dannedmind

FREE SHORT STORY: THE MIGHTIER

Dear Potential Reader,

After an accident, a father struggles to communicate with his daughter, perhaps a strange object gifted by the strange driver of the red hatchback can help him in THE MIGHTIER.

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This is a follow up to THE CAR–one of the first 9 ever written. But like most of the Hatchback Woman tales, I’ve tried to write them in such a way that you can read them without having to have read them in a specific order. Perhaps, this spoils the events of THE CAR. Perhaps, you’ll have forgotten if you ever read that tale. But I’ve never liked, as a reader, being confined to reading orders.

Check in every First Friday of every month for another Tale of the Hatchback Woman.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: LEARN THROUGH OTHERS

One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to look at other people’s work. Offering to edit other people’s stories will open you up to your own mistakes, other styles, and make you more mindful of what a reader’s reaction is likely to be.

When something looks wrong in someone else’s text, it’s a lot easier to spot.

I personally have a set of blinders up on my own writing. I don’t always see what’s missing or how a phrase is jumbled rather than clear. But sometimes I spot something wrong in someone else’s draft and that becomes something to look out for in my own.

FREE SHORT STORY: A CIGARETTE

Dear Potential Reader,

Ever spend time with someone that is so rough, you need something to get you through it? It might just be the promise of a reprieve. It might be a drink or a smoke. For Lauren Pace it is something that has to do with the Hatchback Woman, in A CIGARETTE.

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As mentioned earlier, this is one of the early tales, where I was trying to turn the Lady’s story into something of an investigation with two leads in the same fashion as The X-Files. But the heart of the story has always been how different people handle what they have received. So, while this one complicates the overall narrative with a building of events, it serves as another evaluation of what those in the Hatchback Woman’s vicinity chose to do.

Check in every First Friday of every month for another Tale of the Hatchback Woman.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE

WRITING TIPS: MOTIVATIONAL QUOTE TIME

One of my favorite mantras to remind myself in times when I can’t write is a quote I’ll attribute to Bill Pace. Whether or not he said it first, I don’t know. But for 12 plus years I’ve heard his voice in my head when I remind myself:

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND THEM, IS THEY’RE DOING IT.

Keep that in mind when you get down or are procrastinating. Whether it’s about seeing someone else’s success or wanting to have accomplished something but haven’t yet. You have to do it. If you want it, do it.

Stop talking about it. Do it.

FREE SHORT STORY: THE EGG

Dear Potential Reader,

Some conversations reveal veiled truths. How would you like to know which came first . . . the chicken or the egg? Join two thieves looking to get back one of the Hatchback Woman’s magical objects in THE EGG.

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If you’ve read THIS, then you know the genesis of the tales of the Hatchback Woman was a writing exercise. That’s it. ‘Let me practice.’ So, it only seemed fitting back in 2020 when I was practicing writing ‘dialog only tales’ that I would try my hand at a Hatchback Woman tale in this format. So here it is, warts and all. And take note, this is the first ever publication of this tale, so remember you read it here first.

Check in every First Friday of every month for another Tale of the Hatchback Woman.

Hope you enjoy.

All the best,

DAN JIRE