| 8
| Off-trail
New!
Poet couples exchange poems, artist couples draw pictures of each other, and writer couples write stories on Valentine's Day. Those of us lucky few who are all three do all of the above. This is a story I wrote as a gift for my boyfriend, starring the two characters we made up one afternoon when we had a lot of time on our hands. If you imagine it in some obscure corner of the X-men universe, it makes a lot more sense. But it does stand on its own pretty well too, and those of you who are put off by Valentiny things will be happy to note that it isn't at all sappy. Just cute. And adventurous, which is exactly the way these two characters would have it. Why go on a movie date when you can go hiking in the middle of nowhere instead?
| 85
| Ember's Fire
And here we have my second NaNoWriMo effort. As before, great fun. This time I was more rushed, and didn't think I'd finish on time, but due to the boon that is Thanksgiving weekend, I managed to do an insane amount of writing in a very short time indeed. And I do love some of these characters so. This story began with a race I made up for the last one; they were cool and intriguing and they all died within a couple of pages. I wanted to write about them more. So I decided that there had been another one of the group that got separated from the others before they entered the scene, and I wrote about her. And since I knew nothing about her race, life, or planet, I gave her amnesia and let her find it out for me. She did a remarkable job, really. I'm quite proud. I'm also not finished with this story, since there's a good deal I'd like to add in. But it'll be a while before that happens, so here's the first draft. W00t, I say.
| 6
| Pieces of Sky
This is one short story that is about 50% poetry. It's written in story format, but it's undeniably poetic. Also quite weird. And different. And very very cool, at least in my mind and those of some of the people who've read it so far. It's been a wonderful experiment, really; I started with a collection of lines from poems that I'd read at one point or another and particularly liked. I'd written these down for future inspiration of some sort, and I ended up incorporating a lot of them into this. The story grew around them. And I love it so.
| 10
| Playing With Fire
I was originally going to call this Summoning Trouble, as in, "people summoning something that will cause trouble." But that can also be read as the more boring "trouble with summoning." So I ended up calling it Playing With Fire instead, which is sadly a cliche no matter how you look at it. It is appropriate, though. This story was written in a hurry for class, so it's certainly not a master work of mine. It's still kinda fun, though. Enjoy.
| 5
| Coyote The Storyteller
Here we have another one of those thingies that can technically be called a school assignment, but only barely. The assignment was to do something creative that was somehow related the projects we were doing in Native American Literature class. I was doing a project on Hopi storytelling. So I got the go-ahead to write my own Coyote myth, in as close to the Hopi style as I could manage. I enjoyed it immensely.
| 8
| Pointing At The Water
This is the third product of the writing exercise I was doing with my mom. The prompt for this one was a picture of a little boy standing on a carved rock slab, looking at the camera and pointing down at something in the stream next to him. My mom ended up with a short little story with a pretty good moral, and I got this. Let's hear it for fishpeople!
| 103
| Kicking Dandelions in the Dark
And now, what you've all been waiting for! At least, those of you who know I was doing NaNoWriMo this year. That, for the unenlightened, is National Novel Writing Month, in which crazy writers from around the world all attempt to write bad novels in the month of November. It's great fun. Not everyone succeeds in crossing the 50,000 word finish line, but I did (muahaha). The story's still in a rather rough-draft-ish form, but since it'd take more time and effort than I can spare now to make it near publishable quality, I'm putting it up as is. Besides, it's plenty fun as it is now. If you're reading it and get bored with the way the plot's going at the beginning, keep in mind that things get a lot more interesting at about page 30. That's when stuff really starts happening. And for those of you I know offline, keep an eye out for the cameo appearances of a few people. Heh. Such fun.
| 2
| Hiding & Spinning
I'm tempted to call this more of a fragment than a story, since it's not much in the way of a complete plot. It's really a scene, is what it is. A fun scene, though. The inspiration came by way of a wonderfully simple writing exercise my mom and I started doing: we find a prompt that we can write about, and set to it without stopping 'till we're done. This one took about an hour, if I remember correctly. The prompt was a list of slightly confusing things [which makes its appearance as the list the main character ends up producing]. This list came from a website full of such intriguing tidbits people found; it's all published in the aptly-named Found Magazine. Interesting stuff.
| 4
| The Bigot Upstairs
This came from the second session of the above writing exercise, with a different prompt. Namely a succinct, scrawled note that appears in the story [yes, I'll call this one a story, since it has several scenes, and more of a plot than the last one]. It's also set in the world of the long story I'm still working on, in which there are multiple intelligent Races, by which I mean species. In case you wonder, the otremns are a good bit taller, stronger, and generally intimidating than the humans, and they also have blue skin [which I did not make up, by the way; do a search for "Methemoglobinemia" or the "Blue Fugates", and you'll learn something truly interesting].
| 13
| Seance in Reverse
Another ghost story! With interesting ghosts, nothin' like the stereotypes. I'm quite enjoying writing these; there may be more to come. Will. There will be more to come; I just dunno when exactly. But until there are more, here's the latest offering, full of fun moments that I won't talk about because that would give it away. But suffice it to say, I'm fond of all the characters in here, living and dead.
| 10
| Just Ask
I've been saying that this one's "technically a ghost story, but really a people story." The phrase "ghost story" just brings up the wrong mental images. Anyways, this is sort of the unofficial prequel to a long series that I'll probably write some day. In other words, the main character may show up again eventually, when he's a bit older (and I've thought it through more thoroughly). But even if this is the only place he ever shows up, this is plenty good. 'Twas lots of fun. I got most of the ideas for it while driving home on the freeway, from song lyrics and random sights (one song mentioned ghosts, an ad on a truck said "Just ask," etc). Whee.
| 3 | Realities
This is a school assignment from 11th grade that I thought I'd lost. I'm glad I found it, since it's a fun little 3-pager. We had to write old-fashioned vocab stories, using all our spelling words [that sure sends me back to elementary school]. We wrote them in pairs for some reason, and I was paired up with Amie L. [I don't know if she'd want her name on the net, so I'll play it safe]. Here's the story that shaped itself around the words, complete with offscreen cameo of a classmate.
| 29 | Both of Me
Fun with cloning in the near future. This was a bit of a challenge to write, since I don't have much experience writing complete jerks. But it was an adventure, and it turned out to be lots of fun.
| 9 | Accidental Ambassadors
Remember the tyjexes, from way down at the bottom of this page? Well here's a new story about 'em! I've been looking for subtle ways to make their whole world slightly less cheesy. See if you can spot any of the ones I used. Also, kudos if you know which other story Ian and Akiri were in.
| 1 | Astronaut Fish
Sequel! Yay! Y'know, out of all the stories here, Out of Water is probably the last one I expected a sequel from. But this sequel was created pretty much the same way the prequel was: for Out of Water, I took a weird idea and used it in the school assignment of a really short story. For Astronaut Fish, well, in class we had to write for ten minutes straight, starting with the phrase "Chris had never." I made Chris into the first human to encounter the Ingroms, my little aquatic aliens.
| 1 | Second Human
Ingroms again! We had to write for another ten minutes, this time starting with the phrase "When the car stopped, Chris..." Heh heh. I'm starting to like Chris.
| 1 | Meet The Fish
In my Creative Writing class, we got papers with suggestions for stories. Guess what I decided to do with the beginning "Later, when he tried to sort out what had happened, Alex could never remember..." Here's a hint: Chris is in it.
| 1 | Boardwalk
Yup, I did it again. This beginning sounded promising: "If the waitress hadn't taken so long to bring their menus..." I'm having a lot of fun with the Ingroms. There will most likely be more story bits about them soon. I have to find out what else they're going to do on Earth!
| 5 | Partnership
This began as a short little sketch of a story for school, but I liked it so much that I went over it and made it into something I could be proud of. It works as either a stand-alone or a first chapter. I plan to write more about these characters though, so there will be a sequel / next chapter. There are a few [really interesting] people to be introduced, and lots of things for them to do!
| 2 | Pre-shifting
I like defining magic systems; coming up with logical ways for them to work. It's no fun if you can just wave a magic wand, say a bizarre word or two, and *poof* you're a frog. Or whatever. Details and explanations are much more fun.
| 3 | Sanity
At school we were told to write a two-page-minimum story about "sanity in an insane world." I don't know about most of the class, but I enjoyed the assignment. I think this main character will be showing up again sooner or later.
| 1 | Out of Water
Yes, this is absurdly short. But it was a lot of fun to write. Who says aliens have to look anything like us?
| 5 | A.L.O.A.E. An interesting little story written because I was annoyed with the same thing the main character is. (The main character is pretty much me, as I was when I wrote the story and somewhat as I hope to be in a few decades. Only the names of the people are changed.) Oh, and the title will make sense only after you read the story. >:)
| 54 | Retractable Claws
A furry transformation story (woohoo!). Written some time ago, but still interesting. One of these years I may get around to writing a sequel.
| 3 | Calyx
{a.k.a. Invaders}
School assignment that turned out pretty good. We had to find a picture of anything, then write a story to go along with it. My picture was a drawing I'd done of a wingless dragon-thing flaming a tree stump.
| 11 | Movie Magic
Technically this was also an assignment, but it hardly counts since it was my idea. =) In history class we do a report each semester on practically any topic, as long as it's marginally historical and the teacher agrees. I asked if I could write a story instead, and got permission. The topic was special effects. It was great fun!
| 3 | Random or Not
This isn't really a story, more of a rambling thing that I wrote for no particular reason. I'd remembered some of my thoughts from earlier in the day, and decided to record them. It may not be perfectly coherent in some spots: I just wrote it as I thought it. I think it's some intriguing musings.
| 65 | Cherry
Lotsa fun to write. Street kid with a Gift, and a protector who fits no stereotypes. Lots of cameo appearances from my other characters as well (some of whom are only in my drawings and my head so far).
| 6 | Costume
I got a quick idea and ran with it. {New species!} This story introduces the capricanes (actually "Cherry" does, but all the characters are capricanes here), a species similar to humans, but with more than enough differences to make things interesting.
| 36 | Retractable Teeth
Once upon a time I wanted to write a story where the vampire was the good guy. I ended up creating quite a universe.
| 3 | Strange Rescue
The idea for this came up while I was working on "Retractable Teeth." So, I took a break and wrote it out.
| 5 | Extenuating Circumstances
During another break from my first vampire story, I wrote this one (my third). It's a "what if" idea.
| 56 | Flying To An Adventure
Now this is old, but I'm still fond of it (you can tell how old it is by the dopey title). Uniquely enough, this was the last story (so far) in one series, and the first in a new one that evolved as I wrote this. I haven't written anything in the original series since, because I like the new one better. (It introduces the Tyjexes, a very fun taurform species of my own creation.) Oh, and since I took so long writing this, the end is much better than the beginning. So don't give up on it!
| 8 | Linked Minds
In this I took a couple of side characters from "Flying To An Adventure," and did a flashback to an important scene from their childhood.
| 11 | Hidden Villages
School assignment! But enjoyable. (Only the fun ones get put up on my webpage, obviously.) Here it is, complete with the teacher's corrections. We had to write and illustrate a children's story. So I grabbed two of my favorite Tyjexes, rewound time until they were at the age of my intended readers, and gave 'em an interesting adventure. I ended up with another intelligent species in their dimension, which is definitely a plus.
| 5 | Riton
Once more bringing the side characters into focus, here's an incident that takes place not too long after the first Tyjex story (for which the main character is very glad). [No, I'm not explaining that last line >:) ]
| 2 | Etc
| This isn't a story, just a couple pages of facts pertaining to Drats, as well as an explanation for why all the Tyjexes have names starting with "Tyj." (About time I came up with a reason, huh?)
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