Short Story: On the Wing & Slip

  I missed a week because of business/laziness, so here in this post I will be revealing not one, but two sneak peeks. These are the last of the stories that will be represented in our short story collection, which we will be putting together into a nearly-final draft soon. Thank you to everyone who has helped, whether it be beta reading or other support and encouragement.
  This passage is from my "On the Wing."

  Griffin looked around the room again and tried to remember the last time his wife had even slept in their bed with him. She was a doctor at the hospital in the city and kept unusual hours, hours that clashed with Griffin's almost perfectly so that they were rarely at home together. She'd had the hours for nearly a year. Did he hate her for it? No; maybe; he couldn't remember. He was tired.
  Then there was a knock at the door.

  This story centers around Griffin and a night at home in which a party of people he didn't invite show up at his house one-by-one to ask for his help. Except, he doesn't help people for a living, and in fact has asked these people for help at various times himself. Throughout the evening they bring out different parts of his personality and eventually confront him about his darkest fears and secrets. This story is written in a more whimsical and fantastic style than some of the other stories, though some of the ideas are rather dark and gritty, as it is another story in which someone is pressed to the edges of what they can handle, and confronted with the morality of their decisions. The themes circle around guilt, love/hate in family relationships, the criminal mind, insanity, etc. Interesting fact about this story is: this is one of the few stories that has not changed much from its original version.

  This passage is from her "Slip."

  “Granddaughter?” He calls. No answer. Again he calls for her, but all he hears is silence. He feels a tightening in his chest, he fears for her.
  “Wen Chang!” He rushes to the door of their one room house and shouts her name. Why did he let her out of his sight? Where did he left her go? Why isn’t she safe? He racks his brain, trying to remember.
  Then as suddenly as she was gone, she is back. Her eyes confused, her pink lips and dirty hands stained and dripping with pomegranate.
  “Grandfather?”
  He breaths out with relief, “Where were you?”
  She smiles and twists the hem of her dress with her fingers, “I was down by the railroad.”

  This story follows the story of a grandfather and his granddaughter, and a single horrible event that changed their lives forever. This story deals with the themes of guilt, love, regret, trauma, and insanity. This is also a darker story as it deals with loss in a traumatic fashion and the lengths some people go to in order to function with their lives. Interesting fact about this story: the setting for this story is China -- one of three stories for this anthology that take place outside of America.
  Next week we will be discussing our next steps and also showing off cover images for the front of the anthology.

Short Story: The Bathtub

  Another week gone by, and it's time for another sneak peek. This is number six of eight. We're nearing the end of our short story collection, and we're getting very excited about it all. We're working on a cover design now as well as finishing up the final drafts of our stories. We'll most likely be sending it off to a professional writer/editor in the next week or two, and then we'll see about getting it professionally published. If that doesn't happen, you can all look for it on Amazon by end of November. We'll announce it when it happens, but for now, here's another peek at what we're working on. This passage is from a story my wife wrote called "The Bathtub":

  The siblings looked alike only in vague ways, they had the same color of dirty brown hair and brown eyes. But the shapes of their faces, though narrow, were different; it was hard to see the family resemblance. Only that there was something close about them. The girl was always looking out, trying to shield the boys, like a mother hen with large wings trying to cover all of her chicks. The boys followed her silently, looking lost.

  This is one of the darkest stories of the collection as it concerns suicide. The story follows three siblings who were heavily abused as children, and how they cannot get over the things their parents did to them. The themes are forgiveness, revenge, familial love and hate, and escape. If and when you read this story -- and all of the short stories in this collection -- don't just concentrate on the actions of the characters, or the rights and wrongs of the world they live in, but think about the pain, and the irony of what is going on. Life is not a beautiful thing for everyone after all.

Short Story: Neverland

  It is time for another sneak peek. At this point, both of us have finished the main drafts for all of our stories. We're very excited as we move completely into beta reading and getting ready to revise for the final times on all of our stories. At this point we're hoping for an end of October publishing date, so everyone be prepared for that, and wish us luck.

  Here is this week's clip from my short story titled "Neverland":

  She knelt on the alcove seat, unlatched and opened the windows, and leaned out over the windowsill. The busy city streets stretched out far below her, but she tried to ignore them. She took a deep breath and tried to imagine that the air didn’t smell like car exhaust and smog.
  She leaned back in the seat, brushing back her blond bangs. Her eyes wandered up and down the city streets and over the peaceful darkening skyline for a full minute before they came to rest on the book that she had left on the windowsill. She traced the title on the front cover with her finger and smiled. Pride and Prejudice. Her favorite.

  This story is probably my second favorite that I've written for this collection (and my wife agrees). I actually wrote the beginning of this story (the first three pages or so) for a creative writing assignment during my first term of college two years ago. I went back to it about two months ago and was re-reading it and realizing that it wasn't really a complete story, but I really liked the idea.

  The story follows a woman in her mid twenties who is struggling with the real world, the more-or-less recent loss of her mother, and the pain her father has caused her through his controlling ways. This story is basically about a time in which she realizes she needs to grow up and move on. The themes of this story are family love, unforgiveness/forgiveness, loss, and growing up.

  This is one of the more family-friendly, hope-filled stories for this collection.

Short Story: In the Middle of the Desert

  First for an update before a sneak peek. My wife is so fantastic that she has polished all four of her short stories into beta quality, and sent them out for review. I still have two more to finish, but we're getting very excited as we're getting close to the finish line.

  So this week's sneak peek is a look at one of my wife's stories. This one was written this summer and is titled In the Middle of the Desert.

  Heat. It surrounded him. The sun’s rays found the holes in his shirt, giving him spots of sunburn. The desert sand spilled in between his crossed legs, rolling over his pants and sticking to his sweaty skin. Even the breeze that passed through periodically, was warm and chapped his lips. His digital watched beeped, that meant it was now noon. She would be here very soon. Jerzy lay down, the sand’s warmth radiated to his bones, the day was hot, and he loved it.

  This story is about two lovers ending a relationship. Basically they are both artists who want to end the relationship while still on good terms as they both know that it was only temporary and don't want either one to get hurt. It's one of the more tame and family friendly pieces that she has written for this collection.
  This story deals with themes of love, pain, connection, and reaching for your dreams. She wrote it this summer after taking a break from writing. She had heard a true life story that inspired her to write this one, and hopes readers find it just as fascinating as she does.

Short Story: The Boy

  This week's sneak peek is of a story my wife has recently finished for the collection.

Click. The boy turned off his lamp and crawled into bed next to  his four year old brother. The boy had been reading, or escaping as he called it. Because the world was too deathly real for him; if he read he could pull his eyes away from the ribs of his brother as his chest rose and fell in agonizing gasps. If he could read, he could forget the dull look in the eyes of his mother, who had no more tears to cry. The boy lay, sweat dripping from his thin strong body; he wiped it out of his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

This is the opening scene of a story about a boy struggling to survive in a family that is falling apart in the middle of the Great Depression. His father has left the family, and the boy is struggling with that loss and the fact that he, a twelve year old, can do little to nothing about it. This story deals with the themes of pain, loss, family honor, love, devotion, and sacrifice as the boy tries to find his place in the world.
My wife began this story around four years ago and has been slowly improving it, changing it, adding to it, cutting it up, and putting it back together again since then. Earlier this week she stumbled upon the original draft of the story in one of her journals and laughed at how different the versions were. The stories are so different, and the characters' names and personalities are all completely different, and it has a completely different feeling about it. And now finally it's ready for other people to see.
Next week I will share another of her stories.

Short Story: Lifeblood

    I completed a second of my stories this week, and we are getting really excited about the progress we're making. With several of the stories now having been sent out to beta readers (thank you all), we're about half-way finished with our short story collection. So, here is your second sneak peek.

    You remember distinctly the very first life you ever took. At twelve years old, you participated in the traditional rite of passage into adulthood by dueling and killing a prisoner of war who had been starved enough to give you a good chance. Of course the prisoner was fighting for his life which added a serious danger to it.
    But it wasn't the battle that you remember so well. It was the feeling when the body collapsed and the blood pooled at your feet that gives you chills to this day.
    It had been too easy.

    These are not the opening lines of the story, but this gives you a good taste of what the story feels like. This is actually my favorite story that I've written for this collection, I think. It started off as an experiment that I wasn't sure would really work. I wrote the first draft of this story for a creative writing class in which we're supposed to write "literary fiction", which basically means the story is supposed to be character driven and basically a character study rather than a piece of action or plot-pumping entertainment. I wanted to know if I could write a story that was centered around action and violence and still make it character driven. It took a lot of time and a lot of revisions, but I think I have succeeded (and my professor does too).

    This story follows a viking chief named Orvar on a battlefield, trying to get vengeance for the murder of his family, but it's a lot more than that. It's about a father-son relationship. It's about a chief-village relationship. It's about manhood, and what coming of age really means. It's about honor, responsibility, and what it means to really be a leader.

    Some other information abut this story. You may have noticed in the passage from the story that I used the 2nd person point of you saying, 'you did this, you did that', This was the second most experimental part of this story. I wanted the story to feel like an epic poem. I wanted it to feel like a story that is told around a campfire about a legendary hero, like the vikings would have done. And I wanted to see if the 2nd person point of view would work since I've always wanted to write a story like that.

    If you want to know more, stay updated here or contact me with questions, comments, or concerns. Next week, the sneak peek will be about one of my wife's stories, Thanks for taking the time to read this and be part of our process, and let me know if you still want to beta read. It's not too late.

Short Story: Nyctophobia

  So I said in my last post that I would be giving sneak peeks into the stories we're writing for our short story collection. Here's the first one. This is one of my stories that is the first to reach it's almost-final draft (meaning I need a final beta reader to give me fresh insight). So here we go.

  Everyone is afraid of the dark. At least to some extent. As a kid I remember whenever I shut the light off in my room in the evenings, I would run out of my room before the monsters could eat me. Or when I'd finally go to bed, I would beg my mom to turn the nightlight on. I wouldn't be able to sleep without that little bit of light.

  These are the opening lines of the story. This short tale surrounds a young man, age 24, as a police officer investigating a potential meth lab. He struggles severely with being afraid of the dark (hence the name of the story), as well as with the physical and mental abuse of his father and older brother from childhood.

  Themes of this story include fear of the dark, damaged relationships, madness, un-forgiveness, and confronting your fears.

  This is one of the slightly darker stories I've written for this collection. The story started off as a writing exercise from one of my creative writing college classes. It was about building tension in a short period of time. Eventually it turned into a story about a young man who wants to do the right thing and be a good cop, but because of the psychological scars he has from childhood, he goes a bit insane.

  Most of the stories I write are more fantastical than this, but this one was actually a lot of fun to write as I explored exactly what it would take to realistically knock this character off his rocker.

  Again, let me know if you have question, comments, or are interested in beta reading.

Update on the short story collection

  My wife and I have finally decided which eight stories to publish and even have a theoretical order to put them all into. Over the next several weeks, as each story nears completion (which means being completely rewritten at least 3 times), one of us will be posting about the story and giving a sneak peak as to what exactly the story is about, what inspired it, and how it fits into this collection. We will also need a few beta readers when we've put the almost-final draft of the collection together, so let us know if you're interested.
  Here is the list of stories (though neither their location in this list nor their names may actually by final):
1 - Neverland (his)
2 - Middle of the Desert (hers)
3 - Lifeblood (his)
4 - Slip (hers)
5 - Nyctophobia (his)
6 - The Bathtub (hers)
7 - On the Wing (his)
8 - The Boy (hers)
  This collection's genre will probably be considered Modern Realistic Fiction, which basically means the stories are written in the modern style (preset day grammar, comparisons, literary devices, etc), and all the stories could theoretically happen in real life, though some are a bit more far fetched than others.
  Some of the stories are more whimsical than others, and some are certainly darker than others, as the subjects addressed in a few concern heavily disturbed people or very traumatic circumstances. The reason for some of these darker stories is thus: My wife and I are enthralled with the idea of moral fiction and the fact that everyone has a choice, which basically means that on occasion we explore exactly how far someone can go before they break. And if (usually rarely) the person(s) are able to redeem themselves or not. Thus some of the stories explore a darker side of humanity that is not always child friendly. However, we attempted to balance out all of the stories as much as possible so they hopefully are still enjoyable. Please feel free to ask questions and comment as you like.

Profession: Novelist

     I have always wanted to tell someone that my occupation/profession was a novelist, but that time hasn't come yet. I'm still more or less unpublished when it comes to creative fiction (meaning I've been published in newspapers and magazines as part of nonfiction stories). My wife always had the goal of being published before she was twenty, and she reached that goal on May 29th, 2015 when she self-published a short collection of poems through Amazon. I turned twenty over a month ago, and am still yet to be really published. I have goals however, and I am hoping to self-publish before I start college classes again at the end of September.
    My wife and I are working together to publish a collection of eight short stories. At this point, we have titled it "What It All Means: The Red Collection". She will write four short stories, and I will write four. The themes are: Love, Guilt, Honor, and Blood. At this time, we have a number of short stories written and are trying to decide which ones to include in the collection, as well as rewrite a few of the rawer ones.
     I know this isn't a novel, but this is a sure start. I'm also creating a website from scratch to publicize our work. Then I'm crossing my fingers and hoping it all takes off from there. And even if it doesn't, I have other stories in the works, and can always shoot to be professionally published by the time I'm thirty.