Tag Archives: Daniel Berenson

Freak Speak

Daniel’s First Attempt at Flash Fiction. See what you think.

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Yes, I know this is a shock. “What the #$%&@#%$ happened to Dr. Crankenfuss? He looks awful!” you’re saying. “Was he in some kind of industrial accident?” Well, no, the Crank is fine. That’s not Dr. Crankenfuss on the left at all. It’s me: Daniel Berenson, the head guy at Freaky Dude Books and the dude who’s nice enough (so far) to lease some space in his head to the good doctor.

And now you’re no doubt thinking, “Just look at him! What’s he got to smile about?” Well, a lot actually. My books are getting more noticed, all the reviews (over 40 of them) are 4 or 5 starred (except for one). I’m in the middle of editing and formatting my sixth book, a poetry book by and for kids, and it will be coming out in September. Also I’m happy to announce that I’ll be giving away a bunch of free stuff in the next few weeks so keep checking back or you might miss it.

But as the title of this post states, this is my first stab at Flash Fiction, which is literature for the Twitter generation, I guess. I entered a contest. There were five categories — stuff like “Write a murder mystery that has a party in it and doesn’t have over 50 words, including the title,” or “Write a romance with a horse in it somewhere. 45 words max.” I chose, “Write a children’s poem about The Adventures of Max Little. It has to involve bravery or courage and can’t be over 40 words, including the title.”

Here was my entry:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Max Little wanted dinner:
Something like himself.
So he scuba dove
Down to an ocean shelf.

He battled squid and octopi.
He survived, but with a limp.
But Max got his dinner —
Tasty jumbo shrimp.

Total = 40 words

Was I pleased with myself or what? A sure winner, I thought. Okay, it’s not aimed at kids exactly. Would most children get the exact parallelism between “Max Little” and “jumbo shrimp”? Did the contest judges? But fighting squid and octopi? Hey, that’s very courageous. Remember that big squid — or was it an octopus? — in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That guy was ginormous.

Long story short. (Ha, ha. See how I incorporated the essence of Flash Fiction into those three little words?) I LOST. “No, no way!” you say. WAY! Anyhoo, it’s they who have truly lost. Now I have the rights to this poem and it will be my first entry in my Flash Fiction oeuvre. And I’ll add it to my Poetic Poetry page. Now it’s time for my next self-imposed challenge: Dinner for two within one hour using only chicken, oleomargarine, and mosquito repellent. Ooh, Maureen’s gonna love this!

Freak Speak

An Incredibly Intense Passage

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Daniel Berenson here. If you’re looking for Dr. Crankenfuss, I’ve taken the liberty of moving him down the page today because it’s time for this week’s Sunday Snippet for Weekend Writing Warriors. Be sure to visit the Warrior site and look through all the contributions there. Some interesting stuff, to be sure.

The passage that follows is from FIREBUG, a published novel by Daniel Berenson of Freaky Dude Books.

Setting the scene: Eleven-year-old Curtis is playing with matches in his grandpa’s tool shed. He has just shot a lit match toward an open-mouthed jar. His aim is perfect. A direct hit.

The jar exploded into dust, and with it, the world.

The white blast enveloped Curtis, devouring him in pure, searing energy. Hot needles pierced his body and face and he went blind as he was blown backwards. He was somehow aware of electricity, light yellow dots slamming into him like Uncle Joe’s soldering iron, turning creamy liquid and soaking him in a rush of tweezers tearing at every pore in his skin. His body shrieked.

Time stretched thin and strong as spider silk, dragging him through black tunnels of razor wire slitting his every nerve. No thoughts… just pictures and pain, pain, pain without understanding… everywhere the feel of ground glass… power saws ripping through lips… electric piranhas… sparks of light piercing his eyes… there was something ahead of him… the house… the house was in front of him… now the ground… now the sky… his skin being ground between Indian arrowheads… the ground melting into his face… his nostrils filling with burnt meat… infinitely tiny bullets shooting into him everywhere… his hair… his hair?… HE WAS ON FIRE!
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Thank you and now it’s time for your usual host, Dr. Crankenfuss.
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News from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Well, that was sure pleasant!
Thanks, Daniel. Now I’m really steamed! I’m trying to run a humor site for you and you post stuff like THAT? How can I top that? By jumping out the window? Hey, I could try that, seeing as how we’re on the first floor here. But it still wouldn’t be anywhere near as gross.

Man, after that intro, I think I’ll just fill all of you in on the news:
Daniel’s novel FIREBUG, the book where he got that piece at the top, is getting nice reviews at Amazon. There are only nine so far, but they’re almost all 4 or 5 stars. Daniel got a bit upset with the one 3 star review, but I helped him get over it by making him practice the karaoke number he’s doing tonight at a party. He’s singing, well, butchering Hard to Love by Lee Brice. After he saw and heard his performance on the computer, he felt a lot worse than he did after seeing that review. He’s trying to figure out how to create some kind of six-hour virus to get out of tonight.

Also he released LOVE THUG at Amazon last week and it already has a few reviews. Well, I exaggerate. Two, actually, but both of those guys bought the book at least. And both of them gave him 5 stars. I told him, “Daniel, books are like doctors. They take patience.” He tried to slap me for that one, but he got himself in the head instead. (Now that’s what you call an inside joke, people.)

Anyway, he’s still trying to give out a few review copies of both books in return for honest reviews. So if you know anyone who’s interested, after reading the sample of the book at Amazon, send him a message here and tell him how to get in contact with you.

Talk to you soon. But I hope it’s after a somewhat lighter piece of work than Daniel gave you today. I’m still a bit freaked out.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Here’s my latest for WeWriWa AND DANIEL HAS A NEW BOOK

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Yo, peeps,
It’s the good Dr. Crankenfuss here. But today I’m here to give the top part of this page to Daniel — That would be Daniel Berenson, the guy who started Freaky Dude Books — so he can show the Weekend Writing Warriors a piece of his mind, I mean work.  Here, according to him, is the first few lines of the first book he ever wrote. That would be a very long time ago. It’s not published yet, but that will change, if you can believe him.

My name is Willie and I want to be famous. Really famous. Big-time famous. That’s my goal. Get my name in the papers, online, TV, have people ask for my autograph, or ask me to pose with them so they could prove to their friends they’d really met me. Someone might ask me to sign my name on their arm with a marker and then they wouldn’t wash it for like ten years. When I made an appearance, paparazzi would stampede like those crazy bulls in Spain to get my picture. But I’d be safe cause one “stop it” motion from me and they’d get all quiet and obedient like they were in church.

Whatchall think? Not too upchucky, is it? Anyway, now it’s my turn, but I’m still gonna talk about Daniel.

Humor Big News Post from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

BIG NEWS FROM FREAKY DUDE BOOKS LAND:
Daniel has just put out another book! It’s called LOVE THUG and it tells what happens when this honor student type kid tries to go gangsta to win this girl away from her punk jivin’ boyfriend. I don’t know about this. I mean that’s quite a morph for anybody. I gotta admit, it’s for a good cause. This girl is supposed to be like scaldin’ hot. But then again, won’t her main dawg be kinda hot when he finds out?

Well, for you to find out, go check out the book at Amazon. Here’s the
link.

This is Daniel’s fifth book and he’s already working on his next one. He’s hoping it’ll come out this summer. It’ll be the last 150 pages of those lines at the top of the page.

Talk to you soon.

Oh, yeah. ‘Grats, Daniel.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Daniel and Maureen’s First Dance Video — It’s kind of… oh, you decide.

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Humor Post #92 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Hello out there, all you dance lovers. Okay, if you’re not dance lovers, maybe you like to look at strange videos. In either case, I’m here to announce a dance video that’s kind of bad and funny at the same time. See, Daniel (the guy who runs Freaky Dude Books) thinks he can dance. He can’t, but I try to humor him when he shows me his new moves. You know how embarrassing it is to see your parents dance? Well, that’s how it is for me watching Daniel.

Anyway, he and Maureen have posted their first West Coast Swing dance video. You can find it here. Daniel says they’re the ONLY author/illustrator dance couple there is so it doesn’t matter if he’s not that good. He says it’s like watching a dog dance. “You don’t criticize it for its style,” he says. Yeah, I guess that’s true, but I have to say that the dog might be the better dancer.

I had a hard time believing there weren’t any other couples like that so he challenged me to find any others. So if you’re a couple of dancers who write and illustrate together, please let me know cause I don’t want to spend any time trying to find any. But I’d sure like to prove him wrong. (It’s always fun to prove an adult wrong.)

So check it out and let me know what you think. Maybe I have this all wrong and he’s the new Chris Brown and she’s the new Beyonce. Yeah, and my raps are better than Andre 3000’s.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

THE MOOSE HAVE BEEN LOOSED!

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Humor Post #82 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Somebody once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Well, besides the fact that this dude was wrong — hey, I just watched the Giants crush Green Bay Sunday night and that was new — HE WAS REALLY WRONG! There is something like totally new under the sun ready to make its appearance. You know, like no one’s every heard of it or thought of it before. That would be Daniel Berenson’s books of MOOSE JOKES. Notice that the word “book” is plural. He’s publishing two of them in the next couple weeks, but to get a sneak look at what’s coming, he and Maureen (his girlfriend who does so much work and gets so little credit) have put out a preview on the new Moose Jokes page at FDB (that would be Freaky Dude Books).

So check ’em out and see what you think. Daniel says they’re kind of like elephant jokes, which apparently were kind of big back in ancient times, but he says people like moose a lot more than elephants and their breath isn’t as bad.

Yeah, I know. I don’t get everything he says either even though he’s like my bro and all. But I have to say he tries.

Talk to you again soon as Daniel lets me know something that I think’s worth hearing.

Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss