Toot! Toot!

Or should that be 'honk, honk!'

This is, once again, all new to me.  But I wanted to share something.  A story I've been working on for a little while called 'The Watercolor Murders', or just 'Watercolors', has been coming along.

As part of a little foray into a competition site, they encouraged me to go ahead and post anything I'm working on for readers to take a peek at.  So I did.  With several chapters yet to finish and about eight more in total to post, this is the response on an unfinished story:

Amazing!

The story has a great flow to it and it really kept me attentive and interested. It seems like an ordinary story at the beginning, with the description of how Michael and Michelle met, but then turns out to be a completely different topic, different genre, and a very intense, mysterious and amusing one. I love how you paid attention to the detail on the paintings, and the way that Michelle’s friend wrote to her about the anomalies in the photos of the car was simply fascinating. You have a great eye for details and a great style of writing. In my opinion, you are a talented author who could write great, mysterious crime stories (such as this one). This is an unusual story, one that you cannot not read. I am looking forward to the rest of the story.

Five stars across the board!

And...

Watercolours
This is an amazing story and one I thoroughly enjoyed.  It has the backdrop of a sweet, young, married couple continuing to show their love, humor and intelligence throughout the story of their innocently begun quest.  It has all sorts of realistic touches of life to keep it real. It is not just another "Everyman thrust into danger"  tale, although the innocence of the quest does turn dangerous. It has such a ring of truth to it all, from their banter to their affection for one another to the kind friends they make and who gladly help along the way. The mystery keeps deepening the more they discover and they find that, although the "accidental" deaths occurred years ago, something those acts to the present, since the couple falls into danger themselves. The story moves along very swiftly even though it includes time for tea and scones and mornings through evenings of each day, with interesting hours in between. A truly fascinating mystery: very puzzling yet sort light-hearted because of the loving freshness of the protagonists. The story is not finished, so naturally I hope the author continues with it soon. At the same time it is one of those stories one wishes would not end. Perhaps after the highly gifted author ties up this intriguing mystery, he could use the same couple in another story and another and....  They really are that excellent as protagonists. Thank you, sir for a great afternoon of pleasure.

Again, five starts across the board!

It tickles me that I have written something that can entertain.  To those folks that have been so encouraging as well as those that have been critical, I thank you.  I will have the rest of the story posted soon and available to THESE readers.  From there, I guess it's just a process of trying to find a publisher and/or an agent.

The story I actually entered into the competition, Boston Knights, has also been well received.  The version posted for the competition does NOT have all the 'corrections and editorial cleaning' that the final version has.  In the short competition (I entered late in the process) I managed over 515 reads in the last quarter of the competition.  This was one of the early comments:



Fun


This story is just so realistic and so amazingly written that I felt I was a part of it. It starts off completely ordinary, describing the lives of three young brothers, then slowly shifting the focus on one of them, putting him into the spotlight and following him into this unusual, but yet so realistic and genuine adventure which resulted in finding not the gold he was looking for, but love. Even though this type of romance might be a bit unusual for the readers, it still did make a good impact. The whole story is very interesting, and going from Chapter to Chapter, all I could think about is what is going to happen next. It kept me attentive and interested. There was not a single paragraph, a single sentence that made me even a little bit bored. The writing is so smooth, readable, with a great flow to it. And the technical level of the story is also commendable.



The other two stories, The Hollerinth Affair and Waiting For The Past (both also well received) were the first stories to be finished.  The reviews I got on them were more critical, and taken to heart in finishing Boston Knights and Watercolors.  I have been re-editing the first two and expect to be finished with the re-edit and re-posting them within a few weeks to a month.


Once again, thank you for all the reviews, the reads, and the encouraging words.