July Writing Exercise

 The other day while at the park I was doing a little writing. I had some prompts to go off of and I wrote the following short piece. It isn't much, but it was a fun exercise.

PROMPT: It's the middle of the night. There's Light snow falling. You're in the countryside. There's a charming feeling to the place.

Why am I still awake? On a chilly winter night like this, I should be all wrapped up in my blanket next to that cozy fire inside. Instead I find myself out here, in the snow. And the dark, can't forget it's dark. I came here to get away from all of the noise, the people, the distractions. I needed the rest. And I'm trudging through snow in the middle of the night. Not exactly restful. Or is it?

It is quiet. Snows like that, quiet I mean. And there are no other people around at the moment. The other guests at the lodge are inside. Wrapped up and warm. Probably enjoying hot cocoa as well. But I need this right now. I take another deep breath and watch as I exhale. It is a soothing sight, seeing my breath drift out of my mouth. I walk down to the edge of the woods. That's about as far as is safe this late at night. I hear faint sounds of the forest. Not any closer I remind myself. I don't want them sending a search party from the lodge in the morning.

Ha, that would be something. But no, I'm fine here. And I should head back shortly anyway. But I'll enjoy it for a little longer. Tomorrow is my first full day at the lodge. I arrived pretty late this evening. I'm here for a full two weeks. I'll have plenty of time inside. And out here in the countryside.

Two whole weeks of not having to deal with co-workers. No more neighbors blasting their TVs or music. No revving engines when I'm trying to go to bed. Not wondering if that plane flying over head is going to come crashing down on my house. No, I don't really believe that would happen. Don't be silly. Still, one never knows.

I hear a train whistle in the distance. Back home, that would have bothered me. Here I really don't mind. Whelp, time to head back in. Just from this little experience, I can tell I'm going to enjoy my vacation.

Until next post, I hope you enjoy.

July 2025 Update and a short story.

 My word processor died several months back and I had not been able to do much writing other than in notebooks. But yesterday afternoon I was finally able to fix the "Typewriter" and to try it out I typed up the following short little story. Enjoy.

The Derelict

By J.L. LaMastus 07/2025

The ship was a derelict, floating in the asteroid field. How long it had been there, none could say. The crew, they were long dead. So the ship just floated along, waiting to be discovered. Though it wasn’t to wait much longer.

A small cruiser entered the field. “This seems like a good place to lay low for a while.” The pilot observed. “At least until those scaly goons take a break.” He glanced at his monitors and noticed some odd readings. Grinning, he examined them more closely. His instruments had detected the derelict. A perfect hiding place, just waiting for him.

Drawing close to the ship, he could make out the name, The Harpy. He also noted the large hole in the hull. Quite big enough for his little cruiser to enter. “Williams my friend,” speaking to himself, “you just found yourself a new home.”

As the cruiser settled in, Williams donned his space-suit. “Time to do a little exploring.” The ship’s interior was lit by beams from the two shoulder lamps on his suit as he drifted across the gap deeper into the ship. What had happened here anyway? That breach in the hull was no accident. Ahead of him it seemed there was a glow. Could there be some life here after all?

He advanced to see if he could find out. Cautiously, of course. No signs of life, be he couldn’t be for certain. Turning a corner he discovered the source of the light. There was a control panel that still functioned. This could prove enlightening. He stopped at the controls and typed in a command. Soon the ship filled with light. No life perhaps, but power at least.

Tapping in a few more commands he called up the ship’s records. Maybe they would hold some clue as to what had happened here. His eyes grew wide with shock, then fear as the last video entry played back. Quickly he shut off the power and turned to get his butt back to his cruiser. As fast as he possibly could.

It wasn’t fast enough. In the dying light he saw them now. “I shoulda taken my chances with those scaly freaks.” He lamented. Too late he learned that this derelict, The Harpy, was to truly be his home. His last home.

 2025

January the 1st

It being a new year I am reviving this web-site. I haven’t written here in too long. July of 2023 to be precise. But I am going to do better about that.

Mainly due to the changes going on with my writing. Some things are still up in the air. But there are others to be discussed.

The main thing right now is a book that was just published. An unexpected, answered prayer for me. To go back to the beginning, in 2019 I started writing a story for an upcoming anthology. The Moon Man Vol. 3 from Airship 27. While I was writing it Mom passed away and I nearly gave up and didn’t feel like finishing the story. But I pushed through and got it done and turned it in. Unfortunately one of the other writers didn’t turn in his story and the book didn’t get published. That hit me pretty hard and took the wind out of my sails for a couple years.

Fast forward to 2024. I found out that Amazon would be shuttering the Vella program. That being how I’d been mainly publishing my writing I was hit hard once more. I am still searching for an alternative that I feel will work for me. But on December 5th, the last day to upload episodes for the Vella, I received an email from Ron at Airship 27. It let me know that the Moon Man book was going to be published at last. After five years the story I wrote was finally going to see the light of day. A week later I got a proof copy to review. I went over it and was happy with it, so I responded that it was fine. Then it was time to wait once more.

I didn’t have long to wait however. Last night, on New Year’s Eve, I got another email informing me that the book had been published and was now available on Amazon. What a great and blessed start to this new year. I am thankful to God for this and now am feeling pretty optimistic for the year to come.

I still need to figure out how I’ll be publishing my stories going forward. But I have faith that when the time comes the answer will be there.

Update July 27

 Things have been productive. I have several stories completed and in the pipeline to be published on Vella. Actually they have been even more productive than I anticipated. So I've been reworking my plans and changing things ups somewhat. Within the next couple of weeks this should all take affect.

Monday - Stories set in The Silver Gauntlet Barony. I have three more of them planned and they should run until January or February of next year. They will be leading up to a stand alone novel to come out later next year.

Tuesday - I am writing some one shot stand alone stories which will be published on this day each week.

Wednesday - The Harvester will continue to run this day It remains an ongoing story with no planned ending at the moment.

Thursday - Like Tuesday this will be a day of having a stand alone or one shot story. Some of these may lead to something more, some won't.

Friday - The W.A.R.D. stories will continue, and like the Harvester these are ongoing. 

Saturday - I have a new sci-fi space opera story planned with the working title of Dawn Seekers. I'll talk about it a little more once I've ironed out a few more of the details.

Sunday -  I think six days a week will be enough so there will not be anything today.

Anyway that's my new plan. Of course it could change, but for now I am sticking to it.

Update July 7th

 It's been awhile. Time for an update.

Writing has been going good. I have the latest Silver Gauntlet tale still running on Vella. And I'm off to a good start on The Harvester. The first four chapters have been written and tonight I uploaded them to Vella to publish on Wednesdays starting next week.

After I finish this first Harvester story I think it will be time to start work on the W.A.R.D. stories. I get them going and I will have them publishing on Fridays. If I can keep this up it would be great. I am getting better word counts every night. It helps that I am truly enjoying what I'm writing. The Harvester is one I am really feeling good about.

In between the three stories I am planning out some essays I think I'd like to write that I'll post here. I have a few ideas but nothing set just yet. I'll see how that goes.

Update June 6

 Well, I had to scrap the Starr Siren story I started last week. I found another series of books with nearly the same story and even the same main character name. Disappointed but something like this has happened to me a couple times before. I'll just move on to The Harvester which I was pretty much ready to start anyway.

And I do still have more stories from Silver Gauntlet to write. So this is only a minor set-back. And I'm glad I discovered it before I'd gotten much writing done and before I published it. I only had one chapter written and was about halfway through the second. So not much time or effort was wasted.

I am still doing well with everything and this isn't stopping me.

Update May 30

 I finished the last chapter of Dark-Thorn Spire last night. Now I just need to edit the chapters before I can publish them on Vella.

Next up I'm moving on to Starr Siren which I'll begin writing tonight. Not much else to update today.