The latest in my series of revisions. After this I intend to focus more on the new pieces I am producing.
Before They Were Legends Part One and Part Two
The latter only needed a touching up, but I think I have quite improved the other two. In fact, the next post should be the much-belated third entry in “Before They Were Legends.”
I cleaned up a couple more of my old short stories.
It Was Just a Little Scrap, Really
I actually revised the latter yesterday, but I didn’t want to make a post for just one story. “It was Just a Little Scrap, Really,” is one of the first stories I posted here. The very first of my super hero works on here, even if it wasn’t the first one I wrote. It isn’t the first time I updated it either, but it needed it.
Took the time to clean up a few old short stories while I’m working on other projects. Expect a few more revisions in the days/weeks ahead.
Some Heroes are Born, Some are Made, and Others Sort of Fall Into It
The A-List, Ladies and Gentlemen
They all happen to be from my “Heroes and Villains” universe, where I equal parts satirize and delight in the tropes of super hero fiction.
Don’t listen to the website heading, by my clock this is still technically a post for December! A continuation of “Getting Out Those Sulphur Stains,” as promised. The characters here can’t really banter, so most of the humor is found in monologues. I’m a little afraid I am telling more than I am showing, but I tried to layer the satire a little. I hope you can find something to enjoy in my little story about princesses and dragons. The third chapter should be coming along soon, hopefully faster than this one. Consider it my New Year’s resolution: to write more, and specifically to update here more regularly.
Also, Mills’ accent. I don’t usually write characters with a strong accent, because it can swiftly become cumbersome and irritating. I think I’ve found a good balance for Mills, but I’m not as consistent as I would like. I attempted to mutilate a few accents, particularly Cockney and a little deep American South, into something different. Unfortunately, that means even I have a hard time sounding it out in my head. It’s a work in progress.
The debut of Cole and Dog as superheroes, or at least vigilantes with super powers. I tried my hand at designed super hero costumes, but there’s more than one reason I’m writing short stories and not drawing comics. I also put down their alter egos down for the first time…sort of.
I’ve ended up explaining my answers to super hero tropes a lot more than I was expecting when I started writing about this universe. I still like to think of this series as a satire, though. Anyway, this marks the end of Cole and Dog’s introduction, so from now on my stories with them may jump around the timeline a bit. As always, I hope you enjoy it.
This particular short story fought me. I started the idea as a whim, and didn’t really know where to cut if off for the moment. I look at one of the oldest fantasy tropes and play with it a little bit. More than anything, this story has become a look at a character dealing with shock and absurdity. And maybe literal medical shock.
Another reason for the delay is that getting my larger story published in Clarkesworld didn’t work out. I’m going to keep looking, but I won’t let it get in the way of resuming more normal updates. Expect a continuation of this story in a few updates.
I still suffer writer’s block for the bigger project I’m working on. In the meantime, I wrote this little piece to flesh our my world of super heroes. Pseudo-Sci-Fi is all well and good, but how many heroes and villains owe their origins to straight up magic?
It’s short, but I tried to play around with a different narrative style here. Of course, no work of mine is complete without a little banter. We even see a returning character! Sort of.
The dearth of writing this time is due to another project I’m working on, a larger short story I’ll be pitching to magazines, including Clarkesworld Magazine. I’ll pick right back up once I’m done!
Meanwhile, I fixed up a couple things with my short story “The 64th.” Mostly I added a few sentences to make certain things clearer.
I struggled with this one, since one of the primary characters is somewhat difficult to portray. This story is an exercise in developing the kind of characters that fill out the background and mythos of a world, as opposed to the protagonist the story itself follows.
The setting is very similar to “The 64th.”
An experiment in exposition that became an experiment in writer’s block. It was further delayed by a family vacation and another project I started and then dropped. It should be safe to expect faster updates after this.
Here, I tried to practice world building and exposition. I wanted to introduce and explain concepts as naturally as possible, as well as name drop other ideas that hint at a larger world around those elements. So it’s probably kind of confusing. However, I try to never write a story that isn’t a little funny. I also practiced banter as a means of character development.
Near and Far 