This project is a collection of short stories with philosophical themes, dark humor, expiration of the human condition. It is an experiment. I hope you enjoy. This work will always be marked “completed” because each story stands alone and will be posted individually.

These are a series of short stories I wrote for The Fabulous Spec-Fic Smack Down on Wattpad, which required me to write Speculative Fiction flash and short stories inspired by prompts. Speculative Fiction is a genre that’s basically a mash-up of whatever you want it to be, commonly Sci Fi, Fantasy, Horror, but by definition, anything goes. Alternate timelines and universes are pretty common in Spec Fic, too. Flash fiction is a story shorter than typical Short Stories. This was a writing experiment for me, because: - I’ve never written Speculative Fiction. - Or flash fiction. - Or from an image prompt. The link to the challenge is https://www.wattpad.com/story/372230351-the-fabulous-spec-fic-smack-down Note: Word count varies with the application used. All the word counts here come from Google Docs.

𝐁𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫. Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas is a nineteen-year-old Cambridge student with a passion for literature and writing. For an assignment, she has to read one of Danielle Miracle's best sellers-The Race for His Heart. However, a dangerous wish transports her into that very novel. After an accident with Princess Verity, she is now one of the candidates in a race for Prince Henry's heart. 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Cover by GirlWithSparkleEye (Wattpad + Insta)

[COMPLETED] Young and disillusioned, Nicole Fischer decided a long time ago that she wanted to take a break from dating. Exasperated with the wait after two years, her sister, Andrea, forcibly sets her up with a friend. Nicole has no choice but to humour her sister and so, goes on the date, only to have it end abruptly. When she meets her date again in a cemetery while fighting an angry ghoul, they suddenly find themselves in a corridor of doom - aka, the Netherworld... which isn't actually a very bad place for someone craving alone-time like Nicole. There are only two choices: either embrace love or be stuck in the Netherworld forever. Nicole has to make the choice. What will she choose?

Assorted writings and poems

A woman and her dead dog. Trigger Warning: It's all right there. Don't say I didn't warn y'all

Olivia Kingsley is famous in her town for her delicious food and warm, friendly demeanor in her bakery. She's top dog in town,until rival Eli Mason sets up his bakery just down the street from hers. Olivia is furious and determined to ger rid of Eli, once and for all. But what happens when Olivia starts opening up to Eli and him with her? Crazy antics and some serious chemistry, that's what!

1500 word science fiction story for a competition The story takes characters from the HereAfter Series and twists the Prologue from Book 2 into a Sci Fi short story some elements of which, may or may not make an appearance, down the track, in Book 2.

A song inspired by a visit to Gettysburg way back in 1976. The Bi-Centennial year for the USA. I visited at the insistence of my friend and fellow traveler, Michael. He was in the Army Reserve in our hometown Sydney, Australia. Michael planned our trip itinerary so many historical military sites were naturally included. Gettysburg, although I'd heard of it I doubt it would have been a must see for me save for Michael. It had a profound effect on me to this day. When my friend in Perth Stoney Martin was asked by a friend in Texas to write a song with Texas mentioned in the lyrics. Stoney and I thought that the USA may be headed for another civil war and we both thought we could come up with an anti-war protest song about the Civil War. I set down some words in 2020 In the middle of the Covid madness. Covid and Facebook restrictions took precedence over songwriting for us both. Stoney concentrated on his own music as a retired professional musician. Meanwhile, I got out my, now old, Casio Keyboard and finally resolved to learn to play the piano. In 2023 I decided to come back to writing and renew my interest in my HereAfter Series of books. I also decided to make a book of the lyrics to our protest song.

In late spring, a tornado sweeps through the idyllic mining town of Paradise, Texas. On the same day, seventeen-year-old Cindy Ackerman doesn't arrive home. As the mystery over her whereabouts deepens, Nick Brennan's curiosity for the girl from his school morphs into obsession. Why can't they find her? How far is Nick willing to go to help? What if each new clue points towards him? And if he knows more about the night Cindy never came home, why can't he remember? Everyone has a story. One has a secret. Copyright 2020 S J James