Mushroom: Blog

Well, after writing what is probably my darkest story yet, I think I now have a good idea what was causing my writer's block. One thing I noticed long ago, is that if I start to write in the same style for too long, things either go sideways or dry up altogether.

And to be honest, the part of Sensei I have been writing has actually been good and happy. And like happened sometimes with Country Boy, it was like I wanted to just bust it all up. So instead, I started writing Bohica. And then alternated back and forth when things were getting to sappy, or to dark.

This time, I ended up digging out yet another of my old stories. But this time, I took the base concept only (a "do over"), and pretty much throwing it all away except for the first half a page and writing a completely new story.

And a cautionary warning, "Another Life" is unquestionably one of my darkest tales yet. This one is not even moderately dark, it is downright horrible at the end.

But hopefully after knocking out three like this, I can return to give some sunshine into the life of Clint.

Yes, I am still writing. And still writer's block on The Sensei. So instead I turned to two stories that had been started last year and finished them both up.

And these are both "Dark Tales". In other words, do not expect happy endings in them. These are never intended to be my usual "sappy-happy love stories", they are dark and twisted stories that come out of some of the deepest parts of my imagination. Think less "One For the Angels" and "The Mighty Casey", and more "To Serve Man" and "A Nice Place to Visit" from the Twilight Zone.

Some are cautionary, some are outright depressing. Others have twists involved in the end, may get a bit silly, or veer off in a totally different direction than expected. Some are simply plays on the title themselves, or essentially a giant joke like the works of O. Henry.

But each of them is also part of my trying to tell a different kind of story. Something that does not fit into my usual writing, or I wanted to play with a concept and putting it into that helps warn others that the story is not of my typical style.

Because in the end, I readily admit that I really enjoy telling "love stories". But sometimes, I just gotta write something down that fucks that all up.

The two stories I finished were "Loss Prevention" and "Orientation Day". Both of these I started over 6 months ago, and have spent ages just sitting in the "in process" folder waiting to be finished. One was my attempt to write an "asshole" character, the other I wanted to try a story in the vein of "Naked in School", but different than most like that I have seen (and much shorter).

I just had an almost classic message, from somebody screaming at me how much of an insensitive racist I am. At how I dared used the "N word" in a story, and used it repeatedly.

Ans to be honest, I mostly laughed at it. If somebody reads "Bohica", and then at the end thinks I am some kind of racist, they seriously need to get their head examined. In fact, the main idea of the story was very much in BUSTING racism, and showing how stupid it was.

Of course, the person also screamed that they will never read anything I write ever again, and that I should be banned from all platforms.

So I guess they will never read the final chapter of that story. Which is sad, because I actually believe that is how all real racists should end up. And their entire rant just goes to prove how idiotic and moronic such people are. Who only look at the surface and do not even try to think about what is the actual meaning of a story.

Like those who read Huck Finn and see racism. Not even seeing that a young man from the South was bucking his entire cultural norm and helping Jim get his freedom at the end.

I am still hard at work, but had to step back as writers block kept stopping me. And to help get around that, I went and did some editing on an older story.

I just reposted a new and revised Bohica, the entire story. There were no major changes, just some cleaning up and even some expanding. Much of that was simply that since I started writing this, my average chapter length had roughly doubled. So a lot of this was also combining 2 chapters into one. So what was 34 chapters, is now 19.

There have been no major changes however, nobody dead before is now alive, or the reverse. But hopefully this newer version is a lot cleaner and better reading than it was before.

This story and Country Boy are the two that started this years long writing spurt, and my abilities have improved a lot since I started writing them. And hopefully this newer version reflects that.

I know it has been over a week since an update, I had to take a few days off, as I hit some writers block and am trying to work through it.

And in the down time, I started doing a much cleaner edit of Bohica, and trying to bash through how to create an ebook from it. So far I have a rough cover, and the first chapter (which is chapters 1 and 2 as most chapters I am combining to make them larger). At this time I have done a "cleaner draft" of part of the story, with Chapters 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 being completed. And a test "cleanest" of 1-2 to make the first chapter.

Hopefully in a day or so I will be comfortable enough that doing so will be a minor part of my time, and this damned writers block will have lifted.

But here is a "pencil test" cover for Bohica.

https://funkyimg.com/i/3b2D1.jpg