This is a page for my other publications. The photo essays, the micro-fiction, the poetry. I guess that pretty much explains everything.
Main Publication Page
If you’ll check out the blog on the MySpace page, you’ll see where I’ve gone into detail about how this all developed and (eventually) there will be far more information than I can fit here.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
Just a little something to mark how I spent 2009’s Black Friday.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
I’ve often wondered what an alien would make of a comic convention. When I went to the Philadelphia Wizard World in June of 2009, I tried to look at it with an alien eye.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
I had the idea of “Things to do before you die” stuck in my head, so here’s my list.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
Click here to read it.
Top of page
This is a photo essay of my trip to the Preston & Steve Camp Out For Hunger 2008.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
This photo essay shows some of the interesting people I saw at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
Some of these photos came out a bit blurry, which sucks. But I think the humor overall will make up for that.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
The most poignant part of my trip to Hawaii was visiting the USS Arizona Memorial.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
This is just a little photo essay I wrote about my drive home for Thanksgiving.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
This has been a long time coming, but here it finally is four-and-a-half months after the fact: the photo essay on my friends’ wedding in Hawaii.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
Each year (for the past two, at least) one of my writing groups has a holiday dinner. This is an essay connecting most of the pictures I took there.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
This is another little photo essay I wrote after returning from a wedding on Oahu. I still have 30 some odd photo essays to write. I’ll let you know when I finish them.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
After returning from a wedding on Oahu (with about 640 photos), I wrote up this little photo essay using 20 of them. I guess that means I have 32 more photo essays to write. I’ll let you know when I finish them.
Click here to read it.
Top of page
Just a stupid little story I wrote for Groundhog Day.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I thought this was a nice little Christmas story.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I was trying to write a quick little story for Thanksgiving, and this is what I came up with.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
This was just something stupid I wrote out a couple of years ago.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
It was one of the first warm days of spring and I stopped at my local coffee shop to do some writing, but I seemed to spend more time staring out the window, wanting to be outside. Sometimes, there isn’t much to these blurbs. Although, I did spend several minutes coming up with “borp.”
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
A writing group I’m in is considering putting together a collection of stories. The theme is writing groups. I was trying to think of some story and this is what I came up with while my tea steeped.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
It had been a few months since I posted a story on Ficly, and I wanted to write something quick. I had been sick for a couple days, and when I returned to work a coworker asked if I was better, and I replied with something like “Meeha” which he found amusing. So I just wrote that up as a story.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
A fellow member of writing group joked I could write a story about a writing group in 50 words. I took that challenge, and this is the result.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I was a few stories behind for my BB, so I needed a few quick ones. So I decided that after work one day I’d go to the local coffee shop and I wouldn’t leave until I had a story. Well, I had some ideas and had jotted down some notes, but my tea was about two-thirds gone and I didn’t have a story. Buckling down, I glanced at the other side of the table and saw an empty chair. Empty chair, I thought. Why is the chair empty? I was stood up. By my muse!
Were you expecting something profound?
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I take walks to relax, but sometimes during my 30 Stories in 30 Days Challenge, I was torn between taking walks and writing. I realized that sometimes, you just have to rebel against your muse.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
A revised version appeared in my book The All-You-Can-Read BuffetThis was just something I wrote out one afternoon and thought was funny
Top of page
A revised version appeared in my book A Man of Few WordsI always thought this was a cute little story about something everybody goes through. I think I wrote the first version six or seven years ago, and over the years I’ve tweaked it a bit. (It’s less than 100 words! How much tweaking could it take?) It has been rejected a few times, so it is a very good feeling knowing it has finally be published.
Top of page
A revised version appeared in my book A Man of Few WordsSeveral months ago on the MySpace Forums, I tried to start a new string for five sentence stories. This was something a friend and I used to do as a challenge for our writing. (I might make a page for these to compliment my 5 Word Challenge and The Six Shooter. Stay tuned.) I thought it was a good idea, but it never got off the ground. The feeling I got from some of the regulars was, “Who the hell are you to start something new?” I threw “Gauntlet,” down to try to get some reaction, but I don’t think anyone picked it up.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I can’t remember where this idea came from. I know where the different parts came from: the guy next door one year at college had a vocal girlfriend, the never ending alarm clock is a story involving a couple friends of mine, and the bleah morning feeling I think is something everyone with a job knows about. Somehow I mixed all that together, and came up with “Life.”
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
A revised version appeared in my book A Man of Few WordsI am a cold weather person. I’m also annoying. I don’t know how many times I would be going someplace with some friends in the middle of winter, and they’d be wrapped up in thick coats and still shivering, while I’d be wearing an unbuttoned jean jacket and throwing my arms wide as I faced the wind. Somehow that image of me challenging nature, saying, “You can’t beat me,” became this story.
(Since it isn’t online anywhere, I’ve set it up on a page of its own.)
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
A revised version appeared in my book The All-You-Can-Read BuffetOne of the things Sigla Magazine published was flash fiction, which they defined as a story of 25 words (not counting the title.)
The idea behind this story was to write a genre story in 25 words. It was a challenge to just use a few choice words, and have the reader fill everything else in. Since it is so short, here it is:
Top of pageButch looked down at the man lying in the dusty street. He spit his tobacco juice onto the spray of blood and brains. “Welcome stranger.”
One of the things Sigla Magazine published was flash fiction, which they defined as a story of 25 words (not counting the title.)
This story, unfortunately, is based on something that has happened to me numerous times. But this story did lead to an amusing incident. A friend and I were exchanging very short stories by email as a writing exercise. Well, I sent her the original version of this story (which was maybe 10 words longer) without saying it was one of our exercises. At first, she didn’t know how to take it.
Hey, everything OK? I haven’t heard from you. Do you have plans for this weekend? We could catch a movie. Let me know.
Top of page
I like to take walks late at night. And some nights, I just have a feeling to get in my car and drive. I don’t know where I’d go or end up, but a part of me just wants to go. As if I could leave all my problems behind. I don’t think it works that way, though.
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
The idea for this came a couple springs ago when I was leaving for work in the morning. I’m sure we’ve all went through this at some point. It was the first warm, sunny day and I just felt miserable because it was something I had been waiting for, but instead of enjoying it I had to go to work.
This was previously published in April 2007, on my oneoveralpha MySpace page
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
Just a little poem I wrote out one day.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
Some people say I have issues with work.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I have no idea how many ideas of mine – for poems or stories – have been ruthlessly murdered by my pillows. I guess it means you are either loosing your mind, or are a writer, when you start seeing your pillows as serial killers.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
There were several times I used Duchess to break a trail through deep snow. She thought it was a game.
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
I was having computer problems and needed something simple to type up at the library instead of just cutting and pasting. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had already posted this. Oh well, it’s still good.
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
At some point – assuming we don’t wipe ourselves out – Homo sapiens will become evolutionarily obsolete. What happens then? That’s something I’ve often wondered about.
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
The idea for this came a couple springs ago when I was leaving for work in the morning. I’m sure we’ve all went through this at some point. It was the first warm, sunny day and I just felt miserable because it was something I had been waiting for, but instead of enjoying it I had to go to work.
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
I guess it was two years ago, I found out about this poetry workshop in a bookstore near where I live now. I figured that if I was going to join, I should have a poem the group could critique. So I was wandering around at work, and this is what I came up with.
Click here to read the poem.
Top of page
This poem was accepted for Electric Mandolin, but before it could be published, EM went under.
I’m not completely sure, but I would bet the idea came to me as I was flipping through the channels trying to find something good on. I’ve put it here so that everyone can enjoy this wonderful poem I wrote that was accepted, but never published.
I sit on the couch
remote in my hand
Click, talk show
Click, game show
Click, unbelievably bad movie
The click, click, click
drowns out the sound
of life
passing me by
Top of page
I needed to write something quick for my newsletter. Given the weather, this is what I came up with.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
I had the idea of leftover turkey coming back to life, so I wanted to do something with zombie turkey.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
It had been a rather rainy month, so I wrote an haiku about it.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
The other day I was watching a marathon of episodes of this one show that I watch for fun. What sucked was that every commercial break they had a promo – or two – for their latest “reality” show. It made me feel a tad bitter because I spend so much time crafting stories with plot and character, whereas these schmucks just get drunk and yell at people and make it on TV.
And now – as I’m typing this – I’m somewhat watching a movie that’s beloved by millions. I probably haven’t seen it for ten years, and it’s not that surprising because it sucks. I mean there are more holes than plot. Here I am, trying to write good stories, and crap like that is on TV.
Now if I could turn my bitterness into words on a page.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
Have you ever woken up one morning to realize that it was the end of the month? That happened to me. I never got around to writing a story for my newsletter, and I didn’t want to do nothing, so I took five minutes and wrote out a haiku about not having enough time.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
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. So this month I was feeling kinda down about work and started working on a story dealing with the “brick and steel leech” idea, but I didn’t really get that far with it. On an entirely different matter, I was going through a book of Ansel Adams photographs. As often happens with me, the two ideas fused, and since I was short on time, I wrote a haiku.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
This just shows a fear I have of life getting in the way of my writing.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page
These are just four haiku I put up on my MySpace page.
Click here to read them.
Top of page
It’s a scifi haiku. What can I say about seventeen syllables.
Top of page
I was just playing around, trying to write a Fourth of July haiku, and this is what I came up with. Since it is so short, I’ll just put it here.
Brilliant sky flowers
Breaking the still, silent night
With blooms of thunder
Top of page
This started a couple of months ago when I read a novella about an AI that evolved in the internet. This got me thinking. In this novella, in The Terminator, The Matrix, and the Dune prequels there is either a single AI entity or a group of entities with a hive mind. I realized that’s unlikely. People fear that whenever we create an AI, it will be infinitely powerful and be able to do anything. But really, AIs will be limited, either from physical constraints or by design. So instead of having one infinitely powerful AI in the world, it is more likely there will be dozens or hundreds of limited AIs.
In The Terminator Kyle tells Sarah that Skynet “decided our fate in a microsecond.” Skynet could do that because it was the only one, but what if there had been another, human friendly AI? Would our fate have been decided by a microsecond long AI civil war? Would we humans even notice the electronic cold war or the real war? Would we notice the invisible cliff before we went over it?
Click here to read the script.
Top of page
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. I think what disturbs me the most are the accessories.
Click here to read the story.
Top of page