It's October, and I thought we'd do something Halloween-themed, so I'm bumping my own stuff and sharing the first 👻13 chapters👻 of "What A Long Sleep You've Had" for free for the month. This is the first act of the book, and it wraps up on Halloween night.

fantasyfeeder.com/stories/view



Since I wrote a pretentious blurb, I might as well use it:

————/THE BLURB/————

Can dreams rebuild a broken childhood? What if it was one dream, one very specific dream that carried you like the tide out to sea, where there is peace in forgetting?

Claire frantically writes in her beaten-up journal, every morning after she wakes. Some entries are just fantasies or thoughts, quickly discarded. But others are dreams. Real dreams. Dreams that give her a glimpse of sacrifice, and secret, and grief. Was Claire forgetting something?

When Claire’s bright and artistic younger sister Lis moves into the spare bedroom, Claire’s life begins to change, and she starts burning through pages in her dream journal. As kids, Claire shielded Lis against the traumas of growing up with a nightmare of a mother and an absent father. The two share a secret bond, and it’s more than just sisterly love or sibling rivalry. They share scars that only the two understand. Maybe their coping mechanisms – drinking, getting high, decadent eating (so much eating) – hurt in the morning and stuck to their waistlines, but, maybe somewhere under the surface, Claire really liked that part, too. Lying in bed, her hands wandering over her new curves, her mind going over every excruciating detail of Lis’ equally delicious new softness – stop that, she can’t let herself feel that way.

From the end of Summer’s gold to the first green of Spring, “What A Long Sleep You’ve Had” (taken from one of the phrases Alice’s sister speaks to her in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) tracks Claire and Lis’ stumbles and new beginnings: a love that almost tears them apart, a love they know they can’t share, songs of sorrow, and dreams of peace. With a debt to Lewis Carroll, it blends a coming of age story with the fantastic, and ponders what happens when the dreamer wakes up.

————/END BLURB/————


CW: feedist behavior (gasp), siblings feeling romantic-like around each other and not knowing what to do about that except eat pie and ice cream, drinking and drug use, bad parents.

If you like it, the rest of it is on here, too! (If you don’t love these chapters, the rest of the book is a lot different, I think.)

I'd love to hear what people think, enjoy.

It’s a nice community here!

Hey, im just realizing that next month is October, so if there are suggestions for a spooky story, let me know! Or I have a Halloween story if not.

We are getting close to October so if anyone would like to volunteer a story, please wave or DM me. I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t do something longer if someone has a longer story to contribute.

And if any of the folks who have contributed to the story clubs (authors or commenters) would like to plug a project they’re working on, feel free.

All I can see is my enormous “World’s Greatest Lover” championship belt.

So some big changes to the algorithm! (I guess my complaint broke the website the other day. Sorry about that)

So it looks like the weighting goes: premium stories (heavily weighted), then how recent it is, and then some balance of likes/comments/views, right?

Is this where the team would like it to be, or is it still WIP?

Thought we were getting some McGuire twins at first!

Or a remake of Sphere.

I’ve never read a Clive Cussler book, but if I wanted someone to get fat on a submarine, he’s the guy I’d turn to.

Every snack would have 1,999 calories.

I think Updike would do a pretty good job with it. I like how gets inside a character‘s head and shines the flashlight into the corners.