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#BlogBattle #53#BlogBattle #13

#BlogBattle #53

Published by John T M Herres on March 15, 2016

This week, Rachael Ritchey is celebrating a whole year running the #BlogBattle! Congrats, Rachael! For the challenge this week, she has issued the following: “To celebrate, This week we will not be writing a new story for the battle. For Week 53 here is what I want from anyone and everyone who has ever battled: Choose one of your #BlogBattle stories from the past year Edit it however you would like Reblog/repost it on Tuesday, March 15th. Make sure you specify the genre and the theme word We will do our voting from the compilation of awesome stories presented! First, the obligatory: Rules: 1000 words max fictional tale (or true if you really want) PG (no more than PG-13) Content – let’s keep this family friendly! Your story must contain the word(s) from the theme and/or be centered around the theme in a way that shows it is clearly related Go for the entertainment value! State the Genre of your story at the top of your post. Post your story on Tuesday, by 11:59 PM PST Use the hashtag #BlogBattle when tweeting your story, put a link back to your #BlogBattle Short Story in the comments section of this page, and/or include a link to this page in your own blog post (it creates a “ping-back” which will alert me and our friends to your #BlogBattle post) Have fun! Read all the short stories and vote! Winners are announced the Monday following. So, I went through my few offerings, and found that I…

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#BlogBattle 47- Forest

Published by John T M Herres on February 2, 2016

Here we are, submitting another story for the #BlogBattle posts. Now, for another surprise, this is close enough to reality to call non-fiction, by the teachings I’ve had. I say, “…a surprise…” because I do non-fiction about as often as Romance, which I did on the last submission I made. Let us not dwell on reasons or excuses, I’ll just write what pops up. Like I can control my thoughts, right?   Be that as it may. On to brighter things: #BlogBattle Number 47 Rules: 1000 words max fictional tale (or true if you really want) PG (no more than PG-13) Content – let’s keep this family friendly! Your story must contain the word(s) from the theme and/or be centered around the theme in a way that shows it is clearly related. Go for the entertainment value! State the Genre of your story at the top of your post. Post your story on Tuesday, by 11:59 PM PST Use the hashtag #BlogBattle when tweeting your story, put a link back to your #BlogBattle Short Story in the comments section of this page, and/or include a link to this page in your own blog post (it creates a “ping-back” which will alert me and our friends to your #BlogBattle post) Have fun!   My offering this week is a little, and by little, I mean a whopping 340 words, short about when Dad took us camping in our youth. Could be one of the reasons I like mid-70’s station wagons so…

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2015 Blog Statistics

Published by John T M Herres on January 13, 2016

Statistics For johntmherres.com I know, most people have already done this and moved on, but if you remember, I didn’t have a very happy end-of-year experience, and it’s taken me a bit to get back into the swing of things.     We all hear that the New Year is a time to make resolutions intended to encourage us to force a change in our lives. Either to start a diet, the goal to make a smaller you, or to quit this, stop that, get something else done, dedicate oneself to making the goals that have, in all years past, gotten broken way too soon after being made. I learned that it is setting myself up for failure when I make such grandiose plans, and began stating that, in the New Year, I would endeavor to do just a little better than the previous year. This is so much easier to accomplish.   Here are the stats they sent me; The WordPress helper-monkeys are working day and night to provide pages and pages of detail on how our blogs are doing. A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 890 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 15 trips to carry that many people. The busiest day of the year was November 3rd with 17 views. The most popular post that day was Home. (Even though the same stats page said “Home” didn’t have any views, and “Traffic Stop”…

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#BlogBattle 44- Worm

Published by John T M Herres on January 12, 2016

Once again, I try my hand at a #BlogBattle. I am trying to get a better handle on things related to my writing, and coming up with a story based on a prompt is supposed to be a good exercise. One I do not avail myself of too frequently. If anyone hasn’t seen, my end-of-year experience left much- way too much- to be desired, and it’s taking a bit of, not just time, but effort to better some things in my day to day operations so I won’t have to go through it again. So, I again post a brand new story for this week’s offering. #BlogBattle 44- The prompted word is “worm.” Rules: 1000 words max. Fictional tales (or true if you really want). PG (no more than PG-13) Content – let’s keep this family friendly! Your story must contain the word(s) from the theme and/or be centered around the theme in a way that shows it is clearly related. Go for the entertainment value! State the Genre of your story at the top of your post. Post your story on Tuesday, by 11:59 PM PST. Use the hashtag #BlogBattle when tweeting your story, put a link back to your #BlogBattle Short Story in the comments section of this page, and/or include a link to this page in your own blog post (it creates a “ping-back” which will alert me and our friends to your #BlogBattle post) Have fun! Each winner will receive an awesome #BlogBattle Winner Badge to…

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#BlogBattle Week 38 POST

#BlogBattle Week 38 POST

Published by John T M Herres on December 1, 2015

#BlogBattle time again! This is the Thirty-Eighth issue for Rachael Ritchey! Greetings, once again, one and all! Welcome to another episode of… yeah, forget that. But, I do offer another #BlogBattle entry. The rules, of course: (Which I may have forgotten a time or two.) Rules: 1000 words max fictional tale (or true if you really want) PG (no more than PG-13) Content – let’s keep this family friendly! Your story must contain the word(s) from the theme and/or be centered around the theme in a way that shows it is clearly related. Go for the entertainment value! State the Genre of your story at the top of your post. Post your story on Tuesday, by 11:59 PM PST Use the hashtag #BlogBattle when tweeting your story, put a link back to your #BlogBattle Short Story in the comments section of this page, and/or include a link to this page in your own blog post (it creates a “ping-back” which will alert me and our friends to your #BlogBattle post) Have fun! Okay. Now we have that out of the way, can you tell I might be a little excited here? Maybe. I had a thought. When “delving in my mental cavern” for a possible story, this hit me. As I wrote, I did notice it rhymed, but instead of making it a poem, it sounded pretty good coming out in story form. So, that is how I will tender it to you. I really hope y’all like this. At…

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Deadly Cavern

Deadly Cavern

Published by John T M Herres on October 31, 2015

Deadly Cavern (c) 2012, by John T. M. Herres   “Are you sure this is it?” Jake squatted down and leaned his head into the opening. Barely three-and-a-half feet high and two feet wide, the jagged, oblong hole seemed to want to swallow anyone who dared to enter. Moving forward, he withdrew his green flip-top lighter, the tell-tale ‘click-zip’ of the lid and striker echoing into the darkness. The flame leapt up and began an erratic dance, flashing yellow and blue, leaning toward the black emptiness as if it were eager to lead the way further into the tunnel. “I got a breeze,” he said, the rock absorbing most of the timbre of his voice yet still bouncing it around a few times before fading entirely. “It has to go somewhere.” He backed out and stood, looking over to Harry for some kind of verification. “Well, we didn’t come all this way for nothing.” They secured their backpacks, switched on their flashlights, and ducked into the entrance. There were stories circulating the region that some others had tried exploring the cavern, never to be seen again. The boys shrugged off all warnings, dismissing them as “old wives’ tales”. “Stick close in case there are surprises,” Jake called from the lead. No matter how confident he acted, something in the back of his mind told him not to go in. “Not scared, are you?” Harry’s voice quavered slightly. Maybe he had the same misgivings, but Jake knew him well enough to…

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Blog Bummer

Published by John T M Herres on October 12, 2015

About My Velah Blog I have been trying to access the blog I made for The Velah of my WIP “Challenge Of The Velah,”  but for some reason it’s coming up “Error 404 Site Not Found!” The only thing I can think of that it could be is some kind of repercussions from adding some codes that came up as important to try to prevent it from being hacked.   I had been getting failed login attempts, resulting in a locked sign in period of an hour each time. Some days, I got almost a dozen, and none were from me. The top of the admin page had a bunch of codes reportedly designed to keep those from happening. They called them “Drive-by” and “Brute force attacks,” which I would tend to think the latter would describe what I saw going on. I tried (passively, to be sure, but try, nonetheless) to get help and advice, for the coding of online things is way beyond my abilities. Since I could find none, I went ahead and did some myself. Now, I cannot find the blog. It’s not like I had been adding to it regularly, much like here and my BarbarianWriter blog. But it is frustrating that it just up and vanished on me.   Oh, well. As I said, I’ll just try again…   #WriteOn! — John    

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It Must Be A Sign

Published by John T M Herres on August 10, 2015

Funny Signs There are some really funny signs decorating roadways, parks, even posted on the windows of vehicles. A veritable overabundance of visual words that, if not worded correctly, can be a source of immense pleasure. Here are some I’ve found across the web. Some, I’ve had for a while, some I’ll search for to post, but all should be entertaining, to say the least. Let us begin: This is from 1983. My 18th birthday. Goodness, 32 years ago. The caption reads, “Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.” That’s a good intro, but here are some of the photos I wish to share: I had to wipe a word to keep this socially acceptable, but I think the meaning is clear.       If more people would heed this, the world might not be in such bad condition. Some might find that a bit cold…         Always read the fine print…           … and here.         “Can’t you hold it a little longer?”                 Okay, that’s enough for now. How about you? Have you seen some tongue-in-cheek signs that haven’t been overused by other blogs? I’d love to see what others can find and post! Have a great day, week, month, year… Just don’t forget to laugh along the way!

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New Prompts: Questions 3: Magic in the Air

Published by John T M Herres on August 9, 2015

Questions 3: Magic in the Air Presented by Charles Yallowitz As per his website: Welcome to the first official installment of this new thingy.  The rules are that there are no rules.  Sort of.  I think of a topic on the fly and make a post that has 3 questions.  You can answer in the comments or answer on your own blog.  If you do the latter then please pingback to this post.  Hopefully we can get some fun conversations going here.  Here we go: If ‘Fantasy Style’ magic appeared in our world, do you think it would be a good or bad thing? What would you do with your new magical powers or would you even want them? How much of a change would the introduction of magic be to our world? 1) I have to bring the gloomy thoughts: History has shown that there is no good without bad. This means that with every person bearing the peace of humanity as a motive, there are others who just want to see/make it fall apart. So, too, with magical endeavors. One can make every attempt to eradicate bad people and things, but there is always that one who doesn’t see things the way you do. 2) I would have to keep any abilities secret. I would do little things to remain innocuous, while trying to influence others into the “Treat others as you want to be treated” mentality, even if just a bit so they don’t really notice. 3)…

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Infinite Waters: 9+1 Speculative Fiction Short Stories now Released!

Published by John T M Herres on July 9, 2015

A fellow writer, Nicholas Rossis has launched a new collection of stories, called “Infinite Waters: 9+1 Speculative Fiction Short Stories“ and I wanted to give what little support I can, so am posting this for any on my list who are not following him as well. I re-blogged on The BarbarianWriter site, too. One could either follow this link to read about it in his own words, or just click here to go to the Amazon page. One is just as good as the other! What do you have to lose? Head on over! You might be glad you did! #WriteOn! — John

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