Flash Fiction

Recently I’ve been having a lot of first. This is my first blog, I wrote my first short story, and Wednesday evening in my writing class I was assigned to write a piece of flash fiction. Now one would think that this would be easy I mean I was giving a word cap of no more than 105 words. The problem is I like epic fantasy too much and I have a harder time staying under word limits than meeting them. On top of that eighteen of the words were already accounted for; as I was not allowed to alter the first of last sentence. Oh and it’s about cats, so naturally that wasn’t exciting enough for me so they became tigers. I thought the “story” turned out okay for my first stab at flash fiction so I posted about it on twitter. The response I got was “Post or it didn’t happen!” so that is exactly what I’m doing. Keep in mind that I couldn’t change the first or last sentence.

 

The problem was the cats in the prison recreation hall. “Calling them cats is an understatement, no?” Cain exclaimed excitedly from the catwalk. Howard, ever calm, sighed and replied in an almost bored tone “Tigers are members of the family Felidae, thus cats.” Turning to Cain with a wry smile “Regardless if said cat eats mice or men, they remain cats.” Cain went off on a tangent about it making no sense, he didn’t even notice Howard had risen until the large man grabbed him and swiftly tossed him down to meet the cats. “It makes sense” He said, “It just does. It just does.”

Greetings and Salutations

So, this is a blog? I’ve never really considered writing a blog before but have been told by greater minds than my own that it is a good idea. So after ignoring said advice for a number of years I have decided to give it a go; If nothing else it will give me a place to collect my thoughts and let me ramble on about the randomness that is life.

Why now?  You may ask. Mostly because my life is crazier than ever I work a full-time day job as a government contractor, while also maintain the status of a full-time student at George Mason University pursuing my degree in Public Administration. In my spare time I write, I’m working on my first full-length  novel The Black Blades which started out as a NaNoWriMo project and now sits at around 65,000 words and the end is not really in sight (well figuratively since I’ve written the ending) I’m hoping to finish it at around 180k and then be able to edit it down a lot. My first short story Mirror of Dagon I have recently submitted to be considered as part of an anthology put together by Shane Tyree and his team as part of The Call of Cthulhu: The Writhing Dark kickstarter.  I am waiting mostly patiently to hear back about that.

Sometimes I wonder what in the world would have made me want to start writing now of all times, when life is so busy with work, school, I recently got married, had a child less than a year later, and then bought a house. The truth is life is busy and it’s not slowing down and it was one of those now or never moments, I could have kept putting it off until the unobtainable tomorrow, or I could suck it up and put pen to paper and see how it goes. I don’t think I’ve put down books since I learned to read my first love being “How Many Truck Can A Tow Truck Tow?” by Charlotte Pomerantz, moving on to classics like, Poe, Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, etc. it wasn’t until middle school when I was introduced to my true addiction the fantasy genre. What book? You ask. “Waylander” (Drenai Tales) by David Gemmell. I liked it so much I stole it from my middle school teacher Mr. Roberts and still have that copy to this day, and if by chance he somehow stumbles upon this as sad as I would be I would return it to him with sincerest apologies. It was not my intention to steal it but summer was approaching and I had not finished the book. It was the love for these books and all of the hundreds I have read since then that made me want to write. I was surprised myself at how it went, I won’t say it is easy because any writer can tell you that’s a lie. It was fun though, and that is something I could have only hoped for. It has helped me keep going because if I could make this my job and finally live that dream, I would be ecstatic beyond words.  

All that is well and good, but where did I come from right? I mean who am I?

Let’s see I grew up in Stuart, FL a small town in Martin County that was amazing to grow up in, it even has some authors of it's own my high school history teacher Tim Black has been writing for year but i have only just discovered his greatness, and a woman I went to school with, Danielle Pepe is about to release her second book. Even with all that i decided after high school it was time for me to leave. So I did what any teenager without a plan for his life would do and I joined the Marines. Honestly this is easily one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, sure my time had it’s ups and downs over the almost five years I was active but the positives far outweigh the negatives and I wouldn’t change it. After I got out I decided to move up to the DC metro area and soon found myself hitched to a wonderful women and now have an amazing daughter to boot. So all and all things are going pretty good right now, so I think I will leave this entry at this. Goodnight everyone.

“There is evil in all of us, and it is the mark of a man how he defies the evil within.”
― David Gemmell, Waylander