Update #7: I lied

Hello! I would like to preface this by saying pretty much everything I’ve been working on this past year had nothing to do with what I had planned on in my last update. My saving up for a house turned into buying a very nice car, which will definitely serve me with my next endeavor. More on that to follow.

I completely forgot to post about Pied Pipers, but I will be doing so soon unless I forget again.

I was being honest about working as an EMT on the ambulance, but I am no longer a poorly paid one. Because of the politics and finantial situation of many of the Ambulance companies, I was able to negotiate myself a very nice pay raise. I’ve gotten a ton of experience working with patience and working through some stressful situations. It has given me a lot of insight as to how the medical field works, which is going to be invaluable in my next endeavor. Now, while being an EMT is fun, I do not see myself doing this for the rest of my life.

As you all may know, I reset my sights from real estate back to medical school. I am happy to announce I have been accepted and start this June! It’s been a long journey, and I am very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had along the way. It was a long, winding road to get to this point, and I don’t forsee it getting any straighter in the future. I do not know if I will be able to post with more or less frequency once I start, so only time will tell.

I did not lie about my book in the previous post though. I was able to complete the rough draft and went through a couple rounds of editing. There are going to be some more rounds as my alpha reader pointed out some points that need improving. I haven’t gotten around to working on this set of edits yet because of dealing with medical school minutia as well as trying to figure out how to pay for school. That said, I stumbled across a plan for my first ever writing project. I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to rewrite The Specter Chronicles, this time with a new and improved plot. I believe that I have the beginning of a very good pathway for Adam Witicker and his fight against the forces of post apocalyptic America. This is something I am very excited about and will be posting the first couple of chapters once I get them written.

While the future continues to change, I am very excited for what lies ahead.

Update #6

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here! I’ve been working on the ambulance for a bit now, and I’m fairly comfortable doing the day to day activities that it brings up, but it’s eating up a big part of my time. I’m plowing through the second round of edits on my current work in progress. I just had a quick powwow with a couple friends about the direction I want to take the book, especially with regard to a character known elusively as The Boogieman. I’m not going to get into specifics here, but I’m pumped to publish this book and get to working on the second book.

My book series I have planned has some plot points I need to hit, but I like to surprise myself as I write. It does have a set path I’d like to follow, but its not well defined. It’s funny to think about, but I like to give myself goosebumps as I discover the story along with the reader. So while the ultimate direction of the story has been planned, the story itself is not yet written in stone.

I’m also working hard on saving up for a house right now as well. I’m no longer a starving college student, but rather a very hungry and poorly paid EMT, so it’s definitely slow going. That said, I am making steady progress to a solid down payment. I’d like to get some sort of income producing property to have what’s colloquially called a house hack. Having not enough income coming from the property to live off of, but rather enough income to cover the monthly mortgage and some of the maintenance fees. I’d still be working my but off, but wouldn’t be throwing money away on rent.

I’m planning on adding yet another monster to The Bestiary, so definitely be on the look out for that. They don’t have a hard and fast name given to them by the main organizations in my work in progress, but rather a nickname given to them by the elusive yet seemingly omnipresent Boogieman. That nickname is Pied Piper. They are definitely a creepy monster, and I look forward to sharing it with you all!

Update #5

So, a quick update one what I’ve been up to.  To start off with general stuff in my life, I recently passed the practical and written exams for my EMT certification.  I should hopefully be starting my orientation at Fallon this Monday!  I’m very excited to start making moves once again on the long road to medical school and becoming a doctor.  To be honest, I’m a bit nervous to start working on the ambulance, but I know it’s a necessary thing for my development in the medical field.

Now for the fun stuff.  I’ve worked out a phenomenal backstory for one of my characters in my book, and I may honestly make a whole separate story for him at some point.  He’s the “badass” in my book but isn’t the main character.  He serves as an unreachable entity at first but becomes a mentor at the end.  His life was something out of a horror story to be honest, but I try my best to make everything as realistic as is possible when I’m dealing with magic and monsters.  So, I try to give my human characters realistic responses to the magical things they experience.

And finally, I want to start writing more short stories.  They’ll probably be influenced or inspired by some of the pictures I post on Instagram, so if there’s any picture in particular that you find interesting and want fleshed out in the form of a story, please let me know.

Update #4

So here’s the thing. I got my real estate license and practiced as a real estate agent for a while. It was just not for me. I’ll still work it on the side, but I won’t be making a full time job out of it. On that note, I tried as hard as I could to get away from medicine for some personal reasons. For whatever reason, all roads lead back to medicine. I’ve decided to recommit myself to pursuing my dream of being a doctor. Starting this Monday, I’m going to be attending an EMT course to get certified and will be working on an ambulance in the Boston area for the foreseeable future. I think having a solid full time job working in the medical field will be fun and informative for me.

Now, some updates one what I’m working on. Recently I’ve put out part two of the Giant’s Graveyard, so if you haven’t read that, please go check it out. There is more to the story of The Giant’s Graveyard but I am going to leave that a mystery until I publish my book. That is the beginning of a whole story arc for my book, and I’ve got a couple more chapters to go for it. It was super fun coming up with the idea for it and I look forward to exploring the Lazarus Chambers some more. And once that’s done, I’d like to add in a proper epilogue, which I’ve got a couple of ideas on but I don’t entirely know which one I’m going to go with yet. After that, the edits begin and then publishing!

While I will be working full time as an EMT, one of the things I will also be doing is volunteering at Lynn Woods which was featured in The Giant’s Graveyard. I had called the medical schools I applied to the last cycle, and oddly enough they wanted to see non-medicine volunteering. My focus had been medical volunteering, so I was completely missing that in my application. When it comes to Lynn Woods, I’m primarily picking up trash there. I’d be lucky to come across one piece every ten minutes, which is specifically what the park ranger needs. It isn’t a job suited for flashy photo ops, meaning big non profits won’t touch it. However, I always leave the woods with a sizable back of trash, meaning the trash needs to be picked up. Consequently, this gives me plenty of time to mull over ideas for my book. It also factors in dedicated break time because while I am ‘working’, walking around Lynn Woods really doesn’t seem like work to me. And not for nothing, being in the woods simply puts me in the writing mood, so my writing schedule should me more consistent.

There are some other little projects I’m working on, but they’re still far too early in development for me to say anything about. I look forward to sharing them with you in the future!

Update #3

So it’s been a while since I put out an update. I’m in a bit of a transition period at the moment. I finished up my bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry with a 3.769 gpa. Not too shabby, but I wish I had tried a bit harder in those A- and B- classes to bump me up to a 3.8. All well. I got my real estate license and just got hired at Lamacchia Realty, which is pretty awesome so far. I am hosting my first open house on Sunday, so hopefully I get some buyer leads and can start making money. The job hunt for biochemistry is on a pause for the moment while I get accustomed to real estate, but in about two or three weeks the hunt is on again.

As for the fun stuff, primarily being my writing, I am working on the Resurrection Man. Now that I’m all graduated, I can double down my efforts and finish it off. There are some more chapters I need to add to the meat of the book, but the first, second and final acts of the book are finished for the most part. I just need to get the third act done, and then the editing can begin. There aren’t going to be many plot points I need to change, but I do need to smooth some things over and move some things around to make everything flow properly.

I also plan on rewriting The Specter Chronicles too. That was my first writing endeavor and I am just not happy with how it turned out. That said, the amount of time and thought I put into it leaves me feeling like I can really turn it into something. The sheer number of ideas I had developed and are just sitting on the shelf right now is ridiculous. A short story is in the works with my first scene I ever wrote reimagined. Instead of being located in southern California, I’m shifting the whole setting to the Northeast of the United States. The first scene is going to be taking place in Boston. I’ll be posting both of the scenes to show a before and after, and I am going to stress which one I wrote six years ago and the one I recently wrote. Hopefully there is a big difference.

Anyway, I am very hopeful for the future and have many plans. Be on the lookout for that new scene. It will be under short stories!

Update #2

It’s been a while since I posted an update. I was in a bit of a rough place for a while, but my mind is definitely better. I took my MCAT back in June and did mediocre at best. I hate to pass of the blame to things other than myself, but in this particular case I definitely think lockdowns burned me the hell out. I was scoring really well back in April, but it was downhill from there. Thankfully it’s over, and I am following through with applying to med schools. Just submitted my last secondary, so here’s to hoping.

Now that the boring stuff is over, on to the fun stuff. I’ve got a couple things I’m working on at the moment. One is another short story about a dream I had a couple days ago which I think is actually really cool. I’m having trouble really emulating and doing the dream justice because I had to shift some plot points around to make them make sense, so we’ll see how it goes. This one is a part of a series of dreams I’ve been having that I like to call the underground dreams, so I might tie them all together in a series of short stories or maybe even a book!

I’m also working on a novel at the moment too. I’ve kinda just been chipping away at it, but I just had an epiphany this morning that is really motivating me to finish off the current story ark I’m on and get into the next one. Currently at 33,000 words, and I’m aiming for 80,000-90,000 words. I’m most likely going to try and self publish it, but I’ll toss together a synopsis and a query letter to send to about fifty publishing houses just to see what happens. That’s not going to happen for a while though. If anybody is interested in being a beta reader, DM me over Instagram.

Lastly, I’ve taken up a new hobby. It’s woodworking. My friend Bailey hooked me on it, so I’m trying to build two Adirondack chairs. My father is helping me work on it because I only have rudimentary experience with power tools. So far it’s fun, and I’m really just building Adirondack chairs for the experience. I’ve got some cool ideas for desks and stuff like that, but I want to get proficient enough with woodworking to really make them shine once I get around to building them.

I’ll try posting an update every week or so from now on and keep an eye out for a short story!

Update #1

Hey guys! Just a little update on what I’ve been doing. First off, the coronavirus is a tragedy and my heart bleeds for those who are affected either economically or health wise.

…That said, my time has freed up exponentially and my social life is relatively unaffected. Who knew that my lifestyle was called quarantine :)

As to the work I’ve been doing, I’m mainly brainstorming some short stories for you guys while you’re sitting at home waiting for the quarantine to end. So keep an eye out for those.

The most fun thing I’m working on (for me) is outlining The Resurrection Man. So far, I’ve made huge plot point changes from my original plan which I’m extremely excited to start writing.

Stay safe out there!

Why I can't write my short story at the moment

For those who don’t know, I’m studying biochemistry. For literally the past week I’ve spent nine hours a day either studying for medical school entrance exams or writing a twenty page lab report about inorganic pyrophosphatase (which is more interesting than it sounds). While I enjoy the subject of biochemistry and looking at the final processed results of an experiment, I have next to no time to actually write. With this coronoavirus thing, I’ve got more time than usual, but that’s usually spent getting a solid eight hours of sleep instead of my normal six.

I’m not looking for any sympathy cuz I’m choosing to do this stuff. I want to learn biochemistry because it’s literally what drives life as we know it. Plus, it’s easily the biggest influence on my writing.

Remember to stay safe out there guys!

I'm Creating an Outline for The Resurrection Man

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I’ve never really made an outline for my stories before.  All of my short stories are generally organic in nature and all the books I’ve written were created chapter by chapter as I wrote.  It was fun and I learned a lot of lessons in writing from it, but I always stepped away from my stories feeling underwhelmed.  I loved my writing style and my action scenes were on point, but the actual story itself seemed to lack substance, to me at least.

So, I took some time off from writing actual novels and just explored some literary pathways in short stories.  I moved out of my comfort zone to write some mild horror-thrillers and I enjoyed it.  After a while of just mulling things over in my head, coming up with lots of cool ideas for both of my novels, I decided it was time to do something with them.  The big thing keeping me back from actually re-writing my novels was it seemed like a daunting task.  I couldn’t just re-write them and hope for the best.  That obstacle on top of being swamped with schoolwork, I just put writing on the back-burner for a while.

Now with this pandemic, I’ve had a bit of a break from school stuff and now I’m mainly just focused on studying for the MCAT (Medical School Admissions Test) and entertaining myself.  Video games were great for about two days, then I started to go crazy from not being productive.  I was reading an article from one of my current favorite authors and he was talking about his progress with his own new novel.  He had referenced how he liked to stay mainly to his original outline while writing his novels.  Feeling kind of bored with not much else to do, I figured I’d try creating an outline.

At first, I was a little skeptical.  I never really saw the point of making an outline.  It seemed like it would take some of the fun away from writing.  However, I couldn’t have been more wrong.  My biggest irritant with writing was it took so long and I wanted to create the entire story ASAP.  The thing is, I can do that with my outline.  It doesn’t happen overnight, and I’m only about halfway done with finishing the first draft of it after a week, but I’m absolutely loving it.  I’m editing big plot points without having to sift through thousands of words to change one big thing and I’m coming up with mini flow charts for each chapter that I never would have thought of if it wasn’t for writing an outline.

Of course I’m leaving room for creative choices along the way, and my outline is more of a guideline that keeps me on track from chapter to chapter, but I’ve got the big overarching themes and plot points figured out.  I’m including some of my short stories into my re-write of The Resurrection Man.  The stories are The Poltergeist and The Giants’ Graveyard.  I’m also including a lot of the things that I’ve already written in the past iteration of it on top of some small scenes I was writing in my free time.  I’m really excited about this

Now, a quick scene from my re-write.  No spoilers:

 

“And just like that I was whisked away to another place.  This place was desolate.  A desert, but was still teeming with a terrible life.  Monsters mutated by radiation roamed the land.  Massive hoards, teeming with writhing, squirmy things, masticating any and all life into sustenance for the surrounding mutants.  But this was not the terrible life I sensed because these things were not alive at all, at least not in the traditional sense.  Standing on the side of a building, hidden within a white suit with a mask made to look like a skull, stood the terrible life.  He was surveying the land before him, gathering information on it.  Beside him stood a woman wrapped in baggy clothes designed to weather the desert.  The man shook his head and pointed something out to the woman.

Curious to see what his face looked like, I focused myself underneath the covering of his visor and was shocked to see an older version of the boy from my previous vision.  His terrible secret had manifested itself and made him into a warrior capable of atrocious acts.  But I knew intrinsically he was a good man.  He bore the burden of being a killer so the innocent didn’t have to.  He didn’t particularly enjoy his life, but he wouldn’t give Him the satisfaction of ending it.”

~James’s vision

 

New Blog Page

There is going to be a link to my old posts below:

In the future, I’m going to just be posting little things I’m doing and different things I find interesting. I’ll be posting updates on different short stories I’m working on as well as movement on new projects I’ll be working on. I also have full intentions on posting cool pictures that I think may apply to my books/short stories which I hope you all will also enjoy.