CalamusPress.com

Welcome back! It’s time for another website and channel update. It’s been a while, again, but I have a couple new articles and videos for you.

I have a new article on the art of Kishotenketsu in my plotting section for you. Kishotenketsu, or the Japanese 4 Act Structure, is a popular plotting format across much of Asia. It’s most prevalent in anime and manga and has interesting applications for western media if understood.

For new and teen writers I have an article on why you need to dive into your first novel immediately.

I’ve also opened a new section of the site with an article on love scenes. Specifically, whether you should write them at all. I’m sure this new content won’t be controversial in the least.

In the video section, I’ve uploaded a few videos on love scenes, including one age-appropriate one for teen writers.

You may have also noticed a new section in the header menu. I’ve included a new merch section of the website where you can peruse a growing catalogue of merchandise and apparel. These don’t all have to do with the subject of writing and literature, but some do. Many are interesting designs based on interests or to commemorate other important events. I just set up the page, so the offerings are sparse at the moment. But they’ll grow over time.

On to more serious business.

My release schedule for articles and videos over the next few months is going to fall off considerably. I’m seasonally employed with my day job and set to go back to work in better than a month. The nice thing about being seasonally employed is that you make enough in half the year to pursue your interests. The bad thing is that you work like a dog in the other half.

I’m about to enter a season working 10-14 hour days, six and seven days a week for the next 6 months. Add to this that my wife and I bought a new house and need to move by the end of March. We’ll live at the work camp with our children during the shift and return through the summer to get our house set up and ready for the winter. And this is in addition to satisfying whatever orders I get through the merch store.

As you can tell, my plate will be full this summer. I’ll still put out content as I’m able. That may only be one or two articles a month or a few video shorts on YouTube, but I’ll do what I can. I have another few videos and articles to release before then, but after that you won’t hear much from me until October or November.

That’s it for now. Good writing and Calamus Gladio Fortior!

Sincerely,

Shaun

Welcome back! Well, it’s been a while.

I’ve been focusing on writing articles and creating content for my new YouTube channel. It’s been more of a challenge than I anticipated and I’ve changed my content production schedule accordingly.

My original plan was to create three articles and videos per week, 12 articles and videos per month. This has proven to be far more work than I anticipated. Especially the video editing component. I’ve got the hang of my video production and I’m producing them in a more timely manner now. But I still need to scale back my efforts.

I’ve decided to scale my production back to one article and video per week, four per month. This will let me keep up with my production schedule and bank content to release over the summer when I’m back at work. I had also planned to start a writing podcast at some point. But I’m postponing that indefinitely and may consider dropping it entirely.

My writing and reading have also fallen off while I’ve been learning the ropes with my video production. This new schedule should also allow me to get back on track with that as well.

I’ve updated the website with all the content I’ve written and videos I’ve posted since September. I’ve uploaded 12 articles across 6 categories on the articles page of the site.

I finally have the videos up and running and I’ve updated the page with 19 new videos. Those aren’t 19 individual videos. I’ve taken some of my longer topics and split them into multiple videos. You can find them all here.

Thanks for visiting, and hopefully my next update won’t be in 5 months.

Good writing and Calamus Gladio Fortior.

Shaun

Thanks for joining me!

Calamus Gladio Fortior

Welcome to Shaun McIntosh.com! This is my very first post, and I’m still building the website. I have a few articles for you to check out, news on a few books I’m writing, and a few announcements.

The first article is “3 Reasons bad decisions make good stories.” In this robust article, I examine 3 of my favorite TV shows and movies and study how the characters bad decisions drive the plot. It’s not a criticism to say that these shows are based on bad decisions. Rather a skilled writer knows how to use his characters bad decisions to springboard his story to greater heights. This is invaluable information to any budding novelist.

The second article is an assignment I wrote for a Content Marketing course I took through Coursera. The article, “4 Easy tricks to keep your emails out of the trash,” may just be an assignment, but it’s packed full of useful information based on solid marketing theory. The links to external content mentioned in the article don’t work, because they were placeholders for the sake of the exercise. Maybe I’ll get around to writing them someday, maybe I won’t. But the article itself is still worth a read.

Next I’ve updated my books section with current and upcoming projects I’m working on.

In my nonfiction section, I have a revised edition of my first work, “The Battered Shield of Faith: Second Edition.” This book is about my journey through the doubts in my faith and my attempt to help others through the doubts in theirs. 15 years have proven to be a long time and a few things have developed since then. I thought a rewrite was in order.

I first tried publishing this book probably 15 years ago now. Self publishing was always on the agenda, but I made a few mistakes along the way. Chief among these was trusting a so called “self publishing company” to help with the distribution of my book. I won’t mention their name, but let’s just say I was had. They didn’t do anything for me that I couldn’t have done myself, I didn’t make a dime with them and they charged me ten thousand dollars for the privilege. I learned my lesson and I’ll be doing the whole shebang myself this time around.

In my fiction section, I have a work of YA science fiction I first tried publishing about 5 years ago called, “Legends of Caldera: The Bereavers Tale.” I’ve been on a bit of a journey with this one. My first attempt at publishing this one was a bit of a disaster. It wasn’t that no one was buying it or that the concept wasn’t good. Actually, what most people agreed upon is that the concept was fairly intriguing. The only problem was that my writing sucked. Slight problem for a writer.

You see, being as young, inexperienced, and (if I might add) balls to the wall arrogant as I was, I deuced out a first draft, thought it was great, and slapped it on Amazon. The reward for my hubris was scorching criticism and a 2 star overall rating. The only reason it wasn’t lower was because I got one 5 star review, which I’m fairly certain was a pity vote from one of my family.

I forgot one very important rule of writing; Books aren’t written, they’re edited. I’ve come to realize since then that my manuscript wasn’t that bad, as far as manuscripts go. Or at least it suffered from many of the same woes as many rough drafts. My concept just didn’t pass through the rigors of editing necessary to transform it from the lump of coal it was to the diamond it could have been.

But now I’m back for redemption. I’ve been studying and I’m ready to give this a proper go again. The masters of the craft have been guiding me and this time I’ll edit away+ until I squeeze that 2 star lump of coal into at least a 4 star diamond.

Lastly, in my nonfiction section, I’ve included a bunch of books that are works in progress. More concepts, than works, actually. I don’t know when I will get around to them,but it probably won’t be until after I finish rewrites and edits on the other two. I won’t go into detail, but here’s a synopsis of these projects I’ll be working on in the future:

• The Battered Shield of Faith: The enemy within. In this book I will be discussing threats that have arisen from within the church in recent years.
• The Bowing of the Wheat. In this book I’ll discuss how one discovery I made from agriculture changed my view of our relation to the Holy Spirit.
• Society 25. In this book I’ll discuss what an experiment done with mice can tell us about the state of our own culture.
• The Hopeful Rat. In this book I’ll examine how tales of a drowning rat can give us all hope for the future.
• And, of course, I’ll include more on my Legends of Caldera series and other works of fiction as they arise.

Thank you for reading and I hope you find the website interesting.

Good reading,

Shaun