Editorial, Flash, and the Macbre

I put up a couple of more flash stories at ScienceFictional.com last week and this morning published an editorial on terrorism there. I wanted to put the editorial here, but it stretched out to a 1000 words which is too much for this blog.

I have a partially written flash called The Shunned Well that I will put up later. I have been listening to too much Stephen King, Peter Straub, Stephen Coontz, and, of course, Lovecraft. I don't usually write horror, gothic or macabre stories, but lately all the flash has been coming out that way. I bought several boxes of books-on-tape at garage sales and it's all been that kind of novel. In order to break out of this mode, I ordered Heinlein's The Door Into Summer on tape. This is Heinlein's best, at least to my way of thinking. When it arrives, and I listen to it four or five times, I hope that I can cleanse my pallette and write some real SF. In the mean time, I've finished the first draft on a story "Nest of Flames" that takes place in the 1820's and uses a Rimbaud tone poem for inspiration - very dark - more like Bradbury than Lovecraft, but still macabre.

I think that I have one more (maybe two) flash fiction stories for ScienceFictional.com on the topic of Katrina; that will make 9 or 10 flash stories in a little over a month. September first I'll start a new topic and see how I do. I have good starts on the three stories for the Oct 1 issue. The theme is Bio Machines. I wish that I picked a more general topic. I am not sure that I'll have them all finished by the deadline.