Naughty Netherworld Press's Blog: Naughty Netherworld Press on Goodreads, page 98

WEP Challenge April 2020: Antique Vase

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
This story will serve as a chapter in Team Netherworld's forthcoming novel or collection of connected stories (however readers prefer to view it), The Ballad of Gerry Clifford, which is part of the Yadira Chronicles. Full critique is welcome, providing you use the Hamburger Method. Or Veggie Burger Method. Or Egg Salad Sandwich method. I ain't picky, providing your criticisms are palatable and wrapped in compliments. 
Lotus Clifford is the adopted elder sister of Gerry and Paul Clifford, who appeared in the Cafe Terrace tale.
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Genre: Cthulhu Mythos fiction/Paranormal Romance (Or, for those of you who are really picky, this particular chapter of a book falling within those genres could be construed as strictly romance.)
Word Count: 1000 Words
On a cold November day in 2014, a rangy priest with thinning dark-brown hair was pricing items for a rummage sale to benefit his parish. The Chapel of Loaves and Fishes was a small Catholic sanctuary in London’s Crouch End borough. The door opened, and a small, swarthy woman dressed in black, her graying black hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, entered. A smile brightened the cadaverous cleric’s pale face.
“Did you enjoy your birthday celebration, Sister Lotus?” Father William Kroger inquired.
Sister Lotus Clifford smiled, but the smile did not reach her sad dark eyes.
“Bit of a shambles, I’m afraid,” she replied as she hung up her coat. “Poor Gerry couldn’t recall whose birthday it was, and he grew quite tired and irritable. I’d just as soon have stopped in for tea like any ordinary day, but our dear Paul always tries to recreate the way things were when we were young. Gerry’s dementia is a stark reminder that our youth is well behind us.”
Father William gently patted Sister Lotus’ shoulder. She gazed affectionately into his kindly blue-gray eyes, and squeezed his long, thin fingers.
Lotus noticed an antique vase sitting on a table behind Father William.
“Oh, you fixed it!” she exclaimed. “I still regret breaking it in a fit of temper.”
“Robert Fitzgerald could test the patience of a saint,” Father William observed.
“Well, I’m hardly a saint,” Lotus laughed, picking up the vase.
“I’ll take it to Anwar Seti at the curio shop” she proposed. “I’m certain it was made by the fish people. Look how the sea dragon forms the handles, and the fish’s face pushes forth from the rim as if it were emerging from water. I’ll be back in a tick.”
Lotus walked to the curiosity shop diagonally across from the chapel. The bell gave a merry jingle and an elderly bald man with gray, wrinkled skin, milky blue eyes, small ears, and a fishlike mouth poked his head out of the back.
“Lotus!” Anwar greeted. “I’ll put the kettle on. Then you must tell me everything!”
“I want you to see this wonderful vase, Anwar,” Lotus explained. “I broke it, but Father Will repaired it. It looks like something made by your people.”
Anwar returned with a tea tray. He admired the vase as Lotus poured the tea.
“It came back together nicely,” he observed. “You fumbled it you say?”
“I threw it at Robert Fitzgerald’s head.”
“He must have done something dreadful to prompt you to crack his coconut with this weighty urn. Care to fill an old friend in?”
“At the Halloween party last week, Rob was drunk as a skunk and telling John Michael that it was time to pack the old bald skeleton off to the churchyard and replace him with a newer model.”
“After everything that Father Will has done for him.”
“Indeed. I said ‘Mr. Fitzgerald, you seem to forget how Father Will saved you from spending a year in the clink for drink driving. A bit of gratitude is in order.’ The blackguard slurred out: ‘it might do the good sister to remember her vows to the Lord.’”
Anwar laughed at Sister Lotus’ imitation of a drunken Robert Fitzgerald as he nibbled a bit of dried seaweed.
“Blimey! What did you say then?”
“I said: ‘Mr. Fitzgerald, I remember my vows to the Lord whenever I recall that I must be charitable even to the most vulgar of philistines.’ Then that rogue had the temerity to say: ‘What I’m sayin’, Sister, is that it ain’t right for you to throw yer love at Father Skeleton when yer married ter the Lord.’ The thought that those hearing him might believe that Father Will was anything but righteous made me see red.”
 “John Michael stepped to my defense,” Lotus continued. “He said ‘Rob, you owe Sister Lotus an apology. ‘Course she loves Father Will. She loves us all as Jaysus ‘imself commanded us to do. Sister Lotus, I know you loves Father Will in the Christian spirit, not dirty like he’s implying.’ Bless John Michael and his innocent heart.”
Anwar squeezed Lotus’ hand.
“I am grateful for the vase, Dear. I intend to pay for it.”
“Anwar, please. It’s a gift.”
“Not another word. I shall donate to the chapel and throw in a morsel of advice for a friend whom I love as my own niece. Rob Fitzgerald has rubbish for brains, but he is not wrong in this case. You know that I will be migrating to the sea soon. Do an old fishman’s heart good before he departs and allow your love to bloom as it has been wanting to for close to forty years. You and Will could still serve your God and community as husband and wife.”
Lotus embraced Anwar and hurried back to the chapel. She found Father William still sorting items for the rummage sale.
“Ah, Sister Lotus!” Father William greeted. “The community has been generous, although I can’t for the life of me figure out what purpose some of these creations serve. Sister, you’re trembling! Whatever is troubling you?”
“It’s Lotus, William. Simply Lotus, hoping that she isn’t chucking forty years of hard work and solid friendship to the wind. Robert Fitzgerald’s lurid conjecture enraged me because I was embarrassed to have my secret exposed. I do love you, but if you don’t feel the same, I…”
 “Oh, Lotus, dear, brave, Lotus,” Father William sighed. “I feared I’d go to my eternal rest without you knowing how I felt. Thank the Lord for Rob Fitzgerald’s big mouth!”
“You can also thank that odd vase and Anwar’s wise counsel,” Lotus said with a smile that reached her eyes.
“Well, God bless Anwar and God bless that beautiful, hideous vase!” Father William laughed.
Father William tilted Sister Lotus’ chin and bent to press his lips to hers, melting into an embrace that had been hoping to happen since the moment the pair met in the summer of 1976.
Cie for Team Netherworld Creations/Naughty Netherworld Press

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notesWhen I was eighteen and still clinging to the last vestiges of my Catholic faith, I attended the St. Thomas Moore Church in Boulder, Colorado. One of the priests there, a kind gentleman in his thirties, was leaving the priesthood because he had fallen in love and was getting married. The idea I came up with for this story echoes that incident from my past, although there were no Deep One hybrids involved.
In Other Words/Shameless Self-PromotionDear Fans of Lovecraftian fiction, the first book in The Yadira Chronicles is the novella Tales from the Dreamlands: Ketil and Yitzy's Adventure in the Xura Dream House. This buddy story features an unlikely group of heroes on a quest to save the Cosmos from destruction by the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods and their myriad of sometimes not-too-bright minions. Pick up a copy here! You know you want to!

Aunt Cie's Ornery Newsletter

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Hello, friends of Aunt Cie's Attic, Good Stuff from Grover, and Team Netherworld Creations/Naughty Netherworld Press! Today I am creating my first-ever newsletter, and I've got to admit, I'm in way over my head. So we are going to do this one step at a time.
The nifty little house designed by Heidi Jergovsky actually looks like a cartoon version of the ole Grover Hotel! It's absolutely perfect. So, we will start with this little graphic to create a logo.

I then took the picture to pixlr.com to make this logo. You can do quite a bit with the free Pixlr X.
I then went back to my MailChimp account to upload the logo.
I've sent myself a test email and now I will wait for subscribers!
I put off starting an email list for years because I was overwhelmed by the thought of maintaining such a thing. MailChimp can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. I don't have to maintain a list myself. MailChimp does that. A free account is more than enough for most bloggers. 
I have numerous sites and projects and it was becoming cumbersome to cross-post to multiple sites. Now if folks subscribe to my newsletter, they can stay up to date with what's what on all of my sites. Also, you can thank me for putting my subscription option in the sidebar and not in one of those wretched pop-ups. Those things fill me with liquid murder. I hate having that blasted pop-up fly in my face every time I visit a site, even if I've already subscribed!
That's about it for now. I hope to see some of you subscribe soon!
Your Ornery Old Aunt Cie

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Come As You Are Party: Hiding in Plain Sight

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I go through stretches of time where I tend to be very open about myself because I want to educate people about what it's like to live as someone who is seen as a pariah. By teaching people through my lived experience, I hope to open minds and hearts so that perhaps others won't have to be as lonely, ostracized, broken and broke as I've been.
I don't think it's worked very well. 
Sometimes I say "fuck it" and do it anyway, because maybe my words are what someone else needs to hear.
Sometimes I withdraw.
At this point, I'm withdrawing and restructuring.
I've decided that the Horror Harridans blog is, overall, a really stupid place to share my poetry. I've started publishing my poetry and sometimes submitting it to other places for potential publication. It's possible that readers think my poetry is pretty damn horrible, in which case it belongs on a blog called Horror Harridans. Like Trent Lane, I've been thinking about changing the name of the blog, but I'm not sure what I'd change it to just yet. Maybe just Team Netherworld Creations.
In any case, if you still have a burning desire to read my poetry, it can be found at--get ready for it--my poetry blog, which is currently called Dark Hearts Love Too.
If you appreciate reading the mental health stuff, it can be found at the Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp.
If you want to find out what's going on at the Grover Hotel, including cooking tips and products I'm selling and/or recommend, Good Stuff from Grover is where you want to be.
I'm still going to cross-post snippets on the Horror Harridans blog, but if the snippets are all you want, you'll probably prefer the official Naughty Netherworld Press blog.

If book reviews are your thing, head for The Ornery Book Emporium.

For product reviews, affiliate marketing, and things of that nature, head up to Aunt Cie's Attic.

If you want to read about philosophy and such, try One Love.
Maybe you just want animal posts. In that case, you can follow along at either Animal Anarchy or Aww the Animals.
Maybe you just want pleasant pictures with no bitching. In that case, you are looking for Cie's Wonderful World.
Want nothing but shitposts? Then That's So Netherworld is where you need to be!
This is something I wrote back in 2014. 

My writing may seem like so much weird shit to those who happen upon it. It may seem the product of overactive imaginations, oversensitive hearts, people who can’t hack reality but whose sober thought processes conjure up scenarios way weirder than any drug trip.

That may be how my work appears to the casual observer.

My stories are actually saying:


The stuff that’s going on in the world hurts me so damn bad to witness.
I just want to make a world where things are maybe a little crazy, often a whole lot of fun that I'm never able to have in reality, and where everything turns out okay in the end.

If that’s crazy, then I'm proud to be crazy. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Real Cie(aka Cie Cheesemeister)aka The Ornery Old LadyHead Buttmunch in ChargeTeam Netherworld

Weekend Writing Warriors 22 March 2020 (PA, SF)

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The previous snippet in this series can be found here. A pair of Cockney ghouls visiting the carnival in Xura have just noticed Ketil Nagel, a spectral death metal musician with a storied reputation, outside the infamous Xura Dream House with Yitzy, a renegade member of the Great Race of Yith.
The stout ghoul’s companion was small and impish. He wore a similar outfit to his companion: a reddish-brown newsboy cap, a gray sweater over a collared shirt, and a pair of ragged blue trousers. His clawed feet were bare as well. His large ears were pointed with tufts of white hair at the tips. Strands of coarse white hair peeked out from beneath his newsboy cap.
“I daresay, Rob, old China, coming to Xura was just the thing,” the portly ghoul declared, his voice surprisingly mellifluous despite his thick Cockney accent. “I’ve not had a haunch so perfectly trimmed with gold in an age! I simply don’t know why we ain’t done this before.”
~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~

A Pot of Poetic Gold

All right, it's nowhere near as good as finding a pot of gold, but from March 17 until March 21, 2020, you can pick up the Ornery Old Lady's first book of poems absolutely free. But don't wait because, on March 22, the price returns to 99 cents.
Enjoy varied verses from melancholy to wacky in this virtual treasure trove of rhyme and free verse. Grab your copy today!
Why would you wait? Getting a good thing free is the second best thing to finding a pot of gold. And if you decide that the Ornery Old Lady's thing really isn't your thing, well, you spent exactly nothing to make that discovery, so you still come out ahead!


Ornery OwlFree use image from Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

Weekend Writing Warriors 15 March 2020 (PA, SF)

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This snippet comes from Team Netherworld's novella Ketil and Yitzy's Adventure in the Xura Dream House. The previous snippet in this series can be found here.

Ketil Nagel is the spirit of a Swedish death metal musician who sacrificed himself to the vampire goddess Mormo on his 25th birthday, 6 June 1991.

Yitzy Yithian is an exiled alien scientist.

This unusual pair has traveled to Xura, the Land of Lost Dreams, in the hopes of finding a way to save the Cosmos.
As Ketil and Yitzy discussed their shared mission and the pros and cons of entering the House of Lost Dreams, they were unaware that they were being watched. A pair of ghouls had wandered over from the carnival which ran day and night, three hundred and sixty-five days per year. These longtime chums hailed from London and had never previously visited Xura.
The pair looked for all the world as if Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had made a pact with nefarious forces to become ghouls upon their departure from the world of the living. One ghoul was tall and remarkably burly. He wore a faded green and brown checked newsboy cap, a tattered gray cable-knit sweater over a threadbare collared shirt, and ragged brown trousers. His clawed feet were bare. His skin was grayish-green, and he had an extended snout and small, sharp ears which poked out from the sides of his newsboy cap.
~Cie from Naughty Netherworld Press~
Little John Tamboli Image Source
Robin RobertsImage copyright Chaosium

Forbidden Love: A Fetch Flash Fiction Haibun

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
Princess Ondina walked along Rsevfha Beach as the larger of Zecor’s twin suns followed its small companion below the horizon. Three of the planet’s seven moons had risen, but they were outshone by the presence of the little man who stood at the monarch’s side.
“Serab, I am selfish,” the Princess confessed. “I am sorry my brother took you prisoner but pleased that he made you my bodyguard. His joke backfired on him. I never felt like this before. You are the best friend I could imagine and more.”
impossible dreamsmall, strong hands and stalwart heartmy forbidden love
~cie~





notesThis Flash Fiction Haibun features the Princess Ondina, reluctant captive monarch of the fascist regime of East Zecor and her bodyguard and secret love, Serab, a common thief captured by Ondina's cruel brother King Qweh and presented to Ondina as a jest. The joke backfired when Ondina not only accepted Serab as her bodyguard but fell in love with him.
The image I chose to illustrate this piece is nearly perfect except for the size of the people shown in the silhouette. Ondina was six feet tall and Serab stood around five foot four.
The people of Zecor have an elflike appearance. Qweh and Ondina are half-siblings. As Ketil Nagel explains to his friends in Team Netherworld's first published novella, Ketil and Yitzy's Adventures in the Xura Dream House, the dark-complexioned Qweh's mother was of the Wxzca line and the fair Ondina's mother was from the Welryv line. The pair's father is from the Welryv line.
The ruling race of Zecor, regardless of subtype, is tall. King Qweh was seven foot seven while Ondina was six feet tall. Serab, on the other hand, was an Ahprizite hybrid. The Ahprizites were a small, elflike race. At five foot four, Serab would have been very tall for an Ahprizite.
For the sort who would quibble that a Haibun can only be non-fiction:
1. I don't care.
2. Not according to Poetry Soup.
3. See 1.
If you enjoyed this little WIP excerpt and liked reading the background of the people of Zecor, please consider picking up a copy of Team Netherworld's Fetching first novella.

I hope to be back to sharing excerpts from Ketil and Yitzy's adventure next week. I am continuing to make headway on The Ballad of Gerry Clifford despite personal setbacks.

Carpe Diem Love Month: Moonlight Moving: A Fetch Story Poem

Image by Syaibatul Hamdi from Pixabay
the moonlight movingacross a traumatized skyabove a dead world
~cie~

notesI have not been well. My diabetes has decided to behave in a more completely shitty fashion than it had previously done, so not only do I find myself dealing with the frustration of contending with this garbage condition, I find myself mired in self-loathing because I learned at a young age that anything shy of physical perfection was a personal failure. I will say with unflinching honesty that if it weren't for the fact that I still serve a purpose in assisting my son, I would punch my own ticket. I realize that suicide ideation is an uncomfortable subject, but please refrain from the blah blah counseling blah and blah blah medications blah rhetoric. Counseling doesn't help, and psych meds cause me to become manic and psychotic, two things that I, shockingly, don't enjoy being.
This poem describes the dead world of Zetar 6 (Zecor), a key player in the Fetch Universe. Fetch is Team Netherworld's flagship story, which was born in early November of 2014 when I was working at the retirement community where I would work for close to 11 years. The idea was born when I learned that someone who had meant a great deal to me for many years had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. This person was only 55 years old at the time of diagnosis--the same age that I am now. 
In my shock and grief, I walked through the vast retirement community and was prompted with the idea of finally starting a project that I had envisioned taking on for close to forty years. I had always wanted to write a backstory for the Lights of Zetar, a Star Trek episode which has been universally panned by critics and which has its problems, but has, nonetheless, always fascinated (and scared the bejeezus out of ) me.
The inspiration to finally begin this project and to incorporate it with my beloved Cthulhu Mythos came from a mind other than my own. I will not go into detail except to say that this inspirational individual was noncorporeal, and you can think whatever the hell you want about that, I'm not going to argue with you. I refer to this presence as Gem, and I am deeply grateful to him for the gift he gave me. I am saddened by the fact that when I am gone, the door to this world will close. No-one enjoys my work, and I am well aware of that. My writing style is entirely unappealing to most people, and my personality even more so.
I love you, Gem, but sometimes I am not sure if you possess much in the way of good sense. If you did, you surely would have chosen a scribe who was less of a complete and utter train wreck of a human being to be your co-conspirator.
Love,cie

Money Monday + About Me Monday: WTF is an Influencer?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
In my quest to try and return to blogging about ways to make and save money, I headed to the Rakuten website to copy my referral code. For those who aren't aware, Rakuten, formerly known as Ebates, is a site where you can save money when you shop through their links. You can also get an extension for Chrome which will cue you if there is a potential to save money through Rakuten at a site where you are shopping.
There was also an invitation at Rakuten's site to apply to become an influencer.
At this point, most of us have probably heard the term "influencer." But like me, many of you may be saying "that's nice and all, but WTF is an influencer, really?"
According to this Quora site, an influencer is "a person who has the ability to make a group of people follow him and take him as an example due to his personality, authority, success, goals, values, abilities etc. He inspires people and becomes an anchor that keeps people together in other words he builds a community around him."
So, you know, probably not me.
According to YouTuber Critical, as seen in the video at the end of this post, an influencer is generally an egotistical douchebag who will go to extremes to feed their own narcissistic need for adulation. Hopefully, that isn't what people think of me.

Generally, I tend to see "influencers" as being fake. I don't do well with fake. I have no desire to be seen as a trend-setter. I don't care whether or not people think I'm attractive, and I am certainly not the height of fashion. I'm more like the anti-fashion broad.

I have something to say, but if I have to pretend to be something I'm not to get followers, then those are not the followers for me. I don't necessarily even want to be seen as a "leader." I make plenty of mistakes and if I decide to jump off a cliff, I don't want people jumping off after me just because I thought it was a good idea at the time. If I had my druthers, I'd like to be seen as a teacher who had the capacity to entertain.

I'm not an expert on...well, anything, really. I do know a little about blogging but I have a bit of a prickly personality and I don't play by the rules. I've been following a blogger named Janice Wald for several years now and I would recommend her to bloggers wanting to learn how to build a social media presence and monetize their online efforts.

There is a link to one of Janice's books at the end of the post. If you purchase the book through the link, I will receive a small commission from Amazon.

Janice has a weekly blog hop called Inspire Me Monday. I won't be linking there this week because this post isn't entirely family-friendly. My language didn't get too spicy, but my pal Critical definitely turns the profane heat up to Habanero!

Your Ornery Hostess with the Mostest,Aunt Cie

Come As You Are Party: Wired Differently or Just a Flake?

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay
This is my response(s) to a post on The Mighty.
It is my hope to back away from apologizing for who I am and instead explain about myself so that those I interact with might develop an understanding of those of us who are wired differently.
I have type 2 bipolar disorder and ADD as well as complex PTSD and OCD. I wasn't properly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or OCD until I was almost 40. I didn't know I had ADD until I was in my 50s. I was just always scolded for being forgetful and distracted. I have always vacillated between being Ms. Wonderful and being that flakey a-hole that everyone hates. I understand why it happens now, but I can't change the past. I wish people would try to understand me a little better, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
My son will be 30 this year. He is high-functioning autistic and has ADHD as well as anxiety issues and major depression. He is very intelligent and has read the entire Amber series (Roger Zelazny), much of Tolkien's writing, The Count of Monte Cristo, the works of C.S. Lewis, and the list goes on, but he can't learn from a textbook to save his life. I think the current educational system does a very poor job of addressing the needs of those who are not neurotypical. 
I technically also have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but it is my opinion that borderline personality disorder is actually a form of complex PTSD and is an outdated and sexist diagnosis. It is almost exclusively applied to girls and women. Everyone who has it has endured some form of trauma, whether physical, psychological, sexual or a combination thereof. 
~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~



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