Starting the Second Year of Storyblogging!

This is considerably cool, IMHO. Storyblogging is simple. One story, one blog post, and then everyone emails these posts to whoever is the current host (that would be me, this bi-week), and he reads your work, puts up a kindly comment, and posts a bunch of links.

Nothing easier. And its a great way to get some quick exposure for your work.

So lets get started.

We'll go in top of my email to the bottom format. Perhaps next time I'll sort them. But this is my first time hosting any Carnival, let alone the storied storyblog carnival.

title: Scale 7 Artifact, part 12
url: http://docrampage.blogspot.com/2005_09_18_docrampage_archive.html#112759972416606467
author: Dave Gudeman
blog: Doc Rampage
blog url: http://docrampage.blogspot.com/
rating: G
word count: 1,412 of 19,937

blurb:
Oh no! Is the story devolving into blechy relational issues? Yes, but only long enough to bring up the chick rating, and then it's back to hardware and alien-blasting.

If only I had read this before I went to college, I might not have had to learn the hard way how to relate to females. But rejection builds character, right? An interesting example of how to handle digression in the story.
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Post Title: Great Dismal, Part XI
Post URL: http://www.quibbles-n-bits.com/archives/week_2005_09_18.html#002859
Trackback: http://www.garageofxanadu.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2599
Blog Name: Quibbles-n-Bits
Submitter: J Fielek
Comments: The final installment of the long running story.
3500 words, and we're done!
R Rated
Category: (Other)
I wish I was good enough to explain how this story is good. Nice word choice with not outre' words, but not the most expected words either which gives it strength. Very good control of the flow of the story.
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* Name of your blog Harkonnendog
* URL of your blog
http://harkonnendog.blogspot.com/

* Title of the story
*CLOWN Excerpt, Chapter 2. Work.
* URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
http://harkonnendog.blogspot.com/2005/09/clown-chapter-2-work.html
*Author's name :Theron Marshman
*R
* A word count 1866
* A short blurb describing the story

Chapter 2, in which CLOWN describes his job, and envies stupid men.

Interesting and informative descriptions of the internal life of a law office, a clueless but decent file clerk, along with his speculations as to why pretty women date jerks. If I was still single, this would sting. As it is, it will stay in my memory for some time.
I believe it was Stephen King who said that people liked to read about work, although he did not know why. IMHO, people like informative novels about professions.
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Sheya Joie of 'Tales by Sheya' ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/ ) has added
chapters 94 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-ninety-four.html ),

95 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-ninety-five.html ),

96 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-ninety-six.html ),

97 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-ninety-seven.html ),

98 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-ninety-eight.html ),

99 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-ninety-nine.html ),

and 100 ( http://talesbysheya.blogspot.com/2005/09/child-one-hundred.html ) to 'the child.' These chapters total 4243 words, bringing her online novel-in-progress to 78,227 words.

Rating is G.

Author's blurb: Their lives have just been changed drastically, as some of the group become captives and the rest set out to free them. But will blood be spilled in the rescue?

I've bought fantasy novels in the bookstore that were not as good as this. A fast story with intriguing questions and hidden powers and strongly sketched characters. Also, she has a nice sentence structure ability.
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Blog Name: Back of the Envelope
Blog URL: http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/
Post Title: Contact, Chapter 7 of Fire
Post URL: http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1127486745.shtml (Full story: http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/chain_1103045361.shtml)
Author: Donald S. Crankshaw
Word Count: 5,654 words
Rating: PG-13
Blurb: For the first time in over the century, Human and Orcish forces meet. The results are bloody.
The honorable story blogfather posts a big battle scene. The description of the battle is well done, and the use of tactical decision-making in magic-assisted war is especially good. And with a wholly different (and entertaining) style from Sheya, Donald proves there are multiple right ways to write fantasy. He struggled to find the right way to describe a battle. He found one.
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Post Title: Return To Caddy Road
Post URL: http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com/2005/08/return-to-caddy-road.html
Blog Name: Suldog-O-Rama
Submitter: Suldog
Comments: The story of my trip to the neighborhood I grew up in. G or PG, about 1800 words.
Category: Human Interest

Suldog delivers a solemn meditation on the house he grew up in, and the passage of time. Moving and profound, without being banal or lacking in perception, and it hews strongly to the central writer's tenet---clarity.
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* Name of your blog: Dodgeblogium
>>> * URL of your blog: www.andrewiandodge.com
>>> * Title of the story: Britannia Revives continues
>>> * URL for the blog entry where the story is posted:
>>> http://andrewiandodge.com/index.php/archives/2005/09/20/3506/
>>> Author's name: Andrew Ian Dodge
>>> * A word count: 4756
>>> * A short blurb describing the story: See above
Its the European Union of the near future, and the cyborg wife/bodyguard is having a serious problem. This is a world that Andrew is introducing you to, a place lived in by normal people who occasionally stick Welsh language chips in the backs of their heads, but surreptitiously because the future EU is not your friend.
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Blog: Fringe
* URL : http://www.fringeblog.com/
* Title : Walk On Water
* URL for the blog entry : http://www.fringeblog.com/archives/2005/09/19/walk_on_water
* Author's name : Jeremiah Lewis
* PG-13, language, violence
* A word count: 8,211
* A short blurb: Two friends take a fishing trip that ends in tragedy.
Vivid word choices, excellent descriptive phrases, and some very good characterization, plus well-written internal struggles for the viewpoint character.
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Post Title: Story of La Donna
Post URL: http://mensa-barbie.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-la-donna.html
Blog Name: Mensa Barbie Welcomes You
Submitter: mensa barbie
Comments: As I painted an image would emerge on each of the 12 canvases...
Category: (Other)
An ultra flash piece about a female figure that mysteriously appears in different paintings by the same artist. Mensa Barbie wins my vote for kewl name, but unfortunately there seems to be some sort of link decay, and I is an artiste, and not much of a computer wizard. I hope to have this fixed later. Its fixed, I've heard.
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Post Title: A Story's Story
Post URL: http://artificialmonkeys.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-story-by-sofa.html
Blog Name: this page for sublet
Submitter: Goemagog
Comments: pg, 763 words
Category: (none)
A slyly humorous piece anthromorphosizing objects such as the query letters, and story manuscripts in a writer's life. All writers should take a look, just to crack a smile.
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* Electricity: A Novel in Increments
* URL of your blog: http://strangematter.blogspot.com/
* Title of the story: Electricity
* First Chapter: http://strangematter.blogspot.com/2004/11/1-sometime-in-august.html
*Second Chapter: http://strangematter.blogspot.com/
* Or go to: Dishwasher, Chapter 2 of Electricity ( Beginning)
*Author's name: Myke Bartlett
*Definitely somewhere between a PG-13 and an R...
*A word count: At last count I think it was about 60,000?
* A short blurb describing the story:


Aston Somerfield – 23, casual smoker and part-time alcoholic – has come to London to find himself. He knows who he's looking for, he's seen him on the cover of the NME. Drawn across oceans by fame and fate, Aston is keeping his diary empty to make sure he's available. Won't commit to anything until it's everything. But London has other plans. When a virtual stranger calls Aston a few hours before his death, fate is derailed. Amid a hundred boozy evenings and romantic deadends, a mystery unfurls. Equally assisted and hindered by tremulous accountant Tom Hensley and dedicated loafer Steven Black, Aston uncovers a different London – one of murder, ghosts, dangerous emails and the second big bang. As chaotic and random as the city it inhabits, Electricity slowly evolves into a mystery bigger than the universe itself.
Myke does a nice job in his first chapter of establishing his lead character as being a well-meaning fellow living a life of quiet desperation with enough knowledge to pity himself, but not enough to fix himself. I have a feeling from the blurb that life is not going to let this slacker keep his non-committal ways.
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*Working Title: Spy Novel
*Post URL:(http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/cat_the_spy_novel.html) Link seems to be broken, but the other Archive link works fine.
*Archive here:http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/images/spynovel.htm
Cold, controlled, paranoiad, and searching speculation based on tiny clues, this story sucks you in, and grabs you. Who are your friends? Is the hero that, or simply a protagonist of questionable virtue, although undoubted skill? When will the betrayal come, and who will do it? Crisp writing style, and more questions than one can shoot with a full clip of ammo.
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* Title of the story- Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
*Post URL: http://asmallvictory.net/kissme.html
*Author's name: Michele Catalano
*PG
* A word count: 463
* A short blurb describing the story: A man at a bazaar's kissing booth gets more than he paid for.
Michelle means to disturb you, and she manages to do so on several levels. Combining grotesquerie with moral weakness or is it compassion or both, we then finish it off with a dose of look over your shoulder fear. And as her reward for being first, she gets to go last, which makes sense in her story universe.

Thank you everyone for sending in your stories, and adventuring out into the Etheric Sea in search of gleaming treasure. I have been surprised and pleased, and made worried by the qualities of writing of my "competition".

If you want to read my stuff, there's a button on this page to it. I'd planned to post something, but this was more work than I expected, and morning is warning of its arrival in increasingly forlorn tones.

If you need anything fixed, or have a comment, please jump in. The water is not at like the pond in Mr Lewis' story.