Tag Archives: short stories

Two Essentials for Beating Writer’s Block This Year

Posted on by

So you want to craft some fiction or poetry and you’ve got ideas brewing, but you’re struggling with how to get them out of the concept stage and onto the page. Maybe you blew through 50,000 words (or more) this past NaNoWriMo and you’re feeling some serious brain drain. Thankfully, we’ve got some tips to help you jump-start your creativity. If you’re contending with a wicked case of writer’s block or just need a little extra nudge, try our advice to help the ideas pour out of your head.

1. Tell Your Inner Critic to F*ck Off

There are times where you need an honest eye to review the fiction, poems or other work you’ve already generated. Married with a willingness to “kill your darlings” (yes, we know you’ve seen that phrase A LOT, but stay with us), the two can serve as a powerful combo to help you revise and refine down to your best work.

However, those aren’t the tools you need while you’re furiously trying to channel your ideas from the amphitheater of your mind to a blank screen.

Many writers strive to impeccably capture everything in that first go. In these cases, the inner critic can
“red-flag” every word choice, image or piece of dialogue in your fiction, or every line break, metaphor, simile or rhyme in your poems. The first draft ISN’T the time for perfect; it’s the time to bring your ideas into reality. You can do the other hard work of revising and rewriting later. Seriously.

2. Your First Drafts Are NOT Crap

The famous axiom that one’s first draft is always “crap” is usually attributed to Hemingway. Whoever said it probably wanted to either 1) emphasize the importance of revision or 2) drive home the point that whatever you put down first doesn’t have to be perfect.

Well, guess what? Whether it’s novel-length fiction, poetry, short stories or anything else, the very first things you write will be imperfect. But that doesn’t mean they’re crap.

Maybe you’ve had a well-meaning fellow writer parroting the idea, or a writing instructor insisting it was gospel truth. (We’d like to give that instructor a piece of our minds, but we digress.) Right now, it’s time to forget that “helpful advice.” Let your fingers fly over the keys or the page. Think of that output as simply the rough and unpolished beginnings of something beautiful, with raw potential living inside the text.

We offer this advice to help your first drafts take form in the here and now. Stay tuned for more writing tips, and don’t forget to check out the AutPress store’s latest releases like Verity Reynolds’ Nantais and Ada Hoffman’s Monsters in My Mind.

Mental Monsters and Snapshot Mindscapes

Posted on by

Short fiction has gotten the short end of the stick for much of its existence, despite the fact that it is perennially popular with critics and prize committees. While there are a number of short story artists who have forged a career in the form, many publishers shy away from volumes of short tales unless they come from an established writer. Fans of weird fiction, slipstream, speculative fiction, and horror realize the problem with this, though. So do fans. In an age where a number of writers are choosing to make their careers in short ebooks first, publishers need to sit up and take notice.

That’s why Autonomous Press has worked to invest in poetry and short fiction. We want to help a large number of fresh new voices find their audiences, and we want to connect the ways that readers and writers interact in this digital age to the distribution that makes it accessible to a wider reading community. That’s why we started the Spoon Knife series, and it’s why we started cultivating short works from individual artists.

We’re still just starting out as a company, but we have already managed to bring a couple of wonderful books by individual writers to the market, including Fable the Poet’s initially self-published chapbook. Fable is currently the poet laureate of his hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and his insightful characterization and frank discussion of topics like trauma, race, and mental health provide readers and listeners with a unique point of view that flows like music.

For those in traditional genres looking to devour short tales that are a little less directly reflective of everyday life, we have Ada Hoffmann’s Monsters in My Mind, which brings together over 40 strange tales that span horror, fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction, and more. These are never before published works, and you can find more notes about each one on her blog.

Whether you are looking into our anthology series, the collection of work curated through Barking Sycamores, or these individually authored books, you are going to find that AutPress has taken steps to make NeuroQueer Books a place for unique points of view. We’re looking forward to bringing you more of that in the new year with additional volumes of Barking Sycamores and Spoon Knife. Until then, check out Ada’s book, as well as the new novel by Verity Reynolds.

Mixing It Up: Strange Storytelling and Weird Works

Posted on by

Say the word “storytelling” and a few different images might come to your mind. You may think of relaxing on the couch with an absorbing book or picture a group of entranced listeners sitting around a fire and drinking in a chilling ghost story. With our rich creative history, we’ve developed multifarious tools to tell our tales. Whether it’s a single-author book or an anthology, mixing up genres can provide fresh perspectives on storytelling.

Moving Beyond Genres With Monsters

Ada Hoffman’s latest release Monsters in My Mind is a great example of how both short stories and poetry become useful narrative tools. As a mix of flash fiction, prose poems, microfiction, and other forms, it’s evident of the delicious weirdness of which the human imagination is capable. Just as our reality can be neat and structured while messy, strange, and frightening by turns, Hoffman’s book is a unique container into which she’s packed artifacts like parallel universes, fantasy quests, reimaged fairytales, almost-sentient AI, velociraptors, and even cephalopods. This anthology is eldritch in all the right places, spilling far past the borders of the expected and predictable.

Strange Tales in Multi-Author Anthologies

The mix of voices in a multi-author collection results in a fabulous blend of shifting sceneries, intersecting timelines, and fascinating folk. For proof of that, just look at Spoon Knife 2: Test Chamber. Woven together by editors Dani Alexis Ryskamp and Sam Harvey, the collection features individuals all attempting to navigate the test chambers in which they’ve been placed. For some, the goal is mere survival while others seek to escape and subvert. Examples from the cast of characters in this anthology include an early hominid targeted by the cruel leader of her hunting party, an agent in an interdimensional police force, autistic transgender women navigating landscapes of social connection and desire, and a guy who talks to his wheelchair.

Add Our Wonderful Weird Books to Your Shelves

Whether it’s oral histories born before the advent of the written word, captivating novels, or lengthy posts on one’s social media pages, we naturally engage in narrative acts. Sometimes, our singular or collective experiences extend into realms that are wild, unusual, or fundamentally bizarre. At AutPress, we’re a huge fan of strange worlds, weird storytelling, and genre-blurring books. Be sure to pick up a copy of Monsters in My Mind, Spoon Knife 2: Test Chamber, Barking Sycamores: Year Two and other anthologies from the AutPress store.