Monday, October 27, 2014

"Cheats For Common Moral Dilemmas"

Life can be complex with many decisions.  To help people out, I created a handy guide to common moral dilemmas and The Red Fez published it

Monday, October 20, 2014

New Pop Lit!

King Wenclas of the Underground Literary Alliance has a new project going called New Pop Lit.  He and his fellow editor, Andrea Nolen, have been publishing some cool stuff.  Right now, there's a story about a cat in an animal shelter up, and I really enjoyed reading it.  It seems as if they're putting together a nice literary community.  They were nice enough to publish "Brian Moves Back" by me, as well as do an interview.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

New Wred Fright Novel!


Yes, I have finished a new novel.  Don't get too excited though, as you may not be able to read it until 2017 or so.  For once, I didn't serialize a novel beforehand, and start releasing it before it was complete (I liked to work without a net).  It was kind of fun to do it in a more conventional way, so I may seek out a conventional publisher.  We'll see.  I do enjoy the whole controlfreakness of self-publishing.  Even marketing is fun, but it is time away from writing, which I like better, so I don't know what I'll decide just yet.  In any case, it's called Frequently Asked Questions About Being Dead, and it is plenty weird.  Here's a taste:

McAllister "Mac" Rose was looking at her corpse when a giant stack of pancakes holding a clipboard asked her, "Excuse me, but would you mind taking a customer satisfaction survey?"

Mac turned from the automobile wreckage and gazed upon the six-foot-tall stack of pancakes, a continuous fountain of maple syrup cascading from the top pancake onto the ones below it, ending in a pool on the white plate underlaying the entire stack, the kind of plate that's been through the dishwasher at the diner so many times that it started to wonder if that was all there was, an endless cycle of stickiness, soapiness, wetness, dryness, and stackness.  A huge glob of butter, shaped and glistening like the sun, sat on top of the stack with the clipboard, a pen dangling from it by a string, firmly lodged in the middle of it.  In Mac's head, she heard Beach Boys melodies that she had never heard before.

She felt like screaming, but, instead, she said, "What?"

Eyeballs popped out of the syrup, "Oh, you're really freaked out.  What do I look like to you?  Jesus?  Sometimes, I get bored and set my appearance to random.  Let's see.  OK, I'm pancakes.  I bet I'm delicious, but I'll change into something else.  Maybe that'll help.  You want a burning bush?  Grim Reaper?  Elvis Presley?  How about a unicorn?  Most women like unicorns."

The stack of pancakes changed into a unicorn.  The clipboard was now speared in the middle by the horn.  "Is this better?" the unicorn said, looking around at itself, the pen of the clipboard flying about every time its head moved.

"No," Mac said, her green eyes starting to tear up, "No, it's not."

"Why not?  I'm a unicorn.  You don't like the color?  I can be pink."

"No, it's not the color."

The unicorn turned pink anyway, except for the horn which turned a type of fluorescent green usually only seen in the neon signs of pawn shops and payday loan businesses.  "What do you think?" it said, but Mac had already turned away to look some more at her corpse.

The unicorn trotted up next to her and also looked at the corpse.  The front of the car that Mac's corpse was in looked like it was a map that someone who didn't know how to fold up maps properly had folded.  In the midst of the badly folded-up folds was Mac's corpse, with a cell phone still clutched in her right hand.  "Ouch," the unicorn said, "Were you texting?  I don't know why people do that.  Most people drive badly enough as is."

Mac ignored the unicorn, who, undaunted, went on to say, "At least the tree looks all right."

Mac looked at the tree that her automobile had crashed into and had to agree.  The tree did look all right.  It was a big oak tree and probably would survive the accident with just a few scars on its bark.

Mac, alas, did not look all right.  Nor did she feel all right.  Nor would she ever be all right again, she suspected.  "At least I didn't hit the deer," she mumbled, as she slumped against the remains of her car and slid down to the ground, her hands covering her face.