It's Official... I'm A Misfit

by Michael Seese

Or I will be later this year. Allow me to explain...

A long time ago I wrote a short story titled "The Other Brother: Scandal." 

The concept: The great "consulting detective" Sherlock Holmes has an unknown (to him) twin brother. (Long story short, Mr. & Mrs. Holmes didn't want two brothers to compete with their beloved Mycroft, so they condemned one to an orphanage.) Possessing the renowned Holmes acumen and physical prowess, yet lacking any sense of morality, he turns to a life of crime -- specifically murder -- eavesdropping on his brother's exploits in order to join the game. "Scandal" recasts A Scandal In Bohemia (Doyle's first short story) from the other brother's point of view.

Flash forward to last October. On horrortree.com (to repeat, a great site for authors) I found a call from Bards and Sages Publishing for "The Society Of Misfit Stories." I submitted, and voilà!

The story will appear on their website in December, and in print sometime next year.

Please spread the word. And if you feel like ponying up 99¢ to buy a copy.... that would be OK, too.

Flash! Friday: Beauty Captured

by Michael Seese

I need to stop spending so much time at horrortree.com. It's affecting my flash. This week, the theme was aspiration, and the photo prompt was:

 



















And here is "Beauty Captured."

The cerulean swirl around his ankles mirrored her eyes. Though his forte lay not with the artist's tools, destiny told Serge that he must make her immortal. Such beauty deserved nothing less.

Days, he would slave, splitting wood shakes with one brutal cleft. Nights, he would apply his raw talents as he aspired to capturing her.

The pursuit of perfection is a lonely quest. Hours spent in painstaking practice. Though he longed to sprint forward and savor the ever-elusive end, he accepted patience as his ally. He could not afford to err, as the materiel was priceless to a man of his means.

For years, each time he passed through town he would pause and study her face. He committed to memory every curve, every tinge, every shadow. Now, working by candlelight in his studio, he broke her essence down, bit by bit, inch by inch.

His heart nearly burst when he completed his labor of love.

"Bella."

She would never age, never fade, never face the declination which eventually consumes all egos.

And she would not be forgotten.

The unfortunate soul who happened upon Serge as he washed the pieces of her down the river would have to join her in immortality.

Such is the price of art.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts.

The Toothbrush House

by Michael Seese

A little something to prepare you for trick-or-treating. This is a story I wrote as part of "Crazy October" and submitted to a (for now) unnamed anthology I found on HorrorTree.

“I dare you. I double dare you.”

“Fine. I’ll do it,” I said coolly, despite the fact that my insides were tumbling like tennis shoes in a clothes dryer.

It was Halloween night, the night every kid dreams of, second only to Christmas. And yet here I was, filled with more dread than even the thought of a lump of coal in my stocking—or worse, a sweater under the tree—could instill.

I, along with my friends, stood before “the haunted house.” Every town has one, as I have learned over the past…nine years and eight moves.

“What are you waiting for?”

Dark, unkempt, and blanketed by a seemingly permanent, localized storm cloud. Of course, it’s never haunted. Just owned by some nice old lady who just can’t keep up with the maintenance since her husband passed.

“Well, are you going to do it?”

“Sure,” I said, anything but sure.

“Watch out for crazy Mrs. Denton. She’s fast!” “Enjoy your toothbrush.”

Something else every town has. The “toothbrush house.” The house with an owner who feels it’s his civic duty to counter the damage inflicted by the rest of the neighborhood’s largess. As if a new toothbrush will override the effects of 20 pounds of sugar consumed in one night. It’s like applying a Band-aid to a severed limb.

I gulped. I wished I hadn’t thought up that analogy, here and now.

After focusing all my energies on stilling the shakes, I placed a hand on the iron gate. It swung open, even though I would have sworn I didn’t actually push it.

I stepped in.

The walkway elongated with an audible whoosh, pushing the dark porch back at least a mile. I began the longest walk of my life. Too soon, I found myself on the porch.

I knocked.

Hearing nothing, I prepared to turn and retreat. Slow and casual. Otherwise, I couldn’t save face. The footsteps within short-circuited my perfect plan of escape. Laborious and slow at first, the pace and volume swiftly increased exponentially.

The door swung open.

She didn’t look like a psycho. But she didn’t look like a regular grandma either. She started at me. My move.

“Trick or treat.”

“Enjoy your toothbrush,” she said, grinning a grin that seemed to feature too many teeth, as she dropped something heavy into my sack.

“Thanks,” I managed. Behind me, I heard my friends’ screams recede into the distance.

What’s the big deal? I wondered.

I reached into the bag, and fished out my prize, a badge of honor which I planned to show off at school tomorrow.

It was a bone. A human bone. (A doctor might have specified, “It’s an ulna.”) Glued to it were teeth of various shapes and sizes. Some still bore the blood of their previous owners.

Not sure of what to say, I looked up at Mrs. Denton. I caught a glimpse of the pliers just before they clamped onto one of my molars and pulled.

What are you hoping to find in your trick-or-treat basket this year?

Here I Go Again

by Michael Seese

Come with me, dear readers, into the WABAC machine. If you'll recall, last October, I undertook a tremendous effort. To submit something, somewhere, every day for the whole month. "Something" could be... well, anything involving words. And "somewhere" could include:

- Contests
- Literary agents
- Magazines
- Online publishers (for example, Readwave)

It did not include blogging or tweeting.

Well, October is just around the corner. And I plan to repeat this asinine and painful challenging and fulfilling effort.

Actually, I think this time around it will be easier. Specifically, because I've found three weekly flash fiction contests:

- Flash! Friday, hosted by Rebecca Postupak
- Indies Unlimited
- (one I just learned of) FINISH THAT THOUGHT, by Alissa Leonard.

So those three alone take care of 13 days. I've already got four existing short stories which I plan to submit to anthologies / contests I found on HorrorTree. I have two other stories in the works, one for another HorrorTree find, and one for MASH stories. So I'm up to 19 days.

** Since I know that I will have some days which might be crazy, I'm "allowed" to submit two "somethings" one day, and then skip the next. But I'll try not to.

To quote James Brown, I feel good.

Who's with me? Who's up for the challenge?

I LOVE Short Fiction!

By Michael Seese

... writing it, of course.

In a previous post, I recounted my month of "sending stuff" and ended with, "So what should I do next? I have some ideas..." (And yes, I also said I'd talk about the victories. I will. But they're still coming in.)

What I think I'd like to focus on is short fiction. I love short fiction, probably because it suits my attention span. Seriously, though, it really is a rush to read about a contest or anthology, think over ideas for a few days, and then hammer out a story in an evening or two.

A really good source for open calls is Horror Tree. Don't let the name scare you. (Pun intended.) Though a lot of the calls are strictly horror (I found out about the Rogues Gallery here) others are not. For example, I learned of...

The Twelve Nights Of Christmas. Though the picture on the website is a little scary, the stories don't have to be horror. Instead:

This is a challenge for visual and flash fiction. We all know the carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas. …what happens at night? What happens on those dark, cold nights of December?
 
I had been trying to come up with an idea, without much success. Then, on a drive back from Buffalo, I concocted the premise of (and largely mind-wrote) "As Smooth As A Milk Maid's Skin." Here is a snippet:

    A wicked December wind whistled through Whitechapel. The largely deserted streets reflected the harsh reality of the economic principles espoused by Adam Smith. The frigid air kept the customers home by their hearths; lacking demand, the suppliers of the skills of the world’s oldest profession opted for the warmth of their own ramshackle rooms, rather than the cold of the streets.
    Amanda saw this solitude as a double-edged blade. She now stood out even more conspicuously, though her quarry would as well. Or so she hoped. Turning a corner near Osborn Street, Amanda spied a girl standing beneath a gas lamp. Her milky skin glowed. She resembled a porcelain doll. This may be one, she thought.
    As Amanda drew near, she glimpsed the girl’s hand, wrapped around the lamp-post. Big, meaty, muscular. She had to be one of them.


And guess what? They selected it!

Or, what about Kazka Press / 713 Flash Fiction, which sponsors 

a monthly flash fiction call [which] has a theme. We ask you to write an SFF story (SciFi, Fantasy, Horror, or related sub-genres) that fits the theme in some way. 

And they're strict: "499 < YOUR STORY < 1,001."  This month's theme is "outlaws." Next month is "discoveries."

On the treadmill one night, I came up with the first 150 and the last 50 words. The next day, I cranked out another 700, leaving only a few gaps to fill in. Here is a sample of "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down."

    The day they killed me, I became the outlaws’ worst nightmare.
    Like folks in many of the dusty towns which dot the territories, I never saw much need to up and leave. I was born here. I was raised here. I grew into a man here. And then...
    I don’t remember dying. But that’s because the dogs that did the deed didn’t have the guts to face me man to man. To call me out. Instead, they sent some big-armed, slow-witted farmhand with a club into the saloon. As I threw back my one and only shot of whiskey for the day—strictly for medicinal purposes, of course—I glanced up at the mirror above the bar just as the blow came crashing down on my skull. I awoke at Crystal’s place. Something about me felt not right.
    “Am I...?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she said in that milky voice of hers that could take the sting out of a rattlesnake’s bite.
    “What happened?”
    She told me they dragged me into the street and pumped five or six rounds into my back. It was five; since that night, I’ve counted the holes. After shooting me, they dragged my body out of town, and tossed me in a ditch somewhere. I suppose it could have been worse.

I have a few more (found on Horror Tree) that's I'm working on. (First one; second one)

So join in the fun, my friends. 

BTW, "A New Beginning," which I submitted to the Rogues Gallery, was selected.