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TOTCB Chapter 4 ‘Brother my Cup is Empty’

Sup people,

Ok so news news news, the cover is almost done as you can see in the last post. Been really busy just spamming the free ebook which is cool, the subs to my mailing list are growing slowly but surely. Got a few podcast appearances lined up so hopefully that’ll help get me more subs/clicks/happythoughts.

I was thinking of giving away some early review copies of Green Sunday so I can have some reviews on release day, not sure how I’ll go about that.

I’m gonna be wrapping up what I was writing recently and I think it’s time to barrel ahead with book two of GS. Seeing some advice online, it seems best to get cracking on the series, strike while the iron is hot and keeping going til I run out of steam and then hopscotch to another series. Which is great news for me, because I kept giving myself excuses why it wasn’t right to start all the while chomping at the bit to do exactly that.

The free ebook is ready and it’ll be virtually shipping at the end of the month, what else?
No I think that’s it, oh no yeah, still going ahead with The one that came back as a standalone. Series’ apparently make more money but I still want to get traditionally published for a standalone title. I’m not ready as of yet to religate myself to permanent indie author status.

In the words of the immutable Kanye West; “You reach for the stars, if you fall you land on a cloud”. Or something like that.

Anyway here’s the next chapter , you can find it on inkitt of course with this link. Probably having this edited soon too before I start pitching it.

Brother my cup is empty

~

It was early, downtown Austin was quiet and heating up slow.

A red dodge pick up pulled up outside an irish pub on 204 east sixth street. The sign on the side was a picture of two merry Irishmen leaning on eachother and it read ‘The Gingerman’.

It was a grand old building. Three stories tall with a couple of red birch trees sticking out of the sidewalk out front. White stone in long columns that looked like it came straight off of mount Olympus. Tall brown doors. The floors above were apartments with tall thin windows that made for high ceilings but not a lot else. It was penned in by an Italian restaurant called ‘Gino’s’ on the right and some kind of science centre for kids on the left. A weird place to put it since almost the entire strip was just littered with dives and billiard halls.

Porter parked deliberately too close to a red striped mini cooper that was parked outside. He got out and went inside.

He passed over the tiled entrance. Passing framed adverts for Paddy’s irish whiskey and Cork Distilleries. Harkening back to some grand irish renaissance in the fifties, or something like that. It was kitch and it made him sick. He stopped to put his keys back in his pocket. He lifted his eyes to the Notre Dame sign with the fighting irish leprechaun. It was facing out hanging from an antique cabinet Patrick had decided to put right in the entrance for some reason. He shook his head and went into the pub proper.

The smell of dried cork and wood soaked in whiskey hit him as soon as he got inside. Real wood, real old wood. It was a classic irish pub with all that comes with that. Small round wooden tables with small round wooden stools that were as uncomfortable as they looked dotted very little floor space.

There were some square tables in the corner which had chairs with backs and cushions for when this place pretended to be a restaurant. Which usually involved Patrick grilling something that was once alive.

The walls were a warm orange and of course were covered with classic Guinness adverts and memorabilia of all sorts. Anything vaguely irish, leprachauns and whiskey were a key theme. There was space for one Texas flag that just had a silhouette of a steers head on it and the word ‘Texas’.

There were old black and white portraits of irish writers and musicians. There were shelves decorated with little kitch porcelain figures and old clocks. Dusty books, violins, ships anchors and mini ship wheels.

The bar was long and mahogany and was so shiney it almost glowed in the texas morning cast off. It curved around and went down almost the entire length of the bar but was sectioned off into little mini bars catering to different drinks. It was all tiled around the first foot out from the bar, the rest of the floor was wood, the same colour as the bar. Porter took a seat on the end at the elbow of the bar and grazed the bar with his eyes. Passing over more Guinness signs. A four leaf clover drawn on a chalk board with their specials until he reached the flat screen tv that hung at a jaunty angle on the corner of the bar.

It was a snooker game.

“Top’o the mornin’ to yah, what can I do’ya fer? A man with strawberry blond hair entered the corner of his eye as he tried to follow the snooker.

“Any calls?”

~

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New cover sketches for Green Sunday.

Hola mi amigos.

Thanks again to the new subs, just finishing up the proof read of LCYE and it will be on it’s way to you by the end of the month guaranteed (Cos I already finished the proofread and turned it into a pdf but I’m holding out for even more subs on my mailing list haha). Trust me it’ll be worth the wait.

Really excited this week because I already got back some of the revised sketches for the GS cover (which will be posted below) and paid the first half of the money and as soon as that is done I’ll launch that SOB, for money this time haha. See how that works out. Then it’s faffing about with more marketing, maybe go on some podcasts and stuff, that should be fun, take it to a kids book reading haha. Traumatize the little shits.

Ok well enough of that.

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I’ll leave which one I chose a surprise for now haha.

If you wanna check out the artist, maybe throw some shekels at him or send him some nudes (no seriously he needs models), shoot on over to Pagdon.

See you spacecowpeople…

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After Shattered By Samantha Newburg

(Yes I’m too lazy to look for an actual header image so instead have given you all my gratuitous dick pic haha)

Ok so, at this the point the obligatory claus here is that I’m not the intended audience, I can’t really say what the intended audience of this would be. Probably woman, can’t say much more than that other than I would never choose to read this from the description or genre. I dont go near romance and I won’t touch drama unless it has ‘crime’ in front of it. So that’s just to tell you where I’m at with this and I’ll try to be as objective as possible.
As a first chapter goes, it’s boring, no two ways about it. I don’t know if any of the stuff in the first chapter is relevant to the story overall but it’s just tiresome exposition with some dialogue and a meeting in it. Nothing interesting happens unless hearing you have a new boss is some great revelation to you. You have to put the interesting stuff in the first chapter to force people to read the next chapter and if that’s the most interesting stuff to happen in this book then god help you.
This stuff might be all really relevent but it should be relegated to the second or third chapter not the first, you get one chance to make a first impression and my eyes glazed over with boredom. There’s way too much spoonfeeding, show don’t tell.
The story isn’t established in the first chapter, so I can’t say there is one, the characters are watered down, no one person really stands out. The dialogue is ok, but the first chapter just sort of ends.
I can’t tell if this is intentionally boring to justify what happens next in the book like american psycho or if this is just the bottom line throughout. I’m not going to know because I can’t read the rest of the book, I can only give you my first impressions of what I see.
I don’t know what to say other than it reads more like a diary than a novel and no one wants to read your diary except you (unless you’re a psyborg stripper from mars with machine gun for tits haha).
I don’t think it’s trash, it’s salvageably, just needs maybe some chopping and changing, revamping the first chapter to get a hook in the reader from the start. The rest of the book could be pure genius but no one is going to read past that first chapter unless you give them a reason to.

If you wanna check out the story for yourself you can by following this link.

After Shattered

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LCYE Chapter 13 ‘Confinement’

Just gonna be a quick update because I’m up to my neck in stage hand work right now for this grand show I put on for you kind people.

Again another shout out to my new subs on my mailing list, thank you very much for paying attention to this fucking train wreck haha.
I’m really busy, I got the edit back for LCYE and I’m just proofreading it again and making the changes as well still spamming for more subs haha. But it’s coming together. I just wanted to go over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure it’s at it’s best when I convert it into a pdf/epub and send it to you lovely people.

As far as my writing is going, it’s going haha. I’m writing something a little sillier as a break. I was trying this new diet which I had to rework because I felt like a zombie and it put a kink in my weight lifting but it’s all good now. I thought I had writers block but it turned out I was just dying haha.

I dunno, this novella I’m working on is a little wet, just wanted to keep myself busy til I’m psyched up enough for GS two, or something new. It’s just not jelling as well, it’s a blast from the past, it’s sort of silly and stilted and doesn’t really represent the growth and the scope of my newer work.

But enough of me rambling incoherently.

Here’s chapter 13 of LCYE that is being proofread and will be in the inbox of hopefully everyone reading this blog within the month.

Without further ado here is Confinement

~

He fell into consciousness wide eyed and drenched in sweat. His breathe burning in his chest. He strained against plastic ties which bound his arms to the black metal struts of what seemed to be a weightlifting bench.

Was it a room?

It smelled dank, rotting wood and coppery smells of rust. It was too dark to tell.

He was lying in what felt like a dentist’s chair, his arms held down at his sides. He was restrained not only at the wrists but it felt like all the way up his arms and his legs. He had zero mobility in any of his limbs. His head equally was held in place by what felt like plastic wrap, wound tightly around his forehead. It was sticky and forming a lot of sweat but none of which allowed him any more mobility.

He felt powerless, his heart beat out of his chest for what felt like an hour of blackness and panic. Finally, when he’d given up hope of his limbs proving useful for escape he faded into despair. Taking deep breathes getting gradually shallower and more quiet until he heard someone else breathing.

A generator sprang into life, humming and coughing behind his head. A bright unshaded bulb was born cutting through the thick dark dank of what he now knew was a boxcar probably deep in the railyard. In a place no one could hear them.

An unseen scratching, and then music started to play.

“How much is that doggie in the window (arf, arf)

The one with the waggley tail”

As the record was started, James felt a sharp tugging and a shifting in his seat. A feeling of falling as the hydraulics in the chair dropped him lower and then bolted him almost upright. Instantly he was made aware of what he was supposed to see.

In front of him were two rows of something obscured by a tan hide tarp. They were spaced out as if they were seats on a train and behind them there was something hanging on the wall. Something that looked like an animal.

He heard breathing getting closer to his ear and then a voice he thought he knew.

“James, it’s good to see you. Are you resting comfortably?”

~

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Jenna and the Professor by Jenna Snap – Review

(The header image is just because I was too lazy to google new header images haha)

This surprised me.

The last story I reviewed was another erotic novel and I have to say again, I am the last person on earth that should be reviewing erotic novels. I am not the intended audience, not even close. And the last one was sort of aimed at a younger like twilight tumblr crowd and it lost me. I’m not a fan of erotic novels, I’m not some soccer mom, if I want porn I’ll watch real porn haha.
But I have to say everything wrong with the last one I reviewed is right about this. What do I mean by that? The last one I read was a porno trying to be an erotic novel, it tried to start slow and develop the characters but it was obviously just a quick canter to get to the sexy stuff, which it then didn’t deliver. Which is a problem for me, in my opinion you either go all in or all out. You can’t have the best of both either you go in hard or not at all and you went in as hard and as strong as you possibly could.
I have to liken it to horror/thriller novel because that’s what I’m accustomed to and in those novels, you have to have something big happen in the first chapter and then take the time to set up the characters. If you start trying to set up the characters in the first chapter, you’ll rush it or you’ll bore your readers because they don’t want to learn so and so’s life history before they’ve decided whether there’s a story worth reading in the book. You have one chance to hook them and if you can’t do that in the first chapter, fuck even the first paragraph you’re screwed and I think you did that well.
You started as hot and heavy as you could and that will hook your audience who will then want to get to know Jenna and the professor more as the book goes on. They come for the sex and if the characters are good they’ll stay for story and the development. I think you really showed your strength right from the get go with and that will pay off in the long run.
The plot is simple but effective, the sex was hot. I like the chased feel to it despite the fact they fuck in the first chapter it still feels almost like nothing happened. There were a few mistakes but that seems almost worthless to mention, a good edit will smooth out any creases.
The writing style is good, the dialogue was a little cringey and I think less is more when it comes to dirty talk. it did sound like a bit of a porno in some of the dialogue and what’s with referring to her pussy as her ‘sex’. I thought that was a little weird, why not go the whole hog on the filthiness and just call it her ‘cunt’ haha?
Some perspective changes were bad, I thought it broke the flow a little bit going from her perspective to his. Keep it from her perspective unless there’s a chapter change. It’s jarring going from one perspective to the other mid-scene.
Otherwise, it works really well, it’s hot, it’s well written. All I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised. I think that’s the best you’re gonna get from someone that doesn’t read these kind of books haha.

Check it out for yourself here.
Jenna and the Professor

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Green Sunday Chapter 15 ‘Strange Eyes’ (Edit)

Hello lovely people,

First I want to thank all those new people who joined my mailing, so I hope and assume you’re reading this, if not who gives a shit ahah?

Ok so on to updates, personal life; still trash.
Looking at, oh shit that reminds me I can post those. I have sketches for the initial cover designs of Green Sunday. So that’s underway, having more sketches drafted. I’ll post the ones I have down here somewhere.

I’ve worked out the contract and paid for the edit of Ladies Close Your Eyes but the cover could take a bit longer, so as soon as I get the edit back I’ll just clean it up as is and send it via my mailing list to everyone on it as promised.

As usual got a little excerpt of the next edited chapter of GS ‘Strange Eyes’. It’s a fun one, had to fight to keep my inner weeb coming out haha. It’s hard to restrain yourself from writing this big stupid self indulgent action scene that runs away with itself, but I had fun so fuck it haha.

As usual you can read the whole thing by following the link to inkitt right here.

Strange Eyes

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These are just some basic sketches for outlining the finished design, so please don’t judge yet haha.

http://pagdon.com/

This is the guys page, he’s a real artist folks, not no comic book hustler haha, check him out and peace out.

–

The brief silence was ripped apart like a piece sugar of paper. A red Beetle door, with garish orange flames spray painted on it, flew across the garage, spinning like a coin flipped by a King Kong size index finger and thumb. It hit the wall of the shop, pancaking the fat biker and embedding itself in the concrete and sheet metal, load-bearing wall.

The fat biker was eviscerated by the force of the door and his body hitting the wall. He looked like he’d fallen from space. His body was only recognizable by garish, near-human-shaped body parts: hands, feet, an eyeball, a tongue, a limb with bone shrapnel perforating the skin. His wet carcass popped like a water balloon full of dark red jello, sticking in some places and plastered to the wall. Heavier matter slopped onto the floor, making a cringe-inducing, wet, slapping noise.

He looked inside out. Grown men, who watched people beat each other to death and fed people to half-dead freaks, threw up raw hotdogs onto the concrete floor.

Mojang shook as he clutched the grenade launcher in his large hands.

The bikers watched as a puckish boy hopped off the rim of the pod. He could have been anywhere between sixteen and twenty. He had a slim, strong frame, and was around five foot four.

He scanned the room. His face wasn’t visible for a carbon fibre helmet covering most of his head, making him look like a cross between a paladin from WOW and a Power Ranger. His body was covered in a skin-tight compression suit made from individual plates of space age metal. The plates moved and breathed with his body, like the scales of a dragon.

A slit in his visor revealed a penetrating stare and a strange set of blue-green eyes. One eye was blue; the other was green.

The boy looked around the room, like the Terminator, but his eyes had a faint smile to them, as if he was in on the joke. His gaze nevertheless was cold and unfeeling. When he’d finished, he flashed a cocky grin with his eyes and turned around. He hopped back onto the pod, like Peter Pan, dislodging a strange chrome rod. The rod flared out in both directions, forming two conical points. It was almost the length of the boy’s entire body.

Clutching it in the middle, by what was now evidently a handle, the boy crossed his chest with the strange, chrome, double-ended lance and let out a cocky, breathy laugh.

“What the fuck are you waiting for? This clown need to make you balloon animals? GREASE THIS MOTHERFUCKER!” Mojang stuttered, wrestling with the volume of his voice as his whole frame shook.

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“Awakening of the Wolf” – Review

(If you know why I used this header image, you’re a terrible person haha)

What did I just read?

I don’t think I’ve ever cringed so hard in my life.

You couldn’t get a worse audience for this than me, I am not the demographic this is intended for at all, not even close. So please forgive me for this review because in all honesty a teenage girl or some edgy kid off Tumblr would probably love this. Someone who likes twilight but wanted it to be more like fifty shades of grey. But is fifty shades of grey or twilight well written, are they styles that should be emulated? I would say no but there are thousands upon thousands of people who would vehemently disagree with me. But I’m not going to rate this on a scale of other people’s opinions, I’m going to try and look at this as objectively as possible.

First things first the writing style is ok, it’s easy to read, which is great for the intended audience. The main characters is a good base, she’s you, she’s the reader, it comes through very well. She’s a costume for the reader to slip into.

The main problem with this story is it isn’t one, it’s a porno. It’s fifty shades of grey with magical wolves. Thus, it feels like the characters and the story are just filler for the sex basically. The characters are stereotypes, cookie cutter and that’s perfect for a younger audience. I mean that’s why we have archetypes and stereotypes so they’re easily digestible, that works perfectly for younger readers. But it doesn’t seem like they serve the story other than just to be the frame for the sex.

It’s not a bad porno though, me saying it’s a porno doesn’t invalidate it or instantly write it off. A porno can still have a decent story which for your intended audience is exactly what will help them get into the eroticism in the book.

The writing style is a little barebones for me, a little teenage, it doesn’t really have a lot of description, it’s not paced well. It just jumps from scene to scene. I mean one minute she’s having an argument, the next she’s fighting a vampire, the next she wants to get double teamed by two wolves she just met. There’s no real progression, no atmosphere or build up or scene setting. You’re too eager, you need to take your time, you need to build the world a little, let us get to know the characters a little more, do more showing and less telling. We need to know more about the place they live and about them as people, not just tell us they like books or partying and they like black. You need to show us.

Other than that, it’s not poorly written, the dialogue is not great, it’s very stiff and some of it just cringe city and what do you have against speech marks?  Also, vampires why? Isn’t this enough like twilight?

 

Overall, it’s not so bad I would outright bin it, but it’s not something I would read, I’m just not the intended audience. It just needs a lot of work if you want to sell this, but if this is just a hobby for you, this will probably be a lot of fun put in the right hands (i.e. not mine).

https://www.inkitt.com/stories/romance/87779?ref=v_18494f0a-b911-4432-bf66-92ba360163f6

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The One Who Came Back – Chapter 3 ‘A Little Trip to Heaven’

Herro der.

Ok so getting off my ass, really making good use of my time recently my personal life falling apart aside.
Keeping pretty tight to my new 2k word goal, spitting reviews out of my ass like confetti and getting lots of proof reading done and I got a few more people on my mailing list by offering them free shit that’s not out yet haha.
It’s coming out soon, calm your tits. Just getting it edited, we’ve already been through the quote and I have the cash. I even have an artist lined up to do the cover, which isn’t cheap considering this is a novella I’m giving away for free. I just want to make sure the product I’m giving out is the best possibly quality, but that takes time.
I will probably be selling it on amazon in hard copy as well just because why not when I’ve put so much time and effort and money into it. So you can pick that up if you feel like it just to support me but you don’t have to do obviously, you’re getting your free digital copy as soon as possible.
Been working on my latest novella just to prepare for when I wade into my next big novel project. It’s just a kind of wet silly horror novela, should be fun. I’ll be posting it on inkitt when I start proofreading it and I’ll probably be giving away ebook copies of that too when it’s edited.
But enough of my rambling updates. I just want to welcome the new people who joined my mailing and following my blog, thanks a lot for the support if you’re reading this, if you’re not I fucked your mother haha.

Ok so here’s the next proofread chapter of my nano novel which I’m really impressed with, I think this is the most professional thing I’ve done.

Here’s an excerpt from chapter 3 ‘A little trip to heaven’

If you want to read the full chapter head on over to inkitt by clicking on the hyperlink so you can get it in a mobile format and all that good stuff.

Anyway thanks again for reading this garbage haha.
Cheers!

–
“Some more pictures-“The tv was on, a home movie was playing. On the screen was a young girl’s room. White walls covered in pictures and cabinets lined with stuffed animals. “This is Peggy’s room, her bed, she even gots tv in her, aint she lucky?” A little boy’s voice said as the camera panned clumsily around the room.

“What if he doesn’t remember me?” Peggy said as she sat on their maroon couch next to her husband Brandon in their darkened living room.

“Well you’ll never know if you don’t go there and your mother sure as hell can’t make that trip, it has to be you.” He sighed and put his arm around “I wanna go with you but I’ve got work, you know that.”

“The birthday girl.” The boy on the tape said. The camera swayed into a canted angle on a young woman smiling, sitting at a table with her family. “Aint she beautiful?” Sounds of indistinct conversation could be heard as the the camera swept through the room looking around the kitchen and dining room. “And here is her brother, Johnny.” The camera jerked around as the boy aimed the lens at his own face. Giving the camera a semi-toothless grin and a direct view into his nostrils.

–

Peggy fidgeted in her seat on the plane. Taking long breathes and playing with saint christopher hanging around her neck.

She got the earliest flight she could, terrified but also eager. She’d never left texas before nevermind the country. Her heart raced and as soon as she sat down in her seat she swallowed and seemed to forget. All the hurrying and packing and walking on strained tight calves as she rushed to her flight. The hairs on the back of her neck. She felt like she was carried along by a sense of immediacy she couldn’t explain. She had to see him and touch him and kiss him and know he was ok or…

She couldn’t sleep, not on the flight and not the two days before it. Her heart wouldn’t let her, it beat and beat and it wouldn’t stop until she knew it was real and it wasn’t a dream.

The plane was crowded. She didn’t remember picking her seat, it was an aisle seat in coach. She couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t keep her eyes on one thing or another. No faces were clear, she felt like she was in a doctor’s waiting room. Something about not moving but still moving set her teeth on edge and it made her want to walk the whole way to spain. She took a mirror out of her purse and poked at one of her eyes.

Peggy was a fairly pretty texas flower with shoulder length dirty blonde hair. Maybe just a little too much eye make up to cover up the lack of sleep. Hey eyebrows were so thin they looked drawn on. She had a strong Nordic looking face and jawline she softened with flowing bangs and a dimple in her chin. She looked tired though and she knew it. She was just past thirty and the lack of sleep did nothing for the sagging under her eyes. Her mouth was slightly downturned with a touch of natural lipstick

She couldn’t see out the windows. Everyone around her was either asleep, eating or watching a movie. Three things that didn’t cross her mind. She couldn’t shake the feeling she was in a box. She barely noticed the plane taxiing for take off. Only the tight feeling as her heart sunk into her seat as the plane took off.

It was a night flight so as soon as they got going they turned off most of the lights.

She laid her head back and closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

It didn’t work.

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The Ghost Of You By Krystle Byrd – Review

The picture from ghost dad is completely unrelated to this story about a ghost who is not a dad falling in love with someone who is also not a ghost. Why the fuck not, when’s the last time you saw ghostdad? Go watch that. Ok now getting to the review.

This sort of premise has been done to do death, no pun intended. But that’s no reason not to do it again and try to do a twist on the previous stories. Most stories don’t have to be original nor are they when dissected. They just take something old and tired and breath new life into them. Which is what I think you’ve done here to an extent.
To be honest, this isn’t my cup of tea, I’m really petty so you put me off in the first paragraph when the main character says ‘literally’ when they mean ‘figuratively’. Just a forced reaction from me to cringe really hard at that, I can’t help it haha. Little things like that really set me off, like the characters name ‘Kai’ just makes me cringe every time I hear it.
Don’t get me wrong It’s well written, there were very mistakes that I saw when reading it but some of the dialogue is a little cringey in my opinion, but I’m not everyone and I don’t read romance novels, I’m not the demogrpahic this is aimed at probably the exact opposite. So for that exact reason I cut it a lot of slack.
All I can say is I didn’t hate it, and honestly that is the highest praise you can get from someone like me, a person that would rather glue golfballs to his eyes than read romance novels.

No but seriously, this is good solid work and you should be proud of it and keep it up.

If you wanna go check the story out for yourself you can find the link below.

Ghost of You

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