Here is my first published short story, Stonehurst. The idea at first was it was going to just be a short story which featured in the anthology; CEA Through the Dark. By the time I had got to the word limit I was able to end the story on a cliffhanger. The problem with doing that was that I knew I had so much more to give to the story.
I had the skeleton of a full novel within me knowing exactly what I wanted to happen with characters, who survives (and who doesn't), twists along the way and even the end scene. 10,000 words just wasn't enough, far from it. So I continued with Stonehurst Part 2 which sits at just short of 20,000 words and has been sent to the publisher of the first horror anthology ready for the next one to be released.
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Stonehurst has since been released exclusively on Kindle as a stand alone short story and as it was the first part to a multipart horror series, I have renamed it Stonehurst: The Beginning. If you wish to purchase your own copy, please follow the Amazon link on this site.
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Synopsis:
We find George, waking up with terror sweats, with uncontrollable nightmares of the past. He gets an e-mail from Harry, who he was sure he saw die; well there was certainly no way he could have survived any catastrophe such as that. His screaming panics and autistic reactions would put a strain on any marriage but his wife stayed with him through it all, wanting to understand and comprehend the fatalities that happened a year ago, if only he would open up and talk to her. With Harry's e-mail, the opportunity presented itself to her that will take her on a physical journey that will help her understand what happened. George didn't want her to go with him but there was no way she would have allowed him to go without her. What they both were in store for may have been worse than George's prior experience.
Was it really true that Harry was alive?
Will Mary, his wife now inevitably understand what happened?
​Will they even live to tell one more tale?
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My second published work this year was part of another anthology, but this one was one with a difference. It was part of an official Guinness World Record attempt for most contributing authors in an anthology. The previous record stood at 50 writers, I was the first of over 100 writers to submit a story between 3,000 and 8,000 words. It turns out that my entry was actually the second longest story at very nearly 8,000 words.
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About the story.. This was a hard decision to make on a personal level. The story I submitted took inspiration from personal life experiences when I was at a low point. I had written it more for myself to make sense of a bad time in life, but it also fit in perfectly with a longer idea I had for a novel.
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The novel is going to be a psychological thriller based around the daughter of a couple. I don't really want to say any more than that as I wouldn't want to give anyone else the idea for a story. The part I used within the anthology was a section taken from the backstory of our couple and what they had been through in the past leading up to what the story was all about.
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The World Record Anthology is still on sale via Amazon which can be found in the site links floating somewhere around here. There are stories from all sorts of different genres, so there will be something in there to keep everyone happy and when you bear in mind that there is over 100 stories within its covers, it is a great price for so much literature.
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Before the anthology was released, the amazing idea of creating blurbs to promote the stories within was conjured by my better half who was part of the promotion/social media team (and has since set up her own company as a Social Media Manager as she was that good at it).
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I thought it was a great touch for gaining interest in the anthology, but she spent many an evening producing 100 of these images for the writers. They look stunning in there design and captured just what they needed to do.