NaNoWriMo Part Two

…and then, as one, we finished, stood, brushed ourselves off and thought about leaving the house.

It was over for another year, and though the schedule had been punishing, we’d somehow managed it.

Some of us had hit 50k, and glowed at the victory. Others hoped to do better next year, but either way we were done, and as one we looked around us, in awe at the freedom and possibilities now open to us and, in one voice from every corner of the globe, asked the same question:

What did I used to do for fun before this month?

Weekly Prompt Story: The Closest Thing to a Story About Marijuana I Have

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/11/25/weekly-challenge-344-marijuana/

The Closest Thing to a Story About Marijuana I Have

By Christopher Munroe

I don’t smoke pot.

I do, however, lock onto challenges with a fervor that’s probably unhealthy.

So, when asked by a girl I was doing a show with if I knew where to score pot in town, I spent the rest of the day calling friends, friends of friends, and their contacts in an attempt to help.

We finally found a guy, he made a delivery to the pub we went to after the show.

Nothing came of it, with the girl. I didn’t even smoke it with her.

That wasn’t what it was about.

I just had to win.

NaMoGroMo

I look, if I may say so, boss. Like a TV cop from the seventies.

Seriously, this thing provides its own swagger. Can a face even swagger?

How could a face swagger?

How could my face swagger?

No idea, but let’s face it, face, you fucking swagger.

It’s the perfect accompaniment to a face that already brings so much to the table, adding maturity and masculinity to my already considerable supply of charm.

And I love it.

I know I say this every year, but this time I mean it. When Movember comes to an end, I’m keeping the ‘Stache.

Weekly Prompt Story: Mine

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/11/18/weekly-challenge-343-mine/

Mine

By Christopher Munroe

I’m sick and tired of telling you kids to stay out of my fields.

You trample corn, you dig up carrots, you treat the land like it’s your personal playground. And I’m sick of it.

Thus, I’ve buried explosives just under the ground. I know they’ll also destroy my crops, but the loss of a few crops to keep out intruders is, to me, a small price to pay, and I’ll pay it gladly.

So: Stay out. Starting today, trespassers will explode. Respect my property or die.

It’s not an unreasonable demand.

They’re not your fields after all.

They’re mine.

NaMojitoDriMo

Every part of me aches, especially my liver. I can barely focus my eyes, and every noise is like a jackhammer in my skull.

Why did I agree to this? I can’t remember, though I recall having very good reasons at the time. But now, weeks into my bender, I’m consumed with regret at ever having involved myself in something so foolhardy.

Still, too late to back out now. Let it never be said that I don’t finish what I start.

I drag my abused body from my bed, fix myself a Mojito, and get ready to face the day…

My 500th Blog Post Spectacular!

So: That was 500 blog posts.

When I started this project three-ish years ago, I did so with a simple goal in mind. I would post a piece of fiction every day for as many days as I could sustain, targeting 365 stories, most of them drabble length, in 365 days.

By the end of that first year, I’d amassed just over 300 stories, having missed days due to illness, a trip to Las Vegas and just general life getting in the way related things. But that’s okay, because the number 365 was never, I realized, really my goal to this project, though at the time I thought it was.

My actual goal was to give myself clearly defined writing goals and a clearly defined regular deadline, in the hopes that this would keep me writing every day and, by doing so, help me develop the discipline necessary for the sorts of longer projects I hoped to take on.

In the years since beginning this blog, I’ve amassed 500 blog posts, as well as a debut novel, Broken Escalator, recently published, a number of short stories published on various podcasts and webzines, and the ability to state without doubt: I have succeeded. I am a more disciplined writer than I was when this blog began, I do write more frequently and more consistently, words do flow freer as a result of my constant work and I do get more done.

Maybe the quality of my writing is also slightly better, but I’ll let you judge that.

So yes, this blog has helped me enormously, and for that I’m grateful. I’m also grateful to those of you who’ve been reading along with me, first daily, then weekly as I needed my writing time to focus on longer works. I’ve appreciated the support and the feedback I’ve received here, and I’m glad to know I’ve managed to entertain you as I went. And I assure you, I will continue to do so going forward.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be halfway through my second NaNoWriMo novel, “A Very Munsi Christmas” by the time you read this. I’ve a number of short stories slated to appear on various podcasts in the coming year, am looking into collecting the podcasted stories with a “best of” from here for ebook release at some point in the new year, and of course will be continuing to post here regularly, both stories and, I hope, more essays as I use my blog more for, you know, blogging. So don’t worry there. This isn’t a goodbye of any sort, simply the marking of a milestone.

My point? Don’t really have one. I just spent three years writing between two and seven short stories a week, 500 is a round number, and I thought I deserved a victory lap. I feel like I’ve accomplished something here, minor though it may seem to some, and I’m pretty damn proud of it.

Thanks for the moment of your time to watch me pat myself on the back. My next post will be more entertaining, I swear…

Weekly Prompt Story: Never Fear

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/11/11/weekly-challenge-342-fear/

Never Fear

By Christopher Munroe

“Never fear!” Captain Remarkable exclaimed as he crashed through the skylight, knocking out Doctor Preposterous with one punch.

And so, I didn’t.

I asked Laura in the secretarial pool out the next day, then marched into my boss’ office and demanded not only the raise that’d been overdue, but two extra weeks paid vacation. Laura and I will be spending extra time and money base-jumping in Brazil. I’ve always wanted to go, to try it, but I’d been afraid.

No more. As the Captain said, from this moment on I’ll never fear.  And my world will be richer for it…

NaMrTMo

I looked ridiculous, but there was nothing I could do. It was tradition, and I was too new to go against it...

I dressed, practiced my impersonation, and went to work, and it was only upon my arrival that I realized:

I was the only one there dressed like Mr. T.

They’d said it was a thing, but I’d clearly been had. And, head shaved into a triple Mohawk, gold chains around my neck, I’d have to deal with the embarrassment as best I could.

Truly, on that day it was I who warranted pity, for I was the fool.

Weekly Prompt Story: The Orchard Out Back

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/11/04/weekly-challenge-341-picktwo/

The Orchard Out Back

By Christopher Munroe

We buried you in the cherry orchard. Then, a week later, we buried you again.

With each iteration that arrived, we were quick to act, caving in your skull and hiding the body out there. It was easy enough to do, nobody was looking for bodies after all. You kept going in to work through it all, and got home in time to help me with the digging. We could’ve kept it up forever, but for two things.

The repetition is growing tiresome.

There’s limited space in the cherry orchard that we can dig up.

So: Fix the damn duplicator!

NaNoWriMo

And then came NaNoWriMo, and lo did the fiction blogging community dry up and blow away like dust on the breeze…

Everyone wrote, true, hunched over laptops around the world desperately trying to expel the words that dwelt within them, but all attention had been turned to novels.

Many blogs went fallow for the month, but my Friday Flashes kept arriving, like clockwork, right on time, plunging into the emptiness.

Not that I was there to notice how little was going on. I was working on my own NaNo.

I’d prewritten my stories, you see, to stand in my place…

You

I see you across the room and my heart takes flight.

Your eyes sparkle with unmasked amusement at whatever your companion’s saying, and when you throw back your head to laugh, it’s music.

I can’t hear it from the other side of the room, but I see you laugh, and I know in my heart that it’s music.

You’re a vision, radiant, standing out from the other people at this party like some ethereal thing, tolerating them yet standing apart.

Above.

I have to know you, and so I push through the crowd.

“Um… hi.”

Christ, I suck at this…