The next Projects, Coming Soon

Pictured: The next series that comes after Elizabeth – in the bare bones, generalized plotting stages. No real editing except for spelling errors. It’ll be a couple of months before I start the actual stories.

I also realized that I’m using the wrong outline. EvaDeverell’s outline (in the picture) works well for fantasy (I’m using it for “Hidden city”), but I’m writing short stories. I’ll be writing the first one, which will be roughly 10-20k, with the “Save the Cat Outline” and a basic short story outline for the rest.

Short Story Outline
I found this with a Google search

I’m also working on “Hidden City” which I hope to have ready for a beta-read in a month.

Then there’s Zherosha: Contact. That’s something I should get started on… that’s its own post in the near future.

Why TikTok is a bad idea (and it’s not what you think it is)

This is why I don’t post on TikTok anymore. This guy is very gracious, but I believe some malicious troll kept reporting his videos. Trolls can harass whomever they dislike by simply using bots to mass report channels. A similar thing has been happening on Twitter, which is what finally prompted me to delete my old account I had since 2007. When Elon Musk announced his bid for Twitter, drama ensued, and I couldn’t resist opening a new account to watch.
Censorship is a problem, not because of the first amendment (that is actually to restrict the government, private companies can do what they want), but because of how easily trolls and bullies can abuse it. Some bully can easily just report videos/posts just because they know it would have an effect.
That said, if companies want to be strict with what people post on their site, then they need to find a way to stop abuse, but I’m not sure if that’s possible. At least, not without hiring more people and even then, you are subject to the mood of the mod.
I’m also on Minds and yes, the crazies are on there, but there are some really awesome people there. Some were banned only because there were enough reports to get them banned, but the material they posted was benign, only to be intentionally misconstrued to justify banishment – something that can’t be done on Minds.
Elon Musk said that he is for free speech, but we’ll see. Right now, “Free Speech” is lucrative, so it very well may be that he’ll turn Twitter into a free speech platform.
Time will tell.

How weird are your dreams?

UFO over a City with a Tornado

I dream a lot. So much so that I forget most of it – at least until one stands out more than the rest.

I remember three segments a few nights ago. The first was trying to pick up stuff from a car that was stuck on the side of the road. I think one item was my daughter’s backpack. When we were just about finished, a long line of endless traffic started driving past us. Mike mentioned a school bus passed us and I thought, if only we got out sooner, we would have beaten it.

The second, for some reason, had me roped into selling high-end “smoking” products in a billion-dollar highrise. It even had some water features, and I had to hire designers to deck it out – or something.

The last one was more interesting. It appeared to be apocalyptic in nature, with humans mostly gone. A quick glance at the Minecraft map showed California covered in lava because Yosemite blew up – or something. The friend that was with me mentioned something about seeing aliens taking all the humans from the cities. Then she jokes about thinking that only the righteous are supposed to be raptured. I thought back to a sermon where a minister said that it wasn’t the righteous because the meek were supposed to inherit the earth. Well, anyway, we should go to the east coast to see what’s happening there.

So we hopped into a van, and started driving because I wanted to see how the east coast is, since it’s out of range of the map. This is where I woke up.

The last one might be an interesting short story.

The “meek inheriting the earth” is from somewhere on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ApologiaStudios. It’s been so long, I forgot which video it was.


Image credit: ELG21 from Pixabay

CLOSAT and 7-point Short Story Structure

Image with CLOSAT Cards

I’ve finally got to do another round of CLOSAT. If you want to see what it’s about, check out this post. Use the suggestions however you want. You don’t even have to link back to this page or give me any credit. That said, feel free to comment the link to what you wrote below.

In case you can’t see the image:

Character: A tall slender woman who loves to write

Location: An Apartment Complex

Object: A pack of Cocaine

Situation: Mounting Debt with no end in sight

Action: Searching for Ideas on the Internet

Theme: Desire to escape

 

The 7-point Short Story Structure:

  1. A Character
  2. Is in a situation
  3. With a problem
  4. They try to solve the problem
  5. But fail, making it worse
  6. They make a final attempt to solve it which may succeed or fail
  7. The consequence is not as expected.