And merry Christmas to me!
I’m currently at my in-laws house for the weekend and I’m leeching off of the neighbor’s wireless network, so I’ll make this quick.
The second issue of Astonishing Adventure Magazine is here, and guess who has a story in it?
That’s right, its me.
It starts on page 53.
Check it out.
P.S. Thanks to the Editors of AAM for doing this!
My host is undergoing some upgrades that will hopefully happen tonight. There may be chaos in reaching Story Hack for a day or two, but everything should be green by new fiction time on Friday morning.
OK, so here’s the new theme I’ve been experimenting with. I was aiming for something much more fun and pulpy.
So what do you think? Did I go too far? Not far enough? I’m open to suggestions and comments.
Again, Corbin St. Laurent will be back Friday in Oasis Chapter 32.
Oasis
My wife’s moving around better, we’re getting more sleep, and things are starting to calm down. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers.
In other words, Oasis will start up again next Friday with chapter 32.
Story Hack Theme
Sometime next week, I think I’ll also play with the theme and see if I can’t make it more pulpy. You’ll have to let me know what you think.
Upcoming Fiction
A little while ago I mentioned the free online pulp Astonishing Adventures Magazine. Well, issue #2 is slated for release next Saturday, and it’ll include a sword-and-sorcery fantasy short story by yours truly. I’m not exactly Robert E. Howard, but I hope you check it out anyway.
I’d just like to say thanks to everybody for your kind words and prayers.
We’ve just been overwhelmed with the kindness that we’ve received over the past week or so. We’ve had neighbors rake our leaves, take dinner over, send flowers, take our daughter for a few hours, send letters and cards and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Spiritually speaking, we’ve also been very blessed. We’ve had comfort and peace in a very trying time.
My wife suffered some nerve damage during this all which severely restricted her movement. I’ve been spending most of my time helping her around (she was in a wheelchair for a couple of days, now hobbling around in a walker) and parenting our three year old. She’s getting better every day, and soon I’ll be able to return full time to work and really start back in on my other projects.
Many of you know that my wife was pregnant.
Early Wednesday morning we learned that our son had died in utero. Wednesday afternoon she birthed his stillborn body.
It’s been a long, painful week, and I haven’t felt much like writing anything.
Thanks for understanding.
Two months or so ago I was named a winner in an informal contest done by James Brausch on his internet business blog.
I was beginning to think that I had been forgotten and that I would have to write a post asking all of you what you think I should do about it. Maybe I would have offered some kind of undisclosed prize to the best commenter. Yeah, that would have been delicious irony. You know, because the contest James did was because it looked like a prize he was about to win was going to be taken unfairly from him… oh, nevermind.
Anyway, never fear, James is a man of his word and I was not forgotten.
After months of patient waiting by the door for my prize to arrive, my wife found a box hidden in our garage. UPS hid it there a full 5 days before she found it. I’m not exactly sure what possessed them to think the garage was the best place to deliver a package, but hey, that doesn’t matter in the long run does it?
What matters is that I finally got my major award! (That’s what I had taken to call it before it arrived.)
The prize is a box full of copies of one of his products, “How To Earn An Income By Creating Your Own DVD…”
As it ends up, I only need one for myself, so I’ve got to figure out what to do with the others. If you have any ideas, let me know.
For starters, I’m going to make a bunch of them available this weekend at a fraction of James’s retail price.
He sells the DVD for a cool $100 (you can see it here), and I figure 65% is a pretty sexy discount, so I’ll send you a copy for $35, and I’ll even pick up the shipping. If you want one, just click the buy now button below.
And just so you know, I spent an hour or so coding something so that if you click the “Buy Now” button and I’ve sold all of the ones I’m making available, you won’t be redirected to Paypal. You’ll just get a nice “Sorry, you’re too slow” message. Monday I’ll disable the button.
And don’t worry, Friday will still bring with it the next of Corbin St. Laurent’s many trials in Oasis: Chapter 31.
Online Serial Fiction
. What other online serials are out there?
Doc Savage Winner
Congrats to Glenn. I’m sending him the Doc Savage novel “The Annihilist.” After reading it, Glenn will no longer be satisfied by second-rate action heroes (like Jason Bourne, James Bond, Batman…), although I hope he keeps reading Oasis anyway.
Red Alert
In random news, somewhere between half and three-quarters of all my spam is now coming to me in Russian.
I’m Losing My Fingernail
I shmooshed it while changing a tire for a friend. Now it’s all black and starting to come off. Just thought you should know.
Oasis In Paperback
I’ve been asked by several people if I’m going to attempt to get Oasis published. The answer is yes. I am currently planning to do a few edits after I’ve finished and then self-publish via lulu.com or somewhere similar. Unless somebody mysteriously offers some great publishing deal between here and there. (My definition of great publishing deal = pretty much anything)
Halloween
My wife, daughter, and I went to two Halloween parties over the weekend. My wife used to work in a costume shop for a theater, and I’m just a nerd, so we spent a lot of time on our costumes this year. Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll put up pictures of our costumes her in a couple of days.
Amusing Spam
My wife got an amusing piece of spam the other day. This is what it said:
Three houses in your neighborhood have had high amounts of spiritual activity. Our instruments show strange energy radiating directly from your home.
Please dont wait until it is too late!
***Scum-sucking spammer url deleted here***
Click Here to find out if your house is Haunted.
For some reason I just thought that was funny.
Ok, sorry about this, it looks like the next oasis chapter is going to be late. A whole bunch of other things have come up. Hopefully, early Monday or maybe late Sunday.
However, because I know you’re just dying for something new to read, I do have a couple of suggestions.
1 - In the comments to my last chapter, Glenn pointed out an author named David Wellington, who’s been doing serial novels online for a while now. He has several zombie-flavored works up, including his current serial, Plague Zone, as well as a Vampire and a werewolf book. So if horror is your thing, you definitely need to check him out.
2 - For those of you who are more into pulp type fiction, you need to check out the first issue of a new pdf only pulp called Astonishing Adventures Magazine!
If you haven’t read Chapter 18 yet, go do that and then come back here.
I’ve been working on Oasis for a while now. I’ve really been enjoying it. Anyway, if you like Oasis, please help introduce it to others.
There are many ways to do this:
Send an email to a friend, or just tell them about it, and where to find it.
Post a link to http://www.storyhack.com/oasis somewhere.
You’ll notice that there are some little icons at the bottom of each individual post (after you click on the title) now. They are there to help you submit to social bookmarking sites. (Digg, Technorati, etc.) I’d especially appreciate it if you helped submit/vote for/bookmark the Oasis main page and Chapter 1.
Give Oasis a vote at Bloodee.com (Bloodee is like digg, but for horror stuff. I think you need a free account to do this)
Give Oasis a good rating at Horrorfind. (No signup necessary)
There, now I’m done with the shameless mooching.