Friday, May 18, 2012

Concerning Short Stories (and Other Random Things)

Greetings, blog followers!  It's been a while, hasn't it?  Summer (at least in America) is just about here, and in west Africa the rainy season has started.  Which makes it hard to get things dry, but at least we get great weather!

Yes, rain is great weather, especially after you've been eating dust for three months.

Progress is coming along slowly with my current novel, Tornado C, but I expect to start writing it in the next week or two, provided that this outline doesn't eat me.  (Outlines are vicious carnivores, I'm telling you.  At least for SOP writers.)

Recently, however, my writing has moved in a new direction.  I wrote a 6.5k short story that I called "In Stasis".  Why is this new?  Well, it's the first work of sci-fi I've written in over two years.  Fantasy is normally my home genre, but I've found that writing sci-fi is a welcome break.  It's a great genre to be writing in!  Since short stories are a relatively short commitment, they are a rather addictive way to dabble in other genres.

The protagonist of In Stasis is an elite agent called Will Vullerman, who is contacted by the government to undertake a secret mission to the off-limits and war-ravaged continent of America.  Right now, I'm working on a sequel to that story, tentatively titled "The Eternity Code".  These may be the first of many Will Vullerman short stories.  I'm hoping to release each story on Kindle for 99 cents: as they say, the best marketing is having a backlist of other titles.  The stories will hopefully appeal to a broader audience and draw in random people who find my stories while browsing the Kindle Store.

And hey, they're not too expensive, either. ;)

And, on a note of randomness, our family received a package from America yesterday.  (It appears to have been soaked in colorful stickers.)  Many fantastic things were contained within this package, so many things that for a while I thought that it might be bigger on the inside.  But it wasn't, unfortunately.

Among this awesomeness was twenty-four packets of Cheez-Its, which I hadn't tasted in six months.  (I'm in cheese heaven.)

But also included was an unbelievable amount of music albums.  There were four Thousand Foot Krutch albums alone, including their brand-new album "The End Is Where We Begin".  I put some of the albums from that package on my Kindle, and my playlist is totaling to almost 200 songs now.  We're so blessed to have such awesome friends!

And now TFK has taken the number one slot on my favorite bands list.  Mwahahaha.

So how have you all been in my absence?  Writing, I hope?  What are you working on now?

Oh, and how many of you are TFK fans? ;)

I'll be back again tomorrow with a scheduled post.  Au revior!

8 comments:

Hannah Joy said...

Woot woot Cheez-Its!

I only have one problem. Your scifi story sounds incredible, but The Eternity Code is the name of an Artemis Fowl book. Did you mean for it to be the same?

Other than that, it sounds fantastic, and that's a lot comeing from me because I'm not a scifi fan.

I have been drudging over the land of School. Could be done today, maybe next week. And doing Driver's ed. Not too much writing going on.

As for TFK, I'm not a huge fan, but I did see them in concert (with a bunch of other bands) two Februarys ago.

daNinjaGirl said...

The End is Where We Begin is AWESOME!!!!! My sister and I got it a few weeks ago and are officially TFK fanatics. :D What's your favorite song of their new CD?

Your short story sounds interesting. But the Eternity Code is the title of an Artemis Fowl book...(see, K-minty, ellipses are our friends...)

RED~Scribe said...

I've actually been working on a fairy tail (sort of), been rewriting someone else's Star Wars story, and have been outlining another story that's bound to be quite a long one.

I think you asked the TFK question merely because of me. :P Hmm. Let's see... We first saw TFK nine years ago -- loved them then. We saw TFK two years ago -- loved them then. Saw (and talked with for twenty minutes) TFK last fall -- loved them then. Going to see TFK in July -- will love them then. ;)

Believe it or not, I'm not overly fond of The End is Where We Begin. Trevor makes greater use of higher notes in this album, and I prefer deeper singing voices, so not as many songs hold my attention from this album. But the three heaviest songs (We Are, I Get Wicked and Courtesy Call) have become new favorites of mine.

Starsinger said...

They sound interesting. Yeah, I noticed 'The Eternity Code' bit as well (because I have the Artemis Fowl book titled that stuffed away on my bookshelf).

Prepare yourselves. I haven't actually ever listened to any of the TFK music. Terrible, I know, but it's on my to-do list.

Unfortunately I haven't been writing, too much school homework and stuff (choir) in any time that I would normally have spare. Though I have started, which I was meaning to do ages ago, world-building for my newest book that I am...was working on.

Jake said...

So I wrote a long response to this...and lost it due to the internet. Sorry, I'm not going to write it again. ;)

I renamed the story. It is now "The Reality Ring". The so-called "eternity code" in the story needed to be cut anyway, and so this name better represents the story.

Leilani Sunblade said...

CHEEZ-ITS! Yumminess . . . I haven't had Cheez-its in a while. Though I did have Cheetos recently.

TFK is awesome. I've only listened to one cd (Welcome to the Masquerade), but I really like them. (They inspired a short story that actually got written and I like, which is saying something.)

Brianna said...

Personally, I think The Reality Ring sounds better (mostly because The Eternity Code is the name of one of my fav Artemis Fowl books). I'd love to get it on amazon :) Sounds super cool!
I love to dabble in short stories as well... mostly because they enable you to feel victorious if you never EVER finish a real novel, and the most you can manage at one time it 7k. (That's the only thing I can do :)

Unknown said...

GAAAAAAAAA!!! TFK!!!!!
...
Oh, hi :) TFK's new album is AMAZING!!! Epic beyond words!!

Your favorite song(s)??

(just had to add my TFK opinion) ;)

- Leauphaun