Rish Outfield's Blog, page 7

Rish Outcast 292: You're In Good Hands 1

Just in time for something, Rish presents the first segment of his Lara & The Witch story, "You're In Good Hands."

Here's the link to the Lara & The Witch: Volume 1 collection: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DP7JZYVM

Here's a link to the first L&TW story, "Like A Good Neighbor:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbkHKDgjdxo

To download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

To support my vain efforts on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Urine Good Hands" Moretto.

New Year, New Book

So, I finally achieved at least one of my New Year goals.  I finally published "Balms & Sears," the longest novel I've written.

I've talked about it one hell of a lot (and for that, I'm sorry*), but B&S tells the story of Alec Ewell, who moves into a new Colorado town with his grandfather, and starts at a new high school.  Alec tries to be a normal student, a normal kid, but he's not normal . . . Alec is a Balm, a person with the ability to heal what he touches.  And that ability has gotten more and more powerful over the years, but it's also gotten him in trouble, because it's supposed to be a secret.  And every time Alec uses the Balm, and is discovered, his grandfather decides it's time to move to a new city, get a new last name, and see if this time, he can get it right.  Because Alec just can't help himself, and there are people in pain no matter where he goes.

So that's the premise, and it could have been just a short story, or at least a novella, but it got away from me, new characters came in, and new subplots lifted their heads, until it was double the length of my first novel, "Into the Furnace."  I don't know how to write a novel, so maybe this would've worked better as a series of short stories, ala Dead & Breakfast and Lara & The Witch (both of which I have written, but not published, novels for).  

It took years to finish this book, so it's only fair that it took years for me to get it published.  But hey, now that this is out of my system, I can start looking for something new to work on.

Check it out HERE.

*Gosh, if only I could talk about it now that it's done, hyping it up on Facebook and Twitter, pushing it to whoever will listen, in attempts to get them to buy it.  Because that's what you have to do in independent publishing, in order to be successful.

No Problem

So, I did sit down and rework my previously-mentioned problem chapter of "Balms & Sears."  There were two moments in there that I felt went too far, and I felt it improved the ending of the book if I nipped them in the bud. 

The thing is, in real life, good people occasionally do bad things, and there are at least a few bad people out there that sometimes do something good (harder to quantify, I know).  But in fiction, because these characters (for good or ill) are all me, I can change my mind, and make things blacker and whiter.  Ultimately, I had this niggling feeling that it was a problem, and I feel better making that change.

Part of the problem is, I've never written a book this big before (unlikely that I will again), and I don't know what I'm doing.  Even now, I worry that it's not all that good, but hey, I've worked harder on "Balms & Sears" than I have on any previous work, so I'm going to finish it and put it out there.  And then you can be the ultimate judge.
I asked A.I. to create me the image of Superman lifting up a schoolbus, and I got this.

Rish Outcast 294: The Baleful

In lieu of a Christmas story this year, Rish shares his holiday-adjacent story "The Baleful." No apologies, though.

As always, you can download the file by Right-Clicking HERE.

And of course, you can support my Patreon by clicking HERE.  They're three shows ahead!

Logo by Gino "The Toenailful" Moretto.