Cliff’s Comments (group member since Jan 18, 2018)

Cliff’s comments from the Dreampunk! group.

Awesome, thank you! I hope you love it.

Heh, could be, but no big deal. I think established lore is more important for fantasy, and dreampunk tends more toward sci-fi. It can mix up all the traditional genres though, just depends on the story.

I think with sci-fi it's less about adhering to established ideas and more about presenting new ones. Either way though, it pays to know what's out there.

Sure, but I think once you've read a story worth copying, you're unlikely to just forget about it and unwittingly copy it. You'll be aware of what's out there and take care not to say what's already been said. On the other hand, if you haven't read much in the area you're writing in, you could wind up on well-trodden ground without knowing it.

Welcome to the group! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be too active these days, but that's how these things go.

I'll definitely have to check out your and Zadra's novels soon. As a sort of ambassador for the genre of dreampunk, I've got to keep up, and these sound pretty awesome anyway.

I can't believe it took me so long to notice this feature, but... please check out the Dreampunk list I just put together, and add you own votes (up to 100 books).

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Important news! A 22-author short story collection was recently released and is available on Amazon, etc. Check it out, and let us know what you think of the stories!

https://whatisdreampunk.com/mirrormaze

Brian,

Hey, welcome! This group hasn't been very active, but it hangs around. There's more activity on the Facebook group, really.

Thanks for all these suggestions. Yeah, I think you're getting the idea pretty well with. Sort of like a cross between magic realism and cyberpunk with the focus on dreaming and/or altered states of consciousness. Portal fantasy wouldn't always fit, but I'd say The Neverending Story does because of the way the book being read (inside the story) interacts with the reality of the frame story.

A lot of times, it kind of comes down to aesthetics and the mood whether you'd really call it dreampunk or not. Have you read through the examples on my site? Check out the movies and series too: https://cliffjonesjr.com/dreampunk/mo...

Hey, y'all. I recently completed a novelette called "Second Sight", and you know... I really recommend you read it. I may be a little biased, but I'd say it's more exciting than spending a day with Batman. Better than ten Superbowls. I don't want to oversell it; judge for yourself.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/1494874...

Yeah, Lord Byron and Lewis Carroll. They adopted.

"Pierre Batiste" means "Cliff Jones" because of the meaning "rock, John the Baptist". Not obvious at all, but that's what I do. Bury Easter eggs ten feet deep.

Oh yeah, here it is, by the way: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_...

Holy crap. "The Dream" by Lord Byron. This is going to sound really weird (as usual), but my magnum opus Adelaide in Ozghard (which I'm about 80% done with, after settling on making the thing a trilogy of novellas) stars an alternate universe version of Ada Lovelace and her father, Lord Byron. Of course, my character Adelaide is named after Alice and Dorothy, and her father Pierre Batiste is named after me (I'll let you figure that one out), but they're still roughly connected to the historical figures.

... Which brings me to this poem. When I started writing the book, I'd never heard of "dreampunk", and I didn't decide to involve dreams in a serious way until chapter 9. The further I go, the more dreamy things get, and I'm sure this poem has a role to play in the story. So thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Hey, I'm curious what you guys have experienced so far of dreampunk literature. Please take a look at this short list of examples, and let me know which ones you've read and what you thought of them.

Secondarily, tell us which books on the list you'd like to read and which ones you have no interest in. We might do some group reads here, and I'd like a better feel for what you guys are into.

Tertiarily, let me know if you think there are any glaring omissions in my list and which books I could leave off to make room for your suggestions.

Hi, all. Our newest member DJ pointed out that we didn't have a thread for introductions, so here goes!

I'm Cliff Jones Jr., aspiring novelist and founder of this group. Check out my website for lots of info and goodies, including interviews with other dreampunk writers:

http://cliffjonesjr.com/dreampunk

Where to begin with who I am? For the past 15 years, I've been with my wife Tina, so that's a big part of me. We have two daughters: a 12-year-old and a 10-month-old. I was raised by a pair of aspiring novelists who split up when I was 12. I have an autistic younger brother named Caleb who's been institutionalized since I was a teenager. Autism covers a wide range of behaviors, but for my brother it means fits of violence and virtually no communication.

I have a master's in linguistics, and I used to teach English in Japan, but I code JavaScript for a living. I like to draw and paint and sculpt and cook and all that artsy stuff. I grew up enough in the country that the woods were my playground, and I got free rein of them. Wherever I go, I seek out nature, or at least the little bits of it I can walk to from my home. I hate driving and only do it when I have to.

That last bit reminds me... I'm a fanatic for Philip K. Dick. He hated driving too. Ending this post here before I start just writing about Philip K. Dick.

D.J. wrote: "Hi, thought I'd introduce myself here since there's no introduction thread lol. Name's DJ, I'm a fairly avid reader/writer, and I was sifting through a bunch of groups for anything on the fringe th..."

Welcome, DJ! The Facebook group I created around the same time is a bit more active than this one so far, but let's change that, shall we? I was just thinking of really focusing in on some "core curriculum" for this fledgling genre, but I don't want to scare people off.

Right now, I'm in the middle of both Dreams Underfoot, by Charles De Lint, and the Sandman series, by Neil Gaiman. These are absolutely required reading if you're interested in dreampunk (which is why it's shameful that it took me so long to get to them). Some people say the term "dreampunk" has to refer to sci-fi, not fantasy, but I don't find that distinction helpful. Anything about dreams is about psychology, hence science. Boom, boundary obliterated.

As for an "Introductions" thread, it doesn't take any special permissions to create one, does it? I hope it's just shyness holding people back, not some technical restriction.

I should have said, feel free to paste in a short excerpt from a favorite book or something you've written. This is from my short story "Sacred Geometry":

And the light of the moon was everywhere at once, in all its honeyed technicolor splendor.

Round and round they danced, as the flames reached ever higher.

The big toad grinned as only a toad can. "What makes you think you're not just a figment of *my* imagination?"

"You know the truth, don't you? Deep down? All of this... It's all in your head."

When the lights went out, a new sort of light seemed to fill in all the empty spaces. Now she was seeing a new world, with new eyes.

I thought it might be fun to illustrate our ideas of what dreampunk is and what it looks like by writing little fragmentary snippets that could comfortably exist within a dreampunk story. Please feel free to contribute your own, no matter how short. Anything that conveys your idea of the dreampunk aesthetic.

Here's one to get the ball rolling:

So gradually as to make the change imperceptible, the midnight black of the southern sky lightened to a rich fuchsia. And then all at once, a thin line of neon orange spread across the horizon. This glowing arc rose to reveal a familiar sight, now amplified to cyclopean proportions: a full moon.