Ladies and gentlemen, with this post I’m pleased to announce that I’m writing fiction again.

That is largely to the credit of none other than author Stephen King, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. I don’t know the man nor belong to his horror loving fanbase. In fact, from what I’ve read by him I prefer his short stories. That makes his importance in this matter pretty fascinating, if you ask me.

And On Writing (get it from Amazon [aff], it’s worth it), the semi-biography where mr King gives his views on the craft, is what largely spurred me back to fiction. You might not know it, but I’ve written a lot over the years, starting back in the 90s with short stories and a few novel projects. Most of it belongs where it is, in a virtual drawer on a CD-ROM, but some actually made it onwards. I’ve published a few magazines over the years, worked with other editors, and of course put the internet to fair use.

I stopped writing fiction in 2002, or something like that. It wasn’t so much of a clean break as a drifting off onto other things. My writing shifted from fiction to freelance, and I’ve been doing my fair share of the latter professionally since 1998, so I guess it just escalated. And then, last year, it went to blogging big time, which in turn stilled my decreasing need to write even more. Whereas freelance writing is rewarding, it’s so focused on a single topic per piece, so while I found myself saturated by the amount of writing I’d done, my imagination still hungered.

Getting back to fiction

I’ve played with the idea of returning to fiction writing for quite some time. But, as Stephen King will tell you I’m sure, time is always your enemy in writing. And I couldn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t, take the time needed to get going. Partly due to money, the root of all evil but quite necessary to live a decent life nonetheless. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found needs I didn’t knew I had, which means spending more money. Alas, more money means less time for projects like writing.

Well guess what? Now I make enough money, and have gotten so old that I’ll kick time in the balls and just take it as I please.

There you go.

Introducing the world of Orn

And here I am, getting ready to launch OrnTales.com, a site where my fantasy world of Orn will spring to life, in short stories and more.

I’ve chosen this approach for two reasons. The first is again in compliance with mr King’s thoughts on writing, because like him I need to keep at it all the time, because the edge of my craft will be duller the longer I work on a project. That’s basically his words, and although I don’t presume to be able to say it better I will pipe in that I need to keep the engine running because I don’t know if the battery will be able to start it up again. I could server you platitudes all day, but in short, if I start at story it has to make progress in an almost crazy pace, otherwise I’ll lose interest and heart, which will - even if I finish it - deliver a lesser experience to the reader. More importantly, it will be a much more tedious writing experience for me, and I don’t like being bored.

Second, I want to use the accessibility of the internet for pushing my work out there. It’s a great way for me to move forward, again, if there is a readership eagerly waiting for me to finish the story they’re hooked on. It’s a spur to me to know that my world will stand still, literally, unless I push it onwards. Some would probably say that it could stress me into writing less thought-through pieces, but I’ll tell you that that won’t be the case. You see, although I might make changes in the editing of a story, the actual content - the storyline, characters, and setting - will be the same. I write from an idea, an impulse, a feeling, and go from there, not knowing how it will end or even what will happen next. And besides, I’ll edit my work before it’ll be published online either way. Just a lot faster.

That’s me and my writing. It might not be the way you would do it, or Stephen King for that matter, but it’s what works for me, what makes it tick.

And you know what? That’s what matters.

I hope you’ll enjoy OrnTales.com. It launches tomorrow.