Deception came about because I wanted an odd number of stories when I put Thread and Other Stories together. The stories in Thread are all about challenging reality. I intended Deception to explore what happens when someone’s worldview is so self-centered that they lose sight of the big picture. Other than that, I started writing it with almost no idea of what it was going to be. 

Deception is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble now, and should be available on your Kindle or Nook by April 10, 2018!

Deception, a Short Story

Deception’s beginning just poured out of me when I sat down at the computer one evening. I had been thinking about the story for a while, but didn’t have a clear picture of any of it. The plot was still a mystery. The rest of the story didn’t come so easily, but now and again paragraphs like this materialize.

“The soft click of a doorknob and the muffled swish of worn hinges shattered the stifling silence blanketing the basement. Dmitry’s eyes flicked up from the report he held under the glow of the yellow light emanating from the lamp on his desk, but he did not move his head. The dusty brass fixture of his desk lamp was dull in the dim light of the room. His eyes followed Olyesa’s movements as she carefully closed the door from Captain Syomin’s office behind her and took a few tentative steps into the main work-room. She held a file in her hands. Fidgeting with the slim sheaf, she appeared hesitant to deliver it. He supposed that meant it was for him.”

I don’t know if this the best paragraph I ever wrote, maybe not even the best in the story. But what I like about it is that you get to know the two main characters pretty much instantly. Their personalities are already showing.

What I didn’t expect from this story is that readers would like it. I purposely put it at the end of the book so no one would get a bad impression early on. At least by the time they got to Deception, they’d be so close to finishing the book that they would probably just go ahead and get to the final part, Conversation, which is what I really wanted them to read.

This probably shows I know nothing about what people like to read.

What happened after that slightly awkward opening paragraph was an amazing growth of two characters that I didn’t have any clue I could have created. Dmitry is a dark villain who seemed to pop out of strange corners of my mind as I wrote this story. Olyesa, who actually has almost no “screen time” but who I still feel everyone has a solid feel for by the end, is an enigmatic side character that I really love. I had no idea what Olyesa was going to do until the end of the story. She surprised me.

One of my favorite writing moments in Deception was when my wife was reading drafts and offered me some criticism directed at how I portrayed Olyesa. She said something or other along these lines:

“Russian women aren’t that weak.”

By that time I knew a little bit more about Olyesa that hadn’t made it into the drafts yet. So I didn’t say anything to her, but I chuckled inside.

Reviews

Once again I’d like to shamelessly plug for a review. If you have already read Deception, please go leave a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If not, Deception costs only $0.99 for your Kindle or Nook (on pre-order until April 10, 2018).

I would love to hear what you think of it. If you have read it, feel free to leave a comment below or start at thread on the forums.

Cover Art

I want to take a moment and mention the cover design. To be clear, I am not an artist, and I didn’t design this cover. This art was done by MatYan, who designs a ton of book covers. This was a pre-made cover that he offered through the same website I got the cover for Conflict from.

Mat was really easy to work with, he makes really nice covers for the kind of stories I’ve been writing, and I hope to find more from him.

 

This is the cover art for my short story “Conflict,” which is one of the seven stories included with Thread and Other Stories, released in June 2017. I’m releasing Conflict and several of the other short stories as stand-alone works with their own Amazon listing. Each one will cost $0.99.

If you already purchased Thread and Other Stories, you won’t have anything to buy with these releases, and the cover art will all be posted on the blog, so you won’t miss that either. I am including some new material inside (like my author bio and a list of my published works), but if you click on pretty much anything here on my website you will see all of that stuff already.

I’m releasing these individual short stories for people that haven’t yet read anything I’ve written. I’m hoping to find more ways to reach readers. If you like what I write, please share with a friend, and more than anything, please leave a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads!

What is Conflict?

Conflict is a short story I wrote in eighth grade for an English assignment. The current version of the story is written much differently from my teenage version, but the essence has not changed.

When I was young I loved to read history books, especially WWI and WWII accounts. Conflict is my own attempt to bring others into that world with a (hopefully) entertaining story coupled with historical events.

Writing historical fiction takes a lot of work. I spent many hours researching, verifying, and rechecking facts and places. I don’t know how many hours because most of them passed by 25 years ago. When I decided to publish Conflict, I had to go back and make sure all the stuff I said way back in 1992 was accurate. I can’t guarantee there aren’t any mistakes. I also took a few deliberate liberties with some things to make the story work.

The two main characters in Conflict, John and Greg, represent no one from real life. I did my best to imagine what various opinions or ideas might have been from the early 1900s, especially the strong nationalism that seems apparent (at least to me) from that era. Then I instilled those notions into the heads of my two characters.

I think most of the soldiers going to war early in WWI had a strong sense of duty to their respective monarchs. But, I believe by the end of the war, if they survived, they would have held different viewpoints, not only jaded, but likely completely opposite from their initial stand. This speculation led to the final scene of the story.

What am I doing this for?

By releasing these short stories as standalone works I hope to appeal to readers who are genre-focused. Since I have written stories across a fairly wide range of genres (sci-fi, suspense, historical fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction), some readers might be turned away from Thread because of the genres they don’t like. But if they have the option of reading just the type they like, it might get them more interested in my writing.

I’m really excited about how this cover looks, and now I kind of wish I had a full-length book to go with it. I’ll post each of the upcoming stories as I go along, and hopefully this will build some momentum towards getting more book exposure. I’m hoping to have four short stories released by June or July 2018.

Where’d I get the sweet cover?

Ivan of bookcoversart.com produced this cover and I enjoyed working with him. He produced this image on his own and displayed it in his gallery. I found it searching for WWI-themed, pre-made book covers.

Reviews (a shameless plea)

One of the most important things for an author on Amazon is reviews, whether good, mediocre, or bad. If you already read Conflict because you already bought Thread, please go leave a review of it. It doesn’t have to be fancy or wordy, but be honest.

Before I published anything, I had no idea that reviews meant so much to authors, but they are key. Some sites won’t even let you promote your work unless you have a minimum number of reviews (usually 10-20).

Honestly, this title is clickbait. I apologize for it now up front. What I really want to talk about is a way to improve writing quality in not unconventional ways, but perhaps at unconventional scales. I’ll explain that in a minute.

In our current times, communication and the ability to solicit is at unprecedented levels. Interaction between consumers and sources is lightning fast.

Help Me Help You (or help you help me?)

As an aspiring author, I want to produce content that people want to read. In some ways, I can only write from a limited perspective, my own. However, within that range, what the audience wants matters too. In times past, the only option for authors was feedback from “first readers” (often called beta readers now), and then editors and so on. But now, with the possibility of engaging the audience at virtually any point in the creative process, content can almost be customized to the desire of the consumer (to a point).

So far, my experience with writing books is equal to one. That is one book. Some might say I have “limited” experience. However, something I have noticed with just my one book is that people are a little reluctant to give feedback on what I might have done differently.

I understand where they are coming from, especially because most people that have read my book are friends and family, and it’s hard to give real feedback (especially bad news) in that case. But, there have been some readers that have given me some great ideas and suggestions.

The only problem with the great comments I have received is that the book is already written…and published. It’s too late for me to fix it (even that one blatant typo my wife’s dad found…). For that, I can only hope to improve in future works. And now, you might begin to understand the purpose of this post.

I would like to ask you for feedback on something that I am currently writing. The first draft is completed (finished it last night), but it’s still probably six months away from publishing at the soonest. But that means I can still save it even if it’s terrible (well, maybe, depending on how terrible).

The Future of Writing

Writing is a solitary activity. At least it is for me. I am introverted and I don’t like to talk much about what I am writing until I’m done with it, and even then I’m shy about it. And if you are actively reading it, I’d rather be in a different country while you do that (so all my Canadian friends, you’re good). I’m working on getting over that because at the same time, I want people to read what I have written.

Although I write alone, most of my ideas come from observing and listening to others. Conversations and situations spark ideas in me, occasionally at unexpected times and places. I once eavesdropped (this is 100 percent true) on a group of strangers having a very unique conversation on a train in the middle of Nevada. I surreptitiously transcribed the whole discussion in my day planner and kept that planner in a box for 15 years until I finally thought of the scene it fit into and the character that should overhear it. That scene is now waiting until I can write the right story for it to go in. It’s one of my favorite conversations that I have ever heard. Yeah, I’m actually insane.

But, this illustrates a point I’d like to make. If it’s okay to steal real life conversations from people that they don’t know about (is it okay? no clue), why not just ask for some ideas? With the internet and its many features, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are now things that occur. So why not a little crowdbrainstorming for an upcoming book. I’m not the first to think of this by the way (Jeff Goins talked about this in a webinar I listened to once).

But this is going to be a first for me.

Your call to action

If you are interested, I would like your feedback on the first chapter of my next book. This book is nothing like the one I just published. Thread and Other Stories is a probing look at reality and our human nature. I love that kind of story. Not everyone does, and sometimes it can tire our brains out to read deep, emotional stuff like that.

It’s the same with writing. That’s why I am working on this next book, which is not so deep. Its working title is The Dragon Sword (so that’s why there were all those dragon pictures!), and it is a fantasy adventure novel (possibly in two parts…well definitely in two parts, but also definitely not more than two). This book has a little more sword fighting than my first book, more arrows, more magic, and possibly even a dragon. There are no elves though (don’t need any of those).

Anyway, here’s how this will work. I am paranoid about copyright and things like that so I’m not going to post the first chapter right here. But, the only way to get feedback is to let people read something before it is published. So the compromise is this: I will send you a secured PDF of the chapter via email. All you have to do is enter your email in the box at the end of this post (you can enter your name if you want also, but not mandatory).

Then after you read it, either make a comment below or check out this sweet forum and join a discussion there. You could also make a comment on my Facebook page. If you want you could email me as well, but I would prefer a forum-type discussion so others can see what you are suggesting as well. That is better for brainstorming.

How the email will work is that I will send a group email to everyone that is signed up for my email list on August 28th, 2017, with a PDF of the chapter attached. You can then read it at your leisure. Please don’t forward that email to anyone else. If you know someone that really wants to read it too, encourage them to sign up as well. Then come back here and offer up your thoughts.

Okay, that’s it. I hope you enjoy the chapter and amidst my anxiety in doing this I really look forward to hearing what you think of it. Be harsh (be nice too), but above all be honest.

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