So, to kick of the new year, I asked a bunch of my friends on Facebook to give me topics so I could write them a short story – just as I did last year.  I got some hilarious ideas from various people, and I can’t wait to get started.   I will geer up and get writing on the suggested topics in the next week or two, so if anyone wants to suggest more topics throughout this project, go ahead.

I recently wrote one short-short which you can read here.  It’s a zombie story, so be aware that there will be violence and disgusting-ness (is that even a word?) in there.

I hope you enjoy my first story of 2011!  I will try to write and publish one here on a bi-weekly basis. For, as my friend Jess Haines (who is awesome and everyone should check out) says: “How can you get published if you don’t write anything?”

Why, oh why, am I doing this?  Well, recently two of my friends randomly inspired stories.  One I posted here The Easter Massacre and another I gave to a friend as a “get well soon” gift. Anyway, I liked writing those stories. So, I figured it’d be fun to get you guys involved and inspiring me to write more short fiction.

Just so you know, I am currently concentrating on long fiction (i.e. novels), but I like to keep my hand in the short fiction world.

So, let me know what you want me to write about and I’ll try to do your idea justice.

PS: Don’t give me something that’ll offend you if I totally twist it.  Like, don’t give me “my son’s birthday” if you’d be upset if I added “massacre” or “undead” somewhere in the sentence.

Presenting: The True Story of Sleeping Beauty by Julia Scott-Douglas

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

So… I’m looking around for another market which might like it.  I’m also going to go through it and give it a little revamp to see if there’s anything else that could be edited – though to be honest I’ve done that to a point where I’m kind of sick of the story.

Next, I just submitted a story to Weird Tales.  It’s for their One Minute Weird Tales section, which is pretty cool. I edited the piece and sent it along, feeling pretty good, until I clicked over to my list of things I’ve sent out. Wouldn’t you know it, I’ve sent that to Weird Tales before. This time, however, I’ve renamed it and edited it. So… hopefully this time they’ll like it better. I have a sinking feeling that they won’t though. *Sigh* It’s not my night tonight. Gimme some hot chocolate and let me go to sleep.

BUT, I shall overcome. Some of my favorite podcasts are having an awesome flash fiction contest where a person can submit their fiction and the lovelies at Escape Artists have their listeners decide who should win. I will submit and hopefully I’ll win! I can’t tell you what I’m going to submit, but I suggest that starting April 1st, you get on there and start voting. Maybe you’ll vote mine up! That would be amazing!

Ok, high ho, off to work I go.

I wrote some more on my book last week, but I mostly rewrote a short story called “There’s an Alien in my Bedroom”.  I think it’s pretty awesome, and I kinda wrote it for the Drabblecast, but I need to edit it as it’s a bit too long for that audio-zine. Hopefully it’ll edit down to 2000 words and I’ll get to submit it, since it’s really too weird for any other magazine I can think of.

In other news, I FINALLY talked to my friend who will be doing the photography for my stories up and coming e-book/podiobook extravaganza.  I don’t think I’ve really talked much about it since I’m just in the planning stages, but I think it’s going to be pretty damn awesome.

So… right now I’m going through all the stories I want to put in said e-book, then summarizing them for her so she can go through her massive photo collection and/or get inspired to take some amazingly rockin’ photos of her own.  As soon as she gets a website up, I’ll tell you who she is.

That’s all for now folks… see ya this Sunday for another story.  I’ve noticed I get more readers on the horror, so I’m going to try and stick with that for now.  But I’m not promising anything since I have a sci fi one I really want to put up at some point.  I might try to submit it at a couple places first.

Oh, also, I promised on Facebook that I would write a story about psychotic ponies who attack rainbows while evil fairies put their nefarious plans to destroy the human race into action… or something.  So… I’ll try to work on that one.

In honor of my wonderful father’s birthday, I am posting two stories. The first is called A Walk in the Park and it is by my dad, Grahame Scott-Douglas.  He wrote this story a couple of years ago and, upon reading it, I was inspired to write the next story in today’s post: A Walk in the Park – The Hunt.

Be warned that, like most stories posted to this blog, both of these stories are rated R for sexual content, violence, offensive language, and general strangeness.

So, without further ado, I bring you A Walk in the Park by Grahame Scott-Douglas AND A Walk in the Park – The Hunt by Julia Scott-Douglas.

Happy Birthday Dad!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Usually I like to say most of my ideas are inspired by authors I admire, which is totally true. I read A LOT, which is evidenced by my book review blog. But otherwise…

Well, here’s an example. This morning I was driving to work, happily contemplating the awesome 2010 Olympics T-shirt my aunt had kindly picked up for me. My mom picked up the tab. I have cool family. Anyway, I drove past a school I drive by every single day and I saw two fire trucks and an ambulance parked outside. There were no people in them and the wheels were blocked, so I figure it’s some kind of demonstration for the kids in the school. Then, I turn and there’s a police SUV parked right next to the driveway of my office, which happens to be next to a bank. We’ve had police come into our parking lot and stand behind the cement block wall which separates our lot from the bank with loaded rifles and shotguns trained on some bank robber before. So, I thought, Hope nothing’s up with the bank.

Now, here’s the last straw. I unlocked the door to my office and a horrible moldy/rotted smell hit me.

First thought, There was a leak. Twasn’t so.

Next thought, The coffee machine was left on. Again, nope.

Next thought, It smells like the mold is getting moldy. Kind of like that time a rat got trapped in the ceiling above my cube and rotted for a week before anyone could figure out where the smell was coming from.

Next thought, A zombie came in here and died for the second time.  Or it’s lying in wait.

Now I can’t help but weave a story and expect undead children to be attacking the firemen and EMTs at that school down the street.

See why my ideas freak me out sometimes?

Long answer, here’s where I’m at (for anyone who cares to know):

Word count on my YA novel: 12,307.  I wrote a little over a thousand words on it this weekend.  Ouch.

I did, however, complete editing my picture book (which, I promise, is harder than it sounds).  I also made a dummy book and it seems like my story will fit in the right format.  I sent the manuscript along to my primary reader, who slashed it to ribbons last time.  This time she complained about the things I didn’t change, but liked it over all.  Win!  So, I’m going to go to the bookstore this weekend and browse picture books to make sure I have the right feel.  Then, it’s research time for publishers and agents for picture books.  Also, who will accept unsolicited submissions?  The game, as they say, shall be afoot.  Yay!

I didn’t go to the Chino Family Festival of Books.  I wanted to, but I got lazy and my friend wasn’t able to go and it’s a long drive and, and, and… I didn’t go. 

I am still working on touching base with my friend, la photographer, for my ebook.  We should get together soon I hope.  That’ll be awesome.

NOW!  I have a cool surprise coming up in the next post.  The post will be a little late.  In fact, it’s going up March 9th for my dad’s birthday.  Basically, it’s two stories.  Story numero uno will be the one by me dear old dad.  Story number two is by me.  My dad wrote the story first, which inspired me to write the second.  Pretty neat, huh?! 

Presenting… If My Heart Had a Mouth.