A year ago, I kept my nose in one story: Rain of a Southern Sun. Today, I have more good starts on promising stories than I can handle. Today, I finally got walled in with critique stacks. I had to jump to escape my office.

in the editing/reworking stage:

• Double-Take: Mr. Salley is late for an important meeting when he bumps into an interesting character from his past. Now, as then, he is faced with a choice, continue or follow.
   
• Change: Skyyt (pronounced "skit") has lost everything to a Ponzi scheme. His next piece of art is dedicated to the man who orchestrated the crime against him.
   
• Sugar Rush: God chose Tricia at the fair, of all places. She's sure of it. The fortune-teller must have God's message, right?
   
• No Good Deed: Mr. Proctor didn't exist this morning but now he does. Normal life was what he wanted but the transition from there to here proves more difficult than he imagined. And the dogs keep looking at him.
   
• The Need to Split: Gunlon the Dwarf is good at what he does and has never had to consider what sort of vacation might suit him until now.
   
• Man in a Box: There has to be a reason a man awakens in horrific pain in a tiny room with no windows, no door and lit by an invisible source. Maybe if he figures out why there's a chicken on the other side of the wall.

There may be a couple more hidden somewhere. I know there is a drabble-length story in the works, but I'm not lumping those into the same batch.

When I went to the grocery store today -- a super store -- I picked up an accordion file folder where I'll keep all in-progress works and their associated notes. My book bag has always been spacious, but now that I have my thin Mac, I have even more room, so doing so shouldn't be a problem.

Unfortunately I need to carry some non-writing-related work into the weekend and Nadine and I will be belatedly celebrating our 20th Anniversary, so I may not have as much time as I would have hoped to make substantial progress on one or a few of these. (I hold out no hope for making progress on all of them.)

What Do A Lobster, A Waiting Room and the Fantasy Genre Have in Common? It turns out, not very much. Still that was the prompt my group was given in the second round of the NYC Midnight contest that ran from a minute until midnight on Friday until the same on Sunday night:

• Genre: Fantasy
• Location: A travel agency
• Object: A lobster

When I received the prompt, I deflated.

Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre I've read but not deeply and not recently. I suppose Gaiman is fantasy, but I think that's not the sort we're talking about here.

A Travel Agency
To be truthful, I've never spoken to a travel agent, nor have I used the services of a travel agency.

Lobster
I don't like the idea of lobster, the bottom feeders. I don't like their treatment, their pincers rubber banded together, the overcrowded retail tanks, their eventual live dive into boiling water.

I repeat: I deflated.

Not only was I not stoked about any of the three elements of the prompt, I found joining all three of them into a story particularly difficult. With some difficulty, I could marry Fantasy with Travel Agency. I could create a believable equivalent of a medieval or such travel agency. I could marry Fantasy with a Lobster. That was possibly the easiest combination of the three. And I could marry a lobster with a Travel Agency with a Lobster. Okay THAT would be the easiest of the three. But it was that third element that kept throwing a wrench into my thinking.

Scenario: A fellow goes into a travel agency, ends up on a vacation with a beach. Voila! Lobster. Do I introduce a fantasy creature? A secret door into a fantasy world? Introduce a quest?

The problem was not so much that I could think of a storyline; it was that I couldn't think of a storyline that fit into the 950-word flash fiction format. By the time I've done the travel agency thing, there's little more room for the introduction of the story itself.

Reading this, you might be thinking there are a hundred things coming to mind, but my thinking was this: everyone is going to go funny; everyone is go funny or cutsy. But this is a competition. I not only need to write a solid story, but the real marketing truth of the matter is that my story needs to stand out as well. I'm not talking about in a cliche' way though. I mean I couldn't simply go with my first idea. That's the one most folks run with due to the 48-hour time constraint. I needed to think a couple levels deeper and still have a good story.

I ran into dead end after dead end. Unable to sleep and finding no success dreaming on the prompt, I decided I had to walk. 

From a very early age, I would piss my mom off by skipping the school bus and walking home. On the walk home, I would sing, monologue, create poetry (that I never wrote down) or read. Even now, when faced with deadlines, I find that a long walk or a long bicycle ride is a perfect way to release the brain juices.

I headed out at 4am. In 2 miles, I had gotten a mild workout, seen hordes of bats gobble up less fortunate hordes of insects and had come up with the seed of the story line that could combine the disparate prompt elements. It was like magic. It never fails. I headed to the San Antonio Writers Guild Saturday write-in at 8am tired and not having written a word but armed with a short arc.

The next time you're faced with a difficult challenge, be it personal, professional or creative, I suggest finding some rhythmic activity to lull your mind into its deeper workings. There's a drumbeat to how we think and that sort of activity can bring it out when you need it.

I haven't mentioned it enough -- and probably should have -- that, when I'm not traipsing around as a writer, I work as a web designer / developer for ICG Link, Inc., a top notch web design and web hosting company out of Brentwood, TN.

In that role, I design new websites, redesign websites that have aged or are ready for the next level. One of my favorite tasks is creating logos. In fact logos and cd covers are probably the two biggest reasons folks in my age bracket got interested in design in the first place. Logo design is something I don't get to do as often as I would like, so when the chance comes along every now and again, I dive in with a passion.

Hear1st, either a sister or a child company of HearingPlanet.com, requested a logo redesign last week and here's the finished piece. They are a site that offers inexpensive medium-to-high-end hearing aids through their enormous network of audiologists across the company. The logo had to communicate "inexpensive" but not "cheap," "high-end" but not "out of range" as well as communicate the industry the company is in: hearing, sound, health.

For those who don't know about typography, some words are better suited to stylization than others. It just so happens, the word "hear" is one of those words that, regardless how it is written -- all caps, initial caps, lower case, vertical (never a good idea) or whatever -- it always looks weak. Trust me on this. "h" is horrible to work with. I could go on and on.

Bottom line I had fun coming up with this. The graded blue (high-end) counters the orange (affordable) and the curved lines, in a lower position relative to the type, read as sound waves without stealing attention from the company name. I was very happy with the outcome and the client signed off on it. A good half day's work.

Participants in the NYC Midnight 2009 Creative Writing Championships learned the results of the first round of action last night at a minute before midnight. This contest is run in a curious, fun fashion. Participants earn point in the first two round based on their stories' standings relative to others in their 15-writer group. First in a round earnes 25 points; second earns 22 and so on. Only those with the highest pont totals earn the right to write a third-round story. Only the highest-ranked of that round move on the the fourth and final round.

I woke up after midnight, remembering the results would be in. I found my name and saw a 4 next to it. I jumped around in ecstacy. 4th place out of 15 writers. Not bad for a story that didn't fare terrribly well in my local critique group. I logged on to Twitter and was about to tweet when I decided I'd be wise to double-check. I'm Irish and am easily swept up by emotions. I've done foolish things before in this state of mind.

I confirmed I had made an error. I realized the "4" denoted the group I was in, not my ranking. I clicked the correct link on the page for the group results, my heart low by now. I had placed 2nd. More jumping ensued, so much so that I forgot to Tweet or post on Facebook. I went to bed with a big smile.

Good news is so energizing. I was already pumped about tomorrow's prompt and write-in, now I'll be lucky to find a hook in the ground to keep me in my chair!

Bless this day and all that come after for I have, as of yesterday, made the switch from PC to Mac after about a decade of darkness and frustration.

When I first began my design career, O'More College of Design in Frankin, Tennessee back in '92, when I pulled my chair in front of a computer to create my first digital layouts, a Mac sat in front of me. Even 18 years ago -- a gray hair just leapt to its death, btw -- graphic design was a Mac industry. Every artistic industry was and there was good reason for it. I bought a Mac for my own use during college and used it well into my early graphic design career afterwards.

Then Satan descended to earth on New Year's day of 1999. A fellow at a party asked me this fateful question: "Do you design websites?"

Two thoughts entered my mind at that moment:

In my last year of college, only three years before, I asked an instructor, "So what's a web page?" That's a bad sign, right?

I'm terrible at freelancing. This sounds like a perfect time to say yes.

I said yes. Four months later, he knew the truth had been no, but you're in too deep to let me go now. In that uncomfortable time, I learned just enough about web design to get myself into a entry level job as a web maintenance flunky.

At this nightmarish first web-specific job, I learned that the industry I had fallen onto the wrong side of the fence: PCville. In a day, my Mac became a tool of limited use. Soon it would be replaced as my need for work-from-home machine became necessary.

It has been so until yesterday when, after learning that not only was my company switching to Macs but that my boss would be graciously footing the not-insubstantial bill for the switchover software, I bought a display model 17" MacBook Pro. 

I've only begun to learn all of its capabilities and I may not be able to hook it to my triple monitor set-up I have now, but I can tell already that the learning curve will be short.

I'll be using the Mac in Round 2 of NYC Midnight contest so it's a trial by fire tonight at a 10:59!

It's only Wednesday but I'm way excited about this coming weekend.

Round 2 of the NYC Midnight Creative Writing Championship runs from -- duh -- midnight on Friday until midnight on Sunday. The contest directors email out a Setting, Genre and Object and contestants have the next 48 hours to whip up a 1000-or-less-word story. Last month's story for Round 1 got skewered in critique. My story idea was good -- more on this later -- but I think it was a bit more than 1000 words could handle.

Live and learn, right. With last weekend's Writer's Weekly short story in which we only had 24 hours to come up with a similar-lengthed story I think I may have found the right groove for coming up with the right scope of ideas.

My good fortune is that everyone in the competition gets to Round 2. It's the combined ranking of Rounds 1 and 2 that earns us a place in Round 3. We are assigned a group of 15 writers. Each writer in my group got the same Setting, Genre and Object. So let's say I really messed up in Round 1 and I came in dead last. If I whip out the best story in Round 2, my total is 16: 1 point for last place in Round 1 and 15 points for first place in Round 2. That would beat someone who came in 8th one week and 9th another.

That's not to say I think I got last place, but it's possible. Regardless, I learned a lot from Round 1 and I'll be surrounded by fellow writers for much of Round 2 so I can bounce ideas off them if necessary.

And that brings me to the second reason I'm pumped about this coming weekend. It's another San Antonio Writers Guild write-in at Bethany Congregational Church. I'm normally pumped about the write-ins but this weekend, with the NYC contest, I don't have to make a decision about what to write. I'll already have been stewing on the idea by the time I arrive.

The event starts at 9am, but I always arrive early, around 8ish. There are always too many breakfast tacos, nice folks, scheduled breaks and quiet during writing blocks. It's a perfect atmosphere for writing and it couldn't come at a more perfect time.

This will be the second weekend in a row that is dominated by my writing. In an effort not to come off too selfish, I'll probably need to be ultra-present for a couple weeks.

Wish me luck.

Saturday (07/18) at noon, I received the odd prompt from Writers Weekly for another round of their wonderful 24-Hour Short Story Contest. Last Fall, I had great success, winning one of 10 honorable mention spots. I joke with people that  consider it a 4th-place finish when it's just as likely I placed 13th. Still, it was my first contest entry and any recognition was a great boost to my ego and fueled my writing for another couple months.

This year's prompt was difficult for me though:

I've been trying to pinpoint what made the prompt so difficult for me and I've decided it was the setting. I have never enjoyed fairs or circuses or the atmosphere that surrounds them but I have had fun writing about setting I wouldn't enjoy being in. The difficulty that, in a circus setting the weird is completely expected, so making something odd happen there loses its contrast with the normal. Go to a creepy or weird place and, of course, weird stuff will happen. What I enjoy is going to the safest places, the commonest places, and have hell break loose.

I suppose I could have thought about the prompt in a different manner. It could have been NOT a fortune-teller. It could have NOT been a circus tent. It could have been cotton candy that she happened to buy at the corner market, but c'mon.

The curious thing about not being immediately taken with the prompt is the story idea came more easily than ever before. I pride myself on having pretty good ideas and coming up with them relatively quickly. I've even learned how to push past a common pitfall among creatives, that being having difficulty choosing between a pile of good ideas. No, I took pretty much my first idea and ran with it, never considering a sidestep to another idea. Doing so made the process move smoothly. Never once did I feel rushed. Compared to the NYC Midnight contest [which I'm in the midst of] which gives me 48 hours instead of 24, this story was a cake walk as far as the amount of stress experienced.

What I came up with was a story about...Well, I suppose I need to wait. Never know who reads things these days, eh?

The results of the contest should be published about this time next month. I'll keep you posted.

I understand that the last "new" look only lived from may until today but the change to the present look was necessary.

Improvements:

• Blog - The star of the new look is the blog feature. On the old look, I created pages which looked like a blog; however, they were not searchable or subscribable. Updating the entries -- their order and content -- was also becoming increasingly difficult as more were added. I'm curious to see how/if the new blog's functionality will be used.
   
• Contact Form - I probably could have figured out how to create and manage a contact form on my free host; they had scripts available. But being a web designer and having worked for one of the best hosting/design companies out there (ICG Link, Inc.) I've used pretty much the most robust form script I've ever seen. "Once they've seen the city, how will they ever come home to the farm." Bottom line is I never had a contact form.

Edits are ongoing, but I feel I've finally settled on the right tool for what I need to promote my writing. Please feel free to contact me with comments, questions or suggestions.

Click here to comment or visit my contact form.

The 4th is meant to be a time spent with family. In that regard alone, our family's holiday was not a disappointment.

My older son had a crit (criterium race, cylcing) around 8am. He's hot off a cycling development camp and wa eager to test his new skills in a Cat 4/5 race. That's a race against beginning racers and those in the level just above them. He's been steadily improving his finishes: top-5 finishes are becoming the norm.

With one lap to go, my fatherly nerves kicked in

The final stretch. A sprint finish. My boy is sandwiched between two teammates from an opposing Austin team. The idiot on his right accelerates and veers left to squeeze him out. My boy has learned how to lean and nudge so he applies the skill -- likely to the older rider's surprise and disappointment -- and finishes 3rd.

The bad news is he finishes, not on his bike but backwards in the air. He breaks his collarbone and ends up (for now) being disqualified. The other guy should have been (and may still end up being) disqualified; however, he was able to protest in the 15 minutes following the race and my boy, on his way to the local emergency room, was not. I'm confident, he will be vindicated in the end.

He suffered abbrasions to the palm, wrist, both elbows, left shoulder and right shin. Of course, being a boy of (nearly) 17, he's more disturbed by the disqualification and the points missed out on as a result.

As a father, I could handle the injury. I saw it happen and realized, though his collar bone was broken, there was no sign of spinal injury or serious breaks.

My wife, on the other hand, could only imagine her boy's condition, so she took the news harder. To make matters worse, after she hung up with me, the sad news came that her mother had died. Elsie had been fighting a third bout with cancer in the last two years. Finally, three or so months ago, she had a series of minor strokes which had increasingly complicating effects. In the last few weeks, there was no Elsie left. The end was not surpring, but the period at the end of the sentence brings with it a clearer point of view.

So this holiday weekend has been one of worry and grieving. My boy is doing fine, even to the point he could bake a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookies. And my wife is doing well considering the situation. She leaves for Florida early tomorrow morning.

We did end up seeing some impressive fireworks though. Six Flags over San Antonio can't hide their show, so thousands of us line roads for miles around the park. The funny thing is a large church near us happened to have an equally impressive display so we were treated to that on our slow drive home. It was close enough, we could have stayed home the whole time. Ah well.