Cinco Minutos! (I don't know how to do the upside down exclamation point)

(It's like five minutes, but spicy!)

The last green until Easter courses through my bloodstream, so I'm being fancy with the word sprint. And by fancy, I mean multi-lingual.

Vaminos!

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With the gun placed to his head, Toby realized he had no choice but to write.

You know that thing you do when you have writer's block? That whole "What would I write if I had a gun to my head?" Welp, now he knows. Thanks to the worst birthday gift of ever consisting of Sharon hiring a real-life hitman to break into the house, put a loaded .380 to Toby's head, and tell him to start writing, the words flowed from Toby's fingers like they never had before.

They were glorious words, words with meaning, words with passion. They were the best words to ever be written. By Toby, anyway. He was delirious with joy and wonder. "Sonuvabitch," he thought, "it actually worked!"

Toby continued to write as though his life depended upon it, which it quite literally did. An untapped reservoir of ideas and concepts continued to fly upon the page, unbidden. He looked at what he was writing, realizing he had the bare bones foundation of a brilliant story. It would be the Great American Novel. It would be everything Toby ever dreamed he would write.

But Sharon, being a total bitch, couldn't let him have that. After an hour, the gunman made Toby delete everything he had written and then stole the laptop. Fucking Sharon.

Five Minutes to a Healthier YOU!

(OK, maybe not so much healthier...)

I got five minutes to kill, so let's sprint it up.

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Some forgettable grunge-lite pop song was playing in Eddie's head as he cautiously looked around the corner. Robbing the bank had been the easy part. The hard part was getting that goddamned Filter song out of his mind. That, and the masked idiot chasing him.

Everything Eddie'd read and seen about Spider-Man led him to believe he was fake. No one could be that stupid, but that powerful, while leaping around and shooting webs. Eddie was finding out the hard way he was wrong.

He had been wrong about a great many things over the course of his lifetime, but this mistake was going to put him away for a very long time. His uncle had gotten him out of some tight jams in the past, being a Yale-graduated lawyer, but now Eddie was looking at real time.

The judges always added extra time whenever you were brought in by one of the capes. Eddie didn't know if it was out of spite or if they thought since a super hero had to come in, that made the alleged crime more heinous. All he knew was, he needed to get the hell out of Dodge with a quickness.

Not Even For 5 Minutes...

(So much for restful sleep, ever. You're welcome.)

You like'a da word sprints, eh? The word sprints, she is a'good, no?

I give you more word sprints.

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“For the love of all that’s good and holy, if you don’t tell your insipid, whatever, friend, to stop talking this very instant, I promise you, what he will awaken to in the morning will make that scene in Godfather look like an outtake from the Care Bears.”

“Jesus, Terry. That’s kinda dark.”

“Why is he still yammering?”

“Jack, shut up. You’re hurting his nib’s feelings.”

Jack, who had been listing, in chronological order, every provable lie Donald Trump had told since announcing his presidency on that iconic escalator ride in June, 2015. He’d been talking more than an hour and had just gotten to August of ’15 when Terry reached his limit.

Terry was an effete gentleman. He was also a dangerous one. His threat to Jack wasn’t baseless; he had used that scene with the bodiless horse as the motivation for several of his pieces. Or contracted revenge murders. Whichever.

He was currently tied to a chair with a rope which, frankly, was really only there for the aesthetic. First, have you ever tried to tie anyone to anything with rope? You can never tighten it tight enough for it to do any difference. If Terry stood up suddenly, he’d be free. Plus, Tony couldn’t tie knots for shit. Second, and probably should’ve led with this, Terry is basically Superman without the moral code. Seriously. Those two idiots are about to fucking die.

Five Minutes of MAYHEM! (and word sprints)

I got five minutes, I'm stoned, and I'm near a keyboard. Giddyup.

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The man went by the absurd sobriquet of Barracuda Joe, despite being named Fred and never actually having seen a barracuda. Ever. Not even in a book or online. He had no idea it was a fish. Fred—or Joe, I guess—thought it was a bird of some sort and believed it to be resplendent. His word. Seriously. I know, right?

Anyway, Joe arrived at the address in the email at around two in the morning, several hours early. He had been taught from an early age to always respect those who want your company by arriving early, letting them know you literally could not wait until the mutually-agreed upon time. Using this logic, Joe was about to enter the home of a mob boss who was going to give Joe $100 to stand look out for a thing they were doing Thursday morning. The meeting was scheduled for 1 p.m.

Tomorrow.

Joe’s about to get his ass beat.

Timber Hawkeye: It's Not You, It's Me

(Buy this book now. Seriously. Do it.)

Have you ever noticed that the same things you consider irritatating are actually pleasant or even soothing for other people? Hot weather, classical music, laughing children, long drives, thunder storms, data entry, gardening, and so on... Those things are not the problem, you are. Someone is looking forward to what you regularly try to avoid, and what you see as the solution, someone else thinks is the complication.

When I get annoyed by someone blasting their car's stereo in a residential neighborhood, I remind myself that I used to do the same thing when I was younger. And when cigarette smoke grosses me out, I recall my own Marlboro Days until my judgy-wudgy attitude dissolves. It's important to keep ourselves in check so that we don't start thinking our way of being is somehow superior or ought to be universally practiced by everyone else.

I often say you will only be surrounded by annoying people and frustrating situations until you learn not to get annoyed or frustrated. We need to stop blaming outside forces for our own lack of internal peace. It's our personal responsibility to remain peaceful regardless of what's going on around us (not try to control everyone to live in accordance with what we think is right). 

When I talk about personal responsibility, it's not just accountability for the way our life has turned out so far, but also for the perspective from which we continue viewing the world. We need to stop expecting perfection from others because we can't possibly offer it in return. Have you considered the likelihood that someone finds your own attempts at mindfulness extremely frustrating or annoying? The windchime in your zen garden might be perceived as inconsiderate and presumptuous by a neighbor who hates the sound, or maybe your idea of "normal" is ridiculously absurd to someone else. Never assume that you are any less irritating than the people you try to avoid.

If I get aggrevated, it's because I'm the one who hasn't yet learned not to get annoyed. It's not you, it's me. You are actually my greatest teacher, and from the moment I start looking at you from that perspective, all I want to do is thank you, not kick you in the teeth :)

So let's join Rumi in that field beyond "right" and "wrong." You have your way, I have mine, and the wheels of the bus go 'round and 'round.--Timber Hawkeye

319 Comedic Fantasy Books That Are Awesome

(Should've been at least 320...just sayin'...)

I found this list on Goodreads. It's user-generated and is the top 319 comedy fantasy novels of ever, at least to this user. There are definitely some inconsistencies (all the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books are listed, but so are the anthologies; same with Robert Asprin's MYTH books), but it's still a very solid wishlist of some of the best comedic fantasy novels ever written.

300 (Seconds)!

(Tonight, we write in Hell!)

Today, it's 300 seconds of writing! Or, you know, the usual five minutes. Either way. Let's do it.

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Batman sat quietly on the fire escape, not quite sure what he was seeing.

Two men had just arrived in the alley, quickly getting down to business. The first one to talk looked to be about 5'8", 150 lbs; a skinny guy with a rat face and some serious acne scars. The other was easily 6'5" at three bills. They both spoke in rapid, hushed tones before the big one nodded and reached into his pocket.

His hand emerged and he thrust it at his smaller cohort. When he opened his mitt, there was a small rectangular piece of cardboard, almost like a baseball card. Based on his friend's smile, this was what the little guy was looking for.

The Dark Knight used the advanced optics in his helmet to look closer. It was a Pikachu Illustrator card. He knew what it meant. It meant Pokemon had come to Gotham.

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