Wyrmblood

  Being a discovery writer (not a plotter) is such a weird thing, I don't think I'll ever get used to. It's also something that's almost impossible to give advice about.  There's an anthology I really want to be a part of so this morning I started writing a short story. The theme was Christmas horror. That's it. I couldn't think of anything. I was fairly confident I had nothing in the tank for this. But I decided to roll the dice and trust myself, so I opened a new document and started typing a name. Then just started casually talking about him as an opening paragraph, hoping that like push-starting an old car, the engine would just turn over and kick into gear and a story would magically happen, even though I had nothing. Nothing. Next thing I know, (long meal breaks not withstanding) I'm 3.5k words in and I'm so intrigued by this tale, that I kind of want to stop, go lie down and watch to see how this film ends. But the only way I'm going to fi...

It's here... A MAN CALLED BOY, my first novel set in my fantasy world is officially out and available to the public. Please pick up a copy:  https://mybook.to/ManCalledBoy  and if you enjoy it, which I hope you do, give it a rating and review to boost its presence. I'm working hard to complete other stories and novels, and would like to write a sequel to this one. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, bother strangers on trains, stand on top of a milk crate in a public place and shout about it. Buy it as a christmas present, birthday present, easter, halloween, bank holiday, etc. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Adventure, Sword and Sorcery, Indian fantasy, Persian fantasy, Assassin, tribe, magic, etc.

'A MAN CALLED BOY'  by debut fantasy novel will be available in ebook format in 9 days, from Cloaked Press. PREORDER: https://mybook.to/ManCalledBoy An introductory tale beyond my short stories of my fantasy world that I hope you'll enjoy.  From Cloaked Press: Coming in 9 days. Don't miss this dive into the world created by Barend Nieuwstraten III. Abandoned at birth, one man shapes his own destiny. Abandoned to the elements at birth, and taken in by a trader with a soft spot for the tiny mewling babe he found on the plains, the Courier spent his young life honing skills by acquiring items for clients with the utmost discretion. When his mentor and savior succumbs to old age, and his line of work becoming increasingly dangerous, the Courier finds himself in need of training befitting his smaller size. Joining the assassin’s guild proved lucrative and dangerous, granting him the skills he needed to improve his chances and gain critical contacts that allowed him to join t...

Firstly Happy New Year!!! I'll be trying to sleep while everyone else is partying because I have a weekend day job. So that'll be a challenge. But here's my Year in review. I know I haven't posted anything in a while, but I've been busy writing, which I hope buys me some credibility.   2023 Year in Review. Been a busy year for writing, which is odd, because this year I've had a full time day job working a fortnightly 36 hours in 3 days then 48 in 4, but generally this gives me 3 and 4 day weekends in which to write, which is nice to be doing with a default income. Of course, working over the weekends has also brutally murdered my social life, so no distractions there either. Some of these anthologies have two stories in them from me, one has ten flash fiction pieces and another five, slightly balanced out by one story being serialised into 3 issues of Stygian Lepus. But 30 short stories (2-20k) and 15 flash fiction published all in all. I've also been worki...

Hello again. Long time no see... I haven't updated this place in a while (not since March). I've been incredibly busy, working both hard on writing and working very long hours in a day job required to facilitate my crippling addiction to food and shelter.  There's been more than a few short stories accepted and published in the last several months since I last posted, and I've updated the page where they're all listed with links. But also, Cloaked Press have picked up my fist novel 'A Man Called Boy' (Fantasy). Needless to say I've very excited about this, but so far a contract has been signed, and all that happens between contract and release will have to unfold in whatever timeframe it does.  In other firsts news, my short story 'Beyond the Ensuite' from the Manor Of Frights anthology is available to listen to in an episode of Horror.Net's podcast: LISTEN HERE   It's a great podcast, and I've enjoyed listening to the other stories f...

  Juggling a few short stories at the moment and redrafting a novel.  Short Story Acceptances: -'A Cold Reception' (Scifi) to be published in 'Spring Into Scifi' anthology (out late March) from Cloaked Press -'In The Raftshade' and 'The Patient Shore' (Fantasy) to be published in 'Songs of the Siren' anthology  (out at the end of May) from Dragon Soul Press -'The Plate of Plenty' (Fantasy) to be published in ParSec magazine in an upcoming issue (one of the next few issues. -'Greyrazor' (fantasy) to be published in 'Trickster' anthology from Dragon Soul Press

  A challenging year, but I'm proud of the work I managed to create. On the publishing front I saw my work appear in fifteen published anthologies. That's one more than last year, which is actually more impressive than it sounds because for the last seven months of this year I also took a day job (because, as fun as it's been to write full time, it's not generating a liveable income just yet – I need to get some full books out there). Casual day work (mostly at night), but that's still anywhere between twelve and fifty hours a week not in front of a computer. Instead standing on my feet, destroying my arches, and making it hard to sit at a computer to write, needing days to recover from the pain. So, with limited time, I still got done what I did, and I'm proud of that. I'm still pumping out short stories because it helps flesh out my worlds. With each new short, I discover something new about that world. It's a journey of discovery. With each new stor...

 Delayed update...  Four more stories of mine have been accepted for publication in anthologies due out early next year: -'Beyond the Ensuite' a short horror piece for 'Manor of Frights' from Horror addicts -'Twin Temptation' a fantasy piece for 'Depths of love: My Enemy' from Cloaked Press and SFWG -'Under a Broken Moon' a fantasy novella for ' Beastly Tales' from Dragon Soul Press -'Blue Monday' a sci-fi short for 'Union' from Dragon Soul Press Pounding the keyboard hard to get more stories out, then hopefully focusing on a couple novels in the later half of this month and most of January. 

Halloween's becoming a lot like Christmas. It's starts creeping in a month or so early. Give Oktoberfest so breathing room, people. No doubt we'll see Christmas stuff up Nov 1, and Hotcross buns out on Boxing Day. Thus is the cycle of life. Perhaps we need to embrace more religious holidays to fill the rest of the year out with treats and costumes. But I do love this time of year. I'm currently working as a security officer at a fun park as day (evening) job. They're doing a Halloween thing for a couple weeks, so I'm often standing on a deck watching Silent Hill nurses cavort and convulse in the bloody uniforms and bandaged heads, to terrorise folk as they enter the park.  It's an agonising job as I stand for hours on feet that aren't built for it (collapsed arches, a heel issue, etc). It's literal torture, motivating me to get as many books out into the world and sell a million copies of each. It's like a reverse cop show/movie trope: after year...

 Greetings once more. Excited to announce that my fantasy/horror story 'Embrace of the Spider Queen' will be included in the anthology 'Beautiful Darkness' from Dragon Soul Press, due for release around Halloween. It is a distant sequel to 'Solyn the Scavenger' [All Dark Places 2] and 'Solyn the Slayer' [All Dark Places 3] set decades later and following a different perspective. I have also just finished the first draft of a novel that takes places just north of the very setting in which the three stories mentioned above take place, but on the other side of the obsidian wall. A subterranean dwarven story. This project got interrupted by another book I'm writing (which was finished but then started getting expanded after a beta read - still some chapters to be written there) so it's good to see it done and, as a discovery writer, finally know the plot. That's how it works for we gardener/pantser types. The first draft is what we use as our out...

 Been a while since I updated my upcoming published stories, so here goes; TEMPLED OF THE BLACK FIST Asian themed fantasy story for 'VALOR' anthology from Dragon Soul Press, involving a character from and set shortly before my story ONE WHISKER.  Due: late July 2022 TURNING A NEW LEAF A demonologist's misadventure (fantasy) for 'ROGUES AND REDEEMERS' anthology from Ardent Dawn/Zasra Press Due: February/March 2023 UNDER THE OASIS A steampunk adventure for 'AGE OF ARTIFICE' anthology from Dragon Soul Press Due: late August 2022 THE WORST THING IN THE DARK A contemporary horror story for 'HAUNT' anthology from Dragon Soul Press  Due: late September 2022 CLAWS OF ASCENSION and THE ILLUSIONISTS DAYMARE Two flash fiction pieces for 'HAWTHORNE & ASH Vol 4' from Iron Faerie Publishing due out at the end of the year but corresponding to May and June themes.  An assortment of Drabbles and Semi-Flash pieces for DEMIGODS anthology 4 x 250 word pieces...

Thrilled to announce that my novella 'Prowtied' will be included in the upcoming anthology 'Wicked Wishes' due out from Fiction Atlas in early May 2022.  All proceeds from this book will be directly donated to the The World Literacy Foundation : a global not-for-profit organisation that works to lift young people out of poverty through literacy, operating on the principal that education is a basic human right. I'm also happy to announce that my short story 'Blacktooth' along with 5 drabbles ( A Dose of No Closure, A Fall in the Hall, La Petite Mort, The Dark Eye, The Invited and the Uninvited ) will be included in the anthology ' Grimdark (Tiny Tales of Terror 2) ' from Black Hare Press, due for release in late May 2022.

 As the torrential rain of summer departs to make way for the torrential rain of autumn, I'm  pleased to announce that two of my stories have been accepted for publication in Dragon Soul Press anthologies.  Firstly, 'Retrieval', a scifi / cyberpunk novelette for the anthology 'Surge' due out at the end of April and 'Call of the Ancients' Craft' a fantasy novelette for the anthology 'Beyond Atlantis' due out at the end of May, this year. 'Retrieval' is an idea I had sitting around for a very long time, that consisted of  nothing more than a 2-3 page intro that's moved from computer to computer since the 90s with the rest of my to-do-later list of scifi stories that took a back seat while I worked on music and other things over the years. The other part was a scene that has played out in my head every time I listened to the 12" version of Jesus Built my Hotrod by Ministry for the last 20 years. So I'm glad to finally see this s...

Happy New Year (he says on Valentines Day - I've been busy writing, give me a break) Anyway... just announcing a few new stories for Publication. My science fiction story 'Unauthorised Fauna' will be appearing in the anthology 'Spring into SciFi 2022' from Cloaked Press. A mostly faithful adaptation of a weird nightmare I had many years ago in my teens. On the fantasy flash fiction front I have 11 pieces due for release later in the year. Ten will appear in the flash anthology 'Flights of Fantasy' from Iron Faerie Publishing while another will appear in 'Ivy & Sage (Hawthorn & AshVol 4, 2022)'  Working on a whole bunch of other stories, so I better get back to it. -BN3

  Well, it's been a crazy year. Frankly, it's been a crazy life. I put off my pursuit of writing so many times, but as the whole country around me was on fire and my job disappeared at the end of 2019, it seemed a good time to focus on it an see what would happen if I took a risk, rolled the dice, and jumped out of the plane without a parachute. It wasn't until it was the only thing that I was doing that things started to happen. In 2020 I got a short story published in a magazine, then two novelettes in two anthologies. It was exciting to see my words on the page in actual books. That got the ball rolling. As I look back now, on 2021 and the works I've managed to get out there, the ball of flaming fear, molten uncertainty, and corrosive anxiety has not gone away, but it's certainly shrunk. I feel a great deal of satisfaction seeing just how much happened for me this year. 14 anthologies housing 14 of my stories (a novella, several novelettes, and a couple of shor...

Introduction by Mindi Briar Hi everyone! In case you haven't already seen me screaming about it, the Timeless 2 anthology released on Nov. 30! Because I was curious about my fellow anthology contributors, I got together a few of them for an interview session. This is a fantastic chance to learn more about the faces behind the anthology stories. Everyone's social medias will be linked down below! Original Interview can be found: HERE on Mindi's website. Q1: Introduce yourself. What genre do you write? Mindi Briar: Hi, I'm Mindi Briar! I’m a library assistant from Seattle, WA, where I live with my husband and three cats, Comma, Apostrophe, and Nimi. I’m a HUGE nerd for all things science fiction and fantasy, so of course I love writing in the speculative fiction realm. The niche that I’m focusing on right now is futuristic fantasy/romance, with some crossover into solarpunk. I have one previous short story published in  Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology . ....

Some Announcements while the flies buzz around the carved pumpkins rotting on your porch... My Novelette 'One Whisker' is a follow up to 'The Tiger and the Ox'  and has been included in the upcoming Dragon Soul Press anthology 'Dragons & Heroines' An additional Horror release for Halloween, 'Forest of Fear Volume 3' is available from Blood Song Books. A collection of drabbles (precisely 100 word stories), it includes five contributions from me titles: 'A Sinking Feeling' / 'A Taste of youth' / 'An Invitation Down' / 'Black of Scale' / 'The Longest Banquet' While stand alone snippets of things going on in my fantasy world, I will make a point that 'The Longest Banquet' does relate to 'Solyn the Slayer' ( A sequel to 'Solyn the Scavenger' ) which appears in 'All Dark Places 3' from Dragon Soul Press, also released on Halloween. A little short to be a sequel, but a vague littl...

My Fantasy story ' The Delivery ' will be appearing in the Ardent Dawn/Zasra Press anthology Trials by Tides due out in April 2022. I have also written a one-off story, genrewise, 'Upon Reflection' which will be published in the Dragon Soul Press anthology Timeless 2 due out in November. It's a book involving twists on Fairy Tales, so needless to say it doesn't fit into my fantasy world. But an idea, surfaced while reading the submissions call, and now there's a rogue tale out there. So, better pick up a copy, because it won't be appearing in any compiled anthologies I'll one day release. Now for the exclusions... I have removed all the fantasy flash fiction from this site, because eventually I'll compile them into their own flash fiction anthology, though this may be a while because it would be wafer thin otherwise. I've left the update pages that link to the two on Story Pony, but I primarily posted the stories on here for feedback, whic...

More stories on their way!!! Keep an eye out for these releases over the next few months. 'Hearthshare ' -  Fall into Fantasy 2021 edition [Cloaked Press] Due Sep21st 2021 (Fantasy/Horror) 'The Selection Process' - Extinct Worlds [Dragon Soul Press] Due Sep30th 2021 (Science Fiction) 'Solyn the Slayer' - All Dark Places 3 [Dragons Soul Press] Due Oct 31st 2021 (Fantasy/Horror) 'Hatchling' - All Dark Places 3 [Dragons Soul Press] Due Oct 31st 2021 (Fantasy/Horror)

Another fantasy novelette is available, 'Children of Brechor' about shifters and changelings in 'Spirit' [Dragon Soul Press]. At the end of May, 'The Tiger and the Ox' will be available, being an east Asian inspired fantasy tale in the anthology 'Valiance' [DSP]. In the middle of June, my novella 'Black Spire Isles' will appear in the anthology 'Far, Far and Away' [Mirror | World]. At the end of June, a science fiction story 'Custodian One' in 'Space Bound' [DSP].