Going Down - Finale

Colin had found papers explaining the conspiracy that had taken his life. A gorgeous naked girl appeared from nowhere.

“I’m Tasha,” said the girl, “from a grim future you created.”
“That’s what it says here.”
“Do they say I have to kill you?”
“No, but apparently you can fix my iPod.” He laid the stylish gadget beside her hand.
She tapped her wristpad. The iPod turned on.
Colin’s sense of personal status and satisfaction returned. All of the bitterness that had consumed the future was gone.
Tasha vanished, paradoxically, from existence. Colin put in his earphones and left the office.


So there we are, 7 one hundred word chapters in seven days.
And what have I learned from this? Mainly that it is quite fun to just run at a story without any clue about where its going, BUT, it would be best to review and re-write before putting it out there. I feel a few changes a couple of chapters ago would have made the ending make more sense.

And the other thing I learn is that I really do benefit from a deadline. At least something gets written when there's one to spur me on, even if it is just my own deadline.

Tomorrow, the novel continues. Tonight, young Colin goes back to his life...or does he?

Going Down Part 6

“Tell us,” said Vellus, the Leader, “The name on the discs?”

Colin shrugged. “An office in Swindon. Taking away people’s lives, erasing them. From all systems.”

“The name?” said Vellus. Tasha watched a monitor.

“My name.”

“Time travel,” said Tasha. “Screws everything. The drones are getting closer.”

Vellus sighed. “If we send you back, you’ll take charge of everything.”

Colin smiled. “Kill me now.”

“No need,” said Tasha. “The drones are here.” She tapped her wristpad.”

The drones poured death upon their bunker.

In the office in Swindon, Colin looked up. A naked girl had appeared in front of him.

Is Colin finally dead? Or is he behind the whole conspiracy? Is there any hope that any of this will make any sense at all?

Tune in tomorrow for the last part!!!!

Going Down - Part 5

Colin’s hut was obliterated. With him in it.

He sat up. A car flew past the window.

“That worked, then,” said the brunette, donning a black body suit. Colin was naked.

She threw him a suit. “Clothes don’t do time travel. I’m Tasha.”

“Time travel?”

“Yes. You were completely incinerated. But you’re too important to die. I had to save you.”

Colin felt tingly as he dressed.

“Sub-atomic mapping.”

She glanced out the window. Drones fired energy bolts at them.

Tasha tapped the wall. A green glow appeared. She grabbed Colin.

Colin’s body dissolved. They flew into the energy stream.

Hmm, all getting a bit weird now - who would have thought that there would be time travel? Certainly not me...at least, until I had to think of some way of getting Colin out of the hut.

More tomorrow as we thunder towards our big finale....and I promise, no cop-outs!

Going Down - Part 4

And on we go......

Sergeant Stein was satisfied with the test firing. Admittedly, it was hardly the toughest shot, just an old hut.

Obviously, the hut was uninhabited.

Though, there had been that flash in the window.

But his Commander said it was empty, so that was that.

The Commander didn’t question the mission. He reported its success to the Ministry.

The Civil servant approved the report and sent it to the Department.

The department noted the approval and sent it to the originator.

In an Office in Swindon, a box was ticked, and the paper filed.

No need for questions. Everything was approved.

Crikey - I've only got three hundred words to wrap this thing up! Did Colin escape? And if so, HOW?

A quick Beta City update - I asked what was happening with the anthology and the editor, Michael C Lea was good enough to get back - it's all still moving forward, abeit a little slowly, mainly due to various issues.

I really hope I make the cut with this one - Michael has a professional approach so I'd hope that this would be a really good book to be in. Fingers continue to be crossed.

"Rockets, swords and rainbows", however, seems to have slid into some strange limbo and I don't seem to get any updates...

Ah well, I will carry on hammering out my novel - hopefully finish the first rough-as draft by year end then I will revisit my homeless short stories, see if I can spruce them up a bit and find them homes.

Going Down - Part 3

And on to Part 3 - a bit of exposition, a smidge of character development and a challenge for our protagonist.

Colin’s life had been rubbed out. Made redundant, defriended from Facebook, bank accounts closed. Utilities had been cut-off and even his flat had been let to someone else. But Colin was no ordinary person; he was an ex-Extreme Customer Service Representative.

In his Orkneys hideaway, he searched through stolen disks on his old PC. One address kept coming up, an office in Swindon.

Now it was time to take his life back.

And then he noticed the tiny chip on the stolen disk. Then he heard the ominous sound of helicopter blades.

The missiles hit the hut; the hut exploded.

This is turning into an interesting writing exercise - just a rush of pure narrative. Character, description (of characters and places etc), dialogue - all have to take a bit of a back seat, but the story just has to charge forward.

So, stay tuned for Part 4 tomorrow - will our hero escape? Who or what is based in the office in Swindon? Don't ask me - I won't find until tomorrow either. I'm sure Colin will be OK...or  will he?

Going Down - Part 2

So far, so good, so generally coherent.... in the first episode, Colin's life was falling apart having lost his job, his girlfriend, his iPod and finally, his bank account. BUT, it's time to fight back.....

The Bank Manager was scared, because a customer had actually found him and because he was hanging over the edge of a tall building.

“I want my account back,” snarled Colin.

“They won’t let us.”
“Who won’t?”
The Manager shut up, more scared of “them” than Colin.
Colin left him hanging. In the Manager’s office he found some “floppy” disks.

Back at Colin’s flat, there were some serious Goons around. It had come to this; somehow, Colin always knew it would.

Two days later, in a hideaway in the Orkneys, Colin fired up his Atari ST and inserted the disks.

New Zealand Spec Fic Blogging Week - Post1

Seven days - seven drabbles (being a story EXACTLY 100 words long).

And these seven drabbles will be seven, 100 word chapters of a daily serial story. The challenge is that I refuse to make a plan ahead - I'll write each one each day and have to make it work. So we will see..

So here goes with Chapter One of what I am calling "Going Down":

It was a bad week. Made redundant, broken iPod, girlfriend defriending him on Facebook. Then he opened the letter from the bank.

His account was closed because he failed to respond to two letters that he never received. He called the bank.

After a couple of hours, an actual human spoke to him.
“You failed to respond, we closed your account.”
“Where’s my money, then?”
“But you don’t have an account.”
After an hour of this, Colin realised that he wasn’t speaking to a human after all.

But they’d messed with the wrong man. It was time to fight back.

The sweet smell of rejection....

Ah well - last month I promised my Monster Hunter story would be out there by now - it went out there and came right back. To be honest, it was written because there was a deadline, not really from a sense that I had a story to tell, so it couldn't help but be a bit clunky and odd.
Also - my tale of rock'n'roll'n'zombies got spat back - at least not actually rejected but the anthology that it was intended for has been put on hold for at least a year...which is a pity because I quite liked that one. We will see where else it can go. Suggestions welcome.
The anthology that "Trip Hawker and The asteroid of Vengeance" was supposed to be going into seems to have frozen - no updates, no replies etc for months.
Hopefully my superhero story will make the final cut for its anthology (and hopefully there'll be updates for that soon..).

HOWEVER - as I said last time round, the Spec Fic meet-up fired up my writing muscles and I have started on The Novel - called, at least at this stage, "The Power". It's meant to be Ian M Banks meets Jack Kirby - superhero schenanigans with some blunt edges. I had the idea of writing this piece of prose in a series of chapters like a series running through several comic books, giving me the chance to bounce between the major viewpoints as we go. I did a load of rough, rambling background and have now got stuck in. I've managed 5500 words in six days, and WILL write at least something every day on this until its FINISHED. And lo, it shall be so.

Unless Spec Fic Blogging week gets in the way. From next Monday 19th September, I'll be blogging every day for a week along with a 7 episode drabble story - 100 words an episode for 7 days - I wonder what I'll end up with?

Today's Drabble - inspired by the continual lurch between financial crises that the US and Europe seem to find themselves in these days..

It seemed that the shovelling was nearly finished. The shift leader, Gork had realised that there hadn’t been any massive trucks for at least an hour. Nothing new had been added to the pile.
“Nearly finished, lads.”
The boys got stuck in again, shoving piles of paper and metal into the hole.
Gork’s phone rang. He listened and groaned. “Sorry lads, they agreed to give the Government more money.” They heard trucks approaching.
The trucks tipped out more good money. It didn’t take long for it to rot down to bad money. It all got poured into the bottomless pit.