V.A. Jeffrey's Blog, page 4

The Force Awakens Soundtrack!

One of my favorite things to do as I'm writing is listening to  great music. especially the Star wars filmscores. They seem to really put me int he right mood while I'm writing this particular series, being that much of it is inspired by Star Wars (thanks George Lucas!) anyway I found John Williams's newest Star Wars soundtrack in its entirety on YT and I've writing away. It's a great soundtrack! I'm finishing the first edit and getting ready to go into the second edit of Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy.  This video is actually a series of videos in a YouTube playlist so as the frist track finishes keep listening! Enjoy!

A New Episode of the Other Worlds Podcast is Out!

I've got a new episode out of the Other Worlds podcast! episode 5, The Candy Shop. Enjoy and see you next year with a new book release! :)

New Stuff! YouTube Channel!

I've been slowly building a YouTube channel with content. I've always been a big fan of old time radio detective stories, mysteries and old science fiction stories on radio so if you enjoy those kind of things, take a look at my YouTube channel and subscribe! I also upload my podcast audio up there as well!

Sample Chapters! (Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy)

Okay here's the sample chapter from my latest book I'm writing, Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy! it starts with a huge bang! Hope you like it! If you want more sample chapters, join the mailing list! This is chapter one, by the way. Enjoy!

 

1

The momentum I'd gained from my jetpack caused me to careen into the wall and I began sliding toward the open airlock but I myself caught upon one of the ship's rear support columns and frantically swung myself around and with a thump I hit the floor snatching up the broken pipe as he bore down on me again. He grabbed my arm and swung me up towards the ceiling. I hit the ceiling with a hard crack as he grabbed my legs to slam me down against the floor or the wall. I swung the pipe and bashed him on the shoulder but his strength in his rage was fantastic! It seemed to have no effect on him but I hit him again, this time across his helmet. I felt myself slammed against the ground and saw stars on the edges of my vision. Adrenaline now was the only thing that kept me going – that, and growing rage. And I too had gotten more fit and stronger in my labors as a U-net agent.

I rolled across the ground and was up again but had dropped my weapon and couldn't get to my pistol. He laughed, his mouth full of bloody phlegm and saliva from his glands but besides that he was unharmed and coming at me like a hawk after prey.

“You've been a pain in my ass for too long, Astor! It ends here!” He screamed, bloody spittle flying form his mouth and bubbling on his faceplate. He pulled out a blade and I kicked his arm sending it clattering to the floor behind him.

“Only in your ass? I haven't been trying hard enough!” I lunged forward, smashing into him and we both went down toppling over the storage boxes. With superior strength he got the best of me and I soon found myself pinned under him, struggling as he laughed. His face was so badly mangled that I no longer recognized him, the human engineered skin and alien flesh and appendages fused together in a monstrous unity. He straddled me with his powerful legs, grabbed my helmet and began bashing it against the floor trying to crack it open. The powerful sucking sound of the air emptying from the craft was becoming louder and I felt the powerful force of motion as the air pressure chamber doors finally rose open completely and we both slid toward the opened air chute of the craft. I could see the pistol only a few feet away from me again. Tantalizingly close.

If only I had listened to Magnum!

Outside was the eternity of black space, my soon graveyard if I didn't turn this around. I yelled and pushed against him trying to lift him off me. If I didn't do something quick I would be dead matter floating in space. And then I saw my chance. I grabbed his jetpack strap and pushed the forward blast button sending him careening into the opposite wall. I held on to the jetpack strip and swung him around again as he screamed in rage. I forwarded his momentum by pushing the lift off and drive buttons again and then as he tried to yank the strip from me. He managed to do that as I swung him further toward the open hatch trying to throw him out. Finally yanking it free he flew back down from the ceiling and charged after me, knife in hand. By then I had dropped to the floor and grabbed the pistol. I fired right before he was able to descend upon me and a stream of violet laser fire crackled from the pistol burning a large hole in his chest. He screamed, more in anguish and defeat than pain and I fired again this time the laser fire severing one of his arms. I watched as both he, his arm and all the effluvia and fluids spewing from his body toppled end over end out the air chamber and then floated out the hatch into cold space.

“Yeah,” I said, sighing heavily and bending down to one knee. “I guess it does end here.” Finally, my nemesis was defeated.

I felt myself being pulled along the floor and realized that my own leg was tangled in the long jetpack strip. I tried to anchor myself looking for anything to hold on to but there was nothing in the bay but a few storage boxes which were now just out of my reach. I accidentally dropped the pistol, sending it scuttling toward the open hatch in my struggle to free myself. The force was becoming too strong for me to walk against it. I fell and slid helplessly along the floor as the body floated further out into space. I struggled in vain to untangle myself and shake it off. It was no use. I struggled, crawling back across the floor, each movement becoming ever more difficult as the force of the air and the dead weight of the body was too great. I grappled against the smooth floor desperately, then turned back to see myself sliding near the pistol I grabbed hold of it again and shot at the strip, finally severing the cord. I slid down the floor and managed to hold on to a bar against the wall of the air lock. Sliding my arm toward the emergency controls, the force of the winds forced my head down against the cold metal surface of the wall. I positioned myself awkwardly, sideways against the wall and reached the control panel, pulled the lever and the doors came down and secured the ship. I could finally feel the air around me slowly return to normal pressure as the air lock secured itself completely shut.

I fell to the ground and simply remained there for a few moments. He was now gone, truly forever, never to hunt me or my family again. All I had to do now was wait for someone to come and respond to my distress signal from the ship. When my energy returned I eventually went the cockpit and sat down, taking off my helmet. I turned the lights off and sat back, staring at the wonders of space. There was a change in me. I was no longer afraid. Tulos had said as much would happen one day. And he's said to celebrate it and savor it. But then may be I was too dumb to be afraid. After all who in their right mind would have followed an alien spy all the way to another planet in the first place but someone who was too dumb to be afraid? I laughed.

I think we had won. And I felt that I could finally breathe, that whatever trials would come for the human family, and there would be many, that the future was once again bright. . .

 

. . .and then I woke up. Again, my dreams were becoming more real, as if I could smell, touch and experience the pain in them. And they were becoming more prescient. Which was making me question my own sanity. This wasn't helping things with my wife who normally took everything in stride. There had been a sudden change in her towards me and she was now calling everything I did into question, even my sleeping patterns! Once again, I was a hero in my dreams, saving the world only for that dream to dissipate and my poor ego to deflate when I woke up to reality.

New Stuff and Sample Chapters Coming Soon!

finally, I have a sample chapter ready for readers for the blog. I will have about three chapters ready for those on the mailing list. also, a new podcast episode is coming this weekend and a new project.

This new project is my Old Time Radio shows I've been collecting and uploading to my YouTube channel. Right now I'm concentrating on police dramas and detective serials but I will also be uploading old public domain science fiction, some of which I'll be reading myself. Visit my YT channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/victoria...

Stay tuned and dry if it's raining where you are. it's raining cats and dogs around here! :)

Star Wars - Fate of the Jedi, Outcast audio book

Sometimes these disappear and reappear. I like this Fate of the Jedi series a lot but when I first heard it  they had the entire audio book together. the book is divided into many parts. Still, it's good listening.

Pease go and buy these audio books if you liked them. Support artists and writers! ;)

Finished With First Draft

I'm finally finished with the first draft of Blackguard Conspiracy. I'm feeling a lot better about it now that I'm on the other end of it. In fact I have lots of notes within the draft where I will be expanding and embellishing the story, making it much better. I'd say the bones fo it were more filled out. Now comes the real story-telling. I'm now listening to a lecture on myths and fairytales by Tom Shippey, very informative and enlightening for all writers of fiction in my opinion. especially speculative fiction. whether scienc efiction or fantasy these are the roots of it all and holds the secrets to stories that hold people's attention.

You can find this by following this link

 

enjoy the lecture at the link while i go and embellish and paint my own story. it's been a hard slog but writers go through this sometimes. It's normal.

Burn out

I've written nearly more in the past five years than I have since I was a kid. I've been very prolific. But I have to admit that lately I've been feeling burned out. it isn't too bad but writing the latest Mission book has been far harder than I expected because I'm not feeling as motivated because I'm tired. I should have finished the first draft over a month ago. I won't be finished with it until this week. Then comes the real work - the second and third drafts.

Anyway, even though it's not pleasant to hear I keep it real here on my blog. No fakery. i feel that the more enjoyable work will come next week when I start fleshing the story out and making it look like a real book. And perhaps I'll bake a magic chocolate flan cake to keep my creative juices flowing because right now they are running pretty low. when the Mission series and the other series I'm writing under a pen name is done, I'll be taking a long beak form writring.

New Scifi Romance Release!

There's a new science fiction romance release!  Check it out! Look for links to it on other retailers later this month!

Amazon link

Description: All her life Sara McGregor has felt adrift, searching for. . . something. Part of her past is shrouded in mystery, thanks to her enigmatic mother, long dead, and she's struggling to figure out what course her life should take. Dropping out of college and a string of failed relationships has trapped her into a holding pattern. There's got to be something more than her dead-end job, her current loser boyfriend and the pointless rat race of life. Something is missing. 

A strange astronomical event coupled with the power of a family heirloom blasts her into the future, far away from her world and from everyone she's ever known and loved. She accidentally lands on the ship of a handsome pirate captain. Viewed as an unwelcome stowaway at the least, a dangerous spy sent to harm the crew at the worst, the captain is convinced that she's been sent to assassinate someone very close to him. Sara's in over her head and must think fast to convince the captain she's innocent. Sara's game for the excitement but does she have what it takes to survive among a den of space pirates who don't trust her? Survival among them depends on the captain accepting her account of how she landed on his ship and discovering her identity. The answer lies in the mystery surrounding her secretive mother, an answer that may save her life and help her chart a new destiny. 

New episode of Other Worlds Podcast out! (Memory Lane)

I took some time off from writing (and cleaning) to finish and upload a new episode of my Other Worlds podcast yesterday. it's an audio show of my weird fiction short story Memory Lane. Memory Lane was a rejected short story from an online audiozine/website. I'd written it specifically to submit it to them. alas, like with all my stories when it comes to submitting them to publishers, they rejected it. They weren't very nice about it either. I feel a sense of shadenfraude now that this zine is no longer in existence. I shouldn't but there it is. I do. So sue me.

Anyway, it reminds me of why I self publish my work these days. The old way of doing things had become a massive waste of time for me as a writer. I hope you enjoy the show.

Description: A lonely old man who lives in a lonely old house on the edge of town dies. And with him, a strange secret about the town itself.

Download here from Talkshoe!