On Sunday afternoon, Major Major Major Major mentioned that he had a story coming out that is part of an anthology. So I dropped him a note, and it turns out that he does have a personal story in the anthology, but he also has four co-authored stories in the book, as well!
That seems like kind of a big Joe Biden deal to me, so I wrote to Major Major and asked if he could be talked into either Medium Cool or a Celebrating Jackals post. He graciously agreed, so I’ll let him take it from here – telling us about the stories, about how he came to be a part of this, and how he came to start writing in the first place.
*****
Adventures in Writing: Five Authors and 15 Stories, by Major Major Major Major
Hello jackals!
As some of you know, I’ve taken creative writing fairly seriously for the last few years. Like so many people I’d always loved the idea of “being a writer”; also like many people, it wasn’t until my fourth decade that I had something worth saying, and the diligence to learn how to say it. I understand this isn’t easy for anybody, but I must be doing something right – I’m excited to say that I have five short stories in an anthology that was just released, under my real name of J. Tynan Burke.
Last year, the editor, B. Morris Allen, reached out to some writers he’d worked well with in the past. He had an intriguing idea: five authors writing five stories each, with one being a solo work, and four coming from round-robin pairings with the other authors. The result is fifteen stories about love and longing, ghosts and robots, growing trees in space, and much more. It was a great experience, even if some collaborations went more smoothly than others. If you’d like, I’d be happy to get into the nuts and bolts of this in the comments. Each pairing was unique.
Being a depressive artist type, I did a quick re-read before writing this, and can happily confirm that the stories are good. It is also interesting as an artifact; you can see how each author’s style and preferences manifest with different co-authors and across genres.
To pique your interest, here is a brief note about each of my contributions:
- My solo story, Sudden Oak Death, is probably my best work to date. It tells of an arborist who works in a space station orbiting Saturn’s moon Enceladus. It explores what it’s like when your vocation is not your passion–and never will be, since you are ill-suited for your passion. For this story I consulted with an arborist, as well as an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was super fun.
- Its spiritual companion piece is Project Blackbook, written by myself and David Gallay. In the near future, an Internet Of Things project for a ‘smart’ daytimer goes awry. A corporate tendency to promote ‘rockstar’ developers, while ignoring stodgy engineering standards, dooms the project–and possibly all of mankind. This story is told via a collection of recovered documents, including software version control logs, which was–you guessed it–super fun.
- Boro Boro, written with Evan Marcroft, follows Brad, an artist living in a small town on California’s central coast. It’s a tale of the spiritual, and ghostly, issues raised by cultural appropriation and gentrification.
- Infernal® Policies and Procedures Have Changed, written with Douglas Anstruther, is a fun take on literal corporate Hell, and the determination of those who dream.
- In The Relic, written with L’Erin J. Ogle, we meet Yishma, who is rescued by an alien starship after a horrible accident that took the life of his wife. But where are the aliens? And how can he get home before radiation poisoning claims his life too?
I’ll be around in the comments, if you have any questions or… comments.
~Major Major Major Major
*****
The anthology is titled Reading 5X5 x2: Duets
If you’re a fan of sci-fi and/or fantasy, you should check out M4’s book. (Yeah, okay, there might be some other people involved, too, but still…)
I love the cover.
If you get the book, and like it, I’ll bet Major Major would greatly appreciate some Amazon reviews!
One final note: the distributor for the hardcover edition is screwed up due to COVID; if you would like your book in a determinable amount of time, please get the paperback or Kindle edition.
Patricia Kayden
Congratulations Major!!
Baud
Wow.
Seamus bdw
Amazon link not working.
Major Major Major Major
@Seamus bdw: Ugh, thanks!
WaterGirl
@Seamus bdw: Yes it is! :-)
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: thanks!
SiubhanDuinne
Congratulations, M4, to you and your co-authors! What a cool concept for an anthology — I’ll bet it would work across a number of genres, too.
Just ordered the Kindle version (BTW, the Amazon link doesn’t work) and look forward to reading the stories.
debbie
Congratulations!
WaterGirl
I’d love to hear how the writing of the shared stories worked. Who took the first stab and writing each of the co-authored stories? How did edits work? Who had the final say?
RSA
Congratulations, M4!
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: It did by the time you wrote your comment. :-)
Adam L Silverman
We’ll need you to post some documents to confirm this. Long form birth certificate, driver’s license, passport, a picture of you holding today’s newspaper, and a note from your mother. Plus your mother’s long form birth certificate, driver’s license, passport, and a picture of her holding today’s newspaper.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Congratulations M^4! All of those stories sound really cool!
Man, I’ve been really wanting to write a story about the Internet of Things for awhile. The concept disturbs me and seems like it could be easily abused by corporations or even authoritarian governments eliminating dissidents, making assassinations seem like accidents
Another idea I had was a short story following a man in a mental institution in an alternate 60s/70s. The United States government has become an autocracy under a Curtis LeMay type. Probably would have the MC be an unreliable narrator and leave it to the reader to decide whether he’s telling the truth
Apparently, it was common practice in the USSR to institutionalize political prisoners
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you! <3
NotMax
Write on, dude!
laura
Congratulations Major Major Major Major! You should be giddy with pride. And just look at the company you are in….
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl:
Yeah so we definitely had to make it up as we went. Boro Boro was based on an idea Evan had been kicking around for a while (he saw the instigating artifact in a museum, basically). Blackbook, conversely, was my idea, and David also works in tech so I pitched it to him. For all of them, we figured out the characters and stuff over instant messages, then agreed on some sort of outline, and…
For one of the stories I alternated POV sections with my collaborator. Boro Boro we sort of alternated acts, since we have similar writing styles. Blackbook is found documents, largely by David, and I supplied the frame and the collator.
There were very few creative differences that didn’t have an obvious consensus resolution, and for that I am grateful.
The other writers talk about their own experiences in the back of the book, btw.
ETA: Technological tidbit: we wrote Blackbook in markdown and did all our feedback and edits through GitHub because we wanted to see what it was like. (It was fine! Not earth-shattering, but something I’d be down to do again.)
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The insanity defense that we use in the US, which is derived from English Law, was created as a way to deal with a political prisoner: the M’Naghten Rule. M’Naghten was advocating for overthrowing the government. The prosecution’s argument was that no sane man would argue such a thing and therefor M’Naghten could not be in his right mind and therefore capable of assisting in his own defense. What the crown prosecutors were trying to avoid was a trial that would allow M’Naghten to use the trial to spread his anti-government views.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): the Internet of Things is 100% cyberpunk dystopia nightmare fuel. Or other kinds of nightmares! Buy the book and find out :P
People like to point to Cory Doctorow’s “Unauthorized Bread” as an early work in this genre. I haven’t read it–I don’t care for him–but you might give that a peek.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: That’s all really interesting!
But not you?
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: I do too, but it’s more or less what you just saw.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I think I could even do it cryptographically, if Coinbase receipts count.
WaterGirl
@laura: I don’t know anything about the other writers, but it sounds like you do. What can you tell us?
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
The Internet of Things is like attaching a spoiler on a Model T.
It can be done but serves precious little purpose proportional to the additional expense.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: Also the spoiler spies on you, will soon be hijacked by Russian hackers, and for some reason requires WiFi.
Miss Bianca
Woot, M4!!
Yutsano
I’ll tell you the same thing I told Imani when she started getting some notice:
LITTLE.
PEEPS.
Just don’t forget us. And Mazel Tov my dood.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Didn’t know that! Of course, doesn’t surprise me given how fucked the early the 20th century was in the US
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ll definitely check out your book and Doctorow’s
WaterGirl
If any of you guys end up buying the book and think it would be interesting to discuss it on Medium Cool at some point, please drop me an email.
Major Major Major Major
Thanks everyone!
Ken
@WaterGirl: “The Challenge from Beyond” is an early example of the shared story by C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. In that order, each wrote a section then passed it to the next.
I rather like the mood of the Moore and Merritt parts, but then HPL comes in and wrenches it in his preferred direction, after which REH does the same, and poor Frank is left to clean up the mess.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Sounds interesting, if not overall successful. I think it probably can’t be 5 people all dancing to their own tune, serially.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: yeah I feel like that is a recipe for disaster.
B. Morris Allen
Well, it’s nice to learn M4’s local nickname. Now I know why he’s been willing to write for Metaphorosis (Meta4osis)…
I’m the editor of the anthology, and I can tell you that M4 and the other authors did a heck of a lot of hard work putting these stories together, and that it paid off. (In my fully objective opinion.) There are great stories in here, and I hope you all enjoy them. Reviews, of course, are the lifeblood of a small press, and we’d welcome any, positive or negative. The e-book and paperback are available from Amazon now, with a hardcover coming later on.
Since the comments suggest some might be interested, I’ll mention that we’ve done a couple of other anthologies with unusual writing approaches that you can find here: books.metaphorosis.com/verdage
WaterGirl
@B. Morris Allen: Thanks for coming by.
I thought (and think) the approach – 5 authors, with their own work and collaboration – was really interesting!
Have you ever tried that before? Would you try it again?
Major Major Major Major
@B. Morris Allen: Oh hi! Thanks for dropping in.
WaterGirl
@B. Morris Allen: We have a weekly post about various topics related to culture/literature/film.
Medium Cool
We’ll have to have M4 let you know if we do discuss your anthology in a future post, in case you want to join in the discussion.
WaterGirl
@B. Morris Allen: This one looks interesting, too!
Reading 5X5: Writers’ edition