March Madness Begins

Ever notice how in almost every magazine's writer's guidelines you'll find the ubiquitous phrase: "We want your best work." Like that's really going to stop writers from submitting shitty stuff. Or what -- are those writers with the shitty stuff only submitting to the markets that don't put that in their guidelines? Come to think of it, I think I even included that "we want your best work" line in the guidelines for the anthology. Obviously not many people followed that, but oh well.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. But last week I saw a listing for a new print magazine that plans to publish in -- get this -- April. It pays twenty bucks. Thing is, this magazine doesn't have a website, at least not one I could find. Hmm, okay. I Googled the editor's name to see what would come up, but hardly anything did. So you have a brand new magazine that you hope to publish within two months but you don't have a website yet? How, exactly, are readers (let's assume of course there are people interested in not just buying a copy, but actually reading it) supposed to order? Yeah ... thanks but no thanks.

This of course begs the question: in today's modern era, does every writer need a website? Not necessarily, though some kind of web presence would be preferable. But a magazine or publisher -- do they need a website? Um, that would be a most definite yes.

Recently I borrowed a bunch of burned DVDs from a friend of mine. Last night my wife and I watched Hostage. Or tried to watch it. Everything was fine until the very last few minutes of the movie, where it skipped to the ending credits. Nothing I could do would give us those last few minutes. I'd seen the movie before, so I wasn't too bummed, but this was my wife's first time watching it and she wasn't a happy camper. Not after investing over an hour and a half into a movie and then being thwarted out of the last couple minutes. But I guess that's just a risk you take when watching burned DVDs. If you listen carefully, you can hear the FBI sniggering ...

By now I'm sure everyone's seen that post about a bunch of famous writers' ten rules for writing. My favorite from the whole bunch is Philip Pullman's:

My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.

I have to smile every time I read that line. On a personal level I've found it to be more and more true lately, in terms of writing flash and short stories. I have fun writing them, I like having them accepted and then published, and I love when I hear from people who've read them. But honestly? It's all very distracting from bigger projects that actually carry more weight. Not that flash and short stories aren't important, but right now I need to focus on projects that will, hopefully, bring in some money. Not "proper work" yet by any means, but one can always dream.

I have some stories coming out this month, about four or five if I'm not mistaken. And looking at them, it seems these are all "realistic" stories. Or "traditional" stories. Or whatever you want to call them. Basically, if you like your stories weird and off-beat and speculative, you'll have to look elsewhere. You ain't gonna find 'em here (or wherever they're published).

The first is up today at Emprise Review. It's called "Point of View." It appears along with stories by Gay Degani and a bunch of other writers you probably recognize. My thanks to Roxane Gay and Patrick McAllaster for being kind enough to publish the piece. Later this week I'll write a bit more about where the story came from, but for now, enjoy.

Sean Penn Channels Jimmy Marcus

(In case you're wondering, this post's title is a reference to Mystic River -- the book, not the film; in the film Penn plays Jimmy Markum. And yes, this is old news, but thanks to this, it's fun to watch again.) Oh, the glamorous life of a big Hollywood celebrity. All that fortune and fame. All that power. And all that scuzzy paparazzi. Honestly, the paparazzi are the scum of the earth, but as an actor -- especially a big Hollywood actor -- you just have to ignore them. Right? Well, maybe not ...

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5fpWpXHuVo

A Little Piece Of The Beggar

Months back I showed the original artwork by Allen K for my novellette "Through the Guts of a Beggar," a piece that was supposed to appear in the pulpy monster anthology Tooth & Claw, volume 2, but never did. Then last month I showed the new cover art. Now, as the novellette is only weeks away from launching, I thought it only appropriate to provide a little bit of the beginning. (Just like David Beveridge from The Silver Ring, the narrator here is also a teenage boy; any surprise I'd originally written these in high school?). Enjoy.

*  *  *

Here’s how it starts: the phone rings and I answer.

“You’re grounded.”

I can tell by the static on my father’s end that he’s on his cell. Lying in bed, I glance at my alarm clock and see it’s almost 11:00 a.m. Four extra hours of sleep on a Friday; thank God for whoever invented parent-teacher conferences.

I yawn. “Say what?”

“Goddamn it, Josh. I knew you weren’t doing well in school, but ... this just isn’t acceptable.”

I can hear Mom in the background, telling him to settle down, to watch his language. He mutters something to her, then says, “This is your senior year, Josh, and—and you might not graduate.”

Slowly I sit up in bed. My room’s a mess: papers all over my desk, clothes all over the floor. How many times have I been told to clean everything up? Way too many, that’s all I know. Dad even told me to clean it up this weekend, and I had nodded and said sure, I’ll try, but it’s all become a charade.

“Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” I say quietly.

“Then what’d I say?”

Seems like the only person you can never BS is your old man. I try to think of something smart to say, but I just woke up thirty second ago and I’m still pretty much dead to the world.

“God, Josh, would you listen to me? I said you’re ground. That means no friends allowed over. Not even Amanda. And don’t leave the house. Just ... get your room cleaned.”

“Okay,” I mutter, because really, what else am I supposed to say?

“Okay, what?” In the background, Mom tells him to ease off, to not be so hard. He tells her to stay out of it, that he knows what he’s doing. Then: “Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“You better mind me, son. I’m very disappointed in you.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

And then he says it. No hesitation, no reluctance at all in his voice. He just comes out and says it. And truthfully, it doesn’t surprise me. Not one bit.

“God,” he says, “sometimes I wonder why we even—”

So I’m adopted. Big deal. The same goes for Tyler—only I look more like my parents. Ty’s Korean, has the tan skin and black hair. But he’s my brother, and I’ve known him nearly all ten years of his life, and I love the kid.

For one quick moment, I wonder if Dad would have said the same thing to Ty just now.

The phone starts beeping in my ear. Dad must have hung up. Pity, I think—I wanted to wish him and Mom a happy anniversary. Tell them to have a good ole time up in the Pocono’s for the weekend.

Yeah, right.

I hang up the phone. Stand up and put on a pair of shorts and undershirt from off the floor. Head out of my disaster area of a room, go to the bathroom to take a piss. Then I’m heading down the stairs and walking into the kitchen for something to drink, and it’s as I reach the fridge that I realize just how quiet the house is. The TV in the living room isn’t on, there’s no radio blaring music anywhere in the house. Ty probably went out to a friend’s, or took Laddie for a walk. Either way, I’m alone.

Right now the last thing I want to think about is everything my father was bitching about, especially what he said before he hung up, but I can’t help it; it all keeps racing through my head.

I pull out a carton of orange juice and slam the door, thinking maybe that will make everything better. It doesn’t. What it does, for some strange reason, is makes me think about Amanda, and what we’re planning on doing tomorrow.

Or, at least, what we were planning on doing.

Remember: I’m ground.

I go to grab a glass from the cabinet but then think screw it and drink straight from the carton. When I’ve had enough I set it down on the counter and just stand there by the sink. I stare out the window into the backyard.

I think about Dad again. I knew what my teachers were going to tell my parents even before they went to school today, but I hadn’t warned them. My hope was that maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

I keep staring out the window.

Amanda is stopping by later. We’re supposed to call and confirm tomorrow’s appointment, and she wants us to do it together. What am I going to tell her when she shows?

I keep staring out the window.

Maybe I’ll give Ralph a call. I’m sure he’ll know what to do. Sure, the guy’s almost seventy, but he knows me better than my parents. Hell, probably better than myself. Just our next-door neighbor, yes, but he’s pretty much been a part of the family since I was first brought home. He’s like our surrogate-grandfather.

I keep staring out the window, and this time I’m able to blink, to realize where I am and what I’m doing. Standing in the kitchen, tightly gripping the Tropicana carton, I’d been wrapped up in my thoughts, but I’d been conscious too, watching what was going on in the backyard.

Ty, my little brother, is out there with a shovel. He wore his khaki shorts today, and one of his white tee-shirts. Only now his shirt’s not so white. It’s filthy. I can see the dirt even from where I am. It covers his body, but that’s not surprising, because it looks like he’s just finished digging something up.

Or finished filling something in—I can’t tell.

He doesn’t notice me, which is probably best, because he’s crying. The sky is clear, the sun is shining, and I can see the tears as they streak down his small round face.

Then I notice something else.

The place where he’s standing, smoothing out the dirt, used to be nice and even with green grass. Now it’s completely torn up, like a dog was digging up his bone, and I suddenly realize just what it looks like, how long the dirt mound is, how narrow.

It looks like a grave.

Storytelling: To Be Read, Not Heard?

I had fun reading and posting that excerpt of The Silver Ring last Friday, and I started thinking about some other stories I'd published that I could possibly read, and immediately I realized there are two stories that I couldn't read at all, no matter how much I'd want to: “The Amazing Adventures of © and ®” and “The Killer Inside ©". Those stories cannot be read aloud for obvious reasons, but does that mean they are lacking? Storytelling, from what we're taught in school, began as a form of oral tradition. It started with Homer telling the story of Odysseus so very long ago, and through the centuries it began to change where the stories were written down. That is not to say stories aren't meant to be read aloud anymore, but a good percentage of stories and poems nowadays simply can't. Many of these would be labeled "experimental" and deal with some kind of significant change in the text. Such as poetry, or even stories, that is formatted oddly, like some kind of special shape. For some reason the author feels the work has to be written and published in that specific way.

I remember one submission I'd received for the anthology, the author complained in his cover letter (note: never complain in your cover letter) how long it took for him to format his story in the e-mail because he couldn't send a Word attachment; for some reason his "story" was twenty-five words crisscrossed as an X. It was less a hint fiction piece and more a poetry piece (at least to my eyes), and it reinforced the fact that I just don't get the reason for that type of experimental work. It sometimes seems pretentious of the author or poet, moving words around the page like that, as if by doing so gives the work more authenticity than a traditional poem or story. These poems and stories are meant to be seen, not heard, but does that ultimately mean they lack anything? Or is this simply the way literature has evolved, to cut ties with oral tradition and become a form strictly confined to text?

Keep in mind that while I occasionally enjoy playing around with nontraditional texts, I'm a traditionalist at heart. Maybe this is something I just don't "get". So would anybody be willing to please illuminate me?

Upon Getting Kicked Out Of A Nursing Home

I'm mixing things up for this week's Freaky Friday Fun. After my last post about The Silver Ring (which is now up to 221 downloads so far, thank you very much), I felt it was only fitting to read a little bit of it to y'all. (Well, the real reason is because Smashwords allows authors to post videos about their books, and I'm curious to see if a quick reading by the author has any effect.) This is my first time doing something like this, so please be gentle. And enjoy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CWP7MzMcNo