Tag Archives: writing

Short Story a Week #2

Posted on by under Short Story a Week

I’m still approximately two weeks behind, post-wise, and that’s partially because I worked a bit over 46 hours this past week (21 and 1/2 of it over the course of two days, mind you).  Story number 3, as well as an extra, bonus short story (story 2.5) will be posted at points throughout the day tomorrow.

Goals such as getting back to regular blogging are also slowly coming to the surface now that I’m getting more used to my new job, but we’ll see how effectively I can manage that soon enough.

HOWEVER!  On to the actual story, which was tremendous fun to write. Continue reading →

Short Story a Week #1: Grandpa Pembroke’s Greatest Treasure

Posted on by under Short Stories, Short Story a Week

A little pre-story reading, first.  Yes, I’m totally almost two days behind.  Yes, I’m still also two weeks behind, more or less.  No, I did not account for how stressful these past two weeks would be; what, do you think I have a crystal ball or something?  I’d have won the lottery if that were the case (and totally made it so the people who matter to me are debt-free and living comfortably, as well as making my life a little less crazy).  However, because of that I have two stories (the second one will be arriving tomorrow, during the day), and a bonus something-or-other because I still feel guilty for some reason.  Maybe because I’m already well on my way as a writer to ignoring deadlines as they fly past, glaring at me for my lack of good work ethic.

This first short story, titled Grandpa Pembroke’s Greatest Treasure, started off as an idea about a chess set.  It gradually evolved into what it is, and it has become rather dear to me.  I’m fairly certain the inspiration is my stepmother’s father, Tibor Zalavary (whose name I hope I’ve not butchered, since I only really knew him as Mr. Zalavary).  He was one of the first people I ever played chess with, and I still remember how he schooled me every single time.  He also introduced me to The Pink Panther, as portrayed by Peter Sellers, and I will always treasure the memory of sitting in his living room, the smell of cigarette ash in the air, laughing to the point of tears with someone I wish I could have gotten to know better.  As such, I hope this story does his memory justice. Continue reading →

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Short Story a Week

Two new short stories over the course of the day tomorrow, to get things back on track.

Tonight, however, will be a night of me recovering from a very rough day that doesn’t merit being described, Doctor Who, and drinking Angry Orchard.

I do, however, feel I owe an update.

Adjusting to a forty hour work-week has been rough.  Adjusting to being middle management (more or less) has been rough.  Training when I can during those weeks has been rough.  That being said, it’s a great job with a great company that’s taking…well, great care of me.  So that’s certainly a huge improvement.

Delay of…short storay?

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

Yeah, I’m not even a little sorry for the hokey title.

I am, however, a little disappointed with my already behind self-imposed deadline state, but that’ll be fixed no later than this weekend (I now owe the blog two stories, though).  Settling into my first week of work turned into a bit of a baptism by fire, but I’ll leave the rest of that to speculation.

The extra good news is I got to see Iron Man 3.  I’ll write up a proper, loving review for it later.  The short version: it was exceptional.

More frequent updates, and short stories, soon, now that I have a better understanding of what to expect from the new job.

Not-so-brave new announcement

Posted on by under Short Story a Week

Well, I would’ve called it “brave new announcement” but it isn’t particularly brave, but it is at least new for me (we’ll get to that) and an announcement.

First, it certainly has been a day of things being frustrating.  This post would’ve happened sooner, but switching internet providers made getting the wireless network to cooperate top priority.  It still is, so that means that nonsense will be continuing into tomorrow at some point.

In the spirit of maintaining a regular writing schedule, and in light of “Joshua’s Nightmares” once again hanging out on the backburner, I’m going to start a rather large challenge for myself.  It’s been done before, in several different capacities, and so I’m pleased to introduce my Short Story a Week.  The strongest inspiration for giving this a try is, no doubt, Jonathan Coulton.  His version, “Thing a Week”, can be seen detailed here.

The Goal

To push myself to maintain a regular schedule of creating new content, for a year.  That means fifty-two unique short stories.  They may end up with related bits, they may not.  Ideally, I’ll just create.  This means one week there could be a dark comedy, the next a fantasy set in Medieval times, and a horror story the next.

The Process

Since this new beginning is starting on a Monday, and it’s going to be a weekly short story, the posting will occur on Sunday.  This gives me a full week to come up with an idea, draft the idea, and at least tweak it to some degree if nothing else.  The process may change and evolve as this goes on, but the plan is to keep this relatively simple while still accomplishing the overall goal.  However, keeping in mind how life generally likes taking plans and flipping them upside-down, I also acknowledge there’s a change the story may have to be posted early some weeks in favor of keeping it a Short Story a Week (no late stories ever, though; even if that means a little sleep deprivation now and then).

Here goes nothing.  One short story, every week for a year, starting now.

Mighty little Moleskines

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts

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Two of my increasing number of Moleskine notebooks.  The red one on the left, complete with Moleskine pen, contains all of my notes for Joshua’s Nightmares so far.

The purple one on the right?  That information will have to wait until Monday.  I’d like to say I picked a purple Moleskine because it seemed like a mysterious color, but it was actually just a whim decision.

Anyway, Monday’s big reveal.  Big news.  Good news.  Hopefully, and I mean very hopefully, it will result in good progress as well.

Beauties in the Deep – a novelette by Zachary T. Owen

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, General Writing-Related Posts

My friend, former coworker, and all-around awesome guy Zach Owen just announced his first published novelette, “Beauties in the Deep”, is available for pre-order through the publishers web site.  The release date remains to be determined, it will be available on a number of sites (including Amazon), and though the site mentions it specifically as a book for the Kindle it also features instructions on how to purchase this story for a number of other devices.

I could go into my usual lecture about why it’s important to support people’s artistic endeavors, but I honestly feel the summary is a far more compelling argument in favor of buying at least one copy of this novelette for yourself, if not one for everyone you know.

Ivory was only supposed to go fishing with her father. She was never supposed to run off and get into trouble. But that’s what she’s done. And now the cries of a drowning boy beckon her into icy waters, into a madness which lurks deep inside the lake, waiting to paint her world black.  © Zachary T. Owen

As someone who has had the good fortune of reading some of Zach’s other work, I can say on good conscience I’ve no doubt this will be brilliant stuff.  You can place your pre-order here, though keep in mind you’ll have to use PayPal or Google Pay, and I’ll be announcing when it becomes available on Amazon and other sites for those of you who want to wait until then.

Changes, schemes, and so on

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, General Writing-Related Posts

This is one of those big, crazy, confusing, and amazing times of tremendous change in my life, where I’m transitioning from one job–the very first job I’ve ever had–to a new job, and I’ve only got two days left there.  It’s bittersweet and all, but I’m more focused on how it’s a huge change in my life.  One of those “oh-shit-am-I-really-sure-I-know-what-I’m-doing?” changes.  So naturally, it’s pretty daunting and my creative thinking processes seem to have handled it in the most appropriate fashion possible by completely shutting down.  Those lazy, good-for-nothings.  (On a related note, however, I do have a short horror story idea that needs writing once I figure out just what the hell I’m going to do with it.)

As a teaser of sorts, I’d like to say this much (and only this much), and I’ll leave the rest for next Monday: I start my new job next week, and I feel like something new should accompany that.  Something new in terms of writing.  Ooh, mysterious.

Still doing an absolute ton of world-building for “Joshua’s Nightmares”, and I think I’ve reached the point where if I were to lose my red Moleskine notebook I would also actually lose my mind.

Lastly, given the way last week went, I hope anyone who reads this, their families, friends, and so on, are all safe, happy, and healthy.  There’s enough bad shit in the world as it is, so do remember to take care.

Manufacturing landscapes

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Let me start by saying this much: this is my second to last week at my first-ever job, and it has been quite busy.  I finished my second of three 3p.m. to 10p.m. shifts in a row, which is a lot more tiring than I’d expected, and so writing’s been minimal at best.  Really minimal at best.  There’s an idea, drifting about in my brain, for a short horror story.

That much out of the way?  Good.  Thank god.  I hate whiny, personal-blog-stuff me.

I built a very large chunk of the world in “Joshua’s Nightmares” tonight at work (in my trusty red Moleskine notebook, actually).  It’s evolving into this big, amazing, surreal thing that I’m slowly falling in love with, which is dangerous for a writer because there’s always the risk it’s actually not nearly as good as I think it is.  However, I do have the good fortune of getting universally positive feedback so far.

Building worlds, when my brain permits such activities, is one of my favorite bits of writing (the top favorite being writing villains, which may very well get an entire series of posts dedicated to it and by may very well I mean it actually just will).  Sometimes the environment takes a backseat, like with Death at Teatime.  The location was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, so there were just little glimpses of it with the bigger focus on the characters.

There’s just a tremendous joy in building something massive out of what could’ve started as a tiny detail, one little point in a vast landscape, and just going from there.

The Sleep State of “Joshua’s Nightmares” is turning into this massive, and hopefully highly-varied, mix of different locations that I hope will encompass the vast, bizarre realm of dreaming quite well.  A taste, just to tease readers of my blog with: there’s an entire landscape that exists in the sky of this world, linked to dreams about flying and such.

At any rate, I hope to get some writing done should I survive the remainder of the week.  And by the remainder of the week I mean the insane sale that’s going on tomorrow and Friday.

On getting better

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, General Writing-Related Posts, SRS BSNS BLAHGING

A while ago, a good friend of mine (who I’ll refer to for the sake of this post, as I refer to him in general, as Doc Martin) posted the video I’ve attached (shared? stuck to my blog so you’ve got to at least notice it if you read this post?) below to Facebook, and it really resonated with something inside me.  Probably because I was still at a point where paying back student loans seemed like figuring out some long-dead, alien language never meant to be grasped by humans, looking for jobs was still a terrifying prospect, and I was fairly certain I would never figure my life out.

Much of the above remains true, and the song still resonates with me.

Continue reading →