{"id":3564,"date":"2014-04-21T10:05:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T16:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=3564"},"modified":"2014-04-21T10:06:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T16:06:23","slug":"a-shuffled-pack-a-ramble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=3564","title":{"rendered":"A Shuffled Pack: A Ramble"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last September or October or so, my friend Andy suggested a bunch of us on a forum write <a href=\"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/?p=3546\">a book of horror short stories<\/a>, just for fun. Now, I knew and still know very little about horror, but I wanted to join in. It sounded fun. I had no idea what to write for horror, however. I wrote a weird story about depression. It&#8217;s okay, for what it is, though not horrific or anything. Then, in a conversation, I basically got dared to write a furry horror story. So I did. And I was really happy with it. And people seemed to like it, even non-furries, who said things like &#8220;Wow, I think I understand the furry thing now&#8221; which is a weird thing to hear, I guess, especially considering it was kind of a failing and non-functioning version of it.<\/p>\n<p>I hadn&#8217;t written anything in basically forever. But it felt really good to write that story, and I took some time to analyze why. I had picked reading back up recently, as a sort of calming focus to keep me from panicking. I hadn&#8217;t read anything in years, really. Reading still felt like work from my school days. But suddenly, I started reading fun things, and having a good time, and I read tons of books. I realized, while I was writing that weird furry horror story, that the same thing was true for my writing. Writing felt like work: I was putting a huge pressure on myself to write High Art, something with tons of depth. But was that what I was reading? No. Occasionally, perhaps, but mostly I was reading fun things, silly things, even sometimes sexy things. I was just reading what I wanted to read. Why couldn&#8217;t I just write what I wanted to write?<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;ve done. Since then I&#8217;ve written a lot of things. Sexy stories, novellas, short stories, and even a novel. I keep plugging away at things, editing, and modifying, but basically, I keep writing. I write what I want to see. It&#8217;s been a lot of fun.<\/p>\n<p>One of my first complete successes was a story about a detective who was a dog having issues with being queer and trying to save her family. I liked it. Could I see flaws in it? Maybe. But I fiddled with it, and fiddled with it, until I liked it. And then it sat there, waiting for me to have the courage to do something with it.<\/p>\n<p>I finally found the courage.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/A-Shuffled-Pack-Alexis-Long-ebook\/dp\/B00JTZFM0A\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1398092098&#038;sr=8-1&#038;keywords=A+shuffled+Pack\"><img src=\"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/gallery\/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&#038;g2_itemId=969&#038;g2_serialNumber=1\" alt=\"A Shuffled Pack\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n(Look at that awesome cover art that my friend ikks did for me! Oh man!)<\/p>\n<p>A Shuffled Pack is not High Art. It&#8217;s probably not going to make you question your life or anything. But it was a blast to write, and, I hope, a blast to read. It&#8217;s got romance, some guns are shot, and there is probably more talk about heat cycles than there should be. But it&#8217;s my little novella, and I&#8217;m glad I did something with it, even if it only sells four copies or something. At least I put myself out there.<\/p>\n<p>It takes a weird kind of courage to assume the ridiculous shit you like, or worse, make, is something someone else will care about. I&#8217;m glad I found that courage, even if everyone hates it. I really am glad.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to buy A Shuffled Pack, you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/A-Shuffled-Pack-Alexis-Long-ebook\/dp\/B00JTZFM0A\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1398092098&#038;sr=8-1&#038;keywords=A+shuffled+Pack\">click here<\/a>. Thank you for your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last September or October or so, my friend Andy suggested a bunch of us on a forum write a book of horror short stories, just for fun. Now, I knew and still know very little about horror, but I wanted to join in. It sounded fun. I had no idea what to write for horror, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3564"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3568,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3564\/revisions\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}