Shorts of the Rula was set up to fill in for the Crazy Shorts section of my original location for uploading the free stories I wrote. Rather than keep the name, I decided to swap it for something more direct.
And there’s nothing more direct than saying what kind of stories they are and who wrote them right in the title. But it serves its purpose for when I want to add to it, rather than creating a new story on Wattpad for each short. I had considered porting the stories from Crazy Shorts to be the first set within Shorts of the Rula, but decided against it for two reasons.
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Exactly two months ago, I posted a fan-created story to Wattpad that put focus onto a well-known entertainment brand.
Yogsimulated told the tale of ten members of the Yogscast getting to experience a new type of virtual reality and be the ones to make it public through the use of a video. Each of the four points of view explored the same events but with different experiences being felt. And now, with this post, I’m going to give a bit of a behind the scenes look at what sort of ideas I had planned for, and why the things that went into it happened. If you haven’t read it yet and want to do so before reading this look back at its creation, you can do so by following this link. Now, let’s start at the beginning. DarkRula Media might be slow in growing, but every year there is new content that I bring to it, ready to grow it that bit more. 2017 saw the start of self-published novels on the Kindle Store, with 2018 having a record number of articles including a few new series.
With 2019, I aimed to keep the momentum going from both of those years. The greatest addition to that being Racing Month. Back in 2015, I uploaded a few videos to Youtube from the start of Star Wars Celebration in April up to 4/May, dubbing that lot of content as Star Wars Month. In 2018, I revived the name in May, making it an event across both site and Youtube. It returned last year in its rightful place of April (the month of Celebration), and since I had one month-long event established, I felt it would be good to get a second one up and running. And there was a precedent in place from the month before, where I had a few posts giving ideas about racing games. We are returning once again to the Alternate Halesowen and Beyond series for another short story collection. This time the students are at the college for their second year, looking into where they want to be heading. You can buy it for £2 on the Kindle Store or, as with all my books, borrow it from Kindle Unlimited.
The Future Adventures of Halesowen, just as with Alternate Adventures, is a book that looks at the students of the college in their activities. Dealing with a wider area of time, all of the students get focus with their arc detailing their own future. Opportunities arise for many of them in different forms, and there’s also some resolution to conflicts both old and new. Before this second preview starts, I just want to remind everyone that the previous books in this series are currently on sale at £0.99. The Alternate Adventures of Halesowen is currently on sale until midnight on the 8th, where Secrets Behind the Truth will then be the one on sale until midnight of the 16th. Twenty-four hours later, this book then releases.
Below is the preview, taken from the fourth short of the collection. From Brandon’s point of view, he and Oliver, along with his sister Ashley, have joined for a celebration of Ross’ birthday at a laser quest arena. This one builds on the thoughts of Brandon’s feelings towards Elizabeth and the future of that relationship. Enjoy. __________ The Future Adventures of Halesowen is a month off from releasing, bringing more short stories focused upon this group of media students. Character focus is again the order of the day, with a bit more put into developing some threads throughout the stories, mainly focused upon the futures each student hopes to pursue.
In this first story, the focus is on Daniel, who is waiting with Quinn to invite Brandon to join them as they craft a new video for their Youtube channel looking at the modules of the second year. This moment will start Brandon on a path that gets him greater self-confidence, which will serve for future events. __________ Back when I first started this entire label – back when it was under Custom Digital Stories and a logo that would never stay the same – there were two fan-created stories on the site.
An alternate timeline of the Star Wars universe where Darth Maul was never killed, and Pokémon: Shadow Boom – a story that aimed to add a third chapter to the Orre region and the Shadow Pokémon. Both stories were confused messes – as my writing style back at the start never allowed any in-depth planning – and so the result was I was dumping everything I could into them to try and see where I could take them next. They still continually worked, but there was plenty wrong with them. For a while, I had retired Shadow Boom, but it eventually returned and was completed. The end of the first phase of releases is here, with Space Race Championship crafting a new world to explore. Exploring the titular competition from start to end through the eyes of two families joined together through their entry into it, it’s available on the Kindle store for £4.00.
An old idea just like Elemental Heroes, this one has also seen a lot of work gone into it. I took those old ideas and refreshed them, adding in some new things and really getting stuck into the world and its history. There’s not much longer now until Space Race Championship releases. I’ve said that plenty of times before, but this time is different. This time there’s an actual date. And I’m running a sale on all previous novels before that date arrives. Here’s the rundown of dates before I give a new preview for the latest novel.
Already started from today and running for a week is a price drop for The Alternate Adventures of Halesowen. Taking over from midnight on 25/March will be Secrets Behind the Truth, again for a week. On 1/April, Elemental Heroes will be passed the baton of the price drop. The price for all three during their week on sale will be 99p, making for a pretty good deal. After Elemental Heroes ends its week on sale, Space Race Championship goes live. It's already up on the Kindle Store, allowing preorders until release on 8/April. There’ll be the usual post upon its release, but with the details of release out of the way, it’s now time for another preview. With Tom and Lee set up with what they’ll be using for the Championship, they’re now in training for when it starts. __________ Elemental Heroes has been a series concept since around December-2006 as just a twenty slide Powerpoint story. Space Race Championship didn’t follow until around January-2009.
Of the two, though, it was Space Race Championship that got the most attention. Elemental Heroes felt a very one and done deal – even if I had very briefly started on a sequel around May-2007. However, twenty slides seems a bit too little to be turning into a full story, so it sat on my storage for ten years not being touched. The idea of the world was too much to pass up, though, even if there was little to it. |