Tag Archives: short stories

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Posted on by

It’s Thursday and I want to talk about a particular experience I had over the last month or so that is relevant to my current editing goals.

In December of last year I was doing my best to hit my daily goal of words written, because I had a novel I wanted to finish and a year of writing to smash to pieces. I was successful at both of those, but right there in the middle of it all I had some random inspiration and wrote a short story.

I haven’t posted the short story on the blog, nor have I submitted it anywhere for publication consideration yet. Part of that is that the story isn’t ready yet. Continue reading →

Carving Your Own Bones

Posted on by

It’s Thursday, time to jam!

So I haven’t talked about it too officially yet, but the way I plan to run my Thursday posts is a little different than last year. For 1K a Day I did Motivationals and mini-reviews. This year I won’t be doing many Motivationals, instead filling the Thursday slot with more craft-centric posts. The various facets of being an author that perhaps you don’t think about as often.

Editing, Formatting, Cover Art, Line Edits, Proofing, Blog Tours, Conventions, Book Signings, Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing, Vanity Publishing, Query Letters, Cover Pages, Frontmatter, Backmatter. The list goes on. To be an independent author means to have a general knowledge of all these things and more because self-publishing is an expensive endeavor if you have to pay for every non-writing task that you aren’t very good at. What that will result in is a guy somewhat like me, who knows just enough about all the various pieces of getting your book into the hands of readers so that it actually gets into the hands of readers in a format and professional-ish manner that people are willing to accept. Continue reading →

Breaking the Author – Week One

Posted on by

It’s the end of the first full week of 2016, which means it is time for my Week One update!

I don’t have a daily update or anything fancy like I did last year, so instead of giving you a day-by-day breakdown of how much I wrote or edited or whatever, you’ll get a quick rundown of what I’ve been working on during the week and then I’ll update my Goals with completions marked as strikethroughs! Continue reading →

Lilavati’s Morning Routine [1,070 words]

Posted on by

This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Literature.

A bit of a departure from my regular genre fiction, but here’s hoping someone out there likes it.

A quick shoutout to K.C. Wise of Writing While Black, from whom I borrowed the last two lines. I’m hopeful she won’t be angry with me (or for changing it a bit), but I did really love this line and wanted to use it.

__________

Her Morning Routine

by Rick Cook Jr

Lilavati did not sleep last night. She lay awake, running her morning routine over and over. Wake before the sun rises, wash her face, brush her teeth, wrap her mundum neriyathum about her body, milk the goat, gather vegetables and herbs from the garden, strike the fire for breakfast, walk along the white sands, pray. Her morning routine never changes, and it cannot change this morning.

The rare drought has come to seaside Kerala, and her morning prayer yesterday should have asked for rain. But she does not wish for rain.

Continue reading →

The First Line Was The Last [890 words][nsfw-drugs]

Posted on by

This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Writing Prompts.

__________

The First Line Was The Last

by Rick Cook Jr

Once upon a time, there was a story so short, it was only a single line. That line danced up the straw into my nose, a churning whirlwind of promise. I leaned back, snorting and coughing, holding my nose shut against the tingling urge to sneeze all that powder back out. Everyone around me laughed as I started to sniff. I didn’t feel anything different, except a pleasant numbing sensation. It tasted funny, in the back of my throat. Continue reading →

How I Felt When I Saved The World [2,300 words][slightly NSFW]

Posted on by

This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, and Grimdark.

If you aren’t familiar with Grimdark, just let me warn you: nothing good happens in this story. It’s full of awfulness and I apologize in advance. Also a little NSFW for mild language and sexual content.

__________

How I Felt When I Saved The World

by Rick Cook Jr

Our white clothing blended with the whitewashed walls and décor. Sprays of crimson marred the columns on our way up. Delaana wiped her daggers on the corpses as they fell, and we dashed up the interior stairwell before their bodies even settled. Delaana ran ahead, scouting; already her disguise was painted in gore. I strengthened my barriers against the fear and anger borrowed from the guards, letting it wash through me until I was alone with my own emotions once more. Continue reading →

Ferryman’s Bluff [1,350 words]

Posted on by

This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Fantasy.

__________

Ferryman’s Bluff

by Rick Cook Jr

They collapsed in a heap on the ferry as it pulled away. Rangold was first to his feet, sneering and jeering at the group of five on the pier, who were shouting and cursing.

“Hah,” Rangold shouted. “This is last time you see us empty-handed!” He turned and dropped his trousers to the group, who all averted their gazes or threw rocks. One bounced off Rangold’s rump and he jumped up, yelping. The surprised expression on Rangold’s broad face almost made Murce laugh. Almost. Continue reading →

An Original Sin [3,100 words] [NSFW-language]

Posted on by

This short story is posted in Fiction, Science Fiction, and Short Stories.

__________

Subtext.

Rembrandt’s lost work “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”.

An Original Sin

Eva slipped in through a rusted, decaying vent on the surface level. It came apart with a simple heel stomp and she glided down the shaft, knocking loose a fan on the way. It clattered and tumbled, coming to rest some hundred meters below.

If anyone was in the bunker, her element of surprise was gone. She continued down, muttering.

Soon she reached the shattered fan blades in a juncture in the vent system and lightly set her feet down. The vent moaned, its fastenings creaking. The last thing she needed was to be thinking about how chubby she must be if the vent collapsed under her weight. She began to crawl. Continue reading →

Unseen [1,800 words]

Posted on by
This story is posted in Fiction, Horror, and Short Stories.

__________

Unseen

by Rick Cook Jr

“I hate him I hate him I hate him!” Wanda shouted, punctuating each stomp up the steps with another “I hate him!”

Laughter echoed up, clanging around inside her skull until she shook her head and leaned over the banister at the top of the stairs to cry, “I hope you find a snake and it bites your face!” She stalked off down the hall.

Her mother called from downstairs, “Wanda! You don’t ever-” Wanda slammed her bedroom door, cutting off the remark.

The sound pleased her and she grabbed hold of the knob to yank it open and slam it again. The door wouldn’t budge from its frame.

She screamed her frustration out while pulling on the knob. “Stupid door! Stupid house! Nothing ever works like it’s supposed to in this stupid old dump.” Wanda kicked the doorframe for good measure and heard a soft thump in the adjacent wall. Continue reading →

The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms [1153 words]

Posted on by
This story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Writing Prompts.

__________

This is another short story prompted from Chuck Wendig’s weekly challenges, this time it was called “ABC meets XYZ“. It was fun but incredibly difficult!

Content warning: There are some graphic descriptions of violence, PG-13 language, and sexual discussion if not description. You’ve been warned.

The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms

by Rick Cook Jr
 

The first time I felt truly alive was the moment after I was almost meat, for the first time. I’ve been almost meat more times than I’ve had sex, and I’ve done both a lot. That’s not bragging, it’s just simple truth.

And the sex after the apocalypse is some of the best I’ve ever had. You don’t know release like “Oh my God we escaped the zombies today” sexual release. I’m sorry, but you just don’t. Continue reading →