Authors Wanted

Editor's note. This is a guest post by James C. Harwood. His projects with shared universes intrigued me and I offered my blog to help him recruit interested authors for them.

Authors Wanted. Email James C. Harwood hereafter1956@yahoo.com if interested in the following.

First, it is important to learn about and understand what shared universe concepts are. See Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_universe for "shared universe" defined and explained. A good example is Star Trek, which became a shared universe concept series when different authors wrote Star Trek stories for books, television and movies, after Gene Roddenberry created the series.

The HEREafter Project: The "HEREafter, Book One: A Mild Case of Death" science fiction novel by James C. Harwood was first published as a paperback in May 2003. Then as an ebook in May 2004. Now it is a free blog novel at the http://hereafterbookone.blogspot.com website. Please read the Book Series Introduction on the main page at the blog novel website to find out what it is about. HEREafter was created to be a shared universe concept series. James C. Harwood wrote Book One to be the example to follow. He created the http://hereafterglossarium.blogspt.com "HEREafter Glossarium" at the website as an aid to readers and future HEREafter writers. A reader can click on hyperlinked words in the text of the blog novel to then be taken to the same words in the Glossarium, to then get more information about those characters, or locations, or events, or other subjects. Writers interested in becoming HEREafter authors should read all of Book One and the contents of the Glossarium in order to become familiar with all of the material of the HEREafter universe. Further, Book One is currently being continued as "HEREafter Tractus" at http://hereaftertractus.blogspot.com in the form of a journal series, which eventually will become Book Two for the part of the series being written by James C. Harwood. New HEREafter authors will each create their own blogs for HEREafter blog fiction. James C. Harwood owns HEREafter, Copyright, All Rights, but is sharing the HEREafter material free of charge with any interested writers. Likewise, readers may freely share the material with other readers. It is acceptable for authors to place a PayPal link at their blog websites to ask for donations, and each author may keep 100% of money received from donations—no shares to James C. Harwood for blog fiction.

The Kaleidoscope Project: Visit the http://kaleidoscopehotelbarandcoffeeshop.blogspot.com/ Kaleidoscope Hotel, Bar, and Coffee Shop blog website. [For convenience you may refer to it as the K-blog.] Blogger.com allows up to 100 authors on each blog. Please read the Instructions listed on the left side of the main page. All participating Kaleidoscope Project authors will participate at that same blog website, unlike the HEREafter Project authors who will create their own separate blog websites. This is intended to be a fun shared universe concept series. Those writers who as readers are familiar with the "Callahan's" series of Spider Robinson novels will instantly understand how part of this works. The characters cross paths as patrons at "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" where they have a drink, interact with each other, and swap stories. Likewise, the Kaleidoscope characters will cross paths at the hotel, which includes a bar and a coffee shop. The hotel is unique. Like the "arch" of the "holodeck" in Star Trek The Next Generation, any hotel exit may be given voice commands by any guest to take that guest to any physical location and any point in time where human life can exist, and be programmed to be recalled if it is a location where the hotel does not otherwise exist. An example could be a character who enters the hotel in Dallas in 2009, checks in, gets a room, and then exits the hotel to walk out into London of 1888 to have a chat with Jack the Ripper. The space and time travel aspects make it science fiction, but otherwise any genre is acceptable—adventure, comedy, drama, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, suspense, etc. Through the common ground of the hotel, characters of different authors can crossover into each other's realms. Further, readers may become characters and participate by communicating with characters by using Comments of blog postings. There will be no PayPal donations at the K-blog, in order to keep it completely free and simple—no need to deal with the problem of distributing shares of donations to different authors. This is just for fun reading and writing.