I have a bunch of stories that are started, but at various stages of refinement. A few are fairly far along, while others are little more than an outline. Sadly, none are finished enough where I feel I can publish them. Worse, I’m missing at least one manuscript that was fairly far along. I’m reticent to restart it with so many other irons in the fire.

I will post a few excerpts here when I feel they are polished enough…

I’m trying to see if can tie all the concepts into a single story, probably under The Long House.
The Long House
This is one of three ghost stories I’ve been playing with for a few years. It started because I hate modern ghost stories with entities that are nearly all-powerful and can physically manifest in nearly any form they want. That’s just cheating! I’m more interested in writing a story similar to The Haunting Of Hill House and the 1961 movie that came out of the book. In my stories, the ghosts don’t have a lot of physical power. Just the same, they can deceive, trick people and cause irrational fear.

Cruel Hills
This story takes place at a large house in the eastern hills of Oregon that has been converted into a reclusive dude ranch slash retreat for underprivileged people. At the start of the off-season, the employees are starting to prep the house for a winter storm, when something ominous is spotted making it’s way just ahead of the storm. The handful of employees must try to barricade the house against the malevolent being. At the worst part of the storm, they realize that it has gotten in!

The Isolated Estate
This location for this ghost story is a large Victorian house that a young couple and their three children are fixing up so as a B&B. The house is the main structure on of the small islands of Puget Sound. The family needs a more bucolic lifestyle as the husband has already had one heart attack and the youngest girl has an incurable disease that keeps her wheelchair bound most of the time. Shortly after arriving, eerie things start to happen. The handicapped girl hears voices and sees things move. Her parents initially think that it is a more advanced stage of her illness that signals that she doesn’t have long to live. They take her to the boat that will take them back to the mainland and a doctor, they find that it is missing. Most likely stollen. What’s worse is that the phones are out and a series of storms are headed their way. Even though they can see the highest skyscrapers of Seattle, no one will know they need help. As they settle in to weather the storm, they find out that their youngest isn’t making up her stories after all.

Markle & Hercules
This is a murder mystery parody of Agatha Christie’s characters, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. In it, Mr. Hercules Peridot finds himself investigating the murder of an Anglican Bishop. To his consternation, the amateur sleuth, Miss Janet Markle is briefly one of the suspects. The pair soon find themselves fighting over interviews, and racing to hunt down clues. Whoever unmasks the murderer will be undoubtedly be given a title from the Queen. But, at the rate they are bickering, they may both end up in jail.

Chasing Magic
A comic fantasy adventure set in modern times. If I complete this one, it will undoubtedly be long enough for a full-length novel. Chasing Magic is the story of a middle-aged gay man who is visited by an elf and a dwarf. He finds out that his is actually a descendant of a wizard and therefore, a wizard too. The LAST wizard on planet Earth, to be precise. The magic folk drag him along on their quest to roundup increasingly dangerous magic beings. To start with, he isn’t happy with the idea. As the adventures and dangers increase, he finds his own strengths. The question is; will they be enough to survive the increasing danger?

Ms Death
What if one morning, you found an invitation in the mail. “Congratulations! You are now Death. Please join us at a mixer tonight at 8:00.” You’d assume it was a practical joke, right? Well Penni certainly did. But lead her to the party anyway where she found out that she really had become the Grim Reaper. That is she became ‘a’ Grim Reaper. It seems that Death had expanded the business and there were lots or reapers now. A sort of “Reaper Society.” And, like any good secret society, Club Mort has its share of secrets, like who really runs the local chapter, how many reapers are there, and why are some of them disappearing? The tale follows Penni as she finds her new bony legs in northern Washington State.

Codela
The story of a distant future where the human race has colonized several other planets in the galaxy. One, Codela, is a “lost” world that has been out of touch with the greater humanity for over two centuries. A team of researchers is sent to investigate if the population is socially and technologically advanced enough to rejoin the United Planets.

Hidden Doorways
Young woman named Krinda is seeking the mysteries of a riddle her grandmother taught her as a child. A rhyme about a magical realm just to the left of ours.  “You find it through the books in your grandfather’s library.” She then finds a letter that was sent to her and never opened until she was a young adult.  It gives clues that the door and the realm are real and hidden in her grandmother’s grandfather’s books, the girl’s great great grandfather.  Problem is, the books have been reprinted into paperback and the pages and formatting changed. Krinda tracks down original versions of the book; two first editions and one of her grandfather’s original manuscripts. It turns out that other people have also had this idea and have been looking for clues in the old books for years, but in the wrong place.

Little Movements
This will be a true short story about how the little things you see out of the corner of your eye really are a threat.


Fallen Angels Rising Demons
Another one of my comic fantasy stories that is actually fleshed out more than some of the others. It follows two of the angels that were cast out of heaven in The Great War, but somehow didn’t fall all the way down to hell. They have been on Earth for longer than mankind has and have found tricks for dealing with eternity outside of heaven. The problem is that someone seems to be out to end their existence entirely, and they don’t know if the threat is coming from above or below. In order to find out who is trying to snuff out their eternal lights, the pair will have to enlist assistance from both angels, demons and, God forbid, humans!

The Mirror In The Tower
This is a dark, dramatic tale about a witch who intends to come back to rule the countryside that thinks it killed her. The young son of the new castle owners may be the only one that can prevent her from seeking her vengeance on the modern townsfolk.

Jumping Bones
This is another fantasy story regarding a new trend among the young elite where they take over someone else’s body temporarily. The process sarcastically called Jumping Bones is supposed to be harmless to the user as well as the vessel that they inhabit. That is, until a young and naive socialite jumps into someone that gets murdered just before she jumps. Now, both the jumper and the jumpee are stuck in a technological limbo. They can individually jump into another body at will but can only inhabit it for a few seconds at a time. Can they find their back to the living?

Nearly Evil
The story of two androids that do not function like the others in an era when humanity is coming to grips with the reality that android might be the only way that “humanity” can survive.

Race For The Lilies
This one comes from dark humor game that people at one of my job sites used to play. The basic of the game are that everyone chips in $10 and then you have to pick 3 celebrities that are going to win the race for the lilies that year. E.g. die. The Ronald Reagan and Henry Kissinger were favorites that year, but didn’t win. In my story, an office finds a online betting company that has a invitation only game that runs along the same lines and is only open on Jan 1 for bets ten to one hundred thousand dollars per person. Middle management and a couple of regular works get invitations and even decide to pool some money to make a $10K bet. A few weeks later, they find out that the HR Manager has put all the pension funds into two bets under his and his wife’s names totaling $200k! If they loose, then most of the employees’ pensions will be all but wiped out. When none of the celebrities have died by mid October, the HR Manager convinces the rest of the employees to nudge the contestants to their well-earned finish line.