Tag: grim5next

Crashland, Voting Closing Soon!

Hey all. I wanna thank people who’ve been coming by in the last few weeks to read my story chapters and vote on what they wanted to see happen. Overall, I am very impressed with the response and have been enjoying the process immensely. However, Chapter 6 has been experiencing a bit of deadlock. Between the three options I typically offer, there has been no clear winner as of yet.

Since things ended on a cliffhanger note, I am very eager to get Chapter 7 going, but that can’t happen until an outcome is determined. And believe me when I say that the best is yet to come! Action, adventure, and some generally post-apocalyptic coolness that is just waiting to happen!

I’m calling on all Story Time fans (and my personal ones, if there are any ;)) to come on by and vote on their favorite outcome. Things are really coming together now but I need you to give them that added push. Voting shall remain open until the end of the weekend, so there’s still time. Come on by and help make this story unfold 🙂

Crashland – Chapter 6, now appearing at Story Time!

Okay, we’re definitely getting good turnover here! Much like with the last chapter, the votes for Chapter 5 of Crashland were pretty quick and decisive. Audiences got to me right away and let me know with a fair degree of certainty what they wanted to see happen. Naturally, I was obligated to honor these requests and fashion the following chapter accordingly, and I am happy to announce its now done!

Having found his way to what appeared like safety, William Holden woke up to find himself in an abandoned subway tube, his wounds patched up, and facing a group of men who wanted to know who he was. Also, these men let him know, somewhat indirectly, that based on the quality of his answers, they just might let him live. Basically, they wanted to know if he would be of any use to them, or just a waist of resources.

I asked audiences what Holden was to do. Was he to pretend he was just a simple victim of street violence, a thug himself who had been injured in street fight, or the billionaire mogul that he truly is? And the audience replied, he was to lie and pretend to be a simple businessman who got jumped. Come on over to Story Time to see what came of that and what’s going to happen next!

Cover Art for Worlds Undone… done!

Big news from Grim5next, the writer’s group that I joined a few months back. After months of discussions, suggestions, and back and forth from all members concerned, we’ve come up with a title for our first anthology. And after much collaboration with artists and design platforms, I’ve finally finished work on our covers! Here’s what our first anthology, a collection of dystopian literature and art, will look like:

Here is what the paperback cover will look like, with artwork provided by Ashley Evans. Check out her artwork on deviantArt: cazzyae at deviantart

And here’s what the ebook cover will look like. Like all ebook icon, it’s been scaled down to a single page format. Less bells and whistles, but it gets the job done!

Stay tuned for the release of the book, which should be in a few months time. We need time to gather all the talent and condense all of it into the proper, singular format. And, case your interested, some material will be provided by yours truly, a short story titled “Hunluan”. Incidentally, it is related to “Crashlands”, the serial novel taking shape over at Story Time.

Oh, incidentally, this is my 200th post on this site. Another milestone! Weeeeeee!

Crashland – chapter 4, coming soon!

First off, let me thank all those readers who have been coming by Story Time.me to read my cyberpunk story Crashland and vote on it. For those who don’t know, all stories at Story Time are works of serial fiction, meaning audiences get to vote on what they want to see happen. So far, I’ve received plent of votes from dedicated readers who let me know exactly which outcomes they wanted for the first three chapters. But, as they say, there’s been a snag.

In chapter three, the main character of Holden awoke from a terrible vision to find that he had been stabbed and that one of his assailants had also been mortally wounded. Determining that he could still crawl to his destination, he was nevertheless deterred when he realized that the man he’d shot in self-defense would die without help. A terrible choice had to be made by Holden, and by the readers. Faced with a dying man, his own wounds, and the ongoing need to get to somewhere safe, would he:

  1. Help the man?
  2. Leave him behind?
  3. End his suffering (i.e. kill him)? 
  4. Stay with him until the end?

Well, thus far the votes have been pretty mixed. All outcomes got their share of votes, but unfortunately two (I won’t say which) are neck in neck. So please, come on by and make some more votes so we can break this deadlock and move the story forward. Doesn’t matter if you’ve voted already, as long as we get some tie-breakers! The story must go on. Thank you all!

Crashland – Chapter 2, now appearing at Story Time!

A few days ago, I went looking for pictures which I felt perfectly encapsulated the story I was going for. I wanted something that spoke of desperation, of shock, awe and terror, yet also captured the drive and determination of people who had to continue no matter what. This print is what I found…

Beautiful isn’t it? Not to mention inspiring. It is for this reason that I chose to post it as the chapter header for Crashland – chapter 2, which is appearing now at Story Time.me. For those who don’t know, this is serial website where audiences get to vote on how they want the story to unfold. The first chapter is a set-up for the rest of the story which develops through audience participation.

In the case of Crashlands, the audience was given an apocalyptic scenario where the world of the near future was brought to its knees through infopocalypse. In the opening chapter, the story’s main character, William Holden, found himself along in the streets of the darkened city hoping to find help. It ended with him being confronted by a series of dark shadows, men he suspected meant to do him harm. Audiences were asked what Holden should try to do… Run away, attack the men, or try to reason with them.

After days of letting the votes come in, it seems the audience has spoken. Option C is how things will unfold! Come on by and check out Chapter 2 and see what comes of Holden’s attempts to talk his way out of this mess!

Crashland – Chapter 2

Time’s running out to get your votes in. Crashland, my cyberpunk contribution to the serial novel site of Story Time.com has been up for a week and the votes have been trickling in. In Chapter 1, the great crash occured, and the story’s protagonist found himself wandering in the dark towards the only lights still on in the city. It ended with him being confronted by a group of men in the street, and they seemed intent on stopping him…

From that chapter, I asked voters what they wanted to see next. Would Holden try to reason with them, would he attack them, or would he run away? All of this is pursuant to his making his way to the middle of the town where there appears to be some kind of rescue effort in effect. What he does here could either end his chances of reuniting with his family or simply be a diversion along a long and difficult path.

Out of ten votes so far, seven said they wanted to see Holden try to reason with the men. One said to attack, two said to run away. But there’s still time to determine his fate. You have the power readers, after all, this is a serial novel. What you say, goes!

Crashland-chapter 1

Now Appearing at Story Time

“An author should always seek to engage their audience making them care about the characters and invest in the worlds those characters inhabit, be they current or future versions of our world or other worlds entirely. A good story relies on forming a connection with the reader that will make the conflicts expressed in the narrative mean something.

Story Time will try to take that engagement further, where readers decide how the story will unfold.”

That is how Story Time’s founder, Goran Zidar, describes this new serial novel site. Here, audiences are encouraged to read the opening chapter of a story, then become active participants in how it will unfold. Simply go to the site, select a story, then choose from a list of options. The votes are then tabulated, and the next chapter is created released!

This site, I should note, began as part of Writer’s Worth/Grim5next. Those who are participating are member, and as one such person, I myself decided to join. This I did partly for fun, but mainly so I could head up its Cyberpunk division 😉 The first installment in that division, and the third story to open on the site, is titled “Crashland”. This is a future-tale I just started, set in an apocalyptic near-future where a killer virus has struck and is crippling the world’s information networks, bringing civilization as we know it to an end.

I invite all people to come on by and be part of the creative process! I’m excited myself since this is the first time I’ve ever taken part in a serial novel. Follow the link below to find the story in progress!:

http://story-time.me/2012/04/19/crashland-chapter-1/

New Website: Grim5next!

collide_2Not long ago, I joined a new writing project, known as Writer’s Worth, which I learned about through Goodreads. At the time, I thought it might be a good opportunity to rub shoulders with other writers, get some promotional stuff going, swap ideas, etc.

However, in the few shorts weeks that I’ve been part of this group, I’ve found so much more worth than I expected (yes, that was a pun, my apologies!) For starters, we’ve commissioned an anthology project known as “Worlds Undone”. This book not only gave me a chance to write what I like best, dystopian lit, but also inspired me to explore the genre of dystopian sci-fi more fully.

And that, I am pleased to note, led to my being “freshly pressed” for the first time! Yep, it seemed that the first article in my dystopian series – entitled Dystopian Science Fiction – garnered some attention over at WordPress.com. As a result, I got more traffic in two days than I have in over a year. Or, to put it another way, I tripled my overall amount of hits. Went from just under 4000 views to just over 11000 in the thirty-six hours. Wow…

Inner_city_by_aksuYeah, that was nice. But not as nice as my new group coming together to develop this anthology. And since I have some experience with the self-publishing thing, I volunteered to tackle the dust-jacket design and produced some pretty kick-ass covers, if I do say so myself. But I can hardly take all or even most of the credit.

No, the real credit goes to the artists – Ashley Evans and Alex Popescu  – famed artists who agreed to let us use their cover work to fashion a decent cover. I also posted top contenders in a photoshare over at Shaw. However, the winner will be posted on the website itself soon, so feel free to come by and check it out. We could use some outside opinions, just to make sure we’re not patting ourselves on the back too much!

In any case, named in honor of our first anthology, the site is called Grim5next, since the anthology contains three categories: “Grim Futures”, “Last 5 Minutes”, and “What’s Next?”. It’s an exciting process, and I look forward to the end product! Stay tuned if you want to know how and where to get a copy 🙂

http://grim5next.blogspot.co.uk/