Back to Jello Basics

Change. It is a-comin' to this here blog.

If you've been following along with me for any length of time, you probably know that I can be kinda sporadic with the posting schedule. Recently I've found myself thinking I should write something on this. Blog about it, maybe. But then I falter, because the topics don't seem to jive with what I've created here on the blog in the past five and a half years (whaaaat? yeah, it's been that long.)

I'm a writer. So, naturally, when I first decided to start a blog, I thought it would be great to make it about writing, with a dash of "life" thrown in there. But you know what? By and large, my writing life isn't all that exciting. Did I write today/this week/this month, or didn't I? How is the story coming along? What revisions am I making? But you know what... even I find that kinda boring.

I hope to connect with current and potential readers by engaging in social media, whether it's Twitter or blogging, or whatever. That's always been part of my reason for blogging. I'm realizing now that by talking about writing, trying to offer writing advice, chronicling my writing journey, the only people I'm likely to reach are fellow writers who've been there, done that, or are currently experiencing the same things.

But here's the thing... writing is just part of who I am.

In my very first blog post, I gave the world and introduction to my jello philosophy. (If you don't know, "jello" is a nickname of mine that plays off my name/initials as well as a reference to my love of the jiggly dessert.) I closed that inaugural post with a bit of wisdom that I needed to hear again right now:

As long as you live knowing that who you are - not what you look like, what you do, what you eat or don't eat, who you love, or whatever - is what makes you an amazing person, then you have learned the jello lesson.

Hello there, good advice. How did I forget you so easily?

I hope that people will want to read what I have to say about a lot of things, not just my writing journey. My friends like me for all of who I am, and not just for the writing part of me. Instead of pushing all that other awesome me-ness out of the way because it isn't writing-related, I'm going to honor it. Bring it to the forefront, into the spotlight.

Jello World will be shifting focus away from a "writing blog" to a "me blog." I will still talk about books and writing on occasion, as that is a big part of what I do, but I want to share other thoughts as well. Ideas, philosophies, musings, things I find funny or perplexing, and hopefully some more free fiction. It will likely get a bit political at times, which many consider to be a cardinal sin when it comes to the public persona of published authors. I suppose if I get terribly extreme, I could alienate some people. But there will be those who agree with me, and that's enough for me. Chances are, if you dislike what I have to say so much that you'd refuse to read my writing as some sort of moral statement, you probably wouldn't enjoy my writing all that much anyway.

I'm happy to say that this change will be effective immediately, and I am kicking off this new focus by participating in the Scintilla Project. Scintilla starts tomorrow! It would be fantastic if you'd join us and tell your stories.

Jello World will be getting a facelift, too. But not until after Scintilla. I will probably get rid of or greatly trim my blogrolls in the sidebar. Please don't be offended if I remove a link to your site. I hope you will all follow along with me on this new blogging path, and I look forward to letting you in on different sides of myself that many of you may not be familiar with. If you would still like to hear my thoughts on all things writing and publishing, please join me and my cohorts over at From the Write Angle.

#JanPlan: Getting It Done

On New Year's Day, someone retweeted something into my stream that caught my eye. Something called a JanPlan. What the heck is a JanPlan, I wondered? I clicked through to this post from Christa Desir to find out. The basic idea is to take some project you've been wanting to finish, and finish it!

I liked the idea of setting some kind of goal for myself for this month, and there are a lot of things I want to get going, so I decided to jump on board.

I've already had this feeling that 2013 is going to be my year. I don't know in what way, exactly, but I see success in my future. With any luck (and a lot of hard work) this will be the year I quit retail and make my living doing something writing-related that I enjoy. Therefore, my JanPlan will help me tidy up a few things that need to be done to start me on that path. This month I plan to:

• Launch my transcription website and start seeking out clients
• Follow up on some freelance opportunities I've come across
• Continue work on one of my fiction manuscripts that I had set aside. A stretch goal would be to finish the draft of that manuscript, but that would be a pretty big stretch. :-)

Do you have something you want to finish this month? Join us on Twitter and share your #JanPlan efforts.

Consent is Sexy--Dialogue, Not So Much

Every year on my Facebook page, I post an erotic short story. Just for fun. This year it took me a little longer than I would've liked to get the story written and posted. As in, I only managed to finish writing and do a quick copy/paste so that it was up at 11:59pm on New Year's Eve.

I always forget how much longer it tends to take me to write erotic scenes than I think it should. But this year there was also something else dragging it out, and I think it was the dialogue in the story. I've written previously about how much I obsess over dialogue. I pare it down as much as possible and can't stand to have more than a couple lines of it without some sort of supporting action.

This year's story was heavier on the dialogue than I like to be, generally. But I couldn't help it. The nature of the story demanded it. The story, appropriate titled Consenting Adults, focuses on explicit consent in sexual encounters. The idea struck me, but I didn't want to make it overtly political or preachy. In order to show consent as sexy, it required a lot of dialogue.

A lot of repetitious dialogue.

Lots of yes and can I and would it be okay if...

I think it took me so long to get the story written because I was just trying to avoid writing all the dialogue!

Anyway, I finally finished it an hour ago and hastily posted it to my FB page. Didn't even spell check it. Eep! I know some writers are appalled at the idea of letting anyone read the rough or first draft of anything. Obviously, I'm not one of those writers. If you'd like to read the story, you can find it here. I would love to hear from you about whether you think I made consent sexy, or anything else you'd like to comment on. I wouldn't mind a little 'like' on my page while you're there, too.

Do you ever have a "message" in your writing that you try not to make too preachy? Any tips?

And at what point do you feel okay letting people read your writing? If not the first draft, which one?

Goodreads Giveaway for The Fall

Fellow Elephant's Bookshelf Press author Judy Croome is sponsoring a giveaway of 20 print - yes, PRINT! - copies of The Fall: Tales From the Apocalypse.

Hop on over to Goodreads to enter. Ends January 1, 2013.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Fall

by Matt Sinclair

Giveaway ends January 01, 2013.




See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

On a Trans-Atlantic Flight

I was thrilled to get a message from a fellow writer the other day who had just finished reading The Fall. He said he really enjoyed my story in the anthology. It's flash fiction, really. It's quite short. We talked for a little bit, and the conversation turned to the fact that my first published short story also had a flight theme. The story was originally published online with Divine Dirt Quarterly, which is now out of print. So I thought I'd post the story here for you all to read. If you like this one, I'm sure you'll enjoy my story "Flight Plans" in The Fall.

On A Trans-Atlantic Flight

I used to think I could see God in the clouds. Not in an indefinite expanse of clear blue, calm and crisp and quiet, desperate in its infinity, but somewhere up there, among the water vapor masses between us and eternal sky. Not in gray and grumpy nimbostratus, nor fine feathered cirrus, but in a fair weather cumulus blanket and the sun beams like knitting needles that pierced it, the ends of which, I was sure, illuminated some somber earthly occasion - corporeal cessation. But certainly God was in the clouds, sending forth that sun vector to call an angel home.

Necks craned and twisted, bodies pressed forward against restraints just for a glimpse out of the small windows of a 757. My first flight. Even as we lifted from the ground, the Earth tried to pull me back, urging me not to endeavor to things for which my body was not made. Or perhaps the weight on my chest was God, knowing the human race was too curious for its own good, placing a firm hand of protection, holding us close, leashing our titanium bird lest we flew too close to the sun.

My head swam, unsettled by artificial air pressure, though it may have been the sight of the clouds that did it. Nerves and terror and elation and uncertainty coagulated in my stomach. Expecting a breeze, a mist, a warm breath on my cheek, I considered holding my breath, eyes squeezed shut, as white opacity filled the tiny bubble windows. Curiosity, though it may or may not have killed a cat, overtook my timidity, prying open my expectant eyes just as the clouds broke.

Did you know the sky goes on forever anyway, that you could follow it and it would never lead you anywhere, not to peace, nor to happiness, nor to god, and did you know that the sun knits blankets of cumulus clouds to shield my fragile and naïve heart from such despair? I used to think I could see god in the clouds. But there, above it all, atop a secular cumulus quilt, I saw that my geometry was all wrong: the gilded shafts I had been certain were line segments, with an Alpha and Omega – originating from the hand of a benevolent god and ending far below, soul escalators bringing the dead into eternal bliss - were instead rays, of all things, capped at one end by the stinging sun, extending onward forever.

On a trans-Atlantic flight, I searched urgently for validation, winged hope. I found only science and weather, impressive but not divine, water vapor polluted by a need to push our limits, to stretch, to disintegrate our mortal restrictions. Puffs of little substance whose mass is no match for the hard nose of human determination, pierced by a persistent sun whose light will outlast even the clouds as it is reflected back, changed by the tangible clutter of temporal curiosity, fractured, bounced, splintered, and so on, et cetera, ad infinitum.

I may never fly again.