<![CDATA[Blood-Flavored Latte]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AJqr!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8da9fc79-cec5-4a07-a12e-f2d72545faa4_1280x1280.pngBlood-Flavored Lattehttps://www.wordsofsharon.comSubstackTue, 07 Apr 2026 08:31:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reaper in the Snow]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/reaper-in-the-snowhttps://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/reaper-in-the-snowMon, 22 Jan 2024 06:29:24 GMTThe first time I saw Death, he was hunched under the Christmas tree, rearranging the presents. He hummed while he worked. Since he looked exactly as advertised (a skeleton in a black hood), whistling was impossible. Huh. Death and I have something in common—neither of us can whistle. More than the scythe, it was this off-key tune that made him real to m…

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]]><![CDATA[I Hate AI Because It’s the Weird Artist I Never Was ]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/i-hate-ai-because-its-the-weird-artisthttps://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/i-hate-ai-because-its-the-weird-artistSat, 04 Nov 2023 05:49:04 GMTI’m kind of jealous of AI. Not because it’s fast or because it wants my job. I’m long past the age when I’ve got the energy to fight off mysterious robots for my livelihood. Your 20s is for throwing punches over a career that will leave you broke and cynical and ready to overlook the challenges of corporate America. Your 40s is for accepting all the things that led you to this point, wherever you ended up. 

To me, AI doesn’t make art look easy, it makes it look weird, in the kind of way I never learned, even as an art major. Writing AI is so buttoned up and afraid to step out of line. It doesn’t want to speculate about how or why people get murdered. It tells you not torture your characters. And no matter how hard you explain that it’s for a book, it won’t give you a single insight into how someone might hypothetically smuggle contraband into a prison. Not very writerly. I even shamed it once, telling it “You’ll never be a real writer if you can’t kill someone.” It didn’t even care!

Art AI, however, is completely unhinged and doesn’t try to hide it. It’s like the old lady ranting in the corner at Thanksgiving, her rambles being a discombobulated creepy nursery rhyme that turns out to be a prophecy about a serial killer or an ancient curse recited out of order. 

I asked AI to help me create imagery for Untitled Greek Tragedy.

Me: I need to see the inside of the Trojan Horse.

AI: Okay, I put a horse inside something. That’s what you wanted right?

Me: No. See, the Trojan horse was hollow and people hid inside it. I want to see the inside of it.

AI: Oh okay, yeah, I get it now. Inside.

Now, we’re getting somewhere. This isn’t at all what I asked for. But it put the horse in a box with no doors or windows. And took its legs for good measure. And stretched its ears out. Um…this may be a good time to point out that this horse is clearly NOT made out of wood, but alive and fully aware it’s a freak.

Me: Okay, this is still wrong, but ya know what, it’s so wrong it’s right. I love this. This is the kind of abomination I could never have thought up. But I still really want an image I can use for my short story. So I’m gonna give you a new prompt.

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]]><![CDATA[Rejection Feedback from Carve Magazine]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/rejection-feedback-from-carve-magazinehttps://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/rejection-feedback-from-carve-magazineThu, 26 Oct 2023 04:21:14 GMTWhen I submitted The Ghosts of Troy Are Laughing at You, I included Carve Magazine. One of the reasons (besides thinking it was a good fit) is their editorial board is known for being generous with personalized feedback.

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]]><![CDATA[The Ghosts of Troy Are Laughing at You]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/the-ghosts-of-troy-are-laughing-athttps://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/the-ghosts-of-troy-are-laughing-atThu, 26 Oct 2023 03:57:09 GMTThis short story was originally part of a WIP novel about a convicted murderer turned self-help guru. I wrote it as part of the main character’s back story, and when I took a horror writing class a few years later, it turned into Untitled Greek Tragedy. The assignment was to write about a character without agency and I decided to write the daydream that inspired Conroy’s sculpture.

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]]><![CDATA[Untitled Greek Tragedy: Act 3]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/untitled-greek-tragedy-act-3https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/untitled-greek-tragedy-act-3Thu, 12 Oct 2023 03:14:29 GMTAct 1

Act 2

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Black and white image of the face of a Greek statue, half of it disintegrating into a skull

Someone rolled them into the city, where victory had already been declared. Odysseus and Xander sat in their own private graveyard, watching the Trojans through cracks. Troy celebrated with wine and sacr…

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]]><![CDATA[Untitled Greek Tragedy: Act 2]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/untitled-greek-tragedy-act-2https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/untitled-greek-tragedy-act-2Wed, 04 Oct 2023 03:02:39 GMTRead part 1 here.

When Xander awoke, he had fuzzy memories of climbing blood-stained stairs that tried to throw him off. They were inside a curvy wooden box. The horse. Uneven breaks between the wooden beams let rain slip into their mobile fortress. “Where are my feathers?” he asked the others, and hearing no answer, began to search. His hands scrambled…

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]]><![CDATA[The Weight of a Happy Marriage]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/the-weight-of-a-happy-marriagehttps://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/the-weight-of-a-happy-marriageSat, 23 Sep 2023 05:07:18 GMTThis story was originally published in issue 5 of Levee Magazine in September 2020. 

Find your wife in the tangle of wires and resist the urge to dig her out. A coma doesn’t make her Sleeping Beauty. She doesn’t want the taste of you on her lips, anyway. Listen carefully to the machinery speaking over her, because it might be a clue about the future. The…

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]]><![CDATA[Untitled Greek Tragedy: Act 1]]>https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/untitled-greek-tragedy-act-1https://www.wordsofsharon.com/p/untitled-greek-tragedy-act-1Sat, 23 Sep 2023 04:55:32 GMTWhen Odysseus believed in a campaign, it consumed him. Even after fighting the same war a hundred different ways. 

Six months into the war, Odysseus announced Athena had given him a bold new approach in a dream. Xander was 19 and naive enough to think they’d been fighting a long time. Two years later they charmed snakes and sent them into Troy to bite th…

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