So, given this interaction and also the release of Riley Sager’s FINAL GIRLS, I figure today’s flash fiction challenge would be cool if it played with the slasher movie story type — so, write a story that has something to do in some way with a slasher film narrative. (Think, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, so on, so forth.) It can be a horror story or not — feel free to play with this story type in the context of other genres. It also doesn’t need to be a slasher story itself if you don’t want — it just needs to use the idea in some way. (Maybe the characters totally love slasher movies, f’rex.)

Sharpen the knife. Have fun.

Length: ~1500 words

Due by: August 4th, Friday, noon EST

As I have noted in the past, Twitter is great for me as an author less because it connects me to my audience and sells books (which it does!) and more because it lets me hangout digitally, by-proxy, with a bunch of other penmonkeys doing their penmonkey thing. Sometimes those authors talk. Sometimes Sam Sykes is involved.

This is one of those times.

[law and order noise, CHUNG CHUNG]

I advise you to click here:

INSPIROBOT.

There, you will find the ability to generate algorithmic inspirational memes.

Just like the one at the fore of this post.

You can either:

a) generate your own or

b) use the one above.

From there, design a piece of short fiction around that, um, “inspiration.”

Use the text in the story if possible.

Otherwise, just use it as a springboard to delightful story weirdness.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: Friday, the 28th, noon EST

Post at your online space.

Link back here so we can all read it.

The end.

Being the hip, trendy tastemaker that I am, I have now joined the brand new social media network for Cool, Rad World Wide Web Users — it’s this thing called Instagram.

Have you heard of it?

WELL, I’M OVER THERE NOW, PAVING THE WAY.

Yeah, no, I know, I’m way behind.

There existed a technological shift in the last five years inside my brain where at one point I cared to stay on top of this stuff and then I suddenly cared less about staying on top of this stuff. I still don’t know what the fuck Snapchat is or does or if it’s just a rotating carousel of dick pics that erase themselves. I haven’t joined all your fancy Circlespaces and Tickleclicks and Humprs and Fudholes and Beerfaces and other social media networks that allow you to automatically share your blood pressure numbers or the contents of your medicine cabinets or various arty photos of your nipples. I’m sure I’ll catch up in the next 20, 30 years.

But I now have joined Instagram.

I am to understand pictures over there are called “IGGS,” as in, “EGGS,” but Instagram photos. IG photos. IGGS. I’m sure this is true and if it’s not true it will be true now, as I have said it, and clearly I am a paragon, a voyager, a true tastemaker and universal lingo designer.

Go follow me there.

Or don’t, I dunno, I posted one picture, relax.

Healthcare and healthcare coverage is an important topic for me for two reasons.

1.) Because my father died without coverage. He went without coverage because he had a pre-existing condition, and he was in the gap between his actual retirement and the proper retirement age, so he went without coverage for a short time until he could pick up Medicare at 65. In that time he got prostate cancer, as he went without any kind of preventative checks. It metastasized. It killed him. And that was that.

2.) Because the ACA has been a boon for me as a writer — which is to say, as a small business, because that’s what I am. I went to get health insurance initially and it was very expensive to cover my family, and it did not cover a great deal… and that was before we even got into any tussle over pre-existing conditions. The institution of the ACA was fortuitous, and allowed us to instead go to the marketplace, where we got health insurance that was considerably cheaper and covered considerably more. It allowed me to embark upon the “novelist” phase of my career in a real way. Like my books? They exist, in part, because of the ACA.

So, with those two previously-mentioned caveats mentioned once more —

Hey, how’s the healthcare debate going in this country?

Good? Yeah?

*checks watch*

*stares off at a pile of medical waste on fire*

*someone adds a pile of diapers to the conflagration*

Oh, so that good, huh?

*clears throat*

So, last night, in case you missed it, the healthcare repeal and replace failed in the Senate because it did not accrue enough support — those who bailed on it (Senators Moran and Lee) suggested they wanted an open legislative process, and some even suggested a bipartisan look at healthcare going forward (gasp, what, you mean you’d like to, to, to cooperate whoa holy shit what a revolution). And then ol’ Turtle Waddle, ol Mr. Turkey Dildo, ol’ Senator Mitch McConnell, he said, OH HELL NO, and he released a statement that said they will now pursue a repeal of the ACA without a current replacement.

In case you are unsure what that looks like, imagine that it looks like a person holding a sewing machine swaddled in fabric, and then that person leaps excitedly out of a plane in the hopes of stitching together a proper parachute before turning into a pancake of blood-and-bone.

Then, this morning, our melting shit-scented candle of a president endorsed an even uglier version of this idea, saying, and I quote, “As I have always said, let Obamacare fail and then come together and do a great healthcare plan. Stay tuned!”

Stay tuned.

Like this is a reality show and not:

a) a massive industry on which our economy hangs

b) people’s lives.

This is our, ahem, “leader” —

Someone who is content to let a thing fail instead of leading the way. Instead of fixing or repairing. Can you imagine seeing a bridge that’s failing and saying, “I’ll let it fail, then replace it.” Worse, it’s like he’s ready to commit some grand guignol of insurance fraud — “As I have always said, let the house burn down, or maybe I’ll burn it down myself, then I’ll collect the insurance and we can come together and pay for a great big new house. Stay tuned!”

He will let the system fail.

He will let people die.

And then he’ll swoop in and we’ll do “great” healthcare.

What a pal, what a chum.

Anyway, back to the Senate.

The Senate passed a repeal-without-replace in 2015, and that succeeded — in part, I suspect, because it was purely performative. They knew Obama wasn’t going to sign it, because c’mon. Obama wasn’t going to undo part of his legacy. But they showed solidarity. They passed it, he vetoed it. It gets more complicated now because what McConnell is proposing is that they excise the ACA over two years, giving them a window of replacement.

But I want you to pay attention —

They last tried to repeal in 2015.

It is now 2017.

That was two years ago.

They still have no replacement.

That wasn’t the beginning, though —  they’ve been trying to undo the ACA for SEVEN years.

And still, no replacement.

They now control the executive and the legislative branches of government.

And still, no viable replacement.

So, to assume that in two years they will come up with a capable healthcare system in place is not only absurd, it is statistically unlikely. (Never mind the fact that the CBO score on “repeal-without-replace” is the most devastating of all in terms of costs and people thrown off healthcare.) The GOP have nothing. They don’t have the chops. They’ve had seven years, then two, then they gained control of everything, and we’re still with the ACA.

Which, by the way, is a good thing.

Yes, the ACA is imperfect, but guess what? It’s fixable. (It in part was hamstrung by Rubio, who eliminated high-risk corridors.) Listen, as a parent with a kid, I gotta tell you — it’s an epic fucking blessing when you learn a thing is broken-but-fixable. It saves you money to fix the things that you can fix rather than replacing them. (That, one could argue, is a truly conservative mindset. Conserve what you have, fix what can be fixed.) Furthermore, it is galling to know we have leaders who are willing to play chicken with people’s actual lives and an entire industry in order to pursue a dogged crusade against what is, very honestly, a Republican-based plan (yes, the ACA was originally a Republican plan) that happened to be implemented by a black Democrat.

So, as always, I urge you:

Call your senators.

Thanks.

See that photo?

It’s body hair.

No, calm down, not that kind of body hair. Nothing south of the border.

IT’S NIPPLE HAIR ha ha no, not really, just arm hair.

No big news to share — well, I have a couple pieces, but I can’t actually share them lest I be murdered — so I’ll just say that, had a stellar event with Kevin Hearne and Fran Wilde the other day at the Free Library of Philly (and ahem apologies it’s why there was no flash fiction challenge, I had to bust out of here too early and forgot to hit POST). Huge crowd (as Kevin is wont to draw), and had a blast the whole way.

Prior to that I did one of those things that counts as PROPER ADULTING — not like, “I cleaned my counter, yay #adulting,” but rather, “I updated my last will and testament and figured out my physical and literary estate for when I finally kick off, be it today or ten thousand todays from now, and sure, hey, let’s consider the legal ramifications of my eventual hop-skip-shuffle off this mortal coil, whee #adulting.” This is a reminder that if you have not squared away the Circumstances After Your Demise, do so. Doubly so if you have children, triply so if you are a person who has intellectual property about which to worry.

Speaking of the mortal coil —

I am sad to see George Romero go. Romero created for us an entirely new mythology, and that’s no small thing. He understood that monsters were not merely monsters, but rather, that they were a commentary on us, or a reflection of us. Further, he was a paragon to both the horror community and the independent film community. Last week I had the distinct pleasure of being in a Night of the Living Dead anthology that Romero co-edited with Jonathan Maberry, and now, Romero being gone is just a kick to the teeth.

Onward, now, to a few more macro photos for the week — the first of which is from a plant that is literally called RATTLESNAKE MASTER (also my nickname in high school). Second photo is a ladybug pupa. Third photo is waterdrop on evergreen.