Apple-Obsessed Author Fella
Always a fun one —
Ten random titles.
I give you a list.
(Gotten from a random title generator online.)
You pick (or randomly choose) a favorite.
Write a story.
Fun and easy.
I mean, y’know. “Easy.”
List at the bottom of the post.
Length of story: ~1000 words
Due by: Friday, June 16th, noon EST
I went on a bit of a Twitter tear about the upcoming Comey hearing, and in addition, the overall state of this country — with a call to action about trumping Trumpcare in the meantime. I’ve gone ahead and Storified those thoughts for you. Please to enjoy. Or not. I’m not your Dad. Yet.
ASK ME ABOUT MY VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE
Dearest Mother:
I am writing you this letter in contravention of the Lady’s Law. I know if this letter is intercepted, that they will come for me with their gynomantic lassos. But write it, I must, and in that, I hope that this letter finds you well in the Care Home, which has been paid for by the Matriarchy.
I write you now to give my accounting of what went down that way, and how all of this happened. It’s amazing to think that such a fundamental shift in all things could come out of something so simple and so fun as a fictional superhero character. But that’s when it all happened. That was the pivot: the Wonder Woman film.
On the first day, I’d heard some rumblings about how the film was doing very well in the box office, perhaps even setting records as a film directed by a woman — strange to think how that was once unusual! — and I’d also heard that there were a handful of “women-only” screenings happening, and that some men were noticeably upset about being excluded. What I didn’t know was what happened during those screenings. They were the start of it. The beginnings of the rebellion. A fast-growing fire.
Stories from one of my guards here tells of being in one of those theaters when a handful of cisgender men tried to gain entry to the film. They were denied, of course, but came in through the side exit. They kicked the door in, demanding to be seated, demanding to be heard. One of them tried explaining his point-of-view: “Well, actually, I believe in humanism –”
But he never got to finish that sentence.
The women had no weapons except those that were already part of their accoutrements. They strangled the men with purse straps. They carved into them with keys, drowned them in various moisturizes and lady unguents. And then they held them down, took sharpened ATM cards, and severed their genitals. They played with them, then, the way a cat plays with a mouse, or the way Spring Breakers might bounce an inflatable beach ball back and forth overhead. “A party,” the guard called it. “A party where we bathed in men’s blood and used their dicks like cheap party favors.” And you know what they do with cheap party favors, Mother. They use them up. Then they throw them away. Right in the trash.
The women formed a pact, then, not to talk about what had happened that day — though it doesn’t matter now, their silence was paramount at that time. It was the beginning of something. And when I went to see the movie, as we all did, I had no idea what was waiting. You know at the end, how they have those bins where you leave your 3D glasses? They had a bin out there, dear Mother. A bin for my… my manhood. Soon as I walked out of the theater they threw a bag over my head and tried to cut my parts off — but I ran, and I ran, and eventually I gathered under a bridge with my other fellow Men’s Rights Activists, and there we plotted our own counter-rebellion, but we were too slow, and it was too late. The gynocopters found us. Troops swept in over us, their hooked knives clean and sharp and gleaming. They Tasered us and pounced, like pumas. I’ll never forget the sound of my… my manhood hitting the bottom of the bin. It was the sound of an onion hitting the bottom of a trash can. A thud and tumble.
That was it. That was how it began. Bloody and brutal. Turns out, there was a Special Edition Wonder Woman film. One we men did not get to see. One that indoctrinated the women and the girls, one by one, in the ways of Matriarchy. That was the start of the Lady’s Laws. They spliced in iPhone footage from those initial women-only screenings: the male organs bouncing around, the blood, the chanting, the Vagenda of Manocide laid bare for all to see. It was brainwashing, pure and simple. I’m with her, they said again and again. A mantra. Pointing to the woman on the screen. Wonder Woman. An Amazon. A goddess made of clay killing all the men.
It wasn’t long before the women had taken over. It was only two years later I found myself on a shuttle bound for the moon. To one of the expansionist eunuch colonies. I expected that you’d need us for breeding — not you personally, of course, but the Greater General Lady-You — but turns out, with genetic manipulation, we aren’t needed for much at all.
Admittedly, I hear nice things about Earth now. Since those who identify as women took over, I am to understand there’s been little war. Violent crime is trending toward zero. I hear too that the shift of climate change has slowly reversed — and, ha ha, I imagine there’s no longer a wage gap. Because we cisgender men don’t work anymore, except here in the camps. I imagine things aren’t perfect, though! I’m sure you still have your problems. And you probably still fight!
You women. With your… fighting.
But at least your care has been paid for, no thanks to me. I wish I could contribute, but they took my money and closed my accounts years ago. I receive a small stipend here for breaking moon rocks (which I’m to understand that you use for mooncrete), but I need that money to pay for my various needs and necessities, including the protection money I pay to Big Dick Hitler, the cyborg white supremacist men’s rights activist who teaches us all about our internal masculine power and how one day we will again be ascendant and how one day we can again help run the world. Though one time, I swear he said ruin the world, and no one else acknowledged it, and I sure wasn’t going to say anything, because I did not want him to turn his serrated claw-hand on me. I paid my money and I will keep my tongue. Even if I’ve lost so much else.
I hope you believe me. And I hope, Dear Mother, that you did not partake in the horror show that befell cis men that day. My conscience is clear, and I pray to the Man God that yours is, too.
Also, I need fifty Ladybucks, because Big Dick Hitler has upped his prices.
Please and thank you.
Love,
Your Son (Nameless Eunuch #798,231)
* * *
P.S. None of that shit happened, of course. Forgive me if the post seems in any way insensitive, as it’s a work of quick, dumb fiction that is meant to serve as a response to some gormless chode who sent me a message on Facebook, chastising me for liking the Wonder Woman because, I quote, “It advocates a version of male genocide.” Which is so dumb it would be funny if it weren’t so abjectly fucking dumb. He was serious, far as I could tell. I guess people think “male genocide” — like “white genocide” — is a thing? (Spoiler: it isn’t a thing.) Anyway, whatever. You want my Wonder Woman review? It was rad as fuck. Game over, the end. I am not here to debate whether or not the movie was feminist or not, because that ain’t my space, nor my place, but I am here to say I loved it, and you should see it. I saw a ton of little girls and young women in the audience — in the middle of the day on Sunday, no less, at at time when theaters are not traditionally packed around here. They were cheering and totally into it. Take your kids, I took my son. Take yourself. Take everybody. Join the Vagenda of Manocide.
Art above by Cliff Chiang, from Wonder Women #23 (New 52)
This week, the paperback of Invasive landed.
Presently, I am in a shed that has once again, in a timely fashion, become a staging ground for gigantic carpenter ants. I have two above my head right now. I had three above my head five minutes ago, but one literally dropped down onto my hand as I was typing an email.
So, I figure that makes a good flash fiction challenge.
The book is called Invasive.
The idea is, in part, about invasive species.
So, write about that. In whatever capacity you so choose. Take inspiration from it. Needn’t be sci-fi. What’s an invasive species look like in fantasy or horror? How could it figure into a crime or mystery story?
Length: ~1500 words
Due by: June 9th, Friday, noon EST
Post at your online space.
Drop a link in the comments below.
HEY, LOOK.
The ants go marching, now to paperback. Invasive is now out in mass market format, and it’s a book about ants, anxiety, the future, dangerous billionaires, one angry spider, and it also contains a free trip to Hawaii.*
* but the ants also get to go to Hawaii, sorry
If you’d rather a more official description:
On an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific, a team of scientists is employed by a charismatic billionaire hoping to change the world through cutting-edge research.
In a small cabin on a remote lake in the middle of the Adirondacks, FBI futurist Hannah Stander confronts a barely recognizable human body—one skinned alive by thousands of genetically engineered ants.
Hannah’s investigation ultimately leads her to Kohole Atoll. Though the team there vehemently denies any connection to the body, the more Hannah studies the group, the more she suspects their work has sinister applications. And the more it looks like no one is getting off the island alive.
Who said nice things about it? Lots of folks!
In a starred review, Kirkus said:
“Think Thomas Harris’ Will Graham and Clarice Starling rolled into one and pitched on the knife’s edge of a scenario that makes Jurassic Park look like a carnival ride.”
Publishers Weekly said:
“Fans of Michael Crichton will feel right at home.”
The Washington Post said:
“Wendig does an impeccable job blending fact and fiction as he describes invasive species and insects being used as biological weapons. This is a propulsive tale that also examines our interaction with — and manipulation of — the natural world.”
The ants said:
“chitter swarm click clicky chitter swarm hey a dead bird let’s eat it”
You should to get it, because if nobody buys my books I die writhing in the abyss!
Indiebound | Amazon | B&N
The book is also available in e-book format (Kobo, iTunes, Google Play, plus the links above), and audio (narrated by the impeccable Xe Sands). I’ll also have more Invasive news as the days go on — I’ll share when I have a green light to share.
Also, if you like it, please tell others, and leave a nice review somewhere.
Please enjoy.
I’m working on something now that’s three years in the making.
And when I say, “in the making,” I mean, “I’ve been making it inside my head.” Translation: a bunch of random ideas were invited to a random idea orgy, and for years they’ve been sticking bits into other bits and sloppily flopping around until eventually they don’t so much have a baby as they glom together and form a slippery, goopy Idea Voltron.
What I mean is, I’m working now on Exeunt.
Exeunt appeared as a collection of half-ass ideas in my head three years back, while taking a walk. And by the way, my judgment on ideas in general is this: ideas are mostly worthless. They’re dross. We like to imagine that all our ideas are pearls, but the reality is, I fear, most of them are fucking driveway gravel. They’re just hunks of broken limestone. But the secret there is: limestone is a building material. It forms the base of roads. It helps make up the recipe for concrete. And further, once in a while you find a piece of gravel that’s interesting to look at — it’s got a vein of quartz running through it, or it’s got a little mollusc fossil in there, or maybe it’s actually a goblin tooth and if you put that tooth under the pillow of an enemy they will lose all their teeth and you can laugh and laugh and laugh at your foes as they feebly gum their food.
Point is, ideas aren’t precious gems. They’re just stones.
But stones have value, too, in aggregate.
And over time, they build up, and the ideas you have keep tumbling around and around in your head. And maybe they polish up into something pretty, or maybe they start to form the karst and bedrock of something bigger, some structure, some story, some vital tale. That’s why when I get an idea, I don’t write it down. I let it go. If it’s a real idea, if it’s going to be the basis of something bigger, it will return. It’ll keep kicking around. It’ll get stuck in a shoe.
Exeunt was that. It kept coming back. Again and again.
Obsessively.
But I never knew what to do with it. It had a core, it had characters, but it didn’t have shape. It didn’t have a point. It was just this half-formed thing in the dark, gibbering and moaning.
I knew if I started it, it’d just be me struggling to slap that mewling glob into some kind of meaningful shape, like I was a bored kid kicking a can. It wouldn’t feel right because I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d tried this previously with other books: my novella, The Forever Endeavor, is literally based on an idea I had almost twenty years ago, and periodically over the years I had tried to dip my toes in it, write a chapter or two, and every time it felt like I was on a date with someone and we just weren’t connecting. Each of us making sad small-talk, staring down at our water-glasses, trying to find some spark, some reason to keep on keeping on. My book, Atlanta Burns, was three different things: it was a name (the titular “Atlanta Burns”), a thing about dog-fighting, and a thing about white supremacy in a small Pennsylvania town, and it wasn’t until one day that those three things collided randomly in my head and the book was born. My first book, Blackbirds, somewhat infamously took five years to write — and it took five years because I didn’t know what the sweet hot fuck I was doing with it.
I say all this as a lesson to you — but more as a reminder to myself! — that this shit takes time. Yes, some books appear like vengeful whole-bodied specters at the moment of creative inception, and you can sit down right after and exorcise the spirit right onto the page. But some books… *whistles* man, some books take weeks, months, even years to figure out. It’s like cooking. Sometimes it’s high-heat and a quick-fry and the dish is done. But other dishes are low and slow. The flavors take a long time to come together. A pot of chili tastes better the next day because all those ingredients need time to cool down and join forces. Some books are that way, too.
Sometimes, with a book, you spend more time thinking about it, ideating upon it, then you do actually writing the damn thing. Sometimes the story is as much about rejecting ideas and finding shape and direction as it is about actually putting it on the page. It’s a pot of water set to boil — slow to heat, miserable to watch, until the moment comes and it’s boiling over the edge.
The problem is, this doesn’t always feel like working.
It doesn’t feel like you’re doing anything.
And that’s okay.
You can set that pot on the back burner and let it simmer for a while.
But here’s the trick:
Don’t get complacent.
Don’t let that be the only thing.
And don’t let this be the excuse not to ever write it.
You get a book that’s taking a long time to bubble and froth, hey, okay. Work on something else. Something short, something long, something that’s ready. And that’s part of the trick: you’re never just silently working on one book. I think we all have lots of pots on lots of burners at various stages of potential deliciousness — some are still missing ingredients, but you should always have something ready to go.
And then when it’s time, you gotta do it. You have to stow away the fear — because the longer the book takes the simmer, the bigger and scarier it may loom in your mind, its shadow long and deep — and you have to sit down and do the damn thing. You can’t waffle. You can’t lean on this as a crutch. Just as you know the book needed its time to come together, you also have to know when it’s time to stop fucking around and fucking write the fucking thing. Problem is, you don’t have any reliable test for it. You can’t dip a hot copper wire in a petri dish of its blood. You can’t ask it. You can’t smell its ripeness like it’s a fucking pineapple. You just have to do it. Or, at least, try it. Sometimes a book needs you to wait. Sometimes the book needs you to write it. Best you can do is put pen to paper or fingers to keys and see what happens.
It’s what I’m doing now.
Fingers to keys.
Ideas stapled to the page to stop them from running.
Exeunt, coming soon.
Years in the making, an orgy-baby purged in a rough birth.
Wish me luck, and I wish you luck, too.
