Music and Mock Man Press

Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love

Can you hear me?

Came back only yesterday

I'm moving further away

Want you near me

All I needed was the love you gave

All I needed for another day

And all I ever knew

Only you

Oh how music can transport you! I was watching TV the other day with my wife and a song came on -immediately took me back decades. The song was from the band called Yaz in the states, Yazoo in the UK. Band members were also involved in Depeche Mode, Erasure, and some great solo works. Only You was the song that blew the dust off past times, not to take away anything from another great Only You song from 1968. Guess it's only fair to post the first two stanzas from The Platter's song as well: 

Only you can make all this world seem right

Only you can make the darkness bright

Only you and you alone

Can thrill me like you do

And fill my heart with love for only you

Only you can make all this change in me

For it's true, you are my destiny

When you hold my hand

I understand the magic that you do

You're my dream come true

My one and only you

Upstairs at Eric's is the name of the Yaz/Yahoo album. If you like Adele then you will love the lead singer of Yaz, Alison Moyet. They are very much like her. The song is a nice electronic ballad, the rest of the album ranges from the great to the odd but all good. It hearkens back to the days when you searched the 'imports' section of your local record store. Sometimes you were able to buy the singles of your favorites if they offered them for sale. In fact I remember buying a singles of one of Alison Moyet's later solo songs. My how things have changed. 

Both songs are wonderful examples of writing. The first song is minimal, impactful writing, the second more lyrical and scaffolded. I don't deal with love too much in my writing, not a fan of romance, but it is there of course. How can anyone not write about love? Love is one of the main driving forces in life! The seeking love of adventure, the passionate love between couples, the warmth of family ties. Maybe I should write more romancy stuff. It sells the best for sure. But that's not for me, I'll leave that to others. I write for me first, and hope that others enjoy my words. 

Picture for today: A recent purchase I am very happy with. This one is mine, go get your own! Jason Thompson, also known as Mock Man, drew a great black and white graphic telling of the Dream-quest of Unknown Kadath and a few other HPL stories. The book is available here. Follow the link to see beautiful pictures from the interior. The detail on each page is incredible and must be seen to be believed. One reason I love this purchase is I look forward to the day when drawings are made of my stories, whether it is from my own hand, my wife's considerable drawing talents, or from others.

Mock Man as the great dreamer Randolph Carter

A Story is Born - Winter Lords Come Calling

28 JAN 17

How are new stories born? Well, sometimes they come to us in dreams...and that is what we have for today. I woke up with the most fantastic dream in my head a few mornings ago. I rolled over and quickly wrote down what I could remember as fast as I could. The full dream sequence slipped away before I got very far, but I should be able to do it justice when I get done writing the story. Below are my original notes with additional developments and annotations afterwards:

The Lord of Winter visits the Summer climes. Burst this and that. Iguanas dropping from the trees. But at the end the southern lords give him the chilly reception kneeing him in the cold and turning a cold shoulders at him.

That's it. Now, granted, I was still partially asleep when I wrote that! 

But I can remember some of the dream and the influences are easy to see. I visited my sister up in the cold north. Me, a southerner headed up. Maybe that is what starts the story, an invite from a visitor from the south and the Winter Lord wants to come down and see what all the fuss is about. We've had some cold weather here in Louisiana and I was concerned about burst pipes, which has happened before. The iguanas falling from the trees in Florida was very memorable from a few weeks ago in the news. They are cold-blooded and the chilly weather made them seem dead, but they were just unable to move. Crazy, uh? That got me to thinking what other changes would happen around the bayous and other southern locations when a big polar mass comes swooping down on us. With some editing, the basic story idea becomes this...

The Lord of Winter visits the Summer Lands. After getting a visitor from the south, the King gathers his lords and ladies and decides to travel to the fanciful lands to see the sights the visitor talked about. As his caravan heads south, the weather changes ahead of him, announcing his coming as surely as a full parade of trumpeters. A small foreshadowing of his impending visit should be here, maybe a flock of black birds unexpectedly heading further south to get away from the impending chill. The appearance of unusual white birds traveling south with the cold. "There's a Killing Frost coming..."

Freezing winds whistle through the castle, under doors and through the windows. Not burst pipes, but do wells freeze? Will have to look into that. Maybe some wizard's beakers of odd fluids and such freezing and popping like cans of soda in the freezer. Make a funny in here about how come Uncle's favorite stash doesn't expand and spill, Ah...it's alcohol that's why! Maybe not Iguanas, but some other type of reptile dropping from the trees. And alligators in frozen bodies of water, with just their snouts out to keep breathing. That actually happened too. 

The Southern Lords pull out all the stops to make the Winter Lord feel welcome, but they are just not used to the air conditioning! They prefer fans!

While it would be a cool turn of phrase to have the Southern Lords give the Winter Lord the 'cold shoulder' and maybe that is still in there as a mini-climax to an issue, I think in the end maybe I will have the Southern Lords celebrate the departure of Winter with a festival and tie that into how an annual Mardis Gras type of celebration comes into being. Maybe come up with some way to say goodbye cold hello warmth in a simple phrase like Fat Tuesday. Fanciful costumes and a parade of floats in the manner of the Lord of Winter's caravan signal the end of the unwelcome climate and the return of warmer days. The celebration is not Mardis Gras, the focus being more a 'goodbye' to the cold and welcome to warmer weather than religious, but there will definitely be a lot of Mardis Gras elements in there. Sure, why not? Keep the same colors? Too easy I'm thinking. A blue for Winter should be in there perhaps. So perhaps Blue (for winter), Gold (for summer) and Green (for prosperity).

So, that's all the story development for today. Keep an eye out here occasionally for further story development and then of course buy the story when it eventually makes it to market! 

Picture for today is from the interwebs... not one of mine.

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!