Update

I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that I have not dropped off the face of the earth. I have been a bit busy, but I am getting back into the swing of things and the stories will come back pretty soon here. Like I hope to have a few 100 word stories again this week. In the mean time, I do have an announcement. Late last week, I released a short story on SmashwWords. The story is called Cargo and it is in my Mars Colony universe. You can get a copy of it here for only $.99.

Thank you for sticking with us here, and thanks for your support.

Projects

World Builders Unlimited is both my story blog and my personal blog. I don't talk a lot about what is going on in my life, mostly because well I don't have a very exciting life. I am pretty darn busy keeping up with the day to day that not too much really exciting happens so these updates will most likely be infrequent. Have said that, this is the second one this week.

I want to take a moment to talk about two projects that I am currently working on. As most of you know, I am one of founding members of Flying Island Press. If you are not already subscriber there now would be a good time, so go ahead and do that. (Go ahead I'll wait.) ... Ok you are back. As excited as I am about Flying Island Press that is not what I wanted to talk to you about.

The first project that I am working on is a very personal one. About three years ago now, I started getting into podcasting. Without the number one person who convinced me to do that was Laurence Simon. While Laurence and I have differing views of the world and of story content, for good or ill he got me into podcasting. As a thank you to Laurence I am working on getting 100 stories together for his Christmas show this year. If you would like to get involved and write a story check out the post of earlier in the week here. I would greatly appreciate the help.

The second project that I am working on is something totally new. For a long time author and podcaster extraordinaire Michell Plested have been each other's alter egos. About 6 months ago we started joking about an idea. We were going to write a guide for the up and coming Mad Scientists. We quickly realized that we certainly did not have the corner on this market, and there was a lot of knowledge out there that would would be missing if you tried to write this ourselves. So A Method to The Madness: A Guide To The Super Evil was born.

I can't say enough how excited about this project I am. Submissions for essays and stories from mad scientists to the up and coming evil doctors of the world begins January First. So if you might just know one of these folks, or perhaps you yourself have such and alter ego, please take a look at that submission guidelines now before the opportunity is gone. Lesson one for the Evil Villain, "He who hesitates and monologues is lost."

Call for 100 word stories

For the past week or so I have been writing 100 word stories based on the titles of Laurence Simon's 100 word stories. If you didn't know The 100 word story podcast along with a couple of others was what got me into podcasting and writing again, and so I credit them with any success that I have had in either of them. The 100 word story podcast was the basis for my short story contest called Great Hites and Laurence himself gave me the the title "The Hite of Podcast Fiction." So I do owe him big time.

With that in mind I am starting a campaign. No, I am not running for president, and no I am not suggesting he run for president. (Can you imagine Planet X calling the shots?) In two weeks on Christmas Laurence will host a show with the topic of Christmas. I am asking all of you out there to help me give Laurence a huge Christmas gift. We are trying to get a triple digit number of stories. 100 stories would be perfect but, if we get more than that, the more the merrier.

You know you have a little (100 words) Christmas story in you. Here is all you need to do. Write a 100 word story on the topic of Christmas, and record it. The follow the directions below. Get it in by midnight on the 24th and we can make this this best 100 word stories yet. Stay Tuned for updates. If you can leave a comment here that you have sent in a story and I will keep a running tally.


Here are the instructions stolen from the horses mouth as it were.


Hello. This is Laurence Simon of the 100 word stories podcast. Welcome to 2011!

The 100 word stories weekly challenge is where I post a topic to http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com and then you write and record a story based on that topic.

The topic of the 25th of December Weekly Challenge is Christmas.

Want to give it a shot? Send an email to isfullofcrap (at) gmail.com with the subject of Christmas WEEKLY CHALLENGE and the following:

The text of your 100 word story on the topic.
Your site's URL, if you have a site or aren't ashamed to share it.
A topic for the next Weekly Challenge
And, if you can, a recording of your story (and any shameless plugs) in MP3 format

Everything's due by Saturday at midnight or so.

If you can't or don't feel like recording your story, well, go ahead and send the text of the story in anyway. I'll have someone record it for you.


Good luck, and as always, keep it brief.

The Right Man

I am going to try something to get you some more stories. Every day Lawrence Simon writes a 100 word story. So I have decided, why should be have all the fun. Starting today, I am going to write a 100 word story every day with the same title as his. I will post it in the comments on his site, and I will post it here. If I have time to record the audio for it, you get the audio version as well, but most likely you will just get the text. As Much as I love podcasting, some times get the audio done every day is beyond what I can manage.

So with out further delay here is today's story

The Right Man

Jack knew he was the right man for the job, but it irked him that they had to call him at 3 A.M. It was not like this couldn’t wait until 7:30 or even noon. Not like the problem was going to go away any faster if he was there at 3 stinking A.M.
“So what we got here?” He asked the man in the chair behind the console.
“The usual.”
“Nice.”
“Are you going to need back up?”
“Nope, I got this.” he said grabbing his broom and dust pan he headed off down the hall.