In the new era of A.I. everything, I just wanted to say that NO A.I. was used in the creation & production of my books Rolling The Bones or PRIMEVAL.
I’ve been writing since I was a kid, was an award-winning photographer for yearbook & newspaper in high school, have been doing graphic design for decades, and have also worked as a technical writer, copywriter, and publications manager. So all of that experience was put to use in the design, creation, and production of the books in the photo—but NO I.A.!
In addition, Rolling The Bones: 12 Tales of Life, Death, Loss, & Redemption is a culmination of nearly 20 years of my fiction, the “cream of the crop” so to speak, and when I finally had enough worthy material to warrant a collection, I then spent a full year—the final 3 months full-time, as I was laid off from my job—creating the book. The final version of Bones stands at 600+ pages and comprises 8 short stories, 3 novellas, and a short novel, as listed below.
(Note: when I was younger, I often wrote graphic horror, but as I’ve grown and matured in my writing, I no longer do—in fact, I’m a little embarrassed about some of the stuff I wrote back then, and even now avoid calling myself a “horror” author, opting instead for the more general term “dark fiction”—which is why I unpublished the individual graphic psychological horror novella Roughing It, as mentioned below. On the other hand, the other graphic theological horror story included in Bones, CHAMBERS, was not published individually, so there’s no further mention of it other than within the collection:
THE BONES:
• The Traveler (psychological ghost story, award-winner)
• A Sweet Ride (psychological drama, the first story I ever completed & a reader favorite to this day)
• Hell or High Water (romantic ghost story, one of my personal favs, also published here under My Books & Fiction)
• Forever Anna Day (novella, award-winning dramatic ghost story, considered it my overall best piece before PRIMEVAL)
• Request Denied (drama/suspense, also published here under My Books & Fiction)
• The Crossing (novella, small town drama/mystery, now PART I of PRIMEVAL)
• A Bearable Darkness of Being (weird/supernatural story, one of my personal favs, also published here under My Books & Fiction)
• Roughing It (novella, graphic psychological horror, out of print, currently only available in Rolling The Bones)
• The Calling (psychological drama)
• This Old House (psychological/romantic ghost story)
• CHAMBERS (graphic theological horror)
• CATS: the number of the beast (award-winning short story, now a short novel, out of print, currently only available in Rolling The Bones)
Anyway, the final story I completed for Bones—the novella The Crossing—altered the course of my writing. See, I’m usually really strict with my writing style, but with The Crossing being the final piece for the collection and I was now on the home stretch, I decided to relax a bit, have some fun, and just run with it. So that’s what I did—and The Crossing grew to become one of the best pieces in the collection, and was extremely fun to write!
On the other hand, it got me thinking…
After publishing Bones, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to The Crossing…the kids growing up in the small town of Hope…the mysterious (if not merely rumored) creature lurking in the ominous Black Woods and Blackwater Swamp…the unsolved disappearances over the years…
So I decided to expand on the story…for what turned out to be seven years…and thus enter the novel PRIMEVAL…
The Crossing became PART I of PRIMEVAL (set in 1975) which features best friends Tommy & Winnie spending the summer “hunting” in the field near Black Woods with their Wrist-Wrocket slingshots, first crossing Hope Creek Canyon over “Old Rope”, the rickety old rope bridge that dangled high above Hope Creek…
PART II, The Blackjack Club, continues the story 10 years later (1985), and features a new group of 5 kids who spend the last weekend of the summer building a raft and rafting down Hope Creek and camping near Black Woods, and then suffer a rafting accident that brings them face-to-face with the beast at a hidden lake deep within Blackwater Swamp…
Part III: The Hunt features the return of Winnie from college upon learning of the latest tragedy in his home town of Hope, and hooking up with the seasoned outdoorsman Hank to go hunt the beast down and finally rid the town of of the decades-long nightmare—and what they discover is much bigger, much deeper, and much more ancient than anyone in Hope had ever imagined…
This is all preceded by a 4-part prologue of historical fiction, each based on an actual mysterious, unexplained incident from history, and after PARTS I – III the novel closes with an epilogue, tying together myriad individual details that emerged throughout the novel (sorry, no spoilers!).
All said and done, the epic novel PRIMEVAL was 7 years in the making, and spans several centuries and nearly 800 pages; so yes, years of composition/structuring, graphics/design, layout/proofs, etc….but, just like Rolling The Bones—NO A.I.!
PRIMEVAL is available in trade paperback (though I’m considering 3-volume hardcover set), and Rolling The Bones is available in both trade paperback and hardcover. And, the novella The Crossing is also available as a stand-alone, both in trade paperback and on Kindle.
So, for those of you interested in an entertaining read, written by an actual human—whether you prefer short fiction or an epic adventure—you might check these out:
PRIMEVAL: A Novel
Rolling The Bones: 12 Tales of Life, Death, Loss, & Redemption
The Crossing: A Novella
View all of my books (Woodlands Press)
Check Out My Books on Amazon: | ||
| 
| 
|
PRIMEVAL Epic Novel Spanning Several Centuries & Nearly 800 Pages, An Adventure You Won't Forget! | Rolling The Bones A Collection of Interlinked Tales of Dark Fiction: 8 Short Stories, 3 Novellas, & A Short Novel | Woodlands Press Visit Woodlands Press on Amazon For All Of My Books, & Follow For Notification of Future Book Releases! |
