Flash Fiction February

A Ghost Hunters Lore Collection

When muses become obnoxiously ever-present, the easy way out is to write their stories. As fiction - even though you both know they are very real. However, I'd been living and working in the world of non-fiction for years now, and happily funding my research this way.

But the itch to dip back into the heady worlds of fiction was still making my life uncomfortable on a regular basis.

It was an author named Bradley Ramsey who at last successfully tempted me back into dipping my toe back into those fiction realms.

First, he ran this Substack challenge last year – to write a single story every day during January. And I watched it from the outside, bemused and entertained.

But then, in January he did something exceedingly rare. He read and reviewed one of my stories. And honestly liked it.

Because I'd gone the fast-release route for years on Amazon against the no-feedback, no sales regimen there. Testing the idea that enough organic discovery would eventually prompt people to buy my books. However, as I discovered. Amazon was the graveyard of writer's hopes – because they "had" to promote new works every month. So that by three months, any books you've published literally disappeared – unless you "wanted" to run ads on their platform.

On Substack, Ramsey had hit into the marvelous idea of building a community first. And publish your works for free. Meanwhile, several authors took their works (which started out by answering his prompts) and published them as a collection – and selling them.

On the heels of Ramsey's review, he started this year's Flash Fiction February challenge. Write a new story, no more than 1500 words long, one each day for 28 days. I was hooked. And my fast-release processes engaged again.

However, I mostly knew my own book universe of the Ghost Hunters – and used his prompts to re-explore stories I'd started writing in 2018. Those stories had recurring characters exploring real-life themes inside a fantasy mystery writer's world. So these published stories provided characters here as well as settings pulled from them.

Sure, it was telling people that this huge universe, – covering several dozen short stories – was out there waiting for them. Days and months of entertainment. And I'd already published many of these stories on Substack itself.

At the end of this challenge, I was exhausted. And had a pile of stories. So the second half of my rapid-release habits showed up. I compiled all these in order, cleaned up the links in them, and cobbled this book you're reading out of them.

So, yes, I'll give away as many copies of this as I can. Because: it's decent entertainment, and if you like this, there's lots more waiting for you.

Simple.

And so, let me leave you to it.

P.S. And as usual, find me on Substack. Like, share, re-stack, subscribe. Also, that's all easier through the app...