Apples (or How I Spent My Winter Vacation)

John Chapman, as the legend goes, crisscrossed much of what was America in the 19th century planting trees just about everywhere. Those trees, of course, would take years to actually bear any fruit, but in time, they would grow and flourish, and everyone in America would be able to enjoy its fruit. Thus is the legend of Johnny Appleseed.

Dream big, and expand everywhere.

I’ve been spending the last few months working on three very different works of fiction, two shorts and one full novel. All different genres, with something for everybody. I don’t want to give everything or even most of everything away, but I figured a few teasers (by way of the material I wrote for all the queries I send out) are in order.

You get a snippet of one page each. Continue reading Apples (or How I Spent My Winter Vacation)

Heart

So, I’m packing for a trip to a conference in Baltimore, and this is always a good opportunity to fill the luggage with old stuff I don’t need so I can bring it with me to the States and put it in storage. As I’m going through boxes in my closet, I find an old camera bag from a digital camera I had way back in 2004. In the side pocket was this:

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A picture of a heart (like a newspaper in a ransom photo, the book is proof I took the picture today)

Continue reading Heart

New Playlist 2

A sip of coffee, a bite of the pastry that the server recommended, and a turn of the page of whatever book he had been reading but had long lost interest in. At least the coffee shop that a friend suggested to him wasn’t bad. A place to spend a Saturday afternoon if he needed to get some work done.

The Adele track had faded to silence, and was replaced by some Rascal Flatts, which didn’t seem to match the atmosphere around him. So he shuffled through his reading playlist, adjusting the volume for the errant download that was always much louder or much softer than the others.

His music player started playing familiar notes of a lone guitar – typical Staind, and actually the last track of Staind’s last album. He remembered purchasing the entire album based on a thirty-second sample that sounded like it would make for good music to listen to on a long trip.

So when the day comes and the sun won’t catch my face
Tell the ones who cared enough that I’ve finally left this place

Then he recalled it was depressing enough that he spent much of the trip in silence after two or three similar songs. He was running a theory that, when making the playlist, he had mistaken the track title for that of a brighter James Taylor song, and was going to skip ahead, until that man entered his field of vision.

Continue reading New Playlist 2