Stories from the Calindratem

I have grossly neglected this blog for a very long time. This was due to various reasons: A family tragedy, a demanding day job, the global pandemic and some personal health issues.  Like the majority of writers I consider this my real work but I also have and need a day job to pay my bills (Hopefully one day this might change). Usually I manage to keep the two of them balanced pretty good. During the day I have an office job and at night I turn into Lorca (Yes, you guessed right, Lorca is a pen name as my personal tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca). In the recent months however other parts of my life took over and writing faded into the background. Not because I didn't care, but to write you need a certain mindset and even if it sounds cheesy inspiration. As I rarely managed to find this days without writing turned to weeks and weeks turned to months.  Soon I started to feel miserable and irritable, blaming stress and lack of sleep. It all took a toll on my personal health and...

This is a story I wrote for a different blog using free writing. I am happy with the result and to write this way was an interesting experience that helped me dive into it in a whole new way. I hope you enjoy it! This is just brilliant! thought Phoebe sarcastically having already accepted that she would get wet. She had been doing her tax declaration for 3 days and the deadline was tomorrow, so she had to finish it no matter what. Being a freelance musician this was always a pain in the ass. It had been about 1.30 am when she had decided to take a break and get some indian food from the 24 h take away. She had been half way there when it had started pouring like there was no tomorrow. So there she was soaking wet, tired and as she hadn't arrived yet still starving or maybe just hungry but her annoyance made it seem worse. She was about to cross the street, when she noticed that the gate to the cemetery was open. To walk through the graveyard would safe her a...

When talking to people I often get the question: "Why do you write Science Fiction and Fantasy?" This is usually followed by a tirade that they don't like it, because it is so unrealistic. What they don't get: That is the point! With these two genres the fact is that the only limit to your writing is your own mind. While in reality we are limited by physics, biology or simply life. This became very evident to me when my mother, who loved those genres probably even more than I do, fell severly ill. At one point it became evident that there was nothing the doctors could do for her. My reaction was the same one as for everybody who is loosing a loved one: I tried to find a solution and went through the five stages of grief. I spent hours on the internet researching her illness and looking for the latest breakthroughs only to come to the conclusion that medicine was not yet ready to safe her. The feeling of helpnessless was overpowering especially since my writer...

Don't get me wrong, I love "The Hunger Games" trilogy and believe the stories are great. This is however also the reason why all the errors upset me.  To be a good writer you don't need 'just' a good story but you also need an eye for detail and sometimes is means to painstakingly comb trough your own story to eliminate flaws, no matter if they involve grammar and syntax, characters acting ilogical, plot holes or continuity errors.  "The Hunger Games" trilogy  is full of them and because of these errors instead of being an incredible book it seems like a wasted oportunity.  Of course you can ask how a non published writer dares criticizing a bestselling author. Well, just read my list and you might decide if I am right and by the way: Once my book is out I welcome all the detailed analysis as it will help me improve my writing.  Repetition: In each of the books she keeps repeating "he says", "she says", "Pee...

Fan fiction began to gain popularity during 1960ies when Star Trek fans began developing their own stories around the characters from the TV series. It also has coined its language with terms as "Mary Sue" for an overly perfect new character and "slash fiction" for homosexual pairings regardless of the characters actual sexuality on the source material. I started out writing fan fiction  and still do write it on ocasion. I  have always tried to be respectful of the source material. Mainly I leave the original stories intact and create alternative outcomes by using additional characters or simply expanding the original stories. Since I am about to publish my own novel, with characters I created and care dearly about I am starting to see fan fiction in a new light. I can't help but wonder how I will feel if someone ever wrote a fan fiction using my characters and my stories. Is fan fiction a respectful hommage or does it abuse other people's brainchild? ...

While writing my old blog http://lorcagonzalez.blogspot.com I came to realize that more than a blog about my writing it had become a tool for me to voice my thoughts on the more serious problems of life. No matter if they were social, political or enviromental. As I still consider myself primarily a Fantasy writer but wanted to maintain the old form of the blog, the solution became clear:  Start a new Science Fiction and Fantasy blog!  Some of you may be intrigued by the title "Stories from the Calindratem". I have to admit that I decided to use this blog also to promote my own work.  The Calindratem is a mysterious book in my upcoming novel "In the Shadows of History - The One", which contains all the laws of the Guardians and Impugnators. I will let you know more about this as the publication date approaches! I will discuss in this blog everything related to Scifi and Fantasy, from the upcoming Star Wars movie, to the role of women in Lord of the ...