Progress in Dresden

Hard at work on Kill The King, if only on weekends. Hit 13,000 words, so the big life-changing catalyst has occurred and the hero is on his way to figuring out if he wants any part of it.
It’s quite a cathartic story to write, as they go. My heroes are among a larger group of lowlives tasked with bringing the heads of the richest people in the city, so that they might all enjoy a slice of the money, but things are never really quite as they seem in my books.
To sum it up as a logline:

“On the verge of bankruptcy and starvation, Vincent, a down-on-his-luck warehouse worker pairs up with Jimmy, a freelance criminal, to take on a series of assassination contract; but when they realise the client might be setting them up to fail, they’ll have to work together to make a real difference before the city burns down around them.”

Me, Kill The King (working title)

I got a little over halfway through the first draft before it collapsed under me, not the first time that’s happened, but I feel I’ve levelled up as a writer since then, so I have high hopes to make this a decent read, or to at least write it to the end. Perhaps some snippets and sneak peeks next time, if I’m happy with them.  

Weekends are for the novel, but weekdays are for short stories. Currently working on a horror short that takes place on the moon, though I’m a couple thousand words in and the protagonist hasn’t reached the moon yet, so I might have to edit it quite heavily. More on that soon.

On other other side of the page, I read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and it effected me deeply. 
For those who haven’t had the pleasure, it’s about an American soldier in the Second World War, taken captive in Germany and held in as a prisoner of war in Dresden. He survives the firebombing there and goes on to be abducted by aliens, but that’s besides the point. What I loved most was that with EVERY SINGLE mention of death — whether it be a five-star general killed in combat or a single microbe being killed by soap — he follows that sentence with “So it goes.”
I found that this made all death equal, dignified, and memorable. This alternate cover I found online (or is it just some art, I’m not sure) stuck with me:

source: Zach Adams (I think)

And I’m not going to be in Germany for too much longer, so I thought, “why not?”At the lovely Erika & Kurt tattoo parlour in oldtown Dresden, I had the (agonising, excruciating) pleasure of getting this piece done, by Gustavo.

Still limping, two days later. Do tattoos get more difficult, the older you get?

More on my Instagram.

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