A Christmas Tale!

I have a story to tell for this Merry time of year. Funny thing… I was going to submit this as a Christmas themed story for Apex. They asked for a short, dark, sci-fi or fantasy themed Christmas story. The idea came to me, more or less, fully formed in my head. However, I could not cut it down to 250 words per the rules.

Then I missed the deadline.

So, then I had this story sitting here. I was going to submit it to Briane Pagel’s blog, since he takes story submissions now, but I realized it’d probably be mid Jan before this ever got through his submission process. Which I just assume is complicated, because most things he does are complicated, I think.

And of course, he, since he recently became, technically speaking, an editor (even if he says he will do no editing), then I am forced to assume he would reject anything I sent to him anyway, since that, apparently, is the main task that editors have, which is to reject me.

Anyway, below is my dark, sci-fi, Christmas story, which is, unfortunately, way longer than 250 words. But, if you read at a normal clip, you should be able to tear through this story in under 5 minutes.

Merry Christmas everyone. Happy Festivus, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, day away from the office, or Wednesday, take your pick:

I have 17 minutes left. You know, until the world ends.

The second hand on the clock by my desk moves silently, but I like the ticking sound, so I made one up in my head.

Tick tick tick.

I closed my eyes, counted the ticks in my head. And waited. They say, when our ancestors left the earth, that millions of people turned out to watch the launch. The ship, even in orbit, was large enough to dominate the night sky. It was a star brighter than any object visible aside from the moon. Thousands of colonists were there, entering into coldsleep. The best and brightest, each chosen for their skills, knowledge, attitude and health.

When those fusion torches fired up, the earthside lit up like the noonday sun.

Whatever, I’m not sure I believe any of it. It all sounds too… fairy tale-ish. I liked imagining what it would be like though, looking out a window at the earth tumbling far below, and seeing a whole city’s worth of people with lights held up to wish you well on your journey to the stars.

I might have slept. Because I glanced at the clock and there were only 12 minutes left.  It didn’t seem that long. Just a blink really, but five minutes disappeared.  

The room was dark, aside from the wall clock with the silent second hands and the tree in the corner. The bioluminescent fronds made itglow in greens and blues. Quite beautiful. That the silvery sap collected at the ends of the branches and solidified before they can drip down to the ground below, well, that was the kicker.

The trees were a Christmas miracle. A whole world, covered from pole to pole, with the most beautiful trees imaginable. Nothing else larger than a pinky nail appeared to live here. Not plant, animal, or structure of any type. Just a world of Christmas trees.

Tick tick tick.

When the colony ship arrived in orbit it had been traveling for nearly a thousand years. Things had gone to hell en route, and all the foodstuffs meant to keep everyone alive upon arrival we gone. We were barely holding on. Well, my parents were anyway. I was born here. After the arrival. I was the first local baby. They called me Nikki. You know, for Saint Nicholas.

So lame.

Nine minutes.

We arrived, or my parents did, and were forced to ‘live off the land.’ It was a scary time, and the colonists found forests full of these beautiful trees, decorated and waiting for people to come find them.

That was 13 years ago. We survived. In case you were wondering. The seed stocks took, the ground was filled with local biota that earth plants mostly ignored – and vice versa. We showed up near death, on the brink of cannibalism and madness. And found our salvation.

Four minutes. Tick tick tick.

To add one more thing to the mix, we’d made landfall a week before Christmas, ship-time.

The holiday immediately became much more popular. The trees were chopped and moved into people’s new prefabbed homes. The sap balls that looked like ornaments and the glowing needles that were just like lights.

Then, a week later, the Nguyen family came home and found the inside of their home destroyed. The place looked like a machine had exploded, the plaster and wood from the interior were splintered into pieces barely large enough to give a person a splinter.

Amy, their youngest, was in there somewhere. A laughing, crying, playful little girl one minute. And minced into organic matter so fine the next, that it took a few days to realize she wasn’t missing, she’d been mulched.

A few days later, it happened again with the Rodriguez family, they all died. All 5 of them.

Two minutes.

Half the colony was dead before anyone figured it out. They were looking for a murderous kid with a chemistry set. But that wasn’t it at all.

It was the trees.

The sap wasn’t sap, it was a sac of spores. When the tree begins to die, it pumps all of its remaining life into those sacks that dangle like silver bulbs from their glowing fronds. Some alien chemistry experiment goes on in there.

Then boom. Spores for everyone. They don’t release them into the wind, or depend on a wild animal to pick one up and carry it. They shoot the damn things out, like filaments fired from a grenade. They rip through wood, flesh, bone, even metal. The spores themselves are harder than diamond, they have to be, to survive the fiery blast from their birth.

Maybe its best to describe them as bits of glass and metal, they slice apart anything they touch, another evolutionary advantage in a world overrun with these things. On earth, trees would grow taller, reach for the sunlight with and block all the things underneath in a shadow that chokes them out.

Here though, in Grinch’s World, they just blow the shit out of each other, best guess, once every 18 years or so, give or take.

They kill everything that walks on land. Flies through the air, or breaths the air. Best guess is that there are approximately 120,000 of these things for every square mile of land on the planet.

There is no place to hide.

Twenty seconds.

When they all go, it’ll be like a nuclear winter out there, for the survivors, if there are any. Food crops will be ruined, all we’ve worked for for the past dozen years will be ruined. Sure, we can survive the hell week when the things all go crazy and start exploding, probably, but that’s just the beginning.

Any survivors will starve, turn on each other. That’s when the real nightmare will begin. These Christmas trees are made of alien wood. It’s less nutritious for us than regular earth wood would be.

And that’s all that’s here. Anywhere.

Time’s up. I look at the wall clock, seconds tick by. One, two, three.

I held my breath. Nothing. I looked away from the clock, towards the tree in the corner. The fronds were glowing, as were the ornaments, well, spore sacks. I’d never seen that before. It was hypnotic.

The colors danced inside the spheres, I couldn’t resist. It was hypnotic. I left my place by the desk to get a closer look. It called to me, this tree did. It begged for my help.

“I’m here,” I said, “I’m right—“

There was a flash, then darkness.

News, A New Story, and Ben!

Hey all, after taking some time off to recoup from the A-Z thing, I might be back.

I say might, because life has a way of sucking up more of my time than the internet does. I did spend the weekend in sunny Florida on a spur of the moment decision to get away for a few days with the family. It was frustrating, wonderful, and eventually disastrous. But I suppose every trip can't be perfect.

So, moving on...

A reminder that I've promised that every dime I make in book sales this month goes towards helping young Ben Wolverton, the teenage child of Author David Wolverton that had a skateboarding accident that left him with about $1,000,000 in medical bills.

Since sales have been slow, I decided to put a short story up for people to purchase to help out during the month of May. Going Home is a tale of one of the last human soldiers left after an alien invasion. So please read, again, for the rest of the month - anything purchased will see whatever I get in royalties go to Ben's fund.

Click here to purchase.

Look What I Did!

Last night, only minutes before midnight, local time. I submitted my entry to Andrew Leon's short story contest. I feel like Rocky Balboa after the end of Rocky, or Rocky II, also Rocky IV, V & VI... wait, I'm starting to sense a pattern there. Maybe not Rocky III though, he really kicked Clubber's ass in that one.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in reading, fair warning, its just a tad over 5000 words. If you read at a normal-ish pace (approx 250 words per minute) then you're looking at solid 20 minutes to get through the whole thing. That is a commitment. If you read much faster than that, well, then you're probably just  skipping words. In my case, I'm cool with that.

So, if you can handle it, you can either click on the tab above that says, "The Nightmare Named Ricky" or you can just click ---> HERE

Thank you world.

When the World is Broken

I've started tinkering with a new short story. I don't know why, but I got a quite a kick out my concept. I thought I'd share a first draft excerpt.

It's a story of a cosmic entity that is cast down and forced to live as a human child.

"The indignities Billy suffered were beneath him. How could he hope to rule the cosmos again when he had runny bowels thanks to the undercooked meat in his burrito? The universe was determined to undermine him.

And so the universe would pay.

And the playground was the worst. The older kids didn’t respect his authority. They made him eat worms, or pulled his pants down, or worse. But they couldn’t break him. He wouldn’t cry, or complain, or tell, he would take their worst, and smile through it all – dreaming of the day that he would shove mud down their pants. Well, his minions would shove mud down their pants. The effect would be the same though.

And such was his life. A god trapped in the body of a child."

Happy Friday.

Page Views and Dead Gods

Blogging is a most curious thing. I have often thought of conducting some experiments to see if my chosen topics generate a difference in the popularity of a post. If I correlated popularity of a post to comments received I’d think that talking about my pets were my most popular. If the past is any indicator, then I would think that would make that a good topic for every post I ever do going forward.

On the other hand, if page views are my indicator, then I see something else. The most popular post I’ve ever done, which predates any crusading for followers or anything else I’ve ever participated in in hopes of gaining additional viewers for the blog, is nothing more than a YouTube video. (click to see) which is, admittedly, extremely awesome.

Weird. Also interesting to note I’ve never gotten a single comment on that post.

So, I’ve tinkered about and tried to notice things I do that turn folks off – I think my book reviews/reports have been less than stellar, as they seem to generate less interest than most anything else. My complaining about how much everything sucks seems to get a few views. I find the whole process mystifying. I’ve not learned anything. I think my next goal will be to spend a couple of weeks and post at different times, different days, and differing frequencies, just to see if anything stands out.

Of course that means I would have to get blogger to start posting my stuff when I tell it to. I mean, the scheduling feature is nice, but it would be a much more powerful tool if it actually posted the damn thing when I scheduled it, I think I would be a much happier camper if that were the case. I know, keep dreaming.

And then I wonder, what’s the point? By any objective standard I’m a pretty lousy blogger. I mean, my posts aren’t as well narratively pleasing as Andrew’s, I’m not as sociable as Alex (seriously, do you visit every blog on the internet?), I don’t rant as powerfully, or often, as Rogue, and I certainly don’t talk about anything compelling at all. Hell, I usually can’t be bothered to visit here sometimes, I don’t know why I would think anyone else would want to.

But then I remember, I’m doing this in support of my writing, ah, building a platform, you know synergy, cross media marketing, fan base stuff. Whatever. In fact, I caught myself the other day thinking that I should start a podcast. Then I thought. Maybe I should actually have something for someone to read. You know, since that’s the point.

So, I’m proud to announce that I’ve put up a short story on Kindle. Wait. Did I say proud? that's a strong word. I'll say I'm nervous enough about missing out on something that I went ahead and did it. I'll do Smashwords, B&N and all that later I suppose, but I'm lazy, and stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to get the formatting right. It also sucked because I intended to include a bunch of sketches and character notes, but, in what I'm sure is only the universe mocking me, having all that included at the end in a "extras" section screwed up the formatting for the whole story. Stupid computers. I can't even put a larger version of the cover that I worked so hard on into the book, so all anyone can see is that stupid little thumbnail. Dammit.

Regardless, I'll put up a link to it soon on one of the sidebars, and you may have noticed that I changed my background here into something blindingly tacky and in your face, you know, to promote myself. I'll leave it up for a week or so and switch it back to something a bit less... confrontational.

And the more I think about it, I really probably should have done one more full edit of that manuscript before I put it out there. Oh well, too late.

With that said, here's the link.

So, whatever. Give me money. Or don't. I have tentative plans to put something else out in the next month or so, when I do I'll probably drop the price of this one to free. Assuming of course, that I can.

No stock photos for me. All from scratch baby! Er, don't ask about the guns though.

Beginnings... Again

I had a fantastic idea for a post over the weekend and forced myself  to wait until today to write it.

I have no idea what it was.

So, in its stead, I'm announcing that I've begun another short story. I have no idea what it's about yet, but I'm around 1500 words in and it seems promising. I can't wait to see what happens.

I'll have more later I suppose.

Happy Day

Another week is ripping on by at breakneck speed and I have little to show for it. But, I did send off my short story to Writers of the Future in high hopes of that $5k prize they promise. I would consider converting to Scientology if it will help me win.

Of course I took a quick peek at my story just after I hit the submit button and found several oopses that I can't believe I didn't see the first 27 times I read over manuscript. But you know, whatever.

So that one is gone, good riddance. Also have been trying to write a two page synopsis for my novel. I'm about to send it off and need that damned synopsis. I've spent more time trying to get that together than I spent on the stupid book in the first place.

But, the one part I think is fun is this thing I've heard that publisher's love. Summing up the novel in a single sentence. I heard a couple of interviews online in the past few weeks and it seems that you want to throw out no more that three popular references that anyone might now if they were to hear it.

So what do I say in my one sentence summary? It's Rendezvous with Rama meets Apollo 13 meets Psych.

I'm worried that Psych isn't popular enough though. I can't describe an unknown, unpublished, novel by referencing an obscure show. I did have an earlier version of my one sentence summary that replaced Psych with Clerks, but I think Psych is a much better descriptor of the novel. Oh the problem.

Makes me wonder though, if you are writing a novel, or already have, what would your one sentence description be if you have to use a mash-up of popular movies or novels to describe it?

Oh, and I heard today that the traditional color associated with Saint Patrick was blue. I can't wrap my head around that. It'll take a few more beers for me to make sense of that.

And I know I've got those blogger awards things hanging around my neck like a noose. I think I'm going to be working this weekend, at the office and at home. But I'll try to at least get something out there.

Drink safely

There She Be!

Wow. I blinked and it's been a week. What happened? Looking at my belly indicates food was involved, the rest was a blur.

I'm not sure if I got home earlier than 9 o'clock even once during the past week, and I was running to and fro all weekend on top of it. I think it has served to make this the teeniest online presence I've had in many months. The week to come looks to be more of the same, ugh. I may need to take a day off to sit back and relax. That said, I have  few items to discuss, all of them random and meaningless.

1) I'm still tinkering with both my novel and my recent short story. I thought I put the short story to bed but discovered a flaw or two that required a small change, which of course led to another necessary change, added a character that wasn't in a scene as I originally conceived, which meant said scene had to be rewritten. And that meant that my story was going off the rails due to the new changes I'd made. Looks like I'm sitting on around 10k word count now. That story isn't so short anymore.

Ever wondered what awesome looks like? Now you know.

2) Feed, by Mira Grant is all sorts of awesome. Definitely the best book I read in 2011. I'll be picking up the sequel the day it's released.

3) Reading the book mentioned in point number 2 reminded me of how much a problem I have writing when I'm reading a really good book.  I seem to get all depressed about what I'm writing because it looks so crappy in comparison. I mean. what I'm writing may well be crappy, but I can't actually create something that I think is crappy while I'm creating. I don't work that way. While it's coming out of my fingertips I'm convinced it's the greatest thing a human has ever produced, up there with Relativity or the Sistine Chapel. To realize it's really crap too early screws with my mind, I can't know that until later.

4) I accidentally started reading another book too, after reading a couple of books over the past four or five months that I was very disappointed in, I forgot how great a great novel can be.

5) I was given some blog awards during the past week, and featured on J.C. Martin's blog as part of her Friday Follower feature. I do intend to discuss in a separate post. But I'm like that naughty uncle that shows up at the family Thanksgiving dinner drunk, tells dirty jokes during the prayer, farts throughout the meal, and finishes by vomiting on the table and passing out in the bathtub. Or, in other words, pleasantly eccentric. So forgive me if I'm slow in passing along the good tidings, I just suck at etiquette.

I think that's it. My thoughts go with those that suffered in the disaster in Japan this week. Horrible.

See you soon.

What's In a Name?

Imagine, if you will, a small but rapidly growing southern town in the 1890's. A young man, his nine-fingered girlfriend and an angry black man team up to wreak havoc on a local group of tough guys - only to find that sci fi weirdness awaits.

Sound awesomely awesome, right? Well, slightly lamer than awesome. But still, at least it's a story - and a finished one. So I'm doing final edits on it so I can send it out to be rejected and it dawns on me... I don't have a title. No problem, I'll just slap a name on it and I'm done. I'll call it:

Buster's Revenge

Er, aside from the fact that there is no one named Buster in the story, and no one is really seeking revenge, well, maybe in a general "I'm mad at the world" kind of way, but not specifically. I'm not sure it's appropriate. No biggie, I'll come up with something else.

The Cursed Coin of Caine Comes Calling

I love alliteration, probably because I can tell folks when I'm stuttering that I just enjoying alliterating. But again, who's Caine? Actually, it's pretty stupid. Even if there was a Caine in the story I would hate it. Forget that one.

Bang! That was my Gun... and It Shot You...With a Bullet

Ugh. And that's before alcohol got involved. I think I came up with around a dozen titles, each worse than the last. So, ah, not to imposition anyone or anything, but if anyone has an idea of a title I wouldn't be against using it.

Anyone?

Dead Men Don't Live... Unless They Do!

Oh god, someone please help me.

Award Winning at Last!

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally picked up my first ever Blogger Award. I didn't have time to read the fine print, but I'm pretty sure it's well deserved. I'd like thank everyone who nominated me.

Seriously, I guess it's may way of letting everyone who may have just started noticing my blog that I truly do suck. I have been picking up a lot more followers lately than I can easily handle. I'm so far behind in going back through to see who everyone is that I don't know if I'll ever catch up.

So, if you are a recent follower and  I've not acknowledged you, please be forgiving. I'm struggling managing my time and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'll catch up.

In the meantime, my short story, er, novelette, is done. I've stamped it with my done stamp and it is over. I read it out loud in it's entirety and think I've knocked out all the little things, like typos and dropped words, that have plagued it.

Of course that hasn't addressed the major problems, like characters behaving like drunken ducks in a cyclone - doing things that no one could ever make sense of. But those sorts of problems mean very little to me at this point. This one is in the bag.

So, I celebrate for a few minutes, then go back to editing my crappy novel.

Is It All Just Wasted Time?

I've written before about how much of a procrastinator I can be. Today - thanks to the need for someone to be at the house when a contractor came by the house to give an estimate - I took off work. Oh the stuff I was going to get done today.

I also complained about how slow my wife has been about reading my would-be novel and how I've written a pretty long short story while I've been waiting... over 6k words long. Well, as I do everything I write, I loved it. What will happen soon though, I'll tweak it a bit before sending it off to try to get it published, then notice something I didn't like, change it, realized I screwed up the continuity, rewrite other portions, get bored with it, decide it needs more action, then realize its too dark, add a comedic sidekick. Eventually I'll have a mess.

But I'm not there yet. Right now I still love my story. So while I had the time and inclination I decided to do a sketch or two early on this morning to really give the story some oomph. I've been doing a lot of sketches and the like the past month or two because I am toying with the idea of releasing something - for free, or as cheap as the rules will allow - in various e-formats. I think I'm going to try to submit my novel for general traditional publication. But a short story isn't so much an investment in time that I couldn't try experiment by putting it out there.

So, with that in mind I was thinking of adding a picture or two with anything I release. I'm still toying with the idea and don't know if I'll do it... but that does serve as the inspiration for recent flurry of doodles I've been putting out.

Now, the short story I've written is set in the southern U.S. in the mid 1890's. In the story a Clint Eastwood type mysterious stranger shows up when things are just turning violent. I had in mind the fantastic movie The Unforgiven when Clint walks into the saloon with vengeance on his mind.

The difference I suppose is that my character is a black man. For 10 - 20 years right after the civil war black men in the south enjoyed more freedoms and luxuries than they would for the next century. The 1890's was when Jim Crow laws were really starting to be put into the books across the south, taking away many of those freedoms.

Also, I don't draw guns well.

This character is heavily scarred and none too pretty to look at. I thought it would  be great to capture something of him in one of the story's more dramatic moments. So I started with this rough draft:

I wanted to show several characters in the foreground and that classic Mexican standoff that the great Spaghetti Western's are known for. But I realized that I couldn't do that for a couple of reasons. 1) I suck at blocking things out. I would be positioning folks in stupid places and would end up ruining my picture, I just don't have the skill level to pull that sort of thing off well. 2) It would take forever to actually move that beyond a mere sketch. I would spend as much time trying to finish a scene as I did writing the story in the first place. I'm not prepared to dedicate that kind of time to it.

So, after deciding that was the wrong track I wanted to focus on the same part of the story, but to sketch the character a bit more dynamically  to see if that looks any better. I got this:

Wait. Wasn't he supposed to be black?

I like it a bit better, but it looks too comic booky to me. I wanted the end picture to look more like an oil painting, not a rogue from the Batman comics. I needed to up the ante and add some realism to the scene. Of course I can't really do that without some sort of reference photo or something. So I picked a photo of the internet and sketched this:

That cowboy hat got awfully wimpy looking.

Well, I did okay with the realism, but my issue is that I really need a live model to sketch something that looks real and like it has impending action... in other words. I wasted my day. Still, I do enjoy the creative process. I just wish I had more time and could work faster.

In the meantime, my wife has read the first five chapters of my novel. Only about 20 more to go and I can get it back and start making revisions.

It Wasn't Me. I Swear!

I received word about a lawyer who decided to give back to his community of Valentine's day this year. To do something special for the townspeople that he lived and worked among during his professional career. Like all of us, he donated what he could. In this case, his expertise. So he gave away one free divorce.

Yep, the man stood up, announced to the world that he was going to give away a divorce for Valentines Day. It may be one of the more tasteless things I've ever heard of someone doing. The worst part?

Apparently... that man is me!

Yes, a lawyer with my name has decided to do something that should make other lawyers put their heads down in shame. I apologize to the world as well. I feel like he has sullied my good name.

Regardless, as anyone who follows me on twitter may know. I've been taking a break from my crappy novel to let my wife read it for me. She's a pretty good beta reader and has already pointed out several problem points that I missed. My issue is that she is so slow. I'm not sure I can have this thing ready by March now or not. I think I've bugged her so much that she's ready to shoot me for not leaving her alone about it.

The part that worries me most though, isn't what flaws she finds, it's that she doesn't seem to have a great interest in reading it in the first place. Is she bored already? I could be in real trouble here.

Well, the short story I've been working on in the interim is pretty cool, although I'm getting dangerously close to Novelette territory now. I should get it wrapped up in another day or so. Then hopefully cleaned up and ready to submit somewhere by the end of the weekend. So, I do have that.

Oh well, still keeping the dream alive.

Attack With a GL-417

Markus Guthman placed his GL-417 assault rifle gently on the table. He had seen too much in his life to place it appropriately in the storage locker like regulations state. He took his seat across from his civilian commander, rifle within reach.

“Are you ready to eat?” She asked, standing tall over the table.

Markus shook his head, “I had field rations earlier, I’m okay.”

She slid into the chair opposite Markus and looked him in the eye, “We need to talk,” she said, “about your most recent behavior.”

Markus sat up straight in his chair, suddenly alert and on the defensive, “My behavior? My behavior has protected countless numbers of lives. I hope you are about to thank me for my behavior.”

She bit her lower lip, “Markus, I don’t want-”

Markus put up his hand, her queue to be quiet. He could see her ears grow red, he would have her wrath to deal with later… if there was a later. Right now he could hear soft whispering just outside the door.

He grabbed his rifle from the table and stood. He placed one finger to his lips, reminding her to keep quiet. “They’re here,” he whispered, “find a place to hide.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could make a sound the door burst open. Small, lithe bodies flooded into the room, firing indiscriminately.

“Down!” Markus shouted as he dove for safety.

He caught his civcom staring, wide-eyed, as the attackers flooded the room with weapons fire. Markus hid as priceless treasures and heirlooms were ruined, he could see his way of life coming to an end.

He had an instant, any longer and their situation would be hopeless. He sighed deeply and prepared to counter their attack. It was then that his civcom came alive.
In a flash she covered the space between the nearest attacker and herself. The assailant was pinned and disarmed before he could so much as raise his hand in defense.
She moved with frightening speed, from one attacker to the next. In less than half a minute there were no more enemies for Markus to shoot, they were all captured.

Markus stood from his hiding spot, disbelieving. “Mom?” Markus whispered.

“Markus Reginald Guthman.” She said, her teeth clenched, “You are grounded. Billy, Timothy, Lenny. I am calling your parents. Give me your water guns.

“Yes Ma’am.” They muttered.

Markus handed over his weapon and took his punishment in stride. The war was as good as over anyways. He slowly climbed the steps to his room when he caught sight of something from the upstairs window.

Zipping past was a scout vessel from a long vanquished foe, one long since forgotten. The Aldorian slug people.

A new war had begun.