Author Journey (July 28, 2025)
I‘ve had another two weeks in England which included a weekend in London, staying in a rather stunning hotel just off Oxford Street. That combined with just travelling around the English countryside has left me fired up to get back to writing.
Author Journey (July 28, 2025)
What happened?
Several of my story drafts take place in England, which isn’t that surprising considering I grew up there. Anyhow, being back and seeing some of the places that inspired me in the first place has made me even more determined to get back to writing. Lots of ideas have come flooding back to me along with all the weird and wonderful details that I think will make my stories that much more unique. It’s been fun showing the kids around and letting them experience many of the things I did growing up, although they would rather be on their iPads…
We’ve also been watching a few movies which has been fun. I haven’t watched any anime or read any manga, but we have watched the first three Kung Fu Panda movies. I’d forgotten just how amazing they are. At some point point, I will revisit them again and write down my thoughts because I have many. We’ll be heading home soon which will be nice. It’s great seeing family and visiting new places, but I do miss my routines, even if they are often interrupted by real life family events… Anyhow, since I’m still on vacation and not up to much with regards to this site, I’m going to tell you about the time I bested Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker! You might want to sit down for this.
A Multi-Author Project!
In 2018, I was making progress with my writing. I had written almost three hundred thousand words of my dark fantasy series and had even published several volumes as novellas. I had also joined a writing group of likeminded authors. We discussed everything that was going on daily. We read each other’s work and offered feedback and advice. Then we came up with the idea of producing a collection of short stories. Well, that seemed to obvious so we decided to do things a little differently.
Instead of creating a single book, we decided to create a series, similar to The Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone. We came up with some ideas to link the stories, all be it very loosely, and started putting together our stories. Over twelve weeks in the summer of 2018, we published one story a week, each by the individual author. It was a lot of fun reading everyone’s stories. The variety was incredible, even with them all falling under the fantasy and science fiction umbrella.
Once all of the stories had been released, we arranged for them all to be free for a weekend. Then, we promoted the hell out of it. Who wouldn’t want twelve free books? I don’t have access to the numbers here, but it was very successful which was how I managed to rise to the number one spot in the free horror list on Amazon, beating Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allen Poe. This screenshot alone made it all worth while.
Sadly, most of these stories have been unpublished as the authors have used them for other things since then, but it just showed the impact you can make with a small group of people working together. None of us had particularly massive email lists or followings on social media, but together we were able to reach so many more people.
My story was called Asteroidea and was a homage to movies like The Thing and Alien. I also unpublished it a while back since I want to create a series with the characters and the world. Basically, lots of ridiculous monsters from around the universe. I’ve already got several ideas at the ready. I just need go get back to writing.
And then what happened?
After that, I took some time off to raise our second child and suddenly had no time to write. The most I could manage was keeping this site running since that didn’t require the same level of focus. A couple of years back, I unpublished everything I had released with the plan to rewrite them and start over again. Things haven’t quite gone to plan, but this site has been a welcome distraction. The way things are growing, I should have a wonderful place to reveal my new releases once they are ready.
So, that was another tale from my previous life as a published author. Just like the last Author Journey, it has been a lot of fun to talk about. It definitely feel more inspired to get back to writing, and combined with my visit to Europe, I can feel it all coming together. As soon as I’m back, I’m going to get back to work with the goal of having something ready to publish in the New Year… maybe sooner… I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for reading.
