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Here There Be Dragons Pt. 3

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September 27, 2011
fiction
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Cont. from Part 2

My sight dimmed as the loud thud filled my head. That brief sound was replaced by a mechanical whirring noise reminiscent of a bee’s nest I’d knocked out of a tree once run through a distortion pedal.

“Flee, interlopers.” The voice was made from that same distorted bee sound. It came from somewhere far above.

Whining sounds filled the air followed by dull thuds and the girlish screaming of a few of the young toughs.

“That means run, you ignorant ruffians.”

That was how Mr. Looper always talked. The boys must have gotten the message if the scuffling noises were any indication. I kept my eyes screwed shut, praying for the pain in my head to end. Warm wind, too strong to be called a breeze, blew grit against my face. The gravel embedded into the tar of the roof crunched under something incredibly heavy just a few feet away.

“Ms. Perez, are you able to stand?”

The only person to ever call me that was Mr. Looper. A harsh light shone on me. I slid my eyes open and saw three toed feet formed from scrap metal. They looked for all the world like a robot chicken. I wouldn’t find that funny until later.

“My apologies, Ms. Perez.” The light dimmed and the wind died down.

I slowly got to my feet, still a little dizzy from everything that was going on. When I got the full view of what I faced I nearly fainted. I’d never been a fan of science fiction, but even I had seen the Terminator movies. This thing looked like one of the T1 with its skin scraped off, if they had been modeled on an owl instead of a person. The eyes where huge and its ears were pointed. I could see wings folded against it’s back and huge turbines sticking up over its shoulders. The light came from a chest mounted lens the size of a hubcap.

I didn’t realize I was backing up until the heels of my shoes touched the roof access. “Mr… Looper?”

The construction lowered itself so that its eyes, that looked for all the world like headlights, were even with mine. “Yes, my dear. Or at least an extension of me. If you will return to the store, we can talk about this.” He paused for a moment. “You will find that the ruffians are suitably frightened for now. Or if you prefer I will ensure that you return home safely and we can discuss this tomorrow.”

I didn’t have it in me to walk home, even under the protection of Mr. Looper’s creation. The idea of getting home this far past dark and paying that penalty warred with my hurt shoulder and possible concussion. They won. “I’ll come with you, but I don’t think I can climb down. I’m still a little diz…” My head wound, the adrenaline, and the notion that I was talking with a giant robot all came crashing down around me. My vision blurred for the second time that night, but I didn’t feel myself hit the roof.

A rushing noise covered the city’s night sounds. This time the breeze was cool on my face. When I fully came to, I was swaddled in an ancient afghan and cradled a mug of hot, fragrant tea in my hands. My hands were in turn held by that of my boss, Mr. Looper.

He was a funny looking little man. I was a good foot taller than him and his head was ringed by a fringe of fine white hair.

Continue to Pt. 4

Creative Commons License
Here There Be Dragons by Scott Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.scottroche.com.

Here There Be Dragons – Pt. 2

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September 18, 2011
writing
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Cont. from Part 1

“Not so fast you little c…” The boys voice turned into a whoosh of air as my foot caught him in the midsection.

It was a lucky kick and I knew I’d probably regret it later, if I let another one get their hands on me. I recovered, a little more clumsily than I would have in Tae Kwon Do class, but street fights are the same as ones on the mat. His friends weren’t far away and they were caught short by my reaction. I was glad, and not for the first time that night, that these weren’t real gang bangers.

I ran as fast as I could, finding more speed somewhere deep in me. It wasn’t much further to the store. Then it hit me, the metal grate was down. There was no way I could get that up in time and get behind the safety it offered. Blood thundered in my ears, but now I could here every angry voice and catcall behind me.

The store came up on my left and I ran past it and cut into the alley just beyond. Angels must have given me a push giving me just enough speed and bounce to make it onto the lid of the dumpster. From there it was a short jump to the fire escape. Miraculously, I didn’t miss a step and climbed to the roof of the three story building in a flash.

It hadn’t bought me much breathing room. The ones right behind me didn’t realize I had gone up and went down the alley looking for me. I had a minute, maybe two. I looked around for the roof access. Mr. Looper talked about his roof garden and I knew there had to be a way to get downstairs. Then I realized I had gone up the wrong building. I’d seen action heroes make the jump from building to building, but they were trained athletes and I was just a scared little girl. At least, that’s how I felt.

The iron bars on the fire escape started grinding against brickwork. Heavy boys, nearly grown men, were climbing up here. My eyes darted around the rooftop and I saw the access to a stairwell near the center of the plane. I rushed to it, trying not to trip over anything in the dark. I grabbed the handle and pulled, only to be rewarded with nearly pulling my shoulder muscle. My scream was a mix of rage, fear, and disappointment. It fought with the wind for sheer volume and won hands down.

Shaking, I turned to see how close the Dragons were. For once something played in my favor. In going to the door’s side of the access, I was hidden from them. There was no other way down except for the long jump, so my freedom wouldn’t last long. I made myself small, but kept on the balls of my feet. With any luck they would all come around one side as a group. They weren’t very bright, so I felt it was realistic enough.

“Chica, come on out. We won’t hurt you. We just want to play a little game.” The boy’s voice wasn’t long out of puberty and cracked once to the amusement of his friends.

“Yeah,” another one yelled, “we just want to play a little touch football.” The next to the last word was emphasized and she could nearly feel the leer.

She balled her fists and relaxed them in a rhythm. She’d touch them alright. If she could draw blood on one of them then whatever happened next might be worth it. The way her stomach felt, she might even get to puke on them while she was at it. It did seem like they were all coming around to her left side.

As softly and slowly as she could, she circled around to the right. In the dark she couldn’t tell if hat she tripped over was a pipe or a string of cable. Whatever it was, it put her down on her side just as one of the smarter boys was sneaking around to intercept her. She lay at his feet and had a moment for her predicament to register before his black Chuck caught her on the side of her head.

Go to part three.

Creative Commons License
Here There Be Dragons by Scott Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.scottroche.com.

Free Fiction Fridays

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September 16, 2011
writing
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Last Friday I decided to try an experiment. I gave away a Smashwords coupon to my mini-”anthology” consisting of two stories; “Piercing the Veil” and “Vicious Cycle”. I’m the kind of person that does things like that a little impulsively and right after I released the coupon I did some thinking.

My first question was, “What am I trying to accomplish?”. I want to get more eyes on my stories at this point. I’m fighting some degree of obscurity (for large values of obscurity), and if giving some stuff away helps overcome that then I’m all for it. However, I know that there are people out there who believe in my and want to support my work financially. So I give them ample opportunity to do that by offering my works for sale at as many venues as possible.

When I tweeted last night that I was going to do another Free Fiction Friday today and wanted to know what people wanted me to give away, I got some push back. The objection seemed to boil down to, “if I buy your work and three days later you’re giving it away, I’ll feel cheated”. There was also the notion that if someone knew I was going to do this every week they’d just wait and get what I had for free.

I understand both sets of feelings. My own thoughts on the matter are this though, if I’m supporting an author financially and they decide to put something on sale or give it away then I should respect that. They, no doubt, have reasons for doing what they’re doing. I pay money for stories because I want that person to continue being able to make stories and because I believe in them. Sometimes I even buy things that I’m not otherwise interested in, simply to enable someone to make something cool. Case in point, JR Blackwell’s LARP game Shelter in Place. I’m unlikely to ever play it. I like zombies, but I’m not a LARPer. I backed her Kickstarter campaign anyway.

If someone wants to wait until I put something out for free, for whatever reason, to download it, that doesn’t hurt my feelings. Their reasons are their own, and I made the conscious decision to give it away so they’re not pirating and my being put out would be silly. The only thing that bothers me is the notion that someone wouldn’t buy one of my stories (that presumably they were going to buy at some point) simply because I want to try using a loss leader to bring in more eyes.

So, if you think this is a dumb idea or that ultimately it’s going to hurt me more than help me, I really am interested in hearing what you have to say in more detail than Twitter will allow. I plan on doing giveaways of my short fiction only on Fridays for the next couple of weeks at least, maybe longer if it turns out to be helpful. But if there’s sound logic that I’m overlooking then I’m game to listen.

Here There Be Dragons – Pt. 1

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September 14, 2011
fiction, writing
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This story takes place in the same universe as X Marks the Spot and will be my own take on a super hero universe. It will owe a little bit to the Wild Cards series of books. This is a WIP and is covered by the Creative Commons License below.

I locked up the door on Mr. Looper’s PC Emporium and jumped as high as I could, snagging the gate and using my body wait to pull it down. With it locked in place, I knew that it was as safe as any store in this neighborhood could be. In spite of the fact that this was a computer store, most of the stuff he carried was way old. He tinkered with his stock and fixed any electronics that customers brought in. No matter how useless or broke down the TV, radio, or remote controlled car was, he was always able to coax life out of it.

I pulled my black nylon jacket’s collar up around my neck to try and keep warm. If I hurried I could make the three blocks home before it got dark. This was the Dragon’s turf and anyone caught out in it after dark, especially a girl my age, was like fresh meat. If we didn’t need the money I wouldn’t clean Mr. Looper’s store, no matter how much he paid me and he payed me way too much.

Mom thought he wanted something more than money. She’d never say that to my face, but I’ve heard her end of phone calls. She’s also always asking me how the old man makes me feel or if he ever touches me. I don’t think she knows that at thirteen I know what she’s asking and it made me sick to think about it. He never did and I don’t think he even has thoughts like that. He doesn’t like people much. Oh he treated his customers and me well enough, but he loved his machines.

Wind picked at my jacket and cut through the legs of my skinny jeans. We moved to North Carolina from New Jersey five years ago, but the winters are still pretty cold, even this far south. I broke into a jog, hoping it would warm me up. It almost had too, until I heard the whooping and jeering from up ahead. I knew that it was a group of the Dragons. They weren’t a real gang, not like the Ochos or the Strangers. Mostly, they were just older teens who smoked dope and stole lunch money from younger kids. Ricardo, whose brother was an Ocho, said that they couldn’t cut it in an actual brotherhood, but wanted the excuse to act tougher than they were.

I didn’t know about that. I’d known a few kids that got their share of bruises and cuts, and while Mr. Looper might not be interested in my girlhood, these boys might be. It wasn’t much further to get home, but going the long way around I’d risk running into some tougher groups. There was no safety except to go back to the store. Mr. Looper lived above it and I could probably get him to take her home, or at least she could call Dad to come and get her when he got home.

I hated to bother him, but he had invited me upstairs once or twice early on for cookies. Thinking about Mom’s advice, I said no, respectfully, and it never came up again. I think he knew why I said no, cause he looked a little embarrassed and sad.

I hurried, but the wind was in my face. It seemed to be blowing faster, making it hard to take steps. I didn’t weight much and the spaces between buildings focused the winds. That must have been why I didn’t hear the voices behind me. I didn’t know there were Dragons behind me until one grabbed my arm.

Go to part two.

Creative Commons License
Here There Be Dragons by Scott Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.scottroche.com.

Build A Playlist

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September 8, 2011
Uncategorized
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So I just had a goofy idea. I’m gonna build a playlist with your help. It’s gonna be weird. I’ll pick a song and then tag someone. That person picks a song based on the last song picked (by the person that tagged them). It can be a similar style, a word association, whatever. The reason you choose the song is your own. That person then picks someone and so on until we hit twenty. Refer them back to this post and have them leave a comment with their choice. When it gets to fifteen, I’ll put the playlist together in Grooveshark and display it here for all to see.

Let’s see if this works.

I’m going to pick “White Wedding” by Billy Idol and I tag Zack Ricks.

Where My Readers At?

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September 6, 2011
pimpage
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I’ve been gradually ramping up my efforts to find out where my readers are at and trying to make my fiction available in those places. To that end I’ve begun selling books at Goodreads, in addition to Smashwords, Amazon, and my very own bookstore. I’ve also sent out coupon codes to podcasters, writers, and bloggers to share with their audiences and I set up my story “Fetch” to be featured on Daily Kindle Bargains. Finally, I’ve been using Google Plus and have found new friends, writers, and a fan or two.

All of this is very early days yet, and I’m still trying to figure out the best way to reach prospective readers. One thing I’ve noticed (reinforced by Nobilis Reed) is that on social media sites like Google Plus, authors tend to network with other authors. That’s good to a point. Iron sharpens iron and all that and most writers are also readers, but I’d like to find readers who are primarily readers.

So I open the floor to the writers who are more successful fiscally than I am, where do you find your readers and how do you connect? Also, in my efforts to reach out and offer ways for people to sample my wares, I want to avoid being a douchenozzle and bombarding folks with spam. So, where do you draw the line on self promotion?

Not to leave readers out of the questions, where/how do you find new authors and how much self promotion is too much? Are coupons/free samples a driver for you to try new things? And how much of a role do reviews on sites like Amazon and Smashwords play in your decisions to buy?

Thanks for any input you have!

A Story for a Tweet

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September 1, 2011
fiction
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I’m always eager to try something new, so I’m making a story available for even cheaper than a song. You get this one for a tweet! Enjoy.

Here’s a tease:

Bobby had never been a very practical boy. At least that’s what his teachers always told him. Being raised by his Mom and Dad to always seek the most interesting solution to any problem, rather than the easiest, probably had much to do with that.

“Son,” Dad would say, patting Bobby’s shaggy brown hair, “life is too short to treat every situation like some sort of porcelain doll. If your answer ruffles some feathers, then you’re probably on the right track. If you’re wrong, then just keep trying.”

So when the lad saw his first dragon, he took it at face value, rather than assuming he had gone off his rocker.

If you like this story you might also check out the sample for my YA science fiction novel, Ginnie Dare: Crimson Sands, or if you like horror have a look at my anthology Through a Glass, Darkly. Enjoy!