Creative Mung from Eric Burns-White

And now, part three of Lovelace 1/2. So far folks seem to like the story, and that’s awesome. This part is a hair shorter — it’s hard, sometimes, to end on a dramatic beat, as a serial requires, and still make it a heavy length. That said, I’m sure there are plenty of people that are glad to see one of these clock in at less than 2,500 words.

Regardless, enjoy!

Continue reading →

Another Monday, and another explanation of how the world works, behind the scenes. And, as with so many of these ‘things,’ we’re clearing out the backlog of topics from… well, 2007. I feel like I should be tracking things with Gantt charts.

Today, thankfully, we have a twofer. Two separate questions can be merged together into one tale. The first question was asked by… um… ‘burning.’ Which… makes me hope someone extinguished him and/or her between then and now, or else we’ll have to answer this question for ‘ash.’ The second question comes to us via old friend of many of our endeavors hight Goblinpaladin.

burning’s question is:

Why do we all get so annoyed when another driver drives below the posted speed limit? How does “maximum legal speed” get transformed into “minimum polite speed?”

and Goblinpaladin’s is:

I don’t have a specific question formulated, but: Tell us a story about Procrastination. The Lord of the realm. Why it is tied to stress and also relaxation. Something. Anything.

Two questions. Procrastination and speed. Politeness in the moment being determined by rulebreaking, versus putting things off until everything becomes stressful.

As it turns out, these are related concepts, as you’ll see after the break. It’s a long one, so hunker down.

Continue reading →

Welcome back… to Ghost Story. I’m Sebastian Cabot.

Or something like that.

We’re well into Interviewing Trey, and so far folks seem to like it. I’ll admit I was glad to get back to Todd Chapman.

One thing I’m trying to do, for the record, is give some idea of how Chapman isn’t quite the same person he was at the end of Interviewing Leather. He’s done and seen quite a bit along the way. Over time, I’ll try to include some bits and pieces of Chapman’s past — in particular, some of his other dealings with the superheroic or supervillainous communities over time. That’ll also let me flesh out the world of Justice Wing a bit more.

Here’s part three.

Continue reading →

“I keep hearing people talk about how Superman’s the best super hero or Batman’s better or how great Wonder Woman or Oracle is — and they compare their muscles or their powers or their smarts like it all came down to the stats printed on the back of the cards their action figures came on.”

“But that’s not it?”

“No. That’s not it. None of that’s it. None of those heroes are better or worse than each other, regardless of powers, because there’s only one measure that counts.”

“And that is?”

“When everyone else is running away, super heroes run toward.”

Part two of the new ongoing story Lovelace 1/2. Folks seemed to like Andi the last time out, which is very cool.

I should mention something right at the outset. I work at a private school myself — some of the details at Brooks-Carillon comes from my school. However, the location of the school — just outside Brunswick, Maine — is several hours from here. None of the characters are based on any faculty, staff or students of the school where I work. This is wholly a work of fiction.

Continue reading →

Hey all!

A lot of folks have asked for a quicker, easier way to read the fourteen parts of Interviewing Leather. That makes sense — it would be, after all, quicker and easier. The obvious thing to do would be to create a single PDF, with everything laid out quickly, simply, with maximum convenience.

Yeah, I’m not going to be doing that.

Well, at least not yet. Will Leather get the consolidation treatment? Unquestionably. However, it will involve additional material, some filling out, perhaps a backup story or two and, Paragon willing, will let me make at least a little bit of money. More news on that as events warrant.

However, I know that just going to the tag page gives people two pages of links, which are in inverted order. It’s an artifact of WordPress, and I’m sorry for it. HOWEVER, to make things easier for people who want to jump in — we now present this page. Behind the link, you will find things in an easy to read and access linear fashion.

Tell your friends! Wake your children! Read a story… um… again. Whatever – just enjoy!

We’re back, and it’s time once more for the Mythology of the Modern World. Today’s myth comes to us via a question asked by Paul Gadzikowski, legend of Microsoft Paint before it was cool. His question is one asked by many people, both children and people who had been children once upon a time. To whit:

Some of us mortals suspect that our toys come to life at night or when we leave the house, and that they have Rules of which the upshot is prohibiting our knowing they’re alive. Where did the Rules come from?

It really is something worth pondering, and to be honest Toy Story and its sequels haven’t helped. They get some of the concepts right, but not all of them — if nothing else, the truth behind our toys and their hidden lives don’t end with the toys holding hands as they descend down a gravel track towards the pure molten fire that represents their horrible, twisted deaths every time one of them gets discarded. For one thing, our toys don’t want our children (or the rest of us) sobbing our fucking eyes out in terror when we think of the toys we loved got thrown out after being broken!

Not that I’m bitter.

In order to understand the Rules, you have to understand what takes bits of plastic, wood, cloth, and batting and turn them into our best friends, our closest comforts, our companions, our imaginations, and our recipients of cathartic violence that doesn’t lead us to killing the neighbor’s dog instead.

In other words… you need to hear about the Souls of Toys.

Continue reading →

Part two of Interviewing Trey, and the first part where we really get to know the Jack O’Knaves.

For those who’ve read Interviewing Leather, there’s one significant difference that will become apparent in this post. Leather was a thief, pure and simple. She didn’t just avoid killing, she went out of her way to not kill.

The Jack O’Knaves is under no such restriction, and this is very apparent starting… now.

Notes on this will follow, of course.

Continue reading →

On Wednesdays we’ll be presenting stories. Which, you know, isn’t materially different from Mondays, where we present stories, or Friday, where we present stories. We’re kind of a story operation, if you think about it.

However, Mondays we specifically present myth. Fridays are devoted (at least for the moment) to serials and one-shots in the Justice Wing universe. On Wednesdays, we’ll give you serials and short stories on any subject matter.

Today we begin Lovelace 1/2, a novel about a young woman named Andi. She’s an expat Brit going to a private school in America. And, right up to her Freshman year, she’s been a completely normal person. She prefers sports to studies, she has friends, she likes to watch television and do not much of anything.

And, well, I hope you like her. Or at least like the story.

Continue reading →

One of the things about a five and a half-year absence is you get a certain… backlog. Especially when you do things like answer questions and explain things about the hidden world behind our own. Some folks have wondered if I’m nervous if the current myth calls are quiet. The answer there is, simply enough, ‘no,’ because I’ve got dozens of questions that stretch back into the mists of time.

Which is not to say I won’t answer a newly asked question in a timely fashion. Writing is many things, but it’s not fair.

Today’s question was asked back on Monday, September 7, 2007 by a gentleman (I unwarrantedly assume) hight Joel Wilcox. Mister Wilcox asked:

Where do babies come from? Not sex or cells or the stork … where do they really come from?

It’s a fair question. One that mythologists, hacks and eight year old children (and Piers Anthony, who at one time or another was each of those things) have been asking for roughly as long as the species knew what a child was. Now, having had the scientific explanation short circuited (and rightfully so), and the traditional stork answer forestalled, the question remains.

Where do babies come from? I mean… really come from.

Continue reading →