Tag: writing stories

Third Life is Done

~ Author R.K. Gold ~ Leave a comment

Well, I finished all the edits on this 100 page novella and everything is going according to plan. 3 books published this summer is still a real possibility (yes I’m counting the end of May as summer cause it’s good enough for summer vacation). I just need to polish the blurb before I put it up for presale. Writing the blurb is SO ANNOYING my god. It feels like it took me less time to write my longest manuscript (apx 130k words) than to write this blurb. To those of you with blurb skills I respect you, I mean we’re supposed to honor short story writers but you’re the real champs.

I’m only letting my website and my newsletter know this, but Third Life will be on sale for $0.99 through presale and the three days it’s published but after that, it’s bumping up to full price.

Funny story about Third Life, I finally got the balls to write it because my author friend Lauren Lee needed a sprint buddy. She was working on her Charlotte’s Pact Series and needed a boost of momentum. My original thought for Third Life was a world where individuals had three hearts over their heads (like in video games) but they could lose lives for the most mundane tasks, like not cleaning their room, and the main character was going to search for a guru who found the key to eternity.

I kept the three lives idea but created a world of warfare between two tribes, one outside the walls fighting to return the bodies they borrowed from the world to the ground so the earth could find balance, and the other inside the walls fighting to maintain a lifestyle of strict discipline.

So I would like to thank Lauren Lee for getting me started on this book.

The rest of the summer will go as followed: Writing and editing a novella currently titled Big Boy and revising my full-length manuscript formerly titled the Absolute but now titled Skipping Over Sunday.

I’ll probably do writing sprints for Big Boy (definitely want a new title for that one, too similar to Little Big Boy by Max Power). So if anyone wants to do some writing sprints with me while I work on the rough draft please let me know.

As for Skipping Over Sunday, the story is done I just need to find a way to make it compelling cause at the moment I’m worried it’s too boring.

If all this goes according to plan I may even try vlogging. I have this idea where I’d vlog a pantser novel from beginning to end just to show anyone interested in writing a manuscript how attainable that goal is. I’m not saying it’ll be very good but the words will be on the page and from there you can choose to polish it, revise it, play frisbee with it, or burn it.

As usual thanks for reading! I look forward to writing more blog posts this summer. There’s something incredibly satisfying about writing and publishing something in the same day.

Upcoming Story: Third Life

~ Author R.K. Gold ~ Leave a comment

So, I had this vision of a character who walked around all day with a gun to his head. The world operated on a strike system. Ya know, three strikes and you’re out sorta thing, except in this case out is—

Anyway, I never went anywhere with the story idea. When I thought about it throughout the day it never felt like a story, it seemed more like a painting. A cool concept that would require too many “whys?” to actually get the plot off the ground.

Last week I finally decided to do something about it. As I think I’ve mentioned before I’ve been on a bit of a short (long) story kicker and have a few projects on my computer that are in the 50-70 page zone. Not ideal for a marketing standpoint, not something I’m ever going to build a career out of, but long enough to tell the stories that have been on my mind lately.

Third Life

This is the working cover for the story. Please be polite with your criticism of it.

When I started writing the story, I kept the general concept. The world was based on discipline, everyone inside it operated within a strict framework and any wavering from their orders would cost them.

The deaths became less graphic in my writing than they were in my head. People weren’t literally carrying around the device that would kill them if they strayed. Instead, it turned into an old video game style death. Lose three hearts and you just sorta blink out of existence.

What really took this story off the rails though was all the “whys?” Those pesky whys really make or break the story. This may be a piece of shit but damn it’s got some layers to it. Some I try to make obvious, others less so.

As some of you know my current obsession with writing has been technology vs. nature. The QT Pi series I’m working on is ALL about that. This story is unique in that it isn’t necessarily the nature of our planet.

It’s not much of a spoiler to say this since the whole concept is built around lives inside a video game, but this doesn’t take place in our world at all. It’s a nature verse technology fight in a realm of technology.

I’m trying not to say too much cause I’m worried I’m gonna give something away, and it’s probably all sounding like gibberish, but I’m really excited to share this story with you. I think the next few projects I publish will be short 50-70 page stories. I’ll probably bundle them all together too, all while I continue editing The Pathetic Tycoon and The Absolute.