Pass Time with Ellie Garratt

Yet another blogging buddy...the wonderful Ellie Garratt...has broached the publishing barrier, and its with a book of nine dark fiction stories that may just give you nightmares.

A man lives to regret Passing Time. A father will do anything to save his son in Expiration Date. An author finds out her worst nightmare is back in The Devil’s Song. A woman gets more than the claim fee when she takes out vampire insurance in Luna Black.

In Dining in Hell, the Death Valley Diner becomes the wrong place to stop.

A serial killer wants to add another file to his collection in The Vegas Screamer. In Eating Mr. Bone, an undertaker could meet an unfortunate end. A con man meets his first ghost in Land of the Free. And will truth finally be set free in The Letter?

I don't know about you, but I'm tingling already! How about a excerpt? This is from the short The Vegas Screamer.

I made up my mind to kill a woman I was hitching a ride with after we’d clocked a hundred kilometres on the odometer. I always decided that way. If I couldn’t stand a woman’s company for that long, it wasn’t worth the trouble of killing her. Fran was different. I could have gone from the west to east coast with her–she was worth the time.

“I remember how good it was to drive off road,” Fran said, checking her rear view mirror. “Nothing like these cruise-controlled sedans, driving on faultless asphalt highways. With gravel you felt every stone. You knew what gears were then, I can tell you.”

I’d heard it all before. Fran had driven on every road surface known to man.

“You never felt the urge to drive before the accident?” she asked, glancing sideways at my prosthetic arm.

“No need. Limos all the way in our family,” I answered.

“Jeez. Must have been good.”

“Not really.”

“Oh,” she said, open-mouthed. “Did you have a chauffeur?”

“Yep.”

With my good arm, I reached for the window control button and remembered it was broken. Instead, I used a gloved hand to lower the window a few inches. A cool wind whipped around my face. Temperatures on this stretch of the American highway could reach forty-four degrees Celsius, and I was grateful for the breeze.

“He was called Lionel,” I said, pausing to lower the window another couple of inches. “I swear he was twice my height and size. He’d drive me to and from school, sports club, the mall, and any other extra after-school activities. The thing that amazed me was how immaculate his uniform always looked. Not a crease or speck of dirt. Always wore his jacket, too–even on the warmest days.”

“I seem to attract anything loose in this car,” Fran said, fussing with her top.

I could saw dog or cat hairs speckled over her cardigan and pants. She was an attractive woman for her age–had that wholesome glow about her–but she talked too much for my liking. That was what made her special. She’d be a good screamer.

I'm sold...how about you?  Here's where you can get Passing Time.

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Goodreads

Facebook

About The Author

A life-long addiction to reading science fiction and horror, meant writing was the logical outlet for Ellie Garratt’s passions. She is a reader, writer, blogger, Trekkie, and would happily die to be an extra in The Walking Dead. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and online. Passing Time is her first eBook collection and contains nine previously published stories. Her science fiction collection Taking Time will be published later in the year.

Author Links

Website

Amazon

Facebook

Goodreads

Twitter

I'm wishing Ellie all the best with her book! Did I mention there's a giveaway?  Signup below to receive some free goodies!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

BLOG BLITZ - Wanna Join?

The other day I was reminiscing about a different time, back when I was a kid, before the youth of the world spent their free time in front of televisions or game consoles like digital zombies.  I would play outside with the other neighborhood kids in an open lot or nearby park and we would make up simple games that required no gear, no apparatus, and no complex rules, just our bodies and the endless supply of adolescent energy.  Games such as Red Rover, Red Light Green Light, Hide and Seek, and a personal favorite…Tag!  Of course back then we called it something else, which today would be considered politically incorrect, but the idea was that someone would be tagged as IT and they had to try to avoid being caught, wrestled to the ground, and piled upon by everyone else.  It was both terrifying and exciting, all at the same time. 

   

That got me to thinking (which isn’t always a good thing), and I wondered what would happen if we tried something like that here in the blogosphere.  No, I’m not talking about squishing the Ninja out of Alex J. Cavanaugh underneath the cumulative weight of us all.  But what would it be like if the support, encouraging nature, and community spirit of the blogosphere were ever focused on a single blogger?  A few of us have experienced that sort of attention via book launches or other publishing announcements, and still others have achieved that level of awareness through the popular blogfests we host.  In most cases there is a lot of work that goes into generating that amount of interest.  What I'm talking about is being suddenly thrust into the spotlight, without even lifting a finger. What would it feel like to be the recipient of that kind of exposure? Could something like that even be possible? Can the power of the blogosphere be harnessed and directed?

Everyone knows I like to try new and different things, so today I present to you the BLOG BLITZ.  Here’s how I see it working.  Sign up on the linky list below, making sure to record your email address, and you’ll instantly become a member of the Blog Blitz Team.  Then from time to time, I will select a deserving blog (that must be part of the Blitz Team) and a specific date.  I will then email the team members that information and on that date we all will go out of our way to visit that blog and leave an encouraging comment on their most recent post.  I'm talking about hopefully a 100+ comments appearing out of the blue in one day!

At first I'll pick who gets blitzed, but then I'll start taking recommendations from other members for deserving targets. My only restriction about who joins the Blog Blitz Team is that your blog cannot be primarily for commercial gain.

This will only be successful if everyone reading this spreads the word and gets as many bloggers as we can to join the team.  Once your signed up, display the banner above proudly on your own blog.  

 Blog about the Blitz.  Tweet about the Blitz.  Facebook the Blitz.  Then sit back and wonder...

Who will be dog piled first?

The BLITZ list has been moved HERE.

WRiTE CLUB - Skirmish #11

This is the second to last skirmish where I pit anonymous writing samples of contestants not lucky enough to be chosen for WRiTE CLUB 2012, against one another despite the absence of prizes, or further advancement beyond this one bout.  As I've stated before, there is still plenty to be gained…and learned from all of you.

This week it's Vern A Culara's turn in the ring.  Here is their 496 word submission.



A contest!

Not just a contest, but a chance to step into the literary ring of challenge and lay out the competition. It can’t get any better than facing off against a fellow writer, and then another, and another until you stand on top of a heap of fallen hacks. This is my chance to show everyone that I deserve to be published.

My hands hover above the keyboard, fingers twitching in nervous anticipation. All I need now is the inspiration that will send my digits flying.

Fantasy. Science-Fiction. Comedy. All genres lay open before me, I need only pick one of them and begin the great journey of conquest. Any style will fit within the parameters of the word-wielding slugfest. I just need one idea and I’m writing my way to the next heavy-weight championship.

One idea.

I lean back in my chair and command my mind to create. While I do that my eyes drift towards the window and the view beyond. The lawn needs to be mown. I bet Steven King doesn’t have to do his own yard work. Probably best that he doesn’t since I can imagine all sorts of ill fated events that could arise from allowing the master of horror to wield implements of botanical destruction.

My mind snaps back to the task of finding an idea worthy of authorial dominance. It has to be under five hundred words. That leaves out fantasy; you can’t even properly introduce a character in that short a space. I mean, who wants to read a tiny tale about a master wizard that blows himself up because he adds the wrong component to his cauldron while arguing with his wife?

What’s the point?

The same problem exists for Science-Fiction. You need at least a thousand words to describe how warp drive technology would create a schism in the brains of anyone traveling through multiple dimensions. How lame would that be if I merely described what transpired between the pilots’s split perceptions during the warp and how it changed him when they all combined at the end of the trip. How pathetically unspectacular.

Comedy? Of course, comedy. It works perfectly in a short format. You could write about practically anything as long as you put a humorous spin on it. Take a couple lines of dialogue and add my own unique perspective to it. BOOM! Hilarity ensues.

Then the children burst into my office. “Dad, can we have money to buy bullets from the ice cream man?”

Great! How am I ever going to come up with an idea for a story if people keep distracting me? I pull a five from my pocket and hand it to the oldest of the urchins and then shoo them out the door. When I sit back down in my plush writing chair, my mind is blank. For more than an hour my muse avoids me. Eventually, I put my head down on the desktop and admit defeat.
**********************************************************

And in the other corner, checking in with 499 words, is Silver Lightning.

The cavern rumbled for the third time in as many minutes.

Frank Einstein jumped back as vials and flasks smashed on the floor. The contents snaked around, hissing and creating acidic puddles.

“Not again! Dr. Jake, control your blasted fungi.” Being apprenticed to the greatest scientist in the universe wasn’t easy. The constant hum of power aged Frank beyond his years and the charged atmosphere caused premature balding.

The young apprentice heard the trademark swishing of the long coat of his mentor.

“My dear Frank! It’s not my fungi,” Dr. Jake Illhyde ran his hand through the grey streak in his mottled brown hair; one of the many appearances he used to conceal his thousand year lifespan. “You’re not fiddling with your pylons again, are you?”

“No, of course not,” Frank replied, miffed because the pylons were his first individual project.

A thunderous crash shook the whole cave. “Then what is it? A real quake?” asked the apprentice, coughing hard as stone-dust rained down from the ceiling.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know we are shifting between planets.” Jake’s creased forehead gave way to wide-eyed horror. “Somebody is trying to reach us.”

“Reach us here? But nobody knows where we are. Or for that matter, who we are!”

“Somebody must have accessed the memories of the two who did. And I’m guessing they are after....”

“The essences! But we have only one left.”

One of Frank’s experimental pylons keeled over and the blue crystal smashed against the floor as the ground began shaking uncontrollably. If the intruders were coming in such a large number, it was not for a peaceful negotiation.

“Head into the storage chamber. We must escape before they get here,” Frank cried out.

“What?”Dr. Jake exclaimed. “I am not abandoning our experiments.”

Frank grabbed his mentor by the shoulders. “We will come back later. Everything important is invisible and safe. Besides, you always say protecting our brains is more important than any experiment.”

The whole cavern was beginning to twist and warp. How many of them are coming? But his thoughts were cut short by a small chunk of rock falling from the ceiling in front of his feet.

Frank cursed and dashed towards the small chamber filled with their previous experiments and records. It also housed one of Dr. Jake’s old teleporters.

Frank hurried to remove the covers off the teleporter. A film of dust had accumulated over the glass vestibule but it appeared functional. Lights sparked and the machine purred to life as he flicked the switch.

His mentor threw cartons around, rummaging through piles of boxes.

“Dr. Jake, what are you doing? We don’t have time.”

“I must find the essence. It still might work.”

The explosions became louder. “Dr. Jake, we must leave. Now!” Frank shouted. They had less than a couple of minutes.

The old scientist emerged from behind a high pile of boxes, looking woozy. His brown coat was completely covered in gray cave dust as was his hair and face.

*********************************************************

You know the drill. Got a second to help these writers out by telling them which one resonates with you the most? And Why? Leave your vote (and a brief critique if you have time) in the comments below.

See you back here at the ring for one last bout next week!