Short Stories – Page 16

As many of us do, I like to look back and believe I’ve accomplished something in the past year. For me, this was my first full year in retirement—having finished my regular working life in late 2017.

My aim was the same as always, to use my time productively. Apart from reading/reviewing and my literary output, I had a couple of big domestic projects to plan and complete. I wouldn’t concentrate properly on my writing if I didn’t deal with one of my domestic jobs first, so January was written off.

February—I bought Vellum, a quality formatting programme to use with my Mac. Not only was I intent on producing paperbacks—I wanted the interior to look smart, and professional. Before a book was released as a paperback it would be completely revised. The revisions were already underway. My eBooks were also scheduled for the processing through Vellum.

March—Amsterdam Calling; published in paperback.

April—Ten Days in Panama; published in paperback.

May—Curious and Camping: An Erotic Journey; published.

—helped to edit and format Lisa: and other short stories, for my dear friend and fellow author Carmen Lopez.

June—Quiet Night Inn: and other erotic stories; published.

—Commenced work on the conversion of A Life of Choice from five eBooks to a paperback trilogy.

July/August—Continued A Life of Choice conversion.

—Editing and assembling stories for the next IASD anthology (with the invaluable help of several members of the group).

—Completed a large domestic task and fitted in a holiday.

September—Created Tom Benson – Artist, a new website to replace Tom Benson Creative Writer and Artist, which was heavy on admin and light on visitors.

October—Rhyme & REASON: 200 Poems, published. A collection I’d considered for a few years which encompasses my serial poetry and samples from each of my genre-based volumes.

November—Being a Good Girl: An Erotic Novella, published.

November—A Life of Choice: The Trilogy Edition, published. This was a major task, on which I started work back in June. It is the paperback version of my popular five-part eBook series.

December—Sharing: An Erotic Novel, published.

In terms of reading, I set myself a target of fifty books and completed forty-six. I will read two more by the end of year. 🙂

Do I feel as if I’ve met my targets?

I do, and apart from dealing with the occasional injury or extremely bad weather, I maintained my daily early morning cycle ride. Personally, I feel as if I’ve had a good year and I now look forward to continuing with the same enthusiasm as we go into 2019.

(I’ve never produced a ‘flag’ from folded T-shirts before ….) 😀

My aims for 2019 will be set out in my next post … very soon. In the meantime, thank you for being a part of my writing life, in whichever way, large or small. It all counts for me.

A heads-up for all you lovely people who have taken the time to read this post. I have four very different titles being offered free and they’ll be available* from Wednesday 19th through Sunday 23rd December.

*This is, of course, if there are no technical hitches with Amazon.

Have a peaceful end to the old year and a great start to the new one.

Tom

The importance of the work in this collection could easily be overlooked, but I’ll say why later in the post. For now, I will tell you that most of the contents have never been published outside of a poetry site.

My first efforts at creative writing (where it would be seen), were with poetry in 2007. It took a few individual pieces to get the hang of it and then I felt the need to take things a stage further—the serial poem, or as some call it, ‘story’ poem.

Again, my early efforts were relatively short, at perhaps a series of two, three, or four poems, but I always aimed to have a logical introduction and a satisfactory ending. The stories got longer and the plots more intricate and in a short time, I was recognised as the ‘serial’ poet on the website. The acclaim I received must have gone to my head because the serial poems got longer.

Why do I suggest that the work in this collection is important?

Honey, my New York detective was born and raised in a poem series. Yes, the main character in the novel A Taste of Honey. The story may not be the same, but the idea and the general background supplied the idea of a young woman capable of deadly vengeance.

Anybody who has read my Beyond the Law trilogy will be acquainted with Hawk, the codename for the main character. The Hawk was an individual poem, but it was so well received I had to go on—for twenty-six poems.

Many of my short stories started life as a simple poem, long before they evolved into detailed stories within an anthology. Pawnee Express, and Anne: Illegal Alien both come to mind.

As I do with all of my writing, I aim to entertain, but with my poetry, I work hard to demonstrate that anybody can write poetry and on any topic. Many of the poems in this collection were written to meet a poetry challenge, like tackling a certain subject, and this to me was a crucial lesson–you don’t know until you try.

What can you expect to find in this anthology?

Romans, Cowboys and Indian, Medieval England, Fantasy, Terrorism, Thriller, Military, Sci-Fi and more. For those who’ve never read my poetry, I’ve included a selection of work from my genre-based poetry anthologies.

I know, I know—I’m holding you back from downloading the book.

If you’re curious, I’ve added three samples to the Rhyme & Reason sub-menu on this blog.

Amazon Preview/Buy

BookLinker – Universal

Thank you for reading.