Shit That Doesn’t Piss Me Off – 9/16
For regular readers of my Shit that Pissed me Off column, I did something a little different last year. For the first time since I began writing, my birthday fell on a Friday. I opted to reflect on the good things I saw in the world rather than the bad ones.
Obviously, my birthday isn’t on a Friday this year. It is on a Sunday. But I’m still going to focus on the good things. I turn 49 on Sunday. It is something of a personal year for me because my dad died when he was 49 years old and I can’t help but think that soon, every day I’m alive will be one more day than he ever had.
The challenge for me today, of course, is to write about 49 things that don’t piss me off and that are different from the 48 things I wrote about last year.
Never fear, I’m going to post Shit that Pissed me off on Monday! You still get a full helping of negativity. I’m just going to make my birthday about the good things.
So here, my friends, are 49 things that do not piss me off.
1) I don’t know if it’ll happen. I certainly hope it will. But whether it does or not, we have the opportunity to put a woman in the oval office. I’ve heard all the arguments about “not this woman” and everyone has a right to make their own decisions. For me, though, the simple fact a woman could win is a gigantic step.
2) Speaking of women, that Ghostbusters remake was pretty fucking awesome. I don’t feel like I have to make excuses for liking it. How amazing is that? If you want me to make excuses, you can shut up and stop harassing my squee.
3) As I write this column, I am looking at a shelf that holds a LEGO Millennium Falcon, a LEGO Ecto 1, and a LEGO Han Solo frozen in carbonite.
This is a thing that exists, my friends, and it is glorious!
Short Story – Promises
I’m still working on horror stories for Halloween. One thing about horror for me is even when I’m working with supernatural horror, I think people are far scarier than monsters. Monsters are, for me, what we create. They are the darkness within ourselves.
This story is on the long side and is another one I think could be turned into a play. So now I need to think about how I can turn it into a longer narrative.
As always, please read, share, comment, or move on to other more important things in your life. Thanks for your time!
Short Story – The Not-So-Silent Planet, Part 3
I’ve previously posted part 1 and part 2 of this story. It was presented as part of the 2016 Minnesota Fringe festival. This is the final installment of the story. Thanks for reading! Read More…
Short Story – A Windy Day
I’m working on some horror right now because I have a few Halloween shows coming up and while I have been writing some horror, I want to make sure I have the right tone for the shows I’ll be doing. Always good to have extra, you know?
This story started with the idea of taking a fairly benign object and making it dangerous. I also feel I sometimes use dialogue as a crutch so this story is dialogue free. There is some violence and child endangerment so if you are going to read, be warned.
It is strange to me that I have become a storyteller in the last year. It was not something I ever envisioned for myself. I’m not sure if I’m all that good at it but at the very least, I’m not awful.
As always, please feel free to share, comment, or ignore my writing. If you do take the time to read it, thanks! Read More…
Short Story – The Not-So-Silent Planet, Part 2
Short Story – The Not-so-Silent Planet, Part 1
As part of the Minnesota Fringe Festival this year, I was asked to write and present a short story entitled The Not-so-Silent Planet as part of a speculative storytelling show. The story and the presentation got a lot of accolades, which I really appreciated.
I was asked to write a science fiction story in three parts with something of a cliffhanger at the end of the first two sections.
Over the next three weeks, I’ll be posting all three parts of the story. Keep in mind it was written for dramatic presentation. I played the main character on stage and I had another actress playing the voice of the computer, Alice, offstage.
The story still works as just a story, I think. But the dramatic presentation did help to heighten the feeling of isolation that I was going for in the story.
A few folks asked if there would be anywhere they could read the story and I told them I’d be posting it. So here’s part 1!
Short Story – Red Tape
This week, I’ve written something that will most likely turn into a script for Big Fun Radio Funtime. I think we can all relate to a nearly endless pile of government forms so I decided to take that frustration to ridiculous extremes.
The story is mostly dialogue between two characters. A lot of my writing involves situations where nobody is really a villain. I mean, the government worker is clearly annoying but he is just trying to do his job as well as he possibly can. I find it more interesting when the situation is the villain and the characters must work in tandem to deal with the situation.
As always, please read, share, and comment. I enjoy getting feedback on my work. It does help me get better at this!
As an additional note, I’m going to be turning last week’s story into a one act play for production next year. I just need to figure out how to turn the ending into something that can be staged clearly. I’ll let readers know when I have that in the works!
Short Story – The Bear
Sorry I missed last week. Fringe festival messes with my writing schedule. I’ve been toying with horror and revenge lately. There is some triggery stuff in this week’s story that involves incest and suggested rape. So be warned about that.
I keep toying with this idea as a play. Not sure if I could turn it into a 45-50 minute show as it is right now but the pieces are there for it to expand to something more than what I’ve written here.
The story itself is self contained. But I can feel there is more that could be explored with this character.
I was in Utah earlier this year so I chose the area that is now Arches National Park as the setting. I don’t typically worry about such things but I wanted to give a little bit of a sense of place.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it!
Short Story – Lunch with Clara
After last week’s story, which was super dark, I decided I wanted to write something funny this week. I also noticed that I’ve been writing a lot of science fiction and horror but not a lot of fantasy.
So I started with thinking about some of the creatures from my old Monster Manual and things grew from there. I’m not entirely sure at what point I decided to turn my characters into teenagers but when I made that decision, it changed the entire direction of the story.
This one is a lot more dialogue driven. Go figure – I’m a playwright.
And I can’t tell you how much it amuses me that this story features a ghoul named “Eugene.” The name Eugene always makes me laugh. I’m sorry to anyone named Eugene. I can’t help it.
As always, I really enjoy feedback on these stories and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read them.
Short Story – Before the Darkness
This story requires a longer than usual preamble.
First, I’m going to offer a trigger warning because this story deals with rape (not graphic), imprisonment, and torture.
In my stories, I’ve shied away from the idea of women as victims because there is just so much fiction out there about the victimization of women. Part of this is because of the fact women are so frequently victims of violent crime in our society. But part of it is simply, I think, a failure of imagination.
There are so many more facets to women than how often they are victimized in our society. It seems unfair to focus on that one thing.
This story grew from asking myself what had happened to the monster before Frankensteien revived it. From there moved to a place that was very dark and explored the idea of a woman as a victim. I don’t know if I did it well but I do know that it felt right for the story.
But it is a story about women as victims. If that isn’t something you want to read, I totally understand.
Thanks, as always, to those of you who read my stories.
Read More…
Grail Diary 