Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Recurring Characters in My Micro Stories


I've been writing micro stories since May 1st of this year, and inevitably I've developed some recurring characters.  In fact, it's become a bit confusing to keep track of what I know about a couple of these characters, so I decided to track down every story related to each character or group of characters and write down what I know.  And why not blog about it!  *gasp* Two blog posts on consecutive days?  The horror!


Medea the Sorceress


Without question, this is the set of characters that I've reused the most.  I've written 33 micro stories involving Medea the Sorceress and her unnamed raven familiar.  So far we know that Medea is a powerful and rather famous sorceress who dwells in a sort-of European village set in the past (perhaps Renaissance more than Medieval, or perhaps even early modern/age of discovery.  Of course, she lives in a world of magic, but she also lives in the same world (albeit in their past) as the Super Friend Squad, my hero team (see below).  Medea is a practical sorceress, is addicted to coffee, likes good pizza and sometimes has it delivered from modern-day New York (so we can assume this world is mostly like ours, apart from the magic and superhero stuff).  Her raven makes the coffee and answers the door, and little else.  She has recently brought a brass raven to life, and perhaps a brass parrot as well.  She is friends with a lich named Gygax who only wants to be left alone to read.


Stories:

Raven 052423

Clickbait 052423

Story Pill 060323

Pigmancy 060523

Resurrection 061723

(writever) Amphora 062023

(micro) Wings of Freedom 062323

Exposure 062623

Patsy's Pizza 062723

(writever) Responsibility 070823

(masto) belt 070923

(micro) familiar 071323

Coffee Story 071523

Imagination 071523

For the Birds 072523

(masto) charm 072523

(writever) management 072523

A Visit From Death 073023

Death Fairy 073023

Wise Owl 073023

(micro) Animate 080423

Brass Raven 080623

Selkie's Lament 080623

Worship 080623

(masto) Delay 080623

(writever) Algorithm 080623

Desire to Read 080723

Fairy Godmother 080723

(masto) Doll 080823

Fearocious 080823

Out of This World 080923

(writever) Generate 081123

Witch Burning 081523


The Superior Friend Squad


Most of my stories involving the Superior Friend Squad revolve around Meteor Lass and Mister Chronos.  Meteor Lass can summon meteors from the sky.  She has a master's in Forensic Science which she almost never gets to use, and her skin tone is mocha.  Mister Chronos can travel through time, a skill that he abuses liberally.  He's also the pilot for the team (their craft is the Friend Ship), and has recently learned to travel to other dimensions.  His power comes from a magic medallion around his neck that was gifted to him by Medea the sorceress.  Other members of the group are Kid Atomic and the Amazon of Atlantis.  Their enemies include Doctor Cobalt, who dwells on Death Skull Island and has a talking monkey minion named Nix.  Another enemy of theirs is known as Empire Cranium.


Back in  Time 050823

Trapped in Time 051223

Drunk in Time 051223

Big Reveal 052023

Fish Nazis 052123

One Trick 052123

AITA 060223

Bloom and Doom 060723

Volcano Theme  062523

(prompt) Boring Machine 062923

Jump the Shark 070623

Discombobulated  072523

(writever) transition 072623

Time Travel Party  072923

(micro) Describe 081123

(masto) Meteor 081323

(micro) Skylight 081423


Grandpa Anarchy


I've been writing Grandpa Anarchy stories since the mid 2000's, although mostly in the last 13 years.  I've written over 350 stories involving the world's oldest hero, so I could go on about him at length, but basically he's been a hero since the early 20th century, is mostly a brawler, his costume is a grey suit with an anarchy symbol on the left breast and a hat (sometimes he wears a domino mask and/or gloves).  He's had a bajillion different sidekicks, he tends to have a new one every story, or at least he did until I got tired of coming up with new ones.  Many of his former sidekicks are now heroes themselves.  His favorite breakfast is strawberry pancakes, and he's in a supergroup known as the New League of Two-Fisted Justice.  His key traits are that he is virtually unkillable (or rather, never stays dead) and he's been doing this for so long that he sees the tropes coming from a mile away.  I have written only a few micro stories involving Grandpa, but I'm likely to write more.


quips 072323

(imcro) drape 072223

(writever) meet 080123

(visual) Air Fortress 080623


Hellbird


Although my two Hellbird stories are jokes at the expense of Twitter/Elon Musk, the salient point is that Hellbird is NOT in any related to Twitter.  I kind of like this character and he's very likely to appear in a future Medea story.


Hellbird 070423

Ex Hellbird 072323


Superior Being Pizza


Superior Being Pizza is a pizza delivery service run by an advanced energy being, such as those that plague the Star Trek universe.  Because why not?  I wrote a Medea story where this guy shows up again so I guess he's a recurring character now.


Energy Being 053023

Out of this World 080923


Viniculum


I'm really not certain how much mileage I can get out of a supernatural death metal band, but I've named all four members and have learned a few things about them so far so I'm willing to try and work them into more stories.  (Technically the story "Gig" was about a different band - but I've decided to retroactively make it about the band VIniculum.)  Onni is the bass player; he's also a part-time demonic lawyer.  Eevi is the lead singer - and also a werewolf.  Edvin is the guitarist and Arvo is the drummer, I have no idea in what way those two are special yet.  All of these names are Finnish because a lot of my favorite metal bands come from Finland, in particular Amorphis, and also Nightwish.


(visual) Xenofan 060323

(writever) gig 072023

(micro) Imposter 081223

(writever) Convolution  081423


Jalia the Shaman


Jalia McMarrin was my barbarian shaman character when I played Everquest years ago.  I've always wanted to write stories about her, so I've managed three micro stories so far.  Eh, better than nothing.  She very likely exists in the same universe as Medea?


(prompt) names 070323

(micro) matted 071223

(micro) gall 071923


Sunday, August 13, 2023

Lots of Micro Stories, Nothing Else

 Here's my writing update for the summer of 2023:  I've written a TON of micro stories, but I've written very little else.

What else should I be writing, you might ask?  Well for one, I set out in January of 2023 to finish a very long (over 275,000 words) fan fiction story called Nerima All-Stars.  I've been working on this for years - the original opening scenes were written maybe around 1999 and read for writer's night, and then shoved into a corner of my hard drive for many years.  But I set out several years ago to "finish" my story, which has expanded exponentially and which I largely have not shown to anyone because I want to finish it first. I have too many fan fiction stories that I've started and never finished.

For two, I have my Grandpa Anarchy stories.  I set out to write a series of short stories around 2021 that together told a larger story.  These became my "Just One Punch" collection or "Book 13" collection of Grandpa Anarchy short stories - but I was not really satisfied with the direction the stories were going, and sometime in 2021 I stopped working on them so much, and in 2022 I did not get a lot of writing done.  I want to go back and rework all of these stories, but it's another big project that I keep putting off.

In the meantime, I began writing micro fiction stories on May 1st 2023, and so far this has been going very well for me.  On the one hand, I've written a LOT of stories.  On the other hand, it amounts to not actually that many words written, since each story is between 70 and 90 words long.  My limit is 500 characters for a Mastodon Toot, and usually I aim for about 480 characters or so in order to be able to add a tag at the end like #microfiction.  I cross-post to Tumblr (which allows tags to be added very easily) and to Hive Social.  I have some followers on Hive, and a hit for me there is 10 or 12 likes.  A hit on Mastodon is at least 50 likes and my best stories have been over 100 likes.  I don't know what a hit is on Tumblr because I get 1 or 2 likes a week there.

I'm going to post my master list of micro stories below.  This list does not include any "prompt" stories - prompt stories are written and immediately published based on a word or picture prompt.  I know of at least two people doing science fiction visual (picture) prompts on Mastodon, and sometimes I respond to these.  I know of at least three word prompts that I've been responding to - in fact since early July I've been trying to respond to every one of these.  There's a writer named Tanweer Dar who does a one-word #mastoprompt every day.  There's another writer/poet named Faerie (on Mastodon at least) who posts a #micropromt word every day.  And there's a largely French group of writers on Mastodon who do a #writever word-a-day challenge - they usually post all the word for the month in one single post, like so:


They do this in French of course, but also they publish an English version, and at least two of the writers I follow post a story in both French and English.  I might be the only other English writer responding to these prompts currently (that I've noticed at least).

What all this means is that since July I've been trying to post three extra micro stories every day.  So far so good!  So in addition to having written 165 micro stories, I've written an additional 167 "prompt" stories.  Which... has been somewhat preventing me from writing a new non-prompt story every day, but I'd written myself so far ahead that for the moment this isn't a problem.

I originally was posting these to mastodon.social (if I remember correctly) but it shut down in June, so on May 25 I switched to mastodon.art.  This means that all of the stories I posted before May 25 are no longer on the internet.  I was thinking I would repost them at some point, but I might wait half a year or a full year to do it.

So that's the state of my writing - over 300 micro stories of 70-90 words, and very little else written in the last 4 months.  Here's my list of non-prompt stories written and posted:

        written story posted #likes


001 050123  my turn 050123

002 050223  delivery 050223

003 050223  hero 050523

004 050223  more creative 050923

005 050323  abyss gazing 050423

006 050323  castle in the sky 050723

007 050323  domestic hero 051123

008 050323  frog 050323

009 050323  infinite lives 051323

010 050323  magical girl 050623

011 050323  memes 051923

012 050323  multi level 051423

013 050323  not whats for dinner 051523

014 050323  quesadilla wizard 050823

015 050423  secret society 051623

016 050523  influencer 051723

017 050523  nostradamus x 051823

018 050523  sword in stone 082023

019 050623  shy god 052123

020 050723  oh snap 061123

021 050823  puppy love 052223

022 050823  back in time 051223

023 050823  creatuib debate 051023

024 050923  garlic chicken 052323

025 051023  sacred toast 052523

026 051223  trapped in time 062223

027 051223  drunk in time 052423

028 051323  historical document 052823

029 051423  dark green woods 052723

030 051623  riddle of the sphinx 052623

031 051623  cookie biscuit 053023

032 051623  silly king/mocking the king 061423

033 051723  bring your cucumber 061223

034 051723  chocolate cake 061823

035 051923  a late start

036 052023  big reveal 053123

037 052123  fish nazis (superior friend) 060623

038 052123  one trick

039 052123  say my name 060323

040 052323  near death (bistro on styx) 060123

041 052323  pocket wizard 081023

042 052323  witch 072623

043 052423  clickbait 060223

044 052423  raven 052523

045 052523  big freeze 061323

046 052523  new world 060723

047 052623  treacle wars 060923

048 052723  noise in the walls 052923

049 052823  hoard 062523

050 052823  sound system 061523

051 052823  stories

052 052923  black water 070623

053 052923  lesbos - week in Mytilene 061723

054 053023  black knight inc 060823

055 053023  energy being 080923

056 053123  burning bush 081223

057 053123  dark void 062023

058 053123  retired god 062123

059 053123  trap door 062923


(59 stories in May)


060 060123  bus stop 070223

061 060123  let there be light 060523

062 060123  magic beans 060423

063 060123  monster rental 062723

064 060123  mysterious tales 061023

065 060223  AITA 062823

066 060223 romantic moon 063023

067 060323  story pill 061623

068 060423  master chef 080823

069 060523  creepy goth girl 070723

070 060523 otherworld bazaar

071 060523  pigomancy/divination 070323

072 060623  put on the dress 070923

073 060623  space marine 073123

074 060723  bloom and doom 062623

075 060723  strange fruit 071623

076 060823  fires burn (published 060823 ???)

077 060923  departure 062423

078 061123  justice warrior 071423

079 061223  golden binoculars 061923

080 061223  time machine 071323

081 061323  strange women 070423

082 061323  the librarian 070123

083 061423  worker bee 080723

084 061523  moo! 071223

085 061623  junk fairy 071523

086 061623  zombie 073023

087 061723  resurrection

088 061923  going woke 062323

089 062023  sleek siler sting ray

090 062223  cabbie 071723

091 062223  profanity 072523

092 062223  stagecoach/shotgun 071923

093 062423  eternal youth 072823

094 062423  legend has it 072923

095 062523  deterrent 072123

096 062523  volcano theme 081123

097 062623  exposure 072223

098 062623  gateway

099 062723  patsys pizza/future pizza 080323

100 062823  tooth fairy

101 062923  offering 071123


(42 stories in June)


102 070123  boat smash/sense of porpoise 070823

103 070123  cheese

104 070123  deleted world

105 070123  sea altar 071023

106 070123  submersible 070123

107 070223  city of books

108 070223  daddy watching

109 070223  ghost marriage

110 070223  pretty dress 080123

111 070223  wardrobe malfunction

112 070423  hellbird 070523

113 070423  lost things 071823

114 070523  neutral meeting

115 070623  jump the shark

116 070623  mirkgloom forest

117 070723  gaia prime

118 070723  too many books

119 070923  crop circles 081323

120 071123  apocalypse sentence

121 071123  paradise

122 071123  worlds away

123 071223  the ending

124 071323  spicy sandwich

125 071423  demon troubles 072023

126 071523  coffee story 080623

127 071523  imagination

128 071523  shipwrecks of death 072323

129 071623  book of hate

130 071623  statistical proof

131 071923  gateway of worlds 072723

132 071923  quicksand

133 071923  weather control

134 072023  hellsite 072423

135 072223  bath bomb

136 072223  legal matters

137 072223  megalodon

138 072323  quips

139 072423  sightless 080523

140 072523  for the birds

141 072623  discombobulated

142 072623  ex hellbird                080423

143 072823  anchorage 072823

144 072923  absinthe

145 072923  time travel party

146 073023  a visit from death

147 073023  death fairy

148 073023  spilt milk

149 073023  wise owl

150 073123  armageddon

151 073123  leviathan


(50 stories in July)


152 080123  ghost animals 080223

153 080223  ghost hunter 080223

154 080523  impossible exploration

155 080623  brass raven

156 080623  selkies lament

157 080623  wicked piper

158 080623  worship

159 080723  alien discs

160 080723  desire to read

161 080723  fairy godmother

162 080823  fearocious

163 080823  seven seas

164 080823  alien discs

165 080923  out of this world

165 081123  lavender strudel