Douglas Alan

At long last ... The End, And Then? has been published!!!  

For more information, please visit my Lulu.com storefront where you can read sample chapters, download your very own digital copy, or, if you prefer, the traditional paperback format.  It's printed in a standard US Trade paperback size of 6 x 9.  The cover is a thick glossy material, and the pages are of superior quality.  The final version of the book comes out to 440 pages.

Lulu did a great job, but Kudos goes to Doug Bartel for a fantastic printed book cover.  You can see the one-piece view on the left.  But, believe me, the web graphic does not do it justice.  The colors and textures are richly reproduced, the Rochester nightscape in the background shimmers, and the main characters just seem to jump out at you.

→ Click Here to visit the storefront. 

→ Click Here for more information on the book.

I also wish to thank Tice Allison, who worked hard to produce the first version of the book cover, shown below.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 September 2009 03:19 )

Hello, my name is Douglas Alan, and I'm very pleased to welcome you to what I like to think of as a refuge of literary sanity in a mad world. 

After writing two major works, Further Indications, which weighs in at about 180,000 words (let's say around 600 pages in a standard novel), and The End, And Then?, which is slightly less than 117,000 words (or about 400 pages), writing Flash Fiction has provided me with some light relief.

The trick, at least for me, is to envision a chapter in a book.  My chapters tend to average approximately two and a half pages on my word processor (I proudly endorse Open Office). 

And, when you think about it, what is in a chapter? There's an opening scene which sets the stage, there's some sort of crisis or conflict, a transformation of some sort takes place, and finally there is more or less a resolution.  This is the essence of Flash Fiction.  It's got to be tight.  In a novel I've got the luxury of rambling on and on (er ... to a point, of course).  When you're staring at a 1,000 word limit ... well, let's say you tend to become more practical and choosy.

Not a bad thing, actually.

Changing subjects ... back to welcoming you, dear viewers.  To give credit where it's due, the site is built upon an open source Joomla framework, which I absolutely adore.  Thanks to those crazed individuals at unlikelysource.com, I'm able to offer you the latest and greatest in hi-tech web wizardry. 

If you look to your left, you'll see some great selections to give you an idea of my work.  So please, have a look around and enjoy your reading!

Douglas Alan

Last Updated ( Saturday, 03 April 2010 02:44 )