Collaboration Callout: Your "Dad Stories"

From the TNOCS Mailbag comes paternal inspiration:

Over the past month or so, several of our Awesome Contributing Authors™ ® ℠ have sent great story pitches to our Submissions Desk.

**And if you ever want to include some gluten-free waffles, that’s fine, too.**

Now, thankfully, this is not unusual – we get terrific proposals every single week. The myriad talents of our writers are what keeps our site merrily chugging along.

But what was interesting in this case was that these story ideas all involved Fathers.

Now, we’ve had some amazing Dad-centric articles in the past. And it’s nice to know that the collective is thinking about good ol’ Pop.

But these recent pitches have all noted a similar predicament:

I heard that our beloved Admin-Pup had prepared an extensive analysis of the situation. Goodboy, the virtual floor is yours: Would you be so kind as to explain to our readers the nature of this common apprehension?

“It’s too short.”

OK… Um, that’s… you mean, that’s it? That’s all?

“Essentially, yes.”

“Lots of our writers have a good story, but they didn’t think that it could fill an entire article.”

Aha. Got it. Well, never fear: I understand that we’ve had our new ‘Budget WalMart A.I. Algorithm’ working on the problem, and have a solution.

**“Great. So now, I’m ‘Wal-Mart *Budget?*‘**

Oof – my mistake Gary – I thought you were on PTO. But you’re way better at this stuff than ChatG-Whatever. What’s your plan?

“Let’s work together to make a mini-anthology.”

“Let’s hear your short Tale-O-Dad.”

“It can be funny, wistful, sad, ridiculous, puzzling, angry, a virtual dis-track, or a loving memory.”
“For you passionate music folks, maybe something about Dad’s favorite song, or how he reacted to your musical tastes?”
“A time when you benefitted from – or could have used – Pop’s wisdom”
“How you navigated the inevitable angsty teenage years together?”
“Your father’s most awfulest Dad Joke”

” *Since it’s a collab article with many authors, shorter anecdotes are preferred to make space for all.”

“Just speak from the heart – and it will be great.”

Amazing. Great idea, Gar. Let’s do it!

On Friday, June 14, we’re gonna make like a virtual Readers Digest and publish your short anecdote in a collection, along with other pieces from our authors and commenting friends.

And we’re going to open this up to the general readership, to include our beloved lurkers.

We appreciate that you come around here to laugh, learn, and read, too – and we’d welcome your story as well.

It’s easy – just send your story in text format. We’ll take care of the layout – no need for images or anything else (unless you want to include.) Send it over in an email to submissions@tnocs.com – and Gary and Goodboy will do the rest.