TINY STORIES --- GOING STRONG

Just a note to keep the project on the top of my blog. We're linking more people to the submission and keeping the word out. Keep your stories coming in. Keep your juices flowing. Hey, it's a Saturday morning. What better way to spend a few hours than working on your 100-word short story? I'm finding the challenge is comparable to these annoying sudoku puzzles but more creative.

So keep them coming, keep writing, keep creating!

And welcome to all who found us through the CBLDF link!

The original post can be found at:
http://fagblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/tiny-stories-call-for-submissions.html
And remember the new deadline is October 10!

WARNING! NEW GLOBAL THREAT!

There is a serious threat to your welfare out there in the world. Don't get caught like I just did! It insidious, pervasive, persuasive, and threatens your personal freedoms, peace of mind, and weekends. It will suck your life away faster than The Machine in The Pit of Despair. This newest of evils is... sudoku. Do NOT get lured in by its promise of working your brain and making you think! It will suck away your time, your evening, your free-time. You'll have one on your desk next to your computer all day, working away at it. You'll discuss the 'levels of logic' and 'difficulty' of the solution steps. You'll see 9x9 grids in your eyelids when you close your eyes. Numbers will fly at you. You'll dream of the legendary 27x27 solvable variety. Leave it be. Do not touch it. Let it go the way of every trend before it, Rubik's Cube, Pac-Man, Pokemon, ponchos. I'm already lost, but save yourself. I warned you.

Corporations from Daddy's Point of View

Dear old Dad had a great way of looking at corporations and the crazy stratifications of personnel within. How promotions took place, etc. He worked for some companies that were notorious for this sort of thing: he said that basically, within a large corporation, you will find that people are promoted to their level of incompetency. How does that work? If you do a good job, you are promoted. You continue to get promoted as long as you do a good job until... you reach a job in which you are not totally competent. Then you are left there. So the higher you look in a corporation, the more incompetency you will find. So yes, upper management is where you will find the greatest level of incompetency. So if you're wondering why you work for such a moron, the answer is easy: it's built into the system.

Anatomy Lesson

I never knew. Almost any of it. As I have alluded to a few times in long ago posts, I'm currently in a program to become a certified massage therapist. It's just something I've always wanted to learn how to do. The idea that you can spend an hour with someone, and afterward, they feel better physical and mentally and even emotionally, it's just an amazing thing.

So far, the anatomy and physiology lessons have been incredibly eye-opening. As someone who works out (sometimes too much, sometimes not in weeks), I knew a little bit about muscles -- pecs and abs, biceps and triceps. But wow, it's amazing once you started learning it all for real. To think that almost everyone walks around, sits and bends, throws and stands, and for the most part, nobody knows their own body. Now, even with the little bit I've learned so far, when my neck is sore, I'm busy concentrating on it to figure out of it's levator scapulae or scalenes, suboccipitals or just trapezius. Rotator cuff muscles? Oh let's not even start!

The human body is absolutely incredible. And who knew that old song is actually wrong!!! The ankle bone's connected to the shin bone... Now everyone please have a great weekend. Work on your tinies (you know there are a lot of tiny things inside the human body you could write about!)... I need to go study up on Lateral Humeral Epicondylitis.

Rusty!

Here's a link to a great story. I thought this was absolutely hysterical. Kudos to the author!

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/rusty/rusty.html

Tiny Things

Ideas.

A germ, virus.
A splinter.
A bug.
A palimpsest.
A wink.
A wart.
A tack.
A bead.
A drop of liquid.

tiny: adj., [-nier, -niest] extremely small * n., a very young child (plural, -nies). [Late 16th C., tine]

TINY STORIES -- HUNDRED WORDS

Hello all,

I never stop reminding, do I? Keep on writing your tinies. Keep sending them in. We're talking up the project, and we really hope to do something with it once we're all compiled. With writers from around the world, all of us newbies, it's a special kind of project. I've had folks tell me they've never written anything before. I've had people tell me they can never get inspired to sit down and finish anything (heck, that's me, too!). Keep talking about it. Keep posting on your own blogs. Tell your friends. I recently saw on a blog tracking system that we made "hundred words" the ~1,700th most used phrase in blogging. That's pretty cool. Let's get it to the top 1,000! :)

B

p.s. I have a *gasp* date tonight. I'll let you all know how it goes. I hope I don't spill marinara sauce on my shirt.

Conductor

The conductor on the morning train is an extremely annoying woman who grates on everyone's nerves on a regular basis. Every now and then, someone tries to be nice to her. This morning, the woman behind me asked her if she's taken a vacation yet this summer. And she effusively belted, "Oh, well now, no I haven't, but thank you so much for asking. It reminds me that I put in for a week off at the end of August. I have to put in an extra prayer to Jesus that I get it." Now, I'm sure train conductors are important, but having their vacation time approved by Jesus? That's a bit of an overkill, isn't it?

Room 101

In George Orwell's 1984, if you got out of line, you were taken off to Room 101, where you would be tortured by visions of your worst fears. So it leads to the question.... what is in your Room 101? What would the powers that be attack you with to beat you down into submission?

I have to think mine would be a room full of hungry old women all telling me what to do at the same time. They would definitely be playing Nicholas Cage and Jim Carrey movies. Eggplant would be served with every meal. And the old ladies would talk incessantly about the weather, their health, their relatives who aren't there, and they'd be full of helpful advice, like, "You know, they say you should eat dinner early, so you can digest before you go to bed. I like to have dinner done by 5:30. That way I can watch my shows."

TINY STORIES -- DEADLINE UPDATE!

Hello all your scribblers!

I'm taking the initiative to extend the deadline for submissions for TINY STORIES project. If you need more info, please scroll back through the archives on this site.

Also, for all those who submitted stories, please keep working on more! I'm so happy with the results, it's going to take me a while to sort through them all, figure out the easiest way to work with Lisa on choosing what to put into a collection and have her provide illustrations for, etc. So I don't see a reason to stop accepting more submissions while we continue to cull and peruse, plan and review.

And again, please please please continue to spread word about the project. We're gluttons for punishment! Or is that punishers of gluttony?

So..

Keep on sending in your 100-unique-word short-short stories. Let's push the deadline out to.... my birthday... October 10. Two more months to create and pull your hair out.