Hidden in Plain Sight (Early Preview №1)

[PREVIEW]

As the little Pao putted away from Austin, the husky driving the car looked over, uneasily, at the zebra in the passenger seat through his dollar store sunglasses before returning his eyes to the road. Julie’s father was a certified nutcase, and had been for several years- just how his best friend since daycare came from a man like that… he was certain that the charges given in the trial were an understatement. Going from Austin, Texas to Lankford, West Virginia was nothing short of tiring, as evidenced by the fact that Julie was napping, resting her head against the window, with her eReader.

Not that he didn’t have one of the same model- they were George’s Mother’s last Yuletide presents to him before her death- the green cover for Julie and the blue cover for George. For the past fifteen months, they had really been used, especially when it came to moving, which was becoming all-but-scheduled for every three months, or so it seemed.

They considered it lucky to live somewhere for six months without a SWAT team ushering them to another location.

[END OF PREVIEW]

I've always wanted to write a story like this one (and trust me, it's been several years in the making!), but it's not without its hardships, the most glaring of which is the fact that, for each character the story focuses on, you have to write two characters that blend together- In private, we have [a primitive] George & Julie (obviously unnerved because of a certain event) essentially hitting the RESET button on life to keep from losing because, as we find out:

THE STAKES ARE HIGH AND ON HARDCORE MODE.

Really, this book is kind of killing two birds with one stone: I've always wanted to write a book like this and I've always wanted to have characters that are very much an "Average Joe". While George & Julie aren't completely the spitting image of that, they are, in essence, an average couple of friends. Because of the nature of how this book brought George & Julie in existence, some of the characters' traits aren't the characters. What I mean by this is things like George (in this story) might be more apt to reading fanfiction, whereas in the actual series, it would be him more opting to watch a movie or listen to music.

Small changes; tweaks, if you will.

Whelp, that's all for now- I'm expecting the book to be published sometime in the fall or winter (I'm aiming for sometime between August and November). As usual, I'll have a link to the book on the Kobo store. I hope you guys enjoy! 

An Exercise in Frustration!

 An Exercise in Frustration! Link

Two anthropomorphic people in their early-twenties embark on a trip to Arizona when their plans to go gambling in Vegas derail after one gets a nasty surprise.

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The two main characters in this story (Aleks & Chloe, described below) are the two most condescending know-it-alls in your life who, in order to have a purpose beyond watching TV and being an all-around pain-in-the-ass, have to chase thrills and cheat Death himself. Between a borderline-psychopath and a behaviorist (pick who you want those labels to go to- it doesn't matter), they were going to see exactly what $500 and ₽30 could get in Vegas with nothing but their skill and a week's worth of supplies in the back of an old Plymouth Reliant wagon. Chloe's seeking nature led her to a cult that turned out to be a subversive group of people in Arizona.

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This is not my first version of Александр Иванович Буряков (romanized to «Aleksandr "Aleks" Ivanovič Buryakov»), but he was a fun character to develop, nonetheless. Rivaling Greg House (House M.D.) and Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon) in both brains and sheer laziness and annoyance, he was originally of German descent and could speak some of the language (mostly to translate a manual). Going through four name changes (Seth → Alex → Саша/Sasha → Алексь/Aleks'), he's had a lot of development. He often uses his "Soviet Heritage" as an excuse for some "inappropriate behavior", although this goes to no avail. He has my birthday, as well as some physical characteristics of mine, as he was originally based off of me- I'm not a narcissist. Put simply, he's the one that cops are afraid to pull over or investigate whatever is coming from his house for one reason: that would mean getting within a kilometer of the crazy idiot. Getting in the car with him is definitely a gamble, especially when a semi-truck is involved, although it's something to be expected of a guy whose urine is probably what's running through the engine and also has a tattoo of a hoof on the bottom of his hoof.

God knows the vodka companies would hate to lose him as a customer.

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Chloe Brown originally started off life as a non-pony version of a My Little Pony character - remember my methods: question everything - that fit well with Alex, a compliment, if you will. Both were poor, hacked too much for their own good, and gambled everything and everywhere from Hell to Houston. She quickly turned into her own character, (or as she puts it, "I'm Aleks… if he had a pair of B-and-a-halves, spoke German instead of Russian, and knew when to shut up."). She shares most of her traits with him, sans his boots and height, though (now) coming from a wealthy family and staying with her sexist uncle. She can be just as condescending, just as much of a wise-ass, and equally inappropriate as he can… she just doesn't drink often. Despite how close they are to each other, they'd make a rock look like it was sexually promiscuous. Any sentence she says involving Aleks and romance is usually along the lines of «We shared a bed in the insert place here. It was a magical night… his wing didn't slice me open when we were trying to sleep. As a last tidbit, she sums up irony with the phrase "Between the two of us, I'm the one who went to business school, I'm the one who has the diploma, I'm the Valedictorian, but the Soviet jackass is the one who's had his under-the-table racket since middle school.".

Link to my books on Kobo

Link To My Books On Kobo

The text on this page isn't important, just the link above this line. Reading it, however, might open you to a more open style of thinking.

I'm a new author (new as in only recently published in this capacity), but have been writing since grade seven. I remember that I would try to write "normal" things, but I could never succeed. Sure, I'd come close, but there was always one thing that stuck out: An alien character- the most tech savvy guy in the word driving around in a friggin' Yugo (Yes, it was held together by duct tape. Feel free to laugh at the irony), half-animal characters like something straight out of a bad animé, or even just playing around with physics when the characters realized "Hey, I'm not real- I'm in a book. I can eat rat poison and I'll come back if the dude writing this gets a kick out of it."

No, don't try to imitate that last one, but my point stands- it was (and still is) a unique style of writing, not unlike Rick from Rick & Morty, if you will- what with all of the bending-reality-at-your-whims.

Over the years, I've tried writing a number of different things, one where the characters even ended up in a world where the Norman Conquest of 1066 failed, so English remained close to its Germanic brethren… Runic was even an alternate script, simply because I thought it was neat to write in.

Quite honestly, the only limits to my ideas could best be summed up as "Here's what most people do- I'm incapable of this, so I'm switching gears and going Alien Space Bats crazy with this. It's more entertaining, anyway.".

Entertaining it was, as well as helped me expand on my critical thinking skills. For instance, everyone thinks that vampires would hate garlic because it's a deterrent or murder weapon against them.

Scientifically… no.

Garlic, being a natural anticoagulant, would actually be beneficial to the vampire, especially if the victim had eaten it a short while before because the victim's blood would be thinner.

Could the Eastern Bloc still exist? It's quite possible, had changes been implemented sooner and the peoples' opinion over there shifted before everything came crashing down… and it wouldn't be a dictatorship.

Þe þing I'm getting at is þe amount of hƿat-ifs þat actually exist.

Is there anything wrong with writing with the letters Þ, Ƿ, Æ, Œ, Ŋ, Ð, Ȝ, and everything else we've lost or never had? Is there anything wrong with asking a question that makes a few people mad?

Is it wrong to want to look into another world, so different and so similar to our own at the same time, that it makes you think about what else could go on in that world that is or isn't in ours?

The choice is yours, and there's nothing wrong with going after your thoughts and turning them into an existent item.

And, with this, I bid my farewell.
Ænd, ƿiþ þis, I bid my fareƿell.
ᚫᚾᛞ, ᚹᛁᚦ ᚦᛁᛋ, ᛁ ᛒᛁᛞ ᛗᚣ ᚠᚪᚱᛖᚹᛖᛚᛚ.
И на етом я прощаюсь.
就这样，我告别了。
就這樣，我告別了。
そして、これでお別れです。
그리고 이것으로 작별을 고합니다.
Үүгээр би салах ёс гүйцэтгэж байна.