I woke up on November 1st and promptly wrote 350 words in the time I had available and then went no further for a full week. When I returned to my NaNo entry, I realized that I’d selected the wrong voice and decided to tinker with my other projects rather than engage in cranial-brickwork. So how was your November?
As promised I present to you my Oddtober book Widdershins. The link to download it for free is below. It includes all 31 Oddtober entries, as well as a brief Oddtober journal on the writing of each story. Plus an addendum of 10 Sci-Fi-kus. They’re haiku but sci-fi. The plan was to write one sci-fi-ku for every week of 2022 and I made it ten weeks before falling off the train (I’ve included one below, but download the book if you want to read them all).
Thank you for subscribing to this modest newsletter. Thank you for supporting indie writers. Thank you for your love of Sci-fi and weird fiction, it’s fun to be around you people.
If you need more persuading here’s another Oddtober entry:
Fresh Edenco, Food Wife Division, Thank You for Calling
“He’s tired of my ribs. That’s what he said when he pushed the plate away.”
Xindy adjusted her headset and drummed her fingers across her holopad. Her screen fritzed gibber as the caller complained.
“I give myself night after night to feed him, to keep him full, but my husband barely eats anything.”
“Perhaps he’s dieting,” Xindy suggested. “Not all husbands discuss their weight with food wives.”
“He hasn’t touched my breasts for months!”
“Calm down, ma’am,” Xindy said. “Perhaps you need to just spice things up.”
“That’s what I thought, but I’ve upgraded the savor profiles and switched to premium spices. Nothing works.”
Xindy could hear the frustration of the caller. Her vocals were strained. She pulled up the caller’s profile. Yup, she confirmed, that model was going stale all over the country.
“The other night, I buttered up, lifted my skirt to show him my thighs. Do you know what he said?” The caller sobbed. Xindy quietly waited until she recovered. She knew she should interrupt, to tell her about the new freegan options, to upload the latest dairy menu, but she wanted to know about the customer. They could be so awful.
“He calls me leftovers,” the caller said. She laughed a sharp, scoffing laughter that held no mirth or anger. “And just last week, I caught him looking at the neighbor’s model wife. She’s a buffet. I think she smells like a cafeteria, but my husband’s stomach growls every time he sees her.”
But wait! There’s more! I was reading this post on the sci-fi classic film “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and noted that the movie is in the public domain. I enjoy the film and wanted to read the screenplay, because reading screenplays is a fun and fast way to consume narrative and note the craft of storytelling. However the screenplay wasn’t readily accessible, so I formatted it for myself and others. The script by Edmund H. North is available in Kindle for .99 and in Paperback for 5.99 (as cheap as I could make them both). I was even able to use the slick poster art (also in the public domain):
That’s all for this month, but I have many plans for December, so get ready and keep your pocket change!