A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixelbay (with alterations) Halloween is only a day away, and we're also getting into the Day of the Dead season. It’s a time of witches and their demonic cats; a time of skeletons and jack-o lanterns. And at this time centuries ago, people such as the Celts of what are now the British Isles and the Aztecs of Mexico believed that the barrier separating the dead from the living opened up for a short time for the two to come together and celebrate. Some of us believe that still today, at least in a certain sense. But some of the citizens of the realm of the dead did not come to celebrate with the living but, instead, to terrorise them. At least that was the belief.  Well, my newest book of short fiction, "Bad Apps", contains stories of a similar nature and, in some cases, even a supernature. However, the barrier that is removed is not so much one that separates the living and the dead but one that separates the real world from the virtually real world. And the ones ...

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and so it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) monthly blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. IWSG Question of the Month I thought the optional question of the month that Melissa Maygrove selected was just perfect for October! That is, in the sense that it involves a type of ghost--ghostwriting! Of course, that's not a literal ghost that the term is referring to, but it still makes great wordplay for the season this blog hop falls in. So, the October 7th question is: Many people are calling for writers who use AI to disclose it. Most who employ ghostwriters do not admit it - do you think authors who use ghostwriters should have to disclose that, too?   My answer is yes, I do. My understanding is that when a book is ghostwritten it's often disclosed in the fine print of the copyright page. But I heard about t...

I apologise for having to skip the Book-To-Movie review again this month. Having published "Bad Apps" and now preparing it for print has been keeping me busier than I thought. I've also been doing some promotion swag work for "Bad Apps": bookmarks. I spent the previous week creating the bookmark and then getting it printed at a Kinkos in Davis (CA) near where I live. I had to cut the prints myself which wasn't very hard but altogether was time consuming. The promotional bookmark for my new book of short stories, "Bad Apps". I would have left the bookmarks for another time, but I wanted to distribute them at the first Sinister Horror Book Fair which occurred Sunday at a Scottish Rite centre near Sacramento State University. This book fair was put on by the same people who do Sinister Creature Con, a horror movie and TV convention that occurs twice a year. It was the first book fair they did and it seemed to do really well and I hope they'll do ...

This is it! "Bad Apps", a book five years in the making, has finally launched at Amazon! That is, I have published it on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. It may take up to one to three days to become available in the Amazon store itself. But here's the link to my Amazon Author Page where you'll find "Bad Apps" once it's available for purchase! And, beta readers, you will be receiving a free copy of the ebook version within the next couple of days, so keep checking your in-boxes! So, what's next? Currently, "Bad Apps" is available in ebook form only, but you can be sure that print will be coming soon! To me, a book really isn't a book unless it's printed and bound, bibliophile I am. Once "Bad Apps" releases in print, I'll announce it here at A Far Out Fantastic Site and my Facebook page . So, keep checking back at those two sources throughout the next couple of weeks!  Also, a book tour will be coming in the next...

I said I'd show it to the beta readers first, and so I did. I said I would then show it to my newsletter subscribers [link], and so I did. Now I'm showing it to the rest of the planet. Yes, this post, along with the ones on my Facebook and Instagram pages, is the official reveal of the book cover to my new and upcoming collection of short stories, "Bad Apps"!  You’ll find the cover with the most recent and final revised version of the book’s blurb below. I'd like to thank the illustrator who I hired, Eternal Visual, for doing such a super job on the illustration to the cover. He took it even further than the concept sketch I gave him to work from, and I approved it with very little thought because I was that impressed! Thanks, again, Eternal Visual!  For the cover's font's, I used Orbitron because, out of Kindle Direct Publishing ‘s font selection, it was the one most fitting for the science fiction short story collection this book is. But the book is al...

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and so it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) monthly blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. Lately, as much as I love the book, the publishing process of my soon-to-release short story collection, “Bad Apps”, has been a challenge for me. Yet, it’s even sooner-to-release and so it’s only a matter of days until it releases! However, before that will be the cover reveal. So, I have the latest on these and the optional question of the month below! Book Updates and Prep-Publishing Challenges I've said before that I’m not a deadline person, as much as I try to and believe in getting things done promptly. So, I try to be as transparent as possible with my writing projects. That includes “Bad Apps”. There are often unexpected challenges for the artist, and so I’ve been getting those in the formatting and publishing pr...