Posts Tagged ‘Forever Young’

Hannah and Other Stories: Latest Draft Completed!!!

Posted: January 29, 2023 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2
Temporary placeholder artwork for Hannah.

Well, that took less time than expected. Still took awhile, but it didn’t take two months as I predicted.

So, for those of you who are unaware, I have a short story collection called Hannah and Other Stories being released some time this year. It contains seven original stories of varying lengths and covers the following subjects: a rumor about a figure on the Internet who is targeting vulnerable teens; carnivorous horses; and budding serial killers, just to name a few. It’ll be released by BSC Publishing Group, whom I’ve worked with before through their magazine The Dark Sire.

And since New Year’s, I’ve been editing the last four stories in the collection, trying to expand on certain things such as showing rather than telling and cutting out stuff that doesn’t do the story any good. I think between that and all the other edits I made, the collection is that much stronger and will make for one hell of a read upon publication.

Of course, I doubt it’s finished yet. We’re probably going to have to go through and make another round of edits before we can set a release date, let alone format everything, create a cover, and make one hell of a marketing plan. But I think that at this point, we’ll just be making some minor alterations to make sure the stories are well-edited and the plots flow well.

Then again, they do say writers are their own worst judges of their work, so who knows? We may have more than cosmetic work up ahead.

The page and word count as I finished the manuscript. It’s going to be a long book.

Well, it’s with the publisher now and they’ll hopefully let me know what they think very soon. In the meantime, I”ll be taking the next few days to relax and catch up on some movies I’ve been meaning to catch and some reading I’ve been meaning to do. I’ll probably also celebrate finishing the latest draft with some good food and some wine. After that, and with my creativity replenished (plus, I’ll likely feel like I need to work on something or I’ll die), I’ll get to work on some other stories that require another draft. These stories are Forever Young, about an unusual child actress; It Changes You, taking place in the Internet phenomenon known as The Backrooms; and They Sleep Within the Rock, the story I wrote about neo-Nazis getting their just desserts.

You can tell why I call all this editing The Great Editing. It’s a lot!

Anyway, after those stories are edited, I haven’t made any commitments yet. It’ll depend on whether or not BSC Publishing Group has sent me back any decisions regarding Hannah and whether or not I need to do further edits. But I do hope I can work on some new stuff by that point. I’ve a bunch of new story ideas I want to work on, so I’m hopeful.

In the meantime, however, I’m going to make a late dinner, maybe open a bottle of homemade wine, and figure out what I’m going to do for the rest of the night. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, I look forward to sharing Hannah with you and hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed working on it.

Good night and pleasant nightmares!

Oh, one more thing: you may have noticed, but at the top of the blog there are a lot less pages. In fact, I recently consolidated all my books onto one page, simply titled Books. I figured that would make things easier for both new and old readers to find my works and the links to them, rather than having to scour fifteen different pages for them.

Just wanted to mention in case you hadn’t noticed. Good night!

Announcing The Great Editing! Or, My Writing Plans for the Next Couple of Months

Posted: December 26, 2022 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

I did say in my last post that I would be talking about my upcoming plans in another post, didn’t I?

So, you’re probably aware that I have a collection of short stories coming out sometime in 2023 from BSC Publishing Group. That collection, Hannah and Other Stories, has been going through a lot of editing over the course of 2023, though we took a break for the holidays in November and December. Starting January 3rd, I’ll be starting work again on the collection. BSC sent me notes for four of the stories, so I’ll be working through those for the first couple of months of 2023.* After those edits are done, it’s back to the publisher, where they’ll hopefully give the okay to move onto the next stage and start getting things like the cover and the marketing push ready.

It also means I’ll be editing “Forever Young” and “It Changes You,” the stories I wrote in November and this past month. I think if I can find the right publishers or magazines or anthologies, I can either get them published individually or as part of another collection, but they’ll need work before I can send them out. Hence, editing.

And between now and January 2nd at 11:59 PM, I’ll be editing “They Sleep Within the Rock,” the novella I wrote where I put neo-Nazis through Hell. I wrote it last year, but have not touched it since then for some reason, so I want to get that done before I get back to work on Hannah. It’s about twenty-six thousand words, so it’ll definitely take more time than a single evening writing session to finish. However, it’s divided into ten chapters if I remember right, so I think if I knock two sections a night out, it should be fine.

Anyway, given all that editing, it’s no wonder I’m calling this the Great Editing, like it’s some dramatic event that could shape history or something. Then again, as a writer, isn’t part of my job making mundane things dramatic? Yeah, pretty sure it is.

In the meantime, however, it’s late and I have work in the morning, so I’ll be taking the rest of the evening off. So, until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and, if I don’t post again before Saturday, December 31st, 2022, Happy New Year!

*I assume. Hard to tell how long all this will take. Life is unpredictable, isn’t it? For all I know, I could get it all done in a few weeks, or I could be finishing it all up in June. You just never know.

One more thing: I know I posted this in the last post, but I might not post again this week! Might as well repeat it so the message gets heard.

Anyway, for the first week of January, the electronic versions of most of my books will be on sale, as well as the audio book for The Pure World Comes from certain retailers! It’s my hope in doing so that it’ll be a great kickoff to 2023. Anyway, if you would like to read any of my books at a discounted rate, this would be a great opportunity to do so. So between January 1st and January 8th, go to the retailer of your choice and you’ll find most of my books there on sale. I hope you enjoy reading them, and if you do, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback and it helps me out in the long run (as well as other readers).

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. This time, I’m serious. Good night and pleasant nightmares!