writing

Fiction Circular 12/19/20

by Kaiter Enless

A weekly dispatch of creative writing from around the web by Kaiter Enless.

From Ceres Eithne: Alongside Fear. A woman, failing to find comfort in therapy and medication, grapples with her increasingly disturbing psychological malaise.

“She had a nightmare last night: a horrifying one that carried small bits of the occurrences she had buried deep down in her heart…”

From Danika’s Memory Box: Dinner. A series of sentimental letters weave a patchwork tale of one man’s dark ruminations.

“I’ve heard rumors that she still loves me. Rumors, rumors, rumors… I don’t know what is true anymore. If she loved me, if she truly loved me then why would she do this? I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t…”

From Elizabeth Fiction Writing: The Man On The Train. A unlikely meeting on a train prompts a woman to recall her musical childhood.

 “The memory faded as soon as we were out of the tunnel and I could once again see everything around me. I shook my head as if it would help me clear my thoughts. Surely, the man on the train couldn’t be the same person?”

From Fiction Is Food: Elysium by Gary Jefferies. Two travelers brave a wild land in which a monstrous beast is said to lurk.

“I can see a sorcerers haze where the tracks end. I think it’s Elder Magic, maybe a portal.”

From Fictive Dream: A Meeting in Fitzrovia by Mike Fox. An aspiring writer seeks the advice of a talented poet in a crowded pub.

“The craftsmanship of his generation could speak of an artist’s sensibility, a fact recognised by a number of authors, who took the trouble to write and thank him when the first pristine copies of a book arrived to reward their long hours of effort.”

From Kyro Books: The Carnival by K. T. Rose. A homeless musician’s fortunes change when he encounters a mysterious masked man.

“But what is joy? So dead and coy Just ask this man Who’s still a boy”

From Richard R. Becker: Might As Well Jump. A taciturn boy’s bicycle ride takes a unexpected turn, presaging a series of dire events.

“‘Liam, come quick!’ she hollered. ‘The President’s been shot.'”

From The Inkwell: North Pole by Matthew Donnellon. A humorous Christmas fantasy, reminiscent of the 1964 claymation made-for-TV movie Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

“The air in the makeshift snow cave was only slightly warmer than the air outside. Luckily, our Elvish DNA kept us from freezing but just barely.”

Advertisement

Fiction Circular 8/1/20

by Kaiter Enless

A weekly dissemination of fiction writing from around the web by Kaiter Enless.

From Caliath: Notes on the Creative Corpse by Joao-Maria (a poem concerning the creative process).

To dispetal the cosmos and the cosmos, place those steatic specs upon the unreeling…

J.M., Notes on the Creative Corpse

From Cyberwave: Coloring For Karen (a scifi short story).

With a wave of his hand the boy produced magnificent shapes and formed islands out of the empty ocean while standing on the cliff. His eyes were closed but he knew he didn’t need them. He used his imagination without bounds, and without the influence of external stimuli.

– Cyberwave, Coloring For Karen

From Jan Christensen: Sad Victory (a mystery short story).

“Of course I’m okay.” Her mouth twisted around the slang word disagreeably.

– J. Christensen, Sad Victory

From Horror Tree: Pale Horse by Lynn Love (a tale concerning a man who may or may not be crazy hears a voice that may or may not be there).

‘That ain’t no wind,’ he says. ‘There’s a voice. Can’t you hear it?’

– L. Love, Pale Horse

From The Chronicles of History: Beyond The Trees by Samantha James (a short story of the fantastique).

A young orphaned girl flees her home one afternoon and finds herself lost in a big scary forest. The child becomes injured but is assisted by an unlikely companion that claims to know the way to the girl’s home at the abbey. Not all is as it seems …

– S. James, synopsis

Fiction Circular 7/25/20

by Kaiter Enless

A weekly dissemination of fiction writing from around the web by Kaiter Enless

From Little Tales For Busy Folks: The Corridor by Vic Smith. A subterranean adventure takes a unnerving turn. Would be aided by more character development.

I was convinced there was something down here with me. I could hear breathing. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, or where the sound was coming from, but I was sure it was there

– V. Smith, The Corridor

From New Pop Lit: Zeenith, a fiction and poetry collection featuring Brian Eckert, Mark Marchenko, Holly Day, Chrissi Sepe, Kathleen M. Crane, Robert Kaercher, Erin Knowles Chapman, and James Croal Jackson. The volume is available for purchase for $25 via Paypal, or credit-card.

Full color. State of the art. Hand crafted. Sleek and stylish.

– Promotional tag-line for Zeenith

From Scraps & Scribblings: Goodnight, Sweet Prince by Richard Tearle. Macabre historical fiction. Seems a fragment of a larger work.

 George has gone too far. You can see that, surely? He has taken the law into his own hands – my law, let it be noted.

– R. Tearle, Goodnight, Sweet Prince

From Short Stories Online: Progressive Jackpot by Shane Lambert. A raffle takes place at a bowling league. Instead of telling by showing action the author simply lists off what occurs, week by week, which makes the story read, unfortunately, like a news article.

Almost all of the other Beer Leaguers had their own minor-league fantasies about what they would do if they won the money. One lady wanted to be a bar star for a weekend at a local country club. Another guy wanted to place a bet on the Edmonton Oilers winning the Stanley Cup. Another simply would have bought a new RCA television.

– Shane Lambert, Progressive Jackpot

From T. W. Iain: Ghost. A chronicle of a daring thief’s plan. At first, I assumed it was going to be one of those insufferably drippy slice-of-life flash-shorts which forms the great bulk of what is redundantly referred to as ‘literary fiction;’ thankfully, my assumption was incorrect. The piece develops its two principal characters impressively well with so few words and builds to a surprising, bittersweet crescendo.

The casket was closed, of course. She’d refused any suggestion of surgery.

– T. W. Iain, Ghost

From Vastness: Discount Baby by H. W. Taylor. A speculative sci-fi tale concerning a future wherein certain classes are prohibited from childbirth, a situation which prompts a enterprising and childless couple to attempt to trick the system. A superb work, which, in the most positive of ways, reminded me, faintly, of Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. 

Best of the week.

She was protecting him, by letting him give her hope.

– H. W. Taylor, Discount Baby

Fiction Circular 7/18/20

by Kaiter Enless

A weekly dissemination of fiction writing from around the web.

From Bill Chance: The Sorcerer’s Intern. A spoof of Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

“I left some fishing weights on the table, could you turn them into gold, please. I’m a little short with the grocery money this weekend.”

B. Chance, The Sorcerer’s Intern

From Boondock Ramblings: The Farmer’s Daughter (Chapter 1; A Serialized Novel) by Lisa R. Howeler.

She’d been used to one annoying older brother her entire life, but five years ago Jason had invited his college roommate Alex to come work on the family farm and now it was like she had two annoying older brothers

L. R. Howeler, The Farmer’s Daughter

From Close 2 The Bone: Billy’s Grave by Lisa Short. Two young women discover criminals desecrating their late brother’s tombstone and decide to defend their land.

They had kicked over Billy’s gravestone; Faith could tell when Kayla spotted it lying all askew by the stiffening of her shoulders. They might not have known they were even on a gravesite—she and Kayla had buried Billy themselves, and the only marker they’d been able to place had been a river-worn slab of rock

L. Short, Billy’s Grave

From Literally Story: Crimson Coloured Raindrops by David Darvasi. A curious, charming tale of mysterious entities venturing below a dreamlike-city of steam and fume. Best of the week.

he started cutting the darkness – quite literally. Not for any romantic reason, other than he wouldn’t do anything metaphorically. 

D. Darvasi, Crimson Coloured Raindrops

From Literary Yard: The Last Time Rublev Saw The Sea by Tom Z. Spencer. Strongly influenced by recent events, Spencer’s story follows a young man navigating the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

We were told it can’t transmit human to human, and then that masks don’t work, and then to wear masks, and eventually to go home, and lock the door.

T. Z. Spencer, The Last Time Rublev Saw The Sea

From Momus News: Critical Equipment by E.A. Wicklund (EagleAye). A short, humorous piece.

“At last! The very thing I need to combat this pandemic,” said Blumquist.

E. Wicklund, Critical Equipment

From Neel Writes: Memories Unspooled by Neel A. Panicker. A charming flash fiction.

“You children are so unlucky for unlike us you hear your music strapped on headphones, and watch your favourite film and music stars gyrate on your palm tops”

N. Panicker, Memories Unspooled

From Nicholas C. Rossis: Common Fiction Writing Mistakes. The advice is basic, but can prove useful to new fiction writers (for more experienced writer’s, I would recommend the T. Bailey Saunders’ translation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s The Art of Literature).

It doesn’t matter how well-constructed your world is if you’re incapable of dishing it out in smaller portions that are relevant to what’s happening in that particular sequence. If there’s a city that’s important to the story, give the reader the necessary info when the characters actually go there, instead of dumping 500 years of detailed history and politics from three different provinces in a prologue.

N.C. Rossis, on info dumps in fiction

From Curiomancy: Samizdat by Rick Wayne. A excerpt from the author’s scifi novel Zero Signal.

the human cognitive capacity was more or less fixed, artificial minds could adjust their filters on the fly. A wider net meant slower thinking, and vice versa, but they could scale their attention to their needs.

R. Wayne, Samizdat

Compiled by Kaiter Enless.

Upon Your Arrival & Beyond

by Kaiter Enless

by John Grey

The people of America 

go crazy – 

from fishing folk of the Maine coast 

to the California 

surfing crowd – 

a baby emerges from a deaf-mute’s womb 

and it’s still not promiscuous 

or willing to kill for a living. 

It is watched over by old names 

and new slatterns. 

Character is born 

just like that baby 

but with its own blood spilled, 

not the mothers’. 

Being bathed continually in filth helps. 

Job or first love – 

numbing terror is not the same as emotion 

until it is. 

Sadly, a woman being choked 

to death by the rough hands 

of a stranger 

cannot answer your twenty questions – 

luckily, the default in every case 

is “false.” 

And then there’s marriage, 

a rash dash 

and without cash – 

three children are raised 

by the state – 

on a cross to be crucified 

as it so happens. 

So a house in the suburbs it is – 

but what about the hundred foot giant 

trudging through the neighborhood 

planting the seeds of strip malls?

A water-pipe bursts – 

the truth emerges – 

rats too can drown – 

they’re just not in it for the water sports. 

Everyone is ungainly at ocean’s edge. 

You toddle like you’re ten thousand pounds overweight. 

Fat red flesh predominates. 

You’re prisoner of the economic climate. 

If the deal falls through, 

you can always go back to bathing in filth. 

The mind fantasizes 

over hedge fund managers 

in a great Wall Street extravaganza 

that’s been sent to destroy you. 

It is only in secluded places, 

far from the trained eye of the television camera, 

where anything of sense is being said. 

And there’s nobody 

to speak up – 

and, to make things worse – 

the car’s not an automatic – 

at no time in your life 

were you instructed 

how to drive a manual. 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review, with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.

Where I Live Now

by Kaiter Enless

by John Grey

I’m trying to figure 

what it is about this house – 

egg yolk sinks 

into a ketchup frieze – 

squashed ants line the sink, 

empty bottles vie with the half-full – 

I live between a thankless television 

and the doorbell – 

I sleep on an old couch 

with half the flesh torn out – 

wallpaper’s ratty – 

spit has congealed – 

excuse my appearance – 

I was up all night, expecting guests.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review, with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.

The Lexicon: A Cornucopia Of Wonderful Words (1996) by William F. Buckley Jr.; A Review

by Kaiter Enless

William F. Buckley’s The Lexicon (published by Harcourt Brace & Company and described as a “pocket word guide”) is a compact reference of uncommon words, which places emphasis not simply on the rarity of the words included, but also, as one might induce from the inclusion of cornucopia in the title, the applicable breadth and variety of those words. Omitted are such narrow oddities as arachibutyrophobia (ie. the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth); a word which Buckley thought belonged in the “zoo section” of dictionaries. The utility of such special case, single-use words as the aforementioned, to general discourse, (then, as now) are, obviously, minimal. Thus, their omission doubtless bowdlerized the volume considerably from what it would otherwise be, should its author have saw fit to include as many arcane and ancient lexical peculiarities as could be found, without regard to utility.

The consequence of this view on the book itself is that it is rather light on inkhornisms and consists primarily of words that tend to sit at the back of the average reader’s mind, like boxes of old clothing in an ill-ventured and moth-proofed attic; such as aberrant (ie. a person whose behavior departs substantially from the standards for behavior in his group) and bellwether (ie. the guide by which one measures other data), as well as a sprinkling of latin phrases such as ab initio (ie. from the beginning) and caeteris paribus (ie. if all other relevant things remain unaltered); and more atypical offerings, such as asservation (ie. an assertion made in very positive form; a solemn assertion), buncombe (ie. talk that is empty, insincere, or merely for effect; humbug), cacoethes (ie. an uncontrollable desire), and enjambement (ie. continuation in prosody of the sense in a phrase beyond the end of a verse or couplet; the running over of a sentence from one line into another so that closely related words fall in different lines).

Every word featured is accompanied, in addition to its definition, by a example of its use in a sentence; often, a wry, scathing observation of some political situation or personality of the time or utilization of Buckley’s fictive works (all citations from his published oeuvre). It is these amusing asides (in addition to a number of cartoons by Arnold Roth) which lend the book its singularity and readability—that quality so often and ironically lacking in written works concerning language.

The Silence & The Howl, and, Tatter, now available from Gumroad

by Kaiter Enless

The novellas THE SILENCE & THE HOWL (2020) and, TATTER (2020) by Kaiter Enless are now available from Gumroad in EPUB formats.

Previously, Logos Literature ebooks were available exclusively to our Patreon patrons, but, understandably, not everyone will want to support on a continual basis; and so, for those who wish to purchase our ebooks directly, Gumroad will now be the place to do so.

Fiction Circular 7/4/20

by Kaiter Enless

A weekly dissemination of fiction writing from around the web.

From Candy’s Monsters: What’s Inside by Candy Korman.

Men always lied about their height the way women always lied about their weight.

~C. Korman, What’s Inside

From Delicious Tacos: The Rage.

Knees go bad and you turn into keyboard Paul Kersey…

~D.T., The Rage

From Flora Fiction: Death Witch by Leon Clifford.

The captured fool looked down and had two realizations almost immediately. One, the bone he could see jutting out of his leg should, in fact, be on the inside of his ankle, and two, it was probably the source of excruciating pain emanating from the lower half of his person.

~L. Clifford, Death Witch

From Literally Stories: Tylen Brackus by Tom Sheehan.

October clouds were raggy and less than unique, filled with promise of the ominous sort, darker than usual, inertia buried in them, as if they were hanging there for a definite purpose.

~T. Sheehan, Tylen Brackus

From Richard Becker: The Sweeper.

“Looks nice,” June hesitated. “Quiet, maybe.”

“Let’s hope not too quiet,” Medford said, thinking of his film again.

~R. Becker, The Sweeper

From Terror House Magazine: The Silent Man by Alfred Kinning.

He didn’t use an alarm clock; he’d woken up at this time every day of his life.

~A. Kinning, The Silent Man

From The Inkwell: Paint Me by Matthew Donnellon.

He would draw out different pictures for her to find when she got home that when put together would reveal the location of her date.

~M. Donnellon, Paint Me

From The Literary Yard: The Empty Azurite by B.A. Varghese.

His thoughts were on more pressing matters. For one, his glass was empty.

~B.A. Varghese

Compiled by Kaiter Enless

Tatter (a novella)

by Kaiter Enless

TATTER (2020), the complete novella (EPUB) by Kaiter Enless is now available from Gumroad and Patreon.

Synopsis: In the vast, mechanized city of Aecer, a courier’s life is forever changed when he encounters an enigmatic woman pursued by malevolent forces.

Format: E-book (epub). Genre: Science fiction. Size: 58.5 KB.

A sequel, KRYOS, is forthcoming.