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Thanks to Google Docs,
these are the documents I edit; if you happen to be reading the one I'm working on, you'll see it change. Click on titles to access the stories and essays. e-mail: dougfortier@gmail.com twitter: @saneltop |
Homework assignments from current English 33 Creative Writing Fiction class: "Trinity of Blood" - My first three memories "Overcoming Darkness" - Loss of a sense "Dangerous Games" - Action here & there "Today?" - Man in his desire/Aristotle "Dopplegänger" - Letter connecting & protecting "Welcome to the Purple Rose Zone" - It happened "Cordyceps Meets T.Gondii" - Parasites & funguses "Senior Sumo" - Described below |
"Senior Sumo" 2,500+ words as of 4.29.13
Ronin Judo - Elmer Gale
Aaron, a superstar wrestler in college, works out twice a day and has always said, "If you're not ripening, you're rotting." On his 60th birthday, he's invited to join fellow wrestlers of another sort. He sees a chance to regain a sense of the glory days and prove he's still got it.
The antagonist knows Aaron's strengths and weaknesses, is the owner of the sports club, does physical training and therapy, but a mystery to the general public, weighs three hundred pounds.
The antagonist knows Aaron's strengths and weaknesses, is the owner of the sports club, does physical training and therapy, but a mystery to the general public, weighs three hundred pounds.
"Reunion Charade" Incomplete 1st draft, paraphrased finish 7,200+ words as of 12.27.12
His greatest treasure is his high school yearbook with "Most Likely To Succeed" under his picture. After a life of failed marriages, failed jobs, and drug addiction, Danny Haggarty, now 67, camps in the deer trails one hundred steps behind the house he wishes he owned. Danny kills the owner in an accident he caused, flees with the man's clothes, money, and car back to the small town of Granger, PA to show his classmates at the fifty-year high school reunion that he's a success. The daughter of the dead man follows clues to Granger, and on the night of the reunion party, confronts Haggarty about her missing father.
"Arnold 1790" Goal: Create chapter-book iPad apps for kids 14 pages--8,000 words
This story hit me while considering the grief owners experience when pets die. What if a pet outlives its owners, generation after generation? Meet Arnold, hatched in 1790, marked with names and dates scratched into his shell by his owners, chronicling history, his story. A nine-year-old boy who's lost his mother helps a homeless woman unravel the mystery of Arnold's most recent owner and ensure that she and Arnold will stay together.
"Summer of Love" Rewriting my life as a fictional autobiography 18,223 words
A small town kid fresh from the Army gets to San Francisco in 1967 where the chance to learn computer programming at Bank of America is undermined by sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
"Inside the Jaguar" 4 pages--2600 words
An astro-archeologist announces the Maya knew of the black hole at the center of our galaxy. This leads to a meeting with a Maya man who holds the missing half of the evidence that connects the astronomical evidence to the end of their calendar on December 21st, 2012. In the process of combining the pieces, the scientist inhabits the body of a jaguar in the Maya underworld where all is revealed.
"Hosteen's Problem" Part 1 of 3 3 pages--1375 words
For twenty years, Usagi and Hosteen lived Hosteen's wish; away from people. Their hidden squat made of scavenged materials has been found by an intruder. Hosteen wants his life back and makes a plan to alter the life of the man who found him.
"Guilty by Association" Part 2 of 3 2 pages--1425 words
Honorable Mention - Fiction Winner, Carmen Maria Gabriela Etcheberry Scholarship - 2007 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference
A young man, Everett, returns from seven years in an asylum where he was sent after three houses burned and he was caught holding the lighter at the final fire.
YouTube of a reading of this story January 18th, 2012 at the Writers of the Mendocino Coast's event hosted by Mendocino Stories in the Mendocino Hotel. Everything is wrong with it, the framing, the lighting.
A young man, Everett, returns from seven years in an asylum where he was sent after three houses burned and he was caught holding the lighter at the final fire.
YouTube of a reading of this story January 18th, 2012 at the Writers of the Mendocino Coast's event hosted by Mendocino Stories in the Mendocino Hotel. Everything is wrong with it, the framing, the lighting.
"Fire and Water" Part 3 of 3 4 pages--2350 words
Finalist - Short Fiction - 2008 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference
Within days of his release, Everett is befriended by someone his age and meets a mysterious woman with dark skin and deep wrinkles who puts him on the road to healing.
"Bound by the Glory of his Past" 8 pages--4600 words
A man with no money and an impending death sentence due to bad genetics becomes the recipient of nano-sized mechanical brain cell replacements for each of his doomed components; but this is only the beginning.
"The Lesson" 2 pages--1480 words
A con man brings a wild painting to an antiques store to find a buyer. The image is of a Pacific Island woman, bare breasted, swinging a banana peel over her head. Overnight, the store owner and his friend research the painter's name and find the painting described as part of a hoax on the art world in the 1920s.
"Lares at Crossroads" 2 pages--1375 words
Lares' body reacts violently to stormy weather's thunder, lightning, and rain. He is agoraphobic and goes only as far as the residence hotel's lobby where he impersonates other people because he doesn't want anyone to see him.
"Bringing Home the Bones" 1 page--511 words
Alone on a ruined planet, Marker feeds fossilized bones of his ancestors into a beacon that broadcasts to the universe the life and death experiences of beings dead for a million years. But Marker has a problem.
"Stranger Conversation" 2 pages--800 words
An online chat room with eight people who've met this way for a long time, continues until the tractor salesman, ThreaTT, learns the truth about his friends.
"My Protection" 3 pages--1260 words
The gardener of a ten acre estate witnesses the protection provided by springer spaniels.
"A Surfboard for Wesley" 3 pages--1575 words
Wesley plays the organ in a Philadelphia pizza parlor. He gives it up to move to Molokai because he hates his life and his triple swirl comb-over.
"Loose Gravel" 5 pages--2500 words
Lucifer, lived on a farm that became surrounded by Kansas City. His father was murdered, his mother withered from loss and grief, and he had a mental breakdown. Years later, he returned to bring retribution to the people who had him committed and took the family farm.
"Soule and the Magician" 3 pages--1960 words
A thousand years ago, a slight-of-hand magician encounters a black cat, Anther, who intervenes on his behalf.
"Survival Lessons" 6 pages--2475 words
A fifteen year-old boy hides in a snowy mountain cave after his new step mother kills his father and blames it on him.
"You Had to be There" 2 pages--915 words
Two short writing assignments using 2nd person. I tell my 18 year-old self about the day on the flight light of the Air Force base when I had a moment in the twilight zone.
"Surreal Poetry" 1 page
Susan Wooldridge led an interesting session at the 2008 Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. She distributed pages from old dictionaries, single pages from books, and a dozen or so random words printed on what looked like theater tickets. We chose words, about 50 of them, and wrote them as a list. Then we went "poem crazy," as she called it. We constructed surreal poetry that might have made sense if we'd chosen to. I didn't.
"So That to Know Her" 3 pages--1220 words
An essay based on Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway where we see how Clarissa embodies the people she loves and those she despises, and of the places important to her now and in her past. The thesis is, “So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.”
"Dominance & Submissiveness;
Understanding Our Partners" 3 pages--1220 words
An essay from Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata and Ibsen’s A Doll House with the thesis we must understand our partners as well as the implications of our choices.
"Puzzles, Programs, and Aging Brains" 3 pages--1300 words
An essay that argues that companies vying for dollars spent on products that provide mental exercise have not offered sufficient proof of slowing age-related decline therefore we should not buy their programs or services. Crossword puzzles and others like Sudoku are a pleasant diversion but only give the player the ability to be a better at crossword puzzles and Sudoku.
"Shoe Shine Magic" 3 pages--1730 words
Last is a short story that has an ending but isn't finished.
Grover calls widowers to offer to shine their shoes for the funeral.
