DEMON IN DISGUISE (ONE DOG’S VIEWPOINT)

Photo Copyright: Barbara W. Beacham

This is my contribution for this week to Monday’s Finish the Story, hosted by Barbara W. Beacham. Every Monday, Barbara supplies a new picture prompt along with the first sentence for the story. The original story to be written should have only 100 to 150 additional words. I’ve bolded the first sentence given with the picture prompt.

Be sure to click on the little blue frog in the blue box, after clicking on the link, to read the other stories. The link for all other stories this week is as follows:

https://mondaysfinishthestory.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/mondays-finish-the-story-july-27th-2015/

Genre: Humor Fiction

Word Count: 6+8+150=164 Words

DEMON IN DISGUISE (ONE DOG’S VIEWPOINT)

by P.S. Joshi

He thought he found the perfect hiding place.

The dreaded words rang out from Marcie, “Doggie, doggie, doggie.”

Now Boris was that “doggie” and in hiding as usual. He was normally a people-loving dog, but this two-year-old was no ordinary person. She was, in his eyes, an atrocious demon child.

His perfect hiding place behind the living room curtains was not the sanctuary he’d thought. He was almost grabbed by the leg.

Why did the big people think this child was sweet? She was devious. He could have sworn her eyes glowed in the dark. The whole day was spent in finding good places  he wasn’t discovered.

It was only since she’d started walking that she’d become a threat. She seemed to have been a harmless baby. What a disguise, a cover-up.

He could now see through the cuteness, big blue eyes, blond ringlets, dimpled smile. Life for him was a misery. His food dish was the exception.

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Striking the Motherlode

Great information and completely free. Thanks Diana.

Myths of the Mirror

image from flightfox.com

Well, I have a gift for you today. NO, it’s not a book. Phew!

A friend of mine shared a link with me, and when I opened it, I gasped. My knees turned to syrup, and I wiped tears of delight from my eyes. I’d struck writing gold.

Brandon Sanderson, the highly successful author of Mistborn and The Way of Kings fame, teaches a master’s level class at BYU for fantasy and science-fiction writers. The class is so popular that only a small number of interested students actually get to enroll. In response to the flood of despair, the entire series of winter lectures were videotaped and are available on YouTube at zero cost.

image from thebooksmuggler.com

You don’t write sci-fi or fantasy, you say.

I will assert, while skipping in circles with excitement, that the ideas he presents are 99% applicable to all fiction writing. He…

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…I can speak latin… err, no… latte… I meant latte…

This is both priceless and hilarious at the same time.

Seumas Gallacher

…my predominant linguistic skills are in the area of talking Rubbish… added to that is a passing acquaintance with English, Celtic (Scots Gaelic), French (Glasgow Secondary School and London City International Foreign Exchange Dealing Room levels), Cantonese (Hong Kong Chinese), Tagalog (mainstream Filipino), and, of late, a smattering of localised Arabic… (a salaam a leikum, Jimmy)… I’ve been taken recently with a phrase initially attributed to that Roman guy who invented  the Salad called after him… Veni, Vidi, Bloggicci… in translation it means, I Veni-ied, I Vidi-ied, I Bloggicci-ied… if I had known way back when I began to do these blogs that the source would turn out to be a Roman general whose pals used his ribs as a dagger-sharpener, it may well have taken a different tone… to observe the ancient way of doing politics, where everybody stabs everybody else in the…

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New Book Fanfare – Spread the word about your new book release.

Take advantage of Sally’s offer if you have a new book.

CHANGEABLE WEATHER

 

Photo Copyright: Dee Lovering

Here we are once more. This week we’re sitting in a virtual heated shelter house in the park as this area has received snow. I know it’s July, but this is virtual. We’re here to discuss our original stories for the week. This group is the Friday Fictioneers. Our hostess is the gracious and talented author and artist, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The challenge for each of us is to write a story with no more than 100 words. It’s supposed to have a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt provided for the week. This week’s prompt was supplied by Dee Lovering. Thanks Dee.

To read the other stories from group members, just click on the little blue frog in the blue box after clicking on the link. The link for the other stories this week is as follows:

https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/24-july-2015/

Genre: Humor Fiction

Word Count: 100 Words

CHANGEABLE WEATHER by P.S. Joshi

The blue house on Beech Street looked like any other. The only difference was that every half hour the weather surrounding it changed.

Anyone seeing it at 10:00 am saw snow on its roof and lawn.

At 10:30 am the roof was dry and the lawn green with flower-filled beds.

At 11:00 am rain soaked it.

Neighbors, used to this, thought, “Amaryllis is at it again.”

She was the neighborhood sorceress. Waving her wand, she chanted, “Weatherchangicus.”

“Oh shut up,” grumbled her broom.

“I’m trying to sleep here,” her cat shouted.

Just then lightening flashed and cracked overhead.

USING IMAGINATION

 

Photo Copyright: Barbara W. Beacham

This is my contribution for this week to Monday’s Finish the Story, hosted by Barbara W. Beacham. Every Monday, Barbara supplies a new picture prompt along with the first sentence for the story. The original story to be written should have only 100 to 150 additional words. I’ve bolded the first sentence given with the picture prompt.

Be sure to click on the little blue frog in the blue box, after clicking on the link, to read the other stories. The link for all the other stories is as follows:

https://mondaysfinishthestory.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/mondays-finish-the-story-july-20th-2015/

Genre: Humor Fiction

Word Count: 2+9+150=161 Words

USING IMAGINATION by P.S. Joshi

The petroglyphs told the story of an unusual event.

When caves were discovered in the state of Arizonia, some had markings on the walls, and some didn’t. Tourists in future could enrich the area.

John and George started inspecting Cave Number 10.

“John, there are no petroglyphs on these walls.”

“You have little imagination, George. I can see them.”

“Where, I don’t see even one?”

“They’re here in my mind, George, in my mind.”

With that, John pulled out small carving tools and natural paint. He first put his hand on the rock and sprayed it with paint. Next, he carved a man figure holding a spear pointed at a buffalo with large horns. Other animals and figures followed.

In the summer of 2014, Brenda led a group into Cave Number 10.

“As you see, the cave dweller drew a petroglyph of a hunt. Notice the hunter with the spear. The artist signed his work with his handprint.”

Running of the Chickens

This is a great humor blog. Russell always writes something hilarious.

What's So Funny?

Let’s have a show of hands. How many of you know what chiggers are?

For those who don’t, the internet defines chiggers as the juvenile form of a certain type of mite of the family Trombiculidae. Personally, I could care less about their lineage and pray that none ever reach adulthood. In plain English, they are tiny red insects that leap from weeds and grass to burrow into your skin and feed on human flesh. The result is raised bumps that itch like hell.

I became personally acquainted with a few of these juvenile hitchhikers the other day while picking up trash along our road. This seems a high price to pay for performing community service, especially when I hadn’t been convicted of committing a crime.  After all, I’m not that big of a celebrity.

If you’re new to Friday Flash Fiction, the exterminator who captures and relocates rogue pronouns…

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Friday Web Finds: More Free Online Writing Courses

Thanks to Rosanna for all this helpful information.

Writing on the Pages of Life

I’ve noticed that the posts featuring free online classes get a lot of hits from the readers of this blog – who doesn’t love freebies? Here are some more sites with listings of free online writing courses:

Study.com offers a listing of 10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online. The list includes online writing courses for credit and online non-credited writing courses.

Class central offers 19 Free Online Courses to Improve Your Writing Skills.

One of the biggest universities in the UK for undergraduate education, The Open University is a public research university.  It has a 10-page listing of free online writing courses.

LearningPath.org’s Online Creative Writing Courses Offered Free by Top Universities and Educational Websites has an interesting list of online classes, as well as additional resources.

And for those writers who are thinking of paying for online classes, read this first before you make…

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DAD AND FRANCE

Photo Copyright: Sandra Crook

Here we are again this week. Today we’re sitting in a small virtual cafe on a street in Dijon, France. We’re here to discuss our original stories for the week. This is the Friday Fictioneer’s group. Our hostess is the gracious and talented author and artist, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The challenge for each of us is to write a story with no more than 100 words. It’s supposed to have a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt provided for the week. This week’s prompt was supplied by Sandra Crook. Thanks again Sandra. To read the other stories from group members, just click on the little blue frog in the blue box after clicking on the link. The link for the other stories this week is as follows:

https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/17-july-2015/

Genre: Nonfiction

Word Count: 100 Words

DAD AND FRANCE by P.S. Joshi

The only thing connecting our family with France was Dad’s WWI navy service.

He was already in the U.S. Navy when the country entered the war. He was assigned to a battleship that had been refitted to carry troops from New York City to Brest, France. They made that round trip many times during the war, then afterward to bring the troops home.

He had a girlfriend in New York who asked him to bring her some real French perfume. The next time he came back, he’d forgotten, so bought her French perfume in New York. She never found out.

Promoting your Series: Free vs. 99c

Good information on marketing that Nicholas is providing.

Nicholas C. Rossis

Image: blog.acton.org

I was reading Tara Sparling’s interesting post on free books, where she complains about authors pricing their books too low.

Amazon agrees with her. I believe that’s why they only start offering 70% royalties for books priced at $2.99 and above (under that, royalties are only 30%).

However, a common mistake for first-time authors is to price their work too high. Sure, you can ask for the same price as Steven King. But only if you write like him and have an established fan base. Until then, you’ll need to do whatever it takes to fight the obscurity that inevitably befalls us all in a marketplace where 6,500 new books are published daily… and part of that may be a free or 99c book – albeit for a short while and as part of an overall marketing strategy. Or you could do it to gather reviews, as I’ve done with

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