A Dreamy, Breezy Post about Sunshine & Rainbows & Shit

Or, What I Do in My Basement is Wholesome so Fuck You

[Sorry, I don't Mean to Sound So Defensive, I Just have to Keep My Online Persona Consistent As to Not Draw Any Attention to the Fact that I Might be a Dynamic Human Being Capable of More than One Trance-like Emotional State]

There's not many better feelings than driving through the countryside on a sunny day, the brightness carefully suppressed from damaging my eyeballs by my Bob Dylan shades, stretches of trees and farmland flashing past on either side, the windows down, a cool almost moist breeze wrapping it's invisible scarves around me and through the cabin of my car, the sun-bleached asphalt unwinding ahead, with music blasting, me singing out at the top of my lungs--

That's one thing I need to do more, but I have nowhere really to go right now. Of course, I would also have to wait for a nice day. That might be a while, at the rate things are going. I mean, I could drive somewhere just to drive--just to leave the house. Get some fresh air.

There is something to be said about driving around on a gloomy day, too: the window cracked, the fresh drops filling my nostrils with their perfume, listening to the Allman Brothers Idlewild South, the slow slosh of the windshield wipers--back in my twenties I would have had a cigarette, the menthol and tobacco wafting with the rain scent creating a sort of intoxicating potpourri.

This weekend has been more like winter than early May, though, and the only thing fun about driving around in winter is driving at night when the snow is blowing, an X-Wing Pilot flying through hyperspace. "This is Red Leader..." As fun as that is, I am not in the mood.

That's Ohio for you, I suppose. Instead of going on a drive, I have barely left the basement. I have spent a long, seemingly endless amount of time down here, re-arranging my shit--getting my organ bench from the garage, sitting my trunk on it and using the combined structure as a table for my synth and my drum machine, and moving my guitars and drum set around to make it all work. This might actually be my favorite basement setup yet.

This space really works really well as a one-man recording operation (and maybe eventually for live-streaming) but it would only be conducive for a full band if it was like a three piece or four piece, max. Four piece might be stretching it, actually. It would definitely be loud and sweaty... Gross. No, I like the idea of doing a one-man band thing, and I like the idea of being a member of a band, but I wouldn't want that band to actually practice here after we gain more members than my brother and me.

We'll see. We really just even need to actually practice more than once or twice to really be considered a thing. I mean, what else have we got going on?

One thing as a musician that I strive to do, really as an artist, in general--because actually this is also kind of the essence of writing fiction--is take my audience to a specific time and place, and fusing these two disparate media together can help make it even more real, more present... And it has been a dream of mine to do for a long time.

I did kind of a proto-version of it with my novel, Escapes, creating a playlist on Spotify that covers music mentioned in or relating to the story. I am listening to that now, actually. It has a weird mixture of jazz, rock, punk, alternative, metal, and pop, as the story covers a lot of territory musically.

With my upcoming short story collection, Asshole Years, I would like to take that idea of combining music and reading to the next level. After I finish editing and proofreading it, the collection will go into production and I can set a firm release date. While that's taking place, I will start working on an accompanying soundtrack--think Pink Floyd but with a noise punk-alternative-new wave edge.

That's really why I got an analog synth. To add to the space rock-psychedelic ambient flavor of my sound. When I used to perform regularly, I would often get compared to Syd Barrett or Pink Floyd. I don't know if that's actually true, but that's what audience members (and totally different people) have told me after performances, on more than one occasion. Anyways, I plan to start composing the new, mostly instrumental songs for the collection soon, and I will include a download code or something with the book, and really lean into that.

And actually, to tie it all together with a neat little bow, driving around seemingly aimlessly is one theme that does carry through the collection, somewhat. I guess it's good that I'm in that frame of mind. Maybe I need to go on a road trip for the inspiration.

If the goddamn weather ever cooperates long enough.

Three Out of Four Dentists Recommend This Blog Post (But for Totally Non-Dental Reasons)

You had to wonder how long into "sheltering in place" it would take before I finally wrote a blog post. It's been... 17 days. That's not too bad, considering I haven't written one in nearly 11 months. At least not one that I've published.

That's definitely a thing. I have written plenty of blog posts over the years that I haven't published. Some of them were pretty good too, like the Scott Weiland tribute I started on the day of his death and then never finished. Maybe I should finish and publish that one even though it's been like 4-5 years since he died. Nothing that I wrote then doesn't still hold true.

Now is as good of a time as any, I suppose, for a new blog post. I mean, I am on a mini vacation from work for five whole days! It was supposed to be for a wedding, but, well, you know... Anyways, it's now a well-needed break for some rest and relaxation.

I am listening to the new Pearl Jam album, Gigaton. It's not super catchy, but it is kinda catchy. Not that that's bad. In fact, I am really enjoying it. The right amount of catchiness, I suppose. It's not one of those albums with knock them out of the park singles, necessarily. It more of a whole piece, and content-wise it is definitely appropriate for the moment. What amazes me, as someone who's been in bands, that the members of Pearl Jam, who have played together consistently for such a long time now, still get along well enough to make pretty solidly good music together. This is probably their best album in a long time, too.

For me, creatively, things are also looking up. Not only am I playing music again, but I am also finishing my next book, the semi-autobiographical short fiction collection, Asshole Years. It actually started as a re-edit of my first book, the now out-of-print Tales from the Fringes, but from it I only kept four stories and totally re-wrote and re-edited them, so it didn't really seem fair to call it a new edition.

For the record, the stories in Asshole Years that came from Tales from the Fringes are "Tin Cup" (formerly "The Other Side of Cool"), "Greasy," "Maturity" (formerly "A Hipster Confession"), and "The Opossums" (formerly "The Backwoods Event").

Another two of the stories in Asshole Years have also already been published, but elsewhere: "Freshmen" as an e-book single, "The Day the Music Died," on Smashwords, and "Truck Shop," which was originally published in Literally Literary on Medium.com. 

Finally, there is one new story, "Dropout," which is about 25% of the entire collection and one that I am pretty proud of.

Originally there was supposed to be three more new ones but I decided to pull those and put them into their own separate set of longer short stories (probably 10-15K words each), tentatively titled Fucking. That probably won't last as the title, so I guess technically it's more of a working title.

All of the seven stories in Asshole Years have origins in stories that I wrote for classes as a student at Kent State when I finally came back and finished my bachelor's degree in 2010-2011 after a long hiatus. You could say that I was in a kind of nostalgic head space at the time--plus, in most of the workshops I took, we were encouraged to write in realism, and I really adapted well to it (I think). The plan is to release the collection over the summer. I am still working on a specific date, as I am still editing it, but I am upping my game quite a bit this time and publishing through IngramSpark with my indie imprint, Gott Press. This increases my expenses, but I don't mind putting more money into it to come up with a better product and also break away from using CreateSpace, which is owned by Amazon.

Music-wise, I have a couple of projects going on: one that I started with my brother, and one that I am pursuing on my own.

The first one, which we are still in a large way sorting out the details of, will hopefully eventually turn into a full-band situation. We're not exactly sure of the genre, but there's definitely some areas where we overlap musically and so we plan to just lean in those directions.

The latter has been sort of my ongoing, off-and-on-again solo act/one-man-band-acoustic-punk-folk-psychedelic-noise thing that I have been doing since roughly 2003, when I first learned that one of my favorite things on the planet to do is to write and record albums completely on my own. If you're not familiar with this project, I have on Soundcloud my two most recent recordings, Survival Pilot (2013) and Daydream Death Rattle (2009). I highly encourage you to check out the self-titled one, at least, as those songs still hold up pretty well.

I am even contemplating doing some gigging again, eventually, as I have grown at least a little as a singer and a musician since the last time I performed for an audience. Actually, between 2007 and 2009, I used to perform somewhat regularly, but I stopped to focus more on writing, and I haven't performed as a musician since.

We'll see. I might take advantage of the opportunity and start out by putting stuff online or doing a "live from the basement" sort of thing, I don't know. I think my position at work, having to manage people, has helped me overcome a little my stage fright.

In summary (as I read on more than one student paper during my tenure as an adjunct college professor), I guess that means I am surviving being forced to stay home. I don't really mind it, to be honest. I am definitely a home body, so to speak. After all, it's hard to work on projects when you're not home, or, you know, dead.

Until next time, I suppose (there I go again), ta ta!

Vacationing in the Snowpacalpse

Or, Midnight Confessions: Where did our life go... Right?

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6940995

Vacation by the Go-Go's has become the unofficial anthem this weekend around casa de Gott.

We have at least a foot of snow and more is starting to come down, but the cold didn't seem too bad to me when I went outside to shovel. Then again, there is a difference between a city cold and a country cold, and Akron is definitely somewhere in between.

Sarah and I originally took Monday and Tuesday off to go on a long weekend trip, but because of the weather, of course, that didn't pan out. To be honest, we're making the best of it, and I am kinda glad it turned out this way. It has given me time to reflect, a little. Here we are, in our little bubble, living life, struggling at times, feeling successful at times, but getting through it and feeling stronger together. It is much nicer to have someone to hold hands with through the roller-coaster.

After the Go-Go's, The Grass Roots seems the next place to go as I choose the soundtrack to our hibernation. It popped up the other night when we had friends over and I was picking out just random records that I hadn't listened to in a while, and everyone seemed to enjoy it a lot, and I am especially super-jazzed about rediscovering it because it has on it one of my hands down all-time favorite songs, "Midnight Confessions."

Speaking of The Grass Roots, this seems like an excellent opportunity to sneak in a Creed Bratton meme:

via GIPHY

Other than this blog post, I have also committed time this weekend towards working on my short story collection(s) and what might be the beginning of a new music project.

The short story collection(s) I'm referring to is(are) what used to be called Xennial. I've got this crazy idea to split them because it wasn't really working for me to have the stories I'm writing now paired with stories I wrote ten years ago. Or even 8 years ago. The stories I'm writing now are different. I've grown, I think, as a writer, or at least developed my style, or, rather, a style that works for me. So those new 18 stories are what is currently titled Xennial. Most of these need a lot of work to finish so I realistically think it will be 2020 before it comes out, but that's okay, it will be a good book to publish on a major election year.

Don't worry though, I haven't given up hope about publishing something in 2019. The other 15 stories that were originally going to be included in Xennial with those 18 will be paired down to the best nine, and will be published, probably next, under the new title Asshole Years. These are all of my realistic fiction stories, most of which I wrote for different fiction classes at Kent State University. Here's what it will contain:

1. Eargasm (based on a blog post)
2. Dropout (new story based off of my old story, "The Other Side of Cool," originally published in Tales from the Fringes)
3. Truck Shop (published in Literally, Literary on Medium)
4. The Day the Music Died (published on Smashwords as a single)
5. Greasy (updated, originally published in Tales from the Fringes)
6. The Opossums (updated, originally published in Tales from the Fringes)
7. Highly Evolved (new)
8. A Hipster Confession (updated, originally published in Tales from the Fringes)
9. The Joint (new)

I don't have any cover art but that will be forthcoming, probably after I finish this blog post. The three new stories need finished but they are all pretty far along so this one I feel confident that I will be able to publish this year. It will probably be around 200 pages.

The music project will be under my Survival Pilot moniker, and will be at least one song, but I have at least two drum parts so there might be more. I don't know if I will finish it over this long weekend, but that is my goal. I am thinking about doing a free Soundcloud EP for record store day, or something, just for shits and giggles.

As you can see, I am never bored. Hopefully, you all are staying safe, warm, and entertained like we are here in Highland Square. And if you haven't heard "Midnight Confessions" in a while. Maybe you should give it a listen. You won't regret it.

Procrastination Paradise

Greetings, fellow humans of 2018. It’s been quite the year, eh? I know it has for me. It started off strong—my Akron Soul Train Residency came and went (and went extremely well) during the first quarter of the year, and then my inspiration to write kind of fizzled after that, with maybe a few short bursts here and there. Maybe I just used it all up and needed to refuel—I don't know.

I’m not even really sure where I’m going with this blog post, to be honest. Not that that’s ever stopped me before. No, I’m going to do like I do and just sort of wing it. See where it goes. Put fingers to keys, words to screen, and hopefully, after the dust settles, what I write will make some semblance of sense. Maybe even have some coherence.

We'll see, I suppose, but I wouldn't get my hopes up too much.

Black Sabbath's Paranoid is spinning on my record player, because I needed some “Electric Funeral” in my life. This was recorded before they spent more money on cocaine than on the music. It should at least be a 50/50 split. I don’t know. Cocaine has never really been for me, and I feel like, at 36, I’m too old to start that shit now. It would just be sad, at this point. Too mid-life crisis-y for my taste.

In my experience, it’s better to use drugs to help find inspiration, rather than relying on them for inspiration. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. It’s best this way, when they're more of a tool than a crutch. I’m finding that meditation works really well for that, too. It’s also much healthier. I’m no spring chicken anymore, so I have to think about that shit. I’ve already started falling apart enough—I don’t need it to get any worse.

Finding inspiration can definitely be tricky. It might not always be, but sometimes it is. Even if I know what I'm going to write about, even if I’ve already brainstormed it and outlined it and all that business, actually sitting down and punching it out is the hard part.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I am something of a first-rate procrastinator. Even in grad school, even during my short but busy journalist days, I have always been one to wait until as close to the deadline as humanly possible to complete an assignment. It usually always worked out for me, which is probably why I have kept doing it all these years. The results speak for themselves, anyways. Well, it has gotten me this far.

Every writing advice column/blog/magazine is loaded with the sorts of advice that the aspiring writers who subscribe to them will follow and have varying degrees of success with in the real world. I used to subscribe to that advice, too, writing so many words a day or for so long a day, or whatever it happens to be this week, but to be honest, I think the best advice I have ever gotten is to just find what works and stick with it, no matter what the experts say.

The key is to just keep, keeping on, even if that means only sitting down every once and while, when the inspiration actually does strike, and getting out what I am able to get out during that time. I just keep doing it, no matter what. Eventually, something will click and I’ll finish what I set out to finish. It might not turn out how I originally thought it would, but that’s okay. It’s almost always for the better, that way.

So maybe I’m doing more guitar-playing than writing right now, but that’s okay. I will come back around to the writing again. See? I’m doing it now. That’s all the proof I need. It might not be the thing I need to focus on writing, but it's something. That, the short story collection, might be far from done, but if I continue pushing myself, continue story by story, page by page, word by freaking word, no matter how long it actually does take, I will get it done, and it will turn out exactly like it's supposed to turn out.

Maybe the trick for me is motivating myself through sitting down and writing a blog post first, because I feel pretty super-jazzed about writing right now. Hmmm, maybe there's something to that. I'm not sure, but I'm just going to go with it, because at least it's working now, and that's all I really need.

Non-Sponsored Content

Roll that beautiful bean footage...

Nashville Skyline is a rainy summer morning kind of album. I turn it up kinda loudish and walk across the dining to the sun room where I begin this short residence in front of my computer.

These past months, I haven't purposely been avoiding this... activity, but, just the same, the other day, it hit me like an epiphany that I had not done it in forever. After taking a few days to contemplate the absence, I have come to the conclusion that taking a break is a healthy thing to do, sometimes.

Sometimes, it's more important to focus on living your life for a while, and just taking it all in until you realize you have gained not only some bounce in your step, but also a new sense of clarity, and you remind yourself why you do what you do.

I'm sure it's not my longest break. Through the years, I have taken breaks, and I have always managed to come back to this blog, all in good time.

Good things are happening in the world of Gabe Gott. It's better that I keep them to myself now, but when the time comes, you'll be the first to hear from me.

My First Blog Post of 2017, or How Not to Cook Waffles [in Three Easy Steps]

Today I decided to make myself brunch. I used my waffle iron that was the wifey's gift for my birthday, and I must say, if Wally Waffle was a real person, he would be ashamed that I ever ate at his establishment.

At least they turned out how I prefer my waffles--a little on the crispy side. They were edible, they just came out of the iron in small mangled chunks. Unfortunately, the waffle iron doesn't have temperature controls, and I definitely didn't use the right type of oil.

They tasted fine, though, and I also had some sunny side up eggs, which turned out fabulously. I mean, you would have to be a totally idiot to fuck up sunny side up eggs, though.

Anyways, I am glad to be writing my first blog post of 2017! Huzzah! I hope everyone's years so far are going well. I have zero complaints on mine. Rave reviews, really. Here's to keeping it going, no matter what else is happening in the world!

One thing that will being happening on Friday that doesn't fill me with anguish and dread, my poetry chapbook, Live Organ Transplants, will be making it's way out to the world. In the last couple of weeks especially, it has just kept getting better, and I can't wait for people to read it.

I wasn't originally planning on doing anything else poetry again after this, but I have definitely reconsidered that, as I think it's be safe to say that this will be the best thing that I have published so far. I know that I say that every time, but every time it turns out to be true, which is a good thing, and even though I shouldn't be, since I am the one who puts in all the work, I am surprised every time that it happens.

Well, it's not Leaves of Grass or anything, but I am pretty happy with how it has turned out, at any rate, and if you are a poetry fan, I hope you dig it, as well. If not, I have more new fiction coming out on April 1st.

There's been a rumor going around that some other event is happening this Friday, but my mind just can't fully accept that is really happening. I hope that my poetry is some kind of counter to that whole train wreck, at least. While many of the poems were written prior to November, some by years, many of those are surprisingly prescient, and, of course, most of the brand new ones are directly in response to the election.

Please also check out this new literary magazine on Medium, Literally Literary, to which I have contributed some poetry and fiction. Not only am I happy to have some stuff published there, I also really enjoy reading it. There's new work posted every week. Jessica, Heath, and everyone who contributes are truly passionate and gifted writers and I feel really lucky to be counted as a part of their community. If you're curious, and you haven't read them yet, here is what I have published there (so far):

• Everyday Battlestar (poem)
• Truck Shop (short fiction)

This looks to be an exciting year here at gabegott.com, too. I have many post ideas swirling around my brain, and now that work is slowing down, I will have the time to keep this website updated on a weekly basis. I am not committing necessarily to Saturdays, but to weekends, in general. There could even be more midweek posts, too. Anyways, look for more about music and other topics, and less about my writing and the projects I am working to complete.

There will, of course, still be some of that, too, but less of it. A moderate amount. How does that cliche go, that variety is the spice of life, or something to that effect? Well, that's what I am shooting for here in 2017.

Time to go clean up my waffle mess, before it is too late--otherwise, I will need a chisel. Peace!

A Toast for the Coming Year

Don't Let the 2016 Blues Keep You Down

Greetings, party people! I am coming to you live from Akron, Ohio, on the last day of 2016, which has pretty much been the best year on record here at the Gott household. *coughs*

I am coming to you today because it has come to my attention that I need to stop making declarations about whether I am or am not going to do something or another, because invariable, I almost always end up doing the opposite... Like right now, for instance, writing this, when I said two posts ago that I was done for the year--so let it be known, from this day forward, I am no longer going to make declarations, and am instead going to plan to do things silently to myself and then follow through with them.

Actually, I might be better served to make plans to do the opposite of what I intend to do, because in not following through with my plans, I will actually be working towards doing what I really intend to do, because apparently, and I think there is some documented evidence to show this, that is just how my mind works.

I know, right? I don't know that if I can change that at this point, though, so I am just stuck with working around it. By 34, I think your personality is pretty much set, and I think my oppositional nature is pretty firmly in place. As long I get to where I want to go, the journey is just a part of the fun. If it was easy, everyone would be doing what they want for a living...

*pauses*

Even though this year has been a difficult one for me personally for a variety of reasons totally unrelated to celebrity deaths or the election, I feel like I have also experienced a lot of growth, both as a person and as a writer, and I can't wait to see what 2017 has in store, and I mean that, truly.

At this point in my life, I have faced a great many obstacles, and, certainly with a great deal of help from my wife, my family, and my friends, I have somehow gotten this far, and while my life may not be perfect, and it certainly hasn't gone as planned, I wouldn't change anything. Why dwell on something when it is impossible to go backwards? I just try to learn and pick myself back up and dust myself off and keep pushing forward.

While the world might seem to have a dark cloud over it right now, everything is always changing, and sometimes great things happen when you least expect them. Often times, these great things come out of adversity, and when you do have a negative experience, it might be difficult to understand when it is happening, it doesn't ultimately help to dwell on it too long and let your life be controlled by that experience forever.

Sometimes, and more often than anyone would probably care to admit, we have to learn things the hard way, because sometimes that's the only way that those lessons will stick for any length of time. And while these mistakes might seem avoidable to some, just because it seems that way, it doesn't make it true, and often times, it is from those experiences that you learn something you didn't even know you needed to know, and you come out stronger, and better, for having survived.

It's all in how you choose to use that knowledge that makes a difference, which is why I have faith that, even if things don't go as planned in the coming year, great things will happen, regardless. It's all in how you define greatness that matters, and whether I succeed or fail at my plans, I will achieve greatness in the knowledge that I gain from the experiences.

If I keep going, and I keep learning these lessons, and keep seeking out more knowledge on how to get where I want to go, eventually, if I am determined enough and work hard enough, I just might find myself where I want to be.

With three books coming out, and a novel I know I can finish if I set my mind to it (after all, I have done it before), and much, much more that I plan on accomplishing (or not plan, but work towards by planning the opposite), I know that 2017 will be a good year, and I sincerely hope the same goes for all of you.

*raises champagne flute*

 Cheers!

A Existential Rant, Just in Time for the Holidays

What is the point?

That is a question I find myself asking a lot lately, including but not necessarily limited to the big "what is the point?" topic, that is, life. I don't mean it in a "I hate myself and want to die" sort of way, though, it's more of a moral-existential-philosophical question: What is the point of my/our existence on this planet in this galaxy/universe/multiverse?

Of course, I am by far not the first person to ask this question, and it is not the first time in my life that I have asked it, either, but it seems more relevant than ever with the state of things in the world. I don't know if things are better or worse than they always have been, or if we are just more aware of what is going on, but it seems like everything is spinning out of control and at some point, probably sooner than later, we are all going to be flung off into the abyss.

Okay, so that did take a dark turn there for a moment, but I really don't mean it in an existential dread sort of way, it's more of an intellectual curiosity. Over the millennia, an almost endless number of schools of thought have developed on the subject, and I think we too often rely on something or someone else to define the narratives of our lives out of fear of the unknown. It's why so many people subscribe to particular sets of beliefs, even though when they are understood from a rational distance, they often times seem absurd and illogical.

Does that necessarily make them wrong? That, I can't answer definitively, but I would say that some of them have to be wrong, right? I mean, come on, Scientology... That is clearly made-up.

Honestly, I do think to a certain degree it is relative, at least in the way we understand what there is out there, but I also think that we don't give ourselves enough credit in some ways, but we also give ourselves way too much credit in others. For example, on one hand, we use technology primarily as a means to entertain ourselves or kill each other, and that too often we see ourselves as the very center of existence, for lack of any other explanation, and because some religions explicitly tell us that is the case.

I mean, most people know that we are not literally at the center of the universe, but at the same time believe us to be chosen as such by some deity, effectively making us what we know ourselves not to be, which is why we are so short-sighted with what we do with what we define as "progress."

With our capabilities, we could be striving much harder to explore what there is out there, and trying to more realistically define our place in the universe, but most people don't give a shit. Conditioned by the idea that a few popular religions tell us that we are the chosen ones, and if we follow a certain set of rules, we will live forever, the people who subscribe to this, when inundated with commercial promises that we deserve to have our desires fulfilled, become caught up with having the most and being the richest.

This is why Christmas has become such a big overblown materialistic clusterfuck instead of the religious holiday celebrating the birth of the only person in Christianity whose ideas ever actually made any sense what-so-ever, regardless of whether you believe that he was crucified and came back to life three days later, or not.

We are all almost definitely going to be flung off into the abyss sooner than later, because we continue to allow ourselves to be spun around and around and around again, because it's easier not to question the things that truly need to be questioned, and to let ourselves be trapped in certain systems that redefine freedom as being able to choose between a few carefully selected choices, just so the people who get to choose what we have to choose from can be even more better off than they were last year, and we can feel satisfied for five minutes or so, until we are inundated with ads for whatever After-Christmas holiday extravaganza, blasting across our telescreens.

So merry fucking Christmas, I hope you all get exactly what you deserve. I know I will, and that actually does help me sleep at night.

Upcoming Releases

For those of you who have not quite gotten sick of me in 2016, well, 2017 is just around the corner, and you might just get your chance yet.

I have plans to release no fewer than three books over the course of the year. Of course, that is the minimum number that I will publish, and the maximum will be four. I would not count on that fourth one, though, as it will only happen if I can get my act together in the next couple of months and finish my second novel.

I have big plans to take a week-long stay-cation and just bust out the rest of the rough draft. It should go pretty quickly because what I have is pretty solid--but I have said that before. Hell, I intended to be done with it by now. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Anyways, without further adieu, here is a preview of what I have in store for you in 2017:

Release Date: JANUARY 20, 2017

First up, just in time for Inauguration Day, is my first and maybe only poetry collection, which is interestingly enough the longest of my three chapbooks, and by quite a bit, too. It has 24 poems divided into three sections over 70 pages, and I am particularly proud of the fact that I also did some art for the interior of the book, which is a first for me.

***

Release Date: APRIL 1, 2017

A few short months later, my well-hyped second flash fiction collection (and third chapbook, overall) will be hitting digital bookshelves everywhere. I am pretty excited about this, as it features many of my stories that have previous been published in literary magazines, and, like my poetry collection, it is entirely suitable for the state of the world as we know it. Of course, I am assuming that we haven't all died in a nuclear war in the first few months of Trump's Presidency. *fingers crossed*

***

Release Date: August 8, 2017

If we survive until the latter portion of the year, which I am not holding my breath about, you will see the release of my own Chinese Democracy that I started working on a while back and then sat aside, and then worked on again some more before I scrapped entirely. Well, now it's back--technically. Really, this is a different collection than Tales from the Fringes (which I have, sadly, taken out of print), or what would have been a third edition of it. Ocho only has six of the stories from that first collection, all of which have been extensively reworked and re-edited, in addition to the two stories that were written around the same time but were published in different ways. All eight of these stories were originally written between 2010-2011 during my last year and half at Kent and were intended to be read as a collection. The other stories that were in Tales from the Fringes just didn't make the cut and probably should never have been published in the first place. Anyways, these are the best possible versions of these eight stories, and I am sure you will all agree with me on that. I just felt like I had to get it right, once and for all, and I am very confident that this is it for this set of stories.

***

Not only do I have these three books to release, but I also look to really follow through with my plan to schedule and pre-write my blog posts so I can publish once a week on Saturdays. I am also working on a social media plan so I can be more consistent and hopefully grow my audience. Not to mention, I have a few events in mind to do over the course of the year, as well.

This will most likely be my last post of the year, but I might have something left so I can't say that with 100% certainty--I guess we'll just have to see. I do have a couple of long weekends coming up, so anything is possible.

Whatever holiday you celebrate (if any), I hope you have a good one, and I also hope you have a happy New Year!

On the Mend

Greetings people, and on a Thursday afternoon, no less! I suppose you are probably wondering why I am coming to you at this moment, and I will tell you that it is because I have been home with some plague or another. 'Tis the season, after all.

Being sick isn't the best (thank you, Captain Obvious), but thank God for PTO and sick days. I am on the mend, now, though, and I should be ripe and ready to go back to work tomorrow. At least the way that I am feeling at the moment, anyways. I think sleeping in until noon helped, but also probably just generally eating healthier and leading a healthier lifestyle (lately) has helped me fight this off relatively quickly. This time yesterday, I felt like absolute garbage, and while I'm not 100%, I feel quite a bit better.

Of course, it could also have been one of those 24 hour bugs. Mine was more like 36 or 48 hours, though, because it technically started Tuesday night, when I was literally exploding liquid out of places where it normally does not come out.

Anyways, since I am home and feeling better, now, I have made some changes to the design of the site again. I hope you like it. The last design was cool, but this is more relevant to where I am currently, as far as projects go. I think it looks good, at any rate, and that's really what's important (by my way of thinking, anyways).

It's not a ton different from the way that it has been for the past few weeks, but particularly the new background picture gives it a new look and feel. I have made a few other changes, also, including making my bio and the contact page first person, as I feel like it makes the site a bit more personable. I am also thinking about changing the book descriptions to first person, where relevant. Right now, they are as they currently appear, and when published will appear, on websites like Amazon.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram (@elliots_human) will probably also recognize the background from the screenshot that I posted the other day of me working on my poetry chapbook, Live Organ Transplants. The art is the same as the cover art of that forthcoming book, which is coming together surprisingly quickly.

The cover is completely finished, and the interior is mostly there, as well. There are a few more small changes that I plan to make to the design and a few of the poems, but for the most part I am happy.

Currently, I am dusting off the cobwebs of the part of me that used to want to be an artist for Disney (back when I was like 8). I am working hard on some illustrations for the text, which will be another first for me. You can see a preview of what you have in store as far as that goes with the brain drawing at the top of this post.

I might redraw it in pencil and then and then ink it, as I originally planned to do. I am also currently working on a heart and will be drawing some eyes when I am done. The three organs correspond with the three parts the poems are divided into in the collection, and I might draw a few other organs if these three go well enough.

If you go to the books page on this site, you will see that I have updated it to include this newest project--well, new-ish project anyway. In reality, it has been in the works for a while, but it is coming together now because I feel like it is extremely relevant, as I might have mentioned in my last post.

Now that I am repeating myself, it is probably a sign that I should let you go. I will try to get another one in this weekend, since unfortunately, this is to make up for not writing a post last weekend.

Thanks for stopping by, and stay healthy!

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion, in Honor of Black Friday

"Winding along the first interstate
built through a city, in my
windshield, the urban sprawl
and the suburban slump,
with Goodyear emblazoned
in gold, and smoke stacks
belching black into the
sherbet-swirled sky.
The last holdouts from yesterday
are hiding within these crumbling
ruins of the working class
-- that are fading in my
rear-view mirror. I nod
and give thanks. Firestone
dances in red for just an instant
as I dart in the opposite direction,
towards my exit."
--Akron, Ohio, from my upcoming poetry collection.

Akron, Ohio by Sleepydre on Wikipedia.

When I finally realized that all of the stories from Dispatches from the Information Age were either published by who was given first publishing rights, or rejected, I decided on a January 2017 release date. Then I had a conversion with someone about a fun idea as a way to promote the collection and realized I would have to publish it more towards the end of the February or the first of March 2017 for it to work effectively.

At first I was depressed, because I have been wanting to put out more fiction more often, then I thought about my options and realized that I was sitting on a poetry chapbook, and it was thematically suited for what is happening in the world right now.

That is not to say by any means that I consider myself a poet, I mostly just dabble. I am not even the type of person who, quite frankly, reads all that much poetry. I did go see W.S. Merwin at Kent State a few years ago, though, and that was cool. It's maybe where I started putting my songwriting after I stopped writing songs--stopped writing them as often, anyhow.

So that means I will be publishing my first ever, and probably only, poetry collection on January 7, 2017. I am still tossing around a title. I might just stick with Live Organ Transplants, but I need to come up with an anatomical textbook that no one needs, get out my X-ACTO knife and get to work, all Terry Gilliam-style.

If that doesn't tell you, quite frankly, about the poetry that will be contained in it, you will just have to go to my poetry page and read "A Cosmic Joke."

Lol, that was shameless, even for me.

A Call to Action

Image courtesy of GLady on Pixabay.

I sit here in my office with the lingering smell of burning dust from the little electric heater that I am using for the first time in a while. The Vaselines "Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam" fills my ears from my computer speakers as I sit here typing this out. I made this playlist to listen to while writing my second novel, but shortly afterwards, I realized it would not work and then never really listened to it.

It sure is nice for writing this post, now, though. I finally feel a flow of words lighting up my synapses. They flow through my fingertips and appear onscreen. It feels good after a bit of a drought. Inspiration is fluid in that way, though. Up until this point, when I have sat down to write the next post after the last, I wasn't sure what would be appropriate to say after a few recent events, especially after a man in my own community immolated himself yesterday morning.

While I am certainly upset about the election, I guess what I have to do is find a better way of using my anger and sadness, and turn it into something good. I feel intensely sad for that man and his family, and I think I just need to find peace and help others do the same. 

I don't blame people, though, for how they feel. Everyone experiences things is his/her own unique way, and it makes sense that people would need time to grieve--some people have a lot at stake, and at a cost far higher than financial.

Making my art, though, writing this post, writing my books and stories, is my way of fighting, resisting: creating. Putting every ounce of anger and frustration into the works I create, and I feel glad to know that I am not the only one. That's what I love about this community and the friends that I keep: I look around and see so many others struggling, but resisting, and forging their own unique paths ahead.

Our voices can be used to shape how others perceive this world and the people around them, each in our own unique way. So I guess this is a call to action. We can take what is happening and be positive lights, and shape the outcome for the better. Making art is our way of resisting against a world where only a few select people get to pick and choose who gets to be included.

Instead, we can use our anger and sadness, and work towards making a positive difference in the world. It is in our power.

Driving Myself Crazy

Courtesy of Pixabay.

To write, or not to write, that is the question. Specifically, I am referring to what is currently my second novel. I suppose every writer goes through this every now and again, but I never really had this much doubt at any point about my first one.

When I started writing the first one, Escapes/Out in the Garage, I had no idea what I was doing, and that shows in the final version (and the fact that I published three editions within a year of it being first published). Even though I worked hard to make it better as I learned, there are some things that you just can't overcome, and sometimes that means you just have to give up on a manuscript. For better or worse, I didn't do that the first time around, and while I am proud that I completed it and put it out to the world, I know that it isn't perfect and never can be, no matter how much work I put into it or how many changes I make. I have reached a point that I am content with it, and how it is now is just how it is going to remain.

That being said, this current novel doesn't have any of those problems. I can say honestly, it is far and above better than that first one. For one, I have spent the last several years working to improve my writing and learning everything I can about literature, and I have a good understanding of the process and what it takes to complete a manuscript and get to a final draft I can stand behind. While I am sure I will continue learning and continue growing, and that someday I will look back on what I am writing now and will be able to assess it as I am doing now with what I have written previously, the writing I am currently producing is pretty good. I am finally really honing in on my style and figuring out what stories I want to tell.

The problem with this second novel, then, is less of a problem and more of an excuse. In short, it is literary fiction, set in something relatively close to the real world. There are elements of surrealism throughout, particularly through the second half, and as with most of my writing, it has a bit of a postmodern leaning, as well, which is subtle but still exists. That might just be the postmodern times in which we live, though. Anyways, the reason why I want to discontinue writing it, in spite of having already written 25-30k words, is that I am going in more of a science fiction direction.

While it is relevant both to my life and the world today, it doesn't as accurately reflect my style and the direction I want to go. Of course, I could make it more weird and up the surrealism another few notches, but around the time I seriously started working on it, I also developed another novel idea more in the vein of what I am looking to write. At the time, I wanted to "take my writing more seriously" so I decided to focus on writing the more serious work first.

Since then, however, I have had a number of flash fiction stories published, and they are all in more of the science fiction/postmodern direction I want to go, which makes me want to either go back to that other idea or start something new entirely (which I have also sort of, technically, done). Additionally, the next flash fiction chapbook I am releasing (sometime early next year) is definitely solidly in this new direction. While it's not really that new (see "The Bananamen Prophecy" from my short story collection, Tales from the Fringes), it is the direction I want to go because it is more my style, more what people want to read, and more fun to write (and read).

When it really comes down to it, the only reason that I am thinking about finishing this, what could be my second novel, is that I have already written a significant portion of the first draft, and it is actually much better than my first novel. If I do finish it, it will be the last of this sort of writing that I do for a while, maybe ever. If I don't, I could always come back to it someday, when I am feeling stuck creatively, and I want to change directions (if that ever happens).

Of course, this could just be me making excuses. I could just be dragging my feet, and I really just need to finish it and not worry so much about these things. My career as a writer is what I make of it, and maybe this isn't where I want to go, as a writer, it is where I am currently, so perhaps I should not get ahead of myself? Perhaps I should just stop thinking about it and start doing something, anything... These things, no matter which one I do first, aren't going to write themselves.

The Evolution of an Idea

In the summer of 2014, I took a flash fiction writing workshop as my final class of grad school. I needed the credits to graduate, and I wanted to go out on a class I would enjoy with an instructor I really liked. At the time, I knew that it would likely be my last class as a student (that has so far remained true), and I thought it would be fun, and certainly not difficult, as I enjoy writing fiction, but I didn't think that the class would impact me to make flash fiction the focus of my creativity for any length of time.

However, here I am, two years later, with multiple short shorts published online and in print, and in the process of putting out not one but two flash fiction chapbooks. The first one is actually out now (see last week's posts) and the second one has yet to be given a specific release date---although, I am shooting for early next year, possibly January. The idea to do these chapbooks actually came during the class when I was putting together my final portfolio. The title of the second, Dispatches from the Information Age, came directly from that project, and quite a few of the stories in it did as well, albeit many of them have been edited and/or rewritten.

Dispatches from the Information Age will not only contain many of the stories from that class, but all of my stories that have been published over the past two years, and many more along those same lines, which I think is my future direction as a writer. Fast-paced, weird, angry, and (hopefully) humorous, it can be described as what would happen if Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury got together with the members of Monty Python and wrote a flash fiction chapbook. At least, that is the aesthetic I am going for with it.

In order to accurately reflect this aesthetic, I have carefully considered the cover art, and it has evolved over the development of the project. At first, I was going to have my brother design it, but then I started playing around with a few ideas, and came up with a couple of my own.

These were meant to be stand-ins while my brother worked on his idea, but I liked the direction I was going, and decided to continue working on it. After all, I have designed all of my other covers, and while not many writers can really do that effectively (at least according to the advice blogs I read), I think it is something that I have actually turned into a strength.

This week, I finally realized the one that I had been seeing in my mind's eye, but couldn't quite capture, and of all of the ideas I've had, it fits the best with the contents of the collection:

A good friend and confidant described it as "Warhol for the 21st century," and I could easily refer to the set of stories as a form of pop art, so it fits. I am really trying to capture the absurdity of life in our culture today, and I think that anyone who sees this cover will be able to gather that.

This direction, while my natural inclination as a fan of satire, science fiction and dark humor, and my calling as a dissident intellectual and highly educated poor person, it also came in part from the reaction to these stories by my classmates and my professor, who only encouraged me further down this path.

Before that class, I spent my time working on a novel, and several short stories, but nothing has really connected for me in the same way as flash fiction. It just goes to show that you never know the direction you are going to take as an artist, and sometimes, you just have to go where life takes you, and trust your instincts.

While my writing will not exclusively take the form of flash fiction, it is a form that I really enjoy exploring, and I will continue to do for a long time to come. It has all of the elements that I enjoy about writing: it's fun and challenging, I can be poetic and experimental, and people actually sometimes take the time to read what I write. Additionally, as more and more of our culture is absorbed and transformed by the internet, it is a growing and popular form for fiction, as people have much shorter attention spans, and there are more places to publish it and fans for it than ever.

If you are faithful to the process, what you're working on might turn into something great, but hopefully, at the very least, you will have fun with it. That is the most important part.

Into the Great, Wide Open

It's only the middle of May, but this year so far has brought about a great number of changes in my life, and as I have held on, white-knuckled, a lot of what I used to hold as important has flown straight out the window, lost to the swirling oblivion.

Photo iillustration courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/b3d-blender-tornado-severe-weather-814151/

Many of these changes have been forced upon me, and as my head stops spinning and I try to catch my breath, I work to begin making sense of it all.

One thing that has become clear is that I am going to have to let go of a lot in order to move forward, and one of those things that I need to let go of is the presence of writing in my life as the be-all, end-all of everything. Not that I am quitting writing or anything like that, but in order for me to enjoy it and sit down and do it every day, I have to do it for its sake, and for no other reason.

I alluded to this before, maybe a blog post or two ago, but it is now clearer to me than ever. Of course, much of this, if not most of it, or even all of it, is going on inside my head, and it is enough to drive a person insane.

Again, that doesn't mean that I am quitting writing fiction, or quitting publishing. In fact, what I am letting the wind take away and scatter is what has held me back from doing more of what I love for the reasons why I love it. Maybe this means that I will never be a professional writer, or whatever, but I don't care. I am doing this for me.

One of the (actual, physical) things that is getting lost to the wind is my update of my short story collection, Tales from the Fringes.

While the original is certainly far from perfect, I have come to terms with the fact that it is okay that it is imperfect, and that at the time that I published it, I did not know what I was doing. It was, after all, a learning experience, and of course the first time around what I publish is not going to be perfect, and of course I have learned a great deal about writing and publishing since then.

I just need to stop revisiting these same projects over and over so that I can move forward and focus on all of the new projects that I am writing right now, which are far better than anything that I have written before, and it would be a shame for me to postpone them or put them off any longer because I am too focused on making something perfect that can never be perfect.

The next project that I will be publishing is my flash fiction chapbook, which does not have a release date yet because there are still a couple or three stories that are being publishing in journals, and they have first rights, and I want to give people enough time to read and enjoy them in those places, first. I will, of course, let you know when those journals publish them, and give you a release date for my collection--when I have one.

The forthcoming collection's title is Dispatches from the Information Age, and I might write some more short shorts to put in it while I have time to work on it. It already has around 25-26 stories, and is around 70 pages (the way it is currently formatted), and I don't want it to get substantially longer than that. In fact, especially if I write more for it, I will probably edit it down and choose the best 20 or so stories.

I only plan to release it in print form, and I am going to take my time with the cover art and interior formatting to maximize the aesthetics of it. I am going more for artistic expression than "professionalism"--whatever that means.

Following its publication, hopefully sometime next year, I will be putting out my second novel, and sometime after that, my second short story collection, both of which are in progress. For the novel, which has changed names a few times since the last time I spoke of it, I have commissioned my artist brother to do the cover art, and even from our initial conversations, I know that it is going to blow people away--hopefully in the same way that the contents of it also do.

Thank you all for your patience, and for continuing to read this blog. I might not have the largest following, but I certainly have one of the best, and most loyal. I appreciate you taking the time to read what I write, no matter how inane or rambling it sometimes turns out to be. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Take It Away, Freebird

What It Means to Be An Artist in the Age of Hyper-Capitalism

Photo by https://pixabay.com/en/crow-raven-bird-sky-silhouette-434754/.

As is prone to happen, lately I have spent many hours lying awake at night, my mind racing through all subjects.

I try telling myself that I won't be solving all of my issues and all of the world's problems at 4 a.m., especially when I have to get up in two hours to get ready for work, but my brain is not always very reasonable, so I put on music and hopefully that works. I try relaxation techniques, and maybe that does have an effect, but it takes a lot of concentration, and I can't always settle my brain down for very long. Some nights, I hardly get any sleep.

One issue that my brain has been tossing around especially a lot lately has been my pursuit of publishing and selling books, and in particular how I feel like I have pushed myself towards emulating the multitude of hucksters that you see out there, particularly on Twitter, that push their wares on unsuspecting and mostly uninterested multitudes, all in an effort to sell books.

Do this, and this, and this, the marketing gurus command from their digital pedestals, and you will make some money. This is how so-and-so author makes a living off of his/her publishing, they claim, and so can you.

As readers of this blog have witnessed, I have tried on several different pieces of this advice from these online "experts," but like trying on pants at a thrift store, most of them did not fit for one reason or another.

While I have learned a great deal, and certainly what not to do and what doesn't work for me, I have not yet figured out what actually does work for me specifically. When I write, I like to push boundaries. I enjoy expressing my thoughts and feelings in ways that are uniquely me, and I don't want to compromise.

Maybe it is just irrational stubbornness on my part, and maybe I will never be successful due to it, but, yadda yadda I consider myself an artist, and as an artist, I have decided that I need to do what is best for my art, and that means trashing most of the marketing bullshit and committing myself to doing it entirely my own way, for better or worse (of my bank account).

While I don't plan on getting rid of my social media or this blog, I have considered it. I have even been so disenchanted with writing lately that I have even considered giving up on it entirely. For those of you who know me, or who have read this blog for a while and feel like you know me, then you know that is a pretty big deal, but rather than taking a flying leap off of the precipice, I am seeking my own path, and at the very least returning to writing fiction solely for my enjoyment of it. 

I have a job, I have a cool writing gig, and those things are what I need to be focusing on right now. I am happy to share my writing with whoever wants to read it, but I am not going to go out of my way, or do anything that I feel compromises my integrity, as an artist, in order to sell books.

That cheapens it and takes the fun out of it for me, and I would rather enjoy it for the sake of doing it rather than trying to cater to someone else's ideas of how it should be done.

For those of you reading this who think I am making a mistake or whatever, you can just buzz off. It's people like you who are the reason why it is necessary for me to take this step.

Besides, on the grand scope of things, it doesn't really matter. There are more important things happening in this world and in my life right now. Self-publishing doesn't have to be done a certain way just because some people have done it that way and have sold a bunch of books because of it.

In fact, just because someone else has had success with a particular approach, it doesn't mean that way will work for everyone, and if you look at the number of books that most self-publishers actually sell while trying to do it that one way, then maybe you will see that what works for the people who are selling books isn't the best way for everyone. Not everyone has the same idea of success (queue "Freebird").

That's why I have to decided to make my eBooks free, or at least leave all of the ones that I currently have free, still free, and then some, possibly.

Of course, I will still have to charge for the print books if you want to buy them online or through a store, but I will also always give away as many as I can afford to buy at a time (to people I see in person). I feel like I would rather have people read read it and give it a chance than have unrealistic expectations about who will buy it or not.

It might seem a little silly to some, but that doesn't make it silly. Especially if my goal is to gain readers.

I can't guarantee I will always give all of my books away in this manner, but at least these ones. Probably also the updated version of my short story collection, and my flash fiction chapbook. They are short and sweet.

I don't know if people will want them, but it will be one less thing to worry about and one hour closer to a full night's sleep.