Jared Millet's Blog, page 9

Write Club Flash Fiction Night 2012!

Check it out! It's my first blog post in months that doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with Summer Gothic , now available as an ebook for both Kindle and Nook for the low, low price of $4.99.

Oops. Sorry.

This year the Write Club put on a fantastic program, with as diverse a range of stories as we've ever had (including one story-poem and a short play). In program order, the stories are:


Sean DeArmond – "The Unseen Kingdom"

Tommie Willis – Burl's Recovery : "Prologue"

Carol Wild – "The Jeremiah Version"

Larry Hensley – "Plumbing 101: Real World Meets YouTube"

Emily Cutler – "Going for the Laughs"
(performed by Sean DeArmond and Sarah Virginia Brock)

Sandy Bergeron – "Dear Publisher's Clearing House"

Robert Caldwell – Bulwer Lytton entries

Leslie L. Golden – "When You Marry Trash"

Lara Penney – "Stray Wolf"

Phil Fishman – "The Ring"

Mary Rees – "Magic"

Michael Virga – "The Woman with the White Veil"

Denise Dupree – "Bad Timing: Revelations"

Jason Head – "A Nefarious Cousin"

Ray Busler – "The Library Tale"

Jared Millet – "Rocket Science"

And an excellent time was had by all!

Summer Gothic is now for sale!

It's been a long time coming, but you can now pick up over 300 pages of excellent, excellent ghost stories for the perfectly reasonable price of $14.95 either at the Summer Gothic eStore or at Amazon, whichever you prefer.

Ebook versions and sales at other vendors will be available shortly.

Contents

"My Best Girl" by Michael P. Wines

"The Beaky Bunch" by Ingrid Seymour

"Dead in Me" by Teresa Howard

"Sugar Baby" by Lindsey Robinson

"The Reproach" by Ray Busler

"Beachfront" by Sean DeArmond

"The Colors" by Julia Jones Thompson

"Nancy's Jog" by Larry Williamson

"The House Near the Covered Bridge" by Mary Brunini McArdle

"Wayward" by Megan Ingram

"The Haunted House" by Larry Hensley

"The Apparition" by Bret Williams

"Fourth of July" by Margaret Fenton

"Shades of History" by Lin Nielsen

"Family Ties" by Joan Kennedy

"The Exorcism of Mary's House" by Jessica Penot

"The Ghost of Bear Creek Swamp" by Tracy Williams

"Feral" by C. M. Koenig

"Earl and Bubba Save the King" by Louise Herring-Jones

"Summer Forever" by J. M. Gruber

"Hurricane Season" by Jared Millet

"All the Good I Could" by Suzanne Johnson


In other news, last night the third annual Flash Fiction Night was held at the Hoover Public Library, and a good time was had by all. I'll post the video as soon as it's available.

Summer Gothic: Three Days

Summer Gothic goes on sale Tuesday, March 20, 2012. 
That is all.

Summer Gothic: I have proof!

 My gods, it's real.

IT'S ALIVE!

Sorry.

Anyway, I'm a little excited about this. All week I'd been cringing in terror that I'd somehow screwed up the cover or some key element of formatting, but no, it looks good. It looks like a book!

And despite the weeks I spent proofreading the damn thing, I already found a typo. In my own story.

*sigh* - So it goes.

Summer Gothic: Crawling Forward

We've got a cover! There it is.

That's the same graveyard image I've been using on the temporary art for a while, and the "ghost" is Haleigh Huggins, the daughter of a friend of mine who agreed to play along. (Hi, Haleigh!) My wife Lea made the dress and hovered over my shoulder while I painstakingly merged her into frame, offering advice like "That's too sharp. That's too blurry. That's too shiny. Her fingers are messed up. That filter makes her look too green. Something's showing through her forehead."


Criticism is the only known antidote to error, saith David Brin, and I think the whole thing came together well because of it.

This fell beast is getting closer and closer to completion.

Meanwhile, it's time I got my ass back to writing. I still need to churn out "Rocket Science" for this year's Flash Fiction Night, I need to write a third Perrilloux story to submit for Dreams of Steam 3, and I need to finish draft #10 of The Blood Prayer, since I've found another poor sucker willing to proofread it. However, last night the whole first paragraph of my 1950's time travel pulp novel burst fully-formed out of my brain and I've got to stop myself from going any further on that particular project until a few of the others are out of the way. Oh, and I have to rewrite my kayak story with yet another new ending.

Sheesh.

Summer Gothic, and other bits

Quick Summer Gothic update: I sent all the story critiques out over a week ago, and half of the revised, pretty-much-final drafts are in. Specifically, I've got 11 of the twenty-ish stories I want to publish now sitting in my Master Document, and I'm just waiting on the others. I've given people until February 15 to do the rewrites, but that doesn't stop me from being antsy.

This weekend: the cover shoot! I'll be sticking with the stock "overgrown graveyard" photo I've been using in the promotional material so far, but I've got a friend's daughter who's agreed to be the obligatory Dead Person who I plan to "ghost" into the image (assuming I can make it look professional and not half-assed).

In other news:

Flash Fiction Night 2012 is set for March 20, 7:00 p.m., at the Hoover Public Library. There are still plenty of slots for participants, so let me know or call the Hoover fiction department at (205) 444-7800 if you have a story you'd like to present.Kerlak has opened a story call for Dreams of Steam III, so I get to do another of my "Perrilloux" stories. Hopefully I'll be able to get into the collection again; the first two have been so successful that the competition to be in Vol.3 will probably be pretty fierce.

Summer Gothic: Let's Do This Thing

Okay, now I'm worried. Yesterday was the deadline for submissions to Summer Gothic, the anthology of Alabama ghost stories that I'm editing. The stories are in, and on the whole they're good. This thing that so far has been nothing but a daydream in the back of my head is really going to happen.

Nervous? You bet'cha.

Of course, there's a lot still to come: Cover art, interior design, contracts, deciding for sure on which P.O.D. service to use - but most importantly, sending each story back to the author with notes for revision. The best experiences I've had with my own short stories is when editors have returned them with comments and requested another draft. Since Summer Gothic is as much a teaching exercise for the various writers' groups I'm involved with as it is an opportunity for publication, I'm going to "pay it forward" and do the same for this collection. I've had a committee looking at each story that came in (anonymous for now, I think of them as Ryan, Randy, Paula, and Simon) and I'm going to condense all their praise and criticism into a packet for each contributor who makes it to the next round. The story call website will shortly switch to a production blog so everyone can keep track of our progress (which was another good experience I've had - most publications keep you in the dark until your story finally hits print, if it ever does).

So that's where things stand in the exciting country of "What the Hell Have I Gotten Myself Into?" If all goes swimmingly, this thing should see print in the spring of 2012.

And every one of you will buy a copy. Right?

NaNoWriMo 2011 - One for the Books

My gods, is it over? Can I come out now? May I actually watch TV without feeling guilty about it? Gee, whiz.

This was actually a pretty productive month. I didn't struggle as much to keep my head above water as I did last year, but I never got very far ahead on my daily word count either. At least the universe didn't conspire against me more than normal this time. Final word count: 52,135. This was a continuation of the novel I began last year, so I just pasted my new work onto the end of my previous installment, which brings draft 1 of The Ghost Cauldron (formerly The Wolves of Majadan) up to 103,926 words... and counting. I can comfort myself with the knowledge that I don't have another 50K to go until this thing is done - but there might be as much as 40K left to the end. After that, I can leave Majadan behind for a while and get on with something new.

My first year as Birmingham's Nano ML was exciting. We had a huge turnout for our kick-off party and a lively crowd for our write-ins, at least at the beginning at the month. Attendance at these things always dies off as November moves along, people develop plans, and the majority of writers fall gasping by the wayside. Nevertheless, Birmingham writers produced over 7.3 million words of fiction this year, which is quite an achievement.

Next November: (see, I'm thinking ahead) The Whisper - the love child of Clark Kent and Hunter S. Thompson meets a Fifties beatnik version of the Shadow to thwart the plans of a dastardly time-travel cartel to destroy the world for fun and profit.

Meanwhile the deadline is fast approaching for Summer Gothic submissions. Stories have been trickling in, but I've heard promises of many more to come in the next few weeks. Get those in by December 15!
Also, if you're in the Birmingham area this weekend, drop by the Birmingham Public Library for our annual Local Authors Expo. I'll be selling and signing copies of Dreams of Steam vol. 1 & 2 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Welcome, NaNoWriMos!

The annual month of noveling is nigh. If you cruise on over to the NaNoWriMo website, look me up under my nom de guerre, Tycho Brahe. This year the plan is to finish the first draft of The Ghost Cauldron, book three of the Majadan trilogy. I did the first half last year and made it across the 50,000 word finish line, then the chaos of my day job intruded and I never went any further. But hey, at least I don't have to worry about what to write this year. For next year I've got several ideas lined up. I'll just have to see which one strikes my fancy.

Anyway, since I'm also serving as Birmingham's municipal liaison, I'm going to be spending all my Internet time cruising the discussion boards and monitoring the Birmingham forum, so there won't be much updating of ye olde blog. However, since the stats show that I get a lot of traffic on this site during NaNoWriMo, I'll post a little present to help all you visiting WriMos procrastinate - a free story!

Enjoy:

Tag

by Jared Millet


A wall of thunder slammed through the lecture hall.

"Vhat…"

The aftershock knocked Professor Weiss off his feet before he could finish. As he rolled to his knees and pulled himself up to his podium, his students stared back with eyes like ash on water. Seconds later, Weiss's assistant burst through the classroom door.

"Professor, it's the Khendaar. They're here!"

Weiss closed a textbook that had fallen open and steadied himself. "Vhere are they, Brad?"

"One came down Mali. The other took out Topeka."

Weiss excused his students, most of whom were already packing to leave or openly weeping, and made for the exit. Once outside, he dropped all decorum and ran for his lab. His T.A. reached it first. Brad had the build of an athlete, and Weiss often wondered why the young man was wasting his time in science.

Inside the lab, on an old television with a "Don't Panic" sticker blocking the lower part of the screen, a cable newsman was holding back tears. There was no sound, the set's speaker having blown a decade before. The scene cut to a shaky aerial video of an enormous glass crater that had once been Saharan sand.

"Vhere is it?" Weiss asked.

"Heading for the Atlantic. The other one's going northeast. They're both moving at twice the speed of sound."

"I meant the translator, dummkopf." He didn't mean to bite Brad's head off, but it just came out. "Ve should at least try to talk to them, jah?"

"Most of it's in the storeroom, but the software is all on the server."

"Vell, vhy isn't it on the laptop? Get the equipment; I'll transfer the files."

***
Weiss's colleagues in SETI had received their first extraterrestrial transmission over a year earlier. The signal from nearby Tau Ceti carried a cornucopia of technical data. It also gave a description of the Khendaar and a warning to evacuate the planet. Once the details of the message leaked to the press, however, the following societal meltdown made large-scale preparations impossible. Only a handful of institutions, such as Weiss's university, were able to develop a fraction of the alien technology needed for survival.

Brad wheeled a device that looked like part of a rock band's sound system toward the lab's loading dock while Weiss drummed his nails on his laptop and waited for the last of the software to install. The translator had yet to be tested to his satisfaction, but it would simply have to work. There was no more room for error.

On the silent television, a prominent media personality shouted at an unseen audience. Behind the pundit's pudgy face, a satellite photo displayed a chain of giant footprints across the Midwest, each half a mile from the next.

A VTOL jet collected Weiss, Brad, and the device from the university commons and rocketed into the air as soon as they'd shut the hatch. Brad held a radio to his ear.

"My God," he said. "The African target is swimming the Atlantic. It's moving so fast it's plowed a furrow to the sea floor."

"And the American one?"

"Ran right through Chicago and knocked over half of downtown," said their pilot. "Now it's wading up the Great Lakes. It looks like the aliens will meet up somewhere in Maine or Quebec."

"Not any more," announced Brad in a dead voice. He set the radio down. "The western Khendaar just flattened Toronto. Now it's heading for New York."

***
The alien crouched over the ruins of Jersey City. Its clustered heads swirled through the clouds like a mass of gargantuan snakes, and its twin tails cracked the air with repeated sonic booms. Weiss asked the pilot to land, but he declined.

A hundred-foot wall of water approached from the east in advance of the second Khendaar. The wave rolled over Manhattan and up the Hudson, tearing bridges apart like reeds. Half of the city collapsed into pillars of smoke and rubble; the few skyscrapers remaining leaned and groaned like drunkards. The inevitable back spill down the river would wash the rest away, but for the moment there was stillness.

Weiss demanded that their pilot put them down somewhere, and after consulting with his superiors he set down in the wasteland of debris that was Central Park. Weiss and Brad had just unloaded their equipment when the quake hit. Tremors rocked the earth with the rhythm of footfalls and a shadow blocked the morning sun.

To the east, a Khendaar rose on its hind legs. Sheets of Atlantic seawater slid off of its body in localized downpours. The other alien had crossed the Hudson, but was partially concealed behind the ruined skyline.

Weiss activated his machine and spoke through a microphone. "Please! You must stop this! Ve are intelligent beings! You are destroying our cities, our homes! Vhy are you doing this? Please, vill you listen?"

As he spoke, thunderous sounds in an alien tongue poured from the translator. Brad staggered to his knees from the force of the shockwave. Weiss gripped the edge of his device to keep his legs from buckling.

The alien to the east leaped into the sky and soared overhead, thunder crashing behind it like the voice of God. The other Khendaar tried to dodge, but its doppelganger tackled it, flattening a huge swath of steel and concrete. Giant words spilled from its maw as they wrestled, and a translation appeared on Weiss's monitor:

>TAG / YOU'RE IT

"Professor!" shouted the pilot. "The radar station in Australia just spotted twenty more Khendaar out past the moon. They're heading this way!"

Weiss didn't hear. He stared dumbfounded at the translator, even as the battling titans rolled in his direction. Numb to the world, he never felt the foot that squashed him.


This story is copyright 2011 Jared Millet.

See also: Fire and Witch's Cross.