How It All Began

Today, we host a short Q&A with Randy Lindsay, "Not Fragile", and Edorado Albert, "Time Hoppers". Both talented authors and their work appeared in the November issue of Penumbra eMag.

Randy, when did you first realize you wanted to pursue writing as a career rather than a hobby?

It’s entirely possible that I live in a fantasy world of my own devising. Whenever a great idea pops into my head, I am convinced that there is a market for it – somewhere. So, it isn’t as much a matter of when I decided to pursue a writing career as it is a question of when I decided to start writing.

That happened while I was reading a book. I happened to disagree with many of the story telling decisions that the author made and discussed with one of my friends how I would have written it. When I finished, I thought I had a pretty good alternate story going on and started my journey as an author.

Several years of learning the craft and dozens of failed stories later I decided it was time to get serious about writing as a career. That would have been about three years ago. I started attending conferences to network within the industry. I started my blog so it could serve as a media platform once my stories started to be published. And I started submitting my stories.

What I find most interesting is that while it took a while to get here, things are really popping for me now. Right on the heels of my sale to Penumbra I had three more stories accepted for publication and will be coming out in 2013. I appreciate Penumbra opening the flood gates for writing career.

Edoardo, when did you first realize you wanted to pursue writing as a career rather than a hobby?

The first thing I can remember wanting to be was a paleontologist. When I realised that, unfortunately and despite the hopes raised by Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, all the dinosaurs really were dead, I switched to zoology. Then, an astronaut, a physicist, the President of the United States (abandoned when I found out that, not being American, I couldn't actually be president), an engineer and various other ideas in a rather dizzying succession. However, the only constant through all of this was reading.

I read - all the time. I even got told off as a seven-year-old for sneaking a book into a lesson and reading it under the desk because I couldn't wait to find out what happened (it was one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books and to this day I will hear no calumny against her). So, in the end, I realised there was a thread through my life: words. And I began to pursue them. It has, though, been a long, slow slog - some thirty (30!) years of learning, being rejected, learning some more, making connections, getting rejected, and, hopefully, learning even more.

Randy Lindsay worked in the Hobby-Game industry for several years as a game designer and is now a stay-at-home dad looking to establish himself as an author. He writes Fantasy, SF, and is working on a Murder-Comedy. His short fiction has appeared in City of the Gods anthology and now Penumbra with upcoming stories in the Once Upon An Apocalypse anthology and the second City of the Gods anthology.

Learn more about Randy on his website and blog where he also writes on topics related to the craft of writing and offers movie reviews.

The responses to Edoardo Albert’s work rather prove what he argues. The stories, the books, the articles, have drawn some compliments, but the best response ever, which saw a friend rolling on the ground, helpless with laughter, was a lonely-hearts ad. It was probably the bit about tickling the belly of a wolf that did it.

Find Edoardo Albert’s books (he’s particularly proud of Northumbria: The Lost Kingdom which has just been published) and stories via his website although the lonely-hearts ad will not be making an appearance in the foreseeable future). Connect with him through his blog, Twitter or Facebook.