Call for ideas!

Hello reader. A friend of mine is part of a group that is starting up an alternative arts magazine called "Shadow." It looks really fun, and Pete, my friend, is a really good graphics person.

I'm going to write a new short story for their first issue. I'm excited about it because it's an opportunity to write something truly aberrant.

aberrant=wandering away or straying from a defined path, hence figuratively diverging or deviating from any moral standard.

It's that figurative part that I'm going for. So anything that pops into your head that is depraved and/or sticky, just yell at me in the comments. Be it known that anyone who criticizes my purpose here will be written into the story and used thoroughly.

3 new articles for Carolina Weekly Newspapers

It's a banner week for me and the freelancing. Two front-page stories in University City Weekly, (the big feature article on the Newell farmers market, and a follow-up on the fatal police chase from Concord Mills, to do with the officers in the chase being cleared of any wrongdoing). I have a third article also, on the most recent Cornelius Board of Commissioners Meeting.

I'm rapidly learning part of my function is to condense information and make things interesting that appear not to be, even a little bit. Case in point, this is a typical Cornelius Board of Commissioners Meeting:

"blah blah blah blah blah blah blah budget blah blah blah blah blah blah blah town blah blah blah blah blah blah blah petition blah blah blah blah blah blah blah potholes blah blah blah blah blah blah blah sidewalks blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

SERIOUSLY.

I condense that so it sounds better, and by the time you're done with it, the understanding is: "The town of Cornelius spent almost two thousand dollars on a traffic study that offers no solutions, and the consultants required to make sense of this poor information will cost even more money."

I expect this is a phrase you will hear me say often, so enjoy its novelty this one time: Your tax dollars hard at work.

Huntersville Cheeseburger in Paradise boarded up

The Carolina Weekly newspaper group, for which I have started freelancing, has launched a new, much better website. However, I don't yet know how they get print articles onto the website, and when. The latest article of mine that I can find is this one about the Huntersville-area Cheeseburger in Paradise suddenly closing.

My article about the death of Docia Barber has been transferred from the archives to the new site, and almost a month later is still one of the top stories reachable from the home page.