Finding My Heroic Fantasy Chops Only to Descend into the Horror Pit Of Marketing … by M. K. Theodoratus

Story telling has been part of my life since I went on “adventures” with an ‘imaginary” friend. Over the years, I’ve written lots of fiction in many genres, but I usually gave up on most writing projects about a third through.

Writing was like an unscratched itch for me, so, I decided to study the “gurus” who could teach me to be a successful writer. Result? I decided to try short stories. All I had to do was write, and I would get better. After all, “you get better by writing”. Sounded to me like a dog chasing its tail, but I thought the practice wouldn’t hurt.

I set out to find my fiction genre while I wrote short, self-help articles in the pre-internet days. I read mostly mysteries of one sort or another. So for a while I wrote mysteries, and discovered I can’t plot a who-dun-it worth a bucket of warm spit. My attempts at writing romances failed worse because they kept turning into worse mysteries. As for fantasy, my ideas were original enough. Besides, the genres kept tangling in my head…for years, in spite of my best efforts. So, I gave up on writing fiction.

Funny thing. I wasn’t on the wrong track. Publishers started publishing cross-genre works. Only I wasn’t writing fiction any more, just reading it. I was too busy writing non-fiction.

Then, I retired, after some major surgery, and soon got bored. Sitting and reading wasn’t my thing. Too passive.Then, one day I was dozing in the chair, and this woman with long red hair blowing in a retreating gale popped into my head. She stood on the edge of seaside cliff in despair. Worse, she wouldn’t go away.

So, I started writing heroic fantasy about the Far Isles Half-Elven with no intention of doing anything with it. Just keep writing about the problems the leaders of hybrid elf-human population faced. I wrote and wrote for a couple years, creating 400,000 words as I explored how genetic drift influenced the social structure in my world of the Far Isles Half-Elven.

Then, the itch took hold, and I began writing fiction in earnest until I had the equivalent of several novels set in different worlds sitting in my computer.

So, I studied the “gurus” again on how to market fiction. Ended up isolating a novelette featuring Mariah, my red-haired woman, Taking Vengeance. I sold it so long ago that the rights have reverted back to me. I ended up self-publishing it again because I had put up a couple Far Isles Half-Elven stories to form my “writer’s platform”.

Then, a short story about gargoyles defending a city from invading demons sold to a British speculative fiction magazine. My gargoyles intrigued me more than my “half elves” and became a novel There Be Demons, which an indie publisher contracted. I was back to building a writer’s platform for my world of Andor where demons preyed upon humans.

I self-published a few of the revised short stories before the publishers toes curled to help build my platform to help them. The stories got some good reviews, and figured I was a dark fantasy writer as well as a heroic fantasy one—until my reviewers kept saying they liked my innovative horror stories.

But my stories aren’t the horror I was facing. I now had to market my stories on my own. No one else is going to do it for me. So, I find I’m not only writing horror but also living it. Dread crowds into my brain every time I hear the words promotion or marketing. On the other hand, I’ve been writing too long to give up.

Maybe, some day, I may convince myself that marketing isn’t a horror pit. But it won’t be soon. I just self-published The Ghostcrow, a dark fantasy about a teen who sees ghosts and attracts the attention of a demon looking for a host.

If I had my way, I’d return to the days of yesteryear, when I first started writing fiction, and publishing houses did things like bailing their writers out of jail.

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Hooked by comic books at an early age, M. K. Theodoratus’ fascination with fantasy solidified when she discovered the Oz books by L. Frank Baum with his strong female characters. She has traveled through many fantasy worlds since then. When she’s not reading about other writers’ worlds, she’s creating her own.

Most of her stories are set in the Far Isles where she explores the political effects of genetic drift on a mixed elf-human population. Lately, Theodoratus has been setting her stories in an alternate world of Andor where demons stalk humankind.

You can learn more about Kay and her stories at her website and her excellent blog. She can also be found on almost all of the places writers and readers hang out, including Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and You Tube. When you go to her Amazon Author Page, you can see all her available stories and the beautiful cover art lined up next to a full bio. She also has a presence on Smashwords.