New Blog Chain Post: How to Make Cole's Head Implode

This week's blog chain post was started by one of my besties (or at least I thought she was until she decided to give me an aneurysm) Michelle McLean. Michelle says:

In 100 words or less, write a story using the words ride, post,
soulless, local, dehydrator, girdle. Your story may take on any form you wish. The only two rules are 1. you can't simply list the 6 words; you must actually craft them into something creative, and 2. you must use ALL six of them.

To which I say, "GAH!" You see, short fiction in all of its forms is the bane of my existence. I just cannot do it. Countless short story contests have proven this fact. I have no idea why writing less words would be harder than writing MORE words. But it IS. Why, Michelle, WHY do you hate me??? Okay. Whining done now. I'm going to give this a go. Just remember, though, what you are about to read cannot be unread. I make no apologies. You have been warned.



Once upon a time there was a camel named Humps who was tired of all the soulless locals that would ride on his back. Sitting atop his hump, their fat butts felt like bowling balls bouncing on his back and their legs were like the laces on a too-tight girdle. So, Humps devised a plan. He placed an ad in the Daily Post advertising a free screening of Harry Potter. After the people showed up, Humps locked the door trapping them inside. You see, it wasn't a movie theatre after all, but a giant dehydrator. From that day forth everyone on Hump's gift list received jerky every Christmas. The end.

So, yeah. I'm pretty speechless myself right now.

Why don't you go cleanse your brains with the fabulous answers and writing styles of Abby Annis and Shannon Morgan.

New Blog Chain Post: Books Are...

Hi everyone! It's time for another round on the Blog Chain! This chain is brought to you by Kate who asks us to fill in the blank:

Books are ______________________________.

Please click your way through the chain to check out everyone's fabulous answers. Mine, on the other hand, might not be what you expect. I have two answers. If you would go back in time and ask seven-year-old Cole what books are, she would have answered, "Scary as s#@t." Okay, so she wouldn't have said that because seven-year-old Cole didn't cuss, but the thought is the same. You see, I'm dyslexic. Only, then I didn't know it. No one did. My teachers assumed I was just slow on the reading front, thereby picking on me constantly for reading out loud, which made reading time absolute hell for me. What was it like? you ask. I'll give you an example. Imagine us in a class together. We were given a reading assignment. This is what you see:



This is what I see:



Only, now, the teacher has called on me to read out loud. Add my nerves into the mix and the text does this:



Pretty horrifying, right? Needless to say, books were my enemy. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy them, it was just that I felt like an idiot every time I tried to read one. It didn't help that no one realized what was going on with me so they just assumed I was "slow". And, in turn, I felt "slow" which made me believe I was "slow".

It wasn't until much much later that I was able to understand my disability and work through it. That was when I was able to truly read books, understand them, and enjoy them. It was like a whole new world opened up before me. It was about the same time that I was bitten by the writing bug. But I believed, that because I was dyslexic, the dream of becoming a writer was a foolish one.

But then, one fall day in 2006, I found myself at ARCHON - a St. Louis science fiction/fantasy convention - and sitting in a panel given by NY Times best seller Laurell K. Hamilton. Someone in the crowd mentioned something about the spelling errors on her blog, to which Ms. Hamilton shrugged and professed, "I'm dyslexic." And something about the tone of her voice implied, "And I dare you to make something of it."

Needless to say, I was floored. You can be dyslexic AND a writer?!?! So I went home and did some googling. It turns out that Laurel wasn't the only one - that there's a whole mess of dyslexic authors. Here's a list of published authors, just to name a few:

1. Hans Christian Anderson
2. Scott Adams (Dilbert Cartoon)
3. John Corrigan
4. Agatha Christie
5. Fannie Flagg
6. Terry Goodkind
7. Cole Gibsen (Flux, 2012)

Now, there's something I truly enjoy reading ;)

So, now it's your turn. What are books to YOU?

Please check out the always amazing Abby's blog for her answer and tomorrow, see how the supremely stellar Shannon answers.