Cool banner!!!

Quote by etairay

Salmon ..I'm still trying to decide what to do with it

We are going out to eat with my daughter tonight, and at her request, we are going to (arg!) Chili's. Parenting tip: if you never let your kids eat at fast food or chain restaurants, they will grow up to crave those places the rest of their lives.    

Quote by Ping

If you’re of a certain age that you remember before cell phones, before the internet, before HIV/AIDS, and even before computers, then you’ll get the melancholy message of this song. Give it a listen. You many have heard it before. It’s by a wonderfully fearless and creative Canadian band called Arcadia Fire.

I’ve got my comp idea. Started my notes. It’s going to be a twisted, introspective psychological thriller of a mess. Based on an almost true story. Just like my life. I’ve got a feeling and it’s really freakin’ me out. 😁

https://youtu.be/xQuUN1HGa0c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv9ZKp1vqt8

So I just shelled out $65 for a month of cable on Youtube so I can watch baseball playoffs. Haven't been able to watch the World Series since I cut the cable and it's pissing me off. MLB is just alienating its fan base with simple greed. Bastards.

Tired of writing the newsletter, but I'll stick with it. I have my title and my subject--Birds Aren't Real--but now I have to actually write it. Really wanted to spend quality time with Mr. Novel today. Sigh.

Anyone wanna subscribe to the newsletter, drop me a line.

Okay. No more grumpiness. Time to write. Coffee and a cookie please. 

Quote by gillianleeza

Quote by Molly

I just finished watching Midnight Mass on Netflix and I really enjoyed it.  It was dark and moved at a great pace. The characters were likable or extremely dislikable in some cases. Like, I wished for this person to meet a violent end from the moment we met them.

That is next on my list. It caught my eye because of the connection to two other series (The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor) featuring many of the same actors. I loved both of those. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I've been watching the last season of The Walking Dead. Not my favorite anymore, and ending it is probably a good thing. They are recycling too many of the same storylines. I hope they do an excellent job with the conclusion. It has been a great series, for the most part, that deserves a fitting ending.

TWD lost me around the time Negen showed up, though I'd been getting less and less engaged by it. They just seem to wander around making disastrous decisions for seasons at a time.  Them living in the little town was last time it made narrative sense.  And don't get me started about all the driving around - where do they get the gas!? It'd all go bad within a year.

The Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown episode on Detroit is sheer brilliance. 

Quote by Ping

So great to see a couple old friends put idea to electricity - Lilly and SweetSinner. Do read. Both women have a way to hold and enrapture the reader.

I’m home now. Long ride. The cremains now remain for eternity. The only casualty - a friendship. Don’t ever passive aggressively pressure me to make a choice. In so doing, it’ll never be you. 

Stay safe everyone. I’ve got a bad feeling and it’s kinda freakin’ me out.

Let the Halloween story contest begin…

Sorry about the friendship. If they were pressuring you it may have been for the best. Unless they were pressuring you to bathe. 

Good luck in the post-season, Sara. Mets stumbled to a losing 77-85 record. Insult to injury, I don't have cable so I can't watch the playoffs! Way to appeal to the fan base, MLB. I have to pay $65 to watch it on frikkin Hulu. There's not even a . Insane.  

The blank page is luring me closer. Probsbly time to sit down and write. Facebook is down worldwide, which is putting me in an apocalyptic state of mind.

Coffee and one of Sara's DELISH cookies. 

I love small town motels. Believe me, I have stayed in some crappy cheap motels, and I've loved them all. Seriously - they reach to something deeply embedded inside me. Probably an insect egg of some sort. They grant me joy and comfort. And bedbugs. Have fun, Ping - I love that stuff. 

First day of writing went well (not really the first day, we'll call it the first recent day).  It's a little like falling in love, all the ideas pouring out, all the possibilities spilling forward. The real love comes later, when you have to work and wrestle and rewrite to make the story move forward. So we'll call this first bit infatuation.

No Talia Friday. I'm going to dip the cats in paint and fling them against the wall to create an exciting mural for Talia's reuten home.

Coffee and a cookie please!   

I am in the zone.

Quote by Molly

Quote by verbal

No gratuitous gore or graphic violence!? I'M OUTTA HERE!!!

I won't enter--I'm not sure I'm allowed--but I look forward to reading the entries. Good comp theme! 

Why can't you enter? Because you won the last one? Don't worry, that's not a thing here. If you get an idea we definitely welcome it. 

Quote by Mendalla

12K words is a pretty good start given that the low end of novel is, IIRC, 50K. Is this going to be a reasonable length or a door-stopper?

And I could swear that I posted about getting the coffee and tea going but it is not here. I think my browser locked up or something. Anyhow, I'll refresh the coffee pot for the afternoon and I'm boiling water for a pot of Scottish Breakfast.

Also, with Thanksgiving looming and the weather cooling off, I've laid in a stock of hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows along with replenishing the coffee and tea.

No gratuitous gore or graphic violence!? I'M OUTTA HERE!!!

I won't enter--I'm not sure I'm allowed--but I look forward to reading the entries. Good comp theme! 

Quote by Rumple_deWriter

This may or may not be me -- waiting on blood tests and genetic screening to reveal all. I'm still bewitched bothered and bemildered by the new fangled stuff to the point where I'm not sure if it's the new 'skin' or my usual incompetence and computer cluelessness -- maybe a combination of ingrediants product.. (sigh)

Later Inspirators. :glasses8: 

The novel starts...today! I'm very psyched. I'm 12k words in, so I'm not really starting starting, but my plate is cleared and I plan to attack every day til I'm done. Next Spring, maybe? Early summer?

That comp looks fun, Molly! 

Coffee and a cookie could be the beginning of a wonderful journey. 

Quote by rolandlytle

Hi, my friends.

I was in the hospital for ten days and got home on Friday. Today is the first day I could get online.

I hope everyone is well. I wrote about my time in the hospital, and then today, I read it while having a semi-normal mind. Gosh, it was awful! I could not understand half of it myself. Maybe I should post it entitled 'The Ravings of Madness.'

Tomorrow, I am going to NC for my father's funeral. He was cremated, and they were waiting for everyone to get well and be able to show up. I am lucky I got out of the hospital in time.

I hope you all are doing well and have a wonderful weekend.

Congrats on winning the NE East Sara. Well, not you personally, but the Braves.

Stories are slippery little critters, Ape. Gotta show em who's boss. Good on you for rewriting til you get it right.  

No Talia Wednesday. Gonna build tiny little hand gliders and teach the cats to fly!

Drawing the novel out on big sheets of art paper today (again). I don't wanna f*ck this up, so I really wanna hammer out the plot before I begin. I have a habit of writing myself into a corner.

Enjoy your day, everyone. Coffee and cookies would be an awesome help to my planning of a fictional apocalypse. 

Good morning, ladies and germs (old Milton Berle joke).

I am knocking out errands right and left! About to stop for lunch, and do my editing for the day. It's boring a f to think about, but I want to get all the boring work behind me before attempting the exciting, sexy lure of the novel. It sounds so much cooler to say "I'm writing a book" than "I have to cut 500 words from this story about robot geese so I can maybe sell it to some weird little magazine somewhere."

Coffee and cookies would be a dream.  

Lamp Light has a call for new writers, and they are paying SIX CENTS A WORD. If you've never had a pro sale, this might be for you.

Here's the link: https://apokrupha.com/2021/08/30/lamplight-special-submission-call/

Here's the opening text:

We are going to take a new turn for the submissions. The criteria to submit will be as follows, the following statement must be true:

“If accepted, this would be my first pro-sale.”

And to make that true, we will be raising our pay scale to match:

6¢ (USD) per word (based on HWA guidelines)

5100 words MAX (firm)

Yes, this lowers the max word count, but that is to keep within budget. So this go-round, we will not take any stories over the word count. We’ve added a 100 word buffer, so target that 5,000 word mark as a max. (For this call, strong 1,500 – 3,000 word stories will fair best.)

One of the things we’ve loved over the years is finding new writers and showcasing them for the first time. These two issues are going highlight new writers and hopefully be just the first of many times you will read their work. 

Quote by rbo

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, its a bit of a whirlwind right now, juggling everything but my novel is out tomorrow.

Good morning all.

6500 is a good solid length for a short story. I agree the trend is toward micro and flash, but if anything that makes longer, old school short stories even more important. They all involve craft, but all different kinds of craft. 

I have decided that I’m going to watch the Mets until they win a game, then stop for the season, to end on a high note. Assuming they win another game, which has not been the trend. Good luck in the post season Sara! Looks like the Braves will take the division! I’m also using your name again in the novel, Sara! (Unless you spell it with an h, and I think you might. Still, it’s based on you!)

Not much going on today. Germany sounds fun, Gill, though it’s got to be tough for him to settle there. Got to be exciting for him!

All for now. Lovely day here. The blank page awaits.

Coffee and one third of a cookie.

Thanks for the setup Ape.

Lovely day today.

So, apparently I was off by an entire MONTH about Dune coming out. The OLD Dune is now on HBO, and that is what was confusing me. I saw the old Dune drunk at a movie theater in Times Square: I'd been to an office party that ended in early evening, and my roomate had a date and didn't want me to come home til late, so I had hours to kill. So, a few more beers, then the movie. 

There is nothing like the feeling of walking out into the extreme weirdness of pre-Disneyfied Times Square after a David Lynch movie. I saw Blue Velvet in Times Square too. The perfect venue.

Time to edit. Coffee and five sugar cookies please. 

I am unable to wake fully up.

Good morning everyone!

This just in: the Mets lost AGAIN! 8 games out of first place, 10 games left to play. You do the math.

Boring editing day today. I'm wanting to start the novel, but I know I need to do all my dumb boring short story editing first, because I won't have the time or bandwidth or interest once I start.  

Hey, looks like the spacing issue got fixed! I'm so happy! That was driving me nuts.

Coffee and a small stack of cookies please. Hug that wacky monkey for me!

Quote by Ping

Ever wonder how social media algorithms work?

Falling Down and American Beauty clips have been popping up on YouTube for me as recommended viewing. An accurate reflection of my view of life or foreshadowing?

🤔

🤣 🤣 🤣

“May the force be with you,” the doctor said as he handed a stool softener prescription to the constipated woman.

😳 

😆

Yikes on the algorhythms. They know you better than your own dreams. I thought American Beauty was wildly overrated, but I really liked Falling Down. That scene with the little kid and the rocket launcher is lodged in my brain. 

No Talia Wednesday. Today I am going to coat the kitchen floor with oil and slide the cats across it. They love it! And clean-up should be a breeze!

I really did teach David Foster Wallace (the cat, not the dead writer) how to play fetch. About once a week, he'll bring one of his little cat toys to one of us, and set it down. Sometimes he'll shake it to get your attention. And then, if you throw it, he brings it back! He'll do it 5-6 times before he decides he has more important things to do, like lick his butt.

Off to write. Coffee and a maple crunch cookie please.  

Quote by Ping

Quote by WriterGirl

Hi all!

Mmmmm, may I have some maple crunch cookies, Sara? Yummy!

And Ping, would you mind getting my ball out of the sandtrap for me, please? It's by the gator. I'm sure he won't bite  

I once wrote a story about a croc attacking a guy on a golf course. Sigh. So many stories. All is a blur. I can’t even remember what the story is called or what it was about. But I recall the croc.

Gotta go back under the knife. Recently informed the scalpel didn’t carve out all of the cancer. Sheesh. The scar was just healing nicely too. Oh well.

Stupid federal election. Idiots. I hate them all. Well, hate’s too strong of a word and I don’t loathe all of them. There is potential for a surprise. People are pissed. Election was called too soon by a duplicitous and manipulative PM. If the vote splits between the liberals and conservatives, the NDP may capture a lot of the frustrated vote. It has happened before. Regardless, a minority government is most likely which means another ‘election-of-confidence’ will be called in eighteen to twenty-four months at another six or seven hundred million dollars. What a frickin’ farce.

Nothing for me, thanks. I’ll just lick the excess sanitizer off of my hands. A quick micro-buzz is all I need to get me through the night.

Our thoughts are with you. Life is a battle. It always wins.

Finished season one of Boudain's Parts Unknown, which ended with a Heart of Darkness riff in the Congo. Great show.  

Critique group went okay. Time to lick my wounds and face the blank page again.   

Coffee and a cookie would be swell.  

Quote by WriterGirl

Quote by Ping

Quote by verbal

Tiny lizards...in the wine. Tiny lizards...make me feel fine.

Sorry, wrong song. I used to have 2 anoles when I lived in NYC. Nurse Bill and Dr. Lizardo. The best part of the deal was buying crickets every couple weeks - the apartment was filled with cricket chirps! My roommates were less thrilled than I. 

Slow day, errands and such. I'm in the mood for a movie theater, but nothing good is playing (until DUNE! IN FIVE DAYS!). I'm sure we'll find something fun to do.

Coffee and a happy face cookie! 

You USED TO HAVE two aholes. Did you seek medical attention for that? Was it rectalfied? I suppose, it’s very competitive in NYC and not only being an ahole, but having two additional aholes is beneficial. But dude, I know some people name or are given nicknames for their sexy parts, but you’re the first I know of to properly name his aholes. Strange times. Stranger things.

Mochaccino with whip, please. 

Thank you, Ma’am. May I have another?

Umm ... I am curious too, Ping! So what happened to Nurse Bill and Dr Lizardo? 

Scott, thanks for leaving the astronaut cookies for me to play with.

I accidentally stepped on tiny lizard today, but he rebounded. I swear they are gonna take over the world!!! Everywhere!!! 

The anoles (note the n, Ping) died after awhile. They don't live long. They were fun though!

I read this morning, apopos of nothing, that tarantulas are disappearing in my area. Migration numbers are way down. They blame climate change and drought and PEOPLE STEALING THEM (!!!) as the main reasons behind the decline. People: don't steal tarantulas!!!

Short fiction critique tonight. I have a story on the killing floor. These guys are nicer than the long fiction critique group at least.

Not much else going on. Mets actually won a game.

I'd like a Oort Cloud shaped cookie please.       

Tiny lizards...in the wine. Tiny lizards...make me feel fine.

Sorry, wrong song. I used to have 2 anoles when I lived in NYC. Nurse Bill and Dr. Lizardo. The best part of the deal was buying crickets every couple weeks - the apartment was filled with cricket chirps! My roommates were less thrilled than I. 

Slow day, errands and such. I'm in the mood for a movie theater, but nothing good is playing (until DUNE! IN FIVE DAYS!). I'm sure we'll find something fun to do.

Coffee and a happy face cookie! 

Quote by WriterGirl

Quote by DenimAngel
Hi peeps  

A large iced coffee sounds yummy in my tummy

Good to see this place busy !!

I have smiley face cookies today.. only cookie cutters I found that were cute were shaped like hearts circles flowers and stars.

*Moving the old cookies to the emergency cookie tins behind the counter and filling the cookie jars to the tippy top with fresh cookies*

It was fun drawing smiles on the cookies:)

Scott thanks for the set up! The coffee is GOOD

Jeff .. giggles I'm the cookie PRINCESS! we had this discussion last winter and fall you can keep your SNOW there in Colorado !! I don't want it 

Kimmi have a safe trip with your Twin ... Remember bail money if necessary

Elyse that sounds like a fun game .

*Giving the adorable critters fresh water and treats*

Stay safe everyone

Hi everyone

Thanks, Sara, but twin fun interruptus. We are close to our resort and Mom's memory care facility called. She's been in an uncontrollable rage since last night. They are admitting her to a psych ward. I may head home as soon as my sister's hubby gets here. Her facility won't keep her unless we can settle her down. 

Anyway, had fun on drive down with sis. And Verbal, please send me link. :)

I will take anything chocolate please! 

No Talia Friday. I'm gonna teach the cats to hang glide off the back balcony. They need some excitement in their lives.

Finished a new story yesterday. So, edit today, and obsess over the novel. Talia is all atwitter about The Morning Show starting again tonight. Me, I'm more excited about Dune in 5 days. Woo-hoo! 

A coffee and a cookie please. 

Timothy Elephant.

I have been obsessed with Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain's astonishing show. Don't know why it took me so long to discover this show (or Bourdain for that matter). I'm by no means a foodie, but the show is so much more than food and travel. I'm  limiting myself to one a night, to make them last, and thank God there are so many. 

Truth be told, I may have a little man-crush on Anthony Bourdain. I'm a sucker for the whole bad-boy tortured genius thing. Talia approves. Apparently she has a similar attraction to bad boy tortured geniuses.    

Quote by WriterGirl

Quote by verbal

Good morning all.

No Talia Wednesday. The cats and I shall be creating a short blunt human/cat pyramid today.

Not much going on. Doing another reading on Youtube. I plan to say "nipple" again, just to give Ping a cheap thrill.

Still writing stories, but am trying to draw out a novel plot on giant sheets of art paper.  It's fun but kinda scary. 

Fall was in the air yesterday. I love that feeling. 

Gotta get to work. Coffee and ten thousand cookies please. 

Where's this reading? I'm kind of interested in how a reading works in a "nipple."

Thank you, Sara, for cookies. I'm headed for a road trip with my twin and will snatch a few for our trip. Might be "Twins Gone Wild" til her hubby arrives Sunday night. :) 

I finally figured out how to publish w/pic on here. So yay!  

Have a great upcoming week!

The reading went well. It’s always fun. I have a shaving cut on my lip that was kinda weird looking, but what are you gonna do?

Fall is on the way. It’s supposed to snow in the mountains in the next couple days. Gonna stay hot here, but no days over 90 which is cool.

Grilled a million pounds of chicken last night. We will be eating chicken for quite some time. Anyone know any recipes, send me this way.

Until then, a coffee and four hundred thousand cookies. Oh, that’s too many? Okay, one. A happy face! Can we have space cookies tomorrow, cookie Mom?

Good morning all.

No Talia Wednesday. The cats and I shall be creating a short blunt human/cat pyramid today.

Not much going on. Doing another reading on Youtube. I plan to say "nipple" again, just to give Ping a cheap thrill.

Still writing stories, but am trying to draw out a novel plot on giant sheets of art paper.  It's fun but kinda scary. 

Fall was in the air yesterday. I love that feeling. 

Gotta get to work. Coffee and ten thousand cookies please. 

Hey everyone. Sure will be glad to have Bill back.

It had been an exhausting morning. Kicking back to close my eyes for a minute, then on to writing. A short, sad story this week.

I would love a coffee and…let’s see…*SUDDENLY STEALS ALL THE COOKIES AND EATS THEM IN THE CORNER WITH MOLLY THE MONKEY* 

I’ve never written much sci fi, and have never had to do much world building. That’s about to change with the next project: I am building a world recovering after what I am calling a “soft apocalypse,” where the world doesn’t end, but takes a big hit from a mind-virus pandemic that shuts down much of our modern infrastructure. The book takes place after the pandemic, when the world is rebuilding. Very much a soft world build. Most detail is implied, not explained.

I don’t know if it’s any good not, but it sure is fun to attempt.