C Alan Morgan(he/him)
@c-alan-morgan
I’ll think of something later
That feeling when you have a dread fear of the dentist, and you have to have a root canal.
6
2The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true. Now, get the fuck out of my brain!
I don’t need a dominatrix to fulfill some unspoken emotional need or repressed desire for kinky, psudeo-sexual gratification. No. I need a dominatrix who will make me sit down and fucking write. Though it would be nice if she dressed in leather, spiked boots, librarian glasses, carried a riding crop, a red pen for editing, and spoke with a posh British accent. The more I think about it, the more I realize this could be an untapped market.
People may talk about how the world is separated by politics, culture, music, fandom or nationality, but I believe the biggest thing dividing humanity is our Individual preferences in baked goods. There are two basic types of people in this world of ours: Cake people and Pie people. To which tribe do you belong? Speaking for myself, I am a pie person. If given a choice between the platonic piece of cake and the platonic piece of pie—I’m taking the pie. There are however three notable exceptions to that rule: Tres Leche Cake, Black Forest Cake, and my mom’s homemade Pig Pickin’ Cake, which is to this day one of my top three favorite desserts of all time. The other two being my mom’s Peach Cobbler (Pie Adjacent) and her Banana Puddling. Edit to add: For purposes of this discussion New York Cheesecake is counted as a pie.
5
4Well, this is the most frightening thing I’ve seen on my FB feed, like, ever. I guess we all live in the Republic of Gilead now.
Talk in the farmhouse’s cozy kitchen turned, as it did most mornings, to whatever VFW drama had unfolded the night before. They traded stories over mismatched mugs: the drunk mortal who’d gotten handsy with Riley and been thrown out on his ear, which Einherjar had driven Old Bill home after last call, and the latest round in Milligan’s ongoing feud with his two-time ex-wife, Sharlene. With the exception of Dakota, third of the Nine and responsible for running Odin’s Hall while the two eldest were on tour, not a single Valkyrie was happy with the new schedule she’d posted. The twins were especially sore about it, stuck working both the Wednesday‑night all‑you‑can‑eat spaghetti dinner and the Friday‑night fish fry. Screw that. Carrie-Ann spoke up and told them they should be grateful they weren’t working Karaoke Tuesdays, and that she’d gladly work every Friday from now to Ragnarök if it meant she never had to hear Ivar Hoarbeard try to belt out Friends in Low Places ever again.
2
3I’m starting to realize why outlining a story is so important. This whole stream-of-consciousness, make-it-up-as-I-go-along thing I’ve got going on, does not a cohesive narrative make.
Explain to me why, why I can imagine a scene in my head in its near totality: characters, setting, dialogue - everything but the moment I go to write it down, I loose all cognitive function?
5
1Good morning. Soda Pop Falls Sody Pop Falls Which do you like better as a natural feature in a rural Appalachian fantasy setting?
6
5…despite Misti-Fae packing enough food in her Yeti to last a week—never mind the two days they were actually camping—they still had to make an emergency stop at the Kroger in Baldur’s Crossing, because, as any mom will tell you, no meal plan survives first contact with a pair of seven-year-olds, Dwarven or otherwise. Lexi and Livi, of course, wanted Hawaiian chicken—and they were adamant that only pineapple rings would do. Cubes and crushed were completely unacceptable. Misti-Fae didn’t know which was stranger: that the twins thought canned pineapple counted as camping food, that any Dwarf would prefer chicken to “red meat off the bone”—roast elk, in this case—or that she—a grown-ass Valkyrie—was letting herself be culinarily bullied by a pair of pint-sized dwarflings. 🤷 I suck at this whole writing thing…
PSA: I just saw Andrew Tate in my people I follow/subscribed list over on Substack. To be clear I would never, ever, not in a million fucking years follow that redpill-scumbag-POS. I blocked him. But how he got on my follow/subscribed list I do not know. So if you’re on Substack check your follows/subscriptions to make sure Substack isn’t auto following/subscribing to him on your behalf.
9
2The next chapter of my story opens with the three main characters sitting around a campfire talking about things that 18 to 20 year old kids from rural Appalachia talk about round a campfire. The problem here is that I, a man in his mid-fifties, have no idea what kids that age actually talk about.
4
3I had the weirdest dream. It was about a haunted house located somewhere called Muscadine County. That’s an amazing damn place name. But is it located in Appalachia or Florida? IDK? 🤷♂️
4
1How important is food in your writing? I like to imagine that every dish I write about in a story one day gets a recreated on Binging with Babish.
4
5Mini-character sketch. Geraldine “Dina” McCaul became matriarch of her family following her grandmother Gretchen’s death. With that came the burden of a title carried by the head of the McCaul clan since the early eighteenth century — Hope on the Mountain. Like every McCaul matriarch before her, Dina is a type of mountain witch known as a granny — a term marking knowledge and practical wisdom rather than age. At only twenty, she is the youngest Hope on the Mountain in nearly two centuries. She moves between two worlds: one grounded in science and medicine, where she works full‑time as an ICU nurse at Midgard County Medical Center; the other rooted in the supernatural and the mountain witchery her family has practiced for generations. Quietly, she wonders which world — if either — she truly belongs to. One thing she knows for certain: when neither science nor spellwork can solve a problem, a shotgun usually can. The McCauls make their homes up on Buck Knob.
Mini-character sketch. Alvis “Junior” Jarl belongs to a small, stubborn community of Dwarves who answered the call of Odin All-Father and followed the Aesir and Vanir from their other-realms to settle in Midgard County, West Virginia. The Jarls put down roots in Coal Creek, where their family business—Jarl Family Auto Salvage and Custom Body—has become as much a landmark as the surrounding hills. These days, Junior runs the yard under his father’s watchful eye, while his older sister, Dagma, has traded coal dust for concrete, serving as facilities manager at an automotive plant in Cincinnati. As the eldest son, Junior is heir to the family’s ancestral weapon: a massive tire iron known as Hjólbrjótr, or Wheel-Breaker. It was forged in the fires of Nidavellir, quenched in the waters of Urðarbrunnr… and anointed with WD-40. Junior has won “Best Mullet” three years running at the Midgard County Fair. He’s very proud.
The German word for witch is Hexe (HEK-suh) The Pennsylvania Dutch shortened the word to Hex, and it is used as both a noun and a verb. So, a person who uses dark magic is a hex, and they hex people by placing a hex on them. You have to appreciate German efficiency. A Pennsylvania Dutch variant of the word is Wedderhex (VED-er-heks), which could simply mean a witch, or a specific type of witch that specializes in weather based magic. Edit to add: The German word for a male witch is apparently Hexenmeister, which just sounds cool.
11
10I’m working on developing the antagonist for the next chapter of my story, an Appalachian mountain witch born with a clubfoot. I decided that, rather than making her Scotch-Irish, she should be of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, Amish to be specific. So, I started looking into popular Amish surnames in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It turns out the most common name in the region is Stoltzfus, which translates to “proud foot.” Ok. My first thought, of course, was the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring, when the one hobbit shouts “Proudfeet!” My second thought though, I can’t really name a woman marked as belonging to the devil because of a clubfoot, Proudfoot… or can I?
5
1