Good Morning Adventurers,
How are we on this fine morning/evening/whatever time of day you are reading this? I am doing wonderfully great, having had the time to finally rest and recover. Also was able to get back into the gym this week, but I still need to take it easy. I don’t want to re-injure my leg by going hard and heavy on the weights. Anyways, let’s take it easy and look at this weeks update:
- Contest Results: 28th out of 38
- Coming Soon – Felling the Black Mass
Contest Results: 28th out of 38
Twenty-Eighth out of Thirty-Eight stories in my house. Which is not bad. It wasn’t the results that I was hoping for but I’m also just happy on getting the chance to compete. Just to clarify, the contest is not officially over yet. the results that I have right now broke down the rankings for each of the houses, which there were many of for each genre. Eleven for my genre, and I am assuming that there must’ve been at least thirty eight stories in each house. Only ten from each of the houses moved on to the next round, and even then the contest won’t be finished until the end of this month.
There will be at least another six rounds of judging before they actually get around to announcing the winners for the contest. Am I super bummed that I didn’t move on, yeah. However, the biggest take away is that I did compete against some pretty amazing stories. Even before they announced the results, I had read some of the ones that were in the Top Ten and it doesn’t surprise me that they were. Honestly, I’m just happy that I wasn’t ranked dead last. Sure, there’s a lot of room to grow, but I did beat out ten other people.
So I’ll bide my time, keep on writing, and work to improve my characters voice and motivation. Maybe I should also work on creating something a bit more original and not based off of something that already exists(even though I really like the lore about Paul Bunyan). Essentially, my biggest takeaway is that I really need to work on my characters and prose. Which isn’t something that I didn’t already know, so that just means I’ll keep on writing. For the only way to get better at writing is to just keep on writing.
Coming Soon – Felling the Black Mass
With that said, clearly I didn’t win. So that means I can now share this story with all of you guys! Here’s a little snippet of the story to tie you guys over until I can create a page and upload it to the fantasy section of the library.
“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?”
Saul pulls a toothpick from a pants pocket and puts it into his mouth. “I’ve already hauled it here.” The toothpick bouncing in his lips at every word. “We already talked about this, don’t you remember?”
Originally the title for the story was “A Sergeants Black Mass” but after looking at my prompts and at the suggestion of one of my readers—I forgot to change it before the submissions closed. In all honesty, I go back and forth between the two titles. I like both of them but in the end, the title that did not get attached is the title that just plays a bit more into the lumberjack theme of the story. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed that little bit, and I’ll let you guys know via facebook & Instagram when I post the story.
A.G. Flowers 
Leave a comment