The Eccentric Realist

Click here to buy The Darkness: A Short Horror Story The Darkness will be free tomorrow Sunday July 12 to Monday July 13 Make sure to get your copy! Night turns to day and everyone's afraid to leave their sanctuary, and yet, something threatens it.  A standalone horror story shrouded in mystery, where the unexplainable happens and neighbors are forced to trust each other. A slow burn that'll chip your sanity away.  Just because you can't see anything there doesn't mean it's not dangerous. Illustrated by the author himself, see a world that has been reduced to nothing but an oasis in the dark. What recourse do you have when then those you're supposed to trust turn their backs on you?

Click here to purchase it on Amazon.    I hope you enjoy it. If you do, leave a review and tell your friends, every little bit helps! What can you do when the familiar turns into the unfamiliar and all the rules that you believed to be unbreakable are shattered right in front of your eyes?  12 unique horror stories that include ghosts, possession, existential crisis, desolate hellscapes, cursed families, and more. Whether you're looking for a thrill or a way to lose your grasp on the familiar, there's a story that'll touch a nerve for you.   Illustrated by the author himself, you can explore a world where that which was meant to live only in myth and folklore comes to life, and the basest of mankind's instincts are trifled with by ancient oddities. Dare to see the worst mankind has to offer, and how even that can be too low for those who've long wandered an uncaring universe.  Stories include:  • A Scent of Vanilla  • Skin  • Solipsism  ...

The book's already in review and should be up in the next few days. I wanted to share the review and title of the book. Failings of the Mind, because when you're afraid, your head's the last thing you can rely on. 

So it's Friday and you've got nothing to do, so you might as well sit down and crunch a good story. The hard part is coming up with something to write about, fortunately, here are some more writing prompts just in case you need a little bit of inspiration. You can also check out the first and second parts of this series by clicking on the links Make your character as miserable as humanly possible Write about some place that you avoid in real life Take a story with common tropes, and make them stand out from the rest Make two characters with the same name, and distinguish them only through dialogue The whole world uses the same currency now Establish a character's greatness, and destroy it by the end of the story Take an everyday habit of yours and make it a horror story Everyone can only speak in rhyme, and they hate it The universe hates your character and always stacks the odds against him Aliens have invaded, but humanity can barely comprehend them Wr...

See part 1 here: So I've done this before, but sometimes you need more ideas for your stories, something that can hit the spot. No problem. Remember, limiting your options will force you to be more creative, so give these prompts a try. Choose a vowel and avoid using it Write a palindrome Make your own Battle Royale game Describe the life of a merchant The first object to your left is now bound to your soul Tell your father's story Take a character from a book and put him in another environment Survival story Something scary that doesn't scare you What's the Devil afraid of? Take a poem and turn it into prose Take a story and turn it into a poem Read the news, create a fictional account of an event Alter your country's history Make the world understand a tyrant's reason for existing Create a new continent What would life be like if mild magic existed? Imagination is now a currency Write a religious text explaining the creation of the...

Look at this sentence. That was brief, wasn't it? Here's where you should really start paying attention. When your sentences have different lengths without being so jarring, you create rhythm, which is a good thing. It can be a push and pull game; the sentences don't always have to be longer. It's good to give your readers a moment of rest before you add a more complex sentence, though, because you made sure that they could take a breath before you gave them something that would take a larger amount of time and focus. Once you're finished with that, then you can have a bigger drop. Let them breathe.  It's easier to write similar sentences. I should know, I've done it. Say, is this fun to read? I can try to vary rhythm. Play with commas, earlier, later, whatever. You should avoid this, you know. Otherwise, your story will feel bumpy. Your prose must act as a dance Maybe you won't be able to manage this with every single sentence you wri...

Once you've seen it, you can't really forget 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel. Gorillaz has been around in my life for almost as far as I can remember. Damon, of course, has been making music for a pretty long while, but this little project which has grown to a critically acclaimed band started around with a strange album which nobody could really define. It had elements from punk, rock, but all in all its style was pretty alternative to what everybody was listening at the time. They began in 1998 but I remember it was 2001 when they caught my attention. Of course, I was five years old and I was really attracted to the animation style, but as I grew up, and after  Gorillaz  came  Demon Days and  Plastic Beach , and in between those, a bunch of B-sides albums, remixes, singles, and even a dub mix of the first album, and in each of them you could notice a pretty distinct style, which begs the question, what defines Gorillaz? Heraclitus told us that no man ...

Writing is a great art, in the sense that all you really need is a place to put down your ideas. Sometimes the execution is bad, though, and though you might be the next Shakespeare, you're coming across as the next Dan Brown. With that in mind, it should always be in your best interest to refine your skills. Here's how. 5: Using the passive voice This one is big enough to merit its own post. Does the subject in your sentence perform the action, or is the action performed upon it? Although there is a lot that is affected by this aspect in itself, the way to fix it is pretty simple. Here are a few examples. Passive : It is believed by Mexicans that ghosts can speak with us. Active : Mexicans believe that ghosts can speak with us. Passive : I was bitten by the puppy. Active : The puppy bit me. The passive voice can be useful every once in a while, most of all if you want to keep the emphasis in the action, or if the actor is unknown. Otherwise, you ris...

Read part 2 here Freedom is a curious thing. When you can write about anything, you might as well be able to write about nothing. This is where prompts come in. If you can focus on a certain style, or genre, or plot device, then you might find that it's exactly what you need to stick to a story, or poem, or what have you. Without further ado, here are 20 prompts that can help you out. Your first line has 20 words, the second one has 19, and so on until you finish with one word A story that takes place in a single room No narration, only dialogue Death's greatest mistake Mix two very different genres Write a story in 100 words or less Start and end with the same phrase Apocalyptic but happy Rewrite your favorite story Everyone but your protagonist can speak Any action in the story is decided with you flipping a coin A failed experiment Write a story without using any pronouns Make the simplest of actions suspenseful An ordinary person in an extraordi...

For sale, baby shoes, never worn. - Ernest Hemingway Show, don't tell. If you're looking to improve your writing, it's likely you've heard this idea before. Becoming a good author implies many things. You need to understand the business as a whole if you want to see your book next to the greats. Before you do that, though, you need to take make sure that you're writing in the first place, and it must be worth reading. If you've read somebody like Tolkien, then you're probably that skillful description can make you believe in a world, no matter how different from reality it may be. You'd also know that reading pages upon pages telling you about every stone that the protagonist steps over, the story can get dull pretty easily. If only there were an easier way, right? Show, don't tell can convey Emotions Thoughts Scenery Appearances Anything, really Let's go through a few examples: Telling : Andrew noticed his father ...