Armed with all the information they could salvage from Laria, Rylan’s team emerges from the far side of the Larian sun. Meanwhile Cederic’s team is settling back on the cruiser, fresh from the live world. The captain is eager to orchestrate the debriefing of Cederic and Rylan with the home world. Will Rylan be able to accommodate the captain’s desire for expediency?..

Last month, we witnessed Sylvia’s attempted escape from the Central Kingdom. Unfortunately for her, the mysterious mercenary that injured her captured her. She is reunited with Kameron’s assassin and informed of her fate. Sylvia is to be exiles from their world so she will forever be denied her revenge. This month, we leave Sylvia’s story and return to Harrison’s tale...

Shortly after finishing Lost Chance, I turned my attention to the final tale for the NaNoWriMo shortened month. The benefit of this story was that I got to craft a suspense narrative. Then I looked through all my previous posts and realized how little I’ve done in this field. Thumbing through the posts on my website I found the only other foray into this genre there, The Grave Countdown. I published that story back in January of this year. That tale featured an inspector called Ryan Graves, and after re-reading it, I was eager to explore the inspector’s personality more...

With November being slammed with NaNoWriMo, I knew that if I wanted to finish my next Patreon post done, I would have to burn the proverbial midnight oil. One reason I let myself get so wrapped up in the challenge was because of my second genre for November. I needed to craft my first romance. The other was because Survival has been a story that’s floated in my mind for a long time. But now that I won NaNoWriMo, I put the nearly finished project to the side to wade into the field of romance...

NaNoWriMo came, and I began crafting my initial draft of Survival. When Veteran’s day rolled around, I came down with Shingles. Shingles! It took a few days for the pain to make it into my life. While the vacation helped me get a leg up on the writing, I lost most of the time I earned with the pain that lanced through my head. After being diagnosed, I heard plenty of horror stories about shingles, and I feared that I would be in for a rough few weeks maybe multiple months. Thankfully, I got the antiviral into my body before the pain started, because the pain didn’t linger...

November has been slammed with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I vividly remembered when the genres for the month were selected. I gave them a few minutes of thought before jumping back to my challenge for the month. With another Political Satire on my list of things to write I jumped to the past catalog of NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenges and selected one prompt...

I never heard about National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, until earlier this year. My friend mentioned it when I talked with him about the upcoming NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition. Since I’m trying to develop my prose, I gave it a look. The history of this non-profit slapped me in the face. NaNoWriMo was founded back in 1999 with a simple idea. It challenged authors to write 50,000 words of a book during the month of November. The premise seems easy enough, but when you factor in that people have lives and other responsibilities, it can be a daunting goal. Since the non-profit’s inception, NaNoWriMo has evolved and grown. Besides the main event, they now have other programs offering new events, such as Camp NaNoWriMo...

This year marks the first time that I entered the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition, and I plan on competing for years to come. It was a fantastic opportunity to stretch my writing muscles. Unfortunately, my first assignment was a comedy, which is not my forte. But I crafted a story, Birthday Blowout, that placed within the top fifteen of my group. I got psyched by the result, and I absorbed the feedback from the judges and prepared for the next challenge of round one.

Unlike the initial assignment, when the latest one arrived, I knew how the story would unfold. I took the prompt, Historical Fiction at a school dance with a photo album, and crafted the tale that effortlessly flowed into my mind...

Tombyards & Butterflies, what do you think of when you hear those two words? For me, I can’t put these two objects together. I can’t picture something as beautiful as a butterfly swarming over a tombyard, not that it’s actually a thing. But that’s besides the point. I’m here to talk about the book Tombyards & Butterflies, A Montague and Strong Detective Agency Novel. Honestly, I don’t remember what possessed me to pick the book up. The author is not one of my regulars, and when I re-read the summary, I’m not sucked into the world. But I’m glad that I pulled the trigger and bought this book...

Looking back at my youth, I remember two things that I loved, Greek mythology and Magic the Gathering. The stories of divinities and legends fascinated me, and I dove headfirst into those studies. From the Olympian gods to the Titans, I craved more than I ever got in school. Then outside of school, I enjoyed playing Magic with my friends. Though I also relished collecting the cards and the artwork that inked each one. As with everything, these interests began to wane. Fortunately, college allowed me to explore the lore, but my interest in Magic sputtered out.

Well, a couple of years ago, my friend partially pulled me back into the game. While I didn’t have a strong desire to follow his plunge, he captured my attention with one tidbit. He mentioned that one recent series...

My final Patreon exclusive story for October came up as a political satire. Sitting down at my desk, I mulled over what I could write about but kept coming up short. After banging my head off the wall, I decided to get some guidance and reached back to the past catalog of NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenges and found a prompt. With the skeleton of a story in one hand, I still needed to flesh out the rest of the details. Somehow I needed to come up with a satire that took place in a mayor’s office and featured a magnet...

Rylan’s crew has finished their investigation of the Larian platforms. With dead platforms and an unresponsive storage device, they returned to the ship. While the initial tests proved fruitless, Rylan hoped that data might be recoverable. But with nothing gained from the examination of the platforms or the computers, Rylan guided the shuttle to the last place where they might discern the truth about the massive destruction, Laria’s Records Room...

My second Patreon exclusive story for October is a crime caper, which means Jessica is coming returning. When I wrote my first one, I dove into a high-end thief, and well, Jessica was born. While I still owe her a last name, and she’ll eventually get one, I’ve grown attached to her. I continually reach out to her to pioneer this genre when it comes up. With a main character in hand, I needed a law for her to break...

Last month, we witnessed Sylvia escape a dungeon designed for wizards and battle with a mercenary as well equipped as she is. She escaped her assailant, but she needed to recover before making her next move. And so for this month, we will continue following Sylvia’s story as she strives to understand what happened to her life...

The Aurorans dispatch a ship, Escort One, to the first planet in the solar system. Early in the trip, Britt argues with the pilot Isaac about every detail. Despite those arguments, Isaac and Jessica pilot Escort One to the new world. Once they settle into orbit, they begin the required surveys. As they orbit the planet, they wait for the surveys to conclude...