Tag Archives: Small Town Super Nobody

Shmidiot

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So my initial plan for dealing with the hilarity caused by my comment about uploading the next three chapters in six months (my editor did not think it was a joke, let alone a funny one; my IT Guy, on the other hand, laughed, assuming that it’ll eventually be a joke on me) was to upload chapter 4 this week. What I’ve done instead is removed chapter 3 and turned “Small Town Super Nobody” into a five chapter story. Practically the same thing.

Or maybe not. Point of fact: I actually have a good reason for this. I wasn’t as pleased with chapter 3 as I was with the first two chapters, and after a frank discussion with my editor (“I should’ve just waited until you’d uploaded the whole thing before I read it…nothing happened in this last chapter”), I realized why. She’s right: nothing did happen this last chapter. While the background information in the chapter is necessary, the story stagnates until the action in the next chapter, which is a crappy way to write a short story. It’s padding. I added padding to a novelette*.

What I’m going to do is take the background and emotional heart out of chapter three and add it to chapter four, which is going to end up as the official chapter three instead. I lose some things doing this (Greg beaning Rick in the head as hard as he can with a football, for one; the sentence “Jeremiah turned and saw that his dad was leaning back against the water table with his arms casually folded, a pose that could get most women within visual range to perk up and take a second look” for another), but it’ll be a tighter story for it.

A couple of editing notes related to this re-post plan:

  1. I moved the “domo arigato” thing to chapter 2, where I originally had it, and
  2. I added a very small line (a parentheses, in fact) to chapter 1, straight-out admitting that Teddy is basically an impossibly advanced robot. That last one was for my IT Guy, who pointed out that, though I’d heavily implied as such, I only ever said so in my author’s notes. Because it’s fun to make people guess at the framework of my stories.

So, uh…sorry? Hahahah, I’m lucky I only have two watchers.

*weeps a little anyways*

*Apparently a real thing, according to Wikipedia. That I do a lot. Who knew?

Rhymes with Idiot

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Shmidiot.

Can anyone explain to me why Microsoft Word’s thesaurus doesn’t contain any synonyms for put-downs? Nothing for idiot, moron, or even dork, though “nerd” (drip/bore/geek/weed, in that order) makes the cut. “Jerk” also qualifies, but only as a verb. Interestingly enough, so does “dipstick,” which I’d forgotten was another term for a measuring stick. This is unfortunate for someone who depends on her thesaurus for insult-rich vocab, but less so when I remember that I carry a pocket thesaurus with me at all times. However (and unfortunately), it too has no entry for “butthead.”

Still, you know it’s a good day when you scan over the tabs open above your browsing window and “Moron Synonyms, Moro…” is the third tab to the right.

It gets better when you find a great quote like this one, attributed to Albert Einstein (but also possibly not):

“If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Regardless, it’s an excellent quote, one of many extremely random things I find in the course of my absurd need to research the minutiae of my characters. But sometimes only the minutiae. For example, that little gem was found while researching football positions and the breakdown of the skill-sets needed, because I wanted to figure out what Jeremiah would like to play – for a line I may end up cutting. On the other hand, crap like “where is Teddy’s power source?” will get a pass. I’m not even going to try and scrape the surface of the mountain of research done into robotic engineering, because it’ll only tell me I’m wrong. Comic Book science it is.

(Why is that man a Supervillain, Mommy? Because he fell into a vat of toxic waste, dear.)

(Obviously.)

This is my overly convoluted way of saying that I’ve finally uploaded “Small Town Super Nobody” Chapter 3: In Which a Boy Almost Has a Talk with His Dad.

3. In Which a Boy Almost Has a Talk with his Dad

And, to fully immerse yourself in Chapter 3, here is an equally pertinent link:

As to the rest, I should be done with the last three chapters in about six months.

 

Small Town Super Super Slow Updates

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I’ll keep this short, as I’ve delayed this far too long as it is. Part Two of Small Town Super Nobody is finally written. I had the hardest time writing this, for goodness knows what reason, but I finally did it because I was tired of feeling guilty. I also did some rearranging to make the story easier to navigate (I decided to create separate pages for each chapter), and I’ve updated my links in the last blog about this accordingly. Here’s chapter 2:

2. In Which a Boy Receives the Confirmation He Wasn’t Looking For

If, for some reason, you have not read chapter 1 yet, do so BEFORE reading this one. It can be found here:

1. In Which a Boy Accidentally Has a Discussion About His Little Brother’s Options for the Future Instead of His Own

If you’d simply like to admire the Title page (which isn’t really worth admiring at this point; hmm, maybe I should try illustrating something? Eh, we’ll see), you can go here:

Small Town Super Nobody

Did I just post the updates for my story backwards? Apparently I did.

Small Town Super Delay Tactic

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Do you remember when I promised that I wouldn’t be uploading anything of creative worth for a while? I don’t. Here is part one of six in a long short-story (are there any other kind?).

Here is the title page:

Small Town Super Nobody

And here is the first chapter:

1. In Which a Boy Accidentally Has a Discussion About His Little Brother’s Options for the Future Instead of His Own

In a shocking twist, I was attempting to focus on my novel last night and I accidentally (but finally, I’ll have you know – this has been in my head for a very long time) wrote the first part of this long short story. Frankly, I should’ve waited until all six parts were done (the sections don’t particularly lend themselves to great cliffhangers, which isn’t the best way to create enthusiasm for a story posted online), but each section is likely to be a couple thousand words long and it feels good to post something fresh off the Surface Pro typing pad.

Some points of interest: first, since I’m uploading it piecemeal each section will be subtitled for ease of navigation. Part one is “In Which a Boy Accidentally Discusses his Little Brother’s Options for the Future Instead of his Own.” Second, the overarching story takes place in a world I plan to explore in a much more ambitious project I’ll tackle in the new year. This particular tale is a much quieter piece in that world, a series of six conversations that cover a pivotal moment in the childhood of a couple of my side characters for the longer project. They’re not important enough in the series for me to take the time to explain how and why they’ve become who they are, but I’ve always liked these boys and a website is a great place to play with the kids I otherwise neglect.

There are other sources of inspiration for this idea (not least of which is my love for Superman – but we’ll get to that later), though I’ll wait to explain myself until the whole shooting match is over. Until then, updates will go up on a weekly basis.