First, before we begin, I just want to thank all of the people who have been reading the Friday Fictioneers works that I’ve been putting out for nearly the last year. With the world becoming busy, my time for creating actual short fiction stories had reduced to a trickle. The last part of 2015 was one of the toughest times in my life, because I was in a foreign country without much hope of finding a job while going to university. I had to give up on that part of my dream, and I moved back to Korea, but I still had to deal with a lot of pain. The first 6 months of 2016 were hard on me, and writing became a bit of a chore.
But things started breaking during the summer.
Off-blog, I am currently working on a 6-10 thousand word story for publication. The inspiration for it is key, but I have been having motivational issues. The good thing is that right now, it’s the perfect time for me to get working on it. And so, I am about 2500 words in. Also, I have finished the outline of a movie script that I plan to get to after this story is completed. So, off-blog, there’s a lot of stuff going on.
On blog, there will be a few things that I am going to be doing:
First, I will be doing a redesign of the blog to add an element of awesomeness to it. I am planning to work with a friend of mine to create a website that will be more aesthetically pleasing to myself and more reverent of the craft that I am working on mastering. Plus, green and a picture of Crater Lake has been the logo for a long time. I’m going to try something different.
Second, I will be starting to utilize my other blog, the blog with my name on it, as the platform for my more Christian-oriented writing, as well as music reviews. This is not because I don’t think that the writing I do doesn’t deserve to be on Music and Fiction, but because I want to make the Warrior Series more compact and in a place where people who may not wish to read Friday Fictioneers can read it.
Third, I am going to be spending more time on responding to comments. Now, this sounds a lot like something a blogger should be doing everyday. That’s true. The problem I’ve had is that in my lethargy, I haven’t been putting time aside to do so. In fact, this is part of a reason for a semi-overhaul of my blog: To allow me to give and receive feedback in greater numbers. People deserve it, and I need to do better.
Last, I am going to be working on an idea to re-write some of my older stories and update them. Make them longer, expand the storylines, add more musical content, and really focus on getting things back to life.
Now you’re probably wondering: What’s the reason for all of this? It’s simple: I spend too much time just surfing the web and not being creative. It was the words of my pastor, Marcus Corpening at New Philadelphia Church in the Itaewon area of Seoul, that helped redirect my thoughts. If you’re going to be the master of something, you need to spend more time with it and develop it to its logical end. That takes years. Many years. I’ve been doing this since 2013. I’ve logged in over 200 entries (with a good number of them being fictioneers posts), and I think it’s time to take things up a notch.
So, keep watching this space for more updates on the blog. And thanks for sticking with me.
(Author’s note: I will be doing some updates on this Chuseok weekend. I will also post a big personal non-story update, to give people an idea of what’s to come with Music and Fiction. In the meantime, here’s today’s fiction!)
She cut and removed pieces she didn’t need, like pieces of her life that were unusable. She slowly formed the rounded lump with her hands. Pushing and pulling the clay, smoothing it out with water, she slowly developed it into a shapely, beautiful vase.
She pulled out a brush and some glaze. She pulled out a small tin, and mixed the grey powder into the small jar of glaze. She painted the fired vase, and put it back in for more firing.
The final product stood in the entryway, a tribute to her dearly lost husband, who was now a part of the beautiful vase.
The winter came early for the people of Charleston-upon-Avonlea. Bitter cold came in mid-September, unannounced.
By early October, the river Avonlea had frozen over. 4 of every 10 people got supplies.
November came quickly, and the cold persisted. The river seemed to be nearly frozen solid. Attempts to do some ice fishing came up with very little except more ice.
The people were so used to doing their own thing, they didn’t ask for any sort of help from other places. They didn’t know how.
By the time the soft rains of April showed up, there was no one left alive. Even as the bustling village of Newport, 7 kilometers away, went about it’s own business.
(Author’s note: Still working on the story. Been dealing with some things that have come up since. A little under the weather with a throat infection. Getting better, though.)
Paul Marcus looked over the lily-pad covered lake, deep in thought.
“Where did the time go? Not long ago, I was 24 and full of spirit. Now I’m 35 and broken.”
He looked at the small bobs coming up from the lake, stirring a pad or two.
He thought back to the opportunities that were there, that he missed because he was focused on one dream. A one track mind, and that track derailed a year before.
Sitting back in a chair under the shade of a gazebo, he looked at his watch.
(Author’s note: Currently working on longer fiction piece, hopefully for publication. It’s a good one, but I will still be making time for Fictioneers. Here’s today’s piece.)
The ambulances were splashing away from the parking lot of the movie theater.
Nearly a foot of water was in this section of the parking lot. An area with over a hundred guys walking around, dazed.
It was a special movie night, where pregnant moms got in for free with the purchase of a normal ticket and a concession box. What was not expected was the pain when the first mother walked out of the theater, followed by another mother.
Pretty soon, every mother’s water had broken. Over 100 mothers were taken to the hospital that night, after one of the worst rainstorms in ages.
It is still known to this day as the “Night of the Baby Flood”.
Music and Fiction 