The editing of Fraternity of Greed continues and in the interim I'm continuing to keep my chops up with short stories. I just published this last weekend Extended Stay to Amazon for the Kindle. While I certainly didn't break the bank with downloads of Massacre in the Suburbs, it's nice to able to get something out and available to the public for critique quickly and easily.
I just wanted to take a second to talk about the writing process for Extended Stay since it was different from Massacre in the Suburbs. I took a page from Stephen King's advice on writing that the first draft of writing should be completely private. It's very difficult, especially when you finish a good passage or come up with something you're particularly proud of not to share it with everyone, but I found that keeping the story to myself helped keep me on track. I then opened up the story to editing help to friends and family close to me and found that it was much more useful. In fact, three of the editors noted the same plot issue which I had overlooked and was able to correct.
Starting the story was interesting though. If you search down on the blog you'll find an entry entitled Extended Stay. It was simply just a creative ramble I did one night when I needed to write. I posted it on this blog and several folks said reading it made them want to know more about the narrator. I then took that little snip of a story, turned it into a letter and built a character and plot around it. The final product is quirky and weird making you scratch your head but I kind of like that result. It added depth to the character which was hard to do in 15 or so pages.
Finally the picture I used for the "cover" if you can really call it a cover, since it is for Kindle, is a picture I took of the inside of a wine bottle, looking into the neck while I pointed the bottle at a nearby light. The result is a kind of sick overwhelming feeling, that I think really defines the agoraphobia the main character feels.
If you feel like purchasing it, go to Amazon: Extended Stay and purchase for .99 cents! Not too bad for about 30 minutes of entertainment in my opinion. You can also head to my Author page at Amazon: Jeff Shipp to see short stories as I publish them or posts from this blog as well.
I just wanted to take a second to talk about the writing process for Extended Stay since it was different from Massacre in the Suburbs. I took a page from Stephen King's advice on writing that the first draft of writing should be completely private. It's very difficult, especially when you finish a good passage or come up with something you're particularly proud of not to share it with everyone, but I found that keeping the story to myself helped keep me on track. I then opened up the story to editing help to friends and family close to me and found that it was much more useful. In fact, three of the editors noted the same plot issue which I had overlooked and was able to correct.
Starting the story was interesting though. If you search down on the blog you'll find an entry entitled Extended Stay. It was simply just a creative ramble I did one night when I needed to write. I posted it on this blog and several folks said reading it made them want to know more about the narrator. I then took that little snip of a story, turned it into a letter and built a character and plot around it. The final product is quirky and weird making you scratch your head but I kind of like that result. It added depth to the character which was hard to do in 15 or so pages.
Finally the picture I used for the "cover" if you can really call it a cover, since it is for Kindle, is a picture I took of the inside of a wine bottle, looking into the neck while I pointed the bottle at a nearby light. The result is a kind of sick overwhelming feeling, that I think really defines the agoraphobia the main character feels.
If you feel like purchasing it, go to Amazon: Extended Stay and purchase for .99 cents! Not too bad for about 30 minutes of entertainment in my opinion. You can also head to my Author page at Amazon: Jeff Shipp to see short stories as I publish them or posts from this blog as well.
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