Category: Short Stories

Posted on

Zombies Galore, Oddly Satisfying, and Episode 5 of Forgotten

Well dear readers, today I have much to share with you!

Zombies Galore is live, and my piece “Monday Matinee Madness” opens and sets the tone for the collection.  You can actually read my contribution in its entirety for free!  Just “Look Inside”, and because mine is the opening story, you can check it out, which I’m quite pleased about.  🙂

Now onto the latest from my Mathematical Husband, who is persisting on creating these mesmerizing and oddly satisfying pieces of art with his laser cut Wild Gears.  This video shows him using a gear-in-a-gear-*in-a-gear*.  Pretty impressive.

And now for another thing you can check out.  Forgotten is my strange little audo project which I’m going to keep calling an Oddcast.  I’ve just put up episode 5 for you, and it’s called “Choices”.  We’re getting better at this.

I’ll leave it at that.  Thanks for stopping by.

Heidi out.

Posted on

“Luka and Iso”- Top 10% in The Nicholl Fellowship!

Hello wonderful blog readers!

I received an email from the Nicholl Fellowship today.

Every year, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences picks five writers and pay them, based on the strength of the script they submitted, to produce another feature length screenplay.

I didn’t make the cut for the Fellowship, but my script scored in the top ten percent!

7,251 entrants, and I’m in the top 10%?  Pretty awesome, but of course, disappointing not to advance.

Ah well, I’m hoping I can find someone out there as excited about the story of the first genetically engineered dragon as I am!  Perhaps this will help me along.  It will make a killer film.

Congratulations to everyone that is advancing.  I’m sure there are some amazing scripts, and how they’ll ever pick just five is completely beyond me!

In other news, I received my second ever royalty cheque!  Seems that A Quick Bite of Flesh is still selling.  Want some zombie flash fiction?  Then this book is forrr yoooouuuu!

I am waiting on an awesome agent for a new book I’d like to see in print.  Paranormal romance/urban fantasy here I come!  I’m well into the sequel already, and hitting short stories out of the park on a daily basis.

I’ll keep at it until- BWA HA HA YOU CAN’T STOP ME

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh what’s that?  This is my 100th post?

Hurrah!

Oh man, if I’ve been this into my small successes so far, when I get my first novel picked up I’m going to be happier than a kitten with a feather.  More excited than a porcupine with a banana.  You do know porcupines love bananas, right?

Anyway, thank you for stopping in and staying with me on this long, long journey to authordom.

Heidi out.

Posted on

I’m Still Here


Well, I’m still here.

I’m just keeping on keeping on.  Written another book.  Am having another go at finding an agent for “Luka and Iso”, the tale of the sentient genetically engineered dragon.  I really hope I can get that one represented; the time is right for the story, and it needs to be told.  All the fuforah about GMOs lately is wild.  There’s some great opportunity for marketing, and great potential for cross talk when stories about GMOs and advancements in genetics come up.

Glow in the dark monkeys, anyone?

Meanwhile, my new project is going over well with an army of anonymous beta readers.  It’s nice working with people I don’t know, and that don’t know me; they’re giving me good, honest feedback.  …And a lot of it is positive.  They already want the sequel!

But I’m sticking to my guns about not writing more than one book in a series until the first one gets published.

So I’m starting yet another one.  While I polish the new book, I’m outlining the next, which will be my fifth novel.  A fun sci-fi, inspired by a short story I wrote last year called “The First Gentlemen’s Galactic Scavenger Hunt”.

Short stories continue to be sent out, rejected, accepted.  The latest is in the upcoming “Zombies Gone Wild II”, for which the cover was just sent to me.  I think it’s hilarious.

So that’s me lately.  It’s been interesting trying to temper my least favourite part of the process (trying to find an agent) with my most favourite (writing); the new projects pull me along even as I drag my heels cold-emailing amazing agents who I would absolutely be ecstatic to work with.

Oh, and I’ve levelled up my procrastination skills.  Whenever I finish a major project, there’s a decompression that happens afterwards.  So far it’s been things like fill a sketch book or write a zillion short stories, and my latest: watch all of The Office.  Seriously, I’m almost done.  This has been the least productive of my come-downs, but man is it good.

Thank goodness for the Self Control app, which I use to block out every distraction, but leave the rest of the useful internet free for research.

So, onwards I go.  Book after book, I’m going to just keep ’em coming, until I find an agent that’s into one of them.  And then we’ll really see what I can do.

Posted on

My book is coming true before my very eyes…

It is at once exciting and frustrating to see my sci-fi future coming to pass.  Exciting to see how things are progressing down the path I speculated they would- nice to know I can see into the future somewhat correctly sometimes.  Frustrating because, well, once all the things happen, my book isn’t going to be as topical.  I want it out in the wild soon, to stir the pot with all the questions that we’ll have to be asking once things get really serious.

And they are getting serious!  Check it: “Scientists want to bring 22 animals back from extinction.”  DE-Extinction.  I can’t wait!  I know I know, it’s going to be years, decades, before things start actually showing results.  But I’m still pretty excited.

As usual, relevant TED Talk.

And here’s the thread on Reddit about it (ignore all the “comment removed” posts; memes and jokes are simply not tolerated in the science subreddit).

So, I hope I can find someone to help me sell my book, and get it on the shelves, while its content is just starting to make it into the public awareness.  Also, it’d be pretty sweet to have current affairs to help me out in the publicity department…  🙂

Right!  Well, onwards.  I’m going to write a children’s short story tomorrow, one about dragons, for Spellbound.  And then, thinking of the next big project.  Something that’s started to just peek into my conscious thought is this desire to put my fantasy series on the big screen… and I have to resist for now.

…Because I’ve decided not to continue writing anything that could be a series until I sell it.  If I write the first book in a series, as I’ve done twice now, I will leave it be until I can actually publish it, and there’s an audience who wants more.

This is great, it’ll mean I can keep breaking new ground with new ideas and characters, and have the benefit of creating a huge body of work that I could continue at any time.  Once I “make it” I’ll have several series that I could choose to continue if there’s an audience for them.

I leave you with this picture, from another planet!  It absolutely blows my mind that we have something on another planet, and it’s sending us back pictures.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

Posted on

Checking in, Space, Baby Cakes

I have spent the morning reading over past short stories, seeing if can do any work on them, or perhaps adapt them for the screen.  Seems as though I’ve been infected with the screenwriting bug, and it’s addling my brain into wanting to write more scripts.

Good?  Bad?  I never wanted to write short stories; they were supposed to be a stepping stone for larger projects.  And now that I’ve had some success getting them published, what do?  :O

While I’m bandying that about in my head, I will see if any of my fellow writers need a second set of eyes on anything.  I’ve contacted a few of my writing-exchange peeps, and maybe I can help them out with whatever they’re working on.

Oh hey, did you ever want to know how many people are in space right now?

Heh.  Spoiler: it’s 6.  I can’t wait until we’re in the tripple digits for this.  I am ever excited to see how space exploration progresses in my short window of observation (another what, seventy years?).  🙂

And now, BABY CAKES!  Teeny, tiny cakes.  They were fun.  My friend and I made them before games day, and then the group feasted on the fruits of our labour.

Getting the components all laid out:

Cutting the mini-cupcakes to size:

Taking up the whole table:

Some of the finished products: (d20 for scale!)

So tiny!

The two-layer cakes were amazing.

Each one more adorable than the last!


Tiny LAYER cake you say?

Heh.  Sure was fun.

Bonus pic: our SUPER close game of Lords of Waterderp (this was before we scored our Lords mind you, but WOW!):

Good thing I’m back at the gym again!  Nice to be able to indulge every now and then.

Cheers guys.  Hope you’re feeling as good as I do right now.  😀

Heidi out.

Posted on

Victory Hot Chocolate: The Melting of Kings

So I made those marshmallows, and they turned out great!

Making Marshmallows.

Cut them into cubes with scissors.

Melting into the hot chocolate…

One for Aaron too.  🙂

*Gloop!*

Perfect

A great way to end the week.  It was brain intensive; I didn’t anticipate that big of an edit before my Nicholl Fellowship deadline, but, well, the script is way better for it.

And now, I’m off to Bon’s to meet a friend for breakfast, and then another friend I are are continuing down the ‘tiny-food-making’ path, and decorating *tiny* cakes.  Of course, pics to follow.

If you’re looking for a short story to read, I suggest “All Quiet on the Temporal Front” by Bennett R. Coles.  His Sci-Fi fu is fantastic.  Now that I’m not in the thick of editing, I’m going back to read his “Virtues of War“, which is incredible so far.

Cheers guys.

Heidi out.

Posted on

THE END.

Well, the first draft of my screenplay is finished!  My latest novel, Luka and Iso, is adapted for the silver screen.  I have editing to do still of course, and actually quite a large chunk that I need to compress…  But the bulk is done.

Typing those two words, “THE END.” at the finish was actually far more satisfying than I thought it would be.   After all, I’ve written three books and dozens of short stories… but none of them actually have the words “THE END.” at the end.  They just sort of- stop.

But with the screenplay, it’s customary to put “THE END.” at the end.  And it felt good.

And now, as is my custom, I will take a break from it for two weeks, and work on a short story.  I’ll come back to it fresh, wielding my axe in one hand and my scalpel in the other.  Both help me cut away, in broad, messy chunks, followed up with precise, delicate cuts.

So good readers, Happy New Year.  I wish you the best of luck with all your creative endeavours!

Cheers,

Heidi

Posted on

Good News Everyone!

Yet another Good News post!  These are my favourite.  :3

The scariest short story I’ve ever written has been accepted!  “Dark Light 2”, sequel to the wildly successful “Dark Light” will feature my piece, “Duck”.  My name will even be on the cover (along with the other contributors; that’s pretty cool!).

Annie hears her mother call from downstairs.  As she rushes to go to her, her mother stops her.  “Don’t go; I heard it too.”

(Incomplete cover below.)

I’ll of course let you know when it’s out and link to it and everything.  I’m really excited to see this one in print, and really pleased that my attempt at writing something scary-pants actually worked.  So here’s to Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly, and to their anthology, “Dark Light 2”.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

Posted on

Good News Everyone!

Hello all.  So glad to be able to share some more good news with you today: a short story of mine, “Mirror Twenty-Two” has been published!  It’s part of the online portion of the Haunted Waters Press ‘From the Depths’ magazine.

…And you can read it for free!  It’s a paranormal-military-action-horror.

“For our purposes, that little girl is no longer a little girl,” he said with measured calm.

I want to thank everyone that has subscribed to my blog.  It’s really nice to have a few people interested in my work.  I’m so, so grateful for your readership, and it’s nice that I can share some nifty things with you.  🙂

“Mirror Twenty-Two” by H.G. Bleackley

Hopefully I’ll have something more in this universe to share in the new year; I’m working with an artist to adapt another story into comic form.  I’m really excited about that one… And I really dig the world I’m building using short stories.  I think there might be something more there, something bigger.

Also, I’m adapting my latest novel into a screenplay, which I will start shopping around in January/February.  My screenplay chops are a little rusty, but it’s coming along.

So I’ll keep writing, and submitting, and sharing.

Thanks once again for reading.

Heidi out.