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Tag: short stories

A Question To Authors.

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How do you feel about making up new words to suit the world you’ve built (should you write Science Fiction and/or Fantasy). Do you ever get push back from your editors to try an use existing words instead? Does it depend on your fame level/readership base, just how much they would let that sort of thing slide? For example – should George R R Martin decide to create a bunch of new words, (being a very successfully selling author) would he have an easier time of it with his editors/publishers, than say a new body on the scene with their first ever book to be published & no copies sold as of yet. I would be most interested to know.

Also – how connected do you get/feel to the characters, places, events that you create. Potentially applicable to historical researchers and biographers too, as they expend tremendous amounts of energy and time researching all facets of a time period/event/people. Like, do you cry when you kill them off, or they die, because that makes the story better, or is the basis for another event. I’m getting wordy here. Veering off track. I could pull a full tangent right now! How attached are you to characters, reoccurring or otherwise? Conversely, do you chuckle when you do heinous shit to those characters you made that you don’t like – especially if based off of people in your own life – like a former bully, or ex of some sort. I’d love to know!

I’m nearing another full calendar year in between writing a full book of short stories – again. Not that I intend to go for a round three, but…. maybe? Hard to say. Work has been busier this year. Lids are older now. Wife has the year off. Kids are enrolled in way too many extracurriculars that require driving to & from locations. So unlikely I’d write much any time soon. But I get flashes of story lines I’d like to tackle every now & again. I feel like the Covid brain fog from March added some hard breaking to my desire to write a cohesive narrative. I just couldn’t hold it all in my head with enough clarity to put pen to paper. Brain damage on a vascular level, it be like that sometimes. Bet.

And coming in straight out of left field is…

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A ruptured right ear drum, complete with a bloody, oozing mass from deep inside the ear. Wonderful way to wake up before 6:00am today. So far looks like no associated pain. Waiting for a potential fever, or any other signs of illness. Whee!

Today is Friday, of all days, so here’s hoping you all get those weekend plans you wanted. Whether that means they are cancelled, or actually moving ahead this time, is up to you. Your fantasy, your choice. Stay bundled up in bed in a blanket watching whatever you like with a cup of something in your hand, or out crushing it in a bar with bottle service, you enjoy yourselves.

This week has been a pretty good one as far as Summer Break 2023 is concerned. Visited a mine where we found all sorts of Amethyst crystals, went to the lake for a brief 3 day stay, swam in the lake, hot tubbed, went tubing with the kids on what ended up being the windiest and roughest day on the lake. Shipped off the wooden moose on Monday, and got that out of my shop after months of looking at it every time I went in there. Kids even went to the zoo twice this week. We need to pace ourselves a little better. Or else we will be run ragged by the end of week nine. Will need to nap all day the first week the kids go back to school if we keep this up!

In other news, I have started book #15 on my 12 book a year challenge. I was disappointed- again, by Mo Hayder. **SPOILERS AHEAD** The Treatment was well written, well paced, but the ending contradicts the first pages of chapter one, so I don’t know if she had written herself into a corner, or used the wrong name/character in the end to be the big bad, but it was a let down. I don’t understand why said big bad would go about trying to expose their own misdeeds. As it made no sense for the early iteration of the character, nor for the big bad version of that character at the end of the book. I don’t think that a very late stage admission of schizophrenia solves the problem either. And a split personality was not mentioned, nor played upon as a theme either. Sad. The Ritual was a bit anti climactic in the end also, so 0 for 2. Shame she’s dead, the author that is. There were loose ends I’d want to see tied off, but no such luck now.

But what do I know about writing eh? Not much. She made a living at it, had the book made in to what I can only assume was either a sterilized white wash, or a horrendous book accurate car crash of SA trauma by child predators of both sexes. Either way, no thanks. Not watching that.

Haven’t picked up my children’s book to finalize my last handful of drawings yet. I can feel the weight of the languishing project on the back of my shoulders. I fear it will take another 8 full hours or more to complete those last few pages. I need to break that into smaller chunks and try thinking of it as just a page at a time. Story is written, edited and finalized. Just being a slow hand with the artwork. I’ll post the pdf here once it’s done for all six of you to see. Ha. Or maybe I will add it, and Book 2 to my amazon kindle unlimited library, and see if I can sell one copy of each book to be consistent. Though I did scratch that itch when I wrote and published the first book of collected short stories. Far more people followed along and read them here for free than have done so on Kindle Unlimited. Go figure.

Are you an over the knees or around the ankles kind of a person…

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Well now, that’s a deeply circumstantial – and awfully personal question. And the answer is, it depends. Am I home, away, early in the am, very late at night, inebriated, hung over, under gastrointestinal distress? Everything factors in to the answer. No way would I let fabric touch a public men’s room floor. Nu-uh! No way. Never. But if fighting for my life on the seat, may strip down entirely (when at home). Who needs clothes on when it feels as though your entire life is draining into the porcelain. Unwanted firehose spray back is a powerful deterrent. Like I said, that is deeply personal, and I thank you for respecting my privacy at this time.

Tuesday – forgot it was recycling day today. Saw the neighbours gear out front and twigged to it, luckily before the green trucks came through. I didn’t even register it was going to be Tuesday while prepping for gymnastics last night. Usually I pull the bins out of the guard box on Sunday or Monday to load them up, and be ready to spring into action anytime after 7:00am should I hear the grumble of the green trucks on our street. But I completely blanked on it. How odd. I have been fairly busy straight through since January 2nd this year, which is – really, really rare for me. No major breaks as of yet. Oh I know they’re coming. Highly unlikely I’ll be this busy all year long.

I had to put the Urn build on hold due to the cold, and volume of work I had on tap. Glue doesn’t set properly in deeply cold weather. And as mentioned before, no major heat source out there right now. I have it partially insulated, but I have a long way to go before the temperature would stabilize enough to work comfortably between December and Mid March. The base is done, the exterior chamber is done. I have the pieces for the interior cut and ready to glue in place. I have the top of the cover ready, and can build the tray and cover fairly quickly. Then it’ll just be a matter of scraping, sanding and then a highly polished finish to make it shine! I’m ok if they decide to not want it. I’ll put it in my office closet up out of the way, and can hold on to it for myself.

Started a Richard Morgan book I’ve had in my possession since 2007. I remember how much I loved the Altered Carbon book series. This is in that universe, but not directly related. I have a fantasy novel he wrote from 2008 in my to read pile too. I usually tend to buy more books than I can read in a year, so I’m happy to oblige historical me, by actually getting around to reading books that have sat on a shelf for ten-fifteen years or so. I know I have a Mo Hayder book I haven’t read yet too. I’m usually not into horror / murder books, but she writes great, creepy, gripping stuff. The current Richard Morgan book I’m reading is “Black Man”. Longest book I’ve read in quite some years. Over sized paper back with tiny type. So I feel like it would be a much longer trade paperback than the page count it currently has. I’m two fifths of the way in. Lots of action, lots of science fictiony hand waving tech jabber, and lots of mystery/suspense. For some reason I thought I had read this when I kept seeing it on the shelf, but it’s not ringing any bells no matter how far I get into it. Which is great. I hate when I forget I’ve read something before. Invest all that time to read it, and then PING! oh! I know how this ends, oh I’ve read this before! Damn it! On to the next book.

I haven’t put any time into sculpting yet this year. I know I will at some point. Just not right this minute. I haven’t put much thought into finishing up the illustrations for my childrens book either, come to think of it. I really should get that stuff squared away. Not that my writing career will ever go much beyond this space, and self publishing. Sometimes I just gotta get a story out of my head. Doesn’t have to mean anything more than that. I share it, if anyone besides me reads it, or enjoys it, all the better. Hope I made you smile, or wince, or chuckle, or cringe. Better than straight up apathy. You know what I think? I think that many of you out there have a story you want to tell. I think you should put pen to paper and get it out. Just let it fall out of you. Don’t worry about style, voice, the hook, or any of that. That’s for the editing stage. Right now, go jot down some points, and just plop it out on the page. The good, the bad & and the ugly. You’ll feel better when you do. Way easier to tweak and refine what you have in your hands than wish you wrote the perfect thing in one go. But what do I know. I’m just some dude talking on the internet to the three folks that read me off and on. Hey guys! Hope you are well. Ciao Bella!

I may not have much in the way of big time accomplishments…

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But at least I am responsible for having written two books of collected short stories by my own hands. Nearly 200,000 words of interconnected amateur hour sci-fi nonsense that I am proud to have put pen to paper to create. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. I can strike it from my bucket list. No short cuts taken. No AI to do the lengthy leg work in my stead. Brain fog, fugue states after writing 3,500/day for a couple days in a row. I did that. Me. I don’t care if it comes across as dog shit, glib, or derivative. I did it myself. And sold a copy, not to myself. So nyah! Eat it.

230 days of writing just a little bit.

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I’m fairly certain that if you were to analyze the content, style, structure and execution of my writing over the previous two hundred and thirty days, I don’t believe you would find much improvement at all. My writing is choppy, sloppy and at times semi incoherent. But on the plus side, I have stuck with it for nearly eight full months! Wow! Look at me, just going for it. Had a few scares here and there. Forgot about writing once or twice, had a fair few power outages, plus a complete nation wide communications service provider outage that nearly cost me my streak. But Bell was there to see me through at my in-laws place. It has been a ride, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t recall a lot of what I’ve written, stream of consciousness and all. Only a handful of posts have been pre-planned and those would have been a part of my collected works of short fiction/science fiction. Which reminds me, I never did post the finalized book two to Kindle Unlimited. Oh well. I may just revisit both books for a style check, and print them out myself at home, just to have a paper copy. A good enough reason to buy a new working printer. Or so I think.

“Why do all of these hallways…

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Smell like shit? I had never noticed it before, but now every one we get called out to stinks like hell.” Moans the slight framed man with a wispy beard. “Probably due to all the piss and vomit, would be my informed guess there Garreth.” Replies the short heavy set woman with cropped grey hair. “That and the dead bodies.” She chimes in a second later. “Yeah – the dead bodies would most likely be the culprit for the stench.” Chuckles Garreth, his weak shoulders jumping as he laughs. “So how the fuck do we keep finding these bodies after they’ve been dead for so long?” Garreth whines as the two officers walk deeper into the dilapidated tenement building, wandering the labyrinthine halls lit by flashing yellowing bulbs. Everywhere you look is cracked dry wall, mould patches, and peeling paint. Ceiling tiles with greasy brown water stains, and puddles of urine gathered at the edges of the red well worn carpets. “Well Garreth, in these instances most of the neighbours are junkies, extremely poor, or illegals. Nobody wants us here, they want as little local law enforcement scrutiny as possible. So shit goes from bad to worse, until they can’t stand it. And we turn up, bother people by asking questions which nobody will answer, and then cart off the rotting corpse. Rinse and repeat. Feel me wee man?” The large woman croaks through gritted teeth. “How many does this make for us Garreth?” The female officer asks as they get within visual range of the slumped body. Previously laying on the floor where it meets the wall. Turned inwards to face the baseboard. From the angle they are standing at they can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. There is a definite unusual twist to the torso, like it had tried to scratch an itch went too far and died after snapping it’s own spine in twain. Various fluids and puddles seep out from under the grayish blue body. The smell is thick in the air. A humid and pungent overly rotten orange twinge to the air. “At last count we were up to six this week. Not counting the four last week left in a similar state.” Garreth replies quietly. “Looks like the last apartment on this floor. Shouldn’t this hallway have a window or fire exit or something?” Garreth asks as he kneels down to poke around the body with one latex glove on, and a thin metallic rod he uses to lift a collar here, and a jacket pocket flap there. “I’d be surprised if any of the rooms had more than a port hole sized window per unit. These bastard builders cram as many bodies into these apartments as they can. What a shit hole.” Grumbles the larger officer turning away from Garreth while he conducts his first pass over the prone body. “Something tells me we won’t find a listing for this victim in this apartment block. Not sure why, just a vibe I’m getting.” She offers offhandedly. “Whatever you say boss lady. I don’t see any Id on the vic, and the coroner’s folks will get here soon. We can get some fresh air and wait for the retinal scan from doc’s people.” Garreth answers standing up while peeling off his lone glove by the heel of his palm. “Want me to go grab us a bite?” He offers. “Yes. We passed a Longo’s on the way in here, grab me a partial rotisserie chicken.” “No problem Priss, what you eat for breakfast is no business of mine.” He chuckles as he walks back out of the dim pungent hallway.

“Don’t die on me Bob…”

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“You really won’t like me if I gotta resuscitate you with a boat battery and a set of rusty jumper cables.” Growls the monstrously obese woman in a roughly worn denim dress. Slowly she circles the badly battered man tied to a wicker chair. Sweat trickling down her brow and collecting in pools along her waistband at the back of her skirt. Her wedged heels are cracked and smudged with a mixture of dirt and Bob’s blood, among other things. “Stay with me Bobby, I know the room is hot and all, but… just hang in there big man.” After walking a full circle around the restrained Bob, she leans over at her thick waist to lift his head by the sweat soaked patch of hair. A straggly tuft of grey brown crusted with his own blood. Lifting his chin with her greasy sausage fingers Bob grins through cracked lips, showing off the remains of shattered teeth. He spits a thick glob of bloody phlegm onto the fat womans skirt. “Don’t you worry ’bout me Doris, I’ve got you pegged – babydoll.” With a grimace she drops his head and watches it hang and sway under it’s own weight. Stepping away from the chair and the small violently hot room, she nods at the guards just outside the heavy metal doors. With a scrape the two men get up from their seats, one cracks his knuckles and the other wipes off his glasses with a corner of his t-shirt. Doris shuts the door behind her as the guards step into the room. Not a moment passes as the sounds of a fight break out.

“You fucker! I almost laughed when you called me Doris. Dickhead. You were supposed to call me Delores.” She barks out in a raspy laugh. Bob, a medium sized man with an array of bumps, bruises and lacerations covering his body looks up from his White Castle burger and grins. “You didn’t exactly pull any punches yourself – shit teeth. I gotta find a dentist or something, right fucking quick. Why’d you use a bat anyhow? I thought we agreed on fists only. Cunt.” Bob gums on the last few swallows of his mushed burger. Taking his time dunking the bread and meat patty in his Cola cup. Taking a gulp of his drink and squashing his waffle fries in his hands before slurping down the paste. “Christ almighty this hurts.” He warbles through a mouth full of mush. “Dust your gums with a little coke, and nut up.” She replies tossing a massive ziploc bag of nose candy into Bob’s lap.

After a long, and mostly silent drive out into the desert of Arizona along the historic route 66, Robert and Mary Hutchins pull into a pock marked parking lot of a Motel 6. The vacancy sign flashing a dim neon pink intermittently showing swarms of winged insects. The back end of their nineteen ninety four Ford Taurus is riding decidedly low. Straining as it is, under the weight of various bodies tied up and bound together in the trunk. The late evening sun making the trunk hot to the touch. “How long you think they got?” Asks Bob, chucking the keys over hand out into the field beyond the now dim parking lot. “I don’t know? Why? You really give a shit?” She drawls in response. “No – no I don’t. I do however, gotta see a dentist. Fuck.” He spits out a thick glob of blood, and a tooth chip. Reaching into the back window Bob pulls out a dazzlingly turquoise leather Gucci bag, it has some heft to it.

The couple exit the parking lot on foot, cross over the sun baked black asphalt of route 66 to a small lot set beside a CVS. Open the doors to a pewter coloured mini van and drive off back towards Las Vegas Nevada. With the windows down, and the ac cranked, Mary turns on the radio. They drive off with the sound of Bob Seager trailing behind them in the sweltering night. The sky is a pink, orange, navy blue combo, and the stars begin to twinkle.

My life as a contract killer.

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Image Credit: Thomas Dubois

It started in the early winter of 2199. I was working sixteen hour shifts piloting my cab-barge over Sante Feyokyo ferrying people around the vast sprawl of the newest metropolis in the midwest. The ash that falls like snow in mid February makes you feel every subzero degree of the blistering and cutting winds. Especially in the open are cab-barges that became the go to cheap transport options for the working class and those just above destitute. I pulled my waxed canvas coat tight around my face, the harsh material of the collar grazing my rough cheeks.

I was hauling empty bread crates by the tonne over a thirty mile stretch between eleven pm and five am. I’d had a few calls to let actual people hop onboard with the crates to double dip on fares when my phone chimed. I was worried it was my guild calling me on my double dipped fares but it was a private number on the line. As I pulled up to the sixty fourth floor dock I heard a woman exclaim “No way! I’m not getting on that thing, it’s a death trap!” But her date, or companion told her just how expensive a covered cab would be, and she balked and squeezed onboard with the icy, ash covered black bread trays stacked twenty five high across the deck of the barge. I indicated with my chin that they should hold onto the crate tie downs and not move around once we were on our way. With a swell like a rising tide, we bumped off the dock and floated out along the dark high rises, and the vivid neon advertisements. I used my gravity paddle to steer us around the traffic buoys, and out onto the main traffic thoroughfare. The insistent drone of the advertising jingles slowly drowned out by the engine hum, and the whipping winds full of ash.

The phone was quiet while I tagged their chips to pay for transit when the phone line crackled. A message appeared then slowly faded away. Then I recieved nine more messages, from the FBI, CIA, INTERPOL, NMPD, and various other agencies requesting I terminate both guests on my cab-barge. The last message was an invoice, paid to me for six thousand dollars. Looking around the cab-barge I couldn’t really see the companion riders I was hauling. But every so often when we hit an air stream, or heat swell I could see the tension pulling on the line, from the riders holding on for dear life. So I untied the tie downs, and hit the gas into an eddy, and watched the lines spill out and a barely audible gasp escape from the falling riders.

I slowed down and crawled around the front of the dark barge to re-secure my empty bread crates as I floated four hundred feet in the cold night air, and toggled over to my banking app on my phone and watched the funds deposit from INTERPOL.

From that day forward I continued on as a cab-barge hauler, and executed anyone that the various agencies paid me to.

When you come for the Devil, you’d better not miss…

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Or aim for his back so he can’t see what you’re up to if you flub the attempt.

The mornings are warm and sunny, and I’m taking my beverage in the partial shade of our back deck. The kids are fawning over their pea pod plants, anxiously watching them sprout and grow over the last few days. It is slow going, and full of childlike anguish. Pleads for the plants to grow faster, and the whole process to speed up abound. Soon they will tire of the hardening and will begin to squabble loud enough to disturb the neighbours and I’ll have to send them inside. Hidden amongst the chatter of our children playing is the insistent hammering of a giant wood pecker somewhere further down the street behind us. The murmur of passing cars drifts softly through the trees as we are set back a fair ways from the road. A warm and richly scented breeze rustles the leaves of our Lilac bushes, bringing the smell of freshly brewed coffee to my nose. It is a Saturday in May. Things, such as they are, are good.

“He’s strange, eccentric and terrifying.”

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He talks in a sing song but staccato manner, with emphasis wherever he pleases. He dances with grace and the fluidity of an otter. His pale visage, and croaked rasp will send you running for the hills. A more vile and vulgar an individual you will never see. Wrapped up in himself with a blood soaked cloak of spies and slaughter.

You don’t get to become supreme leader without having killed entire opposing bloodlines and all of their heirs. It’s thirsty work, and the Blood Gods will not be sated.

Take heed young noble men and women. When you look the emperor in the eye, know that he has both a blade at your back, and arms aimed at your families across the imperium. No one is safe, until everyone is safe. And no one is safe from the wrath of a god king whose sworn an oath to the Blood Gods.

Our life’s milk shall be drank by the altars of blood this day, and every other! Rest not until you have carved rib bone with your saber. Rattle them not. But plunge them deep and swift into the heart of madness at the center of struggle. Go forth, and die with honour! If not for your sake, do it for me! May the gods have mercy on your souls.