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August 2016

Archangel by Alexander Skel – A review

Not a huge fan f sci-fi or fantasy for that matter, I just find myself sifting through too much bullshit that doesn’t need to be there. I just read all this stuff that’s completely irrelevant to the plot about thrusters or some kind of magic barriers or something and I’m just like ‘Why? Get to the point!’ I just don’t have the kind of patience for either genre and taken seriously I find them really hammy.
Never-the-less I found this entertaining and engaging and it reminded me a lot of some decent anime but that being said I think it would be better as a comic or an anime. Because as a novel without any art it’s sort of generic, there’s nothing that really stands out about it. I’m reading the first chapter and I’m thinking about how similar it is to some other comic/game rather than what was different. The whole time I pictured it as a mission in armoured core or some anime more than I saw it as its own thing.
The action is great but its contextless, nebulous and sort of self-indulgent. It doesn’t have a point, it’s like a ten-year-old wrote down what he wants to see in a cartoon and then a really great writer took those ideas and brought them to life.
I really think this has potential and you are a really good writer, there are a few errors here and there and some sentences that had me like ‘Did Dan Brown do this?’, an example of that would be ‘The grenade exploded’ well no shit, it’s a grenade. But overall it’s well written and isn’t overly verbose like a lot of my work is.
But there’s no real story and in the first chapter it’s tempting to just gallop past it but you have to have some hook to make me keep reading, you can’t just have one fight scene and call it a day. Who is archangel? Why should I care if he lives or dies? This is why I say the action is contextless. Action is tense because we care about what happens to the character, you’ve given us no real reason to care about Archangel yet.
And what’s worse is this chapter I think has no real room for story that wouldn’t just be painful exposition, but that would still be better than no story in the first chapter.
I found the transition from Archangel to Rachel to be a little jarring but I like how you skimmed over the whole ‘Casualties of war feels’ generic bullshit in every anime ever haha.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it, it was enjoyable to read and it really made me want to play a decent Armoured Core game, pity there hasn’t been one of those in a while haha.

If you wanna read his story you can reserve a copy here.
Archangel

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Ladies Close Your Eyes Chapter 4 ‘Women in Fridges’

I had a fucked up neck yesterday from doing manly shit so I couldn’t work out and I was doing some writing and I wasn’t really feeling it like I usually do. I couldn’t my whole yogi-yoda meditation shit. But it wasn’t too bad. I chose a house for this fbi scene I’m working on in a later chapter. Oh if you didn’t know already I literally go on google maps and look at houses and locations and stuff haha. I’m a fucking cheater ok.
Yesterday I literally went on a like a property website so I could look around a California house in Belvedere where I set this fbi scene. It was too good to be true, the house had a virtual tour, I could flip through pictures like I was walking through the place. It didn’t have any furniture but my mind ‘furnished’ it with … furniture. It really helped me visualise the scene. I felt more like a director than a writer. It was fun, still kinda pissed about my neck and it still hurts but I got a haircut today which has successfully eaten up all my writing time so I have turned to some self-indulgent whiney blogging instead.
And hark on the horizon, here comes my day job to fuck it all up again. So that’s happening.
I never really cared if this blog was doing well, it was more of a nice sounding board for me, just talking to myself then maybe when I’m long dead someone will look at it and say “Well he didn’t totally suck the sweat off a dead man’s balls”. But it’s perked up a little bit so that’s nice. Still can’t be fucked with that mailing list. GIMME YOUR FUCKING EMAILS! Why did that sound that Hillary Clinton in my head?

This was a pretty fun chapter to write, getting into some of the trippy dream stuff a little, strap in folks it’s only getting weirder from here.

As usual you can find the full chapter for no money down on inkitt;

Women in Fridges

Cya.

~

It’s cold, he awakes from his dream to the sound of running water. Cool night air brushes his cheek and he opens his eyes to see the bank of a stream leading into a larger river. He seemed to recognise it but couldn’t quite place it.

He was sitting on the bank of a stream under an overpass, but he couldn’t hear any cars going by. It was a cloudless night with a few stars tossed up into that mess of a sky. The moon was nowhere to be seen.

His back was against concrete. He was under one of the arches, his head felt heavy, it was hard to lift. He realised after some blank staring and heavy blinking that he was in a storm drain not on the bank of a river. He was lying on a raised embankment on the far side under the bridge. It was just cool dull yellow concrete lit by the ambient glow of the night as far as the eye could see. A trickle of a stream flowing under his feet. He saw a few whisks of grass in the distance beyond a chain link fence on the other side of the bridge.

His back felt wet as he leant against the wall. His legs splayed out in front of him in his work clothes, his black shoes covered in a film of light brown dust. His head felt dry and taught and it hurt to move his neck. He sat there for a minute trying to collect himself.

He leaned forward and pulled himself onto his knees. Crawling like a baby over to the small body of water running through the storm drain.

He splashed his face a couple of times and put a cold wet hand down the back of his neck. It felt dirty, the dry sweat made his clothes itch and hang heavy. He felt starched and sickly.

James looked down at his reflection. He looked tired he could taste blood. He bore his teeth, his gums were raw and dirty looking. He sucked his gums and spat a wad of blood into the trickle of water running through the storm drain.

It spread out fast. A brown and deep red viscous liquid hitting the water hard and dispersing as the stream started to pick up.

James stood up, stumbling. His flat shoes scraping away out from under his feet on the slick raised concrete under the overpass. He slipped back down to his knees with a bone jarring jolt. The fall sending questions all over his body, where is all this pain coming from?

The stream started to get faster and thicker and he didn’t know why, the sky hadn’t changed. Maybe a dam or sluice-gate opened. Were there any dams in California? Was he even still in California? He had to get out of there one way another. His heart started to pound, his mind rushing by trying to find answers to questions it hadn’t settled on.

Then a noise.

Plinking and then something larger, a splash and a hollow plonking sound. He walked out from under the overpass and looked up at the bridge. It was well lit with deco lamps lining either side only three or four feet apart. A waist high guard rail along the footpath. There were no cars pulled up along the side of the road, there were no cars going by. He waited thirty seconds but nothing came.

The stream was a black and dark brown like his blood now. Probably some filthy rain water from a storm drain higher up.

He squinted up and down the stream for what broke the water. Then he saw it, it was white which made it easy to pick out against the murk. It bobbed on the surface on the water like a fishing lure. It looked light but also hard and slick reflecting some dull twinge of moonlight from somewhere.

It crept closer to him bobbing in and out playfully. Before he could feel it. He was standing in the now knee high water. He stood unmoving watching it approach, taking shape in front of him. It was long and thin, delicate looking, it’s subtle curvature giving way to long thin fingers.

He bent down to pick it up.

It was the left forearm of a female mannequin. He starred at it quizzically, turning it around in his hands trying to discern its origin. He turned it over, there were scratches on the underside. Scratched on to its wrist were the words “SHE HAS DYED HER HAIR RED”.

He dropped the arm into the stream and it bobbed off down into the distance.

A torso, legs, hip, arms, hands, and a head, all the pieces, maybe more than one mannequin he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t know why just yet. They were blank, featureless, pale white parts. Perfect, only for the leaves and the debris that surrounded them in the vile manmade river.

He breathed in and out slow. The chill getting up his back, his shoes squelched full of water and silt, listening to the night music.

~

Women in Fridges

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An Elephant by Julian Gilmour – A review

I think the prologue was a good choice and I can almost close my eyes and imagine this as a Danny Boyle movie. The prologue was definitely a step in the right direction because I can already tell by the pace of the first chapter that this is a slow burn type of story, culminating into something larger.
The description and the characterisation are superb, with a few little hiccups, I felt like some of the dialogue didn’t fit the impression I was getting of dog as a total meat head. Just some of the things he’s saying about movies sound more like the authors voice than his own. He sounded more like a film critic than a bodyguard but I understand you’re going with a tough with the heart of gold type of trope.
The writing style works well, I’m English and I find it hard to write about English people in general haha. But this handles it well. Some of it seems a little choppy, but overall it’s written well.

My only criticism I save for last, I realise I’m making a first impression of the first chapter and the prologue, but in a first chapter ‘stuff’ has to happen. And I think you realise that due to the implementing of the prologue injecting a little action but you also have a lot of time where you’re telling when you should be showing.
There are parts where we see dog’s thoughts and I thought that was a little lazy in a third person narrative. And particularly at the end of the chapter I felt an urgency to develop a plot when previously in that chapter it was just a couple of guys chatting about films and not a lot else.

I just really felt the bit where he thinks to himself about the bodyguard job it was a little shoehorned in and could have been worked into his dialogue a little bit easier than it was delivered right at the end of the chapter as an attempt to hook.

Overall it’s a very competent read and I enjoyed very much. I could see this being professionally published.

If this review sounded complimentary enough for you to do Julian a solid head on over to inkitt with the link provided and reserve a copy of his book.

An Elephant By Julian Gilmour

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Green Sunday – Chapter 9 Cobra Clutch

Here we are at last, the actual half way point of this beautiful disaster haha.

I’ve been a little preoccupied recently with not having any internet as of late, I have no idea why, last time it was copper stealing gypsies. Regardless my internet is back and I’m happy to inform you that because of it I feel a lot more pumped for nanowrimo. Because *drumroll/eyeroll* I actually reached a word count of around and above 1.5k. The necessary competitive amount for nanowrimo.
Now all I need to do is at the start of November, take an axe to my phone pole outside. Then I can be free from the distractions the internet levies on my dreams.

I dunno, I did like maybe 5k in three days, and its pretty crazy shit, I’m happy with it.

Ok enough of that this is actually my favourite chapter I had a lot of fun writing this one as you can probably tell. Even my editor could tell, it builds up to delicious crescendo of death and destruction, even reading over it again gave me chills of anticipation and left me wanting more. But that means writing another book and I’m just too fucking busy right now writing novellas and prepping for nanowrimo. And this one isn’t even making any money yet and why would it? I haven’t even started selling it or finished the editing process.

As usual you can find the full chapter and the previous chapters here completely for free.

 
Cobra Clutch

See you…

~

TJ squirmed on the back of the bike trying to lock his pudgy fingers around Sunday’s lithe frame. Fear overpowered his natural inclinations for tact and subtlety.

The engine of the Harley Continental coughed and spluttered. It roared like a rambunctious kitten. It was no huge feat for the bikers to catch up to them after finding their dead friend. Their bikes’ engine noises sounded like a giant bowling ball rolling down main street. TJ imagined that, to them, everyone looked like pins.

He looked back and saw only a cloud of smoke and dust. He half-expected a haunted pirate ship to emerge from it, with jet black sails. Crewed by stop motion skeletons. But as it cleared, only a parade of shiny chrome and black leather remained. A tide of ill-fitting pants and boots, with lots of buckles on them, moving gradually closer.

“Can we outrun them?” TJ yelped.

“No,” Sunday said, without even looking back.

“Then what are we gonna do?”

“This,” Sunday said, almost whispering. She stopped the bike with a sudden, anguished screeching of the Continental’s tires.

“What the fuck are you doing?? They’ll kill us!” TJ squealed.

“They might,” Sunday said. She propped the bike up with the kickstand and dismounted with the grace of a duchess.

TJ dismounted, almost falling. This brought back horrible memories of riding in a bike seat with his Mom when he was a kid.

“We’ve gotta hide,” he said breathlessly, clinging to one of his sweaty moobs. The sword in his other hand was shaking in its cheap faux lacquer sheath.

“Where?” Sunday said as she took up a batting stance, squeezing the grip of the bat in both hands. She took a few practice swings at that mean old air.

TJ looked around a full three sixty and realised they were on the edge of town. They were on an open street with no cover. “Looks like we’ll have to reason with them” Sunday said. A wry smirk peeled across her face as she walked past TJ with the bat across her shoulder.

The bikers didn’t speed up or slow down; they kept their solid, droning pace. They knew there was nowhere for them to run. And the building sounds of the engines filled the entire town with a primal dread.

They were on Sunday and TJ, like vultures, two at first, circling; the rest hung back a little to see what they’d do. The bikers were armed with pipes and chains and anything they could get their hands on. They dragged the chains behind their bikes and scraped the ground with their pipes, which, in a different situation, TJ would have found pretty cool. It kind of reminded him of the opening scene of ‘Akira’. But that was beside the point because they were probably trying to kill him.

Sunday breathed out slowly, closing her eyes and digging her feet into the cold, dry tarmac. She squeezed and released her grip on the bat as they circled, laughing and whooping.

One of them tore in front of her. His tires screeched in pain as they turned to face her, head on, but she didn’t move. He charged, screaming for her, but she remained still. He raised his pipe over his head as he angled his bike to give him a good swing. With an instant, ferocious finesse, she stepped forward into the arch of his strike and sunk her bat straight across his chest. He bounced off his bike. The bike came to a stop, scraping along the concrete.

Sunday breathed in calmly, closing her eyes again. She squeezed and released the handle of the bat as it hummed in her hands, sending shivers of pain all through her arms and down her back.

“You fucking bitch!” the biker’s friend screeched, pulling down the bandana covering his mouth. “I’m gonna fuck you up!”

Sunday wasn’t paying attention. She picked up the other biker’s discarded pipe, without looking at him, as he circled back to strafe her.

She looked it over as he closed the distance. Tears and snot streamed from his eyes, rage pounding on the accelerator.

She idly tossed the pipe away, and the biker was too angry to notice it fall directly into his path of destruction. By the time he wiped the snot out of his face, it was too late. He ran over the mangled pipe and it got caught up in the front tire. The front wheel twisted, forcing the bike to one side and down onto the concrete. It squealed to a stop and Sunday walked towards the downed biker.

He was pinned under the bike: both of his legs, broken for sure, coughing up blood, screaming, “You bitch, you fucking bitch!”

She was slower for some reason; she dragged the bat now, with one hand, and squeezed her arm with the other. She brought the bat up and split his head effortless. It made a mundane, wet imploding noise, like a watermelon dropped on concrete. His mouth went slack and his eyes rolled back in his head.  She pulled the spiked monstrosity out of his skull with a soggy, sucking noise.

Then silence, a slow deafening silence. Then a thunderous clap, breaking the silence apart, like Thor’s hammer on the clouds. A man, on an enormous, bucket-seat Harley, sat as if on a throne, watching. Surrounded by his cronies and with a fine-looking biker chick on the back of his bike, clinging to him, he slowly clapped with his huge, gloved hands.

“That was cute. I really dug that,” he said as he leaned forward, across his custom handlebars. There was a cobra design on the front of his bike, and his breaks and clutch were ornate snake heads with a brass finish. “Oh, you’re finished. Allow me to introduce myself.” He stroked his Fu Manchu moustache. A large Latin man, with tattoos covering most, if not all his arms, he was adorned with Mayan tribal art and Japanese rip offs. He wore a loosely cut denim waistcoat, the back of which was emblazoned with their insignia: an angel in a straitjacket with the words ‘Los Angeles Locos’ written below it. The ensemble was completed by a pair dark red, leather pants and aggressive-looking combat boots. “My name is Mojang. It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Before he finished, the bikes had fired up again. And before she knew it, Sunday was surrounded by ten maybe twelve bikers. Clouds of smoke encircled her, a maelstrom of twisted metal. Her hair swept across her face. She raised her bat with a bitter defiance, ready to swing at the next one that came close. She hoped to take them one at a time, like balls in a batting cage.

Before she could take a swing, a chain wrapped itself around her bat and it was wrenched from her hand, wrenched away with a high-pitched banshee laugh. Sunday turned, just in time to see a leather boot heel coming towards her face at high speed.

“That’s for Lamb Chop, bitch!” the woman said as she got off the back of the bike. The rider watched with a vicious grin on his face as the angry young biker woman approached. Sunday rose again, spitting blood.

Sunday stuck her tongue out as she wiped blood away from her mouth. The biker chick snorted. She wore high leather boots, all black leathers, a pinch of PVC and a ridiculously tight corset, holding in a much larger frame than Sunday’s. She had black, dyed hair with flecks of red in it, shaved in odd places. Piercings all around her head culminated in an obnoxious bull ring in her nose.

She closed the gap, between the bike and Sunday, with a bounding leap, her angry excitement fuelled by the wailing crowd. They whooped and hollered like wild animals. “What, bitch? You think you can take me-?” Before she could finish speaking, Sunday had football tackled her to the ground. Sunday pummelled her with balled up fists, like an angry gorilla, and thought nothing of biting the septum ring out of her nose and spitting it at her face. Before Sunday could finish her, a large arm snaked around Sunday’s neck and began choking the life out of her, lifting her a clear foot off the ground before dropping her, in a bundle, on the floor.

The large biker picked up Sunday’s flaccid body like a rag doll. The angry female biker stood and coughed blood.

“Damn, Del, she fucked you up.”

“Hold her, Roan!” She approached Sunday’s lifeless body, pulling a small knife from her thigh high boot. Del ripped Sunday’s shirt, with both hands, as she dangled unconscious in the brutish biker’s arms. The torn fabric revealed her pale, porcelain skin and petite, anaemic breasts. Del took a moment to pick a spot to plunge the knife into. “Bitch!”

“WAIT!” A booming voice cut over the sounds of engines, like ritual drums, building to a climax. “Hey, tubby! Yeah, you! You can stop hiding now; we’re not buying it,” Mojang bellowed as he leant prone over the handle bars of his enormous Harley.

TJ shook. The spittle in his mouth became sticky and it was hard for him to breathe. He had spent the last couple of minutes cowering behind the tiny Continental, trying to make himself invisible. Sadly, at his size, it was wishful thinking. He’d spent a lot of his life just doing exactly that, pretending to be invisible, but now there was nowhere to hide. There were eyes and teeth and fists and pipes and chains everywhere he rested his eyes. Spinning and spinning endlessly. He got dizzy trying to focus on a single point.

~

Cobra Clutch

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News: Teacher Fired For Allowing Teenagers To See HR Giger Art

Wow.

The Reprobate

3036983-poster-p-2-hr-gigers-original-design-to-do-list-for-alien-was-awesomely-weird

View original post 645 more words

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Ladies Close Your Eyes Chapter 3 ‘Strange and Unproductive Thinking’ (Raw)

Yoyoyo people, not sure what I was doing there, forget that.

Updates, updates, updates, what schlock can I use to fill this space, why do I do this again?
Ok right well pretty much nothing amazing has changed in my life since I posted the last blog, just writing editing and spamming as usual. Still really enjoying doing a serious crime fiction story, it’s a little out there a la Surveillance/Memento but it’s written by me it was never going to be normal. Fuck I just made one of my fbi characters a carsick pokemon go player. C’mon, what do I get for that? Oh that’s right nothing haha.

It’s still smooth sailing as usual, trucking along, trying to build a mailing is gonna prove difficult since I have no free shit to give haha. So I may just plonk GS or this on amazon when I have some reviews and give one away to promote the other as an ebook.

I dunno haha.

As usual you can check out the full chapter on inkitt and if you like it give it a review and a share and don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list on this page so I can shill you books when I have books to shill haha.

Strange and Unproductive Thinking

~
James woke up in a muggy haze, his head feeling two sizes too small. He squinted, he was lying on his back, the way his doctor told him not to. He saw the fan was still going but not doing a lot of anything. The night had taken with it it’s cool countenance and the morning glared at him through his unshaded bedroom window.

His alarm told him it was six am.

She was gone, her indentation still lingered.

It wasn’t that unusual. She usually got up much earlier than him and pottered around for a little bit before she went to her volunteering at the homeless shelter. Serving them breakfast made her feel better about not having to line up for breakfast.

He showered. He had one of those old fashioned shower baths with a curtain.

He got out of the shower and dried himself. He wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at his reflection. His hair slicked back in the two door mirrored cabinet over the sink. The seam of which was right in the middle. The door hinges were a little loose and they buckled in the middle causing the doors to sink inward a little. Thus resulting in an almost funhouse mirror reflection of James’ sallow face split down the middle. He looked at himself and saw a face that was still quite handsome but time had added a few extras where they weren’t needed. A bit too much neck fat made him almost afraid to tilt his head down. With his hair slicked back his hairline was disheartening. His face sagged in places it didn’t use to. The bags under his eyes were now permanent fixtures next to the flecks of little grey hairs that he struggled not to notice.

Other than that his forehead was relatively unlined and his eyes still looked youthful, the result of years of not being very expressive. This gave him some comfort as he stared blankly at his own reflection.

He continued to floss and brush his teeth, gargling mouth wash and spitting. He skipped shaving, his face was still fairly smooth from yesterday.

He was dressed now in a short sleeve shirt and tie, bent over the kitchen sink scratching the black off a burnt piece of toast.

He sat at the kitchen table alone reading the paper. A plate of abused toast sitting next to a glass of store brand orange juice. It was just one shade dingier than the name brand and came with it a slightly coppery after-taste.

The kitchen was new looking, but just as the bedroom it was bare. Aside from the slight messes, the toast ash in the sink, the jam and butter fingerprints on the counter. It looked like a show house. Beautiful in its emptiness.

It wasn’t a particularly large kitchen, mid-range, stone floors. The counter was some type of imitation granite. He sat at a small breakfast bar which corralled the fridge and stove and combination oven. He was sitting on a minimalist chair made of plastic with metal struts. The kind you get in sandwich shops that force you to lean on the counter like hipster bar stools. He read the paper with his back bolt upright.

The door on his left lead to the utility room, the door to his right lead to a small dining room and the door behind him lead into the hall.

Across from the breakfast bar which jutted out like a little pier in the middle of the kitchen. The sink and dishwasher which overlooked the only window onto the small AstroTurf back garden.

Both of them knew they couldn’t really afford to live here. So they rented, and neither of them really lived in the house as much as they just existed there. A stop over until they could get something more liveable and secure their place on the ever shrinking island of California’s middle class.

The headline of the paper read;

“MATCHBOOK KILLER SUSPECT IN CUSTODY (Pictured page 30)”

He padded his way through the sport section and quickly shirked the relationship section. The politics section was as grim as usual given a brisk scan. He mouthed the words but they didn’t really go anywhere. On page twenty-nine he thumbed the corner as if it was a crumpled copy of playboy stored under a neighbours shed.

He got his hopes up for nothing. Just a few glossies of cops with their backs turned and a white tarp with an arm sticking out of it.

He sighed and felt a little dirty, he could have just looked it up online if he wanted to but he was running a little late now.

He closed his eyes and remembered something he’d seen before but he couldn’t quite remember if it were real or a dream or both. A picture of a tree at dusk, there was a plane crash he thought or at least that’s what he was meant to think. Arms and legs hung from the tree, clean and perfect like doll parts. In fact, they looked just like odd mannequin pieces. So recalling it didn’t alarm him as he was sure even if that picture did exist it was fake or some tween’s edgy art project.

He then proceeding to eat his burnt toast with long teeth and wash it down with glugs of gritty orange juice.

~

James’ car was parked out front. A Hyundai with a sagging bumper. He left his single story house on North 12th street which was located in a suburb of Colton. He lived opposite the park which consisted of two fenced in basketball courts with a shaded eating area in the centre. Sparsely decorated with an array of trees ranging from sycamores to the standard palm. It was pretty much empty except for a handful of kids that should have been in school. They were playing some form dodge/basketball hybrid he’d never seen before.

It was an ok neighbourhood, the houses and lawns were well kept. All single storied with wire fences around the lawns and carports.

He took a right and then another past the park onto North Mt Vernon Avenue towards the river. He passed a new looking truck stop with a big blue bud light truck out front and a sign that read “LQUOR”.

There was a 7-11 on the other side and a cosy Mexican restaurant off the highway.

He continued along South Mt Vernon past a motel and a garage selling discount cylinder heads. It took him over the highway and snaked around to join it. He got onto the I-10 towards Redland and found himself in a conga-line of early morning commuters.

The glare on the windshield reminded him he forgot to wear sunglasses driving in California.

Despite that he had some time to take in the scenery squinting at pretty much flat nothing. A drainage canal ran underneath the highway and lead to a strange grouping of green trees walled on either side by thick concrete. The other side of which was a lot containing several mounds of brown dirt, the result of digging or some kind of construction.

On the left there were sickly looking spruce trees poking over the top of the freeway. He took the time to read some of the billboards which were suspended along his side of the highway. The first was for a pest control business, a picture of a suspicious looking cockroach. The next has a big red truck on it claiming to be the #1 at something vague. The one that followed just had “$720,000” written on it with a phone number below it. After that was a movie poster with a blue guy strangling a blue woman, it didn’t look that interesting.

~

Strange and Unproductive Thinking

 

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Green Sunday Chapter 8 ‘Motorpsycho Nitemare’ (Edited)

Friends, romans country men, lend me your braziers.
No stop that.
OK shit, why do I do these intros again? Oh yeah to make me look like a crazy dumbass, check!

As you can see making decent progress, getting a handle on getting the older stuff edited and working on new projects. I’ve even assigned days of ‘marketing’, which just boils down to a couple of hours of copy and pasting, spamming the shit out of Facebook and twitter. I laugh at your ban hammer Facebook, I laugh at it!

I’m also in talks with some other independent ‘zombie authors’ for some shared content and possibly some cross promotion in the future. So yeah plenty of nepotism yet to come, yay for cronyism! (I’m being sarcastic).

I’m having so much fun with the other project I’m working on and it’s tricky to resist the temptation to completely pan everything else and work on that. I’ve been trying to increase my writing output to something resembling 2k words a day. So far life and work and just plain laziness and love of blenders is getting in my way. I don’t hold out much hope of winning nanowrimo as much as I see it as a fun way to get a really good start on new project I think has the potential of raising my profile significantly.
Right back to earth haha. This is the start of some interesting shit happening now, lots of action in this one, the next one is probably my favourite but this is fun too. Looking forward to getting this done and dusted so I can properly show this to people. I added someone on Facebook I’m interested for a cover design, it’s all coming together folks.

Enough blathering, you can find the full chapter for free as usual on inkitt at;
Motorpsycho Nitemare

–

The stillness of the early morning was deafening. Cold and brittle as the morning before, it was shattered by hurried footsteps and the sound of frantic panting. A red-haired man in sweats jogged with a limping gait, taking cold, wet, terrified breaths. He choked as much of the damp morning air down as he could to keep his limbs moving. Lactic acid seeped into every joint and muscle as he tried frantically to make his body work as it was supposed to.

A bright light pierced the mist of the ambivalent early morning, accompanied by an obnoxiously loud and tinny Harley continental engine tearing into life. A black-gloved hand revved it for the pleasure of the vibration in his gut. He grabbed his leather-clad crotch with his gloved hand to rearrange the furniture. The sound and smell of creaking leather brought a smile to his greasy, stubbly face.

“Let’s go fuck shit up.”

He pulled his denim waistcoat tighter across his skinny frame. The name “Lamchop” was embossed above the left breast pocket. The biker dragged a chain across his lap, the end of which had a barbed hook that he hung over the side of the bike. He nudged the kickstand with his leather boot and screeched off down the suburban street.

The town was so still, dead and dying. The red-headed jogger could’ve heard the engine on the other side of town, but he was sure it was closer. His eyes widened and his pupils shrank as he loped into the mist. He doubled his pace, his muscles crying out in pain with every terrified step.

The biker let out some slack in the chain, one hand on the handles of his bike. He let it swing idly at his side as he drove. Noticing a shape form in the mist, he took control of its swinging motion. With the strength of his wrist alone he began to spin the chain, building up speed, keeping full control of the bike as he did so.

The swinging chain reached terminal velocity. The shape was within striking distance. The biker released the chain as if launching a dog at an unsuspecting rabbit from the barrel of a gun. All the force from his wrist snapped it at the shape coming at him from the mist.

The chain struck with snake-like, snapping precision. It tangled around the feet of its victim, locking into place at the ankle. The savage, biting barbs rent flesh from the bone and stuck stalwart in the calf of the bait.

No noise was heard over the thunderous engine, no screams, no pleas for help. The chain stopped for a brief moment, slack as it was, then it took on life once again as the bike pulled away. The chain snaked up with a vicious, snapping sound, yanking its victim off their feet and dragging them across the neatly tarmacked suburban roadway.

The meat sack hit the ground with a sad, wet trumping sound. Bones in a bag of wet flour collided awkwardly as they were wrenched out of the mist with a hiss and a slick grinding sound. The biker stopped and, lifting his goggles, he looked back at the zombie he’d caught on the hook. A proud fisherman, the biker smiled and pulled his goggles back down. The creature writhed, ground down teeth falling from its mouth like popcorn. Its face was hot and slick from its date with the smooth tarmac, most of its features worn down. It reached its arm up, reminding him of the canteen scene from “Oliver Twist.”

“More? OK, well, why didn’t you say?” He laughed to himself and revved his engine once more.

The red-haired man in sweats reached his front door, his breath burning his lungs. The air felt like sandpaper, going in and coming out. His sweats were drenched and the cold tugged at him as he propped himself up against the door. He tapped on it.

“Sheila, it’s me. Let me in! They’re coming! For God’s sake, lemme’ in!”. He whispered in a low, raspy voice as he tapped the window of the door.

He looked back into the mist as he heard the engine’s noises carried by the empty streets. “Sheila, open the fucking door, or God help me, I wil- “An abrupt unlatching noise cut him off. His wife opened the door a crack and he slipped through it, as if by osmosis.

“Will, are you OK? Did you find any?” A slight woman with mousey brown hair stood in front of him, bunching up a plaid dress in her two skinny fists.

“I couldn’t. They were on me, these guys. They were staking out the pharmacy. They knew people would come for supplies. It was a trap; I barely got away!” His voice was hoarse. He took in large, gulping breaths as he spoke. Feelings of shame and guilt and terror fought for space in his brain. All thoughts were barged out of the way though by his singular desire for all the stale oxygen on the landing.

“I can’t last much longer without my insulin,” she said, whispering into her dress, a maudlin expression on her pale face. “If you were a real man, you’d get it.”

“Yeah, and if you weren’t a total retard you’d have stocked up before the zombie apocalypse. But we can’t all be perfect!”

“It’s not the apocalypse. The army’ll come. They will. We just have to last a little longer. I don’t know how much longer I can- “

“It’ll be OK, I promise,” he said softly as he collapsed on the stairs. “We’ll find a way.”

Just as he got a little comfortable and the air particles started forming an orderly queue into his lungs, a sharp tapping taxman knock set the couple’s teeth on edge.

“Who… who is it?” Sheila said

“Shhhh.” Will’s panic and anger flared into a harsh, sharp shushing noise.

“I’ve come to read tha meeta,” the voice beyond the door said in a faux, mocking English accent.

“W-what?”

“Shhhhhhh,” Will said again, sharper and louder.

“Yeah I can definitely hear a leak. You betta let me in or-”

A dead silence fell as the couple inside tried to stop breathing for moment. “Or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.” The voice became lower and more caustic. All the humour drained out of it, sending a chill down the couple’s spines.

Will’s breath creaked out of his mouth. Then a jostling of the door handle sent him reeling up the stairs, fumbling for the banister.

“Where are you going?” Sheila screeched as he fled.

“Little pigs, let me in!”
Motorpsycho Nitemare

 

 

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A poetic lamenation of the fps genre.

Ok so that was just a title that popped into my head, nothing about this ramble is going to be remotely poetic. Or even a limerick, maybe I’ll do haiku at the end.

I thought I should just do a ramble to break up all the literary shade I’ve been throwing you folks over the past however long and I really can’t be bothered to do another knife review or even buy another knife. Shit I just spent like a hundred quid on a new blender, what the fuck am I doing with my life?

Right so topic, topic. Ok I recently bought the game Doom, and I thought I could complain/praise that and maybe spin it into a blog here and abouts a ponies worth of words (500, at least I think, need to take another course on cockney rhyming slang).

Ok (gotta stop starting new paragraphs with ok, I was talking to someone on xbox live ((i.e. the only human contact I get)) and I kept starting every sentence with ‘basically’ or ‘essentially’ which are basically essentially the same word and I wanted to strangle myself with a kitty print draft excluder). I really actually enjoyed this game, I haven’t completed it yet but I had some minor gripes about this game and shooters today in general.
Because to be perfectly honest with you I preferred Doom 3 to this and let me tell you why before you rectally examine me with a verbal steel toe cap. It had atmosphere, yeah the game is dated now and it was pretty shitty even then, like lame haunted house half-life knock off. But I really enjoyed it, it rang so hard of event horizon I couldn’t help but love it. And if Doom 3 had the awesome gameplay of the new Doom it would win hands down.

Opening a dimensional portal on mars to hell is super cool so how did Bethesda make it shit and boring?
Well in Doom 3 the hell research was sort of hush-hush, it built up gradually and you didn’t really know what was going on and you read audio logs that documented the slow descent into hell and madness. It was a mining operation that was experimenting with teleportation and accidentally opened a gateway to hell in an ancient Martian ruin.
In Doom they’re actually purposefully trying to get to hell to frack some demon gas, I’m not even kidding. There are like holograms saying how it’s all super cool and safe and awesome to open a portal to hell to nick their idemon chargers.

I mean seriously is this game for real? How would that ever make sense? It’s just ridiculous, no janitor working for no three-fiddy an hour would mop the floors of a mars base where they’re openly telling everyone they’re opening a gateway into hell to steal their unobtainium. I mean how could it go wrong?

So the first strike for me is Doom 3 took it in stride and played it closer to the chest and had better atmosphere and actually tried to be scary. The new Doom doesn’t give a shit, it’s just a balls out shooter. Which I like, but it really missed an opportunity to be more than a shooter and surpass Doom 3.
I feel a twinge of disappointment whenever I start a new shooter and literally two seconds in you’re mashing a zombie or I’m sorry a ‘Possessed”s head into mushy peas. Whatever happened to the half life style of games where there’s actual build up and the action seems to flow organically? You’re not just given a gun and a slap on the bum. It’s insulting. I want set up, I want atmosphere and I want tension.

I think the day I noticed the real immersive shooter experience was dead was Farcry 3. The trailers were this intense looking fps that looked like a game of the movie The Beach. A group of holiday goers having fun get snatched by guerillas and have to fight and adapt to survive. But as soon as you start the game you’ve already been captured, no build up, no character development, you’re just kicked onto an open stage with your pants down. And then the cheek of the game reaches peak when you’re told to save your friends in the game that hasn’t introduced you to them yet. How can you want to save someone if you don’t even get to know them at all? You’re actually in the cage with your brother and he dies right in front of you and the game expects you to care, I like met him two minutes ago and he was only really there as a tutorial.
Then I started to realise they don’t really care, and ubisoft in general is pretty lazy, willing to literally copy and paste their games into shiny new sky boxes selling them at full price with a hackneyed plot ripped right out of Michael Moore’s asshole. Yeah when we say ‘Sequel’ we mean an actual sequel not the same game where everyone is wearing different hats.

I’m really enjoying the game, it just makes me sad to think shooters used to be so much more than this and they’ll never be like that again. It’s fun, the guns are great, the monsters are great, the action is heart pounding. But I used to play games I felt that people really cared about when they made them. Now I’m not so sure.

Doom is a fun game
Lots of mindless gore and shit
Seven out of ten.

Peace!

 

9

Ladies Close Your Eyes – Chapter 2 ‘I Want You’ (Raw)

Trucking along nicely with this now. I’m really enjoying writing this, it really feels like home. Like I’m where I should be. It’s flowing really easily and I can feel myself growing as a writer, it’s so energizing. I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

Anyway a few updates, as you can see my site looks less like a pile of shit. I upgraded my account and got my own domain and started clearing the place up a little. Unfortunately I know about as much about web design as my asshole from a hole in the wall. So bare with me while I fuck around with it. But it looks ok right? Look a little like a creepy little girls notepad but I guess that works for me haha.

As usual you can find the full chapter on my inkitt page, gotta see them analytics grow mufucka!

I WANT YOU

PEACE!

~

His eyes grazed the floor wantonly, seeing what he’d done. Where he was, watching the moonlight grow and shrink in waves on the cream carpet of his new house. The moon was high and proud now. Cars passed. Their headlights probed the room, their engines made a soothing sound which reminded him of the ocean. The trip to long beach with his parents when he was a kid.

He lay on his side taking up as little room as possible. The window was open, the night was warm but the white sheets were cool and crisp. The bed was all white, the pillow cases, the comforter. It was a fairly new double bed, made of chrome like the ones you get in college dorms. A steel headboard that left gouges in the drywall when the bed moved.

The room was bare, they’d only moved in a couple of weeks ago and the bedroom windows didn’t even have curtains. They were just left exposed, the sky seemed so large from that window but the floor was more appealing.

The bedroom was small and neat, it looked like a guest room in the corner of the house. The closet was empty. They’d still been living out of their suitcases as the jobs they had were only temporary and they might have to move.

“James, are you even awake?”

He breathed in and out deeply but didn’t say anything.

He was facing away from her, she sat up in the bed knotting her hands together. Her hair was tied up in a tight dull auburn bun. Her face was pale, her cheeks a little sallow, with a high forehead. She had a small but bulbous nose that he found cute at one point, with its light spattering of orange freckles. Her upper lip was thin and pursed with a more rounded bottom lip. She had a round face and looked to be in her early thirties. A sheen of some mixture of creams and balms on her face made it hard to tell. She wore a baggy men’s grey sweatshirt to bed, concealing her shape. She breathed in and out wheezing as she wrung her hands making squelching noises working in more cream. Pushing her chin to her chest indignant at her lover’s silent response.

“This is not what I wanted”

James couldn’t help but agree. He breathed in deeply again, closing his eyes. He lay on his right side facing the window, the covers half off. He was a little younger, with sandy blonde hair. His face was long with flat cheeks, a long straight nose and thin lips. He wore just a pair of striped boxer shorts and white t-shirt to bed. He was of average build with a little extra weight around his mid-section.

He sighed again and closed his eyes. Without warning he saw her there, behind his eyelids. Her red hair was vibrant now, she had dyed her hair red and it seemed to glow. Her hair was naturally red but she dyed it a deeper shade to wash out her freckles. He hair was all around his head and he could feel her body on his, her smell, like fresh sandalwood and sweat. Her lips on his, the taste of her spit, her breathe on his neck.

“I need you to be present, all of you.”

He opened his eyes and looked at the egg-shell white wall of his bedroom. The bed felt hard, the air, stiff like a hotel room.

She’s still talking but he can’t hear her. Her words seem disjointed and they become white-noise. He closes his eyes again.
He’s on top of her now, thrusting deep. A cool film of sweat on his back. The window is open. An ancestral chorus of crickets keep a constant metronome. Her body is soft and responsive; she digs her fingers into his back. He buries his face in her hair, slick with sweat. He hates her now for some reason. Her eyes are wide and beautiful, her face like the moon reflected in a puddle looking up at him. A shy smugness that could have been mistaken for rapture on her face. His fist’s ball around white linen, creasing the bed sheets. A sudden sinking feeling, the bed swallowing them. He slapped her once and her face rolled with it and back to where it was returning with an excited smirk.
He snatched at her throat grabbing clumps of her hair in his sweaty fist. Her eyes got wider, her mouth opened. He gripped tighter and he could feel her throat shifting as she tried to swallow. Her cheeks became flush and the look in her eyes became like a long hallway. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she gasped and tried to swallow again. Her face becoming a brighter shade of red.

He opened his eyes again all he could hear was the ceiling fan spinning.

~

 

 

 

 

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