Writing

16 DEC 17

Happy Holidays everyone! Super Saturday! Woke up early this morning, no running, but I did feel inspired enough to do some solid editing. The short story I worked on was a bonus piece for a seasonal anthology, and dealt with relationships between primates and people. 

It started out as a very short story, under 1,800 words and now it's grown, merged with another short piece originally written as a response to a picture and the two combined are now over 3,000 words. I rewrote some dialogue and interactions between a boss and his secretary, used a real place in downtown Shreveport (Regions Bank), and then made up one or two fictitious places. Makes the story a little more realistic to have solid names and places as the setting. I also did some research for this story on how gorillas use sign language, where gorillas are kept in the United States and things like that.

Still working on expressing emotions between people, developing characters and so on. This story was good practice for that. 

Also happy to report that another short story of mine, originally released as "Monsters" on Wattpad, has been published as part of an anthology/linked story book. The book it appears in is sort of like an anthology, except that the included stories are shorter pieces set inside a larger, wrapping, story. 

Here is the link: 

Protectors of the Veil

And the blurb for the release: 

This book is a very unusual cohesive novel with short stories woven into the main story. It centers around the Internal Veil Affairs office. They work for the Great Old Ones to maintain and protect the veil that covers the Earth. If too many people see reality, the veil will be destroyed before the Great Old Ones are ready to return. If the veil falls before the stars are right, this realm and everyone in it would be obliterated. The book follows the IVA on their cases and their quest to preserve the veil at all costs. The short stories are from many contributors that are listed in the Contributors section at the back of the book. Each short story is the backstory of each case. There are all sorts of monsters and interdimensional creatures. This will be the first book in a series all set in the same universe.

I really like the story I submitted for this release. It sort of came to me in a dream and includes a lot of my favorite themes: military service, fantasy, set in a realistic setting.

I made a cover for the Wattpad version of the story, using a photo I took that came out rather nice. It is currently being used as the banner for my new facebook author page. I do want to edit it, trim out a few more branches so that the title is more prominent. Here is the current version as the picture for this post:

Now it's time to sit back and wait for a courtesy copy of the one anthology and the release date for the seasonal anthology! Two more times in print this year. Good times. Have a great day everyone!