Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering August 2008.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering July 2008.

Too busy to write
dealing with the crap of life
the writer just fades …

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June 2008.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2008.

The Apartment

The apartment was your standard one-bedroom. About half of its square-footage was taken up by the living room, with the bedroom, bathroom and small kitchen splitting the rest. The apartment had been around the block – so to speak – and had seen many, varied tenants. There was the McJob stoner, the aspiring playwright, and the spoiled, sugar-daddy’s girl. All had left their marks, until the landlord painted over them.

The current occupant was no different. Like the others he had arrived bursting with energy. He poked into every corner and measured everything, although even he didn’t know why he bothered. Once all his furniture had been moved in he re-arranged everything at least three times. What if I swing my couch out and put that bookcase back there? What if I switch my TV and computer? If I switched my desk with the couch ….

After a few weeks things quieted down. The corners were no longer poked into and left to collect dust. The furniture didn’t move as if it was bolted to the floor. The honeymoon was over and the apartment and tenant settled into their life together.

There were a few bumps along the way, where one annoyed the other – lost toenail clippings embedded in the carpeting, the plenty of inconvenient shelf-space in the kitchen, nails driven into the walls, and “who puts a toilet paper holder there?” But there were also pleasant surprises, like his plants which meant there was always life in the apartment even when he was away and the closets that easily swallowed up all of his junk.

In time the apartment and tenant became like an old married couple. They spent their evenings watching TV and not speaking to each other, because there was no need to.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2008.

It’s a Guy Thing

For reasons Dave could not entirely identify, he had trouble critiquing the work of his fellows in the writing group he belonged to while at home. It probably had to do with the easy distractions of TV and the internet. So the simple solution was to grab all the stories and head to his local coffee shop. He could enjoy a quiet cup of tea while the shop turned into a dusty arena of the ancient Olympiad or a recording studio in the 80s. He could chat with a Soviet spy in the 50s Air Force or some mutant creature taking over the world. Every visit was an adventure, although they usually stayed on the page. Then one day …

Dave arrived at the coffee shop to find that his usual out of the way table was occupied by two men – one young one old – who were quietly talking. He set his stuff down on the next most out of the way table, which was next to two women. Once Dave had purchased a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie, he sat down to let his tea seep and started reading about a writer who finds a pen with the spirit of a dragon residing within. He had trouble getting into the story because the two women turned out to be a mother and daughter who were arguing. He tried to ignore them, but as the minutes passed it became harder and harder as their voices rose higher and higher. Finally, Dave gave up on the dragon pen and listened while pretending to still be reading.

Apparently, the argument stemmed from an incident in the recent past. The daughter had some type of surgery. Dave didn’t hear what kind, but she obviously pulled through. While the daughter was in the hospital, the mother did not visit her. The reason apparently stemmed from some guy who, quoting the daughter, “Is part of my life now.” To this the mother replied, half-sobbing, “You have the right to be with whoever you want, but so do I.”

They went back and forth over this, repeatedly. At times the mother would say, “You need to realize that the things you say can hurt people.” To which the daughter replied, “I’m not trying to hurt you, but you hurt me by not visiting me in the hospital.”

Eventually, the daughter said, “Thanks for the coffee, mom,” and stood. She walked over to the two men at Dave’s usual table and hugged the older one. Apparently, he was her father and the younger one was … the guy that was part of her life now? They began to leave but the mother stopped them. They were further away and behind a display of coffee so Dave couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but apparently the mother assumed that when the daughter relayed the conversation to the man in her life now (if he was the younger guy he already heard it) she would cast the mother in the worst light, and that wasn’t fair. Dave couldn’t hear what the daughter said to that, but heard the mother exclaim several times, “I never said that.”

The two men stood by and watched; neither said a word. Since they were all standing before the door, the other patrons weaved around them to enter or leave the store.

After blocking everybody’s way for a few minutes, the daughter left followed by the other three. If the argument continued outside, Dave did not hear – or care. His tea had seeped long enough and he took the opportunity to fix it up with sugar and a dash of vanilla. One of the store employees also took the opportunity to wipe up the spills and restock everything. Just as Dave finished fixing his tea, he looked at the man and said, “You know, it’s times like this that I’m glad I’m an emotionally-crippled male.”

The man started to say something, then what Dave said registered. The man laughed and gave Dave a thumbs up. “Right on, brother.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2008.

Questions

After seven years of hard work, hundreds of dollars spent on postage and thirty-four rejections, David’s novel Damocles was finally being published. But before he could sit back and wait for the royalty checks to come in, he had more work to do. After debating whether to hire someone to design his website or make it himself, David decided to be cheap. While it wouldn’t be as elegant or flashy as a professionally made site, his would just be simple and basic. He felt that better fit his writing style and wallet.

But what to put on the site? He already had a blurb for Damocles:

Comets can create awe as they blaze across the sky like fiery swords. But they can also cause fear.

A group of friends in Hawaii for a wedding wake one morning to learn that a small piece of a broken up comet will impact the Western Pacific in a matter of days; and there is nothing humanity can do about it. The tsunami caused by the impact will devastate the entire Pacific. Will there be enough time for everyone to flee the doomed, tropical paradise of Hawaii?

But a website needed more than two short paragraphs and a link to buy the book. His agent – who had been extremely helpful throughout the whole process – emailed him a list of questions that David could answer, to give his fans something more than a just a brief author’s bio.

At first David resisted because of bad memories of all those painfully boring school essays of, “How I spent my summer vacation.” David had always wanted to be honest and write; I stayed up late watching TV, slept in, played video games; basically enjoying the whole “Not going to school” thing, but suspected that wouldn’t go over very well. Thinking about those essays full of imagined camping trips and death defying water balloon fights, David realized they were his first pieces of fiction. Laughing, he asked himself, “Isn’t that one of the questions?” Digging out his agent’s email he saw that the second question was indeed, “What was the first piece of fiction you wrote?”

“Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,” he said, hoping he would believe himself.

Grabbing a beer he sat down before his computer and opened a blank word document. “Question One,” he read aloud, “Why do you write science fiction?”

David took a swig of beer and speaking as he typed wrote, “Because I’d suck writing romance.”

After a few seconds he highlighted and deleted that. “Why do I write science fiction?”

After some thought, he began typing:

Why do I write science fiction? Because I enjoy it. Duh. It’s hard to say why I enjoy it so much, it’s like why you like some Brand X over Brand Y; you just do. And you’ve liked it for so long that, it’s now who you are and you’re not going to change for nothing or nobody. But if I had to give one reason why I enjoy and write science fiction, it would probably be that I’m a bit of a smartass. What does that have to do with science fiction? Well, my smartassyness takes the form of asking questions. The kind of questions that make me uncomfortable – and probably unwelcomed – in religious and political institutions. “How can a just, loving, supreme being give equal punishment to Hitler and Gandhi?” “If half the country is Republican and half is Democratic, wouldn’t it be fairer and more representative if we had two co-Presidents, one Republican and one Democrat?” And asking questions is the key to writing science fiction. If a comet was going to strike the Western Pacific in a matter of days, what would happen to the people in Hawaii? Sounds interesting. Somebody ought to write a book about that. [Insert link to buy Damo and one of those smiley facey thingies.] A few years ago I read that in late ‘63, the Soviets knew they couldn’t beat the US to the moon so they were thinking of suggesting a joint US-Soviet moon mission. I’m sure it was mostly for good propaganda, “The US wants a competition, but we want cooperation.” But then Kennedy was assassinated and they never went through with it. What if they had, maybe a few weeks before Kennedy’s death? What world would we be living in now? (In case you’re wondering, that’s an empty stage for a story I’m trying to find a plot for.) True, asking questions does come up in other genres. What would a minor servant see as they went about their chores in the castle of Henry VIII? For some people that would be interesting, but I would find that rather bland. What if that minor servant was a vampire? Now that might be interesting.

David stopped. “The reason I write science fiction is that I’m a smartass and I ramble?” Reading back over what he had written, he said, “Eh, I could probably polish that up into something useful.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2008.

My Dream Life

As Karen entered my study she asked, “What are you doing? You’ve been in here all day.”

Not looking up from my desk I replied, “Working out my design for a trebuchet.”

She kissed me on my cheek. “A what?”

Turning around I explained, “I think they started in China, but they were a big medieval siege craft. Apparently Edward the First – Longshanks from Braveheart – had a giant one called War Wolf that he used in one of his invasions of Scotland. Basically trebs fired boulders of a couple hundred pounds at castles.” I smiled and pinched my thumb and forefinger together, “But I’m only building a small one.”

“Is it some kind of catapult?”

“No, it’s,” I pointed at my scribbled design, “you have a frame, and at the top there’s an arm on an axis. You put weights on one end of the arm, and then you winch the light end down, lock it, and somehow hook on a sling that holds the projectile. When you release it, the weighted end falls, the light end flies up, and the projectile is flung around and sent flying.”

“Cool.” Pause. “Why are you building one?”

With a large toothy grin I replied, “I have plans for this winter.”

She just rolled her eyes and left.

“Wakey-wakey.”

Karen slowly opened an eye. “Hrumph?”

“The treb’s finished.”

She grabbed my shirt and pulled me towards her. “If I was awake, I would kill you.”

As I left our bedroom I told her over my shoulder, “You’re no fun anymore.”

“Safety’s on,” I said as I locked down the arm. “Load it.”

Karen eased Jack into the launching sling. He just sat there with his wide eyes and crooked teeth.

“Ready?” I look at the assembled lunatics who all raised their drinks in reply.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, two, three, four . . .”

“Fire the damn thing already.”

I pulled the firing rope unlocking the arm. The heavy end fell, and Jack went flying up into the night sky.

We all stared into the blackness for several seconds. A loud KA-THUMP pinpointed where Jack impacted; out about two hundred feet. The morning light would reveal pumpkin pieces scattered over several square yards.

Amidst the spectator’s laughter, someone declared, “Dude, you’re fucking nuts.”

“Hey,” I replied, “I may be crazy but I’m also insane.”

I glanced above the top of my fort and spy the enemy. Jumping down I ensured the rip line was secure and would not get tangled; I had already locked the treb into firing position. Carefully, I placed the foot-in-diameter canister snowball in the launching sling.

I looked back at the unsuspecting enemy and pulled the firing rope. The snowball went flying with its rip line trailing.

Even at their distance of a hundred yards, I heard shouts of, “Fuck,” coming from the enemy camp. What else could they say as a giant snowball comes hurtling at them out of the sky? Just before it reached its maximum height, the rip line became taunt and tore out of the snowball. The shock disrupted the canister so it disintegrated into its components: a dozen regular sized snowballs. They slowly spread out and struck the enemy fort in an oval pattern ten feet by five feet.

“What the fuck was that?”

To reply, I reset the treb and loaded another canister snowball. “Have another look,” I yelled as I fired the second shot.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Now, why did I bring this out for this month? T-Bone.

This was a test of concept, to see if I could build a mini-treb. I did run into a few structural problems (hence the zip strips) but it did succeed in flinging my projectile (the pictured tape bone, ) about fifteen feet across my apartment. I also tried a few other projectiles, the most successful being an old paintball I had, but you can see why I won’t be using them anymore, at least in my apartment.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2008.

Cat and Mouse

As Mike walked down the main aisle at his local bookstore, he passed behind a woman leaning against a shelf looking at a book. He took a few more steps and turned to his left, stopping on the other side of the shelf from her. From her stance, and the length, color, and style of her hair, Mike was pretty sure she was his ex-girlfriend Sarah. Given that their breakup three months before had not been amicable, Mike could not confirm her identity by saying, “Hey Sarah,” and having the woman turn around. But he could not just ignore her. There was a book he wanted to buy, but he had planned on browsing for awhile. If the woman was Sarah he would just avoid her by coming back to browse later.

Mike walked down the side aisle he was in now and peeked around the far end of the shelf. But in the few seconds it had taken for him to walk there, the woman had finished looking at the book, returned it to the shelf, and had turned. Mike once again only saw her back. He clenched his fist and hit his thigh. That’s just what she would have done, he said to himself. For months they had fought a brutal, passive-aggressive war which was a key reason why they broke up.

Mike turned around but stopped and asked himself, Why am I doing this? Is it so important to determine if that is Sarah? Could it possibly mean he still had feelings for … he couldn’t even finish the thought. The last few weeks of their relationship had destroyed any possibility of that. Then what was it? Just one more point in their silent war? The simple thrill of the hunter stalking his prey?

After a few seconds Mike just shrugged, figuring whatever the reason it was a fun way to kill a minute or two. With that settled, Mike stepped around the book shelf and nearly walked right into the woman. Fortunately, she wasn’t Sarah.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2007.

2007

A man sat at his desk and thought back over the past year. After receiving a year-end wrap up email from a one of his friends, he decided to do the same. But he wanted to do something different, so he thought he would write it as a poem. So the man started throwing around lines like, “365 days full of / the good and the bad / the high and the low.…” In a few minutes he had dozens of such lines. “A few stories accepted and many rejected … friends re-found and friends lost … trips and stays at home.” He quickly realized that a never ending poem of “I did this and I did that,” would really annoy his friends. After a few minutes contemplation, he decided he should try for something better.

So the man sat back and tried to think what the biggest event of 2007 was for him. Was it something flashy like his trip to Hawaii? Something inspirational like the acceptance of one of his stories? Or something depressing like the months of torturous debate on whether to ask a certain woman out? After a great deal of thought the man realized that the event that influenced him the most in 2007 would have to be the return of the Master to Doctor Who. (Vote Saxon!)

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2007.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering October 2007.

Curse

The intrepid band of heroes was not dismayed. Although their first strike at The Great Darkness had failed, they still had a few tricks up their sleeves. The elf who looked like Rachel from accounting drew her sword and said …

A loud buzz covered her words. At first Fred thought they were under attack, but then he realized it was his alarm clock. With a groan, he reached over and hit the snooze button.

“Sorry guys,” Fred told the band. “I have to get going.”
“Who will lead us?” the elf – now human – who looked like Rachel asked.
“Didn’t you have a sword?” She looked at her empty hand, but Fred just said, “It doesn’t matter.”
Turning from the group Fred asked himself, “Where were we? We had just crossed the flaming desert, so the next obstacle would probably be water related. Hmm, maybe even ice.”
Facing the group Fred asked, “How many of you are there?” As he counted the group he stopped at his college roommate Tom. “Weren’t you killed by an ogre?”
Tom shrugged. “Was I?”
“I can’t remember.”

Before Fred could figure out who was in the band, his alarm went off again. Slowly, Fred sat on the side of his bed and turned the clock off. After a few seconds, he lifted the clock and held it in the palm of his hand like Yorick’s skull. “You vile little herald,” he told it. “You’re cry has destroyed my kingdom.”

Setting it back on the stand, he sat with his head in his hands. For the next minute he tried to force the vague threads of his dream into some coherent pattern. In the end, he gave up. “That’s the curse of being a writer,” he said standing up. “I can’t just dream, I have to make a novel out of them.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering September 2007.

I’m sorry this is late, but I was having computer issues. Those have now been resolved, so I’m now back in business. If my computer had been working at the end of last month, this is what you would have gotten.

Lummox Day

The field reporter smiled and raised his microphone. “Thank you, Carol. I’m standing this sunny Lummox Day morning on the natural habitat of the lummox – the suburbs. At this his cameraman gave a quick pan around to show nearly identical houses with well kept lawns. During this the reporter had continued, “Here we are moments away from seeing this beautiful transition of summer into fall.”

The pan ended and the camera returned to the reporter. “For those unfamiliar with the Lummox Day tradition, every September 14th, the Lummox will stick its head out of its dwelling. If he sweats, he will rush back inside to the comfort of the air conditioning, and we will know that summer is not yet over. But if he doesn’t sweat, he will fully emerge signaling we shall have an early fall.”

The reporter turned around and said, “Let us watch.” The camera zoomed in on the backdoor of the nearest house and for several seconds, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the door opened a crack and the balding head of a middle-aged man poked out. He looked to the left, then to the right, then up to the sky. Apparently, not seeing anything wrong, the door opened fully and the man stood on his doorstep. He wore a faded NASCAR T-shirt that barely hid his belly and shorts showing his untanned legs.

The reporter whispered his commentary. “So far, so good. The lummox is standing outside, but the all important sweat test remains.”

The man once again looked to the left, then the right, then up. Still seeing nothing amiss the man took a deep breath and ran his palm across his forehead. Holding his hand in front of his face, he studied it.

“This is it,” the reporter whispered. “Will he like what he sees?”

Shrugging, the man wiped his palm on his shorts. Closing the door behind him, he started walking across his yard.

“The Lummox didn’t sweat,” the reporter nearly shouted. “He hasn’t retreated to the comfort of the AC meaning we will have an early fall. Sad news to those who wanted to get a few more cookouts in, but good news for those tired of paying summer electric bills.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering August 2007.

Not My World

As Elizabeth walked her Chihuahua Robbie past the college campus, she saw a very tall young man sitting on a bench with his head in his hands. Always one to help, she stopped and asked, “Excuse me, is everything alright?”

The man looked up at her with deep blue eyes and after a pause stated, “This is not my world.” He then put his head back in his hands.

Elizabeth looked once more at his long legs and arms and asked, “Are you Martian?”

Nodding, the man gave a muffled replied of, “Yeah.”

Waving at the bench, Elizabeth asked, “Do you mind?”

Glancing at her the man said, “No.” He then moved over giving her far more space than she needed. As she sat down Robbie huddled under the bench and stared out at the city.

“I’m Elizabeth, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand.

The man paused for a second, then took it. “I’m Jaydek,” he said.

“Jaydek? I’ve never heard that name before.”

“It’s something my parents made up. They figured a new world needed new names.”

Elizabeth nodded her head and began rubbing her knee. After a few seconds she announced, “I can’t wait until next week.” She quickly explained, “They’re growing me a new knee. Hopefully, it will stay arthritis free.”

Still rubbing her knee, Elizabeth asked, “So, what’s a Martian doing here on Earth?”

Pointing over his shoulder Jaydek explained, “College. It’s my parent’s alma mater. They wanted me to have some experience of Earth.”

“It must be rough for you. How well have you adapted.”

Jaydek winced slightly. “The sun’s too bright, it’s too hot, the air’s too thick, and on humid days it feels … it feels like I’m drowning. It makes me appreciate my parents all the more; giving up everything they knew to colonize an alien world.”

Elizabeth smiled. “My second husband and I honeymooned on the moon, at the Mare Fecunditatis Resort. We enjoyed it, but we were only there for a week. Being someplace different for a week can be fun, but being in a strange place for …?”

“Eight months,” Jaydek supplied.

“Eight months. That’s a long time to be somewhere alien.”

“Yeah.”

“You must be homesick.”

Jaydek shrugged. “I don’t think that’s everything. It feels … it feels like everything I’ve known has been taken from me, leaving me … nowhere. A girl I dated for a short time could not understand why, when there’s a whole planet here and the rest of the galaxy, I wanted to just return home.”

“It’s home,” Elizabeth explained.

Chuckling, Jaydek continued, “Well, she couldn’t understand that. But that’s not all. During my boring lectures, I find I daydream about laying out on the red sand, comfortably cold, with only the hiss of my air regulator and the gentle throbbing of the heating elements. And I’m just gazing up, watching Phobos zoom out of the western horizon and look as if it is going to collide head-on with Demos, slugging its way up out of the east.”

“Was that your favorite thing to do as a child?”

Jaydek frowned. “It was something I did a few times, but I never thought it was all that special.”

Elizabeth smiled and nodded. “When my first husband and I were dating, he would take me on picnics to the local park. There were always bugs, or screaming kids, or I would end up sun burned, but when I think back to those picnics, that’s not what I remember. I just remember how much fun they were, and how much in love we were.”

Turning to her, Jaydek seemed to look at her for the first time. “What happened to him?”

“He died, in the war. He wasn’t a soldier, he was a civilian pilot flying supplies into a refugee camp. One of the local warlords didn’t like that and shot him down.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth waved her hand, “that was before you were even born.”

For several moments they sat in silence, Jaydek looking at his feet and Elizabeth thinking of Thomas, her first husband.

“Well,” Elizabeth finally said, “I don’t know if this will help you, but here’s some advice my father gave me that has usually helped: ‘Make the most of where you are; because that’s where you are.’”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering July 2007.

Blank

Tapping his pen on his desktop, Fred gazed at the blank page before him. When he had learned his boss was going to be out for a week (at a conference in Europe) Fred had fought hard to contain his glee. His normal workday consisted of about three hours of work and five hours of looking busy. But with nobody to look busy for, he now had twenty-five hours of prime writing time. The only problem: he did not know what to write.

Ethereal plots galloped through his mind, but he could not lead any of them to the page. There were so many topics he felt compelled to write about – politics, religion, war, nature, humanity – that he could not focus on one long enough to get a story without all the others getting in the way.

In what Fred knew would be an almost vain attempt to clear his mind, he got up from his desk and went to the office library. There, in addition to the outdated manuals and unread industry magazines, were a couple local papers and The Wall Street Journal.

He read through the papers looking for articles of interests: political scandals, the latest scientific discoveries, comics. But as Fred put the last newspaper back all he had achieved was a few chuckles and the premeditated murder of twenty minutes. That gave him an idea.

Rushing back to his cubical, Fred tried to force together the plot for a story where it was a crime to kill time. But try as he might, he could not get anything together. He would take one or two steps with an idea then run into a brick wall with “Done to Death” inscribed in it. Turning to the side he would take one or two more steps and run into another brick wall, this one labeled with “Now, that’s just lame.”

After half-an-hour of smacking into brick walls and not getting anywhere with a plot, Fred finally just wrote, “A story where killing time is a capital offense. Exact details to be worked out later.”

After lunch Fred finished the last bit of work he planned to do that day, and reopened his writing notebook. Leaving the scattered half-thoughts on the killing time story to ferment, he tried to think of something else to write. A couple of minutes later, he had an idea – he went and made a cup of tea.

Returning to his desk Fred decided he would try a writing exercise. He could not remember if he had read about it in a magazine or one of those “How to write” books by famous authors. The idea was to “write, don’t think,” and just fill a page up with writing and not worry if there is a plot or point or correct spelling or punctuation or anything. The point was to fill a page with writing. So Fred tried that and soon had two pages filled with variations of, “I don’t know what to write,” “I’m glad my boss isn’t here,” and, “This is good tea.”

After reading through what he had written, Fred closed his notebook and decided to spend the rest of the day surfing the net. There was still the rest of the week, and there would always be more blank pages.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering June 2007.

Unhappy Anniversary

Instead of a blaring alarm clock, it was sunlight streaming through the blinds that woke Michael Jones. He got out of bed over an hour later than usual, but it did not matter for he had taken the day off. It was his anniversary.

He read through his email over a bowl of cold cereal. Once he finished he took last night’s movie out of the DVD player and sealed it in its envelope. On the way to the mailbox he considered his luck in timing: the morning chill was gone but the afternoon heat had not yet

Back inside his apartment, he put the next movie in the player and popped some popcorn. The movie was not that great, but Michael was curious enough about a few aspects that he left it in so he could watch the commentary later.

About 12:30, he left for lunch at a great pizza place about half-an-hour away. It was usually too much of a bother with traffic to go there often, so he saved it for special occasions.

He ordered two slices of extra pepperoni, and sat alone at a table and watched people walk by outside. As he ate his pizza, Michael thought of Laurie Reading, Mary Boen, Debra Jordan, and a few others. Laurie was the first woman he had ever loved. He had dated a few girls in high school, but they were just for fun, nothing serious. But when he met Laurie his first week at college, there was just something about her he could not explain.

If she had been single, he would have immediately asked her out, thinking little more of it than the girls in high school. But she had a boyfriend – Bob – so he became her friend, hoping someday Bob would screw up and he could move in.

At first it was only a calculated move to get close to a woman he found interesting, but as the weeks turned into months they became best friends and Michael realized he was in love with her. Despite his tough guy persona, Michael was amazed at how wonderful it felt to be in love. He also had not realized how painful it could be, since Bob was still in the picture. For that first year he bounced between the joy of spending time with her as a friend and the despair of only being able to spend time with as a friend. Then Bob cheated.

Michael spent hours holding Laurie letting her cry on his shoulder and feeling like an ass knowing this was what he had been waiting for; seeing the woman he loved hurting and reduced to tears. He did not want to be a bigger ass by hitting on a crying woman, and since there were only a couple weeks until the end of the semester, he decided to give her the summer to get over Bob before asking her out in the fall.

The plan went great, until June 12th. That was when Michael got an email from her saying that a guy where she was working for the summer had asked her out. Not wanting to go through another boyfriend, Michael sent a long, rambling email telling Laurie how he felt.

The next day, on the forty-seventh time he checked his email, he received a reply. This was the moment he had been waiting for almost a year for, but it still took five minutes to work himself up to read it. It was several pages long, but all it said was, “Let’s be friends.”

For the rest of the summer they exchanged a few emails: about work, or mutual friends, or other mundane matters. But they never discussed those two emails. It was as if each concluded it was best to just pretend they never happened. They were still friends the next year, but there did seem to be an awkward elephant in the room. A year later Laurie transferred to a different college to be with her new boyfriend, and the emails became fewer and fewer. Michael had not talked to her in years.

While Laurie was the first woman he had loved and the first one to really break his heart, she was not alone. For many years he celebrated June 13th as a collective Stupid Bitch Day, a day he allowed himself to be angry with all the women who had rejected him and to think vile thoughts about them. But as he matured he realized the truth that you can’t force someone to love you; it’s either there or it isn’t. Heartache is in inescapable aspect of life, like death and taxes. So June 13th became a day, not for anger but for acknowledging the women who – for good or ill – had changed his life by saying “No.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering May 2007.

Happy Anniversary

It was a random, everyday chain of thoughts – from A to Q to G – that made Allen Barbiero sit up straight in his cubical and mutter, “Today’s my anniversary.” Laughing, he wiped imaginary sweat from his brow and said, “I guess I dodged a bullet there.” He returned to work, but for the rest of the afternoon he was beset with the occasional bout of chuckling.

After work, instead of heading home for mac and cheese, Allen stopped at his local sub shop and treated himself to a foot-long Italian. As he sat savoring the sub and munching on chips, he let his mind wander over the joy of that day four years before when he received that long-awaited letter and the ups and downs since then. And he wondered where he would be in four years time.

When he finally reached home, Allen quickly shed his work clothes and changed into an old T-shirt and shorts. He did not have any wine and had not thought to buy a bottle, so he grabbed a beer instead. With some Vivaldi turned on low, he went to one of his bookcases. His fingers ran along the names of Poe, Hemingway, Tolstoy, and many others. They stopped on the spine of a small, digest sized magazine no longer in publication. Pulling it from the shelf Allen was once more dismayed at the bland cover.

Sitting down on his couch he opened the magazine to the page marked with a ragged post-it note and began reading. It felt good reading the short story, even though he knew by heart. When he was in college he had several stories published in the college lit magazine, but this was his first professionally published work.

Once he finished the story, he took a sip of beer and said, “Happy Anniversary to me.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering April 2007.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering March 2007.

Too Literal

Everyone in the office stood in groups of three or four whispering and pointing; all thought of work gone. One man stood away from the others holding a bag of ice to his forehead talking with a police officer. As two other officers led a man away in handcuffs, the whispering ceased.

“Dave.”

Dave quickly covered his sudoku book with a memo before the voice registered. Turning around to look at Susan he said, “Don’t do that.”

She laughed. “Funny looking work you’re doing there.”

Pointing at her he asked, “And how many romance novels have you read while,” he gave air quotes to, “on the clock?”

Susan shrugged, and looked away. “A few.”

“Dozen? Hundred?”

She covered her face and laughed. “A dozen, I guess.”

“Every month?”

“Oh, just shut up.” They both laughed.

“So,” Dave asked, “what’s up?”

“Nothing. I just needed to kill some time.”

With his thumb Dave pointed to his cubical opening. “Should I put out a sign saying, ‘Bring us the time, and we’ll kill it for you!’”

Tapping her temple Susan said, “You have an idea there.”

For several seconds both were silent, then Susan asked, “Oh, have you seen John this morning?”

“No, why?”

“He’s sick. I told him he should have called in and taken the day off.”

“No, no,” Dave said shaking his head. “You call in sick when you feel good so you can enjoy the day off. If you’re sick you’re going to be miserable, so you might as well come in to work.”

“You know, that’s what he said.”

“Great minds think alike.”

Susan gave an unenthusiastic, “Yeah.”

Shortly after Susan left, Dave put his sudoku book in his desk drawer and walked over to John’s cubical. John was in the middle of blowing his nose, and from the half-full garbage can next to him Dave wondered if he had done anything else that morning. “I see you’re still among the living.”

John groaned and threw away the tissue, allowing Dave to see how pale his face was. “I wish I wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Dave looked around and then picked up John’s stapler. Holding it above his head he said, “Hold still.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering February 2007.

One World

Cleaning up the children was always the hardest. Aril stood by a group of maybe twenty, from infants to about ten years of age. They all lay in a communal pool of blood. Shaking her head, Aril wondered, for the umpteenth time, how loving parents could feel that it was better for the kids to be dead then to live in an imperfect world. The only good part was that after slitting their children’s throats, the parents had the “decency” to slit their own.

Aril looked around, but Brura was not in visual sight. Opening a telepathic channel to him, she asked, “Is all this worth it?”

Without hesitation he replied with mantra of the Great Awakening, “Humanity only has two options: extinction or evolution.”

With a frown, Aril knelt and ran her finger over the forehead of a young girl of maybe six. “What would you have been? A poet? A doctor? The first human to step onto the planet in another star system?” With a light chuckle she asked, “All of them?”

“Your problem,” Brura words came into her head, “is that you get too attached to them. They made their choice.”

He, of course, was referring to the fallout of The Great Awakening, the time when humanity finally matured and realized we are all one species, living on one world. Our differences; age, sex, skin color, ethnic heritage, religion, all are just skin deep. To separate someone out, or hate them, or go to war with them for these reasons are idiotic. It had taken over a century, but The Great Awakening finally got people to stop thinking of themselves as white or black, Muslim or Jew, American or Ethiopian, and instead got them to think they were human.

But not everyone had been thrilled, especially the self-proclaimed righteous ones who vehemently denied that others were their equals. For decades they caused fear and chaos, trying to hold onto their beliefs and force them upon others. In the end, something had to be done with them. The rest of humanity was humane enough to know these people were just deluded, and they did not deserve to die for it. So, often with the approval of those they cloistered, they were put in separate, domed little city states where they could live as they wished.

At first, everyone seemed to be happy. But now, almost a century later, nearly eighty percent of these cities had imploded. The people had only been sealed in with those who thought like they did, but over the years differences worked their way in and divisions began anew. Apparently it was easy for people to spot “unwanted differences” in others.

Aril stood and looked around at the devastation. It was disturbing to think that deep down there seemed to be a basic human need to hate someone. She wondered if it only manifested itself in small groups, or if all of humanity was doomed to go through this.

Looking back down at the girl, Aril sent her image to Brura. “You’re wrong. She never had a choice.”

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering January 2007.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering December 2006.

Howdy,

Welcome to my electronic newsletter, covering November 2006.

It’s Only a Matter of Time

By the early 2020s, advances in robotics led to the development of reasonably affordable humanoid robots. While these Tele-operated Mechanicals (quickly shortened to Mechs) could be sent on simple tasks – going to the store for a jug of milk – their main use was for entertainment. Through the internet people would link their holo-viewers up to experience everything a Mech did. Quick thinking business types had dozens of Mechs stationed at dangerous and far-away tourist locations. Within a year, the number of people who had “climbed” Mount Everest doubled.

Many critics decried people who would rather link up to a Mech to virtually explore the world instead of just going outside. Their cries of, “This is the end of civilization,” quickly died down, just like all the other times critics had raised that standard.

While countless people roamed the world via their Mechs, others still played old fashioned “non-virtual” games. Some of the most popular were the ever increasingly realistic “shoot ‘em up” adventure games.

It was only a matter of time before these two forms of entertainment would merge.

Captain Anna Vargas scanned the apartment complex. The faded paint, broken railings, and loose steps would have said much if it was not so common these days. She did not care about the property value, she was looking where bad guys could hide; and there were several. It was a dangerous job, but it needed to be done.

Sighing, she looked to her team, and gave them a nod.

Jimmu and Davidson rushed forward with the battering ram. With one heavy clang the door to apartment 3C was broken open. Shouts of, “LAPD,” were drowned out by automatic fire from inside. Anna saw Jimmu fall from the hail of bullets. The other members of the team returned fire, and the gunfire from inside quickly stopped.

By the time Anna got into the small, drab living room, Davidson and Quesada had already gotten to the Mech. Davidson ripped open the main control panel and began pulling out parts, while Quesada disarmed the machine guns that had been added to the basic Mech model.

The Mech was no longer facing the doorway, and with the bullet holes Anna quickly figured out that a police bullet must have struck a control unit of some sort making the Mech swivel; spraying the adjoining room with bullets.

Standing in the doorway to this room Spencer called to her, “Captain, you need to see this.”

The other room was just as shabby as the first. There were no windows and the room was only lit by the glow of numerous computer screens. A teenage boy sat before the screens. He was still wearing his holo-viewer, even though he was missing a large chunk of his skull. By chance, when the Mech fired into the room one of the bullets had hit him in the head.

Spencer pointed at the body. “The bastard killed over twenty people for sport. He deserved to rot in jail.”

Anna did the only thing she could; she reached up and removed her holo-viewer. She blinked several times at the brightness of the control room. A technician walked over to her and said, “A coroner has been called, and we’re about to pick up our Mechs.”

“Good.” She looked over the rest of her team to Jimmu, who had already unplugged. “How bad was your Mech damaged?”

Jimmu shook his head. “I won’t know until they get back here, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”

Anna nodded, “Good. We have that other raid this afternoon.”

Howdy,

Welcome to the fourth issue of my electronic newsletter, covering October 2006.

By the Numbers

Susan Rose Brown entered the world at 7:46 AM on October 17, 2006, and became the unofficial 300,000,000 American. Her twin sister Kathryn Lorraine had arrived some four minutes earlier. Their parents knew they were having twins, and had already worked out in their minds that they would have to treat them equally. They never expected having one daughter being a media sensation.

Despite everything the Brown’s did to treat the girls the same, nothing could hide the fact that each October 17th, cameramen would come and photograph Susan. These photos would appear in magazines across the country with captions like, “300 millionth American age 1, playing with birthday cake. Twin sister in background.”

With all the attention, from the press and relatives, it was little wonder that Susan grew up being at ease with people and never shying from the spotlight. It was also little wonder that Kathryn grew up to be the opposite; doing everything she could to stay out of people’s way.

There was no animosity between them – no more than average sisters – but they did travel in different circles. The few times these circles intersected, pain of some sort was usually the result. For example, Kathryn lost her virginity to a guy rejected by Susan. He figured that since he could not have the popular girl, her twin was the next best thing. Of course, being a teenage male, he did not fully explain all of this until after he had achieved his goal. It was not until college, at a small, no-name school studying to be a veterinarian, that Kathryn fully got over this.

Susan, however, applied to all the major universities; regardless of cost. Her parents were somewhat pleased when she finally picked the second most expensive college she had been accepted at. She continued the proud tradition of going to college as an “Undecided,” although her closest friends figured she would settle down to political science. Ever since she had won the class presidency, she had been bitten by the political bug. Only a few had seen inside her light-blue notebook, outlining schemes and other ways to move up in the world of politics. She was even beginning to flesh out the faintest possibility of a presidential bid. The earliest she could run would be in 2044, but she was aiming for 2056, when she would have more experience.

One of the few people Susan had told about this plan was her Sociology Professor, and lover, who had told her that just being the 300 millionth American would not win her the Presidency. Her reply: “But it will get my foot in the door.”

So it was a shock to the nation when this girl with so much promise died falling out of a moving car during her fifth year at college. An autopsy showed her blood-alcohol level was over twice the legal limit, and blood samples showed a small trace of cocaine.

Kathryn left her veterinarian studies for the funeral. Her fiancé, studying to be math teacher, came with her. He was the one, when confronted by cameras when leaving the funeral, shouted, “Go away. My fiancée lost a sister; all you lost was a number.”

Howdy,

Welcome to the third issue of my electronic newsletter, covering July through September 2006.

My publication news for the last three months:

The Iranian President sat in a comfortable chair and watched the news reports about the destruction in Israel. He smiled and raised his cup of tea in a silent salute to the brave martyrs who carried out the attack.

Haifa, the third largest city in Israel and home to almost three hundred thousand Jews, wiped off the planet in a column of holy nuclear fire. The job was not yet finished, but the first step had been successful.

An aide ran into the room, disrupting the President’s quiet satisfaction. The man was in his early twenties, and rather thin. His face was flushed from running, and the sweat from his forehead mixed with the tears on his cheeks. Stopping before the President, he held out a message.

The President set his cup of tea down and took the sheet of paper. He read through it twice, then placed it next to the tea. After a few seconds, he turned off the TV. Standing, he smiled at the aide and took the man by his shoulders. “Be proud,” he told him.

At this the aide stood straighter, and gave a weak smile.

The President dismissed him, then took his tea and went out on the balcony. He drained his cup and set it down on a small table. He looked around at Tehran in twilight, smiling every time his eyes found some favorite landmark. Looking up, it took him a few seconds to spot what looked like a meteor. It was a warhead from an American ICBM. Smiling, he looked back at his city and took in a deep breath of rose scented air. “Masha’Allah.”

Howdy,

Welcome to the second issue of my electronic newsletter, covering April through June 2006.

Silent Steve's Stories
The only publication news I have are the four stories published in my column at www.dangeroustalk.net. I know I shouldn't have to tell you what they are about, since YOU'VE ALL BEEN READING THEM, right? :P But I do plan on having a little back story for my stories when I get my website up, so I might as well write these now and get them out of the way.

"One Against Many"
Some of you hopefully remember this story. Well, the basic story idea. This was originally for one of the writing groups I'm in. One of our members was moving away, and as a tribute, everyone in the group wrote a story. The stories were based on a quote, and I got the Marx quote used in the story. The original version of the story was pretty good, but when I started revising it for my column, I realized that it was almost all telling with very little showing. I made some small changes, but in the end I pretty much rewrote the whole thing. But I think it was an improvement.

I know I should say that this was my plan from the beginning, but in truth it wasn't until after a couple of my stories were on the web, and I had the next five or six lined up, that I realized that this was a very good story to begin my column with. Something that I've been very interested in the past several years is the idea that you can't tell someone to think for themselves. I'll give you a moment to absorb that. My feelings are that if you take any major issue in the country, say abortion or Iraq, each side is entrenched in their position. Every now and then one side goes "over the top" and gets mowed down in the no-man's land in between. As a character in one of my upcoming stories says, "You can't make someone change their believes by a frontal assault. You need to be sneaky." What my character in "One Against Many" does is ask people questions that come out of left field. And that is what I try to do with my stories, hit the issues from an unusual angle. At least, that's what I attempt to do. :P

"What Would Jesus Do?"
This story was published before on a website that no longer exists. :( The idea, of course, comes from the brouhaha over the Ten Commandments monument put up in Alabama by Roy Moore. As I watched the protestors crying over a two-ton block of granite and denouncing the evil secularists, I got to wondering what Jesus would do if he came back at that moment. Would he join the protestors? After thinking about it for a few seconds, I decided, no he wouldn't. He would probably take a look at them, and then go, "Okay, you people can stay here and argue over a rock, but I'm going to go heal some sick people. See ya." And somehow, this is the story that came from that.

"Humanity's Future?"
This started when I wrote what would become the opening quote, "Attributed to Fyal of Arzoy." The thought behind it was that we, as a species, think we are the pinnacle of achievement. I mean, that's why all the aliens look like us. But I feel that this false sense of superiority, of being special, will probably be our undoing. I do fear that our future is to just end up being a footnote in an alien textbook.

"Burning Issue"
I oppose any attempt to make flag burning illegal, not because I'm a damned hippie or anything, but because there is no real way to enforce it. The idea in the story, not original, is that once this "flag" as been burned and can no longer be entered in as evidence, how can you prove that it was a real flag? And I hoped that the ending gave the impression that the main character could possibly sue the police for arresting him without cause.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the past year or so, I've heard a couple people talk about National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) where you try to write 50,000 words during the month of November. The main goal is to stop editing yourself, and just write. I admit, I do edit myself while I write, so I thought it was a good idea to try this, at least to see how it went. But I didn't want to wait until November, and then I realized that April also has thirty days. So I decided that during April I would try to write a novel. I picked an idea that had been banging around in my head for several months. I started typing in the early minutes of April, but I unfortunately did not get that far. There were three main issues that stumped me. One, there was some family issues that took my time. Two, I was going frantic trying to get stories finished for Silent Steve's Stories. But the biggest reason was that of timing. If I have an idea that I let "ferment" for a day or a week in my head, I can then sit down and whip out a 5-600 word story in about an hour. (That's not my standard writing procedure, unfortunately, but it is something that I've done on several occasions.) Since I have a lot of stuff fermenting, I like doing all these short stories because it feels like I'm getting something done, and I'm cleaning the ideas out of my head, to make room for new ideas. (If only it were that simple.) It seems like every time I've sat down and focused on a novel, a thousand short stories pop up and start whining that I'm not writing them. I feel that for me to write a novel, I will need to dedicate a large chunk of my time to it. But I can only comfortable set aside a small chunk of time to it, which makes me feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, which makes me turn back to the short stories. It's a vicious circle I'm still trying to break out of.

Something new
Speaking of my Insta-Stories, (I like the sound of that) consider the following. A couple weeks ago there was a news story, which I'm sure most of you have heard. It was one of those stories that pops up, hangs around for two days, and then disappears. Late on the second day, I came up with a story idea. I wrote most of it out, but I didn't really finish it because I knew that there was no place where I could get it published while people still remembered what it was based on. It would be weeks, or more likely months, before it would be published, and then I would have to remind everyone what it was about. This had me bummed for a little bit. Then I remembered my website, which is still in the planning stages. I believe I wrote in my last newsletter that I doubted I would blog, mostly because after reading, "Same shit, different day," a few dozen times, it would probably get boring. But I wanted to make the website dynamic, to have some reason for people to keep coming back to it. I had thought about putting some of my unpublished stories on it, but that didn't feel right, somehow. Then I got the idea, what if, each week, I find a news story and write a few hundred-word story about it. The news would still be in people's minds, so the stories would have greater impact, it would force me to be constantly writing, and it would give a reason for people to keep coming back to the website. It could probably also be used as evidence that I'm nuts. But that's what I'm thinking, I still have to see if I can write a story each week, but I thought I would give you guys a preview. Therefore, with each newsletter I'll attach a short story inspired by something that happened in the three months covered by the newsletter. So what better way to start than with the story that started it all.

Hope you enjoy,

Steve

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of Earth, Nathan Boeckman."

The announcer disappeared from the screen and the holo-projector filled with the image of an aging man whose hair was gray, turning white. He rested his hands on the desk before him and spoke in a slow, precise, baritone. "My fellow humans. It has been almost three centuries since the Shinkai Drive opened the galaxy to us. In that time we have set up colonies on hundreds of worlds, and explored thousands more. We have also come across several, space-faring, alien species."

The President looked at his desk for a few seconds, then looked back at the holo-camera. "As you know, all of our attempts to communicate with these aliens have failed, and they have ignored us. Regardless of the meaning, or method, of our transmissions, we have always received the same, short message in a language unknown to us." He gave a weak smile then added, "That is, until now.

"After decades of work, and fortuitous archaeological discoveries on several planets, a team at the University of Mars led by Doctor Theodora Büchi has begun to translate the language."

The President picked up a small data sheet and coughed. "The short message that the various alien species have sent us when we tried communicating with them reads as follows: This is the Jauhtob Galaxy. Speak Jauhtobian."

Howdy,

This is the first issue of my electronic newsletter, and covers all the major writing events in my life for the period of January through March 2006. Some of you I have talked to about this, and the rest of you I just figured wouldn't mind. If I was wrong, or if you really don't care for me that much, :P let me know and I'll take you off the list.

Now, why am I doing this? Well, probably next year I'll get a website for my writing. My plans so far are to have my stories that have been published, with links to where they were published, along with any back stories (which will probably be longer than the actual stories) and any other interesting things I can think of. I probably won't blog, but I figure on having some newsletter-type thing to keep people updated on what's going on in my writing life. So I am starting this now to get into the habit of writing these things, but also as a motivator to have something to be able to write about. (Sneaky, aren't I?)

So, what do I have to write about for this three-month period?

The publication of "Agony in the Lab" in the Spring 2006 issue of A Flasher's Dozen (http://flashers-dozen.blogspot.com/)

This is a flash fiction story based on something that happened to me in college. One afternoon I was catching up on an electronics lab with my partner, when this other physics guy came in and asked her out. This may not sound like much, but he didn't just ask, "What to go out?" He beat around the bush asking her out without asking her out and she beat around the bush of saying yes without saying yes. This may still not sound like much but I was the *&$%#$@ BUSH because I was sitting between them. And it was a situation where I couldn't just get up and leave. I was an innocent victim in the horrors of dating.

This brings my publications up to a grand total of eleven pieces. This includes four short stories, four flash fiction (under 1000 words), two micro fiction (I'm not entirely sure what you call them, but they were both only 25 words), and one haiku. Since I also received $15 for "Agony in the Lab" this brings my total earnings from my writing to $80. That might pay for a year's worth of Earl Grey I drink while I'm writing in various bookstores. But it's not about the money. At least, not yet, damn it. :)

After about a year of being ignored, I've started working on a novel again I started writing a novel almost two years ago, but I got caught up in other things and haven't done anything with it for about a year. But in February I dug it out and started revising what I had written, and adding a little more. Right now it is about 13,000 words, but most of that is a very rough outline.

Originally, I had written about three paragraphs giving the basics of the novel, along with how it fits in with a couple other stories I've written which some of you have read. But I was recently reminded of some advice I heard once that you shouldn't talk about the novel you are writing, because you end up getting bogged down in other things. You spend so much time explaining it to people, and trying to politely turndown their helpful 'suggestions' that you don't write the novel, which is what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. So I cut that section out, but I'm saving it because I had a really great line that explained about half the novel. Hopefully, someday you'll read that line in a future installment of this newsletter.

A late developing story A friend of mine is working on getting a website up that will cover a great deal of topics. I don't want to say too much about it until all the details are set, but he has offered me a weekly column that I will probably use for short stories. I'll keep you updated on how this develops.

Well, I guess that is all for now. Hopefully, I'll have more for you in three months.

Steve

PS. Just a reminder of common curtsey. If you wish to comment on this please reply only to me, not to everyone. Unless you feel the need to tell everyone how marvelous I am.