The Herbal Solution

The enemy was encoding secret messages in plant DNA, so they “captured” a greenhouse.

The first decoded messages were recipes for various dishes.

It was slow going: the greenhouse only grew savory herbs.

The Leader asked, “Have you found anything good, yet?”

The lab tech said, “Only thyme will tell.”

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A quick note…

Just a quick note to say that I’m not back on my regular schedule, yet.  I got an idea for a story, so I put it up.  If I find that more ideas start coming, I might start accumulating a batch and restart my old schedule.  For now, enjoy this new story, as well as the archives.

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Best That You Can Do

People visit Luna City all the time.

I arrived, did my business.  Then took the shuttle headed back to New York.

The shuttle dematerialized into tachyons, and was shot at the Earth.

The shuttle rematerialized before reaching its destination.

If you get caught between the Moon and New York City…

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Status Update

After more than a week without any stories, I’ve come to the conclusion that I wasn’t ready to come back to my previous schedule yet.  The holiday hiatus wasn’t enough to recharge my creative batteries.

My day job’s been draining my creativity, and coming up with new ideas for stories has become harder and harder over time, to the point where posting every day became a chore.

I still enjoy writing these stories, though, so I’m not closing this place down.  I just won’t be posting daily for a while.  If I come back to a regular schedule at some point, it probably won’t be daily, at least not until I’ve accumulated a backlog of stories that are ready for publication.

I still want to do a community site based around 50-word stories.  If you know a good CMS I could install and configure easily to build a community site with minimal hassle, please leave your suggestion in the comments to this post.  I’ve been looking into Joomla, but I find it overly complicated for what I want to do, and it makes it too hard for me to mould it into the site I’m trying to build.  Maybe I’m just being lazy.

Basically, I aim to build something like ficlets, but with the 50-word concept instead of a character limit, and with the idea that each story be complete (and not just a fragment of a story, like it was with ficlets) while still providing the possibility to write sequels and prequels.

That’s it for now.  I hope to post new stories sporadically until I can catch my breath again.

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The Story of the Miller’s Son

The miller’s son learned that the best starch to be obtained from grain was the starch that got compacted at the bottom.

That starch commanded a higher price.  A stiffer price.

Then, his stock of special starch was stolen.

Thus went the story of the Raiders of the Low Starch.

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What’s in a Name?

He had to make a name for himself.

He was strong, but not strong enough to be known for his strength.

Quick, but not quick enough either.

So he invented his signature move: ripping out his enemies’ throats until blood oozed everywhere.

That earned him his name:

The Carotid Kid.

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The Key to the Internet

“I hold, in my hand, the entire Internet!”

“What, in this tiny USB key?  Impossible.  The Internet is ever-changing.”

“This device holds not the data of the Internet, but the fractal algorithm which can iteratively generate all the content that will ever be on the Internet.”

“Cool.”

“I thought so.”

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Running

She’d been running all her life.

When she died, she was running.  Kept right on running, actually.

People would wonder how she could still be running (being dead and all) but instead of asking that, they would ask,

“Why won’t you stop running?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m running late.”

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The Novel

“I’m writing a novel.”

“What’s it about?”

“Everything!”

“Must be pretty long, then.”

“Not particularly, no.  Actually, it’s probably going to be very short.”

“Then why aren’t you done yet?”

“It’s hard.”

“Ha!  What’s so hard about writing a short novel?”

“Well, you try writing a short novel about Everything!”

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Inspiration

“Quick, write something, anything!”

“But I’m tapped-out!  I don’t have one original word left in me.  My mind’s a total blank, and he knows it.”

“You can do it.  You have to.  He’s got only five pages left.  When he finishes the last page, we’re dead.”

“Better dead than derivative.”

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