Who wants to have some fun?

Let’s write a chain story!

I propose a short novel entitled ‘The Mark’.

Monica Larsen, an unmarried thirty-ish attorney from Bayshore, Wisconsin has died on the highway, her car struck by a farm tire falling off a service truck.

The afterlife is nothing like what she expected.

I’ve written Chapter 1, appended below.

My thinking is that each succeeding chapter should come in between 1,000 and 1,500 words. Beyond that, the Internet is silent on how this sort of activity should be operated.

Here’s my plan:

• Each author will determine who writes the following chapter(s) based on a submitted story proposal or outline. This means there will only be one thread to the story.
• You can write more than one chapter, but let’s try to keep the activity open.
• Each chapter will be published here and on the author’s website.
• Every author retains IP rights to the chapter(s) they write.
• If we do something wonderful, we’ll have to figure out what that means, if and when it happens.

Do you want me to edit Chapter 1 for a smooth transition to your chapter? I can do that.

If I get takers, I’ll build a section on my WordPress site for the story.

Let’s get started.

Continue reading “A Writing Game For Authors” →

The Illusion of Gravity

It has been centuries since the Vanya, in a convulsion of psychotic rage, set off a fission bomb on the mainland. Now quarantined on the Laghu continent, their primary exports are kidnapping and murder.

At a research lab in Cognate territory, a devastating accident signals the end of a technological impasse that has stalled Anye civilization at the edge of space for a thousand years.

A cluster of instruments lodged in a water tank survives. Physicist Rivan Saraf has what he needs to unravel the mysteries of the universe, and perhaps save his people from the final gasp of a dying star.

But the Vanya are on the hunt, and if they find him they will kill him.

Here is, I think, my back page text for the new Quantum Soul cover:

Seventy years have passed since Rivan Saraf lifted Transdimensional Physics into the domain of working theory.  Aircars navigate the skies, spacecraft cross light-years in minutes, and finally, Nalanda University has produced a successor with commensurate talent.

Amil Leyta intended to work in orbital manufacturing, but his studies have taken an unexpected turn. He has built a device that images the essence of life, evoking the remarkable discovery that there is more than one type of soul.

They appear on his monitor at deathbed vigils, shining bright across the boundary between dimensions. He imagines they are Angels, guiding spirits to the between-life, and wonders if the Gods will allow what he must do next.

Because Amil knows how to bring them here.