But First:

In addition to the thirty-two stories I’ve written for this “2025 Commitment”, I realized I’ve also written four flash fiction pieces for Mur Lafferty’s “Kick in the Pants” workshops, which she holds in her Discord server twice a month. So, that’s a total of thirty-six stories I’ve written this year. This year I’ve also revised my novella Padma, and I’ve started work on Witness to the Scourge, my new novel. No wonder I’m tired!

Last Week’s Story:

I finished “Our Love is a Work in Progress” on Monday, pleased as punch to have the darn thing done. It was one of the few stories in this process that I haven’t enjoyed writing and probably won’t revisit; it’s less than 1,000 words long, and features a character I created a long time ago. Iike the character, but not this story. It’s too clunky. Too heavy-handed. But that’s okay. You live and you learn.

But last week’s story, “The Race”, I finished just today after starting it last Tuesday. It was fun! There were some bits that were uncomfortable to write, but you know what? That’s good! I firmly believe that sometimes writing something that makes you uncomfortable helps you grow as a writer. This story features a character I created in Story 13, “Bertrand Seizes the Day”, and a technology that I created in the previous week’s story, “Innocuous”. I like the character, and I continue to be fascinated by the technology, so who knows? I may eventually grow that into a series of linked stories.

This Week’s Prompt:

This week, I rolled a 6 on the d8 for Science Fiction, and a 2 on the d6 for Romance. My friend Theresa says the Universe is going to continue to force that Romance sub-genre on me until I get comfortable with it, which is probably true. Here’s the prompt:

A xenophobic weapons specialist wants to pull off a heist with an energy weapon, but it will introduce a dangerous technology to the world.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with this prompt yet, but I have some ideas in mind. I really liked two of the characters from last week’s story, so maybe I’ll write a romance with them, and the plot from the prompt will be secondary. I’m allowed to do that!

And an Announcement:

I’ll be at WorldCon soon, so I probably won’t post my next prompt until Monday instead of Sunday. Will you be there too? Say Hi!

This Week’s Recommendation:

This week it’s a book of poetry. I’m not much into poetry, but I enjoyed this collection, Tramp, by Brad Shurmantine. Mr. Shurmantine — I can’t call him Brad, for reasons which will become apparent in just a moment — taught me English three years in a row in high school: regular Sophomore English, and two years of Advanced Placement English (different focuses each year). He was a fantastic teacher, and he really encouraged me as a writer, so I owe him a large debt of gratitude. And it’s not for these reasons that I’m recommending his poetry collection: they’re just good.

And no, I will never be able to call my high school teachers by their first name, even on Facebook.

So that’s it. As always, play nice, stay kind, stay safe, and be punk.