January 30, 2025

Random thought: I got fired from the calendar factory. All I did was take a day off.

The 101-word tale I’m sharing today was inspired by the fun prompt, “I’m allergic to your idiocy.” The person who generously gave me the prompt (my daughter-in-law) insisted she uttered this phrase while having a conversation with her husband (that would be my son). I have to wonder… was that a cover story? You know—was it one of those “asking for a friend” things? Hey—either way, it was an excellent bit of inspiration, and I gladly accepted it.

Speaking of things I didn’t gladly accept, twice this week I received spammy text messages from some company preying on authors. I get bombarded with voicemails and emails from companies just dying to acquire my books or to promote me somewhere. These latest texts were unique, and I may have had a good time replying. Here’s what I received:

Hi Scotty Cornfield, this is Mae Evans from Amazon Books. I would like to verify if you are the author of Fast Fiction: 101 Stories 101 Words Each (101-Word Stories Book 1)?

Please reply “Y” to confirm. Thank you, and have a good day!

My reply: Really? Mae Evans from Amazon? This is Jeff Bezos. I own Amazon. Don’t think I ever heard of you.

Yeah, I never received a reply from Mae. Go figure.

So much for my first-ever experience being disappointed by the Internet. Let’s get to the Story of the Week.

Contagious Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

An accident forced Wyatt to turn onto the street fondly known as “Dumb Ass Drive,” named after the misfits who lived there.

His day worsened after paying for gas and then forgetting to fill his tank.

Once at work, he confessed to also driving away with his coffee on the car roof.

“That street gave me Dead Brain Syndrome,” he told Jackie. “I hate that place.”

Later, Wyatt delivered the wrong sales presentation, but CEO Henderson loved it.

“Yesterday, he hated that idea,” Jackie said. “What changed?”

“Dumb Ass Drive,” Wyatt said. “Henderson was right behind me. I love that street!”

Prompt: I’m allergic to your idiocy

Novel News & Notes:

I’m currently finishing up my latest task as I work on rewriting the next draft of Questionable Characters. I’m creating a bullet point outline that will give me a snapshot of every story beat as it appears in my current draft. Yeah, I’m actually outlining what I already have. This is important because my latest draft does not actually reflect the detailed outline I followed to write it. Sketching out the story, beat-by-beat, helped a lot, but I never consider myself obligated to faithfully follow it. Sometimes, the story wants to take me in a direction that feels right—even if it isn’t exactly where the outline dictates. Other times, a better idea appears, or the sequence just doesn’t work once I flesh it out.

One discovery I made this week was finding a murder that reads like it happens twice. The first time, my protagonist doesn’t know the victim, but the second time, he does (and this is a crucial part of the story). Not sure why this happened, but since I only want the single murder, I’m cutting out one of them. Not only does this reduce the crime rate, but it also reduces my page count. It’s a win-win!

Finally, in order to keep the pressure on me to reach the finish line (again), I’ve reached out to my editor, asking if I can get on her calendar in a month or so. Once I get on her books, I’ll have a drop-dead deadline, something guaranteed to keep me on track—if not ahead of schedule.

As the kids like to say, “Write on!”

Scotty out

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