Tag Archives: short stories

Monday Mayhem

Posted on by under Posts of a Rant-like Nature, Short Stories

There is a small, albeit moderately insane, portion of my mind that is convinced today was a test, for me from the Universe, to see just how many times I could string together expletives in the course of one sentence. If we take into consideration that I am a man whose verbosity and capacity for complex sentences is, at its best times, unrivaled, I would dare estimate that the total curse words I managed to cram into one sentence would max out around sixty. If I were actually keeping track of that sort of thing, anyway.

I’ve ranted plenty on Twitter already. I vented to my girlfriend. I even considered researching possible ways to bring about Armageddon (which, to the relief of many, is beyond my capabilities at present). Out of some weird, misplaced mercy, I will spare the additional ranting for other outlets. Let me just leave this portion of the post off with this open-ended question: why is it the universe is most prone to go to shit on Mondays? Ignoring the business of it being after a weekend, because some of us work on weekends.

My brain is a touch soft today. Whether it’s because I burned myself out writing three short stories and a blog post last night, or how the forces of stupid really stepped up their game today, I don’t know. I do know I don’t like this lack of motivation very much, as it puts a real damper on my ability to focus on anything at all (there’s a shock).

However, as a sudden plot-twist to this post, and thanks to some Twitter-chatter with @MortuaryReport, this story happened. I realize this is a rather abrupt transition into a short story that could have never happened, but that’s sort of how I do things on days like today. This is how I managed to be creative and destructive, all at once. It, like any story that happens out of nowhere, may have gotten a bit (and by a bit I mean extremely) ridiculous. I’m not sorry.

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This Week in Misadventures

Posted on by under This Week in Misadventures

Or “The post that almost didn’t happen because I have to be up for work at 5:30 tomorrow morning” with a dash of “Oh god, why am I still awake? Because I’d lose sleep if I tried skipping this post”.

It’s well past the 4th of July, which means everyone should be fully recovered from their red, white, and blue hangovers. Pet eagles should have been returned to the wild by now, free to soar high above the freedom and liberty of America until next year, when they return to their rightful owners to drink beer and cook burgers made from the crushed hopes of terrorists. I have no idea where all of that came from, but I’m not even kind of sorry.

This past week had ups and downs galore, but when everything is said and done it was awesome in terms of progress. That’s why I’m glad to make this edition of This Week in Misadventures happen. Continue reading →

The War on the Moon and its Constellation Army

Posted on by under Uncategorized

The following is a short story I wrote, inspired by The Bloggess’ 4th of July tweets. It turned out okay, but I don’t think it quite turned out how I expected. Admittedly, this story took on a bit of a life of its own, and things got a little ridiculous.

I have three and a half short stories to go before I’ve met my somewhat unrealistic goals for the day, and there will be the standard This Week in Misadventures later. For now, I hope this proves enjoyable.

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Old stories, new stories, and Saturday miscellany

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction

Or “I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m accomplishing outside of work this weekend is licking windows, and I’m not entirely thrilled with that”.

Holiday weekends always leave me a bit catawampus. Friday seemed liked Saturday, and today seemed like Sunday, so I’ll probably wake up early tomorrow, very afraid I’ve missed the weekly conference call at work. I’m probably kidding.

Today was filled with unexpected episodes of nostalgia, which is the worst kind of nostalgia. It inflicted memories on me that I was happy to revisit, and some I could’ve done without spending time focusing on. Enough about that, though.

This isn’t a post about today’s weirdness so much as it is a post about tomorrow’s hopeful productivity. That’s the exciting stuff, I hope. The plan is to get up relatively early, which is easy enough since I’m no longer able to sleep past 8a.m. anyway, and get as much writing done as possible. I can’t think up a sufficiently clever name for it, so Sunday Marathon Writing Bonanza-Thing. It’ll be a little of the old, a little of the new, and enough writing to make my fingers bleed. Two stories that helped inspire my post on my story mortality rate. A story inspired by The Bloggess’ Fourth of July tweets. A story idea that happened at work or while I was celebrating yesterday or at some point other than those. I’m a master of Fuzzy Thinking today, with some particularly impressive Mush-Brain attributes. Maybe a new Warpt Factor, unless all of my fingers have fallen off by that point.

I’m beta-testing the pilot episode for Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting before, you know, recording an actual first episode. Not before figuring out how to convert and upload the pilot, of course. So that should be its own misadventure in dumbassery.

There’s also some exciting news for This Week in Misadventures. I guess I could just say how the news is about [redacted] and [withheld], but not without forgetting [spoilers].

I’m so goddamn funny.

That’s all for tomorrow. Tonight’s for recovering, Adventure Time, and remembering what day it is, because I still keep thinking it’s Sunday. In about an hour, that’ll be right…so hooray for small victories. I hope you all, dear readers, enjoyed a pleasant Fourth of July with your bald eagles, burgers wrapped in steak, and your assault rifles that launch fireworks, and avoided the standard Fifth of July Hangover. See you lovely folks tomorrow for the standard weekly recap.

 

My ideas, and their woefully high mortality rate

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction

At any given time, there’s probably about a dozen too many ideas rattling around in the vast weirdness of my thoughts. This can make keeping track of everything a bit difficult, though I say this as someone who also owns a good number of notebooks that are far more devoid of any writing than they should be. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m now working on the first draft of yet another novel idea, which arrives and leaves the forefront of my thoughts at its leisure. There are Warpt Factor plotlines bouncing off of one another like they’re all locked up in a particularly potent bouncy castle. Many short stories. Posts for Screen Robot. You get the idea. Continue reading →

This week in my brain turning to gelatin

Posted on by under This Week in Misadventures

William Shakespeare provided a quote that accurately summarizes how I feel after this past week. It’s one of great wisdom and power, and it channels every fiber of my spirit in its present state.

“O, I am slain.” – Polonius (Hamlet).

That, coincidentally, is also my favorite quote from Shakespeare…which says a lot about my capacity to enjoy his works, I fear.

My week in misadventures was a busy one, and my brain has been rendered into a slimy, disappointing blob of gelatin. I write this in the haze of post-nap dreariness, knowing I need to get to bed soon because I open at work tomorrow.

That’s not important, though. It is, however, my justification for any verbal missteps. Moving on. Continue reading →

This Week in Misadventures

Posted on by under This Week in Misadventures

Or “This week in not really accomplishing a whole lot.”

I’ve got plenty of inner turmoil going on right now in regards to writing (I almost put “write now” by complete accident, and the self-loathing I feel is incredible). Joshua’s Nightmares, book one, is still hanging out on my laptop. It’s just kind of sitting there presently, a nearly three hundred page blob of potential that’s got nowhere to go just yet, and it’s a little vexing. Maybe a lot vexing. A lottle vexing? If I ever use that word again, someone please call me out on it in the comments because that’s just awful.

My conundrum is now the mix of “I have no idea how publishing works and how do I reach out to publishers to try getting this published” versus “Is self-publishing really so bad in this case or is it really just lazy, quick self-gratification”. Both of those thoughts have effectively prevented me from actually accomplishing much (we’ll get to what I did accomplish this week, which is a whole lot of nothing, shortly). If nothing else, I’ve reached a point where I would just like to make this story available for other people to enjoy (or hate, to be fair, because even if someone hates it they still ended up having to read a bit of it, and that’s okay with me). However, I also know that self-publishing is still sort of looked down upon these days, and I’d rather not be burned as a heretic or whatever actual, legitimate authors do to self-published sorts. Continue reading →

Recent short story shenanigans, and other news

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts

Or “What I’ve been up to while I’m not working and sleeping, other than swearing and spending money.”

I really wanted to make this post from my Surface 2, which is a glorious piece of technology that I’ve become quite attached to already. Spoilers: I’ve only taken five pictures with it, and they’re all of my girlfriend and our cats. I live on the wilder side of life. However, the browser of choice on the Surface is (surprise) Internet Explorer. My love of updating my WordPress page clashed with my overwhelming dislike of IE (I accidentally opened it on my laptop recently and it had something about how I should use the best browser for Windows 8; I’m using Chrome, by the way). It did, however, come with a free copy of Office on it, and that’s a damn powerful selling point for me. Years and years of using Microsoft Word have transformed it into my word processor of choice, and I honestly don’t think I could go with anything else (yes, I realize there is plenty of other software out there that’s practically identical to Word in form and function; don’t ruin this for me). I’ve actually been writing on my Surface (using Word), saving it to my cloud storage, and then retrieving it on my laptop for when I send it off for proofreading and the likes. I didn’t mean to turn this into a shameless plug for the Microsoft Surface tablet, but I’m kind of okay that it happened that way. PS: if any kindly folks at Microsoft happen upon this and think, “You know what we like? Publicity and nice things about our products,” and you’re feeling generous, I’m not saying I’d accept a free Surface 3 Pro, but I’m also saying if one showed up in the mail that I wouldn’t reject it by any means.

Moving along.

My brain’s been fixated on normal situations with supernatural/abnormal things dropped into them. Think imaginary friends who can be heard by people other than the individual who imagined them into existence. That sort of thing. It started innocent enough with one short story idea on a rainy, dreary day, and branched off into two ideas. Those two ideas became three ideas, and then a forth one followed while I was at work today. Since I have tomorrow off, the plan is to write the rest of each of those drafts and send them off for proofreading. I’m not sharing those here, though. I don’t mean that in the I-won’t-share-my-toys-with-you-guys way so much as the I-want-to-try-getting-things-published way. Fingers, toes, and other appendages crossed there (if you’re a Lovecraftian horror, take a moment and cross some of your tendrils, tentacles, and other slimy, soul-maiming limbs for me, please; I’m a big supporter of your works, and would appreciate some reciprocity).

The other news: I applied to Screen Robot to be a contributing writer. They liked what they saw of my work and added me on. Now I’m just waiting to hear back before I start writing for them on an irregular basis. I kid, of course. We all know I’m super responsible and great at keeping a schedule. Stop laughing at that. It’s not funny, damn it.

The other other news that happened just today was a brainstorm of sorts while I was driving to an appointment. It’s also something I’ll probably share here, unless it turns out to be awful. I decided it would be fun to write a series of short stories (not necessarily interrelated or anything) around a CD. I’ve been listening to Lindsey Stirling’s new CD, Shatter Me, like it’s my second job. Brilliant, wonderful stuff. Apart from being great travel music, it’s also really easy to get into it and picture worlds forming out of the music notes. We’ll see how this pans out.

Mostly, though, I’ve hit a wall with all of my other projects, I’m still waiting to hear if “Death at Teatime” has been accepted or not (I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess no, but that’s my inner Negative Nancy being a jagoff again).

What sort of inspiration has sneaked up on, or violently struck, any of you lately?

Let the nail-biting…begin.

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts

Or “I haven’t sent anything out for publication consideration for far too long, and now that I have I’m nervous.”

It would be quite accurate to say I’ve been keeping myself busy with writing since the start of 2014. I’ve churned out hundreds of pages (somewhere upwards of five hundred now, actually), which is exciting, but it is by no means a reflection of how good the writing is. Or isn’t. My goal of seeking publication isn’t exactly a secret, in the sense that I’ve practically taken over a major cable channel to broadcast that tidbit at all times possible (except from 3a.m. to 5:30a.m., because everyone knows those times belong to the infomercials). The writing side of things has gotten to be second nature, but the seeking publication parts are still murky waters for me. Self-published work aside, I’ve got three by-lines to my name. Related: my god, I’ve not used that phrase since my days at Point Park. Anyway, there’s my Wreck-It Ralph review, there’s the extended non-fiction piece on modern sword collectors (which isn’t exactly readily available for people outside of Edinboro University), and “The Glasmoor Beldam” (not available yet).

Needless to say, I want to get more things published. However, I’m also bad at sorting those bits out. I know, I know. If I had as much drive for figuring out the best approach to getting published as I do for excusing my nervousness about publishing, I’d have a bazillion titles out there for people to enjoy. I’m all too aware of this.

I broke out the external hard drive (which is named Heart of Gold, because why not?), dusted off Death at Teatime, and found a magazine. A copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would come in handy about now, though I imagine I would still fail to follow its advice to not panic.

Now I play the waiting game. Fingers, toes, and other applicable appendages crossed. Here’s hoping Death at Teatime has finally earned a home somewhere.