Crossing The Tees 2019 Entry – A Post Mortem

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

So this weeks topic is a bit more...sombre. I felt like it was the right thing to do, meaning a post-mortem on my failed entry to the 2019 Crossing the Tees Short Story contest. It had been my original intention to post the story itself here as well, but given it’s 3000 word length, it would have made this blog even longer then it is now! Anyway, onto the Weekly Briefs.

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 3

We’re now in September, and you know what that means...Volume 3 of Harvey Duckman is round the corner! Yes, Volume 3 launches next month in October, and I’ll of course be sharing pre-order information with you all when I have it. I will tease you all with a five word explanation of the story...

Brennan, Riz, Valarie hate clockworks...Mysterious eh?

Don’t forget, if you write Steampunk, Fantasy, Sci Fi or Horror (or a mix of the genres), then feel free to submit your work to this growing anthology! Click here for submission guidelines.

Brennan and Riz – A Boy and A Rat

With Chapter 26 finished, things are looking a little better for this to be finished before November as the story is virtually writing itself at this point. Which is a good thing as my workload keeps increasing!

Creator Chaos

Good news everyone! We record this coming Sunday! That is if all goes according to plan and we'll be accompanied by a special guest! Wonder who? Well my lips are sealed. Just know they are a wonderful strong person with two excellent books to her name...All with be revealed soon.

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Did I say September? Silly me, I must have meant October! Finding time to work on this is very difficult at the moment. So I’m just going to go ahead and say, I’ll be working on it, when I’m working on it.

To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mention

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!

Looking for newer stuff?

Click here to order ‘The Yeti in the Snow’, the standalone Brennan and Riz Christmas story. Only available on Kindle. It may be collected in a paperback version in the future.

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 1 which includes ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 2 which includes ‘The Black Cat on the Prowl’

Click here to find me on Goodreads

And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Crossing The Tees 2019 Entry – A Post Mortem

Have you ever had that cockiness that just because something has gone a certain way two years in a row, that it will a third year? That feeling where you don’t want to say it out loud because you know how much of an idiot it will make you look, but believe it anyway? Yeah, until the other day, that was me and the Crossing the Tees Short Story Competition. Ever since I handed my entry in, I’ve had the deeply rooted belief that I was going to get short listed, and that this year would finally be my year, and I may of actually won the thing.

Well, fate had other plans for me, and like Icarus flying too close to the sun, I came crashing back down to the ground. The email saying I didn’t make the short list devastated me more then I cared to admit. I laughed it off in public but was driven crazy in private.

Unable to see why I wasn’t chosen, I went back to the entry and read it again. This time, it’s flaws were open for all to see and my failings clear. The basic premise was a guy sets off from home one night, planning to kill himself by jumping into the River Tees. Before that though, he does a lap of honour of sorts, going to old locations from his life and seeing ghosts act out scenes. The scenes are childhood memories, forcing him to revisit old events. This has the effect of forcing him to change his mind about ending his life.

This was a very personal matter for me, and as such, the childhood events were ones that are based on my own, and it lays bare my desire, that at one point, I wanted to end my own life. You’d think that based one these factors that the story would have been a must read in the making, something that could life the lid on mental health awareness. Why didn’t it turn out that way?

Let’s break it down shall we:

First off, the draft as it was written, didn’t get a proper time in editing, because that draft was only finished a few hours before deadline. This should not happen. Ideally, you want to have the story finished a fair few days before it’s due to be in, in order to let you edit all the kinks out, and allow it to be the best draft it could possibly be. Would have finishing earlier helped this? No.

Next the story I started writing about a week before the deadline, was not the story I entered, it wasn’t even the second one. My first idea was similar but had a more of a ‘It’s a wonderful life’ vibe, with the main character going through with the plot and ending up in the afterlife were he revisits memories, in the first instances to prove his own points, and then another being using them to counter them, to ultimately prove that he has a life worth living. This would have then sent him back to the moments before he jumped off the bridge, allowing him to go home again. I just couldn’t get a grasp on the story, everything was feeling flat and it was just unworkable.

The next idea is one that I genuinely want to work on at some point, and that’s a story where social media has taken over the world. The problem I had while working on that story was, well, the story. There wasn’t one. This led me to abandon it, and look over the first idea again, but altering it. Of course this is how the story turned into the third draft, and it’s problems set into stone.
So what other problems did I have? Well the story...just isn’t good. Looking back at critically, it was amongst my weakest stories. The pacing is all over the place, the events unconvincing...even considering there’s ghosts involved. The ending as well, was rushed.

End of the day, I admit I wrote it, I’m never going to shy away from it. Instead I’ll keep going forward, and use what I learned doing this and from tearing it apart. This is the only way I’ll learn.

That’s all for this time folks, next time, I’ll have another short story set in the Drache Arm Luna universe, as I work to grow their world. Till then, keep writing!

Drache Arm Luna - Sand and Bone

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

So another fortnight rushes by, but with it, another short story exclusively to this blog. Once again it falls in my fantasy setting. Though elsewhere, I’m probably biting off more then I can chew in terms of how many things I’m working on. Aside from A Boy and A Rat, I’m also working on my Brennan and Riz Christmas story and a new short story for a Short Story competition that my publisher is working on. Then there’s the planning I’m doing for Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 4 and of course NaNaoWriMo, that omnipresent spectre in the background. I have to make sure Valarie is up for that. Am I crazy for working on all these? Possibly, but it keeps me busy, which can never be a bad thing. Anyway, without further ado, let’s move on to the Weekly Briefs.

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 3

We’re now in September, and you know what that means...Volume 3 of Harvey Duckman is round the corner! Yes, Volume 3 launches next month in October, and I’ll of course be sharing pre-order information with you all when I have it. I will tease you all with a five word explanation of the story...

Brennan, Riz, Valarie hate clockworks...Mysterious eh?
Don’t forget, if you write Steampunk, Fantasy, Sci Fi or Horror (or a mix of the genres), then feel free to submit your work to this growing anthology! Click here for submission guidelines.

Brennan and Riz – A Boy and A Rat

Another chapter is finished for this, and by my reckoning (Which could be off by 2 either way) there’s about five chapters left, four for the prequel portion. The ending is insight and I’m terrified by how much from the planning this story had deviated. I let Brennan and Riz loose and this is what happens, they take my careful planning and toss it to the wind. Just to remind every one, it was chapter 25 that was finished, and that I’m a quarter of the way through chapter 26. I just hope everyone enjoys this, as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

Creator Chaos

Wondering when our next episode records? It should be soon, a series of unforeseen circumstances have prevented us from recording as normal the past few weekends, and as a group we feel it better to record when all of us are present, not wanting to leave anyone out or left behind. We’re still together though, and still have plans for the guest writers, you’ll just have to be patient and bear with us a little while longer! It’ll be worth it.
A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:
Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.
Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.
Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.
Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, but all being well I should be able to resume it September going forward. It’ll probably be a fortnightly release schedule but I do want to see this story finished.

To catch up on the series so far, click here!
 

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!
Looking for newer stuff?
Click here to order ‘The Yeti in the Snow’, the standalone Brennan and Riz Christmas story. Only available on Kindle. It may be collected in a paperback version in the future.

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 1 which includes ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 2 which includes ‘The Black Cat on the Prowl’
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Drache Arm Luna – Sand and Bone

The desert sun seemed to stretch the land into a mirage of never ending sand. Adarnis led his camel over the dunes, seemingly going forward with no destination in mind, but he knew exactly where he was going. He’d come into this no mans land, for not one of the surrounding countries had claimed it as their land, pretending to squabble over it when other nations looked it over, finding it an oddity that there would be a place unconquered. It had been claimed though. Adarnis placed an open palm around the amulet that hung around his neck, a bone fragment with a crystal filling that glowed with the warmth of sands.

He had travelled this far, following a personal mission, and now he was going to return the amulet to it’s rightful place, as per the rules of the Bone Clan, the true masters of the region. Having hailed from Ar-Zan, he was well aware of the history of the region, the constant struggles to survive in the arid terrain, and how the ancestors survived through the power and protection of the Bone Drache. Then came the Drache Sundering and the region was separated into the three countries, Ar-Zan, Drachen, and Mir-Tain.

The outside world believed that these three nations, would sooner fight each other then look outward, but the truth was much different. Really, the Bone Clan held the reigns of control of the leaders of the countries and kept their homeland uncontested. Adarnis had to suffer many a trial before he was allowed to properly join the Clan, and prove himself worthy. He stopped the camel so he could gain his bearings and watched the mirages in the distance, the sands rising and falling like tides in the ocean. It was almost midday, the time when he would have thought about resting, but he wasn’t far now from the Tomb, his destination. As he got the camel to move, he spotted bones that had been bleached by the constant sunlight, all the flesh long since picked clean by carrion.

He made a sign of respect for the dead, and then examined it closer, traces of clothes clung to the body, but there was no sign of where they poor soul had come from but whoever it was, a motive wasn’t hard to guess. He heard the rumours himself, and chuckled at how outlandish some of them had been. Stories of evil Vizers leading rituals to raise world ending demons, child sacrifices, all manners of stories told be those who wanted nothing more then a reason to hate those from the region. Adarnis’s job as a mercenary for hire didn’t help these fears, and he knew he was walking in the stereotypes of all those in the Bone Clan. Yet this was what his people wanted. As it caused overs to underestimate them. This was evident when people from the other countries came to visit, and found not, savages and blood dealers, but cities and art, a culture whose work had already existed for a thousand years by the end of the Drache Age.

No one seemed to glimpse the reality of the Bone Clan behind fearsome warriors, that they would be capable of artists and poets, of builders and craftsman who had freedom to develop their talents. Adarnis himself was originally destined for a role as a trader, from a wealthy family, but turned his back on it, wanting to do something for fitting within himself. That is what led him to this land all those years ago, before the sand got into his weathered skin and fatigue and horrors of war turned his hair grey. How many times had he done this ritual now, he’d struggled to remember but this trek was always familiar to him.

Another hour passed but he finally stood in the shadows of a great rift in the ground, turning it into a canyon, which hid the most holy place for the Bone Clan. To illustrate this, it had but a simple name. Tomb. Although he had seen no one repeating his voyage or coming back the other way, Tomb was a hive of activity, as thousands prepared for war and praying accordingly. What he would do, like all others who had returned from war previously, would help the C;lan rise even higher. He made his way into the inner sanctum, and stood before colossal doors. He took off the Bone Amulet and held it aloft. The doors started to creak open and he slipped through, taking in the awe and majesty of the sight in front of him. Sitting on a stone throne, chiselled from the bedrock by people more skilled then anyone around today, sat the perfectly preserved bones of the Bone Drache itself. One of his hands reaching out, wanting to reclaim what was once lost.

Adarnis walked to the hand, and took off his amulet, and carefully placed it within one of the crevice inside the bony hand. There was a light and a surge that ran the length of the giant skeleton, and a pair of eyes that seemed to flash into life, before flickering off again. Adarnis had completely the task of returning each Amulet that is lent out, each one being part of the Bone Drache, and being integral to it’s resurrection. Adarnis then handed over all his treasure that he had accumulated, so that the elixir could be finally finished, and the Bone Drache could live again. What would seem like a tall story to most people, was a way of life here, and hence why so many heard the call to battle and threw themselves in to the fight, wanting to work towards their Drache, helping to secure a resurrection.

That’s what many people never realised about this land, and why so many died trying to uncover it. Just like the shifting sands, the people who lived here have done so for longer then any one knew possible. They had belittled the sand, thinking nothing of the hardships ahead, assuming everything is as it first appears. Yet, the sand was able to overcome the biggest obstacles, and hide entrances. Adarnis then made the offering of sand, pouring it the Bone Amulets. Like the sand, he would be back here soon, he could still fight, and there was much to do in order to win.
---
Well that’s all for this week, I don’;t know yet if we’ll be back on a weekly schedule net time or if it will be fortnightly but either way, have a good time and keep writing!

Drache Arm Luna – A Tale

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

While here I would normally talk about what...I’m talking about today...I thought it be best to explain last weeks absence and why this is going up on a Friday and totally not a Wednesday like I’ve lead you all to believe is the normal blog day. First off, I’m alive and this blog is alive so any talk (even if it is the hushed whisper of that nagging feeling that you should of read something on a Wednesday but didn’t) of me giving up the blog or shuffling off my mortal coil is scandalous lies. Instead I didn’t blog last week as I took a holiday, not a literal one as my personal life is a bit too hectic for that, but one where I sat back and enjoyed the chaos of the last week of the school holidays.

Now as for why this one is going up later, well it should have been up on the usual day but I had to go and have a panic attack which meant my better half sent me to hospital worried about how bad my breathing had gotten, so yeah...Rest assured I’ll be back up to full speed soon (or what passes for my full speed) There may be weeks where I won’t post a blog but that’ll either be due to my poor time management skills or because I’m nearing the end of a Boy and a Rat, and I really want that finished before NaNoWriMo turns up, as I’ve got a dozy of a project lined up this year...

Anyway, I’ve done something special for this weeks blog, I’ve written a short (emphasis on the short) story set in my Drache Arm Luna story setting, marking it as the first piece of fiction I’ve ever wrote for it (barring a couple of tweets), of course, we need to get the Weekly Briefs out of the way.

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 3

We’re now in September, and you know what that means...Volume 3 of Harvey Duckman is round the corner! Yes, Volume 3 launches next month in October, and I’ll of course be sharing pre-order information with you all when I have it. I will tease you all with a five word explanation of the story...
Brennan, Riz, Valarie hate clockworks...Mysterious eh?
Don’t forget, if you write Steampunk, Fantasy, Sci Fi or Horror (or a mix of the genres), then feel free to submit your work to this growing anthology! Click here for submission guidelines.

Creator Chaos

So the new All About Me featuring Kelvin has been released and it seems to have done really well! If you haven’t listened to it yet then what are you waiting for?
Guest Writers have already been contacted to star in forthcoming normal podcasts, so you’ve got some great content to look forward to, we just need to sit down and record them!

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, but all being well I should be able to resume it September going forward. It’ll probably be a fortnightly release schedule but I do want to see this story finished.
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!
Looking for newer stuff?

Click here to order ‘The Yeti in the Snow’, the standalone Brennan and Riz Christmas story. Only available on Kindle. It may be collected in a paperback version in the future.

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 1 which includes ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 2 which includes ‘The Black Cat on the Prowl’

Click here to find me on Goodreads

And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Drache Arm Luna – A Tale

The climb had been difficult but Noire had to see it to the end. He’d left his supply bag a few branches back, in the hopes that no wild beast nabbed it, so unburdened, he made his way further up. He couldn’t have told anyone why he decided to climb that tree today, he just saw how high it went through the canopy, and knew he had to see the view. Daring to look down, he gulped at seeing the speck that had been the foxes burrow, what first drew attention to the tree, it was barely visible through the foliage but there it was. He steeled himself and started again. Today was supposed to have been his Lunar Ascension ceremony, where all the village would come and honour the fifteenth anniversary of his birth, and mark his first step in understanding the Luna Drache, the patron dragon of his nation. He had blown it off though, as it had been forgotten in the rush of the news that the Prime Minster and his council were passing through, on their pilgrimage to the Crucible mountain range, supposedly the site where the Luna Drache first made contact with the native people of this land.

When the leaders arrived, everything else was to be forgotten and their needs attended to. It was their solution to just push his ceremony back to whenever it could land. Noire didn’t want to wait around and pretend to fawn over his erstwhile peers, so he came out to the forest north of his village, where he felt at ease, and knew he could shout out his anger. In deed there was a lot of shouting in the time between his arrival in the forest and him deciding to climb the tree.

His grip slipped and he fell backwards, but was saved by luck, his leg getting caught between two thick branches, he was in incredible pain, but he was alive at least. He just hung there for a moment, testing fate to see if his fortune was just momentarily but the branches held. He didn’t know how long it took for him to right himself and get back to where he fell, but the sun had shifted in the sky, getting lower to the west. It wasn’t quite sunset yet though. Keeping a better eye on his climb, he continued upwards till he reached the roof of the canopy, and pressed on beyond. The view had been worth it. He wasn’t fully clear yet of the other trees, but already he could see a carpet of green spread out around him, leading into the growing hills and the mountains beyond.

He steadied himself and looked around, a flock of small dragonlings flew past on their way to their roosting grounds in the peaks. He turned his gaze back to the south, towards his village, and spotted it easily enough, with smoke coming from the many chimneys, next to it, he saw the farming fields, barren from the recent harvest. This was his home, despite his parents claim that the nation of Lunaris was his home, no matter which house he lived in. Everyone he knew back in the village had settled there from some where else, and then expecting their kids to move on, spreading their community and linking the whole nation to each other. Strength through unity, that was the Lunar Clan’s motto, and was emblazoned on every town hall in every village as far as Noire knew. The tall steeple of the hall overshadowed all the other buildings, making it a beacon for those looking for a home.

Noire could have spent the whole night looking over the serene views but with Sunset imminent, it meant the temperature was also going to drop, and he hadn’t prepared for that, he thought he’d be home already. Taking one last look as the sun’s rays added an ethereal glow to the surroundings, he started to climb back down the tree, finding the decent to be just as tricky. By the time he retrieved his still intact bag, night was drawing near, and he remembered the old stories that his grandfather had told him, to make sure he didn’t play out too late, that of the Dusk Drache Gott, a dragon of night that brought darkness wherever it flew. His grandfather said that it lived as the shadows of the mountains during the day, taking flight when the sun moved. Dusk’s powers waned as the days got longer and it’s power grew in the reverse.

The stories often revolved around some unlucky hunter or cocky teenager, that dared stay out, wanting to see the Dusk Drache Gott, and were driven crazy by it. Being older now, Noire knew better then to believe in the tall tales that he had been told. He knew now why night came, and it wasn’t because of some legendary dragon that pretended to be made of shadows. Still, if ever he was out at this time, he couldn’t help but look in the direction of the mountains, always relieved that he didn’t see movement within the sky. He also knew better then to stay in the forest after dark, besides the crippling cold, as there was a few predators who adapted to the cold nights with thick fur and eyes that glowed in the dark to mesmerise and entrap their prey. Noire cut quickly down the path he trod to enter, keeping a vigilant eye behind him, not wanting to be surprised. He was almost out of the forest when there was movement behind him and golden eyes appeared, multiple sets.

He froze, and he tried to hold his breath otherwise he knew he would be panicking. The beasts got closer, he heard the thundering of their paws as they raced towards him, and then as they raced away from him. His would be predators had ignored him as they raced to get away. From what, Noire didn’t know, what he did know, was that he should probably be running as well. He was still frozen with fear though, especially when he heard the sound, a beating of wings and what light remained was drowned out by the shadow of something...something massive. The temperature drop was quick and he Noire’s body broke his fear as he hugged himself, to get some warmth. Then he looked up, and stared in to the face of something ancient, with large uncaring eyes that didn’t acknowledge Noire or his existence or probably, any existence other then it’s own.

The being then flew on, a strong wind in it’s wake. Noire fell to his knees, the enormity of what he had just seen, it had numbed him more then the cold. It was another hour before he collapsed inside his home, his parents getting ready to organise a search party of their own. Any sense they had of punishing him was forgotten as they looked at him and recognised a primal fear, one that few ever admitted to.

Noire didn’t say anything for the rest of the night, hoping sleep would rid him of the image of that visage looking down, looking through him. The Lunar Ascension ceremony was designed to help move the individual past their childhood, have them lose that innocence, if they hadn’t already, and bring them on the path to adulthood. Noire though, had lost that without needing the ceremony, whatever he’d seen took it and crushed it. Once more the tale of the Dusk Drache Gott came to his mind, and he knew his grandfather hadn’t been spinning a tale, he was warning him, and he also remembered the look on his face, something the young Noire had never taken into consideration before, that fear about the cosmic, about the powers they shared the world with, and how it was now etched on his own face. How could he have forgotten such a look? He knew well how, he didn’t want to see it in the first place.
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Hope you enjoyed that, is this the start of something for my little fantasy universe? Maybe, I noticed that out of all my blog posts, they were very well received, more so then a lot of my other posts...Aside from my Yeti one...Till next time, keep writing!