Immediately upon pulling the result poll, my mind bounced between potential topics, searching for potential storylines. After a couple of days, I narrowed the fledgling thoughts to the singular seed for October’s Action/Adventure tale. This story will highlight one of Charles and Lucile’s first jobs. Unfortunately, after securing the cargo, a collection of their competitors swooped in, seeking to take over. As Charles navigated the Drifter II around an asteroid field, the engines died...

While I continue trying to regain my footing with my various projects, the discovery of Charles and Lucille in the depths of my gray matter has been a remarkable discovery. As I continue coaxing their lives from the hidden recesses of my mind, the light of my illumination bounces off the beautiful facets, revealing a vast and rich history to explore. As I mentioned last week, the collection of micro-fiction this month that center on these characters will highlight Charles’ journey into the urchin featured in Fortunes...

Despite my recent stumble with writing Micro Fiction, I’m eager to further explore the characters I created for my Patreon patrons. In Fortunes I introduced two young urchins, Charles and Lucille. However, these two are part of the larger collection of disenfranchised living aboard a space station orbiting a barren planet...

With Bantering and Frantic Search complete, and the end of the month around the corner, I buckled down and churned through the last tale for September, a Ghost Story. While I once again couldn’t pin down a storyline, this time instead of turning to NYC Midnight, I headed over to WritingExercises.org and used their first line generator to spark an idea...

Despite being pulled in just about every direction imaginable, I finished this month’s first tale, Bartering, so I turned my attention to the second genre selected for the month, a Comedy. Unfortunately, since I was on a short leash for the month, I turned to NYC Midnight’s collection of prompts and plucked a random one from their backlog...

The last two months have come down to the wire. However, I refuse to disappoint my patrons. Despite pulling the prompts earlier in the month, my day job has claimed most of my free time. Despite that challenge, I have satisfied the top choice from the genre poll, an Action-Adventure tale. Thankfully, with Fortunes fresh in my mind, I instantly had a story to build upon...

With Negotiations and Haunting Shade finished, I buckled down and churned through the last story for my patrons. While the initial seed I planted had this tale going in one direction, the two main characters refused to oblige to my whims and demands. Despite this tale picking up with the urchins Bobby briefly interacted with, I watched Charles and Lucille twist the narrative to their benefit...

With Negotiations finished, my mind instantly turned to the remaining exclusives for my patrons. Typically, when I pull the genres for the month, I’ll take the genres in alphabetic order. However, as I tinkered with the initial stories, I realized I could tell a pair of connected stories with the thriller and science fiction, provided I published the thriller first. With that connective tissue in place, the overview of the tale flowed through my fingers. Throughout the drafting process, the story I wanted to create for my patrons emerged...

Despite pulling the prompts for my patrons at the beginning of the month, other responsibilities leached my time away from my writing endeavors. Thankfully, I have a stubborn streak a mile long and I was not about to let a month go by without crafting the exclusive stories for my patrons. So early last week, I buckled down and started fleshing out the stories. Fortunately, when I pulled the poll, I planted a few seeds and so I had the skeletons of a handful of stories. Up first was the crime caper and a direct follow up from Misdirect...

With Misdirect and Drifting Earwig finished, and the month rapidly coming to a close, I turned my attention to the last piece of flash fiction for my patrons. While I’m not entirely comfortable with Romantic Comedies, I was eager to stretch my skills. Despite having watched several RomComs with friends and family over the years, it was difficult coming up with the initial storyline for my patrons. So, I rushed to my catalogue of NYC Midnight’s prompts and plucked a random one from the depths. After spending some time thinking about the elements, the seed of a storyline geminated within my mind...

Moments after completing Misdirect, my mind picked up the draft for July’s Ghost Story. While there was a little dust on the mental copy of the tale, I quickly dusted it off and dove into the last phase of editing the latest tale of Benjamin and his living partner. When I first sat down to flesh out the story, I wanted Benjamin to chase down the man he’s convinced killed him. Despite the sudden emergence of the fuzzy memory, the shade’s partner tried to keep him from storming off into the city...

While I love that my mind drifts from topic to topic, sometimes it prevents me from focusing on the task at hand. A little while back, I stumbled onto a YouTube channel that captured my imagination, Skill Tree. I don’t remember what the first video I saw first, but I eventually fell into his leatherworking videos, and it didn’t take long for me to dabble in the craft myself. Unfortunately, that desire stole time away from my writing, which left my flash fiction for July lingering like dust in the wind. While I’m certain that I’ll publish the stories to my patrons, it’s unfortunate that they’re bunched into the final three days of the month...

Despite my frustration when I was a child, I’m glad that my parents kept me busy every second of the day with countless events and activities. One of the more pivotal groups they put me into was the Boy Scouts. Unlike every other troop that sold popcorn to fund their activities, my troop sold Christmas Trees. We never We were so successful, that we never had to do anything else. Of course, as a kid, I didn’t really understand the importance of the event. All I cared about was the yearly ski trip...

While I cannot remember the first time I played poker, I have some vivid memories circling around those crowded tables. One such memory took place during a tournament at an old Hard Rock Cafe. As the evening wore on, I kept moving from table to table, adding chips to my growing stack. Unfortunately, I don’t remember if I won the night, or simply took second place. Either way, the core of the memory took place earlier in the night and centered on eliminating someone from the tournament...

When I sat down to write this nano drama, I stared at the action in the prompt. As the seconds ticked away, a distant memory thundered through my mind. Since I was a middle child, there were times my older siblings had to keep tabs on me. Looking back at those times, I can appreciate how much trouble I caused them. One particularly stressful occasion happened during my brother’s watch and dealt with a roll of tape. While I’ll keep the details of that escapade to myself, it sparked the basis of the narrative...