Tag: general fiction

Editor Picks, Short Fiction

Week 478: We Keep Playing Them Word Games Forever

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Roughly speaking, there are more than six-hundred thousand words in the English language (minus the stuff you see on medicine jar labels). The average English speaker’s vocabulary is between twenty and thirty-five thousand words. Anyone can contribute new words to the language; Mr Shakespeare added seventeen-hundred now commonly used words on his own. But with so many words, it is inevitable that some of the juicier ones are often overlooked. (Quick disclaimer–the obviously googled numbers produced many results–I selected the sanest looking source to quote.)

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All Stories, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 474: The Quest; Five Stars; Little Lists

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Quest

No one calls in requests to radio stations anymore. No one there to answer the phone if they did. Even if you could, I really doubt that “I dunno what it is called, but I saw a Lexus shaking to it at a stop sign this morning” would jog many happy memories. Besides, no need. It’s all there for the picking and would have to be awfully damn obscure if it isn’t found someplace online. I miss doing my own detective work. I miss it the same way I miss the death of off seasons and the way nothing used to happen on Sunday–before the world acquired a similarity to supermax prison cells, in which the lights are on 24 hours a day.

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Editor Picks, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 468: Personal Preference; A Week of Preferred Works and the Fictional Pet Department

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Tastes

I find that I have a narrow spectrum when it comes to reading material. Along with fiction I like non-fiction written by good writers– biographies by David McCollough are a fine example. I never read “celebrity autobiography” and consider the purchase of such a capital offense. The good thing about books is that you can get a feel for them by reading the first couple of pages (forget the blurbs on the cover). Hardly can ask to watch the first five minutes of a film before deciding to buy a ticket or not.

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Editor Picks, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 464: Happily Never After and Antisocial People Have Feelings Too

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Happily Never After

I cannot help but knock feel good fiction. It reminds me of Heaven, which no one has ever described to my satisfaction. From what I have seen, Heaven looks like an eternal installment of Songs of Praise (I thought the USA had a monopoly in the department of hokey religious programming, but the UK has once again exposed my ignorance).

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Short Fiction

Ian by Hugh Cron

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Ian was a stereotype.

I didn’t really know him but I knew his wife.

The reason I say ‘stereotype’ is that he was a raging alcoholic but unbelievably functional. The usual story here, he worked in the entertainment industry as a lighting man for a theatre and that was a life that had alcohol not just at the end of the day, also throughout. As long as he could shine a spotlight and in these more technical days, programme a system, no one gave a shit.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Peter by Hugh Cron (Strong Adult Content)

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“I need to speak to Peter.”

Ann looked at him and worried straight away.

“What’s wrong love, why has he got you so riled – I mean, for fuck sake, he’s Peter, the most inoffensive wee guy that we’ve ever known.”

Colin gave her a hug, “I don’t want to say anything until I hear his side.”

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Fantasy, Humour, Short Fiction

The Giant Clock Radio by Leila Allison

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Prologue

A psycho doesn’t need to explain her actions until the trial begins. And even then it is optional. Thus the answer to all things “Why?” in my make-believe land of Saragun Springs is almost always a case of a shrug and the words “shit happens”–a concept that is a byproduct of Free Will. Still, everything sounds fancier in Latin, and telling someone “Stercore Accidit ” gives one an air of scholarship; the following is a case of Stercore Accidit if there ever has been one.

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Latest News, Short Fiction

458: Personality Issues; Beautiful Losers and Winners

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Personality

Hypocrisy and altruism stop at roughly the same point in a person. Although finally copping to your own rottenness and experiencing exhaustion at the highest level of do-goodishness you are capable of are not the same thing, both terminate close enough to the center of a person to form a picture.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, Short Fiction, Writing

Week 454: The Sensitive Side of Evil and One, No, Make That Three Special Announcements

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Sensitive Side

I believe that there should never be violence of any kind directed at a child. But that presents a problem. There’s neither intelligent discourse nor diplomatic give and take with a two-year-old individual who considers it perfectly reasonable to shit her pants rather than heading to the bathroom while something she wants to watch is on TV. You cannot spank this person (not that you’d want to) nor can you take any disciplinary action that someone out there somewhere won’t find objectionable.

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Short Fiction

WEEK 444: Bug-Bird And Dreams

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DREAMING

Many writers are influenced by their dreams and nightmares–or at least that is the claim. I don’t dispute the possibility but if I had to lean on my dreams for material my stuff would be sparse and even stranger. A fine example of such happened just the other night when I experienced a dream I call “Bug-Bird.” My mind was in a white page and just ahead skulked Bug-Bird. Half Moth, half Pigeon and clad in a flasher’s raincoat and wearing a fedora, I could only see Bug-Bird from behind. But I spied antennae through holes in his hat, tail feathers and Pigeon feet. Bug-Bird staggered forward and I was gaining on him (only a guy would dare be Bug-Bird). I recall wanting to tap him on the shoulder and have a look at Bug-Bird but that is when I woke, with the words Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird chanting in my mind by what might be called a “sulfurous chorus” of demon voices. Hardly bestseller material there–and perhaps the only way Bug-Bird can get into print is through something like this.

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