Landless

Guest #FridayFlash: Tony Noland Is A Son Of A Bitch

2012-05-31T16:00:00.000-04:00

This past Monday, Peggy McFarland let me know that if you search Google for "son of a bitch", this blog comes up as entries #8 and #11. It came up in my Google searches just as it did in hers. This was fascinating enough that I asked Peggy to write up a guest blog for me as to how this came about. She went above and beyond the call of guest bloggerdom, however, and offered to write a FridayFlash about it.

Enjoy!

- Tony Noland

p.s. My story for this week is over at Peggy's blog.

/////

Over the weekend, I was writing and didn't know if "son of a bitch" needed hyphens. Lazy as I am, I Googled, and recognized Tony's avatar! His blog came up as the 8th and 11th link. I laughed. I tweeted it and Tony got a kick out of it too.

Ends up my search engine has a strange algorithm and Tony only shows up for "son of a bitch" on my searches. Which in itself has me worried....

Anyhow, Tony invited me to write a story, and inspiration struck.

Disclaimer: No #fridayflashers were harmed in the execution of this tale.

- Peggy

/////

TONY NOLAND IS A SON OF A BITCH

by Peggy McFarland

Jen-Jen photoshopped a picture of a panting yellow lab inside an "I Love Mom" frame. She took another sip of her martini, giggled. It made her feel better. A better idea popped into her head. "OMG," she said aloud, then uploaded the picture. Giggling, she typed, "he really is a sob," then deleted it—not clever enough. She typed, erased, typed, sipped, erased, fished an olive from her glass, typed another line, erased it, then just screamed, "Son of a Bitch!" and hit post. The dog photo appeared on Tony's wall, sans caption.

That'll get him, she thought. Within moments, the little red box with the white numeral one showed up on her globe. FARfetched liked the post. She had to pee.

When she returned, eighteen more likes. Four comments. Tony must have annoyed many people.

son of a bitch, good one!

lol, tony you sob

i see the resemblance—same ears

you're the sweetest sob I know

Or maybe he just had more friends. Damn Tony Noland. Knowing him—well, she didn't know him, not at all. Just Facebook friends and both fridayflashers. But knowing him, he'd probably use it to promote himself in some bizarre but clever, maddening way. Pretentious son of a bitch.

Screw it. Jen-Jen had to hit the midnight deadline. She hadn't missed posting her fridayflash in thirty-nine weeks. Thirty-four thousand, eight-hundred and sixty-seven words so far. And not once—not once!—had Tony commented on her story. She went to his site though. It seemed like protocol. Leave compliments on Tony's blog and maybe people would find her.

such vivid imagery!

creative twist

that was a surprise.

She'd written all those. She'd helped make him popular, dammit.

Commenter number forty-two last week, and there were nine more after she'd posted. Who else got over fifty comments on a micro story? Tony didn't reciprocate and visit fifty-one blogs; oh no, she'd checked. Would it kill him to just once, stop by Jen-Jen's World and type cool story? Would it?

She returned to Facebook. Her post about Tony had one-hundred and thirty-two likes, sixty-eight comments and thirteen new friends. She drained her glass, chewed the last olive, cracked her knuckles and typed, copy and pasted, then posted. Only thirty-seven words. Well, thirty-six words and one avatar. She giggled, then laughed, then ran for the bathroom. Laughing so hard always made her pee.

# # #

Jen-Jen awoke, wiped the drool from her chin and rubbed the keyboard imprints off her cheeks. Damn, she'd fallen asleep while waiting for comments again. She stumbled to get ibuprofen, guzzled two water bottles, then returned to the screen. Four lousy comments.

One was from Tony Noland.

clever! may I have permission to share and use this?

OMG, what the hell had she written? She went to her home page.

defintion

Shit! She had a typo in her title. Fewer olives next week.

son of a bitch

— n

1. a worthless or contemptible person: used as an insult

2. a humorous or affectionate term for a person, esp. a man: a lucky son of a bitch

He liked it! Tony wanted to share it! of course, tony, use it any way you want she typed quickly. Sure, it was cheesy bumping up her comment numbers by commenting on the comments—ew, that hurt her head—but Tony did it, and look where it got him: Amazon, author pages, interviews, guest blogs, spotlights, groupies....

Would he return to see her response to his comment? She hurried to his blog.

She scanned his story, couldn't figure out the plot, or all the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. She was the eighteenth commenter. you weave so many complicated elements with style she typed. Not bad for someone suffering from a hangover. She added, and of course you may use my flash this week, glad you liked it!

# # #

Week number fifty one. Almost a year's worth of fridayflash stories, and she still had trouble coming up with a subject. She checked Eric Krause's site for a prompt. The scent of a certain rose does strange things to people's minds. Hmm.

Hmm.

She got nothing.

Jen-Jen got up, turned on the television. She stopped on the History Channel, hoping for a new episode of Swamp People. Maybe they'd trigger a story.

United Stats of America was on. Eh. She was about to change the channel, when she saw...Tony Noland?

The hosts were featuring apps. Tony held up his IPad for the cameras. He had created the "definition app." Everyone was using it. Take any word, insert a picture or avatar, and you sent a cool message to anyone in the world. Jen-Jen raised the volume.

"Actually, a writer buddy gave me the idea." Writer buddy? Who?

"A couple months ago, she wrote a cute story that featured me as a definition."

"What word?" one host said. "I can imagine a few choice ones." His twin brother co-host and Tony laughed.

"Actually," Tony said, "Can I say son of a bitch on TV?"

All three of them laughed. Jen-Jen found herself grinning.

"Good, then you don't mind if I show this." Tony held up his iPad.

The camera zoomed in on Jen-Jen's photo.

"Thanks for the inspiration," Tony said, "though Jen-Jen, I'm not your son." Jen-Jen heard more laughter as the camera panned up.

bitch

— n

/////

When she's not researching mildly profane phrases (with a Google algorithm suspiciously close to mine) or otherwise stalking me on the Internet, Peggy McFarland (@Peggywriter) writes FridayFlash stories and other material at her blog, Eldritch Way. Her story, "The Red Door" appeared in the recent anthology Dead Calm; you can read an interview with her about it right here.

Thanks for the great FridayFlash and for the search term fun, Peggy!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

The 2000 words per day discussion

2012-05-31T09:49:00.002-04:00

John Wiswell has a cogent discussion of the "2000 words per day" benchmark for writers. Good for writing fast, but is it good for writing well? Go read it.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Wednesday #limerick: error, jingle, vindicate

2012-05-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: error, jingle, vindicate

Don't "vindicate" that you're still single

With the error of wanting to mingle

Only with gamers

(Those losers and lamers)

Who drool at each FPS jingle

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

No more wire hangers!

Oh, wait... the "psychotic mother" thing isn't very good book promotion, is it? How about this:

My book of limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday is FREE to borrow from Amazon:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

"They made me laugh, they made me sad, they made me think and squirm and reflect. ... Tony Noland has a way with words that is nothing short of astonishing" - Jeff Posey, Amazon review

That's right, FREE. Of course, if you're not in Amazon Prime, it still only costs $0.99. That's less than a coffee. And I'm not talking Starbuck's, I'm talking about the burnt mud they sell at the convenience store. It's worth the buck - you'll love it!

Don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. You can read "Poetry on the Fly" (or any of my other great writing) anywhere you like!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

300,000 words? Really?

2012-05-30T08:41:00.000-04:00

Over at Write Anything, Ganymeder asked how I know that I've written 300,000 words of fiction.

I don't know how other people count their words, or if they do at all, but since I use yWriter for my fiction, it's pretty easy. Each project, chapter and scene has a word count, with a cumulative total listed. For the big projects (so far), my approximate word counts are:

"Goodbye Grammarian" (superhero novel WIP): 96K
Flash fiction (a new story every week since September 2009): 115K
Short stories, published and unpublished): 50K
"Just Enough Power" (scifi/noir webserial, unfinished & inactive): 20K
"Warm Waters" (action novel, inactive): 65K
"Home Cure" (historical mystery novel, dead): 51K
A half-dozen novel false starts: 50K

I guess all that adds up to something more like 450,000 words, come to think of it. (Since this is just about the fiction, I don't count the 1000+ blog posts in any of that.) The important thing to remember is that word count alone means nothing. Some people can write and write and write and never get any better. Their 100th story is as bad as their first. It's the act of learning from the process and the willingness to invest effort in trying to improve... THAT'S what matters.

Some people have 20 years worth of experience. Other people have 1 year of experience, repeated 20 times.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Search term optimization for S.O.B.s

2012-05-28T10:24:00.005-04:00

It was brought to my attention this morning that if you search Google for "son of a bitch", this blog comes up as entries #8 and #11.

Like my old high school guidance counselor said just before I killed him, "Determine what you do well and work to become the best at it." With a little effort, I'm sure I could claim all ten slots on the Google top ten list for this search term.

*snif* He'd be so proud (if he were still alive).

My thanks to Peggy McFarland for letting me know!

UPDATE: Alas, I appear to be a victim of Google search term personalization. When I logged out of Google and searched anonymously, the search term "son of a bitch" had no results that led to this blog, not in the first three pages of results, anyway. For whatever reason, Peggy must have fallen victim to the same algorithm customization.

So, call off the press conference. I'm not famous for anything, not even for the term "son of a bitch".

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

3 Bad things about being a writer

2012-05-27T09:16:00.001-04:00

There are many things I like about a) writing, and b) being a writer.
Here are three things I don't like.

1. Refocused anxiety.

Because I spend so much of my time worrying about the quality of my
writing, the state of completeness of this project or that, and
(occasionally) planning for how to get this book launched once it's
done, I don't worry about the stuff I used to worry about. While this
might be a good thing in some instances, it also means that I haven't
been paying enough attention to my physical self. I was reminded this
morning that I need to lose some weight. Time to get on that.

2. Reduced tolerance.

I used to enjoy lots of different kinds of books, including genre
works of science fiction, horror, fantasy, etc. Now that I've been
writing it myself for a while, I get irritated with some of the books
that are held up as leading examples of the field. I know how the
sausage is made, and it's made me lose my taste for it.

3. Second guessing my second guessing.

Overthinking has always been a problem for me. Now, since I write and
explore thoughts and concepts with a deft hand, I can do this in a
cyclical fashion, ad nauseum. I have the words for some serious
psycho-miring.

--
Sent from my mobile device

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash fiction and poetry anthologies, now available.
Buy your copy today!

_______________________________
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#FridayFlash: The Way It's Done

2012-05-24T17:00:00.001-04:00

Carla flipped the presentation-sized pages on the easel as she spoke.

"NovoGene - because there's nothing wrong with you that some fresh DNA won't fix."

Flip.

"NovoGene: For the best you money can buy."

Flip.

"NovoGene: For the life you were always meant to live."

Flip.

"When it's time to get great, it's time for NovoGene."

Flip.

"NovoGene: You, only better."

After the last page, Carla flipped them all back over, bringing the pad back to the first page, the one with all the what-do-we-want-the-ads-to-do scribbling. She hadn't given the executives more than 10 seconds with any of the taglines. As expected, there were at least five voices asking her to go back and let the see them again. She ignored them and fussed with the multicolored markers for a moment. The voices increased in volume, as they called out to her and to each other.

She made a point of dropping the markers, which gave her twenty seconds' worth of stage business in which to continue to ignore the room full of vice-presidents. It was only when she heard the voice of the CEO that she turned to face the room again. The rest of the room fell silent quickly, with only one of the members of the board of directors continuing to whisper a side conversation.

"Ms. Gorten," the CEO said, "would you mind reviewing those again? You went through them a little too quickly for us."

"Certainly, ma'am," Carla said. "Which of the taglines did you want to see again?"

"Which one? I want to see all of them, of course."

Carla nodded, as if in complete agreement, but she made no move to flip the pages again. "Of course, ma'am. I'll put them all up around the wall so we can properly workshop them. Before I do that, though..." Carla looked around the room, tilting her head in a manner that conveyed open curiosity. Getting the right balance of knowing expertise and feckless innocence was something that had taken hours with an acting coach. "Before I do that, could I ask the room, which of the taglines stuck with you the most?"

She let the question hang until she saw the first furrowed brow clear with understanding. "The reason I ask is that..." Carla paused, feeding the words out as a softball. As she expected, one of the junior VPs finished her sentence for her, eager to show how much he knew about advertising.

"... is so you can introduce the one that did well in the focus groups. If it's sticky with them, it should be sticky with us." The man finished on a self-satisfied note, pleased with himself not only for figuring it out, but for beating his rivals to the punch in explaining it to the room.

Carla tilted her head and acknowledged him. She, of course, saw what he did not: the rest of the executives, having missed it, resented having it explained to them, and therefore treated it as an obvious ploy on Carla's part. Rather than admit to themselves that they were late to get the joke, they acted as though they'd been in on it with Carla all along.

Exactly as she'd intended.

"That's right," Carla said to the junior VP, "so with your indulgence -" this, to the CEO, who nodded her permission, "- I'll ask you to consider which taglines stuck with you. Obviously, after taking a major position in the ad space, the tagline will get solid repetition, ensuring verbatim mindshare. For now, though, please make a note of the couple you remember, and write them down." When few people made a move to actually write anything, Carla spoke to the CEO. "I can assure you that this is a worthwhile exercise." The CEO paused, shrugged and scribbled something in a margin of one of the financial reports. The rest of the room followed suit.

Carla turned back to the pad and flipped the pages again, peeling off four of them. They functioned like huge Post-It notes, allowing her to stick them to the walls.

"Now then," she continued, "I'm going to guess that not all of you remembered the same ones. As you might image, we focus-grouped these taglines extensively, with all fourteen of the major potential demographic slices. The most statistically significant breakdown runs like this, in order of expected revenue stream." She pointed to each of the four slogans as she spoke.

"For Caucasian women over 57 with no serious health issues: NovoGene - because there's nothing wrong with you that some fresh DNA won't fix."

"For Caucasian women between 24 and 38, irrespective of medical history: When it's time to get great, it's time for NovoGene."

"For Asian men between 38 and 57, irrespective of medical history: NovoGene: You, only better."

She stepped back from the pages on the wall, gave the room a moment to absorb the overview, then nodded to her assistant. Brian opened the file box by his seat against the wall and pulled out copies of the demographic survey reports. He began distributing them to the executives seated around the table.

Carla looked around the room, drilling her words into everyone except the CEO. "Yes, we're going to be first to market. Yes, we're going to have the most diverse product line. Yes, we're going to have repeat customers when the replicant plasmids wear out and get metabolized. But we're not going to make the kind of money we could make unless we reach the customers we need to reach and lock them in early." With her final words, she made eye contact with the CEO.

The CEO nodded and said, "Agreed."

And THAT'S how you get a $12,000,000 bonus, Carla thought. It's all about the show business.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Belated 1000th post celebration giveaway

2012-05-24T09:40:00.000-04:00

Time flies when you're having fun. Without noticing, I blew past my 1000th blog post here on Landless. It was a limerick about the self-publishing debate. Hardly an auspicious post for such a round number, is it?

In honor of this occasion (which I kinda missed), my collection of flash fiction and short stories, "Blood Picnic and other stories" is free to download for the next month from Smashwords. Just use coupon code LA38K and you can have this collection for Kindle, iPad, iPhone, PC, Mac, Android or three-ring binder. Totally free. You can still send me a couple of bucks if you want to, but it's not necessary.

Also, what should I have done for my 1000th blog post? What's below is a screen capture, but there's an actual poll up on the left side. People who read this blog via RSS will have to actually come visit http://www.TonyNoland.com to register an opinion. You can select multiple options, so feel free to let me know.

To everyone, reading here at the website, via RSS or via e.mail, thank you! The first 1000 posts have been fun and I look forward to the next 1000!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

That first story idea - skeleton or scaffolding?

2012-05-24T07:49:00.002-04:00

By the time it's finished, every good story will need structure - compelling plot, interesting characters who grow and change, etc. However, every story begins with an idea. Maybe it's specific, maybe it's nebulous, but they all start with that first concept.

The question is, how do you use that starting point?

SKELETON I almost always take my first idea and build on it. Follow it out to a logical conclusion, expand its ramifications, find characters and voices to express the idea, pick location(s) that provide a good backdrop, etc. No matter if the final piece is 1K, 6K or 100K, deep down in the center of it is that first idea, fully integrated.

But does it have to be that way?

I've been thinking about some of the pieces I wrote part way, then abandoned. Among other reasons, it was because the story wandered so far from the original concept that I felt it had just lost its way. Without the bones to hold it up, the story can't stand... can it?

SCAFFOLDING Many structures have temporary supports, designed to hold it up until it can stand for itself. When the mortar sets or the glue dries, the scaffolding is disassembled and taken away. The structure is usually much more graceful and beautiful for having been built this way. Great soaring arches, cathedral ceilings and huge domed atria are impossible to build without scaffolding.

What would happen to the final story if you began with the assumption that the first idea is only there to give you a way to assemble and support all the other ideas, the ones you would never otherwise have been able to work with? Could it be all the more intricate, beautiful and intricate without the central idea?

Conceptually, this is different from simply changing the skeleton from one thing to another. Great soaring structures are as much about the negative spaces they define as it is about the structures themselves. Can you think of some examples of great works of literature that allude to, encompass or even define something that isn't directly part of the story? The Old Man and the Sea, perhaps? Or Great Gatsby? Or My Antonia?

What are some others? Do you write using skeletons or scaffolding? Which is easier? Which gives better results?

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Images:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Skeleton2.jpg
http://www.infoflorence.com/Photo/Brunelleschi/Scaffolding%20for%20the%20cupola%202.jpg

Wednesday limerick: flesh, novice, sear

2012-05-23T07:04:00.000-04:00

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: flesh, novice, sear

I'm a novice at this, yes it's true,

So "I'm sorry", though tepid, must do

For the horrible sear

To this salmon flesh dear,

But wait 'til my NEXT barbecue!

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

Oh, wait... the "angry salesman" thing isn't very good book promotion, is it? How about this:

My book of limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday is FREE to borrow from Amazon:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

"They made me laugh, they made me sad, they made me think and squirm and reflect. ... Tony Noland has a way with words that is nothing short of astonishing" - Jeff Posey, Amazon review

That's right, FREE. Of course, if you're not in Amazon Prime, it still only costs $0.99. That's less than a coffee. And I'm not talking Starbuck's, I'm talking about the burnt mud they sell at the convenience store. It's worth the buck - you'll love it!

Don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. You can read "Poetry on the Fly" (or any of my other great writing) anywhere you like!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

The self-publishing argument

2012-05-22T07:50:00.001-04:00

"Self-pubbing's only for fools!"

"The Big Six have out-of-date rules!"

It makes my head spin,

This publishing din,

A pox on these loquacious duels.

This limerick is in response to the blog post I read this morning that made me feel like a goddamned loser idiot for even considering doing something so breathtakingly stupid as self-publishing my book, since self-publishing is OBVIOUSLY a sign of a horrible, worthless crappy book.

I made the decision to stop reading that blog a long time ago because its author is steeped in bile, vitriol and contempt. It's touted as an "important" blog, one that all early-career writers "must" follow. However, reading it always made me feel angry and rather dirty, as though I'd gone for a walk over a badly leaking septic tank. I don't miss it a bit.

Still, this morning I clicked on a twitter link, thinking maybe for once the value of the message would outweigh the acid packaging.

Nope.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

My deepest fear

2012-05-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

On today's Write Anything post, I reveal my deepest fear about my own writing.

Go check it out, but please... be kind.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

#fridayflash - Beautiful Creature

2012-05-17T19:43:00.000-04:00

Beautiful Creature

by Tony Noland

The regular customer came into the quiet dimness, took one look at the man at the end of the bar and said, "What's his problem?"

Without looking up from his newspaper, the bartender said, "Ah, he'll be OK. He's only exercising poor judgement."

"A lot of guys do. Just how poor?"

"It took eight shots for him to quit swearing and start sobbing, and another nine shots for him to quit sobbing and pass out."

The regular whistled. "That's poor judgement, all right. Was it over money or a woman?"

"A woman."

"His wife leave him? Cheat on him?"

"Nope," said the bartender, "he said his wife is a good woman. He's married fourteen years, has two kids, one dog, and a house in the suburbs with good schools and high property taxes."

"Jesus, if there's anything worse than a drunk it's a talkative drunk."

The bartender shrugged. "I don't judge."

"So if it wasn't his wife, it was his mistress? Man, my mistress dumped me, I'd get drunk, too. If I had a mistress, that is."

The bartender looked up from his paper, then shrugged again. "Like I said, I don't judge. But no, it wasn't his mistress. He ran into an old girlfriend. Hadn't seen her since before he got married, but he ran into her downtown. They had a cup of coffee, talked about old times, hugged goodbye. From there, he came into the first bar he saw -"

"Which was here?"

"- which was here, yes. He came in, slapped two hundred dollars down on the bar and said, 'Keep 'em coming as long as that lasts.' After that it was drink drink, talk talk, sob sob, and night night."

The regular whistled again. "So the poor bastard has been carrying a torch for an old girlfriend for fourteen years? Through his entire marriage?"

"Nope. He said he got over her long before he got married."

"What? Well, if he doesn't have a broken heart, then what's his problem?"

"Turns out his old girlfriend has been happily married for nine years. Two kids, thinking about a third. Condo in the city, thinking about a house in the suburbs."

With a frown, the regular looked at the sleeping man. A pool of whiskey from the final shot spread on the bar, making a puddle around the man's cheek.

"So," he said, "his problem with his old flame is...?"

"His problem is that she went on without him." The bartender folded his newspaper and put it away. "Instead of being shattered with loss forever, she got over him and went on about living her life. Seems to me that it takes a pretty damned big ego to think that the ones you leave behind will be so torn up that they'll sit at home weeping for the next forty years. Big egos make for easy targets." He nodded at the sleeping man. "When a big ego gets kicked, it hurts worse than getting kicked in the balls. It's better not to have a big ego in the first place. But, what the hell, like I said, I don't judge. What can I get you?"

"Is there any of The Great Lover's two hundred left, or did he drink his way through it all?"

"Not even close."

"Why don't you give me a shot and a beer, on his tab. I'll drink a toast to his old girlfriend."

The bartender paused, then said, "Sure, why not? He won't miss it." In a moment, a draft and a tall shot of top shelf were on the bar.

"What was the girlfriend's name?" said the regular. "Who am I drinking to?"

"He said her name was Estella."

The regular raised the shot glass. "To Estella, who I'm sure was a beautiful creature."

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

Wednesday #limerick: fawn, juggle, navigate

2012-05-16T09:41:00.001-04:00

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: fawn, juggle, navigate

I juggle two lives every day:

First fawn over words, then away

Lest I should be late

For I must navigate

To the place of my other love's sway

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

There are so many great limericks in my book. The only thing separating you from them? A lousy buck. But maybe you don't like to laugh?

You can read more of my limericks inspired by Three Word Wednesday in my e.book, which is cleverly titled:

Poetry on the Fly: Limericks Inspired by Three Word Wednesday

Only $0.99 - less than a hot dog at the convenience store!

Don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. You can read "Poetry on the Fly" or any of my other great writing anywhere you like!

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

One day giveaway: some great anthologies

2012-05-16T07:54:00.000-04:00

Today only, a couple of great anthologies from eMergent Publishing are at literally giveaway prices: $0.00 and $0.00, respectively. You can read the opening of my story, Dogs of War, right here. You can get the books by clicking on the links below:

KINDLE LINKS

The Red Book

The Yin and Yang Book

WHAT MAKES CHINESE WHISPERINGS ANTHOLOGIES UNIQUE

Each anthology is a collection of interwoven short stories by emerging writers handpicked from across the English-speaking world. Unlike other anthologies, Chinese Whisperings is created in a sequential fashion and each story stands on its own merits while contributing to a larger, connected narrative.

The Red Book, the first of the anthologies has each successive writer taking a minor character from the preceding story and telling their story as the major character in the next story. Each writer also references events from the preceding story to tie the ten stories together. The anthology can be re forward, or backward, or begun in any place because of its circular nature.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Mercurial Jodi Cleghorn (Ed)

Something Mean in the Dream Scene Jason Coggins

Kraepelin’s Child Annie Evett

Discovery Paul Servini

Innocence Tina Hunter

Not Myself Dale Challener Roe

Not My Name Jasmine Gallant

Out Of The Darkness Rob Diaz II

Heartache Emma Newman

One in the Chamber Paul Anderson (Ed)

The Yin and Yang Book takes the concept a step further, with the anthology played across parallel airport universes stemming from a decision to retrieve a stolen painting or to leave without it. It's a sliding doors/spider web hybrid. Readers will see common characters slipping across the two universes, some of them behaving in slightly different ways. The parallel universes are anchored between a common prologue and epilogue.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue Jodi Cleghorn (ed)

Three Monkeys Paul Servini

Three Rings Chris Chartrand

Dogs of War Tony Noland

This Be the Verse Dan Powell

Providence Dale Challener Roe

No Passengers Allowed J.M. Strother

Thirteen Feathers Rob Diaz II

One Behind the Eye Richard Jay Parker

Chase the Day Jason Coggins

Somewhere to Pray (Kurush) Benjamin Solah

The Guilty One Emma Newman

Excess Baggage Carrie Clevenger

Where the Heart Is Tina Hunter

The Other Side of Limbo Claudia Osmond

Freedom Laura Eno

Cobalt Blue Jasmine Gallant

The Strangest Comfort Icy Sedgwick

Lost and Found Jen Brubacher

Kanyasulkam Annie Evett

Double Talk Lily Mulholland

Epilogue Paul Anderson (Ed)

The edited short stories in these anthologies are 4K - 6K. That's a lot of terrific fiction to make your Kindle happy, all for the price of a free click!

Want to enjoy this great writing by authors you love, but don't have a Kindle? NO PROBLEM! Get one of the free Kindle apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and a host of other devices. Read them at home, in your favorite coffee shop or on the go!

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Virus laden poetry

2012-05-15T13:07:00.001-04:00

We shiver, cough and wheeze,

We snuffle, ache and sneeze,

Fatigue caused by a virus,

This cold so apt to tire us,

Has screwed our pronoun usage, if you please

Not my best limerick ever, but I feel like crap.

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Why 90,000 words?

2012-05-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

Is 90K still OK?

In discussing the book I'm writing, "Goodbye Grammarian", I've referred to word counts. This book started life as my 2010 NaNoWriMo, so hitting the 50,000 word mark was part of its genesis. In revisions, though, I set a goal of 90,000 words for the finished product.

Why the insistence on a particular word count? Why not just write it and let it be the length it wants to be? Because it's a science fiction book.

In a recent #askagent chat on Twitter, I put the question to Janet Reid and Laura Bradford, well known and well respected literary agents.

Janet's answer was succinct:

Laura's answer was more expansive, but agreed with Janet's:

My book is about a superhero who does battle with the forces of evil using the power of words: freezing people in place with a full stop, slicing through steel chains with a cutting remark, blocking a blast from a plasma cannon with a flat refusal, etc. All of the superpowers are hard sci-fi, with technological underpinnings, and there is plenty of high-tech gadgetry to go with the puns, wordplay and double entendres.

I chose 90,000 words because, as Jacqui Murray notes in her blog, the preferred word count varies depending on genre. Jacqui reprinted some word count guidelines from the Southern California Writer's Conference, broken down by genre. 90,000 - 100,000 has traditionally been regarded as a good length for my kind of book.

A shorter, tighter book will be a better book. Putting a defined limit on its size will guide the edits. I also believe a shorter book will be easier to pitch to an agent, and easier to sell.

What do you think? Does this insistence on genre-defined word count hold true the way it used to?

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The Fate of Camellia, Queen of the Sun

2012-05-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

Some time ago, I told a story on twitter about Camellia, the Queen of the Sun, also known as Camellia sinensis, my Japanese tea tree which has been suffering in the heat of recent summers.

I described how I put together a slow-drip irrigation system to keep poor Camellia alive this summer. By "put together" I mean "avoid spending any real money on".

Without further ado, the pictures (click any of them to enlarge):

The $7 trash can

The 30 gallons of water

A hole in the can, with a $3 hose bib attached. Also a hunk of old hose.

Camellia herself, with the drip irrigation end of the hose.

The drip end was made by plugging the end, drilling some 1/16" holes in the tube and wrapping it with several layers of landscaping fabric (I had some scrap in my workshop). This not only keeps the holes from plugging up with dirt and debris, it slows the outflow to a steady drip. I secured it all with a dozen zip-ties.

Finally, the drip irrigation system in action:

That 30 gallons will slow-release over (roughly) 48 hours, which is MUCH better for deep root structure than 30 gallons dumped on in 20 minutes from the end of a garden hose.

Use that water and thrive, Camellia, thrive!

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Death of the Cowboy

2012-05-10T16:00:00.000-04:00

Death of the Cowboy

by Tony Noland

The stranger walked up to the brunette behind the counter, trail dust sifting down from his worn leather chaps. She was a pretty little thing - skinny, but soft-looking and painted like Saturday night in Topeka. He hitched himself forward and laid an elbow down, pushing up the brim of his stained, sun-faded Stetson.

Without looking up, the brunette said, "Not interested," and went about her business.

The bright July sunlight slanted through the dirty windows, giving everything a glow that, a few minutes ago, looked warm and inviting. Now it looked jaundiced and sickly to the stranger's eye.

"Well, ma'am, you ain't even given me a chance to introduce myself."

"Don't bother. I've got no use for cowboys."

He smiled, putting on his best gap-toothed grin. His smile was probably his biggest asset when it came to tumbling reluctant gals, and he knew it. "Is that a fact? And if it happens that I ain't your usual kinda cowboy? How's about then?"

She finally looked up. For a moment, he thought he had her. Then she rolled her eyes, pointed at the door and said, "Goodbye, cowboy. Not interested." She went back to work, leaving him with his sun-faded Stetson, his gap-toothed grin and a sinking heart.

After a moment, he let the grin fade to a grimace. He bit the inside of his cheek, swallowing the words he wanted to spit out at her.

Little Miss Priss, he thought, just like all the others. Won't even give a fella a chance.

The anger and resentment boiled up within him. Had he snuck across Apache territory carrying $40,000 in stolen Spanish gold for this? Had he rescued the Governor's kidnapped daughter and protected her honor against the enraged McCloskey gang for this? Had he rallied the defenders of San Cristobal and driven off the corrupt, murdering Mexican army... for this?

"Why?"

The brunette put down her pen and looked up, exasperated. "Why what? Why are you still here? I have no idea."

"No, I mean why won't you even talk to me? Give me a chance to tell you about myself, about the things I've done."

"Because I. Don't. Care. That's why. Are you stupid, cowboy?" She stood and waved. "Look around you. What do you see? Do you see any cowboys in here?"

He turned. Some of the people standing in the room were obviously in couples: an antebellum blonde and a handsome, arrogant-looking Union army captain; a corseted baronet's daughter and a handsome, disreputable-looking pirate; a slim woman in a simple sundress and a handsome, wounded-looking man in a dark, tailored suit. They all looked flushed and wound up, as though they were ready to have sparks fly at the drop of a hat.

However, most of the people were alone: pale, good-looking vampires; dark, good-looking werewolves; regular-looking folks carrying magic wands they didn't seem to know how to use right; aliens, spacemen and a few people in Victorian wool-and-velvet garb adorned with gears, cogs and glowing tubes. He even saw two caped superheroes standing in the corner looking self-conscious.

But no other cowboys. He was the only one.

"Don't you get it?" the woman behind the counter said. "Nobody wants cowboys anymore. We don't accept Westerns. Can't sell them. Get it?" She pointed to the door again. "Door. Cowboy opens door. Cowboy goes through door. Cowboy closes door. Cowboy go bye-bye." Blowing out her breath, she sat back down and picked up her pen.

The other people in the room were pretending not to have seen or heard. They just stood and waited, probably dreading their turn at the slush desk as much as he had.

They don't want to blow their shot, the cowboy thought. But what about me? I'm just as interesting as them... aren't I?

He turned back to the brunette. "But I've been all over this town. Who does take Westerns? Isn't there anybody who wants cowboys?"

"Your problem, pal. Not mine. There's the door. Don't come back."

It was over. The cowboy stepped back, straightened up and turned away from the desk. Holding his head as high as he could, he walked slowly toward the door, still a cowboy, still a stranger, and still alone.

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Its sad when you cant use an apostrophe

2012-05-10T09:10:00.000-04:00

Today over at Write Anything, I'm bemoaning the failing health of the apostrophe key on my old laptop. This has graver consequences than you might realize.

Go check it out.

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Wednesday #limerick: dampen, keep, tremble

2012-05-09T09:53:00.001-04:00

Each Wednesday, I compose a limerick based on the prompt from Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are: dampen, keep, tremble

Oh, dampen my "lust" if you must,

For the hand that I thrust at your bust

Was to swat that wasp dead

And keep you safe instead!

Don't tremble at this fuss unjust!

~~~~~ * * * ~~~~~

The end of a book in progress

2012-05-08T13:45:00.000-04:00

I just finished writing the ending to "Goodbye Grammarian". While my first instinct is to celebrate this, I'm too aware of the work yet to be done on this before I can send it off to beta readers on June 1. Even as I lay that date down onto the screen - JUNE 1 - it seems to loom impossibly soon.

As I've gone through this draft, I first made notes on the whole thing, then went back to the beginning and started implementing them, typing things in, revising plot, structure, characters and language.

There have been lots of characters who deserved more screen time, some who needed to be repositioned, and others who needed to be cut. Actions needed to be explained and justified, events needed to have rational links to what came before and to set up what comes after. There are still some minor scenes to be written according to notes I made as I revised. These are to provide a more coherent structure, and to make some of the relationships more believable.

I'm not even sure what to call this draft. I've been thinking it as a first draft, now having gone through the first edit. However, I read someplace that until a manuscript can be read cover to cover without any missing chunks, fill-in-the-blank placeholders or other gaps in the writing, it doesn't even qualify as a bad first draft, but should instead be regarded as just an incomplete rough draft.

I've been revising for language and sentence structure as I went along. Does this mean that as soon as I slot in the missing bits, I'll jump from rough draft to second draft? This is so far from a linear process that I'm not at all sure what milestones I should use to judge my progress.

The fact that I'm shying away from this "incomplete rough draft" designation tells me how much psychological value I'm placing on being able to say, "I've finished the first draft". That, in turn, should tell me something about myself... but what?

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p.s. "Goodbye Grammarian" - I've been thinking for some time that this book is going to need an new title. Changing the way I refer to it is going to be hard, though.

Word counts in flash fiction

2012-05-07T08:46:00.001-04:00

Icy Sedgwick has an interesting blog post up, discussing the recent prevalence of drabbles and other shorter pieces among online flash fiction. It's worth reading, whether you write flash or merely enjoy reading it.

I tend to think of a flash piece as a thousand words or fewer. There was a time, when I was more dogmatic than I am now, when I saw that ceiling as absolutely unbreakable. Now, I will let my stories roll up above that if I feel they need the room. I will also let a story be complete in only a few hundred words, if that's what it wants to be.

It's possible that the longer ones needed to be edited down and the shorter ones needed to be fleshed out. Perfection is a process, not an endpoint.

Here are the word counts for FridayFlash stories I wrote in the latter half of 2011:

Click to enlarge

And here are the word counts for my FridayFlash stories written so far in 2012:

Click to enlarge

Do you see any trends?

Update: I graphed out the story lengths of all my FridayFlash stories since the first one appeared on September 9, 2009. Aside from a flirtation with rather short pieces in the fourth quarter of 2010, they tend to be around 800 words on average. Longest was 1442 words, shortest was 64 words.


Click to enlarge all that graphical goodness

Interestingly, although I haven't missed a week since posting that first story, this data set is clearly incomplete, since the dates are off at the end. I write & edit in yWriter first, then copy over to Blogger. It seems there were some stories I typed directly into Blogger, which I then failed to copy back into the yWriter file I use to keep everything organized.

I wonder which stories they were?

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DON'T Be Yourself

2012-05-06T10:13:00.001-04:00

On twitter last night, I had an interesting exchange about how ISFP
and INSP personalities interpret the way us INTJ types go through the
world. You may see us as arrogant, insensitive asshats who always know
better than you.

You are partially right. We ARE insensitive, but not intentionally so.

To my INTJ brethren: lighten up. Don't be yourself. Shut up and listen
a bit; the effort is worth the social rewards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash fiction and poetry anthologies, now available.
Buy your copy today!

_______________________________
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#FridayFlash: The Sound of Daffodils

2012-05-04T12:43:00.002-04:00

The Sound of Daffodils

by Tony Noland

"Dad... please come inside. Can you hear me? Do you understand? Dad?"

"I can hear you perfectly, Summer. In fact, you're drowning out the rain."

"Dad, please, this is crazy." She spoke much lower now, hardly more than a tense whisper. "You can't just sit out here. You'll catch pneumonia."

"I didn't mean your voice, kiddo." He looked up at her from the old teak bench, squinting through the water running down his face. "Can't you hear it?"

"Hear what? The rain?"

"Your umbrella. That pattering of raindrops on the nylon cloth. Can't you hear it? Doesn't it seem loud to you? Or don't you even notice it?" He lowered his gaze again, looking out over the flower beds, lush with spring growth. "Put down your umbrella and listen with me for a while. For as long as the rain lasts."

"I'm not going to sit out in the rain and get soaking wet, Dad."

She clearly would have gone on, but the wave of pain that passed over her father's face stopped her. For a time, they said nothing. The rain fell on the two of them, alone together.

"Did you know," he said at last, "it was the rain that led us to move here from Philadelphia? We told everyone it was for work, but really, it's because the rains are always warm here in South Carolina."

"Mom always said the warmer the rain, the bigger the flowers." It was her turn to look out over the beds. "Mom sure loved gardening."

"No, she didn't," he said. "Mom loved the rain. She just used the flowers as an excuse to be out in it."

"Dad..."

"I'm serious, Summer. It was always about the rain. She loved the feeling of the water in her hair, on her skin. She loved the sound of the rain falling on the leaves, the grass, even on the gravel. It was never about the flowers."

Summer stared at him from under her umbrella. "But she worked so hard on these beds!"

He smiled and shook his head. "Didn't you ever notice what she planted?" He pointed at the various raised beds as he spoke. "Tulips, daffodils, Siberian irises, tiger lilies. Each of the beds is lush and thriving, sure, but they're all self-naturalizing perennials. Once they got going, she could let them take care of themselves. Left alone, they grew like crazy. There was some weeding to do, but mostly, she was able to just sit back and let them flower on their own, enjoying their blossoms as they came."

"No," he continued, "she came out here for the rain. Always, it for was the rain. She showed me how to appreciate it, too, but she was the one who loved it. On rainy nights, after we put you kids to bed, we'd come out here and sit. We'd talk and listen to the rain, feel it wash away the difficulties of the day."

A dull roll of thunder passed over them. The soft, steady rain began to thicken into heavier drops.

"It was right here that we grew together, that we smoothed over the bumps in the road," he said, "that we worked out the daily decisions of how we would live our lives together." He smiled. "It was right here on this bench that we decided to have another child after we'd spent eleven years thinking we were done having kids."

"You mean... are you saying that you and Mom... conceived Gerry up here? In the rain?"

He laughed. "No, I mean we talked it through and came to the decision. Oh, we made love in the rain a couple of times, but rolling around in the mud wasn't your mother's style. This bench is great for necking and fooling around, but not so good for actual sex."

"Dad! I really don't need to hear this!"

He shrugged and looked out at the flowers again. The rain fell and ran down his wrinkled face, over the slight smile his memories brought him.

Summer said, "I remember now. The drying rack by the back door, the one in the mud room. I remember how there were damp clothes hanging on it on some mornings. I always thought Mom did laundry after us kids went to bed."

"She loved the rain," he said, "but she didn't want to get the floors wet. She always took off her wet things before coming into the house."

Under her umbrella, Summer looked out at her father. For a long time, she said nothing. The rain fell on the garden and on her umbrella, dripping down onto her legs, soaking her shoes on the pea gravel path.

She put a hand on her father's shoulder. "I'll set out a towel for you by the backdoor." With a gentle squeeze, she left him and went back down to the house.

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