The Scribble File of Malcolm F. Cross

Sometimes, while trying to figure things out, I engage in a process I refer to as 'ToQQing', or 'Talking out quiet' - as opposed to talking out loud - to work on my thoughts. Here's an example from today where I muddle my way around…

Some writing for a TTRPG I'm running - three versions of The Little Match Girl from three different Histories - divergent timelines. And, yes, some serious inspiration for the structure of these has been taken from Book of Hours/Cultist Simulator. The Opening... A fairytale by…

(approx 1800 words, less than 10 minute's read) ‘The Boy Who Loved’. Henry hated the epithet – his classmates seemed to think it made him a hero. He wasn’t. If he was a real hero, then the world wouldn’t be full of hate, and his…

(Approx 4000 words / 20 minute's reading time) Separate art from the artist, they say. It’s the intellectual thing to do – death of the author, even though in Death of the Author Barthes told us to feel free to ignore the author’s intention, not…

‘Did it ever occur to you that the communist dictators – Stalin, Mao – adopted communism not out of an ideological love of communism, but out of a recognition that it provided a reasonable framework the working classes could trust, and that by leveraging that…