tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43401944500830677162024-03-19T01:40:43.397-04:00Oneoveralpha's WritingsStephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.comBlogger372125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-53045259483308259202024-03-12T10:00:00.001-04:002024-03-12T10:00:00.124-04:00Writing business cardsRecently, I was
doing some cleaning and I came across some business cards I made years ago.
I think, in some
office supply store, I found a pack of blank business cards. Each sheet had like ten cards you could separate,
and the pack had four or five sheets. On
the pack there was a note about how it worked with some template in Word. You filled out the template, then put the
Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-53923000260106228712024-03-05T10:00:00.001-05:002024-03-05T10:00:00.148-05:00Writing so bad … it’s good?I watch a bunch of
YouTube movie reviewers. One topic that many of them discuss at some point are
movies so bad they’re good. As they explain, the difference between bad-bad
movies and good-bad movies is intention. The word that often comes up when
discussing bad-bad movies is “cynical,” while the word for good-bad movies is
often “inept.” Bad-bad movies are made by people saying, “X is popular, Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-56795177309835814172024-02-25T15:00:00.001-05:002024-02-25T15:00:00.129-05:00Voter registration drive and book saleI know a lot of
people are tired of being told that every election for the past decade WILL
DETERMINE THE VERY SURVIVAL OF THE NATION!
But it’s true. The fastest way
for the anti-democratic forces to fully seize power is if We The People can’t
be bothered to vote. And the
anti-democratic forces already have too much power as it is. To keep our democracy, we need to vote, Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-59662109003591252332024-02-20T10:00:00.001-05:002024-02-20T10:00:00.138-05:00Random Writing Tips – Prewrite your bio I recently did something
for the first time in a couple of years: I submitted a story. As of the posting of this, I’m still waiting
to hear back. But the submission process
brought back the scourge of many writers: the cover letter. I don’t care for cover letters. I prefer sites that just have a form you fill
out with your name, story title, word count, etc. and theyStephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-7379205159648818192024-02-13T10:00:00.001-05:002024-02-13T10:00:00.142-05:00Novels in a few sentencesI recently went
through some posts on an old blog of mine, and I came across this little
gem. Years earlier, I had heard that a
good exercise for creating pitches was to describe your novel in three
sentences. So I tried it with two of my ideas. For my novel, Damocles, I came up with
the following:
Most people go
through their day-to-day lives worrying about “important” things:Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-2628054246885526952024-02-06T10:00:00.001-05:002024-02-06T10:00:00.140-05:00To scheme, or to write?I spent a decade
or so sloooowly building up a miniscule following on Twitter. Now, Twitter had issues before Musk bought
it, but he didn’t fix the issues I had with it, and he made more. So I left Twitter for Mastodon. Is it better?
Well, probably everyone I’ve interacted with on Mastodon Musk would claim
is “woke,” so yeah.
The main way I
used Twitter, is I had two Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-75732896653607179992024-01-23T10:00:00.001-05:002024-01-23T10:00:00.131-05:00Free story idea – Star JumpingI have a lot of ideas for
stories. Like, if I wrote a novel’s
worth of them every month, I’d still most likely die before getting through
them all. I will admit that some of the
ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that a good writer could make
something of them. I’ll just never get a
chance to. So, I give them to the world. If you can make something of Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-8082090454639482062024-01-16T10:00:00.001-05:002024-01-16T10:00:00.133-05:00Random Writing Tips – Am I just writing gibberish? There is a project I’d
like to finish in the next few months. The
idea of the project isn’t that difficult, it’s some essays on a subject I have
a great interest in. So I don’t have to
deal with foreshadowing, or coming up with interesting characters, or any of
the complexities of fiction writing. I
just have to coherently describe my thoughts on this subject.
Of course, Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-66399828417069938242024-01-03T10:00:00.001-05:002024-01-03T10:00:00.144-05:00My writing goals for 2024 Four or five
months ago, in an attempt to get my act together, I set deadlines to finish
five of my projects. Three of those deadlines
are this year. I want to publish Collection
X, my tenth short story collection, a collection of essays on building a lunar
base, which I’m still hammering a title out for, and Rediscovery, a novella I
started years ago about a writer Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-84658037344418024842024-01-02T15:30:00.001-05:002024-01-02T15:30:00.129-05:00This hurt my brain Maybe the sea was too rough.Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-38699541801922011662023-12-31T10:00:00.001-05:002023-12-31T10:00:00.152-05:00Writing Newsletter Fourth Quarter 2023 Well, I finally finished
and published The Uncapped Pen, my collection of fifty stories dealing
with writing, in some way. To try to
bring some awareness to The Uncapped Pen, I reposted three stories that
were in the “Maybe Pile” for the collection: “The Honeymoon’s Over,” “It’s Harder than it Looks,” and “It’s a Fine Line.” I also posted “Procrastination,”
the idea for which I came Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-56573414345122628812023-11-21T10:00:00.001-05:002023-11-21T10:00:00.147-05:00Random Writing Tips – Try new things About a week ago, I was
driving to work and I wasn’t in a good mood.
I hadn’t slept that well, I had a bit of a toothache, and I’d done
something to my elbow. Not to mention I was
thinking about all the writing stuff I needed to do. I needed to write up some blogs, I needed to
come up with an idea for my Monthly Stories, I needed stories for the various
collections I’m Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-6639712192119998162023-11-16T10:00:00.001-05:002023-11-16T10:00:00.139-05:00Short story – “Conditions”“Conditions”
With a mug of his
favorite coffee, John went into the storage room/his office and locked the door
so the cat wouldn’t get in. He set the
mug on his desk, then walked over to the stereo set on a metal shelf and put on
a Vivaldi CD. The music started and he
adjusted the volume until it was a soft background. Returning to his desk he sat down and turned
on his laptop.Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-29685994095954010452023-11-07T09:00:00.001-05:002023-11-07T09:00:00.141-05:00Fool’s storiesThis started a
couple weeks ago when I had a dream. In
this dream, a giant dog was destroying cities.
By giant, I mean this dog could have easily chewed up Godzilla. All of our guns and bombs were useless
against it. But then, this old guy from a
retirement home stepped up and wrestled it into submission, or maybe killed
it. This turned out to be an immortal Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-56451457771877943122023-11-02T15:00:00.001-04:002023-11-02T15:00:00.138-04:002023 Election ebook sale!I know that a lot
of people are tired of being told that every election for the past decade is
THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER! But it’s
true. The fastest way for the
anti-democratic forces to seize power is if The People can’t be bothered to vote.
And they have too much power as it
is. To keep our democracy, we need to
vote, in this election and every election.
Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-4158053930671713342023-10-24T10:00:00.001-04:002023-10-24T10:00:00.141-04:00Free story idea – Two spooky ideasI have a lot of ideas for
stories. Like, if I wrote a novel’s
worth of them every month, I’d still most likely die before getting through
them all. I will admit that some of the
ideas probably suck, but I think there are some that a good writer could make
something of them. I’ll just never get a
chance to. So, I give them to the world. If you can make something of Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-21953980702431980952023-10-12T16:00:00.001-04:002023-10-12T16:00:00.140-04:00Short story – “Procrastination”I just published The Uncapped Pen, a collection of fifty short stories dealing with writing in some
way. I got the idea for this story about
a month ago, long after I had the fifty stories selected for the
collection. So I’m just posting it here
as a bonus.
“Procrastination”
With a fresh cup of
coffee, John sat down at his desk and opened his laptop. He put the cursor over theStephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-22840743189351056842023-10-11T04:00:00.001-04:002023-10-11T04:00:00.137-04:00Short story – “It’s a Fine Line”I just published The Uncapped Pen, a collection of fifty short stories dealing with writing in some
way. Most were previously published – on
my website or blog – but the rest are brand new stories. This previously published story was in my “If
I need it pile,” but in the end I didn’t need it. So I’m just posting it here as a bonus.
“It’s a Fine Line”
Joan returned home from
Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-87226145593431129752023-10-10T22:00:00.001-04:002023-10-10T22:00:00.133-04:00Short story – “It’s Harder than it Looks”I just published The Uncapped Pen, a collection of fifty short stories dealing with writing in some
way. Most were previously published – on
my website or blog – but the rest are brand new stories. This previously published story was in my “If
I need it pile,” but in the end I didn’t need it. So I’m just posting it here as a bonus.
“It’s Harder than it
Looks”
As Renee juggled Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-28909228626593621232023-10-09T10:00:00.001-04:002023-10-09T10:00:00.140-04:00Short story – “The Honeymoon’s Over”I just published The Uncapped Pen, a collection of fifty short stories dealing with writing in some
way. Most were previously published – on
my website or blog – but the rest are brand new stories. This previously published story was in my “If
I need it pile,” but in the end I didn’t need it. So I’m just posting it here as a bonus.
“The Honeymoon’s Over”
“What do you think Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-34597436110157702542023-10-06T10:00:00.001-04:002023-10-06T10:00:00.141-04:00The Uncapped Pen, at last! Over a decade ago,
I had the idea of putting together a collection of stories dealing with writing:
authors arguing with their muse, or struggling with having too many ideas, or
too few, or whatever. But for reasons, I
set it aside, until a few years ago when I figured I’d finish it. Well, it took longer than expected, and just
as I was about to put the final polish on, there Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-53450885477598645482023-09-30T10:00:00.001-04:002023-09-30T10:00:00.142-04:00Writing Newsletter Third Quarter 2023In my last newsletter, I
explained how I was going to polish up my collection of stories about writing, The
Uncapped Pen, to have it ready for when the writer’s strike ended. Well, I polished it up, and figured all I’d
need would be a final read through.
Well, when the strike ended I was trying to do six other things, and
since the strike had gone on for so long, after a final read Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-29438706722987162752023-06-30T13:30:00.002-04:002023-06-30T13:30:00.142-04:00Fourth of July Sale and voter registration driveI think for every Fourth
of July since I published Political Pies – my collection of short
stories of a political nature – I’ve had a free sale for it. On one hand, it’s hard to make money if you
give your books away for free, but on the other hand the point of Political
Pies is to get people to start thinking about politics in the hope we could
start working on some of the problems we faceStephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-9532757751671567682023-06-30T10:00:00.001-04:002023-06-30T10:00:00.142-04:00Writing Newsletter Second Quarter 2023 In my last newsletter, I
wrote that I hoped to have my next collection, The Uncapped Pen, out
sometime in May. Well, polishing it up
is taking longer than I had hoped. In
the beginning of May, I set June 1st as my goal to finish it. And the next day the Writers Guild of America
went on strike. I am not a member of the
WGA, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4340194450083067716.post-29069653454124516762023-06-20T10:00:00.001-04:002023-06-20T10:00:00.148-04:00Random Writing Tips – Chill on the weird words I know, you don’t want the
epic heroes in your fantasy story just drinking mead and eating roast boar. You want to show the reader that this isn’t
just people at a Renaissance Faire, so they drink regilum, the drink of the
gods, while eating roasted glarthen. Of
course, the servants bring the roast glarthen out on a large silver platter,
that they set on the table before the Stephen L. Thompsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08165822376466316865noreply@blogger.com0