Story Launch: "Freeing Truth" + First Batch of Audiobooks Launches! + NEW PUBLISHING SITE: deviantART

Good news: I'm starting again on The Current next week!

In other news, one week ago, I launched my newest short story, "Freeing Truth." This was written as part of a school assignment, which was to make a creative piece (story, poem, painting, sculpture, etc.) involving the quote, "The truth shall make you free," in the light of Cory Doctorow's dystopian, modern-day 1984 novel, Little Brother, which was the "all-school read" for this past summer. The result is "Freeing Truth," my longest short story to date, at about 5.25 pages long in Word. Like "Trust Fall" before it, "Freeing Truth" is split into "chapters;" there are six in this one, as opposed to five in "Trust Fall." The story is of the fantasy genre, and involves a selfish king who holds a mysterious power in his castle. A youth then tries to steal it and learns a startling fact about the king and the kingdom. "Freeing Truth" is currently available on both the ZU Forums and Figment, and in the next few weeks, it will also be available on deviantART (more on that later).

Today marked the launch of the first batch of audio versions of my short stories! In case you never noticed the "Audiobooks" page here, it's been here for about three months with a message saying "Coming soon! (I promise!)" Well, it wasn't quite as soon as I'd hoped, but I'd say not bad! Each audiobook is read by me, unabridged. If you download the whole thing (as a ZIP file), you get some extra goodies. Unfortunately, that's not out yet, as I haven't recorded all of the audiobooks yet. The first nine have been recorded, as well as the version of "Trust Fall" with the extended second chapter, the version of the audiobook that will only be available in the ZIP file. I will also be recording "The Blind Man Who Could See" later today (UPDATE, 17:38: Done and available!), and maybe another, as well. If you enjoy books more when you can listen to them, then you'll benefit from the really dramatic (at least most of the time) audio versions of my stories! Even if you're a visual reader, you can still enjoy! Just head over to the "Audiobooks" page, and you can download (individually) the available audiobooks. (There is a small error in "Twelve Chimes" when my microphone apparently cut off for a second. No need for you to worry, as I will be fixing that--by rerecording that cut-off sentence--and re-uploading the file within the next week or so.)

ZU August Writing Contest Results + Entry Reveal/Launch/Reception + "Trust Fall" Anniversary

Yes. I did. Finally. I won first place in a Zelda Universe Forums Writing Contest! I tied with two other greats of the ZU writing community, Doran_Bladefist (one of my former co-Muses/co-Teachers in the Writing School/Muses' Oasis) and FightingTorque. I was up against thirteen other entries (a record), and I received three votes--only five or six people voted. Voters each voted for up to four entries. Special mention goes to ZU member America for his outstanding praise of my entry, praise that touched me so deep and made me feel really warm and fuzzy inside!

So, you're probably wondering what the heck my entry was in the first place! It's a folktale-style piece that followed the contest's theme of "magic" in an indirect and more metaphorical sense, titled "Wonders of the Sky." It tells the tale of a man called the Wanderer who travels the world searching for "wonders so impossible that they could only be magical." Following him on his journeys are a group of devoted Followers. Eventually, however, he begins to give up hope of ever finding what he is looking for. Will he ever find it? Find out in "Wonders of the Sky!" (Yes, I used to love making advertisements for things.)

Where can you find this new story? Hit the jump to find out this and more!

Um... (a.k.a. a Current Update) + New ZU Writing Contest Entry

Yeah, so at least I...sort of have an excuse this time? I've been busy with a few things: two vacations, one of which made it a tad difficult to perform tasks on a computer; relaxing--it's a valid excuse, considering the fact that I otherwise have no life during the school year; writing podcast stuff--remember, I work on the ZUCast, and I have scripts to write; and writing a new short story ("hit the jump" for more on that). There is hope, however! A month ago or so, I signed up for my choices of the mandatory after-school activities at school for this year, and my first choice for both the fall and winter trimester is the school newspaper. Believe it or not, this is when I have gotten quite a bit of my creative writing done in the past couple years! Forget the school newspaper (though I obviously write articles); once I'm done writing articles within a day or two, I spend the rest of the month writing stories and novels! Take that, school! Yeah....

The Current Update + Conceptual Dual-Release Launch + Reception on Figment

Well, the good news is that I've started the third chapter of The Current! And now that I'm into it, I should have it finished in a couple days or so. Don't worry. It will happen soon! Chapter three has also undergone a name change, in case you didn't notice it under the "Current Projects" (how fitting!) box on the right. Originally to be called "Chapter Three: The Current," for the obvious reason (if you read chapter two!) that Joe will be going down the Current in this chapter, I felt it was too simple and, since the novel's title is The Current, didn't really express what I wanted it to in regards to the chapter's content. The new chapter title is "Chapter Three: Insult to Injury," of which I will not disclose the relevance of at this point in time, due to it being a fairly major spoiler. Again, it should be up in a couple days or so.

As I mentioned in my previous post, today I have launched a dual-release of conceptual short stories that I wrote over the course of the past school year as English class assignments. The two stories, as I also mentioned before, are titled "The Blind Man Who Could See" and "The Open Gate," respectively. The former was released exclusively on Figment, and the latter was released exclusively on the Zelda Universe Forums.

"The Blind Man Who Could See," which I originally wrote last October, is a conceptual/spiritual story that sacrifices complexity in the plot and in the writing itself for an important, powerful message. Like "The Open Gate," this story is told from the view of the main character. This character is a young man who meets a blind, old man on the side of a street in London. From his conversation with the old man, his view of life is forever changed. The assignment for which this story was written was to write a short story borrowing elements, particularly the character of Vasudeva, from Hermann Hesse's classic novel, Siddhartha. It received a B+.

"The Open Gate," which I originally wrote in April, is more fantastical than its parallel release and carries less of a message. It is also significantly darker in mood. The main character stumbles upon an open gate across the street from where he is walking home, and he/she realizes that the gate is made entirely of pure gold and is studded with all kinds of gems and crystals. He/she decides to take a detour to see what lies beyond the gate, but he/she soon finds him-/herself walking down an endless road that provides for his/her every need in order to wipe the thought of turning back from his/her mind. It's a very chilling story! It received a B or a B+ (I'd need to check to remind myself).

New Upcoming Short Story Releases + NEW PAGE

This post will be more of a quickie than my usual posts. I wanted to announce that I will be releasing two never-before-released short stories that I wrote over the course of this past school year as assignments for English class. They are both of the conceptual genre, my first to be so, one being more obviously so than the other. And while they have nothing to do with each other, I'm releasing them as a paired release, one for each of my official publishing sites. Figment will be getting "The Blind Man Who Could See," the more conceptual of the two, which I wrote last October. Zelda Universe will be getting the more fantastical, less conceptual story, "The Open Gate," which is also much darker than the other story.

I will write more about each story when I release them this coming Monday, including what the original assignments were for each. Until then, you have the third chapter of The Current to look forward to!

Speaking of The Current, I have added a brand-new page to the blog! The page, appropriately titled "The Current," is where you can read a Microsoft Word-formatted document (courtesy of Google Docs and Google Docs Viewer) of The Current that is updated whenever I finish a chapter (a.k.a. the only time I will press the "Sync" button on Google Cloud Connect, you sneak-preview-hungry rascals!). Also, for those Travelers of the Many Worlds of EzloSpirit--in other words, those who are following the blog through Google Friend Connect (to follow, press the "Follow" button in the Travelers console in the right-hand column--can use an embedded gadget under the document to place a short (or long!) review of the novel and let me know what they think about the project so far and/or in general. (Constructive reviews, people, constructive reviews.)

And that's all for now! Until a day or two from now!