Posts Tagged ‘Cultivating Howlers’

And so January draws to a close, paving the way for February, and eventually the changing of the seasons. As I write this, there remains but one hour of the first month of the year, which means that by the time you read this, the last chance to download Cultivating Howlers will probably have passed.

Thank you all, both downloading and reading, and expect word of new projects and old projects nearing completion soon.

Fukubukuro is a tradition amongst Japanese retailers of bagging up old stock in random, assorted bags and selling them as grab bags for a small amount. It’s a way for shops to clear their stockrooms of old goods and a chance for diligent shoppers to obtain sometimes expensive products for the discounted price of the fukubukuro bag. The catch is, of course, that whatever is in the bag is entirely random, therefore you might indeed get that much sought after Sega Dreamcast title, but you might also just find yourself with yet another copy of ChuChu Rocket!. As an example of this sort of lucky bag policy being implemented outside of Japan, the notable and highly mentionable natural cosmetics company Lush offered similar lucky bags in their stores during New Year 2009.

In the spirit of New Year festivities and with a mind to clearing out some of my own random backlog of stories, I thought I’d put together my own fukubukuro.

Cultivating Howlers is a collection of assorted stories ranging from 1999 to 2009 and available for free download from the 1st of this month right up until the 31st. After the 31st, I’ll be taking it down and laying to rest the older pieces, which means that this may be the only time I offer them for your attention, dear reader. Other pieces are intended as previews for projects currently awaiting publication whilst others still are an attempt to persuade you to part with your pennies for previously published work.

Yet just because I will be ceasing distribution of this work at the end of January, it doesn’t mean you have to. The collection is made available under a Creative Commons license, which means you have the right to re-publish, adapt and fashion sequels featuring the characters involved here as long as it remains on a purely non-commercial level.

As a last note, for those of you with a long memory, you may also be pleased to note the ‘publisher’ mentioned by name on page 4.

Please enjoy this mixed bag of New Year’s festivity and, if you should find it worthy of merit, please pass either the link, the file or your own re-published version of it on to anyone you think might be interested.

Thank you very much in advance.