UPDATES and Short Story Explained – Necroleptic (March’s tale)

After almost 3 years of writing and refining…and procrastinating, my first novel, The Spirit Broker is almost ready for public consumption. Writing it took about a year (2011-2012) and the rest of the time has been proof reading it, and allowing a few close friends to also read it and give feedback.

I doubt it's perfect, nothing really is. But I’m pretty much done with it. The front cover art was completed by Ricardo Sandoval, a Grade-A dude I got hold of via his DeviantArt website. Ricardo was a legend to work with, and he totally understood the image I was looking for, and managed to turn something out in a matter of weeks.

I’m about a third of the way through the Spirit Broker in its final read, and I should have all editing done by Christmas.

I thought I’d continue my “short stories explained” series, and resume with one of my favorites, Necroleptic.

This is a short story that I could make into a longer tale, but I think it sits fine as it is. I wrote Necroleptic over the space of 3 weeks, and it all stemmed from another “what if” scenario, i.e. what if instead of a person falling asleep randomly (narcoleptic), they sporadically kept on dying instead?

I wanted to make this scenario different to say the one portrayed in the 1990 movie Flatliners, where Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and Julia Roberts play medical students who willingly “flatline” themselves in order to enter an afterlife/purgatory state. I wanted it to be clear that the main character's death state in Necroleptic was virtually indescribable, as there is nothing tangible in which to relate the "afterlife" to the real world.

So, there would be no long-deceased relatives, pets, or scary things. Just a completely different experience to anything in this physical world.

If you haven’t read it yet, but you’re reading this…well, please read it! :)

NEW SHORT STORY ONLINE: Hallow Part 3 - Nocturnus

In my quest to put up a new short story for each month of the year, I've finally uploaded August's tale.

The third part of the Hallow series of short stories is now online, it's just a few clicks away and free.


Our main characters find themselves in a predicament after a Halloween party comes to an abrupt and unusual end.

Time is running out for the Eleanor, Zach and Jerome, and the dreaded DarkMoon festival is nearing. Questions will be answered and others posed, but the mystery of New Eden's newest arrivals will soon come to a close.


Sounds like a bunch of stuff someone just made up right?


Right! Because i just did!

 So please feel free to check out the new short story, or delve into it from the beginning if you have no idea what I'm talking about!

Thanks!

Matt

Short Tales Explained: Lady of the Snow (February's Tale)

The title of this short tale was inspired by a song by American band Symphony X. I wrote it in a few sessions, spread out over a few weeks. I've always liked female monsters/villains. Be it Medusa, the many wicked witches, queens and stepmothers in fairytales, Zenobia from the old Sinbad movies I used to watch as a kid (she scared the crap out of me) and even that screwed up cyborg-lady from Superman 3 (gave me nightmares for years).

In this tale, the Lady of the Snow is not necessarily a bad person, but just someone who is cursed to be alone forever. Anything she touches will freeze and die, and she is doomed to wonder the forests of New Eden, searching for love until the end of her days.

Why Ben Affleck is a great choice for Batman

As you may know, Ben Affleck has been chosen for to play the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman in the sequel to this year’s Superman movie, Man of Steel.

Firstly, I want to get this out of the way…I think the casting is ludicrous.

I won’t rant as to why I think Ben Affleck will totally flop as Batman in this movie, because I think the rest of the InternetZ is doing a fine job as it is. However, I will say that Ben’s casting is a very positive thing for the Batman franchise.

Batman suffers from what I will call the “Phoenix Syndrome”. It is a franchise which needs to be repeatedly burnt to ashes before it can be born anew into something glorious and exciting.

Before Tim Burton’s rendition in 1989, we had the very camp TV Series which slowly molded our conception of Batman as something fun and zany. Then, the excellent Batman comic books of the 80’s paved the way for Burton to remind us that Bruce Wayne/Batman was a very dark and twisted character in a very dark a twisted world. He was neither good nor bad; he was simply Batman.

                                                                                                                                                         

Then the rot started again, with Batman Returns commencing Warner Brother’s foray into the grotesque. Penguins wore rocket launching backpacks and Danny De Vito rode around on a giant rubber duck.

Next, Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey carried the torch into Crazyville, and further continued the campaign to annihilate the Batman franchise. Two Face was basically a poor-man’s rip-off of Nicholson’s joker (and a very embarrassing rip-off). The Riddler was fun…and the Riddler is not meant to be fun.

And finally, George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Uma Therman and Arnold Swarzeennaggeggageggegrgegegrr really FCUKED it up with Batman and Robin. I won’t even explain how they did it, because the feat was too perfect to describe.

The year was 1997 and the Batman franchise was in tatters.

Enter Christopher Nolan and Co, and the rest is history.

Chris Nolan and his team took Batman to new heights, they pushed the franchise to places it had never been before; both financially and artistically. The Nolan Batman Trilogy is by no means perfect, but it’s an honest, well crafted and mature attempt to portray a cultural icon.

Ben Affleck will begin the rot. His blocked-nosed Bruce Wayne will herald the start of the downward spiral which needs to take place before Warner Brother’s accountants warn the clueless executives that they need to make a good superhero movie again (and not ones with giant spiders in it).

This guy would have been my choice for Bruce Wayne:

But that would have been too good to be true. Instead we’ll put up with this,

and we will wait for the phoenix to rise from the ashes…bring on Batman 2021

Short Tales Explained: The Jeweller and the Witch (January’s tale)

Back in January of this year, I made a pledge with myself that I would put a short story online on the last day of each month for the entirety of the year. If all went to plan, by New Year’s Eve 2013 I would have 12 short stories on my website, which would be totally free. I didn’t quite keep to the last day of the month part (life is busy) but I am writing consistently.

I started the Short-Story-Project for two reasons. Firstly, to keep my fingers busy. The Spirit Broker is finished and just needs to have art work done for its cover. But before I delved into another novel, I really wanted to know if I had it in me to keep writing anyway. So by making the promise to myself to produce one short story a month, I was testing my creativity and dedication.

Secondly, I think short stories are great. They don’t take long to read, they don’t (often) take long to write, and you can explore new things in them that you may not be able to in a novel. To me, a novel should have no more than 3 flavours. I.e. A romantic, fantasy horror novel could work; but a romantic, fantasy, horror, mystery, crime novel may be a bit too much (or maybe not if written by the right person).

Short stories enable me to focus on horror, and then fantasy in another, and then romance etc, without feeling like I need to balance out a fusion of genres.

Anyway; it’s beyond halfway through the year now, and I have six short stories online so far. This series of blog entries will focus on the messages behind each of the stories – spoiler-free.

The Jeweller and the Witch(January)

This tale has a simple message. I touched upon it in an earlier post, but I will expand. Through my experiences and observations, I’ve noticed that humans are very good at sharing their emotions with others. If someone is in a great mood, and life is going well, the chances are that the people around them will also feel good. It will be pleasant to be in this person’s company, and their positive attitude become infectious.

On the flipside; when people are in very dark moods, they often (consciously or sub-consciously) have a tendency to make others feel like crap too. I’m sure we’ve all had “that person” in the workplace who often comes into the office with a terrible attitude, and makes everyone feel like crap. As my mother says “misery loves company”.

The Jeweller and the Witch is a tale in which our main character, the Jeweller, has the opportunity to transfer the way he feels onto others; and in doing so certain consequences arise.

The next “short tales explained” post will explain the thoughts behind Lady of the Snow, February’s tale.

The PS4 revealed

The PlayStation 4 was revealed today at the E3 expo in LA.

Here it is:

It looks bigger than I thought it would be but I like the sleek, angular design, and the mixture of matte and gloss on the chassis. But I suppose what it will all come down to is how the machine performs, and whether the jump from PS3 to PS4 warranted, given that the PS3 has another 3 years of guaranteed support and game production.

I think I’ll wait a year or so before buying one.

What do you guys think of it?

The 5 main uses of my Nexus 7

Firstly, it you haven't checked out my series of short stories, feel free to do so!! My most recent tales are based on a three parter called Hallow. An idea I jotted down over 4 years ago, but never did anything with at the time.

I'm releasing a story on the last day of each month (if I'm on schedule). So by New Years Eve 2013, I'll have 12 short stories online. The main purpose is to keep me locked into a regular writing routine, and to also allow people to read my stuff before my novel comes out later this year. I've also gotten back into writing my second novel which is coming along fairly well...I think.


Now, back to this post. I recently wrote about my thoughts of the Nexus 7, a tablet I bought a few months ago. I used it daily and here are the 5 main things I do with it:

1.       Youtube – I love watching videos on Youtube. Music videos, political commentary, gym tips, tech blogs etc. Some of the channels I’m subscribed to are:

·         Strenghtcamp

·         TheYoung Turks

·         MarquesBrownlee

·         Twinmuscleworkout

·         CnetTV

·         DreamTheaterBootlegs

So if I’m eating a quick meal, ironing my shirt or being idle before bedtime, Youtube is most likely being played on my tablet.

2.       Evernote – I was looking for a great note taking app for ages, and I finally came across Evernote a few months ago. I have it on my phone and my tablet, so it keeps all my notes synched. I tag websites I want to check out later, make “to-do lists”, make editing notes for my stories, and also jot down ideas for my stories.

3.       eBooks – my main eBook readers are the Kindle app and Kobo. Both do the job well, but Kobo seems to have a much simpler interface. I’m also going to release my first novel, The Spirit Broker, in eBook format soon too, so the Nexus 7 is an ideal device to test-read the ePub and mobi files.

4.       Watching movies – the Nexus 7 is great for watching movies/TV Shows, especially when lying on the couch, in bed or on a plane. I use MX Player for most of my media, as it seems to be able to play files that even VLC can’t handle.

5.       Social Media – most of my tweets come from the Nexus 7, as do my FaceBook and Google+ posts. The 7” interface is a perfect size to use most social media apps, as icons are bold and clear.

I haven’t tested Skype on the Nexus 7 yet, but I’m sure I’ll be using that a fair bit too. All in all it’s a great device to consume media.