Guest Post: A Dream Built on Trust

Today I have a guest post from an author that will be part of a new anthology when it gets funded through Kickstarter.

The worlds you find in this anthology seem unique and individual. This is one author sharing about his inspiration for the story and image the authors are writing from.

If you are curious about more on this Kickstarter, please visit the page and join the many helping make this happen.

A Dream Built on Trust – by Peter J. Wacks

Creation can be painful. It is the greatest myth of modern creativity…. The idea that the creative has to sit on the mountaintop waiting for the muse to strike, to inspire. The truth is that the millions of people working in the creative industries and aspiring to work in them don't tuck away their name badge when they get home. They work nonstop, they think nonstop, they create nonstop.

The tortured creator is not tortured because they don't have ideas, they are tortured because generally they have too many.

So if there are too many ideas how do you choose the right one to work on?

I can't speak for everybody but I can tell you that the most inspired creators I've met are kept awake by their visions.

They are driven to create them because no matter what else they are doing — eating, sleeping, talking with other people — that creation is constantly in their brain evolving and growing.

Three years ago when Jeff Sturgeon sat down with me at a small convention in Washington called RadCon he started talking to me about the vision that was eating at him...

He had this beautiful, awe inspiring visual of cities floating in the sky, desperately trying to escape a toxic earth. Almost immediately my brain started putting together stories in this post-Yellowstone eruption future.

For me that is the mark of an incredible idea – it's a setting that I start seeing stories in.

Whether or not I'll ever be able to write in these settings myself all of my favorite creations are ones that reach me at the creator level. So when Jeff started talking and 120 seconds later my brain started putting together stories I was blown away. There was only one question.

"Why haven't you started painting these?" I asked.

Three years later we are now at the tail end of a kickstarter. It is been a difficult road with Jeff painting nonstop and dozens of other creators putting their time in to try to help build this joint world.

It didn't just stop at other painters. Writers, illustrators, editors, sculptures, even costume fabricators all started to have visions about this world of Jeff's.

Trying to organize that many creative talents into a single effort is like herding cats. Jeff put a lifetime of dreams into this world and each person wants to pull it in a slightly different direction. That is part of why I say creation is pain.

Each of the 60 of us that attached ourselves to this project has a vision, has a hope, has a story….

Yet for Jeff it is even harder because he has a lifetime dream is that this project is built on the back of.

I have been asked many times what inspired me about Jeff's world. I would like to say that the stunning visuals in his paintings or the raw power of the idea of Yellowstone erupting is what inspired me, but it wouldn't be the truth.

The truth is that Jeff risked his dream to share it with other people, to allow other creators a part in his vision.

To me there is nothing so inspiring as that trust and openness. And while there is still a long way to go to fund this kickstarter I cannot help but be thankful that Jeff included me.

So to everyone out there reading… Please take a moment and swing by the kickstarter page. You will be amazed by what you see there. And remember that for me and the other creators involved this is a kickstarter of passion and creativity, but for one person it is the kickstarter of a lifetime.


About the Author:
Peter J Wacks was purportedly born in California sometime during 1976. He has always been amazed and fascinated by both writing and the absurdity of the world in general. Throughout the course of his life, he has hitchhiked across the States and backpacked across Europe on the Eurail. Peter writes a lot, and will continue to do so till the day he dies. Possibly beyond.

He is a bestselling cross-genre writer who has worked in various capacities across the creative fields in gaming, television, film, comics, and most recently, when not busy editing, he spends his time writing novels. He began in the creative fields as a child actor & model, Most notable as an extra on ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ and ‘Thunder Alley.’ At age 6 he began writing short stories, and was first published in high school (1992), a time in which he was also a top ten honorable mention for the NCTE award (1993).

In gaming he was the lead designer and storyline writer of Cyberpunk CCG, a consultant for Allegiance, and both a writer and editor for multiple books in the Interface Zero line. After the Cyberpunk CCG project he spent a month in L.A. as a consultant for the T.V. show Alias, helping the studio determine the viability of converting the show into a CCG. In the mid 2000’s he decided to focus on his original passion, writing stories, once more. His first novel, ‘Second Paradigm’, was published in 2008.

Peter’s first comic, ‘Behind These Eyes’, garnered a finalist spot for the Bram Stoker in 2012. Currently, he has published 5 novels, 4 novellas, and appeared in 16 anthologies.