John Kusters Jr.

Welcome to my Writing Adventure

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Collision Course

2024-09-02 /

by John Kusters Jr

It was supposed to be an easy job, shuttling two xeno-archaeologists and their discovery from Starbase Prime to the spaceport in Arizona. Then an untracked piece of space garbage plowed through my cockpit and set my ship into a rapid spin.

I was fortunate enough to be near the spin axis, so while I was thrown around a bit, I escaped mostly unscathed. My passengers weren’t as fortunate, and had been instantly killed when thrown into the bulkhead. Worse, the collision had also freed their discovery, which now sat on my deck, talking to me.

“I can help you.” I don’t know how the slivery blob could speak without a mouth, but I could clearly understand it.

I ignored it as I reached deeper into an open console working to restore power to it. It powered up and immediately the emergency communication system blared to life.

“Repeat, if you cannot correct course in the next ten minutes, we will be forced to destroy your vessel to protect Habitat Seven. Please respond.”

Great, orbital traffic control was about to vaporize my ship. I wish they had been as diligent about tracking space garbage. Unfortunately, I had no way to respond to traffic control. Nor did I have any way of sending a message to my husband and daughter. I pushed that painful thought away.

Investigating the reactor status, the computer was reporting that the reactor’s containment chamber was structurally compromised, which explained the shutdown status. I did manage to negate most of the spin using the attitude jets, but with the main reactor off line, I couldn’t do more than that. There was no way to steer the ship clear of the habitat.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I said to myself.

“I can help you.”

I didn’t have long to find a way to save myself.

I was in my environmental suit, but my helmet had been in the cockpit and I stupidly did not have a spare elsewhere in the ship. Next ship, coffee dispenser at the pilot station! Assuming there was a next ship.

I considered using one of the helmets left by my now dead passengers, but even if they were intact–they weren’t really–they were an incompatible design. So a space walk was probably out. I needed to find another way off the ship.

Well, that’s exactly the purpose of an escape pod. I made my way aft along the corridor that ran between the passenger cabins to the hatch in the ceiling and the adjacent access ladder. The hatch was surrounded by blinking red warning lights. Not a good sign.

I climbed the ladder to get a better look at the hatch and the window there. Yeah, it was bad. The pod had been ripped off it’s forward latches, thought it was still attached by the aft ones. Between this hatch and the hatch on the pod was less than half a meter of empty space. But without a helmet for my suit, it might as well have been a mile.

That was my last hope. I knew then I would die when traffic control vaporized my ship.

“I can help you,” I heard again. I looked down. The thing was now directly below me. Nothing creepy about that!

I started climbing down the ladder and it moved–rolled?–to make room.

“Assuming I was inclined to accept your help–and I’m not–how could you help me?”

“I was designed to aid in the survival of individuals of the species who created me. I can envelop you and assure your survival.”

“Envelop me? Like an environmental suit?”

“It would be more intrusive and not comfortable for you, but essentially you are correct.”

I stared at it for a few moments. “You have a rocket engine in there somewhere?”

“If you are querying about locomotion, I have the means to produce a solar sail if needed. However, the explosion of your ship should provide the necessary momentum in this case.”

“So, you wrap yourself around me, we jump into space, and then you keep me alive until I can be rescued, is that the deal?”

“That is one possibility. Alternatively we can enter the atmosphere of the nearby planet and reach the ground.”

Could I take this blob of brushed-nickel alien tech at its word? The archaeologists thought it was a technological wonder, so I suppose it could do what it claimed.

“I will survive the explosion, regardless of your decision,” it told me. “You, however will not.”

“I don’t know the first thing about you. I don’t know whether I can trust you. Heck, I don’t know whether you intend to eat me or something.”

“Lack of trust is understandable in this situation. Is it your intention to allow yourself to be terminated?”

My husband would be the first to say I was unable to take a leap of faith. Every instinct in me told me to find a way to save myself, not to trust this alien device. But I was fresh out of ideas. And I desperately wanted to see my husband and our daughter again.

I screwed my eyes tightly shut and sighed deeply. Time was nearly up.

“Okay. Get me home.”

It had been correct. It was desperately intrusive and uncomfortable. But it got me through the destruction of my ship, through re-entry, and now was parachuting me down to the ground somewhere in Florida.

I had no idea how I was going to explain this to the authorities, or the military. I felt an obligation to protect this thing’s “life” after it had saved mine. I guess we’ll figure that out when the time comes.

But I would see my family again. That was all I could focus on. For once I had set self-reliance aside and trusted my life to a leap of faith. I guess when it came down to do or die, I had it in me to jump into the unknown.

My husband will never let me live it down.

Where Have I Been?

2024-07-16 /

The past few months have been a whirlwind, keeping me away from my writing desk more often than I’d like. Family health crises, travel commitments, and a relentless heatwave conspired against my creative pursuits. However, the cooler weather and inspiring panels at BayCon have reignited my passion for the craft.

While my main projects took a backseat, I wasn’t entirely idle. I’ve penned nearly 20,000 words on a cozy mystery—a delightful side project that’s been a welcome distraction. But now, it’s time to refocus on honing my short story skills.

The writing journey is rarely smooth, and as anticipated, my latest round of submissions met with rejections. Currently, my submission queue stands empty, save for one urban fantasy piece. This noir-tinged tale of a detective uncovering the truth about vampires straddles the line between fantasy and horror, leaving me uncertain about its ideal market. Moreover, it’s not quite the genre I want to lead with, and it still needs to undergo the rigorous workshop and critique process.

Famous Science Fiction, 1967
Image copyright John Keogh, 2006. Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 2.0)

So, I find myself back at the drawing board, flexing those neglected brainstorming muscles. I’ll admit, my sci-fi idea generation muscles have grown a bit atrophied, but I’m determined to build them back up. Armed with my trusty notebook and a new Pilot “Vanishing Point” fountain pen (a birthday gift to myself which glides across the page like a dream), I’m ready to tackle this creative challenge head-on.

As I embark on this renewed journey, I’m curious: do you have any go-to sources for writing prompts, especially those tailored for science fiction? I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below. Let’s spark some interstellar inspiration together!

Long Time No Update

2024-05-13 /
antique typewriter on stool
Photo by Arturo A on Pexels.com

Well, yeah, time flies? Sorry, I haven’t updated in quite some time. I fell out of the habit, and life occasionally got interesting.

I did finish NaNoWriMo 2023, with over 50K words written in a fantasy novel. After I hit the 50K, I set it aside. It needs a lot of work to get it to a place where I’d be interested in completing it. It was supposed to be a swashbuckling adventure which takes place in a setting that combined ancient magic, newly emergent steam-powered technology, inscrutable gods, and a ton of Dumas-inspired musketeer action. I might have hit some of the notes of that last bit, but other than that, the city never really came alive in my writing. It just felt like a bog-generic fantasy city. BORING! So, into the incubator it goes and maybe in a couple of years it’ll come back out with new life and energy.

In the mean time I’ve started and stopped a number of projects, from Space Opera to low-stakes fantasy, to MM romance. Currently on the needles, as my knitter husband would say, is a cozy murder mystery with a gay male sleuth. I’m enjoying writing it, taking a lot of inspiration from “How to Write a Cozy Mystery: Step by Step: A Proven System to Create Reader-Favorite Cozies” by Natasha C. Sass. Of course, I targeted a cool 60K novel, but just four chapters in, I’m having to reset my target to 75K. I am not a brief writer.

Anyway, I’ll try to get back in to the habit of updating this blog.

If you stumble across this and read this update, thank you!

15 Days ‘till NaNoWriMo 2023

2023-10-16 /

I’m back to working on my preparations after taking Sunday off. There are several significant gaps in my plot that are bothering me. I hope that by focusing on the setting and characters, I can gain clarity on what needs to happen in the middle of the story, which is currently a bit murky. During today’s brainstorming session of 3,000 words, I did manage to identify some story elements I need to include, like a rooftop chase through the twisted streets of my city’s slums. So, with a bit of luck, a few more days of this work will provide me with exciting content to fill in the gaps in my plot.

I’ve also realized that I’ll need to add an average of nearly 3,000 words to my manuscript each day throughout November. If I had the same amount of time to write every day during the month, I would say it’s no problem. However, I will be traveling for a week in November, and I don’t expect to write my 3,000 words on those days. Therefore, I’ll have to set higher expectations early in the month to hopefully get ahead of my target, compensating for the days when I’ll have a lower word count. I’m not particularly worried about it, but I do need to be mindful of this challenge.

NaNoWriMo 2023 Prep Continues

2023-10-12 /

My preparations for NaNoWriMo 2023 are well underway. After some contemplation, I’ve decided to embark on the journey of writing the Steam and Sorcery story. This marks the beginning of character development, the sketching of the plot, and the enrichment of somewhat scant setting descriptions. I’m also exploring tropes and cliches to incorporate additional layers of flavor into the narrative.

As I’ve previously mentioned, these ideas have been nurtured by the world-building I’ve been engaged in for some tabletop role-playing games I’m developing. The fantasy concept took the lead in my decision-making process, piquing my creative curiosity.

Brainstorming can be a delightful process, but it’s not without its challenges. Sometimes, ideas don’t neatly align, and I’m left grappling with the task of harmonizing the elements. At this point, I’ve managed to outline approximately 20% of the intended 40 scenes, with a primary focus on the beginning and end of the story. Now, the task at hand is to unravel the intricacies of the middle section. Sounds like a walk in the park, right?

NaNoWriMo Prep 2023

2023-10-10 /

As I kick off the preparations for NaNoWriMo 2023, my mind is currently wrestling with two intriguing story ideas. I haven’t yet made a final decision on which one to pursue, as both hold my interest. I’ll likely spend some time pondering each of them and let the one that resonates with me more take the lead.

Fantasy (Steam and Sorcery):
Set in the city of Dænavar, tensions are reaching a boiling point. Separatists are agitating for the removal of the Imperial Governor, the Mage’s Guild is vying for a seat on the city’s ruling council, facing opposition from the Artificer’s Guild. Meanwhile, the unexpected death of the city’s top crime boss has plunged rival gangs into near-open warfare on the streets. A young woman from the elite Emperor’s Guard, known as the “Greencloaks,” has been tasked with delivering a parcel of great importance to the Governor. However, her mission is derailed, and the package is stolen. Can she navigate the complexities and perils of a city on the brink of revolution and recover the stolen package in time?

Sci-Fi (Space Opera):
The Empire has demanded the annexation of an independent world with whom they’ve long maintained peaceful and profitable relations. Without explanation, Imperial forces are amassing in the system, poised to take the planet by force if it doesn’t voluntarily yield to the Emperor’s demands. During this tumultuous time, an aide to a senator in the independent world’s government does everything possible to prevent an impending war. When negotiations collapse, he joins her on a desperate mission to seek assistance from neighboring systems. Their journey is aided by a confident and skilled free trader, piloting one of the sector’s fastest ships. As they endeavor to breach the blockade, they are relentlessly pursued by enigmatic and lethal adversaries determined to thwart their mission. Can they secure the help they need before their home planet is lost? Who are these pursuers, and do they have a role in the Imperial threat?

Both of these stories captivate my imagination. They sprang from the world-building I’ve been engaged in for tabletop role-playing games I’m developing. I’ve been working on the sci-fi concept for a few days, but the fantasy idea emerged just as I was about to begin outlining the former. I have three weeks to decide which story to tackle for NaNoWriMo, unless, of course, another compelling idea comes to mind before then.

Reading on Writing

2023-10-09 /

Given that I feel like I’m still at the beginning of my writing journey, despite having toyed with writing since early High School years, I often find myself picking up books about writing. From the classics of King and Le Guin, to the ones I find on Story Bundle or free in the Kindle store, I find them endlessly fascinating. I usually get a couple of interesting ideas to knock around in my head, trying to see if they fit into the model I have for how to write a book well.

Many of the books by non-famous writers are rather small, often less than 75 pages, making them quite quick reads. And I note that my willingness to take the advice seriously has a significant correlation to the number of books they have published, whether that’s traditional or self-published. Books from authors who have more works published through traditional presses are read more for the lessons they can teach about quality writing, while those from authors who lean more towards self-publishing are read more for the mechanical aspects of getting words on to paper.

Recently, several of the books that I have found myself reading are on boosting productivity when writing. It’s a laudable goal, and one I ultimately aspire to myself. The more I can get written, the more I can get out in front of reader eyeballs, the more likely I’ll be able to build a name for myself. As in many books about writing, these books are falling into one of two camps, pro-outlining or anti-outlining.

Be a Writing Machine and it’s sequel Be A Writing Machine 2, by Michael La Ronn and Writing Into The Dark by Dean Wesley Smith are both odes to throwing away your outline and writing fearlessly from your heart, since any writer who has read a lot and watched enough TV and movies knows what a good story is, and outlining limits the creative mind. They both believe your first draft should be good enough to be your only draft, with Smith advocating a kind of continual revision approach that I think makes the single draft goal achievable.

These ideas are interesting to me because I do sometimes find that outlining is tedious and writing a draft from an outline can feel like redoing my homework just for the sake of neater handwriting.

At the other end of the spectrum are Write Better, Faster by Monica Leonelle, Story Engineering by Larry Brooks, and First Draft in 30 Days by Karen S. Wiesner. Each of these books emphasize the absolute need for a detailed outline before committing words to the manuscript. They all tout the virtues of working all of the kinks and problems with your story out in advance by working though them in your outline. If while working on the outline you discover a dead end, it’s better to find that as part of writing a 20 page outline than 200 pages into your manuscript.

This also has great appeal, since I can easily see myself, lacking confidence in my abilities, wandering off into an impassable wilderness while trying to write without an outline and having to toss thousands of words into the recycle bin because I missed that left turn at Albuquerque.

As these things often do, it’s a war between the “Plotters” and the “Pantsers” (noting that “Pantser” is often seen as a derogatory term by those who prefer descriptors like “Discovery Writers” or “Wanderers”), with both sides accusing the other of engaging in huge wastes of time. Outliners point at the massive need for revisions on the part of most Non-Outliners, and of throwing away large chunks of manuscripts (and writing time) due to falling down a rabbit hole that could have easily been prevented if they had only written an outline first. And the Discovery writers crying that writing an outline is a waste of time because who really follows their outline to the end of the manuscript?

Ultimately, my process will sit somewhere between these two extremes. I already know my process well enough to know that I cannot successfully write a scene unless I know what I need the scene to accomplish. Each scene must have a purpose, and when I don’t really know what the purpose is, I find I start writing fractally, each paragraph expanding detail but moving the story forward in decreasing increments, like some weird variation on Xeno’s Dichotomy Paradox. When I know what the scene must accomplish, and I know the characters well enough, writing my target number of words is fast and easy (in fact, sometimes too easy).

However, when writing a detailed outline for each scene (or as Ms. Lenoelle aptly refers to it, a sketch of the scene), I find myself just aching to write the scene. Knowing the purpose of the scene and some bare details of it (who should appear, where it will happen, the POV character, etc.) seems to be all I need to make the scene appear on paper. This also allows for the “discovery” of details while writing that make the story richer and deeper, details that I then can push forward into the rest of the outline.

Anyway, that’s my diverting thought for the day. Time to get back to brainstorming about what the heck I’m going to write about for NaNoWriMo.

Long Time No Blog

2023-10-07 /

It’s hard to believe that nearly two months have passed since my last blog update.

Double-checks

Yes, indeed, it has!

To be honest, not much has unfolded on my end. I find myself dissatisfied with my current writing progress, my goals, and various aspects of my writing journey. Consequently, I’ve decided to take some time off to reflect on the changes I might want to implement.

Short Stories: My endeavor to master the art of writing short stories hasn’t seen significant advancement. I’ve dedicated considerable effort to this pursuit, but there’s a disconnect in how I approach my creativity that doesn’t quite align with the constraints of short narratives. Perhaps it’s time to set this task aside temporarily until I’ve established more sustainable writing practices.

Novels: With NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I’m contemplating a shift back to novel writing for a little while. It’s a realm where I feel more proficient, knowing I can steadily make progress and engage my mind more effectively. In preparation, I’ve been immersing myself in several books on writing advice. While I’ve gleaned valuable insights from these resources, the sheer volume of conflicting advice often amuses me. I intend to delve deeper into this subject in upcoming posts.

NaNoWriMo: I’ve discovered that I thrive with some level of accountability and a sense of urgency when it comes to my writing. It might be a manifestation of undiagnosed ADHD, but the prospect of meeting daily word count goals, coupled with the awareness of the pains of falling behind, compels me to sit down and write. Therefore, I’ve committed to participating in NaNoWriMo once again this year. Historically, I’ve had a reasonably successful track record with this challenge, having “won” it about 67% of the time I’ve attempted it, even while juggling a full-time job. Now that writing has become my primary focus, I’m eager to witness my daily word count. I’m sticking with the 50,000-word target for now, but if I consistently exceed 2,000 words per day, I might consider raising the bar. Regardless, I am wholeheartedly determined to complete a novel during this year’s challenge, no matter how many words it ultimately entails.

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