Well-Behaved Monsters Playing With Fire
Oct 06, 2025 5:53 am
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My Exclusive Author For Today Is
Jason McGathey
The writing bug seized me at an early age and basically never let go. My goal is to write something every day, although usually, in truth, it's not even something I have to think about. So I'm easily working on stuff at least 350 days a year.
Incidentally I think the modern scholastic experience tends to make people NOT want to write and NOT interested in books. That many of us have managed to like this stuff anyway seems some sort of miracle, and was probably instilled before the system really got a hold of us, or something we stumbled onto much later. So I feel lucky to have discovered something I still really like to do, the only thing I've ever really had much interest in doing for a "job." To date I have published 8 books, which is kind of distressing, that the total is still so low, despite working on this stuff basically non-stop. But I do also maintain a couple different blogs, and have contributed to both online and print publications, in a wide variety of subject matter and styles, so this stuff does keep me busy and anything but bored.
The first time I wrote anything significant was the last day of one school year, when I came home and jotted down everything that had recently happened. This was the moment a switch flipped, where all of the talk about "someone should write this stuff down!" meaning the daily exploits of my friends and me, hilarious ideas we came up with, conversations had, and so forth, where that turned into the sudden realization that...wait a second, there is no "we" here. Writing, for the most part, is not a team sport. If you ever find yourself saying "someone should" write this all down, that someone is probably going to wind up being you.
Today, Jason is giving away his book,
Well-Behaved Monsters
Well-behaved women rarely make history...but well-behaved monsters might!
But what battleground tactics will lead them to the promised land instead? The answers to this riddle prove as shocking as the strategies employed. For they will soon settle upon a series of outrageous stunts, meant to make them stand out from the anonymous rabble - while it's true that smacking random strangers on their backsides is perhaps not as common as it used to be, most standard icebreakers have been trod so far into the ground that there's no hope of standing out otherwise. Much more original approaches are therefore required.
When some of them eventually discover what angles truly work, the results are as unexpected as their outlandish ideas. Still others will refuse to believe in their successes, despite the causes and effects parading around in plain sight. For most, however, in particular their hapless targets, once these concepts catch fire, they have considerable reason to wish this mischievous, costumed genie had never been poured from its mid-range liquor bottle. Oh, if only they could return to a quainter day, when everyone was screwing around with silly props instead! Because when it becomes irrefutable what kind of twisted behavior acts like a magnet in attracting mates, these findings are legitimately monstrous, and give everybody involved a dimmer view of human nature.
Contact me: magpiemags@ghostly.co.za