#38 One Word + Ghost Duty 2 We Hardly Knew Ye

 Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today I want to dive into the remains of the Ghost Duty sequel that clearly wasn't meant to be (this time at any rate). Before that though, let's see what Brennan and Riz are up to...

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

Has this saga been everything I wanted? No.

Have I learned things? Yes.

Will I do one again after the Xmas one? We'll see.

Knowing that we are quickly nearing the last strip of this story is something of a relief. If you've enjoyed it, let me know.

Phantom Dawn: Memories of a Rose

There has been two new installments since last week, but I want to let at least three more build up before I share them. Being able to pick and choose words has worked out a lot better than before.

Ghost Duty 2: We Hardly Knew Ye

A couple of days ago I submitted another short story, for the Halloween based Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 3 (get volumes 1 and 2 for free now at the links below! Don't finish reading this sentence, go get them then come back!). As I said last week, the story I'd submitted and the one I started were vastly different...in pretty much every metric.

What happened to the Ghost Duty story though? Why was it so unanimously dumped? Well, it was my fault really.

To begin with, the original prompt we were given by the dreaded Overlord, was hubble bubble, toil and trouble, which I took to mean witches. As it was also the Halloween volume so I had to get that in there. Working Halloween in there was a zinch as I remembered the old stories about all hallows eve, where the ghouls and monsters didn't come out to play. I envisioned it as the only bank holiday the unlifers would have. This allowed me to paint it as a large celebration for them. Surely everyone would love that right? This is where the villain came in. She went through a few name changes but I settled on Miranda. This was the first of the problems, not that I realised it yet.

I still needed the witch angle but that came in the form of mistaken identity that never fully sat well with me. Again, this was part of the problem. With the basics in place I blazed on and wrote up over 3k words. This included a cold opening that I am quite fond of but it is unconnected to everything else. Good news is I'll be able to reuse that easily enough. Bad news was that I'd written all that but the plot hadn't progressed an inch other than an initial encounter between Josh and Miranda. Feeling the pressure and convinced any pacing issues would be fixed in editing, I moved to hurry the plot along, only to discover that the plot went nowhere. No matter what I wrote it seemed rushed, and worst of all, nonsensical. J was forcing reactions out of characters with little to no rhyme or reason.

Seeing the clock tick down and with no real fix, I made the only decision I could. I started afresh with a completely new idea.

For that one, I went digging through my old tweets and found an idea worth exploring, and jt featured Gabriel. Win win, right? Perhaps not. That is a tale for another time though.

Till next week,

Keep on writing!

Peter James Martin

Quick Links

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 1

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Book 1: A Boy and A Rat

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 2

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 1

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 2

Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 13

#37 Trap Breaker + Update

 Happy Blog Day Everyone!

It's been one of those weeks were on the surface, nothing much has happened but really, a lot has gone on, and I'll have more to say next week on that!

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

I think I can see the end...Now, I know I've said that in the past, but still, this storyline is getting closer to the finale...in October at some point. I am letting Riz having his moment in the sun here.

Update

So I should be working on Ghost Duty 02 right? Right! Yeah, about that. I'll put it this way, I'm now writing a brand new Halloween themed short based on a 2 year old tweet. It is a 180 degree change from Ghost Duty.

Why the shift? I'll talk more during a post mortem next week and why I seem to be doing that a lot lately. First though, I have until the 24th to complete this new story, meaning I ditched a 3k+ manuscript to start from scratch (and then I redid that!) With just over a week from the deadline. Am I mad? Yes, we covered this.

In other news, I'm still looking for Beta readers! Want to read Daemon Soul to help fine tune it for publishing? Then drop me a line! Either here or over at the social media platform known as Twitter.

That's it for this week!

Till next time,

Keep writing!

Peter James Martin

Quick Links

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 1

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Book 1: A Boy and A Rat

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 2

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 1

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 2

Harvey Duckman Presents 13

#36 One Shot + Request

 Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Not a lot going on this week, as I should be finishing off the next Ghost Duty story...except a TV show about a stretchy pirate came on...if you know, you know!

However, I do have a favour to ask for those interested...Before we get to that however...

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

Edging closer to the end of the arc! Gallows is very fun to draw. On to next week!

Phantom Dawn: Memories of a Rose

Now, don't get your hopes up, there's no new entries...yet. After cataloguing them for the blog and my experiences drawing the Brennan and Riz strip, I've decided carry on the thread, but not daily as before. Instead I'll be doing it based on the vss prompt. After I've done a few, I'll collect them here again.

Request

So, I'm plodding along with the Ghost Duty but my mind is thinking to what I spoke about last week, the self publication of Daemon Soul and what I need to do in preparation for it.

That involves getting eyes on it so I can iron out any issues.

So, my request is for anyone wishing to beta read the story! Drop me a line over on Twitter/X at @Brennan_and_Riz (for those reading this from their, I'll have another tweet/post explaining it)

I'm still working on a blurb, but here goes:

[ 

18 year old Terry Baker is a 2nd year College Student who is drifting through life till a fateful encounter with Serena:

"Terry Baker, you are to be the next Daemon Soul."

With her words, Terry's life changes. He's forced to accept the truth of a world where demons exist, and that they're out to kill him. As Serena begins to teach him what he needs to know, he'll be forced to confront his past and the one person he never wanted to see again.

As when the Arc Demon known as Death awakes, Terry has one choice to make:

To stand and fight or flee...

]

Yeah...as I said, I'm still working on it. Sometimes blurb writing can be a lot easier but with this story, it just seems to evade me.

Important facts about the story for would be beta readers:

113k words (one of the biggest reasons why I need over people to look at this, do I need to consider halving the stories?)

Urban Fantasy (if this isn't your cup of tea then don't worry about it)

This is where Gabriel comes from. I think this is self explanatory for people who read this blog frequently or read my dribble on social media (or perhaps, read the second Malarkey's Imaginomnibus book!)

I look forward to hearing from anyone interested!

Till next time,

Keep on writing!

Peter James Martin

Quick Links

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 1

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Book 1: A Boy and A Rat

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 2

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 1

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 2

Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 13

#35 Making A Stand +Decision

 Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today I want to talk about a recent decision I made recently, a big one that is tied to something I spoke about a month or two ago...before we get into the heavy stuff though, on to the fun stuff!

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

I noticed my style is shifting to more the manga style here (it's always had an element of that but it seems I can never truly break free). This is me starting to wrap this thread up as it's been going 10 weeks at this point! I really need to start planning the next arc...which will be at Xmas, a short one at that!

Phantom Dawn: Memories of a Rose

Well, it's here, the final installment of Rose's adventures. Maybe I'll add to it again in the future but now, her saga ends with a question mark rather than a full stop.

(First posted 17th July 2021)

The silence was deafening as they got closer to the base, and Mason's panic increased:

"Where is everyone! This place should be teeming!" There was no sign of life anywhere.

The doors were open, looking like someone had used #Dynamite to open them.

(First posted 18th July 2021)

While outside was serene in its silence, inside was a slaughter house. Bodies, mutilated beyond reason, blood everywhere.

"Eros, k-killed them all?" Kurz stammered.

"Wrong, kid," Eros stood admist the gore. "Carnage doesn't fit my #persona."

(First posted 19th July 2021)

Steeling herself against the grisly sight, Rose stepped forward against Eros.

"There is a red haired girl being held captive here, where is she!" Her voice an #echo through empty halls.

"I don't care. I need to find who did this," Eros replied.

"I can help both of those things!" A female voice laughed, #echoing. Rose's instincts told her that she knew the voice, and the evil it belonged to. From the shadows, Dagger, Haze and their master, Void, appeared.

"Hi, sister," Dagger grinned.

(First posted 20th July 2021)

[This was the 100th installment of Phantom Dawn: Memories of a Rose]

"They look exactly like Rose!" Kurz mumbled, #afraid.

"I might have liked the sight if I wasn't terrified!" Mason said. Rose herself just stared at them, her mind racing.

"A little red haired girl you wanted right?" Dagger asked

"Yes! Where is she!" Rose yelled.

"Aren't you #afraid of the answer?" Dagger smirked. "Here you go then!" She tossed what she was holding. The object landing in the light with a splat. It was the girls head, and Rose broke.

(First posted 21st July 2021)

"Oh...shi-" Mason started to mutter.

"Rose! Get away from them!" Kurz shouted, realising too late what they were after.

Under Void's mask, a devilish grin formed.

"Dagger, take the #pleasure of subduing her please," he said, as Rose became engaged.

(First posted 22nd July 2021)

[The final installment...yes, really!]

"Poor sis, guess you can play with her friends," Dagger said.

"The target is already attacking. Focus," Haze sighed, as Rose thundered forward with a right hook, one that couldn't #miss. The hit connected but Dagger just laughed it off.

"My turn!"

And there we have it! Thank you dear readers for letting me indulge myself in reposting these here. It's nice to have them existing in another place with pictures attached.

I hope to revisit this story at some point, building on it and reinforcing the connections to Daemon Soul (more on that in a moment). There is another two short stories out there at the moment featuring Rose (with additional appearances from Kurz and Neal). One is already published (as part of this anthology) and the other is on submission. I also sometimes bring Rose out for different things on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, as seen with the 7DayTale I shared back in May.

If you want to see Rose again, let me know!

Now about Daemon Soul...

Decision

Cast your minds back a month or so ago, when I was talking about Daemon Soul and any path to publishing it could take. In that I pointed out that self publishing, while doable, was expensive.

Well, guess what?

I'm going to attempt to self-publish Daemon Soul (and any/all spin-offs like Phantom Dawn, Avalon Tales etc, etc).

Why would I decide to do this when Brennan and Riz have publisher support? Well, because I'm tired of not doing anything with it. I had spoken to my current publisher but it wasn't something they were interested in sadly. Thus I eventually settled on this.

So, what now?

I start saving so I can afford the services I need, like editing and cover art. I haven't decided much about this, to the point where I don't even know which program I'll use to deploy the book once its finished. So far, estimates about editing services have not been fun. 

There is other concerns as well, like the fact that the book is 113k words long! I've been told by different people that it's simultaneously too long, yet its also the right length for urban fantasy! Needless to say my head is hurting.

So, what's a realistic release schedule? We're definitely looking at next year now, giving me time to get some money together. I'll also have to gather up some beta readers!

That's all the information I can share with you all for now but watch these space!

Till next time,

Keep on writing!

Peter James Martin.

Quick Links

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 1

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Book 1: A Boy and A Rat

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Volume 2

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 1

Malarkey's Imaginomnibus Volume 2

Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 13