Yes, he do.
Recently, I had the occasion to interact with relatives I’d not seen in a while. Part of the conversation rolled around to what I do for hobbies. I mentioned my blog, and I provided the information for the blog, for SmugMug, and gave them my email.
I don’t expect them to check things out (photos or writing) because those conversations are just stuff people say, like “we’ll keep in touch“ and “let’s do lunch sometimes“ and “let’s meet up later; I’ll give you the best deep massage you ever had“.
Disclosure: no one has ever said the last thing to me, and that’s good.
When I mention I dabble in writing, most people express an interest in what I write. Again, I’m near-certain it’s just polite social-convention that won’t lead to anything and be quickly forgotten once a bit of time and distance come into play.
But here’s the thing . . . I was also talking to my younger sister and she missed a lot of my early blogging (busy raising a family, she was, so that’s understandable). I told her I would send her links to the stuff I’ve written. By stuff, I mean “fiction”.
I also write opinion pieces, but no one likes those.
As it also happens, I’m approaching the 10 Years Anniversary of the blog (in March) and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for a few posts summarizing my writing efforts so that recent subscribers know what to avoid. You know, the 1,700+ subscribers who never visit the blog after subscribing.
In a way, I’m trying to help them out; it’s always more satisfactory to purposefully ignore something rather than not even know about it. Not that they need help in ignoring my stuff; my fiction is the least read stuff on the blog.
Therefore, below I list the first four years of Disperser Fiction in order of appearance on this blog (not necessary in the order it was written). I leave out SV-1 because it recently had its own blog post. To underscore my previous point, I had exactly one click on the SV-1 story. I expected at least two, so this is another instance when I overestimated the appeal of my writing.
Anyway, in compiling the list below I might have missed small flash pieces that are not specifically identified in the title. Meaning, I have a habit of plopping a story inside a post that has nothing to do with writing. Sadly, unless I come across those gems accidentally, I may go years not even remembering I wrote them.
Then again, that’s one of the reasons I occasionally go back and read my old stuff. That, and the fact I’m a huge fan of nearly everything I do.
Anyway, here we go:
Nothing left to see (Fanfiction: this was a short piece I wrote for a forum I used to belong to. It’s one of very few fan fiction pieces I’ve written. I’m tempted to say there are only two, but I could be forgetting one.)
Pirates vs. Ninjas (Originally written as a comment on the defunct Skepticality Forum, this was for the daughter of one of the members.)
Side note: these types of flash fiction are my favorite. They’re written on the fly, letting my finger and brain spill stuff on the virtual page.
Life Cycles (Originally conceived as a map for further writing, it never went anywhere and now stands on its own.)
Mop (Someone killed a moth in the office . . . and I wrote a story about it.)
Casey (The very first story I ever wrote. I could polish it up some, but it’s presented as I wrote it. I’d like to think I’ve improved since then.)
The Hikers (Another early effort. This one came to me shortly after we moved to Colorado and hiking gained the added concern of potential encounters with bears and cougars.)
The Guardians – Part I
The Guardians – Part II
(I had plans to turn this into a series but was dashed by a rejection comment – “an old and tired trope“, I was told. This was a tad annoying because near everything is an old trope. There are very few original stories to be told after multiple thousand of years of humanity telling tales. There is a partial Part III and I might eventually get back to it . . . but the chances are slim.)
Twitterized Story (Yes, I once wrote a story on Twitter and then I copied it to the blog.)
Flash Fiction No. 1 – The Wanderer
Flash Fiction No. 2 – Tales of the Wanderers: The Follower
(This was another concept I had planned to expand on. I still give it a look-see once in a while since I have ideas for where it might go.)
Flash Fiction No. 3 – Zombie Apocalypse . . . almost (Still one of my early favorite pieces written during the whole zombie craze. Come to think of it, is that over now? Are zombies no longer a thing?)
Flash Fiction No. 4 – “Wolf, are you there?” (This would eventually be expanded into a short story. We’ll cross its path in future posts)
Flash Fiction No. 5, 6, 7 – The Writing Prompts (A bit of history: for a while, I followed a blog that has since gone dark. Conrad, the writer of the blog, would post writing prompts. If I had the time during lunch — I was working at the time — I would write flash pieces in response. It was fun.)
Flash Fiction No. 8 and 9 – More Writing Prompts
Flash Fiction No. 10 – The Writing Prompt
Catching up on Writing Prompts Flash Fiction (Understand, I’m not claiming masterpieces with any of these. Some were written very quickly, and for some, I really strained to fit the prompt.)
The Blood (This is something I still plan to develop. The longer story, Torin, further down the list is set in the same world and with the same premise. Think of it as vampires drawing life-force instead of blood.)
Back On The Writing Prompt Path
Writing Prompt – Imaginary Friend (A bit of honest self-reflection . . . or not.)
Preview of Stuff to Come (There’s a piece of flash fiction at the end. This is an example of a flash piece buried into a post that has little to do with writing. I’m sure there are others I’m missing, but they are usually short, so you’re likely not missing much.)
Writing Prompt – Thoughts in the Wind
Writing Prompt – Criminal
This short piece would eventually expand into the longer and somewhat convoluted:
The Fall of Angels – Complete
The Guest (Another personal favorite of mine, in part because of the Firefly tie-in.)
Thanksgiving 2012 – Writing Prompts Summary
The Blood – Torin, Complete (As a non-believer in magic and stuff, I was somewhat surprised how easily this came . . . and how much I enjoyed it. As I said, the world has potential, and, someday, when I retire from being retired, I’ll visit this again and continue the story.)
Humor in Writing – an early experiment (mostly not fiction, but I enjoyed writing it)
The Walls and The Leaf (Flash story at the end.)
Dragon-Themed Writing Contest Saves My Bacon (This was a short story I wrote for a contest at Legends Undying — now Legendary Post. By the way, that link takes you to everything — fiction and non-fiction — I published there. Again, I was surprised by how much I liked fantasy writing. I almost want to say this kind of writing comes to me easier than science fiction. For them who don’t know, SciFi is what I thought I would be good at and enjoy writing.)
Monday Flash Fiction – Part I, The Future of Mankind
Monday Flash Fiction – Part II, Mankind’s Future
Photo and the Flash – No. 1 (Probably one of my most read flash pieces.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 2 (Another Dragon story; a love story, sort of.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 3 (Trying to blend science fiction and history.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 4 (Based on the Japanese concept of tsukumogami blended with a bit of animism. I mean, just because I don’t believe in stuff, it doesn’t mean I can’t write about it.)
Writing Prompt – About Darn Time (One of them that’s a stretch (concept-wise). Also, it needs careful reading; perhaps too careful.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 5 (A few tiny holes but I liked writing it.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 6 (Different: This came to me pretty quick and easy. Presented as I wrote it.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 7 (Water Wars: The Raid — this got me honorable mention at Writers of the Future.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 8 (The Dark Approaches — if you’re tired of reading, skip this one.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 9 (Best Laid Plans — and this one.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 10 (Awakening — another short series I like a lot. I re-read it for both the emotion and the action.)
Photo and the Flash – No. 11 (Awakening Part 2)
Photo and the Flash – No. 12 (Awakening Part 3)
Writing Prompt – Gender Archetypes
Random Photo on a Random Day – Post 30 (Evelyn’s Story — expanding on a comment I made in passing about a geological feature near where we used to live in Monument, Colorado.)
Designated – First Installment (I really like these three segments of the story and I have a good idea where to go from here for the story to progress.)
Designated – Second Installment
Designated – Third Installment
Writing Prompt – Kicking in the Door (I forgot about this . . . I like this one a lot, but that’s not surprising considering I like everything I write.)
Writing Prompt – The Intrepid (. . . eh . . . )
Colonialist 77 Short Story – 00001 (A different kind of challenge: a 77-words story.)
N.E.O. – The Entire Story (I’m linking the completed story but this was presented in installments spanning many months from start to completion. It began as a story about an alien spaceship approaching Earth but it evolved into a pretty standard and uninspired romance story . . . but I still want to continue with the overall idea.)
Elven Story Contest – my submission (This is another quick effort that I then expanded into a longer and — to my thinking — pretty good sequel with the same characters. Since they are both stand-alone, I figure I will link it when I get to it, probably on the post covering the next four years of writing.)
~ 0~ 0~ 0 ~ that’s the first four years of my blog fiction ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~
So, here’s the thing . . . I get to see whenever anyone clicks on a link. I also get to see when someone visits a post. Hence why I can say with certainty that only one person bothered to click on the first chapters of SV-1 . . . and that’s all they clicked on. Meaning, I’ll consider myself lucky if I get a couple of click.
I’m sure I’ll get tons of “likes” . . . but they don’t mean much.
I’m not complaining, so no need to encourage me or console me or ask me if I want a massage.
People are busy and I am not a published author. It could also be that since I write for myself — and I probably fall outside the spectrum of “normal” — there aren’t too many people who like what I write (less than six, at last count).
Please, please, please . . . I’m not asking and don’t need/want encouragement. I’m writing all this because there are a lot of writers out there who think that after they pour their hearts and soul into some written work, people will flock to read it.
Nope! You can write the best thing that’s ever been written, and the odds are still stacked against you. Write for yourself. If you’re lucky to have a couple of people like what you write, write for them.
But, stop dreaming of the big time. If you get lucky, great . . . but realize the odds are stacked against you. THIS article tells you how many fiction writers are out there working . . . but look at the numbers when it comes to earnings. Very few make a living at it.
There are roughly 300K books published in the US each year and about 65,000 of those are fiction titles spanning all genres. That’s about 180 per day.
You can try self-publishing, but there were more than 1,000,000 self-published books in 2018. One million. Using the same ratio as the traditional publishing numbers, we get about 200K self-published fiction books a year, or bout 684 per day. BUT . . .
. . . that estimate is likely conservative because I think the majority of people self-publishing stuff are wannabe fiction writers.
Any way you slice it, with all that material out there (and a lot of it free), I consider myself lucky that six people are interested in what I write.
So, there you go . . . probably 98.76% of what I wrote during the first four years of this blog presented in convenient links. Give that my six readers have read most of those, I don’t expect many clicks on them links, but if you want them, there they are.
That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.
<><><><o><><><><><o><><><>
Note: if you are not reading this blog post at DisperserTracks.com, know that it’s copied without permission, and likely is being used by someone with nefarious intentions, like attracting you to a malware-infested website. Could be they also torture small mammals.
<><><><o><><><><><o><><><>
If you’re new to this blog, it might be a good idea to read the FAQ page. If you’re considering subscribing to this blog, it’s definitively a good idea to read both the About page and the FAQ page.
Disperser Tracks 