heavydog

I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of short stories recently. There are quite a few podcasts where people read short stories. One that has impressed me is Escape Pod hosted by Stephen Eley. He often reads the stories himself, but he also has quite a few guest reads on the show.

They have the odd lemon, well, I say that, what I should say is they have the odd story which isn’t to my taste, but the majority of the stories are excellent. Two that are though were outright amazing were Edward the Bear and the Very Long Walk and Homecoming at the Borderlands Cafe. I’ve listened to quite a few of the backlog now (about 40 odd) and the quality is consistently high.

Anyway, head over there and subscribe, it’s well worth it!

As you may or may not have read below, depends on how often you stop by, I did actually win NaNoWriMo last year. 50,000 words in a month. It’s amazing what the brain can do if you force it to think hour after hour fueled with diet coke, snickers and Nine Inch Nail - Year Zero to help.

Anyway, I did say I wasn’t going to show anyone until I’d edited it and re-written parts etc etc. But, now I’ve read it through myself, it’s a bit simple plot-wise, the characters are thin and it’s interspersed with random gibberish as I fell asleep at my keyboard.

To that end, I’ve put it online in the hopes that someone will read it and offer me any feedback - should I edit it and rewrite parts? Is it worth spending the time? Did I waste many precious hours on a blithering bucket of bilious carbuncles? (Actually, the answer to the last question I already know, no, I didn’t waste any time, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it.).

So, click the link below, have a read and let me know what you think … please!

The Centre of the Earth is an Attraction

Research published in December showed that Catholicism is now the most popular Christian denomination with more worshippers attending mass than Church of England services.
Reuters UK

While it doesn’t scite it’s source, it’s an interesting statement!

Update: The Times agrees.

I know that I post one of these “It’s been a long time since I posted anything on here” posts at least once every six months, but it always surprises me that sooo much time has lapsed since I last vomited my mind onto the interwebs.

With that said, here’s some content:

I recently finished my first every short story entitled “Extremely Bad Luck“, you can read it by clicking that title, or clicking here: http://oort-cloud.org/?q=node/539.

That’s all for now!