Where Micro Weird Came From

I thought I might occasionally try a new feature here on the blog wherein I talk about the genesis of certain projects. Today’s choice is Micro Weird:Tiny Tales of the Strange. Back at the end of 2012, I was working on the third piece in my Fiction Techniques series, “The Twist Ending.” As part of the research for that work, I both read and wrote a number of flash fiction pieces with twist endings, and I went back and analyzed all the twist ending stories I’d written in the past. A lot of things became clear during that period.

FictionTechniques #3: The Twist Ending, was published in January of 2013, and I’d already started to consider publishing a collection of the twist ending pieces I’d written. Turns out I had quite a few of them lying around that had not been collected, and over the next couple of months I wrote several more.

In March 2013, I published these under the title Micro Weird: Tiny Tales of the Strange. Micro Weird is the most eclectic collection I’ve ever produced. It contains horror stories, science fiction tales, humor, and even some mainstream pieces. The common denominator that ties the stories together is the “twist ending.” If you like twist-ending tales, Micro Weird might be just the collection for you. It’s only 99 cents.

Here’s the Table of Contents for the collection:

AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART

EYE SPY

SEASON OF RUST

HIGH IQ

GIVING UP THE GHOST

PAST PERFECT

LOVE STORIES

THAT CAT IS ON DRUGS, MAN

INSPIRATION

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

A FACE ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

FAR BEYOND HOME

THOUGHT FLOW

THE TEETH OF THE WIND

FOREVER, OUT OF LOVE

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The All Consuming

I've known people who have told me that they possess a "stillness" of mind. They say they can sit and just "be," without a constant yammering and clamoring from their own thoughts. I'm not such a person, though I envy those who are.

Thoughts surge constantly through my head. They careen this way and that. They roil in eddies and rush in cataracts over tumbling rocks. Many of them are anxious thoughts, worried thoughts. This is one reason I used to drink. Alcohol would shut at least some of the thoughts down.

Don't get me wrong. I like thinking. I just wish many times that I could keep my thoughts on task, that I could wield them like a hammer instead of having them act more like a spill of thumbtacks.

There are times when my thoughts do flow the way I want them. It happens if I'm reading a really good book, or watching a really good movie. I've noticed in the last few years that it happens when I get involved in playing a video game. My mind starts making dozens of decisions a minute but they are all focused, all flowing in the same direction.

It also happens when I'm writing. At least sometimes. I've come to realize that when I say, at the end of the day, "the writing went well," it's because I achieved that flow. My focus had narrowed, had become sharpened onto one primary topic, the creation of a scene. This state of flow is very pleasant to me. The worries go away. The focus becomes purely on the now, the moment of creation or involvement. I call it, "The All Consuming."

I've also realized lately that this has always been a thing with me. There's a story in my Micro Weird collection actually called "Thought Flow." It almost perfectly illustrates my point. And it was one of the first ten stories I ever wrote.

How about you? Do you possess stillness of mind, or do your thoughts run more like mine? And what do you think of "The All Consuming?" Do you experience it? Do you like it?
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Last Blog of 2013

Like some novels I’ve read, 2013 started out pretty good, sagged seriously in the middle, then picked up toward the end. Not the greatest year but still better in almost all ways than the years 2010 through 2012, each of which saw major family losses and serious illnesses strike. I’m glad at least the trend for health issues was up.

School was school. No great victories. No great tragedies. I’m glad for that. I do like things on an even keel. Personally, Lana and I continue to be very happy together, although Lana did have some serious back issues for several months that caused us great concern. The worst of that seems to have passed.

In writing, I mentioned before that I wrote about 80,000 professional words, which I’m confident was up from the years 2010-2012. The best thing was the completion of the fourth book in the Talera series, which should be out in 2014. I did not have any books published through Borgo/ Wildside in 2013 and much of that was because I’d decided to focus on some long term projects and some personal self-publishing concepts I had.

In early 2013 I put up the three volumes of the FictionTechniques series, “Creating Suspense,” “Characters Wanted,” and “The Twist Ending.” These actually sold pretty well, although I have not gotten many reviews on them. They also helped earn me a couple of speaking engagements, which is nice.

In the spring I put up MicroWeird: Tiny Tales of the Strange. Despite garnering 4 five star reviews, it did not sell well and ultimately has been my slowest seller of any self-published title. In the fall, though, I put up The Machineries of Mars, which also gained 4 five star reviews but which has far outsold “Micro Weird.” It’s been my best seller since Harvest of War.

The only other publishing related thing I did was putting the Louisiana Inklings anthology into print. I was glad to learn how to do this and may start doing print editions of some of my other self-published work in the days to come.

All in all, a pretty good year that reversed the trends I’d been experiencing in the three years previously. Let’s hope I can keep the momentum going into 2014. And let’s hope that all of us here in the blogosphere have a great 2014 with lots of success. 

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Micro Weird Has Landed

As I hoped, I was able to put the finishing touches on my collection called Micro Weird: Tiny Tales of the Strange over spring break. It is now available for both Nook and Kindle, at 99 cents. There are fifteen stories and a postscript about flash fiction. It’s over 10,000 words total but only about 8,000 of that is fiction. There’s also a section telling “about” the stories, which is something I like to do and something I like to read from other authors.

You all know I like variety in my writing. Well, this is the most varied collection I’ve yet put together. There’s some stuff in here that would be considered horror, albeit mild, some SF stuff, some humor, a children’s story, and a number of pieces that are really unclassifiable. I suspect there’s some things that will surprise even those who have read most of my previous work. Most of the pieces in Micro Weird were written in the last couple of years, but a few stories go back decades, including one (revised) that dates from the early 1980s. Only three of the tales have been previously published, and only one in anything some of you may have seen.

Despite the variety in the stories, there are two things that hold the collection together. First, all the stories are short, with the longest being about 1200 words. Most are quite a bit shorter. These days, these lengths are identified as either flash fiction or micro-fiction. Second, all the pieces strive for a twist ending.

The cover photo was taken by Lana outside Meteor Crater a couple of years back. We saw what looked like a giant picture hanging on the wall, and a man leaning “through” the picture smoking a cigarette. The “picture” was actually a rectangular opening in the brick wall. It was rather surreal to see, though. Lana did the blacking out of the figure so he’d be in silhouette, and I did the lettering. I used her “Gimp” program to manipulate things and it seemed far superior to Paint so I’m going to download a free copy of it for myself.

I hope you enjoy Micro Weird. I had a lot of fun writing these tales. If you want, you can pick ‘em up at:

Barnes and Noble.

As always, thanks for reading!

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School and Writing

School has started again and I’ve been swamped. Classes actually don’t begin until Monday but there are many, many things teachers have to do before that first class period.  That’s why I haven’t been visiting blogs for a couple of days. I got around to some this morning since it’s been relatively quiet.  

The Fiction Techniques Freebies are over now. I gave away 255 copies of Fiction Techniques #1: Creating Suspense, and 297 copies of #2: Characters Wanted. Sold 9 copies of #3: The Twist Ending. I did notice that someone bought Write With Fire also. At least, the numbers improved on it for a while. I hope people find the articles useful.  For those of you who checked the “Techniques” articles out, tell me honestly what you thought of the covers.  I know they aren’t highly salient but I wanted to make the connection to the ebook publishing revolution so that’s why I used screen shots. I hope they don’t look too cheesy.

I have been writing since the start of the New Year. Most of this has actually been revision of earlier materials, though I have produced a couple of new flash fictions. In the next month or so I’m going to publish a collection of twisted flash fictions and my working title for that is “Micro Weird: Tiny Tales of the Strange.” After that I will turn my attention back to some short westerns, and then begin work on a longer project. I have at least two long projects in various stages of completion, although who knows where inspiration will take me.

Here’s hoping everyone’s New Year is off to a good start!

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