Progress

I typed another old story, "The Price of Progress." I wrote it on a whim, and thus made it my first-ever voluntary short story. At the time, I was a pretty radical kind of person, especially because I was in the throes of some teenage hell. It's funny, because this is the first part of what I intended to be a two-part story, but I read Fountainhead before I began part two, and my view of selfishness changed completely. There's still some goodness in this story. I like the aggressive style, but I'm never going back. My mellowness now is too nice.

Pursuit

A new sketch war is available. It feels good to write these again.

Treason

"Treason" is now part of the site. I wrote it in 2002 (fall semester, junior year of high school) as an assignment for English class. The idea was to imitate the Southern Gothic style we had recently reviewed. I put a ton of description in here, that's for sure. I remember that, at that time, it was a little over-the-top for me; I've become more sparse in my writing since then. I'm not sure it should really be called "Treason," because I don't think the final bit of dialogue uses the proper definition of the word. But the past is the past.

As a side note, one line of the dialogue in this story was the inspiration for a little literary magazine I wanted to run with Lisa and my room mate during my first year of college. It was to be called the Yankee Spy. Lisa still makes fun of me for that.

Case File Updates

The site has been "updated." I took out the goofy CGI stuff that ran the front page and its linked stories. Instead, it's plain old HTML, lacking even style sheets or document-specified fonts/colors. I guess it's kind of ugly, but that's not what matters, anyway.

More importantly, I added "Equinox" to the list. I was holding off until I sent it to a publisher, but I decided I'll just keep it. If you haven't already read it, take a look!

I also removed Armored Core. This is due in part to the old conversion issue I had that caused all em-dashes to become ellipses. Mainly, though, I am fixing it up so that all the formatting remains intact, including italics, "smart quotes," and what have you. Because the damn thing is so long, I'll have to comb through it before I can put it back up. The stories I already have here should suffice.

Finally, I'll be adding some of my older stories from high school. These are not very good, but it's still some nice history.

L = r x p

A spin-off, it is. Literally. From Equinox's home system were hurled a number of uninhabited planets that the original rulers of Equinox quickly forgot (well, they also died, of course). One of these planets has happened into a small, poor solar system that is home to a colony of miners.

I'm 8900 words in, and less than half-way through Part I. It's a funny thing: every story I write overshadows the last. I thought it was perhaps because it took me so long to write a story (usually one short per year), but even with my extremely quick turnaround from writing "Equinox," the familiar jump in skill and spirit is still present; it's not a time-based thing, after all. The only limit is how quickly I can write a story.

For now, I'm enjoying this one too much to rush it. I know this attention to quality and detail will pay off for the reader.