The stories of Bryan Young

I've always been a big believer in the phrase, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." It's something I use as a gamemaster when roleplaying, and it's something I use when I'm plotting novels and stories. When I'm working with the characters and trying to decide what their course of action is, I have to take into account the fact that nothing should work as planned. And why should it? How often do you plan on something and have it work so smoothly that you don't need to react to variables in any way? It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's pretty boring, right? There's no strain, there's no stress to accomplish, no drama at all... When we're writing, we're putting characters through the most interesting and challenging things possible so our readers may experience this drama vicariously. Why would we skip all of the dramatic effect of everything going wrong? You tell me: What's the more interesting of th...

It's been a while, and for that I am truly sorry. Having a baby in the house after a decade is busy work. After making sure everything in that department was taken care of, my next responsibility was to keep up on my writing. I've had so many deadlines in the last month and I felt it was more important to get my writing schedule back together than to come back here and to report to you all about it. It made me think a lot about priorities, though, and it forced me to rely on my discipline. I don't think the material I wrote for the first couple of weeks after having the baby was the best work I've done. I was exhausted. Sometimes I wasn't feeling as creative as I wanted to. I was easily distracted by the fact that there was a baby around whose cheeks I could kiss. But I got through it. I hit my deadlines, I got through the stories and chapters I needed to. And I think the only reason I was able to do so was because I had become so accustomed to the daily ritua...

So, I missed my post last week and I considered skipping a post this week. Why? We have a brand new baby in the house. Her name is Valkyrie and she's great. Naming tiny humans is a much harder thing to do than naming characters, and I find naming characters to be one of the hardest parts of a story for me. But I know that if I'm at any point dissatisfied with a name, I can find+replace the old name and insert a new one. With a kid, it's fairly permanent. Valkyrie was on a long list of names and it's the one that seemed to match what we wanted the most and came out on top of the compromise. That's the other thing about naming characters versus children. Unless you're collaborating with someone, you have the final say in what your character's names are. While I'm taking some time off from other forms of work because of the new baby, I'm not taking time off from writing and I've been chugging along on a new novel and short story, as well...

 "Monsters" is the new fiction anthology from Silence in the Library and I have a story in the main book, as well as the companion, "Soothe the Savage Beast." "Monsters" was edited by Kelly Swails, I edited "Soothe the Savage Beast."  I'd highly recommend you check it out. The stories in these books are cool, the artwork in both books is great. You're going to want them both. There are stories by Michael Stackpole, Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, and dozens of other writers you like, even if you haven't yet heard of them yet. You can click over to the kickstarter here directly. $7 will get you an eBook and your name in the back, $10 gets you the eBook of both books. It's an offer you can't refuse. This collection began as the convention exclusive from Origins Game Fair last year and so I was able to reconnect with a lot of the authors whose work stands next to mine in the collection. It's quite an august group and ...

I'm heading off to Origins Game Fair tomorrow ( you can see my panel schedule here ) and will be there until Sunday. My panels are all focused on writing and they're always highly informative and a lot of fun. I find conferences and conventions an invaluable source of inspiration and contacts for freelancers across the board. In fact, most writing gigs I've landed have been a direct result of meeting and interacting with editors and fellow writers at conventions. Origins, San Diego Comic-Con, Star Wars Celebration, Salt Lake Comic Con, those and many more have been a great place to network. They're great not just for networking, though, they're great for learning, too. Getting different perspectives, and meeting people that you wouldn't ordinarily come in contact with, and talking to people is a great thing. And it'll expose you to all kinds of writing you might not otherwise pick up. It was after two different conventions of meeting Patrick Rothfuss tha...

Signing: So, the first and biggest thing I'd like to tell you about is the signing for Apollo's Daughters that is happening in Salt Lake City this weekend. If you're anywhere nearby, I'd love to see you come out for it. Here is the Facebook event invite , but here are the most important details: Apollo's Daughters, and it's companion anthology Athena's Daughters, strives to highlight the female protagonist in a collection of short speculative fiction, Apollo's Daughters being written by male authors.    Signing and meet and greet begins at 6pm, with readings from Bryan and Jason Young beginning at 6:30pm. Both authors and artists will be available until 8:00pm.   You may purchase Apollo's Daughters at Eborn Books day of or snag it on Amazon now. Eborn Books 254 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84101 Friday, May 29, 2015 6:00pm - 8:00pm   It's incredibly important that you come out to readings and signings that authors d...

Last week, I offered my schedule for CONduit ( which is this weekend, come see me! ) as well as a self-imposed deadline to finish the latest rewrite of The Aeronaut , which is–hopefully–my next book to see release. Well, I'm happy to report that I finished it that night. I powered through the last few thousand words that needed to be written and revised everything that else that needed changing. I drastically re-wrote the ending, which was incredibly difficult for me to do. The ending that was written originally was a series of scenes that I had been dreaming of years before I ever even began to write the book. In fact, I wrote the first pieces of the book as I'd originally imagined it back in 2008 after percolating the story for a while even then. It's something that's been very close to me. It's a personal story and it's important to me that I get it right. But the ending wasn't working. My original idea wasn't what the story morphed into. It's...