How Do You Write 100 Word Stories #19

Many folk have sent carrier pigeons to me asking how do you tom write a 100 word story.

Write what you know that’s the number one on the short list. I know pizza. I can calibrate an oven to 8 tens of a degree. I can tell you the different between Dakota flour to one milled in Texas. I spent six weeks culturing a Mozzarella starter in Palermo. I know Delmontego Inc is the only importer of Seduncken ruby tomatoes. I wrote an article for Pizza Monthly. The editor sent a personal letter back. He wrote: Seek Psychiatric Aid. Now

Runaway Santa

When Christmas is over, we round up the Santas, herd them into trucks, and ship them back to the camps.
Radio tags help catch the strays.
We give each Santa a checkup, fix the damaged ones, and read through field reports that track which strains were effective where.
Beards by environment, bell-ringers versus department stores… we analyze everything.
This helps us plan our training and deployment strategy for the next holiday season.
And how to predict severe failures.
In the basement, the worst Santas are kept.
The molesters. The axe-murderers.
Oh no. The lock is broken?
Quick! Sound the alarm!

How Do You Write 100 Word Stories #18

Many folk have taken to tossing notes in bottle into the sea. The message is always how do you tom write a 100 word story. Why do we write. A shot at immortality, admit, come on, come on. But we got a problem here. One is Fahrenheit 451, not the book, the burning thing. A close second is cheap paper is made with a slow releasing acid, bye bye book. Well there’s online, until a random well place solar flair. I have taken to welding. Cutting each letter out of steel. What about rust you say? Not at the pole.

A gift for Valentine’s

When we were married, I swore I’d give you my heart forever.
For health, and sickness.
The doctor said that you needed a new heart, but a bad risk for transplant surgery.
You were way down the transplant list. No point in keeping the battery in the pager fresh.
I went to bed, telling myself that this would be the last sleep I’d ever sleep.
The next morning, I woke up with every intention to kill myself and let the doctors give you my heart.
But you were cold. Still. Not breathing.
You died in your sleep.
Oh, never mind.

Closer to the end

When I was 20 I work with a bunch of guys in their 40s. As I raced about and rail about they would shack their heads. What? You’ll see. See what? Then they would walk away laughing. As I approach the edge of 60 I’ve had 40 years to ponder why 40 can’t transfer wisdom to 20. For the longest time I thought it was matter of not being about to hear or even listen. But it was really something more subtle. It was the inability to see the trip as infinitely more rewarding that the arrival at the destination.

How Do You Write 100 Word Stories #17

Many folk have asked Kathy Lee Gifford to come out with line of clothes called how do you tom write a 100 word story. I get paid $1000 a word. Someone at the MacArthur foundation heard Laurence’s podcast and whoosh I’m getting checks that would choke a horse. I could write a novel or poetry collecting, but really folk, dollar to word ratio gets pretty meager. Keep the word count down, damn your entering Bill Gates rate. I’ve also cut back to once a month that lets the creative juices ferment. Lately I’m thinking 50 word stories, that’s the ticket.

Checking it twice

Santa’s making his list, checking it twice.
Too bad for John Bettencourt (now known as Paul Miller of Orlando, Florida) that he doesn’t check with the Witness Protection Program.
John wanted chocolate-covered truffles from his favorite online catalog store, but instead of using a new shopper ID, he used his old one.
Santa didn’t notice. But the crooked defense contractor that John blew the whistle on did.
A box arrived the next day.
“Mmmmmmmm… truffles!” John said.
He opened it, setting off the parcel bomb.
It wasn’t reindeer on the rootops, but bloody bits of John raining down on them.

How Do You Write 100 Word Stories #16

Many folk have given up all hope of getting a straight answer and have gone off to bed, but one small child in New Jersey in crude crayon letters mistakenly sent to Santa asked how do you tom write a 100 word story.

I write my stories on the beach in Santa Cruz. Off the 41st Ave cliffs near the point where the teens surfer in black wet suits dodge the sea lions and rocks. They yell words of encouragement as I scrawl words in the sand with a stick. Only the gulls see my stories their criticism falls often.

Ground Hog

It be Groundhog Day.
We has a special on groundhog burgers today.
What do it taste like?
I dunno, I ain’t tried one yet.
Go ahead. Try one. It on special, so it don’t cost much.
And you get fries and Coke. Free refills.
(The Coke, not fries. That extra.)
What you say? “This groundhog fresh?”
Course it’s fresh. Just runned them over with my truck this mornin’.
Even got one big sucker with my fender that some dude in the park was holdin’ up.
Yeah, the news say there’s six more weeks of winter comin’, but not for him.

How Do You Write 100 Word Stories #15

Many folk have named their new borns how do you tom write a 100 word story

Words how passé. Movement that is the truest of representation. A hand to the forehead. a twirling of the mustache. A finger raised in dedication to saving Nell who struggles against the rough bounds that bind her to the cold steel of a most post modern deconstructionist fate. And the state of the Villain is he not more righteous vital in his expectance of his dharma, to willing be the anti-hero. Surrender your pen. Join the dance of life.

RIGHT I DON’T THINK SO.