Last week’s story:

Again, I’m all caught up! I finished last week’s story, “The Obsidian Toad”, just yesterday. It’s not really a story that’s mine to tell, because it’s a queer person’s coming-out story, which means I will never try to publish it. I am not queer in any way, and I have no need to come out in that regard. I have no experience of being queer, so how can I possibly write such an experience with authenticity? So I won’t share this story. Ever. It’s a very personal story, an examination of how I would come out to someone were I were queer, but again, not my story to share.

HOWEVER! I AM CAUGHT UP! Let me just bask in that for awhile. As I get closer to the end of this project, it will be very important, to me at least, that I finish on time.

This week’s prompt:

In other news, it’s Advent! Christmas is a mere twenty-six days away, slightly less than four weeks! So I’ve decided that in order to truly get into the spirit of the season, I’ll add a festive Christmas-ey element to each of the next three stories. I’m not sure how I’ll do that if I draw a Horror prompt, but I’ll make it work. After all, one of my more successful stories, “How the Old Ones Saved Christmas”, is a Christmas horror story, as is “Night of the Frozen Elf”. So I know I can do it. The featured image for this post should server as some inspiration for me, too; it’s our Eyeball Christmas Tree from 2021. I still love it.

Anyway. Here’s this week’s prompt. I rolled an 8 on the d8 to draw from the Horror deck, and a 1 on the d6 to indicate Historical. So here’s the prompt:

A camp leader wants to escape the trap of a spooky well, but it will drive them to the brink of madness.

Historical horror. I feel like setting this one in the 70s or 80s since that’s when I grew up. I never went to camp (because I had asthma and because it was expensive and because I was an anxiety-ridden kid), and I’ve never been a camp leader, so this will take some imagination on my part. But that’s okay. I’ve seen the relevent documentation of what it’s like to be a camp leader in the 80s, such as Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp.

So this one should be challenging, but I have some ideas already.

This week’s recommendation:

I recently read Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan. Elizabethan espionage! A mystical Court of Faerie! All kinds of things! So I hereby recommend this novel to you. To be honest, I’d hoped to read The Natural History of Dragons, by the same author, but it was checked out from the library so I couldn’t. I do not regret the substitution.

Enjoy!

And so on:

Today is the first day of Advent, the period of time leading up to the Christmas holiday. In the Episcopal and other liturgical churches, it’s a time of reflection and prayer. So do that.

And as always, and especially as we approach a time of year that should be contemplative and joyful but it often fraught with strive, stress, and conflict: Be kind. Stay safe. Be punk AF. And buy local if at all possible.