Hope

The Dream

My dream is to be a full-time author. A dream I am sure I likely share with many of those I hope will read this and identify with it. There will be times in the following piece where I say "I" but I mean "We" and you can decide for yourself when and where that applies.

I write because I must; because to avoid doing so has been one of my greatest and most repetitive mistakes throughout my life. Without writing I have no outlet for the never-ending tesseract of imagination constantly swirling throughout my mind. Whether it be magic lands, entire worlds, or rich galaxies teeming with life and the promise of adventure, there is no point in my life that I can recall where I was not constantly working on a project in the background of my mind.

Of all the definitions and labels I could identify with, storyteller ranks most chiefly amongst them all. It is as if something inside of me has been reaching towards pen and paper, typewriter, or laptop from as soon as I knew how to write. Undoubtedly sooner, if my parents’ tales of how talkative a child I was are to be believed. Apparently I was constantly babbling even before I knew how to speak, and would get very frustrated at my inability to communicate whatever ideas were swirling around my newborn brain. In part, this never really changed but instead evolved as I matured. I have been writing stories since I was a kid, and speaking about them to anyone who would listen for that entire time. To this day I can still hear echoes of ‘write it down,’ and ‘you are writing all this down aren’t you?’ from all the times my mother and father patiently listened to my musings.

As I grew so too did the scope and caliber of my imaginings. Wilder and wilder fantasies about grand adventures and strange magic were slowly tempered into less idealistic, more measured works. Slowly but surely I focused on a few main projects instead of scattering myself to the wind and waiting for something to catch, as I had been doing.

I have been a storyteller all my life. I consider myself a writer now. But what I wish to become is an author. As a broke young adult supporting myself and growing up in the times I have, I must say that 20k would go a long way towards setting me on the write path.

Series

I have a completely plotted-out five-book series that is all but words on paper. It is a mixture of the steampunk and fantasy genres that is my second-oldest project to date. For fans of Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Harry Potter, this one might scratch an old itch and uncover a few new ones along the way.

The eldest of my projects is a science fiction series which I could write from here until the last days of my expected lifetime and still feel there was more to say. Fitting it into a single niche is a little difficult for it has elements of hard, soft, and military science fiction wrapped up in layers of comic-book-esque action, all with a medieval twist I think fans of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings alike will deeply appreciate. It is my favorite project to date and I hope to take it further than I currently dare dream.

There are others, of course, my brain never stops conjuring ideas, but these two will be my main focus for the foreseeable future, so I want to abuse that 5,000-word count for a moment to focus on these two main series, to explain why I am so passionate about them, and to address what it is that (I hope) sets me apart.

My science fiction series is a spiritual successor to the feelings invoked inside of me by some of my most beloved science fiction series. Half response, half open love letter, but entirely its own thing.

Fans of Star Wars will know that Palpatine's obsession with planet-killing superweapons sparked a great deal of plot across all three film trilogies, and for those of us who read the novels we know those Death Stars were only the beginning. For my purposes it is also a great example of what initially inspired this project.

This serial space opera asks what if the people of the galaxy put their heads together and said 'no more superweapons'? What if, in an era of advanced interstellar travel and technological marvels the likes of which we can only currently explore through imagination, literature, and CGI, the people of said galaxy were forced to wage war with swords, shields, and spears instead of guns, bombs, and bioweapons? How would that change society? Would it even change society? How would we wage epic space battles now? All will be answered, and more, in my science fiction series.

We have worked through several titles for this project but in the interest of avoiding copyright infringement I will not be putting the final name out there just yet. Would not want to jinx anything.

My approach for this series has a lot to do with my outlook on humanity. I am, at heart, a hopeful person; or at the very least I always strive to be. Mental illness, personal trauma, and the unsettlingly dark world we all occupy make this difficult. But at the end of the day, it is who I am and how I like to think of myself. I believe (and I want others to believe) in the bright potential of humanity. We have plenty of dystopias to choose from. Plenty of tasteless violence (and some with taste, I admit) and trauma for the simple sake of shock value rather than plot or character growth. I do not want that for my stories.

I want to tell a story that says bright things about the human condition. One that says we can be great and demonstrates why. One that acknowledges all of our darkness but refuses to stop believing we can be better. Not another in a long series of cynical explorations of how bad things can get with layers upon layers of dark undertones.

Of course, I also want to write a story that has epic sword fights, a unique approach to space combat, a large cast of diverse protagonists, who are not wantonly expendable, and who we get to watch grow over decades of story-time. Because that is what I wanted to read growing up. That is what I want to read now. And most of all because it would be an honor and a privilege to write those stories for others to experience.

My second project does not span an entire galaxy. It remains in one world and benefits from that greater attention and focus. We visit a fantastical realm where the world's magic has been caught up in a giant storm system, forcing the occupants to adapt and rely upon industrial-age technology instead of witchcraft. Each of the various surviving nations that emerged from under this oppressive Storm have adopted their own ways of combating it, shielding themselves from it, or in some cases using it for their own gain. Airships and griffin riders, lightning bolts and swords, shadowy schemes and ship-to-ship combat, witty banter, and a fair amount of swashbuckling ensue from there. Our heroes must navigate fleet battles, dodge wild storms, enact daring rescues, and hunt for clues to halt or slow the machinations of a mysterious puppet-master who has likely been manipulating events for longer than any of them have been alive.

The characters form a tight web of interconnected parallel arcs and opposing plot lines, and while none of them are safe from the machinations of our primary antagonist, this story also benefits from my dedication to avoid having expendable characters. Every death matters and is felt accordingly.

This story would also be the first to see a book published as it is closer to completion. All that remains to simply (ha) put it to paper.

What 20,000 dollars would mean to us

Sadly, we do not live in a post-scarcity world like the Federation of Star Trek. I am a young man with a fiance. We have been together for a little over 7 years at this point, and ours is my favorite love story. Though many aspects of our individual lives are therapy-worthy, I am happy to say our relationship is the one stable bastion throughout all these uncertain times (sorry about the corporate commercial flashbacks) we have grown through together. We are a team in everything we do, including my writing, we support one another, and our skills complement one another nicely. She is the greatest editor and partner I could have ever hoped for and has a wildly different viewpoint than mine which hones these stories (which I like to think of as our stories) into much better pieces each time we collaborate. She also happens to really love these worlds and these characters and we both share a vested interest in seeing them successfully realized.

We live together and truly have no one else to rely upon. Her health makes it difficult to keep steady work and with the U.S.'s near-dystopian healthcare system... suffice it to say things are rough financially, especially on people just starting out. We have lived in a garage, in a car, and only in the past year in an apartment we have just barely managed to afford. The minimum wage grind is not working out anymore and I was recently forced to quit my job with only a short window of financial cushion saved up.

Things need to change for us in a big way.

I am only recently embarking on a journey to capitalize on my writing skills and imagination; having big dreams and plenty of motivation, but very little money. Breathing room is a hard thing to come by and while the whole starving artist look may be a popular cliche it is not one I wish to resemble or perpetuate. Now, for obvious reasons, $20,000 would open up a lot of doors in my writing career, allowing me to settle on more solid ground and have a year's worth of rent tucked away would make all the difference in the world.

Prize money was never something I had even considered until I lucked upon this incredible site and saw what a marvelous community is being constructed here, it gave me hope and no small amount of inspiration to achieve my dream.

I write this in the hope that (prize or no) it sets the stage for future success to come my way. I am a writer, it is fundamentally who I have always been. Winning an opportunity like this, to me, feels like an invitation to endless wonder and it would not be squandered. With that kind of financial security, my book series would have the chance to flourish and be published under the best focus and circumstances, ones I never thought I could ever hope for at this stage in my life.

Win or Lose

Win or lose, my time here on Vocal is only just beginning. I will be submitting to other challenges here and posting a handful of short stories in the coming days, weeks, and months; all in the interest of fueling my hopes of having a brilliant career as the author I have always dreamt of becoming.

Thank you all for your generous consideration.