The State of Affairs

Okay, so I've been talking a lot about my upcoming collection of horror stories 'Beneath Dark Waters'. I've added this thingy to my banner saying I've won an honourable mention in the Lucid Hills Spring Contest and I've been talking a lot about writing horror and literature in general.

But what of my stories? What do I do on my days off? And what can you expect of me in the future? In other words, The State of Affairs as of February 2011!

Past - Until about 4 years ago I made my money traveling around the world and working as a freelance photographer. Most notably I worked as a photographer on cruise ships for three years, but I also did work as a nature photographer and I shot some weddings in my day. Before that, I studied Marketing, specializing in Copywriting. If you want to know how that ended, read my earlier post on Doing What You Like.

I gave up my photography career in the spring of 2008 when I found myself shooting families in a small town studio and hating it. In May of that year I started on the first stories for Beneath Dark Waters. I submitted the collection to various publishers, but not to much avail.

In the winter of 2010 I decided to go rogue, or indie, or self-publisher, or whatever the term is you use. I decided to offer my stories to the public myself, instead of going through the traditional channels. I spent a good deal of time learning the ropes, getting to know my way around the Internet and trying a whole bunch of stuff that didn't work.

Present - And that basically leads to where I am today. 'Beneath Dark Waters' has been proofed and is on its way to be printed now. It'll soon be available to anyone through this blog or the Floating Robes website. 

I'm revising a short novella I wrote called 'When the Ground's too Hard for Digging', which is basically a rework of a long short story. It features Arthur Stoffle, an elderly man living in the rural flat-lands of North-Western Holland. He's quite content with his life, until one night he is visited by a dark stranger who has nasty plans for the world in general and Mr. Stoffle in particular.

The book is now in post-production Hell, which basically means I need to find the time to sit down and revise it properly, reread the third draft and pick out the little flaws and such. Then I need to design the cover and send it off to the printer. Of course I'll keep you posted on this.

In the meantime I've been keeping myself busy with writing more short stories, one of which 'The Art of Bullying' has won the infamous honourable mention in the Lucid Hills Spring Contest. It's about a high-school bully who dies and goes to Purgatory. Since it's quite humourous, I'm thinking of turning it into an illustrated story, but I've yet to find an artist whom I can afford. Anyone?

Two more short stories are in post-production Limbo, 'In Darkness' and 'The Angel' (working titles). Both are due for the end of March when I plan to submit them to various contests. 'In Darkness' is my first attempt at writing flash fiction and so far I'm liking the experience. I plan to publish an article on flash writing soon, so keep checking back.

Future - For now, I think I have my hands full. Nonetheless, since Easter 2010 when we visited family in Switzerland, I've been thinking about a humourous novella set in a fictitious country in the middle of Europe steeped in dark history, witchcraft, necromancers and what not. It won't be full-blown dark fantasy, but there will be some elements there. I've written the first part (around 10.000 words), but I need to 'percolate' some more. So that's on hold for now.

In this day and age, with the Internet and various ways of consuming entertaining fiction, I need to redo Beneath Dark Waters in various formats as well. These include MP3 and E-Book publication. I need to figure out how those work and market them properly. This will also be very time-consuming, but also very enjoyable.

So I have much to keep busy with. Writing is just one part of the whole experience. But then, JUST writing the stories might become a bit dull after a while. I'm happy to have set myself this challenge and am curious to see how things will work out. 

If reading this post has whetted your appetite for some of my writing, please stake out the Free Stories section and see what I can do. I agree, it's not a fair representation of my range yet, but I'm sure you'll find something enjoyable there.

Until next time, take care and keep reading!