teacher hands it back with enough red ink on the first page alone to meet all of Quentin Tarantino's bloody needs? That dread. Yeah, that's about what I got back. To their credit, they did point out things they liked or thought were good to soften the blow, but a brick wrapped in silk still hits like a brick, and my skin was still soft. So I shoved it away and went back to work on something else, afraid now that everything I wrote would be received with such crimson criticism. Eventually the story, now officially titled TOUCHED BY SHADOWS, came up in conversation and I had to confess to the person that their critique had stomped me pretty hard and that I couldn't bring myself to go back to it. So they actually sat down with me and explained what the comments meant and walked through the issues they found and, well, it wasn't all that bad after all. Now that I understood, I wasn't afraid, and I jumped back in for another round of edits, which I then turned over to them again, as well as a few other people, for more feedback. This time they came back mostly positive. A few kinks to be ironed out, but they liked it. So I went back and polished it up one more time and was happy with it. I had overcome that fear of rejection...until that same person asked me when I planned on submitting the novel, since that was my goal after all.

Well now everything was out the window. Sure, my friends liked my little story but a publishing person? A person whose job it was to take bad writing and light it on fire for fun? Surely they would hate it, and my story would be one of the pieces of kindling that lit the way to some better, more awesome author's story! I'd heard of the legions of rejections new authors got and quite frankly wasn't sure I could take it. But in the year of despair, 2020, I picked out four places that were accepting un-agented works of fiction and decided I would submit to them, mostly just to test the water and get the initial wave of rejections out of the way. Another round of edits and formatting and panicking ensued, and finally I tossed it out into the world, expecting that now that I had done it, the fear would drop away like it had before. Hahahahahaha. I was a fool. You know what's worse than knowing how people feel about something you put your heart and soul into? Not knowing. Not knowing is worse. Waaaaaaaaay worse. If all four had sent back immediately with an email that just said, "Bitch, you thought", I would have been less stressed. Upset, for sure, but the stress was brutal. But I did it, and despite a few new grey hairs in my beard despite by age I survived long enough to get an email saying that one of the companies was interested in TOUCHED BY SHADOWS. 

Now, yes, this post is distinctly my experience. Maybe some authors leap into their chair and feel no fear from that blank page. Maybe editing is your favorite part. Or perhaps you relish in the anxiety of waiting to hear back from people you submit your work to, you monster. Everyone's journey will be different. But if you are a writer who wants to be traditionally published (self-publishing has similar anxieties, but also different ones as well) I think we can agree that these three sections of the journey are the same: Starting, Editing, and Submitting. And there is an inherent terror to each of the steps. The fear of the first step, the fear that you aren't really a writer (imposter syndrome), the fear of rejection, the fear of being bad, the fear that at the end of the day everyone else will always be better than your best. But each of those sections requires you to overcome that fear in order to move on to the next. You'll never be able to edit a story you haven't written. And you can't (read: shouldn't) submit a story you haven't edited. And you can't publish a story you haven't submitted. Fear is inherent in writing, not because fear drives us to write, but because in order to write, you have to overcome fear. Every single time you sit down to write, it's not you versus the story or you versus your characters, its you versus fear. And sure, I'm a newbie author, I'm sure it gets a little easier as you write more and grow as a writer and person. I already find starting stories and editing easier, though, given my disposition, I'm sure every time I submit anything it will turn my beard slightly more salt and pepper. But a battle is a battle, no matter how high your level, and I'd be willing to bet that some of your favorite authors face the same struggle as you. So next time you sit down to write, whether your weapon is a pen or a keyboard, or something altogether different, remember that fear is the enemy, and remember what waits for you once you kick its ass.​
​

"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard." - Neil Gaiman

​So, what parts of the creative process give you the most fright? Vaughn A. Jackson

Vaughn is a neophyte writer of speculative fiction. His debut novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS will be released via JournalStone publishing on September 24, 2021.