I realised a little while ago that the bibliography page here was a) missing from the menu and b) horribly out of date. I’ve fixed both of those issues now so if you want to find some of my short fiction, quite a bit of which is free, you can find a full list right here. [Bibliography Update by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 27 May 2019]
Out Now – Dakimakura
It’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been doing a bunch of travelling, running, writing, and video-game-developing and I’ve been neglecting the site. I did get time to submit a new horror short story to The Other Stories, a fantastic weekly horror story podcast, and I am extremely please to say that they accepted it. It’s part of their Japan themed series and you can listen to it right now by clicking here. I listened to the podcast on Monday and it’s fantastic. I’ll definitely be listening to it again. A huge thank you to everyone at Hawk & Cleaver, and especially narrator Justin Fife and editor Karl Hughes. Sign up to my newsletter to stay updates on my writing, details of new releases and sales, and advance copies of my books. You’ll also get a book of short stories plus two bonus novellas, completely free. CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE BOOKS [Out Now – Dakimakura by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 28th June 2018]
Untitled: A Short Story in Some Parts
I’m starting a bit of an experiment on my newsletter this week. When I was young, I spent a lot of time reading Fighting Fantasy books like this one: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and books like it were “choose your own adventure” books that let you control the story by making decisions as you read. There were quite a few of them around at the time but the Fighting Fantasy series was the best. A couple of months ago I decided to steal the idea and do something new with my newsletter. Every month I’m going to post a piece of a short story and give readers the chance to vote on two or three possible options for what happens next. At the beginning of the month I sent subscribers three possible first lines: Night was coming and with it, the creatures. My name is Eric Hunter and my job is to stop the world from falling apart. What I left behind on Earth was more important than anything I took with me. The votes are in and I’ve written the first scene for the most popular choice. I’ll be sending that first scene (along with the next options) … Read More
Dead Eyes – A Serial Killer Z Excerpt
It’s almost Halloween so I thought I’d post an excerpt from my latest book, Serial Killer Z. It has zombies, knives, lots of blood, and a serial killer. Dead Eyes The dead man lunged across the road toward me, too-white teeth clacking as they chewed at imaginary flesh. Its eyes were sharklike black orbs, and they tracked me as I moved. Its right foot had been crushed and was dragging behind the zombie, slowing it down. Rancid breath laced with the smell of carrion and blood washed over my face and caught in my throat. Backing away, I swung my knife at the creature’s face. The blade swept across its forehead and sliced through the gray flesh. Thick black blood ran from the wound and spattered the ground at my feet. With its eyes locked on mine, the zombie took another lumbering step. My knife’s handle was slick with sweat. It felt like I was trying to hold on to a fish. One wrong move, and it might break free, leaving me defenseless. The zombie shuffled forward, clawed fingers grasping at my face. The air was thick with the smell of decay. I attacked with the knife again, an upward sweep … Read More
Normal Service is Resumed
That’s more like it – my monthly update is back to being a couple of weeks late. In my defence, I had a race last weekend and a cold has been interfering with my ability to string coherent thoughts together this week. Yes, that leaves a week or so unaccounted for but hey, I’m here and that’s all that matters. April was the month when I finally got back to writing new words – just about. The first twenty eight days were spent revising the second book in my zombie series and the short story collection I’m putting together. It’s an odd feeling, going back over old short stories but I’m happy with how they’ve turned out. The book is now with my editor and I’ve commissioned the cover so it should be good to go out to my newsletter subscribers in a couple of months and on to Amazon shortly after that. But, on April 29th, I kicked off the fourth book in the zombie series. I have a good outline and the joy of getting back to writing new words unleashed a torrent of productivity and I wrote 4,244 words that day. That was the most words I’d written since 27th October … Read More
Not An April Fool
No, this isn’t a trick. I really am posting my monthly update on the first of the month. It wasn’t a particularly thrilling month as far as writing goes. I spent the whole month revising novels and short stories so my total count was a feeble 5,312 words. I haven’t checked but I suspect this is the least productive month I’ve had since I began my writing streak 1,372 days ago. I did squeeze in some outlining of the next zombie novel in there, plus a few paragraphs for an Urban Fantasy series I’m planning that I would love to be working on instead of all this revision. Most of the revisions were on the first two books in the zombie series, but I’ve also started compiling a collection of my short fiction. Which I guess is a sort of announcement (although if you’re on my mailing list you’ll already know about that). At the moment it looks like there’ll be about 22 stories and 85,000-ish words. There’s one more story I’m considering that would bump it closer to 100,000 but I’m undecided on that one. No title for the collection yet, but there’s three possibilities in the running at the moment. … Read More
Two Nights in New Orleans – A Snippet
I’m currently revising some of my short stories for a collection I’ll be releasing later this year, and I thought I’d post some unedited snippets here. This is from Two Nights in New Orleans, a story that was originally published in a magazine produced by the British Fantasy Society… Two Nights in New Orleans Annabel held her breath, “Are you a vampire?” The man stared at Annabel, the smile returning to his lips. This time she managed to hold his gaze. The world around her faded to nothing and Annabel thought they might sit there all night, but after a few seconds he looked away, out across the stone sea of the cemetery. Belinda shifted position, rearranged the black lace of her new dress and leant back against the tomb, “So what’s your name?” “Ah. That’s an interesting question.” Belinda looked unimpressed, “Is it?” “What do you think my name should be?” Annabel shook her head, “I’ve no idea.” “Go on, indulge me. Christen me.” Annabel looked at him for a moment before latching onto a name, “Simon.” “Really? I look like a Simon? Well I can’t say I’ve ever been called Simon.” “You look like a Versailles to me,” said … Read More
F is for February (and Flu)
It’s probably ironic or something that the first year I get a flu shot is also the first year I get the flu (although I may have had it 25 or so years ago, maybe). I don’t think those two things are related – the shot was months ago and isn’t 100% effective. It is something that makes me smile though. It’s a bitter smile, but a smile nonetheless. I’m just entering my third week of being ill. I’m past the sweating, fevering, coughing up bits of odd coloured gunk stage and into the annoying cough with a mild headache and bunged up ears stage that shows no sign of letting up. It’s no longer enough to stop me functioning at something close to my normal levels (such as they are) but it’s annoying. How anyone puts up with long term illness I have no idea. I was going stir crazy within a couple of days. The first thing being ill did was completely derail my writing plans. I kept up my writing streak but that was about it. I was planning on revising Zombie Book 2 and then starting Zombie Book 3. I did the revisions, very slowly, and a bit of … Read More