It seems that my writing slump has passed, *touch wood*, and a number of ideas and story iterations are coming to the fore. With Camp NaNoWriMo coming up next month, this is a good thing.
Junk Yard Angel
Setting up JYA is quite a mission. There’s a lot of worldbuilding to do, character profiles to outline, and an actual plot to figure out. It’s great to have this amazing budding world at the fore, and a stellar character at the center of it all, but there’s no story to write if there’s no goal to achieve. That’s what I’m working on now through a number of short stories.
The short stories are set before the JYA novel story, which means a richer background to work from. This also allows me to figure out what’s about to happen, why it’s going to happen, and who will be driving it all forward. So far I have written two short stories posted on my Patreon page. If you would like to read (and enjoy) them, please drop by.
Here are excerpts from both:
The Botanist
A little after two in the morning, the doorbell chimed.
Klaus raised his head from his work on the counter and glanced at the silhouette at the door. His gas lamp, fixed on the clay pot and scattered paintbrushes among the work tools, created the only light within the room. The person remained in shadow at the doorway. Petite. Slight. A woman perhaps.
“Good morning?” He called to the figure.
“A little early for botany isn’t it, Herr Klaus?” the voice was light. Feathery. A woman indeed.
“A little early for a visit isn’t it. Frau…?”
The woman idly slinked sideways. High shelves lined the walls, more shelves divided the store into flowers, pots and various garden utensils. The air carried lilac, fressia, jasmine, and an underlying waft of fertilizer. Klaus followed her movements behind the silhouetted flora by the sound of rasping cloth across the floor. She was moving towards the furthest edge of the shop. That was where he kept his private collection.
“Prince Clemens speaks highly of you Herr Klaus.” Her voice echoed from the back. Klaus stood quickly from his counter, the stool scraping across the floor with his movements. He swept a hand agitatedly through his thin hair.
“And what does his praise have to do with this visit? Could it not wait ‘til sunrise?”
Der Engel von Garzweiler
As I shuffled out of the church, I could feel the pitying looks of Mother Mary, and the Saints, casting down at me from their perches. If there was some sort of guardian in Garzweiler, I hoped she would have a less agonizing face – and perhaps, her gaze set on me too.
The air outside the church nipped at my fingers, and cut through the holes of my shoes. Frau Berger from the convent across the road bustled about draping patched coats over some of the street urchins. Their emaciated bodies, enveloped under the woolen layer, would probably not see food for another week. If this Engel showed no benevolence towards the children, then what compassion would she have for me. It was a sobering thought on that long walk down the wide dirt paths towards a safer, warmer, terrain until my duty the following day. Death awaited the following day with a plate of food and a pocket full of money.
I walked to my grave.
Innocence – a Wattpad novella
I read a “free to use” prompt on Wattpad that inspired this horror novella. The story revolves around four cops and a fledgling doctor giving a known murderer the Death Penalty, but they do it illegally in an unused basement of the police precinct. The murderer swears revenge before he dies and… well you’ll have to read the rest of it to know what happens. I’ll be posting new chapters every Friday as part of my usual Friday Fiction. Chapter 3 goes up tomorrow.
I watched as Marius de Wet was injected with Pentobarbital. He sat calmly through it all, his eyes falling on each of us as though memorizing our faces. There were only four of us within the dim precinct basement when it happened. Five if you count the shaking, greenhorn doctor who administered the lethal injection.
Rudolph, one of the detectives, was on his sixth cigarette by then, filling the room with acrid odor, the same that lined his clothes and drifted from his breath. Without his uniform, you could see how gaunt he was. The black hair looked slick and thin, face long and sallow, all exacerbated by yellowing teeth where one of the front two had a chip. He tapped his sneakered foot incessantly on the grungy cement floor of the basement holding cell, still sticky with Marius’ blood.
Maybe some of ours too.
Read it: wattpad.com/NthatoM
The Last Robot on Earth
Last year July, my close friend Carin Marais, a fellow writer, Patreon, Folklore/Myth virtuoso, and creator of the amazing upcoming novel The Ruon Chronicles, gave me a prompt: the Last Robot on Earth. As her reward I wrote her the story about Tobor, a robot pretending to be human and taking part in a Hunger Games style competition. The idea has evolved quite considerably from that and hatched a completely new series. *Thanks Carin! Swoons.*
Right now I’m in the world building stages of the novel, and it will be slightly different from my usual fantasy/horror but of course with elements of both. Since it was a Patreon inspired prompt, it will be running concurrent with JYA on that end, which means special rewards if you’re a Pledgee.
Not much I can tell you right now except that one of the characters is inspired by John Constantine, the fictional DC comics character, and the story will lean towards a darker, gritty, comic-book style novel. As a comic book fan (and not because of the movies ugh) my idea needs a lot of work so it doesn’t come off as another Marvel’s the X-Men vs Bolivar Trusks’ mutant killing Sentinels (did i just give the plot away? hehe). Nonetheless, I’m loving the world building.
Other Short Stories
There’s so many ideas and stories in the pipelines, and rather than tackle them one at a time (which is the most sane thing to do) I’ll be dabbling around each one as short stories that will eventually culminate into their respective novels/novellas. This means constantly writing and (hopefully) never getting bored. I will obviously keep you updated as things happen.
How’s your writing going? Any exciting projects coming up? Are you taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo next month?
A-Scribe To Describe 
This all sounds great, I love hearing about what other people are working on. I’m using a short story to help build the setting for a novel at the moment too, it’s proving very helpful.
Short stories are useful for so many things, especially for building setting. Happy writing!
Thank you, you too!
IS IT FRIDAY YET?!
So many cool ideas! The robot one sounds AWESOME, (honestly they all do.)
I’m glad your writing slump has ended. 🙂
I’ve found that plotting and writing encourages my brain cells and I keep coming up with ideas for other stories. I’ve been noting them down for after I finish my Camp project.
Hahaha! Tomorrow, I promise I’ll personally send you a link.
And thank you, I hope I can turn the awesome ideas into awesome novels.
Also, plotting and writing does spur those creative juices yeah? So glad you’re writing, you have an amazing writing style so I want to read your work too Jen. Get ta writing!!
Pffft. you won’t need to send me a link. I’ll be clicking refresh.
*Blush* I will write all ze words! \o/
It sounded funny to “hear” you say, “Touch wood.” Here in Texas we say “Knock on wood.” There is a joke about senile old sisters who when one says, “Knock on wood” and raps on the stair banister, the other says, “See who’s at the door.” Dumb, but….
Haha I have heard knock on wood, our phrase surely comes from the same origin then haha, although I’m not the superstitious type.
Man, I am. I even throw salt over my left shoulder when I spill any to throw salt in the eyes of the Devil. I even refuse to leave a house any way except the same way as I came in…bad luck. If I come in the front door, I won’t exit by the back door, even if where I want to be is closer to the back door. I’ve been known to walk around the house! Ha!
Oh wow! I have the same thing (well except the salt thing) but yes, I enter through the same door I exited by. That’s hilarious.