ApocaLit Fridays: Issue #29

Hello Horde

Welcome back to ApocaLit Fridays; Apocalypse-writing's bi-weekly roundup filled with news, information, features and updates on things ..... well, apocalyptic and literature in nature (hence the clever name ).

In honour of our 300th member, we are holding a contest; The ABC’s of the Apocalypse. Check out the official journal for all the details!

This week we have the usual Group, Affiliate and Lit Community updates, as well as "What to Watch/Read/Web".

Fun Fact Friday: A Rubik's Cube has 4,325,003,274,489,856,000 possible positions.

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Group Updates

Our weekly prompt is Flash Fiction Month. The deadline is this Saturday 12 July 23:59 EDT.

Check out our Newest Members for June.

We are still seeking prize donations for our contest. If anyone would like to donate prizes, then send us a note. We would be most appreciative of any donations. Also If you would like to donate points, feel free to do so here.

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Affiliate Updates

AnotherContestGroup announces their June Winners Package Results.

Authors-Club has July Butterflies and Updates.

CRLiterature’s July Book Club is The Thief Lord.

communityrelations have been a busy bunch (as usual), posting the June Fan Fiction Contest Winners, the Did You Know? FAQ, Challenge Fun #9, Forum Features #45, Project Reveal .01, announces their Rewriting Cliches Fan Fiction Contest AAAND July Literature Newsletter.

Horror-Writers-Unite have hired a new Prompt Idealist; EskeltheIceMaster and have begun posting their July Prompts.

House-of-Playwrights posts their latest prompt; Standing on Principle and would like some Urgent Help on a Parody Project.

InspireTheUninspired has News & Article Feature 01, announces the Winners of their fortnightly prompt contest, and posts ITU Feature 25.

Nurturing-Narratives shares How OVERobsessedBOOKWORM Writes and Monthly Feature #3.

PoeticNation’s latest prompt is Arrogance.

Short-Stories has a Small Update.

SixWordStories updates their Versicolor Project, has Weekly Spontaneity 117 and are running a 7 Deadly Sins Project.

theWrittenRevolution updates their July Prompt and has Publishing Opportunities 16 and 17.

Unseen-Writers theme of the week is Discovery and the Monthly Challenge is Faster Than Light.

Writers--club posts A General Apology, advises of Critique Program Changes and a change to their Critique Folders.

WritersInk have their usual Weekly Roundup and have a discussion on The Mighty Notebook.

Writers-Workshop posts their July Workshop; Flash Fiction Month.

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Lit Community Updates

Previous Affiliate and Lit Community Update.

dA-Groups-Exchange are now Officially Open. They are a brand new group dedicated to rescuing unwanted deviantART groups from abandonment and/or 'unnecessary' closure.

projecteducate have posted a considerable amount of journals (far too many to list here), so make sure to head on over and give them all a good once over.

chromeantennae posts the latest Adjusting the Antennae.

HugQueen has the latest Love dA Lit!, Love dA Lit Loves You #6, and her six monthly literature news roundup Lit me explain u a thing Jan - June 2014.

The current volume of LadyLincoln’s Ladies of Lit is up!

neurotype-on-discord regularly updates A Smattering of Lit News.

SpriteBlayde also has the latest volume of The Ink Stained Quill.

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ApocaLit Features

This week’s features are a selection from Flash Fiction Month Day 8. The challenge for that day was "write a story in first person in which the narrator thinks they are witnessing the end of the world".

The Sky Colors RedI didn't remember when it had happened. I don't remember much actually. I know my name. I know meteors keep falling from a blood red sky. I remember ... I remember waking to a meteor crashing into my house. I awoke to people screaming in terror. Meteors burn in the atmosphere before landing, don't they? So, why are they so big? 
They're eggs. 
The meteors are not space rocks. They're eggs. Alien eggs. Okay, I wouldn't exactly call them eggs. A full grown alien comes out of them not a cute baby worm. I step outside to see the damage of the world. Houses burned to the ground, people had returned to their savage ways. Food was scarce. And I ... I walk on. The aliens prowl along the roofs of houses, watching, waiting until I make a wrong move. They are the watchers and guards. Killing off humans that they see fit to eliminate in this new world order. It's not exactly the end of the world, but its the end of the world as we know it. The humans. 
Maybe it won't be so ba - by Gingersanps

The Final BattleI was cooking myself some dinner when the world ended.  The pork chops sizzled on the stove, slowly turning from hot pink to golden, and nightfall was fast approaching.  Through the kitchen window, I watched the sun sink lower and lower, closer and closer to the horizon.
Scraps sat by the door, barking occasionally as if trying to talk to me.  He watched me cook, his head cocked to the side, silently begging me for a taste--I did name him Scraps for a reason.  When the pork chops were done, I removed them from the stove and inhaled their delicious scent.
"Oh, all right, boy," I said and tossed him one.
My stomach began to growl angrily with hunger.  I quickly devoured two pork chops and stored the rest in my fridge.  Scraps had begun barking again, but his barks took on a different tone; he thought something was out there.
I approached the window and peered through it.  Nothing looked out of place; birch trees dotted the yard, a light placed un - by SurrealCachinnation

FFM 2014: Day 8 ChallengeI plugged into the a multi-level platform of folded no-space that was my home-station and checked the feeds for the hundredth time to see if there had been any change. Number scrolled across my eyelids in a series of infinite variables, endless, beautiful, useless.
The Code, was all that mattered anymore, and the Code was missing. Years spent hunting it down and deciphering fragments, and this morning it had vanished, removing itself completely from every system in the city.
I’d been watching it for weeks, interpreting scraps of information that were fed down through the proverbial grape-vine, picking up the subtle intimations that something big was headed our way, though the exact nature of the event was unclear.
Those of us in the city who knew where to look had been exchanging information at an unprecedented rate, trying to figure it out, but all we’d been able to get was a timestamp of some kind, set for 18:00hrs today.
Time was almost up.
One more reel through the code - by The-Inkling

FFM Day 8- Challenge    The grass was wet beneath my feet. I had stopped walking. The moon cast a pale pink glow over everything. She was looming, huge and bloodied, up from behind a dark hill. She wanted to eat me, bite into my eyes like the sun did. The grass bit into my feet. I had been walking while my hair greyed and my skin shriveled; I was not sure why. I watched the stars move above me, new lights replacing those who faded away. I walked over ground that shrank and broke apart as I walked over it. As I walked, I moved across time. I forgot my name.
    I wondered if I were a man who had found hell. It felt like hell. The only words that had any meaning for me now were the last words I had ever spoken. Back when I had people to speak to, before I had walked out of a grave and into a torment of endless walking.
   “I know how the world will die,” I had said.
    I did not know if I had been lying or not, but I had sounded confident. I had told ever - by IntelligentZombie

ApocaLapsed Now“Um, Sandra,” said my husband Richard, absentmindedly scratching at his moustache as he came in from the garden. “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have just gone down the street. Apparently the end is nigh.”
I dropped my mug of tea. “Oh, dear God!” I yelled. “And I haven’t been to confession since 1986. Come on!”
I grabbed his hand and we ran out together into the sunshine and set off down the road. It was hard to believe on this lovely spring day that the world was about to end, but there indeed were the horsemen ahead of us.
“This way!”
I pulled Richard with me down a side street and we headed towards St. Timothy’s. It took only ten minutes to reach the church but it seemed we were already too late. The queue of people waiting to be shrived was down the street and round the corner.
“Shall we wait?” panted Richard.
“No…” I wheezed. “No… try… St. Benignus’ - by SCFrankles

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What To Watch

H.P. Lovecraft: The Lurking Fear Pts 1 & 2 by director/writer/animator Eric Koenig (The Simpsons).

"The humor of Buster Keaton, the adventure of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the terror of H.P. Lovecraft."

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What To Read

The Remnant: Into the Collision by P.A. Douglas.

"t has been months coming and it is finally here. Astrologers have predicted that the meteors aren't going to hit. But that fact doesn’t help much for the fear filled panic that floods the streets worldwide in the weeks leading to the catastrophic boom.
Forced out of his home by the chaos and rioting, Byron Russo finds himself on the run. All of the survival horror novels that he has read tell him to stock up and lay low. In the process of raiding supplies at a local grocery store Byron bands together with an unlikely cast of characters.

But surviving the panic is the least of their worries. After hunkering down at the Templeton Factory where Byron works, the worst has only begun.

The meteor shower strikes the moon, shifting it off its natural axes. The moon is larger. The floods have started. Plant life is dying. And the oxygen levels are changing.

No one can breathe.

With the use of the factory supplies will Byron and his new friends survive the new world, or will they fall to a much darker element that lurks in their own backyard?"

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What To Web

The 11 Creepiest Places on Earth.

"From unexplainable phenomena to eerie abandonment, these creepy places are sure to make you shudder."

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Resources

- Group featuring and promoting long-form fiction, novels, and on-going serials.

- A group for browsing for/or advertising your books.

- A group for writers seeking to be published and for publishers seeking writers to publish; poetry, prose and fan fiction; horror, science fiction, fantasy and romance, manga, comics and cartoons.

IrrevocableFate's Love dA Lit - latest issue
DrippingWord's Let’s Talk Writing - latest issue
The Ladies of Lit - latest volume
CRLiterature’s Literature Articles You Should Know
Breaking in to Lit!
Expose-Lit: Your Literature Lifeline
Tips For Young Writers
How to get more views on your Literature
'PinkyMcCoversong's Writing Resources for Noobs (and not-so-noobs)
3wyl’s Constructively Comment in 5 Quick Steps
How to promote other peoples work
Forum on How Publishing Works
=julietcaesar's List of Useful Writing Blogs
#deviantHEART's ARK Project
ezradeacon's LITany of Resources

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We hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of ApocaLit Fridays. Make sure to join us again next issue.

Would you like to contribute to ApocaLit Fridays?

Have some apocalyptic lit, tips, flicks, or general awesomeness you would like to see included in the next issue? Then send us a note with all the details and we’ll include it (along with full credit where credit is due of course!)!

The deadline for these is no later than Thursday 12:00 noon (EDT).

Until next time, Dear Horde. Stay frosty.