Battle Royale:

A Tale Concerning This Blog & Two Flash Fiction Chapbooks

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

One thing that has kept me from writing more posts lately is that I am still trying to decide what direction I want to go with this "thing." I want to choose a topic and then start focusing on blog entries on that topic, instead of just writing about my writing.

I haven't really been able to nail a topic down yet, so I guess I will just continue doing what I have been doing, and just continue writing about whatever is on my mind at the time, and in the format that I choose in the moment.

I don't know if you would say that it has necessarily been working for me yet, but I am bound to turn the corner sooner or later.

***

I don't know. I guess it will also depend on what I am doing next fiction-wise, and we'll for that we'll just have to see after these flash fiction chapbooks come out, which I hope people enjoy. At the very least, they are both quite short and not that expensive, so I am bound to get some takers, sooner or later. I have at least sold a few books over the years, and have gotten okay ratings so far. Definitely stuff I can build on---I only hope I have been reading my audience right with the two distinctive directions I am going. I have also had a few things published online and even some stuff in print---so that will also factor into my decision-making process.

Perhaps I will decide what to do after they both come out, and see which direction goes the best. That seems like a logical way to go about it.

So I guess that means, to whichever direction wins!

The second cover is tentative only and is a stand-in for the cover that my brother is designing. He is very talented so I am sure it will look way cooler.

Either way, I suppose I will just have to be happy with what happens between the two chapbooks. Knowing my luck, there will not be a clear difference, and I will be in the same position. Who knows. So far my best rated, most downloaded story is more the first one, but pretty much all of the flash fiction I have gotten published by others is more like the latter.

I also have two short stories finished that I can get out there. The first is around 3,500 words and the second is around 2,000. The first one has been six years in the making, and the other has been six months.

They are also somewhat representative of the dichotomy of the two flash fiction collections, so I guess they are also somewhat of a test. Both I hope to get published online, in magazines or possibly literary journals, but we'll see what sticks.

***

By the way, this is my second blog post IN ONE DAY! Would you have a look at that?! I haven't been this blogtastic in a while.

I see it as a good thing, and I hope you agree. If not, I don't give a shit, so you'll be hearing from me soon---unless, of course, you just decided to start ignoring this page entirely.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.

Pop Art Coffee Table Books and Other Pretentious Garbage

Over the course of the past year, I have been compiling the series of blogs that I wrote through grad school so that I could publish them as the first release of my still as of yet unnamed publishing company.

That's right, you read that correctly. It probably won't come as a shock to many, but I figured that I need to up my game another level if I am going to build an audience, and in order to do that I have to do as legitimate publishers do--but in my own special way that will hopefully make me stand out.

Anyways, since this "first official release," Out in the Fringes: Musings, Witticisms, and Random Insanity, is mean to represent everything this blog has been about over the years, it should be fun to read; and, since grad school was a strange period in my life, it will also be interesting to see how my thought process shifted over that time.

While it will be a little edited (in the context of putting together a compilation and wanting to fix grammar and typos and what not) my goal is to produce the text relatively as-is, and put out a sort-of coffee table book that is pretty to look at and intended to be read in short sporadic bursts. Kind of a pop-art conversation piece.

In general, my goal is to publish more frequently and more in-tune with what I want to accomplish as a writer rather than what other people think or are doing.

Since I am doing it as a hobby, it opens the door for more creativity. I see it as an opportunity to stretch my boundaries using what means I have available, to experiment like I don't have anything to lose.

Really, I don't, since I gain so much from the process. For me, that's what it's all about, for better or worse, which is why I am leaving you with "Destroyer." Failure, while painful at the time, can make for great art and entertainment.

Stroking My Ego: A Retrospective

So, I wrote this story in a fiction writing class like four or five years ago.  At the time, I was going to college and studying literature, and falling in love with just everything that I was reading and everything that I was experiencing in my life. My then-fiance and I had just settled into a shabby little house on a hill. We were planning our wedding and really basking in the glow of our recent romantic adventures. A funny thing happens when you are feeling what you interpret as success: you start to get all nostalgic, you start living in your own history and constantly stroking your own ego. You develop your own mythology.

This story, in particular, was also none other than the story where I figured out how I wanted to write. Originally titled, "Drowning," I of course thought highly of it, even at the beginning, even though, you know, it wasn't perfect.

It started with a different ending than it has today--one that didn't really work--but then someone in my workshop suggested that I change it and, kind of, you know, make it the natural result of everything that happens in the story. While that might seem obvious, as it probably did to that person, it was a revelation to me. Prior to that, I had been coming from a more Absurdist school of thought. "The Sign," as it is called now, was my first real venture into any kind of realism.

While it is in the first person and past tense, and I now tend to write more in the third person and often in the present tense, it is a retrospect of a time in my life, and very honest, and the ending, now, kind of, makes it. While I really love the original version, after reading stories like "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, where the characters have conflicts through the whole story but then find solutions in revelations, I knew I had to change it. It had to happen another way. It took a while to take shape, but it was, I think, worth the effort.

The last aspect that I focused on was the language, which is really what took so long. My goal was to perfect my grammar and streamline the prose, and also make the imagery as vivid as possible to give the reader a more complete experience.

Now that I am finished, my goal is to get it published in a literary magazine. I believe, if I search hard and keep trying, I will find its home. That is just going take patience, and some research.

In the meantime, enjoy this song by the Kinks:

Each New Novel is A Second Chance

The great thing about starting a new book is a similar feeling to what it must be like to go and relive your teenage years with the knowledge you have gained since.

You know all the things to avoid and plan for the second time around, and where you can just hit the accelerator and go hard in that direction.

This time, I thoroughly planned out the story and the plot before I started. It is not as romantic as just sitting at the keyboard and going where inspiration takes you, but I did it that way for eleven years on my first novel, and I am pretty much all burned out on that, and this way helps to keep me focused and the logic cohesive.

Where I am really trying to express my creativity is in  honing  my style and telling the story that I want to tell.

The biggest mistake I made the first time around is that I started to care too much about what other people thought, which made me make some questionable choices at times. I am more or less happy with the result, but I don't want to keep going back to that same novel over and over again.

This time around, I am making my choices more confidently, and I am not going to let myself second-guess them more than a reasonable amount, which is something that I have learned to identify along the way (I hope).

Or maybe I am more of a work in progress. Either way, I am looking forward, and not looking back too often, and hopefully never losing sight of my goal.

Try Me.

Current Events

My short short story, "Current Events" is featured today at Flash Fiction Magazine!

Check it out:

Teaser for Tales from the Fringes

First I would like to take a moment to say how shocked and saddened I have been at the tragedies that have taken place over the course of the week.  There is far too much hate and violence in the world.  Hopefully this pushes people together instead of divides people, but, from what I have been reading and seeing on the internet and in the media, I won't hold out much hope for that to happen -- even if it is what needs to happen.  For all of our supposed progress, in a lot of ways we are still the same cave people we have always been.

Still, for some reason, I continue to hold out hope that someday we'll reach some kind of advanced stage of enlightenment.  Of course, we'll all be long dead.

~

Anyway, here is a short excerpt from my upcoming short story collection:

Greasy

They call me The Eggman. It makes sense on a few levels: not only do I bear a passing resemblance to John Lennon (arguably), but I am also a songwriter who partakes in the use of mind-altering substances. I would like to think that it has more to do with these things; however, it mostly has to do with the fact that I make the most kick-ass eggs anyone at McDonald's has ever eaten.

In the mornings, between 5 and 10:30 a.m. when we switch over to the lunch menu, I am the supreme God of pouring Egg Beaters in a mold, cooking to fluffy, folding over, scrambling, whatever, and all while also making the sausage, bacon, Canadian bacon, and steak and sautéed onions at the same time.  None of the little old ladies -- retired schoolteachers, bored housewives, and widows -- who also work in the mornings, can keep up with it.  For the first couple of hours, I am the youngest person who works there by decades.  The other dropouts don't usually come in until later in the morning.

As I work at the grill, my arms moving about on their own, diligently working, amid the grease and liquid egg splatters, I often watch past the front counter, beyond the lobby, through the windows as the pinks and oranges and yellows streak across the sky as the sun rises.  I sip on my coffee as I work, standing there, grilling it up like only the Eggman can.

When I get there wearing sunglasses, they assume the worst.  I keep to myself, make my eggs, slowly edging into sobriety, attempting to not throw up when the nausea hits me.  That association is why I can't eat eggs of any sort.  None of the managers care, so long as I get there on time and I do my job, and the old ladies seem oblivious, although I am sure they are just being polite.  They seem to like me either way, so it doesn't matter.  Even the lady who is a retired school-teacher -- she was the type who had eyes on the back of her head, who was surely feared by legions of 3rd graders.

As I work, I often find myself breaking out into "I am the Eggman, they are the Eggmen, I am the walrus, coo coo ka choo, coo coo ka choo!" -- amid the Johnny Cash and the Patsy Cline that the old people who pack the dining room every morning, sipping on coffee and complaining about the world, play on the Juke Box.

The McDonald's where I work was designed to look like a 1950's diner, and the Juke Box contains mostly the worst music from that decade.  When I become irritated with hearing the same Johnny Cash song for the seventh time in a row, I find a break and run out into the lobby and play the entire selection of James Brown songs, which are about the only songs I can stand, which also signals to the old people that they have worn out their welcome.  They hate James Brown as much as I hate Johnny Cash.  While I am stuck there to the end of my shift, they can leave at any time.

~

Okay, that's all you get for now.  I am officially pushing back the release to May 14 so I don't open up a vein trying to finish my schoolwork, get a summer job, and finalize this collection.  I fixed the last story that I had reservations about, so now it is just a matter of proofreading, mainly for typos, but also for clarity.  I am very proud of how it's turning out and can't wait until it gets officially released.

School-wise, everything is working out very well.  Classes are going well: I have my final papers figured out, classwork is winding down and my thesis is figured out; I was also offered a full assistantship for next year, which I have already accepted and signed the contracts.

February: Infomercials in Spanish at 3 a.m.

She's asleep in the bedroom.

We did laundry together earlier today, so she's resting on fresh sheets, huddled under clean blankets and laying her head on born-again pillow cases.

The dog, of course, took her side -- he now rests comfortably where I would normally be…

Here I am, sprawled out on the small, uncomfortable couch, sulking and restless -- in one hand the clicker and in the other hand my balls.

I am out here in the living room because we had a fight; we don't have fights often, but when we do…

I can't sleep. It's about 3 a.m. and I am watching an infomercial in Spanish for The Magic Bullet -- which is even more entertaining than the English version, even though I have no idea what they are saying.

The fight still lingers in my brain, haunting my every thought… Finally, after hours of stewing on it, I admit I was wrong. I admit it was my fault. Now that I admit it to myself…

I have to figure out how to admit it to her -- and then go about making it up to her…

Maybe next there will be an infomercial in Spanish for Snuggies…