Little Fears, Big Future

Posted on by LittleFears

Thank you. Thank you for supporting me this last 18 months with the Little Fears. Thank you for supporting me on Patreon. Thank you for buying my books, tees and art prints. Thank you for sharing my posts. Thank you for dropping pennies in the tip jar. Thank you for turning up so often to leave a groan or chuckle. You are all absolutely fabulous.

So I think, after a two years run of bad luck. The loss of my entire life savings. Not seeing my missus in over a year. Much boo-hoo and stress, I may be about to sell my house. For those that have known me since before Fears started, you know what a big deal this is to me. I’m not popping the champagne yet as there’s one teeny hurdle to hop over, but I am now basing the next 3-4 months on being homeless. I may have to stay at my missus mum and dads house in the middle of the Scottish mountains with flaky internet at best with 4G style data caps. In addition to lacking internet, I’ll be sorting her parent’s house out into a liveable state during the time I stay there as it’s currently darn near uninhabitable.

So, without knowing how much time, peace or internet I am planning out the Little Fears website until 22nd of October.

Crime Capers

I grew up watching seventies and eighties cops shows. My dad allowed me to watch the Sweeney. I followed that with The Professionals. Then moved onto murder mysteries. David Suchet is Poirot. I shall not acknowledge any other attempt. I adore both Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie as Marple. I even love the riffs off of sleuths and buddy cop programs. The British fantasy shows, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes were my idea of TV heaven. Also, who can forget The Detectives with Jasper Carrot and Robert Powell?

The gist here is I love a good crime story. So the next ninety stories on the Little Fears will make up three cops and robbers crime capers. Each story will be thirty tales long and follow DCI Lily and Inspector Sally as they solve crimes.

We will start with a sleuthing tale. Lily and Sally attending a crime scene where a woman’s been killed in a variety of ways with far too many motives. We follow that with a Starsky and Hutch style escapade as the intrepid duo chase down a master thief. The final story sees the pair in hot pursuit of a serial killer who’s also committed the heinous crime of putting pineapple on a pizza.

(I’ll add there, as a vegetarian, I’m pro-pizza-pineapple. Don’t tell Lily that!)

I’ll be posting these stories Monday to Friday as they form a singular narrative. Each story is entirely self-contained but they have a stronger overall story than Grey Moon and Seeking Hydra. If the names Lily and Sally sound familiar, yes, that is the name of my little arsehole Jack Russells.

TellyTube

I’m currently getting ahead on the audio for Lily and Sallys case files. I’ll be doing one more series of videos in the current format. Once I have moved home, I want a chair, with a tartan blanket thrown over it. I will sit in this chair and tell the stories to a camera. Some real Jackanory bedtime stories. With a dog on my lap and another dog at my feet. A cup of tea in one hand. A book in the other hand. Some digestive biscuits in the other hand. My trademark oddness and humour stamped all over the videos. That’s how I see them. It’s just going to be impossible to do that for the next three to four months. Blah. Something to look forward too!

Art

As I’m doing the tales, Monday to Friday, I’ll be moving the Colour Collective portraits to the weekend. I know they don’t get as much of a response as the daily tales, but I love doing the Fears portraits. By keeping the weekly portraits it ensures the Little Fears aren’t purely puns. A lot of bloggers insist you need to stay niche, I disagree. I say stay to a theme. If I niche the Fears as pure puns and nothing else, I think I’d get bored of them.

Speaking of not niching myself to puns…

Ivy - In which a horror arises

Horror

Oh man, what to do about horror. My next set of horror stories was going to be a 90 tale run of Denver going in search of his partner, Malcolm. The problem is I wrote it as a continuous story. I don’t think that’s going to work unless I post them daily like I will be with the Crime Capers storyline.

What would work is a Seeking Hydra style background plot to ninety stories. For those that are new to the Fears, Seeking Hydra was ninety tales mostly puns, that were nearly all separate. But had a theme of Hydra seeking his identity throughout. That would work with a story I’m only going to post once a week. I think I need to do a quick strategy change here on horror. Like the art, it stops me being fully niched into puns and I feel scary stories and weird fiction is now an important part of the Little Fears. I need to figure that out… For now, Denver’s search for Malcolm is on hold.

From obstructions can come creative thinking though. This is the kick that I need to start the horror postcards series. Images of spooky happenings, strange goings on and blood-curdling terrors accompanied by single sentence horror stories. It would be both different and in theme for the Little Fears. Maybe that should be my next thirty horrors.

Collaborations

It’s been forever since I did a collaboration with anyone. I started three since the last one and each time the other party lost interest or wandered off. I have a few good folks looking to do collabs. But I’ll be unable to do audio recording until I get my new house. Not sure what to do there.

If anybody wants to take the lead on a collab that doesn’t require my voice, leave me a comment. I’m brain farting on what to collab on at the moment though.

Movigos

One collaboration I have kept up is the Movigos. We spoke about dropping it from weekly to monthly and making it more an event. Perfect timing for me after this week. I wouldn’t be able to keep up weekly while I’m semi-homeless. Just need to sort something new out with the gang.

If you want to find us on Twitter, hit the hashtag #Movigos. Member list shamelessly ripped from Weird Shit with Alex.

Alex – https://weirdshitwithalex.blog/
Amberley – https://fuckthelemonade.wordpress.com/
Elijah – https://elijahrichard.com/
Eric – https://ericshayhoward.com/
Layne – https://chewing-on-glass.com/
Mel – https://fictioninmyhead.com/
Ward – https://wardclever.wordpress.com/

Patreon

And of course, if you wish to drop a few pennies in the tip jar, Patreon subs are always appreciated. Even just $1 a month contributes to the whole and enables me to continue waking you good people with a smile and a groan. Thank you.

https://www.patreon.com/littlefears

patreon little fears

88 thoughts on “Little Fears, Big Future”

    1. What’s wrong with my hands? I have five. Same as everyone else right?… Right?…

      Cheers, Lockwood. 🙂

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  2. Your plans sound great, especially the cop stuff. Also looking forward to your “Jackanory” (I’m also a child of that era). I’ll be looking out for your three hands!

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  5. I love your imagination, art, and fantastic horror. I hope you sell your house. Good luck with your move perhaps you will find new little fears while you are making the uninhabitable habitable again.

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    1. Cheers, James. With a bit of luck I can get a house sooner. But 4 months of tales planned gives me a nice buffer until then. 🙂

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    1. Thank you, Meg. I’ve learned this last year I need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Gotta be organized to cope heh.

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    1. Exactly! I get it if it’s a business blog for targetted products/subjects for maximum profits. There’s nothing wrong with that either. We all need money to live. But this sites creativity first. So niche is not required or wanted, heh. It comes down to motive I think.

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  13. Good luck in it all! I wish I was even close to as organized as you are . I’d even settle to be somewhere on the same scale.
    And I’m looking forward to a good crime series. There’s not enough crime in the Internet if you ask me.

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    1. Oh mate, being organized, you know how my last years been haha. If I wasn’t organized in everything I do I would have died a death by now haha.

      Cheers, Real. 🙂

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  14. I love reading your stories. You have a very good imagination. I wish you the best at the in laws and with selling your house. Everything will work itself out.

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  21. There is only one Hercules Poirot and no other attempt to butcher the amazing work Mr Suchet will ever com even close to the original. I am and forever will be obsessed with all Agatha Christie adaptations, I like all Jane Marple’s but there is only one Poirot. I have to look close at your site, how you will have your Internet connection even in the middle of nowhere in Scottland!
    Dorota

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    1. David was quite frankly, incredible. I’ll have internet up there, but it’s a digital dish internet. If someone’s watching a YouTube video, nobody else can load a web page haha. It’s the internet circa 1996. 😛

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  23. So you’re not leaving wordpress, ok good, I wish you safe travelling journey in Jesus Name! And you are in my prayers and I know that God will turn things around for you! Blessings and love!

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    1. Heya Tammy. Not leaving WordPress but I’ll be cutting right back on my digital activities for a few months. Cheers, mate!

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    1. Cheers, man. You know how my last years been. I gotta prep for the worst and hope for the best. Doing many things is survival for me now haha.

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  25. Other than the limbo of your homelessness, this all sounds fantastic and fabulous. I’m looking forward to seeing the stories unfold. And I’ll also be anticipating the storytelling with tartan, dogs and biscuits. Sounds like my cup of tea. 🙂

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    1. Limbo of homelessness is better than the limbo of a lost house lease (thanks land registry!). It’s gonna be awesome when I get there, mate. 🙂

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  28. Peter, so glad things have turned around for you. It’s great to read about your plans, and wish you all the best in your many, manifold projects! 🙂 You’re the only other blogger I’ve encountered who regularly ‘pun-ishes’ readers 🙂 Keep up the great work!

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  32. I have to laugh at what you’re “only” going to be able to do. You are so prolific, it’s unreal to either of us. Glad to see you not just keeping it up, but moving it forward. We’re also both looking forward to any more horror, and crime capers are always fun to see. Wish we could collaborate; Leigh has a dark sense of humor sometimes, but we wouldn’t be able to keep up:-). Good luck Peter!

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    1. Haha, cheers man. I want to eventually earn living full time from Little Fears. If I wait for life to be perfect, I’ll never get there. They need a lot of my time and energy heh.

      Collaborations are best with single projects. One task, get it done, enjoy it, move on. Long-term collaborations always run out of puff or end in fallouts. If you have an idea, let me know!

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      1. The story we now refer to as “project” “Villains and Birdsong” is 9-plus k words now. And as you recall, I got the first idea for that from your phrase. Maybe something like that would be worthy of a small collaboration? I think in the end is going to be a very good short story, that believe it or not, I am thinking more and more of also novelising. My partner is not so keen, but… Let me share the short with you when it’s done? Then maybe we can do something? We are preparing to push our novel soon, and the personal lives are pretty busy right now too, but when it’s ready we’ll share VaB and see what you think.

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  33. Looking forward to the murder mysteries. I also grew up in the ’70s and ’80s watching crime dramas and cop movies, though I imagine the American ones were a bit more violent than the British ones. It’s Dirty Harry, not By The Book Harry.

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    1. Our crime TV was… Rough haha. A lot of fights, blood included, which was a big deal for 70s TV over here. But it’s fight scenes were sooo bad… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPlQ6NHbSRA

      Our crime films were equal, just violence manifested in different ways. Krays and Long Good Friday for gangsters. Quadrophenia and Scum for mods v rockers and criminal life. Think we had more focus on the bad guys than the good guys.

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      2. I like Hitchcock, who doesn’t? But violence in his films is never that… Visceral to me?

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