#meche writes

[bzedan]

When driving down the 101, sometimes otherwise unassuming towns have the most mind-blowing meals you’ll ever eat in your life. Have a serving of some Jonathan Gold eldritch horror with this short story today.

You’ve probably found when looking into the gaping, dripping maw of an ancient beast of the sea that there’s a moment where your fear is so powerful you can feel your self split, groping along all possible paths in every alternate universe for one in which you are not here, in this moment. Don’t be tempted to let that experience define you, it’s what you do after, once you’ve realised you are well-stuck in this probability, that matters. I’m not too proud to admit that the first few times I found myself having to make a choice on how to behave after coming face-to-nerve-twanging face with the horrors of the unknown I did what any small animal would do before a monster. I screamed, or my knees collapsed beneath me. I even ran, once, little good that does when the very world around you ripples in the wake of something that incomprehensible. Eventually though, the unknown becomes expected and, if you encounter it enough, familiar. A looming mass of flesh pushing from the sea can be a comfort, not a horror, if you see it often enough.

Café By-The-Sea • B.Zedan

You’ve probably found when looking into the gaping, dripping maw of an ancient beast of the sea that there’s a moment where your fear is so

[bzedan]

Hey, who wants a ghost story?

The problem was, of course, that even with the mill gone the place was still full of ghosts. Most anywhere is, to be honest, but in a town that had been focused on an industry quite well known for its rather intense selection of tools, not to mention the way the land to grow all those trees had been got in the first place, the ghosts were pretty thick on the ground. Or air. Ether. One couldn’t walk the charming main street (four blocks long, due to how the highway split the town, thank you very much) without slogging through the miasma of lives long past. It added a rather negative vibe to the annual harvest festival—which was in summer, and full of summer fruits and vegetables, none of that dark winter-welcoming nonsense, thank you. It’s hard enough to stuff oneself on strawberry shortcake and zucchini noodles in the blare of wet June sun as it is, but doing it under the soul-weighing stare of several unnamed spectres can turn the stomach.

Any Small Town • B.Zedan

Everything was better once the mill burned down, of course. And now the path was wide open for a New Town Identity, whatever that would be.

[bzedan]

I'm trying to decide between three different writing projects next, not sure which to go for! They're all comparative amounts of plotted/noted/partly written so I can't judge by that. I've actually got more than three WIP because that's life, but these three have playlists so that gives them a leg up.

Opinions? Here's the playlists and some blurbs.

Pastoral Post-Apocalyptic Horsegirls

Post-Apoc Horsegirls

Writing a history of how the world changed.

An epistolary story that goes between the written account, decades later, of a woman who was in her late teens when the world went to shit and contemporary documents and accounts collected by her grandchild. Like Ishmael, she is reluctant to get to the point of the story. The joy of archives, community, and also how you fell in love with your wife.

Station Way

Station Way

Space travelling panto group.

A fix-up set of short stories that weave together the world of a space-travelling panto group and the places they play. Sci-fi as far as its set on stations and ships and between the stars. About the people that make places living.

Something Noir

Something Noir

Sci-fi puss in boots.

Not that noir at all, it's a take on Puss In Boots only it's all animal people. Also its in space. Also it's built on pulp style plot structuring. Indulgent adventure, triple crosses, etc etc.

[bzedan]

post the first sentence you write in your WIP today

"This is real. I am real."

[bzedan]

Here, have one of my fave flash fics from last year:

It is eclipse season once more, my heart. You remember—each year, as the season spins up, one of the planet’s satellites occludes the sun a little longer, a little more frequently. Like all children I’ve done my share of annual observatory visits, memorised the tour and peered at the orrery that explained the phenomenon. But you know I’ve no head for these things. The orrery is beautiful, and I know each capital city has its own, made by local artisans to reflect the attributes of each place. Our orrery was composed of granite marbles and chrome, visually one with the building itself, the mosaic floor a portfolio of stone patterns and textures, walls and columns dense concrete.

Last Year's Flash Fiction: Darkness Will Endure • B.Zedan

It is eclipse season once more, my heart. You remember—each year, as the season spins up, one of the planet’s satellites occludes the sun a

[bzedan]

Happy Friday, wanna time loop?

It was Tuesday. It had been Tuesday for, as well as Mel could reckon it, something like five years. This would have been fine, they thought, if it was a solo or limited affect time loop. If it was only Mel, or only Mel and like a dozen people around the world, experiencing Tuesday, that would have felt surmountable.

But the whole world had been experiencing Tuesday for something like five years and had decided, after about a year of panic and then a year of recovery from that panic, that Tuesday was fine, actually.

Last Year's Flash Fiction: Circles of the World • B.Zedan

It was Tuesday. It had been Tuesday for, as well as Mel could reckon it, something like five years.

[bzedan]

post the first sentence you write in your WIP today - Flash Fic Feb edition

Doing Storytelling Co’s Flash Fiction February, which is using words/quotes from Octavia Butler as the prompts this year. February twenty-sixth was: You.

[bzedan]

post the first sentence you write in your WIP today - Flash Fic Feb edition

Doing Storytelling Co’s Flash Fiction February, which is using words/quotes from Octavia Butler as the prompts this year. February twenty-fourth was: Potential.