Archive for the ‘short story’ Category

3 Days Till The Big Birthday Sale

Posted: June 7, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, short story, Writing
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Annoyed yet with these constant reminders? Well guess what? In true horror fashion, there’s more to come! Mwa ha ha!

Anyway, my birthday’s coming up on Wednesday, and in honor of this very special day, I’m giving all of you a gift! All my published titles–The Quiet Game, Reborn City and Snake–are going on sale from June 10th to June 14th on Amazon and Smashwords. Paperbacks will be marked down and e-books will be free to download. So if you’re looking for something new to read and you want to get a new story for a very good price, this will be the opportunity to do so.

Until the next time, my Followers of Fear. I’m off for another busy crazy day.

5 Days Till The Big Birthday Sale!

Posted: June 5, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, short story, Writing
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Three of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. I hear he can be a bit of a narcissist in real life though.

Three of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. I hear he can be a bit of a narcissist in real life though.

Only 5 days until my birthday and you get a special gift. All my published works–The Quiet Game, Reborn City, and Snake–will be on sale from June 10th to June 14th on Amazon and Smashwords. Paperbacks will be marked down and e-books will be free to download. If you’re looking for something new to read and do it cheaply, or you want to get a gift for both me and for yourself, this is the opportunity to do so.

That’s all for now. Hope you’re as excited as I am. I know my sister is. She shared and retweeted my Facebook and Twitter posts about this. God bless her, she loves my stories (and not just because I wrote them).

All for now. If I don’t post later today, have a great weekend, my Followers of Fear!

Announcing the Big Birthday Sale

Posted: June 3, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, short story, Writing
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Well Followers of Fear, my birthday is a week away. That’s right, I’m turning 22 in a week. It’ll also be the one-year anniversary from when Snake was published. In honor of both these special events, I’m doing a special sale of all of my books. From June 10th to June 14th, all electronic versions of my books–The Quiet Game, Reborn City and Snake–will be available for free download, and the paperbacks will be marked down. This will be happening on both Amazon and Smashwords, where my books are available for sale.

I’ll be posting reminders throughout the coming week to get you excited…or possibly sick of my reminders. But heck, if you’re looking for something new to read and want to get it at a good price, next week will be your opportunity to do so. I can’t wait. Can you?

Until next time, my Followers of Fear!

Streghe: Finished

Posted: May 6, 2015 in ideas, Novelette, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Another late night of writing, and it’s paid off. I’ve just finished my latest first draft of a story, and this one’s a whopper. Tonight we’ve got Streghe (which, by the way, is also the Italian word for witch) and is based on one of the witch mythologies we learned about in History of Witchcraft (that class is already coming in handy). Ever since I heard about the mythology, I’ve been fascinated by it, and I knew I had to incorporate it into a story. So as soon as I could, which meant right after Rose‘s second draft was done with, I started working on it.

I did a few things differently with this story. For one, I wrote an outline of events for it, even though it’s only a short story. I’m trying to see if writing outlines for shorter works makes a difference in how I write them. And it does, because even though I went back several times to change the direction of this story, I felt I had a better idea of where it was going and I wasn’t too worried about word counts this time around.

Still, that nonchalance kind of led to this story getting a bit long. In fact, it’s no longer a short story, it’s a novelette! Over ten-thousand words total. I’m not sure if I want to try and shorten it in the second draft or see about expanding it. There were definitely elements in the first draft I didn’t get to include, so I’d like to see about getting those in during the second draft. It really depends on what ideas percolate in my head between the first and second draft.

Well, it’s a good first draft, I think. And once I’ve had some time, I’ll make a (probably) better second draft. In the meantime, if I have time tomorrow I’ll start a new story that’ll most likely also be novelette length (yeah, I never stop writing) and then I’ll get back to editing Video Rage, and see if I have some ideas on how to rewrite and improve Laura Horn.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear. Things are just going so well for me lately. I could just dance. In fact, I think I might (and I’ll terrify everyone who sees it, which is not a problem for me).

Considering Double Narrators

Posted: April 22, 2015 in Reflections, short story, Writing
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I’ve two short stories, one that has had two drafts already and another that I’m trying to get through the last act of. Both stories involve the supernatural, and both focus on two characters, a man and a girl (though in each story the relationship dynamic is quite different). As I’m thinking of the different things I could do with each story in order to improve it, one thing comes to mind for both of them and it’s really got me thinking about the possibilities.

One story is State Fair, which I’ve mentioned here before and is about fairgrounds haunted by ghosts. The other is called Streghe (that’s Italian for “Witches”) and is based off a witch mythology I learned about in my History of Witchcraft (that class is already pretty useful). At their current stages, both short stories are told mostly from the male character’s point of view. So I’m thinking to myself, one of the ways to improve them might be to tell part of the story from the female character’s point of view.

Two narrators in a single story isn’t unusual. I’ve read a couple of well-known short stories that were told in this manner, one of which immediately comes to mind is The Falls by George Saunders (boy, is that one a trip). And the Bartimaeus books, which I loved as a kid, often had two to four narrators, depending on which book you were reading. And most of my novels are told from multiple points of views (and people tend to like those). So I’m wondering why I haven’t tried that with my short stories. Heck, I’m wondering why I haven’t tried it with either of these short stories. I mean, State Fair‘s main character spends most of the story following a girl named Lizzy around the park, so why did I not get her POV on being followed around? And the events of Streghe happen as much as to my young female protagonist Sarah as it does to my nasty male antagonist Tom. Not sure why I’m saving her POV to the end.

Well, it’s something I’ll definitely try. Since I’m still working on the first draft of Streghe, I’ll see about getting Sarah’s POV in this thing, maybe heighten the mystery element of the story by including her. When I get around to another edit of State Fair, I’ll see where where I can put Lizzy’s point of view. It’d be interesting to see how she reacts to a ghost following her around.

But what do you guys think? Am I onto something? Do you use multiple narrators in your short stories? And if so, how does it usually work out for you? Let me know, I’d love to discuss.

Daisy: Unpublished For Now

Posted: April 9, 2015 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Boy, has my writing time been severely restricted lately. I’ve been so busy with everything that I haven’t been able to do as many blog posts as I wanted to (I wanted to write one about Indiana and Arkansas’s new “religious freedom” laws. Long story short, I’ll be avoiding those states for the foreseeable future).

But back on point, I’ve taken Daisy down from Amazon and Smashwords. For those of you unfamiliar with this title, Daisy is a short story I published as an e-book when I first started down the path to becoming a self-published author, about a girl who is kidnapped by a man who believes that she’s his dead girlfriend and has to hide from him in an abandoned building. I published it more as an experiment to see if people would download it than anything else. Although I am fond of it in my way, it’s definitely not one of my best stories, but its cheap price (free in some places) and how short it was certainly got people reading at the time.

So why did I take it down? Well last night, after what had been a long and arduous day, I lay down to sleep, and just as I’m drifting off, a stray thought pops into my head: You have song lyrics in that story. Isn’t that a copyright violation? Nearly sat up straight in bed and turned on my laptop after that nasty thought went through my head. After all, Daisy’s not the best read story, but if someone were to find it and realize I had those song lyrics in there, I could be in serious legal and financial trouble. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t know better at the time, it could still come back to haunt me.

So I took it down this morning after breakfast, and I’ll be taking down the entry for it on my Stand Alones page. And I might put it back up again. I’m not sure at this point. Like I said, it’s not one of my best works, and I hate having to give people sub-par writing. I also don’t do a lot of advertising for it, so  On the other hand, I’m still fond of it and a lot of people liked it despite its shortcomings. So maybe when I have a chance I’ll edit it and put it back up without anything that could get me in court.

In the meantime, I guess the people who already have copies on their various digital devices have the only copies in existence besides mine. So enjoy that folks, you have the e-book equivalent of a collector’s item. Not everyone can say they have one of those.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got homework to do, so I’m going to get on that. Have a good one, my Followers of Fear.

Updates on What I’ve Been Doing

Posted: March 20, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, short story, Writing
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Once again, I’m updating everyone on the various projects I’ve been working on. God knows I’ve got many at various stages of completion. And only God knows why I’ve gotten myself stuck in these crazy projects. It is insane. Well anyway, here’s my updates:

Rose

I’ve just gotten two-thirds of the way through the second draft. I’d say I’ve got about two or three weeks before I’ve finished the draft. After that, I may or may not do a third draft (though I’ve gotten advice throughout the first two drafts, so that feels like a third draft). Once I’ve finished the editing process though, I’ll start the publication process (copyright, cover, what have you). Might get it out later this year or early next year. Either way, it should scare the pants off of people.

Video Rage

I’ve got a lot of people–most of them my family, I’m afraid to say–pissed at me because of the delays in this one. Sorry, my thesis has taken up a lot of my time, so I haven’t been able to devote any energy to Reborn City‘s sequel. However, I plan to get right back into VR as soon as I’m done with Rose. After that, I have a friend who gave me a great amount of help for RC, and after that it’s all publication. Like Rose, I’ll hopefully get this out late this year or early next year. Fingers crossed.

Laura Horn

I still plan to rework and rewrite this book, to make it better than the draft I finished last year. Not sure when I’ll get to it, but hopefully before the year is out. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The Dead and Dying (plus other short stories)

I know I said I’m working on another collection of short stories, but I’ve been busy with…everything and unable to actually do that much collecting. But I plan to get more short stories written after Rose and maybe include them in the collection. I’m still working on that short story involving witches, but it’s taken time to get it right. I’m exacting that way, I want as close to perfection as possible for this story. I might try to take a break with it though, work on some other ones. I have an idea for another witch story that’ll be a bit easier to pull off, so I’ll work on that instead.

Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors

Got a new article coming out tomorrow morning, a very special one. I’ll write a post and include a link tomorrow. Trust me, it’s going to be great.

 

Well, that’s my updates. I’ll let you guys knows if anything comes up that’s worthy of knowing. And with school ending for me in a little over seven weeks or so, I’m sure there will be plenty of things worthy of posting about, my Followers of Fear. Good night everyone (or if you’re reading this over your morning coffee, good morning).

A Foray Into Flash Fiction

Posted: February 10, 2015 in Flash Fiction, Living and Life, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I meant to write this post last night, but it was late when the opportunity to write it came along. And then I’ve been busy with one thing or another since nine this morning, so I haven’t had a chance to actually blog something until just now. Don’t you hate it when that happens? It’s even worse when you’re still recovering form a hectic weekend with not much sleep and you’re feeling a little under the weather, as I am. In fact, I’m going to be spending the rest of the day indoors most likely so I can recover. Maybe I’ll even go to bed early. I got my homework done early and applied to some jobs, so God knows I could use the rest.

Well anyway, during the past couple of days I thought I’d change things up and write some flash fiction pieces. I did this for a couple of reasons, including the short story I was working on wasn’t going in the direction I wanted it to go and I needed a break, I wanted to get some more work accomplished before I started editing Rose and I know of a website that specializes in horror flash fiction. Plus I had a few ideas for horror flash fiction stories and I thought I’d try to get them written out, seeing as they’re so short (if you don’t know what flash fiction is, it’s usually a story under a thousand words. Hard to pull off and still be compelling, but I guess that’s part of the fun).

So I went on that website and read through some of their most recent publications to get an idea of what they looked for. Once I had a basic idea of what they wanted, I started writing, and as of last night I had three flash fiction pieces written out. Two of them take famous fairy tales and kind of subvert them into tragic or scary tales (Rami Ungar, ruining childhoods since 2015!), while the third features that character trope I love so much, the serial killer.

I’m not sure if they’re any good, but I’m going to give them a quick look-over before I try to submit them to that website and see if they’ll get published. Previous attempts at getting published on that site haven’t gone so well, but I’m older and I’ve improved as a writer, so I hope that I can get at least one of them published.

Well, I’m going to get to work on that, followed by taking a break before trying to get one more blog post out before the end of the night. Hope you’re having a good day, my Followers of Fear, and wish me luck. Or renewed health. I wouldn’t mind that either.

Self-Pub Authors: Short Stories That Are Too Short

Posted: January 29, 2015 in Journalism, Reflections, short story, Writing
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My latest article from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is Short Stories That Are Too Short. This post was inspired by things I learned in my creative writing class last semester, and details one of the lessons I learned there. If you’ve ever worried that the short stories you write are too long or too short, this article might be helpful for you.

And if you’re a writer, traditionally published or independently published, this website might be what you’re looking for. We have hundreds of articles that are devoted to helping authors of all stripes write, edit, publish, and market their books effectively and without too much cost. Check it out if you get the chance.

Well, I’ve got work to do. Goodnight, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares.

Interview with Rami Ungar

Posted: January 29, 2015 in Author Interciew, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I’m happy to let everyone know that I’ve recently been interviewed by Tricia Drammeh of Authors to Watch about the short stories I published in the Strange Portals anthology last month and which she appears in as well. If you get the chance, please check out the interview. And while I’m talking about it, I’d like to thank Tricia for featuring me. It really means a lot to me and I hope I can return the favor sometime.

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