Chris Sarantopoulos's Blog, page 3

I am a…

It took me a while to accept it, but now that I have, I feel so much better: I am an artistic and creative person. That’s probably why I never liked most of the things I tried. None of them were related to arts. Except telling stories, creating worlds and settings, turn lies into reality, and writing fiction. Mind you, most of my academic background, with the exception of my Masters degree, is related to hard sciences (physics, chemistry, maths, geology – my first degree – cosmology, astronomy etc). Which was okay, but it never really thrilled me.

But now, I have discovered another form of art that I seem to like. Okay,ho am I kidding? A form of art I’m enthusiastic about!!! See how many exclamation marks I used there? There are a select few of you here who have had the great misfortune to have me as their beta reader. They know how much I hate exclamation marks. The words “kill it with fire, then cast it into Mt Doom,” come to mind. I believe I wrote that to the side of a friend’s manuscript, pointing at an exclamation mark he had used.

Anyway, being a writer on an extremely tight budget forced me to learn to use Photoshop. Okay, let me rephrase that. It forced me to learn to use one or two things from Photoshop (is there anyone out there who knows how to use the entire program, I wonder). And I realised something: I really like using it! (You see that? Another exclamation mark)

I enjoy creating stuff with it, and I enjoy learning new things about it. At the moment, I’m more like “monkey see, monkey do,” as far as knowing how to properly use it goes, but every single time I create something, it’s like having finished writing a new book. Like it’s Christmas all over again! (Wow! I’m going crazy with the exclamation marks today)

So, to make a long story short, I decided to start selling the few things I’ve created with Photoshop. I started an Etsy shop, and I invite you all to browse through my wares. There are not many things up yet, mainly because to create something it takes me as long as it takes me to finish editing a book. For the record, now I’m editing my cyberpunk novel AND my horror post-apocalyptic novel – yes, again – so this should be ample proof that it takes me A LOT of time to edit something.

Anyway, you can find my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/DreamInDigitalDreams. I hope you like what you see

Writing Prompt 52

Everyone around me panicked and ran and trampled each other to get out, go someplace safe. Fools. What difference would it make?

I noticed a woman at the other end of the bar eyeing me, calm as a meditating monk. I threaded my way to her. “Not running for your life?” I asked.

“Nope,” she replied.

“How come?”

“You know how.”

Could she be…? My surprise must have shown, ’cause she hid a chuckle behind a sip from her drink.

“Still,” I said, “the end of the world and all. This is my fifth end of the world and I’m still enjoying it.”

“Oh, you’re a child. How sweet.” Another sip of her drink. “I got bored after the twentieth. That was millions of years ago. These primates are no longer entertaining. However, this end comes too early. Your doing?”

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The journey goes on

2017 is ancient history! Well, maybe not ancient, but history nonetheless. Who would have thought, huh? It seems so long and far ahead to go from January to December, right?

When a new year starts, we usually groan about how far ahead the next Christmas period is, and we take things slowly when it comes to goals and things to do, because, hey, we’ve got a whole year ahead of us; pff! Plenty of time. But come December, we groan about how fast time went by, and darn it, another wasted year where we didn’t do any of the things we wanted to do. Does that sound familiar?

I never make any new year’s resolutions, mainly because I’ve come to accept that no matter how much I plan things out, life will always find a way to mess things up for me so much, that I might as well have been transported to a parallel universe, where nothing seems to work the way it should. There’s a saying here in Greece, which loosely translates to: when men make plans for the future, gods laugh.

Personally, I much prefer to look back and take note of all the important things that I managed to do. A lot of the times I do that for more than just the previous year. It gives me a better perspective. For me, 2017 was the year that I officially embarked on The Journey, as the title of this blog suggests. It took me four years to prepare things, but I did it in the end.

And now I’m getting ready for the next part of The Journey. There’s a vast ocean ahead of me, with few landmarks ahead to guide me, but something tells me I’ll make it to the next destination. I hope it takes me less time to get there, though I’m certain I will arrive at exactly the right time.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all, Happy New Year!

Greece sends you 2018 wishes for good health and joy in your life!

I’ll take a small break from blogging (nothing much, only a couple of weeks maybe), so I’ll see you all around mid January 2018.

May you all have a creative year!

Filed under: Uncategorized

Writing Prompt 51

“It’s not that bad,” Horace said.

“How would you know?” Anuk stabbed her finger on his chest. “You haven’t died a single time yet! Not once! Try dying a hundred thousand times, jumping from body to body, then tell me if it’s bad or not. Not so bad, he says… pfff!”

Horace opened and closed his mouth. His eyes glided over her. “Well, you look great in this body.” He smiled.

Anuk folded her arms and cast Horace a malevolent narrow glance. “You eye-grope me once more, I’ll show you how annoying death is right now.”

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Filed under: Ideas, Inspirational Prompts Tagged: characters, creative writing, fiction, inspiration, inspirational prompt, novel, prompt, short stories, short story, story, writing prompt

Crutch words – WENT (part 1)

When drafting a story, a book, or a poem, we tend to use words that will easily allow us to convey what we have in mind. They help us get the words out fast. It makes sense; it’s a draft, meant only for the writer and only until revisions and edits start. Past that stage, it’s best (for our readers’ sake) to change these words in favour of better and more descriptive ones.

WENT is a word writers like to use often, but one that doesn’t paint a nice picture for the reader. Below are some alternative words you can use. Keep in mind, the list of synonyms for WENT is much bigger, and I will come back to it at a later time with more words. As always, please make sure you use the right replacement at the right moment for best results. Each synonym has a meaning of its own.

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Also, I changed the blog’s front page a bit. It took me hours to get the image mapping to work and to figure out how to fix the html code (I’m soooooo incompatible with such things), but I think the result is better than the old one. The question is, do you like it?

Filed under: Advice, Uncategorized Tagged: advice, creative writing, crutch words, editing, editors, novel, novel problems, novel writing, WENT, writing, writing advice, writing problems, writing tips

Wisps Of Memory – Out now!

Friends, my latest short story, Wisps Of Memory, is now live on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, and others.

It’s a Christmas horror story (as always, not the splatter type) about Ian, a middle-aged loner who lives with the memories of his daughters and grandson, rather than with them, a man who lives on the hope that his loved ones will remember him during the holiday. In the meantime, his nearly paralysed arm starts twitching uncontrollably. A couple of weeks before Christmas, his last friend leaves the country, and Ian finds himself with no one in his life. Day by day, he feels life ebbing away from him.

And this is the cover

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The story was originally published on 9Tales Told In The Dark issue 12, literary magazine on April 2016 and it’s the third and last story I’ll publish this year. Like the stories I published before, Wisps Of Memory costs $0.99 and is available worldwide.

I hope you like it. If you read it, consider reviewing it on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other site you frequent.

As an added note, if you like free books, have a look at this giveaway I’m hosting on Instafreebie. Myself and more than forty other writers have teamed up and are giving away some of our horror and thriller stories (click on the image below to go to the download page). Not a bad gift for the holiday, right? What have you got to lose? They’re all free

Writing Prompt 50

Shelly and David sped past the barb-wires, their fists pumping by their sides. Behind them, the first outpost sounded the alarm. Soon, another answered the call, and another, then all of them.

“You know,” David said, “if we survive this, I’m going to kill you.”

“Good luck with that, frog face,” Shelly said. “I’m not alive anyway. And you are not really here.”

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Filed under: Inspirational Prompts Tagged: characters, creative writing, fiction, ideas, inspiration, inspiration prompt, inspirational prompt, inspirational prompts, novel, novel problems, prompt, writing, writing prompt

Exciting News!!

First of all, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving (those of you who celebrate it) and that you were thankful for a lot of things. We don’t celebrate it here in Greece, but I’m thankful for each and every one of you, as well as everyone in my life.

You may have heard that Pronoun, an e-book distributor owned by Macmillan, terminated its operation (more info here). It just so happened that Pronoun was the distributor I had chosen to publish my stories to retailers other than Amazon.

So now that I’m about to launch my third short story, titled Wisps Of Memory, on December 10, I have to find another distributor. You may think that something like this would be easy, however, since I’m not a US citizen I have to look into it with greater care. The reason for this of course is additional taxes, both here in Greece as well as in the US. I won’t bore you with legal details, but suffice to say that thanks to my brilliant accountant, I’m not far from choosing the next distributor.

So, on December 10 my next horror short story, Wisps Of Memory, will be available worldwide, through most of the big retailers.

Here’s the blurb:

The end doesn’t always come with a bang.

Ian is a loner middle-aged man who lives with the memories of his daughters and grandson, rather than with them. He hopes that they will remember him during the holiday. In the meantime, his nearly paralysed arm starts twitching uncontrollably. A couple of weeks before Christmas, his last friend leaves the country, and Ian finds himself with no one in his life. Day by day, he feels life is ebbing away from him.

If you’re feeling generous or if you’re interested, you can help with this by reviewing it when it comes out. If this interests you, you can sign this form. Please bear in mind though, that doing so will also sign you up for my newsletter. Obviously, you can unsubscribe at any time if you so choose. Signing up means that you will receive a complimentary copy of Wisps Of Memory. It goes without saying that you’re not obliged to review it, but it would sure make me happy and fuzzy and warm inside if you did

Crutch words – Smile/Laugh

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about crutch words and I focused on the word LOOK. Of course, look isn’t the only crutch word writers use. SMILE and LAUGH are two similar words. Keep in mind that the words I include below are not the only ones, but they tend to be used more often than others. Also, some of them are the product of onomatopoeia (Greek word, meaning to create names), and as such they describe a sound. As I mentioned in that earlier post, make sure you understand what each word means before you use them.

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Filed under: Advice, Uncategorized Tagged: advice, creative writing, editing, editors, edits, inspiration, laugh, novel problems, novel writing, smile, word alternatives, writing, writing advice, writing problems, writing tips