Pitman and the 'Books by the Banks' workshop

 Busy week. 'Tales from Darker Places' came out, and I have 2 short stories in the back :-)
On Thursday starts the TIW Autumn Open Final and I'll need some votes.
Next week both TIW Challenge 86 and Grudge 12 start and I'm in both of them. Challenge 86 needs votes, so I guess it's 2 weeks of toting for votes :-)
To pass the time 'til Thursday, here's a little 200 word 'Quickie'...
A wonderful TIW member, Michael D. Pitman, did a TIW workshop at 'Books By The Banks'...please, don't ask me where it was...in the USA, somewhere. He organised and ran 2 'Quickies' for the writers there, and this is my take for the first one.

Elements: jealousy, a chair and baseball game.

Obscenities, fruit and even a foldaway chair were thrown onto the playing field from the grandstand. This was not Dooger’s greatest performance.
"Come on, man! Wake up! That’s three in a row ya let walk, not to mention the other eight in the last innings!” shouted Wade, the catcher. The Rascals were 10 down with only 2 more innings to play.
"Sorry, Wade, but it’s Cheryl!”
"Oh Christ, man! Forget her! Move on! We’ve got a game to play here!”
The umpire beckoned them both over.
"You tell this guy to start playing better or I’ll eject him from the field! It’s getting dangerous out here!”
The crowd continued to whistle and shout.
"What? You can’t do that!”
"Watch me!”
"But ump, it’s his girl!”
"Oh hell, girl trouble? Get over it!” The umpire shook his head. „What happened?”
"She caught me with Flossy.”
"She caught you with another girl? Then what do you expect? Play the game!”
"No, no, Flossy is a goat from next door.”
"A goat!? What? Beastiality ain’t popular in these parts!”
"What? Who’s talking about beastiality? I was painting her hooves! Cheryl got jealous, said I never did anything like that for her!”
"You’re gone!”

Tales from Darker Places

I finally got a few short stories in another anthology, this time with The Indie Collaboration :-)
This group of writers get together and create stories every 3 months to show the world that there is some great writing outside the main publishing houses! Well, yes, of course! :-)
My two stories, seated at the end of the book, are...
A Day in the life of a Zombie...rather like Walking Dead but told from the zombie's point of view.
Payback...an 'almost' true story
Find it here on Amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/Indie-Collaboration-Presents-Chilling-Anthology-ebook/dp/B00ODS3HQY
or here on Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ODS3HQY
or here as a Paperback :-)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/150272913X

Nice to see my name there on the cover...I'll be doing more of these, hopefully :-)

When TIWs get together...revisited

Yep. I won Grudge #11 by default and decided to take it out on Mathew W Weaver, seeing as he was the one who challenged me.
Here is a little 'one guy' relay I wrote on one of his Facebook posts. Hope you like it.

The Duel of Procrastination

Mathew shuffled to the sound of leaves falling from the resting trees as he hid behind a particularly thorny bramble bush, away from the searching eyes of those present. His seemingly constant flow of procrastination had finally placed him in a particularly prickly situation and his suit of slightly rusting armour was no match for the persistant spikey bush which had the ability to seek out the joining hinges.
"Where is that Weaver?!" shouted an irate Dani. "He was meant to be here three days ago! We're running out of peanut butter and jello sandwiches!"
Jordan stood firm, clenching the case which held the two dueling pistols.
"He's not coming, can't you see that?" Jordan dropped the pistols' case and opened one of the six pack he'd brought along. "Fancy a beer?"
"Nah, you never know, he might appear. I've gotta keep my wits about me," said Dani, waving off the can once, twice, three times. Jordan swung it his way once more and he took it and had a swig.
Mathew spotted his chance and ran out of the hedge, away from the two drinking their beers. For armour, it was surprisingly light and flexible and he sprinted across to the playground, towards safety and a chance for a chip butty.
"Look! There he goes!" screamed Jordan, losing half his beer as he pointed. Dani dropped his and grabbed the pistols' case.
"Give me that! Ahh!" The harder he tried to open the case, the less chance it would.
"You've bent the hinges now! It'll never open!" Jordan caught the case as Dani threw it away in disgust.
"No matter. I have one of these!" Dani took out a large can opener and chased after Mathew. "I'll get that bugger if it's the last thing...!" He tripped over a mole hill.
THE END.

Need your vote! (Plus a Grudge win! Yeah!)

Hey! Manna-X Kindle reached #239,210 Paid in Kindle Store...then dropped like a stone! OK, not so good but better than usual...a few have left for devices across the USA...somewhere...someone is reading it!

This week 2 wonderful things areup.
The first is TIW Grudge 11, a collaboration work between myself and Jordan Bell against Mathew W Weaver and Mamie Pound. The other team was late, 2 days were added to the deadline and the story didn't appear, so Brian announced that WE WON! Yeah! Still not up on the site, though

BUT...more importantly, the TIW Autumn Open Prelims are on! I'll need your vote here! And anyone else who has an IP address!
"Inside the Womb"...
The biggest of the 4 elements for myself was the last, the interview, and so my story is a futuristic TV programme which goes into a famous person's mother's womb and interviews them just before birth...it's the mother of...can ya guess?....Agatha Christie!!! :-)
http://theironwriter.com/2014-autumn-equinox-open-agatha-christie-bracket/

'New' review on Amazon.ca!

I completely missed this review on Canada's Amazon site!
Thanks, Sebastian, for this! If I remember right, you've got the 2nd book somewhere, maybe even the 3rd and 4th too!
The Canadian site...


Man by a tree

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious twist on religion! Feb. 26 2014

By Sebastian Borsos

Format:Kindle Edition

A book that makes you think and laugh at the same time. With a story that had me absorbed by the end, it was difficult to put it down! A good combination of intellectualism and entertainment makes for a fun read. Definitely recommended
I am already waiting on the next book in the series to arrive in the mail!

New interview on Laura Robert's Blog!

I've got a new interview over on Laura Robert's blog!
It's a woozey! :-) Thanks, Laura!
http://blackheartmagazine.com/2014/09/22/manna-x-an-interview-with-dani-j-caile/

I've also just sent in 2 fantastic stories to the Iron Writer, one for the Grudge Match 11, a collaboration with Jordan Bell, 250ish words each, and my entry for the Autumn 2014 Prelims. More on those later!
But hey! Get over to the interview!

News...news..news...:-)

Long time no posts again!
Been busy writing...at the moment I'm in a completely new format TIW Grudge match, trying to wrestle with another author's ego (Jordan Bell) as well as my own. We're on our 2nd (3rd?) attempt at creating a collaboration 500 word story with some insane elements. We might get lucky.
I'm also now waiting on 3...yes, 3 anthologies, two from Three Fate Press and 1 from the Indie Collaboration. I have no idea whether any piece will be published yet.
Still waiting on the cover artist of "How to build a castle in seven easy steps"...no reply...apparently I am 'impatient'...if I'd self-published the book would've been out now...but I'd be in the wilderness. Better to wait. It's an 'epic'. If anyone catches on to that fact, "Hello fame, hello fortune"..yeah, right...the action of writing something which might make a change is the reason I'm doing this...
There should also be a fantastic new little interview somewhere...though I can't find it ATM...perhaps the person forgot to post it.

Later...:-)