A few weeks ago I started an external blog. I'll keep this blog as well as it pertains more to things specific to SOL and the stories here.
The external blog deals with writing in general with a bit of dabbling into self-publishing from time to time.
The latest post is titled 'Anita Lives in My Keyboard' and has to do with characters and character motivation. You can find the blog here:
http://ezzyblack.blogspot.com/
Ezzy
I have been contemplating making some changes to the first scene of Rebecca Danced for some time.
I put the new first chapter in the queue tonight, you should be able to see it first thing tomorrow (Friday).
The idea is to engage the reader more quickly. Instead of setting up the scene when Tony first sees Rebecca, we jump right in. If you want to check it out and let me know what you think there is no need to read past the first five or six paragraphs and I'd appreciate your comments.
There are more updates to come to all of the stories, but they are just small fixes to typo's and the like. I'll get them in over the next few days.
Ezzy
Some seem to think this is a typo, so they asked me, anonymously of course.
(pronounced in-sto-rey-shun)
The act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new.
Sometimes you just find a word that fits perfectly, even if it's not a very common one.
Ezzy
I uploaded a very short story. This was an entry into a writing contest that limited the text to 600 words.
600 words is an amazing challenge to me. I write novels. Indeed this is the only completed story of less than about 65,000 words I've written.
While some authors think that writing long stories is a challenge, I've always admired authors that could write a good short story. For some reason that's harder for me.
Trying to get a theme across in 600 words is amazingly difficult. I thought to use the story as a brief character study to help me on some things I'm writing now.
Yes there is a 'cover' which seems a bit odd for such a short work, but that was also part of the contest (technically it's a 'marketing image' in the vernacular of electronic publishing). That cover has it's own story.
While this is technically a Chaos story it is actually set months into the future of the last book. It may or may not fit the timeline of a future novel in that series so I'm going to put it in the universe for now. Quite possibly it will get swallowed up into a larger work in the future.
I hope you enjoy it.
Happy Holidays!
Ezzy
I think I'm finally caught up now. If you just received a reply to a comment you made a while back I've just been busy with the holiday, broken keyboard, and other things.
This story, best I can tell, received about 400 comments. That's outrageous! Now many of those were readers who sent something after each chapter but still, I've never heard of another author on SOL who gets as much reader response as I do. Then again I guess I just hear from those who complain they don't get enough.
I know the question on most everyone's mind is what next?
There are ideas, consultations, trial writings, and a lot of thought. There is no firm story or plot, just kind of a an idea I want to run with that is a bit of a departure (thus consultations with another author who has proven the concept is beyond valid).
An entire different story is possible. I finished reading something on another site that had an awesome concept. It matches a story that I've never been able to finish called 'Sniper' and gave me some good ideas. It was kind of cutely done, but that author would have been crucified here (1st person POV changes really, really suck authors) and the ending was poorly done and rushed (to get into and most likely lose the sites 'story of the year' contest). I'd love to take that concept and put some meat on its bones as it were. It may simply combine with an earlier story of mine which has been begging a rewrite to make it publishable for a while.
I don't have any takers yet, but there is a Chaos universe. It is what's called a closed universe which just means you have to ask me to put your name in the authorized author's list. One author claims to have ideas for a story that I really want to read based of Sparkles. I'm gonna send him an encouraging E-mail tonight I think. The point is if you are an author, or want to try it, you are welcome to take a crack at it. I'll give you all the help you need. What my feedback is very heavy in is an absolute love of the characters in Chaos and I just simply can't write enough about them to satisfy you.
In the meantime there is that (very) short story mentioned in the last blog post if you want to know about the concept I'm trying out. It will be posted here when the contest it's entered in is over. I suppose that will be the first Chaos 'universe' story.
Happy Holidays!
Ezzy