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Green Sunday Chapter 11 Eggs, hash and grits (Edited)

Yo yo yo people. Don’t know what I was going for or why the big font today but fuck it. I’m back with another edited chapter. My editor is back from vacation or wherever she went. Probably battling the forces of evil in japan, fighting godzilla or something. But she’s back and hence a wild new chapter has emerged. First thing she said was the beginning sucked but she seemed to like the rest of it, thankfully the beginning is short haha.
And here it is a voila’.

Only seven chapters left, as usual follow the link to the full chapter in a more elegant format. Hopefully I’ll be going live with it on amazon sometime next year so keep an eye out for that.

Eggs, hash and grits.

~
The smell of sweat and blood and tears, the sound bare of feet on a concrete floor. Soft flesh and bone colliding. A loud chorus of people shouting and smoking and drinking. The smell of motor oil and leather hanging in the stale air. A group of people were huddled around two half-naked men knocking the shit out of each other.

“Where the fuck is Bernie?” Mojang hissed as he reclined on a large, high-backed office chair. The wheels and stand were broken. but he sat on it as if it were a low throne. A sexy biker chick in her underwear straddled him.

She leant over him with a needle and a trail of dental floss, and delicately sewed up what was left of his eye.

“Keep still baby,” she said as she pressed her slinky tattooed flesh against his.

Mojang had set himself up in a garage on the far side of town. The smell of motor oil, and the tools and spare parts clanging, put his mind at ease.

He’d holed up in the dilapidated office and the rest of his crew were getting lit on the garage floor. They took out a couple of scrappy survivors they’d picked up on their day’s raiding and set up a little fight club.

There was a ring of drunken bikers on the concrete floor of the shop. They surrounded a skinny office clerk as he pounded the cartilage of a fat barista against the concrete floor, until a satisfying, greasy, wet, snapping sound cut a swathe through the loud, drunken crowd. The clerk pounded his sweaty mitts into the stubbly fat face of the barista against the grey concrete: hot, wet, slapping sounds of meat and bone colliding on the cold, wet floor; rivulets of muddy crimson blood that would make Jackson Pollock cry manly tears. Eventually he stopped shaking and a viscous red bile started pouring from his nose and mouth.

“We got a winner!” A hairy biker in a leather waistcoat picked up the dazed office clerk by his slick, skinny wrist, propping him up. The office clerk, almost unconscious, panted out a relieved smile as his eyes rolled back in his skull.

Bernie watched from a darkened corner as they took the ‘winner’ and threw his almost lifeless body into the net of half-dead, twitching corpses, laughing as they did it.

Bernie perched in the corner next to an old payphone bolted to the wall. He rested the receiver against his ear and spoke softly.

“I hear you…tomorrow…can’t wait.” He tried to hold a smile back, tightening his face as he looked about the dim garage, lit only by unwieldy camp fires and generator-operated standing lights. He hung up the phone with a tight, satisfying click.

As the crowd got a little quieter, coming down off their wave of excitement, Bernie could hear his name being shouted.

“Bernie! Get your fat Jew ass in here!”

Bernie unfolded his arms and sighed with icy aggression as he peeled himself off the cold, concrete wall of the garage.

He popped the door of the office open. It was one of those thin plastic doors you were afraid you might yank right off. He stuck his head around the door like a temp.

“You call me?”

“Take a seat,” Mojang said, through the girl still straddling him, sewing up his eye. He didn’t move from his seat.

“There isn’t another chair in here”

“Then stand,” Mojang said as he moved the half-naked girl off his crotch. “Two minutes.”

The girl flounced out of the small office. She dragged a feminine, two-day-old musk behind her as she shut the door with a definitive bang.

“Was there something?”  Bernie said as he turned around looking at the closed door, his eyes careless.

“How does it look?” Mojang spoke to a rear view bike mirror he held up in front of his face. He tilted it down, revealing his sewn up eye. It was swollen and bloody; it looked like there was a red baseball stuck in his skull.

“Like shit.”

“You talk to him? The man? He called you?” Mojang reclined in the seat and tilted his head to one side.

“Yeah I talked to him.”

“You didn’t call me.”

“You were busy.”

“Uh huh. Well, what does he want? Do they have the scores?” Mojang seethed, his eyes scanning every inch of Bernie.

“Err, yeah but that’s not why he called. Said there’s gonna be a drop. Not even a block away – good shit,” Bernie said, grinning and rubbing his stubbly face.

“’Good shit,’ huh? OK. We’ll take it, tomorrow. This whole town is gonna burn. That fat boy and his bitch included.”

“I heard about that. Some kid did that to your face?”

“You heard about it, huh? From who? The man?”

“Around,” Bernie snorted as he pulled out a candy bar from his pocket and began opening it noisily. “Some pudgy twelve-year-old fucks you up, people talk about it.” He smiled as he took a bite out of the candy bar. Strings of caramel and nougat dangled from his bottom lip.

“Uh huh, yeah. It’s pretty fucking funny.” Mojang hopped out of his seat. He stood a good foot taller than Bernie.

“You gotta see the funny side: you lose an eye, you still got another one. We’ll get him tomorrow; his bitch too, you’ll see. You want a bite?” Bernie snuffled with the candy bar in his mouth. He smiled, breaking off a piece and offering it to Mojang as he closed in on him.

“Yeah, we will” Mojang said. A vicious smile was stitched on his face as he clutched Bernie by his jaw, forcing him against the chip board wall of the small office with a dull thud. He snatched the candy bar out of Bernie’s hand and forced it into his gaping face, wiping it all over with a forceful hand. Bernie’s neck snapped back painfully as he spat out the wrapper and he groaned as Mojang delivered a powerful uppercut under his ribs. He slid down the wall, stunned by the sudden controlled burst of aggression. “Now get the fuck out of here,” Mojang said.

~

Eggs, hash and grits.

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The Eyes of Goldfinches by June – A review

Let me start on the wrong foot, this is never something I’d ever really read unless there was a massive messed up twist halfway through or something. Which I wouldn’t know because I probably wouldn’t read that far and it would take it being made into a movie for me ever to know haha.
But if it is like that I don’t really expect there to be much foreshadowing in the first chapter. I think the dialogue is good and it’s always nice to see a first person narrative that isn’t entirely stale and annoying. But it gives way to a habit of telling instead of showing. You had the main character just telling us how he felt about people when it would have been more effective to show it somehow that was relevant to the plot. Because to be honest not a lot really happens in the first chapter and this is the chapter publishers and agents will read and unless your hook/summary/blurb is really amazing then they probably won’t read any further.
It may not be your style but you may want to start at your inciting incident and work back, think of it like a film that starts with the character hanging from the edge of a cliff or something then you find out how that happens while he goes about his average day of being painfully average haha. It’s a little cliché’ but it’s cliché’ for a reason, it works.
I mean what really happens in the first chapter? He goes to school, he does some school stuff, gets a detention then meets a girl. It’s not a lot to work with but saying that the title is great and it’s what initially what brought me to this story. So if you paired the catchy title with an even catchier blurb/pitch that would nail it.
Because the writing style is there, it obviously needs an edit because it’s a bit sticky in places but it shows talent, it flows. The characters of the little we saw in the first chapter are distinctive and likeable and the main character has a good voice, very fun, very self-aware and smart. I like it, it works and I can see someone who isn’t me enjoying this a great deal haha.

Here’s a link to the story so you can read it for yourself.

The Eyes of Goldfinches

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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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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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Review of The Ballad of Reston Riggs By Diane April

I really liked the tone, not much happens in the first chapter and it’s fairly typical of a zombie apocalypse story, it’s not so much a story as a framing device for a bunch of stuff happening, this coming from someone who’s written a zombie story before and am just as guilty of this.
But I really liked the perspective, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a zombie story told through the perspective of a mentally handicapped person. At the start it almost read like noir. Very terse and direct and detail orientated and I really enjoyed that but I felt it wasn’t always consistent.
It’s almost like there are parts where it breaks character, certain words or phrases seem to break the illusion you’re seeing it from Reston’s perspective. Like the analogy to the Jackson Pollack painting and I’m thinking ‘Does Reston know who Jackson Pollack is?’. Sure he could know but it seemed out of place. It was a good analogy don’t get me wrong. I know what a Jackson Pollack painting looks like but it took me out of it a little bit and I became very aware I was reading a story as opposed to the third person recitiation of a mentally challenged person’s thoughts.
I think maybe even this story could have benefitted from a first person narrative as opposed to the third to help keep the story in character per se. It could be like a zombie version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, which is this neo-noire mystery told from the perspective of a boy with learning difficulties.
The description was great, not over the top just clean, the grammar and punctuation is strong and the writing style is competent.
Overall I liked it, it definitely has potential and I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Read it for yourself here.

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Dexter is Dead… again.

Ok been letting my blogging slip for a while because of this and that excuse, work, travel, romance, all that shit. But that’s all gone now, back to business as usual.
I recently finished the last of the Dexter series, if you don’t know already the blog is a play on the title of the first book ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’. And although the series isn’t what inspired me to become a writer myself it has influenced a lot of thematic choices I later came to love.
So needless to say I’m a big fan of the show and then I just got done reading all eight of the books and it’s fair to say I really liked them since I read them back to back, which is pretty is pretty rare for me. I think the last time I did that was when I first discovered pulp and read all the Philip Marlowe books by Raymond Chandler one if not THE godfather of literary pulp/noir, whatever you wanna call it. I personally think he beats the pants off of Dashiell Hammet although I love me some Sam Spade and I really enjoyed the first Parker novel I read by Richard Stark I think it was. I was actually thinking of filling the hole left by Dexter with some Parker.

Parker is like a more amoral version of Philip Marlowe I guess, like half way between Dexter and Sam Spade maybe. He’s just a straight up, hard edge career criminal. I was almost shocked when I read the hunter. There’s a scene where he kills this innocent woman by mistake and that wasn’t really the problem it was the way he just brushes it off, like ‘oops’ and I thought even Dexter would have had a moment of contemplation over that. And that’s why that character is really memorable, someone so focused on what they want that they burn everyone and anything in their way and feel nothing for them. A really powerful character I thought. It’s like you’re reading this like “Am I the baddie?”

Ok so I really enjoyed the Dexter series, I felt it flagged towards the end a little, like Lindsay was just in no mood to continue it so just ended it. I was a little disappointed by the prison sequence (Oh yeah spoilers Dexter goes to prison ha-ha), because I expected him to shank a fool or whatever but it was pretty boring monotonous, nothing really happens.

I liked the change of pace, overall I thought the books were weird because they became less about serial killing and more about Dexter’s life getting in the way of his serial killing but I guess that’s realistic and a great parralel for real life getting in the way of the things you love.
I’m not sure if this actually is the last book because the ending was very and obviously intentionally open ended. And the show also played around with an open ending although mercifully they thought better of that because that show really started to drag. Looking back having read the books I can see it was dragging its heels as soon as it left the starting block of the first season. They really really really shouldn’t have killed off the ice truck killer. He’s a pivotal character in the books, well sort of, but I think that was a mistake. They could have dragged out that familial conflict into later seasons allowing them to not have to rely on really over used tropes and shameless filler.

I liked the show for what it was, it was almost an expanded universe, exploring things around his dad and his mom, they took the books and ran with them and it was very entertaining. it got me through a lot of stressful shit at uni when the new Dexter ep came out. I could sit and watch it and talk to my friends about it

Anyway, enough of that bullshit, what I really wanted to talk about was that I really do feel like there’s a Dexter size hole in my life. So I was thinking of doing a fanfic of sorts, a continuation surrounding Dexter’s grown up daughter Lily-Anne. Essentially I want to get deep in the shit and explore some of the stuff I think Lindsay shied away from and fill in the blanks myself.

Because I think I mentioned in the past that the Dexter lore has some supernatural elements, he essentially #spoiler alert# squares off with a demon or old god or whatever in the third book and then after that it was just dropped like an old guy’s jock strap in the men’s locker room at the gym. I think it must have got panned or received a lot of criticism for taking what was essentially a mystery/crime thriller book into the Dan Brown illuminati/Alex Jones territory. And honestly I have nothing against that sort of shit. I really liked that book, it was such a jarring change of pace I was a little disappointed it wasn’t gone into in more detail or at the very least touched upon at least one more time. It was just sort of side-lined. Just like how in the books he’s promised to train the fledgling killer kids he’s raising. He never gets around to it, so I want my story take on that to be the result of his inaction.

I was thinking of having the ancient society from book three come back and hunt down Dexter’s progeny to harvest their dark passengers. Structure it the same way as the other books, have her as like a crime blogger who investigates murders and gets tangled up in this web of intrigue because of her innate morbid curiosity. Then out of nowhere the murders seem to be spelling out a message to her. I essentially want to make almost a copy of the first book, almost an ‘homage’ force awakens that bitch. That’s about all the spoilers I want to give away. I may turn this into like a fun side project of short novellas or full blown novels maybe if I can get in contact with Jeff Lindsay, I’ve exchanged a total of three words with him on twitter so I’m in like flin motherfucker ;).
I dunno it just seems like there’s so much that could have come from the Dexter mythos, it just feels unfinished, unloved, like Lindsay was just tired of that headspace, which I can totally understand. I think Dexter was a character I related to in a scary way and I was very invested in his struggles and I just think it didn’t end quite right. I mean I never expected him to live happily ever after, but why not? Yeah it’s fiction and bad guys always have to pay but do they? Do they in real life? Not really, so why should fiction have to conform to that standard?

I just thought it would be interesting to keep the series going with a woman at the helm, especially in this current political climate. I could see myself having a lot of fun with that. I’m not sure if I should do it for nanowrimo because I already had some lovecraftian thrillery type stuff lined up for that or maybe something odd and lynchian, completely surreal and off the wall. But we’ll see if I can come up with a synopsis in time. I might just start those other things as soon as I’ve released every chapter of gs.
Anyway my facebook ban should be lifted soon and I’ll be posting more shit on there and on twitter, I have to get my thumb out of my ass and reignite my social media platform, reanimate that sucker.

Peace out my african brothers and have a killer day ;).

 

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Green Sunday review by Knicky Laurel

Got a lovely new review for Green Sunday from someone I’m totally not sleeping with, faerie author of delightfully whimsical fiction, Knicky Laurel. You can check her out at her fancy author page on facebook Knicky Laurel, and you can read Green Sunday for free on inkitt Green Sunday.

 

Something Special
I recently finished reading the first eight chapters of Ryk Brink’s Green Sunday, and one of the first of many things to hook me hard was his writing style. It’s metaphoric and pointed laser focus deeply analyses the story’s subject matter, and its razor-edge imagery is hauntingly precise – in other words, the unique way in which he describes the story as he tells it leaves you unable to unsee it that exact way, and you can’t help but agree with his word choice and direction. And I think that is the impression I came away with the most – Ryk is a director, but of words rather than movies, and while every directorial style isn’t to everyone’s taste, his just happens to be one I favour.

I think this style is deliciously juxtaposed with the irreverent, open wound that is Ryk’s sense of humour and is what gives this particular zom-pocalyse novel such a refreshing feel. From the mean-spirited manner in which it depicts our proxy, TJ Kincaid, to the lovesick relationship it clearly has with nonchalant but gratuitous violence, it is apparent that this work is not for the overly-sensitive reader. That said, if you have the balls to stomach it, it is a story that has many elements anyone with an open mind for a different kind of story can appreciate, including some very real human moments, as dark and serious and quiet as they are by turn light-hearted, playful and a little silly.

My favourite aspect of this novel, and it would seem that I am not alone in this, is the relationship between TJ and Sunday. There is something so appealing about the ebb and flow between her hardness and his innocence, and the nuances of the role reversal featuring her as the protector with him as the virgin sacrifice or the atypical dude-in-distress. The space between them is filled with the overtone of the entire work, the loud cheesy camaraderie with death TJ has in his imagination versus the one that permeates the very bleak, sordid reality that Sunday herself occupies.

All in all, there is so much to enjoy here – the style, the voice, the themes and how they all work to tell a story about characters you can really care about. You know the elements that comprise a work are promising when you find yourself reading ahead simply because you cannot take the tension of what you are presently reading in the moment any longer. I found myself doing this consistently throughout my read, which tells me everything I need to know. That no matter how, gruesome, silly and depraved it may seem on the surface, there is definitely something special about Green Sunday.
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Review of Cinderella’s Revenge By Ben Jones Jr

I did a little review for this twist on a classic fairy tale, like long kiss goodnight meets happily ever after.

“Fairytale with overtones of the count of monte christo. I found this really enjoyable. I’m a big fan of murder mystery and crime thrillers, you caught me in the middle of reading the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay back to back, I just finished the sixth book. I mention that because I imagine I had the same look on my face reading that as I did reading this.
I often criticise stories for having very uneventful first chapters, lots of people like to play it close to the chest the first chapter. Failing to realise that the first chapter is the first impression and is almost a synopsis of what someone can expect from the entire story. This first chapter did not fail my expectations.
Great start, sticking with the fairy tale elements, gradual subtle foreshadowing, a crawling sense of dread and just uneasiness creeping in as if happily ever after is moment to moment. Tragedy just around the corner turning a comedy into a tragedy. As this was all unfurling and I could tell it was, I could feel a grin creeping up the corners of my mouth. The end of the first chapter is a little clichéd but I almost feel like that works to it’s advantage by incorporating those revenge tropes in a fairytale story and creating the standard cliffhanger ending.
Frankly it’s a deliciously evil story, the writing style is very competent, the plot has all those great elements of intrigue and as a revenge story I find it very interesting and will undoubtedly keep a close eye on it in the future.”

If you like the sound of it head on over to inkitt to read it for yourself. Cinderella’s Revenge.

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Green Sunday review by Waywardknight3

Got a nice review from a really nice guy on Inkitt I did a review or, a little nepotism never hurt anyone haha. I mean it’s not great getting these back scratching reviews but it’s better than nothing.
So check it out and if you want to read Green Sunday you know where to go. http://www.inkitt.com/stories/25507

I don't want to put too many spoilers in this but here it goes.
I love the story so far. You have done an excellent job at building tension and mystery pertaining to what is going on in the story. True its a zombie story but its light years beyond an average one. Its obvious that something dark and sinister is taking place behind the scenes that seems far worse than your average toxic chemical spill or passing meteor. Its so nice to get a refreshing taste of the zombie genre. The relationship between Tj and Sunday is perfectly written so far. Him with that bumbling never touched a woman quality, and her with a brooding level of confidence that would shake the most steady of men. You have been able to convey the tough girl in a believe none heartless @#&% sort of way. I also like how you where able to capture the essence of the pseudo-zombie apocalypse experts in Zed and his gang. I loved that to my very core. I have to agree with you that we do write very similar to one another. I admire it when someone does what I do and throws their passions into their writing despite who might find it offensive, But I also have a feeling that we could have quite a long rant together about things that piss us off in the world. Now I guess I will tell you what you already know, as you are working on getting your chapters professionally edited, the later chapters are simply longer than the should be by an editors standards. Let me be clear I still love them... They are great... But often times editors often strip things down quite a bit. Good writing and please keep it up I can't wait to read the rest.
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