New horror project

I was struggling to get into a creative mind-set today and so I decided to try and awaken my creative brain, only to regret the result!

Three minutes into warming my creative brain up via fantasy pictures on Pinterest, it made me revisit a project I haven’t touched since Easter 2022, after brainstorming for that project I decided to go and eat some lunch.

A toasted scrambled egg bagel and a banana to be precise – not that you’re interested!

Whilst eating the lunch I looked up and saw something on TV “They killed a man’s best friend” and it set off an idea in my head – I hate stories where dogs are killed, but this is unfortunately going to be part of the new project and that’s going to be a difficult write up – but it gives us the catalyst for what’s to come in the story and it’s a much needed one that is justifiable!

Just that simple thing gave me a dark fantasy or maybe a horror idea which is fast flowing in my head – this has pissed me off because I did the creative warm up for my at least one of my current top three projects only for me to be interested at first with the fourth project and a completely new idea!

A horror one to boot!

Going back into horror it seems, well to be honest, it never really left me!

I am still doing the cat ghost story and a bunch of other stuff!

Yes, I haven’t abandoned the cat story S.

So this makes this story code name “Dog story”.

Thanks for reading!

My themes & project AD

Here are the main themes I love to write about and I know it has been published in another post before, but I thought it would be good to have it as a post all on its lonesome as a sort of reference post.

My first favourite theme to write about are vampires and their perspective on life and existence, their lifestyle, the drama that goes on in their societies etc.

My secondary favourite literary choice is stereotypical fantasy stories based on dragons, battle and magic! 

My third one is anthropomorphic animals or seeing things from an animal’s perspective and explaining their lives through adventure or almost journalistic storytelling. 

My fourth favourite theme are anything pertaining to childhood wonder, Christmas and Easter stories, Santa, The Easter Bunny, nursery rhyme worlds, toys coming to life, that sort of thing.

My fifth favourite theme to write is stories about inventors and gadget creators in a post-apocalyptic world or perhaps even a steampunk world!

My sixth choices are giants or little people and how they see the world around them and what their stories are. 

My seventh favourite theme is stories about descent into madness or haunting memories or even haunted places, ghosts of both the mind and the ethereal.

The eighth theme is anything with regards to circus performers, carnivals, fairgrounds, fortune tellers and clowns.

The ninth favourite theme to write about is stereotypical war between gods and the underworld and the battle of control over mortality and or power, I especially like gas lighting stories or stories from a twisted perspective.

The tenth theme is stories about magical water/sea creatures or sea life, such as pirates, mermaids, kelpies and sea monsters or travellers of the sea.

Many of my stories will contain at least one of the above in order to keep me interested in writing them, sometimes they may have more than one theme going on for example; my project AD has five of the above themes in it.

There is a small vampire scene in it, with anthropomorphic animals in a post-apocalyptic, steampunk world that experiences a huge gaslight to their existence and in one characters case a descent into madness and a fight for reality and a real battle as well – along with this there are inventors of gadgets and a new way of life for everyone involved in the story!

It’s a project I am really excited about and this particular project has saved my creative life – because without it I very nearly gave up writing altogether.  It is rare for me to have more than two themes in any story, so when I get one that has this many themes in it – it really gets my heart singing!

Thanks for reading!

New year, new business

With all this nonsense going on Twitter, I have to think forwards into the future – OK Twitter is probably not going to go bust or anything, but still there has to be an alternate plan of action.

I am starting self-employment in the New Year, with Twitters new policies some aspects of my self-employment will be directly affected by their new policies; because so far Twitter up until recently, was the best social media platform out there for promoting new businesses and talent.

In the New Year, my Instagram will become much more active as this is part of my business plan for passive income as well as Pinterest and Patreon. 

I know that a business cannot be ran on passive income alone, there are other things I am doing, such as starting a newsletter potentially and now something has changed within my own personal finances, I can now replace art supplies to start making and selling my art. 

Along with this I am going to be doing nature photography, writing, YouTube videos and not sure if I will actually do this particular thing but perhaps become an Amazon associate until my income and creative pursuits have stabilised. 

The business set up will be slow as there is a lot to learn and I don’t think much of it will really kick off until around Easter time because at the moment I am still in the learning and planning process.

If anyone reading this follows me on Twitter, understand that how things are going there – I am going to be less and less available on that platform unless it improves and I will be found more and more on platforms such as Universeodon and Instagram.

My name on Universeodon is @TardyCreative the same as Instagram

Thank you for reading! 

Dystopian 1

This idea has been around almost forever with me!  This idea originated when I was fourteen years old, back in 1996!  It was only really thought of seriously though from 2003, after I had made friends who loved wrestling and were training to become wrestlers themselves!

It was originally thought to be a planned gimmick by my group of friends, but they abandoned this idea as many of them didn’t make it into wrestling professionally.  They all gave me permission to run with it still if I wanted to, but I changed a lot of their plans to create this story to make it feel more unique and mine.

What will you find in this story?

Gender identity challenges

Wrestling

Fight for survival

War

Bio-punk themes

Anarchy

Fallen Civilisation

Close female relationships

Mother and child relationship

Martyrism

Freedom fighters

Coliseum style fighting

Cage fighting

Animalism

Feral children being shown humanity

What influenced this story?

My friends had a huge part to play in the basics of the story.

Various professional wrestling companies, characters and their gimmicks

Mad Max beyond the thunderdome

The cage fighting scene in X-Men with wolverine

The hunger games (eventually influenced later drafts and adaptions to the plot)

The movie Amazons and gladiators!

In particular the female wrestlers Luna Vachon and Chyna, as well as the WWF/WWE wrestling stable Legion of Doom!

The movie – Escape from New York

Spartacus stories

World war Z (in later drafts and adaptions)

I have been slowly working towards chopping this story down a lot as it became a huge series of books and I am unsure I really want this to be a series after all, not deleting anything, but chopping it down into becoming a standalone with potential to then expand later on, if the publisher wants it.

I have a passion for wrestling shows and dystopia and so this is a longstanding love affair and it’s going to be difficult for me to finalise the edited version.

Happy reading everyone!

Fantasy 1

First thought about this project in 2014 because something mysterious happened in the house, which made me wonder what happened to something I had lost. 

I had a bad chest infection at this time and I was in bed a lot over several weeks – so I had a lot of time to think about silly things in regards to this particular mystery.

It lead to this project being slowly produced, this project has become a mini-series of books over the time, though as usual, they aren’t published yet, because I haven’t approached anyone since 2003 about any book!

This book may in fact be one of the first ten I approach publishers with as it is something I revisit a lot.

It is something I have worked with my son Henry with too, he has had a lot of input in this idea and so it is another mother and son collaboration really.  We tend to think of a lot of stories about giants and robots in particular when we think together.

What you may find in this story;

Humans oblivious to magic around them

Little people

Tribal warfare

Quirky characters

Toilet humour

A mystery to be solved

Reality shifts

This story has mostly been influenced by my favourite childhood movies and TV shows rather than books, I am sorry to say.  Though there has been some books out there which has influenced some of these ideas too!

These have been the following…

The borrowers TV series

Gulliver’s travels animated version of 1939

The Indian in the cupboard

Mousetrap movie starring Chris Evans

Terry Pratchett’s the carpet people

The chronicles of Narnia movie 2005

Stargate the movie and TV series

This novel is really quite short for me, I would say a fantasy novella more than an actual novel and there are sequels already partly finished.

This is one of my favourite projects to work on, so it is likely to be one of the first ten to send out to publishers.

Once again, in Paul’s opinion the humour is childish and corny.

Thanks for reading!

Steampunk 2

Steampunk 2

This project started at around 2014 and I have been procrastinating a lot with continuing this, I have bursts of wanting to add things to it about once every four or five months, but those only last a couple of days.

I feel it’s a complicated project because I believe the believability of this fantasy steampunk may not be believable enough to its readers as I think this idea is very out-there…

I think it is only a matter of confidence really.

This idea is a family collaboration, including ideas from both Henry my son, and Paul my partner. Mostly the idea came from Christmas morning in 2014 I had such a bad chest infection we had to celebrate Christmas in bed. This meant, Henry enjoyed carrying up his presents to me on the bed to open them so I didn’t miss anything! In Henry’s eyes, it was the best Christmas ever, because it was so different! But then he says that every year! He had this idea my body under the duvet was a mountain for his cars to drive over and this started our game, which built this story!

That was a bad year for my chest, I was admitted to A&E (ER) the next day as it went into pneumonia, at this point I had had the infection since Halloween!

Below is what you may find in this standalone novel!

Giants

Inventors

Religious figures

Philosophy

A coming of age hero

A close grandfather and grandson relationship

Steampunk themes

Environmentalism

Existential crisis

Corny humour

Gross humour

Family friendly

Poetical interjections

Climate change

Trolls

Bio mutualism

Debunking sciences

Debunking mythology

This story has been influenced by many things, primarily throughout my childhood rather than adulthood!  This story wasn’t decided upon entirely until 2014, but I had little thoughts here and there since I was about eight years of age!  So maybe the origin of this idea is much older than I originally said?

Here are my influences below for this particular story;

The never-ending story movies (never read the book)

The princess bride (the movie)

Are all the giants dead?  By Mary Norton

The BFG by Roald Dahl

The Matrix movies

Land of the giants (TV series)

The borrower’s books, TV series and movies

Gulliver’s travel and the movies

Innerspace movie starring Martin Short and Dennis Quaid

Noah’s ark from the bible

The shrinking scene in Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory movie starring Gene Wilder

I am pretty slow with this novel, because I don’t really have much of middle, unlike most of my other stories I do actually have a beginning and an end, but the middle is rather bland and needs a lot of work right now to make it more fleshed out and exciting!

I don’t suppose this work will actually be done within the next five years, but it is one of my top ten favourites to think about.

I haven’t completed draft one in all of this time!

The novel is hollow at the centre, because it has a beginning and it has a definite finale, but I just haven’t got much in the middle yet.

Thanks for reading!

Steampunk 1 update

This project was originally thought of around the winter of 2017 and has been plodding along at a slow but regular pace ever since, at the pace of approximately two thousand words per month!  It has not yet gone through a second draft and I am trying to write the entire series before I go into the second draft as I have already decided there are to be twelve books to this series and only twelve!

Because this story has the number twelve as a theme that is the only spoiler I will give you and it won’t ruin anything!

Below is a list of what you may find in this series!

Travelling companions

A lost love

A ghost

Debunked scientific theories of this fictional world

Debunked superstitions of this fictional world

A search for truth

New found freedom

Comedy elements

Hot air Balloon

Space travel

Lesbian lovers

Alien worlds

A character struggling against extreme bipolar

A character struggling with the death of a loved one (different character to the above)

Quatro of main characters, primarily two early twenties females, late twenties male and a recent widower

Eccentric inventor

And a mystery solved

Demons

And last but not least – dinosaurs

What inspired this story to come into fruition, particularly at such a quick pace for me?  I don’t really know, but I do feel that this story is influenced heavily by the following works of others;

The lost world by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other works by him

Biggles by W.E Johns

Doctor Doolittle, all of the movies, but more in particular the most recent adaption I’ve watch which stars Robert Downey Jr, in fact, his portrayal of the character Doctor Doolittle has actually inspired one of the main characters a lot!

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s character Caractacus Potts!

Also another character that has inspired one of the main characters is Captain Jack Harkness from Dr Who and Torchwood TV series played by John Barrowman; also Dr Who and Torchwood TV series in general.

The movie Fifth element

Inspired by several Neil Gaiman books particularly Stardust scenes of the sky pirates!

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series

The wrestling team from AEW called Jurassic Express

Several Cos-player homemade costumes, I have seen at comic con on YouTube videos, portraying faeries and warriors!

The 1980s horror movie called The Gate

The Wizard of Oz books series by L Frank Baum

The mere existence of terrariums and bryophytes lifeforms (moss and lichens)

Monty Python’s the life of Brian

Xena warrior princess

Because this is a work in process and it is going to be part of a twelve book series whether it kills me or not, I will probably not have the entire work ready for around three years at my current pace.  However, I am pretty sure that once Anthropomorphic Dystopian and Dragon 1 are over with, this will be the primary work, so it would speed up the expected self-given deadline for me by a huge amount!

This in my opinion is the second most fun one I am currently writing and I believe this story in particular has got me out of my writer’s burn out!

This story more or less saved the idea about me becoming an author – if this idea didn’t plod along, I think I would have given up writing around 2017 and never looked back!

Seriously!

This idea saved me from giving up!

So the world really has to thank this idea for existing, because without it, I wouldn’t be thinking about publication anymore, I wouldn’t be thinking about writing my projects anymore – I would be trying to hone my skills as a nutritional therapist instead and pretend that I always wanted a normal life anyway!

Happy reading everyone!

Dragon 1 update

What is in this story?

Long lost relative rediscovered

Found family

Witches

Dragons

Comedy

Battle scenes

Camping

Giants

Pirates

Main character Male in late 30s

Coming of age young girl learning her place in a strange world

Portal world

Magic lost

Set in Britain & Alternate reality

Betrayal

Treachery

Fire elemental magic

Travelling quest

Huge didn’t see it coming plot twist

What works by other people inspired this project of mine?

The movie Reign of fire

The movie magical legends of the leprechauns

The book A monster calls by Patrick Ness

The pirates of the Caribbean movie series

The lord of the rings trilogy

Worst witch TV series and books by Jill Murphy

The character Sirius Black in Harry Potter’s prisoner of Azkaban (this has not given away the plot twist)

Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

And several Ransom Riggs novels

This story started in my head in 2003 and is currently paused in its eighth draft because I have preferred to work towards my project Anthropomorphic Dystopian 1 instead.  Once Anthropomorphic Dystopian 1 is finished, I will continue to complete draft eight of this project, with the hope to be sending it out to the world around three months later; or rather, after it has stewed again.

This book may have a part two or three, but I am unclear as of yet – however, it has an open ending, that will not leave you feeling dissatisfied, but may have you asking lots of questions – don’t hate me for it, please!

Happy Reading!

Anthropomorphic dystopian 1

Anthropomorphic dystopian 1

The above is a mouthful, but that is not its real name, aren’t you relieved?– its real title will give away too much about what is in the story and we don’t want to do that this early on!

The general themes in the story are as follows;

Cyberpunk

Anthropomorphic animals

War

Revenge

Dystopian

Survival

Imprisonment

Inventions

And last but not least – comedy

The above story has been inspired by;

The animals of Farthing Wood

Wind in the Willows

Watership Down

Mad Max beyond the thunderdome

Secret life of pets

The hunger games

Nuclear warfare

Rude dog and the dweebs

Frankenweenie

And very much Tim Burton inspired

The above is the work that is likeliest to be sent out first and it is only really a couple of months away from being perfected to its final draft!  However, with the upcoming surgeries I am going to be having, it is best that this work should not be sent any sooner than mid-autumn, potentially before winter – though November to the second week of January is not the best time to send anything to an agent – it’s their busiest time of the year!

So unless it’s polished before NaNoWriMo 2022, it may not be sent until late January 2023, but I am working on it being sent out by early October!

This book will be a series, so this is only book one that will be polished by then and I know that agents are not keen on new writers sending in series as a first approach, but I think this is something special and I am sure they will see it too?

I have spoken to a handful of very close friends about this story and I have several people excited over it – this is why this story became my primary focus and I dropped my original first novel whilst I do this one.  Because, the other story I think should be my first novel – is actually less exciting to my friends than this project.

Some friends think I should ditch it as a novel and make it a comic, but I have had other friends suggest that my prose like writing does better as a novel and that to write it as a comic may actually kill the story’s effect overall.

Time will tell – it may be a case that it may turn into a comic a few years down the line, I don’t know if that sort of thing happens, but I suppose it’s possible?

Anyway – happy reading!

Adding a lot more sneak peeks

I have decided to add up all my current projects, finished and unfinished to this blog – or rather sneaks of the tropes and inspirations that caused them to exist as my works in progress.

I mentioned in a previous post that I have over seventy nine stories that are either finished or nearly finished, which I have been writing since I was ten years old, some are more recent ideas – fresher.

Every couple of days I will add a new project in action for you to peep at.

All of the current projects I will add are works that I want to actually publish some day!  I am not bothering with those that didn’t make the grade – sorry!

So the first one will be published on this blog tomorrow…

Remember, sneak peeks only!

Happy reading!