The beard of pain falls.
A meteor ends the foul
bug-eyed shinobi.
The famous red can
is my soul’s mate and lusty
metal sin. Chomp chomp!
[Kind of a cop-out, I know — but they’re haiku! You have to like them, or you are disrespecting thousands of years of Japanese culture. With regrets for H.N. and Jeremy.]
Hey, demand a story! You deserve it.
Drop a story idea in the comments, and I will select on using a complicated algorithm. Yeah!
Hit my word count mark for the week –despite the negativity and pressure from all directions. JUST LET ME WORK PEOPLE.
Ha — it’s fun channeling your inner angsty tween. [Is there any other kind of tween?]
I’m getting into a bad habit of waiting until Friday to do the bulk of my week’s allotment. It’s mostly been other work/life factors that have contributed to this — but still. STILL. Putting myself on notice — for all the good that will do.
The pages I wrote this week, were something of an experiment. I decided to write a side chapter/villain interlude — then go back and plug it in somewhere earlier in That Thing. A little nerve-wracking, honestly. I’ve been so focused on keeping forward momentum with the plot – that it felt very much like leaving my security blanket at home for my first Big Boy sleepover.
I’m pleased with the results — and after some constructive criticism from my beloved, the villain interlude improved markedly.
Two more villain interludes – then back to the fray with …oh wait, you don’t know the names of my protagonists.
AND ITS GONNA STAY THAT WAY, NOSY. GET OUT OF MY ROOM, DAD.
All of the lovely writer blogs that I follow, posting up your daily/weekly/hourly/minutely word count – making my draw drop.
“Oh, I just wrote 10,000 words this afternoon — still plenty of time to go work at the homeless shelter before dinner!”
“Hmm, stuck in the elevator — better crank out three chapters…..”
“3 minutes for the popcorn? Great! I can do that 30,000 word backstory for my second protagonist.”
Consider me very jealous – and full to the brim with green-colored Envy Bile.
My arts. Deal with them.
There! All three Stories on Demand completed — I hope to some sort of satisfaction.
I don’t know what it was, but I had a hard time with these three — and I’m not doing my normal level of self-back-patting.
But, there’s a value to delivering a product, even when you’re not in the mood, or feeling inspired.
Right, Gurney?
I killed him.
My quill almost snaps in my haste to write it down.
I turned into a mist, slipped under the door and stabbed him fourteen times with my claws. I cracked a nail on his sternum.
It was most troublesome.
He was a Nai-Elf — a mighty shaman of his tribe — come to meet with my employers. He plead his case most eloquently – the poison in the seas, the lowered birth rate of his tribe, the incalculable destruction of the natural world. The glowing tattoos in his blue skin, and the elaborate mirrored earrings and and bangles at his wrists and ankles made him savage and strange to the board — but it reminded me of home.
His breath stank of sardines and aged cheese. I hated to watch him wring his hands, so nervous and uncomfortable. My employers smiled, and laughed behind their hands at him — then nodded and said soft words. It made me angry to see this wise old elf disrespected. I rushed over as he stormed out, determined to salvage some measure of good will from the shaman – Mistress Karis’ derision and anger was a risk, but I couldn’t let him leave totally empty handed.
He was angry, but he heard me – the lines in his face softened. He thanked me for my concern, and placed both of his hands out in front of his face, in a Nai-Elf gesture of respect.
I saw his eyes casually look into the tiny mirrors at his wrist. Then widen, then dart to my face.
Shit.
I whispered the word, completely surprised. He realized that I didn’t have a reflection.
The shaman left , keeping his eyes on me as his hands reached for the door. He knew what I was — which meant his fate was sealed.
I felt regret looking down at his corpse — even as I fed on his strange blood. Just a taste, our of principle.
In short order, the body was discovered , and the captain — a good, decent man himself – put the ship on lockdown, seeking the murderer. My employers were annoyed by the inconvenience, completely untouched by the shaman’s death.
I had guarded my secret for too many years to let if fall now — my sire’s commands ring in my ears as loudly today as they did a hundred years ago.
I am the spawn of Zed – the Neclord himself, and I will not fail.
There is a commotion on deck — apparently a small ship has come alongside, a group of investigators perhaps?
I sit in front of the mirror, and imagine my face — a picture held in my mind. I make the picture smile kindly, I make the wrinkles fade.
A knock at the door – I leave to go make myself helpful.
– The Journals of Enton Blake, 21st of Arrowspan – 1179
[Story on Demand for Steven.]
The white porcelain shone in the yellow-bulb light. Mark looked down at his hands, they hung over the edge of the tub – the tips of his fingers were white and bloodless. He slapped his hands against the sides, trying to awaken his flesh.
Mark didn’t know where he was. The tub was an older style, all white and round — but the room appeared to be a middle-range motel of some sort. The tub was full of ice, a brittle square line right below his nipples.
He felt his stomach turn. He’d heard the stories. Mark forced his hands down below the ice, feeling glacially for the fresh stitch marks, the gaping bloody hole.
There was no hole. Also, there were no legs.
Unbroken blue scales, starting from below his ribs running down into a trim point — three massive flapping fins at the end.
Mark screamed, hurling grocery-store ice all over the floor. His new tail spasmed, making even more of the cubes fly through the air.
He rocked back and forth in the tub, and finally managed to flip himself out onto the cold terra cotta floor. He could just spy his laptop bag through the cracked doorway, and he wriggled toward it. His new tail was difficult to control — he finally realized that the tail bent the opposite way of his old human knees, and then he was able to scooch more ably.
Mark clawed at the bag, blood and pain returning to his fingertips – and he fished out his cell. With the screen an inch from his face, he updated his status.
Mark Cotton – Best birthday ever!
Mark sighed happily, and pulled the tin of sardines he’d prepared from the side pocket.
[Story on Demand for Jason. As old comedian’s say — ‘It can’t be Christmas every day.’ Sorry that this was the best by beleaguered brain could manage.]
Black screen, thunderous fanfare — followed by agonizing squeal of electronic fuzz.
In a world where every dog has his day….
Jump shots of a vast metropolis. Cars honking, police brutalizing a lemonade stand, a nun jumping off a 23 story building, a kid crosses the street and spontaneously explodes.
…and there’s a lot of fish in the sea….
Scientists and researchers mill around a cluttered laboratory. A stereotypically blonde and buxom researcher rips off her glasses and wails with concern.
“Professor, do you think this is wise? Do you think this is morally ethical? Is it right, Professor?”
Camera spins to the Professor, he is wearing a black leather jacket and has finishing a bowl of banana pudding. He throws the bowl to the floor,and rips off his dark glasses — revealing that his eyes glow a bright green.
“Dammit, Charlene — don’t question me. Not now — not you–not ever!”
The Professor’s voice continues over the next few shots.
“We needed something stronger, faster — more cunning. A machine that can bring order and peace back to our world gone mad. This mad world, full to the brim with madness.”
Shots of a machine being constructed. Metal being forged, wires being connected. The shadowy outline of some robotic killing machine.
“Synthesizing the instinctual algorithms of 75 alpha predators was easy — now we get to the hard part.”
The robot is active — quadra-pedal, pacing around a narrow enclosure. A slot opens and a small shoebox is pushed in by a long broom handle. Cut back to the Professor, putting back on his sunglasses.
“Now we need to teach it to be….a cat!”
Cut back to the shoebox. The robot leans over the box, red eyes burning. A quiet “Mew.” comes from within, and an orange kitten pokes its nose out.
Shot of the kitten and the robot touching noses.
When you let the cat out of the bag — you’ll need a little more than curiosity to kill it.
Quick shots of the robot pouncing on a schoolbus, running up a skyscraper, playing with the Statue of Liberty like it’s a ball of yarn. The orange kitten sits on its shoulder and purrs.
FALL 2012.
[Story on Demand for iwaurokoinko – wander over and deface his blog.]
My brain feels like a cotton ball that’s been left floating in a cup of luke-warm tea- soggy, and poorly caffeinated.
I’m pushing the three story prompts around my plate like broccoli, but I am working on them and will finish them this week.
But today …today I don’t wanna do nothin’.
Blech.
This picture is nice, though.
spell-sword.com 