With my novel finished, I’m ready for the next chapter of my writing journey. But what to do? I love this freedom, a thousand directions I could go in. After much thought, I’ve decided to get back into writing short stories before I start another long project, but not necessarily horror.

Before I go any further, I should let you know that I have a curse. Whenever I announce a big writing change on this blog, I inevitably give up on it within a month. But I’m so excited about this latest passion that I can’t help myself.

I’ve been exploring fantasy and science fiction. A month ago, I was inspired by a newsletter from author Tim Waggoner that discussed experimenting with different genres. He himself started off writing horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, before focusing on horror.

I realized that I’ve been in horror-mode for a little over two years now. It’s all I read, all I write, and though I’m not sick of it, I want to see what else is out there. Fantasy and science fiction are old loves of mine—fantasy especially—and I thought it would be fun to mix things up.

The first step is to educate myself. The best way to do this is to read every sci-fi and fantasy book I can get my hands on. I’ve started with the classics (Asimov, Le Guin, McCaffrey, etc.) before expanding outward. It’s been ridiculously fun doing so.

As I’ve said many times before, I started out as a fantasy writer. But science fiction? I’ve probably read 30 or 40 sci-fi books over the course of my life, not nearly enough to learn how to write it. My current focus is rectifying that.

I happened to have a book on my shelf entitled How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy that I bought a couple decades ago. I’m currently working my way through it, taking copious notes and learning so much in the process.

At the same time, science fiction also requires an understanding of science. Even so-called “soft” sci-fi involves fields like astronomy, physics, and biology. Given my meager knowledge of those subjects, I plan to intermingle my fiction reading with approachable texts like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

I hope to dedicate the next two months to the study of sci-fi and fantasy. At the same time, I plan to take the same approach that I did with horror and try to write a story a week. I don’t intend on submitting these (unless one stands out), but rather use them to immerse myself.

So far, I’ve discovered that writing horror and writing sci-fi are like speaking two different languages that share the same alphabet. Still, I hope to get as fluent as possible.

There’s a good chance my curse will ruin this and two months from now, I’ll be talking about some new direction I’m taking my writing. If that’s the way things go, oh well. Still, the excitement and fun I’ve had exploring science fiction and fantasy has reminded why I love writing so much.

Maybe that will be enough.

My Dream Bookshelves

Finally, I wanted to share with you my new bookshelves. My father and his contractor friend built them for me and let me just say that they are gorgeous. It has always been my dream to have a library with a ladder. And at 10 feet by 12 feet, I have a great excuse to buy more books.

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Tchau,

Zé