Saturday, February 2, 2008

Been a bad, bad boy...

I'm sorry. Really, really sorry.

And since this is the second time that I'm beginning a post with an apology that has nothing to do with a poorly constructed story, maybe I should do something about this.

First, my reason. You're reading it here first, but I haven't had much time to devote to my short fiction, between my teaching job here, the general wackiness of living in China, and above all else... I'm knee deep into my first attempt at writing a novel.

I'm really excited about it, and can't wait to tell everyone more about it.

But we're still a ways a way from that.

What I can say, and promise, is that you should check back to this spot in a month. There probably won't be a new story (but hey, it can happen...), but I will promise a huge bit of news that will showcase some real cool things to come.

Sorry I'm being coy... but it's all for a reason! Trust me...

Sunday, December 2, 2007

It's All In Your Head

“Greg? Greg… can…hear… me?”

Greg tapped his forehead twice in a vain attempt to strengthen the signal. “Yeah babe. But you’re breaking up.”

“G… Greg!”

“I’m gonna hang up Claire. I might get better reception when I’m back at home, sweetie.” Frustrated, Greg kept hitting his head. He didn’t really think it would work, but he was watching a program on his computer the other night, and the main character kept trying to get a better signal by constantly hitting himself in the head. It might have been for comedic purposes, or maybe a vague reference to the way that back in the early twenty-first century, people took to beating their technology in hopes of making it work. But it wasn’t the early twenty-first century at all...


I wrote this piece a few years back to enter into a contest for Motorolla or some other mobile company like that. Their new market strategy involved some buzzword along the lines of "integrated technology in the future", so they wanted creative works in all genres to represent the concept.

I just entered for the hell of it, I knew this wouldn't be what they were looking for. I'm not even sure I think that it's that great myself - I too the concept and ran with it, and this is what I came up with. Still though, there are more than a few parts of this story I kinda dig, so check it out.

It may not have won anything in the land of cell phones, but at least someone will get to read it this way.



Enjoy!
- Shawn