The all-night theatre felt empty. Yet, behind the curtains lurked he who had witnessed every performance, heard every catcall, every boo. The applause. No Guy Fawkes, but still, a spectre bent on teasing emotions from the viewers. Fewer these days. And so the cravings grew, a drought having starved him. So much so that, at 3:33 am, he slipped forth, bared his talons and dug his way into the bowels of the young woman, her mate screaming at the sight. The mineral taste would do, for now.
Thanks to Anony Mole of anonymole.com for the, quite frankly, gruesome and visceral tale. I know some of you are eating your breakfast while reading this, and will absolutely love it. How’s that rhubarb on porridge looking, huh? Cheers, Anony!
The
submersible reached the bottom of the trench. The trio cheered as the
depth reading displayed 26,850 feet.
“We
made it,” cried Raquel. “So few people have reached this
depth.”
The cheering stopped when a voice came from the gloom outside, “you’re back?”
Shout out to the missus today for lending me a jelly painting for this story. I was faffing around with dark background jellies and Posca pens and it just wasn’t working. I went for a grumble to her about it and spotted her jelly painting on the wall. To quote those seagulls from Finding Nemo, MINE!
You can check her art out and say hello to her on Twatter at @DonnaMStrachan and you can nobble her art prints from Society6.
Different stages of their growth cycling into synchronicity.
Scrape, scrape, scrape. Like nails on a chalkboard.
Durthi remembered the science charts from her primary
school days.
Roots. Stem. Petal. Pollen. Pistil.
All done up in pastel colours.
Cheery hues that hid their fear. Their sadness. Their pain.
And their rage. Encapsulated in tiny golden grains of pollen.
She felt that, too.
No. She tried to scrape back.
Safe, they answered, unanimously.
Warmth flowed through the root system that encased her.
She saw what they saw.
A million billion human faces bent over them.
The pistils fired.
This week’s spooky-ooky-dooky collaboration is with Willow Croft of willowcroft.blog. Another longtime Fears’erer, blogger, author and pun-lover. Cheers for the spooky-ooky-dooky’s Willow!
The old neon lights
flickered annoyingly, giving a cheap stroboscopic feeling to every
move the barman made, behind the counter. Bolt pushed his empty glass
on the bar.
“If I keep the
refills coming, you’ll get totally hammered. You know that, right?”
Bolt’s stare back
was probably intended as a clear request to shut up and fill his
glass, but since the bar tender didn’t show any intention of reaching
for the scotch bottle, Bolt mumbled…
“That would be the
plan. Unless you suddenly have scruples?”
The barman laughed,
and his very white teeth blinked like a Cheshire Cat disco smile.
“And what is the
occasion, if I may ask?”
Bolt frowned, still
waiting for his booze.
“Remember the red
head girl I offered a ride home, last Friday?” The barman nodded.
“Well, I gave her a ride, home. I nailed her. “
The bar tender
finally reached for the bottle on the shelf.
“Did your
wife….?”
“Yup, she found
out. I am a terrible liar.”
The man poured him a
double and gave him a sympathetic look.
“Oh, Bolt… I am
sorry.”
Bolt downed the
drink, and handed his glass for another.
“Yup, I’m screwed.”
This week’s Sunday collab was written by Cyranny of Cyranny’s Cove. Pretty sure y’all know Cyranny by now. A long time Fears’erer, prolific blogger and scribbler of words.
Some further lessons, thoughts and misc wotsits on the Little Fears Sunday collabs. It’s a long, but maybe an educational post for any bloggers wanting to collaborate with each other. Some links to start with, for reference.
Straight up, I screwed this up so badly. On the initial posting, I had over 100 people email me. I reckon about 20 will follow through, but I got lost in the first barrages of emails. I know of at least three people that I’ve left hanging that I need to speak too. Liz, I was meant to send a story. Anonyole and Willow I was meant to send an image for approval. One of them has been waiting for two weeks. I just keep forgetting to do it because my I took on too much. I tried noting names on pen and paper. That only worked for so long.
This was confounded because I initially said, hit me up on social media or email. So I had messages coming from every direction. It wasn’t like I could just search my emails because I had DMs everywhere. Doh!
I’ve come to the conclusion I should use a spreadsheet. Four columns, name, email, website and collab progress. I can’t do that on previous collab contacts because then I’m collecting data. To do that I’d have to include a GDPR notice in the initial email stating what data I’m collecting, what I will do with it and how will I protect it. That’s something I’ll definitely do going forward.
Usernames, pen names and real names
My focus on always referring to peoples pen names has confused a few folks. It’s another thing I need to add to the initial email.
People post under pen names for a variety of reasons. The embarrassment that they write fan-fics. Not wanting family or friends to see their art. Hiding from a nutty ex-partner. Or sometimes, they just want to be identified as someone else. An imaginary online-persona. All valid reasons to respect someone’s username.
Privacy is darn near non-existent, online and real life, nowadays. What little control we have over privacy we should try to respect.
So if someone leaves comments on my website under the username AlphaDog345 but emails me under the name Robert, I’ll do my best to refer to them as AlphaDog345 unless corrected.
WordPress scheduling
I was asked by Nobbin how we could synchronize posts and link to each other’s stories ahead of time. Well, in WordPress Gutenberg, when you make a post you get a little link icon next to the post name. Click on that, and you can copy the URL of scheduled posts.
Videos pre-schedule
I’ve explained why I’m sticking with WordPress Gutenberg before, despite my straight up hate for it. But one issue that’s been noticed is that I can’t schedule videos that haven’t been published on YouTube already without resorting to classic blocks. There is no workaround in current Gutenberg because it’s crap. So I end up with classic blocks in my HTML or I leave it until 9 am, then post everything.
This has meant, when one collaborator copy pasted my entire post it came out janky as heck on their own site. It’s also meant most of my posts are never bang on 9 am.
#PeterHatesWordPress5.0GutenbergEditor
I think in future I’ll change my initial email to read “around 9 am,” unless someone wants to sync posts. Then I’ll pre-post the video so the URL is usable in WordPress.
Story length
Oh man, haha. Yeah. We had a laugh there. I’m flexible on the 512 character limit. I just didn’t want people writing essay-length stories. Not only would they not fit or work on the Little Fears, but I want the collaborations to be fast and fun. Not tireless hours of work.
This was taken to an extreme by an ex-subscriber, who sent me a chapter of a book he claimed was a short story. Some back and forth and he ended up saying he was trialling me to narrate his entire novel. For free. In the spirit of collaboration.
Yeah… No…
Got a bit pissy when I said I’d have to charge for that amount of work. Anyone who’s ever done audio work will tell you, it takes a staggering amount of time to record, edit, re-record and check through even short stories. A novel would take me a full working week. At least!
I find a lot of folks are up collaborations when asked. But try to be respectful of others time, aye?
Already published stories
I was asked by Ederren on the briefs post if I’d do stories that were already published. Eventually, yes. I’d love to narrate some of the funny stories and creepypastas I’ve read. Especially if they fit well.
Right now though, I’m getting my feet with collaborations. As you can see from this post, I still have refining to do. The initial email explosions died down now, but I got a lot of people submitting any old random story. Out of 40 stories sent to me without an email convo/brief first, maybe 5 worked for the Fears.
Taking submissions for pre-written poetry and fiction is something I need to work into the initial email. It all comes down being specific from the start. Otherwise, writers sending submissions and I are just wasting each others time.
So, pre-written stories. In the future, yes, but not yet.
As you can see, I’m still refining my process. If you’re interested in collaborating with me, drop me an email to Peter at fears@gmx.co.uk
Want to support me in some way?
In the mean tie, if you love what I do, and fancy supporting me in some way, you can buy me a cuppa on Ko-Fi. Nobble one of my tees on Threadless. Buy one of my books on Amazon. Grab an original art or a print on my Etsy. Or, hit me up on Patreon for as little as $1 a month.
How do you overcome
the darkness on the path less traveled when there is no one around.
You can see that this path is overgrown and not many would dare
follow this path.
We all have our
deamons to fight, we all have our memories to fall back on,
nevertheless what happens when the path less traveled is so dark so
overgrown that you can not see your memories or feel the deamons.
You can only feel the darkness seeping into your reality, into your mind and your thoughts.
This week’s Sunday collab was written by Lauren of Life Inside BDSM. A prolific writer of naughtiness. Thank you for the spookems, Lauren!
A bump in the night, It’s nothing, right? Wind at the window, Gusts at the door. Shadows in the bedroom, Were they there before?
An old farm house, Creaking wood floors. A musty bed In an unused room. A storm, mad rain, Go to sleep, again.
A crucifix on the wall, Across from the bed. A voice in the dark, A whisper in his head. Have you been saved? The shadows said.
Thorns on his head, Blood on his ribs. The pale figure moved, First hands, then feet. Stepped off the wood cross, Floated down from the wall.
Sheets on the floor, Feet on the stairs. Heart pounding, Door slamming. Rain on his face, He shouted back at the house.
Thanks, but I saved myself!
This week’s spooky Sunday collaboration was written by a regular in comments, Aimer of Aimer Boyz. Author, poet, odd-bod. Cheers for the spookies, Aimer!
Vermin loved the mattress. The mattress was warm, dark, sticky, plenty of dripping things for food. But Vermin wanted more. Vermin had dreams.
He felt more than
saw the two swaying shadows fall across the landscape he wanted so
desperately to conquer. Desperately, he broke out of the dark, he
would have his prize!
Then the shadows fell, hard, and Vermin was pushed back. “One day,” Vermin cursed, “I will make it.” If the mattress could disagree it would, but it couldn’t. And that was just fine with Vermin.
This week’s Sunday collab was written by Jessica of The writing life of Jessica Halsey. A prolific writer and servant to two kitty cats. Cheers for the spookems, Jessica!
Karma opened the
blinds to her dorm room, signaling the sun’s rays to drape her in its
warmth. Classes had resumed. Summer break was now a thing of the
past. She had her assignments, her books, other supplies, and her
boyfriend’s heart.
What would he do
without her at home now that she’s traveled back to finish her last
year of college? Under his mattress was a letter. In it, she’d
written:
“I told you not
to fall for me. I only wanted your heart. Now, that I have it, you
have nothing.”
Poor Jesse, his life was full of bad karma.
Story by Tre of ACorneredGurl.com. I’m pretty confident y’all know the legend that is Tre. If ya haven’t, check out either her WordPress blog or Medium. She also takes submissions on weekly themes if you’re interested.
Within the hard, shrivelled cocoon of his lifeless body, Beau
slept. The silken cover of his shelf bed stirred softly in the breeze
from the opening door.
Suddenly a shrill whistle pierced the quiet. Skilful hands removed
Beau from his silken cover and placed him in a warm glasshouse. He
was immersed in a scalding liquid. After the initial shock warmth
eased his inner soul out of his ugly body. His true colour flooded
the liquid and his seed blossomed into a lovely flower.
Feeling alive he floated up to the top of his new glass house.
He heard a soft voice announce, “Here is my Beau-Tea”.
Story by Sue of Connects.live Checkout Sues blog for her, almost, daily musings. Thanks for the tale, Sue!
Little Fears 