Good Morning Adventurers,
If you haven’t been paying attention to my social media, then the title wouldn’t make sense to you. But if you have, and got a little chuckle out of it, then I have succeeded. The world can be tough out there, so we need to always look for little things that can make us smile. Even if it is just simple little things like Me forgetting to post something until WAY later. Anyways, let’s get this ball rolling and get to telling this week’s adventure:
- Traveling Around
- Writing Battle – Thoughts & Opinions
- Short Story Snippet – Felling the Black Mass
Traveling Around
So, here is another Rugby update for those of you who are interested in the rugby aspect of my life. We had another game this past weekend, and it was a nice two and a half hours away. The wife and I made a weekend of it, taking time off of work and heading up north on friday. The weather wasn’t the greatest, but we did get to eat at a very nice restaurant and enjoy the beautiful views in the area.
The game also went really well for me, having gotten up early to stretch and wake myself up with an early warm up. I thought I’d have a hard time going into this game, due to a pain in the adductor muscle of my left leg, but it held up just fine. In fact, I played really well and scored twice on the opposing team. I would’ve had a third try if I hadn’t been caught by one of their new guys, but props to him for sticking it out and having a blast at his very first game.
Anyways, we’re looking at another trip this weekend, except this time around it’s going to be about a five hour trip. I’m really looking forward to this game since we’ll be playing against a team that we’ve never faced before, but my left leg is still going to be a bit of a problem. Just yesterday, I was doing squats and starting my fourth I hear a small pop in that left adductor. No bruising, but there is some soreness based upon certain movements. We’ll test it out today in practice and see how it goes. If anything, I’ve only now actually strained the adductor muscle, also known as a Grade 1 strain/tear. This is the second one that has happened in my left leg, so I may need to take a game off in the future to help rest it. That or I take this weekends game off and not play, which will suck but may be the best decision if I don’t want to really hurt myself.
Writing Battle Contest – Thoughts & Opinions
I’ve never written a review before but I’m going to give it a shot because why not. So here is my take on having participated in the writing contest known as:
Writing Battle
To start it off, they are a very active community and program. When you go to the site, you will see that they will almost always have about five to six contests running/planned for at all times. As of this post, they currently have planned three flash fiction contests for the summer, with another flash fiction and short story contest planned for october. These contests are either Peer Judged or Professionally judged, with a large prize pool set aside for each of the contests.
There is also a really cool Tavern and Debrief section on the website, but I only recently found out that you don’t have access to these until you’ve at least participated in one of their contests. Which is a real bummer because there is a pretty sweet community that is always sharing their projects in the Tavern. There’s also this really cool “Prompt Generator” that uses the card system that provides the prompts for the contests. Another cool feature is the “Beta Read” tab for any and all that are looking for beta readers. It kinda works like a community billboard, allowing others to reach out via email if they want to be a beta reader. After five days, the request is taken down, so it keeps things fresh and you aren’t just posting your incomplete projects out there for the whole world to see.
There are plenty of other things that I could talk about but let’s focus back on the contest. The one that I had signed up for was called the “Verdant Owl – 2,500 Word Professionally Judged Contest.” Once I had received my prompt you are given a week(seven days) to complete your story and submit it. It’s not a lot of time, but it is more than enough to write out a twenty-five hundred word short story. They even have a countdown time on their website to help remind you of the deadline, which is really helpful for someone like me who can easily get distracted.
Once the story is submitted and submissions have closed, they take you to a section of the site called the “Debrief.” There you can talk with other writers who have also submitted their works to the same contest. While you wait, your short stories are separated by the genres that were made available to the contest. So obviously my story got put into the category for all of the Urban Fantasy stories. Then, in their categories, they are seperated into “Houses” which act as your sub section of the contest. In each of the “Houses” the participants have the ability to share their stories for other to read and comment on. If you really like a story, then you can bookmark it to go back for a re-read.
Overall, it’s a pretty cool contest, if you can afford the $20-$35 entrance fee. That is the biggest detractor for the entire site. Not saying that there shouldn’t be an entrance fee, but rather I’m pointing out the fact that you don’t have much access to many of the sites cool features until you have participated in at least one of the contests. That’s the only downside to this whole thing that I can see as of right now. Honestly though, from looking at one of the previous contests debriefs, I think there is going to be a lot more in store for me to see. So I’ll keep you updated as the judging progresses and I get to see more of the process on how the contest proceeds.
Short Story Snippet – Felling the Black Mass
Ok, I wanted to wait until the contest has been judged and I’ve received the results, but I really want to share this short story. So to help pacify my desire to talk about it, here’s a little snippet of the story that was written for the contest. Now, the only big mistake that I made was accidently submitting the story under a different title and not the one that is mentioned in the title here. The original title for the story was “A Sergeants Black Mass,” however that didn’t have the same connection to the lumberjack theme as the one that I wanted. Anyways, take a brief look into my first urban fantasy short story.
“Let’s get this over with.” grumbles the thick man. A large boot stamps down onto the first step of the cathedral. Another step and the massive doors before him groan. He pauses, watching as the wooden behemoths of wood slowly swing inward. He sets his foot down on to the third step, feeling the ground shudder as the doors come to a stop. Wide enough for a grown man to walk through, an even fatter one squeezes through, stumbling over to the giant man. “Ahh, brother Saul,” the portly man says, reaching a hand out in greeting. Saul takes it, his hand enveloping the priests significantly smaller ones. “I hope that everything is well, my son.”
Saul takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, “it is Father Harold. I’ve got the fifteen cord’s of black locust that you’ve requested.”
“Excellent, excellent.” say’s the father, his hand slipping free of sauls to wring together with nervous energy. “I’d suppose you’d like to negotiate a price then. Come in, Come in.”
Saul tilts his head as the priest squeezes back into the cathedral. Saul, following, pushes the towering doors aside with ease. Father Harolds eyes flash open in amazement, “It amazes me, every time, how you can so easily move those doors.” Saul just grunts before swinging both of the doors shut. A thunderous boom echoing throughout the sanctuary. Father Harold flinches each time the echo rebounds past us. Saul just grins at the frowning Priest.
“Must you do that every time?”
“I can’t help it,” Saul mumbles, “Those doors make me feel like a ranger warning the king of danger every time.” The smile fades and returns to the neutral line that it normally is, “sorry, that’ll be the last time.”
Father harold nods in appreciation before marching down the aisle towards the altar. “Now, how much does a cord of wood go for these days? Two-hundred? Two-fifty?”
Saul chuckles at the fathers words, “For black locust,” and walks up to the gold plated table that Father Harold stopped at. “That runs about four-twenty five per cord.”
The priest whips his head around to face saul. Shock permeating every pore on his bald head as sweat begins to run. “That,” he shudders a breath, “That may be a bit more than what my congregation has prepared for, I’m afraid.” Saul crosses his arms, displaying cords of muscle beneath his red flannel. “What I meant to say was,” the priest says tripping over his words, “could we perhaps negotiate something lower if my congregation and I transport it to the church ourselves?”
Yes, I know that there is a lack of “Fantasy” elements in this little snippet, but that’s because it doesn’t appear until later in the story. You’ll just have to wait until the story is released in order to find out. So keep an eye out for I do post it here!
A.G. Flowers 
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