Author - Artist - Voice Over Actor

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Tales of Yesteryear Told in Future Tense

The year 2020 hasn’t turned out the way any of us had planned it. But looking now my 2020 Vision from the beginning of the year and isn’t all that cloudy.
Along with being an artist and writer, I had begun training to become a voice actor for animation.
Things may have slowed down some, but they haven’t stopped. I’m still writing, and am regularly doing artwork for books by Airship 27 Productions.
I continue taking more classes towards my acting career.
At my wife encouragement I have joined a local chapter of Toastmasters – Toastmasters 4 Writers. What could be more perfect.
At a meeting nearly a year ago, before I officially joined I did an Impromptu ‘Table Topics’ speech which I won, and it set off my Determination to become a Voice Actor.
This past Saturday (August 8th, 2020) I gave my first speech. An ‘Icebreaker’ speech they call it, introducing myself to the group.
As I wrote my speech I began to realize the moment in my life that set me off on the road to being an artist, writer, and now actor. It all began with ‘Old Time Radio.’

What follows is my Toastmasters Icebreaker speech, entitled:
“Tales of Yesteryear Told in Future Tense”.
(Points to those who know what two radio programs that is a reference to.)

Tales of Yesteryear Told in Future Tense

New Cover Art for my first novel CLOCKWORK GENIE

I have done some reworking on the novel, and on the cover as well.
I digitally painted it in Painter and Photoshop.

Additionally I tweeked the subtitle:  A Paranormal Romance Mystery

You can buy a copy of the novel at any ebook distributor.

Amazon Kindle

Smashwords

Barnes and Nobel Nook

Libraries

While at last weeks Sister’s in Crime meeting it was mentioned how this was National Library Week, and it got me to thinking of the Libraries in my life.
I suppose the first library I knew was the one in Elementary School, it was a side room to the Multi-Purpose room, and didn’t have a lot of books, but enough for what was needed for the school.
The second Library was when our town opened up a brand new city library. There had been a previous library, going way back to when it was shelves in a corner store. The main library is now a museum, but when the new library was opened my mother made certain that I was the first one there when the doors opened and I was the first to get a library card in the new library.

I was never a great reader growing up. Having to take special course to help improve my reading.  Thank goodness for those instructors because they let me know that it was okay to read comic books. “If he’s reading, let him read.”

Later, in Junior High and High School, I spent a lot of time at the school libraries.  Mostly it was to get away from the bullies of the school. I didn’t have a lot of friends then, but I did have books.  I probably read more books during those lunch hours than I had anytime previously.  I’m very thankful for those times.

I would continue to go back to our city library, renewing my library card every few years.

Now I live in another city with a great big library dedicated to the arts. I know I’m going to be spending a lot of time there.

And perhaps one day, one of my books will be in a library near you.  Would you check me out please?

I can’t write comedy, and some how, that’s funny

I have never considered myself a comedy writer, but that isn’t to say that I don’t write comedy. Rather, I never set out to write comedy, and in so doing the comedy tends to write itself.

If any of that makes sense, I hope what follows will as well.

I am a writer of characters.

Usually, I have a rough outline of a plot, hardly a skeleton to build upon. I start with a simple idea, usually a question. I see something, or read about something, and ask “What if?” Lots of times it has to do with looking at something from a different angle.

A lot, or a few, notes go down next. But that all just sits in a pile and does nothing if there aren’t any characters to march through it and kick up the dirt. Otherwise, it’s just a garbage heap of useless words.

Just writing that paragraph gave me a simple idea. A Garbage Heap. What follows is finding the story, and the first question I ask is “What is it like working on a garbage heap?” You know, those people who take our trash to the dump, and those that sort through it. Some for recycling, and those who scrounge around the dump looking for things they can sell in order to survive. (I know old door nobs can bring a penny or two.) But the job isn’t interesting enough. So what if I changed the question: “What is life like for those who live on the garbage heap?” I think there is some drama in that, and maybe some comedy too.

(Almost forgot my blog’s topic there didn’t I?)

We’ll have to wait and see if I actually discover a story in garbage heap and expand upon it. I see a lot of drama, even depression, about the people living in lean-to huts atop or even inside the garbage mounds.

But is there comedy among that garbage and depression? If you find the right characters there are.

What if our story is about a teenage girl working along side her parents looking for scrap and selling what they can. She has a boyfriend, but when he shows up to take her on a date (what kind of date can there be on a scrap heap), she complains that he was cuter before he took a shower.

Okay, that might not be the funniest thing in the world. Like I said, I don’t write comedy. However, if I wrote this story completely out, I think our little Dust Bunny (yes, I just named the girl Dust Bunny. The boy’s name is Smudge, no, Kruntch ) would have a whole lot of funny things to say as she is clearly the only person on the garbage island that enjoys being there.

The point, if there is one, is that comedy like everything else in a story comes out of character. Creating a funny situation and dropping your characters into it doesn’t necessarily make it comedy.

Learn about your characters; find out what makes them tick, and what ticks them off. Don’t tickle them; annoy their pants off. They’ll tell you what’s funny when they start throwing mud back at you.

Maybe I will write this story sometime. Maybe set it on a garbage planet (this story is getting gout of hand). (Kruntch is out; the boy’s name is Smudge again. The letter K didn’t test well.)

Then we’ll discover if I can write comedy or not, and see if I am really worthy of being:

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity (certainly not of comedy).

A Bad Review can be Good.

The other evening I received a review of my novel.

It was my second review, and it was the worst so far. It gave the novel a two star rating. As you would expect, I was hurt and disappointed by such a review. Yet, over the next hour I was able to read through and digest everything the reviewer said, and quickly came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t a bad thing.

Yes, I know it’s hard to take when someone tells you they don’t like your work and then goes on tell you everything that you did wrong. It hurts. Yet, it’s a pain like growing pains.

It’s like getting a big red F (okay, D) on a test in school after staying up all night studying for it. It hurts, but its not that they want to give you a bad grade. What the teacher and the reviewer want is to get you to do a good job. They want you to succeed.

The reviewer is looking for a really good read and hopes your book is the one.

Remember that the reviewer took his or her precious time to read the book. The reviewer took more time to write a review and explain what they think is wrong with it, what you can do better. They did it because they really want to like the book.

The next day I wrote the reviewer a thank you letter. Yes, you heard me right, I wrote to thank them for giving me a 2 star review. I told them that it was greatly appreciated, and that I would take what they wrote to heart. I would learn from it and use their review to improve the writing of my next novel.

They wrote back, wishing me success on my next novel.

If that wasn’t enough, only hours after receiving the review, I was informed that another website liked my novel enough to post it on their page to help in the promotion. Then a day later another review was posted, and this one gave me 4 stars.

That is another lesson; everyone has their own likes and dislikes, their own opinions of your work. Don’t take the poor ones too harshly, and don’t get too thrilled about the good ones.

Do your absolute best. Those that like what you do will find you and those that don’t it will help you get better.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

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