Joshua Alan Doetsch's Blog, page 11

Rule #6: Submit to no distractions

"I have to write, I can't pick you up and cradle you right now."

"Mrow?"

"You are a lone huntress of the night."

"Mrow?"

"Claws sharp as crescent moons. Fur black as a bad-bad dream."

"Mrow?"

"You are a cycloptic, nocturnal predator–you need no one!"

"Mrow?"

"Dammit…"

Twisted Fairytwitters

I like twitter fiction. It's a good exercise for packing in lots of story in tight spaces (which is important at my job, writing video game dialogue in tiny boxes). Also, arbitrary restrictions are the mother-hubbard of creativity. Give me an infinite vacuum and my eyes dilate, and I float about the room with no purpose. Give me restrictions or complications and my creative problem-solving skills get primed. The itchy-itchy sand grain forms the pearl. Find an irritant, and it will make you write things you might not normally have written. A 120 character coffin to cram in is a nice irritant. Here are some bits of twitter fiction I've written, on the theme of fractured fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and the like:

The clock ate the mouse. Patient is the clock. Waiting is the clock. Churning gore greased gears. Hickory. Dickory. Dock.


Peter Piper picked a penny to pay to peek upon a pack of pickled punks and promptly puked at the presentation of misspent spunk.


"I swear my first born to thee." The goblin trades me the glowing key. I then go to my second errand of the day: a vasectomy.


Little Dead Wolf-Head Hood walks to grandma's house, stained axe in hand. Nobody calls her by her old name. Not anymore.


They gather once a year at the pumpkin patch, pick goblins in embryo, trade grimoire recipes and gourd-hatching tips. Then, fly away.


"Have to go or I'll turn to a pumpkin," she said. We laughed. Made out. Then she cried, rolling down the hill, leaving me alone. Again.


Wanted a prince. Kissed a frog. Transformation. Consummation. I can feel our thousand young grow under the mucous-slick of my new body.

Revenge Best Served In 100 Words

Chuck Wendig offered a challenge to write a 100 word story on the subject of revenge. I gave it a whirl. Many words died to get here, and my keyboard is sticky with their blood. Enjoy!

THE FIVE HUNDRED DAYS

"Illegal time window?" Shadrack laughs. "How many times can a mother watch?"

Windows are costly—calibrated to one person, place, and moment. No help, weapons, or resets.

They savaged me with cyberware fists.

Coughing blood. Hugging child. Failed. Too late.

But there's a second me, bandaged and crutched. More me's watch—each a day older, a day more healed. How many times? You can open a window once a day. Each a day more deranged. Shadrack stops laughing when he sees how many days. The eldest lope down like screaming Bacchantes. Shadrack's thugs come apart in my thousand dripping hands.

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners…

Masque of the Dragonball Z

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, ghouls and ghasts, haunts and grims!

I have done it. Though a process that mixes equal parts Edwardian Science and Enochian Magic, I have transformed myself into the living anime version of Edgar "a poet to a t" Allan Poe.

BEHOLD!