Hello. Here is a listing of all of my published flash fiction works from 2014 until 2023. (I consider flash fiction to be between 100 and 1000 words.) They are listed with the most recent publications on the top and I have the work’s title, when and where it was published, and a brief blurb or history of the story. Most of these stories are on the web and I have linked to them. I hope you enjoy.
Main Publication Page
I used to have a challenge where I’d try to write 30 Stories in 30 Days. Some of the stories I’d write over several days, but to stay on track I’d need stories I could finish in a few hours. This story might have been the shortest time from me getting the idea until I posted it, which was probably about forty minutes.
It started when I went to shutdown my laptop but it needed to install some updates. And for some reason, I started wondering how people would install updates to their bioware. The image of a guy being yelled at by his girlfriend asking, “Are you even listening to me?” came to mind. And, about forty minutes later, this story was posted.
Unfortunately, it was posted on a site that isn’t around anymore. One day, I was looking for old stories I could repost, and realized this was one was becoming even more relevant.
Click here to read the story.
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I’m pretty good at tuning out all the Christmas music at work, but occasionally something slips through. One night, I heard the “He sees you when you’re sleeping/He knows when you’re awake,” bit, and I just wondered how that worked. Is there a giant board with all these sleeping/awake switches that are constantly going off as people around the world fall asleep or wake up? Or does Santa just mentally know when someone is awake? Which naturally led me to wonder if he also suffers with the people with insomnia.
Originally, I wanted this to be really short, just a few hundred characters, but I kept adding little bits in. For instance, in the first draft Santa gave her some sleeping pills and told her to “Do us both a favor,” but then I realized there was a bad way that could be taken.
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If this technology existed, you know companies would be doing this.
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This started as a prompt on my Mastodon page. Basically, I write the beginning of a collaborative story and hope other writers will add parts to it. Nobody added to this one, but I liked the idea so I rewrote the prompt and got this little story out of it. It’s not … autobiographic, but it is relatable.
Click here to read the story.
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This is a Tanya Story.
I have a crappy, part-time job to help pay the bills. Tanya is a character I made up to say the things I wish I could say.
This story started when this old guy – who comes in about once a week and is on the verge of needing a cane to get around – was about thirty cents short for his pack of cookies and loaf of bread. But he didn’t realize he was short, and I didn’t feel like bothering him for another thirty cents, so I was like, “Close enough.”
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This story started as just a silly idea about an island trying to convince the world it doesn’t exist. I hadn’t planned on it being a Monthly Story, but it was about halfway through October and I didn’t have any other ideas. Plus all the insane people on the mainland started doing insane crap and the story became somewhat topical. Hooray?
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One … morning, I figured I should go to bed. But I didn’t want to. So I started a game of solitaire and figured I’d go to bed once I won a hand. The current solitaire game I was playing didn’t have great odds. But I won that first game. The universe was telling me to go to bed, but I played a few more hands.
All this happened about a month before I published The Uncapped Pen, my collection of stories about writing. It was too late to include it in the collection, but I figured I’d post it as part of my marketing attempt.
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One day I was thinking about maybe taking things a little easy because I hadn’t been sleeping all that well and doing stuff like cutting firewood. But then I wondered if that wasn’t just being lazy. And I figured there can be a fine line between the two.
I came across this as I was looking for stories for The Uncapped Pen. I didn’t include it in the collection, but republished it as part of my attempted promotion for it.
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My muse and I weren’t getting along. Need I say more?
I came across this as I was looking for stories for The Uncapped Pen. I didn’t include it in the collection, but republished it as part of my attempted promotion for it.
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This story began after reading a microfiction story by ShouldbeWriting. The story didn’t go in the direction I expected, so I figured I’d have to write that story, which turned out to be much longer than a microfiction tale.
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With everything shitty going on in the world, I figured I would write an uplifting story for this month. And I basically ended up with my head in my hands because all of my ideas dealt with dreadful things. So I just made a story of that.
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I had this “insight” one day, and chuckled at it, but then figured I could write up a quick story for it. Of course, we laugh at the idea such a simplistic notion would go into government decisions, but have you been following the news lately?
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I think it was one really hot day I saw a news stories about climate change and one about some rich prick getting away with everything, and I figured it was just a matter of time before some out of touch person would tell those struggling with the heat to just eat ice cream. And I knew I had to write a story about that.
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With the start of Pride Month, there came various controversies. I figured I should write a story about one of these, but couldn’t think what to do. Then, a dim memory came to mind. Years ago, there was some asshole who had nothing better to do then cry about some Starbucks barista not wishing him Merry Christmas. I forget the exact details – I don’t care – but I realized that if there was some “Gay Privilege,” there’d be similar assholes out there.
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I won’t say that this story shows the future the Democrats want versus what the Republicans want. It’s not what they want, but more what would likely happen if they were in power.
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Just to be clear, I – the author of “Inevitable?” – do not support terrorist bombings for any reason.
I forget which mass shooting it was when I wondered when people would start bombing gun stores like they used to bomb abortion clinics. That was not a happy thought, but I figured it was a story of our times.
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This is a Tanya Story.
I figured for my monthly story for March, which is Women’s History Month, I should have a story with a woman protagonist. Great idea, but I couldn’t really think of anything. Meanwhile, I had come up with an idea for a Tanya story, based on something I’ve noticed at my crappy day-job, and I realized that Tanya was a woman.
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I first wrote this story years ago after an incident with an old dog. He was more my dad’s dog, and every time my dad left he’d either lie there depressed or cry. One day my mom and dad went to town and I held his collar to keep him from following the car. He was almost choking himself and I kept telling him, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.” And I wondered what he would say back if he could talk. And I realized that a lot of people talk to their dogs like babies, which probably wouldn’t go over that well if dogs could talk back.
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This is the first Tanya Story.
I have a crappy, part-time job to help pay the bills. I make more than minimum wage, but not much. One day, a customer said something stupid along the lines of raising the minimum wage would crash the economy. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I held my tongue. Later, after other encounters with stupid customers, I came up with Tanya, who could get away with saying things I can’t.
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I guess I don’t really have much to say for this story. I just wanted something for Black History Month, and this was what I came up with.
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Maybe I’m just bitter, but I do get sick of the lovey-dovey crap before Valentine’s Day. I can’t be the only one.
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This was just a quick little story about something similar to what has probably happened at some New Year’s parties. I don’t really have much to say about it.
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Given his “leadership” style at Twitter, this might be a likely way Elon dies.
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Years ago, on a now dead site, I would challenge people to write a story containing five words. And to so it was done, I’d write a story with those five words. For this month, the words were: heat, humid, hot, hate, and hello. I just started with, “Hello and welcome to Hell,” and it just sort of went from there.
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I don’t know how many people I’ve heard cry out for freedom and independence and self-reliance and whatever. On one hand I have nothing against them, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that if you took away their morning coffee – or told them to pick the beans themselves – a fair number would crawl back to whatever tyranny so they can get their caffeine fix.
I first wrote this story back in 2014 and posted it on a site that is no longer around. I recently came across it, and figured I should repost it.
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I was driving home after a “You’re obviously aren’t brushing enough,” dentist visit and I was thinking that the time to save my teeth was thirty years ago. And I jokingly wondered if it would be dentists who would crack time travel. But would they put themselves out of business? And this is what came of that.
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I wrote this several years ago and posted it on a site I no longer post on. With Halloween coming up, I figured I’d repost it on blog I still have. It began with me thinking of an adult trick or treating, but I can’t really say more than that without giving it away.
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This started as a silly little story that would fit on Twitter, but it got too long.
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If Jesus came back today, would he open a megachurch or would he slip on a pair of sandals and go among the people?
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For too many people, having a conversation with a cashier is apparently a vital part of shopping. Something I don’t understand. Whenever I go shopping, I usually don’t talk with the cashier because they usually look half-dead and I don’t want to add to their problems. So whenever we get robotic cashiers, will they have to be designed to engage in conversation with customers?
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This was originally published in 2014 on a now defunct website. Of course, back then if you did call in sick it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. Now you’d probably get bombarded with an endless stream of “Nobody wants to work anymore” BS.
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This story started with this video I saw about Moon Loons. It got me thinking, I’m a creative guy. Could I make up some completely bullshit conspiracy theory and make blog posts and YouTube videos so all the nutjobs could come and click on the ads? It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t know if I would have the stamina to go through all that. But I can write a short story about someone who does.
The site this was on is no longer around, so I polished it up and reposted it. I don’t know why I felt the need to repost it.
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For the last few years, I’ve had wondered how the world would react if Santa became active. The basic idea being the world would freak out. It was a fun idea, but I had assumed it might have to be a novella, and I didn’t have time for that. But the other day I was thinking about it and started seeing this ultrashort version. While this turned out to be about twice as long as I had hoped, it is still way shorter than I had first imagined.
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Recently, I was looking for any Christmas stories I had written, and I came across this one I wrote back in 2013. So I gave it a polish and reposted it. You can click here to see what I originally wrote about the original version.
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This was meant to just be the prologue to a huge space epic, which I’ll never get around to writing. I posted it on a site years ago, but that site is no longer being maintained, so I reposted it.
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This is a story that I never finished. I had the basic structure, I just needed some details to flesh it out and to give it a good polish. And I should have done all of this in 2005. As the years passed, it just became too outdated, but I hated to throw it all away. So here’s an unfinished story.
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I first published this story on a site that is no longer around. One day I was just letting my mind wander and I started thinking of earthquake machines, as one does. I liked the idea, but couldn’t think of a way to use one in a story. This was what I came up with instead.
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I first published this story on a site that is no longer around. I republished on a second site which … also isn’t around. A third site I guess is still around but I haven’t been back to it for a couple of years. So I decided to repost it again, on a site I still visit.
The original blurb for the story can be found here.
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I first wrote this story almost thirteen years ago. I reposted it just over four years ago, but the reason I reposted it is outdated now, so I figured I’d just revise and post it again. It’s not like commercial space changes every few years.
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One night at work – as I listened to the fourteenth version of “Frosty” in ten minutes – I thought that if a store put out a sign saying they didn’t play Christmas music, I’d go in, without even knowing what they sold. I thought that was a great idea, so I hammered out this story.
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This was a quick little story for Halloween. I wondered what the scariest thing that could happen to a kid was. This is what I came up with.
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I imagine having a good memory is very important to politicians. So I naturally began thinking of alien memory implants. It makes sense; somehow.
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In every group there will be nutjobs. But the problem is how often groups will pull the “No true Scotsman” defense instead of actually looking to see if there is a reason so nutjobs are joining their group.
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I first wrote this story seven years ago after some evangelical asshat basically blamed the victims of a tornado for not praying enough. And I figured that since there are a lot of evangelical asshats today saying stuff like you don’t need to wear a mask, just pray, I figured it was time to bring it back.
The original blurb for this story – with a link to the original version – can be found here.
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It seems every time there’s an earthquake or hurricane or something, some religious yo-yo comes along announcing God is angry because we … fill-in-the-blank. And I just want to slap them because they’re so stupid. I mean, if He can create a universe, He can set up a Twitter account.
This was first posted in 2011 (click here to see my original blurb on it) and given how some idiots think the Coronavirus is because we impeached Trump, I figured it was time to repost it.
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I first wrote this story in June 2013 under the title “Hmmm.” It began after I saw a comment online about how things can’t be fixed because “the ones in power” don’t want them to be fixed. I recently came across it and figured I should repost it. But I wanted to rework it first and one of the things I wanted to change was the title. It took me some time, but I think “Naïve Thoughts” works
The original blurb for this story – with a link to the original version – can be found here.
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This is the version that appears in my book A Man of Few WordsI recently thought of this story, and I decided I should post it so I could – whenever the need arose – just link to it, without having to sell someone my book.
The original blurb for this story – with a link to the original version – can be found here.
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I was going through some of my old stories and found this story I first published back in 2015 and figured I should polish it up and repost it. It’s about the horrors some people face each year.
The original blurb for this story – with a link to the original version – can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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I was going through some of my old stories and found this story I first published back in 2006 and figured I should polish it up and repost it. It’s about “the deep spiritual meaning a Christmas tree.”
The original blurb for this story – with a link to the original version – can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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I was going through some of my old stories and found this story I first published back in 2007 and figured I should polish it up and repost it. It’s about how Christmas no longer has anything to do with Jesus; it’s now a three month orgy of consumerism.
The original blurb for this story – with a link to the original version – can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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This story started during the Bridgegate Scandal. Since it was posted on a site that is no longer around, and given the plethora of political scandals, I figured I should repost it.
The original blurb for this story can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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This was just a funny little Christmas story that I had originally posted on a site that is no longer around. So I just polished it up and reposted it.
The original blurb for this story can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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This is the version that appears in my book A Man of Few WordsI first wrote this story in 2008. I revised it for my collection A Man of Few Words, and posted it again as a Thanksgiving story.
Before Halloween 2008, some friends and I went to a Poe event where these actors acted out some of his stories. Before one of these, an actresses was talking with the audience and somehow the subject of pumpkin pies came up. Specifically how they “sweat.” Her explanation as to the reason they sweat is that they know “the in-laws are coming … coming with forks.” I thought that was a great line, so I jotted it down and wrote a story to go with it.
Some people who critiqued this story took issue with the cookies going in first. In their families, the cookies stayed back with the pies. But in my family, my mom bakes cookies a day or two before and they immediately begin taking casualties. I guess I just grew up with cookies being the skirmishers.
The original blurb for this story can be found here.
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This is a slightly revised version of the story that appears in my book The All-You-Can-Read BuffetI don’t remember where the idea for this story came from. I think I was half asleep and came up with the title. I thought it was funny, but couldn’t write a funny story from it.
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I first published this story on a site that is no longer around. Some time ago, I went through all my stories published there and picked out a few I felt needed to see the light of day again. And then they sat on my desktop for a while. But I had just found out about this Minds site, and I figured I should post a story there to see how it went over. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll post anything there again, but I guess time will tell.
The original blurb for the story can be found here.
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I first published this story on a site that is no longer around. Some time ago, I went through all my stories published there and picked out a few I felt needed to see the light of day again. And then they sat on my desktop for a while. But I finally polished this one up and reposted it.
The original blurb for the story can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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As you’ll see if you check out the blog post this story is posted in, I saw a video that reminded me of a story I wrote years ago. So I figured I’d polish up the old story and repost it. If you want to see my original blurb, as well as a link to the original version of the story, it can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook The Uncapped PenSome of my stories are no longer online. I was going through them recently – for a project – and I came across some that I felt needed to see the light of day again. So I’m going to polish them up and repost them. The original blurb for this story can be found here.
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When SpaceX announced that they were going to send people around the moon, I remembered writing a story along those lines. So I dug it out, gave it a quick polish, and reposted it. If you want to see my original blurb, as well as a link to the original version of the story, it can be found here.
Click here to read the story.
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A revised version appeared in my book Political PiesI saw something about Trump talking about flag-burning, and it reminded me of this story I first wrote in 2006. I revised it for my collection Political Pies, and since it’s an idea that apparently won’t die, I posted it again.
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A revised version appeared in my book A Man of Few WordsThis is just a reposting of a Thanksgiving story from my collection A Man of Few Words. The original blurb can be found here.
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I first wrote this story in October 2006 and reposted it in May 2008. But the issue is still around and kicking, so I thought to repost it again.
This started in response to the border wall, and originally was going to be about the world putting up a wall around the US to keep our fast food, and “American culture” from infecting the rest of the world, but then it went on a different path.
Now, some will read this and come away thinking that I hate America. I’ll reply that I’m a student of history. Rome was the greatest power in the world; yet it fell. Why will America be different? I am honest enough to admit that someday America will fade, even fall. But to steal a line, there is no shame in that, no dishonor. It is the natural order of things.
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“An RI World”
What’s the deal with the flags?
This story was first published several years ago on a website that is no longer around. As the day the first AI comes closer, I think it’s important we start thinking of how we will treat them, so I revised and reposted it. Shortly after I reposted it, that site went away. So I gave it another quick polish and put it up on my blog where I ask questions. Hopefully, it stays there.
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I originally wrote this story when Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey premiered. The site I posted it on is no longer around, so I decided to give it a polish and repost it. This is my idea for the third iteration of the Cosmos series.
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Over the years, I’ve written two stories commemorating the astronauts who died during the Apollo 1 and Challenger accidents. They were on different sites, but I revised them and posted them on my blog. Maybe someday I’ll write stories to commemorate the other astronauts and cosmonauts who have died.
This story is for the Challenger. You can click here to see what I originally wrote for this.
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There is a, usually, weekly webcast called TMRO (pronounced “Tomorrow”) that deals with space things, from rocket launches to discoveries about other planets and anything in between. In one show, they talked about postage stamps the USPS was putting out with planets. There are also moon stamps. One host pointed out that these moon stamps looked like coins and said, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have Moon coins?” I made a note of “Moon coins” because it seemed like an interesting idea, and it led to this story.
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It seems every year the “war” on Christmas becomes more and more ridiculous. So I wrote a story that sums that up.
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Every summer since I moved back home, I pick currants, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, and strawberries. We freeze them, and in the fall my mom will take them out and make jellies and jams out of them. They’re canned and put down in our cellar. About a week before I wrote this story, I grabbed a jar of grape jelly, but it hadn’t canned properly. So I wrote a story about that.
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Halloween was just a few days before I wrote this story. And I had the idea of an adult trick-or-treating. I guess I can’t really say more without giving the twist away.
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I was looking for a short, interesting idea for the collection the writing group I belong to was putting together. Since I’m a supporter of returning to the moon, I was looking for something set on the moon and I eventually came up with this idea. I can’t remember exactly what made me think of it, but I think it turned out pretty well.
I posted this on my blog so people can read it.
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I jotted down the first version of this story when I was spending more time binge watching some show instead of writing. Unfortunately, that seems to be rather common with me. There is a plan to write after watching the show, but there are just so many shows to watch. I guess I need to start working on Plan B.
This story is no longer online.
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As I’m trying to come up with new ideas for stories, I often let my imagination go off on wild tangents. One day, such a tangent led to me thinking about earthquake machines. I liked the idea, but I couldn’t think of a story I could use earthquake machine in. But I like what I came up with.
This story is no longer online.
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I wrote and published this several years ago, but since it’s a story that fits in with Christmas, I figured it was time to revise it and repost it. And if you’re wondering, I never did anything like in the story to my siblings. But it’s a good idea.
The story is no longer online.
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“An RI World”
What’s the deal with the flags?
This story was published several years ago on a website that is no longer around. As the day the first AI comes closer, I think it’s important we start thinking of how we will treat them, so I revised and reposted it. My vote is to treat them as equal beings, but not everyone will feel that way.
This story is no longer online.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”I first wrote this several years ago. I think it was during my “time travel” phrase where I was looking at various uses for time travel. I’m guessing I just combined “time travel” and “urban renewal” into “temporal renewal” to see what I could come up with. “Community Improvement” is what I came up with.
The original story is no longer online.
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I wrote and published this several years ago, but it was no longer online. So I revised it and put it back up.
The story is no longer online.
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I have no direct, personal experience calling in “sick” to work. Of course, if I were to do such a thing, I’d probably stay up until three or four in the morning and then call my boss’ work phone and leave a message saying, “I don’t know if I’ll be in in the morning, I’ve been throwing up all evening.” That way, they have a time stamp, and you can’t really fake calling in at three in the morning. Plus, when I worked I didn’t stay up that late, so in my call I sound exhausted, just like someone throwing up all night. But the best part, I’d then just turn off the alarm and sleep in. I mean, if I were to ever do something like that.
This story is no longer online.
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I had posted this story before, but that version is no longer online, so I revised and reposted it on Post Any Article. This is a true story; it actually happened to me at the Wizard World Convention in Philadelphia in 2005. I revised a bit that dated it. How many of you Star Wars geeks out there can top this?
This story is no longer online.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsI don’t remember exactly where this story came from. I think I was going through a phase where people from the future were coming back to “help” the people of the past. I guess this was the most effective way they could make sure their changes actually went through. I think the scariest part is that they caused some of the bad events of history to happen, all for their grand plan.
This story is no longer online.
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I posted this story several years ago in two parts, but I decided to combine and revise them for Post Any Article.
The story is no longer online.
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You may have heard that some idiot is marrying Charles Manson. I wanted to write something about that, but without giving any publicity to it. Anyway, this is what I came up with.
This story is no longer online.
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I had posted this story before, but I decided to repost it when I heard about Post Any Article.
This story is no longer online.
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I had posted this story before, but I decided to repost it when I heard about Post Any Article.
The story is no longer online.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”I had posted this story before, but I decided to repost it when I heard about Post Any Article.
The original story is no longer online.
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This is a story that was first published years ago on MySpace. Remember MySpace? Well, I recently saw that MySpace had apparently deleted old profiles, so this story was no longer online. But I thought it interesting enough to bring it back, so I revised it and put it on my Bubblews profile.
This story is no longer online.
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One day I was thinking about maybe taking things a little easy because I hadn’t been sleeping all that well and doing stuff like cutting firewood. But then I wondered if that just wasn’t being lazy. And I figured there can be a fine line between the two.
This story is no longer online.
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“Who’s sick of politicians talking about Ebola?” Anyone? Why can’t we have someone like Ann Kedra in Congress.
This story is no longer online.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsI first wrote this story years ago, so I don’t remember what prompted me into writing it. But it is my thoughts on what it will mean to humanity when we find intelligent aliens.
This story is no longer online.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsThis story started because my laptop likes to act up sometimes and not want to connect to the internet. This got me thinking how terrible that would be to people who had some internet connection directly in their brains. Somehow, this story came out of that.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsThis is one of those stories I don’t know if I can say anything about before you read it because it would give too much away. I guess I can say it’s a short story, set in a possible future. Check it out and I hope you’ll enjoy it.
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My muse and I weren’t getting along. That’s where this story came from.
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About ten years ago, one of those mall kiosk girls talked me into buying a bottle of this special hand lotion. The reason I bought is that while I dislike hand lotion – it seems greasy to me, even the stuff advertised as non-greasy – where I worked at the time I washed my hands about twenty times a day. Normally that wasn’t a problem, but during the winter my hands would really dry up and crack. By Thursday or Friday, some of the cracks would start bleeding. So I bought this bottle to use on my really dry hands during the winter. But since I dislike the feel, I only used it when things got really bad. So ten years later, and since I don’t work at that job anymore, I still have half-a-bottle left.
Lately, I have a spot on the side of my foot that gets dry and cracked. So one night I remembered this half-a-bottle of stuff and put some on it. Unfortunately, I got too much on my hand and ended up covering my whole foot and ankle with the stuff. Since then, my quilt has the scent of it. One night as I was falling asleep with this scented quilt, I remembered my story “Tickle, Tickle” about a guy enjoying the scent of his girlfriend on his pillow. And that somehow led to this story.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”I’m a fan of Red Letter Media and enjoy watching all of their videos. One of their offshoots – I guess – is Previously Recorded, which deals with video games. I’m not a gamer, but sometimes it’s interesting to hear about the story elements in some games which are interesting just from a story telling aspect, but often they discuss movies and various other – at times – interesting subjects.
Anyway, I was watching the video of the one guy Jack playing Tiny Barbarian DX. Basically, this barbarian runs around and kills various creatures, but along the way he can smash some rocks and get jewels or some chicken to heal him. Finding odd, hidden things is pretty standard in games, but the chicken got me thinking. Why is there – apparently – cooked chicken hidden in rocks across this kingdom? Who put them there, and why? This story was my attempt at answering those questions.
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This story came from my Wednesday Writing Prompt for October 16, 2013. I just tried to come up with something interesting with it.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsI actually started writing this story during a power outage. Fortunately, I had just finished recharging my laptop. As I sat in the dark waiting for the power to come back (it ended up being out for five or six hours) I started thinking what future generations would think about how “primitive” our power systems were.
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We have a dog, although he’s more my dad’s dog. Every time my dad leaves he’ll either lie there depressed or cry. And when my dad comes back, he’ll jump up wagging his tail. So the other day my mom and dad went to town and I held on to our dog’s collar to keep him from following the car. And I told him, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.” And I started to wonder if he could talk, what he would say to that. And then I realized that a lot of people talk to their dogs like babies, which if the dogs could talk back probably wouldn’t go over that well.
I’m not overly happy with this story as is. I think it could really have used two or three more revisions, but I’d spent over a day on it and I was way behind with my challenge, so I got it to this point and said, “It will have to do.”This story is no longer online.
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I was thinking about time travel and how our past could be changing moment by moment. Interesting idea, but I wasn’t sure how to turn that into a story, especially since I was several stories behind with my challenge. So I needed something quick and dirty, and Beth’s line about “you can just ask for sex” came to mind as something silly. So I went with it.
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One lady in one of the writing groups I belong to told the story of how, I believe it was her mother, who bequeathed her a bird bath. Unfortunately, it had been destroyed a decade or so earlier and her mother had just never updated her will.
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Each Wednesday on my Bubblews page I do a writing prompt, where I give two words and ask people to write a sentence using both words. I was reviewing them looking for ideas for my Challenge and came across the one from July 10, 2013, where the words were “banana” and “tea.” The sentence I came up with I used as the first sentence of the story. Where the rest of the story came from, I don’t know.
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Over the years I’ve read numerous stories by authors who clearly had an agenda. Those stories usually suck. This story started as a writer who “just writes stories” meeting some of these agenda authors. It started good, but I couldn’t figure out a good way to end it. If I hadn’t been so far behind with my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge, I’d probably would have held on to this one for a bit longer to hammer it out.
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One night, an ex-girlfriend and I were coming back from a movie or something, and she made me park. She gave me a notebook and pen and told me to write. She liked that I was a writer, but she didn’t like the kinds of stories I wrote, my writing style, or my writing process. I wrote something, but she didn’t like it. She wanted me to “explore” more of a stream of consciousness thing while I was trying to plot a story. If I had written something like what Tom did, she wouldn’t have liked it.
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This story started when I met a woman who is related to someone most people know about, but few know his name. (I could explain more, but that feels like I’m telling everyone about her family, which I have no business doing.) Anyway, I started thinking about what kind of story I could write about someone related to someone famous, and somehow this is what I came up with.
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One of the easiest ways to get a story idea is to take some simple action and wonder How would someone do this on the moon? One of our feral cats that had been sick for a time died, and after burying it I wondered about burying pets on the moon.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsI don’t remember where I got this idea, but I think a lot of people living in a virtual world will probably live in some fantasy world where you can go on quests. So I like the idea that the quest is in the real world.
One problem with my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge is that I’ll come up with an idea like this, which could easily be turn into a novel. But it’s hard enough writing thirty stories in as many days without writing a novel as well. So I may have to come back to this someday.
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This started when I went to shutdown my laptop and it came up with the option of installing updates and then shutting down. This just let me to wonder how people would install updates to their bioware. The image of a guy being yelled at by his girlfriend asking, “Are you even listening to me?” came to mind. And then I wrote the story.
It was less than an hour, maybe even forty minutes, from the time I had the idea until I had – after turning my laptop back on – written it and posted this story. I think that’s pretty good for forty minutes.
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Much like Jon, great ideas for stories often come to me either in dreams or when I’m in that half-awake state when I’m just falling asleep or just waking up. (Well, I say great, but most often in the morning they’re just indecipherable.) So I wasn’t sleeping that well and I had hurt my hand so I wasn’t feeling super great so I was taking a nap. I thought it kind of funny to take a nap to get an idea, so I wrote a story about how other people might see it.
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This started when I heard that people are standing in line, not to get the new whateverphone, but just to preorder one. I don’t know how true that is, but if it is, I think that’s … what the word? Oh, stupid.
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This story started when, after racing through the rain to my car with groceries, the rain stopped once I was in my car. I started thinking about a rain god playing with people. At first, it was to be a goddess getting back and an old boyfriend, but then I realized that had too much of a psycho ex-girlfriend vibe. So I changed it to a Rain Prince, who ended up being a bit of a creepy stalker type.
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The idea for this came after I saw this headline: Phil Robertson Tells Hannity How He’d Combat ISIS: ‘Convert Them or Kill Them.’
In a nutshell, my thoughts on ISIS are that the world will be better when they no longer exist. My “plan” on how to achieve that is a collaborative effort of local, regional, and international groups using diplomatic, political, economic, social, military, etc. means. I will support those with more knowledge who have actual details for this “plan.” And I will stand by this. But Robertson just says stuff to get a soundbite. I know – and I suspect even he knows – that a bearded nutjob waving a bible will accomplish nothing against ISIS.
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I imagine having a good memory is very important to politicians. So I naturally began thinking of alien memory implants. It makes sense; somehow.
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There are a lot of things going on in the world right now that could be the basis for stories. Unfortunately, it seems the vast majority of them are depressing things. I wondered if I should try writing a story based on them, and I remembered how an ex-girlfriend didn’t care for me writing science fiction. She thought my talents would be better spent writing “real” stories. When I tried to explain to her how science fiction stories could be inspiring, she waved them off. So I decided to write about that instead. Actually, this would be the second story (“Explore the Future”) I’ve written because of that experience.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”The hard drive in my laptop died, which really, really sucked. I didn’t really lose anything, but it meant I was stuck using my old computer which was circling the drain. The matter wasn’t help with issues I had getting it fixed. Such as that by the time I had taken it to the store and they said, “You’ll have to file a claim with the repair coverage thing,” to me actually being able to file a claim, to them shipping me a prepaid box so I could ship my laptop to them, I had been without my laptop for over a week. And they would get it back to me within ten business days. And then I’d have to take it back to the store so they could reinstall whatever programs.
So I was looking at weeks and weeks without my laptop. Of course, my brain wondered how waiting for repair issues will be like in the more technological future. I admit, the story took a bit of a silly turn, but I needed something like that.
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I’ve been having some computer issues lately, and the one time I took my laptop in, the tech guy explained how with this protection plan, if there’s a problem you can call a number that goes to an American tech support instead of to India or wherever. So this was in the back of my mind when I started thinking about a politician trying to sell his soul, only for the soul transaction service being outsourced. (As if everything you think of makes sense.) So I had the start of a story. Then I woke up and it was Saturday and I needed to finish the damn thing.
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I didn’t have a story for this week and I figured I would just have to do a “No story” week, but then I had a dream Saturday morning where I broke into someone’s house to watch them sleep, and then went out to their yard and started pulling weeds. I woke up feeling rather disturbed by it, so instead of trying to forget about it, I immortalized it in a story. Funny how that happens.
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For my challenge this month, I needed to write a story with the words: heat, humid, hot, hate, and hello. I just started with, “Hello and welcome to Hell,” and it just sort of went from there.
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I’ve been using my laptop a lot lately, which means I’ve needed to recharge it a lot. With my outlet situation, it’s just easier to recharge it in the other room. So I’ll plug it in, and do stuff on my desktop, but after half-an-hour or so, I’ll start looking to see if my laptop is still charging. And then I start checking every ten minutes or so. While doing this one day, the weird part of my brain wondered, How big a pain will it be for androids to recharge? So this was what I came up with.
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I don’t know how many people I’ve heard cry out for freedom and independence and self-reliance and whatever. On one hand I have nothing against them, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that if you took away their morning coffee – or told them to pick the beans themselves – a fair number would crawl back to whatever tyranny so they can get their caffeine fix.
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For my challenge this month, I needed to write a story with the words: fan, ceiling, book, bowl, and sneeze. I started with a guy reading a book with a fan blowing and he stops to look at the ceiling. I just needed to make that into something. As to the title, it was getting close to the end of the month and I wanted to get this posted and I couldn’t think of anything.
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For some reason, the phrase, “Can you get away with murder?” came to mind and, for some other reason, I thought That sounds like the name of stupid game show. Thus this story. Hey, I never said my stories – or the reasons I wrote them – were deep or profound.
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This story started with this video I saw about Moon Loons. It got me thinking, I’m a creative guy. Could I make up some completely bullshit conspiracy theory and make blog posts and YouTube videos so all the nutjobs could come and click on the ads? It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t know if I would have the stamina to go through all that. But I can write a short story about someone who does.
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I figured I should write something this week for Memorial Day. Personally, I’m not big on holidays in general because whatever the cause the holiday is supposed to celebrate, it usually just becomes an excuse to party. Thus holidays can end up demeaning the cause.
So I started writing something like that, and then I came up with the idea that kids today have more history to learn, and then it was the end of the week and I needed to finish a story. I will admit this isn’t my best story. I had a great starting idea, I just couldn’t really figure out what to do with it.
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For my challenge this month, I needed to write a story with the words: grey, blood, backdoor, glass, and prod. Fortunately for me, a few days into the month I got a sliver in my finger. As I prodded at a grey sliver of wood with a needle, I realized I could write about it using several of my words. I wrote the first part, but I still needed to use glass. So I wrote in the neighbor. After I used all of my words, I needed to find some way to end it. Hey, I never said these blurbs would be overly insightful.
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We had our Primary Election here in Pennsylvania this week. I couldn’t vote in it since I don’t have a party affiliation, but that didn’t save me from seeing political ads.
Anyway, I used to watch a couple cable channel political shows, but I’m trying to give them up a bit. The main reason is that often times they just so me some idiot six states away who needs sense beat into them with heavy books. I know there are idiots out there, but when I’m shown their idiocy it just gets my blood pressure up. So I’m trying to cut back on my … exposure to idiocy. I think that’s a prescription we could all use.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsWith Earth Day and my recent thoughts on terraforming Mars, the idea of a Mars Day just seemed natural. My one concern with this story is that I was rushed to get it out by the end of the week and I’m not entirely happy with it. This is a story that when I look at it again – probably to include in some anthology – I’ll have a better idea of what to do with it.
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For my challenge this month, I needed to write a story with the words: wind, wise, weekend, wild, and woman. With it being spring, I went with someone looking at the changes coming to their backyard. That’s about all I have for this story.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsI needed to get my car inspected this week, which is one of those annoying adult things you never think about when you’re chasing fireflies around the backyard with a baseball bat. (If you hit them just right, they explode and you get little glowy bits like a mini-firework.) I was thinking about this, and I realized that if there was some deager, you’d probably have to work your entire life to afford it and get ten years as a kid.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”I’ve been in a rut for the past few weeks. I’d rather watch reviews (such as SF Debris) than write. Don’t get me wrong, I do other things than just watch videos, but as with “There’s a Cream for That,” my get up and go has gotten up and left.
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I was having a hard time finding my motivation this week. Thursday night I jokingly thought, You’d think they’d have a pill for that by now. I laughed, and then thought, What the hell and I came up with this silly little story.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”I started a challenge of giving people five words and having them write a story using all five. This was the second month I did this, and it appears I am again the only one who wrote anything.
Two of the words I had picked were metal and moonlight, and this – by the random ideas that hit writers – led me to thinking about someone forging a sword by moonlight. Why by moonlight? Because only some monster can be killed by a moonforged sword. So why is the guy making one now? Because if you wait for the monster to attack before forging your sword, the monster is going to be able to run amok for a while. So the story pretty much wrote itself. Those are good stories.
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When writing a story every week, it helps if you can start it by Monday or Tuesday. This week, it was Friday afternoon when I realized I didn’t have an idea. In a bit of a panic I went through some of the big events of the week, Crimea, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, St. Patrick’s Day, the First Day of Spring, etc. But that was too much, and I didn’t have the time, so I decided to write something simple, and this is what I came up with.
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This week saw the return of Cosmos with Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. So it just seemed natural that I’d write a story about the third iteration of Cosmos.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook The Uncapped PenI was in the process of rereading the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher during this week, and I was in an “I don’t want to entertain, I want to be entertained” mood. I just wondered how my characters think of such times, and thus this silly little story.
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A revised version appeared in my ebook Useless CogsI was sick earlier this week, and my family has had some health issues this week as well. I was thinking about this, and since I’m weird and I think about stuff like this, I figured that in the future, there will probably be people who pay to experience illness. About twenty minutes later, I had “Past Camp.”
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A revised version appeared in my ebook “Seventh Story Stockpile”I started a challenge of giving people five words and having them write a story using all five. This was the first month I did this, and I was the only one who wrote anything.
This started as just a simple story of a guy walking along some unknown planet, but it kept growing. If I had more than a month to work on it, I probably would have written a story twice as long going in to more detail. I guess having a deadline forces one to finish.
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This began with news of “new allegations in the Bridgegate scandal!” I wished I could go to sleep for six months and miss the whole thing.
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Maybe I’m just bitter, but I do get sick of the lovey-dovey crap before Valentine’s Day. I can’t be the only one.
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This began with the various “controversial” ads played in the Super Bowl.
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A few years ago, I wrote a story “Always With Us” about the Apollo 1 fire as part of my Weekly Stories. This week I figured it was time to write one about the Challenger disaster. Lately, I’ve been on a mining asteroids kick, so I looked into asteroid 3352 McAuliffe and found that it was of a rare type of asteroid. Surely, I thought, when a probe is sent to it, school children will have to be involved. Thus, this story came about.
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I wasn’t sure what to base my story on this week. At first I didn’t want to do anything with Justin Bieber’s arrest, but in the end I kind of ran out of time for new ideas. In case you don’t know, Cliff Burton was the bassist for Metallica who died in a bus accident in 1986.
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This story is in response to the Chris Christie “BridgeGate” scandal, but it applies to all such political scandals. Yes, it is important for the people to know when our “leaders” do wrong, but do we need to know every minutia of the ongoing investigations 24/7? For the BridgeGate, I really only need to know when they start arresting people, and then I don’t need to hear the minutia of the trials until there’s a verdict. There’s a lot of other things going on in the world, we don’t need to just focus on this.
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This week saw the dreaded Polar Vortex of 2014. Schools were closed because the kids these days can’t handle a little bit of cold. Why, I remember one morning I was waiting on our porch for the school bus, but I was curious how cold it was. So I went out to the thermometer we had hanging on a tree and saw that it was -9. And I was still going to school!
I began to wonder how pampered the kids in the future will be, and I came up with the idea that they wouldn’t even have to walk, just ride a moving sidewalk. Where would this be set? Why not the moon?
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So I relaunched writing a story every week. Great plan, but that means having to come up with an idea for the first story. I figured I would have to do a New Year’s story, so I just started with a couple talking. This was what I ended up with.
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