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Archive for the ‘flash fiction’ Category


I’ve created a sketch for the prototype which is the cornerstone of our world domination plan. I’m calling this device Hair Ball. This is a good code name, since Project Hair Ball sounds benign. To back track a bit, the plan is to infiltrate world leaders via a nano bug which will fly into their ears and allow use to control their thoughts and actions.

I’ll deliver the prototype to our scientists in the top secret Star Gazer laboratory under The Mountain of Doom. Yes, I know that’s just this side of a ripoff, however Sauron isn’t around anymore to complain.

As you might expect, the Mountain of Doom is quite hot, volcanic fires and all. And there’s no air conditioning. I’m sweating in places I didn’t know I could sweat. Stifling heat is sapping me of all creativity and giving me a headache.

I’m nearing 30,000 followers on my blog. I want to do something to mark the moment, but again heat and headache. I’m not sure what to do. That’s where you guys come in. Anyone out there have any suggestions?

 

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I love, love, love this podcast. Check out episode 11.

I laughed until I cried.

There were several suggestions for my evil villain name

Yesterday I was waiting on someone who needed to pickup prescriptions at the pharmacy. (I know day in the life of an evil villain. Work life balance is so important when you’re in the middle of taking over the world.) So I was working on our grand plan.

Picture it.

The car is hot, the parking lot crowded and my stomach is growling. And it hits me. Why that’s brilliant? You guys are going to love this … Hey, is that an all you can eat Japanese buffet? Now what was I thinking? I forgot. At this rate, it going to take a while to attain world domination status.

I think we need a mission and a catchy phrase to keep us motivated. World domination for world domination’s sake is a hard sell.

Who do I hate the most? Lets be honest, hates takes a lot of energy to sustain. In addition to be a world class procrastinator, I’m too lazy to really work up to hate. There aren’t too many people who are worth the effort. However, 99% of all politicians, bankers and pharmaceutical magnates are high up on the potentials list.

I’m beginning to sound like Robin Hood. Argh. Think evil, think evil. What do you think our mission should be? Catch phrase to keep us motivated? Anyone?

As for the name of our secret headquarters also known as my bedroom, the only suggestion was Grande Salle du Mal, the Great Hall of Evil (https://tobthebat.wordpress.com/). I might have to get rid of the floral bedspread.

P.S. The whole one ring to rule them all thing isn’t going to work out. Apparently there was a little incident with the ring. Thanks MoJo (https://momentumofjo.com) for pointing that out.

If anyone has related posts, let me know so I can link to them.

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Today is the first day of my World Domination Project. If you are reading this, you are in one of several groups, henchmen, minions, sidekick, subjects (see minions) or possibly arch nemesis. If you are in the arch nemesis category, beware I have low tolerance for super hero interference.

We’re going to need a few items to get started.

  1. My Evil Name, right now I’m going with Big Bad Evil, but it really doesn’t have the kind of poetic ring I was hoping for.
  2. Evil Staff
  3. Name for Evil Headquarters (Saying my bedroom does not strike fear or confidence in anyone’s heart.)
  4. World Domination Evil Plan
  5. A really kickin’ name for the Evil Plan to be used in indoctrination and marketing materials.
  6. One ring to rule them all. (If you don’t know about the one ring, you’re probably not going to fare well in the new world order.)

We may need a kickstarter account with secret decoder rings. I mean seriously think about it if of our arch nemesis is reading this, he’ll have access to our entire organization. Should we be an organization or secret society? I’m leaning toward organization, but we can be democratic about it.

I know we’ll need people strategically located in organizations around the globe (I think we should use globe it sounds more villainous than world.) We’ll definitely need a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. I believe historically all world domination plans started with these three guys. You know the old “One if by land or two if by sea”. We definitely need the candlestick maker.

(My apologies to the British division for the American Revolutionary War reference. Though I’m not sure you guys got the reference . You have a lot more wars to study than we do. In your history books it probably goes more like, “Got a colony, got a colony, got a colony, lost one, got a colony, got a colony, … You guys really do have it tough in the history department. Our classes basically start when Christopher Columbus took a wrong turn, yours goes back a couple thousand years.)

I’ll work on number 4. You guys work on 1. My Evil Name, 3. Name of  Evil Headquarters, 5. Code name for Evil Plan and I’ll keep looking for the ring.

If you see any hobbits, hang onto them and notify me immediately.

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Writing Challenge – Somehow I lost several days of the writing challenge emails. I’m short a couple of day and then I didn’t like today’s challenge which was to write a letter of encouragement to the person I was on the first day of the challenge. Instead I decided to repeat the last challenge to write a crappy first chapter. I’m really good at writing crappy beginning.

How could everything have gone so wrong? Our first mission ending in an inquisition. The first called in three hundred years. I glanced on either side of me and saw the worn tired faces of my team members, my younger sisters. Was it my imagination or did they look broken?

The empty seat of our necromancer, cousin Sarh, caught my eye.

I remembered when my Aunt and Uncle had realized their precious little darling was born to raise the dead. Sarh had barely been four. Her parents were hosting the mid-summers celebration. Everyone had been there. Imagine her parents’ shock when the family cat, dead two weeks came romping through the house. Their golden haired four year old following after. I was only six and still remembered my horror. I was always a little repulsed by her after that.

“Why did you not call for assistance?” The voice of the inquisitor brought me back.

My hand trembled, my eyes stung. I blinked. I couldn’t cry during the inquisition. I would win their sympathy perhaps, but they would never let me off world again. Let alone lead my team.

“We have no elders. The rest of my family are younger than us, still in school. We couldn’t risk their lifes. I wasn’t sure we would even make it.”

The old men magicked our family history. The shimmering outline of the text was in front of them.

“Surely there was someone,” the old man said, as he flipped through the text. “Ah, here.”

I closed my eyes and began counting to myself, trying to block out the memory of the mid-summer’s celebration that took the rest of my family.

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In today’s challenge, I’m supposed to write a blog post and let it organically morph into another topic. Not sure why, but then again I probably didn’t read the instructions.

Men got nothing on me. When I need to assemble something, I take out all of the pieces; hold a screw driver and the instructions (upside down); and start reading out loud. Before you know it, someone grabs the instructions and screwdriver and starts assembling. I don’t need no stinkin’ instructions.

I wonder if that counts. I started writing about the writing challenge and then digressed into instructions and assembly. Hey, maybe that’s a subplot. Maybe I’m subconsciously a writer. I’m taking a writing class online. It’s less writing and more outlining and preparing to write. I’m much better at preparing to write than I am actually writing.

I’m also taking a procrastination class. It turns out it isn’t about procrastination at all. Quite the opposite, it’s about doing stuff. Like ALL DAY. And by stuff, I don’t mean napping. Napping was not on the list.

Step one was to estimate how long everything would take to finish and then time yourself doing it to see how accurate your estimates were. So I estimated everything I normally do and then timed myself doing it. And after analyzing the results I discovered, I’m really good at procrastinating, quite efficient and effective.

I’m not sure he meant for me to time the activities I perform to procrastinate or the activities I should have been performing if I wasn’t procrastinating. I think his instructions were a little vague.

I did discover one thing, See if you can follow this train of thought. (Warning, Ride can make you dizzy.)

Things I use to keep from doing by procrastinating become the things I do to procrastinate if I find something I don’t want to do more than the things I was supposed to do before. Follow that? Don’t worry I barely did.

I use to procrastinate writing blog posts and would do other things to keep from writing blog posts. Now I write blog posts to keep from working on my book. I think I may have stumbled on gold. Now I need to find something I don’t want to do more than writing a book. I don’t know if it’s really accurate to say I don’t want to write a book maybe I’m scared of writing a book. (This is a suggestion from procrastination 101.)

I’ve written like a mad person in the past, when I’ve had a muse. Someone who appreciated and encouraged my work. I can understand why artists who found such a person kept them around. Never underestimate the value of a muse. Where does one find a muse? I wonder if I could build my own.

I may start a YouTube channel The Muse Builder. It starts with a blowup doll, male or female? He / she will need a smashing outfit. Now this sounds productive.

P.S. I was adding search categories to this post and thought about using Mental Health issues. It seems to fit today’s post, but then again it seems to fit most of my posts.

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Day 5 of the writing challenge is to write a story about a road trip, fact or fiction, with dialogue as if it’s happening.

The sky was so gray it seemed the sun would never shine again. It match the biting cold. This was the last factory on my schedule. Once I checked in with these guys, I could go home for Christmas. I was eager to get to finish my review and get some shopping done. It wasn’t everyday I was working in the south of France, so champagne, chocolate and china were top on my list.

What wasn’t top on my list the crawling pace of the traffic ahead of me. A few hours outside of Paris and everything had come to a virtual standstill.  I was just outside of a small village, a one horse town. Since it was France, maybe a one snail town was more appropriate especially considering the pace. I could have walked faster then we were driving.

I have to say that little silver rental car had one heck of a heater. It wasn’t long before I had to crack the window. I waited semi-patiently my thumb tapping on the steering wheel to the tune on the radio. I heard something strange. Horns, maybe a tuba? It certainly wasn’t in keeping with the French version of pop music playing on the radio.

I turned the radio off, rolled the window down and listened. Drums. Cymbals. It was definitely music. As we crept up to the edge of town, the ten or so shops which made up the business district were decked with tinsel and bells.  People lined the streets mostly women and children bundled against the cold. Some cameras flashed.

What was going on?

I leaned out of the window to catch a glimpse of the traffic ahead as the road curved to the left. Ahead of me I glimpsed a marching band, a fire truck and several fancy cars. That’s when I realized I was in the middle of the town’s Christmas parade.

I smiled and waved as people snapped my picture. Later they probably asked each other, “Who was that woman in the silver car?”

I like to thing the reply was, “A visiting dignitary, of course.”

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Everyone seems to be teaching some kind of class or writing some kind of how to book. Someone suggested I take an inventory of my skills and then create an empire around my greatest ability. I thought jeez I want an empire, surely I learned a thing or two worth knowing. Sure enough I found one skill I have that far outstrips all of the others, procrastination. Yes, I could teach a master’s class. So, I want to introduce a seminar I’m putting together to teach the fine art.

I’m going to get back to putting together the materials. Right after I paint the note cards I used for another project. If I paint them, I can use them again. While they’re drying I’ll play another game a solitaire and read my emails. After that I’ll clean off my desk. You can’t start a new project with a dirty desk. Have I checked Facebook today? I need a fan page.

Gosh this is exhausting work. Maybe a a nap. I’ll be refreshed a ready to go after a nap. What’s that spot on the wall? I should probably clean that. Oh look a squirrel. Where’s my camera? …

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I’m writing a book of humorous essays and quips called Who Stole the Corporate Sausage? Think Dilbert met the TV show The Office and had a love child. I’m thinking of releasing a free shorter version with some of the content called My Boss Is An Asterisks Hole. 

Is this something you guys might be interested in?

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haunted-house

On my way to New Orleans, I stayed in a less expensive hotel in order to save a little money. It seemed fine enough, except the carpet was sticky, there were no washcloths and no soap. The front desk clerk said they were out of soap, but I could have an extra packet of shampoo.

I slept with my coat on. I feel dirty and not in a good way.

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garden girl

My phone number belonged to a call girl before I got it from T-Mobile. She must have been really good because she still gets calls. I thought about answering numbers I don’t know with some themed response.

Since it was Christmas –

Do you want a one horse open sleigh or the whole team?

We’re running a two for one special on Santa’s Little Helper.

Would you like the two French hens and my partridge in your pear tree?

 

With this kind of talent, I should be writing erotica.

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