SKIRMISHER

My short story, “White Light,” appears live on Amazon Shorts for 14 days. If you’re somewhat of a writer and have been looking for a good, growing online writing community, join Gather. And while you’re at it, why not visit the “White Light” page and rate it. If you do, I’ll send you Bogart, my carrier pigeon, strapped with a Thank You note and a strand of the Manny Pacquiao armpit hair I’ve been trying to sell (quite unsuccessully) on eBay.

Seriously, don’t listen to my blather and please just rate it.

I wrote it one warm, brownout evening while we all sat in the shadows. I was trying to read Stephen King’s On Writing on my PDA and when I gazed up to look at the candlelight, the seed for the story struck me: What if story ideas were specks of light fluttering like fireflies in the darkness, that any writer could pluck and, instantly, there’s a powerful story in his head and all he needed to do is write it down without having to think it up. Easy.

I admit what motivated me to write it was laziness. I’m more of a slacker than a writer; the truth is, although I love telling stories, I hate writing them down in a coherent, disciplined, consistent manner. In the same way I hate classrooms and studying under a professor (see Exhibit A of my chronic folly in “Out of Place“) in a coherent, scheduled, consistent manner. Maybe I haven’t found my voice, yet, and maybe I won’t. So you can imagine how seductive it would be for me to just go into a room filled with white specks of light/story ideas, “pluck” them out of thin air, and exclaim Voila! like what those fake Italian chefs do in tomato sauce commercials.

So visit my story’s page on Gather and please rate it. I’m feeling saucy today I think I’ll even give you my sister’s puppy.

Stumble it!