fiction – Page 9 – Late to the Theater

Announcement!

Beginning February 12th, I will be podcasting my short stories and novels, performing them like old-timey radio plays every week – FREE OF CHARGE! Yes, it’s true!

Hello, Reader!

I would like to make an exciting announcement – the start of a new chapter to my creative journey: podcasting. I am starting a fiction podcast titled Escape Into Storytelling!

Beginning February 12th, I will be podcasting my short stories and novels, performing them like old-timey radio plays every week – FREE OF CHARGE! Yes, it’s true!

I’m not selling anything!

The reason is simple: although I love writing and creating, and I know my work is good enough to be sold (because it has), I hate the idea of turning my love into a hustle. I already have a full time job. While it’s nice to dream of a day when writing pays all my bills, better to hope for that day while still swimming for shore.

For folks who feel moved to contribute, I will set up a donation button. You can donate however much or little, or nothing, that you want.

The complete novels and story collections will be available for purchase from the Amazon/Kindle store again in a few months, but the podcasts will be free to download or stream. The Secret Wilderness and Virago have undergone extensive revision and workshopping since their initial publications, and since I would feel like a jerk selling people the same damned book they already bought, the books or ebooks will be free of charge for old readers.

Late to the Theater is not going anywhere, don’t worry. All your favorite rants and musings on film, books, comics, food, Florida, and hurricanes will still be available. And since I will still have opinions on such, there will be more postings of same in the future.

So please, remember to like, subscribe, and share to help spread the word! And keep an eye on this space for future announcements!

Bye!

Flash Fiction

Over on his blog Terrible Minds, published horror author and cool person Chuck Wendig put up a Flash Fiction challenge. There are some AWESOME stories up already. Inspired, I decided to see what I could come up with.

The Rules:

I want you to write a story in five sentences.

No more than 100 words.

You can view it, if you’d like, as:

Sentence 1: Beginning / Inciting Incident

Sentence 2: Middle

Sentence 3: Middle peak, act turn or pivot

Sentence 4: Climactic turn or twist

Sentence 5: Resolution

That is not a strict map, but rather, a reminder that a story is a story, not a snapshot: it has a beginning, a middle and an end.

I posted it over there in the comments, but I’m also posting it here because I has a proud, however small.

At The End Of The Day

I roll over just before the door opens, and lie still as steps cross the room.

Pressure on the mattress, and then two thumps as heavy work boots land on the floor.

A familiar sigh, and then a person-shaped coldness lies down and stretches out next to me. A hand like a glove left out in the snow touches my face.

“You knew I’d be back,” he says.

“Yes.” I close my eyes, eager for his smell of bay rum and old flannel. I only smell the formaldehyde, and wonder if it was worth it.

Announcement!

I’m working on other changes to my blog to make it more like what the Cool Kids are doing these days. I want to make it more sleek and user-friendly, with more pictures and helpful links and whatnot. If you have any feedback, let me know!

Hi folks!

As always, thanks for taking the time to visit and read my blog. It means so much to me to know that there are folks literally on the other side of the planet who tune in and now then to see what I’m on about. Thank you for your time! I love checking in to your blogs and seeing what you are up to as well!

You might have noticed two new pages at the top of the site – these are the first chapters of the first two books that I’ve written. They are high-fantasy novels with some dark fantasy and crime thriller flourishes. Please check them out! And if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it in the comments at the bottom. What did you like or not like? Am I entertaining? Am I wasting my life? Whatever you think, I want to know!

Check back soon! I’ve got some great upcoming blog posts, including:

My Violin and I – An Idiot’s Tale
Apples and Oranges – 19th Century New York as depicted in the BBC TV show Copper and the Animated Family Cartoon, An American Tale
The Big ‘Let Me Show You Around!’ Post

Be seeing ya!

Support Peter S. Beagle

The Wordpress I linked to has a Donate button on it, so you can help ameliorate his legal fees.

Peter S. Beagle is suing his former business manager

Peter S. Beagle is the author of The Last Unicorn, a classic work of modern fantasy. He is suing his former business manager for fraud, defamation, elder abuse, and breach of contract, among other charges.

This is DREADFUL! Among everything else going on – the phrase ‘elder abuse’ wakes my dragon like nothing else. NOBODY who has lived that long should ever be afraid or hurt.

The WordPress I linked to has a Donate button on it, so you can help ameliorate his legal fees.

There’s also a link to Beagle’s beautiful and moving tribute to Christopher Lee. It’s wonderful and perfectly illustrative of the many complex layers of a man best known for playing villains.

Please share, reblog, retweet, link to, whatever this post to spread the word!

The Witch – Short Review and Comparison

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the movie. I just thought it was interesting how two completely different people can create such similar content, without ever meeting.

The Witch is definitely everything I expected, from all the reviews and thinkpieces I’ve read of it, with a few surprises.

Although it’s a horror film, it’s more concerned with building atmosphere and character than throwing out cheap scares. The imagery puts me in mind of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s nature pieces, like The Bear. The soundtrack is beautiful and at times incredibly offputting, as an atonal women’s chorus swells, or strange instruments pluck and rattle, setting your nerves on edge.

The period setting has been exhaustively researched, and director/writer Robert Eggers has perfectly recreated a setting that lends itself to horror particularly well.

It’s not a horror movie for everyone, and I wonder if it will catch fire the way that a lot of people seem to think it will – I can’t see a group of people renting it on Redbox and pounding beers while watching it, but I never would have imagined Downton Abbey would blow up the way it did, either. I have LOADS of praise for it, but I won’t say too much just now. But the last ten minutes – SO awesome.

Anyway, I did notice a lot of parallels with my own work. I’ll put them behind a cut to spare people spoilers from the movie, but if you’re not intending on seeing the movie anyway then you might enjoy knowing where there’s overlap – and where there isn’t.

Continue reading “The Witch – Short Review and Comparison”