Merry Christmas!

I hope, if you celebrate Christmas, that you have a lovely day full of love, laughter, and joy. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a lovely Tuesday, which is my favorite day of the week.(I’d look a little concerned if I were the Landsquid too.)

Of Sulking Alpacas and Scones

Landsquid left his house through the front door, carrying a basket of freshly made chocolate chip scones (which are the best kind) over one tentacle. He steeled himself, then quickly hurried down his front walkway, around the fence, and up to his neighbor and arch-nemesis Alpaca’s front door. He paused for a moment, listening, but there was no movement.

Landsquid hadn’t seen or heard from the Alpaca since he had attempted to take over the blog at the beginning of June. He’d been on house arrest ever since. Oh, Landsquid had been mad at first. There’d been the whole incident with being locked in the Alpaca’s basement with the ceiling turtles. FOR A WEEK. But at least he’d had some cocoa and Cheez-Its, and the ceiling turtles weren’t too bad, as long as you ignored them trying to gnaw on your head fins.

Landsquid paused for a moment to wonder what had happened to the ceiling turtles. Were they still in the basement? Had they escaped and made their way out into the wide world to find someone else’s head to drop on, or had they infiltrated the main part of the house, where the Alpaca was forced to stay?

That could be why Landsquid hadn’t seen him in a while. Hm.

Although, if the Alpaca was dealing with a ceiling turtle infestation, he’d been much too quiet about it. Landsquid had gotten used to the loud yelling that often drifted over the fence at even the most benign of times. But now, he’d been quiet for months. Landsquid was worried. It’d taken years to build up their relationship to the proper level of arch-nemesis-ness.

Before he could chicken out, Landsquid straightened his basket of scones and knocked soundly on the front door. At first, there was nothing, but then a long, strange dragging noise, just barely audible, started towards the door. It did not sound like the Alpaca at all. Landsquid clutched his basket tighter and debated fleeing. What was that noise, all slithery and light? He had horrible visions of some sort of forgotten creature, long resting in some deep, dark place, burrowing its way to the surface.

That could also explain why he hadn’t seen any ceiling turtles either. They’d be the first–and possibly the last–line of defense.

The door opened. Landsquid drew back, ready to flee if necessary, but it was an alpaca, wearing a ridiculously long afghan. Upon closer inspection, it was the Alpaca, though his usual mustache and monocle were nowhere to be seen. Instead, along with the afghan, he was wearing some sort of bonnet, and he had a pleasant smile on his face.

“Uh,” said Landsquid, thoroughly baffled. “How are you holding…up?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” said the Alpaca. “I’ve taken up knitting, you see. Very calming. Cheap–well, for me, anyway–too. Don’t have to leave the house, even if I could!”

Around the Alpaca’s fluffiness, Landsquid could see what looked like several ceiling turtles, crawling around on the floor, of all places, wearing turtle-shaped sweaters and booties.

“You should come in,” the Alpaca continued. “I’ve just got some new yarn spun. It’s a lovely shade of light yellow. It’d really bring out your eyes.” He kind of leered as he spoke. And not the typical ‘I am contemplating great evil’ leer that Landsquid was accustomed to, but more of a ‘I have been around yarn and ceiling turtles for too long and would like to knit you into a full-body stocking from which you will never escape, and then I shall feed you bon-bons and talk to you as if you weren’t really there’ sort of leer.

“Oh, no,” said Landsquid. “I’m afraid I can’t now. I’ve got to…wash my hair. But I brought you these scones, as, you know, sort of a ‘Don’t worry about trying to conquer my livelihood and feed me to ceiling turtles’ thing, you know.” He thrust the basket at the Alpaca. “Hope you like them. But I must be going I’m afraid. Yes, yes, well, I’ll see you later.”

He backpeddled up the walk and back towards his own house. As he went, he thought he might have heard the Alpaca whisper, “Yes, yes, you will.”

Alpaca Overlord Week: Introducing Population Control

My dear minions, it has come to my attention that there are a ridiculous amount of you out there. An unsustainable amount, if you will.

Since it is my duty now to care for you, I have decided to introduce a measure of population control. Oh, don’t worry, there won’t be forced sterilization or anything like that – where’s the fun?

Instead, each of you shall be sheared (and we’ll see how YOU like it) and then you will be randomly paired against one of your fellow human beings in a death cage match, which will be televised for my llamas. And then, the winner of said match will be fed to crocodiles.

Mmmm, it will be glorious. The carnage. The blood.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be paired off against an infant, or possibly your own grandmother. And if you lose to your grandmother, well, you deserve your fate. (Your grandmother, however, may be worthy of placement within my army).

And then, when I tire of that I – hey! How’d you get in here? No! Guards! GUA-

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Let this be a lesson, Squiders – look through the front door before you open it. You never know what nefarious types may be lurking on the other side.

Luckily for everyone, it turns out that alpaca are not very big. And llamas are kind of dumb. And none of them have opposable thumbs, so I think the revolution was probably doomed from the onset.

But back to business as usual. Just a note – we’ll be moving from a MWF posting schedule to a T/Th posting schedule for the summer, starting the week of June 18th. Don’t be confused! We’ll probably go back again, come September, unless we all decide that we like the other schedule better.

Secondly, a moment of silence please for Ray Bradbury, who was a master of speculative fiction and a darn nice man to boot. I saw him a few times at San Diego Comic-con and it was always a pleasure to hear him speak. He will be missed.

Alpaca Overlord Week: My Rise to Power

Today, I will tell you, my minions, of how I overcame Kit and her accursed landsquid to rise above the odds, to conquer trials and tribulations, and to inspire you with feelings of my greatness.

And to warn you that if you ever attempt anything similar, I shall crush you underneath my hooves and destroy everything and everyone you have ever loved.

Remember: top-secret and highly-trained genetically-engineered llama spies. EVERYWHERE. Even, possibly, your cat. I will know what you’re thinking possibly even before you yourself know. SO BEWARE.

I started with the Landsquid. Oh, he thought he was so smart, sticking ceiling turtles over my fence and inviting me over to watch sporting events and drink cocoa and occasionally foiling my schemes to steal all the top hats. Thought I’d never realize what he was up to. WELL. It was easy enough to suggest we watch the game at my house instead, and then, when he came over, I locked him in the basement with all those Sky Shark-forsaken ceiling turtles.

When I close my eyes, I can still hear his cries. Delightful.

Kit was a bit harder since I am, after all, a fictional character, but luckily I’ve seen enough Star Trek the Next Generation to learn from one Professor James Moriarty on how to break the fourth wall and escape into a world one was never supposed to belong to. Bwhahahaha!

I’m sure she never suspected she’d have to contend with her own creations. That’s the only way I can explain her total lack of preparedness. After all, she created me, so one would hope she was usually more up to snuff in terms of international espionage and hostage situations.

And that, my dear peons, as they say, is that. By the by, I did not receive nearly as many tributes as I expected yesterday. You have one last chance and then – llamas.

Alpaca Overlord Week: How to Worship Your New Leader

Greetings, minions. It is I, your new overlord, the Alpaca. As is befitting my takeover of this blog (and shortly, the world), I have graciously put together this list of instructions so you may show your gratitude and awe in the most appropriate manner. Follow them, and you shall be rewarded. Disobey them, and the consequences shall be severe. Even now my network of carefully brainwashed and trained super llamas are infiltrating your every day life. You never know who could be one of them. It could be your grandmother. It could be your yoga instructor. Do not defy me.

1) There shall be no mention of my former rival.
Obviously, I have prevailed, and he does not deserve my respect. Obviously I am aware that the title of the blog remains the same. Something about passwords and firewalls and blah blah blah. I had my technician executed.

2) Everyone must learn the difference between an alpaca and a llama.
Alpaca are clearly superior, and I will not have our good name smeared by association with those callous louts.

3) No petting.
I bite.

4) All Cheez-Its are hereby banned.
Cocoa is allowed. And delicious.

5) Tribute shall be gathered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
This leaves you free on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to come here and read my wisdom, and leave properly adoring comments. Additional tribute will be accepted on Saturdays and Sundays but, at the moment, are not required. You may praise my mercifulness.

Actually, it turns out that writing out a list of instructions is all a bit tedious. I grow bored, and so I leave you with this, my peons: worship me, adore me, and do not betray me, and you will be, if not rewarded, not punished. Do what you will to ensure your safety. Further instruction and wisdom will follow. I DO expect tributes tomorrow, so do not be late.

Public Service Announcement

I’m sure you’ve all realized that yesterday’s post is a little late. There’s a very good reason for this. You see, after much thought and deliberation, I have decided to turn over control of this blog to the Alpaca and change its name to–

HELP HELP HE HAS MY CAT AND MY POKEMON AND HE SAYS

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Greetings, it is I, your new Alpaca Overlord. What Kit was trying to say is that, in her professional opinion, this blog needs a new direction. And I will give you that new direction, even if I must crush it into your puny skulls. AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.

So, please, return on Monday for our new programming. Until then, please enjoy this lovely piece of propaganda. Even young alpaca can be fearsome. You would do well to remember that.

(And if you find you still have time after that, I guess it won’t hurt to tell you that Kit has a new short story up at Turtleduck Press. Though I must say that I do not approve of the name. THEY WILL BE NEXT.)

The Lure of Alpaca Poetry

One of the nicest things about having a wordpress blog is that it tells you what search terms people are using to end up at your site. I get a lot of people looking for information on specific subgenres, quite a few hits on the Grammar Week articles, people looking specifically for me (blog name, my name, book name), and the writing craft ones seem fairly popular as well.

But the search term that gets people here most often? Alpaca poetry.

I admit this amuses the heck out of me. (The Landsquid is less pleased with this turn of events. Though admittedly “landsquid” is pulling in a substantial amount of hits itself.)

(Although, the search term that is currently amusing me the most is “fear of plesiosaurs.” I don’t even what.)

So what is it about the fuzzy and evil Alpaca (and their poetry) that not only makes the Alpaca Poetry post one of the top three most viewed here, but makes people actually search Google for it?

Is it that their propensity to steal top hats? The fact that they look dashing in a monocle and an evil mustache? Their ability to wreak havoc with their sheer adorableness?

I vote for their innate ability to be hilarious in almost all situations. The Landsquid thinks the Alpaca is merely googling himself. (If so, he does it an awful lot.)

What do you think, Squiders?

(P.S. My tablet is working again.)

The Return of the Sky Shark

All was quiet in the vale where Landsquid lived. For now, at least. You see, Landsquid’s neighbor and arch-nemesis, the Alpaca, would be over shortly. There was some sort of sports competition to be watched and, out of principle, they would pick opposing sides and insult the other’s intelligence over their choice. They didn’t much care which sport or what teams; they just liked to argue.

It kept things interesting.

Landsquid had just started setting out mugs for cocoa on the coffee table – though he didn’t know why it was called that, he never served coffee on it – when there was a commotion at the front door. Landsquid paused, glancing at the clock. It was still quite early, but perhaps the Alpaca thought it would put an interesting spin on things to come over prematurely and then complain about Landsquid’s poor hosting.

Darn that alpaca and his devious ideas!

Landsquid purposefully ignored the door and filled up the cocoa mugs. But then he got to thinking that perhaps the Alpaca would then accuse Landsquid of not being neighborly enough to open the door, and so he wandered over and threw the door open, preparing to blast his enemy with a polite, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I was in the shower.”

However, it was not the Alpaca. It was Turtleduck. Poor Turtleduck – half-duck, half-turtle, and all an aberration of nature. She had to work to stay on her two feet as the mild wind from the door rocked her shell. “Finally!” she said. “I’ve come to warn you!”

“Come to warn me!” echoed the Landsquid in surprise. “Surely Alpaca’s not up to his usual tricks right now – it’s game day!” Though perhaps the Alpaca thought it would shake things up to not show up at all, and instead steal all the top hats from the local millinery. But he rather hoped not; Landsquid always looked forward to game day.

“Oh, no,” said Turtleduck. “He was watering his begonias. But the Sky Shark has been seen in the vicinity again!” Here emotion overwhelmed Turtleduck, or at least her legs, and she tumbled onto her rump and disappeared into her shell.

The Sky Shark! Terror of the Skies! It was said that it lurked in the clouds and the treetops, just waiting for unsuspecting woodland creatures to come into range. It could smell blood from a million miles away, and it never stopped hunting.

“What will we do?” moaned Turtleduck.

“Well, come inside,” said Landsquid gently, tucking Turtleduck’s shell under one tentacle. “We’ll stay inside and let the authorities handle it. You can join Alpaca and me for the game. Who are you going to root for?” Landsquid wasn’t quite sure who was playing – or what – and hoped she wouldn’t ask.

“The authorities? Which authorities?”

“Oh, you know,” replied Landsquid, who didn’t actually know what an authority was but thought that it sounded good. Perhaps they ran sports. “Now sit down, have some cocoa, and make yourself at home while I call Alpaca and tell him to stop watering his begonias.”

The Sky Shark could wait until after the game.

2011 in review and Happy New Year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Man, where can I get some helper monkeys?

100th Post Celebration

Tada!  100 posts!  Not too shabby for me and the Landsquid.  In celebration, I give you the top 5 posts thus far:

Collaborative Writing – Characters
Outlining
Writing with a Partner – Collaborative Editing
What Would You Put on a List of the 100 Best Scifi/Fantasy Books?
Of Sleep Deprivation and Haiku

Give me some feedback, Squiders.  Would you like me to post more often?  Less often?  (Currently I’m on a MWF schedule.)  Topics you’d like me to cover?  Topics you’d like me not to cover?  How do you like the drawings?