Nick S. Nicholas's Blog, page 4

Inevitable- A dark poem by Nick S Nicholas

I am deep inside you.

You don’t know that I am here.

You don’t know how I came about.

But make no mistake, I am here.

I go dormant for a long time making my plan.

My plan is clear.

Your end draws near.

I will crawl through you and affect as much of you as I can.

It is my only goal.

I spread through your insides and embed deep within.

You will never know where I came from.

You will never be able to get rid of me.

When I’m here, it’s too late for you.

When I come I start slow.

As I progress, I make my mark known.

I will crawl through your veins.

I will crawl through your bones.

I will crawl through your brain.

I will settle in the pit of your stomach.

Every place that I can find, I will slowly make my way to.

And in the end, I will get you.

You can stop doing things you think caused me.

You don’t know exactly what that is.

Never can you stop doing what it is that brought me to be.

I am here to stay, and that’s bad for you.

I have many names.

One that is common and universal.

And no one likes to hear.

You will not be happy.

You will know the end is near.

I always win.

The odds are in my favor.

By the time they figure out how to destroy me, you will already be gone.

That is the way it is.

There is no way around it.

Nothing can be done.

I am your bane.

I am your fate.

I am your cancer.

 

An update about your’s truly….

I’ve been ultra busy the past month and a half blogging, reading, writing, moderating forums and most recently, being a critique! I have also been under a lot of stress and pressure at the day job working on a high-profile project for the past 6 weeks, so I am not exactly sure how I fit everything it!

I’ve been spending a lot of time on goodreads lately and joined a few of the groups there. Something special has happened to me as a result of participating in two different groups.

The first thing that happened was I received an invitation from Christy Wilhelm to become a forums moderator on the BTS Book Club on goodreads! I was more than happy to accept and now I am helping to moderate the forums there as well as leading monthly book discussions. And I get to choose the books to discuss! It takes up a bit of time, but it is a lot of fun too! So if you’d like to participate, join the BTS Book Club on goodreads! BTS stands for Book and Trailer Showcase a  website dedicated to showcasing book and book trailers.

The second thing that happened was in the Writers Worth group on goodreads. Lyn Midnight started a collaborative anthology project, which has grown to a big multi-media project. Lyn calls it grim5next. The written anthology will be a book of short stories. Each short story will have three parts to it. Grim Future, The Last 5 Minutes and What happens next? Hence, grim5next. There will be 12 short stories and a different author will be responsible for one section in one of the stories. That means 12 stories, 3 sections and 36 different authors to complete the anthology! I submitted a breakdown of a possible “Grim Future” and guess what? Your truly was selected to be one of the Grim Future writers! Woot! Woot! I am very excited to be working on this project! Which brings me to the next effort…

I started critiquing other writer’s stories too! During my networking at the grim5next anthology, I met an J. Whitworth Hazzard, author of the zombiemechanics blog  who turned me on to  Critique Circle. It’s a forum (with a free and a premium level of service) where writers can post stories and other writers can critique them. Not only are other writers  critiquing my stories, I am also doing the same for them–what a learning process this has been! It is certainly helps improve my writing and reading skills.

In addition to all of this, I am writing small reviews for the books I have been reading.  I’ve published some of them on this blog, but then decided to create a new blog dedicated to just my review work. I will be migrating all of the book reviews from this blog to the N.S. Nicholas Book Review Blog: Candles, Wine and  a Book site. Most of the reviews are short and sweet, but I have been influenced by a lot of my online friends lately and plan to pick up the word count in future reviews! I just need to balance my time right! The latest review I am working on is for Bone Dressing, by Michelle I Brooks.

Lastly, while keeping up with all of the above  I am still plugging away at my own work and inching closer and closer to completing my first self-published project!  I’ve updated the Works in Progress link at the top of the and split the page between Series in progress and Stand-alone works in progress, so check them out for more updates!

I would like to thank everyone who’s visited by blogs, visited me on goodreads or twitter. This whole experience is such a blast!

Yours truly,

-Nick

 

New Series Announcement – In Game Story

Well, here’s my latest project announcement – it’s a new Series of novellas called “In Game Story” – it’s about the life and times of a “professional” MMORPG player. MMORPG is the acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. It’s a flavor of video gaming that offers an online persistent world with thousands of players all online playing together in digital fantasy realm.  You can roleplay your character, quest with other players, have online friendships and relationships, battle in dungeons, fight the hardest boss NPCs (non-player characters), and get stressed out in player vs. player death matches. These are just some of the ways you can waist away  hours of your life without ever getting dressed or leaving the chair you parked your ass down at in front of the computer!

Notable games in the MMORPG market include the likes of Everquest (one of the very first MMORPGs), World of Warcraft (which at one point in time claimed over 11 million subscribers), Rift, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. These are in my opinion the most popular, yet tons of other MMORPGs exist today.

These shorts are just the thing you’ll want to read if you’ve ever-

…..stayed up until 4 am “raiding” for uber loot,
…..married your cyber soul-mate in game, but in real life were perfect strangers,
…..cried when your guild broke up over some stupid personality drama,
…..had a best friend who you only knew by their avatar name and never saw what they looked like in real life,
…..waited on a huge line at midnight in front of a GameStop or Best Buy for the latest expansion pack, then took the next day off from work to play it,
…..attended a funeral in game in the most sacred plane of your digital realm for some real person who passed away whom you never met,
…..argued over an unfair roll of an epic loot drop,
…..or encountered a pair of degenerate dwarves in the lower sewers beneath an honorable city exchanging nasty Roleplaying filth that made you sick to your stomach,

the this series is for you!!

Book 1: LFG- Looking for Group

Book 2:RP Server: The Degenerate Inside

Book 3:WTF: The Server is down!

Book 4:PVP I Pwned You!

Book 5:Uber Loot

Book 6:End Game: 366 hours played…wait what?

We’ll that’s the plan a 6 novella series! I’ll be scheduling the project and coming up with release dates. This one ‘s planned to be published via Smashwords.

I’ll post more when I have a better idea of the release dates!

Yours truly,

Nick

Quick Scenes – Anubis God of Death

Deep Space. Twenty minutes ago. Twelve golden metallic craft resembling the great pyramids of Earth moved past a binary star system at incredible speed. Aboard the bridge on the lead ship, an alien creature pointed to a dark, empty sphere that was projected as a hologram above a triangular command console. The sphere quickly turned deep blue, then empty and then deep blue again. The command officer rose from his throne. He was a tall, biped creature adorned in golden armor with dark skin and jackal-like head. He slammed his staff down and barked a command. There was a flurry of activity as the fleet of star craft suddenly changed course on a direct heading for Earth.

Quick Scenes – He killed his cheating wife

An excerpt from one of my works in progress, Good Haunting, a paranormal romance.

This scene describes how Nadia dies and her soul becomes trapped in the house.

Jonathan stood at the foot of the bed for a few minutes staring at Nadia. He walked over to his dresser, removed his trousers and slipped on a pair of sleeping trunks.  He crawled into bed, but couldn’t go to sleep. He could not get Nadia’s words out of his mind. After a while he sat up with his back against the headboard staring down at Nadia.

Nadia was sleeping peacefully. She was lying on her side, facing Jonathan in her sleep. Her breath was slow and steady.

Jonathan was staring at her. If looks could kill, she would have been done for. He kept replaying what she said over and over in his mind.  He was seething again. The veins in his forehead were protruding out as his blood pumped through them.

Nadia stirred and then rolled over on to her back. Her eyes were moving in random directions under the lids. She must have been dreaming.

“Dreaming about him no doubt!” Jonathan thought as he grabbed his pillow in both hands and placed it over Nadia’s face. “Die you cheating whore!” he yelled as he pressed down on the pillow hard.

Nadia’s hands reached out to grab at whoever was suffocating her to death. As she struggled, it took a while to register Jonathan’s voice.

He pushed down harder and swung his legs around, straddling her body. With clenched teeth, he just pressed down.

Nadia was kicking her legs wildly, trying to escape, trying to get air into her lungs, but the pressure on her face was too much.

Harder still, he pressed down. “Die you bitch, die!” he yelled through gritted teeth. Her movement and struggle got weaker and weaker until suddenly, there was no struggle at all. He loosened his grip on the pillow, but still kept it over her face for several minutes. Finally he lifted the pillow and stared down at his dead wife. He blinked several times, staring directly at her mouth. Jonathan turned his head and placed his ear next to her face, listening for any signs of breath. Nothing. He heard nothing. She was gone.

Nadia was floating over the bed, staring down at Jonathan’s back as he still straddled her lifeless body. She screamed, but no sound came out.

Quick Scenes – Forbidden Love from The Elven Compendium

The sun rays reflected off the lake making the crest of the small waves sparkle bright as if thousands of diamonds were gliding across the water. Vanya’s eyes followed the sparkles from one wave crest to another and felt mesmerized by the constant flashes of brilliant light.

Xanth took her hand and she turned her attention to him. The gentle breeze was blowing his silver hair across his face partially covering his beautiful dark blue eyes. That did not stop him from staring at her intently.

“This part of the of the courting ritual is absurd” Vanya thought. It’s the first time she will be alone with Xanth. The courting ritual demands they must shed their clothes and bathe each other in the lake. All she could think was “Dam the Elders and these rituals!”

Xanth’s eyes were moving back and forth, trying to figure out what the concern was she wore on her face.

Thinking she might have given him cause for alarm, she pushed the thoughts of the Elders and the rituals to the back of her mind and smiled. She placed her free hand on the side of his face and gently caressed his cheek with the pad of her thumb. “What is it Xanth?” she asked, curious at his silence.

“Sheer beauty” he said softly.

Her cheeks reddened at his words.

“I’ve not been able to look at you for more than a few minutes at a time without being hurried away. Or without you being led away.” He took both her hands in his and held them close to his mouth.

Vanya could feel his breath brush across her fingers as he continued.

“And right now, here in the valley, on the edge of this lake, with the sun shining and your eyes sparkling from the reflections of the light on the water, there is nothing else I have lain my eyes on that is more beautiful than you are right now.” He kissed her hand.

A sudden rush of heat flushed her cheeks more so than before as a tingle ran up her spine. Her belly felt like she swallowed half a dozen butterflies. For the first time in her life, no words came to her mind and she just simply stared back at Xanth, wanting this moment to last forever.

The above Quick Scene is an excerpt from a work in progress “Forbidden Love“ from my series  The Elven Compendium , Book 1

Elven Compendium – This series is all about the lives, trials and tribulations of…you guess it! Elves. Not the Keebler cookie baker type either. And not the Santa type either. Elves in this fantasy world are the woodland, the archers, the rangers, the trackers, the mystics and the masters of nature.

Forbidden Love – this short story is about the separation of the Elven clans and how their mating rituals work. Since the ancient times, the Elders have always forbidden their clans from mating with Elves of other clans in order to preserve the bloodline purity. However, the Elven populations have grown thin over time and the Elders realized that if they didn’t act, the entire race will become in danger of extinction

More information about my other works in progress is available here: or by clicking on “Works in Progress” at the top of the page.

Tools, Tips and Guidance for Writers

To coin a phrase from my video gaming life, when it comes to writing and being an author, I’m a noob.  If you’re not familiar with the term noob, it can be thought of as an antonym for veteran or experienced or possibly even expert. I did not major in English, Literature, Grammar, Journalism or any other potentially related field to what I would expect a full-time writing career would require. I am making this up as I go along, with the help from a lot of people on the Internet. From Googling, to blogging to tweeting to FBing- i.e. via Social Networking and tapping into the minds and worlds of some wonderful people I am starting to figure this all out. I have become acquainted in cyberspace (mind you not face-to-face) with people from all over the world and have gathered some useful tips, sites and tools that hopefully will help me achieve my goals of self-publishing my work. I thought it only natural to share what I have learned along this journey so far and hopefully inspire, educate and help another “noob.” out.

The following is a short list of things, places, sites and tips I have discovered so far. If any of it helps you out, I’d love to hear it.

Book Covers

Book Covers. I didn’t realize how important and how expensive choosing or designing a book cover was until I start shopping for one! I found a few places online where you can tap into royalty-free images and use them for an eBook cover. There are several “Stock Photo” online sources that are good for Independent authors and self-publishers just starting out (like myself) Here are a few notable ones.

123 Royalty Free:  http://www.123rf.com

CanStockPhoto: http://www.canstockphoto.com

Dreamstime: http://www.dreamstime.com

Fotolia:  http://us.fotolia.com

Eye Color Chart

Describing your character’s eyes is important. Getting the color right is important too. There are tons of different resources you can find searching the Internet. Here is my favorite eye chart (http://eyemakeart.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/eye_colour_chart_by_delpigeon.jpg)

Name Generators

Seventh Sanctum is an awesome place if you are looking for a little random name generation. This applies to people, places, things, magic spells, organizations, governments, and whatever else you can think of. There are tons of name generatorslisted on this site.

Seventh Sanctum: http://www.seventhsanctum.com

Text Editors

I’ll assume in this day and age your main writing tool is a computer and not a typewriter. There are so many options to choose from to use a computer and a word processor to write with. I’ll summarize just a few of them here and note my favorite tool.

If you have access to a computer you basically don’t need to spend any money to start writing. The simplest tool you can use is the built-in text editor that comes with any PC running a Microsoft Windows operating system or any Apple computer running Max OS X.

In Windows you have two options. Notepad and Wordpad. Notepad is just a simple no frills text editor. Wordpad is essentially the same thing but it allows you to use basic rich text formatting (to make things bold, italic, centered, etc.) In Mac OSX you have TextEdit. There are also a ton of free programs you can get on the Internet as well. Just perform a google search for “free text editor” and you’ll see what I mean. Or on a Mac just go to the App Store and you’ll find several.

Word processors are the preferred tool for most writers. Modern word processors like Microsoft Word or Apple Pages will give you all of the basics the free text editors do plus a ton more formatting options and a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. The word processor is pretty much the standard tools of choice. However there are other tools that combine a writer’s goal of producing a well formatted manuscript and ensure proper grammar and error-free spelling and have all the benefits of a full-fledged word processor. There are other choices as mentioned above that you can find on the Internet. My editor of choice is Scrivener.  Basically it’s a full-fledged word processor but it also allows you to create an outline on a “cork board” like canvas. It helps me arrange my thoughts and plot my books before I even write a single line of the story. It also has the ability to compile your work to various formats, like ePUB (for Apple iBooks), .mobi (for Amazon Kindle), .PDF, .RTF, DOC.  It’s available for both Windows and Mac OS X. I prefer the Max OS X version as it has some more features that are not yet implemented in the Windows version.

HTML Editors

When you need to comment online and need a quick HTML editor, here’s an online one that works very well. It’s basic, but gets the job done. When your tags are all formatted correctly, you can just cut and paste! Online HTML Editor: http://www.onlinehtmleditor.net/

If you do not like to work online (i.e require an Internet connection, then you’ll need to download an HTML editor. Again, a good old “google” search will net you several free choices of HTML editors. (CoffeeCup, Bluefish two notable free HTML editors.) There are a bunch of paid choices as well but these tend to get very pricey very quickly as they are geared more toward web development rather than helping bloggers format their posts. Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Web (the evolution of Microsoft Frontpage) come to mind. (As of this writing, Visual Web Developer Express is a free, limited function but very usable offer from Microsoft.)

How many words makes my story a novel?

I am still not 100% sure about this one. There seems to be a lot of different opinions. However I did find a general reference guide that answers this and I think it is a good guideline to follow.

The best answer to this question I found was from author Lee Masterson of South Australia. The summary below is from Lee Masterson article- the full article is here ==>Click here for this article

Writing type
Approximate word count (k=1000)


Short Story
1k -7.5k


Novelette
 7.5k – 20k


Novella
 20k – 50k


Novel
 50k – 110k


Epics and Sequels
> 110k



That’s all for now!

Well that’s about all of the tips, tools, advice, guides, etc that I have discovered so far. As I discover and use more I’ll update this post. I hope you find the information useful. If you have any questions or comments, please use the comment form here or use the global Contact Nick link at the top of the page.

Happy Writing!

-Nick

Quick Scenes – Sniper

Wyatt crouched down behind the wreckage that was once a car. There were several loud explosions off in the distance but here in the middle of the square it was deathly quiet for an active war zone. A flare of gun fire caught his eye from a sniper four blocks down near one of the explosions. Wyatt lifted his M25 and aimed down the site at the sniper’s head. He held his breath and centered his target in the cross hairs. He was about to squeeze the trigger and suddenly the hair of the back of his neck stood tall as he heard the light crunch of the footstep behind him.

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Writing freelance.. some legit places to start!

 

Happy New Year! Well as 2012 rings in, my personal goal is to continue my quest to make a living (well part time anyway) by writing! I was intrigued by an email that was forwarded to me by a friend for a site that offered “Real Writing Jobs!” – I was pretty excited about it and quickly did a little investigation. I was pretty on board with it at first- after reading the initial welcome message and all, but then the “catch” reared its ugly head. They wanted a membership fee to join their site- just for the opportunity to browse their supposed “assignments” and “jobs.” Of course this immediately set a red flag in my head and after a bit of digging it was easy to see that this was a complete scam.

Since I didn’t want to star the New Year off on a negative note, I continued to do some “google” research to find some legit sites where I could get a bit of a jump start. My initial goal was to finally complete one of my books and  use Amazon.com’s Kindle self-publishing service- but quickly see that is probably more of a intermediate term goal. But still, I am looking to dip my feet in the water and found a few things that actually look promising. So without further ado, here is the list!

iwriter.com 

This site allows writers earn some cash by writing articles for other people. There is no registration fee and anyone can qualify. You can select the topics your interested in and decide how many articles you want to write and how often. The site is primarily aimed at creating content for web sites. Anything from product descriptions and reviews to blogging (Wow! imagine getting paid to blog!)

writeswap.com

The social networking ability of writeswap.com is pretty neat. Writeswap basically allows writers or people interested in purchasing content to essentially post a classified ad for a piece of work. You can then tweet it or share it on facebook. It’s an interesting take, and while you wont get rich here, it’s a potentially good way to get yourself small writing assignment, a deadline and start you off on the right track.

There are three other site I found that offer more general freelance opportunities. They range from technical jobs like programing and website design to content creation including writing articles, stories, product descriptions, editing and proof reading.

www.freelancer.com

Freelancer.com caters to programmers and designers, but they also offer content writer jobs. The jobs include academic writing, copy editing, eBooks and even article re-writing.

You can also check out www.peopleperhour.com and www.elance.com. I found that elance.com more geared to the technical opportunities (i.e. computer/programming projects), but since my other hobby is anything creative with a computer, I found it very useful as well. Peopleperhour.com also has a very broad range of freelance opportunities, but their writing opportunities include creative writing, content, article, and web content creation, copy editing and general editing.

Now I don’t think for a second that I’m going to get rich or even pay a bill or two utilizing these sites, but I do think that by signing up, browsing the assignments and maybe even completing a few, it will give me the opportunity to feel “published” or at least “accomplished” and above all grant me a little self confidence for the real longer term goal of completing that first novel. The way I see it, you have to start somewhere- and it’s never to late to start!

I hope someone else find’s this information useful. If you do, please let me know- I’d love to hear from you!