A. Medlin

I want to premise this by saying that world building if one of the hardest fucking things to do – how much is too much? How little is too little? Where’s the sweet spot between story and exposition? These are questions I consider frequently, regardless of the genre I’m writing in – yes, some genres take more world-building like fantasy and science fiction, but that doesn’t mean there’s no world-building in romance, historical, horror, mystery, etc. The settings may be familiar, may take place in our world, but that doesn’t absolve a writer or author from IMMERSING us, the audience, in that story. So, how is this accomplished? How does one begin to world build? There’sa million techniques, questions, workshops, theories, etc about how to world-build appropriately. And at the end of the day, you should be using at least one or two of these tactics to flesh out the world you’re writing about. But at the end of the day, only YOU as the author or creator will know what’s enough and what isn...

Writing for me comes easily, but I don’t say that without the weight of experience pushing down on my shoulders. Art isn’t easy; I wouldn’t say writing is easy in a million years, even for people with innate talent: art must be worked at to be improved, it is part of the human experience, and it is a meaningful way to create and be a part of something bigger. It is not easy, no matter how “good” an artist may be – I promise you, they took a lot of time to get there. When I say “writing for me comes easily,” what I mean is that I’ve spent a lot of years under the oppressive hand of perfection and fear to be able to see the other side of creation. What do I mean here? When we create, especially as youngsters or beginners, there is an expectation to do well at all times, even to the point where the craft isn’t fun anymore – take my youngest sibling for instance: she is a TALENTED artist, one who has experience through high school art classes, but drew a lot in her free time as...

When I think about writing, I think a lot about character. I think it’s easy to come up with characters, to create whole new people who pilot the worlds of our imaginations. I think it’s easy to conjure up someone who is like us, or not like us, and place them into our stories. I’m not saying that creation is necessarily easy, but characters are limitless, and we can pick whichever ones we want to utilize. I think the hard part comes when our characters take on a mind of their own. Characters are largely controlled by us, the writers. We give them traits and personalities and appearances to interact with other characters and move about in the worlds we’ve conjured up. But sometimes… characters behave in ways we would not expect. Take my character Milton for instance, from DOG DOWN: Milton was originally written to be a sort of foil to Indigo, in which his personality would bring out some of the worst traits in Indigo. However, as the story progressed, Milton started ta...

✨️On giving up something for lent✨️ As we are now in lenten times (for those familiar with Catholicism), I'd like to share some religious thoughts. Please bear in mind, I am an EX catholic, so if you're going to read this, do remember that and know I WILL act, and perhaps even respond, accordingly. Religion, to me, wears many oppressive hats. When I think about Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, I think a LOT about my culture. The peoples of Latin America had religion forced on them by colonialists, and so many of their descendants and the diaspora cling to this oppressive blanket like it ever did them or their ancestors any favors. I can't speak for everyone, but I will speak on the Mexican diaspora in the US. Unfortunately, those who do not reside in ancestral pueblos and villages and towns have lost their traditions and beliefs and folklore to Catholicism, to the "one true God," and it is reflected in the way so many young Latinos have bee...

I often like to think of the metaphor of the grief box when I'm missing my dad. I read about it on Tumblr once, so I don't remember the exact wording or who to credit. If you know, let me know! When we first lose someone, our Grief Box is large, and it's full of Stuff. That Stuff touches every side of the Grief Box so that you feel like it'll never end, that it's just always going to be massive and you'll never feel relief. Fresh grief is its own hell. But, as time goes on, the Stuff in your Grief Box begins to shrink. You barely notice at first, because the Stuff is still touching the sides of your Grief Box frequently, often, every few minutes, etc. More time passes. The Stuff continues to shrink. And as it shrinks, it stops touching the sides of the Grief Box as often. In time, the Stuff is so small, it hardly ever touches the Grief Box. But the Stuff never goes away. The Grief Box never goes away. There are days we can breathe, and days we cannot. Today, it ...

I think a lot about my students, especially these days. I think a lot about their well-being, their safety, if they ate enough that day, if they got enough sleep. I think about their jobs, and their cars, and their families, their responsibilities. I try to remember being a student myself, with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I think about their safety a lot more these days. When I started teaching, I made it an unconscious habit, a terrible game if you will, to figure out escape routes from each of my classrooms. I still play occasionally, more often than occasionally. I know the best ways to keep doors sealed, or ways to hide or run without being seen on my side of campus. I've thought about these things a hundred million times. I'm a teacher in the USA. This is life. But now, I have additional concerns. I work at a HSI, a Hispanic Serving Institute. We are in the heart of Southern California, where the presence of agents has only increased as the weeks go on. LA has...