I have chosen

The votes are in, and the people seemed to go with my gut feeling more than any other story. So, I have begun work on Demon Eater, starting from scratch. So far at the end of week 1 I have 8000 words done. If I can keep up that kind of pace I should have a rough draft done sometime this summer. I may post some excerpts here in the future, but with my free writing time quite limited I don't know how much I will be posting here. If I have the spare time and some new idea strikes me I may whip up a little post for here, otherwise, stay tuned for some kind of glimpse at Demon Eater in the next few weeks. Thanks to everyone that helped me decide.

Um......a little help please

Well, this has not worked out like I hoped. I was supposed to use this blog to write more. It seems that since I started it I am actually writing less. I think my biggest problem is that I am an idea machine for stories. I have hundreds of them, written on scraps of paper from work, napkins, in notebooks and .doc files. I can never seem to pick one and just focus on that. The best I ever did was cranking out 190 pages on a single story idea, and then let it fizzle. So I am asking you folks to help me out, which of these, if any appeal to you. What should I work on?

Demon Eater

This story is set post apocalypse in Ireland. The world has been overrun with demons and Ireland stands as the last bastion of true humanity. Problem with fighting demons is that you can't kill them. Sure, you can kill the host body they possess, but they just go back to hell, regain their strength, and then come back. But, there is hope. On a group of small islands off the coast of Ireland live the Daemon Ith, the Demon Eaters. These people actually cage the demonic spirits inside their own bodies, using centuries of training passed down through their clan and tremendous will power to keep the demons under control.

The story focuses on two people. Liam, a soldier knight in the Irish army, and Niamh, a young woman from the clan of the Daemon Ith. I have some good ideas of where I want the story to go, even with ideas for a second and third story, I just can't seem to figure out how to end the first one.

The Soul Thief

Chris is your typical American living abroad in Ireland (Ireland is kind of a recurring thing in a lot of my stories, I use a lot of their mythology in my writing). He is going to school, has met a great girl, and is about to enter a world previously unknown to him. I can't go into too much detail without really spoiling the story. It is a modern fantasy with heavy themes taken from Celtic and British mythology. Chris has an unknown lineage (I know, cliche) that thrusts him into the world of the Faye. The main quest, for lack of a better term, is that someone has been stealing souls from people because humans don't deserve them. In my mythological world the Faye are actually fallen angels, in a manner of speaking. When the war in heaven was fought there were the angels that stood with God, those that rose up with Lucifer, and there was a third group that didn't choose sides. When God and his angels won, that third group was cast out just like the demons were, but they kept much of their angelic appearance, becoming the Sidhe. So, jealous of the gifts God bestowed upon man, someone decides to take them back.

Hash

Another modern fantasy, this one with monsters like vampires and werewolves. Hash is just your ordinary monster hunter. Well, except he can't die. Hash is really old, about 2000 years old. He made a mistake back in about 33 AD and has been paying for it ever since. Hash is actually Ahashver, the wandering Jew from Christian myth. He mocked Jesus while he on his way to the crucifixion and has been cursed to roam the earth until the second coming (yep, I have a lot of underlying religious themes too, but my stories are not a bunch of super right wing dogma, most characters are rebellious to the church). Hash has picked up some interesting friends along the way, an outcast Faye, the former thrall to a vampire, a half demon boy, and as renegade priest. This actually one of my oldest story ideas, and now the modern monster hunter story has been so done, Anita Blake, Harry Dresden, etc. I like the concept, but this is also my least fleshed out story, despite its age.

Mistrunner

Another story with deep roots in mythology, and also another kind of post apocalyptic story. This story is actually set in the same universe as Demon Eater, just hundreds of years later. Baerd lived during the time shortly after the events of Demon Eater. He witnesses what is known as the Reckoning, when our world and the world of the Faye were thrust together. Normally, the world of the Faye occupies the same space as our world, just separated by magic. When that magic is removed, the two worlds are violently smashed into each other with incredible destruction. Baerd survives by being placed into a magical state of suspended animation, waking up to a completely different world than the one he left. The ancestors of what was the human race and the Faye have fought many wars over who was to blame for the reckoning, and as Baerd awakes the sabers are being rattled once again. He needs to work to stop a war, but is it too late.

This story owes its origins to a home brew role playing game I started developed about 20 years ago. This is the one that I managed to get up to 190 pages before letting it slip. I love the world, but again, it started great and then I found myself without an ending.

Priest 989

Set in the far future, the Church has faced a serious shortage of those willing to take the cloth. With humanity stretched out to a thousand worlds across the known universe, bodies are needed to spread the word. So, the Church decides to make new priests to fill the gap. Cloning is specifically outlawed, so they decide to use existing people to make new priests. Using mind wipe technology they decided to take violent criminals, wipe their minds clean, and "reprogram" them as priests. But what happens when one of them begins to remember his past. Priest 989 faces a struggle as he tries to come to terms with his new life of peace and the violent past he never knew he had.

This story I originally came up with as an idea for a comic. But, I am no artist, and as I began fleshing it out I could see it working as a short novel.

So there we have it, I have narrowed things down to these. I still can't decide which one specifically to work on, so any help and comments would be appreciated. Thanks to all of you.

Trevor and the Troll

It had been sitting there for over ten days. It had hardly moved since showing up on the previous Tuesday. Trevor had seen trolls a couple times before, but never in the city. They were solitary creatures that preferred the isolation they found sulking under bridges well off the beaten path. Most may have preferred such surroundings as few trolls could survive direct sunlight. Bad for the skin. Apparently this troll didn't have such an aversion. It almost seemed to be basking in the sunlight, and there was plenty to be had out on the ledge of the 24th floor.

When it first showed up Trevor wasn't really sure what to do. He called his landlord, who in turn told him to call the police, who then told him to call animal control, who flatly informed him that they didn't deal with anything bigger than an imp.

His next course of action was to find out everything he could about trolls. He checked wikipedia, the US Dept of Supernatural Affairs, blogs and websites. Everything he found told him conflicting things. Trolls are vegetarian. Trolls eat children. Trolls can't speak. Trolls speak Norwegian. Every source he tried told him something different.

Trevor ending up getting no work done that day as he spent all of it trying to figure out why a troll was on his ledge and how he could get rid of it. When he finally left for the day he spent exactly 11 hours and 41 minutes dealing with the troll and precisely 1 minute and 3 seconds doing his job.

Trevor figured, whatever the reasons were, the troll would surely be gone come morning. He was wrong. It still sat perched on the ledge, face tilted upwards to the rising sun, and what Trevor surmised was a grin on its hideous face. Trevor tried to ignore the beast, he knew he had a mounting pile of paperwork to get through. But, every time he turned his head to his desk, his mind would wander to the troll. Every sound he heard would cause him to swing about in his chair to see if it had moved. It didn't. At the end of the second day Trevor managed a pathetic 3 minutes and 47 seconds of work.

A plan was needed. Trevor didn't sleep much that night as he poured over a stack of books he had acquired from the library. When he went in to work with an idea and a bag full of groceries. During the course of the day he placed various food items out on the ledge. He started with a bag of lettuce and some tomatoes. Turns out trolls aren't vegetarian. Not willing to sacrifice a child, Trevor next laid out some raw steak, thinking that it would be close enough. Still nothing. Candy. Nope. Milk and honey. Nope, apparently that is for boggarts and brownies. Fish, apples, bread with jam, and crackers. Nope, nope, nope, and nope. At the end of day three Trevor only found himself $50 poorer and the owner of troll on his ledge.

For the first time in his life Trevor was thankful for the Friday meetings. He still thought about the troll as various vice presidents and project leaders babbled on about efficiency and team building, but at least he didn't have to see it. After three days he had seen enough that deformed visage to last an eternity. The single tusk that protruded upwards past the creatures bulbous, and constantly runny, nose. There was also the smell, trolls were not big on bathing it seemed. Even with the window closed the smell would seep its way into Trevor's cramped office, a noxious mix of wet socks, rotting eggs, and mold.

The weekend brought a temporary relief from Trevor's troll troubles. The more time he spent away from the office, the more he could focus his mind elsewhere. Come Monday morning the troll was almost all but forgotten. It must have moved on, if nothing else hunger would force it to seek out some other locale.

When Trevor walked into his office at half past nine on Monday morning he was shocked to see the troll. He was even more shocked the troll had shifted. Now, instead of it facing the rising sun the troll was looking right into his office. If Trevor was unnerved before, he was even more so now. He tried to work, but with his chair right in front of the window he was unable to do anything knowing that the troll was just inches away, watching him.

The next two hours were spent in vain trying to shuffle the furniture around in the tiny office. Trevor was boggled by how they had even managed to get his desk into the small room, figuring in the end that the office must have been built around it. He would have kept at it if his boss had yelled at him. When Trevor pointed out the troll, he was greeted with the suggestion that he should just push it off the ledge and get back to his damn job.

While he did want the troll gone, smashing it onto the pavement more than 20 floors before didn't seem right to Trevor. He also envisioned the troll grabbing him just as it slid off the ledge, pulling him to a grisly death. His mother would cry at his mangled remains, stuffed into a closed casket along with various bits of the troll that couldn't be sorted out. He would spend the rest of eternity stuck with the troll somewhere even smaller than his office.

Trevor spent the entire week trying to find different ways to get out of his office. He volunteered for every project he could so long as it meant time spent elsewhere. He even tried to set up shop in the conference room, but that was squashed early on by one of the project leaders needing some place private to "work" with his secretary. Trevor then cursed his rotten luck for ever getting his own office. Ten years ago when Alfred Chumsky took the express elevator to the lobby minus the elevator car, Trevor thought he had hit the jackpot. Sure the office was small, but it was his, his own private place to get away from everyone else, a place where he could work in peace.

It was Friday evening and Trevor found himself stuck at work after hours. Nearly two weeks of failing to get his work done had brought down the wrath of his boss. He had until Monday morning to get caught up or he was fired. The only upside was that there would be no one else around. The downside was that his boss had locked him in his office. The old man was at least kind enough to leave a pizza. When Trevor hinted that some beer would help him get through the long weekend he was greeted with a grunt and one less slice of pizza. Trevor knew it was a long shot, but he also knew that he had a bought of single malt tucked in the back of his filing cabinet.

Once the sun went down Trevor was relieved that the troll was much less visible. He settled in as best he could, trying to position himself in such a way that he could always keep one eye on the smudged glass where he knew that a hairy arm was only seconds away from pulling him out of the office. Apparently the fear of losing his job soon became a bigger threat to him than the troll, and Trevor began to plow through the pile of papers that cluttered his inbox.

It was just past midnight when Trevor decided to hit his little stash. He fumbled through the filing cabinet, clasping his hand around the welcoming glass of the scotch bottle. The bottle of Blue Label had been a graduation present. He always said he was saving it for a special occasion, but after nearly thirty years, such an idea seemed foolish. He cracked the seal and let the velvety libation breath. He was just to tilt back the bottle when he heard a tap tap on the window.

Trevor nearly hit his head on the ceiling as he bolted out his chair. He pounded, pulled, heaved, and cursed at the locked door. He screamed bloody murder until his lungs ached. He panicked until exhausted force him to the floor. As he sat sucking wind he heard another tap tap on the glass. Slowly Trevor rose back to his feet. His fingers crept up the wall, blindly searching for the switch. When the light flashed out Trevor could clearly see the troll, its clawed finger tapping on the worn glass of his window.

For almost two weeks Trevor had tried to get some kind of reaction from the troll. Now, he had one and it terrified him. He reached for the bottle of scotch, taking a quick belt to calm his nerves. As he placed the bottle back on his desk he watched the trolls eyes follow. Trevor picked the bottle back up, the troll watching him as he did. Trevor inched towards the window, the bottle held out in front of him. The trolls eyes went wide and that horrifying grin reappeared.

Trevor grabbed his coffee cup, unceremoniously dumping the cold liquid within onto the floor. With trembling hands he poured some scotch into the cup with "World's Greatest Mom" etched on the side. His heart nearly pounded out of his chest as he inched to the window. His breath came in quick puffs as he loosed the latch on the old wood window frame. As soon as the lock gave way the troll lifted the window open, causing poor Trevor to nearly tumble over his desk. A single scraggly arm snaked its way into the office, palmed up, waiting. Trevor forced his arm forwards, placing the cup into the hand that expected it. The troll withdrew its arm, cup attached.

The monster lifted the glass to its snot filled nose and snorted. Arching back its head it poured the finely crafted brew into its gaping maw. The troll closed it eyes, smiling again. It snorted once more and then let a content sigh gurgle from its lips. Opening its eyes it gazed at Trevor, who offered a weak smile on his pale face. the troll placed the now empty cup on the window sill, then turned and sat facing away from the office.

Monday morning when Trevor's boss came to set him free he was greeted by a strange site. Trevor lay sleeping, sprawled across his desk, an empty whisky bottle still clutched in his hands, and sitting outside his window were two trolls, both gazing up at the rising sun.

Haren

"Maybe you just aren't ready yet." Minz proposed.

"When will I be ready then? The longer I wait the more likely I will never leave. I don't want to end up like my brothers, backs bent and broken from working the fields. I have dreams Minz, places I want to see, things I want to do." Haren ran a hand through his shaggy black hair. "I don't want to be a farmer."

"You think I want to stay here? You think I want to get married to some sod farmer and make a bunch of babies. If you leave, what will happen to me?" Minz wiped a tear from her ruddy cheek.

"So, what keeps you here? Why not come with me?"

"What about father? Who would take care of him?"

"You have been using your father as an excuse your whole life."

"It's not an excuse, he needs me." Minz cried.

"What about what you need? I know it sounds selfish, but isn't your father being just as selfish keeping you here? We have much more to offer this world than some baskets of potatoes and corn at the village market."

"Sounds like you've already made up your mind." The tears flowed more freely now as Minz lowered her head.

"I have. I am leaving at the end of the week. I would like you to come with me Minz, you've been my friend as long as I can remember. It won't be the same without you." Haren placed his hand under her chin, raising her eyes to meet his. "You have the next five days to think it over. Don't think about what your father wants, think about what you want, what your heart truly tells you."

"What about money? Food? What are you going to do about that?"

"I have saved enough to strike out on my own. I figure the rest I can earn doing whatever work I can find. People always need fences mended, stables cleaned, wood cut. Plus my uncle has offered me work once I make it to Aropus. I'm sure he could find work for you as well, he is a very well respected artisan."

"Please Haren, don't force me to choose. I can't abandon my father."

"Then you have already abandoned yourself. Like I said, I am leaving at the end of the week." Haren reluctantly turned and left his friend in tears. "I don't want to abandon you either." He muttered under his breath as he walked away.

A place to write

In an effort to make myself write more often, and write things that aren't just movie and game reviews, I am starting up this blog for some short stories and novel excerpts. Whether anyone ever reads this is not important, this is an exercise in writing for me. However, that does not mean I don't want people reading this. Far from it, I would love to have people reading my work, commenting on it, offering praise and hopefully much needed criticism. Now I just need to figure out what I am going to write first.