"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
First, here’s the prompts for the September 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Horror Story
Involving A Dumpster
Set at A Costume Shop
Now, on to the details.
Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.
Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!)
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Ten of Hearts (a Horror Story), the Jack of Diamonds (A Costume Shop) and the Queen of Clubs (A Dumpster.) So we will write a Horror Story, set in a Costume Shop, involving A Dumpster.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday September 16, 2024.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2024 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!
And have fun!
——mike
Flash Draw Sheet for 2024 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, if we find the gold, maybe we could split it with Giancarlo, if he’s still your boyfriend.”
“He’d like that,” Luc said, as he stepped inside the room. I picked up the device from where Luc had set it down. It was heavy, but I was able to swing it and connect with the back of Luc’s head with a sickening crunch. He fell to the floor.
Giancarlo had been my boyfriend.
Nasty when old friends have a falling-out like that, isn’t it? (I feel like the Crypt Keeper!) Next week something just as fun!
“Golly Captain Ecology!” Compost Boy whispered. “Why are we staking out the Labs on tonight of all nights?”
“My sources tell me that The Chicken Queen has been nesting in Goat’s Town, and with his vast intellect and thirst for power the labs are his most likely target.” Captain Ecology said. “Why their work on computers alone could…Compost Boy are you all right?”
“Uh, yeah, Cap. It’s just that…well I guess…”
“There you are, caped do-gooders!” came the familiar, nasal voice, a voice somehow tinged with a leer. Captain Ecology thought it sounded like the actor who was in the center of that tick-tack-toe game show. “I’ve got the plans for the technology that will revolutionize storing information right here in my grubby hand!”
Holy floppy discs! Will our heroes escape? (Do both of them want to?)
Next week, we travel someplace very dark (but there’s tea!)
You have to understand about my Uncle Gil. He always meant well. He invented a light bulb he said would never burn out, but it blew out the power for the entire block when we tried to use it. He’d had it plugged into the generator at the old farmhouse outside of town he used as his laboratory.
He tried shooting something into the clouds to make it rain but it just made a bad smell.
Then there was the incident with the peach tree.
Uncle Gil had a bunch of trees on his property, usually fruit trees including one with crab apples which he let the birds get. He said it was part of an experiment and I never found out what. But that was back when I was about nine years old.
Anyway when I was about fifteen he fenced-off one of the peach trees and said he’d been busy crossing and splicing them for years and finally “got the consistency.” The peach tree wasn’t that tall and the peaches were nothing to brag about; they were small and green like the under-ripe ones my brother and I used to pull off the tree in our own backyard. But on closer inspection they were bluish-green under the covering of fuzz.
“They’re perfect!” Uncle Gil said.
He explained that he had crossed a peach tree with cuttings from an African Baobab tree; “a tree that can be used for anything,” he declared.
“And these little gems will save households millions,” he said, holding up one of the little green peaches. It was about the size of the screw top of a bottle of soda.
“What do they do?” I asked.
“They’re laundry detergent!” Uncle Gill said. “Natural laundry detergent! Toss one of these in with the wash with a load of clothes and they’ll be clean as a whistle! Can you imagine how much money people will save by growing their own detergent?”
“Have you tried it?” I asked, eyeing the peach the way I would a big cockroach. I’d seen Uncle Gil’s experiments work and I’d also seen them go haywire.
“Of course I’ve tried it, Jason my boy!” He turned around twice and I realized he was displaying the clothes he was wearing. “I did my own laundry with a peach this morning!”
I had to admit his clothes looked really clean.
“Here, you try it out!” Uncle Gill pulled out a small paper bag and proceeded to plop several off the mini-peaches in and hand it to me.
I managed a “thanks,” wondering what I was getting myself into.
“Remember, just one peach per load,” he said. “Unless you have a really big, dirty load.”
I nodded and rode my bike home, hanging on to the little peach bag.
It was the weekend and Mom and Dad were out so I grabbed my gym shorts, sweatpants and sweatshirt, went downstairs to the laundry room and tossed the clothes in the washer along with one of Uncle Gil’s peaches. (Mom and Dad had made sure I knew how to do stuff like do my own laundry part of “helping around the house.”)
About a half hour into washing I opened the washer and inspected the load. My sweatshirt, shorts and sweatpants in with water and suds. Just like a normal load of laundry. I shut the lid and turned the wash back on wondering if the peach would leave a pit. I’d kept remembering TV shows where a kid tried to do laundry and filled the house with suds.
Two hours later the clothes were washed, dried and back in my room.
Next day in Gym Class I was wearing those clothes when Coach made us run laps outside first thing. That was when I really broke into a sweat as it was one of the first really warm days. And the first I noticed anything was wrong was when Kenny Beasley ran past me yelling “Run!”
A couple of other kids ran past me too and I glanced behind me and saw the line of kids who had been jogging along scattering every which way. And over them was a huge cloud of what looked like little dots swirling in the air, heading my way.
Bees.
After me.
I had already turned on the track and was heading for the gym and I don’t know if I set a school speed record but I made it back inside, tore off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the inside floor and ran for the locker room slamming the door behind me. I hid there until Coach pounded on the door to be let in.
He said bees were swarming around my discarded clothes and I explained all about my Uncle’s crossbred peaches. I wasn’t sure he believed me but he made me shower and change into my street clothes. By then they had somehow shoved my gym clothes (and the bees) outside and left them there.
“An unforeseen side effect,” Uncle Gil said. “Your sweat must have activated something in the formula that made it attract bees. Maybe some kind of hyper sweetness. You know, this could be a boon to beekeepers.”
I never found if he sold the peach tree process to any beekeepers. I just know I gave him back the bag of laundry peaches and went to buy new gym clothes.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
I graduated about six years ago (Lanier said, sipping his drink) with degrees in archaeology and biology. In a roundabout way I found myself attached to an Antarctic expedition within a few months. A Sir Borthwick-Leslie, whose family had been Arctic explorers since Victorian times, was sponsoring an expedition to the Antarctic, what he called “the mastery of the ice,” and I signed on. It was a heady rush to be on such a prestigious endeavor and I was filled with excitement. It didn’t hurt that I had become involved with Carleton, one of the other young men they had hired, he from one of the British Universities.
Here’s more. (Where’s my parka, it’s getting chilly!)
The expedition went much as you would expect; a flight to the southern tip of Africa, then Australia, then New Zealand. From there we were flown to our base in Antarctica. It was then that we were told the true nature of our trip: the leader of the expedition had found evidence in manuscript, with ancient photographs, of a once-thriving civilization beneath the surface of the Antarctic. If we had a way, some of us might have left right then. But we were largely stuck there for the season. Somebody grumbled that we had traveled all that way “to follow some Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy.”
Nice and cool, huh? Next week I’ll have something really wonky! ‘Till then—-jeff
“Well, here’s how we solved it,” the Detective said. “They weren’t smuggling anything on the trains, that was what misled us. The stuff was coming in at the airport. We’d stopped the trains several times but didn’t find any of the contraband.”
“Then what?” The young officer said. He hadn’t been there.
“The trains were flat cars shipping large containers across the country, almost like those storage bins people rent to keep their stuff in. Every color of the rainbow. Red, Green, Yellow. But every now and then they would have a bunch of pink containers. We thought that was what they were shipping the stuff in, but we were wrong. It was a signal.”
“A signal?”the young officer asked.
“Yes, to the guy at the other end. That it was time to tell his guys to go to the airport. It was perfect. No electronics or anything that could be intercepted and it worked perfectly for him.”
“How so?” asked the officer.
“When we knew the signal was coming, we staked him out and followed his men to the airport.”
“What signal?”
“The Detective smiled. “Pink was a color he could easily make out. We found out our suspect was color blind.”
FULL DISCLOSURE: This review probably contains a spoiler or two.
‘Nathan Burgoine’s novel “Triad Magic” is the last in a trilogy that began with “Triad Blood” and continued with “Triad Soul.” Set in a version of Burgoine’s adopted hometown of Ottawa, Canada, a world where Vampires, Wizards and Demons (among others) stick to their own kind and bond in groups of three. But the Demon Anders, the Vampire Luc and the Wizard Curtis have formed their own triad to build their lives and stand against the forces that stand against them either from their own kinds or from others.
What follows in “Triad Magic” is danger, drama, intrigue and romance as the three (who are all LGBT) not only deal with the mystery of who (or what) is killing those with gifts to see the future in Ottawa (How could they not see it coming?) but with the ramifications of their own relationship? Are they a thruple or just friends? Are they even that? Will they live to find out?
“Triad Magic” is full of the sights, sounds and feels of the Ottawa that people see every day as well as the magical one most people don’t see. Neighborhoods in the city, a mysterious shadow realm walked by demons and even a Parliament Building the tourists won’t see are all finely drawn.
Characters, including our main triad, come off as very real as they love, lie, live and die and participate in the mystery that fills the book. And the reader cares about Curtis, Luc and Anders. In the moment when it appears they may go their separate ways we hope they won’t.
There are magical methods of murder and healing, ancient vampires who were around during pivotal events, a mysterious book with seemingly blank pages, stolen magical artifacts and ties to a long-ago historical fire. All blended together by Burgoine’s skill as a writer.
Did a LOT more reading than writing this last 30+ days.
Finished Dr. Who novelization “The Romans.” Amusing but not as funny as “I Claudius.” Nonetheless fun. Best line: “Quo Vadus TARDIS affair.” Perfect idea to do this as an epistolory novel, through journals, memos, letters, diaries ect.
Read some of “The Cat Who Covered the World” by Christopher S. Wren.
Read (well listened to) M. R. James’ story “The Wailing Well” for James’ birthday. He intended his stories to be read aloud to his friends and this one was written for a troop of Eaton Boy Scouts.
Am bumming through A.A. Milne’s poetry books “When We Were Very Young” and “Now We Are Six.” Actually very good, touching and fun. Didn’t see all that last time I read through them when I was about eight years old.
Read two stories by Jack London: “The King of the Greeks” and “The Lost Poacher.” Both written early in his career relating his life as a “rollicking young adventurer in San Francisco Bay.” and published in 1905 when he’d been “asked to write stories for young people.”
“King of the Greeks” is full of the sights, sounds and feel of 19th Century San Francisco Bay. “Lost Poacher” is set along the coast of Japan in the late 19th Century. Both stories collected in Irving Stone’s “Jack London, His Life, Sailor On Horseback.”
Read Kaje Harper’s weekly stories off her Facebook page. Always excellent!
Read J. Scott Coatsworth’s weekly installments of his new serial “Down the River.”
Read three stories I can’t talk about yet for an online workshop I’m in.
Finally finished Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Rolling Stones.” Loads of fun! Wish he’d done a full-blown sequel. (Some of the characters are seen or referenced in his other novels.)
Heinlein’s “Juveniles” (YA Books today) are masterpieces. His accurate depiction of how to calculate how to get to places in the Solar System is a marvel. His description of everyday life on a very small Martian Moon and the clever idea of Mars as kind of a dump with expensive, crappy motels for the tourists is brilliant and funny.
Heinlein’s use of humor is understated and flows naturally from the characters. It is never forced and while other writers might have taken the opportunity for slapstick (zero gee anybody?) Heinlein keeps the humor genuine. He told a friend he found domestic comedy “harder to write” than “revolutions and blood.” Nonetheless, Heinlein pulls it off. And while the focus is supposed to be on the twin boys Castor and Pollux (yes!) most of the family gets time in this especially Grandmother Hazel, sort of an outer space Grandma Walton.
My only complaint is a few old attitudes about women’s roles, yes from Heinlein! (This was the very early fifties, remember!)
Read one of Howard R. Garis’ stories about Professor Jonkin, a wacky inventor he wrote about in the early 20th Century.”Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant” is the only one of the four listed that has been reprinted and I lucked out and had the book; “Science Fiction By Gaslight,” edited by Sam Moskowitz in 1969. The story is sort of a spoof of all the man-eating plant stories that proliferated once upon a time. Sort of a proto Audrey II with the professor feeding it slabs of beefsteak. I’d love to find the other three stories, I hope they are just as funny. Garis was impossibly prolific; he created “Uncle Wiggly” and wrote a daily story about him for the newspapers for decades. He was also busy with the Stratemeyer Syndicate and wrote the (not as funny as Jonkins) Tom Swift books for years, as well as a bunch of other series for children. (I saw one of the “Baseball Joe” books in a used store once. Didn’t buy it!) Swift never grabbed me. Check out Garis’ bibliography on Wikipedia, it’s jaw dropping!
Read a little of Arthur Conan Doyle’s early Gothic novel “The Mystery of Cloomber.” So far it’s not quite the gripping story Doyle would write later. Also read his story “The Bully of Brocas Court.” Great fun! Doyle’s knowledge of boxing (he’d boxed in college) is used to great effect. Of course, the kicker to the story is given away by the fact that the anthology I read it in had a theme and I could see where it was going anyway but still great fun! Doyle at his best as a storyteller here.
Read some of Ellis Parker Butler’s “Philo Gubb, Correspondence School Detective.” Yes, still funny. And I may have called him “Philo Grubb” in an earlier entry.
And I finally finished ‘Nathan Burgoine’s “Triad Magic,” which deserves it’s own post and a Goodreads review! A suspenseful paranormal page-turner. Magic, mystery and romance (and some history!) set in a well-defined version of Ottawa, Canada.
Now I want to read the first two books in the series!
Progress Report for July/August 2024 from Jeff Baker
Okay, not much progress to report this month either.
I didn’t work on “Love’s Not Time’s Fool,” writing-wise anyway but I proofread it and did a couple of notes for the story. As well as a few notes for other stories and stories yet unwritten.
Wrote the usual weekly Friday Flash stories and the monthly flash stories.
And I wrote two of the Queer Sci-Fi columns.
And then I got stressed-out over some stuff (which I took care of) and really didn’t do any full-length story writing. So I will start on that again.
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