Rick Cook Jr.'s Blog, page 23
June 27, 2013
Unseen [1,800 words]
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Unseen
by Rick Cook Jr
“I hate him I hate him I hate him!” Wanda shouted, punctuating each stomp up the steps with another “I hate him!”
Laughter echoed up, clanging around inside her skull until she shook her head and leaned over the banister at the top of the stairs to cry, “I hope you find a snake and it bites your face!” She stalked off down the hall.
Her mother called from downstairs, “Wanda! You don’t ever-” Wanda slammed...
June 26, 2013
Grammarian Grumbles – A Good Adverb Is A Dead Adverb
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He groaned audiblyas he looked like he was going to vomit. Silently she picked up the knife, hoping he wouldn’t hear it. He said sarcastically, “Of course I’m going to pay you back.”
I write frantically, because I only have so much time tonight.
The adverb. What a misunderstood and overused concept. Is there ever a time when you’re writing and you throw an obvious adverb out there that your first thought is “that was a good...
June 20, 2013
Dreams Should Stay In Your Crazy Head
This article is posted in Brain2Page.
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Being one who is inclined to creativity, even in the less visual form that writing takes, I often have very vivid dreams that tap into whatever the hell is going on inside my weirdo head. I have an entire document – a dream journal if you insist – that chronicles the silliest, the scariest, the downright most awesome, and even the ones that make me question my psychotic profile.
The compulsion to turn these dreams into a story is strong. I have se...
June 18, 2013
The Writing Long Jump vs. The Editing Obstacle Course
This article is posted in Page2Print.
I’ve found, increasingly over the last few years, that there are two completely divergent paths when it comes to “writing” and “editing that writing”. I have written two complete novels that each flowed out of me in a month. I have written two other as-of-yet unpublished novels that also took roughly a month to get the first draft completed. The editing for the first two novels was an uphill struggle with twenty-pound weights attached to my legs. It took f...
June 13, 2013
The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms [1153 words]
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This is another short story prompted from Chuck Wendig’s weekly challenges, this time it was called “ABC meets XYZ“. It was fun but incredibly difficult!
Content warning: There are some graphic descriptions of violence, PG-13 language, and sexual discussion if not description. You’ve been warned.
The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms
by Rick Cook Jr
The first time I felt truly alive was the moment after I was almost...
June 12, 2013
My Brain is a Genie that Grants Everyone Wishes!
This article is posted in Brain2Page.
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I was once an insufferable little prat a teenager, discovering a lot about myself and the world around me in that clumsy way all teens have. I found out that women made me feel funny inside; that I didn’t really like slapstick comedy very much; that there was more than a surface level in books, movies, television, video games, and in people. I found that what I loved as a little boy (reading) wasn’t something a lot of people did (at least a lo...
June 6, 2013
I’m a Dude, Writing a Woman. I’m Gonna Screw this Up.
Alternate Title:
I’m a Chick, Writing a Man
What Can Go Wrong?
It’s hard to write a story without having both men and women in it. Even stories that more or less attempt this tend to just supplant some of one gender into the gender roles of the opposite sex.
See: Y The Last Man, Oz, and to a lesser extent stuff like 5ive Girls.
We are a gender-specific global society, whether men and women of the world want to admit it or not. Are we moving away from the idea? Sure. In some places of the world. In...
June 3, 2013
ShortStories: St. John’s Scorpions [1160 words]
Here’s a new short story, another flash fiction entry in Chuck Wendig’s weekly writing challenge. This week’s is titled Choose Your Random Words.
The Ruins of St. John’s Basilica taken from Wikipedia with permission if not consent.
Picture is © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro
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St. John’s Scorpions
by Rick Cook Jr
The bass rumbled to life and the ground began to dance. Scorpions skittered every which way, coming out from under rocks and bricks, a hundred glowing devil bugs making Jason wish he...
May 30, 2013
Page2Print: Syntactical Symmetry – When The Hell Do I Use A Semicolon Anyway?
Writing has its ups and downs. Between the excitement of talking about and brainstorming a new story to the frightening reality of Getting Started. From that moment when you write something truly inspired to the frustration you feel when you have to cut your favorite scene for the sake of the story. From the high that comes with your first praise to the terrible low of your first critical beating.
You have to deal with them all, and failure to deal with any aspect of a writer’s lot with grace...
May 28, 2013
Brain2Page: Maintaining That Momentous Momentum
In a previous blog post about the Muse, I explored capturing the moment and riding the wave of inspiration to its bitter, soul-crushing end. The reality is, of course, that you cannot always count on the Muse to guide your path and keep the words flowing. This is true for many more things than just the process of writing fiction, that sometimes it just isn’t working.
But if you only ever write when you feel the Muse upon you, you’ll find you hardly ever write anything. I certainly found that o...
