I actually waited longer than I usually do. Lost Notes is completely written and scheduled for release. I usually ask 5 or 6 poems from being done. Help me to choose the next volume?
The world seems to be a place where myths are taken for granted. Everyone knows the Myth of the pilot of the River Styx. The Ferryman who ferries souls over to the afterlife for a cost. They all have it wrong though. The Reaper doesn’t want coin. They are an immortal being. Such creatures have no need for money. The ferry driver instead takes the best story each soul has to tell. Sometimes just the telling of the story is too much for a soul to bear. Words carry weight. They are the most painful things in existence. They can also be the most gratifying things that life has to offer. The ferryman has so many names, and most of them are just the myths coming to signify the way the mortal beings see them. For me, they are my creator. I guess you could call me the reaper’s child. It is not exactly correct, but it is the closest term for what I am. I am a story that became too much for even an immortal mind to bear. So, I grew sentience. Now I search the world for the others like myself, dark stories and memories that weigh heavy on mortality. Stories of killers, and crime, heartache, and such twisted thoughts that they are relegated to impossible fiction. That is the sort of thing that I collect. Like the ferryman I take these weights from the ones who cannot bear them any longer. I think of it as saving those souls who would break under such terrible weights. I save each story in a notebook, lovingly hand written. My creator kept the stories told to them in perfect memory…I am not quite that blessed. Instead I will keep my notebooks…Stacked full of nightmares. The only story I have been able to remember without writing it down is the one that caused my creation. Perhaps someday I will meet the snowman…I would love to collect all of Frosty’s stories. I can only imagine what notebooks I could fill with that. I have collected the tale of a vampire that would use it’s victims for the creation of art. And the tale of the ghost who used to be a mercenary in a rainforest expedition that went badly. He was a wealth of stories. He gave me my own nightmares for weeks after taking his stories. I collected the story of the nun who was cursed with immortality. It drove her mad. She spoke of becoming a killer, and how it was a kindness to save the women from the hands of the priests. Each tale has it’s own power to describe a different aspect of life, a different aspect of death. The story of the woman who went back after she died to steal away the child that her husband loved more than he loved her…She sang it sweet lullabies as she took it to the edge of the River Styx. I could easily entertain so many with my tales. Which story should I share? Perhaps about the creature named Harvey? The flesh-eater that enjoyed driving it’s meals mad first? I have considered passing myself off as a horror writer. Telling my tales as if they were fiction to see if anyone would recognize. It is not as if I do not have thousands of dark and dismal tales. There is the one about the three ghosts who tried to get a rich man to change his ways before it was too late. or the one about the Witch who gave five teens their wish…but at what cost? My notebooks are a treasure. I do not write the story whilst the teller yet lives. I make sure to leave them a tale to pay the ferry with. I can at least be that kind. Though I have considered what would happen in this world if there where not enough stories left to pay the ferry. Would all of the storytellers end up stuck here? And if they did would that just create more interesting tales? I don’t dare allow myself to consider it too closely. I might just decide that I want all of the stories.
Okay….1. That is the first flash Fiction in Stacked Nightmares. 2. How many of Serena’s Stories can you see a nod to in that? I will say that one of the stories she refers to is not Serena’s to tell. It belongs to Malachi Nocturm. However, He is very uncertain about how good his writing is…so I don’t know if I can talk him into finishing it and then allowing me to publish it. So I used a small nod because I love the idea. This is the first thing I have been able to write (Other than Poetry) in 2 weeks. It has a word count of 680. So I had to share it.
Also Serena’s Story Heat & Ice was Accepted by Fractured Mind Publishing for their A Monster I Love Anthology. I will post more as I have details.
I am going to be doing two separate Poem a Day challenges and I am going to be doing the Fae 50k. I am going to be going for a daily habit more than the word count. The fun thing is that you don’t have to do 50k to win the Fae 50k you merely have to write daily. I am going to be trying to get as much word count as I can each day.
I Think I am going to just leave my Monday as a single poetry post for the remainder of October and figure out what I want to replace Publishing Demystified with in December.
The purpose of this one is simple. Most likely everyone here knows I run Fae Corps Publishing and I have been doing this in the background for a while now. I plan on talking clearly about the tools I use for publishing, and the way that each one works. Demystifying what I do. Is that to say that I will be making my own self unnecessary? No, because my experience is valuable. I just feel like so much of the process is made out to be harder than it needs to be.
Today I want to discuss What the difference is between an anthology and a collection.
Anthology is a specific term. It’s where multiple authors gather to create a new book to delight the world.
A collection is usually a single author combining their stories into one single book.
The reason why I wanted to discuss this is because there are some people who believe that they have to be in an anthology or write a full length novel to be published.
Even if you have had your stories in other publishers anthologies you still own the copyright. You have to acknowledge the previous publication in the book. Otherwise you can combine your own work to make a collection to publish.
You have options for your own work . Don’t think that you are stuck with a novel or nothing.
I will leave on the bottom of the post the upcoming calendar. I feel like that will help. As You can see this changes slightly each week. Things get adjusted because Authors are not ready or I get a book that I had promised space.
October –
25th – Anthology – Nightmare Whiskers
November-
8th – Thoughtfish by Ruan Bradford Wright (2nd Edition)
15th- Would You Like Fries with That By Mariah Lynde
26th – The Crypt Keeper’s Notebook by ZyhrenSong
December –
1st – unknown by Raz T Slasher (middle grade) (*though I don’t normally have an unknown in my list of release dates… from a couple of authors I will take the chance for “kids week” and save the spot. If I don’t get the book from them I will just have an empty spot for the day. But I think that they are worth it.)
2nd – Where’s my Sugar by Patricia Harris
3rd – Pip 4: Pip that is not Yours! By Patricia Harris
4th – Anthology Fae Recipes
6th – Spoiled Naughty Ponies by Capri Summers
7th – MG: The Grim Face of Reality by Sean Armstrong
8th – Hood of Sedna by Mina Skye
13th – Anthology Honesty in Verse
2025
Everything from here down is still in the process of being acquired for Publication with 2 exceptions (Fae Speaks & Rebirth )
so I have been doing my best to post the Drawtober daily …problem is that this weekend I will somewhere with no internet. I might be capable of doing the update during a sneak into the town to check on my kid (Who is an adult and refuses to go ) but I am not sure if I can. I will get it done Friday and I will will be back Sunday …but Saturday I am not certain I will be able to get up.
Pattimouse 