Alan Place - Fantasy Writer

 The Fantasy Writer

Alan Place - Multi-Genre Writer

Yesterday, my writing expanded into a new genre.

With the sale of my eBook, The Fortress, I sold a Fantasy story.

There a few genres I have not sold a short story in, mainly sex stories. I am not a prude, several of my stories, including some in the WIP files, have sex in, but they are NOT sex stories. I did try to write a sex story, but found the task hard and boring (no pun)

I can't justify the cost

 Publicity costs

A double-edged dilemma

The cost of publicity for my books, is a double-edged dilemma for me.

I can't justify spending over £300 when I rarely sell an eBook, but with proper publicity I may recoup my outlay. That IS the issue, I MAY recoup the costs. My eBook sales earn on a good month, which I rarely have, $10

Should I write again?

 The Appeal of my eBook - The Awakening

The growing WIP

The recent interest in my story, The Awakening, has got me thinking should I start writing again?

I have a wide range of partially written stories in my WIP file that I could expand.

I used to write to escape from the rows my step-son created in the house, mainly aimed at me. Now my wife has passed away, I find myself lost most of the day.

Some of the time, I visit my friend, Clara, in Whitchurch, not far from where I live in Hartcliffe, Bristol, but Clara has her life to live. At the moment, our relationship is not established - from my perspective - as we are yet to meet

Did girls see me as attractive in my teens?

 My What if moment

Loss of Innocence

Over the years, I have gone over a moment in my school days, and asked the same question, what if I hadn't ran away?

The incident happened when I was cornered in a passageway by four girls I knew. I didn't have an idea, at the time what they wanted, my only thought was escape.

As girls mature quicker, I wondered if their intentions were not aggresive, but sexual?

I admit two of the girls were very attractive, and the others were not unattractive. If they had got their way (if their intentions were sexual), it would have chenged my view on sex radically.

As it was I had to wait another 12 years for my first encounter, and that put me off sex for another six years, then only because I met a young lady, on a blind date, who I later married

The Living Dead

 Immortality

                                     The Cursed

I would imagine many people, I include myself, have thought about immortality, and the prospect of living forever. 

While the concept may appear to have great advantages, you should consider the disadvantages first, I covered some of the issues in my short story, The Cursed.

A good place to start are thoughts of the character Holling Vincoeur, in the series Northern Exposure. When his girlfriend asked why he hadn't asked her to marry him, Holling replied, "My family have a history of longevity, and I couldn't live knowing you had died."

The other thing to take into account is a life-threatening illness. If you are immortal, even death is no escape. If you get what could be a life-threatening illness, you cannot even shorten the agony by suicide.

On this subject, there is also the subject of cryogenics, long before the series Futurama showed the character Fry emerging in a world he didn't understand, I decided against going into status, even if the money was available. For much of the reasons I am against being immortal, you could wake up 30 years later not knowing what has hppened, and not knowing anybody.

That is like what happened in the Twilight Zone episode The Rip Van Winkle Caper, four men rob a bank, and steal some gold. They hide in a cave fitted with four statis chambers, thinking to hide until the heat is off.

Waking years later, they find one machine had stopped killing the man inside, this causes anger, and accusations that one of the survivors killed him for a larger share. In the fight that ensues, another man dies. The two remaining decide to walk back to the city as their food and drink have gone. One dies on the way, the one remaining man, close to death, flags a car down and pleads with the driver to take him to the city, showing him the gold. The car drives off, and the passanger turns to the driver, saying, "Where has he been, we learned how to manufacture the gold decades ago."

The meaning is what has value now, may not have value in the future.

Zombie Horror

Betaal

One of three zombie stories

I wrote many ghost stories when I was a writer, but Betaal is one of only three short stories featuring zombies. The others are Zombiewatch, and The Overdale Incident.

Despite the trend for Zombie films, TV series, and books, I have only seen two films, and they were flops in my mind.

Technically speaking, these have NOTHING to do with zombies. A zombie is a person put in a trance, they can appear, and function normally. Yet like the man in Louisiana, who lived for 20 years in a trance have no memory of the time

Does the Uniform matter?

 Ladies in Uniform

The person is what matters

I see posts on Twitter asking would you go out with a lady in uniform?

Certainly, it the lady who matters to me, not the uniform. A uniform can add a little charm to a lady, but if you date someone for their uniform it says you don't value them as a person, what happens if they leave the job, and don't wear the uniform?

Have I dated a lady in uniform, no, I did try two or three times, but my insecurity issues forced me to stand down.

I won't deny a uniform does add to the attraction for me, but it is the lady who I care for the most, not her uniform.