My exclusive Patreon content for February collects excerpts from the beginnings of five new stories.

As I do annually, during January and February, I participated in the Codex contest Weekend Warrior run by Vylar Kaftan. Participants write one piece of flash fiction each weekend.

The stories in the Example Sampler are:

“Thing about Timeline Collapse I Decided Not to Post” based on the prompt: write about someone moving who doesn’t want to.

“An Alphabetical Guide to Potential Building Materials for Aspiring Urban Planners” based on the prompt: what is your kingdom made of?

 “The Letters You Lost” based on a suggested title.

“Dear Awesomest Uncle Zarny” based on the prompt: write a letter to an imaginary relative for a special occasion.

“The Thing about Things,” theoretically based on the prompt: choose a random wikipedia page… although I ended up meandering onto an unrelated subject.

(I released the full text of my week two story, “An Alphabetical Guide to Potential Building Materials for Aspiring Urban Planners,” on my Patreon in January.)

These were a lot of fun. I seem to be playing a lot with humor right now! Maybe it’s reading all that Wodehouse and Adams.

Thanks to all my patrons. All of my Patreon content–including a substantial, patron-exclusive offering once a month of something like an original essay, poem or short story–is available to all my patrons, no matter how much or little they contribute. Every contribution is greatly appreciated and makes a big difference to supporting my writing career!

Light through naked trees.

My dreams were not peaceful and

I just want to sleep.

Friends go visiting.

At our hearth, no time has passed.

Listen, we’re laughing.

This month, my patrons are receiving an exclusive flash piece, “An Alphabetical Guide to Potential Building Materials for Aspiring Urban Planners.”

I wrote this for the annual flash fiction contest I participate in every January/February. The goal is to write a piece of flash every weekend for five weeks. Last week was two of five. I had some trouble revving up my thought process until, with the deadline looming, I focused on the prompt, “What is your kingdom built of?”

As you might be able to tell from the title, it’s a bit (a lot) silly.

All my patrons receive an exclusive reward each month. There’s no specific amount required. I’m happy to share my creations with everyone who subscribes to my Patreon.  

A is for Alligators

Challenging for inexperienced planners. They will bite when you try to stack them.

B is for Barricades

Though barricades make good walls by definition, beware barricading yourself out of your own city. 

C is for Carbonara

Messy, but delicious. Do not continue eating your city after it’s been left unrefrigerated for more than three hours.

continue reading

Thanks to all my current patrons. Every dollar helps keep me writing!

This December, I’m sharing a patron-exclusive new poem on my Patreon.

“The Ahh-ness of Things” is about the emotion mono no aware, a Japanese term for–well–the ahh-ness of things. More specifically, it means something like “the wistful beauty of the ephemeral.” I first encountered the world via Ken Liu’s brilliant story, “Mono no aware” which I cannot recommend highly enough.

This poem is part of a slowly developing series of what I call “Google Word” poems. To write these poems, I choose a term–so far, it’s mostly been emotions–and then google it. I pull words from the google search pages and use them to assemble a poem. Anything on the google search page itself–including advertisements or blog titles–is up for grabs, but I can’t click through

Since I started writing these poems, the google searches have changed a lot. Initially, there were a lot more weird message board comments and weird blog entries. More recently, the searches have become dominated by listicles and advertisement. Probably because “mono no aware” isn’t an English term, the listicle virus hasn’t yet spread that far, so it was a lot easier and faster  to find interesting material. 

My patrons are also receiving “The Ahh-ness of Things” as an illustrated poem.

Thanks to all my patrons. All of my Patreon content–including a substantial, patron-exclusive offering once a month of something like an original essay, poem or short story–is available to all my patrons, no matter how much or little they contribute. Every contribution is greatly appreciated and makes a big difference to supporting my writing career!

We shiver, but no bug bites

afflict our bonfire.

Terra stands alone in the middle of the room, staring at nothing. She moves sometimes like someone dreaming, but never reacts.

My poor sister, locked in her own world.

Read more.

Poppy’s sister, Terra, is lost in a dream world. All Poppy can do is visit the hospital and watch.

When a strange man grabs Poppy’s hand, he warns her that something is coming for Terra in her dreams. He urges her to find a way to wake Terra quickly before it gets them both.

How can Poppy succeed where medicine has failed, and resolve the dream mystery keeping her and her sister apart?

“Wake Up, I Miss You” is now live in Apex Magazine! Surreal, weird–maybe even a little funny. Plus, tons of references to Les Miserables and The Babysitter’s Club. Happy to be back in Apex’s TOC after too many years.

Enjoy!

Terra stands alone in the middle of the room, staring at nothing. She moves sometimes like someone dreaming, but never reacts.

My poor sister, locked in her own world.

Excited to be back in Apex Magazine‘s table of contents with a surreal mystery about a sister’s struggle to wake her twin from a dream world

“Wake Up, I Miss You” won’t be freely available to read online until September 29, but if you can’t wait that long, Issue 125 is already available for purchase!