Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2016
Posting for a Friend
If you're enjoying the fiction I post then you should head over to The Lift, an audio drama whose current episode features a friend of mine, Lee Forman. Lee was one of the competitors last year in the Fear Project and I've really enjoyed his stories since I met him. Check it out, for all you know he could be your new favorite author.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Nurse Summers begins
Hello and welcome to the new serial. This is a character that I created last year for David Wellington's Fear Project, but the story seemed to take on a life of it's own. Before long I found myself deep in vampire lore and making a vampire of my own. This is the culmination of that work. Should everything work out well (computers not exploding and what not) I should have a new chapter for you each Sunday.
A few questions I would like to address before you get started. I don't feel any of these are spoilers, more questions that came up a few times during the creation process. Many of them will be addressed in the story, but knowing it shouldn't lessen the impact.
1) This is not Buffy Summers. I had wanted to use a name that was opposite of her grim demeanor in the first chapter. Summer seemed like the perfect opposite and it wasn't until my wife read it that she pointed out the Buffy reference. Not that it's a bad thing, but these vampires don't dust when you kill them. The amount of blood would more aptly belong in an Evil Dead movie. If you want to imagine this is a different Buffy for a different world you can, but I won't support it.
2) The setting is very modern times. As much as I'd like to do a throwback, the story doesn't belong there.
3) Vampires only started existing in this world about 20 years ago. Before that time they were the villains of the silver screen and novels alike.
4) These aren't your normal vampires, you'll understand as you get into the story. You will get into the explanations as the story goes on, but know that if you're expecting Bram Stoker you'll be sorely disappointed.
A final note, this is your last week to find "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" on the site. It'll be pulled down when I post next week's chapter. You will be able to find it online on Amazon both in print and in Ebook format.
A few questions I would like to address before you get started. I don't feel any of these are spoilers, more questions that came up a few times during the creation process. Many of them will be addressed in the story, but knowing it shouldn't lessen the impact.
1) This is not Buffy Summers. I had wanted to use a name that was opposite of her grim demeanor in the first chapter. Summer seemed like the perfect opposite and it wasn't until my wife read it that she pointed out the Buffy reference. Not that it's a bad thing, but these vampires don't dust when you kill them. The amount of blood would more aptly belong in an Evil Dead movie. If you want to imagine this is a different Buffy for a different world you can, but I won't support it.
2) The setting is very modern times. As much as I'd like to do a throwback, the story doesn't belong there.
3) Vampires only started existing in this world about 20 years ago. Before that time they were the villains of the silver screen and novels alike.
4) These aren't your normal vampires, you'll understand as you get into the story. You will get into the explanations as the story goes on, but know that if you're expecting Bram Stoker you'll be sorely disappointed.
A final note, this is your last week to find "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" on the site. It'll be pulled down when I post next week's chapter. You will be able to find it online on Amazon both in print and in Ebook format.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
A Christmas Goody
So, I've been shopping around a flash fiction piece for the last few months only to have no takers. In honor of the Christmas Holiday and all the travel we'll be doing I'll be posting it here.
Click on the link on the right for "Terminal Scribbles" and I hope your travels keep you safe.
Click on the link on the right for "Terminal Scribbles" and I hope your travels keep you safe.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Irons in the Fire
An author friend of mine once commented that he felt the need to keep many irons in the fire. It worked well for him to rotate through stories. When one wasn't speaking to him he'd rotate out and work on another in order to keep himself writing.
I love this analogy. There is a bit of a geek inside me that would love to work a forge, but that aside it speaks of something true. A story and a piece of metalwork have a lot of similar properties. Neither are going to be perfect on the first try. Both need to be tempered, cared for, and worked carefully under a watchful eye. What someone who has just written their first short story sees as beautiful, someone who has put his time in at the forge will say that it needs work and can point out flaws.
I think the part of the analogy that I like best though, is both can produce a thing of beauty. The finish product can be beautiful, terrible, useful, or elegant. But once they're forged you can have them until they sell to someone who will love and care for them.
I bring this up because I've got a lot of pieces of work out right now that I'm waiting to hear back on. Nothing novel length, only short and flash fiction pieces that I've enjoyed writing. I know that my odds of success and my odds of failure are pretty much the same. But if I get rejected I can always comb over it again and try for another sale.
The hardest thing you can do is to keep producing though when nothing is selling. To keep practicing when success hasn't been around in a while. Eventually though, it's bound to turn up, I can only hope that I have what it's looking to buy when it does.
Also, check out the new chapter of "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" which was posted tonight. Plus, if you'd like to read more by me check out the self-published short story collection "Escaping Sanity" on Amazon. There are many irons in there that taught me something about writing.
I love this analogy. There is a bit of a geek inside me that would love to work a forge, but that aside it speaks of something true. A story and a piece of metalwork have a lot of similar properties. Neither are going to be perfect on the first try. Both need to be tempered, cared for, and worked carefully under a watchful eye. What someone who has just written their first short story sees as beautiful, someone who has put his time in at the forge will say that it needs work and can point out flaws.
I think the part of the analogy that I like best though, is both can produce a thing of beauty. The finish product can be beautiful, terrible, useful, or elegant. But once they're forged you can have them until they sell to someone who will love and care for them.
I bring this up because I've got a lot of pieces of work out right now that I'm waiting to hear back on. Nothing novel length, only short and flash fiction pieces that I've enjoyed writing. I know that my odds of success and my odds of failure are pretty much the same. But if I get rejected I can always comb over it again and try for another sale.
The hardest thing you can do is to keep producing though when nothing is selling. To keep practicing when success hasn't been around in a while. Eventually though, it's bound to turn up, I can only hope that I have what it's looking to buy when it does.
Also, check out the new chapter of "A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing" which was posted tonight. Plus, if you'd like to read more by me check out the self-published short story collection "Escaping Sanity" on Amazon. There are many irons in there that taught me something about writing.
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