Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Keep It Short...


Wow -- it's been a month since my last blog post update!?!?  I'm really sorry about that.  Clearly I was right in pulling back as I mentioned in my last posts...

But I also do want to keep this blog alive, so in the interest of quickly interjecting some new content, I will post a couple of short offerings.  One writing and one musical.  I will also promise to try and get a little more content on here, on a little more regular basis. 

But in the meantime, here's this:


A Short Writing Snippet:

I've recently made another submission to 50-Word Stories, and I'm optimistic that the owner of the site Tim Sevenhuysen will like it and that it'll get published on the site.  But who knows?  So rather than wait, I'm also going to go ahead and share it here, too.  To refresh your memory, a 50-word story has -- you guessed it -- 50 words.  Not one word more; not one word less.  It's fun to try and get as much emotional impact and story 'arc' as you can into only 50 words.

I hope you like this one. I call this micro-flash story, "The Sound of Forgetting:"

=====
 
The Sound of Forgetting
 
I heard your old rocker creak and for a moment, I forgot.

It might have been a stray breeze, or maybe just the cat brushing against it -- a remnant from all the years he rubbed contentedly against your legs.

But in my heart it was you, home once again.


=====


A Short Musical Interlude:

At Wikiloops, I continue to periodically add new tracks to all the great stuff that's there.  One recent thing I did was add a couple of quick guitars to a short, moody keyboard piece ("Through the Eyes of the Defeated") by a user named "GhostFish".  I thought the feel was very cool with an epic build, and so I added a couple of quick guitar tracks.  I started with mellower clean guitar, and then switched to a more raucous, screamin' lead as the track intensity climbs.  This is one of those short, off-the-cuff things that I ended up liking how it turned out.  I wish I could embed it here, but unless I upload it to SoundCloud, I can't.  So please click below and see what you think of this short musical piece:

Before The Storm

Also, feel free to check out the "My Tracks" tab of My Wikiloops Profile page if you're interested in hearing any of the other stuff I've uploaded there.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and listen!  I hope you thought it it was a short time spent well...

14 comments:

  1. Haunting piece, man! You were channeling the masters with that.
    And your snippet says a lot about death and loss in so few words.
    Good to hear from you, Chris!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow Alex -- you ARE a ninja! You snuck in and commented even before I had a chance to blink, lol! Thank you very much for your kind words of support -- I'm very glad you like them!

      Delete
  2. Wow. Your 50 word story packs punch. I like it!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much, Robin! I'm very happy that you enjoyed it!

      Delete
  3. I see a Stratplayer playlist in my future!! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Don! If you want, I can even send you a mix on a CD, personally autographed by the artist, lol! ;)

      Delete
  4. Hey, that's a great story! I always find that the shorter the word count, the harder it is to pull off, so congrats! There is a lot of backstory and feeling in there. I hope it gets published.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Gina! I really appreciate your kind words!

      Delete
  5. Love the story AND the guitar-playing. Keep on doing what you're doing, dude. You're on a roll.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aw! I loved that 50 word story! I wrote one once as short as 100 words, and man was that tough. I don't think I could do the 50. (I tried for a guest post that was themed "40." Didn't work out so well.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much, Crystal! It's a challenge for me -- In general, I tend to be very, extra, sort of wordy in a way that uses extra words without being as concise as I could be if I didn't use so many extra, unneeded words that only detract from what I really want to say by their extra-ness of wordy uneededosity.

      So writing a 50-word story typically involves a LOT of paring and hacking and pruning and editing and reducing of words to meet the word count through the elimination of extra words.

      ;)

      Delete
  7. Before the Storm is a great title for that piece!

    Nice use of 50 words - I gave a little gasp at the end of the very first line when I realized what was happening. :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Nicki! I'm very glad that you liked them!!!

      Delete

Don't be shy -- feel free to comment. I really appreciate your thoughts.