I’ve been enjoying conversations with my brother for years so I was just delighted when he said yes to being a guest on the podcast! I(I still think about his take on getting past fear and handling rejection) That was a while ago now and, as always, he’s been hard at work at writing and teaching and continues to have tons to share – including a new write-a-long project! Here’s what my brother, writer and historian Doc Ridler currently has to share.
What is your creative life looking like these days, Jason?
Intense. Jumping around in writing, teaching, performing, mentoring.
What are you creating now?
Tons of stuff. Comic book proposals, short stories, a top secret history project, essays, editing an issue of a magazine, doing improv every weekend.
Plus, for the writer’s out there, I’m going to be doing a weekly writing challenge starting in December. The goal is to write a single short story every week for as long as I can! I have a major history project (cosmic top secret!) which will be dominating my horizons for a good long while, and when that happens I tend to need the fun, frantic, and short controlled bursts of creativity that short stories can provide.
I know what you’re saying: A STORY A WEEK? THAT”S CRAZY BANANA PANTS TALK!
Yes, it is. But it’s also a terrific way to develop your craft and have fun. See, most writers who like the short stuff take a month or two to get them done. Maybe they have twelve stories completed by the end of a year.
BUT! What if you wrote one a week. For a year. You’d have fifty two tales done! Even if half of them sucked grizzly poop, you’d still have DOUBLE the number of stories completed as the folks traveling at regular speed. Maybe half of those need revisions, but I bet twelve or so are going to pretty wild and ready for a little touch up and then off to find a sale!
Ray Bradbury believed in this method. Jay Lake did, too. Tons of other writers who champion “fast” writing say it gets you out of your head and plunges you deeper into the wells of the id to where the good story stuff lives and breathes.
So, I’m seeing if anyone else wants to give it a whirl. Email me, if you do. I’ll probably set up a google group so we can do WRITE ALONG WITH RIDLER together, update on progress, etc. I will not have time to critique anyon’es work, but if you want to take a stab at a method that helped tons of writers get over their hangups and produce lots of cool work, get in the van! Launch date is December 1 (Monday!). You can bail at anytime! No money down! The only thing you lose is time wasted not writing cool stories!
What inspires you?
The need to tell stories, my way.
What’s a lesson you’ve learned that you’d like to share?
There’s no one best way to be an artist. To paraphrase Basho, do not imitate the great masters, but seek what they sought your own way.
Where can people find out more?
I’m crazy active on Facebook
Jason S. Ridler is a writer and historian. He is the author of A TRIUMPH FOR SAKURA, BLOOD AND SAWDUST, the Spar Battersea thrillers (DEATH MATCH, CON JOB and DICE ROLL), the short story collection KNOCKOUTS, and has published over sixty stories in such magazines and anthologies as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Out of the Gutter, and more. His popular non-fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Dark Scribe, and the Internet Review of Science Fiction. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.