The Official Launch of Fresh Pen Productions

I launched TheFreshPen.ca as a way to promote and introduce myself as a writer. However the dream has always been to turn that writing into something that the world can see on screen. With that being said I am proud to officially launch Fresh Pen Productions. Over the last few years I’ve been blessed to work with other professionals in the film industry and have developed my talents in all things film writing, production, directing, and editing. I am looking forward to taking my projects and yours to the next level. So be sure to check out TheFreshPen.ca/FreshPenProductions for more info.

One project I am super excited to take to the next level is Miesha Monster Hunter starring Naja Stanford. In a world where monsters are real, governments from all over the world have established departments to protect the public from the horrors they can inflict.

In enters Miesha, a reluctant new monster hunter in training obligated to follow in her father’s footsteps. However she is thrust into the monster hunting game when a evil demon from Africa mysteriously pops up in her home town of Toronto out of nowhere.

I really believe this show has the potential to become a huge hit. So I am currently looking for opportunities and partnerships to get it there. So be sure to stay tuned to TheFreshPen.ca/MMH where I will be documenting the highs and lows of that process.

Changes at TheFreshPen.ca

When I first came up with the idea for the website, the concept was for me to show the world that I am the freshest, bestest most versatile writer on the planet. I still have a long ways to go in doing that, but I’ve decided to take the website in a less self centred direction. So while I’ll still be keeping y’all informed about the progress of my writing journey, (hopefully more frequently now. Ruby Rogue is in its last stages of editing), I’ll primarily use this space to introduce the world to other “Fresh pens” through a variety of unique writing competitions this site will be hosting we are going to see writers flex their creative muscles like never before.

So there will be more info coming soon. Stay tuned.

Crawlers: An Audio Horror Story

If you checked out Random: The Audio Book or Road to WIlkonshire then you may or may not have noticed that I love bringing stories to life through audio. I guess it’s partly the accessibility of doing things through audio but also the immersive experience that you can get being drawn into a story that plays like a movie for your ears.

Recently I found a story that was perfect for this experience. I just had to turn it into an audio story. It’s called Crawlers by Michael Tippett. It actually had the honour of winning the 2018 NYC Midnight Short Story contest. It’s an apocalyptic horror story about a young family trying to survive a world where creepy crawling alien like creatures have infested the planet and wreaked havoc on humanity.

Putting this together and bringing this story to life was such a fun experience. I hope you enjoy the ride. Listen to it below and check out the credits to see all of the elements involved in making it a reality.

Written By Michael Tippett (https://mtippett.com/) Produced and Narrated by Seth Gumbs (http://www.thefreshpen.ca/) Voice of Sarah by voicegirl2016 (https://www.fiverr.com/voicegirl2016) Voice of Brian by Rotoyoutube (https://www.fiverr.com/rotoyoutube) Voice of Travis by sturoyce (https://www.fiverr.com/sturoyce) Music Mechanolith by Kevin Macleod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4031-mechanolith/) Darkling by Kevin Macleod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3616-darkling/) Full list of contributors for sound effects can be found here http://www.thefreshpen.ca/attributions-for-crawlers

Island Gyal / Snowy Hill→

All of the snow that we have been having recently reminded me of one of my favourite short stories I’ve written. Born in Canada within a Caribbean family it was very common for us to have friends and family from the islands over for long visits. More often than not, these visits would happen during the Summer. However, once in awhile, we would get a brave soul willing to leave their sun and heat, to experience a good old fashioned Canadian winter. It was always a blast for me and my siblings to watch the culture shock as they had to adjust to our Canadian cold. We definitely did our best to have them experience all that winter has to offer and laugh at the hilarity that ensues.

This story is inspired by those visits.

Island Gyal / Snowy Hill

Hope everyone has a safe and fun rest of the winter. All of the best to you and yours.

"Woah!" Shandra yelped while struggling to keep her balance. Her arms flailed wildly as she fell to the cold, hard, icy ground with a loud thud. Her three cousins cackled and guffawed like wild hyenas at her misfortune. She cussed at them with her thick Trinidadian accent. While struggling to ge...

What’s in the Box?

What’s in the Box?

“What’s in the box!”

I remember Brad Pitt screaming that line in one of my favourite movies of all time “Seven”. Now I promise that what is in the box pictured above isn’t anywhere as gruesome as what was in the box Brad was screaming about.

Nah. On the contrary.

What’s in the box is a gift, a dream, a fresh start, and my writing future.

I’ve known I’ve wanted to be a professional writer ever since I gave my mom goosebumps with one of my earliest short stories in grade 5 called “The Haunted Jacket“. And for most of my adult life I’ve been chipping away at making that dream come true. But at some point I had another dream, “I want to be a business man”.

Right after university these two dreams merged and I decided I was going to become a self-published author and grow to having my own publishing company. Now although I have created some stuff I am very proud of, I haven’t quite hit the heights I’ve set for myself.

So now years later, as I sit older and a tiny bit wiser from those days where the dream was first ignited, it still burns in me. So I wonder why I haven’t gotten to where I want to be. There are a myriad of answers to that. But I think one of them is that I tried to do too many things on my own. I remember spending months trying to learn how to code just to build a website to promote my book. Also designing my covers when anyone who knows me know’s I’m not the most artistically inclined. The great thing about taking on so many tasks is that I learned alot. But it took a long time and in that time life happens that can throw you off course and delay things even more.

“Ok Seth, That’s good and everything but what’s in the box for real?”

Oh. I’m not ready to tell you that yet. As I start to lean away from the kid adventure books and make more content for grown folks, I don’t want to do it alone this time. I definitely want to partner with people who can help make these crazy ideas in my head become lucrative realities.

So what’s in the box? A little request to two people who I think can help me do just that. The thing is they don’t know this request is coming. It’s a surprise. And maybe I’ll never know what they truly think about it. They are major players in the industry so maybe they get things like this very often and mine might get tossed aside with the rest of them. But regardless it was important for me to get out of my comfort zone and reach out to people that want to work together to make big ideas become big realities. This is just the beginning.

Back in the Writing Game

Wow. My last post was over year ago. That's horrible. And to any of the few people who actually did try to stay tuned only to see absolutely no activity from the Fresh Pen at all, I sincerely apologize. The only way I can explain how such an optimistic, determined post can turn into over a year of inactivity is that life happens. 

I actually put my writing on hold shortly after that post to get other aspects of my life in order.  I'm glad to report after some trials and tribulations, I'm finally at a place where I can attack this writing with a vengeance and go after my dreams. 

So my first order of business is to finish my unfinished projects. The most immediate one is the kids version of Random. If you've never heard of Random it is a collection of short stories inspired by random works of art by random artists from all over the world. Basically I saw a picture I liked and turned it into a short story as if that image was a clip of a much broader story. I had lots of fun doing it and I also created a super cool audiobook, fully dramatized to go with it. You can download the ebook and audiobook here for absolutely free.  Please just let me know what you think of it and which story is your favourite.  

So the kids version will follow the same concept. I hope to turn it into an annual series. We'll see. 

Speaking of Random, I feel like this blog is going to be a collection of my random writing adventures as I try to take my publishing company Sky Blue Dragon to new heights. So it will be an interesting insight in how a writer navigates the publishing world in such an evolving landscape. 

Other than that, I have a few other projects that I want to get done, and ones that I want to get started, so I'll keep you posted here, on my social media, and where ever else you can find me. 

Alright, so lets keep in touch and get it done this 2016. 

-Seth

The Fresh Pen

New Website, New Beginnings

Yippee. For first time visitors to the website, welcome and thank you for checking it out. For those of you returning, as you can see I decided to give TheFreshPen.ca a new look. Let me know what you think about it.

I guess I should explain all of those pics with me in angel wings. When I was thinking about ways to promote Random, one of the things I thought about doing was taking a photo shoot with various elements from stories within the book. Also, I wanted to take photos of "random" things to emphasize the theme of the book.

So I hired an extremely talented photographer named Iskuhi and we went to Edward Gardens in Toronto to have this photo shoot. I felt like I super model with all of the poses I was doing with funny props. I even had some other random people join in for a few pics. It was so much fun and one of the highlights of my summer. We got some great pics from the session. Now that I've decided to take the website in a different direction I'm going to put those pics to good use instead of just collecting digital dust on my hard drive. So you'll see them through out the site.

Speaking of the site, I decided to go for a different look for a couple of reasons. 

1. To keep things fresh ;)

2. Just because my strategy of how I'm approaching reaching my goals has changed a bit and the old website didn't fit in with the new strategy.

3. Just to signify my renewed focus on my writing and publishing career in general.

I'm looking forward to showing you all what I have in store for the site and for my career. Stay tuned.