Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 93

DON'T BE SO SURE

Everyone knows that there is no such thing  as the supernatural, right?

The brains of even young babies organize sensory information, supply what is missing and use the information to generate theories about the world.

As adults we continue to do that.
That process has led, not only to treasure,but to new discoveries in science.
MY LATEST BOOK  & THE GOD HELMET
A theory I proposed in my latest book to explain why we feel a presence in a haunted house was actually explored by science.

A Canadian neuroscientist named Michael Persinger 
has been studying the effects of electromagnetic fields on people’s perceptions of ghosts, 
hypothesizing that pulsed magnetic fields, imperceptible on a conscious level, 
can make people feel as if there is a “presence” in the room with them 
by causing unusual activity patterns in the brain’s temporal lobes. 

He created what he christened the "God Helmet."  
Wearing a helmet, generating a weak magnetic field, can cause a person to sense an unseen presence in the room.
Is it an illusion 
or merely the brain being amplified to sense what has been there all along?
Shades of hats made of tin foil!  
Maybe those poor people were actually onto something. 

SCIENCE HAS LIMITS
Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature: 
Hence, beyond the realm of what can be studied by science.
PATROLMEN HAVE TO DEAL  WITH WHAT IS
There is actually a surprisingly vast number of paranormal encounters reported by law enforcement.
A young officer responding to a 5150 (a psychiatric disturbance) 
arrived to find an elderly woman who said  her son had taken drugs and was convinced 
that when he entered his room he could see an old man in a WWII uniform hanging on a noose from the ceiling. 

When the officer spoke to the son directly, 
the strung-out man claimed that he had been told not to enter the room by the spirit dwelling within
because it was the angry spirit’s father who was supposedly hanging from the ceiling.

The officer entered, finding no body.

At that moment, a veteran officer purportedly arrived on the scene, 

who told the other officer that he had been called to that very same residence years before 

to investigate a case of an older man who had hung himself there in that exact same bedroom. 

Apparently the victim had been a WWII veteran 

and had fully decked himself out in his old uniform before ending his own life on the noose.

It does make you wonder, doesn't it?  
Oh, has your dog ever stared into a corner in which you cannot see a thing?
What does it see do you imagine?

Night Bleeds From the Stars and Spreads

October when Night prowls the streets like an invisible cat.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HM8ZS5Q



October, the month of my  HALLOWEEN DUO
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF/
The shadows are cut from soft black velvet.
Beware the scythe which hovers in the dark like a lost smile.

Tonight starts the Countdown to The Night ...
   The Night of the grave's delight and mortals' flight.

Curl up in bed with my Halloween Duo  (only $1.99 each) 
    Outside your window Something presses against the glass.
Does blood stir in its veins?No.   The Night Winds.  

And lurking in its head?  
Worms 
disturbed
from a grave being opened
from beneath.

What does It hear with its ears?
The Abyss between the Stars.

It sifts the human storm for a likely soul.
It eats the flesh of reason.

There is but one escape.
Read my tales until sleep takes you to slumber safe.

You doubt me?

Don't say I didn't warn you.

WHERE YOU WANT TO BE

https://www.amazon.com/Hunters-Moon/dp/B01LZJXBD6/
Are you where you want to be  ...

   in your book ... in your career ... in your life?

Few of us could answer YES to that question in all the areas of our life.



Are we trying too hard to DO and forgetting simply to LIVE.


1.) ASK: DO YOU EVEN LIKE YOUR JOB OR YOUR DREAM?

What prompted you to that profession, to that dream (say of writing).

In the bustle of the struggle, we forget to think of the answer to that question.

Ask: Is this for me?

If the answer to that question is YES focus on what is most important at work, 

instead of worrying about your own expectations.


STILL ...

The odds are you are NOT happy at work.

52.3 % of us are not according to a new study.

 The prospects for long-term work with the same employer have eroded 

and employees have been saddled with ever-higher health plan deductibles and payroll deductions.


2.) WHAT TO DO TO BECOME HAPPIER IN AN UNHAPPY JOB 

Decide what is making you unhappy about your job and change what you can.

Sometimes you cannot change the external so then you must try to change the internal.  

Change the stories you are telling yourself about your situation -- 

 “I can’t stand this,” “This is awful,” or “I should be doing something else with my life.”

Unpleasant does not mean unbearable.  
Life has its seasons (each teaches us important lessons if we but listen.) 

Cursing at the rain never kept anyone dry.

We are where we are.  
Try to find the humor in each hour or try to bring a smile to a co-worker.

Perspective is everything:

There are those in the Third World who would be astounded that you are miserable compared to where they are in their lives.


3.) BUILD MEANING WHERE YOU CAN 

Find meaning where you can.  Sometimes the relationships are what makes a job endurable.

Other times, the relationships are what gnaw at you.  

Those miserable people teach you how NOT to be,

and they have to live with their dissatisfaction and bitterness every minute.

Imagine being angry within all the time.  

There is worth in even the most minor of tasks if we do them with pride and integrity.


4.) CONNECT YOUR JOB TO BED-ROCK VALUES

Your job allows you to pay the bills and to care for your family -- that, at least, is positive.

If possible, place photos or reminders of those you love on your desk, in your locker ...

You will feel better for doing what is needed for them.

Perhaps your job allows you off time to pursue your dreams or to pay for tuition to reach your dreams.


 5.) MAKE YOUR OWN MANTRA

Come up with things to think as you go about your work day such as:

What Blessings Are Mine Right Now?

Remember to Practice Kindness Today.

Let Go of What I Cannot Control.

Listen to What My Heart Is Trying To Tell Me.

Be Productive Yet Calm -- Inch By Inch and It is a Cinch.

Just Breathe.


 6.)  FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS MOST

We often create unachievable expectations for ourselves.

 Re-evaluate what you are doing and what you really need to do. 

Look for the quality, not quantity of work. 

Stop equating hours with doing a good job at your work or with your dream.



7.) LEAVE WORK AT WORK -- ESPECIALLY DURING DAYS OFF.

Plan the day and week to get what’s most important done during work hours.

 Make tasks fun or enjoyable; they are not tasks but just part of your life. Experience them.



8.) GIVE YOURSELF THE GIFT OF FREE TIME

 It’s not just becoming more efficient at work. You need to grant yourself permission to do less, and to begin living your life again.

Whatever re-charges your emotional batteries, plan a segment of time each day to do it.

It is a proven fact that if you do only 2 minutes of planned exercise a day, you will feel happier.



9.) DROP THE SUNDAY NIGHT BLUES.

 If you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach each night before you start your work week,

 realize that 5/7 of your life is made up of your employment.

Seek ways to bring a smile or happiness to each hour you are working (or writing).

Insist that you are going to make those 5/7 of your life worth living.

Look for reasons to laugh or smile each hour.  

Look for a stressed face at work and try to ease the tightness you see there.


10.) LIFE IS FLEETING ... EXPERIENCE IT; 
DON'T SIMPLY ENDURE IT!

THERE IS A DARKNESS DEEPER THAN NIGHT

Ask people if they believe in the supernatural and most will scoff.

What do they feel when alone at night walking a deserted city street?


Imagine turning a corner at nightand finding rows of storeswhere short-sighted people have sold parts of their souls for that which will not last.

All such sales are final. And we live in such a world.

Innocence, once gone, cannot be reclaimed.

Yet, there was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.

Yes, the problem will still be there.
But wisdom has been bought by our mistakes.
Wisdom enough for the task at hand.

May there always be a way open for you.
 “Each night, when I go to sleep,  I die.  And the next morning,  when I wake up,  I am reborn.”  - Mahatma Gandhi

EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW TO LIVE ...

I learned from those danged horror movies - Ghost of Mark Twain





"You do not how right you have things
until you handle them all wrong."
- Mark Twain.
 
Just a heartbeat ago, I eased into Roland's apartment to swap tall tales 

when I came upon him dozing in front of his electronic newspaper,

blog he calls it. 

Sounds like one of those tar pits in California those poor dinosaurs critters got stuck in.

I leaned over his shoulder and read what he wrote.

Why, what was wrong with the boy? His post depressed the beejesus out of me, and I'm dead.

What he needed was a little help from his good friend, the beloved, yet humble, genius of literature ... me

What was needed here was ... I stroked my chin. Of course, what was needed here was ... me.

I would save Roland from his depressing folly.

I started to ruminate on all of life's follies when it came to me how much help those terrible horror movies Roland watches truly are.

Why there are some golden lessons to be found in those flickering frames,

especially for you folks not blessed to be ghosts like myself:

1) When it appears that you have killed the monster, ALWAYS get the loud-mouthed neighbor to check to see if it's really dead.

The bliss of silence in the neighborhood will be your reward.

2) Even if it seems to be the funniest thing in all creation, never read a book of demon summoning aloud. 

Your mother-in-law is demon enough, thank you.

3) When the power goes out, gals in flimsy undies will ALWAYS take a fancy to search the basement -- 

and they NEVER change their flashlight batteries.

4) If your young 'uns suddenly start to speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, shoot them immediately.
 
It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. For such eventualities,

ALWAYS buy automatic handguns, since it will probably take several rounds to kill them.

A loving parent is a sure-kill parent.
 
This also applies to any tiny waifs who suddenly start to speak as if they have been gargling with lye.

They are either possessed or have been raiding Father's liquor cabinet.

Either way they deserve what they get.

5) As a general rule of thumb, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.

6) If appliances start operating by themselves, send your spouse to check for short-circuits, then get the hell out of the house.

Ignore the subsequent screaming -- or enjoy it, 

depending upon just how "sweet" your bitter half has been to you lately.

7) If you are offered a "steal of a deal" on a house that has been

a) built on the site of an Injun massacre,

b) the home of a family whose members had taken to dismembering one another, or

c) been an asylum whose inmates took to munching on the help --

take the real estate agent lovingly, kindly and gently by the arm --

and shove her into the basement, locking it behind you. 

Unnatural beasties get hungry. And better they make human jerky out of her than you.

Don't mind about the body. 

It won't be there when the police arrive. 

The police won't be around long either -- if they stay.

WHY HORROR?

Why are we drawn to horror? Why are good girls drawn to bad boys?

 
1.) The allure of the forbidden.
 
That is one of the reasons horror beckons to us from out of the shadows.

Why is that boy, that deserted mansion, forbidden?

It is as old as the blood which pulsed cold and tingling through Eve's veins as she reached for that forbidden fruit on that hauntingly lovely tree.

 
2.) Curiosity.

It is human nature to want to know what lies over the horizon. It's what drove the pioneers across wild, hostile lands.

What does that locked door conceal? That chained chest. Why those heavy links, that rusted lock?

Is this all there is? Or is there more beyond mere line of sight? We know there is more.

Science tells of us of dark matter piercing the cosmos with light-years long strands of matter invisible to the human eye. 

We are likewise blind to the world of germs. What other worlds are we blind to?

Give a nugget of uranium, a tiny stone really, to an aborigine. Tell him it is a good luck charm. Tell him to drop it in the village well.

What harm could one tiny stone do? 

Visit his village two months later. View the many corpses laying strewn like dead dreams all across the ground.

3.) Identification.
 
We watch and imagine what we would do in like situations. 

The world dissolves into chaos as random individuals descend slowly into madness.

You are picked up by the local sheriff as you are doing your morning walk with your dog. 

He orders you and your dog into the back of the car. 

He presses his gun to your dog's head and rambles on about brains looking like wet oysters. Do you want to see?

What would you do? What could you do?

Life is frightening: 

Global warming. Diseases that eat the very flesh of your body. 

We watch horor on the screen to encapsulate the horror of real life. It is not us up there.

We would be smarter, faster, more in control of our emotions.

We like the adrenaline rush sudden scares give us. 

Safer than driving fast, dating inappropriate guys or gals, and with the thrill of saying mentally, "It's not real; I'm still safe."

 
4.) The Darkness Within.

Terror versus Horror. 

Is one more physical; the other more mental? 

Does revulsion and squriming terror pierce through our mental barriers to stab deep into our unconscious fears ... and desires?

(Take the public fascination with the trilogy of the girl with the dragon tattoo:

she is repeatedly brutalized, raped, shot, and beaten. 

The books and movies are bestsellers. 

Is there a darkness in us that wants to roll around in sadism like a cat does catnip?)

You are horrified by the news of the floods in Pakistan. 

You are terrorized when you wake up one New Orleans morning to the news that the dams have burst, 

and you look out your front door to see rushing waters swallow your neighbor's home ... then your very own.    
Horror is realizing the monsters are real and are out there to get you. 

Terror is looking into the mirror, seeing yourself becoming one -- but still enough you to scream silently at the sight.

Stephen King said horror literature is a means for us to take out the monster, play with it for a while, and put it back.

But who is the monster?

Is he some squirming presence waiting on the other side of the dimensional wall waiting for a crack to appear? 

Is he the beloved president whose wife is slowly going insane at the awful reality of who he truly is?

Or does his/her eyes stare back at you from the mirror?

Carl Jung:
"Everyone carries a shadow, 

and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. 

At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."

Why do you think we read horror? 

Why are we so drawn to dressing up as monsters or as our secret identities? 

Why do you write the genres you do? 

And what role does "control" or "lack of control" play in horror/scary movies and literature?
***

WHAT MAKES A BOOK SKYROCKET?

{Midnight Reading My Latest}
What makes a particular book seize the imagination of the general public

and propel its author from comfortable relative obscurity to superstardom?

You must touch on something core and essential in our psyches:

the combined ache of life, love and our own mortality.

 And you must do it with realism rather than over-sentimentality.  

But no one controls that all important WORD OF MOUTH ...

and that is what will propel our work up the sales rankings.

Make this your Mantra:


NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING.
How do I know that?

Because if the Big 5 Publishers or John Green or Stephen King knew it,

every book would skyrocket like THE FAULT IN OUR STARS or THE STAND.

DR. NO, FORREST GUMP, E.T., RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK,

were all rejected by the majors studios at least twice before being accepted.



WHAT CAN YOU DO?


1.) Write Something NEW

Do yourself a favor and choose to write a book with a totally new and unexpected hook.

This bakes marketing and word of mouth into the content and sets you up for a perennial seller.

Make your core story simple, spreadable, articulable idea to generate word of mouth.

If your core story is confusing or unclear, it makes it very difficult to market. 


2.) Write Something Well

 Professional editing is essential for self-published authors because it's the easiest way to separate the professionals from the amateurs.


3.) Package Your Book To Sell

You can't skimp on design!

Why would you spend all this time writing a book, and then get a shitty cover design?

Think: Will this cover catch the eye in an Amazon thumbnail?


4.) Title Your Book To Win

DON'T STOP NOW, YOU'RE KILLING ME!

was a great psychology text on the sado-masochistic tangoes human dance in their dealings with one another.

Come up with a title that will bring the roving eye of a browser to a stop.


5.) Launch Your Book Like A Three Stage Missile

Thinking short term and rushing your book to market prevents you from coordinating a good launch.

 Velocity is crucial when your book hits the market,

so you have to concentrate your sales push to the first week because this helps you get hit bestsellers lists

(not just the New York Times but on Amazon and Goodreads), which drives even more attention.

Just hitting #1 even for a moment on Amazon or Goodread allows you to put a banner on your cover

with the #1 marketing bestseller designation, giving your book even more social momentum.


6.) Create a Mythos For Yourself

Learn from the Texas Rangers. 

They encouraged tales to be told of them. 

The outlaws' perception of them was often the edge that kept them alive.

Build your brand.

Your bio and your Amazon page are like business cards.

 Brand yourself, reinvent yourself, whatever. Just don't waste the opportunity.

You will be shocked at how often these self-descriptions

are borrowed and repeated in the media until they become true.


7.) Price Yourself IN Their Reach

Remember as a struggling author discovery is your big hurdle.

 An eternity in obscurity is the fate for most authors.

Why should people give you their cash?

Why should they give you their time?

It's crucial that your pricing makes your book accessible, especially early on.

Do not discourage people from taking a chance on you.



I HOPE THIS HELPS YOUR NEXT BOOK SOAR LIKE AN EAGLEorLIKE THE XANADU!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G9XZTDC/
DON'T FORGET TO BUY MY LATEST AUDIO BOOK!
or
MY HALLOWEEN SPECIAL  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF/

WEEP NOT FOR THE UNDEAD

I am Margaret Fuller.

You may recognize my name from the adventures of Samuel McCord and that scamp, Victor Standish.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Not-so-Innocents-Abroad/dp/B07G9XZTDC/
 
History has me drowned upon this date in 1850 aged forty. 

In 1853, when Captain Samuel McCord met me aboard the cursed DEMETER, I was still all too alive.

Shortly thereafter, I became a unique form of undead. But then, I have always been unique -- alive or undead.

My beliefs (feminist and Transcendentalist), accomplishments and fervent personality put me in the spotlight throughout my life,

but my "last" years, spent in Rome supporting the short-lived Roman Republic, reached an operatic level of passion and poignancy.

As foreign correspondent of Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, 

I argued the cause of the Italian revolutionists in the dispatches sent home.

In Rome, I assisted on the Republican ramparts and in their field hospitals.

I also married an Italian nobleman who was prominent in the Republican cause, and had a son by him. 

{Courtesy Alessandro Antonelli}
With the ramparts fallen and my husband in jeopardy, I reluctantly decided to return to America, 

despite premonitions of disaster and warnings from Emerson and other Concord friends 

that my socialist leanings and doubtful marriage would provoke public disfavor.

As if I have ever cared what the rabble thought. 

When my boat ran aground just off the New York coast,

I chose to stay with my husband, who could not swim. 

Both of us were washed to sea and never found, (so history reports).

But Henry (David Thoreau) found me washed upon the shore not far from my young boy’s body.

The memorial to me put up by my family reads,

“Born a child of New England, / By adoption a citizen of Rome, / By genius belonging to the World.” 


My genius has never been in question.

Edgar Allan Poe thought me such. He believed that the fallacy in my lobby for women's rights was that

"She judges woman by the heart and intellect of Miss Fuller, but there are not more than one or two dozen Miss Fullers on the whole face of the earth."
 

Poe’s evaluation is echoed in comments by Emerson and Hawthorne — 

though they let slip that their attraction might be more than intellectual

(as it was)

when they both referred to me in print as “Margaret Fuller, the Sexy Muse.”

I now know all the people worth knowing in America,

and I find no intellect comparable to my own except for dear Ada (Byron, Lady Loveless - 

author of the first computer language a 100 years before the invention of the computer itself.)

McCord has his moments, but he is restrained by his Victorian ideals and code that he will not cast aside. 

I love him for his nobility. 

It will be the death of him.

What will be the death of you? 

I wager your friends know even if you do not. I leave you with a bit of my own verse:

“Let me gather from the Earth,
one full grown fragrant flower,
Let it bloom within my bosom
through its one fragile hour….”
 
Of my past, I neither rejoice nor grieve, for bad or good, I acted out my character.

***

THE SOUL SELECTS

I was sitting alone at my table in the darkened Meilori's.  

The light of my laptop showed the dismal numbers of those who have bought my books this month.

Fingertips pressed softly on my shoulder.  "May this wayward soul sit down?"

I looked up.  Emily Dickinson, dressed in a black Victorian dress, stood smiling sadly at me.


Her voice was gentle, low, and caring.  

I smiled back.  "Of course."

I got up and pulled out the chair for her.  She flowed down into as lady-like ghosts often do here at Meilori's.

As I sat back down, Emily slid a small volume to me.  Its cover was dark and light lavender.  Its simple title: POEMS ~ Emily Dickinson.

"This first volume of my poetry appeared on this day in 1890, two years after my death.  

My early editors, the critic Thomas Higginson and family friend Mabel Loomis Todd, made many changes in an effort to make my poems more 'conventional,' but these had not allayed the priggish critics."

 Emily picked up the volume from in front of me and read one of her "versicles" as her critics called them:

" The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone."
Emily withdrew a folded newspaper clipping from her dress pocket.

"I told others that my critics bothered me not.  But here is the lie: this aged review by Thomas Bailey Aldrich from THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY of January, 1892.  

It reads as follows:
'But the incoherence and formlessness of her — I don't know how to designate them — versicles are fatal…. 
An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar.'"
Her hand gently covered mine.  "You are of worth, young sir, because you care.  Your prose is of worth if only one soul is uplifted because of it."
Emily smiled, 

“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.  I read one of yours and it does the same."
Her eyes sparkled,   

“We turn not older with years but newer every day.  You are newer today than yesterday for you have suffered, you have learned -- so you are a new you."

The ghost of Mark Twain sat down beside me with a laugh.


 "Besides, son, where are those critics of Miss Dickinson here now?  Who do folks remember?  Emily Dickinson or that Thomas Bailey Aldrich?"
He winked at Emily who blushed, and he grinned,
"I believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real value--certainly no large value...
However, let it go. It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden."
Emily scolded him.  "That is all very well and good, Samuel, but what about your feelings for poor Miss Jane Austen?"

{Notice Midnight perched on the mantle behind Mark's ghost}
Mark looked like he had bitten into a slug.  

"Agh!  You're right, of course.  I haven't any right to criticize books.  And I don't do except when I hate them!"
He rubbed his face. 


"I often want to criticize Jane Austen it is true.  But, Lordy, her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader.  Therefore I have to stop every time I begin."
He took out a cigar and lit it as Emily's nose wrinkled in distaste and went on, 


"Everytime I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone!"  
Emily gently removed the cigar from his mouth, putting it out defiantly.  "It is so heartening to see how you have mellowed with age, Samuel."
He glared at me.  "Now, you see why gentlemen are a dying breed, Roland."
"Or at least a smokeless one," I smiled.

What profit is there in you writing a short story?

“A short story is a love affair; 
a novel is a marriage."  - Lorrie Moore

In this modern, fast-paced culture ...
An intense love affair is often preferred over an all-consuming marriage.
You would think then that the short story would be more popular than it is ...

Which Brings Us to My
Not So Subtle Request
to gamble $1.99
on my latest:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF/

Stephen King, at the start of his career, thought of a short story as a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.
And like with kisses, some short stories are better than others!
In the beginning of his writing struggles, Mr. King thought of his short stories as a series of pinatas he banged on --
not with a stick but with his imagination. 
Sometimes they broke and showered down a few hundred dollars.  Other times they did not.
It was an easier market to sell short stories then.  Now, not so much. 
SO WHY SHOULD WE BANG 
ON THE PINATAS 
OF SHORT STORIES 
IN THIS HARSH MARKET?


1.)  IT HELPS YOU WRITE LEAN
Each scene in your novel should be spare and lean so that the drama stands out like stirring chords in a soundtrack.
The limited space in a short story forces you to keep only what is absolutely needed 
to paint the scene and leave the rest behind.
Like Elmore Leonard advised -- Leave out the boring stuff.

2.) SHORT STORIES APPEAL TO OUR MICROWAVE CULTURE
Many readers feel that they do not have the free time to commit to a whole novel.  
They want entertainment in bite sizes.
Why do you think James Patterson writes mini-chapters?
Short stories can be read in a doctor's office or before you drift off to sleep.

3.) WRITING SHORT STORIES SAVES THOSE NEAT IDEAS THAT ARE NOT UP TO FILLING OUT A NOVEL.
How many times have you come with intriguing ideas 
that you know do not have the essence of an entire novel with its many character arcs?
You have this riveting scene with sizzling dialogue that seems to exist all on its own
 with no future beyond that moment.
A short story is perfect for that idea.

4.) SHORT STORIES PROVIDE THE PERFECT BRIDGES TO MAINTAIN INTEREST IN YOUR NOVEL SERIES 
A book can take anywhere from one to two years to complete.
Publishing short stories with the same characters can keep the interest high in your world or with your prose.

5.)  SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES INTRODUCE YOU TO A WHOLE NEW AUDIENCE
Also be careful in submitting your story to anthologies whose cause or company of authors mesh well with your voice and personality.
Getting your "prose voice" out there may well draw you additional fans. 

Do You Write Short Stories?
Do You Read Anthologies of Short Stories?
Why?  Why Not?

Just Because this makes me laugh: