Halloween Is Over...

Halloween has come and gone and it's soooo sad...

All year I look forward to this day, and before I know it, it's over in 24 hours! What a ripoff! I move that we change this 'single day holiday' into a week long affair... 

Who's with me?

Anywhooooo, we posted our #100WordHorror stories during the first part of October, and I was floored by the badassery of my writing homies. I know a lot of really talented people. That's so crazy for me to say, because, before I met most of my writer friends, I never had anyone to talk to about any of my creative endeavors.

You guys know that talking about writing to non-writers is like asking them to help you watch paint dry: they're just not into it.😩 But, such as life... Even though the normies don't write stories, we still love them, well,,,, most of them😜.

Anyway, because I didn't get to post on Halloween (I was too tired from work, and I'm not gonna lie, I was binge watching Chuck🙄), I'd like to share the first chapter of my new book with y'all.

Here's some stats on the project so far:

Title: "The Seed"
MC: Grayson/ Greyson Nowak
(In the prologue, Professor Daughtery is my main character)
Genre: Really? You have to ask? All the lols...
Page count (So far): 89

Okay, without further ado, here's the first chapter of... 

Need A Book Whisperer?

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir when I say that we all get stuck in a story once in a while. Sometimes, the next chapter is this elusive unicorn that just can't be found.

I was recently in this situation.

I began writing, bells on, fairy dust sprinkling from my fingers as I typed the first five chapters. I said to myself: "This is going to be my first full length horror novel. The first thing I'm going to actually query!😱 This is going to be THE ONE!!" 

Then, 70 pages or so later, it happened. My inner dialogue with myself changed. I had doubts. I'd forgotten where I was going. All my hopes were dashed and I started saying things like: "Oh man, I've written myself into a corner. I'm completely screwed!😫😔 NOW WHAT!!!!???"

I Made A Short Video About Writing!

I did a short little video on how to write a hook for a horror story! It probably needs more work, but I'm totally amazed that I got this far!

Woohoo!😁😜

Go me! lol.

Interview ☆ Yorgos KC

Today we’ll be talking with Yorgos KC, one of my favorite people on Twitter. Not only is he a great writer, he has wonderful habit of encouraging others and offering constant moral support for both writers and non-writers alike. I’m happy to have Yorgos here on Wicked Shorts where he’s allowed me to pick his brain about his writing life.

Pobody's Nerfect ★ My Shittiest Stories... Ever (1)

Pobody's nerfect... I mean, nobody's perfect...

Throughout my writing journey, I've written some really shitty shit. Wanna know how you can tell if your story is crappy?

1. It took you ten minutes to write and you hated it the whole time.
2. When you're done, you write yourself comments like 'burn this' or 'use for torture'.
3. Even your dog (or) mother hates it, any they're your biggest fan (s).
4. Your critique partner loses their lunch when they read it.
5. It makes no sense...

That being said, here is the first of a handful of my shittiest stories...

Staying Organized While Hopping Dimensions

Recently, I've been working on the origin story for my favorite character, Thierry Adler. Thierry is a Warlock who has the ability to 'pulse' to different dimensions. Thierry also has a myriad of different characteristics (that I’ve found difficult to keep track of overtime).

Stories happen, and through the course of several short stories about Thierry, his personality has changed. He's grown, become more snarky, learned new things and experienced losses.

So, writing his origin story is/was particularly difficult for me. I'd been working with, and focusing on a man who’d learned a lot about the shadowy, magic filled world he lives in. What kind of monsters exist, what kind of spells he can use to combat his enemies, what monsters hate other monsters, etc. His world is full of dangers and mystery, (and that's just his home dimension). He was beginning to find out what was really going on. Discovering the true scheme of things, if you will-- and something horrible happened--

#52weeks52stories ★ January 2018

Today is the last day of January 2018. 

To keep up with my progress for #52weeks52stories, I made a video showcasing some of the stories I've completed this month! 

Writing at least one short story a week has given me a myriad of ideas! I'm super grateful for what I've accomplished so far, and I have high hopes for February!!! 

Links to stories mentioned in the video:

The Newest Me

Spine

Troll ★ Trigram Origins

Petit Demon

The Midnight Vixen

Hotel (unpublished)

Menagerie (coming soon)

Not mentioned:

Knots (unpublished)
The Man and The Mermaid
I also co-wrote some erotica, but... not brave enough to share them, so we'll just leave it at that for now. (Wink).

Menagerie should be out sometime next month, so check back to see who wins the fight... Magician or Warlock... 

Thanks for reading everybody!
And happy writing!

AK

Remember, everything is better with Amazon Kindle!!!

We Wrote Some Short Story Tips! (Wink)

Hollie Hausenfluck: Short Story Tips with Avrin and Hollie: 

With the impending start of The Blank Page Challenge and the ongoing #52weeks52stories challenge, Avrin Kelly and I decided we would share some tips and tricks for writing awesome short stories.

(This is a re-blog post, so to read Hollie's original post, just click on the link under the picture! Happy reading and writing everybody!!!)

Remember, everything is better with an Amazon Kindle...

What The Heck Is Trigram Origins?

I noticed that with a lot of my stories, (especially where Thierry is concerned), I just throw you guys into the action with little to no explanation... 

Sorry about that. 

I tend to get a little excited and just plow through the action of whatever story I'm writing.

So, today, I'd like to talk about Trigram Origins, what it is and why I'm doing them.

10 Weirdo Writing Prompts #3

#1

Someone just walked out of my closet door and saluted me as their king. 

#2

Winter falls on the small town of River Rock in July. It never snows here. But that's not even the weird part.

#3

It rains frogs, but only in your back yard.

10 Weirdo Writing Prompts #2

#52Weeks52Stories ★ Hollie Hausenfluck

My friend, Hollie Hausenfluck, recently posted the following on her blog about the new hashtag game on Twitter we are hosting together (#52Weeks52Stories):

I've quoted her blog post below to make sure I have all the facts right (wink).

"Many of you may be seeing my tweets about #52weeks52stories and wonder what the heck I'm talking about. Here's some more information on how it works and what it is.

What is #52weeks52stories?

#52weeks52stories is a challenge for writers of all genres to write 52 short stories in 52 weeks.

Why should I participate?

The goal of #52weeks52stories is to help writers improve their skills, make new connections, and most important, have fun.

How does it work?

The format is pretty flexible. I don't want to impose a lot of rules or restrictions, because this is supposed to be for fun. The basic idea is to start a short story on Monday. Revise on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And on Saturday, swap final stories with your partner.

Glass Witch ★ Yawatta Hosby (Interview)

The dark, three story house loomed overhead as I stood in the property’s driveway. Droplets of water fell from above, threatening to undo the curls in my hair and the makeup on my face.

I propelled myself out of the rain and up the steps. The old wood creaked under my heels as I glided to the tall front door and unlocked the house.

Today was a huge day.

I couldn’t believe my good luck.

It was my very first interview for Wicked Shorts: a blog I hosted about speculative fiction, weird fiction and horror and the person I was interviewing was quickly becoming a personal hero of mine.

Yawatta Hosby was a strong, impeccably well written author of thriller and suspense novels. She was the real deal, and she’d be here in less than ten minutes.

10 Weirdo Writing Prompts #1

Today, I wanted to talk about #writingprompts, and other tiny exercises that have helped me a lot through out my writing journey.