Flash Fiction – The Maiden Voyage.

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Today’s blog is the first in a sporadic series of flash fiction events. Every week (or two) I will present the first few paragraphs of a flash fiction story on the blog. The rest of the story will be available only to the subscribers. Yes, it’s a shameless ploy to build subscriptions.

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How do I come up with the fiction? I will pick a random topic and write for one hour on that topic. Facebook, phone calls, dog trips to the yard, all will interfere in the hour but at the end of it I will have a finished story. This forces me to be more concise and crisp in my writing. How do I pick the topic? I’ll type a nonsense word in to the Google search engine. I will hit the image tab and spin the mouse down and take the picture at the bottom of the page. Yup, fairly random.

If you like the first two paragraphs below, make sure you subscribe today. I’ll be emailing the complete story out to the subscribers within 48 hours. Many thanks in advance.
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The noise was deafening. Mike’s heart wanted to skip a beat but it was pounding too fast to take a break. To an observer, the ATM didn’t make a sound when it flashed TRANSACTION DENIED on the screen and spit out the slip of paper showing a balance of $18.00 in his account. Inside of Mike’s skull it was as though a bomb had gone off.

He backed up and crashed down on the stool in front of the slot machine. He’d tapped the card a few times this weekend, but there’s no way that he’d wiped out $7500 in just two days. He looked in his wallet and pulled out the wad of crumpled receipts. They totaled just over $6800. He scoured his jeans and found another wad of slips that added almost $500 to the total. Take into account a couple of meals at the casino’s restaurants and it was like the screen on the ATM writ large in his head.

Subscribe now (box on the right margin) to read the rest of the story.

30 Pound Heart Surgeon.

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There has been a great deal of attention paid to an article in the New York Times this past week about dogs having emotions. I think that sells dogs short. They not only have emotions but they have personalities, skills, and interests. Some might say they are healers. I fall into that group.

Eleven months ago I suffered a debilitating, and seemingly intolerable heart injury. My girl Maisie was going downhill fast and I knew that our time together was going to be very limited. The ache in my heart spread throughout my body and threatened to claim my creativity and joy as well.

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God, however, had different plans for me. He provided a 30 pound heart surgeon to take care of my wounds. But there was a condition – I had to heal her wounded heart as well.

Doctor Stormy.

Doctor Stormy.

During the past nine months the two of us have been on a journey of exploration, healing, and growing love. For a very long time she avoided me. I got it, she had been wounded at some point by a man. Whether it was from lack of love or abuse didn’t matter. She feared me.

Over many months I proved my trustworthiness to her and she slowly opened her medical skill bag and tended to my heart. I now know that the love I had with Maisie isn’t a realistic goal with Stormy. Instead, and perhaps even better, we have a mutual trust building that will continue to blossom. Is it love? I think so. She comes for pets, she sleeps on the bed with me or waits outside my door when I’m sleeping during the day. She bares her stomach and her tail falls limp on the floor when she asks for a tummy rub. The tense, fearful, sad little dog that came to live with us a few days before Christmas has morphed into a skilled heart surgeon who’s putting the final stitches in my wound.

That wound will always leave a scar. The scar will be noticed from time to time. But the doctor stands ready to treat me when the need arises.

I’m not going to run out on the limb with some others and say that dogs and cats are the equals of humans and need to have legal rights just the same as ours. That strikes me as rather silly.

However, the requirement levied upon us by God to treat the creatures as our dominion weighs heavily on the human race. We are entrusted with their care and well-being. It is a sin to be cruel to animals. It is a waste to not love them when they love us. Once we understand that our lives will improve as will theirs.

Some questions arise out of all of this – the main one being the issue of animal testing. I think that part of that dominion that God gave us includes using animals to better our lives as food, companions, working beasts, and test subjects. The need to avoid wanton cruelty is paramount. I know that will not settle easily on some minds. It does mean that some animals will be lost in an attempt to make human life safer and longer. Like all things in this world, we will discriminate and rank the importance of those animals on a scale unique to each of us. And to God we will answer on the final day.

For now, I’m just glad to be under the care of a sentient being known as Stormy. She’s providing the medical treatment my heart needs after losing two of my closest friends in under a year. She’s a good doctor. And I hope that I’m treating her wounds properly as well. It seems that I am: that tail wags once again after a long period of dormancy.

Dogs have emotions. People have emotions. And if we care for one another all of us are that much better off in the end.

Do you share that heartfelt love with a companion animal? Is there a 30 pound heart surgeon in your life?

It’s Time For Some Flash Fiction.

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For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, flash fiction is something dashed off on short notice. It’s a popular exercise at writer’s conferences and writing classes. You show a picture of Cinderella on the screen and ask for a paragraph written about it in your genre of choice.

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Here’s an example from a recent conference when that picture of Cinderella popped up on the screen. This was written in about one minute:

Scanning the room was a waste of time. Rella wouldn’t see the bomb until it blew and thrust the diplomatic corps into chaos. She made the smart move and checked faces for stress signs. Bingo. That could only be Omar under the cheap rug. He’d be the one holding the trigger.

Time to punch his ticket.

Thus you see how much fun this can all be. And I’m going to go out on the limb and do this once a week (time permitting) for the next few weeks, perhaps longer.

And this is where all those posts about subscribing come to bear – you’ll get the first paragraph or two in the blog and then only the subscribers will get the full draft. Yes, it’s free to subscribe. I’m building that email list for the day when the books come to press. But up until now there’s been limited incentive to follow through on subscribing.

So, toddle on over to the bar at the right and subscribe today. The first flash fiction will come along later this week and it’ll be sent out to subscribers 24 hours later. If you don’t subscribe you won’t get the prose.

Thanks in advance, I look forward to the challenge.

That Had To Leave A Mark.

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I’ve touched on this topic a bit in the past, and it’s been brought to my attention by other, kinder writers – bad reviews really sting.

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My friend Stacy Monson (Who is a wise and lovely person) wrote a good post about critical reviews that authors post on Amazon. Her point was a simple one – Why?

When you think about it, and I did in the wake of her post (may have been on Facebook…) you have to ask yourself what you, or the reading public, gain from a hideous review. After a great deal of soul-searching I realized that the answer wasn’t very nice. I’d taken great joy in writing reviews on Amazon – especially the negative ones.

I went to my reviews column and removed all the negative ones in the wake of that post. I’d written some pretty biting, funny, sarcastic posts about books that I’d read, or attempted to read, and given out my share of one star reviews. I think, in all fairness, that one was about 1/2 a star more than a few of the books deserved, but that’s not the point. The point is that I was turning into the same kind of loon that attacks me in the emails I get on this blog.

I still write reviews on Amazon, but my new rule is that if I can’t give at least a rating of four to the book I’ll forego the review. That means that I hold my tongue in my fat head and keep mum about some of the books I read. I don’t always review the four and five star books, but I just won’t do the really bad ones at all. Don’t read my lack of a review as a criticism of a book – it might just mean that I’m too lazy to go and write about it at that moment.

The whole thing was brought home for me this past week when one author I admire wrote a two star review of another friend of mine. I’ve read all of their books – both of them. Both are good authors with great styles. Both write completely different genres. Both are widely respected in their field. Both are award winners. But I was really stunned to see that bad review gracing the internet.

It made me wonder if one of them had stolen the desert at a banquet from the other’s place. If one had bad feelings over some trivial thing and it had escalated to professional sabotage. Or, if they really just hated the other’s book and went public with their criticism.

I’ll still trash bad restaurants – that’s more of a public service than a review when a fat guy takes a stand. I won’t do it for the mundane stuff that happens, but if there’s a really bad meal I’ll fire a flare – the mediocre will draw no such ire. I’ll still rip on poorly done movies and television if they could have avoided the issue, just as I’ll praise the wonderful things that grace the screen. But I won’t rip on another author. Tastes vary too much for that to be a fair thing to do in this world. Unfortunately my opinion, as a wannabe, holds more weight than the average reader. The readers of this blog carry word of mouth about things and I don’t want to be responsible for another author having a flop because of some stupid thing I wrote.

Yup, that’s the final item – I’m in competition with them and if I don’t have something nice to say, I won’t say anything at all.

How about you – where do you draw the line on public criticism of people in your profession?

Sponsorship Sunday – Week Twenty-Two – Gernadette

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This week’s entry is a bit more fun than most for me. I had the opportunity to watch a video from Grace Village on the web this week and for just a moment I was back in the room where the worship services are held. My bond with the children was strengthened just a bit and I’ve looked forward to doing this entry for days. I hope you will find it in your heart to sponsor Gernadette and help provide for her needs.

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This week’s child is: Gernadette.

Gernadette

Gernadette

Gernadette has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to make others laugh. Gernadette looks forward to mission team visits because team members like to play jump rope with the girls. Gernadette enjoys learning new languages, especially French and English. Gernadette will tell you that singing is her special gift and her favorite song is Lord My God. Gernadette wants to be a nurse when she grows up so that she can help her family and other people. Gernadette lives at Grace Village with her siblings Idemen, Samiel and Gerno. Gernadette’s prayer request is to be able to finish school.

Gernadette and her siblings, Idamen, Samiel and Gerno, were abandoned by their parents and now call Grace Village home.

Birth Info
Birthdate: June 25, 1998
Place of Birth: Tabarre, Haiti

It is my hope that one of you will find your heart touched by this child and take up a bit of Christ’s work by sponsoring them for an extended period. My wife and I are sponsoring a pair of sisters and we took on the commitment based on having to only gave up a fast-food dinner each day to change the life of a child. God came through with a very lucrative bit of voice over work for me that covered the bill that same day, but it really is as easy as skipping a value meal. Healing Haiti will do the right things for these children and I have full confidence in their work. I am not affiliated with them, they don’t endorse this blog, nothing like that at all. I just love kids (can’t be Santa and not love children) and know that Grace Village is the difference between life and death for many of these children. Please open your heart and prayerfully reflect on the opportunity God’s giving us to sponsor these children. Some of them have come out of slavery and have some of the toughest lives you could imagine prior to Grace Village.

Just click the link and it will take you directly to the page where you can sponsor this week’s child. And if God is particularly good and that child is sponsored when you get there, please grab another smiling face and change their life instead. My goal is to put Sponsorship Sunday out of business as quickly as possible and take that day off each week. Thank you. God bless you for your generosity.