Yes, I'm calling out a fellow writer whom I have known since High School. To be fair, several years passed before we reconnected via Facebook, and I have seen his physical present since we were both young and skinny. Well, he still looks kinda skinny. We have however, had several moments of correspondence. Read each others work, and traded opinions here and there.
We both have a lot in common. We are both fathers who are tackling family, jobs, and other such things. We both work in IT, (though he is well established, and I'm up and coming as I'm still in school.) We also both face challenges on a weekly basis on getting our writing done as one would figure from the things mentioned above.
There are differences too. Brady is focused more on a Sci-fi path with his current work on Clorophyllium 9: A Final Hope. And his short stories are more inspiration based than mine. Well, he does have the zombie one, but his focus is in different areas, that are still fiction based, than I generally pursue. I tend to focus more on fantasy, urban fantasy, and horror. His attention to small detail in writing is something I would love to develop and emulate as I find myself often skipping the little stuff and having to add it in later. I know he has mainly discovery written, while I like to outline.
The biggest difference I see is that Brady seems focused on being self-published, while I am looking towards trying to be traditionally published. Now, I say that fully realizing that I have short stories that I have written and put up on amazon.com. For my book though, my full stories, I plan on trying to pursue traditional publication. Brady has always (and I could be wrong) seemed focused on self publication.
Now, there is nothing wrong with either path. My pull towards traditional publishing comes from the lack of desire to have to work hard on marketing myself at this point. I also am not sure about how to market myself beyond growing an internet presence and putting up the odd short story to hope I garner some attention.
Brady has a great website rbradyfrost.com. He has a podcast he has been working on at hunting the muse. And is often a lot more present on social media that I manage to be. His podcast has writing prompts on a weekly basis, and they are great for getting you to think about different ideas. He is constantly working on his writing and even has a book, COMA: The Cataclysm on his website so people can read and actively give him feedback.
I compare that to the fact I tried to start a Facebook page for prospective writers, and it fizzled after a couple months. I have wanted to podcast about things myself, but have never really sat down and banged out what I would need to do one. I don't even know what platform I would go for, as writing is not the only think I would like to discuss.
So why do I follow Brady and make comparisons? Well I will tell you.
It fascinates me to see what he is able to accomplish with his time. It gives me a standard to compare myself to, that is more realistic than looking at a published author such as Larry Correia or Jim Butcher. Those folks are published and established. With Brady I can watch him develop and achieve success form the ground up. It makes him more relate-able to me. Of course it helps that I remember him from when we were younger as well.
I also watch, because as he finds success I can learn from it. I already know I'm not great at sitting down and writing daily. Though I do put out a good weekly word count. I am constantly developing my stories in my head as I go through out my day, and I have goals I am starting to set and meet better than I ever have.
So fellow authors, who do you watch and learn from? Who are those you look up to that may not be already published big name authors, and why? How do you learn from these folks? How does that fit into your goals?
Ben Marble
Please drop by and visit R. Brady Frost at his website rbradyfrost.com and/or check out his podcast at hunting the muse. You can also find his short stories at Amazon.com for your kindle or e-book reader.
As always, if you would like to support my clubbing of select baby seals, you can always purchase on of my short stories at Amazon.com as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment