Flash Fiction Friday: DNA

Today's Flash Fiction Friday: DNA

Diane closed the locker using a handhold for leverage as she floated in free fall.  The door clanged and the sound echoed down the long, empty corridor.

"That's the last of them," she said more with sadness than relief.

"That's a billion," Mark growled.  "More than enough."  He was hovering nearby.  He didn't need to be here but it was the last locker.

"Yes, but what about those left behind?"  Diane turned to him, eyes bright with tears.  "Why are we, why are they-" she flung and arm down the corridor "-the lucky ones.

Mark shook his head.  "Over our pay grade, Diane.  Don't worry about it."

"There's six billion who are very worried."

Mark frowned.  "We have to stay focused and we have to stay on mission.  We have a long trip ahead of us.  We have a long trip to Kepler-186f."

"Five hundred light years," Diane grumbled.

"Come on," Mark said, "we need to prepare to leave orbit.  Then we need to get ready for our 13-year journey. Just you and me, kid."

Diane smiled.  They were chosen for this mission because they were compatible, personable, and, according to Earth's top psychological minds, destined to fall in love.  It happened in training.

Then Diane's visage hardened.  "Thirteen years for us travelling at nearly the speed of light, over 500 for Earth .  By the time we get to 186f, it'll be over."

Mark frowned.  "It's best not to dwell on that."

"How can I not, Mark?  They will slaughter every man, woman, and child on the planet and make it their colony."

"They gave us the technology to do this.  They gave us the technology to build this ship.  To clone humans from DNA."

"At what price?  Our planet?"

"Considering we lost the war, I think they were being generous."

Diane snorted.

Mark hoped she wouldn't be like this the entire trip.  "Come on, let's get ready to leave orbit."  Even he didn't dare say "Leave Earth behind."

Diane smiled slightly and using handholds they pulled themselves up the corridor toward the bridge.  It would be nice when they were accelerating at one gee, no more free fall, Diane had to admit.

The corridor was long.  It had to be, to hold one billion humans' DNA.

On the Radio

Today at approximately 4:00 P.M. EDT (1:00 P.M. PDT), I will be on Red River Radio talking about writing, my latest book Gods of Strife, and reading a short excerpt from the novel.  It's going to be fun and informative and I might even sing (okay, probably not.)  "Tune in" at this link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rrradio/2014/05/28/rrw-whats-write-for-me

Don't miss it.

Drive Time: Write What you Love

Lamborghini Countach

(This is my 300th post on this blog)

Today is, in the US, Memorial Day.  Yesterday the Indianapolis 500 race was ran (as was the Coca-Cola 600 but that's NASCAR so who cares?).  As is my tradition, going back to 1969, I watched the Indy 500.  And in 1969, I decided Mario Andretti was my hero/favorite driver (and I didn't like the Unser brothers).  Now Mario's grandson, Marco, came in third yesterday and his son, Micheal, is a team owner who owned the winning car.

I'm not a big fan of watching racing on television.  I find it boring.  That is especially true NASCAR which I call "rednecks turning left" and is like your interstate line up going 150 mph.  Yes, the crashes are spectacular but I worry more that someone might get hurt.  I tried hard to like watching Formula 1 (when they show it on US television) but while the precision driving is interesting, there seems to be missing the wheel-to-wheel competition to keep it interesting.  It's sort of like baseball: moments of action separated by hours of tedium.

I've always like cars.  I can't remember a time I didn't like cars.  I didn't want to work on them and I didn't want to modify them, I just wanted to drive them . . . fast.  And I still do, occasionally hitting felonious velocities on back country roads or watching the speedometer brush against 155 at the end of the straightaway on the race track.  I once described driving on the racetrack the most fun I've had with my clothes on.  Talking about driving on the track I wrote a blog post called "Zen and the Art of Driving Fast."  Since driving on a racetrack I have tremendous respect for professional race car drivers, even NASCAR.

In my writing I've not spent a lot of time dwelling on my love of cars.  In my Adept Series novels, the heroes generally disdain cars, don't drive, and have someone drive them if they need them.  They use taxis a lot.

That changed a bit in Gods of Strife, my latest Adept Series novel that is set in 1976.  I indulged myself a bit by including a Lamborghini Countach and a Ferrari GT4 BB (both 1970s "supercars") in the plot.  There's even a car chase of sorts with the good guys in the Lamborghini and the bad guy on a flying carpet (well, it is an urban fantasy).

What is it you love?  Do you include that love in your writing?  You should.  You want your writing to be passionate and if you write about your passions, it will be.  I was frustrated writing some of the Adept Series books because I had to shuttle my love of cars (and other things such as airplanes) to other characters.

They say "write what you know."  But I would add "write what you love."

Flash Fiction Friday: The Mask

Today's Flash Fiction Friday: The Mask

Mike sat in his car, watching the bank through the rear view mirror.  He's staked it out and around 2:00 P.M. was when the bank's traffic was slowest.  There was only one car in the parking lot now.

On the passenger seat were the two things he brought for this job: the mask and the gun.  The gun was an old revolver, snub-nosed, that he'd inherited from his father.  He didn't know if it would even fire; the bullets in it were at least a generation old.

"I guess it's time," he said to himself.  He didn't turn off the car but stepped out into the summer heat with the gun and the mask.  This wasn't what he wanted to do.  But with the economy still in the toilet, job prospects scant, he had to feed his family.  He pulled the hot mask over his head and strode toward the entrance to the bank.  That's when he heard the screams.  They were coming from an alley between two tall buildings to his right.

"No, no, no!" a woman screamed.

Mike turned, hesitated, than ran for the alley.  He saw two big men menacingly approaching a petite young woman.  Already her pantyhose were ripped and there was dirt on her skirt, indicating to Mike the men had already knocked her down once.

"Stop!" Mike yelled, pointing the revolver at the men.

The men turned and looked at him with questioning eyes.  He realized he was still wearing the mask.

"Leave her alone," Mike growled, trying to sound threatening.

The men exchanged a glance, then turn and ran out the alley, past the woman.

The woman gawked at Mike.  "Th-th-thank you," she said in a shuddering voice.  "You saved me.  I don't know who you are but you're a good person."

Mike looked at her.  He smiled.  She smiled back.

"You're welcome," was all he said.

He turned, walked back to his car, took off the mask, and drove away.  He'd start looking for a job again tomorrow.

Free Short Story: To End All Wars

You can enjoy a free short story set in the Adept Series world: "To End All Wars."

Buck Sergeant O'Malley has seen a lot of war: more than anyone in Second Platoon, Boy Company realizes. Because O'Malley is 6,000 years old and, using various names and disguises, has been there from Thermopylae to the trenches of World War I, trying to protect the men going into combat, trying to save women and children, trying to push back the darkness that descends each time men takes up arms against men. And now his squad has been ordered "over the top" to face enemy machinegun fire. Will this be the end of O'Malley's very long life?

Available from the following places:

Smashwords (various formats)

Amazon.com (Kindle) for $0.99

Barnes and Noble: (Nook) $0.99

Kobo (Kobo format)

iTunes (iTunes format)

Book Signing Etiquette

If you're a writer, at some point you might be asked to do a book signing.  I've done a few and here's some things I've learned:

Be Prepared: Have three pens (at least one will walk off, the other die), plenty of books, swag (bookmarks, etc.) book stands (book stores don't always provide these).  And try to look nice.

You need traffic: Make sure the bookstore sets you up where people will be walking by.  If you're in the back corner, people aren't going to seek you out.

Be polite, nice, and friendly: Establish rapport with the customer.  Ask them their name, ask them how their day is going.  Smile, be friendly.  They are much more likely to pick up your book if they think of you as a friend.

Have a "elevator speech" ready for each book: You need a one-sentence description for each book you have there.  For instance, for Hammer of Thor I say "Hitler steals the Hammer of Thor, Thor comes back for it. Bad news either way."  No one wants to listen to a ten-minute dissertation on the plot points of your novel.  Keep it short and simple.

Don't snipe: If it's a multi-author event, don't snipe customers from other authors.  Let them finish with the customer before you talk to them.

Ask how to spell the name: These days, especially, names can be spelled weird.  So always ask "Who do I make it out to" and then "How do you spell that?" or "Is that spelled D-A-N?"  You'll be surprised how many names are spelled very strangely: "No, that's D-H-A-N-N."

Sign and put the date: Putting the date makes it seem more official and special.

Say "Thank you" and mean it: and give them a bookmark (you do have bookmarks, don't you?).

Stay positive: If no one buys your books, or even speaks to you, stay positive, give out swag, and SMILE.  No one will want to talk to you if you're a grump.

Flash Fiction Friday: A Thousand Lives . . .

Today for Flash Fiction Friday, the beginning of a story that went no where, title A Thousand Lives . . .

Death doesn't care.

You can be brave, fearful, not go gently, or welcome it.

Death does not care.

Death will come.  Death will take you.  From the battlefield where your shattered body lies alone in mud and blood.  From the sanitary hospital bed with white sheets and your loved ones around you.

Death does not care.  It will take you.

I'm on a first-name basis with Death.

Everyone lives once.  Everyone dies once.  Everyone, that is, but me.

I've had a thousand names.  I've died a thousand deaths.  I am not a coward; I am not brave.  I am not human.

We first came to this planet when your ancestors where finding out that throwing rocks was an efficient way to kill animals.  Or each other.  We were evolved beyond bodies.  We traveled in vessels of pure energy, storing our consciousness in the interlacing electromagnetic pathways.  I was as big as a galaxy.  I was as small as a quark.

We found corporal beings vulgar yet amusing.  Like you keep a goldfish simply to watch it swim in its unknowingness, we watched you.

Until the accident.  Until the one thing that could never ever happen did.

I got lost.

On your planet, I got lost, left behind.

You might think me a spirit or a ghost.  I'm not, I'm just immortal yet I needed a body to live in.  No, I don't understand it.  I'm a billion times smarter than your smartest scientists and I don't know why I am cursed to live on this planet, one life after the other.  I die, and wake up in a new body, a baby, a boy, a girl, black, white, yellow, red.  I've been a slave (more times than I care to count), a king, a peasant, a whore, a prince, a nun, a warrior.

I've died a thousand deaths a thousand different ways.

I think drowning is the worst, at least of the non-violent ways to die.  Holding your breath until you can't hold it any longer.  Sweet relief as you inhale, then . . . death, as your brain is deprived of oxygen.  The bottom decks of the Titanic were probably the worst.  Add your most claustrophobic nightmare with drowning.  I was, to be honest, glad it was pitch black.  I couldn't see the men around me dying, too, sentenced to death for the crime of being boiler stokers.

But I had also died so many violent, painful deaths, sometimes horrific deaths.  Too many to recount, too many to list.

I'd been this man for twenty-five years.

They said I was wise beyond my years.  Had the eyes of an old man.  If they only knew.  Not that I remembered anything from my previous lives when I was alive.  I only remembered when I was dead.  Dead just long enough to relive all the horrors I had experienced over epochs of humanity before I would be shoved into the next life.  And then the next life.  And the next life.

The circumstances you are born in determine more of your life than you ever consider.  The sharecropper's son who becomes a billionaire, yes, it happens.  But most sharecropper's son will be sharecroppers.  Or drunks.  Or join the Army.

I joined the Army.  It was 1939.  The world was secure.  The United States was protected by two big oceans and President Roosevelt promised to keep the US out of the brewing conflict in Europe.  The Army was safe, secure, and I had a roof over my head and three square meals a day. 

I was even happier when in spring of 1941 I was transferred to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.  White sand beaches, warm water, and beautiful women.  I didn't care what color someone was (I'd been that color at some point).  I didn't know why but I always preferred women, even when I was one.

I woke up on Sunday morning early.  It was December.