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Flash: A Shot from the Past

Erin Penn

Photo by Veronika Galkina on Unsplash

Trigger Alert: Discussion of Human Trafficking

Jacob teased his friend. “Come on, it can’t be that hard.”

“Dude, let’s see how well you do when dealing with a place your parents trafficked you.” Brandon bit out, fighting the nausea building in his stomach.

“This isn’t the same place, not even the same country.” Jacob tried to reassure Brandon. He knew the whole story as Brandon thought it necessary if they were going to split a lease, but he somehow hadn’t put together “I may wake up screaming in the middle of the night” warning with other possible trauma impact. “It’s just a normal drug store.”

“It smells the same.” Brandon muttered, staring at the innocuous building like it was a nightmare incarnate. “They all smell the same.”

“How do you get—”

“Drive-thru.” Brandon cut the obvious question short. “Whenever the doctor prescribes drugs, I go through the drive-thru or have a friend do it. Usually Sharrah, she’s good like that.”

Obviously not his parents. Brandon hadn’t spoken to them since he escaped at eighteen. He hadn’t even returned to Cananda since he finished university. Didn’t even have contact with his siblings. His one brother had committed suicide shortly after Brandon left home, for which the guy still blamed himself but sometimes the only person you can save is you. His two sisters had disappeared into the system when the police had investigated Tyler’s death and never came out where Brandon could find them.

Jacob nodded. “Alright, well, we both need to get our flu and COVID shots if we are going to get these jobs at the hospice facility.” He paused, thinking a moment. “How are you going to handle that? Doesn’t it smell the same.”

“No. No they don’t. That place smells like old people.” Brandon ungripped his fists enough to point at the yellow-brown bricks in front of them. “That place smells like medicine and candy, bleach and rubber and perfume and caked makeup and just slightly sour milk. Nothing else smells like it, not even the grocery store.”

Although Jacob knew it smelled close to it, and since Brandon’s parents also marketed their children at that location too, Brandon had his groceries delivered when he had money. Otherwise, he begged friends, trading housecleaning for grocery runs. Jacob couldn’t imagine having grocery, convenience, and drug stores all on the can’t-go-without-reexperiencing-everything list. How could parents do that to their own children? How could anyone pay to do that to kids?

“Have you not gotten your shots before now?” Jacob asked.

“I usually have them done in the doctor’s office, but they can’t get me in for four weeks.”

“And we start next week.”

“Right.”

“Can we get them done at Urgent Care?”

Brandon wiped his lower face, clearing the sweat above his lips. “I checked. They are all out of the COVID shots and won’t have more until the next round is ready in late September. I can get flu, but that is not enough.”

“Okay, look, we both really need this job. I’ve been looking since the warehouse closed in January, and you since April, and the summer gigs are drying up. You can do this.”

Brandon’s shoulders sagged. “No, I don’t think I can.” He slammed the glove compartment in front of him angrily. “Fuck my parents.” He turned in the seat to face Jacob. “I’m sorry. You go in and get the shots. I’ll help you find a roommate who can pay his half of the rent. I’m so sorry.”

“Dude, we are in this together. I’m not leaving you behind.” Jacob chuckled at a new thought making its way through the frustration. “If only they could do shots in the drive-thru.”

“Yeah, during COVID, they would come out to the parking lot and give shots there.”

“Maybe…” Jacob’s eyes met Brandon’s. “No harm in asking, right? They might-could do it for the elderly, right?”

“It’s worth trying. Maybe not for the non-handicapped, but maybe.” The corner of Brandon’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “Thanks. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. That you keep trying.”

“What are friends for?” Jacob asked. He turned the key in the ignition to roll down the windows then got out of the car. “I’ll be back as soon as I get an answer, but it might take a while.”

“Thank you. Really.” Brandon stared at the building, memories haunting his eyes. “I just can’t go in there.”

(words 741; first published 7/28/2026 – created based on a story prompt of: Write a story where your protagonist returns to a place they swore they’d never go back to.)

Magical Words: Eight Ways to HOKWOP

Erin Penn

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

It has been a while since I’ve talked about BIC – Butt in Chair, and HOC – Hands on Keyboard. One last part of this is WOP – Words on Page.

Lauren Harris, in a guest post on Magical Words on August 27, 2013, did a deep dive into “Eight Ways to HOCWOP”.

As she points out in the opening sentence, writing depends on one’s own discipline.

And after a day of work outside the house, and all the chores inside the house, finding the whip to get to a keyboard and CREATE, using up what little mental energy you have left, is a Herculean task. She came up with a list of very viable suggestions on how to type Words on Page. I’ve tried most of them over the years – some work for a time, others work in combo, and some just don’t work for me. But that is true of all writer advice, nothing is going to work for everyone.

The eight steps

  1. Clear your space
  2. Morning pages / Brain Dump / Journal
  3. Go Somewhere
  4. Write analog
  5. Find an accountability buddy
  6. Make a schedule
  7. Establish a trigger
  8. Set a timer.

She goes into detail about each of these, plus comments from experienced writers to the post can help a person figure out what is best to get BICHOKWOP.

Again the URL is: http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/eight-ways-to-hokwop/

Flash: When a DM asks a question, you say yes

Erin Penn

Image from Rock Vincent Guitard on Unsplash

The white dragon rises, shimmering in the slanted rays of the winter sun, her moves sounding like icicles crackling as her great head—

“I cast fireball.”

The DM stops her description and sends a sharp look at the player.

“What? I cast fireball, a surprise attack, right?” Jeremy starts picking up his six-siders.

“She is well aware that your party is there.” Emily places the sheet she had been reading down behind her screen. “Even the thief failed his stealth roll.” She sent her boyfriend a sympathetic smile.

Mark slouches further in the Snorlax bean bag lounger, crossing his arms. “Stupid nat one.”

“Yeah, that was a bad one.” Jeremy laughs.

“Now do you want to roll initiative, or hear the rest of the description?” Emily laces her fingers and rests her head on them.

I and Andre perk up and look at each other. As the other DMs of the group, we know exactly what she is saying.

Time to meta? I raise my eyebrows at Andre.

The group formed around three high school best friends: Andre, Jeremy, and Chris. They picked up Emily from a book club, and me from an advertisement at a comic store. Mark joined when he moved in with Emily, as she and Andre alternate hosting the sessions.

The problem is Jeremy. He likes action, and the rest of the group leans more toward roleplaying. To make matters worse, he doesn’t really listen well to women, even with two out of three of his DMs being female. So whether to meta is an Andre call. Will he yank Jeremy’s magic user back?

While we are talking with facial expressions, a die rolls. “Twelve for initiative.”

Andre sends me a shrug of I-guess-we-are-doing-this. “Sixteen.”

“Five” I say, then mouth ‘sorry’ to Emily.

She gives me the same smile I gave the party after a superhero TPK three months ago where they ended up in the realm of Death and Dreams, before looking down behind her screen with an air of concentration. Not good.

I notice her scratching out things with her pencil and writing new stuff. “So, what are you doing Em?”

“Hmm.” She casually raises her eyes with an innocent look on her face.

No DM ever gives a look that innocent without doing evil things.

“What.are.you.doing, Em?” I clearly enunciate each word.

“Oh, nothing big. I’m adding a hit point for each die of the dragon since …someone…” Emily glares at Jeremy, “cut me off.”

“Hey, that is not fair.” The man protests.

She points a finger at him. “Zip it. I spent hours on this campaign. I can choose to alter things.” Emily drops her voice. “Pray I do not alter the contract further.”

“You can’t just—”

“No.” I yelp, and Chris hits Jeremy with his journal. Simultaneously, on Jeremy’s other side, where the three core friends of the group sit on the couch, Andre says, “Dude, don’t.”

“Max hit point it is.”

Mark palms his face and mutters. “I’m getting the strap tonight.”

“If you survive,” Emily blows him a kiss.

“Jeremy, let me explain to you a fact of life.” Chris says, reopening his journal to the appropriate page. “DMs are gods. We live in their worlds. You, my friend, are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. Do not antagonize them.”

“Whatever.”

“Everyone else, your initiatives please?” Emily pulls her sweet persona around herself, and the guys relax.

Six and eleven finishes out the group.

“The dragon’s initiative is a 23, and her mate’s rolled fifteen.”

Chris surges forward on the sofa. “What mate?”

“The one I would have described. Why don’t you roll perception and if you get a ten, I’ll give you the sheet to read. Your fighter has that study opponent’s skill, right?”

Chris didn’t even hesitate on the roll, “Fifteen, give it here. I don’t get to act until six so I got time to read it.”

After creasing the paper and tearing off a small part, Emily passes the rest of the paper to me, since I am the closest to the DM table. I do a quick glance over the sheet and notice the words nest and eggs. Wincing, I rock forward on hands and knees to reach over to where Chris sits on the couch.

“Now, where were we?” Emily picks up her favorite silver and black twenty-sider and contemplates it. “Ah yes, a towering ice dragon and a party threatening her. I do believe her first action is to breathe. So nice of you to be clumped together after going through the ravine. Everyone roll dodge.”

(word 765; first published 3/3/2024)

Roleplaying Group Series

  1. Roll to Hit the Ceiling (5/30/2021)
  2. When a DM asks a question, you say yes (7/28/2024)

Other Cool Blogs: On the Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books

Erin Penn

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

I have a project I call my “TBR pile.” It’s one of the several on-going projects I have to clean up my life, reducing the piles of tasks and stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. As a book reviewer, a book reader, an editor, and an author, I’ve collected a hoard of books, many of which I’ve read, many of which I haven’t read.

Watching TikTok, in particular BookTok, I see a cornucopia of content creators talk about their TBR (to be read) pile at the beginning of each month. What books they are going to read and review for their audience. Throughout the month they show the cover, record themselves reading the books for reaction videos, maybe make skits related to the book, and post a video reviewing the book. At the end of the month, they sum up their book haul – reporting how they read books (eBook, Paper, or Audio), whether they succeeded in their original TBR goal, etc. Sometimes they grade the books read from worse to best. (Best is always last, so TikTok viewers have to hang around until the end of the video.)

It looks like so much fun, and I want to do it … NOW!

Then I turn and look at my shelves, piles, and boxes. There is no way to figure out what to read next, let along choose a handful of books I know I complete in a month with my unpredictable schedule. The shelves contain too many options. My Kindle groans for sympathy, hiding equal amounts of digital dusty treasures. Where do I begin?

Well, it has to start somewhere, so I’ve created a full, huge TBR spreadsheet.

I’ve uploaded my GoodRead list – all thousand plus books. Then I reviewed them against my kindle records. Next I went through my shelves. Once I started the project, I made sure to add every new “wish” and “purchase to the list. The TBR spreadsheet is at two thousand and twenty-seven books /lines … and counting.

After downloading my GoodReads account, I cross-referenced it against my Amazon digital content (Kindle account).

Here’s where things got tough. Did I want to copy/enter everything over into the spreadsheet? I had hundreds of unread books already; why add more from the Kindle when I know I am never going to read them. Sure some will get read, but others, not so much – my tastes have changed over the years. And the first year was a grab everything with this wonderful new device.

But if I wasn’t going to read them, all they did was take up mental and digital space. I should delete them.

But BOOOOOOOOOKS!

“On the Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books” by Lewis Buzbee. Lithub. 16 August 2023. (https://lithub.com/on-the-difficulty-of-getting-rid-of-books/ – last viewed 11/17/2023)

Not the first, nor the last, blog I’ve read on cracking down and clearing out.

Most say stupid things like “You only need a single shelf of twenty books – this will bring you joy.”

Mr. Buzbee’s plan of limiting ownership to the amount of bookshelves which can fit in his house matches my own. I can get twelve bookshelf units inside the footprint of my small home. I usually cull books when I move, but with the TBR project, I decided to do a pass now with the goal in mind of having no piles of books on the floor and no packed books in boxes. I can do this. I will conquer the piles.

TBR spreadsheet in hand, I too shall be amazingly organized and a bastion of reviewing, clearly cutting through the seas of literature, my neat shelves behind me.

I ruthlessly cut hundreds of unread electronic books from the Kindle.

I may have added a hundred or so books to my TBR want list while doing so as I discovered series I’ve enjoyed in the past had new books out. Oh, and that recommendation that went by as I verified the book I already had wasn’t something I would read. And…

Well, I have completed the electronic pass, finally.

Onward to the physical books, clearing shelves, rearranging, and sending boxes of books out to new homes.

I’m really feeling accomplished with this project. The TBR pile project gives me hope I may one day actually clear up my emails.

Writing Exercise: Fancy That

Erin Penn

Photo by Alvin Mahmudov on Unsplash

“Clothes maketh the man.” is often quoted in books and film. A bit pretentious, but also very true. They give a person confidence, or allows them to hide. Fabric can provide protection or make life dangerous.

What does it bring to the table for your character? For this writing exercise, we will be exploring what your character wears.

WRITING EXERCISE: Define what your character wears in different circumstances. Describe three different outfits – a work day outfit, nighttime attire, and a special occasion for example.

Here are some questions to think about why developing your character’s wardrobe:

  1. What is the fanciest and/or most expensive thing your character has ever worn?
  2. What are their favorite colors for clothes and do they actually look good in those colors?
  3. What do they wear around the house?
  4. Do they wash their own clothes? Do they shop for their own clothes?
  5. Would they repair their clothes or buy new? Have they ever borrowed or bought used clothes?
  6. Do they were clothing to match society? Are they cutting edge or behind?
  7. How much does their clothes costs, and how often do they upgrade them?
  8. Do they wear anything for protection?
  9. What do their shoes look like, and do they own more than one pair?
  10. Accessories are life: Watches, hair ribbons, earrings, lapel pins, rings, gun handles, hats, etc. How much accessories does your character choose?
  11. How does your character’s wardrobe look beside their friends and associates?
  12. How well can your character fight in the outfit?

SELF-CARE EXERCISE: Dress up. No particular reason, just put on a nice outfit, comb out the hair. Just be fancy.

Comment below about how either exercise helped you.