Click here if you want to read Section 24 of Scavengers, my sci-fi novel. (Or if you’d like to start from the beginning, click here.)
In this chapter, Wiley returns to feed his captive only to discover that she’s lost the will to live. An unlikely saboteur reveals himself.
So, I’m back in Ohio now, shacking up at my parents’s house. It’s quite nice actually. I love the quieter environment.
I’ve been working diligently on my second novel. I’m posting it online as I go, and you can start reading it here.
In any case, I hope your holidays were good and that 2016 brings you lots of luck. I’ll be needing a fair bit myself.
But to make myself feel better, here’s a list of things I did last year:
So if you want to see things realistically, maybe a list like this omits a lot of downsides, but if you’re like me and see nothing but downsides whenever you open your eyes, perhaps a little pick-me-up is needed!
But Matt, I thought you just finished preliminary work on your first novel, “American Saviors.” How could you possibly have finished a second book already?
Well, that’s just the thing. I haven’t.
I’m going to put pieces of my second novel online as I finish them, inspired by Sally Slater, as well as the old serial style of novelization, that Dickensian piecemeal approach. This new one is a sci-fi horror tale, something that sprang to mind as a short story. Now it’s getting a bit longer. We’ll see how long it’ll be by the end of it! I’m inspired by the Shining and Alien. It might be a whole different animal by the time I’m done with it, but I’m interested in this experiment.
I’m going to post the sections I finish as I finish them, and people can read along as it goes. Based on how the first round of revisions went with my first book, there’s a good chance whole chunks could be amputated by the time the story’s done. Hopefully this will demystify the process a little bit, and show everyone the nitty gritty hard work as it’s actually approached. Take a gander over yonder, pilgrim: https://www.wattpad.com/story/47188335-scavengers
For a synopsis, read the following:
Wiley and his son Yaw are scavengers, hopping from rock to rock mining what they may. When they stumble upon a rare bounty, it drives a wedge between them, each with a different prize in mind. Yaw dreams of escaping his father’s clutches, starting a life for himself elsewhere. And Wiley? Well, his predilections make him a tad more predictable in some ways and bit more erratic in others. Once the boys assemble a crew, they set out to claim their bounty but run into a little trouble along the way, a stowaway hellbent on making the voyage a one-way trip.
Matt Shore 