Relevant Links

Hello friends and followers. I’m plotting to move to Chicago in the next few months, and am currently on the job hunt. I’ll have more information about my search and an updated LinkedIn page to boot coming shortly. In the meanwhile, here are all the links to my currently relevant information, in case you want to keep up with what I’m doing.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shorester  (@shorester)

I am posting new chapters of my family friendly fantasy story, Spellbound Sword, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on Wattpad. Click here to read Spellbound Sword. You can also read my other posted Wattpad stories here.

I’ve started a Discord chat page. If you’d like to chat with me about my writing or other hobbies, join here. It’s just a fun place to share information and gifs and have some laughs. I’ll also be posting updates there too, but it’s a good way to talk to me directly.

I’ll probably update this post with more information soon, so please check back.

 

I’ve Completed the Draft of Spellbound Sword

I haven’t been posting much lately, and for that I apologize. I’ve been hard at work on the rough draft for my family-friendly fantasy tale, Spellbound Sword. It’s the story of a young boy named Travis who is adopted by a magic-using outlaw named Kane Verdelea. Together they go on a quest to steal a sword with ties to Travis’s family history. In doing so, they uncover a conspiracy within the Kingdom’s monarchy that has existed for decades and seeks to throw the entire country into chaos. Travis and Kane team up with a blade-wielding vagrant, a mysterious man-beast, and a mechanically minded Princess to stop the conspirators from unleashing their plot. Only the power of the sword can save the Kingdom, but unlocking its full potential is more difficult than Travis and his friends could ever imagine.

If you’re interested in reading the story, I’ll be posting it chapter by chapter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on my wattpad page. If you’re interested in reading my last novel-length piece, a dark sci-fi tale for mature audiences called Scavengers (inspired heavily by the film Alien and the book The Shining). I apologize if this jump between genres and audiences might seem confusing, but I’m trying to stretch myself as a writer and discover where my voice and style best fit, even as they continue to grow.

When I was ten years old (the same age as Travis, my story’s protagonist) I entered a writing competition wherein we were given a prompt and had to make up a story on the spot. The story I wrote ended up winning an award, and it was the starting point for Spellbound Sword. My mother always encouraged me to revisit this story as it was one that captivated her when I wrote it. She has always been a fan of the Harry Potter series as well. I thought it might be time for me to try to write something that anyone could potentially enjoy, rather than forcing myself into a dark spooky niche.

So here we have Spellbound Sword, the first book in what I would like to be a series about Travis’s many adventures. If the series should continue or not is all up to you and whether or not you enjoy the tale. Like Scavengers, the draft you’ll find on wattpad is unedited and unrevised. If there are mistakes or inconsistencies (and I am sure there are some) they will hopefully be corrected in the next draft. I’ve been told to take a break between writing and editing so as to come back fresh, but I wanted to share with you what I had so far as a way of gauging your interest. Thus far, some people have really taken to the story, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Their encouragement means the world to me.

That being said, if you have comments, critiques, concerns, thoughts or questions about this or any of my writing feel free to contact me on twitter (at) shorester or leave a comment or message on my wattpad profile. If you have my email address you can reach me there as well, though I don’t like to give it out too freely for fear of a messy inbox. Any words of advice or criticism you might have, even ones about small typos or inconsistencies, will be of great use in the next edit, so I can and will use them all. No comment is too small.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy my stories.

 

Scavengers Update

(This post originally appeared to my followers on Wattpad. If you would like to check out the sci-fi novel I am working on, click this link.)

Just a quick update on my writing. I apologize that Scavengers is so long. I tend to write a great deal in a short amount of time. The draft that is currently posting is a rough draft. I have yet to edit it. The draft is complete in that it has an ending. I am going to post longer sections from now on, so you get more bang for your buck. That way the finished draft will be available sooner.

In other news, I have been working fervently on a family-friendly fantasy story in the vein of Harry Potter. After spending so much time in the darkness of space, it is nice to do something light and friendlier. Once I’m finished posting Scavengers, I will begin posting that book, called Spellbound Sword, on Mondays and Fridays.

A good question that I imagine people being too timid to ask is, why are you doing this? What’s with all the writing? I’m not exactly sure, but as I read more and write more and feel myself improving, I know that it is important to me. I am not convinced that it will ever be important to other people, but I can always dream. Sometimes we do things purely for ourselves. For the same reason I’ve started going to the gym, I’m going to continue writing every day even if few ever read what I write. I hope you will give my writing a chance, but I know that Scavengers is not for everyone. I look forward to potentially reaching readers of all ages with my next book. While it has a bit of YA awkward romance it is mostly a fantasy-adventure tale. I am trying to include as much humor as possible.

That’s all for now, but thank you again for reading.

Follow Me on Wattpad!

My wattpad profile is blowing up!

If you want to keep track of my writing as I post it, wattpad is the best place to follow and read along.

I’ll be posting chapters from Scavengers weekly, and excerpts from American Saviors on special occasions.

I also have my short story up there as well.

Check it out!

Read “Scavengers”, My Second Novel!

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.