“The Minotaur” cover update!

Keith Draws is working on the typography for the cover, so I’ll show you some of what he’s come up with. Let me know which version you like the best!

“classic” font, axe in front of the N
“classic” font, axe behind the N
“stylish” font, axe behind the N
“stylish” font, axe in front of the N

“The Minotaur” cover update!

Thanks to Trevor Smith for painting an unbelievably awesome cover for “The Minotaur”!

I originally planned to publish it as a stand-alone novella, as it is only around 20k words, but then an idea popped into my head (a dangerous affair anytime me + ideas collide!), and I’ve decided to make it a collection, but one where all of the stories tie together in a general way: An ancient genie shares stories of how humans foolishly used their wish after releasing him, spanning thousands of years from the Fertile Crescent 6000+ years ago, to a few hundred years in the future.

More on that later. In the meantime, here’s the finished cover!

12 year old Billy Jacobs battles the devil for his soul on the hardest pinball table ever created

The Minotaur

First chapter of what will probably be a long short story, or a short novella. Horror genre, though nothing disturbing like limbs being ripped off or such. Maybe like a Stephen King type of horror. There will be errors in this like missing punctuation or words or weird and incorrect grammar. This is just a rough draft. If you dig it, let me know.

CHAPTER ONE

May 3, 1986

Billy Jacobs arrived at the Circle-K ready to play. He had two full hours to kill, and he planned to unlock wizard mode on The Minotaur again. As he looped the braided stainless steel cable through his bike’s frame and front wheels, then around the frame of the bike block, he replayed in his mind the one and only time he’d ever achieved wizard mode. Three weeks ago today, as a matter of fact, offered his brain while another part of it helped him clip the Schlage padlock to the anti-theft cable. Borah wasn’t a hotbed of criminal activity, but if his mom ever found out he’d left his bike unlocked, she’d ground him from it for a month or more.

Billy stood up and adjusted his backpack, light for a Monday, even for him. For the last two Mondays, he’d burned through twelve dollars in quarters, The Minotaur greedily gobbling them down then laughing at him in its most insulting tone. Screw you, dude, he thought. I beat you once. I’ll beat you again. From all around him came the booming laughter of The Minotaur, making him visibly jump just as he opened the door to the convenience store. Billy stood still for a few seconds, wondering if he’d been hearing things. He decided he’d psyched himself up so much for today’s play that he was just letting his imagination get to him.

“Hey, squirt, in or out,” Jimmy Garvin called to him from behind the counter, an issue of Jellies in his hand. Continue reading