How do you write 100 word stories? #96

Many folk with a pink carnation and a pickup truck have asked how do you Tom write a 100 word story

I pose the following question. Is it easer to write a serious 100 word story or a funny 100 word story? Times Up! The answer, its infinity easer to be funny. Be brashly irreverent. Invite in the gods of inappropriate behavior. Be childish, juvenile, and all out silly. Let no Sacred Cows escape barbeque. Truth be told take any serious work bend it just 2 degrees, you got giggles. If we are pushed to cry, laughter isn’t far behind. Life is one big joke; it’s just a matter of where you stand in front of punch line of behind it.

Bored? Have an exorcism!

I asked my wife what she wanted for her birthday.
She said “Oh, just get me something crazy and expensive that I don’t need.”
Emo Philips once said the perfect gift for such an occasion is radiation treatment.
But that’s dangerous. Makes people sick.
So, instead of radiation treatment, I got her an exorcism.
Tying her to the bed was easy, but she started screaming and swearing the moment the priest came into the room.
“Happy Birthday,” I whispered into her ear.
She screamed and swore louder, so I told the priest “That’s the Devil talking.” before leaving the room.

How do you write 100 word stories? #95

Many folk with slide rulers have asked how do you Tom write a 100 word story

The curse of the writing personality is it collects stuff. What it collect the most are observed insights. We tend to be avid listeners attuned to perceiving good tales. It’s a skill that grows sharper with age. As life presents content, age presents context. My advice to any young writer is get old as quickly as you possible can. If you don’t have the luxury of actually being old yourself, sound old. Try on a William Burroughs gravely cadence. Hang out with people in Oncology wards. Not only will you witness age, you can witness the black specter of resignation.

Babel

Crawling out from the wreckage of Babel’s Tower, survivors call out for help.
Nobody understands anybody else. The Lord has shattered our language into many tongues incomprehensible to each other.
We grunt and point and shake each other in frustration.
One grabs a shovel and begins to dig.
“To bury the bodies?” I ask.
He doesn’t understand, just keeps digging.
We drag corpses into the hole, he shouts, and throws them back out.
Ah. Yes.
I see now.
I grab a shovel. Others grab theirs.
We join him and dig.
If we cannot reach Heaven, we shall certainly reach Hell!

How do you write 100 word stories? #94

Many folk with relatives in the old country have asked how do you Tom write a 100 word story

You may find this hard to believe but a poll of 1000 unpublished authors’ food of choice #1 was ketchup soup. In a close second was bananas. Seems bananas meet the needed of a writer on the go. No time or energy wasted on cooking. Bananas are a wash in potassium, the critical mineral the body needs to produce irony. Bananas also are rich in Vitamin Q. 22 bananas a day meets the daily min requirement of Vitamin Q. When I’m on my daily constitutional with my typewriter in hand, I like to carry 8 to 10 in my pocket.

Everything is a circle

Everything is a circle.
The table is a circle.
The table’s chairs are in a circle.
The cake is a circle.
The glass of milk is a circle.
Your eyes open wide. Like circles.
Your mouth is a circle, silent.
As you choke on the cake, your hands rise to your throat, and your face goes blue.
The lenses on my glasses are circles.
I watch you die.
I dig a hole in the back yard… another circle.
I push you in, fill up the hole.
I eat the rest of the cake, drink the milk, and go to sleep.

Peach

What did you just say?
My hearing’s not so good, and I need new batteries in my hearing aids.
“Peach on earth, and good will to all men?”
Oh, you said peace, not peach.
Although, now that I think of it, peach makes a lot more sense.
I mean, have you ever been angry when eating a peach?
I haven’t. And you haven’t either.
Nobody ever has.
So maybe if we give peaches to everybody, there will be goodwill to all men?
What? You’re allergic to peaches?
Well, I guess there goes my whole “Good will” idea.
(You oversensitive jerk!)

How do you write 100 word stories? #93

Many folk with an army of zombies have demanded how do you Tom write a 100 word story

In the last instatement I touched on how Google works great as a contextual word finder. Today I wish to wander over to Wikipedia work on some wily word wonks. Wikipedia is the superhighway of trivia. It has an amazing array of Pop references. Here’s an example. I’m writing a story about James Bond. I choose Stardust as my music bed. I randomly wiki Hoagy Carmichael. At the bottom of the page is a reference to Ian Fleming stating he saw Bond as Carmichael with a scar. This isn’t Hoagy Have and Have Not, this is Hoagy license to kill

How do you write 100 word stories? #92

Many folk with a hole in their bucket their bucket their bucket have asked how do you Tom write a 100 word story.

I’d like to believe a forceps deliver by a marine doctor is the reason my brain works the way it does. The most troublesome of my many mental shortcomings is a severely limited spelling capacity. If anyone chimes in with a comment about phonetics I’m going to personally send them to met god. The first computer program I ever purchased was a spellchecker. It ran in consort with Apple Writer, at a time when no wordprocessor had an internal checker. Over the years Ms Word has been my constant companion, but of late Google has become my checker of choice.

Clown Juice

Here. Have a drink.
What is it?
Clown juice.
Yeah, it tastes a little funny.
Freshly squeezed, too. None of that frozen concentrate junk or powdered “Clown Drink” crap.
Pure clown juice, straight from the clown.
Squeezed their squirting flowers myself this morning.
What kind of clown?
Circus clown. Only the best Barnum and Bailey label.
Rodeo clowns are just too gritty and bitter. Nobody wants to drink that rot.
And don’t get me started on mimes. Weak as water and sappy sweet.
Hospital clowns, well, they’re too salty.
From the tears they cry after visiting the kids.
Sad stuff.