Monday, November 29, 2010

A NANO novel excerpt Michiganders should appreciate.

Before Munson could respond with further hostilities, the motorcycle rider pulled around them, moving into the opposite lane and was nearly struck head-on by a truck driver who laid on his horn and narrowly avoided hitting him. Seemingly unperturbed by his near death experience, the biker gunned his engine and passed Munson and Darcy as if they’d com to a full stop.

“I always heard the drivers in Detroit were nuts,” Munson said.

“We’re far from Detroit, Munson.” She stared through the windshield and frowned. She’d experienced a brief moment of déjà vu when the biker passed them but had no idea what could have caused it. It wasn’t important. She just had to make sure she avoided any uncomfortable situations while she was here.

They reached Detroit a few hours later, still much too early to go snooping around public offices. Munson wisely decided they needed to get some rest and followed his GPS to a three-star hotel in the town of Hazel Park, a blue collar town known for its women still sporting Eighties hairstyles and pick-up trucks adorned with rebel flags. However, this time of night it was a rather quiet place, deceptively peaceful, in fact, The only other traffic they saw consisted of two guys with long hair rockin’ out to hopelessly outdated hair band metal in a slow-moving Seventies-era Buick Skylark and the cop who decided to harass them.

Munson raised an index finger and thumb as he passed them and let out a loud, “Whooooooo! Darcy laughed and playfully hit him in the shoulder.

Munson smiled. “I can feel my IQ points dropping into NASCAR fan levels.”

“I wouldn’t expect a man who believed in all of humanity’s right to know the truth to be such an elitist.”

“Who’s an elitist? I’m just rockin’ on with my bad self.”

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Another Excerpt from the NANO novel.

People were such assholes these days, even worse than just a few years ago. Like Franny Franklin wrote on her website, “The tools of Satan are getting angrier and angrier and they don’t even know why! I know why! Because we’re going to kick their demonic butts back to the depths of the Earth!”

That was all fine and dandy but when actually faced with a gray-faced apparition seemingly hell-bent on communicating with you, all those bad ass words faded into a sea of easily forgotten hyperbole. Gabe’s ghost was following him and appearing at the most bizarre times and there was nothing he could do but pretend he wasn’t freaked out when other people were around. Sadly, those “other people” included his mother, who wouldn’t understand. If anything, she’d probably think he was on “the drugs” and take him back to Doctor Fenway.

He didn’t need a goddam shrink, he needed answers. Something was happening and, whether it sounded egotistical or not, it seemed to be centered around him.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

An Excerpt from the NANO novel.

The only reason she hadn’t fought him on this was because he’d been smart enough to show her the article.

“Oh, my God,” she’d said in a hushed whisper. “Those people…My God.”

She was reading about the hotel fire in Michigan that had claimed an undetermined number of lives. The thing about the Internet that still amazed Munson was its immediacy. The fire had just occurred a few hours ago and the bloggers and website journalists were already discussing it as if it was last week’s tragedy. Munson told her to pay special attention to the second to last paragraph.

He watched her read it, waiting patiently for her knee-jerk scientific explanation. Imagine his surprise when she didn’t offer one.

“Spontaenous generation?” she said. “That many people at once? Bullshit.”

“How can you say that? Look how many witnesses there were!”

“Yes, Munson, I know. I’m not disputing the burning people but the writer’s ridiculous theory.”

Munson, who had gotten himself all tense and ready for a shouting match, visibly deflated like a flesh-covered balloon at that. “Well, what’s your theory?”

“I don’t have one yet.” She pushed herself away from the motel room desk and got to her feet. “That’s why I’m not an Internet writer.”

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Submission: Accepted!

The editor of Sci Fi Short Story Magazine found my first story to be a non-fit for his magazine although he made sure to stress that the rejection was neither a criticism of the actual writing of the piece nor a discouragement against future submissions. I took him at his word and submitted another story entitled, "No More Goodbyes."

It was accepted.

The editor wrote, "It gripped me from the beginning."

What a nice way to ring in Daylight Savings Time~

2 Migraine-inducingly Moronic Posts

 No commentary, no attempts to rationalize. Just gaze, if you dare, on the stupid!