I’ve been busy recently supporting local Democrat candidates by hitting the campaign trail while also working at my business and writing this biting humor blog.
Editor’s Note: This idiot once heard someone say that his blog bites, so that’s where he got the idea that this blog contains “biting humor.”
As the elected Democratic Precinct Committee Person for the area, my job is to deliver candidate literature, signs, and general encouragement to vote. That’s all well and good, and I am happy to do so. However, I was less than thrilled to be called this name as I arrived at a house …
If you are a regular reader of this blog, that’s likely the million dollar question you want answered. And if you are an irregular reader, try adding more bran fiber to your diet. There are some posts I create that are just plain and simple unpopular. For example, this one about an obscure Abra Moore song. It was met with a collective yawn, despite being about a peppy pop tune. Ah, but something did come of it.
When I do stumble across an old song that I hear and enjoy again, I tend to listen to it numerous times before moving on. That particular song was not on my music streaming platform, so I had to cue it up on YouTube to listen to it and also see the music video. Well, Ms. Moore is cute as can be in that video from twenty-five years ago. I got to wondering if someone (not me, honey, if you’re reading this) might crush on a person as they were in the past. And so, a short story about unrequited love coalesced and congealed in my mind. It will go in my collection of short stories about friendship as a follow-up to my award-winning book of short stories about the afterlife.
My point is that if you want to be a writer, then write something, anything. My middle daughter and I just had a conversation about creating. She’s a dancer who just resigned from her dance company in Chicago, but she still has some dance projects she would like to create. We discussed how the hardest part of the creative process is just finding that moment in time to begin. So, my advice is … start writing. Even if it is just an inconsequential blog post. You never know where it may lead.
I was going to warn you that you may not find this blog post humorous, but I am sure that regular readers are used to that by now. I had planned to enter a poetry contest, but decided against it. Great story, right? The contest was sponsored by Rattle.com, and while I didn’t enter their contest, I did submit my poem to them for publication consideration. Pretty smart, huh? I can still be rejected while saving money in the process.
So that you, the reader, can feel like you’re part of the rejection process, I will share with you my poem below. It’s titled “I Did Not Win The Masters.” Now you can read it and pass judgement on it, too.
I had excitedly blogged about a short story writing contest that I was entering. It sounded fun. They gave us the first line, last line, and a plot twist to incorporate into the story. I settled on a science fiction story idea that I had, although I had never written in that genre before. That was my first big mistake. My second was that it turns out that it wasn’t a contest. I went to submit my story only to find it was not a contest but a “challenge.” That second mistake probably negated my first mistake, because in a real life plot twist, my story sucked.
First, my apologies to anyone who took my advice and spent the time to write a story in order to win the contest that didn’t exist and a Pulitzer Prize. Can I get a show of hands as to how many of you that was?
Thank God there’s always one as dumb as me.
Anyway, my wife, my editor/cousin/godmother, and I all hated it. It’s a story that just lies there like a dead fish waiting to be fileted. What’s the logical thing to do with such story? I guess share it with you as a cautionary tale of how not to write a short story. So, here it is in all its mediocrity.
The judges’ results are in, and I definitely participated in a 100 word micro fiction short story contest. If you are too lazy to click that link, I don’t blame you, but you’ll miss out on rereading the thrilling story I wrote, rejected, and did NOT submit to the contest. Here’s the 100 word micro fiction short story that I deemed contest-worthy and entered in the contest.
Attention writers who can’t get motivated to write. What better way to get writing than with the hope of winning a major award? Maybe that will get you off your lazy ass and writing something. I’ve blogged about some FREE writing contests in the past, and I’ve got another one for you. Here’s the link below to click.
It sounds fun. They provide the opening line, a plot twist, and the final line. You supply the rest. And everyone who registers is entered in the prize drawing for what are described as “awesome prizes.”
The real prize is getting some writing practice. Sign up and write something. Maybe it will turn into an award-winning book of short stories like I wrote that I am practically giving away by selling it for only $0.99. Clicking my book link will be a prize for me for telling you about prizes for you. Does that make any sense? That’s why we need writing practice. Click, write, and maybe even win something.
Not Journey the band. I wish! I really like “Wheel in the Sky” from the boys at Journey including lead vocalist Steve Perry. But wait, if Steve Perry was their lead vocalist, who’s this guy?
Oh, right. He’s the Journey vocalist after Steve Perry left when their albums sucked. That makes sense that he’s playing a free concert locally. Hard pass from me.
But that’s not the journey I’m writing about. I want to get a little contemplative and explore why I am writing this blog and why you may be reading it.
If you use blogging to practice writing like I do, then this may interest you. I stumbled across this writing contest and entered on a whim. Correction, I entered on my laptop. It costs nothing. Just to be crystal clear, here is the link below.
Your story must be submitted by the 22nd of May, so I know time is short, but what else do you have to do? You already missed the deadline for filing your taxes, so what’s another couple weeks?
I have decided to enter a story that I penned for my next collection of short stories to go along with my collection of award-winning stories you can purchase on Amazon. My story is called Mount Driveway and has a real neighborhood feel to it, so I think it meets the theme of community. Oh, and it’s hilarious. Maybe you have some half-written story that also fits the community theme. Just finish it. Hey, how about that story you were writing about a small town mayor who is actually an alien and smites her political opponents during debates using lasers that shoot from her eyes? Yeah, that story. You know the one I’m talking about.
Just to be clear, you have nothing to lose, except I guess this contest. Good luck and write on!
I continue writing this slog of a blog to hone my writing skills. No, seriously, stop laughing. It’s true! Okay, maybe that’s not the case with the weekly, award-shunning Mite Be Funny cartoon every Sunday. But this forum keeps my writing skills sharp as an eraser.
For an added test of my writing skills, I entered a contest for a 100 word micro fiction short story at www.nycmidnight.com. I learned of that website from the person who plagiarized my Elvis story for one of their other writing challenges. I thought the 100 word limit with a 24 hour time limit and writing to prompts would be interesting.
The prompts I received were that it had to be of the horror genre (Yes!), include the word “tell,” and involve riding a skateboard. Easy peasy. I got not one, but two stories written. My wife and I rejected the first story, because I had misread the directions and thought I needed to include the phrase “riding a skateboard” in the story. I had incorporated that phrase, but in sort of a stilted, clunky way. Why do I have to read and follow instructions anyway? Isn’t this the US of A, land of the free? Don’t take my freedom away to write whatever the hell I want to write. Must be a writing contest run by Socialist Democrats.
Anyhoo, I liked the second story better as it seemed more horrific to me and the ending was more clever (cleverer?). So, what do I do with the first story after I tightened it up a bit? Give it to you, I guess. I mean, if you read the normal drivel in this blog, you’ll read anything, and this will be a definite upgrade. So, click the “Continue reading” link to get to the unused story.
The list of all that I accomplished over the holidays is too long to write about, so that’s a bit of luck for you readers. But I can still waste your time giving you some selected highlights. I already wrote about spending some quality time with our dogs. But wait, there’s more!
First thing I did was try not to be such a dick when I was out shopping and running errands. I was inspired by this older pic of Alice Cooper serving others that resurfaced and made the rounds on Twitter recently.
I wasn’t as ambitious as Mr. Cooper, but I tried to hold doors for others and keep a smile on my face. When cars cut me off, I made sure to wave at the drivers with all the fingers on my hand and not just the middle one. I always wonder what the world would be like if each person in the world did those little things every day for a whole year.
I also stayed healthy. I told you about my COVID test. We heard of a friend of the family who got very sick with COVID but is recovering. We also heard of some folks who are friends of friends who have passed away. They predict the omicron variant infection rate in Chicagoland will peak by the end of January. Looks like no indoor public activities for a while still. See you outside in spring!
Professionally, the news I received just before the holidays was bad, and I took some time over the holidays to process it and feel comfortable about my future.
I don’t make enough (translation: any) money from writing and blogging (translation: self-publishing word salads) because of my frugal readers & followers (translation: deadbeats), so I actually have a day job running my own business as I have for 14 years (translation: too long) now. I have a close (translation: ethically suspect) relationship with a number of customers and vendors (translation: potential criminal co-conspirators) that often leads me to agree to handle some challenging (translation: stupid) tasks. One such task is to curate and mange (translation: mostly ignore) the YouTube channel of one vendor. I was surprised to get a notification of this comment in regard to a video for a therapeutic massage machine.
I wasn’t sure if Lhtutuutfirh was covfefe level gibberish (translation: most of what Trump says), or if this was a customer asking to place a million dollar order. To the Google Translate machine!
If you recall, I came in 4th in the April elections, but still won a seat on my local township board. Well, here we go again, but this time I did even worse and still won. I entered my book of short stories in a competition, mainly to get a “professional” review. Well, I’m not sure how professional the review is, but I can’t argue with its accuracy. See what you think. Here’s the review.
After working in sales & marketing for 3 decades, I knew I had to follow my instincts. The $0.99 price was wrong. I just knew it. I could smell it. Sure, I had been making money at that price. Royalties for my book of short stories had been rolling in for 3 months in a row. Take a look at the royalty notifications in my email.
It’s been nice, but not enough to support the cost of my habit of taking soothing foot baths in baby’s tears, especially with COVID driving up the costs.
I knew I had to run a sale. My nostrils flared at the thought of a sale, and I could feel my heart pounding and working harder. Maybe that was from my high cholesterol, but regardless, I just knew it was the right time for a sale. And so, I dropped the price over last weekend … down to $0.00. Okay, maybe that was a bit extreme, but take a look at the results.
I had planned to shamelessly and incessantly plug my book of humorous and contemplative short stories about the afterlife from the beginning of the year until now. However, I got derailed with this local election race which I surprisingly won. To get back on the promotional track, I’ve decided to make my book available to you, the loyal followers of this blog, for FREE through Monday. Just link to www.bit.ly/beyondtales to download my book for FREE for your reading enjoyment on your Kindle or Kindle app.
There really are no strings attached. Just download. I hope you enjoy it, and I would be most appreciative if you leave a rating or review on Amazon. Read on!
The reviews for my book BEYOND: Tales of the Afterlife are dribbling in like an old man standing at a urinal. Here are some words I pulled from the reviews that have been used to describe the book:
Irreverent
Deeply Reverent (???)
Humorous
Well-written
Weird
Charming
Disturbing
Goofy
Thoughtful
Thought-provoking
Thoughtless (just kidding about this one)
Engaging
Dizzying Kaleidoscope of Perspectives and Styles
You can read the reviews yourself on Amazon. Because of those overwhelmingly positive reviews, I’ve made a decision …
The year is 1968. The hot rock & roll bands are the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Monkees, although I distinctly recall girls in my grade school class talking about how much they loved the Turtles. Why can I remember that bit of minutiae and not that garbage day is Tueday?
Anyway, I go back and forth. The Beatles are the greatest rock and roll band ever, right? Sure, we all have our favorite other non-Beatle bands. Mine include XTC, Squeeze, Cage the Elephant, Springsteen & the E Street Band, Wilco, Tame Impala, The Clash, Crowded House, and many others. And I’ll choose to listen to those bands over the Beatles more times than not. But still, the Beatles are tops, right? Right? Well, maybe not.
I’ve been thinking a whole lot about the Rolling Stones recently. They released this song earlier in 2020 around the start of the COVID quarantine.
It’s not a great song, but it’s certainly a good tune that sounds exactly like a Rolling Stones song should sound. They are still producing good new music after more than 50 years! And they’re not half dead like the Beatles. Sure, the Stones lost Brian Jones early on, and Bill Wyman has retired, but Mick & Keith are still going strong with Charlie Watts on drums and Ron Wood on guitar. I’m starting to give the nod to the Stones over the Beatles simply due to longevity.
So, what does this have to do with my book of short stories titled BEYOND: Tales of the Afterlife, available on Amazon? Well, Tale #2 is titled “A Monkee to Die For,” and revolves around a Davy Jones promotional visit to a California record store. In the story, not only is Jones featured in an indirect way, but the Rolling Stones and Beatles also get mentions. My video excerpt in this post from Tale #2 involves a demonic being explaining to a 12 year old girl smitten by Davy Jones that the Rolling Stones may not be as icky as she thinks. Take a look and listen.
I have gotten side-tracked with all this inauguration stuff. I need to get back to hawking my book of 16 short stories titled BEYOND: Tales of the Afterlife while also entertaining you, my valued readers (he said, sucking up to his readers in the hope of making a book sale and earning a few measly coins from Amazon).
In a non-COVID world, I would normally be out on a promotional tour of truck stops and gas stations throughout the Rust Belt of the US reading excepts from the book, with or without the venue’s consent, which can make for an interesting book reading. The readings featuring sock puppets are normally the favorites of people who happen to come inside for a rotisserie hot dog or shower. But with COVID, I have resorted to video readings.
Let’s dive into the first story titled “Doggone.” All 16 stories are connected in some way to the afterlife, and this one finds the lead character, Jerry, waking up in the afterlife confronting God. But not God as humans may typically imagine God. God is in a bit of a different form here, and why not? I won’t give too much away, because I know you are dying to read it (pun intended).
This video clip features me reading about Jerry’s indignation at being the victim of a practical joke played on him by God.
Isn’t the featured image on this blog post a beautiful picture? It spoke to me. It spoke to me and said that it had to be my cover pic for my book of short stories called Beyond: Tales of the Afterlife. However, it also told me that I was too fat, so I didn’t speak to it for a while. But we finally sorted out our differences, and I just knew that it had to be the cover for my book. The biggest hurdle was that I was not the artist and didn’t really know the artist and live nowhere close to the artist and well, you get the idea. It was a longshot. The lesson learned is that sometimes asking is the hardest part. The artist said, “Yes.” She also was cool with me stretching the aspect ratio of her painting to fit better as the cover pic I finally used.
The artist’s name is Linda and here’s her online studio … riverjazz.studio. My personal favorites are her abstracts and florals. Here’s an example of one of them she created just the other night …
I recently announced the pre-release of my book, now available for purchase for under a buck! But why would you want to purchase? Well, I can give you 16 reasons … the 16 short stories in the book. Well, maybe 15. My editor hates one of the stories that I quite like. You can be the judge. Purchase, read, judge.
Here’s a peek inside at the Table of Contents along with some editorializing on each of the stories …
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 