J.T. Evans - Author's Web Site

It's with great pleasure that I'm announcing my first publication. So you don't have to wait, here is the link: WHISPERING THROUGH THE VEIL on Static Movement.

I'm so very happy right now. I finally get to see my name up in "bright lights" and I can't wait to see what happens next with my writing career. Things are looking up, and it's going to be a very exciting ride.

Many thanks to all of the fine members of the Colorado Springs Fiction Writer's Group that have helped push my skills into the state where the publisher of Static Movement thought my story was good enough to grace their pages.

I just received an acceptance email for publication of WHISPERING THROUGH THE VEIL from Static Movement. This is the first for me. I feel fortunate that it only took four rejection letters to get my first acceptance.

Static Movement (located at http://www.staticmovement.com/) is a web-based e-zine which publishes work from a variety of genres, including my specialty of Fantasy.

I can't wait to see my name "in print" in the July issue of Static Movement.

When the story gets posted, I'll make sure and link to it for the world to see!

Here are some pics of my office. This is where I live and breathe when I'm working on my writing. Yes, I do escape from time-to-time to a local coffee shop to get out of the house, but I feel guilty buying a $2 coffee and sitting there for hours. I tend to order two drinks while I'm at the coffee shop just to try and keep them in business. They're a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place, and I hope they stay around. It's a much better environment for writing than the more popular spots in town.

The first picture is how my office looks from the door. You can see my two laptops, my third monitor, my printers and some of the cruft lying about my desk. The papers on the wall above the left-most laptop are my various degrees, certifications and certificates for my current career: computer scientist. That handsome boy on the left-most screen is my son when he was 12 months old.

The second picture is what I see on my left as I sit at my desk. Typical whiteboard and corkboard with too much stuff on the corkboard and not enough on the whiteboard.

The third picture is the top portions of two of my bookshelves. These are laden with fantasy novels and role playing books.

The fourth and final picture is the top two-thirds of my other two shelves. You can see a variety of games at the top, lots of technical books on the right, and a whole slew of writing books on the left. The left-hand side holds part of my science fiction collection mixed in with some fantasy. The hockey stick you see next to the light switch is my game-used stick signed by Peter Forsberg of Colorado Avalanche fame. It's one of my prized possessions and the only non-book item I have with a signature on it.

There you go. My life in a nutshell.

I've added a new section to my site (see the menu bar across the top) entitled Freebies. It's where I'll drop some flash fiction, notes about stories/novels, character ideas and the like. It's for things that will never be published directly, but may still be of interest to the public.

Christopher Nolan was an Irish writer with exceptional talent, and a great desire to write. His drive to put words down on paper overcame the facts of his birth. He was born without the ability to move anything other than his eyes, and later advances in medicine granted him the ability to move his neck. With a stick strapped to his head, Nolan was able to write beautiful poetry, and even a novel.

Here are some quotes of Christopher in a NY Times article.

"My mind is like a spin-dryer at full speed, my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down in my lap."

"Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind’s expanse."

These quotes are going on my Quotes Page for they deserve the company they'll find on that electronic summary of what moves me.

Christopher was an inspiration to me in his life, and will continue to stand on that pedestal even in death. The world lost a great writer in Christopher this week at the age of 43. I can only hope to attain such lofty goals as he did in his short and rough lifetime.

I feel we have a little something in common, which lightens my heart even with the news of his loss. Here is a quote I once rambled off about myself and a friend of mine managed to write down for me.

"My ideas are brilliant sparks of light that illuminate the dark pathways of creativity just long enough for me to see my next step."

Without my sparks, I feel I would be lost in a world of despair and darkness. I assume (safely, I hope) Christopher probably felt the same way.

You will be missed, Mr. Nolan. Thank you for what you brought into this world, and may you use all ten fingers (and toes!) on your next typewriter.

A few months ago, I showed my shorts to Writer's Digest to no avail. I was not contacted by the 13th of February which means I was not a finalist. I'm not horribly disappointed or distraught by this turn of events. It was my first entry, and I feel I may have been aiming a little high for this phase in my writing career.

While getting the story in the book of finalists would have met my goal of getting published by the end of the year, this frees up the story to be submitted to other venues and arenas. I have a few in mind, and I will start working on them next week. The rest of this week is being consumed by my current career as a software engineer/information security engineer.

I'm now tweeting with high levels of irregularity on Twitter. Feel free to follow me if you like. I promise nothing awe-inspiring or even worth your time. Rather, you'll find random tweets from me regarding what I'm working on or thinking about working on.

No, this is not a political post. I'll never do that in this forum.

Henry Snider, the long-time President of the Colorado Springs Fiction Writer's Group has stepped down from his post. The announcement was made a year ago that this would happen, and I volunteered to attempt to fill his sizable shoes. Hank is one of the founding members of the group, and has been running it for thirteen years. He needs a much deserved break from running the group, and as of January 1st, I have stepped up to the task of running the group.

I have some plans for the CSFWG, but none of them are drastic. The biggest plan is to get our non-profit status officially established with the IRS and other entities, so that we can move forward with some larger plans. I'm not letting loose on the details of those plans just yet since we need to get the non-profit status first. As things develop, I'll break more of the news.

I fell drastically short of the magic number this year. Of course, the magic number was 50,000 words, and I came up with a "mere" 9,172, but I'm quite proud of that paltry number. It's not 9,172 words of cranked out verbiage just for the sake of getting ink on paper. It's top-notch (and even edited twice!) writing that I'm quite proud of. Shouldn't I have been able to write more? Sure, if I had ignored other responsibilities, I could have easily doubled my word count. As it stands, I'm a full time software engineer, full time graduate student, full time father, full time husband, and a full time friend to many. This leaves little time for myself, and what little time I get, I do my best to try to do as much writing as I can.

OK. Enough of the excuses. I didn't make it, but I'm not down on myself. I've heard from others that it takes up to three tries for someone to "win" NaNoWriMo. Will I try again next year and try to beat the odds? I'm not sure just yet. It's too far away for me to know what kind of free time (or not) I'll have when next November rolls around in eleven months. I'll keep you informed, though.

Congratulations to all winners of NaNoWriMo 2008, and best of luck to those that try in the future!

I took the plunge, and entered my first writing contest this afternoon. I entered the annual short fiction contest hosted by Writer's Digest. This was the second-most nerve wracking action in my writing experience. What could be more world shaking than entering the first contest? Well...

The first time I submitted a piece of my writing to the CSFWG Saturday group, I was forced to swallow a good number of butterflies for the entire month while waiting for critiques to return. The story was a cyberpunk (dark future science fiction for those of you that don't know the term) piece entitled THE HACK, which was an appropriate title, since the writing was very hack-ish and poorly put together. I'm so glad they didn't mock me too much for my fresh efforts and juvenile delivery of fiction. After receiving those critiques, I learned that having a good story to tell is only a small part of the fiction recipe. Delivery of the story is just as important, if not more important, than simply telling a tale.

I won't hear back from Writer's Digest until February 13th, if at all. If I don't hear anything, then I know I'm not a finalist. If I hear back at that point, then I know I've made it to the next round. Here's to hoping I get an email or phone call or letter or carrier pidgeon or something on or around that time.

Here's to hoping AUTOPULSE (yet another dark future story) does well in the field!