This week: Snack Attack! Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Snack Attack!
Do you nibble while you write? Let's check your desk drawers. Candy bars? Protein bites? Nuts?
Let's talk about making good choices when snacking and writing. So many people have desk jobs, whether at home or in the office, leading very sedentary lives. We all know by the back pain, butt pain, and achiness in general, that getting up and walking around and stretching is necessary. DVT is a real thing. Some signs of DVT are pain, swelling, and tenderness in one of your legs (usually your calf or thigh), a heavy ache in the affected area, warm skin in the area of the clot, and red skin, particularly at the back of your leg below the knee.
While you're up, let's think about what you'd like to snack on. Obviously, eating at your desk isn't preferable, but sometimes deadlines happen. Or you're only on #26 of 100 reasons why you need to click this next page. While rummaging for a tasty snack think "Save The Keyboard!" Let's not have something with sauce, gravy, drips, or bits that can fall in the keys.
Next, eat to be productive. That means low-carb snacks. Baked things, cookies, and candy will make your insulin bounce up and down like a kid on a trampoline. And that can lead to diabetes. Vegetables, nuts, and berries are good choices.
What about fiber, vitamins, and minerals? Some veggie sticks or some fruit can not only curb hunger but can be beneficial and improve blood flow, and memory in the short term. Fiber keeps your gut healthy and serotonin levels at a good level. Try to stay away from dyes and artificial ingredients.
Let's not forget to stay hydrated. Water! Lots of water! Okay, I know you all are reaching for that afternoon coffee to beat the slump. While it will help you combat the sleepies, you're gonna crash later. So plan for that. I'm all for a nap. But let's not let the afternoon nap turn into a second sleep and then be awake until 3am.
So, when reaching for a writing snack, make good choices and fuel your body and mind. And as always, Write On!
This month's question: What is your snack choice? Is it healthy? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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JUNE SITE CONTEST
Quote Prompt for June 2023: "A million dreams are keeping me awake." -- Pasek & Paul, from The Greatest Showman
Excerpt: Can love conquer all, even distance? A week ago, Niobe thought so; now she was not so sure. Her green eyes watched the blue lights of the space shuttle's antigravity drive propel the white craft into the azure sky from the Arizona spaceport, her red hair blowing in the summer breeze. There were small circular windows down the length of the craft for the passengers to look out of. But these passengers were shackled with chains, prisoners bound for the distant planet Hermes Prime. It was hard to get people to emigrate to such a harsh new world.
| |  | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#2277661 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: East Cary Street, in Richmond Virginia, is known for its historical cobblestone streets, its many abandoned warehouses aching for someone to breathe life into them, and the train trestles suspended above the street in a sort of chaotic snake-like dance. As the trains go by, they cause the warehouses to rumble, as if an earthquake were happening every fifteen to twenty minutes. The abandoned warehouses compose about a half a mile strip near the end of the Cary Street.
Excerpt: Dolores settled into bed and watched the lamplit shadows twirling across the ceiling—effects of the dream catcher swaying from a ribbon above her. It was a mystery how the lacy design stretched across the bent willow hoop could stop the bad dreams that years of therapy could not. The old guy at the craft fair guaranteed his authentic Native American dream catchers would trap nightmares in its intricately woven webs, allowing only good dreams to pass down the dangling beads and feathers. It was true, for she’d had nothing but sweet, blissful sleep since hanging it up several months back.
Excerpt: The old man closes his eyes.
He’s let his hair grow long just like it had been all those years ago. The ever-present wind picks it up, snarling the ends, tossing it over his weathered forehead. It’s both warm and chilly, the wind. He has rolled up the hem of his pants but now pulls the cuffs of his sweater over his wrists. He splays his toes, sinking a small measure into the wet sand as the gentle waves roll up then recede in a consistent, whispering rhythm.
| | | Morgue (18+)
Night shift at the morgue goes slightly wrong. Winner of SCREAMS!!! 06.16.23.
#2297730 by Beholden  |
Excerpt: Night shift at the morgue, peopled by the usual cast. Doctor di Montago, bespectacled, white-coated, gloved and booted, carrying his hands like trophies before him, ceased wondering how he fell into the job twenty years ago, now jaded, going through the motions with practised ease, his commands, remarks, long formulated to standard instructions, even his macabre jokes become cliché from constant use, sawing and cutting, rending and extracting with bored efficiency as the implements ring in their flashing flight and innards slump into trays.
Excerpt: Aria and Oliver had been competing for the better part of their lives. As classmates at Wharton, they finished one-two in the class rankings. When both started independent management consultancies, they fought over the same clients. When Aria was looking for offices for her new startup, Oliver swept in and stole that very space out from under her for one of his ventures. When Oliver was working on a hostile takeover of a distressed company, Aria came in as an angel investor and wrestled controlling interest out from under him.
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This item number is not valid.
#2197560 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: “Silas, how do you feel? Cuz’ you don’t look so good. No offense.”
“Well, I AM dyin’, so there’s that.”
“No, I mean today. You feel worse or holdin’ your own?”
“Why are you askin’? Have you come up with a cure?”
Excerpt: Belle needed to get this guardbeast spell just right. Her last few attempts went haywire due to her hayfever. Sneezing mid incantation did not give her desired results. She pushed a curl off her face and double checked her spell book.
This time, she’d taken an extra-strength dose of her allergy medicine. The memory of her sorcerer father’s voice denigrating her intruded. “A powerful witch doesn’t need such crutches, Bellissima. You are a disgrace to our family.”
Excerpt: Jay stood outside the window and peered inside. He couldn’t see much though. The interior of the store was dark and all he could really see was his watery reflection. When he moved, sunlight glanced off his chromium plating, creating a flash that would have made him blink if his eyes were more sensitive to light.
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This month's question: What is your snack choice? Is it healthy? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Short Stories Newsletter (May 24, 2023)" question: What kind of geek are you?
dragonwoman  : The geeks that live in me: Fiction writer, Craft, real book reader, reuse, repurpose reuse in creative way,
Mary Ann MCPhedran  : My writing is all geek because I start a story and forget to finish it.
oldgreywolf scribbles  : Research. Note taking. Character histories, location descriotions. Civilization and planetary descriptions are more general. Concept papers. Question sheets. Line drawings. My worldbuilding is documented for consistency. Am a technician/technical instructor/technical author by trade, and have noted the haphazard way some writers handle the same event over time within that ONE worldline. If I'm really a geek about anything,it's my preference for LINUX over macrosux. (There's a lot of us, worldwide, too.)
Kåre Enga in Montana  : I'm more of an eclectic nerd and a social flutterby. Hard to fit people into single categories.
bryanmchunter: The kind who likes to collect and play with things that appeal to my interests. Sometimes I have dreams about them.
Robert Waltz  : Everyone's a geek about something.
Paul  : Yeah, me too. Can’t argue with either statement.
Scarypotato-doing bettertoday : I’m not sure. I like science and I like video games. I also enjoyed the few times I played Dungeons and Dragons. I’m not quite sure there’s a label for that and quite honestly I think people are more complicated than just “I’m a ‘x’ type of ‘y’!” Sorry to be such a buzz kill.
s : A few things...
MAD magazine
1st edition AD&D
Stephen King
Pulp fiction fantasy & SciFi
Music
Things like that.
I used to have more - comics, Star Wars, 1980s horror, et al. - but I got old.
N.A Miller : Techno geek... in Info Technolgy for 26 years.
Khola Mousethyme : I wouldn't consider myself a geek as, to me at least, a geek conveys some sort of technical savvy. I am odd, eerie, weird, eccentric....well the list keeps going as to what I have heard. My personal favorite is unique.... just like everyone else.
Elisa the Bunny Stik  : I'm more of a nerd, as I'd rather go to a think tank convention before any Comic-Con events (even though I know sci-fi related events are fun). I'm the type that loves to delve into social science stuff hardcore, a tendency that's not super prevalent in the geek crowd.
Howler of the Moon : I am an ancient history geek.
King Author : I'm not a geek I'm a nerd there's a difference.
TheBusmanPoet : Been Nerd through all of school and probably my whole life.
inkerod : I'm a maladjusted geek. I'm a geek's geek. I never let anyone question my geekhood.
Finder101 : I’m a marketing geek..after a 30 year career…ads make me go wild…I yell at the TV…how do this dialogue, set, characters get approved…? I geek out whenever I see weird advertising or get bad customer service.
THANKFUL SONALI Now What?  : The Pig-Pimples kind. (Translated - HOGWARTS!)
Louis Williams : I was a Warsie before the Disney buyout. I'm a furry and a music geek.
uschibear: Whenever I see a new knitting pattern, or one for a new crocheted afghan block, I salivate. Can't wait to get some yarn and try it out. After almost 60 years of knitting, I still geek out over an innovative use of old stand by patterns.
keyisfake : I love collecting things from my childhood.
ALTA : I feel like I'm more of a dabbler geek - I have many interests that I dip in to various depths, but don't drench myself completely. That said, my OG geekdoms would have to be the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the anime Bleach. I was a late bloomer with gaming, but lovelovelove Final Fantasy, Borderlands, and Resident Evil.
buddhangela's Wounded Not Dead  : I'm a wildlife geek = keep wildlife wild, keep wilderness wilderness. We've taken enough from the earth, let's protect what's left... Oops, did I say too much? 
Thanks everyone, for your awesome responses! Leger~ |
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Short Stories: June 21, 2023 Issue [#12030]
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