A Quick Check-In:

I’m still processing my time at WorldCon. Was that a week ago? Wow. Seems like it’s been longer for some reason. I’ve still got the post-con blues. Usually when I come home from a con, the first thing I do is go on line to find out when the next big con is. In this case, it’s Dragon*Con, which is prohibitively expensive to attend and travel to (it’s in Atlanta, after all). There are a few gaming cons here and there, but those aren’t really my scene. There’s a local horror con coming up, so I may check that out. But none of these compare to WorldCon. So, as I mentioned on my Facebook page, we’ve already purchased our memberships for WorldCon 2026.

Last Week’s Story:

Last week’s story, “What He Built In There”, is loosely based on the Tom Waits song, “What’s He Building in There?”:

It’s also got some elements of body horror, some Frankenstein, and a bit more. I decided to write it in first-person plural POV (“we said” instead of “I said”, for instance), and in present tense. It was a challenge, to be sure, because the main character referred to themself as “I” to the other characters, but as “we” to the reader, and the other characters referred to the main character as “she”. Keeping all that in mind while keeping the narrative coherent was hard, but it was fun!

I think it’s important, as a writer, to experiment with this sort of thing. It builds up skill, toughens the muscles, and makes for a better writer. Who knows if “What He Built In There” will be publishable after revision (I think it will), but it was fun to write, and it gave me joy.

This Week’s Prompt:

I rolled a 2 on the d8, and a 4 on the d6. The 2 meant to pull from the Main Deck, and the 4 is for Humor. I haven’t rolled a 4 since I started this, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes up. At any rate, here’s the prompt:

A foul-mouthed ghost wants to save a life from a company, but the last time they tried, it ended in humiliation

This looks like it might be easy, but, as they say, comedy is hard. Some writers, like Carl Hiassan and Christopher Moore and Terry Pratchett and Mur Lafferty, make it look easy. But it’s not. Sometimes the jokes work and are objectively funny, but sometimes they fall flat. Some jokes will land for some readers, and the same ones will bore others into a yawn and bore them… and a bored reader is a reader who won’t finish your story. I’ve written some pretty funny stuff before, but I never quite know how I do it. So I’m intrigued by the challenge of this one.

Of course, foul-mouthed ghosts are a hoot in and of themselves, but can lend themselves to low-hanging humorous fruit. Gotta be careful there.

In short: a challenge, but it looks like it will be a fun one.

(You might not have noticed, because I’ve never made it clear, that the featured image I choose for these posts is related to the prompt I draw and the story I intend to write. They don’t always match. I think this one will, though.)

This Week’s Recommendation:

It’s a game! Specifically, it’s the game Mysterium by Libellud Studios. We hosted a game day today, and played this one. Basically, one player is the ghost of a murdered person, and conveys clues to the other players, who play psychics, via obscure and abstract images on cards. You only get seven turns to figure out all the clues. Part of the game is cooperative, while part of it is competitive, and I find this aspect interesting. It makes for a cool dynamic as the play session evolves.

I highly recommend picking up this game and adding it to your rotation, if you haven’t already.

And That’s It!

As always: Stay safe, stay kind, stay weird, have fun!