Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?  I started this blog as a way to post flash fiction. That lasted for two posts. The question I have rolling around in my brain is what to do with it now? Does it become a personal blog? A blog about writing? Maybe a bit of all that?

Here's the thing: all of the blogs/journals I've had on the Internet have been places to vent frustration about the world around me. This is true of my personal offline journals as well. The time when I feel the urge to write things down is when the world has gotten me down. As much as I've tried to write about the good things that have gone on (and there have been a few of those over the years) but it doesn't last. I suppose I'm too happy at the time and writing about it doesn't occur to me.

But I'm going to try. I'm going to try to make a point of writing the good things and the bad things that happen.

Life


Dad spent Christmas in the hospital with pneumonia and a blood clot in his lungs. (Pneumonia in one and the clot in the other.) Got the pneumonia cleared up but had to wait over a week for the anticoagulant to build up enough so they could send him home.  (Quick background:  Dad had a tumor in his lung two years ago, went through radiation and chemotherapy and that tumor is gone, then they found another one at the beginning of last year and a procedure called Gamma Knife Radiation (essentially a extremely focused beam to cut out the tumor). That tumor is also now gone, or at least very hard to find when they do the PET scans they've been doing.

Work is work. I work at Target primarily as the Key Team Member for Signing. I prepare the silly little signs for every weeks Sunday Circular. If I'm lucky I work on the salesfloor one or two days a week. Some weeks I actually get enough hours that I can almost pay my bills. As New Year starts I may or may not have to go back on partial Unemployment to make ends meet. We'll see.

Writing


I put the current Work In Progress on the back burner during the holidays. Mostly because the holidays in retail are Hell x 100.  I intend to get back to it fairly soon. Probably in the next week or so. I'm at a good stopping point, though, so getting back in won't be a problem. I'm hoping to have the first draft done by maybe March or April depending on how much time I have. Then revision time begins. If I'm lucky I'll get the whole thing done and done by June or July.

Other Stuff


Behind the scenes I'm also a gamer. Right now I'm playing Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG. It's an impressive game, fully voice-acted with lots and lots of story stuff. There's still a lot of the "Kill x of y" quests, but they come as bonus missions along with the main quest.  Bioware, it seems, realized that the player is going to kill those guys anyway so there didn't need to be a large number of that type of quest.

I've also started playing the new Elder Scrolls game Skyrim. Like the other games in the series it's a open world game where you can go just about anywhere and do anything you want.  I've only played about two hours of it, but I'll get back in to it at some point.

I also play quite a few games on my iPod Touch and right now I'm addicted to the new Bejeweled and it's Diamond Mine mode.  A different challenge and it's actually a lot of fun.

I don't read much anymore.  I do listen to quite a few audiobooks, though.  It's a different way of consuming both ficiton and non-fiction and it allows me to do other things while I'm listening.  I may sometimes have to listen to a book more than once to get everything out of it, but I do that with movies and music, too.  At the moment I'm listening to Star Wars books based on the Old Republic game.  They're fun and have some interesting ideas in them.  The reader has a bad habit of mispronouncing words to an annoying degree (this, to me, is a problem that can be solved by a good director) but the overall stories are fun and not too heavy.

So, that's that. I'll try to post updates at least once a week. No promises. Have a good week!

BDCWB Flash Fiction Challenge #2 Entry

Childhood Lost

The storm clouds made her nervous.

They had gathered in the early morning before sunrise and had slowly moved across the fields and threatened rain.

She had been playing in the fields as she did most days. School had been out for almost a month and she'd been allowed to do as she pleased unless her mother or father needed her. She tended to stay within earshot of the house. Close enough that her parents could find her but far enough that the sprites wouldn't be afraid.

The sprites were the reason she liked the fields. They had a home in an elderly oak tree that sat in the field. Her father had talked about cutting it down several times over the last few years, but he had never done more than talk. The sprites knew her and would come out of the tree's branches like so many fireflies, drifting on the breeze.

They weren't much for playing, actually, but they liked to talk and they liked to hear about the world beyond the fields. She told them about school and Mrs. Stephenson, her teacher, and about Sparky her dog. Sparky had even come to the tree with her once but all he'd done was bark and that frightened the sprites. She told them her hopes and dreams. How she wanted to get married some day and be a famous musician or maybe a movie star.

The sprites listened to all of her stories, often making comments and suggestions or joking about how they thought a person looked or talked. They hadn't been too far off with Old Man Thompson.

Sometimes they brought her presents. Flowers or small stones. She took them graciously and kept them in a small wooden box in her room, hidden under her bed.

'Let the storm come' she thought as she walked toward the oak tree after lunch (peanut butter and jelly and Fritos). Ominous as the clouds looked she was close enough to the house that she'd only get a little wet and her friends would keep her company until then. The summer was long and the day seemed endless.

Thunder cracked in the distance as she approached the tree.

A lone firefly sprite floated down from the tree.

"Go away," it said.

"But…" was all she managed before the thunder cracked directly overhead.

"Go away," the sprite repeated.

"Why?" she asked.

"This storm is unnatural. It will destroy you if you stay here. And you must survive."

She was used to the cryptic way the sprites talked, but something in the sound of its voice made her believe this sprite.

"Okay," she said, her voice almost a whisper.

She walked back to the house with her head hung low. She reached the screen porch at the back of the house, climbed the stairs and turned to look out over the fields and the oak tree beyond. Lightning arced across the sky, splitting the tree in two.

She cried for days afterward.

BDCWB Flash Fiction Challenge #1 Entry

The Miles

His feet were shoe leather tough. Asphalt, concrete, gravel, dirt. He'd walked on all of them for weeks now. Moving from town to town, looking for work or just a place to stay out of the rain. Neither was easy to find and he'd taken to sheltering wherever he could. Bus stations and train stations were good. Doorways weren't so good. Out in the open under the stars, while a nice romantic notion, was the worst.

He'd traded his shoes, nearly worn through, for a meal a few weeks ago. He'd been trading what few belongings he had and his own sweat for meals and occasionally a place to stay. He was running out of things to trade and his resolve was running thin. Still, he had to try. She was still waiting for him and they'd promised each other they would get back together for good when he had finally gotten settled in.

That had been a year ago.

There hadn't been that many bites when he'd started looking. There were fewer still each day. But he would close his eyes and see her face. That cute face she made when she was disappointed. He wanted to see that face in front of him again. She was the one thing that kept him going after all this time.

He kept walking.

The morning sun peeked over the hills in front of him. Another town. Another place to maybe make a new start.