Short Story – Icarus Air
This week, I started with the thought I was going to write a modern story about the mythological character of Icarus. And I sort of did. At least I did in the sense that the main character of the piece is named Icarus.
I kind of veered off course from there. Things got kind of post apocalyptic and a tiny bit steampunk-y.
As with all of my stories, I hope you read, comment, and share. This is an important exercise for me and it really helps to have people read and react. Thanks!
Short Story – The Endless Sea
This week’s story is very clearly the beginning of something longer. It didn’t start that way.
I was doing an improv set this past weekend and it involved the idea of a free floating fresh water island in the Pacific Ocean. It was pretty silly but got me thinking about a world where all of the islands floated.
Not realistic, perhaps, but fairly interesting to think about.
So I started writing a story and I quickly realized that the ending of the story is really just the end of Chapter 1. I might have to return to this one day and see where everything goes from here.
As always, please enjoy, comment, share, or go on with you day!
Short Story – Winter
I’ve missed a couple of weeks so if you are one of the people who actually looks for a story every Wednesday (I know there are a few of you), I’m sorry about that!
This week, I really just started with the idea of a snowstorm on an alien planet. I’m also doing a live reading of a story next week so I needed something that ran about 3-5 minutes, so the story needed to be shorter than usual.
I hope you read and enjoy. As always, comments, thoughts, criticisms, and shares are welcome!
Short Story – The Cargo
This week’s short story is pretty dark again. I was thinking about a snowstorm at the top of a mountain and this is what came of that basic starting point.
There are times when I know exactly how a story begins but I don’t know how it ends. In this case, I had the end of the story long before I knew how it began. It is always interesting to work backwards and figure out where that ending came from.
As always, I definitely appreciate any comments, shares, or just people who take the time to read. If you don’t, that’s OK too!
Short Story – Dinosaur Bones
For this week’s story, I decided I wanted to include a dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur, though, but one that was alive. And not just a dinosaur that was alive but one that was alive right now. Sort of like in Jurassic Park but not like that because Jurassic Park has been done already.
In the end, things didn’t happen exactly as I’d originally planned. But the idea of a dinosaur that was alive is still the driving centerpiece of the story.
As always, thanks for reading if you do. Thanks for sharing if you do. And thanks just for being you!
Short Story – The Summoning
This story is an attempt to balance a little bit of horror with a little bit of humor. There is definitely some dark stuff going on but within that framework, I was working to keep the tone a little more comical.
I mostly wrote this because I wanted to write a story that included a demon named Clarice. I just thought it was a good name for a demon.
Most of my stories have had women as protagonists lately. That’s been a conscious choice because I’ve kind of decided that if the gender of a character isn’t relevant, I might as well make her female. This particular story, however, featured characters that really needed to be women. Sorry men! You’ll just have to read and/or watch most of the other popular culture being produced!
As always, please read, comment, share, or do none of those things! Thanks!
Short Story – Mercury and a Big Hole in the Ground
This week, I’ve been visiting the National Parks of Utah as well as The Grand Canyon.*
Whenever anyone visits The Grand Canyon, they typically tell you that they have no words to describe it and I think I know why.
Simply put, someone already came up with the best way to describe The Grand Canyon and that description is “The Grand Canyon.”
“The” – it is the only one.
“Grand” – Can describe something that is both big (it most definitely is) and impressive (yep).
“Canyon” – describes a geological feature that directly corresponds with the geological feature one is viewing.
So “The Grand Canyon” is a name that implies you are looking at a canyon that is big, impressive, and unique. And so it is. The job has been done so perfectly as to pose an impossible challenge for everyone who tries to describe the place on their own. I, therefore, will not make any attempts to describe The Grand Canyon in deference to whoever managed to knock the ball out of the park before the ball game had even started.
Instead, I will tell you the story of a sunrise and a planet.
Short Story – The Long Winter
I missed last week because I had some other deadlines. For that small number of folks who read my stories every week – sorry! I may miss the next two weeks as well because I’ll be on vacation. If I manage to write something, though, I’ll post it.
This week, I’m writing about a post-apocalyptic world. If you want to know what caused the apocalypse, I’m not going to tell you. Sometimes, I find placing a person in a terrible situation more interesting than the situation itself.
As always, please share, critique, enjoy, or ignore! And if you do read the story – thanks!
Short Story – Bloodlines
This week’s story was pieced together from two different inspirations.
A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I probably wasn’t going to write too many stories about vampires because I didn’t much care for them. That meant I immediately started working on a story about vampires. Like you do.
The other inspiration was the police procedural. I tried to create something of a stereotypical buddy cop duo with a twist. That’s not really original since just about every buddy cop duo on TV these days has a twist.
This one is longer than most and it plays out like a pilot to a TV series, I guess. Funny thing is, I could see this one being made. Maybe it’s already been made. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read my stories (if you do). For me, it’s an important exercise. For you, it’s time out of your day you could spend doing something else.
Short Story – Acrophobia
This week’s short story is non-fiction. Well, mostly non-fiction. I actually write a fair number of non-fiction autobiographical stories but until now, everything I’ve been posting on my weekly blog has been fiction.
I did a live presentation of this story over the weekend. Rather, it was a version of this story. I’ve done a lot of tweaking since then.
As always, I hope you read, enjoy, comment, share, or go on about your day.
Grail Diary 