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Thursday, March 31, 2016

Guest Blog: It's For The Best. . . Abandoning Your Messy Story - @openbookscom

Another week, another blog for OpenBooks.com. This week I talk about my strategies for walking away from a story that's just not working out.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Target Practice - @MicrocosmsFic

Another week of Microcosms Flash Fiction. A reminder that I need to pick up the pacing on my own short run flash fiction comp. I have the sites all lined up. I just need some art and and some automation and we're good to go. This week's prompt included steam-punk BTW. It's my Kryptonite. Seems like Batman v. Superman is also Superman's Kryptonite. Zing!?

Target Practice
The long range copper scope on the carbine had done the trick again. The zeppelin was a grand way for any modern dandy thief to make his escape, but it was as wide as a barn and no match for his rifle. Having led his men to the fairgrounds to investigate the heist at the mummy exhibit, Captain Phipps treated his men to a large puff of cotton candy as their quarry drifted back to earth in their punctured escape vehicle. His dessert burst from pink to red, followed by a pain in his chest. The mummy burglars had a rifle of their own and weren’t being captured alive.


via GIPHY

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Water Wings - @MicroocosmsFic

I happened to be up at midnight when Microcosms posted this week's prompt.


Water Wings

Expecting a hostile boarding, Admiral Graham was instead greeted by a pirate vessel manned by a five corpses and no clue how the criminals came to find themselves dead.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Harold called, holding out a small note and a wide-mouthed glass bottle.

You took is from our home.
Prisoned us in glass
You tortured my dear wife
Your deaths will not be fast
You thought that we had gold
This voyage is your last

“There’s this too.” Graham looked up from the note to Harold’s open palm where there were two long iridescent wings, bloodied at the ends where they’d been ripped off their fairy’s back.


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Guest Blog - Clark Kent: Having a Writing Alteregos - @openbookscom

I continue to knock out a blog post a week over at OpenBooks.com. This week I fish for feedback on other writers keeping their work/family/writing lives balanced and separate from one another.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Canvases - @flashmobwrites

Another entry for FlashMob. You can tell it was a cold and dreary night when I wrote this.


Canvases

The room looked like one if the fancy libraries that Sebastian had seen in movies. The ones where they had ladders on rollers built into the tall bookshelves.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Gordon.”

Sebastian spun around to see a slight man in a suit as refined as his surroundings. “That’s fine.”

“Did you bring anyone with you?” the library’s curator asked.

“Just me,” he responded. The only person he wanted to be with him would never have agreed to come to this place. His daughter was a respectable young woman though. He hated her mother for many things, but she raised Bethany to be a good Christian woman and wary of men like him.

 “Let me show you around,” the small man said, motioning to the innumerable hinged frames lining the walls.

The tour only lasted for fifteen minutes. Not because they had seen everything, but because Sebastian became too weak to stand. The disease was slowly robbing the man of his remaining stamina. In that time he’d seen dozens of the pieces on the wall. The curator headed straight for what he thought were the most valuable items in the entire collection. The oldest images in the library were blurry blue ink drawings of ships, mermaids, anchors and the like all on similar stretched canvases. The newer acquisitions were much more modern, elaborate and larger. Sebastian was fond of the corner of the room dedicated to cartoon characters. Daffy Duck was his childhood favorite.

“And you are certain you want to make this donation?” the curator asked.

“Aside from a good honest daughter, I don’t think I’ve done much in this life that the world would remember,” Sebastian shared. “This donation gives me a chance to be remembered beyond my time.”

“Of course.” The curator nodded. “Would you want to know how we harvest?”

“No.”


Sebastian caressed his neck where he had Bethany’s name tattooed shortly after she was born. She used to trace the calligraphy with her fingers when she was a child sitting his lap on the weekends when he had custody. Now, if she wanted to do that after he passed she would have to come here. To the room that smelled of mahogany and dried apricots. It would be peeled off, and preserved alongside the rest of the donations in the tattoo library. 

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Mountain Path - @MicrocosmsFic

There was a tough prompt on this week's Microcosms.



Mountain Path

At this distance she could no longer hear the pulsing music from the luau below but could still see the fire dancers. The spinning flames circled around and around, reminding her of the wedding band on her finger.

She turned back to the vague, thin man beckoning her up the mountain. Always far enough away to only make out his toothy grin. She walked farther up the hill, her husband’s ashes in their pouch bouncing against her thigh. She knew where the smiling guide was leading her. She was willing to go there. Up to the mouth of the volcano where she would join her husband in the next world.



Monday, March 7, 2016

Preemptive Hair System - @FlashMobWrites

I wrote a weird little tale for Flash Mob this week. This started as a very different story called "Optional Teeth."


Preemptive Hair System

OMG LOL What is that?

A wig. It’s in the room.

ROFL. I can’t stop laughing.

Donna turned the mannequin head on the pedestal to get a better iPhone photo of the shaggy orange hairpiece. She’d neatly yelped upon seeing it in Frank’s room when she was discretely looking for more toilet paper after coming up short in the hall bathroom. The silhouette of the head in the dark room looked incredibly realistic.

The screen on her phone didn’t really capture how similar the wig was to real hair. It was uncanny. Donna had been dating him for nearly two months and she never guessed that he wore a hairpiece, much less a full wig. Now that she knew the truth, she was ashamed to admit her first instinct was to send a photo of the thing to Lisa. Her heart sank in knowing that she’d likely need to break up with him now. She couldn’t be with someone that wore a wig. Bald maybe. But full on toupee of worse, no thanks.

“What are you doing?”

She froze. Frank had found her.

“I,” she started then abandoned attempting to explain this away. Donna turned back to the door to see Frank standing with his hands on his hips, blocking most of her way out. Even now, his hair didn’t look much like a wig.

“Is this funny?” he asked, taking a step towards her.

“No. Listen Frank. . . ”

“That’s my own hair,” he smiled. It was the same grin he had when he gave her a tour of his action figure shelf.

He stepped to an armoire and swung the double doors open. “I have four more like it.” She was presented with a quartet of additional wigs on identical mannequin heads. “I harvest it every two years.”

Donna found enough bandwidth in her psyche to allow her thumbs to start texting Lisa again. 
FRANK IS BANANAS.

“But, you don’t look like you need a wig,” she said. “We’ve. . . made love and I pulled-“

“My hair? Yes, I remember. It kind of hurt.”

“But you have one of these on?”

“Not yet. I make these from my existing hair. For when I need it later.“

“What?”

“Think of it as a hair bank. When you get to be sixty, wouldn’t you rather have a wig of your own hair rather than that of a stranger or animal?”

“I suppose.”

“You would. Trust me.”

“Is there any other part of you that’s . . . nontraditional”


He motioned for her come back out with him. “I pulled my permanent teeth and preemptively made them into dentures.” Frank gave her a toothy grin and Donna totally forgot about the needed toilet paper. Like his hair, Frank’s teeth were perfect. A little too perfect. He was likely joking. She’d be able to check him out later though. Once he was asleep she’d reach into his maw and tug at his teeth to see if she had anything else to text to Lisa tonight.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Guest Blog - Casting Director - @openbookscom

One of my favorite book sharing sites, OpenBooks, has a new blogging service for writers. I've had a lot of success in testing our my stories on the site, so I'm starting to blog a little exclusive content over there.

This week I share my picks for actors to play the leads in Guns, Gods & Robots.
Self Publisher/Casting Director