Last week’s story:

I didn’t finish last week’s story, “The Tower”, of course. I did finish “Sir Reynold Steals his Heart’s Desire” from the week before, though, so I’m calling that a win. I plan on working on “The Tower” tonight and tomorrow.

It’s kind of sad that even though I set aside some time every day for writing, I don’t get any done. I’ve started using Clockify, a time tracking tool, to help me figure out where my time goes. And, sadly, I find that over the past two days, I have spent 45 to 90 minutes each day on social media (between Facebook, Instagram, and so on). It may be more than that. I have to keep tracking in order to figure it out. Once I’ve done this tracking for a week or so, I will be able to make some more serious adjustments, I think.

This week’s prompt:

I rolled a 3 on the d8 for Fantasy, and a 3 on the d6 for Thriller, which means fantasy thriller. I’m still not an expert on thrillers and I suspect I need to read some more. The genre as a whole doesn’t much appeal to me, I’m afraid, but that may be because I just haven’t read enough good ones. I like horror novels, but I like them with supernatural elements. Without the horror element, a horror novel just becomes a a novel about people being awful to other people, and I can find that in the news. No thanks.

Anyway, here’s the prompt:

A noble wants to enchant an elvish crown, but an ancient evil will be released

As I looked at the die roll, I felt like I’d seen it before; and I had, of course, just two weeks ago. It was the roll I made for “Sir Reynold Steals his Heart’s Desire”, another fantasy thriller short story. And come to think of it, I have read some fantasy thrillers; the most recent one, I think, was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. That one is good: dense with worldbuilding and characterization and rich in language. It was one of the few novels I’ve read that made me go “NO!” when a certain scene happened. I recommend it.

So yeah, fantasy thrillers are a thing, as long as you count heist as subgenre of thriller, which I think I do. I’ll still fight you on it.

This week’s recommendation:

Yesterday afternoon I swung by the Pitch and Fiddle, an Irish pub in Fair Oaks, CA, to see my friend M. Todd Gallowglas perform. He always does something different every time I’m told (though in the decade-plus that I’ve known him, this is the first time I’ve seen him perform), and pop a couple of shots of Irish whiskey into him, he’ll do it in a thick Irish accent.

Yesterday was also the launch of his newest novel, Halloween Jack and the Red Emperors. I’ve read his novels, and they’re solid. He’s a great writer, and I strongly recommend that you pick up his books and read them. His poetry is great as well. His books are all available at Amazon, but if you’re in the area, you should go to one of his shows and buy directly from him if you can. More money gets to him that way.

Oh, and he’s a wonderful writing instructor as well.

And that’s it!

So, as always, be kind, be weird, be punk, and stay safe!