Time and the frustrations of the writer's life

At times, the creative energy needed for writing can feel like more of a drain than anything else, especially when the time to actually sit down and put your ideas to paper gets eaten up by things like jobs, family and whatnot.

These problems only multiply against a deadline. One of the hardest thing for any creative writer to do is not only find the time to put pen to paper, but also to make sure they complete something of quality within the time frame needed.

I find myself fighting deadlines more now than I ever have in my life and strangely most of them are for projects I am writing for my own Metahuman Press. I have three stories that must be completed before the end of October and almost no time to do so past a 40 hour a week job, hours spent at home with my three year old, the need to edit four other titles all sitting in the MHP pipeline and the occasional need to get some sleep.

I don’t really have any good solutions for the problems of time management other than find the time where you can find it.

At times, it seems easier just to say “STOP” and just do something else. But anyone with the itch to create knows that path only leads to more frustration.

So how do you make time to write and create? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Freelance Editing

Anyone interested, I am willing to edit and proofread any fiction manuscripts for a low price in preparation for publication. For a fee, I will proofread and prepare any size script for publication in print and ebook formats. For an additional fee (contact for rates), I can also assist in book formatting and set up for ebook and print self-publishing.

I have several years experience working in small press publishing through my own Metahuman Press (and its imprint Pulp Empire) with over a dozen books published and over a dozen more in the pipeline for late 2012 and early 2013.

For nonfiction material, please contact me about rates and availability. 

Anyone interested should contact me at webmaster {at} metahumanpress {dot} com.  

Rates for proofs and edits are listed below: 

• For any short stories (7500 words or less), I will edit and proofread for only $10.
• Novellette (7501-17,500 words): $25.
• Novella (17,501-40000 words): $50. 
• Short to midrange novels (40,001-100,000 words): $100
• Longer novels (100,000 words or more): $100 + $20 for every 25,000 words over 100k.

This is your life, Nicholas Ahlhelm

So of course I start my own personal blog here… and my internet dies. Story of my life, folks. I’m posting this from the local library right now, where most of these posts will probably come from for most of the next week.

On the writing and editing front, I’ve been doing some final proof corrections on Modern Pulp Heroes, reading through the pile of stories for Aliens Among Us and working on my next (and final) Pulp Obscura tale for Pro Se Press. So not doing much at all.

I’ve been watching way too much television through the power of library rented DVDs in my spare time. I’m currently ¾ of the way through Smallville season 6, half way through the Iron Man anime and finishing up the first season of Leverage. I have the second series of Luther waiting in the wings when I finish those.

Related to all that television watching, I’ve also started reading Liz Braswell’s Nine Lives of Chloe King, the inspiration for the rather good ABC Family show of the same name. In a move surprisingly opposite to my usual preferences, I think I like the show better. That being said I still have the second two books to finish, so things could approve.

Any golden age comic fan should immediately go buy a copy of Showcase Presents All-Star Squadron immediately. I’m only four issues in, but it’s already my favorite comic purchase of the year so far.

There’s only so much time in the world and that’s about all I have here. I’ll still try to keep this blog updating every couple days though, so stay tuned for that.

If anyone has any questions they want answered by me, your illustrious author and publisher, please feel free to ask at my Formspring.

New at Metahuman Press!

This may be the most story heavy week in Metahuman Press history, and it’s just in time for Christmas.

David Kachel’s five part weekly story reaches its penultimate chapter with “Saints and Sinners”!

The bi-weekly tale of our other David, a.k.a. Mister Perlmutter, continues as well with its fifth chapter.

Finally, Mark Oldfield’s Invasion continues with “Rescuer”.

As always, the previous chapters are available for new readers! So give yourself a (free) Christmas present and go read some superhero stories!

Space-sharing with the Examiner

Here’s the dealio, blogosphere fans. In order for this blogging thing to actually be meaningful for me, I need to be able to occasionally work towards making a few pennies off of it. Everyone that clicks on a google link on here or MHP or anyone of my sites helps, but in order to make a real go of it, I need to also be able to pull in a few cents for posting as well. Otherwise, Metahuman Press, Pulp Empire, Arc, and The Dead Walk Again may eventually disappear in to the netherverse of the internet.

With that in mind, I have recently signed up to try my hand at being an Examiner. For those unfamiliar with it, Examiner is basically an attempt to make a massive multi-national internet newspaper. It’s success is somewhat limited on the local level, but it is a sure-fire way to make a bit of money. So while you will see some regular columns and reviews continue here (such as Thor’s Day, some of my blog posts will just be short introductions that lead over to Examiner pages. Please, please, please follow those links and enjoy all the quality commentary you love at this site plus a little extra (like more wrestling content) over at the Examiner.

And thanks for reading!

...and we're back!

Oh yes we are.

And we should be back to semi-regular updates starting tomorrow. I am still working on monetizing this site more to keep it functional as a whole, but for the time being I will be running it like it has been running. For the time being, if you’re reading this, please go down a bit and click on one of those Google links. Every button press makes us a few extra bucks. It’s those impressions that are currently paying to keep the Metahuman Press family of sites alive so they are kind of important.

Now for the news from around the MHP family.

Metahuman Press

The old warhorse has debuted two new stories in the last few weeks with David Perlmutter’s offbeat The Pups and ShoaKi Girl by Charlie Thrun. Today we debuted David Kachel’s follow-up to Legacy, entitled Diary of a Genius. And the best news is that it will be running weakly. Five chapters over the five weeks of December!

Pulp Empire

Pulp Empire continues to chug along nicely. New stories have went up every Thursday. Right now we are running a 15% off sale on the first two books at the Pulp Empire store, so be sure to go pick those up. The sale will continue for the next few days, so get them while they’re hot. And need I mention they make a great gift?

Arc

Arc will update throughout December with the continuation of Tyler Marsh’s prose adventures. Stay tuned as things start to get a little crazy next week.

The Dead Walk Again

We need submissions! If you like zombies, please, please, please! send us your zombie stories for our little online journal. I would like to have an inventory before it launches in a few months.

A Few Tweaks....

I am going to come out of blogular silence for a bit with a few updates.

The Metahuman Press site has been updated with a few new visual tweaks, mostly thanks to updates on both WordPress and the ArrasTheme. It may need a few more before I'm fully appreciative of the new look, but everything should be accessible as of now.

No new Arc this week, folks. I've been a bit under the weather as has the family, so I just didn't have time to layout and edit the Tyler Marsh chapter I had planned. Tyler will be back next week, I promise.

Pulp Empire volume three should be available to purchase near the beginning of the month. Right now the first stories, "An Incident in a Small Town" by Travis Heermann and "The Other Fellow's Shoes" by G. Lloyd Helm have gone up, so you can check them out at the site.

A new partner site, The Dead Walk Again is now accepting story submissions. We are looking to launch it full time beginning next Spring, but we really need to get some content up and running. So if you like zombies, please be sure to check it out, and maybe even submit something!

This blog will remain mostly quiet for the next few weeks as I participate once again in Nanowrimo. Once November has passed, I will be back to blogging (semi-)full time, so stay tuned for more updates. For more regular updates, you can also follow me on Twitter.

What's going on with Take the Helm and Metahuman Press

Many of my regular readers may have noticed my sudden silence last month. I only managed to get three posts up for the month of May, and for any of my regular review readers, I apologize. But I did have good reason for my sudden silence. I have been working on a top secret project that debuts later this month at Metahuman Press! It is the culmination of a project I have been plotting for over a year.

Entitled Long Hot Summer, I will be unveiling more information about it over the next couple weeks. For now, I will just promise that it will take characters from pretty much every story I have produced at the MHP. As to who those characters are... well, that you will just have to wait and see.

This does mean that last month’s Living Legends and this month’s Out For Vengeance will bring each series to a close temporarily. Both will be back some time in the next year: Out For Vengeance sometime in late 2010 and Living Legends early next year. But in the mean time, check out Long Hot Summer and what comes in its wake.

April is Pulp Month!

Starting Thursday we begin a month long celebration of pulp fiction in honor of the newest site in the Metahuman Press family: Pulp Empire!

So stay tuned as we bring you reviews of everyone from the Avenger to Tarzan and beyond!

Now Available: The Collected Metahuman Press Volume One

It's been long in the works, but now it is finally here! The Collected Metahuman Press Volume One is now available through Lulu! This beautiful trade paperback is nearly 250 pages for the low, low price of only $13.95!

I want to encourage all our blog readers, all our site’s supporters, and all lovers of good fiction to pick up a copy!

A Metahuman Press family update

So the last couple weeks have been rough for Metahuman Press and its sister sites. From a terrible, unresponsive host company we moved to a new host. That took nearly a week, but things were up and running well. Then the ol’ internet vanished from existence for a few days. And a few other family issues and computer problems have made content additions a little hard to come by.

That will change next week as we introduce a new schedule that will see publications Monday through Friday on we bring new contact from across the MHP family of sites. Check out our new schedule below:

• Monday: Tales of the Living Legends (new page)
• Tuesday: Arc (new page, starting with exclusive content that bridges issue 1 & 2)
• Wednesday: Metahuman Press (at least one new story every week!)
• Thursday: Pulp Empire (new updates including preview content & classic pulp stories until the site goes fully live on April 1, 2010!)
• Friday: Tales of the Living Legends (new page)

Plus we will continue to update here with semi-regular reviews, opinion pieces, and the like, some of which will be cross-posted to the other sites. So stay tuned for March 15, as things explode for MHP and its family!

Website Transfer

I am in the process of transferring all the files and databases from one server to the other. This will probably result in some downtime (no more than a day or two I would guess, although if my old server continues to vanish it may be longer). Unfortunately, we made some errors in the first attempt and have to switch nameservers back around which adds several hours.

I hope to have the sites back up and running by Friday.

Again all my apologies to our fans. We will have the problem remedied ASAP.

Thank you.

Another quick note on the websites I run

Yeah, they are down again. It should be fixed within a week as I am currently researching other hosting services. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. It sucks as much (if not more) for me too.

A Quick Note on Metahuman Press, Evolution Comics, and Arc

Currently all my sites are down for unknown reasons. I am trying to get in touch with the server company but as yet have been unsuccessful. Hopefully we will be back online soon.

The Wicked debuts at Metahuman Press!

The newest serial on Metahuman Press is now available. Go, read!

Pulp Empire is back!

In a move I have been working towards for a few years now, I am proud to announce the return of Pulp Empire to the computer screen. The former Pulp Empire ran as a sub-site to the defunct Wei Empire and Metahuman Press for a couple years before it was retired to move focus further on to MHP. But with nearly 100 years past since the early days of the pulps, I think the time is back for some new pulp for the new century. And a new logo:



Right now, we are actively searching for pulp story submissions. Please view the guidelines at our submissions page. The best part of this project is that we will be making a print edition available for every 3 to 4 months of stories! That means the potential for actual money going in to the hands of our contributors, something MHP has yet to be able to offer. Check the aformentioned submissions page for more details.

Metahuman Press Goes Print!

All right, folks! It is big announcement time! Today, Metahuman Press kicks off the New Year a day early with the debut of its first print edition! Over the next few months, we will release a few more print versions of our story. These join the print editions of T. Mike McCurley’s Firedrake and Robin Reed’s Power vs Power already available.

So what is our first release? Well, it’s the very first story ever to be published on Metahuman Press!



I have brought Freedom Patton back online with the print edition of his first adventure, now subtitled “A Dangerous Place to Live”. The initial chapter has been revised and expanded and the entire story has been re-formatted for the printed page. All behind a snazzy cover and available through the fine, print-on-demand folks at Lulu for only $13.95! As economic times tighten, we encourage all our fans to start purchasing both our new print editions and the merchandise store. Help us continue to bring your favorite serialized fiction to the web by showing your support for the finest super-powered fiction on the web!

The Rise of the Fan Pages

Just a quick note to say that yesterday’s Shadowdragon post was the three hundredth blog entry on Take the Helm presents!

Today, we are going to take a moment to introduce you to the two awesome new fan pages for Take the Helm’s sister sites Metahuman Press and Arc the Comic. Both have exclusive content: The MHP Fan page has information on our new series The Wicked. The Arc Fan Page has never before seen development art from Arc! Click on the links on the fan page badges below to join!

Nick Ahlhelm is a fan of

Metahuman Press Fan Page

Create your Fan Badge

Nick Ahlhelm is a fan of

Arc Fan Page

Create your Fan Badge

And once you have joined both awesome groups, you can create your own fan badges for all your websites and the like by visiting the Facebook fan badge maker. And thanks for supporting our sites!

Living Legends 21 Notes

The contest from last chapter is still going by the way. If you can figure it out, I will have that fancy piece of clothing shipped right out. Spoilers ahead, so go read the chapter first!

Chapter 21 is a big one. This serves as a major set up to actually move towards the finish of the Dominique storyline. We open with Ace and Fear Lass on Airlab. Airlab, like New Salem, will be making an appearance in upcoming chapters of Out For Vengeance but for now it is a mighty fine place for a battle between our heroes and a new team of super-villains. Unlike just about every other character that popped up in previous chapters, no legacy comes attached to the criminals. I just needed four thug villains. Usually I’ll plum the piles of old story plots I have dating back to my high school years, but I took a different tack with these ones. I pulled out my old copy of the classic TSR Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game and randomly generated all four. After that, I designed personalities around their classes, powers, and talents, and voila, I had more than enough for a team of criminals. Sometimes one dimensional characters can stay one dimensional, and these four, much like the Lady Foulplays in chapters past, probably will. At least for now.

We leave Mary Lee in place for the time being as we move in to the continuance of Atoman’s saga. More next chapter.

We know Robert “Lash Lightning” Morgan has ties to Dominique. Now one of our heroes gets the first hints of what is actually going on at the Chateau. What Isobel can do about it during a fragile pregnancy remains to be seen.

And, finally, our lost heroes return to reality, months after they disappeared, but only a few minutes for them. Doctor Frost’s own arrogance works against him, and this little band of heroes is suddenly without a leader. But they are far from through. Ghost Woman and Blackout both have places to go still.

And they will do it over our next two chapters. Over the next two weeks, we will hit both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as each of the characters celebrate (or at least survive) in a different way.

Living Legends 20 Notes (now with a contest!)

It’s hard to believe I am already up to the twentieth chapter.

For the first time in the book, I establish a group of potential spin-off characters. While the Next Gen will be appearing for the rest of the current story arc of Living Legends, I actually designed the team (in a slightly different form) as an entirely separate concept. As I fleshed out Dominique’s experiments and their results, I realized I could dove-tail the origins together quite nicely. A few name changes to tie them in with some really obscure Golden Age character names and voila! Yeah for syncronicity.

I didn’t forget about Purge. We will have more with the killer very soon.

We have an important moment in the progression of our first volume right here. The Atoman and Black Owl relationship is one I have built up over the last dozen chapters and I promise you that it is far from over yet.

Can you say team-up? I think you can. We will have a lot more with Fear-Lass and Ace the Amazing Boy in the first of three chapters next month! Yes, I did say three chapters! We have a special Christmas story coming up, and I am not going to delay that until after the holiday! So be ready for a triple dose of Living Legends next month.

Now for the contest of the day: can you tell me which nineties movie partially inspired the six young heroes that make up Buster’s Next Gen and their personalities? A first name or two may even have been lifted. I may just have a piece of Metahuman Press swag for whomever guesses correctly....