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).