Solo Board Gamer, Me?

One of the things that I like about analog gaming is that you get together and interact with real people, face to face. While the video game medium has come a long way in adding a social aspect to the gaming, it simply does not compare to the richness of a real-life experience with friends, sitting around the table and gaming together, albeit competitively.

Now, there are solo board games or, more commonly, multiplayer board games that have a solo play mode. Viticulture, Scythe, and Terraforming Mars are popular games in the hobby that can be played solo. In the past, I considered sitting at a table, playing a board game by oneself the equivalent of gaming masturbation. It just seemed sad to me and I didn’t see the point, particularly when many of my favorite games absolutely thrive on the interaction of the players.

Thank You, Murphy

Murphy was a Rat Terrier we got as a puppy. He died in October of 2017 when he was 10 years old.

Thank you, Murphy.  Thanks for protecting the backyard from squirrels, birds, and neighbors doing things on the other side of the fence.  You would bark and protect us all.  Never once did a squirrel, bird, neighbor or delivery person harm us.  Thank you.

This is Your Mind as a Writer. Any Questions?

It seemed innocent enough.   A few words on the page; what harm could it do?

A flash-fiction piece here, a poem there – it didn’t take much time.  Before long, I stepped up to doing short stories.  It was only one a week, at first.  Then I was doing it more.  I would lie to my family so I could sneak out and write.  They thought I was going to the store for bread, but I was at Starbucks with my fingers on the keyboard, typing furiously, or sitting in the car, scribbling in a Moleskine notebook.

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GEEK AM I

As a card-carrying GEEK, it is my right… nay, it is my RESPONSIBILITY to complain about the most insignificant and trivial of details when it comes to movies, books, comics, video games, and particularly in my case, board games.

Look at the most passionate geeks out there and that’s what they do – criticize and complain and nit-pick.  I can only surmise that any geek worth his salt would do the same, right?

Stories in Seconds

Stories in Seconds in a series of flash fiction I wrote in 2016-2017. It’s a short book with very short stories and it’s free with Kindle Unlimited or almost free otherwise, on Amazon.

Not That I Care (Flash Fiction)

Have you ever been in an absolutely quiet, serene place, void of any distraction at all?  Didn’t it feel weird?

Consider this: If you abuse your body, it creates problems and organs stop doing what they are supposed to do.  So, if you drink too much, your kidneys and liver will fail to filter toxins properly, or if you smoke, you damage your lungs and have difficulty oxygenating blood.  What about your brain?

Inane television shows, sound-bites, self-important celebrities, radio chatter, internet memes, Facebook status updates, tweets, and the general, incessant noise we surround ourselves with every day – subjecting a brain to such a relentless input of low-grade, sensational information, year after year, it’s not unreasonable to think that something had to give and it did.

Changes

I wrote this in September of 2013 and I was 49 years old, leaving an 18-year career with Microsoft and preparing to start work as a manager at AT&T. It’s an indulgent and heavy-handed write but I’m sharing it here for those who might find themselves in a similar career change and need some reassurance and more to the point, might try to do it alone.

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Changes
By Mitch Lavender

I knew the way and the path was familiar even though this was a new pilgrimage.

Corporations are treacherous catacombs, filled with dead-ends and devastating fates for the unwary.  Eighteen years, I have navigated these passages but too late, I realized I took a wrong turn.  All around me, peers and superiors told me otherwise and that the path was true, but I knew otherwise.  I knew, but it was too late.

Why Kemet is Awesome

Kemet by Matagot is my favorite area control board game and it’s one of my favorite games, ever.  Over multiple plays, I’ve come to really appreciate (yes, that’s the right word. APPRECIATE!) the game’s mechanics and design.

Is Kemet a game you, too, will APPRECIATE?  I don’t know, but let me run down the reasons why I like it and then you can decide if those things appeal to you or not.  First though, if you don’t know what Kemet is, we’ll start with the vendor’s description.

Red-Blooded Redneck (short story)

This story originally appeared in, Best of Writing4All 2010.

Stereotypes are funny to me.  For example, I live in Texas and have all my life.  Immediately, stereotypes for Texan come to mind.  Programmed ideals of a cowboy hat-wearing, gun-toting, oil-well drillin’, spur-janglin’ fellow, riding the range, herding cattle and doing sing-alongs around the campfire like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers or some other archetypical cowboy are envisioned.

I do not own a pair of cowboy boots or a cowboy hat.  Jeans, polo shirt and loafers are common attire for me.  I do not ride a horse on the range.  I drive a Nissan Altima in rush hour traffic every day.  I don’t own a gun or oil wells.  I live in a suburb.  I work in an office building.  I shop at regular stores like almost everyone else who lives in Texas, but there are some exceptions.  The few.  The proud.  The Redneck.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (flash fiction)

This story first appeared in It Didn’t Happen This way – Untrue Stories, Volume One in 2012.

Hello Jeff,

As you may have heard, I recently came into quite a fortune.  Someone has to win the lottery and despite the odds, it was me.  It wasn’t because I deserved it.  I certainly didn’t earn it. But I find myself now with 133 million dollars and must decide how to utilize it.  I certainly have dreams and aspirations; business opportunities to invest in abound.  Still, I must consider the life traveled that got me to this place and in so doing, remember those who gave me a chance.

There was a time in my career, several years ago, where I had burned a few bridges and was left remorseful for my mistakes but still accountable for them.  It was a crossroads where you, as my manager, could have terminated me and rightly so.  You didn’t.  You gave me an opportunity to turn things around and right the wrongs.  I heard you took some heat for it.  Simply, you saw something in me that was salvageable and believed in my abilities.  I don’t know if I ever expressed how much that meant to me but I have never forgotten it.

Simply, thank you.  I dare say that I might have started on a long, downward spiral had it not been for your giving spirit and faith in me.

Enclosed is a check for 1.23 million dollars.  This should leave you with one million dollars after gift taxes have been paid.  I know a million dollars is not a lot these days, but with your own savings, I hope this gives you enough to pursue your dream, whatever that may be.

I wish you and your family all the happiness and success in the world.  If there is anything I can do, anything at all, please do not hesitate to let my assistant know.  I will be in town next month and if we can work out schedules, I would love to have dinner with you.

Sincerely,

Steven Lasroth

*****

Don’t Kill the Dog (for authors)

There are places that authors fear to tread and rightly so.  Some things are taboo and off limits, even in the fictionalized place where we create our stories and taking a certain plot twist can completely lose a reader or worse, make them angry.

I have a tendency to write dark fiction and that is thin ice to tread.  It’s not hard to make a wrong move.  It takes scruples and sense of self to avoid it because when weaving a story (i.e., pantsing), it has a life of its own; taking a direction that almost seems to be beyond the author’s control.  The story is completely in the author’s control of course, but it can sometimes feel like it has its own personae and is making choices for itself, such as having your antihero become a predator on the weak, vulnerable or trusting.  Who would like Batman if he was a rapist or child molester?   Rapists and Child molesters, that’s who, and no one else.

Breathe – a short story

This story was originally published in 2012, in Red Fez issue 49.  It also appeared in Untrue Stories, Volume One.  It’s based on a writing prompt from an episode of the Writing Excuses podcast – Begin a story with the line: She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.

I hope you like it.

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 Breathe

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.  It’s not like boarding a plane is difficult and if ordinary people do it every day, so could Claire.

Breathe. 

The Whole Does Not Equal the Sum – a writing exercise

A writing Exercise from Writing Excuses episode 4.24 podcast

Concepts to use in the story: Accountant for a church, Contacts that decrease your vision, and brain implants

Exercise: Develop character(s) and conflicts using the three concepts above.  It can’t be silly.

The Whole Does Not Equal the Sum 

by Mitch Lavender

Better living through technology – A mantra that is repeated to the point that it is not even thought about.  No one considers what it means or if they believe it.  They certainly do not question it.  It was the very heart of the doctrine of The Church of π.

Worth Writing About – a short story

Worth Writing About (abridged version)
By Mitch Lavender

How can I describe what it is like?

Imagine putting a plastic bag over your head and binding it closed around your neck. Then, punch a pinhole in the bag where your mouth is and try to breathe. Try to do that for two weeks straight, with a lump of stew you ate days ago sitting in your stomach. With sub-zero wind constantly buffeting you; so cold, you don’t dare expose naked flesh to it for fear of extreme frostbite. Wind so loud, you can barely hear what a person is saying, even if they stand right next to you and shout in your ear. If you can imagine this, then multiply that by ten and you will get an idea of what it is like at Base Camp 4 of Mount Everest.

Amputations

As I highlighted the paragraph of my beloved story, I imagined placing my hand on the chopping block, fingers splayed.  I raised the cleaver.  Let it begin.  I brought the cleaver down swiftly on my pinkie finger.  Chop.  Delete.

 My carefully crafted paragraph erased, I cleaned up the extra line and read through the piece again.  Holding up my hand, I saw blood spurting with every heartbeat.   Now the piece is imbalanced, as the following paragraph built upon the one I had deleted.  It’s got to go as well.  Chop.  Delete.  Blood spurted from both hands.