Unphased

This is the result – after some necessary editing – of the challenge I began alongside NaNoWriMo in November. My first police drama. Enjoy!

Remarkable Objects By Simon Woodington

Face first on the pavement, no sign of trauma, foul play or … anything that a keen eye or diagnostic hand could detect. Detective Inspector Penny Broken frowned and unfolded her arms with the synthetic crinkle of weather…

This is exactly why I didn’t get into NaNoWriMo. I’ve a story with an ending, now, but it gets in the way of the first part of a novel that needs to be finished. I’d hoped to include it in Bold Curves, but … until it’s ready … that won’t be happening. It might, mind you, and become part of the anthology available for pre-orderthanks to Smashwords. Bold Curves will be retailing for a price of your…

(If you’re wondering what happened to yesterday, refer to my rules for this challenge. -HP)

Penny Broken was livid, but no one understood exactly why. Even fewer were concerned except to duck whenever she would throw something or raise her voice. As the ranking superior, minding her meant keeping to themselves and doing exactly what they were told. Broken was not known for her restraint, and was…

There were about as many coins as she could count in as many pockets as hands existed. Reaching through the mud to grasp them, to wipe off the sticky gore, only to see they were as blank as the fingers she had held just hours ago. A day? A half? Aaran pulled the blanket away from her body, sweating and uncomfortable. She put hands in her hair and heard the familiar humming of the motors in the…

Two hours later, Penny and Aaran were staring at a screen with an audio technician of the hobbiest sort. In spite of dressing well, it was apparent he had no taste whatsoever. Penny solicited winges to Aaran in the lab, having commented moments before about the availability of qualified personnel. He was droning on about – of all things – how Alliance standard compression produced hard to analyze…

30 Day Challenge: Day 01

“He had twenty credits on him.”

Skeptically she lifted the still-warm hand of the corpse, palm down on the cracked pavement. “And that says what?”

Penny Broken frowned and unfolded her arms, gesturing at the nape of the neck, the backs of his legs, vaguely suggesting the ‘usual’ vulnerabilities. “He was no vagabond. Ordinary as they come; clothes covered in ash from a day at Westbarrow. Ulysses…

NaNoWriMo – oh that’s just too social for me. According to my math-addled calculations, however, I surmise that two-thousand words written every day would accrue sixty-thousand toot-sweet. Rules? What rules? Let’s see (and I’ll do it point form on the fly):

- Multi-part stories are okay (you know, “chapters”) – Everything is a draft: No editing allowed until November ends (typos are the exception)

Live right now on Wattpad is Sector Bomb, featuring Aaran Coates and Buddy Namiki in their search for cause of the attack on Sector 9. WordPress doesn’t like embedding … so here’s an excerpt and a link to the story:

http://embed.wattpad.com/story/24135823

“Been waitin’ for a limb like this for years.” Her eyes were clear, examining the arm. “He’s a talented craftsman. When I look at it I feel…

NaNoWriMo is at hand, so those of you determined to take on the challenge are likely planning meets and/or your method of approach. The recipient of encouragement (the enthusiastic kind), I’m not on the fence about the idea. I plan to utilize the remainder of the month to complete my Sliver of Light manuscript draft, which for those interested is being updated almost chapter by chapter on Amazon’…

Fliss Starwise

Okay I admit I never said that, but I did mention that this “wonderful new story”, entitled Sliver of Light, would not receive the spoiler treatment. Having totally turnedcoat on that idea, there is now a ‘novel development blog’ which I will be updating whenever it feels appropriate. Not in such a way as to detract from the core business of writing. The blog is called Cobalted(lin…

A sample of Ahead on Machined Shoulders available now at Wattpad:

[May is the wife of Remy Therison, Aaran. At least in a full prosthetic she can protect herself. Convincing her to keep a bodyguard is not an enviable task. One I've been charged with by Garen many times.] [Not to be insensitive about her whole body being turned into stock-and-shelf parts,] I retorted. [She's always had a dim idea…

Ahead on Machined Shoulders: Sampled

So as it turns out I had this nagging impression to highlight Ahead on Machined Shoulders. Before that, I’ll tell you a little something: Shareware bites hard these days. “Free” downloads bait-and-switch trailware and interruptionsoft teasers galore, whilst I attempt to proofread with a sick dog on my lap. She’ll be fine, we figure, but it turns out Balabolkadoes a fine job of reading my work,…

On it’s face; Carrying on Anyway

So no quality reviewers. I’ll admit it; but there’s lots to do, so, moving on. Requiring approval has never been a thing for me. All that being said, I have been getting quite a lot thanks to Twitter. What useful tool! More the flavor is followers who think I have money (to spend on them) or might be a source of profit (ditto).

That’s a strange thought, though certainly a welcome one. I’m not one…

Quietly rewriting Sector Bomb

Sector Bomb is, under another title, at present, a big fat draft. I love big fat drafts. They’ve got lots of ideas, plenty of editing and ‘text grunt work’ – tons of stuff that needs improvement I can’t even see yet. Unfortunately I wrote it from the wrong perspective. That’s the lesson planning teaches you.

How do I know that? Technically this is a story that needs fleshing out, the conflict is…

Every One Fight: on KDP Sooner than Expected

Golly!

Kindle Direct Publishing approved Every One Fight for release on its service. ‘Service’ huh? That’s fine. $1.99 USD will grant you a fully DRM-free unlimited use version for your reading enjoyment. This is the first book in the Threads of Canor Series. I highly recommend buying a paperback edition if you enjoy this book: Subscriptions for novels is a positively silly/stupid/dangerous idea.

Every One Fight Retails at your Descretion

Careful, clicking this will take you there!

Instead of delaying Every One Fight to rename it, which I considered, I decided to change the Smashwords Edition to “whatever you wanna pay” model in advance of the Amazon and KDP release, since the first sale was made when the book was available for nothin’. The Amazon Edition will retail at $1.99, with MatchBook enabled for the sum cost of nothin’.

Ev…