Blog – Page 238 – Erin Penn's Second Base

Flash: I Am Prophecy – Part 1

September 1, 2019February 18, 2019 Erin Penn

Tell Them I Am is Here Part One: I Am Prophecy

I am prophecy.

The words drifted into her head, Vixen’s first thought upon waking. She stretched and rolled over. A teenager, waking was the roughest part of her day. Dozens of thoughts danced in and out of her head. A melancholy breakfast with her mom, answers she studied for her Space Settlement History test, a battle in Trade Landing, new music from her favorite Taurusian band, the end of the Universe, befriending the next Emperor of Man. Some thoughts gray and misty, not likely to happen. Some nearly clear, like a memory from yesterday. A few confusing, emotions she had not been exposed to. Friendship with Osantos going in directions her body nearly understood, but felt uncomfortable. The kissing part … she tried to chase down the thought before the next group of words sliced through her mind, shattering her peace.

I am history.

Mankind, war and wonder, the first self-aware thought of an ape, the first killing in anger, looking down on the tiny cradle planet, the thousand ships leaping to the far reaches. Hate, pain, love, joy, reason, insanity, tears, laughter … each hit her, stabbed her. No misty thoughts, but real, fixed, unchangeable situations. Victory, horror … More than her young mind could handle. Pushing her further and further until something in her twisted. Snapped. Awoke.

I am now.

A final scream tore from Vixen as she threw her blankets back and sat up. She had been screaming for some time.

“No, …no,” her ruined voice pleaded as she jumped off the mattress and ran to the mirror.

The reflection showed black eyes, pupils expanding to swallow green irises then the surrounding white. Streaks of color, light, danced back and forth between her slightly slanted eyes as they became a deeper dark than night. Veins went from a mild green to deep blue as her body optimized oxygen usage creating a stark red and blue map vivid against her cream and peaches complexion. Vixen’s hyperventilation quickly dropped to a rate not found among homo sapiens.

“Maker, no.” Her melodic voice restored danced upon her ears with new tones, making her sob. Between tears she begged, “I don’t want to die.”

(words 363, first published 4/4/14; republished new blog format 9/1/19)

Writing Exercise: 50-Word Prompts 2019

August 27, 2019August 16, 2026 Erin Penn

WRITING EXERCISE

Remember last year working on a couple of 50-word prompts. (50-Word Prompts 2018) I’m just back from Pennsic and really don’t have the energy to come up with a new writing exercise, so here we go again!

Write two 50-word flashes. Aim for 50 words, give or take five extra words. Don’t read my attempts until after you do your own. Writing them directly in the comment section below will help you focus on the flash aspect – just getting words out.

How does this exercise help you as a writer: (1) just write things out quickly; (2) learn to work from prompts (important for the anthology world); (3) practice writing to a word count.

TEXT PROMPT FOR 50-WORD FLASH: Market

VISUAL PROMPT FOR 50-WORD FLASH

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash

My Attempts

TEXT PROMPT: Market

“How much for him?” I waved at the male sex bot behind the counter. I never considered buying one ever before, but today’s town mating fair had left me feeling unexpectedly lonely. Too old to join the youngsters on the breeding platform, and too poor to join the contract buyers. (first published 3/21/2022; 50 words)

VISUAL PROMPT

She stared, a brunette tress falling in front of her right eye. I didn’t have money to give her. The wind cut us both, slicing skin with Jack Frost knives. Me, I would be going home and a warm bath would ease the ice wounds. I passed her my blanket. (first published 3/21/2022; 50 words)

Series: 50-word Prompts

Flash: Burn the World

August 25, 2019January 12, 2022 Erin Penn

Photo by Idea go from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Staring out at the burning world, the red blaze sinking into his dark skin, the warrior grinned as the ancient quote from Genghis Khan came to his mind, “It is not sufficient for me to succeed. All others must fail.” While Damdin had not yet succeed to his full sufficiency, those before him had surely failed.

Viking. Such a perfect term. To raid, to go on a quest to pillage, rape, and burn. While those cowering in their homes associate the term with white men in flowing blonde hair on the covers of the bodice rippers from yesteryear, the term applied to anyone who participated in those types of activities, if he remember rightly, and considering he taught history for over a decade, he did.

Now he and those who have joined him created a new Viking history, a new Mongol Horde as they leveled what is left of the false society. Burn everything to the ground and start over.

The aliens started the process, taking down the centers of commerce with strange weapons, destroying and changing everything they touched, before those who had believed their false claims of “coming in peace” turned the tide with even stranger weapons created by mad scientists reverse engineering stolen technology. None of the scientists started mad, but by the time they had worked on the creations enough to understanding them, all of the scientists were mouth-frothing insane.

He and his band will finish what the aliens had initiated, while watching the thousand falling chunks of starstuff from the aliens’ failure steak across the sky each night as they celebrate their victory in the arms of captured women.

“Damdin, Elba has sent a messenger to negotiate.”

“Is she pretty?” the war chef asked without turning around, knowing if the messenger had been male no report would have been made. His aide had been with him since the beginning.

“If you like pale-skinned, thin women used to sleeping in soft beds.”

“Brand her, feed her, and put her in my lean. Tomorrow we take Elba. Either they will offer us their soft bellies or we will slit them.”

The nineteen year old, a student from Damdin’s teaching times and disciple since the burning times had begun, ran to accomplish precisely that with no further acknowledgment, his booted footsteps fading quickly.

Once satisfied that the false dawn his raiders had made will shimmer on the horizon all night, reminding the town of Elba of their coming doom, Damdin retired to his lean-to to see what Elba deemed worthy to distract him from 30,000 souls they sheltered. Souls he would bend to his will on the morrow.

(words 440; first published 8/25/2019)

Other Cool Blogs: Literary Hub 4/5/2017

August 22, 2019November 17, 2019 Erin Penn

Photo by Fred Kearney on Unsplash

A woman is instructed to “have but two hours (of) intellectual life per day” and “never touch a pen, brush, or pencil again” as long as she lived, to cure a nervous disorder. Her intellectual activities were obviously taking away from her ability to be a domestic wife and channeling energy from her reproductive system, where it could be put to better use.

To prevent a path to insanity.

Cause it more like.

“Hysteria, Witches, and The Wandering Uterus: A Brief History … Or, Why I Teach ‘The Yellow Wallpaper'” by Terri Kapsalis published on April 5, 2017 at the Literary Hub (a very useful website – check it out while looking at this particular posting) can be found here: https://lithub.com/hysteria-witches-and-the-wandering-uterus-a-brief-history/

This paper dovetails the 1891 paper with the 2016 election campaign and captures some of what women were feeling about the whole process during the 2016 summer and fall. The “witch” hunts and accusations of hysteria and all the other items being leveled against women of TODAY.

Doctors may no longer proscribe avoiding any intellectual activity to women, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still being told NOT TO THINK. I, for one, would be clawing at the Yellow Wallpaper.

Author Spotlight: Dylan Birtolo

August 20, 2019October 31, 2022 Erin Penn

Coming in partway through a series can be problematic. What has been done before, where have the characters been, how did they act? The list goes on and on. Fortunately with the Shapes in the Smoke series by Dylan Birtolo, only one novella had been published before the series transferred to my desk.

When I read the published work, imagine my delight in finding a diverse crew out of Seattle with the lead being a woman of Japanese descent. Her support system includes her best friends from college. They each bring something to the table, creating a solid team. I looked forward to seeing the rest of the series and adding some polish.

I got to work on Deep Currents, Predator & Prey, and the in-process conclusion of the series, Weathering the Storm.

Primarily a game designer (with the Lynnvander team) as well as part-time knight, Mr. Birtolo still has found time to write some books including the Shapes in the Smoke series and a few Shadowrun tie-in books. His voice is both romantic (like a knight) and action-packed (like a game developer). Once you know about his teamwork in game designing, the integration and balance of skills within Ichirin’s monster hunting team comes as no surprise.

If you are interested in seeing what the difference an editor makes in a story, you might want to read Novellas 1 and 2 of this series. (The Omnibus edition with all four novellas should be out sometime in December 2019.) While I was limited by the style choices of Book 1, Mr. Dylan and I worked well together to highlight the strengths of his tale.