Overheard at Writers’ Brainstorming Weekend

(c) Sloan Parker, 2010

Recently I spent a weekend at a house on a lake with my local writing group. We alternated between writing and helping each other brainstorm story ideas. Here’s some of what was overheard during the weekend:

  • “The Fire Lube and Goo stories.”
  • “Life’s too short to spend it in retail.”
  • “We can’t help because of the prime directive.”
  • “I showed the neighbors my ta-tas.”
  • “Now that we got our juices flowing…”
  • “He doesn’t play our reindeer games” (about our only man who left the room when we started killing off characters with poisoned Viagra)
  • “I was a whiny bitch.” (from our only man)
  • “What’s wrong with his nipples?”

And perhaps my fave…

  • “My hero’s nickname is Meat.” Followed by… “His friend’s name should be Buns.” And then you know where I went… “It can be an m/m. Slap the Meat and Buns together.”

And of course that led us to…

  • “You gotta give him a T-shirt that says Eat the Meat

I love this group of writers! There aren’t words to express how reaffirming and energizing it is to hang with other people who get the drive to spend hours and hours creating characters and stories from nothing but your imagination.

Friday Photo: Mini Golf & Technology Collide

Totally off topic of writing and romance, but I love playing mini golf.

I stink at it, yet I almost always have a blast.

One thing that sucks (along with my score) is having to keep track of the scoring with those tiny pencils that always poke me in the leg when I cram one into my pocket on my turn.

Then it occurred to me, there’s gotta be an app for that.

Yep!

My Mini Golf Scorecard. It worked great on my iPhone. No more tiny, poking pencils!

And here’s the first course I tried it on. My score sucked (as usual), but I had fun playing with the new app.

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

(c) Sloan Parker 2012

Anyway, just had to share for any of you fellow mini golf lovers out there. Check out My Mini Golf Scorecard or one of the other mobile apps for keeping score. Save yourself from the poke of a pencil!

 

Three-Word Scenario: Everything About You

I shared my latest Three-Word Scenario on my site today. Stop by my website to read my gay m/m romance scenario using the following words. Or check it out below.

7/6/2015: Edited story link and added text below.

Everything About You
by Sloan Parker

I stopped with the jigsaw puzzle piece held in mid-air and stared back at Joe. I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

He was on the couch across the room from me, leaning forward with his elbows propped on those strong, muscular thighs. He had a crooked smirk on his face, that innocent, yet wicked expression usually reserved for the moment right before he was about to attack my dick with his lips. I could almost see a halo over his head and a red pitchfork in his hand. Maybe I had heard him correctly after all.

He added, “I think that piece is part of his beak.”

“What?”

He pointed at the puzzle piece in my hand.

“Oh.” I inserted the three-sided section into the last empty space that made up the red-winged blackbird’s beak.

Now that Joe had asked the question, and the words were hanging there between us, I felt like the biggest dork with the folding table before me covered in puzzle pieces sorted by shape and color. For weeks now I’d been putting together the puzzles my grandma had left behind when she’d passed away. I met his gaze again and studied him.

“What?” he asked.

“Why now?”

“I’ve been watching you put together these bird and rabbit puzzles since the funeral, and I realized something tonight.”

“What?” That I’m the biggest dork on the planet who can’t figure out how to say good-bye to his grandma?

“I love everything about you, and I want to marry you.”

Copyright (c) August 2012 by Sloan Parker

Read more 3-word scenarios and other free fiction by Sloan Parker

Uh-oh Dad’s Downloading More Books On His Kindle

(c) istockphoto, Adriana3d 2011

Non-techie Dad called again for help with his Kindle. If you recall, I’ve mentioned his issues before. This time he hadn’t even started downloading the book yet. Guess he wanted to be on the phone with me IN CASE he had issues. Which he did. Here’s how it went…

He says he’s all ready to download the book…

Me: “When the next box pops up, go ahead and click Save.”

Dad: “Okay, I clicked to download it. Do I click Save?”

Me: “Yes, click Save.”

Dad: “Okay. I think I’ve got it. Let me put it on my Kindle and I’ll call you back.”

Ring.

Dad: “I can’t find the book on my computer.”

Me: “Where did you save it when you clicked Save?”

Dad: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Okay, let’s do a search.” I told him the steps to perform a search for all the kindle files on his laptop (he hasn’t read that many so it shouldn’t be too hard to find the new one). Once he had the search window up, I told him what to type. He had to key in 5 characters.

Dad: “Hold on, I have to use both hands.” I heard him set the phone down and press the five keys with a long pause between each one. He picked up the phone again. “It’s searching.”

Me: “What did it find?”

Dad: “Just the books I’ve already read.” He proceeded to read me everything he could see about the files. The names, the dates saved, even the file sizes. “172 KB, whatever that means.”

Me: “But not the book you want to read?”

Dad: “No.”

Turns out he had selected the Adobe file, not the Kindle option that takes you through Amazon to borrow a book. So he had to do it all over again.

When he was ready to download the correct file…

Me: “When the dialog box comes up, click Save.”

Dad: “Okay.” Long pause. “I clicked to download it. Okay, a box comes up, do I click Save or Find?”

In my head: Save, save, for the love of God, click SAVE.

He cracks me up!!

 

Video I Love: Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal

Absolutely love this adorable video. Might just be my favorite marriage proposal video EVER. You can’t keep from smiling while watching it, no matter what mood you started out in.

The description from YouTube:

“On Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012, I told my girlfriend to meet me at my parent’s house for dinner. When she arrived I had stationed my brother to sit her in the back of an open Honda CRV and give her some headphones. He ‘wanted to play her a song’…

What she got instead was the world’s first Live Lip-Dub Proposal.”