Wild Places Annotations


When I set out to create a free release book for my newsletter, I had initially considered doing expansions of flash fictions on my blog into full stories. That initial thought evaporated as I considered how Nighteyes had fared. While this was an entirely free book, I wanted it to contain entirely new material. I wanted everything to be fresh for readers already familiar with my works and a driving force for those just getting to know my writing.

The question became one of what to include. I'd just written a short story that formed the first work in my Cryptidverse, so that would be one of the entries certainly. That was horror though. My primary work leans more to fantasy (or so I keep telling myself). If I was going to be writing this for anyone interested in my work, it should probably include writing from each genre and style I use.

This meant that in addition to Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, I was going to need to include nonfiction in several categories as well. As I did outlining, I started with 5 works in each category, but as I wrote the first few stories, I quickly decided it would be better to stick to only 2 works per genre. I wanted to offer a sampling that was satisfying, but not create a block for anyone who was lukewarm on those genres that appeared earlier in the book. Obviously it is simple to skip around, but why create any form of barrier?

So it was that I then set down 2 works per genre and an additional 4 articles under the nonfiction category. This covered every topic I frequently write on without overwhelming anyone. My largest hurdle in compiling this book was that I just kept putting it on the back burner.

It's so easy to want to focus on the jobs that pay. Knowing that this was a free release, it got skipped over time and again. I didn't want to write poorly, so needed to be at my best. After all, even though it isn't making money it is a billboard of my talent. If I wasn't offering my best work, what would it say about my paid writing?

Thankfully, though it was slow to be written, it was finally finished. I'm happy to offer it to everyone who signs up for my newsletter as a free gift. It was hard to decide which stories to cut and which to include, but I hope that those who read it will find themselves immersed in the worlds created for each.

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