March 2015 – West Coast Review

The Murder of Big Mouth Billy Strokes

Good new fiction.

Teraphobia - Two Shades and a World Changed

The metal bar made a loud thump as Michael swung and struck Billy Stokes in the side of the head. A crunch followed as the metal bar crushed the thin skull within the forty-year old’s gruff face and head. Michael followed the momentum of the metal bar to the right as it struck and fell.

“Big Mouth Billy Strokes”, as he was often called fell to the ground. He did not hold his head or speak a word. He lay motionless upon the darkening front yard of Michael’s home. Michael dropped the pipe and stared at the unconscious man. His anger stewed as he watched Billy. After several long moments Michael spoke.

“There!” he shouted. “What do you think of that!”

“You won’t have anything to say for a while now. I’m not even going to try to wake you up.” Michael then turned and left. He opened the screen…

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Short Story Sunday: Male Bonding (A Vampire Story)

Vampire Maman

Hot flashes. Andy’s girlfriend had been having horrible hot flashes. When you date Vampire women you don’t have to worry about that. On the other hand Vampire women were, well, a bit cold. He laughter at his own joke. Damn, there was nothing sexier than a smart middle-aged woman.

Unfortunately Shawna of the Hot Flashes wasn’t at his house this weekend. This was a weekend of male bonding. This was a weekend of cold powerful Vampire testosterone.

Coffee – check. Bacon – check. Cats fed – check. A man screaming…

Was that glass breaking? Someone yelled, “HEY. What the crap?”

Andy ran upstairs to find his nephew Garrett in the hallway. They look at each others with wide eyes and ran together into the bedroom room his other nephew Logan was in.

Wild colors spun around the bed – a crazy halo of nasty creatures with big eyes and transparent wings.

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Rat Girl

Vampire Maman

I remember one morning my mother was out with all of us – her entire brood. Max was fifteen at the time, followed by Andrew aged thirteen, Aaron at nine, Valentine aged six and I was only five.

My brother Aaron was squeezing my hand too tight so I started to pull at my mother’s huge skirts. She lifted me up so I could settle on her hip. Max put Val up on his shoulders. My mother’s helper Grace walked with Max and Andrew. My teenage brothers were already turning heads and Grace kept the owners of those heads from making any suggestions or passing messages of any kind.

I remember looking over my mother’s shoulder at Grace and smiling. She smiled back in her funny closed mouth way so she wouldn’t show her teeth. A man outside of the bank hissed, “Rat girl,” under her breath as Grace passed by. My mother…

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Sex, Lies and Vampire Parenting Blogging

Vampire Maman

Oscar

I was out on my back deck this morning holding my cat Oscar close because I love him. I love the feel of him, the way he hugs my shoulder and purrs. He is so warm and soft (like a rabbit). I heard a noise and looked out in the field to see a coyote trotting along. Oscar tensed up but held on, not with his claws but like a small child would. We both watched the coyote. It glanced up at us then turned and trotted of the way it had come. I held Oscar tight and told him “Come in before somebody eats you.”

Warm things are nice, especially if one is a Vampire. Don’t get me wrong, I love a cool touch but, anyway, I thought of my lunch meeting with Jack, my regular lunch date and regular human. He also knows I’m a Vampire a…

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What Kind of Meat are You?

Vampire Maman

Way back when, back before I had teenagers, back before I knew what a blog was, back when Microsoft had Front Page and we did html by hand…

The kids were playing Club Penguin and I discovered Facebook. I didn’t think much of My Space. Anyway, a family member sucked me into Facebook. Way back then I discovered goofy polls. Mind you this was before cat memes and horrible inspirational quotes took over. This was back when you could easily create your own polls.

I used to LOVE polls in women’s magazines about relationship styles and clothing styles. The polls were fun. The polls always had something to do with relationships or sex or style. It was fun. Admit it – you did those polls too.

One day I sat at my computer, a toddler on my lap, and I tried to make my own poll. It was called “What…

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Just Some Vanilla

Wonderful story!

Simple Humans

More fun…more please!

Monster Hunters - Hunters blog

A vampire leapt from the building and fell toward the survivor’s. Erik saw it and instantly recognized it was heading to hit the group. “Separate!” He shouted loudly and pushed Patrick forward. Patrick looked up and saw the vampire falling toward them. He turned and screamed at the group. Slowly, the group separated into two halves but the vampire swept up a large man, with a camouflaged vest and pants. The man fought bravely and the vampire released him but fell into a group of infected. Unconscious from the fall the man had no chance and the group lost another member.

“We need to get into that building,” shouted Erik. The Haitian stepped away quickly and rose into the air. “I will cover you.”

“Run!” Erik shouted.

Both groups ran toward the closed doors of the Fields building. The first ones to the door attempted to open the doors but…

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Phil Robertson

Teraphobia - Two Shades and a World Changed

I don’t usually spout off about religious or political stuff on this blog. I leave that to Facebook but this was too much and I have to say something. I don’t even have a category for this.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/phil-robertson-rape-murder-atheists

I think this is disgusting and becoming the stereotypical thought on conservatives. This will pick up a lot of media and paint the ultra-conservative movement with a thick ignorant brush.
But this is also the fear I have. You take a thought like this and populate it within a few million like-minded individuals and you have a terrifying idea that Christians cannot kill and rape or I got this thought. Are you saying it’s ok that a Christian family gets raped and killed? They are saved so it’s ok they die, right? I don’t care if you are atheist, Muslim or Christian. It is not ok to be raped and killed! An…

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Holocaust Presentation at High School Prompts Insightful Questions from Students

Stories and lives we must never forget…

April Voytko Kempler's Blog - Reno Gal Says

Joe and I gave a Holocaust presentation yesterday at a local high school. This was challenging for me in several ways.

Typically, Joe and I will go to a school, or library, or other venue at a specified time and speak for roughly an hour or two, followed by a question and answer session. I enjoy this sort of thing. I’m always nervous, but afterward we have a jolly time interacting with the audience. And the book sale and signing is always a boost. But, recently I was asked by a teacher if Joe and I could speak to each of her World History classes in one day. Soon, other teachers wanted their classes to join in the discussion. One thing led to another, the presentation grew and grew, and it turned into a big day. Joe and I arrived early in the morning (7:30 a.m.) at the Little Theater…

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Short Story Sunday: When You Grow Old

One of my favorites…

Vampire Maman

New Fiction from Vampire Maman – a tale of family, redemption, love and purpose…and yes, Vampires too.

When You Grow Old

“Who will take care of you when you get old?” I asked my brother’s caretaker Josh.

My brother Bob is 90 years old. A former screenwriter and movie producer, he lives in a modern glass and polished wood mansion on the Central Coast of California.

I’d been at Bob’s for six months.

“Your grandmother would have been 101 this year,” Bob told me. I was going to turn 101 this year, at the end of October. What Bob doesn’t know is that I am his sister Valentina. He doesn’t know I’m a vampire either. He thinks I’m a great niece who is the spitting image of his older sister who passed away in 1935.

I walked the beach in the evenings with Bob. He leaned my arm and told…

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Writers on Writers

Looking for something to read???

Vampire Maman

“Marla, when you write, romance happens. Just like when I write, people usually die.”

~ Mandy White

Marla Todd and Mandy White are both authors in the WPaD publishing group. For more information click on the links above (their names) or search this blog for their books and short stories. Mandy’s stand alone books and books from WPaD can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and with other fine online book sellers.

WPaD Publications

Coming soon…

Coming Soon…

Cover for Goin’ Extinct by Jason Kemp and Mandy White.

Add these to your summer reading list today.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

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A senseless death…

The Difference Between “Flawed” Characters and “Too Dumb to Live”

Yes! Say it out loud. Thank you.
If you must write then you must read this article.

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Which is more important? Plot or character? Though an interesting discussion—sort of like, Could Ronda Rousey take a Klingon with only her bare hands?—it isn’t really a useful discussion for anything other than fun. To write great fiction, we need both. Plot and characters work together. One arc drives the other much like one cog serves to turn another, thus generating momentum in the overall engine we call “STORY”.

If we goof up plot? Readers/Audiences get confused or call FOUL. Watch the movie Ouija for what I am talking about *shakes head*.

Goof up characters? No one cares about the plot.

New writers are particularly vulnerable to messing up characters. We drift too far to one end of the spectrum or the other—Super-Duper-Perfect versus Too Dumb to Live—and this can make a story fizzle because there is no way to create true dramatic tension. This leaves us (the frustrated…

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In which I go eat lunch

Love this post.
This post gets five out of five stars from West Coast Review!
And if you aren’t following infinitefreetime.com you ought to be.

Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

I happened to walk past my boss yesterday while she was scarfing her lunch and realized I coveted her cheeseburger. (Pictured: not her cheeseburger.) I also realized that I didn’t immediately recognize where her cheeseburger had come from, which was odd, because I thought I had tapped out all of the available places to buy food around my place of business. Anyway, long story short, she told me what the place was called and how to get there and I bounced off to go acquire me a tasty burger. The place is a diner, and I got a seat at the bar, explaining that I just wanted my food to go, and was able to order almost immediately.