MCM's Blog, page 40

Canadian Copyright, v251?

The information out right now is all second-hand, but according to Michael Geist, the new copyright legislation looks to be a decent step towards not sucking.  There needs to be more analysis and review, but at the moment, it would seem that the world is not going to end this summer.  There are two things, on different ends of the suck spectrum, that I find interesting:

Statutory Damages. In most other parts of the world, if you download a single song from a shady site, you're treated the...

The Dangers of Being Indie

The ever-wonderful Jan Oda has an excellent post up at ErgoFiction that describes the conundrum for indie writers in this day and age (by which I mean the middle of 2010).  Eli grabbed this same quote for Novelr, but it's because it's so absolutely true.  I want to start off with it:

If you browse around webfiction stories you'll see the same tricks and ideas almost everywhere. Donation buttons, incentives ranging from becoming a fan on Facebook to tweeting about the story and so on. If...

Unfinished

Mary sat at the bedside, book in hand, listening to the sounds of machines counting down a life.  She hadn't read a word of the book, but it helped her feel like she wasn't waiting for something else to happen.  But she was waiting for something else to happen, and she hated herself for it.

"There's a good dear," said the nurse, lifting the old, frail version of her mother forward, gently wiping her back with a sponge.  The water smelled of lavender.  It was horrid.  "Thank you, dear," said...

Miscalculation

The worst mistake would be to laugh it off.  How many people, walking tipsy down the street at night, would keep a straight face?  Not many.  But even fewer would survive the faux-pas.  For while the robot unicorns were built without many things, a sense of furious pride was not one of them.

Relegated to the sewers, razor-sharp rainbow horns catching street light where the blood had not stuck, they watched, waited, and above all… listened.  They were the shunned few, far too long the butt of j...

Beneficiary

Josh was in the middle of his second pint when Meg stormed into the pub, long jacket pulled tight, standing between him and his friends.

"It's nine-thirty," she said sternly.

Josh's smile faded fast.

"Do you want a—"

"Get your coat, we're going home."

He smiled weakly at the rest of his friends around the table.  They stared at their own drinks with more interest than was likely, pretending to miss what was going on.

"This is Meg, everyone," he said.  "Meg, this is—"

"I don't care who they are,"...

Interview with Anarchy

Anarchy wore red shoes.  It wasn't what Milt was expecting, but then he had been carefully avoiding forming any expectations at all.  It wasn't often that one got to interview something as big and imprecise as Anarchy, and he wanted to be at the top of his game.

Her hair was relatively neat, but her clothes were a mess of different styles and colours, stitched together or thrown together or sometimes just tied.  One hand had a glove with three fingers, the other had a tattoo made with marker, ...

Dark-Stained Nightmare

The water went blistering hot before it shut off, and the shock of it made Kent smack his head on the shower head, leaving a long gash in his scalp.

"Jesus!" he gasped, almost falling through the curtain.  "Janey! What happened?"  He turned the tap on and off, but all he heard was a horrible sucking noise, like some kind of beast in the pipes was trying to escape.  He brushed the shampoo lather from his eyes and looked back over his shoulder.  "Janey!" he shouted.  "What happened to the...

The Ice Box

Gwen knocked on the door again, and this time, Phil answered.  He pulled his robe closed, squinting at the foyer lights, and moreso at her.

"Gwen?" he croaked. "It's three in the morning."

"I'm sorry to bother you, Phil" she said.  "It's an emergency."

"Wh-what kind of emergency?" he asked, speaking softly as if it would wake him up otherwise.  "Where do you work now?"

"Classified," she said briskly, then nodded inside.  "Do you still live alone?"

"Um, yeah," he said, glancing over shoulder. ...

1,000 Story Check-In #1

Well, I just posted my 10th story, which means I am officially 1% through my 1,000 story challenge!  Thanks to all who have played so far!  And if you haven't submitted a story seed yet, do it now!  I'm writing about 2.5 stories a day (on average), so at this rate it will take about 400 days to finish things up. Hopefully it won't take that long.  Please let it not take that long.

Now that we've hit this oh-so-momentous milestone, I want to give you two tiny tidbits of information…

A prize...

The Great Hunt

It was muddier than he remembered, and he remembered a lot of mud.  When he stepped out of the truck, out in the fields, far away from city lights, he had a rush of memories, and they were not good.

"Greetings, Captain Volker," said the boy, not yet fifteen.  He'd have been so small back then.  Volker took his hand, shook it with heavy deference.  "I'm glad you found it," the boy added.

"I remember it well," said Volker.  "Far too well."

The boy nodded, lead him out into the field, lantern held ...