Free Fiction

This section contains a number of stray pieces of writing that have cropped up around the internet, so make of that what you will.

My flash fiction piece “Gaps” was the daily fix on the sci-fi site 365 Tomorrows. I’m not sure exactly what prompted it; I think I may have channeled one of the bizarre, deeply paranoid interviewees from the Lonely City volume of Transmetropolitan. Anyway, it was a lot of fun to write, and I’m glad they picked it up for a spin.

Most of my favorite uncollected pieces were written at the prompting of the inimitable Chuck Wendig, so let me take a minute to talk him up and generally pimp his stuff. Chuck and I met back when I was slinging words for White Wolf, and aside from being an excessively cool person he’s easily one of the most prolific artists I know. He’s written a novel, a mess of RPG books, a short film that got accepted for Sundance, and a whole host of short fiction pieces. His blog is an absolute must for anyone who actually wants to be a writer instead of being one of those folks sitting around Starbucks with a laptop, making sure your intellect and sensitivity are carefully noted by all.

Seriously. Read his stuff. And buy it. Yes.

That said, he likes to sponsor contests on his blog, and I’ve entered a few. I even won a couple. Here are those links:

I wrote “Needles” in response to a flash fiction contest prompt about “vacation horror stories.” All I can say is that I read some Corey Doctorow and Richard K Morgan right before this contest, and might have taken it a touch literally.

Of course, there was also the infamous “My Beard Come So Fat, I Wanna Do Laser” contest. Suffice it to say we had to use at least part of that quote in the story. My entry can be found here. And yes, I have the shirt too.

I also once took a turn at the helm while Chuck was away, letting my professorial side out a bit for a post on the evolution of the English language. Don’t mind the pen name – back in college, some friends decided we needed to come up with ridiculously pretentious ones so that we could write for The New Yorker. That was my contribution.