A Couple of Stories To Plug

So, I have been encouraged, for more 'n a year now, to share some of my stories on Smashwords, which is a website like Amazon, but dedicated solely to books and stories.  I kept putting it off, but once I saw how easy it was, I decided to try to upload one story a week, grabbing pieces almost at random, and finding typos and/or things to fix in every single one.*

As you know, it's hard for me to muster the backbone to put my writing up in a public forum where it will inevitably be judged, but I did manage to stick up a couple of my works there recently, and I guess I will now take a moment to plug a couple of them.  After all, if only one in ten strangers like what they read, that's still potentially seven hundred million folks out there who will know who I am.

Of course, I struggle with math even more than I do with writing, so that number may be a bit off.

I thought it would be wise to put a few of my stories on there for free, especially if they had appeared before, like on my blog or a flash fiction site.  However, both Dean Wesley Smith and Heath Ledger's Joker suggest that if you do something well, you never do it for free.  As far as I know, only one of those two is considered insane.

TWO FREE STORIES

1.  A Slight Delay (2013)  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/371828
For an airline passenger, an unexpected wait on the tarmac takes a turn for the strange.
I wrote this as a gag on the Dunesteef message boards this month, when folks were talking about things that are and aren't scary.  Much like my moth story (written and produced for the 13 Nights of Halloween), I tried to come up with a scenario (however bizarre) where a man in a bunny costume could be frightening.

2.  The Awful Tale of the Minnesota Diarrhea Ghost (2013)https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/368531
In this tiny tale (really, the title is about half the length of the story), Grandpa sits down his two grandsons and tells them just enough about the Minnesota Diarrhea Ghost. 
This really was a joke, written in a series of IMs to try and make Big Anklevich laugh.
It did not work.

TWO UNFREE STORIES

1.  Office Visit (2003)  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362484
Genie and Sally are two young girls living in a small American town, not too long ago.  When a new dentist moves into town, people begin to behave strangely about him, causing the girls to become suspicious.  Nothing ominous could happen in their peaceful little home, could it?
This is a lengthy story I wrote a decade back, during my series of Horror and Urban Fantasy stories set in smalltown America.  It very nearly got podcast by a horror site in 2011.  It's pretty likely it will end up airing in Full Cast audio on the Dunesteef soon, but here's your chance to read it first.

2.  Say Uncle (2013) https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376129
Uncle Cal is driving his two year old nephew around, when the boy begins speaking in full sentences. Somehow little Alex is the messenger of adult Alex, in an unpleasant future that, just maybe, can be averted.
I wrote this little Sci-Fi Drama earlier this year, with the express purpose of doing it on our show.  Due to a number of obstacles, that has not (yet) happened, but it may still work in text, right? 

I have four or five more tales I plan to get up there before the year is out.  As I mentioned previously, I find the idea of producing cover art for each of these particularly damning, creatively.  A couple of the images I've stuck on my stories have been pretty vanilla, to put it delicately.  But I could take a week to put together an image for one story, or I could upload one in twenty minutes, do revision on a story for next week, and begin writing a third one.  That seems like math even I can do.

Most of these stories can also be found on Amazon.com, though they (like Dean Wesley Joker) seem to have a problem with giving stories away for free.  I've also put a slightly rewritten version of "On Dusty Wings" up there, trying to fix the plotholes that seemed apparent when read aloud.  That's at this link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/366914

Enjoy?

Rish Outfield, Book Peddler

*A story I grabbed from 2009 the other day was nearly ready to go before I discovered that the first two pages are just the original notes on the story, including a bunch of ideas that never made it in.  The story proper began about halfway through page three.  Needless to say, that one has not yet seen print.