Happy Thanksgiving! Spend it with "The Pilgrim!"

Much less cool pilgrims than the one I'm talking about. 

I first debuted "The Pilgrim" near the end of my 52 stories in 2014. It served as the final part of the Short Shots series that also saw "The Editor" released.

It remains the only tale I have only release on Wattpad where you can still read it now.

This is a short beat of a story, a weird little tale with a bit of existential horror mixed within a cosmic set piece. Perhaps it offers as many questions as it offers solutions. It also introduces an enigmatic being to the Quadrant Universe, one that will continue to play a role, whether directly or indirectly, in future tales.

Please judge for yourself. And if you like it, leave a review wherever you've read it. And if you really enjoy it and haven't done so already, please consider joining my Patreon, where you will see a ton of new content just like it!

Learn the secret of... "The Editor"!

When I published fifty-two works over fifty-two weeks back in 2014, one of the things I set out to do was to experiment with things like flash fiction and ultra-shorts. I found keeping tales under a thousand words often a bit hard, but I did create some fun little narratives to introduce weird and wonderful characters to the world.

One such tale is "The Editor." The tale starts out in a dark place and doesn't really get much lighter. I don't want to spoil the details of the story, but I do want to talk about our lead for a moment.

Her name is is Marie. She can best be described as a walking contradiction. Of course, we all really are, aren't we? Hers become accentuated by circumstance, as she walks a path darker than you or I will likely ever know.

This is a tale designed by me to share. I've done just that over at Wattpad, free of charge forever.

It's one of several smaller works I will release under Creative Commons licenses over the next few months. One of my favorite parts about the release of this tale as a Creative Commons work is that it makes The Editor available for anyone to use and remix in anyway they would like. Marie is such an intriguing concept, one open to all kinds of paths in her future and past. I have yet to map any of them. But Marie is open for anyone to use and share as they see fit, just as long as their own works are released under the same license. If you, dear reader, are also a writer, I would love to see your own tales of Marie down the line.

Read the entire short story "The Editor" over at Wattpad now. If you enjoy it, be sure to leave your comments here or on Wattpad, or share it with a friend!

Photo by Mean Shadows on Unsplash.

Read my Kong story for free!

Kong had a ton of great movie posters, but my
favorite is Mondo's one by Francesco Francavilla.

Kong: Skull Island was the number one movie in America over the weekend and if you enjoyed it as much as I did, you probably want more from the massive ape.

Thankfully, I've got a classic story by yours truly that features the big guy. It's a bit of light-hearted fun called Claus vs. Kong and it is exactly what it sounds like.

You can read it for free at Wattpad! Or just use the handy embedded viewer below.

The mystery of "The Pilgrim"

I created The Pilgrim as a short story near the end of my fifty-two stories in fifty-two weeks back in 2014. Released on Thanksgiving Day, it was a web only tale, a conscious choice at the time to play with publishing avenues. Of course, that version of Super Powered Fiction died in a fire thanks to the abominable web host Arvixe and since that time the tale sat out of print.

Until today.

The Pilgrim has now joined Claus Vs. Kong, The Scavenger and The Editor at Wattpad.

While I have only hinted at the larger corners of the Quadrant Universe, I certainly have introduced figures of great power. Doctor Cosmic and The Grand Magister certainly fit that bill as important figures from beyond Earth, but I didn't really have a force-of-nature type character with a mystical bent. Heck, I've barely explored the mystic end of the universe at all.

And while The Pilgrim is a short work (under a thousand words), it hints at a greater figure, a spirit bent on righting wrongs of a more personal nature. This is his first appearance, but he will be back in other tales, as he comes face to face with the heroes of the Quadrant Universe, heroes that might not be as keen on his personal brand of vengeance.

Read The Pilgrim at Wattpad. Or check out the handy embedded version below.

Enter the wasteland of 'The Scavenger'!

When I first published The Scavenger in 2014, it was just a simple Short Shot story with a post-apocalyptic feel. But since then I've released Lightweight: Beyond. Anyone that has read both stories can see distinct similarities in setting. This should come as no surprise though, as The Scavenger is actually the first appearance of the planet Nill.

When I first released the Short Shot, I already knew it was going to hint at the future of Lightweight, even while the first few chapters of the Lightweight saga were still underway. I wanted to write a short piece to give me the feel for the world, especially because I knew when the upcoming fourth Lightweight novel is released, major elements of this story will come to play as Kevin Mathis seeks to stop Nill's destruction.

But that is an entirely different tale. We are here to discuss The Scavenger. At just under a thousand words, it is one of my favorite pieces of flash fiction. It is also conveniently available at whatever price you would like to pay. Released under a Creative Commons license, it is available now at Smashwords and you can pay anything for it from nothing to a few thousand bucks. Or if you would rather just read it right away, you can conveniently read it through Wattpad either at the site or in the reader below.

Meet "The Editor"

With The Editor I wanted to do something different. I have long loved the idea of Creative Commons and I wanted to release a few short stories under a Creative Commons license. The Editor is the first in that series, which I decided to call “Short Shots”. The goal with these ultra-shorts is to introduce new characters to the pulp and super-powered fiction community that people can use and develop in their own way, all with only a note of the Creative Commons information given.

I have written a few of these "Short Shots" since I originally published The Editor back in 2014. I shared a few of them online back then, but have yet to do so on this new version of the blog. I am happy to start that process today with the release of The Editor to Wattpad. Everyone can read it there or use the embedded reader below to do so.

If you enjoy The Editor, please consider either buying more of my work (which can be found above under The Books) or throwing a few shekels its way with a purchase on Smashwords (where you can pay whatever you would like for the story.)

Free holiday story: Claus vs. Kong

One of the things I want to start experimenting more with in the New Year is the expansion of some of my stories to Wattpad as ways to entice new readers into picking up new work from yours truly. The first step of that happens today, as I use the story reading application to present a story I wrote over ten years ago, a silly little bit about King Kong attacking the North Pole I call Claus vs. Kong. I even took some time to combine two classic public domain movie posters to bring the story to life!

I encourage everyone to head over to Wattpad and check the story out, free of charge, for a bit of holiday cheer in the final run up to Christmas! Or if you prefer, use the embedded reader below, although I find the experience on the site a bit easier.