Here’s a pretty little short based on Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, made just for you by ‘Michele Botticelli’ (any relation to Venus I wonder):
And as an added bonus here’s James Earl Jones reading Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven:
Tag: short
Freaky short film wrap party
A while ago I wrote a little article for Bizarre magazine to help raise funds for a short film called Annabelle’s Tea Party. Performing in it are Bizarre favourites Missy Macabre, Samppa Von Cyborg and sideshow performer Baawo Bee.
Well, by golly they raised those funds and now they’re having a wrap party in London (have a look at their facebook page for more info). There’ll be performances from the likes of Veronica Valentine and others.
Here’s a clip of Missy Macabre in action:
*Warning* perhaps not for children
Short story: The Thief’s Dungeon
Looking for a humorous, thrilling, fantastical and erotic adventure? Well, you won’t find it here. Oh no, wait, yes you will! Read my story The Thief’s Dungeon on forbiddenfiction.com for the the tiny price of 99 cents (Americaland money).
Read it here.
*Warning* Over 18s only
Pointless Fiction live
One day I went to the woods and told some silly stories for my youtube channel. the end:
The weirdest job interview
Hands down this has to be the weirdest job interview I’ve ever had. I’ve tried to find the name of the company it was with but I’ve not come across them, and it was back in 2007. My memory with names is cloudy like a Scottish mountain.
I like to try all different kinds of writing; scripts, comics, stories, books, so when I saw a vague ad on gumtree for an advertising firm in a nearby town I wondered if they needed any copywriters.
I applied and was offered an interview, so along I went to a smallish office building in Colchester and saw another nervous looking girl. “What time is your interview?” I asked.
“Two,” she replied. Same as mine. Odd, I thought, they must have two different interview rooms.
But no. They didn’t. A man in his early twenties and rivers of gel in his hair opened an office door and invited us both in. I wondered if we would have to fight to the death.
“This company,” he said, “gets everyone to start at grass-roots level, so we all have experience of each different part.”
I furrowed my brow. Surely everyone didn’t work in graphics, not everybody can do that?
“I’m only 24,” he continued, “and I have my own office and blah blah blah…” I began to drift away. He just went on, and on, and on about how great it was to have loads of money. It’s not my money, what do I care?
We both had to answer a myriad of questions, pretending to be people a company would want to hire. Eventually it came to an end and we went our seperate ways, but I quickly realised I had no idea what I’d just been interviewed for. The answer to every question I’d asked had floated deep within a cloud of management-speak.
However I was still pleased when I was asked back for another interview. This time there was no second girl and the gel-money-monster came to sit next to me in the waiting room.
“Today you’ll be shadowing these two,” he pointed out a male and female, both in their early twenties.
“OK,” I said, “but I wanted to ask, what exactly do you all do?”
“Different companies trust us,” he said, voice slanting into the ‘I’m giving a pitch’ tone once again, “to make other people aware of them and to raise their profile.”
“Yes,” I said, impatiently raising my hand, “but on a day-to-day basis, what would I be doing?”
“We inform the public of the companies we reperesent and let them know the work they do.”
“Right,” I snapped, getting quite cross, “so I could just stand out there,” I pointed to the window, “and tell people in the street?”
“Well, not exactly,” he said, blushing. “But anyway, go with (I’ve forgotten their names, I will call the girl Foofy and the boy Mr Fuffykins).”
So I got into a car with them, which seems a bit mental on reflection but at the time politeness forbids us from going against instruction. On the way Foofy pointed out a car she could see and told us how much she wanted one. She then informed us how close to purchasing it with all her recently earned lovely money she was. I wondered if I’d accidentally joined a cult.
The revelation came over lunch. We were eating fried chicken when I was told we would be literally trying to sell a company, or get people to sign up to it (I still don’t really understand) by speaking to them – cold-calling – door to door.
“You can do that can’t you?” asked Foofy.
“Um, yes?” I said. I still don’t know why I said yes.
We pulled into a residential area in Dunmow and I was given a jacket to put on.”I’ll take the odd number doors and you two take the evens,” instructed Foofy.
‘Speak,’ I told myself, and my voice sat at the bottom of my throat until I forced it up. “Um, I can’t do this,” I said in a weird, squeaky way.
They both stared at me. I made myself repeat it. “I can’t go door to door.”
They began to deliberate. “There’s a bus station nearby, it’s not far to walk,” said Mr Fuffykins.
“We can’t just leave her here,” said Foofy, a touch bitterly as though she wished they could.
In the end I convinced them to drop me off in town, where I had a coke and thought about things before I made my way home. The moral of the story is, when someone talks management-speak just start crying until they explain themselves.
Short story: The Woods in Winter
For only 99 cents you too – yes you – can read my naughty historical werewolf story ‘The Woods in Winter‘ on taboo-ridden site forbiddenfiction.com.
It’s rude and there are spooky bits. What’s not to like? Look, that couple over there are reading it, and they own yachts. Read it here.
Warning: Over 18s only.
Waiting, waiting and…waiting
When you work on any kind of creative writing be it short stories, books, graphic novels, anything, a lot of the time you find yourself waiting. I like to have a lot of different things to work on at the same time which eases it somewhat.
However you have to wait for someone (someone you know or on a critique site) to read it and get back to you with comments. Then you send it out to magazines or agents or whoever and wait then. If its accepted thats brilliant, and then you have to wait for the publication date (I’m really not complaining about that though).
Perhaps the trick is to master some sort of Zen technique, or maybe just pass the time irritating your friends by prodding them. The last one works for me.
Pointless flash fiction
Apparently some people don’t like short stories because they aren’t novels. I like both, for different reasons. Since I read a collection of short stories years ago called Love of Fat Men by Helen Dunmore (its a lot more intellectual than it sounds, I promise) I’ve loved the idea of a short story being just a snapshot into someone’s life. I still like stories where you go deeper and there’s a full narrative etc, but I always prefer stories which leave you with a “hmm?” kind of feeling.
This is by no means a collection of intelligent, thought provoking miniture stories. These are stupid.
A beetle lived next door to a woodlouse. The woodlouse was playing his music very loudly at 2am and the beetle got very annoyed. He knocked on the door and asked the woodlouse to turn it down. He did, and all was well.
A magic pixie skipped through the forest to Tesco’s where he did his weekly shop. When he got back he realised he had forgotten the milk. He had to go back and was a bit annoyed.
A hare challenged a tortoise to a race. The hare won and the natural order of things remained intact.
A woodlouse lived next door to a beetle. He knocked on the beetle’s door and asked if he could borrow some sugar, which he did and all was well.
A ghost appeared to a family who had just moved in. “Oh no,” they said, “Do you wish us to leave?” “Nah,” it said, “Stick kettle on.”
Short story: The Gathering (in The Big Book of Bizarro)
Good morning. It’s not morning, it’s evening! Oh, I’m a card aren’t I? How wacky of me.
Anyway the anthology ‘The Big Book of Bizarro,’ which contains a short story of mine ‘The Gathering,’ is out to buy now. Described as ‘salacious, sacrilegious, scatalogical, scotomizing and strange,’ you can purchase it online here.
It’s sectioned into: Horror, Sci fi and Fantasy, Erotica.
Warning: my story is a bit rude and you may be embarrassed when you next see me.
Madeleine Swann 