Malitiaville – II

From: The Office of the Community Director of Malitiaville

To: Lady Evelyn Constantine

It has come to our attention that the spirit of Malixius Constantine–the registered tenant of 1011 Pandora Lane–is no longer detectable, indicating he has perished.

Malitiaville’s bylaws, which you agreed to when you moved into the community, clearly state that all entities sponsored by the registered tenant must vacate the premises immediately upon notification of the individual’s death.

However, seeing as the month is nearing its end and in recognition of the good will you have cultivated with Second Prince Mephistopheles, we are graciously indulging his request to permit you to take the remaining five (5) days in your current rental period to get your affairs in order and relocate.

Included with this letter is the bank draft you remitted to us for payment of next month’s rent. Your security deposit will be returned to you after the unit has been inspected. As a reminder, the cost of cleaning or making repairs to the home will be deducted from the amount.

If this notice is in error, then Malixius Constantine must present himself to the community director before the end of the grace period, so we may update our records. Otherwise, the unit must be vacated by the end of the month.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Kind Regards,

Calvin Snute

Malitiaville Community Director

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Malitiaville – I

“I’ll return shortly,” he said. That was three years ago.

Evelyn watched the moonlight struggle to enter her bedroom. Too weak to penetrate the palpable darkness saturating the space, the moonbeams bounced off the blackness and scattered back into the night. Exactly 404 days have passed since his last letter. The silence toyed with her imagination, making it conjure up numerous grisly possibilities for his continued absence.

With an impatient sigh, she curled into a ball, attempting to quiet the feeling of dread writhing around in her stomach. She hadn’t expected to worry about him this much.

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*This is a slightly revised first chapter of my supernatural series Malitiaville (you can read the original here). I’m currently editing the second chapter and hope to have it posted soon.

Consistency and #SixWordStory for 5/23 to 5/31

No, I haven’t completely abandoned this project. Consistency is one of my major struggles as a writer, always has been. Once the excitement of a new project wears off, the real work of sticking with it to completion begins and this is where I always stumble.

I’m envious of writers who can sit at the computer and produce content day in and day out. Sometimes I feel like they’re employing some magic that keeps their butts in the chairs and hands on the keyboards on a daily basis that I’m not privy to, but I know that type of output is a combination of internal motivation and having an effective and supportive system in place.

So that’s what I’ve been working on. I changed up my routine to ensure I’m working on something creative at the same time each day—and I say creative instead of writing because I’m also developing video games—and I hope that will get me get passed this problem.

Anyway, here are the #sixwordstory posts for the rest of May. Enjoy!

Unlearning & #SixWordStories for May 15 to May 21

Yes, I realize this summary post is almost a week late. I was having some…challenges in my day job, which threw my #SixWordStory posting off track. So I humbly apologize.

One thing I’ve learned writing these tiny stories is how important word choice is. Because I only have six words to convey an idea, I have to choose ones capable of embodying the picture in my mind. I’m helped by the fact words can mean different things depending on the context, but it’s still tough to do. The thesaurus is my BFF now.

This exercise also highlighted how fluffy my writing is. I noticed I liked to use qualifiers, ex. “I really think” or “I’m just so tired”. I think it’s a result of a combination of how I speak IRL and the type of freelance writing I do. Now that I’m conscious of this tendency, I think my longer writing pieces will turn out much better.

Anyway, on to the micro fiction!

1. Wow, a talking muffin. Delicious too. 05/15
2. She sneezed. Two days later, zombies. 05/15
3. “Give my soul back.” “No refunds.” 05/16
4. “Snitches get stitches.” “Yeah, 22 apparently.” 05/16
5. I pressed the button. “Aww, sorry.” 05/17
6. “Heaven’s full, but we have room.” 05/17
7. 6:00 – Population: 1,258. 6:05 – Population: 1. 05/18
8. “Hey sis!” “What happened?” “Serial killer.” 05/19
9. Help feed underprivileged vampires. Donate blood. 05/19
10. “Stop that howling! Fucking werewolves, man.” 05/20
11. Love lives here, but respect doesn’t. 5/20
12. Lightning split the ground, freeing ghouls. 05/21
13. Hit snooze. Missed train. It derailed. 05/21

I tweet tiny fiction on a daily basis. If you want to read it live, follow me on Twitter @DeviMichaelis.

Last Week’s #SixWordStories Posted to Twitter

I’ve decided to take up writing six word stories and posting them to my author account on Twitter. I’ve become fascinated with the concept of telling an entire story in six words. It looks deceptively simple but is actually pretty challenging because you have to set the scene, infer a beginning and middle, and provide a resolution in a tiny span of words. As I confessed on my main blog, I have trouble editing my imagination into a readable story. I figure writing six word stories can provide some excellent practice in this area.

Anyway, here’s the roundup of the one’s I posted on Twitter last week, May 8 to May 14 (plus one I wrote a couple of months ago).

• He opened the box and vanished. [02/02]
• A scream. A gurgle. Then nothing. [05/13]
• Six teens. Three tents. One machete. [05/13]
• Rainbow brought four leprechauns. No gold. [05/14]
• “Eh, whatevs. I’ve haunted worse places.” [05/14]

My goal is to post two a day. So if you want to procrastinate with some ultra-micro fiction, follow my author account on Twitter: @DeviMichaelis.

Have a great Monday!

Foresight

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

The tension in the car increased sharply, making her feel as though an imaginary vacuum was sucking all the air out of the already tight space.

“I see,” he replied, his face a mask of impenetrable calm.

He opened the glove compartment and her eyes fell upon the .38 Smith and Wesson lying next to a black ring box from a local jeweler. He reached inside.

She couldn’t say she hadn’t seen it coming.

Inspired by: Six Sentences

[This is a repost from my Tumblr blog.]