Pure Randomness

Silly Flash Fiction

Adrian

Done for a twitter contest I stumbled across, and a lighter tone than most of my novel writing (more MG-flavored, which much of my more humorous writing is), but a fun detour for half an hour. Enjoy.

I may delete later, if I wake up tomorrow and wonder what the hell I was thinking. 🙂

Contest: http://shortstoryflashfictionsociety.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/friday-flash-fiction-contest-2/

It’s a Flash Fiction with a cool photo prompt, an old house waist deep in sand (inside the house), as if a desert flowed through.

http://www.nature-places.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/most-amazing-ghost-towns-07.jpg

The story (237 words):

The Hour Glass House.

My sister has powers. So do I.

My parents left us at home alone and told us to be good. They’re optimists.

When my sister wouldn’t pass the remote, I made the TV screen show her face smudged on a fat man’s butt. She glued the couch to my ass. Scratchy. And harder to accomplish than you might think. I unlocked her diary to figure out how she’d done it. She caught me, and wasn’t happy. Like I care about Dreamy Jeremy’s eyebrows?

She slammed me into my bedroom wall and jammed the door behind. Which pissed me off. I had places to be.

But it’s okay. I’m sneaky, and still one ahead. She’s probably just now realizing that I slipped a snake into her braids, which has been chewing her hair. All day. He he. What’ll Dreamy Jeremy think about that?

Woom. Tinkle.

I think she just flipped the house upside down. There’s sand coming through the windows, like a tipped-over hour glass. Um, that’s probably not good. I’m not sure she’s joking anymore.

Crack.

I’m going to puke spiced meatballs. Flipped again.

My sister has powers. But so do I. And chest deep in sand or not, I’m clutching her diary, reading like a madman. Double pinky lift? Interesting. A smile hurts my sand-scratched face, but I don’t care. Ring the bell. Time for the next round.

I’m not finished yet.

devilsih baby

Personal Randomness

Adrian

A short personal update (there’s been lots of craft posts lately).

I have to admit that I’m a bit overwhelmed with the free time that I’ve suddenly got in the last couple of days, as my Black Diamonds edits are done, the manuscript as ready as I can get it at this point, and nothing else major started yet. Aside, of course, from sick kids (do they ever get healthy?), a crazy job, and keeping the wife happy (in other words, cleaning the house). That’s just normal, right? 🙂 Anyway, given the significant time investment most of my projects take, I wanted to take a couple of days before committing to anything big, despite this unfamiliar spare time.

So, after some thought, I decided that I would:

  • Take part in #PitMad, a twitter pitch contest (look at me, all social media active all of a sudden! He he, find me @AdrianCross15. If I stay active, I may put the link on the site more permanently). I think this will be fun, although my work schedule on Sept 9 is starting to look so hectic that I may not be checking in to the event much while it’s actually on.
  • Waiting for my Black Diamonds synopsis comments to come back, from the recent Writer’s Digest webinar event, which included a critique. Once I have that, I’ll start putting Black Diamonds out into the world. I think it’s ready, but still a daunting thought. Hopefully it’s well received! (if not, oh well, there’s always the next one.)
  • Create a cover image for my shelved manuscript, Broken Detective (probably not the final title), which I think is the next major writing project I’ll tackle. It’s a manuscript with a lot of good stuff in it, but some serious wounds to patch up as well, particularly in the opening scenes. As I’ve mentioned before, my current intention is to re-work it and then send it out into the world as an ebook (unless some agent wants to take a look at it, but the query letter has already made the rounds). As a result, cover art will come in handy when it’s finished. I’m not expecting to start a completely new novel until 2015, although there are lots of ideas in the hopper for when that time comes.
  • Write a fantasy short story (I’ve already got the ‘cool idea’ and am sketching out the rest of it), for submission to OWW (the Online Writer’s Workshop) and maybe to a wider audience, although we’ll see how well received it is at OWW first. I think that a new short story will make a nice change of pace for me, exercising some creative muscles before settling down to hardcore editing again, as I try to patch up Broken Detective.
  • I would also like to do some more site images, but we’ll see how the time goes. I’ve also decided to work on a non-fantasy art project on the side, so any large and polished art projects may stall until that’s finished (ok, I’ll cave and tell, it’s a cool picture book idea that I’ve mulled over for years and finally think is ready to take to the next level, but I don’t do picture book stuff under this site, so you’ll have to hunt elsewhere for that!) 🙂

And that’s the plan. And I have to smile. Because as I’m typing this, I’m also listening to Wiggle Wiggle (Jason Derulo and Snoop Dog) on my headphones and it reminded me of yesterday when I drove the two Hooligans home from daycare. The 2yr old was enthusiastically singing along to this song on the radio:

“Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.”

So inappropriate. And funny.  🙂

The image here is just a cropped version of one I’ve shown earlier. But it reminded me a lot of my two year old, so there you go. 🙂

Boat dragon

The Ocean, the Wind, and—Maybe I’m Just Weird.

Adrian

Once a year for the last few years, patient more about despite the early complaints of the mighty hooligans (especially Hooligan #2, viagra who was not a fan of any disruption to his routine), my wife and I have taken a Disney cruise to warmer climes*. Since the kids still nap, we have to take shifts. For the last couple of trips, she has taken the sunbaked days, for her alone time, while I take the swirling nights. But you’d be mistaken if you thought I was out partying, hitting the bars and making friends with other frazzled fathers. Nope. Instead, I wind through suger-hyped families and packs of kids up way too late, to find a quiet secluded corner, with a smoky rum at hand, under a cool dark sky, washed over by a smooth warm breeze. As my family sleeps, dark and powerful words and conflict crash together like great waves in my laptop.

In other words, I find a quiet corner and I write.

The experience is powerful, wonderful. Am I introverted? Not really. Not all the time. But I still love it. Maybe I’m weird. But hopefully one day, if my fiction sells, I can claim some credit to those dark and light-dotted nights where my inhibitions were broken down by wind and rum and waves, to produce prose that is more powerful than would otherwise be created.

Full disclosure: the bones of this post were written on a cruise, with the Caribbean wind in my hair and face, and some random girl asking me why on Earth I’m working when I’m on a cruise?

I smile politely. If only she knew.

For writers out there, particularly those who might have distractions, kids, jobs, a rare hard-fought minute that they have to write in, I highly recommend it. If you can afford it, it’s a trip. 🙂

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*For those wondering why a Disney cruise, one answer: good daycare and/ or babysitting. That became our top vacation criteria as soon as my Lovely Wife and I had kids. We may learn the hard way, but we learn quick… 😉

PS, the Disney cruises look nothing like the image here. 🙂 Although they do come with a costumed pirate or two… This image took me about an hour and a half, mixed media, simply to save time, a bunch of watercolor washes, some ink to pull out the lines, white charcoal (I think) to pull out some highlights, then the background blurred on the laptop afterwards. I’m finding this style seems fairly effective for quick post images, although I’m also tempted to dig up my old acrylic paints and test them too, as I think that they might also be more efficient than watercolor alone, where drying time has to be factored in and it’s just too time-consuming to do a watercolor only image.

Barbarian at the Car Window

Barbarians at the (Car) Window…

Adrian

The image here is what I wish had happened a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, the thieves didn’t steal a barbarian’s car, they stole mine. Grrr.

As quick background, it was a rough week generally. I was sick as a dog, but still forced to spend hours a night chipping at ice beside our house–occasionally with an axe and a flashlight, which must have made my neighbours feel very reassured. 🙂 –to keep the melting ice from the field behind us from pouring into our basement. The freaky ice storm had filled the ditch that was supposed to protect that from happening with solid ice. What a winter.

Anyway, I came home from an exhausting day at work on the subway, looked for my car in the parking lot and… didn’t find it. So I had to walk in the rain, coughing, to pick up my son from his school on time, and call my wife to gather us up. And life has been filled since then with fighting this cold, struggling with the related exhaustion and all the minor tasks that come with replacing a car. While still battling the melting ice, although I think maybe I’ve started to make a dent in that battle. No pun intended.

All minor things in the great tilting field that is life, I know. But it felt good to jot down this cartoon and imagine a barbarian chasing those dratted thieves down the road, wishing they’d picked a different career choice. 🙂

If only…