be the story

Online Fiction Tuesday #1

Most fiction is not worth reading, because 90% of everything is crap. This rule clearly applies to online fiction. Yet, I love to read a good story, and plenty of them are indeed published online. But it’s often hard to find them amongst the rest. Therefore, now wearing my editor’s cap, I present to you some online stories that I would categorize not-crap. (Read more…)

Justice, Masthead Style

Magazine Man recently posted a particularly good story on his blog Somewhere on the Masthead. Actually, everything he posts is particularly good, and we’re fortunate to have him in the blogosphere. But this story, in particular, is particularly good. It’s the true story of a bully, a hero, and a jackass with a little power and a lot of empty where his self-esteem ought to be. This story made me fume. It made me cry. It made me smile.

Six parts:

1. In Which McGruff Takes A Bite Out of My Ass…
2. In Which I Cross the Line…
3. In Which Justice Is Blind, Deaf, and DUMB…
4. In Which Scrappers Show Their Scars…
5. In Which No Good Deed…
6. In Which Everything Feels Normal…Almost TOO Normal…

-TimK

Spotlight: Holly Lisle’s Website

Do you love good writing? Do you want to learn to write? Check out fantasy author Holly Lisle’s website.

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Children and Toilets (a short story)

Last month, I wrote an unusual story, called “Children and Toilets.” At least it’s unusual for me. It has a female protagonist. I wrote it for Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing crit contest. I’ve thought of doing a crit contest here, too. Mur beat me to it. By entering the contest, I had two goals in mind. I wanted to prove to myself that I could write a female protagonist. And I wanted to support Mur’s contest and my comrades at I Should Be Writing.

I didn’t win. And after I was done crying in my Merlot— Just kidding. Actually, I wasn’t expecting to win, because there were bound to be a number of great entries, and any of them could’ve won. I was more interested to read the other entries, and some people are posting them over on the I Should Be Writing Workshop forum. I also wanted to hear what others thought of my entry.

You can read “Children and Toilets” at my website, and feel free to critique it.

-TimK

Spotlight: Tales of Pirx the Pilot (Review)

This is Stanisław Lem week. This past Monday, we looked at his novel The Investigation. Today, we’re reviewing a two-volume set: Tales of Pirx the Pilot and More Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

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Spotlight: east of the web

This episode almost didn’t make it out in time. Production got hung up when I got carried away at east of the web.

east of the web is a web site featuring quality short stories, hundreds of them, by new and classic authors. (Read more…)