Someday I hope to have one of them automatic email thingamabobs so you can just sign up to recieve my newsletters. Until then, just send an email to newsletter at oneoveralpha dot com (damn spammers), and I’ll put you on the list. Of course, you’re probably wonder why do that when I put the newsletter right here. Well, I also send out special announcments (like when I get a story published) to everyone on the newsletter list, whereas I only do this at the end of the month.
As of August 2011, my newsletter is now just posted on my Writing Blog, but I still link to it.
2006 First Quarter, Second Quarter, Third Quarter, October, November, December.
2007 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
2008 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
2009 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
2010 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
2011 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
2012 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2013 January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June/July 2011.
My publication news for the past two months:
Publication of my story “The Price to Pay” on my Smashwords account.
Publication of my stories “In the Name of Ideological Purity,” “Worst Foot Forward,” “A Downside to Success,” “Unkilling Your Grandfather: How to Sidestep That Pesky Paradox,” “Eyewitnesses to History,” “Prophets,” “Give it Time,” “Fluid History,” “Mercy,” “A Bitter Man Can Dream,” “From Out of Town,” “Dust to Dust,” “Indivisible,” “Talking With Ants,” “The Time Will Come,” “Future Tour,” “Did You Think Otherwise?” “Land of the Dumb,” and “Backwater” as part of my 30 Stories in 30 Days.* * *
As some of you know, I’m in the process of moving. So in all the hustle and bustle, I didn’t get around to writing up a Newsletter for June. I thought of just doing a twofer at the end of July, when I remembered that after next week, my internet access will be limited for some period until I get everything set up at home. So that’s why I’m doing this two month Newsletter in the middle of the month.
* * *
During the month of June I wrote 9,208 words. As of July 14th, I’ve written 1,023 in July. Together this gives me a total this year of 26,400.
* * *
You may have noticed that I only wrote 19 stories instead of 30 in June. I did write up a blog post as to why I fell short.
* * *
I don’t have a photo of my story board this month because it’s home, and I’m still in my apartment.
* * *
I didn’t get around to writing a story for this month. I’ve been busy.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2011.
My publication news for the past month:
None.* * *
This month I wrote 3,184 words, giving me a total this year of 16,169. Again my goal is to write a total of 50,000 words this year, so I need to get busy.
* * *
Here is my story board at the end of May:
Just a reminder, in June I will once again be challenging myself to write 30 Stories in 30 Days. This year I’m doing things a bit differently by posting my stories on my blog instead of here.
* * *
I did get around to writing a story for this month. It actually follows from “Side Benefits,” the story I wrote for last month’s newsletter. Also, if my numbers are correct, this will be the 300th story I have self-published. It’s not much, but I’m saving up for my 30 Stories in 30 Days. Enjoy.
Steve
Being Sick Sucks
(Posted on the Living as a Writer blog)
I am blessed by the fact that I rarely get sick. And when I do, it’s not that bad. While everyone is running around trying to flee the flu and failing, I’ll just get a bit of a head cold for a couple of days and that’s it. Back in my wage slave days, if I felt “sick” I’d feel justified to call off work and spend the day sleeping, watching movies, reading, etc. This morning I woke with a bit of chest congestion, so this is the first time I’ve been sick since I slipped the shackles of my cubicle last month. While I hacked and coughed over some toast, I realized that before it was almost like taking a vacation to call off sick, which lifted my spirits. But now, there’s no vacation. I’m left just being sick. It’s like it was being sick on weekends, it just ruined the whole thing.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2011.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of my story “The Perils of Spring”on my Ficly account.
Acceptance of my story “Housebreaking” by AntipodeanSF. It will be published – in print and as audio – in September.* * *
This month I wrote 2,481 words, giving me a total this year of 12,985. Again my goal is to write a total of 50,000 words this year, so I need to get busy.
* * *
Here is my story board at the end of April:
It has already borne fruit. I wrote “Housebreaking” sometime last year, but it was laid aside and buried until I dug it out to fill out my board. Seeing that I had a finished story there, I started submitting it, and AntipodeanSF took it. So I guess using a board was a good idea.
* * *
I did get around to writing a story for this month. Enjoy.
Steve
Side Benefits
Much as the frog who doesn’t notice the slowly warming water, Nick remained unaware of the gently increasing patter of rain on his balcony. It took the distant rumble of thunder to tip the balance. Now that he was more awake than not, he noticed gravity pulling the rain to his balcony or the wind slamming it into the glass door. It took half-an-hour – and half-a-dozen more cracks of thunder – to bring Nick fully awake.
He lay in bed – rolling to one side then rolling to the other – in the elusive quest to fall back asleep. While he would have loved to get some more sleep, his bladder had other ideas. As he walked out of his bathroom, his stomach grumbled, as if saying, “Since you’re up ….”
Nick went to the kitchen and took two slices of cold pizza out of the box in his refrigerator. He ate them while standing at the door to his balcony watching the traffic slosh by on the street below. The thunder had moved off and the wind had died down, leaving just a steady downpour.
After he finished the second slice, he crossed his arms and chuckled. He then went to his computer and sat down. He logged into his Living as a Writer blog and started a new post titled, Side Benefits.
It has been ten days since I left the slow death in a cubicle to take up writing full time. This morning, I realized a side benefit to my new life. It’s – as they say – raining cats and dogs out there. Untold thousands of wage slaves are slogging their way through the cold, dreary misery to spend cold, dreary, miserable days somewhere they don’t want to be. And I sit here in my dry, warm apartment. If I do go outside today, it will be for the experience, not the yoke of employment. Writers are like kids jumping into puddles. Maybe I’ll do that this afternoon.
Nick posted the blog and again chuckled to himself. He glanced once more at the rain, then went to work on his novel, his fingers drumming on the keys like the rain on his balcony.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2011.
My publication news for the past month:
None.* * *
This month I wrote 4,128 words, giving me a total this year of 10,504. Again my goal is to write a total of 50,000 words this year, so I need to get busy.
* * *
Two new things. A few weeks ago, I bought a dry erase board and wrote up a list of my stories. I soon filled it up and had to go back and rewrite everything smaller. As I said at the time, I could take a picture of the board each month for my newsletter to give you an idea of what I’m doing. So, here is my board at the end of March:
The second new idea is slightly related to the first one. I’ve run my newsletter for five years, and I’ve just added the latest on top of the page so you could scroll down to see all the older ones. Since my newsletters have been primarily text, the page still loads pretty quickly. But if I start putting photos into every one, that could slow things down. One option was to just make a new page for my newsletters, but then I thought of something possibly better: just putting my newsletter on to my Writing Blog. I’m thinking it may be easier for me to update it, and for people to follow it, even to comment on it. So for the next few months, I’m going to be putting my newsletter on my site as well as on my blog to see how it works.
* * *
I did get around to writing a story for this month. Enjoy.
Steve
Day 366
“How did she hold up?” Station Commander Aziz Hammuda asked.
Doctor Eduardo León turned his head slightly towards Aziz, but didn’t take his eyes off the vast shipping container. “Marvelously. None of the jostle sensors were tripped, and the ride up was very smooth.”
“Did you expect otherwise?” Aziz asked with a smirk. Slapping Eduardo’s shoulder, he asked, “Do you want to break her out and go for a spin?”
“Tempting,” Eduardo replied with a chuckle. “But I have a wife and two daughters who would like me to keep my job.”
“Bah,” Aziz said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Employment is overrated.”
“Ah, so when we take an irreplaceable museum display ‘for a spin,’ I can just say it was all your idea.”
For a moment, Aziz just stood looking at the container. Then, with a smile, he asked, “How about I start unpacking, and you go deal with the reporters?”
Eduardo frowned and turned to looked behind them as if he could see the horde of reporters a few levels away. “I’d rather unpack.”
#
Aziz and Eduardo stepped up to the podium smiling and nodding to various reporters. Once everyone was settled, Aziz began, “Thank you all. You all know Doctor Eduardo León who is overseeing the transfer of the American Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Institution to the Mare Tranquillitatis Science Museum. If we haven’t met, I am Aziz Hammuda, Commander of Gagarin Station here on the Mbandaka Space Elevator. Together we are pleased to announce that Discovery has safely returned to space. While the slow climb up the elevator doesn’t compare to the thunderous ride of a rocket, it’s much easier for a lady of 127.”
When the reporters finished chuckling, Aziz continued, “Tomorrow morning – once Doctor León is completely satisfied there were no problems – Discovery will continue up the elevator eventually reaching Clarke Station next week. There it will be transferred to a cargo shuttle and flown to the Collins Station. It journey down the Armstrong Elevator and transported to its new hanger at the Science Museum in time for the 100th anniversary of its last flight.”
Aziz looked down at the podium for a moment, before looking back up. “Before I turn you loose to ask Doctor León questions, I just want to add something. During its thirty-nine missions between August 1984 and March 2011, the Space Shuttle Discovery spent a total of 365 days in space, a record that would stand until the Athena missions. While I am saddened that Discovery will spend only a few hours here, I am overjoyed that Discovery’s 366th day in space – the first day of its new life – will be spent here at Gagarin Station.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2011.
My publication news for the past month:
None.* * *
This month I wrote 3,246 words, giving me a total this year of 6,376. Again my goal is to write a total of 50,000 words this year, so I need to get busy.
* * *
After some prodding by a friend, I signed up on Examiner.com as the King of Prussia Writing Examiner. Check it out and see what I have to say about writing.
* * *
The end of the month sort of snuck up on me, so I didn’t get around to write a story. I had thought to write a haiku, but unfortunately, “Soylent Green is people” is six syllables. Don’t ask.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2011.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “The Unerring Word” on my Ficly account.* * *
This month I wrote 3,130 words. Just to remind you, my goal for this year is a total of 50,000 words.
At the beginning of the year I made a semi-resolution. I didn’t want to make it a real resolution because I didn’t want to feel disappointed if I didn’t fulfill it. But my semi-resolution was to write – in some fashion – each day. And I did pretty good. There were only two days I didn’t write, and one of those days I was sick. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep it up.
* * *
I’m working on something, and I should have an announcement on it next month.
* * *
It’s been a few months, but here is a story I wrote for this month.
Enjoy.
SteveThe Future of Memory
As Tim eased into his cubicle, John shook his head. “It must be nice not having anything to do,” he said typing up a report.
With a toothy grin, Tim replied, “Oh, it is. Of course,” he added, buffing his nails, “not everyone works at my pace.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Over the next ten seconds or so, John’s smile slowly grew while Tim’s brow slowly furrowed. Tim finally said, “I don’t think I like your tone.”
Pausing his typing, John stated, “I agreed with you.”
“Yeah, but it was ….” Tim thought for a moment. “You agreed with the letter of what I said, but not the spirit.”
“Well,” returning to his report, John said, “I’m not a spirit medium who can divine what you meant to say. I have to go on the words you use and what they actually mean.”
“But given that words have multiple meanings and your devious nature, it’s possible – nay probable – that you would choose whatever meaning best suited your pre-conceived notions.”
John shook his head. “I disagree.”
“That’s because you’re disagreeable.”
John glanced up at Tim. “Do you want your ass kicking now or later?”
“Hmmm.” Tim tapped a tooth with his fingernail a few times. “I’ll take later. Say, fifty years.”
John chuckled, then smiled. He picked up his Keystone and opened the calendar function.
#
Over the next five decades, John upgraded his communication system more times than he could remember. Each time the transfer of his favorite music, videos, and functions became easier, until the semi-intelligent programs did it themselves. Countless times his lists of birthdays, anniversaries, and appointments were copied into a new calendar.
John walked out of the bathroom and woke up his SecondBrain with a tap at his temple. A virtual screen appeared before his eyes with the words, “Good morning, John. The time is 4:18 AM.”
John looked back towards his bedroom and sighed. “No point trying to go back to sleep.” He turned and went out onto his balcony. The air was pleasantly cool, so he sat down wondering which would come first – the sunrise or his need to return to the bathroom.
His SecondBrain waited the allotted ten minutes after waking up to pop the words, “Would you like to review today’s appointments? YES/NO?” in front of John’s eyes.
John suspected that some geezers would forget their name if their SecondBrain didn’t remind them, so he prided himself on maintaining his mental faculties. But he couldn’t think of any appointments he had that day. After a minute of racking his organic brain, he asked his electronic one what the appointment was.
“Kick Tim’s ass.”
John read the message five times. “Who the hell is Tim?”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “To a T” on the Wordwrights blog.
Publication of my stories “A Man of Few Words” and “Time Out Chair” on my Ficly account.* * *
This month I wrote 3,019 words giving me a total this year of 43,991. My aim had been to write 50,000 words this year, so I fell short. But I did write more than I did in 2009. Only 218 more words, but more nonetheless. For 2011, I will again aim for 50,000 words.
* * *
A new year is a time for changes. One change I’ve made – since it has been out for almost eight months – I’ve reduced the price of my book, A Man of Few Words from $8 to $7. It will probably take a few days for the price change to filter through all the sites that sell it.
* * *
I didn’t get around to write a story for this month.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
None. :(* * *
This month I wrote 2,532 words giving me a total this year of 40,972.
A note on my monthly word count. I only count words written for my stories as counting towards my monthly totals. But this past month I’ve also written several blog posting, and I’ve also come up with several ideas for stories and novels. So I’ve been writing, it just doesn’t show up in my totals.
* * *
One big change I made this month was the order of my books. The plan had been to – by the end of the year – have a rough draft of my next collection of short stories All-You-Can-Read-Buffet. In January I would send it out to friends to critique, and I finish up my collection of poems about work, Summer Prison. I would self-publish both in late spring. Then, after another round of 30 Stories in 30 Days and some rest, I would start working on a collection of scifi stories, the title of which I haven’t decided on yet. This collection I would try to get professionally published sometime in 2012. What changed? I still plan on getting Summer Prison out next spring. All-You-Can-Read-Buffet is still in the works, I just ran into some problems and I’ll get to it when I get to it. The as yet titled scifi collection has moved to the front of the line. One of the main reasons was “An Ounce of Prevention.” It’s one of the stories that will be in the collection. It had been sitting around for a couple of years, but I just recently finished it. Working on it got me excited for my scifi stories, especially the ones that fit in an all scifi collection and not a general story collection like All-You-Can-Read-Buffet. So hopefully this excitement will last until I can finish it.
* * *
I didn’t get around to write a story for this month.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering October 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of my story “Whore” on Bastards and Whores.
Publication of my story “An Ounce of Prevention” on Barnes & Noble’s Pubit!.* * *
This month I wrote 1,001 words giving me a total this year of 38,440.
* * *
As I said, I published my short story “An Ounce of Prevention” on Barnes & Noble’s Pubit! You can download it (for only $0.99!
* * *
I didn’t get around to write a story for this month. My don’t-feel-like-writing mood has continued.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering September 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of my story “It Makes Perfect Sense” on my Ficly account.
Publication of my story “Final Resting Place” on my FictionPress account.* * *
This month I wrote 2,390 words giving me a total this year of 37,439.
* * *
I didn’t get around to write a story for this month. I’ve been in a bit of a don’t-feel-like-writing mood.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering August 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of my poem “Escape” on my Ficly account.
Acceptance of my short story “Whore” by Bastards and Whores. It will appear in their next issue.* * *
This month I wrote 2,900 words giving me a total this year of 35,049.
* * *
As if I didn’t have enough to do, I started another blog, Enjoying Scifi. If you enjoy scifi, check it out.
* * *
I didn’t get around to write a story for this month. I’ve been in a bit of a don’t-feel-like-writing mood. But I have next month.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering July 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Unrealized Fame” on the Wordwrights blog.* * *
This month I wrote 3,148 words giving me a total this year of 32,149.
* * *
Even before I finished my A Man of Few Words, I was thinking of how I could spread the word. One of the ideas I had was to make a short video. Great idea, but I never got around to it. Until now. Since it wasn’t going to be professional, I figured it should be cheesy and a tad stupid. So, enjoy.
* * *
For this month, a story of devious planning.
Enjoy.
SteveThe Most Important Lesson
“This is just weird.”
“Please, Uncle Joe, I get enough of that from Mom and Dad.”
“Hey, having a niece old enough for a learner’s permit is … disturbing, so I’d bet having a daughter that old is ten times worse. But what I was referring to is that after … five years, I think this is the first time I’ve been a passenger in my own car. It just … doesn’t feel right.”
“Don’t you like having an amateur chauffer?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“Answer it or give me some pearl of wisdom you’ve gathered from your years of driving experience.”
“A pearl of wisdom? All right. Now that you’re a driver, there is a nugget of knowledge you need to know.”
“Which is?”
“You see the guy in the car there? Do you know what he is?”
“Ah … a fellow driver?”
“Close. He’s a schmuck. When you’re a driver, all the people in other cars, all your ‘fellow drivers,’ are schmucks. Remember that.”
“I don’t think that’s what Mom and Dad want me to learn from you.”
“Then maybe they’ll think twice in a few years when your brother gets his permit. You have to plan ahead for stuff like this.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my stories “Some Things Are Best Lost,” “A Simpler Life,” “You Can’t Please Some People,” “Deadworld,” “Didn’t See That Coming,” “Classics Never Go Out of Style,” “What’s in a Name?” “Everybody’s Published,” “Happy or Not, the End Will Come,” “Tip Your Driver,” “Dreamcatcher,” “Merry Christmas,” “Just Another Day,” “It Wouldn’t Be Enough,” “Life From Death,” “Empty Chair,” “It’s What’s Important,” “Take Me To Your Dealer,” “Bury ‘em Deep,” “Be Courteous,” “Athorists of the World, Say ‘Hi,’” “Will Any Survive?” “Not Another One,” “A Breath of Fresh Air,” “If Only it Were That Easy,” “Endangered Memories,” “Would That be a Waste?” “Strange Worlds,” “The Headless Gnome,” and “Tick Tock” as part of my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge.* * *
This month I wrote 14,378 words (almost as many as I wrote in the first five months) giving me a total this year of 29,001.
* * *
Since I didn’t receive any submissions for my A Picture in Less Than 1000 Words, I’ll give it another quarter.
* * *
In case you haven’t heard yet, A Man of Few Words is for sale.
* * *
I didn’t get around to writing a story this month. I was busy.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my stories “Surprise” and “Is It Insanity?” on my Ficly account.
Publication of “Devious Muse” on the Wordwrights blog.
Oh, and the publication of my book, A Man of Few Words.* * *
This month I wrote 3,146 words giving me a total this year of 14,623.
* * *
A reminder that I started something new, A Picture in Less Than 1000 Words, last month. I give you a picture and you write a story. I’m still waiting for the first entry. Will it be you?
* * *
In case you haven’t heard yet, A Man of Few Words is for sale.
* * *
The reason I wanted to get A Man of Few Words out in May, is that I’ll be spending June banging my head on a table as I try – for the third year – to write 30 Stories in 30 Days. Be sure to check in to follow my progress.
* * *
I didn’t get around to writing a story this month. I was busy. Plus, I’m writing 30 next month.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
None.* * *
This month I only wrote 1,109 words giving me a total this year of 11,477.
* * *
Something new. While I was home for Easter weekend, I was walking around the family farm and I snapped a picture of something I found interesting. Probably within a few seconds after taking the picture, I wondered what story I could write based on it. With more ideas than I have time to write, I wondered if I should see what stories my readers could come up with. Thus, “A Picture in Less Than 1000 Words” was born. Each quarter I’ll give you a photo and you write a story, of less than 1000 words, based on it. You email me the story, I pick the story I like the most from the entries, and post the winner on this page. Easy, right?
* * *
The big news. I finished A Man of Few Words. I received the proof copy and have a few things to correct. Hopefully, everything will be ready in about a week. I’ll let everyone know when it’s ready.
* * *
I didn’t get around to writing a story this month. I was busy.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my poem “Loss” and my stories “Crack Open My Skull” and “For the Greater Good” on my Ficly account.
Publication of “The Honored Dead” on the Wordwrights blog.* * *
I’m starting to get feedback from my friends who read through my collection of flash fiction stories, A Man of Few Words. I’ll be working on it in April, and I’ll have more for you in a month.
* * *
This month I wrote 6,868 words giving me a total this year of 10,368.
* * *
I almost did’t write a story this month. But fortunately, I managed to bang this out on the last day of the month.
Enjoy.
SteveA Message
“Everybody, you have to come see this.”
Jeff looked up from his game of solitaire to see – he thought her name was Sue from Accounting – waving for everyone to follow her. He glanced around and saw people leaving their desks. After a shrug, he closed his game and followed.
Sue led the group to a conference room with large windows. Several people already stood at the windows; most seem confused but some had looks of horror on their faces. When the new people saw what was causing the commotion, they gasped and stopped in their tracks.
Jeff had to firmly, but gently, move some people out of the way so he could get to a window. Floating above the city in large, brilliant green letters were the words:
A message, to those who’ll understand:
It Is Possible -The FutureJeff’s first thought was it had to be a prank. A trick done with lasers by bored physics students from one of the local colleges. Then Sue explained, “The news is saying this message has appeared above every city, in every language.”
Oh, Jeff thought. A lot of bored physics students.
“What does it mean?” Jeff heard someone ask.
“I don’t know,” someone else answered.
Jeff looked from the message to his coworkers. “Don’ feel so bad,” he stated. “I doubt it was meant for us.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
None.* * *
Friends are reading through my collection of flash fiction stories, A Man of Few Words. For now I’m trying to work on other things. Stay tuned for more.
* * *
This month I wrote 1,901 words giving me a total this year of 3,500.
* * *
Instead of a story, this month I wrote a haiku.
Enjoy.
Stevedelving into words
hours writing - yet worthless
crap is on TV
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2010.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my stories “Omen?” and “A Bold Plan for Employment” on my Ficly account.* * *
I did more work on my collection of flash fiction stories (A Man of Few Words). I’m planning on having it to the point where I’ll be asking people to read it within a few weeks. Stay tuned for more.
* * *
Last year I fell short of my goal of writing 80,000 words. So this year, I’m setting the goal at 60,000. (In December I said I was going to set the goal at 50,000, but why aim so low?) In January I wrote 1,599 of them, so I need to get to work.
* * *
The story for this month is a failed attempt at writing a story in under 100 words.
Enjoy.
SteveEducation is Important
“Okay class, before you pin your specimens down and begin dissecting them, I want you to take some time and look at their skin. You’ll see it’s smooth like a baby riaeth. As I passed them out, I noticed that some of you have odd specimens. Yes, Quyni?”
“Mine has … things drawn on it.”
“Show it around to the class. If our understanding of their culture is correct, these markings are used to differentiate groupings and as part of a mating ritual.”
“This one already has pins in its skin.”
“Show it around to the class as well, Wybirh. We believe they pierce themselves for the same reason they mark themselves.
“Okay, now I want you to take four pins and secure your humans to your dissection plates.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
None.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during December I wrote 2,095 words, giving me a total this year of 43,773. I fell way short of my goal of 80,000, but I at least wrote something. I’m going to set my goal for 2010 at 50,000. I better get to work.
* * *
I didn’t get around to writing a story for this month. However, I did finally finish the rough draft of a collection of flash fiction stories (A Man of Few Words) I’ve been working on for ... a year at least. You will hear more of that in the coming months.
Enjoy.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my story “As All Bad Ideas...” on my Ficly account.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during November I wrote 2,193 words, giving me a total this year of 41,678. My new plan is to hit 45,000 words this year, so I should hopefully get there.
* * *
I wrote up a little photo essay on What I did on Black Friday.
Enjoy.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering October 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my story “Late Night Swim” on my Ficly account.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during October I wrote 2,075 words, giving me a total this year of 39,485. My new plan is to hit 45,000 words this year. I better get writing.
* * *
I didn’t get around to writing a story for this month. Continuing the above, I better get writing.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering September 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my story “Somethings Never Change” on AntipodeanSF
The publication of my story “Until the End” as well as my poem “Stealer of Daylight” on my Ficly account.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during September I only wrote 946 words, giving me a total this year of 37,410. My plan had been to hit 80,000 words this year, but I can’t see that happening. The only excuse I have is that I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I didn’t say it was much of an excuse ...
* * *
In lieu of a story this month, here’s a haiku.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveAt bedtime I pit
things done versus things to do.
Where has the day gone?
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering August 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of my stories “To Explore,” “Shield Your Eyes!,” “Simultaneous,” “Ever Onward,” “On Another World,” and “Change for the Better?” as well as my poem “Smothered by Pillows” on my Ficly account.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during August I only wrote 1,309 words, giving me a total this year of 36,464. In order to hit my mark of 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 10,884 words a month. I don’t think I’m going to make it. I think the biggest reason my writing has slacked off, other than me slacking, was the weather. I’m a cold weather person. When it gets up in the 80’s or 90’s, it just saps my will to do anything and I just want to sit in the AC and watch TV or read. But since the weather has started to cool off, I’ve felt the urge to write growing in me. So hopefully I’ll have something to show for it next month.
* * *
I just never got around to writing a story for my newsletter this month. I had some ideas, but they never made it to paper.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering July 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of “An RI World” by Writingshift.
The publication of “Perfect Justice,” “Kids,” “In the Victor’s Footsteps,” and “Death by Sexbot” on my Ficly account.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during July I only wrote 875 words, giving me a total this year of 35,155. In order to hit my mark of 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 8,969 words a month. The reason for my paltry writing, well, first off, I wrote 30 stories in June so I was a tad burned out. But also I was slacking.
* * *
This started about midnight. I was in bed and I heard a noise upstairs that sounded almost like someone was moving furniture. It only lasted for a second, but I spent some time wondering why someone would move furniture at a time like that. Then I started thinking about bad neighbors in general. I started this story for my Ficly account, but it turned out to be too long.
Enjoy,
SteveBad Neighbors
Mike awoke with a start. Looking around his pitch black bedroom, he had a strange feeling something wasn’t right. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep until he reassured himself everything was fine, he got out of bed and flipped the switch for the ceiling light. Nothing happened. In the faint possibility he had done it wrong, he flipped it off, then back on. Still nothing. Did the power go out? he asked himself. He walked to his bathroom and flicked on that light. Squinting in the glare, he answered his question, “Nope.”
Once his eyes adjusted, he looked up at the ceiling light to see what was wrong with it. It wasn’t there. Instead a perfect circle about five feet in diameter was cut into the ceiling letting him see into the upstairs apartment.
On her hands and knees, the girl upstairs crawled to the edge of the hole. “Your power still works then?”
Mike glanced at his bathroom light, then back to the girl. “Yeah.”
“I thought it might have knocked out the power to the whole building.”
She began to crawl away, but Mike asked, “Hey, what the hell happened?”
“Um,” she thought for a moment, “I’ll get back to you on that.” She then moved back out of his sight.
Mike traced the cut with his eyes, then called out, “Couldn’t you just have loud sex like the guy next door?”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of “Into the Flames,” “Pink Disk,” “Fist of the State,” “Do I Have an Idea for You,” “Options,” Last Man, I,” “Last Man, II,” “We Is Smart,” “Ramble,” “Cursed,” “Rebel,” “Flicker,” “Oops,” “The Problem of Individuality,” “Under the Bed,” “First … Contact?” “Run for Your Lives,” “Project Heaven,” “To Live on in Unexpected Ways,” “Well Protected,” “It’s a Job,” “Use it, or Lose it,” “Haunting,” “Awkward,” “Urgent Report on Humans,” “The Day,” “I’m Not Crazy, Honest,” “Crack,” “We all have to Leave Sometime,” and “The End Results” as part of my 30 Stories in 30 Days challenge.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during June I wrote 12,925 words (almost 6X what I wrote in May), giving me a total this year of 34,280. In order to hit my mark of 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 7,620 words a month.
* * *
Well, I did it. 30 stories in 30 days. I’m going to take a break.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The performance of my tway “The Invisible Cliff.” Check here to read the script.* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during May I only wrote 2,361 words, giving me a total this year of 21,355. In order to hit my mark of 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 8,378 words a month. Part of my low output stems from my writing rut, which hopefully my 30 Stories in 30 Days challenge will help me out of. Also, I did a lot of revising this month, which counts as writing, but doesn’t really add to the word count. So cut me some slack.
* * *
As I mentioned, for June I will be attempting to write 30 Stories in 30 Days. So be sure to check out my progress. I didn’t write a story for this month’s newsletter, but hey, I’m going to be writing 30 in the next day. So continue cutting me some slack.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The acceptance of “Somethings Never Change” by AntipodeanSF. It will be published in August.* * *
I am pretty much finished writing my tway, The Invisible Cliff. I still need to film the two videos – which I’m hoping to do next week – and then I want some time to polish it up. I am not putting this in stone, but I’m looking towards performing the tway on Saturday, May 16th.
I have been asked how this will work, and I will put up a blog to explain everything, but basically you’ll just go to the InvisibleCliff Twitter profile and hit refresh every few minutes to read the latest tweets. From there you’ll be able to link to the other characters to see their tweets. And if this sounds waaay too complicated for some of you, I’m planning – probably on the 17th – of putting the script on my webpage so you can read through it in ten minutes instead of sitting there for two hours reading tweets. But I’ll be sending out other emails to keep you informed as the date comes closer.
* * *
Something I almost forgot about, next month I will try to write 30 Stories in 30 Days. I did that last September, but I figured I would try it again in June. Check the page for all the details.
* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during April I only wrote 2,934 words, giving me a total this year of 18,994. I was having a bit of a writing rut. In order to hit my mark of 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 7,626 words a month. I really need to get to work.
* * *
We had a homework assignment in one of my writing groups: we had to “Write about something simple or silly that you are grateful about: a green light, a parking spot near the door, getting the last item off of a shelf, finding a blue feather, a perfect apple, someone who makes you laugh, etc. Who or what do you thank?” A couple years ago I had gotten a good spot, and I joked to myself about pleasing the Parking Lot Gods. I knew I should use it, but couldn’t think of anything. When our leader mentioned a good parking spot as an example, I burst out laughing. Now I knew what to use it for.
Hope you enjoy,
StevePraise the Gods
Whenever there is a movie worth watching, I meet up with “the gang” at the local theater. The gang currently comprises of two married couples – Susan, Bob, Kate, Dave – and myself. Our standard procedure is that after the movie we stand around in the lobby discussing it until someone invariable asks, “Who wants to get dinner?”
Barring the rare cases of illness, we all agree that’s a good idea. But then someone asks, “So, where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
Over the next five minutes we name a dozen or so local eateries and a dozen or so reasons why those thus named aren’t acceptable.
One time last summer – after much debate – we settled on the food court in the nearby mall. Since all of us are semi-slobs, there wasn’t room in any one vehicle for all five of us.
Having parked further from the theater than the others, I was the last in our convoy to the mall and I was some distance behind them as they went down a full aisle. But, just after they turned to try their luck on the next aisle, the car second from the end started to back out. I stopped and waited, and then pulled into the spot.
Laughing at my luck, I got out and walked to the entrance to wait for my friends. I waited, and waited, and finally saw them about halfway across the parking lot. I watched them walk towards me, and when I was sure they had seen me I began twiddling my thumbs in imitation of annoyance. “Took you long enough,” I said when they finally arrived.
“Where the hell did you park?” Dave asked.
In reply I point to my easily visible car, compared to their vehicles lost in the mottled blob of a mall parking lot.
“How did you get a spot that close?” Kate asked.
“Clean living.”
That statement was met with derisive snorts, so I changed my answer to, “You have to make the proper sacrifices to the Parking Lot Gods.”
Frowning, Susan asked, “What kind of sacrifices?”
I thought for a second, then said, “Why, the blood of people with unpaid parking tickets, of course.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The publication of “What’s in a Name?” on Flashshot.
The acceptance of “An RI World” by Writingshift. It will be published in July.* * *
Congratulations to Richard Lorenz of Ridgecrest, CA, winner of my First Quarter 2009, 5 Word Challenge. To read his story, and get the words for the second quarter of 2009, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
Continuing my motivational thing, during March I wrote 5,897 words, giving me a total this year of 16,060. To hit 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 7,104 words a month. I really need to get to work.
* * *
I was looking on Heavens Above – which lets you know when you can see the International Space Station and other satellites – and saw that in the end of March and the beginning of April, I had two chances of seeing the space station going almost right overhead. That’s cool, but could I turn it into a story? Well, recently for one of my writing groups I revised my Lisa and Dave stories and they were in the back of my mind. Lisa and Dave and the ISS, hey, it practically writes itself.
Hope you enjoy,
SteveCheap Romance
“Where are we going?” Lisa asked.
Dave pointed ahead and said, “Just to my car.”
“You couldn’t have brought the surprise in?”
Dave chuckled. “Ah, no.”
With a smile, Lisa said, “You know it’s cruel to keep a puppy out in the cold.”
Turning to look at her, Dave smiled and replied, “It’s not a puppy.”
They reached his car and Lisa looked around the dark parking lot. “Well?”
Checking his watch, Dave said, “We just have to wait for a little bit. A minute or two.”
Lisa tightened her jacket against the chill of the early spring night, and turned away from Dave. He stepped up behind her and hugged her. “You’ll like this.”
At first, Lisa did not reply. But twenty or thirty seconds later she mumbled, “This better be good.”
A few seconds after she said that, Dave smiled. Pointing at a bright light that had just come up over his apartment building, he said, “There.”
Squinting, Lisa asked, “A plane?”
“Not a plane.” Slowly, steadily, the light rose up through the sky. Hugging Lisa, Dave explained, “That’s the space station, now the third brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon. There’s a website that lets you know when you can see it, and it just so happens that tonight is one of the best chances we’ll have of seeing.” Pointing almost straight up at it he added, “See, it passes almost directly overhead.”
Turning her around so they could watch as it glided down towards the far horizon, Dave said, “Some guys promise girls the moon and the stars. Well, I guess I’m cheap, I just get you a space station.”
Lisa snuggled into his arms, then turned and kissed his chin. “That’s very sweet.”
They stood there for another minute, watching as the station flew over countless other, oblivious lovers.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
The acceptance of “What’s in a Name?” by Flashshot. It will be published March 7th.* * *
My Five Word Challenge and 6 Shooter are open. You know you want to give them a try.
Continuing my motivational thing from last month, during February I wrote 5,341 words, giving me a total this year of 10,163. To hit 80,000 words this year, I’ll need to write 6,984 words a month. I’ll need to get to work.
* * *
This month I had the opportunity of putting a time capsule in my bathroom ceiling. For awhile I thought of – as X in the story – of “loosing” a story, but I didn’t have time. I then thought of writing a letter like X, but in the end I left something that will only confuse whoever finds it.
Hope you enjoy,
SteveRelics
Karen picked up a crowbar and twisted around with it a few times, stretching. She then adjusted her safety glasses and dust mask, and drove the crowbar into the bathroom ceiling. The whole reason she and Joe had bought this house was because it was a fixer-upper. For four years they had lived in an off-white apartment itching to paint it, knock out a wall, put in bay windows. But they had only managed to get the roof fixed before his accident.
For weeks she had moped around the house resisting all of her mother’s attempts to “talk about it.” It wasn’t until her father-in-law had used the spare key to walk in on her watching something stupid on TV. “Who the hell are you?” he asked. Karen hadn’t understood until he added, “I know you can’t be my daughter-in-law because my son wouldn’t marry a lazy slob who did jack-shit.” She did not know how long she had yelled and cursed him, but when she had paused for breath he had said, “It’s good to have you back.” She had a few choice words for that comment.
It took her a few more days to get ready to go back to teaching bored students medieval history, and to get back to work on the house. She and Joe had planned to get everything done within a year. If she wanted to keep to that she needed to make up for a lot of lost time.
She was starting to fall into a rhythm tearing down the ceiling when a small plastic bottle fell, hitting the toilet lid and rolling onto the floor. Karen put down her crowbar and picked up the bottle, noting the smiley face on the lid.
She stepped into the spare bedroom and opened the bottle. A folded sheet of paper was inside. In neat handwriting was:
Hello,
If someone is reading this, then I guess the house didn’t burn down or end up smashed with a wreaking ball. I won’t tell you who I am or when I wrote this because it doesn’t really matter. Basically, I had the opportunity to leave behind a time capsule and the urge was too great to resist. But what to leave?
Karen wiped away a tear and set the paper and bottle on the dresser. She then went back into the bathroom and picked up the crowbar.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2009.
My publication news for the past month:
I had none. But there’s always next month.* * *
There’s just a few things I wish to mention. First, I have started a series of blogs – each beginning with a letter of the alphabet – dealing with writing on my oneoveralpha’s writing blog. I’d appreciate if you checked them out.
Also, my Five Word Challenge and 6 Shooter are open. You know you want to give them a try.
And last but not least, I want to try a little motivational thing. I keep track of how many words I write each time I type something up. It’s just a way for me to make sure I’m writing. Last year I had aimed at 80,000 words for the year, but I only wrote a little under 68,000. To give me a little extra kick in the butt to write, I’m going to post my monthly totals here. So, in the month of January, I wrote 4,822 words. To hit 80,000 in a year, I need to write 6,667 words a month, so I’m down, but I’m not out.
* * *
Here’s my story for the month, although it’s more an essay.
Hope you enjoy,
SteveTHINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE
I got this idea last year when I drove home for Thanksgiving. In my drive across most of Pennsylvania, I cross the Appalachian Trail. A few weeks before the radio station I listen to had interview the guy who had written a book on the 1000 albums you should listen to before you die, which had planted the idea of “lists of things to do before you die” in my head. One of the things I had wanted to do for years was hike the Appalachian Trail. So over Thanksgiving I worked out a few more things I have always wanted to do. I had planned to do this last month but I was busy with other stuff so here is my list – in no particular order – of things I would like to do before I die. Enjoy.
Hike the Appalachian Trail
One of the things I like to say about myself is that, “I is a country boy.” I think the best way to explain this is to compare two different experiences. Right now I life just outside of Philadelphia. A couple times a year, some friends and I will go into Philly for a scifi convention or something. I always bum a ride because, for one thing, I don’t know the city; I have no idea how to get from A to B. But more importantly, every time I’ve gone into the city I’ve gotten sick. Riding along I look out and see row after row of cars and buildings and people as far as the eye can see, and I get nauseous. I guess my body thinks that’s wrong. Once we’re in the city and I’m confined to a few blocks, I’m fine, but the drive in sucks. In contrast, there is a point when I drive home where the road curves around a large hill. The top is a couple hundred feet above the road which itself is a few hundred feet above a little valley. It’s all forested, and there are similar hills as far as the eye can see. Each time I pass that spot I have a longing to just pull over, get out, and roam the woods. I’d come back – eventually. I don’t think I could live for long without the internet, music, AC.
What does this have to do with hiking the Appalachian Trail? I could wander the hillsides for months, but with purpose – getting from Georgia to Maine. It would be relaxing, I’d get a lot of story ideas, and it’d be cool.
Drive across the country
Create your own visited map of The United StatesI’ll admit to having some wanderlust, but as this map of states I’ve been to shows, it’s not something I’ve given into. Someday, I’d like to change that. There are a few standards I’d like to visit (the Grand Canyon, Little Bighorn Battlefield, etc.) but I think I’d just pick a direction at random and see where it takes me. I’d also like to find some odd, little, places. A few years ago I saw a news filler about this place that’s fifty miles from anywhere in Kansas or somewhere that supposedly serves the Best hamburgers. Basically, all day it’s just full of farmers eating burgers and talking about feed corn. Call me crazy, but I would just like to spend a day there with my writing notebook, writing. That would be the theme of the trip, go someplace, pull out my notebook, and see what I’m inspired to write about.
Visit the Rockies
While this could be covered in the previous, I think it deserves its own bullet point. Back when I was talking about the Appalachian Trail, I mentioned a spot in my drive home where I want to get out of my car and just wander. I think the only other time I’ve had a similar feeling is when I’ve looked at some of Ansel Adams photographs. I don’t know why snow capped mountains hold such interest for a boy from western Pennsylvania, but they do.
Pumpkin chunking
Okay, a change of pace. Seeing a pumpkin launched nearly a mile by a homemade air cannon, I mean, what isn’t cool about that? For the past few years I’ve wanted to go to watch (it’s in Delaware) but I either forget about it and use up my vacation days, or I don’t have the money to go down. After I miss it I go, “One of these days, pow! Pumpkin pieces scattered over a field.”
Build a trebuchet
Well, a bigger one. But I don’t have plans to scatter pumpkin parts over Delaware. I want to build one to fling foot in diameter snowballs. Why? Well, first off, why not? And secondly, several years ago I came up with an idea for a book, The Art of Snowfare, which would be a seriously, tongue-in-cheek approach to the tactics of snowball fighting. One chapter – at least – would be on snow forts. I’ll build several forts using various methods, and then pummel them with snowballs to test their effectiveness. To save my arm, it would be nice to have a machine that could fire off a dozen or so snowballs at a time in a shotgun fashion. Oh, as if all of your ideas are perfectly sane.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Dutchie” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Preston & Steve’s Camp Out For Hunger 2008,” “Your Gods are False,” “The Duh Age,” “Future Letters” and “Lessons from Buddy” in my Weekly Stories.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Now,my plans for the New Year. First, news some of you won’t like. I’m suspending my Weekly Stories, probably for the entire year. I will continue to write a story for my newsletter, and I’m going to do another 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge in June. The reason I’m suspending it is I will need the time. I have at least six writing projects and one website project I plan to work on this year. I’m hoping to transfer the time spent on my Weekly Stories to these projects.
What projects are so important?
Restructuring my website. When I started my website over two years ago, I did some things that made sense at the time. But since then my site has grown and a few things have become cumbersome. There will probably only be minor cosmetic changes to what you see, but it will clean up the messy inner workings I have to deal with. I hope to have everything done in a month or so.
I have several stories and novellas that are almost done or need revision. Some need major revisions but the others I like to revise every year or so. My writing gets better, so my stories should as well. Some of the revisions have bogged down, and as long as they sit on my desk they’re not being published. So I want to get the revisions done and send them back out.
As some of you know, I have an idea for a TV series (Never Surrender) set in my Human Republic Universe. To help me flesh out the universe, I’ve been writing short stories. These have been scattered all over the centuries – as the mood hits me. But I’ve decided to start working on the ideas chronologically. Part of the reason is it’s orderly, but also it should help me keep the events straight. I have started on the first story – “In the Blink of an Eye” – and I want to finish it and move on to others.
I have a couple of ideas for … I guess you could call them artsy student films. I think it would be practice for me to write screenplays for them, since I’ve never written one before.
I have the beginning of an idea for a short story set in the Firefly Universe. This will be an actual – good – story, not the typical fan fiction of a character suspiciously like the author who sweeps Inara off her feet while Mal and Jayne discover they have feelings for one another. The primary reason I want to write it comes from something I read several years ago. Some TV writer – when asked what advice he had for people wanting to get into writing for TV – said that if you can only write for one series, you should probably find something else to do. I think the reasoning was two-fold. If you only write Firefly episodes, when Firefly is cancelled, you’re out of luck. But also, if you write for comedies, dramas, action-adventures, whatever, it makes your writing more diverse and well-rounded. Better writing means better TV, usually. So I would like to write some stories set in my favorite shows, Firefly, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, etc., to stretch my writing muscles. Also, if I write a good Firefly story, maybe the Browncoats will give my other work a look.
As I write this, I’m six or seven chapters away from finishing Part II (of four) of my novel None of Them Knew the Color of the Sky. It’s taken me almost three years to finish half of it, so I’m not fooling myself into thinking I can finish it this year, but I would like to take a good chunk out of Part III.
Finally, my biggest project; a collection of my flash fiction A Man of Few Words.
Now, after reading all that, you may be asking why I don’t just pick one thing and stick to it. Well, I don’t work that way. I can work on one thing for a few days, but then I get ideas for my other works. It’s a battle between stick-to-itiveness and striking while the iron’s hot. I don’t know if there is a best way to walk between those two.
* * *
Now, for my Reader’s Choice. As I wrote last month, there was a three way tie for the story I finish. So I picked the story I had hoped would win, “The Return.” I’m running on empty right now, so I’ll write up my thoughts on the story later.
Hope you enjoy.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Senseless Violence” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “It Ain’t Over,” “Freedoms,” “Wandering Fingers” and “Coming With Forks” in my Weekly Stories.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Recently, I’ve been working on expanding my web presence. To help with this, I’ve made a new page collecting all of my web places. Check it out.
* * *
Drum roll please. The winner for my Reader’s Choice is...
VOTES TITLE 0 Check 0 The Most Powerful Man in the World 2 The Gift 2 The News 2 The Return
...? Well, now what? As it turns out, the story I was hoping would win, is one of the ones that recieved two votes. So, my thinking is that I will post it as a “surprise” gift for my readers. You won’t know which one it is, but it will be one of three instead of one of five.
* * *
Some time ago, I came up with the phrase “brick and steel leech” as a poetic description of a place of work. It’s not that I hate my job, but it feels like so much of my life is being sucked away by this ominous … thing. And recently at work we had things “shuffled” and I was moved to a new lab. I’m not complaining (as such) but I was comfortable where I was. I mean, I knew how to look busy and how to hide my mistakes. Now I have to relearn all of that.
Hope you enjoy.
Steverugged snow capped peaks
black and white glory – contrast
beige cubical wall
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering October 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Small Step,” “A Liter of Puppies,” “They Can’t ‘Win’” and “When Did That Happen?” in my Weekly Stories.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
I encourage everyone to vote … as part of my Reader’s Choice. Right now I have three stories tied for first place.
* * *
In the coming months I am planning on restructuring my website. One of the things I am working on adding (from a suggestion from a friend) is an alphabetical listing of all of my published stories. So instead of scrolling through my Published Works page with the paragraph blurbs for stories, you can scroll down just a list of stories with brief descriptions. Is it Scifi or political commentary? If it’s Scifi is it alien abduction or time travel?
Anyway, the first step in making such a page was to make an alphabetized listing of all my published stories and photo essays. (I didn’t count my poetry.) When I finished the list, I was shocked to find that I had 198 published stories. Way cool! That was last week. Since then I’ve published “When Did That Happen?” (199) and below you will find my 200th published story, which is actually a photo essay about my recent visit to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire.
Here’s to the next 200.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveFaire 2008
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering September 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Living Dangerously” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “So Little Time,” “Freelancers,” “Whiners,” “War Against Time,” “Flight Into History,” “The Grey Masses,” “Super M,” “The Honeymoon’s Over,” “Money Talks,” “At Peace,” “Collateral Damage,” “Bad Omens,” “Amongst Us,” “Falling,” “There are Some Things …” “Some Days,” “Explore the Future,” “What the Hell,” “Ben’s Time Carriage,” “The Few, I,” “The Few, II,” “The Few, III,” “Just Kill Me,” “The Greater the Risk,” “Number 25,” “Major Korton,” “Endorse This,” “Tickle, Tickle,” “Pissed Off,” and “Ticket to the Future” as part of my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Well, the big news in September was my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge, which I did manage to accomplish. I admit, there were a few that I rushed through, but come on, how many stories did you write in 30 days? Hmmm?
For the few of you that might care, over those 30 days I wrote almost 17,600 words, which is almost 590 words a day. Considering that in the first eight months of the year, I wrote on average about 170 words a day, that’s a big improvement. And I think I’m going to make this an annual thing, although I will do some things differently next year. For example, this year I took a few days off at the beginning of the month to give myself a good head start, but I should have also taken days off at the end of the month so I could catch up. There was a point – when I still had about a week to go – where I seriously considered stopping at 25 because I was so burned out and didn’t want to force myself to write more stories. Fortunately, that passed, but if I had had a few more days where I didn’t have to worry about work, it would have been far less stressful. And, I started this because I had so many story ideas that I never got around to writing. I made a list of them in a notebook and right now it stands at 178. Of those 178 ideas, I wrote sixteen of them during September (the other fourteen were fresh) so I have plenty more, but I think forcing myself to write 30 in 30 days is something I’ll only subject myself to once a year.
* * *
And now, for something different. As I was working on my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge, I came across several stories that I had started but never finished. Instead of trying to find one to sit down and finish, I decided to let you, my readers, vote for which story I should finish. If you go to my Reader’s Choice page, you can read through little blurbs for five stories and vote for one of them for me to finish.
* * *
I’m sad to say that I did not receive any entries for my 5 Word Challenge. But I’ll keep the same words up for the next Quarter. So if you had an idea for a story but never got around to writing it, you have three more months to write it.
* * *
I’ve finally gone kicking and screaming into the blogosphere and have gotten a blog, the Prince of Pithy.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering August 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “From the Past, to the Future” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “Good for the Goose” on my MySpace Blog.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Around the middle of the month I was stressed out with writing. I was working on a novel, I had started a novella, there was a novelette I needed to revise so I could send it out, I had Weekly Stories, book and movie reviews, essays …. It got to the point where I kept a list in my writing notebook of things I needed to write. Writing was no longer something I just did, it had become something I had to do, like a chore. While this would be distressing at any time, I was worried what that would do to my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge. So I decided I needed a break. I – temporarily – set aside my novel, novella, Weekly Stories, writing a story for the newsletter. I didn’t stop writing entirely, I just did some private writing. I also read, watched DVDs, vegged. It was something I needed to do. And it’s worked. I’ve spent the last couple of days chomping on the bit to start writing my stories. But I’ve sworn that I’ll wait until 12:01 AM September 1st, before I started typing up “So Little Time” which will be story number one. Only a few more hours …
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering July 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Declaration of Offense,” “Jump the Gun,” “Spoiler,” and “One Can Hope” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “For Appearance’s Sake” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Distant Fields” in AntipodeanSF.
Also, “Distant Fields” may be read on Beam Me Up, but I don’t know when that will air.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Be sure to check out my Reader’s Choice page to vote on which story (of the five I have listed) I will finish and post as my End of the Year present to all my loyal readers.
* * *
This has been a tough month: I’ve been sick, I’ve had car problems, there have been some personal things, etc. It was around the 24th that I remembered I didn’t have a story for this newsletter, and I added it to my list of things to do. I thought about cheating and just reusing my weekly story “Spoiler,” but that didn’t sit well with me. What also didn’t sit well with me was not doing a story, since I had done that last month. So, instead I’ve decided to do the littlest bit I can get away with, a haiku. Actually, the littlest bit I could do would be a six word story so I am putting in extra effort.
This just shows a fear I have of life getting in the way of my writing.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveToo busy to write
dealing with the crap of life
the writer just fades …
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Reprinting of “War Without End” and “History Will Forget” as part of my Patriotic Duty.
Publication of “Overwhelmed” and “Hand Me That Piano” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “A Successful Life” on my MySpace Blog.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Congratulations to Viengpasone Bounma of Somerset, NJ, winner of my Second Quarter 2008, 5 Word Challenge. To read his story, and get the words for the third quarter of 2008, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
Speaking of my 5 Word Challenge, I would like to remind people of that as well as my 6 Shooter challenge. The reason I bring them up is I’m doing something different this month: instead of me writing something for you to enjoy, I think it’s time you should write something for me.
I hope to see your stuff soon.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Reprinting of “If It’s Okay Now…” “Forgotten, but Forgiven?” “Walls,” and “The Yellow Staters” as part of my Patriotic Duty.
Publication of Four Haikus on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of a photo essay detailing my visit to the Wizard World Convention.
Publication of “Empty Calories for the Soul” on 10X10X10.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
This story started when I had some computer problems recently. For several days instead of immersing myself in the online world I had to deal with the boring, old, real world. One night while I was watching TV, I looked around and it was like I was seeing my apartment for the first time. It’s become such a constant background that I almost forget it; something you are so used to being there you don’t notice until it’s gone.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveThe Apartment
The apartment was your standard one-bedroom. About half of its square-footage was taken up by the living room, with the bedroom, bathroom and small kitchen splitting the rest. The apartment had been around the block – so to speak – and had seen many, varied tenants. There was the McJob stoner, the aspiring playwright, and the spoiled, sugar-daddy’s girl. All had left their marks, until the landlord painted over them.
The current occupant was no different. Like the others he had arrived bursting with energy. He poked into every corner and measured everything, although even he didn’t know why he bothered. Once all his furniture had been moved in he re-arranged everything at least three times. What if I swing my couch out and put that bookcase back there? What if I switch my TV and computer? If I switched my desk with the couch ….
After a few weeks things quieted down. The corners were no longer poked into and left to collect dust. The furniture didn’t move as if it was bolted to the floor. The honeymoon was over and the apartment and tenant settled into their life together.
There were a few bumps along the way, where one annoyed the other – lost toenail clippings embedded in the carpeting, the plenty of inconvenient shelf-space in the kitchen, nails driven into the walls, and “who puts a toilet paper holder there?” But there were also pleasant surprises, like his plants which meant there was always life in the apartment even when he was away and the closets that easily swallowed up all of his junk.
In time the apartment and tenant became like an old married couple. They spent their evenings watching TV and not speaking to each other, because there was no need to.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Reprinting of “And So It Begins,” “Candidate C,” “Vote With Your Fists,” and “Third Rail” as part of my Patriotic Duty.
Publication of “I’m Glad I Only Watched” on my MySpace Blog.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
This is based on something that happened one day when I was critiquing a story at my local coffee shop. The only real difference is that I didn’t have a store employee to tell my brilliant line to; I had to write it in my writing notebook.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveIt’s a Guy Thing
For reasons Dave could not entirely identify, he had trouble critiquing the work of his fellows in the writing group he belonged to while at home. It probably had to do with the easy distractions of TV and the internet. So the simple solution was to grab all the stories and head to his local coffee shop. He could enjoy a quiet cup of tea while the shop turned into a dusty arena of the ancient Olympiad or a recording studio in the 80s. He could chat with a Soviet spy in the 50s Air Force or some mutant creature taking over the world. Every visit was an adventure, although they usually stayed on the page. Then one day …
Dave arrived at the coffee shop to find that his usual out of the way table was occupied by two men – one young one old – who were quietly talking. He set his stuff down on the next most out of the way table, which was next to two women. Once Dave had purchased a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie, he sat down to let his tea seep and started reading about a writer who finds a pen with the spirit of a dragon residing within. He had trouble getting into the story because the two women turned out to be a mother and daughter who were arguing. He tried to ignore them, but as the minutes passed it became harder and harder as their voices rose higher and higher. Finally, Dave gave up on the dragon pen and listened while pretending to still be reading.
Apparently, the argument stemmed from an incident in the recent past. The daughter had some type of surgery. Dave didn’t hear what kind, but she obviously pulled through. While the daughter was in the hospital, the mother did not visit her. The reason apparently stemmed from some guy who, quoting the daughter, “Is part of my life now.” To this the mother replied, half-sobbing, “You have the right to be with whoever you want, but so do I.”
They went back and forth over this, repeatedly. At times the mother would say, “You need to realize that the things you say can hurt people.” To which the daughter replied, “I’m not trying to hurt you, but you hurt me by not visiting me in the hospital.”
Eventually, the daughter said, “Thanks for the coffee, mom,” and stood. She walked over to the two men at Dave’s usual table and hugged the older one. Apparently, he was her father and the younger one was … the guy that was part of her life now? They began to leave but the mother stopped them. They were further away and behind a display of coffee so Dave couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but apparently the mother assumed that when the daughter relayed the conversation to the man in her life now (if he was the younger guy he already heard it) she would cast the mother in the worst light, and that wasn’t fair. Dave couldn’t hear what the daughter said to that, but heard the mother exclaim several times, “I never said that.”
The two men stood by and watched; neither said a word. Since they were all standing before the door, the other patrons weaved around them to enter or leave the store.
After blocking everybody’s way for a few minutes, the daughter left followed by the other three. If the argument continued outside, Dave did not hear – or care. His tea had seeped long enough and he took the opportunity to fix it up with sugar and a dash of vanilla. One of the store employees also took the opportunity to wipe up the spills and restock everything. Just as Dave finished fixing his tea, he looked at the man and said, “You know, it’s times like this that I’m glad I’m an emotionally-crippled male.”
The man started to say something, then what Dave said registered. The man laughed and gave Dave a thumbs up. “Right on, brother.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “A Bill by Any Other Name,” “Parallel Opinions II,” “Jonathan Davies’ Stand on the Issues: Iran,” and “Jonathan Davies’ Stand on the Issues: Economy” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “Musing” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Beetis,” on my eWhore page as my online marquee madness for the Preston & Steve show.
The acceptance of “Distant Fields” by AntipodeanSF. It will be published in July.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
I’m sad to say that I did not receive any entries for my 5 Word Challenge. But I’ll keep the same words up for the next Quarter. So if you had an idea for a story but never got around to writing it, you have three more months to write it.
* * *
Announcing My Patriotic Duty. My Weekly Stories are usually inspired by the events of the week, but they’ve also served as my way to vent on certain issues. On occasion, I’ve missed a week due to illness, special events, or I just couldn’t think of a story. But this month I started thinking that I needed a vacation – say a month – from writing my weekly stories. Now, the time I would have spent writing these stories will be spent on my novel … at least, that’s the plan. Considering how bad I feel when I miss one week, how would I feel if I missed an entire month?
That’s when I had an idea. In the past couple years I’ve written numerous stories about politics in general or certain political issues. Instead of just leaving a month blank, I would reprint my best political stories as a lead up to all the political stories I’ll be writing this fall during the “real” campaign. So I started through my files to find my four best stories and I quickly came up with twelve before I stopped looking. These I narrowed down to ten and after twisting my own arm I accepted a two-and-a-half month vacation, instead of just a mere one month vacation.
So for the next ten weeks I’ll be putting up revised (see, it won’t all be fun and games) versions of what I consider my ten stories that speak the most on the Election ‘08. I feel it is My Patriotic Duty to bring these ideas to the attention of the voting public, hence my calling this scheme My Patriotic Duty. Plus, it sounds better then, “I’m taking a ten week vacation.”
* * *
This story came about because lately I’ve been counting my novels before I’ve written them. I need to stop that. But this might say a bit too much about me. If the premise of Damocles sounds interesting, good, because I’m planning on that being my second novel (once I finish my first one.) Also, what I wrote about the alternate history moon mission story being an empty stage looking for a plot is true, but as to the vampire in Henry VIII’s court, I just pulled that out of thin air for this story.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveQuestions
After seven years of hard work, hundreds of dollars spent on postage and thirty-four rejections, David’s novel Damocles was finally being published. But before he could sit back and wait for the royalty checks to come in, he had more work to do. After debating whether to hire someone to design his website or make it himself, David decided to be cheap. While it wouldn’t be as elegant or flashy as a professionally made site, his would just be simple and basic. He felt that better fit his writing style and wallet.
But what to put on the site? He already had a blurb for Damocles:
Comets can create awe as they blaze across the sky like fiery swords. But they can also cause fear.
A group of friends in Hawaii for a wedding wake one morning to learn that a small piece of a broken up comet will impact the Western Pacific in a matter of days; and there is nothing humanity can do about it. The tsunami caused by the impact will devastate the entire Pacific. Will there be enough time for everyone to flee the doomed, tropical paradise of Hawaii?
But a website needed more than two short paragraphs and a link to buy the book. His agent – who had been extremely helpful throughout the whole process – emailed him a list of questions that David could answer, to give his fans something more than a just a brief author’s bio.
At first David resisted because of bad memories of all those painfully boring school essays of, “How I spent my summer vacation.” David had always wanted to be honest and write; I stayed up late watching TV, slept in, played video games; basically enjoying the whole “Not going to school” thing, but suspected that wouldn’t go over very well. Thinking about those essays full of imagined camping trips and death defying water balloon fights, David realized they were his first pieces of fiction. Laughing, he asked himself, “Isn’t that one of the questions?” Digging out his agent’s email he saw that the second question was indeed, “What was the first piece of fiction you wrote?”
“Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,” he said, hoping he would believe himself.
Grabbing a beer he sat down before his computer and opened a blank word document. “Question One,” he read aloud, “Why do you write science fiction?”
David took a swig of beer and speaking as he typed wrote, “Because I’d suck writing romance.”
After a few seconds he highlighted and deleted that. “Why do I write science fiction?”
After some thought, he began typing:
Why do I write science fiction? Because I enjoy it. Duh. It’s hard to say why I enjoy it so much, it’s like why you like some Brand X over Brand Y; you just do. And you’ve liked it for so long that, it’s now who you are and you’re not going to change for nothing or nobody. But if I had to give one reason why I enjoy and write science fiction, it would probably be that I’m a bit of a smartass. What does that have to do with science fiction? Well, my smartassyness takes the form of asking questions. The kind of questions that make me uncomfortable – and probably unwelcomed – in religious and political institutions. “How can a just, loving, supreme being give equal punishment to Hitler and Gandhi?” “If half the country is Republican and half is Democratic, wouldn’t it be fairer and more representative if we had two co-Presidents, one Republican and one Democrat?” And asking questions is the key to writing science fiction. If a comet was going to strike the Western Pacific in a matter of days, what would happen to the people in Hawaii? Sounds interesting. Somebody ought to write a book about that. [Insert link to buy Damo and one of those smiley facey thingies.] A few years ago I read that in late ‘63, the Soviets knew they couldn’t beat the US to the moon so they were thinking of suggesting a joint US-Soviet moon mission. I’m sure it was mostly for good propaganda, “The US wants a competition, but we want cooperation.” But then Kennedy was assassinated and they never went through with it. What if they had, maybe a few weeks before Kennedy’s death? What world would we be living in now? (In case you’re wondering, that’s an empty stage for a story I’m trying to find a plot for.) True, asking questions does come up in other genres. What would a minor servant see as they went about their chores in the castle of Henry VIII? For some people that would be interesting, but I would find that rather bland. What if that minor servant was a vampire? Now that might be interesting.
David stopped. “The reason I write science fiction is that I’m a smartass and I ramble?” Reading back over what he had written, he said, “Eh, I could probably polish that up into something useful.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Hallelujah,” “Happy Darwin Day,” “The Mongoose Sleeps in Pajama Bottoms,” and “Jonathan Davies’ Stand on the Issues: Immigration” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “Fun Ways to be Fired” on my MySpace Blog.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
I just want to remind everyone that my 5 Word Challenge is again open. Check out the words and show me what you can do.
* * *
I cheated this month. I usually write something new each month, but I wrote this about five years ago – a couple of you even read this. It all started some years earlier when I sat down and asked myself what I really wanted out of life. I decided what I really wanted was to have enough money so that I could be eccentric, instead of just weird. One of the eccentric things I want to do is to build a trebuchet. Part of the reason is because I think it would be cool, but I also have plans to use it to fling giant snowballs. But using a treb to fling giant snowballs wouldn’t just be for fun, oh no, I also have an idea for a book, The Art of Snowfare, which would cover the tactics of snowball fighting. The use of trebs and other siege craft would be in a special section. But that lead to this story. Be sure to check the author’s note at the end.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveMy Dream Life
September 7, 2016
1927 HoursAs Karen entered my study she asked, “What are you doing? You’ve been in here all day.”
Not looking up from my desk I replied, “Working out my design for a trebuchet.”
She kissed me on my cheek. “A what?”
Turning around I explained, “I think they started in China, but they were a big medieval siege craft. Apparently Edward the First – Longshanks from Braveheart – had a giant one called War Wolf that he used in one of his invasions of Scotland. Basically trebs fired boulders of a couple hundred pounds at castles.” I smiled and pinched my thumb and forefinger together, “But I’m only building a small one.”
“Is it some kind of catapult?”
“No, it’s,” I pointed at my scribbled design, “you have a frame, and at the top there’s an arm on an axis. You put weights on one end of the arm, and then you winch the light end down, lock it, and somehow hook on a sling that holds the projectile. When you release it, the weighted end falls, the light end flies up, and the projectile is flung around and sent flying.”
“Cool.” Pause. “Why are you building one?”
With a large toothy grin I replied, “I have plans for this winter.”
She just rolled her eyes and left.
September 24, 2016
0213 Hours“Wakey-wakey.”
Karen slowly opened an eye. “Hrumph?”
“The treb’s finished.”
She grabbed my shirt and pulled me towards her. “If I was awake, I would kill you.”
As I left our bedroom I told her over my shoulder, “You’re no fun anymore.”
November 1, 2016
0015 Hours“Safety’s on,” I said as I locked down the arm. “Load it.”
Karen eased Jack into the launching sling. He just sat there with his wide eyes and crooked teeth.
“Ready?” I look at the assembled lunatics who all raised their drinks in reply.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, two, three, four . . .”
“Fire the damn thing already.”
I pulled the firing rope unlocking the arm. The heavy end fell, and Jack went flying up into the night sky.
We all stared into the blackness for several seconds. A loud KA-THUMP pinpointed where Jack impacted; out about two hundred feet. The morning light would reveal pumpkin pieces scattered over several square yards.
Amidst the spectator’s laughter, someone declared, “Dude, you’re fucking nuts.”
“Hey,” I replied, “I may be crazy but I’m also insane.”
December 13, 2016
1240 HoursI glanced above the top of my fort and spy the enemy. Jumping down I ensured the rip line was secure and would not get tangled; I had already locked the treb into firing position. Carefully, I placed the foot-in-diameter canister snowball in the launching sling.
I looked back at the unsuspecting enemy and pulled the firing rope. The snowball went flying with its rip line trailing.
Even at their distance of a hundred yards, I heard shouts of, “Fuck,” coming from the enemy camp. What else could they say as a giant snowball comes hurtling at them out of the sky? Just before it reached its maximum height, the rip line became taunt and tore out of the snowball. The shock disrupted the canister so it disintegrated into its components: a dozen regular sized snowballs. They slowly spread out and struck the enemy fort in an oval pattern ten feet by five feet.
“What the fuck was that?”
To reply, I reset the treb and loaded another canister snowball. “Have another look,” I yelled as I fired the second shot.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Now, why did I bring this out for this month? T-Bone.
This was a test of concept, to see if I could build a mini-treb. I did run into a few structural problems (hence the zip strips) but it did succeed in flinging my projectile (the pictured tape bone,
I have learned a great deal from T-Bone, and am using that in my plans for a bigger model I’m calling T-Zero. I’m not in a big hurry to build it though, at least until I have the space to fire it off. (I don’t think I’ll be doing that in my apartment anymore.) I’ll keep you posted, and if you check out YouTube, you see that I’m not the only weirdo out there: clip 1, clip 2, clip 3, and clip 4. At least I am not this crazy.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2008.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Hat in the Ring,” “Gladiators,” “Impacts,” “Makes You Wonder,” and “Always With Us” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “A Start” on my MySpace Blog.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Except for bumping into the woman at the end, this happened to me recently and I thought it was rather funny.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveCat and Mouse
As Mike walked down the main aisle at his local bookstore, he passed behind a woman leaning against a shelf looking at a book. He took a few more steps and turned to his left, stopping on the other side of the shelf from her. From her stance, and the length, color, and style of her hair, Mike was pretty sure she was his ex-girlfriend Sarah. Given that their breakup three months before had not been amicable, Mike could not confirm her identity by saying, “Hey Sarah,” and having the woman turn around. But he could not just ignore her. There was a book he wanted to buy, but he had planned on browsing for awhile. If the woman was Sarah he would just avoid her by coming back to browse later.
Mike walked down the side aisle he was in now and peeked around the far end of the shelf. But in the few seconds it had taken for him to walk there, the woman had finished looking at the book, returned it to the shelf, and had turned. Mike once again only saw her back. He clenched his fist and hit his thigh. That’s just what she would have done, he said to himself. For months they had fought a brutal, passive-aggressive war which was a key reason why they broke up.
Mike turned around but stopped and asked himself, Why am I doing this? Is it so important to determine if that is Sarah? Could it possibly mean he still had feelings for … he couldn’t even finish the thought. The last few weeks of their relationship had destroyed any possibility of that. Then what was it? Just one more point in their silent war? The simple thrill of the hunter stalking his prey?
After a few seconds Mike just shrugged, figuring whatever the reason it was a fun way to kill a minute or two. With that settled, Mike stepped around the book shelf and nearly walked right into the woman. Fortunately, she wasn’t Sarah.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Our Father, Who Art in Our Wallets” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “The Truth Points to Itself,” “A Stream of Subtle Spectres,” “I’ll Vote What He’s Voting,” “Worth Fighting For?” and “Impossible Mission” in my Weekly Stories.To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Last summer I suspended my 5 Word Challenge, which is where I give you five words and you write a short (<150 word) story using all five words. I suspended it because I was getting too few submissions. But I’m bringing it back. The only change I’ve made is that instead of running it every month, I’ve switched it over to quarterly. Hopefully, if people have three months to write something I’ll get more submissions. Anyway, go to my Five Word Challenge page to see the words for the first quarter of 2008, and enjoy.
* * *
During 2007, I wrote just over 65,000 words. Which isn’t that bad, it works out to just over 178 words a day, but during 2006 I wrote over 71,000 and I had been aiming for 80,000 in 2007. My biggest reason for not reaching my goal is I spent a lot of time slacking. So my writing resolution for 2008 is to slack less and actually write 80,000 or more words. Wish me luck.
* * *
I think the following story pretty much explains itself.
Hope you enjoy.
Steve2007
A man sat at his desk and thought back over the past year. After receiving a year-end wrap up email from a one of his friends, he decided to do the same. But he wanted to do something different, so he thought he would write it as a poem. So the man started throwing around lines like, “365 days full of / the good and the bad / the high and the low.…” In a few minutes he had dozens of such lines. “A few stories accepted and many rejected … friends re-found and friends lost … trips and stays at home.” He quickly realized that a never ending poem of “I did this and I did that,” would really annoy his friends. After a few minutes contemplation, he decided he should try for something better.
So the man sat back and tried to think what the biggest event of 2007 was for him. Was it something flashy like his trip to Hawaii? Something inspirational like the acceptance of one of his stories? Or something depressing like the months of torturous debate on whether to ask a certain woman out? After a great deal of thought the man realized that the event that influenced him the most in 2007 would have to be the return of the Master to Doctor Who. (Vote Saxon!)
Ever since that kind stranger had uploaded “The Sound of Drums” to YouTube – so the man was able to watch it some three months before it was broadcasted in the US – he had been drumming out the four beat da-da-da-da of the never-ending drumbeat. (This is a longish clip from “The Sound of Drums” but there is an explanation about three minutes in.) At home, at work, even at his friend’s wedding the man had tapped out the da-da-da-da on tables, walls, even his own skull. He never counted, but he figured he did it a few dozen times a day.
Thinking about it, the man decided to watch “The Sound of Drums” again, but unfortunately he couldn’t find it on YouTube. He found hundreds of fanvids which the man couldn’t care less about because he wanted to see the episode. He also found numerous clips of the “Here come the drums,” bit, which the man did enjoy, (“So, earthlings. Basically … um ... end of the world.”) but what he really wanted to see was the Master’s little speech at the end of the episode. (“And so it came to pass that the human race fell, and the Earth was no more ….”) After spending way too much time on the search, the man finally found a clip with both.
For a split second the man wondered if this was his favorite bad guy speech, but he quickly remembered Mister Sebastian’s speech at the end of “Comes the Inquisitor,” (“The city was drowning in decay … chaos … immorality. A message needed to be sent, etched in blood for all the world to see. A warning ….”) But then the man started wondering if Mister Sebastian was really a bad guy. Yes, he was a bad guy, (“…In the pursuit of my, holy cause, I … did things. Terrible things. Unspeakable things. The world condemned me, but it didn’t matter. Because I believed I was right and the world was wrong ….”) but after “four hundred years of penance” was he still bad? A little philosophical problem to ponder. So the man looked on YouTube but was disappointed the he could not find that scene. He could find just about everything else from that episode, but not the ending. There was the “The Vorlons are” scene which the man really loved. As a writer he found certain words and phrases very interesting. “The Vorlons are” is grammatically incorrect, but that incorrectness gives the scene power. The man also found the “Who are you?” scene which had haunted him for years. But now he thinks he has a passable answer. Then there’s Delenn’s powerful “Then the world is wrong!” and “This is my cause!” scenes. The latter always bugged the man because Sheridan gets off so easily.
By now the man had forgotten why he originally went to YouTube, so he started watching some old favorites. From Fury of the Time Lord (the man still thinks what the Doctor did to the little girl is creepy) to the trailer for Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning” to the opening credits of Firefly to what he considered the best Star Trek opening of all, that of mirror Enterprise.
Along the way he found some new gems. Such as the Battle of the Line and the “Leave the cradle for the last time” speeches, both of which always sent a chill down the man’s back. He also found the last five minutes of “Sleeping in Light”, which the man considered the best series finale he had ever seen. The man was also thrilled to find the Torchwood series 2 trailer.
And of course, what trip to YouTube would be complete without a few videos of his current favorite band. (“Wie Weit”, “Harmageddon”, and “I’m Not Jesus.”)
Eventually, the man left YouTube and tried to get back into his year-end poem. In the end he decided to scrap the poem and just write a little story for his friends of his attempt at writing the poem, since really, it’s the thought that counts. But as the man wrote his story, he realized that it did represent 2007 pretty well. Both started out with such promise before starting to ramble.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of an haiku by Scifaikuest.
Publication of “Good Samaritan” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Beauty and Wonder,” and “Bland New World” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “The Witch of Duh,” on my eWhore page as my online marquee madness for the Preston & Steve show.
Publication of “Wordwrights Holiday Dinner II,” a photo essay about the holiday dinner of one of my writing groups.
Publication of “Steve’s Hawaiian Odyssey, The Wedding.”To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Speaking of the photo essays I wrote this past month, I hope you enjoy them. Instead of a story I wrote a little photo essay about my drive home for Thanksgiving. Speaking of home, I also added a couple photos to my bio page, which you might want to check out.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveDriving Home
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering October 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “The Kingdom of Beer,” in Written Word.
Publication of “Of Course,” in AntipodeanSF.
Publication of “Five Minute Fall Break” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Fliered Up II,” “Pull of a Trigger,” and “Buying Time,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
This story began one morning when I was having a dream best described as a combination of Stargate SG-1 and Dice Wars. Trust me, in the dream world, it works! When I woke up, I tried to remember what I thought was an interesting aspect of the dream which I thought would make a good story, but I couldn’t fully grasp it. And I realized that I can’t just enjoy my dreams, I have to take notes.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveCurse
The intrepid band of heroes was not dismayed. Although their first strike at The Great Darkness had failed, they still had a few tricks up their sleeves. The elf who looked like Rachel from accounting drew her sword and said …
A loud buzz covered her words. At first Fred thought they were under attack, but then he realized it was his alarm clock. With a groan, he reached over and hit the snooze button.
“Sorry guys,” Fred told the band. “I have to get going.”
“Who will lead us?” the elf – now human – who looked like Rachel asked.
“Didn’t you have a sword?” She looked at her empty hand, but Fred just said, “It doesn’t matter.”
Turning from the group Fred asked himself, “Where were we? We had just crossed the flaming desert, so the next obstacle would probably be water related. Hmm, maybe even ice.”
Facing the group Fred asked, “How many of you are there?” As he counted the group he stopped at his college roommate Tom. “Weren’t you killed by an ogre?”
Tom shrugged. “Was I?”
“I can’t remember.”Before Fred could figure out who was in the band, his alarm went off again. Slowly, Fred sat on the side of his bed and turned the clock off. After a few seconds, he lifted the clock and held it in the palm of his hand like Yorick’s skull. “You vile little herald,” he told it. “You’re cry has destroyed my kingdom.”
Setting it back on the stand, he sat with his head in his hands. For the next minute he tried to force the vague threads of his dream into some coherent pattern. In the end, he gave up. “That’s the curse of being a writer,” he said standing up. “I can’t just dream, I have to make a novel out of them.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering September 2007.
I’m sorry this is late, but I was having computer issues. Those have now been resolved, so I’m now back in business. If my computer had been working at the end of last month, this is what you would have gotten.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “If They Only Knew” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “The Future?” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “You Will Pee,” “No Substitute,” “ENOUGH!” “Gay Tehran,” and “Beep,” in my Weekly Stories.
The acceptance of my story “Empty Calories for the Soul” by 10X10X10. It will be published ... sometime.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
The reason I made September 14th Lummox Day was because that was the day I came up with the idea for the story. As I left work I realized I didn’t have the compulsion I’ve had for months of getting to my car and the AC. Instead of the usual “hot enough to fry an egg,” the temperature was very comfortable. And I wondered, Does it mean summer’s over when I no longer rush for the AC? That seems a better indicator to the change of seasons than a groundhog seeing his shadow. Once the idea was there, the story pretty much wrote itself.
I borrowed the term Lummox from Ren and Stimpy.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveLummox Day
The field reporter smiled and raised his microphone. “Thank you, Carol. I’m standing this sunny Lummox Day morning on the natural habitat of the lummox – the suburbs. At this his cameraman gave a quick pan around to show nearly identical houses with well kept lawns. During this the reporter had continued, “Here we are moments away from seeing this beautiful transition of summer into fall.”
The pan ended and the camera returned to the reporter. “For those unfamiliar with the Lummox Day tradition, every September 14th, the Lummox will stick its head out of its dwelling. If he sweats, he will rush back inside to the comfort of the air conditioning, and we will know that summer is not yet over. But if he doesn’t sweat, he will fully emerge signaling we shall have an early fall.”
The reporter turned around and said, “Let us watch.” The camera zoomed in on the backdoor of the nearest house and for several seconds, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the door opened a crack and the balding head of a middle-aged man poked out. He looked to the left, then to the right, then up to the sky. Apparently, not seeing anything wrong, the door opened fully and the man stood on his doorstep. He wore a faded NASCAR T-shirt that barely hid his belly and shorts showing his untanned legs.
The reporter whispered his commentary. “So far, so good. The lummox is standing outside, but the all important sweat test remains.”
The man once again looked to the left, then the right, then up. Still seeing nothing amiss the man took a deep breath and ran his palm across his forehead. Holding his hand in front of his face, he studied it.
“This is it,” the reporter whispered. “Will he like what he sees?”
Shrugging, the man wiped his palm on his shorts. Closing the door behind him, he started walking across his yard.
“The Lummox didn’t sweat,” the reporter nearly shouted. “He hasn’t retreated to the comfort of the AC meaning we will have an early fall. Sad news to those who wanted to get a few more cookouts in, but good news for those tired of paying summer electric bills.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering August 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Easy?” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “No Hurry,” “Downhill,” “It Ain’t Pretty,” and “Happy to be Wrong,” in my Weekly Stories.
Publication of “Steve’s Hawaiian Odyssey, Part 2.”
The acceptance of an haiku by Scifaikuest. It will be published in the November print edition.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
I think everyone wants a place where they “fit” in. But over the years I’ve come to the realization that there may not be a place “in this world,” where I “fit.” My tastes, beliefs, ideas, experiences, are all too iconoclastic. This led to many arguments with an ex-girlfriend who seemed to feel my stubborn refusal to be “like everyone else,” was a result of a chemical imbalance. She would not accept that I was perfectly normal – it’s all you people that are the weirdoes.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveNot My World
As Elizabeth walked her Chihuahua Robbie past the college campus, she saw a very tall young man sitting on a bench with his head in his hands. Always one to help, she stopped and asked, “Excuse me, is everything alright?”
The man looked up at her with deep blue eyes and after a pause stated, “This is not my world.” He then put his head back in his hands.
Elizabeth looked once more at his long legs and arms and asked, “Are you Martian?”
Nodding, the man gave a muffled replied of, “Yeah.”
Waving at the bench, Elizabeth asked, “Do you mind?”
Glancing at her the man said, “No.” He then moved over giving her far more space than she needed. As she sat down Robbie huddled under the bench and stared out at the city.
“I’m Elizabeth, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand.
The man paused for a second, then took it. “I’m Jaydek,” he said.
“Jaydek? I’ve never heard that name before.”
“It’s something my parents made up. They figured a new world needed new names.”
Elizabeth nodded her head and began rubbing her knee. After a few seconds she announced, “I can’t wait until next week.” She quickly explained, “They’re growing me a new knee. Hopefully, it will stay arthritis free.”
Still rubbing her knee, Elizabeth asked, “So, what’s a Martian doing here on Earth?”
Pointing over his shoulder Jaydek explained, “College. It’s my parent’s alma mater. They wanted me to have some experience of Earth.”
“It must be rough for you. How well have you adapted.”
Jaydek winced slightly. “The sun’s too bright, it’s too hot, the air’s too thick, and on humid days it feels … it feels like I’m drowning. It makes me appreciate my parents all the more; giving up everything they knew to colonize an alien world.”
Elizabeth smiled. “My second husband and I honeymooned on the moon, at the Mare Fecunditatis Resort. We enjoyed it, but we were only there for a week. Being someplace different for a week can be fun, but being in a strange place for …?”
“Eight months,” Jaydek supplied.
“Eight months. That’s a long time to be somewhere alien.”
“Yeah.”
“You must be homesick.”
Jaydek shrugged. “I don’t think that’s everything. It feels … it feels like everything I’ve known has been taken from me, leaving me … nowhere. A girl I dated for a short time could not understand why, when there’s a whole planet here and the rest of the galaxy, I wanted to just return home.”
“It’s home,” Elizabeth explained.
Chuckling, Jaydek continued, “Well, she couldn’t understand that. But that’s not all. During my boring lectures, I find I daydream about laying out on the red sand, comfortably cold, with only the hiss of my air regulator and the gentle throbbing of the heating elements. And I’m just gazing up, watching Phobos zoom out of the western horizon and look as if it is going to collide head-on with Demos, slugging its way up out of the east.”
“Was that your favorite thing to do as a child?”
Jaydek frowned. “It was something I did a few times, but I never thought it was all that special.”
Elizabeth smiled and nodded. “When my first husband and I were dating, he would take me on picnics to the local park. There were always bugs, or screaming kids, or I would end up sun burned, but when I think back to those picnics, that’s not what I remember. I just remember how much fun they were, and how much in love we were.”
Turning to her, Jaydek seemed to look at her for the first time. “What happened to him?”
“He died, in the war. He wasn’t a soldier, he was a civilian pilot flying supplies into a refugee camp. One of the local warlords didn’t like that and shot him down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth waved her hand, “that was before you were even born.”
For several moments they sat in silence, Jaydek looking at his feet and Elizabeth thinking of Thomas, her first husband.
“Well,” Elizabeth finally said, “I don’t know if this will help you, but here’s some advice my father gave me that has usually helped: ‘Make the most of where you are; because that’s where you are.’”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering July 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Candidate C” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “The Geek Maneuver” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Steve’s Hawaiian Odyssey,” “$100,” “Potter ‘07,” and “Fliered Up,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
My boss isn’t in Europe (damn!) but the work I was doing involved me working for ten or fifteen minutes setting up a test and then sitting back for ten or fifteen minutes while the test ran. I tried to do some writing during these brief “free” times, but I couldn’t seem to get motivated. So I sat there staring at a blank page knowing I should be writing something. “Blank” is what – eventually – came up.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveBlank
Tapping his pen on his desktop, Fred gazed at the blank page before him. When he had learned his boss was going to be out for a week (at a conference in Europe) Fred had fought hard to contain his glee. His normal workday consisted of about three hours of work and five hours of looking busy. But with nobody to look busy for, he now had twenty-five hours of prime writing time. The only problem: he did not know what to write.
Ethereal plots galloped through his mind, but he could not lead any of them to the page. There were so many topics he felt compelled to write about – politics, religion, war, nature, humanity – that he could not focus on one long enough to get a story without all the others getting in the way.
In what Fred knew would be an almost vain attempt to clear his mind, he got up from his desk and went to the office library. There, in addition to the outdated manuals and unread industry magazines, were a couple local papers and The Wall Street Journal.
He read through the papers looking for articles of interests: political scandals, the latest scientific discoveries, comics. But as Fred put the last newspaper back all he had achieved was a few chuckles and the premeditated murder of twenty minutes. That gave him an idea.
Rushing back to his cubical, Fred tried to force together the plot for a story where it was a crime to kill time. But try as he might, he could not get anything together. He would take one or two steps with an idea then run into a brick wall with “Done to Death” inscribed in it. Turning to the side he would take one or two more steps and run into another brick wall, this one labeled with “Now, that’s just lame.”
After half-an-hour of smacking into brick walls and not getting anywhere with a plot, Fred finally just wrote, “A story where killing time is a capital offense. Exact details to be worked out later.”
#
After lunch Fred finished the last bit of work he planned to do that day, and reopened his writing notebook. Leaving the scattered half-thoughts on the killing time story to ferment, he tried to think of something else to write. A couple of minutes later, he had an idea – he went and made a cup of tea.
Returning to his desk Fred decided he would try a writing exercise. He could not remember if he had read about it in a magazine or one of those “How to write” books by famous authors. The idea was to “write, don’t think,” and just fill a page up with writing and not worry if there is a plot or point or correct spelling or punctuation or anything. The point was to fill a page with writing. So Fred tried that and soon had two pages filled with variations of, “I don’t know what to write,” “I’m glad my boss isn’t here,” and, “This is good tea.”
After reading through what he had written, Fred closed his notebook and decided to spend the rest of the day surfing the net. There was still the rest of the week, and there would always be more blank pages.
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Dad” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Damned” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Decisions, Decisions,” “We’re Doomed,” “And so it Begins,” and “The Poor Deluded Fool,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Unfortunately, there was no winner for my June 5 Word Challenge. The reason for this is because I received no entries. But instead of trudging on, I’ve decided to suspend my Five Word Challenge. I’m not doing away with it entirely; I’m just going to wait until I get a little more traffic flow to my website. So don’t worry, it will be back.
* * *
Vote for my best story for the first half of 2007. Click here for the ballot.
* * *
I’m not big on recognized holidays. As I see it, they no longer have meaning. The Fourth of July is now an excuse to get drunk and blow something up. Thanksgiving and Christmas are days when we can say, “See, our society isn’t so bad. We made sure the homeless got a hot meal.” So starting in college I started celebrating my own holidays. I only have a few. There’s Writing Day when I focus on my writing (Duh!), Published Day (see “Happy Anniversary”), Blessed Lunatics Day which is complicated and personal, and another personal day I don’t have a name for, but it is really easy for me to remember because it also happens to be Judgement Day, August 29.
While I have my own June 13th, it was only a day to … I didn’t dread it but I didn’t look forward to it. That is, until I was writing this story and realized I should make it a holiday as well, to celebrate the women who have changed my life.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveUnhappy Anniversary
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Instead of a blaring alarm clock, it was sunlight streaming through the blinds that woke Michael Jones. He got out of bed over an hour later than usual, but it did not matter for he had taken the day off. It was his anniversary.
He read through his email over a bowl of cold cereal. Once he finished he took last night’s movie out of the DVD player and sealed it in its envelope. On the way to the mailbox he considered his luck in timing: the morning chill was gone but the afternoon heat had not yet
Back inside his apartment, he put the next movie in the player and popped some popcorn. The movie was not that great, but Michael was curious enough about a few aspects that he left it in so he could watch the commentary later.
About 12:30, he left for lunch at a great pizza place about half-an-hour away. It was usually too much of a bother with traffic to go there often, so he saved it for special occasions.
He ordered two slices of extra pepperoni, and sat alone at a table and watched people walk by outside. As he ate his pizza, Michael thought of Laurie Reading, Mary Boen, Debra Jordan, and a few others. Laurie was the first woman he had ever loved. He had dated a few girls in high school, but they were just for fun, nothing serious. But when he met Laurie his first week at college, there was just something about her he could not explain.
If she had been single, he would have immediately asked her out, thinking little more of it than the girls in high school. But she had a boyfriend – Bob – so he became her friend, hoping someday Bob would screw up and he could move in.
At first it was only a calculated move to get close to a woman he found interesting, but as the weeks turned into months they became best friends and Michael realized he was in love with her. Despite his tough guy persona, Michael was amazed at how wonderful it felt to be in love. He also had not realized how painful it could be, since Bob was still in the picture. For that first year he bounced between the joy of spending time with her as a friend and the despair of only being able to spend time with as a friend. Then Bob cheated.
Michael spent hours holding Laurie letting her cry on his shoulder and feeling like an ass knowing this was what he had been waiting for; seeing the woman he loved hurting and reduced to tears. He did not want to be a bigger ass by hitting on a crying woman, and since there were only a couple weeks until the end of the semester, he decided to give her the summer to get over Bob before asking her out in the fall.
The plan went great, until June 12th. That was when Michael got an email from her saying that a guy where she was working for the summer had asked her out. Not wanting to go through another boyfriend, Michael sent a long, rambling email telling Laurie how he felt.
The next day, on the forty-seventh time he checked his email, he received a reply. This was the moment he had been waiting for almost a year for, but it still took five minutes to work himself up to read it. It was several pages long, but all it said was, “Let’s be friends.”
For the rest of the summer they exchanged a few emails: about work, or mutual friends, or other mundane matters. But they never discussed those two emails. It was as if each concluded it was best to just pretend they never happened. They were still friends the next year, but there did seem to be an awkward elephant in the room. A year later Laurie transferred to a different college to be with her new boyfriend, and the emails became fewer and fewer. Michael had not talked to her in years.
While Laurie was the first woman he had loved and the first one to really break his heart, she was not alone. For many years he celebrated June 13th as a collective Stupid Bitch Day, a day he allowed himself to be angry with all the women who had rejected him and to think vile thoughts about them. But as he matured he realized the truth that you can’t force someone to love you; it’s either there or it isn’t. Heartache is in inescapable aspect of life, like death and taxes. So June 13th became a day, not for anger but for acknowledging the women who – for good or ill – had changed his life by saying “No.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “After Their Kind” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Tagged” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “War Without End,” “I Don’t Like Spam!” “Ein Volk,” and “The Least We Could Do,” in my Weekly Stories.
The publication of “What is Fate?” by Brilliant! You can read it on their website, or you can download a free PDF file of Issue Two of Brilliant Quarterly, or buy a copy at the low price of $8.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Unfortunately, there was no winner for my May 5 Word Challenge. The reason for this is because I received no entries. But I trudge on. To get the words for June, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
This started with next month. I had already started writing my June newsletter story, “Unhappy Anniversary,” when I realized I had forgotten the anniversary of me receiving the letter stating that “What Kind of Bliss is Ignorance?” would be published. Let me rephrase that. I did not forget it, I remembered it 364 days early.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveHappy Anniversary
It was a random, everyday chain of thoughts – from A to Q to G – that made Allen Barbiero sit up straight in his cubical and mutter, “Today’s my anniversary.” Laughing, he wiped imaginary sweat from his brow and said, “I guess I dodged a bullet there.” He returned to work, but for the rest of the afternoon he was beset with the occasional bout of chuckling.
#
After work, instead of heading home for mac and cheese, Allen stopped at his local sub shop and treated himself to a foot-long Italian. As he sat savoring the sub and munching on chips, he let his mind wander over the joy of that day four years before when he received that long-awaited letter and the ups and downs since then. And he wondered where he would be in four years time.
#
When he finally reached home, Allen quickly shed his work clothes and changed into an old T-shirt and shorts. He did not have any wine and had not thought to buy a bottle, so he grabbed a beer instead. With some Vivaldi turned on low, he went to one of his bookcases. His fingers ran along the names of Poe, Hemingway, Tolstoy, and many others. They stopped on the spine of a small, digest sized magazine no longer in publication. Pulling it from the shelf Allen was once more dismayed at the bland cover.
Sitting down on his couch he opened the magazine to the page marked with a ragged post-it note and began reading. It felt good reading the short story, even though he knew by heart. When he was in college he had several stories published in the college lit magazine, but this was his first professionally published work.
Once he finished the story, he took a sip of beer and said, “Happy Anniversary to me.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Enslavement” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Loss” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “To Club, or Not to Club,” “Rude,” and “Third Rail,” in my Weekly Stories.
The acceptance of “Of Course” by AntipodeanSF. It will be published in October.
The acceptance of “What is Fate?” by Brilliant! It will be published on their website and in the June print edition.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Congratulations to Collette of King of Prussia, PA, winner of my April 2007 5 Word Challenge. To read her story, and get the words for May, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
I have to apologize for not having a story ready for this month. The primary reason is that I’ve been slacking. There was a story I was going to use, but after I started writing it, I realized that it would be too long for this. There are so many other stories that I’m trying to finish, that I didn’t have the time to get around and write one just for the newsletter. Also, as I said, I was slacking.
Sorry.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Jedi ER” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Polireligionatics,” “Ahead-Back,” “A Lost R,” and “Doomed to Repeat,” in my Weekly Stories.
The acceptance of “The Kingdom of Beer” by Written Word. I should learn in a few weeks when it will be published.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Unfortunately, there was no winner for my March 5 Word Challenge. The reason for this is because I received no entries. But I trudge on. To get the words for April, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
A couple of weeks ago a friend at work was sick, and I was trying to think of some way to torment him, you know, to take his mind off his misery because that’s the kind of friend I am. And somehow, this story came out. For some reason, the last line just cracks me up.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveToo Literal
Everyone in the office stood in groups of three or four whispering and pointing; all thought of work gone. One man stood away from the others holding a bag of ice to his forehead talking with a police officer. As two other officers led a man away in handcuffs, the whispering ceased.
Earlier
“Dave.”
Dave quickly covered his sudoku book with a memo before the voice registered. Turning around to look at Susan he said, “Don’t do that.”
She laughed. “Funny looking work you’re doing there.”
Pointing at her he asked, “And how many romance novels have you read while,” he gave air quotes to, “on the clock?”
Susan shrugged, and looked away. “A few.”
“Dozen? Hundred?”
She covered her face and laughed. “A dozen, I guess.”
“Every month?”
“Oh, just shut up.” They both laughed.
“So,” Dave asked, “what’s up?”
“Nothing. I just needed to kill some time.”
With his thumb Dave pointed to his cubical opening. “Should I put out a sign saying, ‘Bring us the time, and we’ll kill it for you!’”
Tapping her temple Susan said, “You have an idea there.”
For several seconds both were silent, then Susan asked, “Oh, have you seen John this morning?”
“No, why?”
“He’s sick. I told him he should have called in and taken the day off.”
“No, no,” Dave said shaking his head. “You call in sick when you feel good so you can enjoy the day off. If you’re sick you’re going to be miserable, so you might as well come in to work.”
“You know, that’s what he said.”
“Great minds think alike.”
Susan gave an unenthusiastic, “Yeah.”
#
Shortly after Susan left, Dave put his sudoku book in his desk drawer and walked over to John’s cubical. John was in the middle of blowing his nose, and from the half-full garbage can next to him Dave wondered if he had done anything else that morning. “I see you’re still among the living.”
John groaned and threw away the tissue, allowing Dave to see how pale his face was. “I wish I wasn’t.”
“Oh.” Dave looked around and then picked up John’s stapler. Holding it above his head he said, “Hold still.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “How Many?” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Inroads” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Thirty Second Movies,” “Train Wreck,” and “Bush and Clinton Both Suck,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
The biggest writing event for me this month was the publication of “How Many?” This is the first, and hopefully not the last, story to be published in what I’m calling my Human Republic Universe.
Something I’ve been meaning to do since I started my site, but which I just finally got around to it, is set up pages for stories of mine that are not on the internet. So if you’ve been wanting to read all of my stories, well, you’ll still have to wait. There’s one I still need to scan in, but I don’t know when I’ll get around to it. :(
* * *
Unfortunately, there was no winner for my February 5 Word Challenge. The reason for this is because I received no entries. But I trudge on. To get the words for March, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
Let me state up front that I’m not entirely pleased with this story. I had an idea, but I couldn’t seem to get the words to come out right. The reason I’m putting it out now is because I didn’t really have any other story for this month.
There is something that I’ve known for years, and I think most people already know this: there are people who live in their own little world. As I said, I’ve know this for years, but what really started me on this story was when I read this guy’s MySpace blog where he said basically that before the white man came to North America, there was nothing here. Yes, there were a few savage Indians, but we “civilized them.” I did not know where to begin. At first I wanted to say something about The Iroquois Confederacy, but then I thought of asking, “Isn’t it funny that pretty much everybody in the world thinks that what they do is ‘civilized’ while what others do is ‘savage?’” But, then I realized there was a good change that he would just ignore the inconvenient historical fact, label me a whiny liberal, declare victory, and consider the matter closed.
But thinking about people being in their own little world led me to thinking about what if they were put in their own little world? I predict that they would quickly collapse. So that was what started me on this story.
Hope you enjoy.
SteveOne World
Cleaning up the children was always the hardest. Aril stood by a group of maybe twenty, from infants to about ten years of age. They all lay in a communal pool of blood. Shaking her head, Aril wondered, for the umpteenth time, how loving parents could feel that it was better for the kids to be dead then to live in an imperfect world. The only good part was that after slitting their children’s throats, the parents had the “decency” to slit their own.
Aril looked around, but Brura was not in visual sight. Opening a telepathic channel to him, she asked, “Is all this worth it?”
Without hesitation he replied with mantra of the Great Awakening, “Humanity only has two options: extinction or evolution.”
With a frown, Aril knelt and ran her finger over the forehead of a young girl of maybe six. “What would you have been? A poet? A doctor? The first human to step onto the planet in another star system?” With a light chuckle she asked, “All of them?”
“Your problem,” Brura words came into her head, “is that you get too attached to them. They made their choice.”
He, of course, was referring to the fallout of The Great Awakening, the time when humanity finally matured and realized we are all one species, living on one world. Our differences; age, sex, skin color, ethnic heritage, religion, all are just skin deep. To separate someone out, or hate them, or go to war with them for these reasons are idiotic. It had taken over a century, but The Great Awakening finally got people to stop thinking of themselves as white or black, Muslim or Jew, American or Ethiopian, and instead got them to think they were human.
But not everyone had been thrilled, especially the self-proclaimed righteous ones who vehemently denied that others were their equals. For decades they caused fear and chaos, trying to hold onto their beliefs and force them upon others. In the end, something had to be done with them. The rest of humanity was humane enough to know these people were just deluded, and they did not deserve to die for it. So, often with the approval of those they cloistered, they were put in separate, domed little city states where they could live as they wished.
At first, everyone seemed to be happy. But now, almost a century later, nearly eighty percent of these cities had imploded. The people had only been sealed in with those who thought like they did, but over the years differences worked their way in and divisions began anew. Apparently it was easy for people to spot “unwanted differences” in others.
Aril stood and looked around at the devastation. It was disturbing to think that deep down there seemed to be a basic human need to hate someone. She wondered if it only manifested itself in small groups, or if all of humanity was doomed to go through this.
Looking back down at the girl, Aril sent her image to Brura. “You’re wrong. She never had a choice.”
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2007.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Wishes” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Gauntlet” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of the “Prologue” to the novel I’m writing on it’s MySpace blog.
Publication of “Wishes,” “Surging Towards…” “Dreams,” and “Politically Cynical,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Congratulations to Farzana from Doha, Qatar, winner of my January 2007 5 Word Challenge. To read her story, and get the words for February, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
I have to admit, I’ve been kinda slacking this month. There were a few story ideas I came up with, and I was going to put here, but I never got around to writing them. :(
But, so you don’t give up on me, I’ve decided to give you something else this month. Instead of a story, I view this more like the script for a radio ad. It was a rather long, confusing, and at times disturbing train of thought that led to this. But, given my (to put it mildly) odd sense of humor, this had me cracking up for about a day.
Hope you enjoy.
Steve
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equipment and accessories.
We put the
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Call ^587+47*
(Open 34/9)
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2006.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “In the Spirit” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Darth Chronosus” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “History Lessons 1,” “History Lessons 2,” “H. A.” and “December 29, 2006,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Unfortunately, there was no winner for my December 5 Word Challenge. The reason for this is because I received no entries. But I trudge on. To get the words for January, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
Another fun writing challenge I started this month was The Six Shooter. Can you write a story in six words? Check out those who have, and then try your hand at it.
* * *
Since it is the end of 2006, I decided I should get some feedback on my Weekly Stories. For that, I have created a poll where you can vote on what you think is my best story. Check it out here.
* * *
I know I promised to give you a story with each newsletter, but with the holiday insanity and illness, I haven’t had time to do as much writing as I would like. But, there is always next year.
Have a happy 2007.
Steve
Howdy,
Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2006.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Sleep Tight” by AntipodeanSF.
Publication of “If It’s OK Now…,” and “Star-Spangled Ploy” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Penny” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Testing,” “History will Forget,” “When will it Stop?” and “History Repeating,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Congratulations to Melody Lauer from Downingtown, PA, winner of my November 2006 5 Word Challenge. To read her story, and get the words for December, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
I have to thank Walt Trizna, who’s in several book and writing groups with me, for giving me the spark for this story. At the last writing group meeting, somehow we started talking about computing power. Walt said something along the lines of, “We have all this computing power, and what do we do with it? Play games.” I believe it was the very next day, that one of those losers who had been waiting in line for a new PlayStation 3 for a couple days was shot. I’m not advocating the shooting of people just to get story ideas, but the blending of people with no lives (will the people who know me stop sniggering!) entertainment systems and violence lead to “It’s Only a Matter of Time.”
Hope you enjoy,
SteveIt’s Only a Matter of Time
By the early 2020s, advances in robotics led to the development of reasonably affordable humanoid robots. While these Tele-operated Mechanicals (quickly shortened to Mechs) could be sent on simple tasks – going to the store for a jug of milk – their main use was for entertainment. Through the internet people would link their holo-viewers up to experience everything a Mech did. Quick thinking business types had dozens of Mechs stationed at dangerous and far-away tourist locations. Within a year, the number of people who had “climbed” Mount Everest doubled.
Many critics decried people who would rather link up to a Mech to virtually explore the world instead of just going outside. Their cries of, “This is the end of civilization,” quickly died down, just like all the other times critics had raised that standard.
While countless people roamed the world via their Mechs, others still played old fashioned “non-virtual” games. Some of the most popular were the ever increasingly realistic “shoot ‘em up” adventure games.
It was only a matter of time before these two forms of entertainment would merge.
* * *
Captain Anna Vargas scanned the apartment complex. The faded paint, broken railings, and loose steps would have said much if it was not so common these days. She did not care about the property value, she was looking where bad guys could hide; and there were several. It was a dangerous job, but it needed to be done.
Sighing, she looked to her team, and gave them a nod.
Jimmu and Davidson rushed forward with the battering ram. With one heavy clang the door to apartment 3C was broken open. Shouts of, “LAPD,” were drowned out by automatic fire from inside. Anna saw Jimmu fall from the hail of bullets. The other members of the team returned fire, and the gunfire from inside quickly stopped.
By the time Anna got into the small, drab living room, Davidson and Quesada had already gotten to the Mech. Davidson ripped open the main control panel and began pulling out parts, while Quesada disarmed the machine guns that had been added to the basic Mech model.
The Mech was no longer facing the doorway, and with the bullet holes Anna quickly figured out that a police bullet must have struck a control unit of some sort making the Mech swivel; spraying the adjoining room with bullets.
Standing in the doorway to this room Spencer called to her, “Captain, you need to see this.”
The other room was just as shabby as the first. There were no windows and the room was only lit by the glow of numerous computer screens. A teenage boy sat before the screens. He was still wearing his holo-viewer, even though he was missing a large chunk of his skull. By chance, when the Mech fired into the room one of the bullets had hit him in the head.
Spencer pointed at the body. “The bastard killed over twenty people for sport. He deserved to rot in jail.”
Anna did the only thing she could; she reached up and removed her holo-viewer. She blinked several times at the brightness of the control room. A technician walked over to her and said, “A coroner has been called, and we’re about to pick up our Mechs.”
“Good.” She looked over the rest of her team to Jimmu, who had already unplugged. “How bad was your Mech damaged?”
Jimmu shook his head. “I won’t know until they get back here, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”
Anna nodded, “Good. We have that other raid this afternoon.”
Howdy,
Welcome to the fourth issue of my electronic newsletter, covering October 2006.
My publication news for the past month:
Publication of “Fruit Bearing Tree” by AlienSkin Magazine.
Publication of “Never Again” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Five Minute Fall Break” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “Deterrence,” “If Only,” “Cage the Mind,” and “Walls,” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
Congratulations to R. S. R. D. from Audubon, PA, winner of my October 2006 5 Word Challenge. To read his story, and get the words for November, go to my 5 Word Challenge Page.
* * *
Attached is a story inspired by a long awaited event; the 300 millionth American. Back in 1967, Life magazine heralded a boy named Bobby Woo as the “unofficial” 200 millionth American. Apparently, that didn’t happen this time because it is too controversial, what with the immigration debate and everything, to get excited over this population milestone. Originally, I was going to use this as a Weekly Story, but I decided that since it was an event we knew was coming, and since I came up with the idea the week before, I would use something else. But this did leave me with a story for the month of October.
Hope you enjoy,
SteveBy the Numbers
Susan Rose Brown entered the world at 7:46 AM on October 17, 2006, and became the unofficial 300,000,000 American. Her twin sister Kathryn Lorraine had arrived some four minutes earlier. Their parents knew they were having twins, and had already worked out in their minds that they would have to treat them equally. They never expected having one daughter being a media sensation.
Despite everything the Brown’s did to treat the girls the same, nothing could hide the fact that each October 17th, cameramen would come and photograph Susan. These photos would appear in magazines across the country with captions like, “300 millionth American age 1, playing with birthday cake. Twin sister in background.”
With all the attention, from the press and relatives, it was little wonder that Susan grew up being at ease with people and never shying from the spotlight. It was also little wonder that Kathryn grew up to be the opposite; doing everything she could to stay out of people’s way.
There was no animosity between them – no more than average sisters – but they did travel in different circles. The few times these circles intersected, pain of some sort was usually the result. For example, Kathryn lost her virginity to a guy rejected by Susan. He figured that since he could not have the popular girl, her twin was the next best thing. Of course, being a teenage male, he did not fully explain all of this until after he had achieved his goal. It was not until college, at a small, no-name school studying to be a veterinarian, that Kathryn fully got over this.
Susan, however, applied to all the major universities; regardless of cost. Her parents were somewhat pleased when she finally picked the second most expensive college she had been accepted at. She continued the proud tradition of going to college as an “Undecided,” although her closest friends figured she would settle down to political science. Ever since she had won the class presidency, she had been bitten by the political bug. Only a few had seen inside her light-blue notebook, outlining schemes and other ways to move up in the world of politics. She was even beginning to flesh out the faintest possibility of a presidential bid. The earliest she could run would be in 2044, but she was aiming for 2056, when she would have more experience.
One of the few people Susan had told about this plan was her Sociology Professor, and lover, who had told her that just being the 300 millionth American would not win her the Presidency. Her reply: “But it will get my foot in the door.”
So it was a shock to the nation when this girl with so much promise died falling out of a moving car during her fifth year at college. An autopsy showed her blood-alcohol level was over twice the legal limit, and blood samples showed a small trace of cocaine.
Kathryn left her veterinarian studies for the funeral. Her fiancé, studying to be math teacher, came with her. He was the one, when confronted by cameras when leaving the funeral, shouted, “Go away. My fiancée lost a sister; all you lost was a number.”
Howdy,
Welcome to the third issue of my electronic newsletter, covering July through September 2006.
My publication news for the last three months:
Publication of “Dustbin” on Anotherealm.
Acceptance of “Sleep Tight” by AntipodeanSF.
Acceptance of “Fruit Bearing Tree” by AlienSkin Magazine. (I’ll get $5 for this one!)Publication of “Vote with Your Fists,” “Just Five Minutes,” “Thou Shalt Not Hate,” “Our Brothers and Sisters,” “Nothing to Sneeze At,” “What About Tomorrow?” and “Forgotten, but Forgiven?” in my column Silent Steve’s Stories on Dangeroustalk.
Publication of “Intro to Silence of Reason,” and “Life” on my MySpace Blog.
Publication of “No Substitute,” and “The First Frontier” in my Weekly Stories.
To read these stories, or to see what I say about them, check out my Published Works page.
* * *
The biggest news, of course, is my website is up and running! So far, I’ve had just over 100 visitors. (Clap, clap.)
With this big event, comes some big changes. First off, this will be the last newsletter you receive, from this email address.
Another big change in regards to my newsletter, from now on, instead of being quarterly, it will be monthly. The biggest reason is that this will be how I announce the winners of my 5 Word Challenge. Speaking of which, you have the month of October to submit something for my first challenge. So far, I’ve received one entry. Not to say anything unkind about the author or his entry, but I would really hate if he won by default.
* * *
Also, continuing what I started in my last newsletter, attached is a story inspired by something that happened in the past three months. I will warn you, this story is rather depressing. Hopefully, it is not prophetic.
Hope you enjoy,
Howdy,
Welcome to the second issue of my electronic newsletter, covering April through June 2006.
Silent Steve's Stories
The only publication news I have are the four stories published in my column at www.dangeroustalk.net. I know I shouldn't have to tell you what they are about, since YOU'VE ALL BEEN READING THEM, right?"One Against Many"
Some of you hopefully remember this story. Well, the basic story idea. This was originally for one of the writing groups I'm in. One of our members was moving away, and as a tribute, everyone in the group wrote a story. The stories were based on a quote, and I got the Marx quote used in the story. The original version of the story was pretty good, but when I started revising it for my column, I realized that it was almost all telling with very little showing. I made some small changes, but in the end I pretty much rewrote the whole thing. But I think it was an improvement.I know I should say that this was my plan from the beginning, but in truth it wasn't until after a couple of my stories were on the web, and I had the next five or six lined up, that I realized that this was a very good story to begin my column with. Something that I've been very interested in the past several years is the idea that you can't tell someone to think for themselves. I'll give you a moment to absorb that. My feelings are that if you take any major issue in the country, say abortion or Iraq, each side is entrenched in their position. Every now and then one side goes "over the top" and gets mowed down in the no-man's land in between. As a character in one of my upcoming stories says, "You can't make someone change their believes by a frontal assault. You need to be sneaky." What my character in "One Against Many" does is ask people questions that come out of left field. And that is what I try to do with my stories, hit the issues from an unusual angle. At least, that's what I attempt to do.
"What Would Jesus Do?"
This story was published before on a website that no longer exists. :( The idea, of course, comes from the brouhaha over the Ten Commandments monument put up in Alabama by Roy Moore. As I watched the protestors crying over a two-ton block of granite and denouncing the evil secularists, I got to wondering what Jesus would do if he came back at that moment. Would he join the protestors? After thinking about it for a few seconds, I decided, no he wouldn't. He would probably take a look at them, and then go, "Okay, you people can stay here and argue over a rock, but I'm going to go heal some sick people. See ya." And somehow, this is the story that came from that."Humanity's Future?"
This started when I wrote what would become the opening quote, "Attributed to Fyal of Arzoy." The thought behind it was that we, as a species, think we are the pinnacle of achievement. I mean, that's why all the aliens look like us. But I feel that this false sense of superiority, of being special, will probably be our undoing. I do fear that our future is to just end up being a footnote in an alien textbook."Burning Issue"
I oppose any attempt to make flag burning illegal, not because I'm a damned hippie or anything, but because there is no real way to enforce it. The idea in the story, not original, is that once this "flag" as been burned and can no longer be entered in as evidence, how can you prove that it was a real flag? And I hoped that the ending gave the impression that the main character could possibly sue the police for arresting him without cause.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the past year or so, I've heard a couple people talk about National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) where you try to write 50,000 words during the month of November. The main goal is to stop editing yourself, and just write. I admit, I do edit myself while I write, so I thought it was a good idea to try this, at least to see how it went. But I didn't want to wait until November, and then I realized that April also has thirty days. So I decided that during April I would try to write a novel. I picked an idea that had been banging around in my head for several months. I started typing in the early minutes of April, but I unfortunately did not get that far. There were three main issues that stumped me. One, there was some family issues that took my time. Two, I was going frantic trying to get stories finished for Silent Steve's Stories. But the biggest reason was that of timing. If I have an idea that I let "ferment" for a day or a week in my head, I can then sit down and whip out a 5-600 word story in about an hour. (That's not my standard writing procedure, unfortunately, but it is something that I've done on several occasions.) Since I have a lot of stuff fermenting, I like doing all these short stories because it feels like I'm getting something done, and I'm cleaning the ideas out of my head, to make room for new ideas. (If only it were that simple.) It seems like every time I've sat down and focused on a novel, a thousand short stories pop up and start whining that I'm not writing them. I feel that for me to write a novel, I will need to dedicate a large chunk of my time to it. But I can only comfortable set aside a small chunk of time to it, which makes me feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, which makes me turn back to the short stories. It's a vicious circle I'm still trying to break out of.
Something new
Speaking of my Insta-Stories, (I like the sound of that) consider the following. A couple weeks ago there was a news story, which I'm sure most of you have heard. It was one of those stories that pops up, hangs around for two days, and then disappears. Late on the second day, I came up with a story idea. I wrote most of it out, but I didn't really finish it because I knew that there was no place where I could get it published while people still remembered what it was based on. It would be weeks, or more likely months, before it would be published, and then I would have to remind everyone what it was about. This had me bummed for a little bit. Then I remembered my website, which is still in the planning stages. I believe I wrote in my last newsletter that I doubted I would blog, mostly because after reading, "Same shit, different day," a few dozen times, it would probably get boring. But I wanted to make the website dynamic, to have some reason for people to keep coming back to it. I had thought about putting some of my unpublished stories on it, but that didn't feel right, somehow. Then I got the idea, what if, each week, I find a news story and write a few hundred-word story about it. The news would still be in people's minds, so the stories would have greater impact, it would force me to be constantly writing, and it would give a reason for people to keep coming back to the website. It could probably also be used as evidence that I'm nuts. But that's what I'm thinking, I still have to see if I can write a story each week, but I thought I would give you guys a preview. Therefore, with each newsletter I'll attach a short story inspired by something that happened in the three months covered by the newsletter. So what better way to start than with the story that started it all.Hope you enjoy,
Steve
Howdy,
This is the first issue of my electronic newsletter, and covers all the major writing events in my life for the period of January through March 2006. Some of you I have talked to about this, and the rest of you I just figured wouldn't mind. If I was wrong, or if you really don't care for me that much,
Now, why am I doing this? Well, probably next year I'll get a website for my writing. My plans so far are to have my stories that have been published, with links to where they were published, along with any back stories (which will probably be longer than the actual stories) and any other interesting things I can think of. I probably won't blog, but I figure on having some newsletter-type thing to keep people updated on what's going on in my writing life. So I am starting this now to get into the habit of writing these things, but also as a motivator to have something to be able to write about. (Sneaky, aren't I?)
So, what do I have to write about for this three-month period?
The publication of "Agony in the Lab" in the Spring 2006 issue of A Flasher's Dozen (http://flashers-dozen.blogspot.com/)
This is a flash fiction story based on something that happened to me in college. One afternoon I was catching up on an electronics lab with my partner, when this other physics guy came in and asked her out. This may not sound like much, but he didn't just ask, "What to go out?" He beat around the bush asking her out without asking her out and she beat around the bush of saying yes without saying yes. This may still not sound like much but I was the *&$%#$@ BUSH because I was sitting between them. And it was a situation where I couldn't just get up and leave. I was an innocent victim in the horrors of dating.
This brings my publications up to a grand total of eleven pieces. This includes four short stories, four flash fiction (under 1000 words), two micro fiction (I'm not entirely sure what you call them, but they were both only 25 words), and one haiku. Since I also received $15 for "Agony in the Lab" this brings my total earnings from my writing to $80. That might pay for a year's worth of Earl Grey I drink while I'm writing in various bookstores. But it's not about the money. At least, not yet, damn it. :)
After about a year of being ignored, I've started working on a novel again I started writing a novel almost two years ago, but I got caught up in other things and haven't done anything with it for about a year. But in February I dug it out and started revising what I had written, and adding a little more. Right now it is about 13,000 words, but most of that is a very rough outline.
Originally, I had written about three paragraphs giving the basics of the novel, along with how it fits in with a couple other stories I've written which some of you have read. But I was recently reminded of some advice I heard once that you shouldn't talk about the novel you are writing, because you end up getting bogged down in other things. You spend so much time explaining it to people, and trying to politely turndown their helpful 'suggestions' that you don't write the novel, which is what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. So I cut that section out, but I'm saving it because I had a really great line that explained about half the novel. Hopefully, someday you'll read that line in a future installment of this newsletter.
A late developing story A friend of mine is working on getting a website up that will cover a great deal of topics. I don't want to say too much about it until all the details are set, but he has offered me a weekly column that I will probably use for short stories. I'll keep you updated on how this develops.
Well, I guess that is all for now. Hopefully, I'll have more for you in three months.
Steve
PS. Just a reminder of common curtsey. If you wish to comment on this please reply only to me, not to everyone. Unless you feel the need to tell everyone how marvelous I am.