The Agony and the Ecstasy would be a perfect alternative title for this post, a summary of my weekend, if nothing else. It started when I was blessed with an extra day off, making it a three-day weekend. Of course you cannot see or hear that I am saying this with tongue implanted firmly in cheek: I awoke Friday morning with the most agonizing bout of nausea and vomiting that I have possibly ever had. It was awful. You know that a sick day is a real sick day when you don’t feel like reading, and that was what Friday and most of Saturday was like.

But I persevered and did actually manage to have a stellar weekend when all was said and done. So please join me as I update the status of R.I.P. III, point you to a book giveaway opportunity, discuss football, share with you a series that you simply must watch, and give away our first R.I.P. III prize!!!

Continue reading Just another…Miscellaneous Monday →

(Update: dang, almost got this done on Wednesday as promised. I’m going to blame Jeff for coming over tonight and keeping me talking for hours about this weekend’s fantasy football draft. Yes, that’s it, its Jeff’s fault!!!)

“With Icarus quill and ink from the blood of nameless things,
I here pen words no mortal should ever speak
Of horrors beyond the ken of man yet in possession of his senses.
Ere the hour of peace dawns upon mankind these abhorrent scratches
Will find their way into the hands of one whose eyes will be consumed
By my accursed remembrances.
It is in that day that all courage will fail you, for your doom is at hand
And things unspeakable will haunt your waking dreams…”

~Calvin Renct, 1698 (hmmm…do those letters also spell Carl Vincent? 😉 )

Yes indeed, after an overdose on Lovecraft last year out flowed that opening to last year’s Tiny Stories Challenge for R.I.P. II. No prize was ever awarded, an embarrassing boil on the bottom of my heart, so today is a reckoning of sorts. Though R.I.P. II has been laid to rest, we will honor his ghost by bringing to completion a few past contests here at the start of R.I.P. III.

Before we start, a reminder of the Tiny Stories rules:

1. Your Tiny Story must be exactly 100 words long, no more, no less.
2. You may only use a word one time in the story.
3. Contractions, for example don’t, only count as one word.
4. You may use different forms of the same word, but (this time) you may not use a word and use its plural. For example, if you use the word haunt you cannot use haunts.
5. This time, your story must have a title and the Title is the one place that you may use words that you used in the body of the 100 word story. The title words do not count as part of your 100 words.
6. Your Tiny Story must be in the vein of the R.I.P. II Challenge. That is, it may be in the scary, spooky, eerie, gothic, mysterious, atmospheric, etc. vein. It can be serious, funny, horrific, etc., but it must fit, at least loosely, into the spirit of this challenge.

You will see just how hard not repeating words is as you read the entries. I applaud everyone for their attempts. Choosing a winner was not easy.

First up, the Tiny Story entries. Read them at your own peril…

Continue reading Posthumus Awards: A R.I.P. II reckoning →