Microwork – Ansom Character Sketch

At a recent writing workshop I participated in, I was challenged to produce something daily. I have been told I automatically edit my draft work too much, a fact even I am aware of – witness how I’ve insisted upon mostly-polished pieces, even in my “sketchbook” blog. Getting past the instinct to make sure it’s a “complete” thought before I do anything with it should apparently give me more things to work from in developing something I like in the long form. I’m willing to go with that, especially since a published author told me he’d buy a book with my name on it if I’d just get off my ass and write one.

I intend to mark these things as “microworks,” and they are mostly going to be unpolished or possibly unpolishable (you can’t shine a turd). That makes me glad I’ve stuck with consistent breaks before my writings thus far, so they can stay hidden from all but the curious. They’re content – but that’s all. Most will go nowhere.

My starter in the “microwork” genre is a brief character sketch of a person I’ve been intending to play with for a while – a professional paranormal researcher who doesn’t believe in the paranormal and just does it for the money until a ghost falls in love with him and winds up dragging him reluctantly into the world he’d previously been exploiting for a quick buck.

 

A Friendly Warning

Nightmares don’t actually hurt you. Have you ever wondered why they don’t? I do like the narrator in this piece. I guess it’s part of my general philosophy on life that most things, no matter how strange, are probably just trying to get through life intact – much as we are.

 

On Death

Another attempt at keeping it brief. I liked the last one better, but… well, they can’t all be golden.

 

Immersion

Trying to keep it shorter this time. My English professor is all about “say what you mean and nothing else,” so I’m seeing how short I can write while still coming across effectively. It’s too short to do anything with, however, and I just can’t choose an ending – so I’m posting it here as-is.

 

Psychosis

A rewrite of an old piece of mine, lost when my hard drive imploded. Frankly, this one creeps even me out.

 

Bad Dreams

I don’t much like this piece. It was rushed, and seems derivative to me, and the fact that it borrows so much from other works I’ve seen out there means I don’t really feel much like working to shape it because no matter how much I work on it I still will think it’s stealing an idea. I didn’t come up with this. The concept originates from an anonymous piece, a reposting of which I found through Google here.

It’s not much, but… this is the page for posting pretty much everything I’ve worked on. So I might as well.

 

Old Tales

I’m being a bit of a broken record lately… but as long as my muse keeps churning out material, I’ll be happy regardless of how repetitive it decides it wants to be.

 

Reality & Joe

There is a certain amount of irony involved in starting out a blog focusing on incomplete works using a piece I actually managed to get all the way through, but regardless – I can manage short-form stories, poems, and the like. If only I would have more in the way of inspiration for short works, things would probably be easier for me. Unfortunately, my muse tends towards the ridiculously epic: full worlds, wide conflicts, and other things I’m almost certainly never going to maintain the attention span to finish. Don’t expect many items to come through here all the way to a conclusion.

Nonetheless, I am still rather happy whenever I do manage to get to the final period on a piece – and when I can complete something, I’ll certainly disregard the title to my own web space for the ability to parade it around a bit and bask in the warming sense of accomplishment that entails. It’s a rare occasion, after all.