Category: NaNoWriMo Page 1 of 2

Twinkies

On May 3, 2024

In Fiction Fragment Friday, Flash Fiction, NaNoWriMo

Fiction Fragment Friday

Ok, this one takes a bit of setup. This isn’t something I wrote recently. In fact this story was written in 2006 almost twenty years ago. If the technology or any other aspect seem dated that is why. Back in those days cell phones would lock up and we would frequently have to pull the batteries to hard reboot them. Replacing batters was common as well.

It is part of the very first attempt I made at NaNoWriMo. Also this section of that novel attempt references a scene that happened earlier in the day where these characters were introduced. You can find that story posted on here back in 2020.

If you don’t want to go back to that just know that something has occurred during the night that killed all electronics in a small isolated town. That also means cars are not starting because of how reliant they are on electronics. This scene is in a convenience store that is the only place to get any form of groceries in this small town. People are already panicking.

“How are you doing over there Samantha?” By this point in the morning the crowd had left the small store and all that was left was to restock the shelves. Jan had been very pleased that Samantha was willing to take her job offer in the midst of all the chaos.

“I’m almost done Mrs. Williams. Your stock room is getting pretty empty though and I don’t think you have anything left here with any kind of nutritional value.” She paused for a moment to look into the box she was carrying. “Unless of course you find Twinkies to be a part of a balanced diet that is,” she said with a smile.

Jan chuckled a little bit. “I don’t even find them edible. I can’t stand those things.” A more serious look came across her face as she leaned against the counter. “I just really don’t understand what happened this morning. A violent mob like that after only being without power for a few hours just doesn’t make any sense.”

Samantha finished emptying her box and joined Jan at the counter. “Well, it was like that man said this morning, it isn’t just the electricity. All the cars quit working, all the handheld electronics just died, and we can normally just go to Prosperity to get stuff when the power goes out. I wonder if it’s like this there too. Man, that would suck. It’ll take me forever to get new cell phone batteries if all theirs are dead too. Hey maybe that’s why all the cars quit working, maybe their batteries are just dead.”

“Well, it doesn’t make much sense, but then again what I saw here this morning doesn’t either. The stranger had some good points about why the crowd was panicking, but it just seems too soon. Also, he didn’t say Prosperity, he said Augustus. I don’t even know where that is, but it definitely isn’t close enough to here to drive for supplies. I didn’t mention it earlier because of everything that was going on, but I don’t think he was from around here. I’m glad for his help, but it doesn’t make much sense for him to be talking like a local and not know that the only town around here is Prosperity.’

“Aw, you’re just paranoid. He seemed nice enough and if it wasn’t for him there is no telling how bad that fight would have gotten. It was pretty wicked to see the principal punch someone though. I just wish I could have gotten a picture of it on my phone, but that’s not taking any pictures any time soon. How am I supposed to get by without my phone? I feel so out of touch already and it hasn’t even been a day yet. I should have had at least five texts by now.”

Jan and Samantha were startled by the sound of a loud engine pulling into one of the parking spots outside the store. A motorcycle pulled into the spot right next to the door and a leather clad teenager got off it. He put his helmet on the seat and started walking towards the door. Samantha recognized him as Jonathan Hackett a boy that she went to school with. He wasn’t nearly as popular as her, and she had always seen him as something of a dork. He was the last person she would have thought about riding a motorcycle, but then again, she never really thought about him at all.

Jan turned to Samantha as Jonathan came into the store. “Well, I guess that kills your dead battery idea,” she whispered as she walked around the counter. “We don’t really have all that much left on the shelves. As you can probably guess we had a busy morning. If you need anything at all, then Samantha here can give you a hand.” She extended her arm and pointed towards a still shocked Samantha. “Hey Sam, I’m going to go in back and see if I can find anything for a lunch break.” With that Jan was gone leaving Samantha and Jonathan alone in the store.

Jonathan turned to Samantha and smiled. “So, when did you start working here?”

“Oh, I was just helping Mrs. Williams out this morning. I don’t know if I’m going to keep working here once everything is back to normal. Hey, I think that might be the first thing that you have said to me in three years. You’re usually so quiet.”

Jonathan chuckled, “Yeah, well it’s a lot easier to get up the nerve to talk to someone in a stockperson’s apron than it is a cheerleader outfit.”

Samantha smiled. “I guess I can see that. Well for now at least I am a humble clerk”, she said with a bow. “How may I server you?”

Jonathan couldn’t help but smile. “Well, I was getting ready to head to Prosperity to see if my new laptop on layaway still works, but as I rode by here, I got this sudden unexplainable craving for a Twinkie.” Jonathan was getting braver by the moment. He had always had a crush on Samantha but thought that she was way out of his league. The fact that she was even talking to him amazed him. “So, it looks pretty empty in here, so after Mrs. Williams gets done would you like to come to Prosperity with me? I have an extra helmet.” He cursed himself for sounding too eager with the helmet comment.

“Right about now I would do just about anything for a chance to get a new Cell Phone battery. As long as you promise not to go too fast or do anything to try and scare me I’m in. Let me go talk to Mrs. Williams really quick.” Samantha stopped at the stockroom door and turned back to Jonathan who had a big smile on his face. “You know, I also haven’t seen you smile in about three years either.”

“What can I say, I really like Twinkies.” Jonathan thought for a moment that he had just made a complete fool out of himself. His mind was racing with thoughts about how stupid he was for trying to make the joke. Then he noticed that Samantha was laughing. As she went into the stockroom, he said to himself, “This might be a once in a lifetime chance to spend the day with Samantha Walker. Please don’t let me screw this up.”

Samantha came out of the stockroom smiling. “Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready to go.” She grabbed a pack of the freshly restocked Twinkies from the shelf and tossed it to Jonathan. “Those are on me, just something to pass the time while you wait.”

Jonathan couldn’t bring himself to tell Samantha that he really didn’t like Twinkies. In fact, he hated them. He had seen her holding the empty box that she had restocked the Twinkies from and thought it might be a good excuse for why he was there. Really, a friend of his had been there earlier and saw her working. He knew that she was there and had come just to see her. He didn’t want her to think he was stalking her so instead he ate the Twinkies and pretended that they were the best thing he had ever eaten. In his head though, he was just trying to keep from throwing up as he forced them down.

The Goblins in my Walls

By Wayne Cole

On November 3, 2023

In Fiction Fragment Friday, Flash Fiction, NaNoWriMo

Fiction Fragment Friday

I am trying to complete NaNoWriMo again this year, but on day three I have not gotten off to a good start. I have the weekend to turn things around and I know I am capable of doing so. We will just have to see if the novel I am working on flows well enough to keep it up.

This week’s fiction fragment Friday though has nothing to do with NaNoWriMo. Instead I have written a story using all NPCs from the Dresden Files Roleplaying Game Campaign I am currently running. I started writing it in the third person perspective focusing only on the goblins, but it just wasn’t working. When I switched to first person it just came out much better. I think I need the goblins to be supporting characters to a human straight man. I hope you all enjoy.

It was a normal Friday night, and I was getting ready to raid with my MMORPG guild. To be honest the game was starting to get kind of old and I only agreed to the raid because my girlfriend Marie was working a catering job. So much had changed for me since meeting her and I was starting to look at the world differently. That and learning that magic is real, and we have a goblin clan living inside the walls of the house I rent a room at.

Speaking of the goblins, just as I was getting ready to log in three of them came crawling out of a secret passage into my room. I was still learning their names, but these three stood out. Gobo had written a LARP he calls Mundane the roleplaying game and keeps trying to get me to playtest it. Bobkin had recently learned to cook and was trying to become the greatest goblin chef in history. There apparently isn’t much competition for that title because goblins will eat anything. The last one was Whisper, and I mostly knew her because she was the strangely quiet goblin. She seemed to always be listening in and writing things in a notebook.

Gobo stepped up with the other two behind him. “Hey Mike, we need you to do a rules arbitration for us.”

Bobkin broke in, “Rules what? Stop using big words. Mike tell Gobo he’s wrong.”

I have to admit the little guys amuse me far more than they probably should. Most of the others in the house seem to get annoyed with them, but for me this is all new and they are just so much fun. “Guys I’d be happy to help. What do you need me to decide?”

Gobo and Bobkin immediately started talking over each other and gesturing wildly. “Woah, one at a time. Gobo you go first.”

“We’re playing cards, and I am totally winning.”

“Are not”

“Are too”

“Are Not”

I broke in knowing that could have gone on for a LONG time. “Ok, I think I see where this is going. You were playing cards and need to have some rules clarified.”

Gobo looked offended. “No, I’m the rules master. I know all the rules for all the games.”

Bobkin spoke up. “I bet a spork and Gobo here tried to match my bet with a broken plastic fork.”

“Not just any broken plastic fork. It’s clear and that makes it a special.”

“No, No, No, a broken plastic fork is not equal to a spork. A spork is a spoon and a fork. It’s like two whole things in one. Way better than some dumb fork.”

“Your stupid spork it thin and not as good as a fork for stabbing things.”

“You can’t eat a soup with a fork.”

“Who wants to eat some stupid soup? Real goblins eat meat.”

“Soup can have meat in it.”

“Uhm guys. You don’t’ use silverware. You eat with your hands and drink right from the bowl. In fact Bobkin you are the only goblin I’ve ever seen use a utensil and that’s just when you’re cooking.”

“Well maybe I wanna start using it. A chef has to be all cultured and stuff.”

Whisper was just writing away in her notebook the whole conversation. She finally spoke up. “Well what if your decision. Is a broken plastic fork good enough to meet a bet of a spork or does Gobo need to throw something else in too?” She held the pencil up ready to write down my next words.

“As the designated arbitrator for the goblins I hereby declare that because it can be used for pick up things that a spork cannot a broken fork as long as it has at least three prongs is an acceptable match.”

“Ha, your stupid fork only has two prongs left. I win.”

The goblins crawled back into the wall still bickering, but they had agreed to abide by my ruling, and they cannot go back on an agreement. With the goblins gone I turned back to my game. The latest patch had finished applying so I was all set to play.

“MIKE,” a different goblin came crawling out of the wall. This one took me a moment to recognize. It was Bumble the inventive goblin. He likes to find broken things and tinker with them until they work. The problem is that he doesn’t really know what most of the broken items are supposed to do. Sometimes they aren’t even broken before he works on them.

“Hello Bumble, what can I do for you tonight?”

“Do you have any gum?”

“What do you need gum for?”

“Squeeky broke Luna’s binoculars so I figured I could stick them back together with some gum.”

I reached into my drawer where I kept my tools for model building and grabbed a tube of superglue. “Here you go Bumble. This is much stronger than gum and you can use it to fix other things too.”

“Wow, Mike you are the best. I can’t just take a gift without giving you something. Oh, I know next time you break something I’ll fix it for free.”

“That sounds great.” I made a mental note to never mention anything being broken near Bumble. I waited for Bumble to climb back into the wall and slid my dresser over the secret panel.

“Finally, time to kill a boss.” I turned back to my game and logged in to a stream of messages complaining about me being last. I typed my apologies and got ready to connect to voice chat. The first voice I heard when I connected was not one, I had expected.

“This game gets goblins all wrong. We aren’t anything like this.”

“Dizzy is that you?”

“MIKE, I totally joined your game, and I bought this really high-level goblin character so I can play with you.”

“Do you even know how to play the game?” I was starting to get private messages from my guild mates telling me that this new player was allowed in because they said I vouched for them. I decided In that moment I would be taking a break from the game as soon as this raid was over.

“How hard can it be? You play it so I should be able to learn it in no time.”

Dizzy then proceeded to aggro the boss monster and get the entire raid party killed because we weren’t ready. After three party wipes they kicked Dizzy and I both from the guild. With my plans for the night officially over I decided that maybe I did understand why my housemates get so frustrated with the goblins after all.

Battlefield

By Wayne Cole

On November 19, 2021

In Fiction, Fiction Fragment Friday, Flash Fiction, NaNoWriMo, Updates

Fiction Fragment Friday

This weeks story came from a few random ideas that popped into my head. The first was to write a story in second person perspective. Then I looked at a pair of swords I have in my kitchen and thought about how I would describe a sword fight in second person. The final inspiration came from a sense of repeating the same destructive patterns without learning from them. How you know the right things to eat, do, and work towards but still manage to fall into the same ruts. Thus was born this story. I’m not happy with the title, but I am very pleased with the story itself.

My NaNoWriMo update for this week is that I haven’t updated. I have not written on my project in over a week. My chances of succeeding this year are not looking good, but I have not yet given up hope. If I can get back on the wagon and use some time off coming up I can make up what I have missed. I had a passion for this project and I just need to get back to that. Like my main character in this weeks story though knowing and doing are not the same thing.

Your eyes slowly struggle to open as you become aware of the world around you. They feel heavy and the light seeping through them is blinding. It feels like the first time you have ever used them before as they adjust to the new light levels. You can hear a faint music in the background that sounds like it is coming from everywhere at once. There are no odors at all, but this does not seem odd. You are not sure who you are, but you feel anger.

Once your eyes have adjusted you look over yourself. You are wearing a heavy scale mail armor with some sort of horned helmet on it. As you look closer a piece of knowledge enters your mind. This is dragon scale armor. It is tougher than iron, more flexible than leather, and completely immune to fire. You do not know where this knowledge comes from, but something tells you that it is correct.

In your right hand is a large sword that is so heavy you know you will need both hands to swing it with any level of control. It has a glowing red gem in the hilt that catches your eye for a moment. This is your sword, and you will use it to strike down your enemy. As you grip the sword with both hands and raise it to a fighting stance the blade ignites. You imagine how terrifying you must look in your dragon scale armor holding a flaming sword and it brings a smile to you face.

You finally take in your surroundings. You are on the edges of a battlefield. You look out at the dead bodies of waves of your men littering the ground. There are only five opponents, but they have killed hundreds. As your soldiers fall these intruders rob the fallen of all valuables and to your horror the bodies disappear from the field. Your people mean nothing more to them than a source of items. The seething anger grows.

Finally, you can take no more. You hold your sword high and rush onto the field. You don’t know who these invaders are, but this atrocity cannot be allowed to continue. Your flaming sword comes down on a large shield and sends rings of flame out across the field. The shield barer seems to absorb the fire and protects his companions from it. He is driven back though, and you hear him gasp, “Boss.”

You bring down blow after blow on the shield. Something is forcing you to focus on this man even though you know it is not the wisest course of action. Your soldiers are being killed and there are far more targets that do not have the protection of a shield. One of them is even wearing cloth robes that would burn if your sword even got close to them. Why is it then that I am only attacking the one more suited to defending himself you wonder?

It is time, you are ready. With a step back you stab your sword straight down into the ground in front of you. The ground rumbles and a visible shockwave of dirt ripples outward like waves from a rock hitting a pond. The shielded intruder is knocked from his feet as are two of his companions. This is your chance. Pulling the sword free you leap through the air and bring it down on your enemy. He lets out a scream of pain as the fire washes over him. Your soldiers manage to get a few hits in on the other downed opponents. Now is when this battle will turn around.

The robed figure from the back of the intruders group steps forward raising a long white staff. Light fills the battlefield radiating in circles from the tip. Each enemy glows for a moment. You watch as wounds heal instantly, and armor knits itself closed. They even seem to look cleaner than they did moments ago. It is some sort of powerful healing magic. As you survey the field not attacking you realize that you are now all alone against the five.

For the first time you wonder if this battle will be your last and it is in that moment that you are struck by a shield. You fly through the air and land prone on your back. The invaders do not hesitate. They strike with swords, arrows, and bolts of magical energy while you struggle to rise to your feet. You lash out but there are too many of them and they are too strong. This is the end you think as you fall to the field. Above you in the sky you see the words “Quest Completed”.

All around you the battlefield resets. The invaders have faded away into nothing and your soldiers have reappeared. You are floating in a state of limbo watching what happens until everything goes dark. It is not your time yet. New adventurers have arrived. You cannot take the field until 200 of your men have been slain. Then you will appear back at the edge of the battlefield. This time will be different you tell yourself. This time I will remember, and I will fight smarter. You wonder how many times you have had this thought.

Your eyes slowly struggle to open as you become aware of the world around you…

Gnome Place Like Home

By Wayne Cole

On November 12, 2021

In Blog, Fiction, Fiction Fragment Friday, Flash Fiction, NaNoWriMo, Updates

Fiction Fragment Friday

A quick update on NaNoWriMo. I think I have something really special with this years novel. Unfortunately I have had some setbacks on writing it this week. I am behind. I will need to do quite a bit of writing this weekend to catch up, but I know I can do it. I also have some time off around Thanksgiving that I can use to catch up as well. I have not given up.

For this week I have something new. I had a sentence or two pop into my head and it amused me enough to write the whole story. I hope you enjoy this light and fun Fiction Fragment Friday.

I hear the pitter patter of little feat coming down the hall. If only it were children, but mine are long grown and moved out. The little feat I hear are the gnomes most likely tracking mud all through my house. I’ve seen those tiny little feet prints so many mornings, but yesterday morning was the last straw. I opened my bedroom door and stepped in a pile of dog poop. I don’t even own a dog and if I did, I’m certain it couldn’t spell out the words “watch your step” in its own feces. The sound from the hall had to be the gnomes and I was well past the point of being fed up.

I got up out of bed and stomped to my bedroom door. Opening the door, I paused to examine the hall. First, I looked down to make sure there was nothing in front of my door. I would not fall for the same trick again. Then I looked both ways down the hall. There were in fact muddy footprints on my floor, but I didn’t see what made them. I took a step out into the hall only to trip over one of my golf clubs sticking out in front of my feet. The floor quickly approached my face and I barely had time to put my hands out to absorb the impact. The club had not been there when I looked down.

I heard that annoying cackle throughout the hall. The little buggers were laughing at me. It sounds like it was coming from all around me including the bedroom I had just come out of. I turned back and saw that my wife’s underwear drawer had been opened and its contents thrown all over the room. A bra was dangling from the ceiling fan slowly turning in a circle. I looked to my bed and found a large water stain on it positioned to make it look like I had wet the bed. My water class sat empty on the nightstand. I reached down and picked up the golf club. This had gone on long enough.

“Get out here and face me you stupid porcelain menaces,” I whispered. I didn’t want to make too much noise and wake my sleeping wife.

I looked up at the bed again and got my first glimpse of a gnome actually moving. It was standing on my bed next to my wife. It held a finger to its lips like it was shushing me. Then it pulled its hand back as far as it could and with one swing of its tiny little arm smacked my wife as hard as it could right on her bum. She let out a loud yelp and slightly jumped causing her to roll off the bed and onto the floor. She looked livid as she sat up and stared at me with eyes that could stop a charging army. “Jeremy Brenner what the hell do you think you are doing? Do you think that was funny? I could have broken a hip.”

“But honey it wasn’t me. It was the gnomes.” I knew I had made a mistake as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

“Oh, not this nonsense again. For the last time the neighbor’s gnomes are not alive and they are not out to get you. You have just gotten forgetful in your old age and can’t remember where you put things.” She stood up and looked at the bed. “Is that what this is about? Did you have an accident and were too embarrassed to say anything? It’s just something that happens to men your age, but we’ll discuss it with your doctor at your next appointment. Why don’t you go downstairs for a bit while I change the sheets and get the bed ready again?”

“Yes dear.” She didn’t understand. She never believed me about the gnomes and who could blame her. It did sound pretty ridiculous. I sat my golf club down and left the bedroom. When I stepped into the hall, I felt something squishy and almost slipped. I managed to grab the door handle and not fall as I thought not again. Looking down I saw the words “Bed Wetter” written in dog poop. I heard the laughing again down the hall and the sound of the front door opening and shutting as the gnomes left the house. I swear one of these days I’m going to get those gnomes, but for tonight once again they have won.

NaNoWriMo: Day One

By Wayne Cole

On November 5, 2021

In Fiction Fragment Friday, NaNoWriMo, Updates

Fiction Fragment Friday

The following Fiction Fragment Friday was written on Day One of NaNoWriMo this year. It is the first chapter of the novel project I am working towards this month. It is fairly long for one of these so I’m going to keep this kind of short. It is also a NaNoWriMo project so there is no editing and might have more than the usual amount of typos.

James Carter has what most would consider an unusual hobby. In his free time James likes to go dumpster diving for old computer equipment with a particular focus on anything containing a hard drive. When he finds such devices, he brings them home and tries to recover data from them. He never does anything malicious with the data but has a fascination with seeing what he can discover. Social Security numbers and tax papers are almost guaranteed to be on there, but for him the true treasure is glimpses into other people’s lives. Types out letters, or pictures from a digital camera are far more exciting than financial information that he will never use.

It was a Saturday afternoon and James was hard at work with his latest find. The living room in his apartment was big enough that he had used a sectional to split the room into two. On one half was his hand me down entertainment center with game consoles and media shelf full of mostly science fiction movies. The other half of the room had one wall lined with cheap computer desks and folding tables. One desk had his gaming computer with the nicest chair, monitor, and keyboard that he owned. The other systems were thrown together from spare parts or in various states of disassembly.

He was sitting on a cheap metal chair at one of the folding tables. His hands were working away at the keyboard of his spare laptop. Coming out of the side was a USB cable going to a special adapter that let him plug in hard drives. This drive he pulled from a laptop with a broken screen he had gotten from a dumpster in an alley downtown. Too many people seemed to think that if a screen was broken then no one could get the data. With his setup he could be pulling files off of the drive within minutes without ever turning the machines on.

James was working through his usual process. First, he went into the user folder to see what accounts existed on the laptop. On this laptop he found that there was a single user named Samantha. This told him the laptop was mostly likely someone’s personal laptop and not a work provided machine. Those tended to have multiple accounts and didn’t use first names. This was a relief because the last time he had found a work laptop he was so disturbed by finding a database from their HR system that he had to reach out to the company anonymously to inform them that they needed to encrypt their hard drives and dispose of them properly.

The next step was the part James always enjoyed the most. He opened up Samantha’s documents folder and started browsing through the files. There were not a lot of files in the folder, but one jumped out at him. “Unbelievable.” He shook his head in disgust as he dragged a files named passwords.xls to a folder on his laptop to go through later.

“Just once it would be nice to not find anything,” he said while picking his cat up off of the table. Her name was Connie and he had named her after his favorite function in excel, Concatenate. She was a gray and orange tabby that he had found as a kitten on one of his dumpster hunting trips. He never thought of himself as a cat person until he had met her, but she had become one of the most important parts of his life. The heat his computers put off always drew her attention and she had been perched on the edge of the table pawing at the hard drive. A few more seconds and it would have been knocked to the ground.

James sat Connie on the floor and watched as she jumped right back up on the table. “Oh, so it’s going to be like that huh?” Reaching out he grabbed one of the laser pointers he kept on the desk and shined the light across the room. “Connie. Look Connie it’s the red dot. It’s mocking you. Get it girl.” She shot off the desk pouncing on the light. For a minute he just moved the light around letting her run back and forth. Finally, he ran the light down the hall and into his bedroom with Connie right behind it. He knew that would keep her occupied for a few minutes at least so he turned back to the laptop.

After grabbing every file that sounded interesting in the documents folder James moved on to the pictures folder. He smiled seeing many named folders. After spending fifteen minutes looking through pictures of vacations and family, he came to a folder named Monsters. Inside there were four folders with the names: crime scenes, hunters, news, and videos. He moved the mouse right to the videos folder and clicked to open it. There were fifteen video files in the folder.

James played the video named riverbeast first. The video was shaky like it had been taken with a cellphone while someone was running. It flipped around and focused on the face of a young woman with long blond hair. She took a moment to catch her breath before speaking. “This is Samantha North coming to you from the Mississippi Riverfront in downtown St. Louis. This time I have irrefutable proof that these creatures are real.” The camera spun back to the riverfront.

After a few moments the image on the screen focused. On the left side there was a wall covered in graffiti that serves as a levee when the river’s water level’s are high. On the right was the Mississippi river coming right up to a series of short pillars with chains running along the side of South Leonor K Sullivan Boulevard. Running down the street was a creature that looked similar to a giant fish with six legs and a spiked tail. The angle of the camera was from behind, but teeth could still be made out in the thing’s mouth. It leapt into the air and unhinged it’s jaw like a snake to swallow a woman standing in the middle of the road.

The woman stood out almost as much as the creature. She wore a plain brown utility jumpsuit that made her combination pink and purple hair stand out. In her hands she held a very large harpoon gun braced against her shoulder. The camera zoomed in causing it to become extra shaky and unfocused. Through the blur the woman moved quickly. She braced her legs and with a single smooth motion she lowered the gun and fired the harpoon into the creature’s mouth. A smaller harpoon shot out of the back of the gun and in-bedded itself into the ground. At the last possible second, she dove out of the way letting the creature smash into the ground where she had just stood. Green blood poured out of it’s mouth.

The creature tried to turn towards the woman, but the chains attached to the harpoon started reeling it in. The video finally came into focus again, but the camera was too far away to make out the details on the woman’s face. Samantha’s voice came over the speakers, “You see that? She caught this one alive.” The camera swung up showing a van backing up to the creature and opening its back doors. Four men in plain brown jumpsuits hopped out and started shocking the creature with long cattle prods.

“Stop you idiots,” yelled the woman in the jumpsuit, but they did not listen. The creature swung its barbed tail and smashed it into one of the men’s chests. A large dark wet spot covered the front of the jumpsuit and the man started coughing blood. The creature’s tongue shot forward and speared through another man’s chest. In just mere seconds two of the four men had dropped to the street dying.

The creature was stuck to the ground by the harpoon but was thrashing around and pulling against the chains. With one final yank it pulled back ripping itself free of the harpoon. Green blood sprayed all over the ground. The creature backed up slowly and swayed unsteady on its feet. It turned towards the river and took three steps before collapsing to the ground. One of the men pointed towards the camera and the video abruptly ended.

James sat staring at the screen. “What the hell was that?” He opened up an Internet browser and searched for Samantha North. “Let’s see if we can figure out who you are Samantha.” His instincts told him that the name wasn’t just a character role from the video because it matched the account on the laptop. The search results returned a number of recent news articles with her picture. All of them asked for anyone with information on the brutal murder of Samantha North to contact authorities.

James pushed back from his desk suddenly. “Shit.” He stood up shaking his head. “No, no no, this can’t be happening.” He looked down at the hard drive. “Shit I tampered with evidence.” He started pacing. “Not good, not good.” He sat back down at the desk. “Ok, think. No one knows you have it.” He put his hand back on the mouse and started to search for the most recent files on the hard drive. “If I find anything I can just report it anonymously. If not, then no one needs to know.” The newest file was from the morning before she was killed. He hit play on the video.

“If you are watching this then I’m probably dead.” Samantha shook her here. “God that sounds so ridiculous even coming from me. I’m being followed, but the police won’t take me seriously. I guess I know too much. I’m going to put this video in an e-mail and schedule it to go out with links to all the videos I’ve taken. I’ll keep pushing the date back as long as I’m alive, but I guess if you’re watching this then…” There was a loud sound and the door behind her shattered into pieces and a tall man dressed in a black suit entered the room. He raised his right hand and it extended across the room forming a long blade that impacted just below the camera. The video ended there.

James looked over at the laptop he had pulled the hard drive from. The screen was shattered with a small hole straight through it. He had figured that there had been an accident with something sharp falling on the screen. Now he realized that last video had been recording when it happened. He wasn’t sure how the video had been saved, but he couldn’t deny that he had evidence of her murder sitting on his desk.

There was a sharp knock on the front door of the apartment. James was so startled he jumped scaring Connie who had just come back into the room and was rubbing up against his legs. “James Carter open up. This is the police. We have some questions for you.”

“Be right there officer.” James’s voice held more confidence than he actually felt. He tried to keep from shaking as he walked to his apartment’s front door. He always knew there was a chance his hobby could get him into trouble, but he had never imagined police at his door. He reached down and turned the handle. As the door opened, he found himself face to face with the tall man in the black suit from the video.

The man smiled down at him and then looked over at the laptop on his table. “Well, well Mr. Carter. You have been quite busy haven’t you.” James tried to step back, but the man put a strong hand on his shoulder holding him in place. “Oh no, don’t try to run.” He leaned down putting his face right in front of James’. His smile spread across his face and extended all the way up to his ears. Sharp pointed teeth filled the mouth, and his eyes glowed yellow. “If you run you might hurt my feelings.” The man stepped inside the door and closed it behind him.

NaNoWriMo 2021

By Wayne Cole

On November 1, 2021

In Blog, NaNoWriMo, Updates

It’s that time again. November 1st is the first day of National Novel Writing Month. After multiple attempts 2020 was the first year I was successful. During November of 2020 I wrote over 50,000 words completing the first draft of Ricochet a superhero origin novel. At the time I never imaged I would not have done an editing pass on it by now. I had intended to edit in January and self publish, but that did not happen.

As this blog has been testament I have not stopped my writing and have become more consistent. I am proud of this consistency, but I also know my writing will not grow to new audiences if I do not put in the same level of effort to editing and submitting it. That will need to be a goal for another month though because it is November and that means it is time to write.

Being November 1st I am announcing my NaNoWriMo project for the year. The novel I’m writing is inspired by two stories that I did for Fiction Fragment Fridays.

This Novel is going to introduce the characters and the world further developing the setting. A world where those fighting the monsters have to use technology because there is no magic.

For now the working project name is Monster Hunters. I know that will not be the final name, but I have not named the organization yet.

A Choice

By Wayne Cole

On December 4, 2020

In Fiction, Fiction Fragment Friday, Flash Fiction, NaNoWriMo, Updates

Fiction Fragment Friday

First as a quick update I successfully won NaNoWriMo. I wrote a 50,000 word novel in November with a day to spare. That leaves me a lot of editing work, but this novel will be self published in 2021. Future novels I will shop around and try for a publisher, but Richocet will always be self published.

This weeks Fiction Fragment Friday is a Flash Fiction I just wrote. I am trying to do more of these just to improve my writing. I also have purchased Pro Writing Aid Premium and am using it to improve on my editing. So far I am impressed with the tool, but I have only used it a few time including on this story.

I pulled into the intersection, not knowing that this one act would change my life forever. The sun was shining, and the temperature was just perfect. It was the type of morning that makes you regret not having the day off to spend outside. I didn’t have the day off though, so I was driving in to work like every other weekday. The intersection was the last one before the work parking lot, and by this point I was on autopilot. It was just a typical Monday until I glanced over and saw the large pickup truck running a red light taking up my entire driver’s side window. It was then that time froze.

When I say that time froze, I don’t mean that as a metaphor or some sort of cliche about my life flashing before my eyes. Time literally froze. Neither the truck nor my car was moving. I looked out the front windshield and saw that the birds in the sky were just hanging there instead of flying. A man on the sidewalk was staring at the wreck that was about to happen with wide eyes open. He had dropped the fountain soda he had been holding, and it was hanging in midair. I opened my door to get out of the car and the silence was staggering. I had never experienced a true lack of sound before.

A bright blue light coming from the sky blinded me. As it lowered approaching me, I could make out a man with a flowing blue cape at the center. He glided down and landed effortlessly on the ground in front of me. With the glow fading, I could make out a mostly scarlet red costume with a blue belt, boots, and cape. There was a symbol of some sort on his chest, but I couldn’t figure out what it was trying to represent. The man was larger than life, and I could feel the energy coming off of him in waves that nearly drove me back. I said the first thing that came to mind. “Are you an Angel?”

The man laughed, but it didn’t sound like a pleasant laugh. “I am no angel.” He pointed to the truck. “I’m the drunk driver behind the wheel of that vehicle.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your death is something I have never forgiven myself for. The guilt drove me to be a better person and when I gained powers, it was the action I dedicated my life to redeeming. Now I’m left with a dilemma I don’t feel I can decide. I can stop this and save you, but if I do, all the people I have saved since getting my powers will die. I need you to understand.”

He touched my head and my mind filled with a lifetime of memories. I saw the wreck from his eyes and witnessed my death. Two years in prison filled my mind with moments of horror and moments of education. He jumped from a bridge trying to kill himself and an alien energy bonded with him, both saving his life and turning him into the man that stood before me. His daughter had drawn the symbol he wore on his chest. I saw ten years of lives being saved from disasters and violence, with an alien mind providing every face in crystal clarity. I could feel their gratitude and love. Complete understanding of the role he would play in the world was more than I could comprehend, but just what I could grasp was enough. I felt his thoughts and knew that it had all happened because of guilt over my death.

“Now you understand. If you step over to the sidewalk you will live, but I will cease to be. If you get back in the car, you will die. The choice is yours because it is your life that would be forfeit.”

Without hesitation, I got in my car and closed the door, pulling on my seatbelt. My hands came up and gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to fight off the shaking. In my mind, I heard his voice one final time. “I knew I chose correctly.” A bright blue glow surrounded me as time flowed again. I felt the impact of the truck and watched as my car wrapped around the front of it. My windshield shattered, and it filled the inside of my car with glass. The whole time the blue light surrounded me. As the car came to a rest, I found myself with a car twisted around me but not a single scratch. I felt the alien presence in my mind. “With your willingness to sacrifice yourself, you will be an even greater hero than he was.” My perception of the world was now filled with more colors, sounds, and smells then I could have ever imagined and I knew that my life would never be the same.

Updates, Updates, Updates

By Wayne Cole

On November 20, 2020

In Blog, Fiction Fragment Friday, NaNoWriMo, Updates

Fiction Fragment Friday

I’m so happy to report that I am currently at 31,592 words on my Ricochet NaNoWriMo project. It has been an interesting experience just pushing myself to get the story out there. There will be a lot of edits and rewrites to come, but I think this might be a new method of writing for me. Plan, Outline, and then sprint my way to a first very rough draft just to have something to work with. It is exciting times for me.

Another announcement is that a Kickstarter has just gone live for a flash fiction project that I am included in. It is called Worth 1,000 Words and my story in it is based on one of my Skies of Glass: Metropolis characters that I created when I did serial fiction for a while. It works as a purely stand alone story with no setting needed, but adds some depth if you have read that. You can find and support it at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brickcommajason/worth-1000-words-a-flash-fiction-anthology

With my announcements out of the way time for Fiction Fragment Friday. I struggled to pick something for this week. I didn’t want to just keep grabbing out of context parts of the Ricochet novel because I don’t want to share spoilers and it really will need some rewriting when it is done. So instead I’ve picked out a small section from the very first time I tried NaNoWriMo. I was in the middle of a datacenter move that year and failed miserably. The backstory here is that an event has occurred overnight that unleashed an EMP like effect killing all electronics in a small rural down.

There was only one grocery store in Silverton Missouri. The town was far too small to attract a chain of any kind and most people didn’t mind driving the 20 miles to the next town over to shop. Well, that isn’t entirely true, but there really wasn’t anything they could do about it so they at least accepted it. The one store they did have was really nothing more than a convenience if you ran out of something at the last minute. In fact, if it wasn’t for beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets it would have gone out of business years ago. Even that couldn’t keep it open much longer. In the entire store’s history, it had never had over five customers in it at any given time. The middle-aged clerk certainly wasn’t ready for a line stretching down the street waiting for her to open.

“Sorry I’m late everyone, my car wouldn’t start this morning. Just give me a few minutes to get set up and then I’ll unlock the doors.” Jan tried to hide the fear in her voice. She had never dealt with a crowd of this size and just kept wondering why they were all here. The fact that the power was out in the store just made her even more nervous. “Great, not only do I have a line from here to New York, but I have to check each one out by hand without the register. I knew when my car didn’t start that I should have just stayed home this morning.”

Jan unlocked the door, and a flood of people came rushing in. She was knocked back into a pyramid of soda cases and hit her shoulder on the way down. “This morning just keeps getting better and better.” The swarm of people continued to enter the store until there was barely enough room to turn around. People were bumping into each other and the tensions just seemed to be growing.

“Everyone please just calm down! I don’t know what is going on here, but this is still my store and I won’t have this kind of behavior in it.” Jan rubbed her sore shoulder. “We have seen our share of power outages around here before and you’ve never acted like this.”

One of the customers came over to help Jan up. “You don’t understand. All those times we were able to drive into Augustus and get supplies. None of our cars are working this time. Well, I have seen a few old, rusted trucks and Luke’s 69 Charger go by, but other than them nothing is on the road. I don’t even know how that’s possible.”

A young girl came over with her cell phone in her hand. “Even weirder than that, everyone I’ve talked to has a dead cell phone. Not like it isn’t picking up a signal, but like the batteries are dead. It’s really weird and everyone is all freaked out.” Suddenly a loud crash came from the bottled water isle. “No way, Principal Anderson just decked Mr. Brown.”

Jan’s face had a look of fear as she watched what was unfolding in front of her. “The police office is two blocks down; somebody get the sheriff now!” She screamed as loudly as she could, but no one seemed to be listening. Even if she would have been willing to leave her store the front door was blocked and the crowd was between her and the back door. The screaming and shoving seemed to be intensifying by the second. Jan turned to the man and the teen girl that had come over to help her. “Look you two seem to be the only sane people around here right now. If we don’t do something quickly to calm this crowd down that fight is going to turn into a riot and people are going to get hurt.”

The man who had helped Jan rushed behind the counter and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall. Before Jan realized what was happening, he had unleashed a burst of it above the heads of the unruly crowd. The deafening sound and falling white cloud shocked the crowd into attention. “Look at yourselves. We have been without power for less than a day and you are already going crazy. Principal Anderson, how would you treat your students if they were behaving like this? How would all of you treat your kids? I know there are some strange things happening here, but this is unacceptable. Look we don’t even know how widespread this is. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to head over to City Hall and try to come up with a plan to find out just what is going on and how far it reaches.”

The crowd parted as he walked towards the doors. He paused only long enough to hand Jan back her fire extinguisher and then he was on his way. Jan watched in shock as half the crowd followed the stranger out the door and down the street. She certainly didn’t envy the mayor, but at least he had the police force in the same building. The remaining crowd rushed in to fill the vacuum created by those that left. Jan realized that the crowd was far more than she could handle by herself. She turned to the teenage girl still standing besides her. “So what is your name?”

“Samantha”

“Hi Samantha, I’m Jan Williams. How would you like a part time job?”

Fountain Drink

By Wayne Cole

On November 13, 2020

In Fiction, Fiction Fragment Friday, NaNoWriMo, Updates

Fiction Fragment Friday

Hey everyone. Today will be day 13 of NaNoWriMo and I am currently at approximately 20,000 words. I have no doubt I will hit my word count today and continue to be on track to complete the challenge. I have been very happy with the story as it has developed and I can’t wait to get rewriting and editing. I’m sure some of these snippets I share for Fiction Fragment Friday will be shared again in an edited form months down the line. I wanted to share a scene today that is a bit more action oriented.

I sat perched on the corner of a building looking down a convenience store. I really wanted a fountain drink but this costume didn’t have pockets for money. I was just about to give up on the idea when I saw a man step out of the alley and pull on a ski mask. He was heading right for the front door of the store. I smiled under my mask. “Time to get to work.”

The man stepped into the store and pulled his gun out of his pocket. He aimed it right at the clerk. “Empty the register now and if you reach for anything else I’ll blow your brains out.”

Leaping from the roof my mind was racing trying to come up with something witty to say to announce myself. I slipped in the door trying to be as quiet as possible. I wanted to and make a memorable entrance. It didn’t matter if there were only two people to witness it I needed the practice if I was going to be a big time hero. What I didn’t know was that the door had one of those chimes on it so the moment it opened the robber spun around and leveled his gun on me. I leapt on instinct and just barely missed being shot as the bullet shattered the glass front door. I did a twisting somersault and landed behind the gunman facing his back. As he turned I grabbed his gun arm with my left hand to keep it facing away and then punched him in the face with my right fist. He flew through the air and smashed into a spinning rack of potato chips destroying it. His gun clattered on the floor next to me.

It was hard to make out his words when he spoke, “You bastard. I think you broke my nose.” He went to get up, but I did a spinning kick and hit him in the stomach. Grabbing the chip rack I bent it around him as a restraint.

I looked back at the clerk who was wide eyed. “Uhm thanks, but did you have to break the door and rack? Do you know how much that will cost?”

“Oh come on insurance has to cover that and the door is totally his fault.”

“Yeah but I bet they will raise the premiums. Still he could have shot me so I guess I do owe you. Any way I can say thanks?”

“Oh yeah, a 32oz Dr. Pepper would be the perfect thank you.”

“Oh, uhm sure go ahead. You do know that’s just something people say to be polite. They don’t actually expect you to take them up on it.”

I grabbed a cup and started filling it with the crushed ice. I moved it to the Dr. Pepper spout. “Hey you offered. Don’t go offering if you don’t mean it.” I stuck the straw in and pulled the cup up to take a drink. The straw poked into my mask instead of going in my mouth. “Aw damn. Ok, I think you got this from here, I gotta bounce.”

“You are just going to leave me here with him until the police get here?”

“What can I say, I’m thirsty.” I stepped through the broken front door without opening it and leapt up to the roof. I found my perch on the corner, lifted my mask so I could drink, and kept a watch over the store until the police got there. As they were loading him into the car my straw started making the annoying slurping sound of an empty cup. “Ahhh. A drink well earned.” I tossed the cup off the roof at a trashcan and was kind of surprised when it actually went in on the first try. “Oh yeah three point shot.” I jumped around making cheering sounds.

As I started home I found myself singing. The theme song from the Gummi Bears, or at least it’s chorus, had somehow gotten into my head so I made a theme song for myself out of it.

“Ricochet
Bouncing here and there and everywhere
Super hero beyond compare
He is the Ricochet”

Ricochet Beginnings

By Wayne Cole

On November 6, 2020

In Blog, Fiction Fragment Friday, NaNoWriMo, Uncategorized

Fiction Fragment Friday

I am hard at work at NaNoWriMo and doing well so far. I am over 8,000 words in and have hit the goals needed so far. I hope to get some extra writing in over the weekend so I have some slack in wordcount. I tell you all this to setup this weeks Fiction Fragment Friday. I’m going to share with you the first thousand or so words of my project.

I can usually tell by the second joke if an audience is going to respond to my set or not. There is just an energy in the room that you can feel. Sure it is always possible that I can turn the night around but when I feel that lack of energy it starts to get into my head. The voice that sounds like a cross between my own and my parents’ tells me that I’m not really a comedian. That I should have gone to college and learned something more practical. This mental spiral is like an anchor dragging me under while I fight to get my head above water and build some sort of momentum. It is a sinking feeling knowing that the next forty-five minutes of standing in the bright spotlight are going to be painful, but I have no choice. I have to keep going because I am a professional and these people have paid to see my act. Some nights they enjoy the act and other nights they wonder why they paid to see me. This was one of those second kind of nights.

Most people think that bombing means silence, but that is not the case. There are multiple ways a bad night can go. First if the audience just isn’t feeling the show you will still get some sympathy laughs. That sympathy is more for them than for you. It is awkward to sit in silence so letting out a forced laugh or chuckle helps to break it up. The second kind of failure is when you have a heckler who is loud and just will not shut up. The worst part is sometimes they are actually funny and that is just like salt being poured in the wound. That night was a third kind of failure. When you step on a land-mine you didn’t realize was there and the audience turns on you. A single heckler is bad but a crowd of boos and groans is worse.

Really people are just too judgmental. So I told a joke about Mayor Allen being an idiot. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t know that he had been killed by a super-villain earlier that day shielding a little girl. Did they expect me to watch the news or something? No I slept until around one and played video games until my girlfriend called me to make sure I wasn’t late for this gig like last time. That joke would have killed on any other night. In hindsight telling the audience that after they told me about the murder was probably not the best reaction I could have had. It’s a good thing I get paid per set and not by the laugh because once they hate you as a person you are not going to get a laugh. It is a good thing I know I’m funny or a night like this could really hurt a guys ego.

At the back of the room I saw the emcee lift her phone up and wave the lit screen at me. This was my cue to start wrapping things up so the main act could take the stage. I glanced down at my watch and noticed that she was signaling me ten minutes early and made a mental note to buy her a thank you shot. Jessie had been a good friend since high-school and she was the reason I had gotten my foot in the door at the Reignsborough Laugh Shack. She even introduced me to my girlfriend Courtney who if I was honest was way out of my league. Of course in high school Jessie was Ethan so a lot had changed in the time we had known each other. Still buds have your back and she was trying to cut my pain short and I was very grateful.

I got off stage and headed to the bar where she was waiting with a beer. “Ouch that was painful to watch.”

“You are a life saver as always.” I chugged back the beer.

“Seriously though man you had to start off with the mayor is distracted by shiny objects bit? Today? What the hell did you think would happen?”

“Welllll, first of all I didn’t know. Secondly.. I guess there is no secondly. I just didn’t know. I have got the worst luck ever.”

She stood there shaking her head at me. I knew the look she was giving me. It was disappointment mixed with pity. “It’s not luck it is you living oblivious to the world around you. Most comedians watch the news and try to be relevant you know. Also most comedians don’t show up with a big salsa stain on their shirt.”

I looked down and sure enough she was right. There by my collar line was a big red stain. I groaned and slumped onto the stool.

“Carl when are you going to get your life together? You have such potential if you just…”

I cut her off and could not keep the frustration out of my voice. “Great now you sound just like Courtney.”

“Well she is my best friend,” she said ignoring my frustration.

“Wait I thought I was your best friend.”

“Are you kidding me? After that set if anyone asks I don’t even know you.” She chuckled and I realized she was giving me an out again.

I put my hand over my heart, gasped, and fell to the floor. “Ouch a mortal wound.”

Between the laughter she choked out, “Now that was the funniest thing you have done all night.”

Laughter filled the club hitting me like a hammer to my self esteem. “Well I think that is my cue to get out of here while the crowd is distracted so they don’t wait for me in the parking lot.” I pulled myself up and gave Jessie a goodbye hug. “Thanks again Jess, I really do appreciate everything you do for me.”

“Get out of here funny man before I hit you. You know I don’t do well with flattery.”