I had an easy day at work today.  I have been threatening for some time to try and write something again.  I discovered I had some extra time, and although I prefer to write late at night with a pipe and silence, I managed to churn out something without a pipe, in the daytime, with the surrounding noise of two young children.

I don't know how I did it.

And another blogger who I read regularly did some creative writing.  So I had to quit procrastinating and do something.

I've added a new section to my other blog project called "Fragmentary Fiction."  It's for fragments and works in progress.  Nothing under that section should be considered permanent--it's all subject to major revision or even complete scrapping.

For a long time I have wanted to try to write either a series of connected short stories or perhaps a novella sort of thing set in a world similar to the Old West but incorporated with elements of fantasy and horror.  So here's a link and a teaser.

Prelude: The Weird

The stranger had come through last autumn. He had passed not far from her house, a pair of mules hitched to a peddler’s wagon, traveling in silence. She felt him coming when the sun was still low in the morning sky, and by noon she had walked out to meet him as he rode past. He said nothing, merely looked at her. His glance had sent prickles up the back of her neck, and she had shivered in the noonday sun. She did not try even to speak to him, only strode as quickly back to her cabin as her old bones would move, shuttering the single window and staring into the shadows. Listening to the world move, and seeing what creaked. It was something her own grandmother had taught her, when both she and the world seemed young.

Why now? There had once been a time when she could conjure fire with little more than a snap of her fingers and a wisp of her own red hair. Now her hair was as gray as the morning fog, and she could kindle a flame far more easily with flint and tinder. The powers she had once aspired to as a young girl, had even commanded for a time, had long since faded behind the passing years.

British pagans are outraged and offended.  And they're going to do a rain dance to try and wash it away.

Thank goodness they didn't portray Homer without his undies.  That would be really offensive.

UPDATE:  Nyx has found a hilarious animated version.

For some reason I found this article very interesting.  The giant lion-eating chimps of the magic forest:

Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla.

Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. Reaching the region means negotiating the shifting fortunes of warring rebel factions, and the heart of the animals' range is deep in impenetrable forest.

But despite the difficulties, a handful of scientists have succeeded in studying the animals. Early speculation that the apes may be some yeti-like new species or a chimp/gorilla hybrid proved unfounded, but the truth has turned out to be in many ways even more fascinating. They are actually a population of super-sized chimps with a unique culture - and it seems, a taste for big cat flesh.

They use tools, they aren't afraid of humans, and though they haven't been seen actually killing a big cat, they have been seen eating big cats.  They also aren't afraid to sleep on the ground.  Interesting and strange.