Coyote Christmas, a Story by Twitter

So, what's going on today?



Today, on the twitter feed, there will be a new short story.  It'll start at about noon, and end at four.  At the end of the day, all of the story will end up here, but if you want to know about it first, you'll have to visit twitter -- the twitter link is at the right side of the page.



So, subscribe while you can.  The party will start soon.



This story takes place in the twitter feed of Sean AP Ryan.  A security consultant, a mercenary, and someone who is possibly quite, quite mad. He has faced people who are NOT Fred Phelps of the WBC.  He has dangled someone off of the Empire State Building. He has bargained his way out of an LA jail.  And this is just in the short stories that have appeared on this site. (Linked to in the left hand column.)



The story is finished!  Read below the break





Coyote Christmas, a Story by Twitter



The following is from the twitter feed of Sean AP Ryan. Security consultant. Events occur in modified real time.



New client! Tiffany Stacker, Fullerton. She has $ and a problem with the neighbors. Sounds good to me. Muahaha



Humming Angels We Have Heard On High, mostly to keep from killing something. Tackiest gated community ever! Where are the pink flamingos?





Homes are pretentious. Big, trimmed in silver, columns in front of their doors … Drug dealers watching Miami Vice have better taste





Their gate has nothing No electrical shock, or motion sensors. If they think they need my expertise, they need to up their system.



Holy heck, is that a frigging coyote?





Yup, coyote. We had a brief stare down. I think we came to an agreement. Back to work



The door chime is a full orchestra Chorus of the Bells. Oh look, Christmas time, we have to show off who has the most toys. God save me.





Butler doesn't like me. Go figure. Can't guess how I infiltrated the community. after that supermax with the MS-13 guy, this is easy.





MS-13: Mara Salvatrucha. An LA / Latino gang that could give Al-Qaeda a bad headache.





This family has more dollars than sense. Foyer carpet too expensive to be near muddy boots / door. This may not be fun.





Jeeves looks like he wants to grab a can of Raid and spray me like the pest I am. Decided that would be uncouth. Gone to fetch his masters.





“His masters.” I would be better off if I cut back on the PG Wodehouse.





The client, Tiffany Stacker: bleached botoxed, augmented. Well past her exp date. She has as many original parts as 60s Disney animatronics





People outside the community are "picking on poor little boy.” Either TS spawned late in life, or hiding a middle-age loser in the basement.





Don't kill the client. I should charge her for gas mileage. Considering I basically drove an armored Hummer, that would teach her.





Calling me a rent-a-cop is like calling a mushroom cloud a really neat special effect.





Private security means that I protect against actual threats; threats that I can touch and get my hands on … preferably around their throats





Outside the house and halfway down the block. Calm now. Few people had ever heard O Come, All Ye Faithful hummed angry.





Ask me to play “pest control,” will you? Fumigate your own bloody children. Grrr.





Annoying little yappy dog that thinks it's a Doberman. New York street rats could take out this little ball of fluff and fury.





Coyote darted from bushes, grabbed dog in jaws, and RAN. I knew I liked that coyote for a reason.



At car … found someone else's car trashed. 90's Japanese POS I wouldn't be caught dead in. It would be crap against bullets. That'll hurt.





Ran into old friend: Fullerton author. Still cleaning up after that visit. Not my fault some people just leave their explosives lying around





Trashed car happens “Every once in a while,” when momma cuts off guy's marijuana allowance. The guy? Spawn of Tiffany Stacker.





Author & Friends can't join up and beat this sucker so hard, they find him detoxing in the gutter. Two reasons: one "my soul'd get sticky"



Reason 2: Car owner a (legal) immigrant. If anything happens to Mommy's Precious Little Boy, author's friend will be deported





Hmm … Are these people big fish, or is this a small pond? Author's answer: “I wouldn't say we're a pond, really. None of us are very coy.”





Considering that this is a standard POS model older than me, thus author's friend isn't well off. Also, a crappy car with a shiny radio. Hmm





Yes, I am all kinds of perceptive.





My point: wrecking a car steals most of her food money for months. Author's friend doesn't have two nickels to rub together, & he stole one.





Yeah, I'm pissed off now. When I'm done, he'll wish that he HAD been left in a gutter somewhere.





Righteous indignation? No. I drove all the way out here, might as well do something fun. Yes, my "fun" is some people's "mass murder." Heh.





Author looked me up. Asked if I'd blow up the whole community, or just small parts of it. I must find those leaks and plug them





Stacker's 1st reply on seeing me? “Don't rape me!” Please, I have standards. Give her my "hostage negotiator" smile. See if that'll work





I'm a 5'6” in Hollywierd, she thinks I approve of bullies? I want her kid arrested, in jail, then rehab, and not the Lindsay Lohan plan.





Detcord around Christmas tree = awesomeness. And property damage. A Lexus and an Aston Martin dead. Score! She said do my worst ....



Saw author again. I ruined one of her takes A trailer for her book. "Actors" paid in tacos, apparently



I ruined her trailer filming because “That explosion was you, wasn't it?” Heh. I don't self-destruct. Don't believe the internet rumors.





Curses, video on Youtube. Damn, now I need to threaten someone who owns YouTube. Google, isn't it? Hmm, did they get my good side?





The author's answer: “Well, it was hard to tell. You were covered in ash at the time.” Ah, that one. Good times.



Apparently, it's not a Christmas tree. It's a 'holiday tree.' Gated communities have planning committees. Grr.



Oh look, cops. Gee whiz, I wonder what caught their attention.



 I'm out. Payback time.



Author suggest cat treats. They are “coyote crack.” Good to know, but why is she telling me?



Her answer: “the more I help, the less property damage you'll cause.” Yeah, keep thinking that



Charlie Stacker (the son) looks like he's from an Occupy Wall Street rally: college age neo-hippie, all of his clothes bought from Old Navy.



The Son on one side of a fence, smothered in cat treats, bound in Detcord. Coyotes finally showed up. Time to chat



I “wouldn't dare” touch him. His' mommy'd sic the federal government on me. Maybe if I hadn't handed Israeli's a terrorist plot recently …



He doesn't want to go to jail, or rehab. I knew the family was stupid; but this is qualifying for a Darwin award. It's feeding time!!!



Darn coyotes won't eat him. Fun fact: coyotes don't eat the bodies of meth users. And, he has an empty house on his iPhone address book



Fourth coyote is staring at me while the others lick the cat treats up. Okay, he can tag along, but can't eat anyone unless I say. Period



Meth labs smell to high heaven, thus many are in rural areas, where other people can't take a whiff; and they can very easily be blown up.



A foreclosed house in the middle of a cluster of foreclosed houses = meth lab.



Found house. It has a guard. Tossed cat treat at guard's feet, and coyote won't go. Looking at me like I'm stupid. Thanks a lot.

Took out meth lab guard myself with the tactical baton. He has MS13 tats all over him. WTF have I gotten into THIS time?



Apparently, using illegal female sex slaves to make your meth cuts down on your risk of being blown up or poisoned by the gasses. #HulkSmash



Half a million dollars in property damage later. I feel better. Illegals cut a deal. Arrests soon now. Current tune: O Come All Ye Faithful.



The author likes my armored Hummer. She's taking notes. She's cute. Though I'm not in the market to train a new girlfriend.



Yes, I said train! Training someone to handle a gun proficiently takes work. I can rely on my girlfriend for cover fire.



Crap! People are shooting at me. MS13 has a good response time. ARs with barrel drum magazines. 200-300 shots per. God bless armored cars.



I have enough weapons in the trunk to level the surrounding area. I don't think I can talk my way out of a collateral-heavy counterstrike.



I hope this next trick works. Before you throw grenades, you throw rocks.



I tossed a bag of cat treats. Coyote jumped one gunman, I shot the other in the knees. Bad gangbanger. Sit. Stay.



FAQ: Yes, I threw someone off the Empire State Building, attached to a bungee cord. He's just lucky I remembered to attach it this time.

Hmm, apparently, a terrorist attack in Bethlehem – only a Palestinian Authority security guy had been killed.



Always nice to do a favor for someone.

Current tune: Angels We Have Heard on High, at max volume, to counter the noise of pounding from the trunk.



The MS-13 shooter in the trunk is getting annoying. When I find out who sent him, he'll be home for Christmas. In very small boxes.

Don't Panic: a writer's guide to disaster

I should start by mentioning that this is going to be less about writing disasters, and more about a character reacting to them.

My characters have all sorts of problems.

In my books, I've had people confronted with Being beaten to death, Destruction of public property, heartbreak, a small war, as well as vampires and the end of the world.

In most cases, this is easy for writers to put down. Fear is easy, everyone has experienced it in one way or another.

In my case, not so much.

There are two moments in my life that highlight the reasons my characters react the way they do.

One New Year's eve, I was over at a friend's house.  My sister decided to be helpful in the kitchen, and went to work cutting vegetables with a mandolin slicer.

Somehow, my sister managed to cut off the pad of her little finger.

The husband of the house couldn't look at the sight of blood. The wife felt immediately ill. My sister felt faint from blood loss almost instantly.

I rolled my eyes, sighed, made sure that the severed part clicked into place with the rest of the meat puzzle of my sister's finger, wrapped it, and drove her to the nearest ER.  We were seen immediately, since it was only 6pm on New Year's eve.  Midnight would have been a different kettle of fish, I'm sure.

I didn't freak out before, during, of after the incident. I was mostly annoyed that the evening might be shot to hell.  I went out into the parking lot with my cell phone and started calling people to wish them all a happy new year.  It took about 90 minutes for my sister's nine stitches to put her back together again. And a fun time was had by all.

And this isn't gloating. This isn't "I kept my head while others lost theirs!" moment. This was a moment of irritation, annoyance, and "Damnit, I have to play ambulance driver? Really?"

Now, you could say this happened to someone else. so why should I worry.

Then there was the time I was accused of being a terrorist....
[more below the break]

Terror is also a form of communication: Intimidating Characters

When I write a character, I like to have them a little vague.  This doesn't necessarily mean that they're all mysterious.  In fact, one of the most vague characters in A Pius Man, is the most blunt, and the most straightforward, and the person who's seemingly the most willing to tell you exactly what's on his mind.

Sean A.P. Ryan: mercenary,self-described cleanser of the gene pool, and he lists his resume in terms of property damage and body counts.

While blunt, Ryan doesn't necessarily have to be evil. After all, you have comic book characters like Wolverine who slash hordes to pieces all the time, and his kill count is probably somewhere in the thousands by now ... assuming he doesn't get rebooted into being a hippy....

But I digress.

However, in the case of Sean Ryan, he's working for the Vatican ... he's supposed to be training priests and nuns in nonlethal combat.  His third scene in the novel has Sean crippling an opponent -- not many people recover well from a shattered kneecap.

And people wonder why I make the Pope a suspect in A Pius Man ... if he's hired this lunatic, almost nothing could be put past him.

But, do you necessarily need violence for a good, intimidating character?  Heck no.  All you need is the implication that there will be very, very, very bad things that happen if someone crosses him/her.

Frankly, all you need is a reputation.

For example, take a clip from the tv show Doctor Who -- a series about a time traveling alien (there's a reason why there are Romans and spaceships in the same scene) ....

[more below the break]

"Where do they get those wonderful toys?" The Weapons of A Pius Man, an Illustrated Guide

The Weapons of A Pius Man: An Illustrated Guide