Interview with the Editor of The Memory Eater Anthology

Today, I’m pleased to bring you an interview with Matthew Hance, editor as well as contributor to The Memory Eater anthology.

The Memory Eater is an upcoming anthology consisting of 27 uniquely illustrated, mind-bending stories based on a device with the ability to locate and destroy any memory in the human mind. Embark on a journey through the emotional, to the humorous, to the bleak and to the beautiful. Find out where the Memory Eater originated and how it's used in the future. How removing pieces from one's past often creates an unavoidable puzzle. But most importantly, follow those who decide to gamble with their minds...to create one hole in order to fill another.

I met Matthew after he accepted my story “Souvenirs From Another Life” for the anthology, and was impressed with his orchestration of the project from start to finish. So I thought this interview would be a good opportunity to learn more about how the anthology came about, how it came together, and how you’ll be able to get a hold of it.

Let’s get started.

I understand the idea behind The Memory Eater was a short story you wrote. Please tell us a bit about the story and your decision to turn it into an anthology.

I wrote my Memory Eater story for the Writers of the Future contest, and in it, the main character is a customer service representative for a memory removal company. It’s funny to look back on now and see why I wrote it—because I was working as a customer service representative, and I was also shopping around another story of mine which followed a character who lost his entire memory.

Anyway, while writing my contest entry, the main character kept taking calls from people wanting to remove all these different things, and that’s when I realized the endless amount of possibilities with this device. My first thought was to turn the idea into a collection of short stories, and it only seemed fitting to invite others to join.

Being a part of several writing groups and a handful of anthologies as a contributor, I decided it would be fun to be on the other end of things—to put out the call for submissions. Plus I really believed the idea would bring something new and fresh to the market, and that with my background and current job, I could pull it all together.

One of the things I found interesting about The Memory Eater is that you didn’t want bios included with any of the submissions (putting the emphasis on story, not previous credits). Could you talk a little bit about why you chose to handle things this way?

I mainly wanted authors to focus on their stories. I believe my only stipulation was to send stories in the body of an email. For me, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been published a million times over—I’m not interested in assembling authors with big followings or connections. I’m about quality, and if your story is good, what else matters? Formatting can be changed, and there’s an abundance of fresh, undiscovered talent out there to be had.

What role has social media played in the development of this project, considering your robust twitter presence (@TheMemoryEater) and blog (http://anthologies2011.blogspot.com/) capturing this project’s milestones?

Social media is imperative, and it’s the reason this project is alive. Right from the beginning, I used message boards and forums to advertise the call for submissions. My most important role has always been to spread the word. If I went back and added up all the views my postings received, I bet it would be well over 40,000. On a budget of about zero, that free advertising was priceless. It was a ton of hard work, but it didn’t set me back.

The same holds true with Twitter. When I found out what Twitter was (about a month into the project), I felt like I hit the jackpot. I followed people who mentioned writing in their profiles and hoped my picture of the pink bird eating a man’s brain and short description of The Memory Eater was enough to get them to visit my blog. I believed the idea was interesting enough that the more people I reached, the more submissions I would eventually get. All I had to do was get the ball rolling, or boulder in this case.

What were some of the things that surprised you the most about the story selection process? Any suggestions for writers out there based on your experience with The Memory Eater’s slush pile?

The selection process was really tough, because it boils down to making decisions. It’s always hard with so many options to settle on just one, but I picked my favorites and then allowed the tone of those few to guide my decision-making on the rest.

As a fellow writer, it was even tougher to send out rejection letters, especially for stories which almost made the cut.

One bit of advice I have for others is to not only be professional, but also be yourself. Even though I didn’t have bios in front of me, I could envision the authors through their emails and how they formatted their stories. So in a way, I was able to foreshadow what kind of narrative the stories were going to have before reading the actual stories. Even though I read every story, when you go higher up the chain and submit to bigger publishers, I have a feeling many are eliminated on the spot due to the volume they receive.

You’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of preparing The Memory Eater for publication. What were some of the things that surprised you about the editorial process?

How easy it was. Seriously. After I selected the stories, I printed them all off and read them on breaks while walking around the building. I bet people thought I was weird power-walking up and down the halls with a red pen bending a stack of papers in my hand. After two rounds of edits, I sent the changes over to the authors. After the fact, I felt like I went a bit overboard with the red markings, but everyone took it amazingly well. There were a few authors I worked with and met in the middle, but all in all, that was the editing process. It helped to have a system and to do it fast. I’m always about flow, so doing the edits all at once really helped the overall quality of the book.

What were some of the factors that led to your decision to create a Kickstarter fund for The Memory Eater anthology? What are the advantages of going this route?

One of the authors actually pointed me in the Kickstarter direction. He had been on several successful projects and really gave me all the information I needed to know about it.

I chose Kickstarter because of control. With the handful of publishers I was close to making a deal with (I actually had one contract in hand, ready to sign), I would have given up a lot of control, and the entire reason I started The Memory Eater was to output my vision of a quality book. At the end of the day, I simply couldn’t abandon that goal.

The main advantage of Kickstarter is those who will ultimately be purchasing the book are the judges. You cut out any middlemen guessing whether or not they can turn a profit on your blood, sweat and tears, and go directly to your audience. By going right for the audience, you don’t need to front the money needed for the project, because if it’s good enough, your audience will act as your middlemen.

What were some of the takeaways you’ve had from this process – from anthology idea to (nearly) finished product? And, are you going to do it again?

I will definitely do it again! I’m already thinking The Memory Eater 2. I also have a bunch of ideas floating around in this head of mine.

Even though this whole process has been more work than I ever imagined, I got to meet a ton of great people who share the same enthusiasm as I do. That alone is a success.

Takeaways… You truly get out what you put in. Anyone can self-publish a quality book—you just have to do your homework. Don’t settle. Realize that there are going to be times where you stop believing in yourself, but it will eventually pass, and you will come back stronger.

I’d like to thank you for having me by and asking me about my process. I’m really excited to share the finished book with everyone!

Thanks so much, Matthew!

To learn more about The Memory Eater anthology, please take a look at the blog or donate to preorder the anthology through the project’s Kickstarter page.

A story sampler, including excerpts from both Matthew's and my stories in the anthology, is also available here.

Also check out another interview with Matthew to learn more about him and his writing.

And fellow author DL Thurston has another great post about the anthology and the role Kickstarter plays in the new publishing landscape.

My Story "Chicken Feet" Now Available

I'm pleased to announce that my story "Chicken Feet" is now available for your listening or reading pleasure through Wily Writers.

Wily Writers is a twice-monthly podcast series. Stories are speculative in nature, responding to monthly themes. I wrote "Chicken Feet" for their call for young adult post-apocalyptic tales back in October 2011. I actually wrote a story before this one, but realized I had a novel on my hands. I went back to the drawing board and wrote "Chicken Feet" and the other story has taken over is now my novel-length WIP.

Big thanks to Wily Writers editor Angel Leigh McCoy, guest editor Ripley Patton, and voice actor Leah Rivera for her audio performance of my story.

Wily Writers just started offering professional rates for stories in 2012. I've had a very positive experience working with them and would encourage you to take a look at the guidelines for their upcoming calls for the year.

Thanks!

Unforeseen Cirucmstances

Today’s post has been indefinitely delayed because I found this in my house this morning!

That's a 10in diameter glass bowl btw.

I must make sure this isn’t a sign of the impending apocalypse and is just a hazard of living where I do. Needless to say this has derailed my plans for the day.

Brownie points to anyone who can id this…thing. (PS, I had to call the county extension office for help with that.)

Until next week!

Lucky Seven Meme

I knew it was inevitable, and sure enough, I was tagged by Lori M. Lee and Laura Lee Nutt to participate in the Lucky Seven Meme.

The Lucky 7 Meme Rules
• Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
• Go to line 7
• Copy down the next 7 lines--sentences or paragraphs--and post them as they're written. No cheating.

So here we are without further ado, seven lines from the first draft of my ya scifi adventure. Emphasis on first draft.

I hear rustling, then Dad’s muffled voice. “Not yet.” It’s like Christmas morning when he goes downstairs first to see if Santa’s come. But I’m pretty sure there are no presents up there. There’s more rustling and a few grunts before Dad’s masked face appears over the hatch. “All clear.”

I’m a bit wobbly when I reach the top – it’s the first time I’ve exerted myself in weeks, and my heavy new clothes aren’t helping.

I swear it makes more sense in context... Everyone probably says that :)

If you wanna play, consider yourself tagged.

Happy weekend!

Story Stew

There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Write a little bit each day.
Butt in chair.

I’m sure we’ve all heard variations on these themes regurgitated online and in craft books and by cranky creative writing professors.

Writers write, right?

Yes, but sometimes such a pace is unsustainable. You don’t want to get so burned out you never want to pick up a pen again. You also don’t want to keep writing just for the sake of writing if there’s something fundamentally wrong with your story. Sometimes you just need to stop and have a think.

This doesn’t mean you have writer’s block or that you aren’t being productive, even if you’re not committing words to a page. Thinking through your story is always time well spent.

The prewriting stage of a project is the most familiar, most obvious, time you spend thinking about a story. Also before launching into a major revision. In both cases it makes sense to give yourself a few days, weeks, even months, depending on story scope, to think over what you want to accomplish, and how that tracks through the narrative.

Recently, particularly for my short stories, I will get a story idea, but wait until the point where I cannot stand not writing the story any longer. I stew and stew and stew, let my story ideas come to a simmer, then a roiling boil, and then and only then do I start to write. I’ve found this leads to more complete first drafts and a better sense of my characters and the overall story arc. High five.

There are also less obvious times when it makes sense to hit the brakes and think on what comes next. For me, I usually pause in my drafting when I approach a major tentpole scene. I also slow down my pace the closer I get to the end of my story. In both cases, I’m usually juggling a lot of characters and plot elements, and it can take time to work my way through these scenes even with an outline. A slow and steady pace, particularly with lots of time built in to stew about the possibilities, usually helps it all come together.

I’ve taken to addressing problem scenes this way too. I’ll take a break, stew a few days, and then come back re-energized to get the story back on track.

How do you stew?

Obligatory Arrested Development Reference (Source)

Artist Dates and Creative Breaks

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to join two of my writer friends and road trip to a nearby town, all for a poetry reading that might or might not be awesome.

For all intents and purposes, it was what Julia Cameron calls an Artist Date:

a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic”– think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration.

Although I didn’t do this artist date solo, the conversations the three of us had over lunch and in the car about craft, our writing, as well as more mundane things were in some ways more valuable. You see, I spend most of my days solo already, writing, reading etc. So some times I need to be around other people, artist date or not.

The day was sunny and gorgeous, so we walked around, letting the weather hinting of Springtime and the new locale inspire us after a delicious meal. And the poetry reading? Well, it kinda sucked. But the point was to change things up a bit, expose ourselves to something new, something different, regardless of the outcome. You can’t write unless you keep yourself open to experiences of all kinds.

For me, the day was about changing up my writing routine. I also realized just how nice it can be to spend time with my writing friends outside of critique group, which doesn’t always allow for deeper socialization when everyone has at least five manuscript pages to get through.

And I already have plans for more artist dates – solo this time – while my husband is traveling for two weeks near the end of this month. Trips to museums, and exhibits, and science talks (I am such a dork), and new restaurants in parts of town I haven’t explored yet. I will treat myself well, and hopefully my writing will benefit from it.

How to make artist dates work for you?

The good news, for me at least, is that I live in a sizable city that supports a lot of different events. There’s also an alt weekly, in print and online, that does a good job of highlighting events that occur throughout the area. I’ve made a habit of checking it every week to keep my eye out for new things, new experiences, that I’m interested in or would enrich my life.

Other resources, depending where you live, could be your public library, chamber of commerce, or even local university. Universities often have a wide range of events, performances, and talks to keep the students entertained, but that doesn’t mean folks from the greater community can’t get involved.

Online message boards and forums dedicated to your community could also be a good resource and put you in touch with people with similar interests.

And never be afraid to take a road trip to somewhere new. You never know what you’ll discover.

Happy writing!

Transitioning into a Second Draft

I discovered the short story I had a sneaking suspicion was actually a novel last fall is, in fact, a novel. And I’m 90% done drafting it. I have the last section roughly outlined, and should finish up the first draft by the end of the month if not sooner.

And it needs to get done by then. So I can revise it, and expand it, and send it to my CPs, all in time before Taos Toolbox come June when I plan on sharing the novel with the other participants. It’s overwhelming when I look at all those goals smooshed into a single sentence, but the terror is keeping me going, keeping me productive, as I pound out ~2k a day to get there.

But even though the first draft isn’t completed yet, I’m already thinking about what I’ll need to do to prepare for the second pass. I don’t have the time to set the story aside for a couple of months – even though I am planning on a break here and there for writing short stories.

So I need to be focused and smart in terms of how I proceed.

Research 

I’ve been doing a lot of research on an as-needed basis as I’ve been drafting, but there’s still a lot more to be done to really make the story come alive. Aspects of the world I’ve created need to be fleshed out and tied more firmly to plot elements. Parts of the story take place where I live currently, so field trips to area attractions and museums and the like are good too for getting at those concrete sensory details to anchor the story action and make it as authentic as possible. Geography, language, history, science, politics…I’m drawing on it all and want it represented as accurately as I’m capable of doing in this second draft.

Description

This is one of those things I have to consciously incorporate when I write. I usually get so caught up in action and dialogue that description usually falls by the wayside. So in my second draft, I know I’ll need to really pay attention for opportunities to describe my world and my characters. I’ll be drawing on my research for one, but now that I’ll have a completed draft, it’ll be easier for me to go back and accurately depict my characters as well. Usually, I don’t really have a good sense of my characters until I finish the first draft, where I can then chart their character arc over the whole story. So on this second pass, I’ll be taking a hard look at how I describe and characterize the story players throughout the book.

Stakes

Partly because of the way I’ve chosen to structure this book (for now) and partly because I’ve been so focused on getting to the end of the first draft, stakes aren’t as fully explored as they’ll need to be if I want to attempt to publish this story. In my second draft, I’ll be taking a hard look at each chapter, each section of the story, to determine ways to consistently raise the stakes and ratchet up the tension as the story progresses. It’s close now, but it needs to be even more pronounced to achieve that page-turning quality in what’s turned out to be a more character-driven sci-fi adventure (I know, I’m still wondering how that happened too).

Plot Expansion

Because I’ve been flying through my initial draft (for me at least), there are some huge gaps where I’ve left out entire scenes or have only provided the barest skeleton of story action. All of those areas will need to be fleshed out and expanded. There’s a good chance what I discover in writing these new scenes will need to be incorporated elsewhere in the story as well so everything fits together naturally – I don’t want things shoehorned or appended onto the story at this stage. Things should hang together at this point. And if they don’t, I know I have more work to do.

Sentences

This probably goes without saying, but when I’m drafting I don’t always have my most beautiful prose flowing. I’m trying to get from point A to point Z as fast as possible, and if the right word or phrase isn’t readily available, I skip it and move on. On the second pass, I need to root out every instance of lazy writing, cut clichés and awkward phrasing, and instead create laser-sharp prose chock full of precise details. Intentional writing, made a heck of a lot easier once I have my first draft done and understand the shape of the story.

Keep your fingers crossed for me as I finish up my first draft and decide what to do with it.

What do you look for improving on a second pass? How do you prepare to revise a first draft?