I'm D.B. Story, your guest-blogging author du jour. As of today I have 39 titles published with Excessica Publishing (http://www.excessica.com/ ), and one with Fido Publishing (http://www.fidopublishing.com/ ). This is your chance to learn a bit more about me and my writing.
Writers come in all different flavors from the fame-seeking, who spend so much time in the public eye that you wonder how they ever have time to write a single sentence, to the exceptionally reclusive. In the latter category I would include J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), both of whom wrote books that changed a nation before retreating completely from their well-earned fame for reasons best known to themselves. Salinger kept writing (and picking up impressionable younger women, it seems) for the rest of his life. Now that he's deceased it is hoped that all of those stories will finally see the light of day soon – making his heirs rich in the process. This would be a much better outcome than Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) left for his fans. He made everyone wait for 100 years before his dictated autobiography was allowed to be released. That century just expired, and here in this paragraph you've just experienced an example of my own writing style. I write about things that interest me in the course of my stories. Like with this guest blog entry, you may learn some things along the way that you never realized before.
If I had my choice about what kind of writer I'd like to be, a modified version of Phillip K. Dick comes to mind. Things I like that he achieved include success in having his writing published throughout his life, writing in the Science Fiction genre that I love, writing stories that no one else could write, and being allowed to toil in relative obscurity behind his typewriter in such a way that fame didn't damage his life. The place I'd prefer to diverge from him is that his greatest fame and success (movies et al.) came after his death, having struggled financially throughout most of his life. Personally I'd like to enjoy my success while I still can. Putting it another way, I'd like to be successful enough to go to Disneyland any day that I wish, yet remain obscure enough that nobody cares about it or bothers me when I do.
A question writers are often asked is: Why did you start writing? Let me get that out of the way quickly by saying that I started writing when I realized that I wasn't finding enough of what I liked to read to occupy my time and interest. When I can't rely on someone else's imagination to entertain me I'm forced to resort to my own. That, and I've always wanted to create more of pretty much anything that I've enjoyed. If someone else can do it I'm left feeling that I can do it too.
The first story I wrote was mostly because I loved the premise as written by another author in his story about this marvelous ultra luxurious hotel of the future where the robot staff provided anything you wished for. However, I was left feeling that his execution of the idea didn't go quite as far in the direction that I wanted to see it happen. After inquiring if that author minded (he didn't, as long as I was clear about writing about a different hotel in the same chain), I wrote the first chapter of "Lisa's Tale: A Courtesy Suites Story." When I completed it I realized I there was a bit more that I needed to do if I wanted to offer it up to the world at large to see if I could be a writer too.
These additional chores included picking a pseudonym so that any future employer wouldn't immediately track my writing back to me on their first Google search. This is always a consideration for an erotica writer when one has to live in the real world as well, and I knew from the beginning I was going to be writing an erotic romance. Then came creating the requisite web-page (now defunct) and e-mail address for my writing. Only when that was in place could I go ahead and post it for comment to the relevant Usenet groups of the time: alt.sex.fetish.robots and alt.sex.stories.moderated.
While I knew what I'd be writing – stories that wouldn't shy away from the inherent sexual aspects of the beautiful, sexy characters contained within them – when I selected my pseudonym I wasn't quite so prescient. I didn't realize that "DB Story" had a whole separate meaning for Japanese anime fans and was only vaguely concerned about the fact that once you start out under a given name, the more you use it the more it becomes impossible to ever change it because it becomes part of building your brand. My advice on in this regard to any newly aspiring writer: choose wisely, young grasshopper, for it will forever be a part of you. And despite the terrible proofing of that first chapter, the feedback was quick and positive with the demand to tell what comes next – and that's what I've been doing ever since.
Writers are also often asked if they enjoy writing? While writing can be real work, for me the answer is an unqualified YES. Why? Because when I'm writing I'm living in that world. I get to walk around poking and prodding things to see what they're really like and how they work, all while meeting and interacting with my characters. That's the reason I seldom write horror or suspense – who wants to spend much of their time living in a place like that? While I've certainly done some stories in that genre (Dangerous Toys Volume 1), erotic romance with exotic females, occasional males, and sometimes something more than either just female or male – is a place I find well worth exploring.
When asked what kinds of stories I write, I used to reply science fiction and fantasy, with an emphasis on erotic romance, often with fembots. I only recently changed that description. This came about because on Amazon.com (which was always a goal of mine to be distributed by) tags can be added to assist other readers in locating your work and similar sorts of stories. It was only this year, after writing steadily for the last ten years, that I finally looked back on my body of work and realized what most of I'd really been writing about all along was best described and tagged as "interspecies romance". And don't discount the idea of interspecies romance not being a big deal. The highest grossing movie of all time was about exactly that.
So what inspires my writing, I have two answers for that.
The first is that I'm inspired to complete, or elaborate on, stories that I find intriguing that ended too soon. This is a dangerous area to write in since those characters and situations belong to another writer who may not want to share. You can end up writing something that you can never show afterwards – at least not without major revisions that can undo the very idea that attracted you to it in the first place. That is vanity writing in the extreme since you'll have trouble ever making a living at it. FanFic falls into this category and it does sing its siren song at times to me. As a result, some of my stories you'll never see listed for sale. I'm not interested in being sued by the Disney Company.
Some might say that my protagonists are misfits and in a way I have to agree with that. I write about people who, for whatever the reason, haven't found a normal relationship. They are the proverbial square peg in the round hole type and as a result are open to something more unconventional or exotic, even if frowned upon by society. They are the dreamers who can see something that the rest of us have missed. In that way, one common theme of my writing is all about tearing down society's artificial barriers to true love. And I refuse to have insipid, faint at the first handsome male who shows them the least amount of attention, female characters regardless of whatever species of female I'm writing about. Who would ever be interested in one of them as a life partner?
I'm also a fan of what I call The Twilight Zone Principle. What is that? Well if you remember the original The Twilight Zone television show (1959 – 1964) you'll recall that it started its run in a time when television broadcast codes prohibited a lot of what you can find on a hundred cable channels now. Rod Serling wanted an edgy, relevant, paranormal series and was finding himself continually thwarted by the network censors. Then he stumbled upon a way to sidestep them completely.
It seemed that while there were many things that you just couldn't have someone say on television at that time – it was absolutely fine if a robot, or an alien, said it. Once he realized that simple truth, from then on whenever he wanted to say something controversial he just added the necessary non-human to the scene and got his point across. When I want to write about unconventional relationships with characters who thrive in them, I write about unconventional characters. I may start out with an idea that initially appears completely unacceptable – such as who would ever marry a machine – and have a line of readers standing in line clamoring for that opportunity themselves by the last page. And as far as The Twilight Zone goes, they wrote their own Pygmalion and Galatea story in the memorable episode: "The After Hours". That was a major inspiration for my own Still Life stories, along with my long held belief that they should have really titled that episode "Still Life". Once again this is just me telling more about a story that I liked. And don't ever say that I just ripped off The Twilight Zone, unless you're willing to concede that TTZ ripped off "One Touch of Venus" (1948).
I also write stories about the type of adventures that I would like to take myself. And being a hard Science Fiction kind of guy, I'll tell you all of The Rules that you'll need to know in order to embark on the journey for yourself when you next find yourself in that situation.
Regarding my finding Excessica Publishing as my publisher, for a long time I had people I respect tell me that my stories were great and that I could get them published if I would just tone down the sex a bit. While I appreciated every one of those comments, one of the things I'd decided from the beginning was that I was tired of stories that did precisely that. Sex is a part of life, and as such it is a part of stories about life. If a story is only about sex then it isn't a story – it's stroke, and that's not the audience I write for. In fact, some reviewers won't even give my stories a stroke rating because they aren't that kind of story. I remain flattered by that sentiment in a reviewer. But when writing about beautiful, sexy characters, don't shy away from the sexual aspects of the story.
OTOH, don't dwell on them either. Set the scene and let your reader's imagination fill in the blanks with what works best for them. What's right in great detail for one reader will be totally wrong for another. This is an area where less can truly be more.
And one last question authors are often asked (at least when they're not being asked yet again by some fan to take the fan's great idea, do the easy part of writing the story based on it, and split the money afterwards) is: What is your best book? Or what book would you recommend that I read first? Aside from my best one is always my next one, and that you should read all of them as well as buying copies for all of your friends and relatives, usually a more specific answer is desired.
For me, if you like a good length novel to settle down with I'd have to say try out "Far Future Fembot: Bill's Story". I'll take you further in that story than any other one I've published yet. If you prefer shorter stories, I suggest starting out with "The Fembot Chronicles Volume 1". And if you're absolutely certain that robots just aren't your thing (and I have a number of e-mails from people who tell me that they just knew that they'd never enjoy a story about a robot – until they read one of mine) then take a look at my Encounters stories, or anything else under my name.
My latest news is that I now have a Facebook page as "Db Story" since a writer can't afford to simply ignore the New Media. Over time I intend to put some unique content there about the background to my stories. This will be the same kind of information that appears in Authors Notes in my later titles, but was missing in the early ones. In this way I live in a modern world that PKD only imagined in his writings.
My latest releases are my Strip Club Tales, which adhere to another rule of writing that I have. If you want to write an interesting story, either write about interesting people (the very rich and the very lucky are far more interesting than the average or very poor – and if you're not rich, well you can still be lucky) and/or put them in exotic places and situations. This rule is why I know that while I'll see a CSI: Las Vegas, don’t' expect a CSI: Cleveland or CSI: Toledo. Interesting places as seen on TV include casinos (Vega$), bars (Cheers), Hawaii (as in 5-0), and strip clubs (The Sopranos). My Strip Club Tales are set in the near future where fembots have replaced live entertainers. As with all of my fembots, when their minds awaken and they start thinking and feeling for themselves is when interesting things can happen. These titles have just been released as individual eBooks after previously appearing across 2 anthologies.
Because I couldn't get a weekend day for this blogging I will drop in during the day as I can to respond to comments, and get back to all the ones I couldn't reply to earlier this evening.
Thank you and have a great day. I hope that you've been Entertained!
Check out D.B. Story’s titles from Excessica.
Check out The Runaway Starship by D.B. Story from Fido Publishing.
Today, D.B. is offering one lucky commentor an e-copy of Encounters: Pig Girl. Leave a comment and don't forget to leave a way to contact you if you are the winner :)
****WEEK LONG CONTEST****
This week there will be two winners. In your comment to D.B please let me know whether you would rather win Meet the Baumgartners by Selena Kitt or Slave to Shadows by Gavin Atlas
at the end of the week I will draw two names, one for each title, from everyone who leaves comments :)
click on each title to read the blurb
Please don't forget to leave an email addy so you can be contacted if you are a winner
Please don't forget to leave an email addy so you can be contacted if you are a winner
Hi D.B! What haven't you written about yet that you're looking forward to writing about in the future?
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, DB. Isn't it amazing how even our friends have suggestions on how to make our writing better? Everyone is a critic but most have never even tried to write a fully developed book. That's probably why I take it all with a grain of salt. If I had nickel for every time I'd heard, great plot but just a bit too much sex, I'd have at least twenty extra bucks in my pocket and I'd be able to fill my gas tank back up. :D
ReplyDeleteDakota
P.S. I've read several of your Encounters books, but not PigGirl. I especially loved The Unicorn.
Your post is intriguing. It describes some of the experiments you've tried much like my post on Sunday did. I think authors should stretch their styles/content. Your $20 would pale next to the money I'd have for every time my work is referred to as "gritty" or "down and dirty."
ReplyDelete@gavinatlas: Someday I'd like to write about either something factual I've done, or a totally mainstream novel. Thing is, the fiction I'm writing now is so much fun and insists on sticking around in my head until I write it out.
ReplyDelete@Dakota: You're right about everyone else knowing exactly what's wrong, but almost nobody seeming to know to cure those defects and write their own Great American Novel. Of all my writing, I've long felt that Encounters: The Unicorn just flowed as a story as easily as a brook running down its mossy bed.
@Kenn: I'm glad you have been intrigued - but were you entertained? :^) And that's Dakota's $20.