A Far Out Fantastic Site

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...