Blog Archives

Genie Genius

11/27/2012

Genie

Last week, at school, my seven-year-old son was given the opening of what was obviously expected to be a 'genie' story.

At the time I was struggling to think up a story for one of the weekly flash fiction competitions I enter, so I took a few minutes out to help my son develop a few ideas.

The bottom line is that between the two of us we put together a unique spin on the usual type of genie story. I then entered the story in a flash fiction competition, and guess what? It won!

To say my son was over the moon is an understatement. As you can imagine, I'm extremely proud of my son's achievement and look forward to collaborating again.

That's it for now. Next week we'll see how my Distopian visions are going!

Below are links to my two Global Short Story Competition winners, my short-listed story for the National newspaper, Abu Dhabi, and my Canterbury Tale published by Coscom Entertainment:

http://coscomentertainment.com/?p=159

http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesjuly09.pdf

http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesdec09.pdf

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/short-story-a-day-for-decisiveness

Happy writing!

0 Comments

The Curse of the Spider Men

11/13/2012

0 Comments

Spider

A couple of weeks ago That's Life magazine of Australia published my supernatural tale The Curse of the Spider Men.

Everyone who's seen the story has commented on the warning sign attached to the beginning of the story giving readers a heads-up that the story's about spiders - just in case the title wasn't explicit enough.

Anyhow, with arachnophobes warned (if there is any such word as 'arachnophobe'), the tale went on to tell a story of corporate greed and supernatural retribution.

What I liked most about writing this tale is that as far as I know the supernatural scenario I incorporated in my story is completely unique, though of course the outcome of the yarn was fairly predictable.

Well, you can't have everything.

That's it for this week. Next week some news about a story penned with my seven-year-old son.

Below are links to my two Global Short Story Competition winners, my short-listed story for the National newspaper, Abu Dhabi, and my Canterbury Tale published by Coscom Entertainment:

http://coscomentertainment.com/?p=159

http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesjuly09.pdf

http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesdec09.pdf

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/short-story-a-day-for-decisiveness

Happy writing!

0 Comments

Alchemy - The Dyer's Second Tale

11/7/2012

0 Comments

Alchemy

Sometimes inspiration just happens - like a bolt from the blue; and that's just what happened with my latest 'Lost' Canterbury Tale.

Mulling over themes I haven't yet touched upon, I got to wondering about the Medieval 'science' of alchemy. The word is actually Arabic in origin (Al-Keemia), and is where the word 'chemistry' comes from.

Anyhow, that's enough showing off. As you probably know, alchemy was at best a study in futility, at worst a fraudster's lucrative occupation. So taking this into account, I gave the tale to The Dyer (one of Chaucer's orphan pilgrims who never got to say a word on the outward journey to Canterbury) and made it a morality tale.

The abridged Dyer's Second Tale is a mere 40 lines long, the themes being greed and gullibility, but I hope in the next week or so to expand the story to whatever is a comfortable length.

As it stands, the two last lines sum up the themes of the Tale:

When gripped by greed for wealthiness untold
A foolish man mistakes a turd for gold.

The Dyer's Second Tale (the abridged version) is currently entered in a competition, so fingers crossed!

Below are links to my two Global Short Story Competition winners, my short-listed story for the National newspaper, Abu Dhabi, and my Canterbury Tale published by Coscom Entertainment:

http://coscomentertainment.com/?p=159

http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesjuly09.pdf

http://www.globalshortstories.net/winningstoriesdec09.pdf

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/short-story-a-day-for-decisiveness

Happy writing!

0 Comments

Genie Genius

The Curse of the Spider Men

Alchemy - The Dyer's Second Tale

Paul A. Freeman

Archives

Categories