Getting the Hang of This

If you've been keeping score at home, you may know that we’ve just passed the two year mark. My first post was February 2nd, 2016. I kind of forgot it was the anniversary, so I didn't plan anything special. I hope the next part of the serial story will be enough.

And yes, it's up late. I had to do adult things like buy a new microwave, and then less adult things like watch Star Trek. I'm trying to get back on schedule, I'm just really bad at it.

So here's Part Three:

The dusty remains of the thing settled on the kitchen floor. Patrick looked at his arm. Irregular teeth marks had been cut into either side. He wrapped it in a dish towel and peered out the kitchen window. There were probably more of those things out there. And he was probably supposed to fight them.

That bus station guy had been really vague on the details.

There was another knock on the door. Great, what now?

Who Am I?

I'm trying to get the story posts back to the weekend, so we're going to talk about some other shit today. Namely, names.

Specifically, my name.

I've mentioned at some point in the past (I don't remember when, I have over 200 posts, man) that I had this whole debate about pseudonyms and whether or not I wanted to use one. I was going to. That's why the blog is under Mad Cooper. That's what I was going to publish as, when I got around to publishing. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't like the idea. It would be a pain in the ass, more than likely, and I'd have to set up some kind of "doing business as" thing if I wanted to get paid. And I realized that people would potentially address me as "Mrs. Cooper," and I definitely didn't want that. There's a reason that's not my last name. It doesn't suit me.

Where Am I Going?

I moved the blog post to Saturday so that I could spend all day working on it.  So as you might guess from this very late post, I have spent all day doing… not that. I've been "thinking" about it, I tell myself. I do an awful lot of thinking.

Lately I've been thinking about this story I'm working on. Namely, what should happen next. I haven't written it yet because I don't know. I don't know if it's going in a good direction, as is.

As I'm sure I mentioned before, one advantage to publishing episodically is that you can get feedback along the way, right away. You can see if a character or a storyline is doing well, and that gives you some indication of where you might want to take the story.

Forces of Darkness

Boom, Part Two. One I name the damn thing, I'll tag them all with it for easier future finding. Also, we're going to Wednesdays and Saturdays, for the time being.

Patrick awoke on the ground in a pool of blood. Here was his body, right where he’d left it. He sat up. Someone screamed.

The express bus back to Earth. Good for extending your miserable life, and startling passersby who had just seen you die.

He held up a placating hand to the woman in question. “Sorry, sorry. Everything’s fine here.” He stood up and brushed himself off. It didn’t help. He was still covered in blood, people were starting to stare, and distant sirens were growing closer.

This would be a good time for him to be anywhere else, so he did the natural thing, following a near-death experience, and went home to take a shower. He earned a few stares along the way, which was to be expected. What was not to be expected was the face at the corner of 3rd and Main.

Unexpected Delays

I have found that by the time I get home around midnight, take a shower, and have some dinner, I don't have a lot of energy left for writing. So it's still taking me some time to get these posts and stories written. Hence all the lateness.

When I initially started this thing, I was in school, and had Fridays off, so I could take all day Friday to write the second post of the week, if I wanted to. Now I work Monday through Friday, so I have to get both posts done in the middle of the night. Due to this, I'm considering shifting my posting schedule, and going to Wednesday and Saturday. What do you think of that?

One Piece at a Time

I've been thinking about serials. Not killers, not at the moment, anyway. I'm talking about old school serial novels published in magazines or newspapers. If you were anyone in the Victorian era, you published your book in serial form first, and then in a single volume. Everyone did it. Arthur Conan Doyle. Alexandre Dumas. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Now, obviously, this has something to do with only offering Part One of my story last week (it still doesn't have a name). I have realized that I can release this thing, and future… things, piece by piece.

This brings up a new can of worms regarding formatting. Or structure, I guess. Each piece needs to have its own story arc. Like a TV episode. There's an big arc for the whole season, but there's also an arc for each episode. I am intrigued by this.

Heaven Nor Hell

I did indeed set out to write you a short story based on the vague idea I had the other day. But the more I thought about, the more I realized I was not going to be able to write the whole story in the amount of time I had.

So here's Part One.

Patrick’s arrival at the Pearly Gates was not as advertised. For starters, there were no gates to be found. Rather, he appeared to be at an abandoned bus station in rural Montana in the middle of the night.

Had he stepped off a bus to get here? He couldn’t remember. For a moment, he couldn’t remember anything. He looked around, up and down the empty road. No, that was right. It came back to him in flashes. An uneventful life and an abrupt end. Somehow that had landed him here.

Wherever here was.

A Project, At Last

I have no ideas. Zero. This isn't even writer's block. This is just writer's meh.

I want to work on something. Anything. I've been going through all these writing prompts and nothing has ignited that spark. I'm trying to make a fire with wet paper over here. Any little inkling of an idea I get quickly drives itself into the ground in a spectacular show of boringness. They never even have a chance. As I try to develop them, the creative part of my brain just fucks off, leaving the part of my brain that ruins things.

I had this whole plan at work today. I was going to come home, pick a prompt from my giant list, and talk a bit about its possibilities. What I could do with it. What sort of characters might be called for. And then I'd write an actual short story for Friday. Then I got home, looked at the prompts, and thbpbp! Nothing good.

Searching For Inspiration

I'm still not back to posting on time. Yet. I'm considering changing the format a bit. A comment on one of my recent posts mentioned formerly having a blog with one editorial piece and one short story per week. And I'm starting to think I should try something similar. I could talk about something on Tuesdays, and try to implement that something on Fridays.

At least until some NaNo project or another starts up. Then it'll all go to hell, as usual.

I haven't written anything new since the end of November. That's over a month. What have I been doing with my life? Making excuses, mostly. And coming up with random ideas I don't know what to do with. Like, "A handful of people are trapped by a snowstorm. One of them has a secret."

Something About Nothing

You know, when I was in college, my issue with doing research papers was not the research. It was the paper. I love research. Learning new things and just absorbing information. Having to turn around and vomit the relevant data onto paper with some sense of coherency was less fun.

Similarly, I have a tendency to go onto Netflix and add a whole bunch of interesting-looking things to my list, and watch none of them. I do the same with writing prompts. I save them, lists and lists of them, but don't ever use them.

I like collecting things. Not so much doing something with those things.