Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: fiction (Page 2 of 8)

Get on over to the CCC!

July 9, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Hello there!  Today I wanted to write about a great little site that I go t introduced to by Aaron Pogue over at Unstressed Syllables.

If you are a writer and haven’t checked out Aaron’s stuff, do it.  He is very talented at teaching writing, which is good seeings as how he teaches writing on the college level too.  He also has an incredibly easy to use ebook out about how to write an ebook!  It is called How To Build An Ebook (affiliate link).  Check it out, you will be impressed.  I have another post that my lazy butt has to write about this book.

But today, I want to talk about the CCC, which is the Creative Copy Challenge.  This Site is run by Shane Arthur and he is a nut for some good writing.  Every Monday and Thursday he posts a new challenge.  Yesterday, May 20, he posted #42.  what you get is a list of 10 words or short phrases that you are challenged to “create a cohesive, creative short story tying all the words together!”

Sounds daunting doesn’t it?  Honestly I don’t think so.  I have been waiting for the words to be posted  and then writing my stories.  It has been kind of wild to see where my story goes based on inspiration from some randomly selected words.   What is really interesting is how many different ways that authors work with the same 10 words.

I started writing over there just for fun but it is addictive and I just keep doing more.  There are short self contained stories, there are really short works that ONLY use the challenge words, and then there are some silly people that feel compelled to put up a new chapter for their novel twice a week.

I am almost one of those.  Mine are not as long as Aaron’s up there but they are coming.  There are a few people in the challenge that are writing long stories, still using the challenge words but building on what has come previously.  Shane has graciously put up a page linked to each persons longer story so it can be read all at once.

Some others, like me, have created their own sites to show off all of the challenges.  You can see all of my stuff at my original Blog at http://delphiusbogue.wordpress.com.

Head on over to the Creative Copy Challenge and check it out.  If you have writers block this can help force you to write something.  If you just want to put something out to the world that has nothing to do with your blog, do it.  If you want to read some great stories head on over and do it.  There are some good things going on over there.  Just be warned, it is addictive.  The FDA may have to regulate it at some point.

Have a great day!

-Justin

Fiction Saturday 3! The Man With the Hazy Suit Part 1

July 9, 2014 / / 9 Comments

**Hey folks this is a reprint of part 1 of The Man With the Hazy Suit that origonally ran on May 8, 2010.  I have been few and far between regular posts this summer, and that is the same thing that has killed some of my favorite TV shows, like Alias.  So I am going to rerun the whole story and finish it strong!  Thanks for reading for the first time or rereading if you have been here before.  The Choose your own adventure aspect is not available anymore.**Posted again 9/11/10

***6 August 2011.  I am re-re-running this again.  I will finish it this time.  It has been over a year since I started this story and it should be finished.  It will be a free e-book when it is finished, so look forward to that if you want the whole thing.  More details will follow with that.  Thanks for your patience.***

Good Morning my fine friends!  I hope you are as excited as I to get to this new tale of murder and strange intrigue.  This is a story I have ideas and scenes for but I have not written it yet.  My other stories were written previously and I just edited them into posts. This story will unravel as it goes.
At some key points, I am going to have a poll, where you dear readers, will have a choice as to what path the story will take.  In the end, we will have the blog version of the story and the alternates all packaged like one of those old “Choose your own adventure” books.  I loved those books. I don’t know how long this story is going to go.

In a previous poll I asked how far was too far for the story, and the most votes was on keep going until the story plays out.  That is where we are today.  This will probably go on for a while.

There is not a vote today, but there should be next week.   It will be open until Tuesday noon MDT.  At that point the direction of the story will be determined by the most votes!

For today, and without further adieu, I present:

The Man With The Hazy Suit

Part 1

The man was dead.  We were finished.  The Wilton County Sherrif’s department was convinced that the “Gas Can Killer” had been killed in Murphy Park, in a hail of bullets from every deputy in the vicinity.  As far as the Captain was concerned, the case was over. We would never know who he was and why he became a killer.

I was finishing some paperwork as the medical examiner was taking the body away.  As ranking officer on the scene, I had bagged the items found on his person and was completing the list of items for the official file.  I had written down a Swiss Army type pocketknife; 2 small boxes of penny matches, one full, the other with 3 remaining; a nail file; and a small scrap of paper. What was on the paper could have been a clue to his identity, or it could have been gibberish.  “NCCS 1658 10-33-58”  That was what it said.  Written hurridley in a shaky hand with red magic marker.  The paper wasn’t much bigger than a golden dollar.  It appeared to be plain notebook paper.  I wrote the inscription in my personal notebook.  Something to think about later.

Back at the station, all of his belongings were boxed up with the case files and stored later that day.  Finished.  The papers would report it later that afternoon.

The phone on my desk rang.  “Sergeant Tompson” I answered.  It was a reporter.  I filled in some details on the case as I knew them and hung up reminded about the message on the scrap of paper.  I opened my notebook and looked at what I had written again.  NCCS 1658 10-33-58.  What could that possibly mean? It looked like a Star Trek reference.

I turned to my computer and typed the reference into Google.  No results.  I tried NCCS.  Nothing promising.  “Think Mike” I told myself.  “Think”.  The phone at the main desk rang and was answered by someone.  I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard the typical answer, “Wilton County Sherrif, how can I help you?”  Something clicked in my head. Wilton County.  Wilton County, North Carolina.  It couldn’t be that easy could it?  North Carolina, NC.

I started plugging in North Carolina and CS.  Google returned North Carolina Central Station.  A Bus Depot.  Could it be such a cliche thing as the North Carolina Central Bus Station?  A locker?  1658? That was too easy, I thought as I gathered up my notebook and keys on my way out of the station.  I was going to check it out.  Maybe I could find some finality to the case.  We would have to see.

I pulled my cruiser into the North Carolina Central Bus Station parking lot and noticed the sign.  NCCS.  Bingo.  I headed inside and looked for lockers.  A whole wall on the left hand side of the station was segmented into rows of lockers.  I headed that way.

The first row of lockers held 1000-1100.  I went to the next.  1100-1200.  And so it went until the next to the last row.  1600-1700.  I started searching for 1658.  And there it was.  Grey and battered, with a small combination lock on it.

These lockers were rented for weeks at a time.  The contract must not be up yet, or the lock would have been cut off.  I was nervous with excitement.  What could that locker hold?

I looked back to my notebook and tried the 3 numbers as the combination.  The lock opened.  This was way too easy.  Something had to be, well, wrong for it to be this easy.  I took a deep breath and lifted the latch. Inside there were 13 yellow legal pads, filled with a tight handwriting.

My hands shook as I took them out of the locker and headed to a bench in the station where I started to read.

“My name is Aaron Goodwin.  If you are reading this, I am dead.  And all for the better.”  This opening line made my heart skip a beat.  I decided to read the rest before calling it in.

“I had never been interested in anything to do with the law.  Sure I had read detective stories as a kid but I never thought I would be in one.  I am sittting here now, trying to figure out what to do with the information that I have gathered.  The outcome does not look good, for me.  I need to get all of this out, get all of this written down so no matter what happens, there will be a record of the truth.  It may be cliche, but I have to do this.”

I knew there was a long night of reading ahead of me.  I couldn’t read this here.  I stood and forced myself not to run to my car.  I resisted the urge to drive home at full speed, lights and sirens blaring.  I had found something great.

That’s all for today!  Join us next week for more of The Man With the Hazy Suit!

What did you think?  Comments are open below!

-Justin

Fiction Saturday 3! The Man In The Hazy Suit part 4!

July 9, 2014 / / 2 Comments

**Hey folks this is a reprint of part 4 of The Man With the Hazy Suit that originally ran on May29, 2010.  I have been few and far between regular posts this summer, and that is the same thing that has killed some of my favorite TV shows, like Alias.  So I am going to rerun the whole story and finish it strong!  Thanks for reading for the first time or rereading if you have been here before.  The Choose your own adventure aspect is not available anymore.**

Hello all!  It has been a less than ideal week for writing so this is a shorter part of the story.

I am kicking around the idea of recording each of these stories and adding them as a downloadable mp3 each week with the whole story coming at the end.  What do you think about that?

No other explanation, lets get on with it!

If you haven’t yet, Catch up here!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

When we left our story last time:

I flipped on the radio as I dressed.  After some chatter and worn out banter by the DJ’s they began to read news.  I had just picked up my Taco Barn uniform and I stopped at what I heard.  “…girls under the car and then the car set on fire.  No details have come out yet but it looks like murder.  I’m surprised no one saw this happen”  I did.  It may have been a dream but I saw it happen.  What could I do about it though?

Nothing I decided, just a strange coincidence.  Maybe I was psychic like on some of those TV shows.  Maybe I could be that detective who saw things before they happened and could fix them.  Maybe I was just losing my mind.  I held a strong possibility for the latter because I had convinced myself that I could smell gas on my Taco Barn uniform as I dropped it into the hamper.  Foolishness.

I went to work still pondering the dream.

And now we join our regularly scheduled program already in progress:

My shift at the Bagel Hut was a wreck. I was so tired I think I went through a pot of coffee myself. My boss was so pissed at my lack of work he sent me home early to “Get my head right.” He had seen Cool Hand Luke too many times. But I went home.
So there I was, home. Home and sitting in my recliner staring at the nothingness on the wall. I finally was so tired that I fell asleep sitting there, still wearing my Bagel Hut shirt.
I dreamed about the Man in the Hazy Suit again. He walked through a library at what must have been the University. He walked through the library carrying his red plastic gas can and stopped to look around. No one seemed to notice this man, garbed in a hazy, long black coat and old fashioned fedora. No one noticed his gas can.
The library was crowded today, the small round tables filled to the capacity of 4 nearly everywhere he looked. Conversations over textbooks and notes intertwined with conversations about last night’s escapades. Voices and the clack of keyboards all contributed to a dull hum that seemed to be coming from everywhere.
The sunlight that filtered through the many skylights was bright enough to render the reading lights on each table useless, yet they were lit anyway. The man walked around the tables seemingly in an aimless daze, but with that same…searching that he had outside of the car from last night’s nightmare.
He must have found something because he wove through the rest of the tables and walked slowly towards the center of the library. There was a bank of elevators lining a central pillar in this 5 story library. He walked purposefully that way, moving like a snake, or water even, just flowing through the dense crowd.
When he reached the elevators, he didn’t press any button. He just turned around, briefly surveyed the room, and checked his watch. I was puzzled. What was he doing? It was then that he looked directly at me and winked. I froze with a wide-eyed stare. He then knelt as if to tie his shoe and disappeared.
I looked frantically for him and then found him, heading out of the back doors with a curvy, redheaded girl. His left arm was draped casually across her shoulders and his right held the gas can. There was something very familiar about the girl, kind of like the girl that sat across the aisle from me in philosophy.
The one I took out last week. Her name was Karen, and I thought we had something that may turn into something else, and here she was heading outside with this guy. I tried to push my way through the crowd to the door but I wasn’t moving very fast. The man in the hazy suit turned at the door, stared right at me, and smiled. He knew I was there. And he was being vindictive.
I woke up with a start, sitting in my chair, sweating in my Bagel Hut uniform. Luckily I had tonight off from the Taco Barn. I was going to sit here and try to rest up. These last few nights have been hard.
I got up to change my clothes and take a shower. I smelled of bagels and fear sweat and slightly of gasoline, but that must have been my imagination. Cleaned and refreshed I headed to the kitchen to make some dinner. I flipped on the television as I walked past. The commercial ended and of course the news came on.
The reporter started, “And in a sad story, local university student…” I dropped the pan I was getting out as Karen’s picture flashed on the screen. “…was killed last night just off of campus. She appears to have been beaten and then set on fire. Police are investigating similarities between this murder and a few others that have been happening lately. More on this story as we go to…” I had seen her leave with the man in the hazy suit. I could have stopped this one as well. What was going on???

Join us next week for more from “The Man In The Hazy Suit!”

Thanks for coming by and reading!

have a great weekend!

-Justin

Part of the Blog tour, a book review of Foreign Identity!

July 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Hello folks.  Today I am bringing you a review of a new book that has just been released.  For those who have been around a while, you may have heard me talk about a little site called the Creative Copy Challenge.  Well, it was through participation in the weekly challenges that this book, Foreign Identity, was spawned.

I was writing away with my own story (that really should be a book too if I wasn’t so lazy about it) when I started reading the other submissions.  One that caught me up in the story was Foreign Identity by Becca Campbell.  I got caught up in the story and became internet friends with Becca and was more than a little bummed when life got in the way and she didn’t finish the story.

Little did I know then, that she was working hard to make this story a novel.  And it is good.  Becca sent me a review copy of Foreign Identity (for free FTC, I know you are listening) and asked me to read it.  I was excited to really find out what happened to the main characters, Jax and Kel.  But more about that in a minute.

I don’t think that anyone knows (becasue I have never told anyone) that I actually cut and copied the entries from the CCC into a Word file so that I could either read it again or just finish what I missed.  At the last count in Word, Foreign Identity was 36,700 words long.  Not too shabby, but not a novel.  Now it is fleshed out and it is fun to see wha thas been added and what finishes the story.

Now for the review.  The book, I loved it.  The marketing and publishing through The Consortium (Oklahoma City based with some other people you have heard me talk about, Aaron Pogue, Courtney Cantrell, (I love to be able to actually name drop)) is just independent genius.  It gives me hope for my novels if I ever get them finished.

Ok, the book.

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Catharsis of the Bogue

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑