As I've done for the past few days, I've been posting from the various and sundry people who contributed to the Luna anthology.
Another Fine Day in the Corps was originally scheduled for the Dark half of the anthology.
And no, I didn't put it there for the swear words.
Sigh. Another "shoulda woulda coulda" from Luna.
Had I thought about it more, I would have gone back and put back some of the swearing. Oops.
The short version of the story is simple.
Some days, you get the bear.
Some days, the bear is packing mortar rounds.
A question I get asked a lot (as do most of the other authors I talk with) is where do you get the ideas for your stories. This one I'm blaming on a creative writing course, the video game X-Com 2 and really bad late night TV.
So, twenty mumble odd years ago, I took a creative writing class in college, more as a lark than anything else. One of the things that the professor posited to the class as a whole was that you, as an author, could start a story in any manner you wanted. Of course, there was someone who disagreed. They specifically said 'Oh, but surely you can't start a story with profanity'. The professor grinned and looked at me. As a non-traditional student – twenty eight and working on my second degree – I was the go to guy when the professor wanted the opinion or a statement from someone who was old enough to drink. I pointed out that I'd read stories that started with everything but the queen mother of swear words -as Ralphie in A Christmas Story puts it - and I had a few thoughts about starting a story with that one. Needless to say, that got me a very huffy response.
Fast forward a few years (twenty one or so), and I'm sitting in the living room playing X-Com2, while my father in law watches some inane war movie on TV. And by inane, I mean really, really horribly bad. They were doing the kind of things that'd get you killed in other war movies, let alone real life. That, along with the mission name I'd just been given in X-Com (Babylonian Sword) struck a chord with me and I sat there and wrote a 1000 word flash fiction story, called Operation Babylonian Sword. Which, honestly sat on my computer, looking forlorn for a long time, until Declan put out a call for submissions for Luna.
When the submission call went out, I dusted off the micro story, tweaked it a bit, and sent it in. The rest, as they say, is a lot of hard work. Edits were made. Emails were sent. More edits were made. Word choices were reconsidered – my characters tend to speak in expletives, in part because I spent way to much time around the USMC, and expletives are used there like most normal folks use 'uh'. I toned them down . . . well, a bit.
Enjoy the story!
BUY LUNA HERE.
L.A. Behm I: Born and raised in Texas, he's done a bit of everything - civilian contractor in Iraq, volunteer fireman, warehouseman, mortician's assistant, newspaper opinion columnist, tech support, logistics coordination, poet, and even driven a bus for a while. A two time graduate of Southwest Texas State University, he spends his days writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy, painting miniatures, and watching his cats perform parkour.
Another Fine Day in the Corps was originally scheduled for the Dark half of the anthology.
And no, I didn't put it there for the swear words.
Sigh. Another "shoulda woulda coulda" from Luna.
Had I thought about it more, I would have gone back and put back some of the swearing. Oops.
The short version of the story is simple.
Some days, you get the bear.
Some days, the bear is packing mortar rounds.
Another Fine Day in the Corps,
or where did it come from?
L.A. Behm II
A question I get asked a lot (as do most of the other authors I talk with) is where do you get the ideas for your stories. This one I'm blaming on a creative writing course, the video game X-Com 2 and really bad late night TV.So, twenty mumble odd years ago, I took a creative writing class in college, more as a lark than anything else. One of the things that the professor posited to the class as a whole was that you, as an author, could start a story in any manner you wanted. Of course, there was someone who disagreed. They specifically said 'Oh, but surely you can't start a story with profanity'. The professor grinned and looked at me. As a non-traditional student – twenty eight and working on my second degree – I was the go to guy when the professor wanted the opinion or a statement from someone who was old enough to drink. I pointed out that I'd read stories that started with everything but the queen mother of swear words -as Ralphie in A Christmas Story puts it - and I had a few thoughts about starting a story with that one. Needless to say, that got me a very huffy response.
Fast forward a few years (twenty one or so), and I'm sitting in the living room playing X-Com2, while my father in law watches some inane war movie on TV. And by inane, I mean really, really horribly bad. They were doing the kind of things that'd get you killed in other war movies, let alone real life. That, along with the mission name I'd just been given in X-Com (Babylonian Sword) struck a chord with me and I sat there and wrote a 1000 word flash fiction story, called Operation Babylonian Sword. Which, honestly sat on my computer, looking forlorn for a long time, until Declan put out a call for submissions for Luna.
When the submission call went out, I dusted off the micro story, tweaked it a bit, and sent it in. The rest, as they say, is a lot of hard work. Edits were made. Emails were sent. More edits were made. Word choices were reconsidered – my characters tend to speak in expletives, in part because I spent way to much time around the USMC, and expletives are used there like most normal folks use 'uh'. I toned them down . . . well, a bit.
Enjoy the story!
BUY LUNA HERE.
L.A. Behm I: Born and raised in Texas, he's done a bit of everything - civilian contractor in Iraq, volunteer fireman, warehouseman, mortician's assistant, newspaper opinion columnist, tech support, logistics coordination, poet, and even driven a bus for a while. A two time graduate of Southwest Texas State University, he spends his days writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy, painting miniatures, and watching his cats perform parkour.
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