Time Travel Bandits Have Arrived!

Check out Abe’s latest adventure for free! It is his last episode in the 6th grade. Get over to The Stories page and see what you think. Right now it is only in pdf format. Look for other formats soon.

Time Travel Bandits Story Arrives Soon!

The story, Abe Table and the Time Travel Bandits, is done! I’m walking it through some revisions now, but it will show up soon! For real!

Look for a trailer and some new links connected to the story to show up soon too (this coming week). Exciting days are ahead for Abe and his friends. Aside from the upcoming time travel bandits, a haunted and abandoned school shows up by this summer and sends Abe into a panic he’s not experienced before as he leaves the comfort of his own school to explore a mysterious disappearance, a school that was abandoned in the middle of the day, and the heart of a true friend. That will all happen in his 8th adventure coming this summer.

In the meantime, be looking this week for the start of a seven episode series of flash fiction over at my Lightflood site.

 

 

 

Adventure #7 Coming Soon

Here’s a quote from Abe in the upcoming story, Abe and the Time Travel Bandits (working title):

Lady # 3 scared me. She was small and looked older than the trees on the hill. Her beady brown eyes were shifty when she talked and her voice was a mixture of black coffee, spent shotgun shells and sand that you can’t get out of your shoe after you go to the beach.

Abe and his friends can’t figure out why or how someone would steal kids for a time travel experiment… but the clues are mounting and the train to the future is about to leave the station. He has to figure out something fast and he doesn’t have Origami Yodi to give him any advice.

The new adventure begins this summer… don’t be kidnapped to the future without it!

Be sure to check out Abe’s other adventures over on The Stories page.

Abe on YouTube

Check out Abe’s new channel and video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/uO3PcURsiXk

What Is Abe Table Like?

I’m not sure what Abe Table is completely like – you know, what he likes to do, eat, read – but I’m getting to know him… If that is possible (he is only a fictional character, after all).

Sure, sure, I do know a lot about him from the stories so far (1-6), but there is so much more to know. Questions about him hit me all the time. Questions like:

Would Abe follow the Dawn probe that just reached orbit around Ceres, the dwarf planet?

Is space exploration something he and his friends care about? (Very cool Wikipedia entry about ion thrusters, which the Dawn probe uses, here)

Just from story #6 and the upcoming story #7 (Abe Table and the Time Travel Bandits), I know he likes cinnamon buns in the morning at his school (with the gooey white frosting), the Origami Yoda book series by Tom Angleberger (which I’ve now completed – hilarious!), and the Monster Decks game he plays with his friends.

What do you know about Abe after following his Misinformed Life?

 

 

 

 

3 Things I Know About My Writing Process and Abe #7

Abe Table’s seventh story, which is beginning now, has baffled me. The process is what has been so puzzling. I had ideas in the Fall about this 7th story. I laid them out (written on post it notes and spread over the floor). I moved them around and tried to arrange them along a story skeleton. I walked and thought about them. I wrote in journals about them. I discussed them.

But the writing did not come. I was unwilling to start since I wanted to have the story boarded and outlined by the time I began to write and I did not have a final outline.

Then, as is usual for me, the inevitable happened one morning: a scene to start the story showed up in my mind’s eye. Not the scene I had imagined either. It began with dialog about something completely unrelated and off my radar for the story.

And it led right where I wanted for the opening scene. A second writing session had a healthy draft of the scene done. Now, it is opening myriad possibilities, some of which fit the original plan and ideas.

Will it land where I was heading originally? Don’t know.

What I do know is this:

1. The writing process requires patience and thought – Both of those are vital to incubating a story.

2. When a story “opens up,” it may be one of the most thrilling experiences – I wouldn’t trade it. Nor would I trade all the hours writing in my journals and wondering if I can think of the proper flow to make a compelling story.

3. When I’m lost about how to proceed with the big picture, the outline of the whole story, I find joy and even direction in creating a scene – Even if it ends up not being a scene I use, it helps to step into that world and live there a bit.

What have you learned from your writing process?

Abe and The Replacements Available

A pdf version of Abe Table and The Replacements is now available over on The Stories page. Look for story #6.

Since this marks the half-dozen point for Abe’s misadventures, I’ve put together a little promo video for stories 1-6.

Check it out today and share it!

 

Abe Table And The Replacements – Final Scene Here

I have posted a draft of the last scene for Abe Table and The Replacements. I wanted to have a full version of the story available for now, so I’ve posted all the scenes. But, I will be revising it for its final form and will post it as a pdf, and epub and mobi file soon.

In the meantime, jump over to The Replacements page and read the whole story!

You know that I’m cooking up ideas for the next Abe Table story. Of course, endless possibilities are bombarding me, but I’m warming to a few and will begin sketching scenes soon. I may even consider a longer story… like novel-length.

Aliens almost There!

The story is almost done – Abe Table and The Replacements. If you’ve been reading along, you’ve been seeing the second or third drafts of each of the scenes. I just posted scenes 5 and 6. Only 1 scene is left to post! If you haven’t been reading, get over to the Replacements page and check this one out. Happy reading and keep your eyes peeled for the last scene. Enjoy!

 

Replacements – Scene 4

Why, just why, is this scene so important? ‘Cause it’s the next one? Well, maybe. But it is also a strange point in the story – everything is disappearing suddenly. Get reading… over at the Replacements page… right away before it disappears. Enjoy!