A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay Can you believe we’ve arrived at another holiday season and the end of the year? It seems like each year goes by so fast! There are all kinds of great stuff to look forward to at this time of year: time with family and friends, good holiday food, gifts. But it's more about the giving than the getting. But the giving can really deplete your bank account, especially if you're like me and have a big family. Well, that's when you look towards the holiday sales. One of many of those is Smashwords' End of Year Book Sale in which my books are participating in! Want something chilling to read during this holiday season? You'll find mine and plenty of other authors' books of science fiction and horror at that sale! And if that's not enough, check out the list of links to holiday horror reading and viewing below!  Smashwords End of Year Sale Is the holiday shopping making your money vault go low? Well, from now through January 1, you can find my books ...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another I nsecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. So far, this week has been one of letter/email writing in regards to my fiction work and not so much of writing or editing the fiction itself. I did complete the first draft of my first short story in two years over the weekend though. But read on for more about that letter-writing to, supposedly, fans. I also answer the optional question of the month and have the latest on the beta version of my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps". IWSG Question of the Month Now for the IWSG question for December: As a writer, what was one of the coolest/best gifts you ever received? That's an easy one. The coolest and best gift I've ever gotten as a writer is my talent and inclination to write. Now as far as materia...

Credit: Pixabay November is often a small month compared to October and December that book-holds it. However, for me it has been a big month. That is, a month loaded with writing tasks. November has been a month of preparing my newest short story collection, "Bad Apps", for its beta release. It’s been a month of formatting the eight short stories into book form and making a clickable table of contents that will make it easier for readers to jump to each story. It's been a month of copying text from each story’s file, pasting it into the book manuscript’s file, and then reformatting those passages that's styles were either lost in the transition or came from a file that I did not think to format properly when I had first typed the story onto the computer. The official book may still be two or three months away, but the beta version of "Bad Apps" is now ready for release! Or, at least ready for release to those who have volunteered to beta read and give me the...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. October was a very busy month for me! I had been formatting my book of short fiction, "Bad Apps", for beta reading most of the month (or so it seemed) and still am. I also had the Halloween edition of the newsletter that I was putting together and released just before October 31. If you're not subscribed to my free author's newsletter, you can subscribe here . On top of that, I was busy putting together a Halloween discount sale for my books which I've actually extended to the end of the week! (More about that below.) Plus, there were seasonal events that I attended. I was trying so hard to get more done than 31 days allows for that there were times when I thought I was on the edge of madness! But I survive...

Credit: the blogger Halloween is upon us! And I've been busy doing writing-related projects in relation to the holiday. One is the Halloween edition of my free author's newsletter, "Night Creatures' Call" which is now out. Be sure to check your in-boxes if you haven't done so. If you're not subscribed the newsletter, you can do so here .    Also going on now through the Halloween/Day of the Dead weekend is a sale on my books! You'll find more about that below. But first, I just wanted to share with you a comment of mine to a YouTube video I watched a while back about the extensive commercialisation of Halloween. This time of year offers plenty of opportunity to make a sale (as with my discounted books listed below), but we must remember that the hallowday is primarily about the community, both living and dead.  Blogger's Response to Video,  'Halloween is Dying'   (I encourage you to watch the video at the link above to get a better understa...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. Well, my challenge to my writing these past couple of weeks has been family gathering. The challenge isn't my relatives themselves, but having to schedule my writing time around them. I'll talk about that in a little bit, but first I'll answer the IWSG optional question for October.  IWSG October 1 Question The question for October is:  What is the most favorite thing you have written, published or not? And why? I really don't have a favourite piece that I've written. I do have plenty of my own stories that I like, published and unpublished. One that comes closest to a favourite, and so that I like very much, is actually a short story I wrote several years ago but have not yet published. I'll publish it ...

This is going to be a short post because I had a family reunion going over the weekend and so have had to really squeeze in my writing time in bits and pieces. "Bad Apps", my upcoming book of short stories has been keeping me busier than ever, especially since I'm coming to the completion of the book. So, I've been having to keep the blog posts down to one a month, with the exception of the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop, in which the next one is coming this Wednesday, October the first. Yes, we will be into the Halloween season in only a couple of days! And to start it off, there will be a re-release of a classic Frankenstein film which will be followed by a new Frankenstein film the following month! I'll talk about those in this post. I also have a little bit of an update for "Bad Apps", so keep reading! Movie poster for "The Curse of Frankenstein"  Credit: Wikimedia Commons 4K Version of Classic Hammer Frankenstein Film Releasi...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. In this post, I have some progress to report on my book-in-the-making, “Bad Apps”, which is a collection of stories about weird and deadly apps. I’m also answering the IWSG optional question of the month. So, keep reading! The IWSG Monthly Question The IWSG question for September is: What are your thoughts on using AI, such as GPChat, Raptor, and others with your writing? Would you use it for research, storybible, or creating outlines\beats? As I've said in answer to similar questions to in past IWSG blog hops, I don't use generative AI to write my stories. That means I do not use it for the creative process of story writing which starts with the brainstorming of ideas and ends with the conceptual revisions such as deve...

I’ll start this post off with some of the latest on my book progress for my upcoming short story collection, " Bad Apps ". I finished, with the assistance of Grammarly, a round of grammar edits on the last of my stories for the book about a week ago and so was getting ready to do an oral-read revision that weekend. I only read full stories on paper, but my printer ran out of ink. But I bought a fresh ink cartridge and so am in the oral-revision stage where I’m reading it out loud to revise for sentence structure and other grammatical problems. I’m also in the planning stages for the book’s introduction. Pretty soon I’ll just need to get the book formatted and, after that, it should be ready to release for beta reading. If any of you are interested in beta reading "Bad Apps", email me at sarellanoroseATgmaildotcom . My post from 24 July 2022 gives more details about the beta reading.  Besides revising stories for "Bad Apps", I've been trying to catch u...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. I guess you can say I have one writing insecurity today, more like a guilt: Last month, except for the IWSG blog hop, I did not post anything at A Far Out Fantastic Site. As I had said before, I've been trying to concentrate more on getting "Bad Apps", my book of short stories, done. But I have some good news: Because of the sacrifice of my weekly blog posts (which is only temporary), I have made further progress on "Bad Apps". But some sacrifices are not so good. One is when a publisher publishes work for monetary gain alone, which is what I find a lot of the publishing industry doing today. I'll talk about that more in my answer to the IWSG's optional question of the month. So, keep reading! IWS...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. Today I’m going to just limit my post to answering the optional question of the month. I was busy all weekend writing my own post for A Far Out Fantastic Site and was doing it up to the very Monday I had been trying to post on a weekly basis. However, as I said a while back, I’ve had to ease off of the weekly blog posts and just post every other week or so. In addition to that, I have to also be more flexible of when I post because shooting for Mondays would cause me to have to stay up until 3 AM on early Sunday mornings and so it had been causing me to lose sleep during the week and to stress out. So, the post will not always come out on a Monday, and it won’t always be every week but possibly every two weeks. I discuss it more...

Posting-Schedule: Change in Frequency I have a book review of a vintage paperback this post. But before we go on to that, I want to let you know something about the posting frequency of A Far Out Fantastic Site. You may have already noticed me doing this, but I may have to post at random times of the week instead of on the usual Monday. Also, I may have to limit the posting to every other week instead of once a week which you may have also noticed I’ve already, more or less, been doing. The reason for these changes is because I need to give more time to my book of short stories, " Bad Apps ".   I've been trying to put together “Bad Apps” for the last three to four years. I've put off its release for too long, and so I need to give more time to working on it. So, if you don't see a post here at the Fantastic Site on a Monday, it doesn't necessarily mean I forgot. Rather, it just means that I've been backed up with the book among other things, some that are ...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. May raced by and so we're already in June! I always look forward to summer as it approaches. I really don't know why since I hate the excessive heat it brings. (It’s gotten to the one-hundred tens in Northern California where I live!) Maybe it's just the thrill of upcoming summer movie releases or making a reading list. I do read slightly different types of books in my genre, speculative fiction, in the summer than I do at other times of the year. But my summer reading list I’ll save for another post. For this post I answer the optional monthly IWSG question which emphasises books and reading. I also have some latest progress on my current writing projects. So, keep on readin'! IWSG  Question for June The IWSG qu...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons Sorry for posting so late in the week. But I thought I would time the release of this post perfectly by releasing it on the birthday of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, most famously known for his Sherlock Holmes stories and books. And I timed it perfectly just in time: it was only this morning that I found out today was his birthday, a day popularly known as "Sherlock Holmes Day"!  Sir Doyle was born May 22, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although he was best known for his Holmes detective stories, he also wrote several works of science fiction and even some horror. His most famous work of science fiction is the novel, "The Lost World" (1912), the first book of the Professor Challenger trilogy. The other two are "The Poison Belt" (1913) and "The Land of Mist" (1926). His horror includes short story "Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" (1924) and novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901).  Here at the Fan...

  It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) 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. I apologise for posting so late again and having to double-up again between the IWSG entry and the weekly entry for A Far Out Fantastic Site. My excuse this time is that I had family from out of town visiting all week last week and so I got very little writing done. I was fortunate to fit in the little time that I had to at least plan this post and get some typing of revisions done for “Virtual Voodoo”, one of the many short stories to be included in my upcoming book, " Bad Apps "! I’ll talk about that story and the problem with long endings in a little bit. First let me start with the IWSG part of the post, which mostly consists of my response to the optional monthly question, in case anyone out there is not a scien...