Puppet: Agent!

I have published another short story in the Puppet universe called Puppet: Agent.  As usual, it is available from Smashwords by clicking the image or you can go directly there via https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/334024

The cover image is Cover photo “Secret Agent Man” by Jack Zalium.  His site is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiban/with/6998898690/ and you can find the image at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaiban/6998898690/

It only took three tries to get things (mostly) correct and since I had a cold at the time I am claiming a new record.

Share and enjoy.

Smashing Words

This is a shameless plug for a short story I just wrote and published on smashwords.com called "Puppet."  You can check it out via https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/234868  My author page is https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/what0607 The primary reason for my using smashwords is that you get several different formats: PDF, kindle, etc. when you publish via that outlet.

Also, smashwords is free.  Not that I'm cheap or anything.  OK, so I am cheap but smashwords is still a great place to find good e-books.

The story itself is about an alien invasion by a race of critters that look like blobs of mercury and that have the ability to "possess" human beings by attaching to their backs.  The book is free and is intended to be the first in a series of two or three more books detailing the story of a boy and his blob.  The book is based on Robert A. Heinlein's book The Puppet Masters.

Laziness

Alright, I'm putting off editing my short story, but it's for a good cause: laziness.

I strongly agree with Mark Twain's assertion that, while hard work pays off eventually, laziness pays off now. Having already done some hard work today, I figure I deserve some laziness :-)

Yesterday, I posted the first chapter/bit/whatever of my latest opus magnum, "Groupthink: the Lighter Side." (For those of you who want to be with the cool kids, you can find this and other stories on my other site, blather-n-stories.blogspot.com) This means that I had to do at least perfunctory editing on what I wrote. This is where the hard work part comes in.

Depending on who you believe, ye average page in a book contains about 250 words. My story is 10,000+ words – meaning that I have to edit over 40 pages of my own…er…creation. Left to my own pace, it would probably never get finished, but thanks to the magic of blog publishing I can pressure myself into posting it, 4 to 8 pages at a time.

4 to 8 pages at a time is something that even I, not-so-hard worker that I am, can feel is at least possible. Thinking that it's possible, I foolishly posted the first bit. Once posted I notice all kinds of problems – the paragraph that makes no sense, the clumsy sentence, the lack of structure, etc.. This makes me concerned enough to actually edit the thing.

I'm not sure if posting stories is a good idea. They make my warped, scary mind that much more apparent. Having a story out there opens me up to all kinds of abuse that, in the good ole days, was far too plentiful on the internet.

The good news is that, according to my hit counter, I don't have much to be concerned about.

So while I have not actually edited anything today, or at least not much, I did do some writing :-)

P.S. The other reason to post something is that the last thing I put up here seemed overly dark.

Ummm…A Short Story?

Yes, lame, isn't it?

Well, for quite some time™ I have wanted to post some of my writing drivel. As I commonly do with anything, I put it off.

For no discernable reason, I decided today to actually do something about it.

What I really wanted to do was start posting the second installment of the DeathTalker stories, but I realized that, as incomprehensible as it was, it would be much harder to understand if I started with Part 2. So here's part 1.

Assuming anyone actually reads this dog and wants to send spelling corrections, grammar fixes, etc. please direct them to what0607@yahoo.com. If you want to make general comments, feel free to do so. I reserve the right to whine, mutter and delete comments that I find too accurate (depressing).

If this story is received well (HA) I have a few others knocking around on my hard drive I can also post. We'll see.

For those that read my BYBS stuff (hi mom!), you may have noticed that I have not posted in a while. Not sure if I'm going to continue with BYBS: maybe all the bile and negativity is just risen to the level where I cannot think of anything positive to write about. Maybe I have writer's block, who knows?

At any rate, have fun reading it and avoid gnomes.

-W