D.T. Krippene

~ Searching for Light in the Darkness

D.T. Krippene

Tag Archives: Writing

Little Big Stories

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing

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Tags

Author Spotlight, Bethlehem Writers Group, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Writing, Writing Short Stories

Unsplash toa-heftiba-449816-Little Space to be Creative

Toa Heftiba – via @unsplash

This month, I’m the featured author in the Author’s Roundtable, an online quarterly magazine of short stories for the Bethlehem Writers Group (BWG). Based on a theme that changes with every issue, this quarter is ‘Written in the Stars’. 

*****

In Simple Terms

A shell of its former glory, NASA in the near future discovers what Planet Nine really is, and has to convince a skeptical director who doesn’t understand the basics of our solar system.

Planet Nine

Illustration Caltech/R. Hurt – via NatGeo Education Blog

 

“What’s this all about,” Trevor Stanhope asked his Associate Administrator.

The click of Helen Martinez’s low-heeled shoes kept cadence to Stanhope’s brisk stride as they hurried along on the polished floors of NASA’s subterranean levels. “The note mentioned recent information that needs your immediate attention,” she said.

Six months since Stanhope’s appointment as NASA’s Administrator, President Barbara Preston specifically asked him to shake things up by reining-in expensive projects and the Brainiacs who were too busy looking for ET. “Bring in some solid space science we can use while getting the Mars mission off the ground, like updated satellite reconnaissance and better asteroid killers,” she’d told him.

“Did they send a synopsis, so I can understand what they’re saying when they start throwing those pseudo-scientific terms and acronyms around?” he asked.

“All I got was something to do with all the increased meteorite activity, asteroid close calls, and TNO’s . . . Trans Neptunian Objects.”

“Trans-nep-toonia objects . . .” Stanhope chuckled. “Sounds like that Christmas rock orchestra that pops up every holiday.” A lawyer by education, and six-term, conservative US Congressman before President Preston handed him this job, Stanhope’s grasp of science was limited to high school chemistry. Where did they come up with these names?

To Read More … Click Here

*****

Which leads me to confessing how I got into little big stories in the first place.

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Desert Inspiration

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by dtkrippene in Inspiration, On Writing

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Desert Landscape, Writer Inspiration, Writer's Block, Writing, Writing Muse

Desert

Aside from a writer’s muse that never sleeps, I’m used to finding #writerinspiration from mostly colorful photographs and art from a variety of sites. I post the ones I like on my Twitter feed and Facebook page. My favorite place for royalty-free photos without restrictions is Unsplash.com. Two of my boards on Pinterest – Searching for Light, and Characters, are both galleries of art and photographs used to fine tune the muse when I’m writing scenes.

Desert 2 Edit

This past Memorial Day weekend, I went on a desert excursion with my son-in-law in his off-road 4Runner.  That my young grandson tagged along as well, made the trip extra special. 

But – we were talking about writer inspiration.

 

How does one go from a visual inspiration of a colorful marketplace …

Unsplash sam-beasley-compress

 

… and find inspiration in the homogeneity of a desert landscape?

 

Unsplash nicolas-cool-107337-Desert Crop

 

First, you need to get off the beaten track, and into places most vehicles can’t tread. That’s where I discovered it isn’t the visual so much, as it is – the silence.

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If It Were Easy, We’d All Be Best Sellers

30 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by dtkrippene in Inspiration, On Writing

≈ Comments Off on If It Were Easy, We’d All Be Best Sellers

Tags

Bob Mayer, Passion for the Craft, Writing, Writing Goals

Unsplash sam-bloom-342809

Sam Bloom via Unsplash.com

Writers have an abnormal predilection for planting themselves in a chair – alone – surrounded by nothing – and wait for the words to rain. It just ain’t natural.

The 24th GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™ come and gone, this is the time I take a few days to reflect on what I’ve learned, what I’ve heard before, and why the hell I’m still writing.  

Our keynote speaker and headliner this year was NYT Bestseller, Bob Mayer, a former Green Beret who wrote the Area 51 series, as well as 70 other titles in fiction and non-fiction. That’s me on the right (as if you couldn’t tell).

Dan with Bob Mayer 2

We spent a full day with Bob, listening to his advice on the standard elements of plot, story structure, character, the importance of tight narrative, and dangers of going off on tangents that don’t move the story. Anyone who has read my article from last year, ‘The Perils of Captain Tangent – a Pantser’s Writing Journey’, knows I have an issue with side stories that end nowhere.

It was the Day 2 of the conference that struck a chord with me. Bob Mayer spoke about ‘Write it Forward’, with lessons he learned in the military.  He gave the classic pitch, “everyone stand up, look at the person on the right, then look at the one on the left. Only one of you is going to make it.” He reminded us that only five-percent of all writers ever finish a book, that five-percent get to the point of publishing the book, and five percent of those people ever get anywhere with it. In simpler terms, earning enough to buy a case of Yuengling beer is like winning the lottery.

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Portable Magic

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by dtkrippene in Love of Reading

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Love of Reading, Reading, Writing

Boy Reading theflickerees.deviantart_com

Autumn’s Shade – theflickerees.deviantart.com

As a writer, it’s a requirement to keep one’s skills honed. To quote a master of modern fiction, Stephen King, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write. Simple as that.”

My reading stack is mountainous. Books I want to read, books others want me to read, books fellow authors want me to beta-read, and books my wife wants me to read, which deserves a separate category since it’s usually non-fiction (insert gag reflex). I don’t hate non-fiction, mind you, it just isn’t on my priority list. Unless it’s research for a novel, or a good science article, the real stuff bores me fast.

To quote Mr. King again, “Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair“. Given the occasional stink eye I get from my wife, one wonders if she views my writing muse as the other woman in that satisfying affair. I don’t know what she’s worried about since it’s all in my head.

Do you see the boy in the graphic above wearing glasses by a window on a rainy night? That was me.  I was a middle child of seven, geekish, card-carrying four-eyes by age ten, preferred loner – you get the drill. My second home was the library in small town Wisconsin. That’s where it all started.

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Beginning From An End

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by dtkrippene in Musing, On Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

New Beginnings, New Year's Resolutions, Writing, Writing Goals

 

Unsplash jamie-street-420851 Compress

Jaime Street via unsplash.com

 

After finally finishing my latest novel, I see a whole new set of beginnings coming with it. No time to revel in joy for completing the novel, I’m already looking for that new spark in the wilderness of imagination.

But first, I must reset the way I do things.  Productivity this past year was in the shitter.  I could rail on with a few dog-ate-my-homework memes.  Birth of a new grandson a few months ago, and losing a father-in-law in past weeks would certainly headline the list. Too many times I found myself looking back to say WTF.

 

Unsplash vincent-van-zalinge-407575 Compress

Vincent Van Zalinge via unsplash.com

 

I made a commitment to finish the book, “The Gravity of Light”, by October. That slipped to November, which then slipped to December. In order to keep up between life events, I slowed my Twitter and Facebook posts, and let this blog lapse for a couple months to focus on typing those final chapters.  Didn’t help matters I was already on version four, and heading into version five after realizing I was caught in a blizzard of plot holes.

 

Unsplash redd-angelo-204432 Cropped

Redd Angelo via unsplash.com

 

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The Perils of Captain Tangent, a Pantser’s Writing Journey in Pictures

30 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Editing, Pantser, Plotting Stories, Writing, Writing Distractions, Writing Science Fiction

unsplash sean-parker-stars beginning

Sean Parker via Unsplash.com

Imagine that’s me huddled in the rocks beneath an infinite sky with a story I’ve written cupped in my palms.  Do I release it like a dove to the big wide world, or not.  There’s no easy answer for a pantser writer like me.

It all starts well, but somewhere in the process I always get lost by straying from the story arc in search of a new trail. As a friend cautioned, I’m susceptible to the antics of the antihero, Captain Tangent, defined by Yogi Berra’s famous quip, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

I am the master of the side journey and story scenes that entice me toward a glimmer of light on a dark trail with promises of enhancing the story arc, only to lead to a dead end. I write with a story mindset easily seduced by a maze of infinite paths, unable to see the pitfalls around the next corner. You need to be more disciplined, make notes, follow a plan,” literary superheroes tell me.  I do make notes. I just – tend not to use them much. Why is that, Captain Tangent? My story telling imagination is a twisted spaghetti junction of chaos.  It’s where all the fun is, where the best story elements lie, waiting for me to grab on while riding a hundred-mile-per-hour carnival ride.

It’s hard to describe what I go through in words. How ironic is that? I like visuals you can sense, and I’ll turn to the amazing photography of talented artists from Unsplash.com to help me.

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#WriterDistraction

30 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by dtkrippene in Humor, On Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Pantser, Productivity, Time Management, Writing, Writing Distractions

Writer Distraction 10

Considering I haven’t posted a blog article in a couple months, you might be tempted to say I’m lazy. Just for the record, I’ve been allocating all my time to finishing a damned sci-fi novel, in between standard and a few non-standard life issues.

Cue the sound of blowing raspberries.

Truth is I am easily distracted in my writing process, defined as taking too many side trips in storyville, or getting shanghaied by other projects.  It’s not unusual for me to write 10K words, then dump over half of it next day, cussing aloud for allowing myself to be drawn to unrelated tangents. It has something to do I think with my inability to compartmentalize a random synaptic twinkle without bounding after it like a dog after a stick.

As for diverting to other projects, it’s better demonstrated with an example. A couple months back, a group of fellow writers I hang with thought we should do an anthology. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is commonly a book or collection of selected writings by various authors, usually in the same literary form, or the same period, or on the same subject. It can also be a collection of selected writings by one author.  Never been much of a short story writer. How hard could it be?

Don’t answer that.

Writer Distraction 8

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Judging Someone Else’s Stuff

30 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Critique, Short Stories, Story Reviews, Writing, Writing Contests

Critique Wikihow

If you’re a writer, especially someone jumping into it as a newbie, eventually you find others who share the same experience.  Why? Well – it gets a little lonely in the writing cave. The one thing that drives us to others are strong messages that our work needs a second, third, maybe more set of eyes.

I participate in several writer communities.  From this network of fellow word smiths, I tested fresh pages of new work to a select few I’d grown comfortable with (by that, I mean established a degree of trust that I’d get a true, objective opinion).  I didn’t want to fall into that novice pothole by cringing from a no-holds-barred review, skulking back to my cave with ‘they don’t get my stuff’.  Kind of the point isn’t it?  Unless I planned to write stories, then bury them in a time capsule for aliens to find ten-thousand years from now, I needed feedback redolent of what the public might think.

As I built trust with others, they asked for reciprocation of services rendered by asking me to read their stuff.  I initially cringed with heavy doubt I was qualified to rate someone else’s stuff. It sent me to the archives of my groaning file of writer research for how to do a proper critique. Like everything else in this wacky art form we drudge through, how-to advice in writertopia is as varied as insect species on earth.  I chose a reviewing format in the same manner I use when purchasing new appliances, or looking for a plumber.  Which appliance (or plumber) is on most every one’s recommended list?  In this case, what pearls of reviewing wisdom floated to the top?

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Pantser – In Need of a Serious Intervention

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Distracted Writer, Pantsers, Plotting Stories, Writing

 

distracted-writer-creative-commons-drew-coffman-4815205740_f5be704a14_b

Photo by ©Drew Coffman via Flickr

If you’re a writer, you’ll immediately recognize the term, ‘pantser’, as in ‘by the seat of your pants’.  Translation, pantser is someone who writes without an outline, without plotting, and without a clue.  Smart writers are plotters – self-explanatory.

Guess that means I’m not very smart.

Oh – I have lots of files for the book I’m writing, ponderous files, enough to open my own library if ever I should print them, along with innumerable  internet shortcut links that takes a minute to scroll the entire alphabetic register.

It’s that irking process of plotting chapters that eludes me.

Trust me, I’ve tried to plot.  I have this lovely file folder with handwritten chapter notes, arrows drawn to connect to other pages, some of them with little post-it leafs for redirection, different color ink pens – you get the picture.  Even downloaded one of those cheat-sheets to help organize the chaos of my story-writing brain.

So – how’s that going DT? 

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Writing Life

30 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing, The Humor Zone

≈ Comments Off on Writing Life

Tags

AncestryDNA, Annual Letters, Family Roots, Geneology, Marion Roach, Memoirs, Writing, Writing Memories

Lots of old black-and-white photos

From: V. Niktenko – Depositphotos.com

A social group I belong asked a while back if I’d offer a few tips about writing an autobiography. Who me?  I’m more into making things up in fiction. Couldn’t think of a worse candidate for the job.

I have an elderly relative who loves to tell stories of his youthful escapades, over and over and over, infinitum. He’s not a bad story teller, and it isn’t the repetition that gets me. It’s an overwhelming fear that I will end up doing the same thing when I reach the golden years (or is it platinum, now that we’re all supposed to live thirty years on average after retirement?). Oh, and his epilogue after each tale, where he insists his life would make a great story. “I should write it”, he’d say. “My autobiography would make a great book.”

life-old-man

From: Pinterest

Cue in scene: Honey, it’s getting late.

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About DT

dtkrippene

dtkrippene

A native of Wisconsin and Connecticut, DT deserted aspirations of being a biologist to live the corporate dream and raise a family. After seven homes, a ten-year stint working in Asia, and an imagination that never slept, his muse refused to be hobbled as a mere dream. A member of the Bethlehem Writers Group and Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, DT writes apocalyptic science fiction, paranormal, and parallel universe science fantasy. DT has published several short stories. “Hell of a Deal”, in the paranormal collection, Untethered, and most recently, “Man’s Best Friend”, in the 2021 Best Indie Book for Fiction, Fur, Feathers, and Scales. He also appeared in the Write Here – Write Now short story collection with his middle-grade paranormal, “Locker 33C”. An active member of the Bethlehem Writers Group, he’s been a featured author in the BWG Writers Roundtable Magazine, and will appear in the July 2021 Summer Issue with “Hot as Sin”. His latest project is an apocalyptic tale of humans on the edge extinction, and a young man born years after surviving humans had been rendered sterile. You can find D.T. on his website, Searching for Light in the Darkness, and his social media links on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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