Inkfort 2021 Publishing Derby

This summer, I wrote a book. Not a long book, the first draft working out to exactly twenty thousand words. It was for a contest. My partner had entered a book writing contest. Although there were no prizes, it was more of a challenge than anything. There were over one hundred book covers, all with randomly generated author names and titles. We were allowed to change the title, and the author name, so long as we didn’t reveal who wrote the book. Part of the challenge was the anonymity of it.

Part of the fun, as academics like to say, is trying to guess the other authors. I had an idea of one of the other authors, but I doubt I’m right, although it was fun to speculate. My partner is running a contest for people to try and guess which book we wrote (because by the end of it, she helped edit in about 5000 words). The hope is that people will read a couple of books, but mine was designed to be read easily and quickly. Which is antithetical to a few of the contest entries. 😉

It worked out to roughly one hundred pages and reflects my desire to tell the story of the everyman in a popular genre. So, I wrote in a genre which I see rapidly catching steam, one in which came from a meme I saw: “What if I want to play dungeons and dragons by myself?” and the response was: “Well, that’s just writing a book.” So, I did.

I tried to keep the story simple enough to be grasped in a single sitting, fun and fast-paced. The reader could learn and experience things alongside the protagonists. Not too unlike our current world, the protagonists contend with a barrier that limits their scope of life. Their lives are limited to a safe space in which, so long as they stay within those spaces, they have nothing to fear.

What happens when we start questioning the barriers around us? What happens when we start recognizing the obstacles as being able to be overcome? What happens when new tools are introduced, and we don’t even know how to use them? How do we figure that out.

As a historian, I know that life long ago was “miserable brutish and short,” (which is a quote from E.P. Thompson if I recall correctly, that one of my professors liked to repeat). Those that survive are lucky every day of their lives. When any cut can lead to an infection that might kill you, this reality hits a bit harder. It takes a clever fellow to try and break barriers, but it also takes more than just trial and error. It takes careful observation. Cautious planning and sometimes reckless abandon, but ultimately, it needs cooperation, sometimes with strangers.

I didn’t write a happy story, but it’s also a story that tries to have fun with how hard life can be and how, sometimes, life just takes you along for an adventure.

I wish I had Gandalf to drag the character into the action of fantasy life, but I didn’t. I have the plodding of time, which grinds away whether we like it or not.

So, can you figure out which book I wrote with Erynn for Inkfort’s Publishing Derby? We have a piece of art made by a friend of mine up for grabs.

So, if someone can successfully guess which book I wrote, we hope to share this piece of art with that person. Consider checking out some short books and seeing if you can’t guess if I wrote it or not, or radical idea: Maybe read a couple!