This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends is from Becky Jones: Portable time machines ain’t all they’re cracked up to be.I wasn't sure if I really wanted to start writing a time travel story, when I have so many starts that I've never finished. Maybe a very short, funny story about the absurd pickle a time traveler might get ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from Becky Jones: The wyverns and the cats stared at each other before cautiously approaching to sniff noses.The sheer number of kitten prompts, including visual prompts, was a little painful coming so soon after we'd lost our cat. All those cute little orange tabby kittens ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from Fiona Grey: “What do you mean, the arena is filled with ‘relentless spiders’?”My first thought was a gaming scenario -- and thus "NPC's" and particularly the climax, in which Sierra's fleeing through one after another gaming company's virtual spaces. Might this be the ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from Padre: The one-eyed raven flew higher, circling upward in tighter and tighter circles, before swooping off towards the horizon.It felt like fantasy, and a dark one. Is the raven a magical being, perhaps a shapeshifter, or is it a symbol ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends is from AC Young: He was convinced that he’d cracked the code on the treasure map.It sounded very much like a story of a pirate treasure -- but in what circumstances? It felt like a fantasy, and after some reflection, I thought maybe it could be a dark fantasy, like the one glimpsed ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from Fiona Grey: Things just felt unfinished.

This was so open-ended that it was hard to even come to a starting point. What 'verse? What characters? So I decided to take a look at the spares to see if I could find something that would help me narrow it down, and noticed They ( Read more... )

GenCon is in Indianapolis for the weekend. I have many fond memories of going to it in 2011 through 2014. After that, GenCon tended to be on the same weekend as Tampa Bay Comic Con, and the one year it wasn't, we weren't able to secure a volunteer position that would've allowed us to attend -- and as it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise, ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from AC Young: It was an old house, with plenty of chimneys.My first thought was the Contra Costa School of Magic in the Chaffee Artilect 'verse. The genre of game it represents was inspired by the Harry Potter books, and the building itself is based upon the Winchester Mystery ( Read more... )

The long-awaited game Space Citizen is still in development, and they've already had to kick 600 cheaters off its system. These players discovered a flaw in the programming that allowed them to sell cargo twice ( Read more... )

This week's Odd Prompts writing challenge at More Odds than Ends was from nother Mike: Who thought trying to stab jellyfish with a sword was a good idea, anyway?

I immediately thought of the scene with jellyfish that I'd written for MOTE a while back. Maybe I could take it a little further ( Read more... )