I’m pleased to announce that my creepy horror story, Immersion Therapy, is now available on the Dead Oaks Podcast and they’ve done a phenomenal job. This is the first audio version of one of my stories, and I’m really impressed with how much care and attention when into producing it. Edward Whalen’s narration was excellent and the music (Creepy,” written and performed by Nicholas Critney and “Haunted,” courtesy of Purple-Planet) was perfect for this particular story. A HUGE thank you to Christopher Waltz and the rest of the Dead Oaks team for first accepting the story and then doing such a fantastic job on the audio. Draw the curtains, turn off the lights and give it a listen. Click here to listen My new series, Serial Killer Z, launches at the beginning of October but you can get a head start on Marcus Black’s story. I’m giving away a free prequel novella that tells the story of how the zombie apocalypse started, and Marcus’ part in it. It’s called Serial Killer Z : Infection, and all you need to do to get it is sign up for my newsletter here. As well as the prequel, you’ll get four other free books, plus a copy of … Read More
Sold! – Pod Fifteen and Immersion Therapy
2017 has got off to a great start (on the writing front at least) with two short story sales over the last couple of weeks. First up, my dark science fiction story, Pod Fifteen will appear in Daniel Arthur Smith’s fantastic Tales from the Canyons of the Damned. Canyons as it’s known by its fans is a monthly magazine that features a selection of new dark science fiction, horror, & slipstream stories every month. It’s a great magazine, and I’m very please Daniel liked my story enough to accept it. More details on this nearer the release date. Next up, my spooky story, Immersion Therapy, has been accepted by the excellent Dead Oaks Podcast for their season 2 finale. This is the first time one of my stories will be available in audio form and I’m really looking forward to hearing it. My story will be airing in June but you can check out Season 1 and the first few episodes of Season 2 right here. Sign up for my newsletter and get four free ebooks. CLICK HERE to get started. [Sold! – Pod Fifteen and Immersion Therapy by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 1st February 2017]
A Year of Writing
It’s been said many times by many people much smarter than me that the secret to successful writing is to write every day. Even if it’s only for a few minutes, it exercises your writing muscles and makes them stronger. You get into a rhythm, you improve. With that in mind, on 29th June 2013, I set myself a challenge to write something, some piece of fiction, every single day. The last time I did was back in 2010 that I wrote every day for 197 days in a row before taking a break. As of Sunday, I’ve written every day for a full year and I’m a very happy bunny. As I’ve demonstrated previously, I’m pretty obsessive about tracking my writing so I have a fair amount of data on that one year writing streak. First off, I wrote 253,189 words. That’s an average of 694 words a day – a nice increase from the 665 words per day I managed over the first three hundred days so I’m pleased with that. Those words took me 16 days, 2 hours and 50 minutes to write, or 655 words per hour which is down from the 673 words per hour at the three hundred day mark. As you’ll see in a minute, … Read More
Three Hundred Days of Writing
Yesterday, I hit the three hundred day point in my writing streak – breaking my previous record by one hundred and one days. I wish I could say I hit such a significant milestone with a spectacular flourish but this week’s word count has been pretty low so far and I limped across the line with a meagre 454 words. Here’s a graph of what those three hundred days look like. (Click for a bigger version) The blue line is the number of words per day. It’s a bit spikey so I’ve added a seven day rolling average (the red line) to give a better sense of my general productivity. There’s clearly 4-5 blocks of time where I increased my productivity and a patch around the middle of the streak where my daily word count was consistently low. The green line is the overall total number of words. I ended up writing 199,407 words. That comes to 665 words a day which is down slightly from the 150 day mark (681 words per day) and the 100 day point (737 words per day). That’s probably due to the fact that I’m spending a lot of time revising which doesn’t contribute a lot of words to the total. Had I known how close I was to … Read More
Metrics Monday – 21st April 2014
I’m behind on The Ghost Smuggler. I really need to get this second draft complete by the end of the month and it’s looking increasingly unlikely. I figure I’m a couple of weeks away from finishing. It’s a deadline I set myself but there is an underlying reality to it. I need to move on to editing Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet and that really does have a deadline – I’m sending it to an editor at the beginning of July. Last week’s word count wasn’t too bad – 4,675 words although that does include Friday’s writing exercise and I spent some time revising Immersion Therapy. The reason I’m spending so much more time on The Ghost Smuggler is very simple. I’m still writing a lot of new chapters. Most of them are replacing the old ones and I’m far happier with the new story than I was with the first draft but it means it’s taking a lot longer than I’d originally hoped. Still, it will be worth it in the end. [Metrics Monday – 21st April 2014 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 22nd April 2014]
Metrics Monday – 14th April 2014
As expected, results last week were pretty mixed but I did manage 4,034 words. The big chunk of words on Monday was due to the flight to San Francisco and some downtime in my hotel. The rest of the week was pretty busy so I wasn’t able to repeat that stellar first day. Still, I did add 3,771 words to The Ghost Smuggler – mostly new scenes. I spent Sunday making some final revisions to Immersion Therapy. I tweaked the opening and expanded the ending and I’m a lot happier with it now. My wife will be proofreading it in the next day or two and then I’ll declare it done and start sending it out. I’m aiming to get The Ghost Smuggler revised by the end of April so that I can get back to Glitch so I’ll need to pick up the pace a bit this week. [Metrics Monday – 14th April 2014 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 14th April 2014]
Metrics Monday – 7th April 2014
After a couple of very successful weeks I only managed a measly 2,017 words last week – primarily thanks to my day job taking up most of my spare time. In my defence, I did wrap up the almost last draft of my new short story – Immersion Therapy and revisions take a while but don’t generate much word count. I also got through a couple more chapters of The Ghost Smuggler, did some outlining of my zombie novel and wrote a few hundred words to get a feel for that one. The current plan is to start writing it in July – I should be done with the revisions of The Ghost Smuggler and Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet by then. I’m hoping for a better word count this week but I’m spending the next few days in San Francisco at an internal Developer Conference. That’s a bit of a mixed blessing as far as writing goes. I get a couple of flights I can use to write and I don’t lose time to running or commuting but on the flip side there are usually a lot of after hours events and I’m presenting which means I’ll be preparing for that during my … Read More
Metrics Mondayish – 31st March 2014
Apparently, my OCD won’t let me skip this even though it’s very late. A very respectable 7,645 words including the 2,942 word first draft on a new story that is currently called Immersion Therapy but probably won’t stay that way. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and I’ll be editing it tomorrow ready to give to my wife to read. The other writing was on The Ghost Smuggler revisions. There’s a lot of new words there – filling in gaps, replacing chapters that don’t make sense or are just bad. This revision is taking a lot longer than I’d hoped but I’m pretty happy with how it’s going and it should be a better story once it’s done. [Metrics Mondayish – 31st March 2014 by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 4th April 2014]