“Okay, you convinced me. When do I start working?”
The man gave Simon a toothy grin and scratched his pointy goatee with an equally pointed fingernail. “We’ll get to that. First, the job’s perks. You will be in charge of your own self and no one can fire you. You get to travel the world. The -”
“I told you, I’m sold. When do I start?”
The man put out his hands and begged for patience. “The drawback is that you don’t have a fixed timetable. You go to work whenever you’re needed. You must always follow the day’s appointments. This is very important. You can’t miss any. Do you want to know what the job is?”
“Do I really get my weight in gold every month?” Simon asked.
“That’s right.”
“And the whole world will know of me.”
“Correct.”
“So, when do I start? Monday?”
“No, as soon as you sign.” The man took a piece of paper out of a pocket and pointed at the right spot with his fingernail. “Sign here.” When Simon took the paper, the man scratched Simon’s finger with the tip of his fingernail. A drop of Simon’s blood landed on the paper. “Never mind that. Just sign the contract, please.”
Simon did as instructed.
“Congratulations, Simon. You are now Hell’s caretaker. Have fun.”
Quick reminder that the giveaway, Bad People With Guns, will end on September 5, so if you intended to read one of the available books but haven’t obtained one yet, you should hurry, especially if you’re a fan of thrillers, suspense, mystery, or crime fiction in general. Go here and download stories from Anna Willet, J. L. Stowers, Sara Cobb, and Simon Royle.
In other news, I’m happy to announce that the last of my betas got back to me. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to finish Through Stranger Eyes. In their words, “I haven’t had the chance to start it yet. Sorry, but I can’t do it.”
It happens. Life always gets in the way of things and sends our best intentions down the drain. That’s why it’s important to reach out to more than one beta reader, and to have a decent personal relationship with them, so that they don’t feel that they’ve put themselves in an uncomfortable or awkward position when they have to tell you, “sorry, I don’t think I can make it.” Remember, betas are hard to find, they want to help, and perform an important task for us writers for free. Cherish them and understand that they too lead demanding lives.
So, what this means is that as soon as I get back to my computer (still waiting for you, summer, to bugger off and let me enjoy some cool days), I’ll go over the notes the rest of the beta team returned (I was lucky enough to get (feedback from four people!). I expect to have a hard time going over one beta’s notes in particular, since they gave them back handwritten, which means I will have to transfer them into my digital copy. And I have their thoughts recorded on a couple of audio files, so I’ll have to transcribe them too. Which is good, ’cause I can’t make out most of their handwriting. Oh well.
This is one of those moments where I sympathise with all editors out there.
However, here’s the thing: the first thing I noticed, from almost all the betas who gave me feedback, was that they enjoyed one of my secondary characters more than the protagonist. In fact, they liked that character TOO much. I’m not sure if there’s an underlying problem with this. What I mean is, I’m not sure if my main character is badly written or if that secondary character is so dominant that overshadows everyone else in the story. If the latter is the case, I’d have to figure out a way to trim her dominance a bit, which I’d rather not do (the truth is, I too enjoyed writing her scenes). If the problem lies with my main character and he is badly written, then I have the feeling I’ll need to rewrite A LOT of my story in the next months.
Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever read a book that, to you, one of the secondary characters stood out far more than the protagonist? Did this bother you at all? I’ve made a poll for your convenience. I would appreciate it if you could share this with your friends, as this will save me not only time, but part of my sanity.
Last week I failed to post something here. Excluding summer holidays or Christmas, this was a first. The truth is I was swamped with a lot of things happening. Nearly all of them related to writing. In fact, they were related to promoting my writing. You may have noticed that I now have a newsletter (did you notice the pop up? If not, then look to the right of your screen; there’s subscribe option there as well). A good friend (thank you, Abbie) suggested I should join a newsletter swap platform to build up my readership and network. And she was, as always, right. So I joined Bookboast.
For the past two weeks or so, I’ve been trying to tweak my newsletter, gain readers, start a group promotion (the intention was to join one, but I ended up leading it, hence why I was overwhelmed), choose a low-cost advertising service (impossible to afford Bookbub or other similar sites at the moment), figure a few things out about Bookboast, network with other writers, getting in touch with two of my betas here in Greece, and more. I hope you can see why I was overwhelmed and why I didn’t post anything last week. If I wanted to tackle all these different things and maintain a relatively low degree of sanity (which I very nearly lost for a couple of days), I had to educate myself. For that, Julian Coleman, another fellow writer I met through Bookboast, suggested I took a look at Nicholas Erik’s guides on how to market books and how to gain exposure and readers. So now I’m trying out some of the things he suggests. Next week will be a period of seeing things unfold, and the week after that will be the one to evaluate results and learn
from the mistakes I made during this week.
So, what do I have to show for it, you ask?
Myself and a few other writers joined forces and started the group giveaway I mentioned earlier, titled BAD PEOPLE WITH GUNS.
Nowhere near what I would have liked the banner to look like, but being on a borrowed computer, without photoshop, it’s the best I could do.
If you’re a fan of thrillers, crime fiction, short stories, and suspense, and you like getting free stuff, you may want to check this giveaway out. There, you will find stories from Anna Willet, J.L. Stowers, Sara Cobb, and Simon
Royle, which we believe will entertain you. The giveaway will only last until September 5, so hurry.
Not a suspense or thriller fan? Horror is more to your tastes? I got you covered.
My latest short story, At Horizon’s End, will be free today, August 27 and tomorrow, August 28, to download from the Kindle shop.
At Horizon’s End – Horror short story
I’m convinced you will like what we offer you. When you read our stories, please leave a review. It’s what sustains writers.
Finally, if you want access to some exclusive items, new authors’ interviews, Q&A with authors about their work, free sample chapters, deleted scenes, alternative endings etc, then sign up to my newsletter.
“You know I’ll tear you to pieces when I find you, right?” Her voice echoed in the vast chamber. “Don’t make me chase you, boy.”
“You can’t hurt me any more,” Tristan said a moment later.
She chuckled. “Big words from someone small like -”
“Look at you.” His voice came from straight ahead.
“I got you now,” she whispered and narrowed her eyes.
Tristan’s head appeared from inside the darkness, then the rest of his body followed.
She gave him a hyena’s grin.
“Look at you,” he repeated. “You’ve spent yourself completely. You’re just a wisp of smoke and a set of eyes. Look where we stand.” He breathed a faint laugh. “You are no more.”
It’s been a week since my latest horror story, At Horizon’s End, went live and it has already garnered a couple of five-star reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, as well as on reviewers’ blogs. You can read these blog reviews here, here, and here. If you’re looking for a quick read, and you’re into horror with a twist of sadness, At Horizon’s End may be a good fit for you.
Some people asked how I came up with the idea and the title of the story.
To explain the idea, I’d have to introduce you to my way of developing stories. Originally, the idea was to have Death in a conversation and a mortal, contemplating Death’s job. For some reason, to this day, I picture them talking over a chess board. I don’t know why, but the image is stuck to my head. Anyway, that idea branched off into having the mortal being the next one Death would take. Which seemed interesting, only I’ve already published
something similar earlier in my career. So, I decided that the mortal should be a child, because of the antithesis it would create (children represent life and future, whereas death, well, the end of life and future).
At that moment, the idea of having something as massive and hard-to-process as death, contrasted with a child’s innocence simply appeared out of nowhere and it made sense. So I revised the story accordingly. But then I had to do something to answer the question, why would Death be talking or playing chess or interacting in any way with a child? That was the final blow to my chessboard picture. Bye bye chessboard.
Instead, I came up with the idea of having Stella’s mother’s passing (Stella is the child in the story). Which, in turn, led to the idea of having Death second guessing himself when he took the child’s mother. Given my Greek heritage where Charon (a name we still attribute to Death here in Greece) ferried the dead in a one-way trip, my story’s Death was also unable to return someone from the afterlife to the lands of the living. Which finally gave rise to the question, how would Death handle such a problem? To answer that question you’ll have to read At Horizon’s End.
How I came up with the title is a different issue. In the story, there is mention through Stella’s memories of the way her mother used to refer to the afterlife. Now, at the time I was listening to a song from Paradise Lost (a band I like a lot), called As Horizons End. Though the song has absolutely nothing to do with the story, it was one of those moments where epiphany knocked on my door. In my mind there was no better way for a parent to explain to their four-year-old child the concept of death. How can anyone explain to a child that they will never see each other again and at the same time attempt to relieve the pain of loss? How else better to soften such a blow, if not by telling them that they will meet again at some point? So when I heard the song, it just clicked.
Lastly, you may want to take a look at the Interviews section. Viking Reviews was kind enough to interview me a couple of weeks ago. If you want to know a little more about me, but never dared ask, this is a your chance 😉
