Tag Archives: fantasy

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty-Six

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates, One Hundred Days of Blogging

Today was busy, eventful, and generally good.

However, I’m also entirely okay saying this post is being used as a cheat-day for the sake of focusing on creative writing projects. And because I just had a thirteen hour work-day, and I don’t have an idea I like enough to bother. Especially after the last two turned out so unfortunately.

On one hand, I’m really excited I have a book on its way to being published (FYI: it’s Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King, which shouldn’t be surprising).

In closing, I have a question for you all (or at least those of you who comment…so a select few, I guess). How does Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King sound as an official book one title? I know I’ve had it listed on the Joshua’s Nightmares page for a while, but I want to know what people think.

Wishing everyone a happy, productive hump day, I guess.

 

Sixty-four (just like one of Nintendo’s best, most carpal tunnel syndrome-furthering systems) days remaining.

Fantastic News

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates, Misadventures in Fiction

I had another post planned for tonight, which would argue the validity of fanfiction and so on. I’m sorry, but that’s getting postponed.

Just this once, however, I can say it’s not because of laziness. I’m excited to say I have tremendous, fantastic news. I checked my e-mail, and I honestly can’t remember why, and found this waiting for me.

Hi Phil,
You are the winner of our book publishing contest on Facebook. When you get a chance, please email us your manuscript so we can get started on publishing your book!
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Alexandria White
Collaborative Publishing Manager
CaryPress
~ Your Books in Your Fans’ Hands and Hearts
Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. How do I even react?! I e-mailed them some questions, of course, but now I’m just freaking out. I’m excited, and a little anxious.
The manuscript I’m sending? Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King, of course! Mention of it being a two-book series hasn’t come up yet, but hopefully that can be another thing that happens down the road. For now, I’m just ridiculously excited, kind of terrified, and eager to set some even loftier goals for myself. Holy shit, people.
I will probably be completely intolerable for at least the next forever.

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Twenty-Eight

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

I feel a hell of a lot better than I did last night, so that means I’ll be able to focus on tonight’s blog entry a little better (in between little kitten keyboard dances). I took a glorious nap after work, which seems a little silly since my initial plans for tonight included a post going into how I need to work on building better writing habits by doing and not doing certain things. Like how I should break my cycle of post-work naps that tend to last far longer than they should. That post will still happen, of course.

Just not on a day I napped for two hours. I’m not that big of a hypocrite, damn it.

Marceline the Kitten Queen is settling into her new home well. She’s learned she can jump very high. It’s very cute when she jumps up to windowsills or joins Brianne or me on the couch. It’s less cute when she keeps hopping up onto the table so she can sample my dinner. Needless to say, it’s a bit difficult to focus now that there is an adorable new kitten here, making a total of three adorable cat-beasts in the house.

That’s why tonight’s post is going to be about murder. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Twenty-Five

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

One quarter of the way through this madness, and so I’m celebrating with a cheat-post from my phone. I’d say I’m sorry, but there’s marathon-cleaning when I get home.

Home from what? Seeing Guardians of the Galaxy! Holy crap. I can see why people called GotG one of Marvel’s best movies to date. Magnificent. An exceptional blend of comedy, action, drama, and explosions (take note, Michael Bay, you sack of poorly-scripted shit). I owe it a proper review. Seriously, why are you still reading this when you should be seeing Guardians of the Galaxy?!

Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Fourteen

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Did I commit to one hundred days of blogging? Or was it one thousand? It feels like it’s going to be a thousand. Feel free to mock me for bitching already.

This is a glorious Tuesday, except for the impressive number of hours that were absolute shit. However, the important bits remained important, and I’m pretty stoked about those. Tonight will be another pop culture-loaded nerd-post, which should be a nice break from my writing posts. Or maybe not.

Tuesday nights are sacred in the Wacky Shack to begin with, and this Tuesday was just full of awesome. And this intro has been dragged out far too long. Continue reading →

This Week in Misadventures – A Self-Intervention

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Oh, hey. It’s Sunday, which normally means it’s time for me to stumble through all of the writing, reading, and other nutty antics I’ve gotten into throughout the past week, highlighting both victories and failures alike. I enjoy those posts, because they were a start to me making sure I was regular (toilet humor goes here) with posting to Misadventures In Fiction while also making sure I kept up with my writing, reading, and…miscellaneous antics? Whatever. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Eleven

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

Today’s post is certainly cutting it close to the deadline, but I’m mostly okay with that. Probably. Maybe freaking out a little. However, this late posting is partially thanks to going out for ice cream and watching unexpected fireworks, and suddenly I have an unexpected lead-in to the topic I’d wanted to write about.

The Universe works in mysterious ways, while I speak this rhyme of clichés? Yeah. Let’s go ahead and wipe that last sentence from our collective memory. No looking back. Don’t you dare, damn it. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Ten

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Today was a frustrating day, with much potential wasted thanks to a lingering writing funk. The writing funk made a peculiar transition to a different issue, in which I had three short stories fighting for my attention at once. I’ve had this happen before, but I could never quite sort it out on my own. I either let it sort itself out, or I just went without writing for a while.

Forgive the moment of fanboying, but I instead took this opportunity to tweet C. Robert Cargill (best-selling author of Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things) and ask him for advice. He’s an author, so I figured 1) he would have some pretty solid wisdom he could impart, and 2) he wouldn’t respond because best-selling authors have more important things to do. And then he responded, and I melted into a shrieking jelly-like blob of star-struck dumbness.

He suggested I write the story most ready to be worked on, and let the other two wait. This story, a mini-series just for this project, happened while I was taking a short drive earlier to try clearing my head a little. It was a lot of fun to write, and I hope it proves fun to read as it was a little out of my comfort zone (the humor is more subdued compared to the fantasy aspects of this piece). It’s only the beginning so far, but I promise there will be more before long. Continue reading →

The Maskmaker’s Apprentice

Posted on by under Short Stories

This short story popped into my head a couple nights ago, and demanded attention when I was too tired to provide such thought-requiring things. I started working on it last night, and continued on it most of today. I’m very happy with the end product. I considered sending it out for publication consideration, but I’m instead opting to be a story-dragon and keep it in my hoard. That is to say that I wanted to share it with those of you who misadventure alongside me at Misadventures in Fiction. I really hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Without further rambling, I present “The Maskmaker’s Apprentice”.

Continue reading →

Old stories, new stories, and Saturday miscellany

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction

Or “I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m accomplishing outside of work this weekend is licking windows, and I’m not entirely thrilled with that”.

Holiday weekends always leave me a bit catawampus. Friday seemed liked Saturday, and today seemed like Sunday, so I’ll probably wake up early tomorrow, very afraid I’ve missed the weekly conference call at work. I’m probably kidding.

Today was filled with unexpected episodes of nostalgia, which is the worst kind of nostalgia. It inflicted memories on me that I was happy to revisit, and some I could’ve done without spending time focusing on. Enough about that, though.

This isn’t a post about today’s weirdness so much as it is a post about tomorrow’s hopeful productivity. That’s the exciting stuff, I hope. The plan is to get up relatively early, which is easy enough since I’m no longer able to sleep past 8a.m. anyway, and get as much writing done as possible. I can’t think up a sufficiently clever name for it, so Sunday Marathon Writing Bonanza-Thing. It’ll be a little of the old, a little of the new, and enough writing to make my fingers bleed. Two stories that helped inspire my post on my story mortality rate. A story inspired by The Bloggess’ Fourth of July tweets. A story idea that happened at work or while I was celebrating yesterday or at some point other than those. I’m a master of Fuzzy Thinking today, with some particularly impressive Mush-Brain attributes. Maybe a new Warpt Factor, unless all of my fingers have fallen off by that point.

I’m beta-testing the pilot episode for Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting before, you know, recording an actual first episode. Not before figuring out how to convert and upload the pilot, of course. So that should be its own misadventure in dumbassery.

There’s also some exciting news for This Week in Misadventures. I guess I could just say how the news is about [redacted] and [withheld], but not without forgetting [spoilers].

I’m so goddamn funny.

That’s all for tomorrow. Tonight’s for recovering, Adventure Time, and remembering what day it is, because I still keep thinking it’s Sunday. In about an hour, that’ll be right…so hooray for small victories. I hope you all, dear readers, enjoyed a pleasant Fourth of July with your bald eagles, burgers wrapped in steak, and your assault rifles that launch fireworks, and avoided the standard Fifth of July Hangover. See you lovely folks tomorrow for the standard weekly recap.