Skip to main content

Great news, we have a best seller on our hands!

Hello internet people, the book the Gettysburg Writers Brigade assembled is a best seller and making money for our charity fund. We had a successful book signing this past weekend at the Gettysburg Heritage Center - thanks to their team led by Tammy! 

It's only my second book signing but it was the most fun I've had since I've started writing. The Guild (or Cult as my co-workers call it) is an amazing bunch of talented men and women. We celebrated our successful launch with champagne and cake last night and began planning the next anthology. 

I'm having so much fun with the Guild that I have begun furiously spinning a series of short stories of my own. I submitted one to a contest today, fingers crossed, and that tale plus a score of others will be combined into my own first anthology of short stories. Look for it in February. 

I'm in love with the format now, I was afraid to attempt work in a short form but if you note my sparse style everywhere else, it seems a good fit. I'd share the contest submission but it's too personal. It might embarrass or hurt someone for its similarity to real life people and situations, as I found out the hard way earlier during it's development. If I win or place the contest, I'll share it. Deal? 

For now I'll share (again) the piece I'm working on for the second anthology - it's about zombies at the battle of Gettysburg. Sounds ridiculous but there is a hole in the history that can perfectly fit my zombies. Oh it's not ready to show you today but I'll polish it up and bring it soon. Yes historical fiction, with zombies. I'm not right in the head, my anthology theme will be full of death, monsters, creepy things and stuff that goes bump. 

You know what I really want to share this story - but the rules are it has to be previously unpublished so I have to at least let them process the submission before I release it here even at my own very personal blog. 

Is this personal? Not really. This is performance art of course. It's generally vanilla for the sake of my kids who may see it one day and everyone else. That right there is a good reason not to share my recent short story it's not PG13, it's R rated at least. So I don't talk about my involvement in the illegal torture program or decade in special operations and top secret globe trotting murder squads. I don't talk about the horrible things that happened overseas or ideas I've taken from real life and adapted into books. Example: Yngwie eats a guys eyeballs in the Saga of Sigrunn Wartooth. That's a fun real life story that I don't really want my kids to read so I haven't let them read that book yet and I won't share about it here. If any of my adoring fans would like to talk about those stories, bring me a donut or a vanilla milkshake and we can talk. Ok well, I'm on my way to subway for some snack. Good luck out there everybody! 

Oh more later, I'll try to pick up the pace to keep this a more enjoyable and engaging place. 




 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Time Flies, a free short story

The Set-Up one of the myriad companies catering to self-published indie authors sponsored a contest. They solicited short stories where ten top entrants would be put in an anthology together. It was this particular company's first annual event of this kind. I never thought about writing short stories for an anthology, or a short story anthology of my own. I had this idea Why Time Flies (shortened to Time Flies) on a back burner as a novel/novella idea for some time. I had a basic concept but had written nothing. When this contest was announced I had been given the inspiration I needed; a brutal deadline. Two weeks to write and edit a short story. I quickly hammered out 2 versions and edited the second as it seemed to score higher in the sponsoring company's software. To be honest I preferred the first version. The editing software (I have used several noting they all disagree) was designed to rate all manner of fiction and non-fiction except horror. So, of course, I wrote a ...

The Restless Dead of Gettysburg

 Hello, everyone! It's almost Halloween, my favorite holiday, so here is an appropriate tale for 'round the campfire. Actually, it's my contribution to the Gettysburg Writers Brigade annual anthology project for charity. The book will feature a number of our authors including some of our stars with multiple titles to their names besides Jim R. The book, to be called 'For the Love of Gettysburg' will also feature works by artists from last year, Jim R and I included. There will also be a handful of others to go along with new voices and some first-time short story writers. I do hope you can find it on amazon after our launch, we can't set up a pre-order but I'll let everyone know when it's available by updating this post with a link. For now, enjoy my contribution (one of two submissions), 'The Restless Dead of Gettysburg'!    The Restless Dead of Gettysburg  Another Gettysburg battle reunion. I’ve lost count of how many, but I’ve been to most of ...

Refocus time; June is PTSD awareness month

 Sometimes we get away from our core focus and skills. This blog is about the craft, but I'm not the expert or master, I'm still learning. I enjoy my work with the Gettysburg Writers Brigade (hereafter GWB) and I am an active contributor. My primary focus needs to be on my voice and my writing and my fans. Today at GWB we focused on branding. I think I write from a place of great hurt. My brand is dark, suspicious, subversive, angry, but it's also hopeful, healing, and even loving. My heroes overcome with great sacrifice, they succeed because of their hurt, they're limitations. Certain important ideals I hold dear shine through.  One of my compatriots in the GWB, lets call him Tumbleweed, said after reading Salem that the best part was the afterword (he enjoyed the story too). The message about my own hurt and experience with healing, the resources listed and my offer to help anyone who asks, anyone that finds them in those haunted places near death where that story cam...