Rambling Nonsensical Post MCMXXXIII: Dead and Loving It Part Deux, Still Pretty Fucking Dead

Chapter One Section 3 Paragraphs 11-34

Might as well do another one. I mean, I'm on vacation, and I can't go anywhere, and I don't have a shortage of possible topics, so I suppose, let's do them shits.

I suppose there's probably one topic in particular that some folks would like to see addressed, but I hesitate for one reason and one reason alone. I just don't like eggnog.

Honestly, I am not sure how to talk about a topic that is already pretty well beat to death. Should I continue to take the more escapist route, though? Is that responsible of me? Do I need to be responsible? Can't I just play it safe, and do something unrelated but unquestionably still related, but more so as a subtext?

I mean, it's a subtext that no one can really escape at this point, anyways, so really, anything I write will somehow relate to it whether I want it to or not, even if the very nature of its relation is the unrelatedness of it... So I guess I might as well just discuss it.

It's amazing how something invisible to the eye can just change everyone's lives overnight, basically. It's no wonder that before science, people used to believe in magic. Hell, some people still do. It's amazing what ways the mind can twist itself to avoid the cold, hard naked truth, even if we're barreling our way towards a total systems collapse. Maybe.

I do hope everyone is staying as safe as possible given whatever circumstances they find themselves in. I do count myself as lucky. I mean, it's not really luck, because I did work hard to put myself here. Still, I did win the genetic lottery, to a large extent, being a cis-gender white male in the by-god greatest goddamn country anyone in the goddamn rest of the goddamn world has ever goddamn seen. Hoo-Rah!!!

However, when you're poor, if the virus doesn't kill you, then maybe poverty finally will. You finally run out of the means necessary to take care of yourself, or maybe your means doesn't necessarily fit the idea of what other people think it should, and then you get all persecuted and shit. But when you have no options, the only option is create your own options. Or die, I suppose.

Had this happened ten years ago, I would have been totally fucked financially immediately. Still, I did survive as a twenty-something with no college degrees or discernible skills during the 2008 recession in a big city with limited resources. However, that might to a large extent also go back to that thing that I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago, and everything wasn't shut down then, either. It was just hard to find jobs outside of like fast food. Or "fast casual," as it so happened for me.

It was a weird time to be alive then too, but this is worse. Much weirder. Most people don't really even have the fast food option this time around. They're just stuck. Waiting to probably not die, but maybe die? The outcome of this we can't even begin to image yet, because we don't even know what next week is going to look like, at this point. That's the problem when you're trying to contain something that you don't fully understand. Sometimes it does stuff that seems like magic, that no one thought possible, but really it's just our ignorance of how it does the thing that is holding us back. I guess that's why it's important to get ahead of it--things could escalate very quickly.

Of course, it might not go that far or get too much worse than it is now. Hopefully not. I think as a society we have watched too many zombie and post-apocalyptic movies, but instead of preparing us for the possibility of a world-ending event, we have instead manifested it happening right before our eyes. I mean, the Spanish Flu didn't ring in the dawn of the end of humankind, and our understanding of viruses back then was much more remedial. I think, if anything, what's going to kill everyone this time around is not just straight ignorance, but something much worse: anti-intellectualism.

The powerful groups of obscenely wealthy people who control much of society can only shovel so much distrust of academia and learning, and the principles of enlightenment, for so long before the world around them just becomes a fucking Facebookcana American nightmare cesspool of sludge, while they hoard all of the resources and advancements for themselves. It might have finally bitten them in their asses, though. Not that they would admit that.

Oh hell, that last paragraph is going to get me put on some watchlists. I had better stop while I'm ahead. No need for any dissenters to rile up the masses. Don't want to get too crazy or they'll get all May 4, 1970 on us again. Tin Solders and Nitwits coming.

I'm just kidding **shrugs with a smirk and kicks the dirt**

Yay capitalism! **pumps fist in air**

Time for a new and more capitalism approved topic: Celebrity Worship!

I'm sad that Bill Withers died. I have had "Ain't No Sunshine" stuck in my head all day. Of course, he also wrote "Lean on Me," "Lovely Day" and "Just the Two of Us," and many more. What an amazing repertoire of songs--

No, this is not working. Damn. Sorry Bill. I do like your music, though. Might as well continue down the path that I have already created for myself... No reason to make any changes to the thing I can totally change, at this point, at a whim. It's really too bad. I guess whatever happens is just going to happen.

Le sigh...

The real reason the concept of staying home is hard for some is not sheer ignorance or arrogance, but it is because for them, there is little else to do but sit around all miserable like, hyperventilating and obsessing over their own mortality. Trust me, that's no fun.

That's why it's good and cathartic to use your imagination to make some kind of art, and pour those feelings into something that might actually, eventually, help others feel better too. Don't go out, get inward.

Or at least, you know, entertain and distract yourself for a little bit. Make yourself feel better.

And on that note, here's some Don Hertzfeldt to maybe inspire you or at least cheer you up while you wait this mothefucker out:

End Quasi-Temperamental Disjunctive Time Disruption (QTDTD) Once and For All

Today I would like to talk to you about a very important issue that politicians are almost entirely ignoring this election cycle, and indeed, have been ignoring for years. As far as I am aware, neither the Trump nor the Clinton campaigns have even so much as mentioned it; however, the issue affects everyone in the United States and has widespread implications throughout our society, and in fact, most of the rest of the world, as well.

It starts every fall, when we are given an extra hour of sleep or drinking or sex, or some combination of the three, only to have it taken away just a few months later. That's right, I am talking about the Canadian Scourge (no, not Alanis Morissette or Justin Bieber), which is one Benjamin Frankin's worst and most idiotic ideas, Daylight Savings Time, or as it will from now on be known as, Quasi-Temperamental Disjunctive Time Disruption, or QTDTD for short.

According to Time and Date dot com, which must be the authority on such subjects, since, after all, it's in the name of the website, and Wikipedia dot com, the most reliable of sources for information on all subjects, this oppressive practice was started by the Illuminati to cause mass confusion and make people late to work. Okay, so maybe I didn't actually read those websites, but I assume that's what they say. So screw you, Jay Z, you son of a bitch.

Now that we are back in real time, on this sixth day of November, 2016, I, Gabriel Bryan Gott, propose that we end QTDTD once and for all. Imagine a world where you don't have to stare at your clock for eleven straight hours just so you can stay up until 2 a.m. pretending you're riding around with Doc Brown in a Delorian, only to fall asleep before you have a chance to reset your clock, and it just screws up your entire Sunday. Image a world where farmers stop being such primadonnas and start using electric lights like God intended.

Perhaps we can get the energy industry into it, since after all, for half of the year they lose out on an extra hour of electricity sales each and every day. If they can get Presidents to start wars in foreign countries just to steal those countries' natural resources, and usurp sacred tribal lands just because they feel like laying some pipes like a disease-ravaged sex addict on boner pills at a Reno brothel, then perhaps they can persuade congress once and for all to leave our clocks the hell alone.

Today is the day that we collectively slap Woodrow Wilson in his stupid goddamn face once and for all and tell him are not going to stand for this injustice that is almost entirely his fault. After all, who are we to get to change time whenever we feel like it, just so we can have extra daylight for a few months? It's time to stop being greedy and start living in a reality where time stays tacked down where we put it in the first place. No more 3 a.m. bar riots (or is it 2 a.m., or 1?) just because some assholes at some point decided to get all fancy.

No longer will I stand idly by and let this injustice continue. In protest, I am going set my clock back one hour every day until this practice is ended. Only once people have come to their collective senses will I keep my time to myself, and that's a promise you can count on.

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.

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.

A Somewhat Boring Post, but I am Old and Boring Now

Teaching five sections of English Comp is a challenge. I am constantly on my toes to keep up with my lesson planning and grading, but it is kinda fun, and certainly better than working in a restaurant--even if the pay isn't substantially better. It keeps me busy, anyways. I am still looking for full-time work, and if I have to leave in the middle of the semester then, well... I am not looking to do so, necessarily, but if it happens, it happens.

As a professor in the English department of one of my schools recently told me, I owe the schools my professionalism (which I give them), but not my loyalty (even though it is in my nature to be loyal), because I am only an adjunct, it doesn't pay well, and there are no benefits.

Besides, I would rather write than talk about writing for a living, and teaching writing doesn't leave me much time to do any writing--although, I do try to sneak it in when I am able. When I do get the opportunity, I primarily write flash fiction, since I can usually write a whole story in one sitting (although I do come back and polish them before I send them anywhere). I have sent a few out to publications, and I plan to send out more as I find more places to send them. It probably won't lead to wealth and fame, but I am hoping that by getting some stuff published it will help increase my job prospects. Every little bit helps.

It is ironic that, even after having gone back to school and finally gotten my bachelor's degree, and my master's, I am still very much in the same position as I was before I did these things, which were supposed to put me in a good position to find a better job. I suppose it could be worse, at least I have made it out of fast foot/retail sales, and I guess my future prospects are better, but it doesn't seem like it right now since I am still struggling to make ends meet.

On the radio they were saying that Akron, Ohio has the worst job-growth rate in the country, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that I am having trouble--although, I am increasingly looking elsewhere for employment.

The important thing is that I don't give up. The only way anything is going to change is if I keep trying and keep reaching towards the future--keep doing things to increase my opportunities and hopefully improve my quality of life. Maybe I won't succeed, maybe I won't ever make it out of this rut, but, you know, at least I tried.

What a Difference a Couple of Weeks Makes

Over the past couple of weeks, I have gone from one part time teaching gig, to three, from teaching two classes, to teaching five. It is going to be a busy semester, but I am looking forward to being able to focus on teaching and writing. Grad school has been fun, but I am ready for it to be over. I have enjoyed my classes, but it's time for me to move on and get to work. 

Actually, in addition to the teaching gigs, I have another job prospect, a career opportunity, which is perhaps somewhat of a remote possibility, but it is something that I would be thrilled to do with a company where I would love to work. I don't want to jinx it by saying too much, and I don't want to get my hopes up, but, it could realistically happen. I believe that I have a shot at it as much as anyone else who might be up for it. It would definitely change my life in a really good way.

I have really enjoyed my flash fiction class. I believe that I have figured out my style and that I have written some strong stories. It has been a good experience, and I like my professor and my class. I have gotten some helpful advice that I know I will continue to use as I venture out on my own and see what happens.

In An Alternate Universe, About Now...

The Riot of 2014

It was the collective impulse. As soon as the shock started to wear off, the people camped outside the gates started storming it, Bastille-like, and soon, his mansion was on fire. Nearby, all around the area, groups started to gather, and quickly they became one giant, pulsating mass. “Off with their heads,” the blob cried, “off with their heads!” and the ringing of the guillotine echoed all the way to Sandusky. Once again, the river was burning.

NOTE:

BOOKS page updated: Out in the Garage description and word count.

NEW COVER:

To more fully differentiate between the versions of Out in the Garage, I have designed (with the help of my wife) a new cover:

I am very excited about everything that is happening and the direction I am headed, and this will be the last time I work on it before I publish it and move on to other project(s).  I know that I have put my all into this project and, while taking advice but also trusting my instinct, I can't be happier with how it has turned out.  Like I have been saying all along, I have been experimenting with a lot of ideas to try to figure out this whole publishing business.  I finally feel like I am getting a good grasp on it.

Rambling with Volunteers on the Headphones

We can be together 

Ah you and me  

We should be together 

We are outlaws in the eyes of America 

--Jefferson Airplane*

I think, what I am finding is, you have to find a place where you are happy with the content, and the style, and you just have to make sure it is nice and proofread.  It's important to understand the weaknesses and limitations of it, and focus on the strengths of it, and make the strengths genuinely outweigh the weaknesses.  And I am trying to put out a professional quality product.

I feel like I am capable of doing all of these things, and now I am to the point of ordering a proof and really going through and proofreading.  I republished my short story collection after having done so, and I feel like I have caught the majority of my mistakes.  There are still some, but they aren't as noticeable.  I think.

There is always a certain amount of insecurity, but I feel like if I focus on the quality and make both an artistic statement and also putting out something that has the guise of legitimacy, I will be success eventually.  The next thing I will have to learn how to do, as I start writing my next manuscript (and I have started.  I have about 2,000 so far, after one sitting).

I have learned a lot so far, and for that I am grateful.  I can't wait to see what the next year holds as I finish up grad school and get a job (hopefully.  I am already looking).  On top of all this I have to make sure I kick ass at school for like four more classes and my thesis.  Then I will be home free, and with a killer GPA.  I feel like I earned my grades, too.  I am thinking part of my marketing strategy will also hinge on me getting some of these papers published.  That will also take a lot of work, but if I am successful, that will only lend more credibility to myself as a writer of literature.  I am thinking I have some papers by now that if I continue to work on them and get advice on them from my professors, I will be able to get something published.  I am also going to do some conferences at the school so I can get some more experience doing that.

Maybe after I work for a few years, I can go back to school after I get my shit paid off and some credit built.  Maybe I will go back in my forties.  If I did, it would depend on my level of success as a part-time writer as I work a full time job.  If I can make it worthwhile, then I might have a justifiable enough reason to keep going, eventually.  For now, I just have to make money.  I don't want to be a selfish prick or anything, I just want to break free from my debt and start over, finally, with two degrees under my belt, and future prospects.  

Indeed, as I sit here, thinking about my life right now, and my career, it makes me feel like I have better things than I would have just by accepting things that way they were and pushing forward without a second thought.  I could easily be somewhere else, doing something else, just working hard and not feeling worthwhile.   Just feeling all interpellated and numb.  While I might eventually get there anyway --- at least I prolonged it to my thirties.  It was bound to happen eventually.  Still, some of the most significant writers of the last century worked other jobs or had other people to support them.  They weren't fucking making money doing it, either.

Maybe we are just cogs on a mechanism no one can truly understand, the only possibility being placed on the hopes of eternity past material existence --- of which proof I have seen no evidence of and can never be sure about.

Maybe I am just fooling myself, and we are all just fooling ourselves?  Aren't we all just as strong and smart and capable as we think we are, and if we admit to weakness we become it?  That is true if language is how we define our finite universe.  

So I guess that also means life is how we define it?  I think that is something I can take away from this rambling.

Note

*"We Can Be Together" lyrics courtesy of lyricsfreak.com.

New Out in the Garage Description (in progress)

I just wrote this but I felt that it was pertinent to share it with you (as well as update the description on my BOOKS page).  My goal was to write a more enticing, professional-sounding description of my book, and I think I have accomplished that (just go back and find the various other versions, strewn about throughout this blog).  This description will also be the one on Amazon and all the other websites as well as the one on the back of the book.  Anyways, here is the direction I am going, and I think this turned out very well (we'll see if it is the one I actually end up using):

Lance Adamson was born in the 80's, stranded in Nodtown.  There, he lives with his mom and Grandpa Harry at Grandpa Harry's house.  He spends most of his time playing drums -- when he's not in school, anyways -- jamming with Grandpa Harry, who plays bass, but it is the furthest thing from cool.  While Grandpa Harry is the one who took Lance out to the garage for the first time and taught him how to play -- how to really play, how to let the music carry him away -- to Grandpa Harry, jazz is religion, and, nowadays, all Lance really wants to do is rock out.  Wayne, Lance's best friend, plays trumpet with them -- but he is actually more of a guitarist.  He plays that thing as often as other dudes masturbate.  Lance and Wayne could totally start the greatest band in rock n' roll history, except that Grandpa Harry will never let that happen, not in that garage, anyway.  Lance knows that it's time for a change...

Of the various different versions I have written, I think this one is my favorite.  It sets up the story but doesn't really give anything away.

Zippity Dippity Doo on a Tuesday morning before work

I am hoping to order the proof of Out in the Garage by this weekend, along with some copies of my short story collection, Tales From the Fringes (which is only $6.86 at Amazon right now, by the way).    While these are copies to give away to family and close friends, I am going to start keeping some on-hand to sell and use for promotional purposes.  You never know who you are going to meet, or what opportunities will come your way.

And yes, I am starting on research.  Right now it is mainly an online thing until I find all the relevant articles and books.  I will probably start out by doing a lot of reading about American Exceptionalism before I start my historical research.  The former will help to shape the latter as I make a more complete connection between the Melville the and the thing he was criticizing (which is as relevant as ever in today's 24-hour propaganda cluster-fuck).

My goal is to go through AT LEAST two chapters of Out in the Garage a day until I have gone through all 17 chapters.  For the most part I am happy with everything, and I have no desire or see no need to change the story, the plot, the characters, etc. but there are some places where the language is still a little funky or inadequate and the descriptions are flat, boring, or too melodramatic.  

The melodrama worked more in previous versions where everything was over-the-top.  However, in the current version, it just comes across as cheesy, so I am going to tone it down a bit.  I want it to be vivid, yet subtle.  At least subtly over-the-top, or an implied over-the-topness -- if that is even possible.

Part of me does want to just say fuck it and publish it how it is, but I still have the time to polish it up before the release date.  That is one of the nice parts about current technology, and one which I will definitely continue to take advantage of.

I feel like I can't do any new writing until I have completely exhausted all of my current projects and the upcoming projects are thorough planned out.  I also need to get better at using my time wisely and dividing it more evenly between the things that are important in my life.  Sometimes some things might usurp more time than others, but right now there is nothing in particular that needs that.  I can be very productive if I push myself -- I just gotta be more Type-A than Type-B right now.

These blogs help with that.  In a strange way they help me organize my thoughts about my work and focus on what I need to be working on.  I have so many goals to accomplish, and I am not going to accomplish them by being lazy or focusing too much on one thing.  I can't lose sight of the importance of school, but yet my writing is also important -- it is, after all, what influenced me to study English and finally get my bachelor's degree-- and self-publishing is a challenging and rewarding hobby.

Random Notes:

Been distracted by shiny things, lately.  Will be getting back to business, shortly.  And by business I totally mean my thesis.  That thing is... Here.  Yikes!


Very exited to be reading Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (as well as other books, including The Mystborn by Brandon Sanderson).


Recording is...  Going well.  Check out www.soundclick.com/survivalpilot.


Check out the books page to read the updated description for Out in the Garage, my debut novel, which I am self-publishing / releasing for sale on October 18.


*Making my wife watch Warm Bodies because I know she'll like it once she gives it a chance*

UPDATE

Unfortunately, Tales from the Fringes will be tomorrow before I can release the print version.  There was a mix-up in the files and I send the wrong one to be reviewed.  The review process takes about 24 hours (although, in my experience, it is actually only like 12), which, now that I have gone through that process for the wrong file, I must do it again for the correct one, then I can release it for sale.

Like I said before, the Kindle e-book version is already for sale for $4.99.  The print version will be $7.99.

For those of you who use other formats for e-books other than Kindle, I am looking into the options and am going to release it for sale in those markets as well.

I will update again soon.

The High Speed Police Chase to the End of the Semester

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."

"Hit it."

I get in my car and have someone weld the door shut.  I start the ignition, put my foot on the break, put the car in gear, and superglue my hands to the steering wheel.  There is a cardboard sign in my back window that reads, "May or Bust."

I can't stop.  If I don't spend virtually every waking hour on my school work, I will not make it there.

I can't let silly little things like sanity slow me down or stop me.  I've got to keep going.  Word after word, inch after inch, page after page, mile after mile, I must reach my destination or die in a fiery explosion.

Next week I have five presentations, three on Wednesday and two on Thursday.  Not to mention two paper proposals, and my regular reading and classwork.  The three presentations on Wednesday don't scare me, they are three of the same presentation, to three different college composition class, on writing research papers.  The one presentation on Thursday isn't a big deal, it is to my Melville class, which only has like 8 people (including myself), and is about our reading.  

The other presentation on Thursday, however, is at the University of Akron Student Innovation Symposium.  It's not a big conference or anything, but it is more official, and it is  based on my research of the Middle  English romance, Havelok the Dane.  The title of my presentation is "Class, Status, and Social Order in Havelok the Dane".  It is based on a paper that I wrote for my Middle English Lit class at Kent.  I am not nervous...Yet.  I volunteered to do the presentations on Wednesday so by Thursday (in addition to the ones I have already done this semester) so that by Thursday I will be a seasoned pro at presenting.

Hopefully this experience will then translate to me giving a presentation at the MMLA Conference next November.  That I won't find out about until June.  That presentation, if they accept it, will be on John Updike's Rabbit, Run, and my assertion that there is no subjective narrative voice in the text.  In addition to the experience, it will be cool to go to because it is in Milwaukee.

There is also a Shakespeare Conference in the fall that I would like to present at.

Right now I have to focus on getting my classwork done.  But all these presentations are good experience (and good to add to my CV, which is still rather bare), but I won't be going very far if I don't have good grades.  I already have two of my final papers somewhat figured out, and one more to figure out.  I have two proposals due and lots of research to do, which means that my weekend is over. Hell, my weekends for the next month are over.  Sorry, folks.  I'll see you all after May 10.

I *should* be finding out soon whether I am getting the assistantship. I don't know whether I will or not, but I do know that I am still in the running.  I am keeping my fingers crossed and my nose to the grindstone and hope that my application is strong (Hell, I know it's strong, but hopefully it is in comparison to the other applicants) and that the professors who are on the committee know me and believe I am capable of handling a position (because I know I am).  If I don't get it that will change my future plans (since I won't be able to get into a PhD program without it).

In addition, I have thought of a thesis topic and have contacted a possible adviser about it.  

This has been such an up and down semester.  Two weeks ago I was at the verge of losing my nerve and now I am more confident and reassured than ever.  This is the first time I have ever needed a Spring Break just to keep my sanity, but it worked.  Everything seems to be coming together.

Speaking of which, I am still trying to get Tales from the Fringes together.  I need to give it a thorough proofread before I am satisfied.  I don't have to make any major changes, and I am satisfied with the formatting and the content.  By the time school is out for the semester I will be ready to promote it like crazy.

I am still weighing my options about my novel.  On one hand I definitely have a great idea and it would be worthwhile to rewrite it; however, many of the criticisms from my professional reader I was prepared for, and these things didn't bother me necessarily, beforehand. I am thinking that I am going to self publish the current version and take that part that she liked and expand on it and write it in a more focused, detailed, and professional way.  

The main problem with my novel as it is now is that the style is out of date.  The publishing industry has a very narrow concept of what makes a good novel, and it doesn't necessarily mesh with the canon of Western Literature.  Then again, many of the works that constitute that canon weren't popular at the time. 

I'm not saying that I am that good or anything, but, as a student of that literature, particularly as someone who is working towards a PhD. in it, I am highly influenced by the canon.  If I limit myself to what currently constitutes "good" literature, while I am certainly more likely to get published, I feel like I am vastly limiting my creative possibilities.

I am not saying that I am not going to write books that fit within that narrow scope, but I am not exclusively going to do so, nor should anybody.  Maybe that is a part of the problem with the publishing industry.  Too few people get to decide what is relevant, and what they say is relevant doesn't match up with what is historically relevant.

While I am not against progress, I am against putting myself in a box, especially since, even if I meet the standard and I do get published, that doesn't guarantee any sort of success, which is why I am focused on trying to make a living in Education.  This way I can still do what I love and make some kind of living.

I just think it's illogical that many of the books that we define as great, that have stood the test of time and are still relevant today and are still studied widely all over the world, Melville for example (who is MORE relevant now than when he was alive), wouldn't get published today, because they don't fit in with what the INDUSTRY defines as good.

I am not saying that I am Melville, but, I am not saying that I am not, either.  Maybe my novel has faults, but it also, I think, has many strengths, too.  It is definitely a first novel, and it is well past due to be presented to the world.  I really want to move forward, and, since I am not delusional and have no intention of trying to make a living as a writer -- if it happens, it happens -- and I have already spent SIX years on this same goddamn novel.  I feel like I have been jerking off for the past six years.

I feel like I do owe it to my audience to put it out and make it accessible.  I will likely write a more focused, YA version of that one particular section, but there is no reason why I can't put out what I have.  What else am I going to do with it?

I don't know.  For now, I am going to get through school, get my short story collection out, build more of an audience and advance professionally.

I am thinking, I am really leaning towards, self-publishing my book as it is.  We'll see what happens.

I should get back to work.

A New Beginning

While it doesn't seem like it should be an easy decision to make, starting over on my first novel is the right way to go -- not because I am not proud of what I have written so far, it just has too many problems that no amount of rewrites will fix.  I have tried to morph it into something better than it can be, and now I have to stop fooling myself and do what I have, in times of frustration, wanted to do for years.

On the bright side, however, I am salvaging parts of the story -- in essence I am taking the best 30-40 pages and hyper-focusing on it for 60-70,000 words.  My goal is to paint a vast, complex picture of a young adult trying to deal with some traumas while spending the summer on a farm half a state away with distant relatives, where he meets somebody who might make it all worth it, if he is not too blind to notice.

I am confident that I can write a draft of this by the end of the summer.  I am taking it as a personal challenge to use the ideas that manifested in the first trial, and work them in a more plausible, more focused, highly detailed way.  The scope of my previous try was too large.  The details were too small, too brief, too disjointed.

In addition, now I know my genre -- at least for this book.  It is a YA novel, a coming of age story.  It has always been the latter, but I had never settled on the former.  It makes a whole lot of sense for me, and, although I have research to do, I feel like it should have been this all along.

It's good that I know this.  Even if it did come at the price of six years of work.  I feel like I could not have reached this point if I had not been through everything I have been through.

My goal is to write as good of a novel as I can, and if that means starting over, then I am perfectly willing to do it.  I have long know there are a lot of problems with my manuscript, and the same ones seem to surface in different ways, no matter what I have done.

To get a professional criticism and confirm all this -- but also that I have potential -- is a step in the right direction.  I wish I had sent it to her sooner, but, I can't live my life dwelling on something like that.  I must continue looking towards the future.

In the meantime I am going to put out this short story collection, Tales from the Fringes, and see what kind of audience I can build.  I will focus on school and settling into a career in education.

I don't really see it as a step back as much as a humbling.  Life is a learning experience and when I lose track of that I get discouraged.  I don't have time to get discouraged.  I can only move forward.

On the bright side, I already know this story inside and out.  It will take discipline, research, and planning, to write a new manuscript, but I anticipate the writing process going more smoothly this time around.  Everything that I lacked when I first started writing fictions I now have.  Looking back on my first writings, I have come an impossible long way.  Now it's time to take all that knowledge and the skills I have developed, and this world and these characters I have created, and put it all together.

--

Tentative Title (since the focus of the book is shifting, the title has to change): Outside the Garden
Goal Length: 72,000 words
Genre: Young Adult Literature

Synopsis: Lance Adamson goes to stay for the summer on his uncle's farm near the small, central Ohio town, Babel, to escape the recent suicide of his best friend Art, as well as other ghosts.  There he meets Evie, his only ally.  With her help, Lance tries to begin the healing process and avoid being sucked into the Nimrod Evangelical Temple and the preachings of Pastor Lee Charles, who has virtually everyone else in town under his control.

--

Like I said, this is essentially a 30-40 page chunk of my book that I am hyper-focusing on.  I have written beginning two pages, and, I am really excited to continue.  I can tell even by the fact that I am able to write a synopsis of it that I am in much better shape that I ever have been.

Everything is coming together.  Not in the way I was imagining that it would, but, this way seems more plausible.  My gut instinct tells me I am making the right choice.  I am excited to be thrown back into the creative process, which, for me, is the best part of all of this.

Updated Information on Tales from the Fringes

All information is tentative; however, less tentative than before.  Probably won't change too much.  I have submitted to Create Space Again.  When they approve it, I will print another proof, and go through it one more time.  My goal is to not have to change anything but typos.  Hopefully there aren't too many.  I will announce an exact release date soon (should definitely be by May 1).

Price: $7.99 paperback; $4.99 e-book

6" x 9"

15 stories/154 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1482787474

ISBN-10: 1482787474

BISAC  Category: Fiction/Short Story

Description:

Whether it's working at a McDonald's and playing in a band in "Greasy", mugging people to pay a violent drug dealer in "Survival", or accidentally starting the Zombie Apocalypse in "The Bananamen Prophecy", Tales from the Fringes finds people struggling through a variety of situations, with mixed results.  Mainly set in the Midwest, these stories capture the essence of what it's like to live on the fringes, where money is hard to come by, sex is often an obsession or a compulsion, and people are more often than not completely invisible to the outside world, and to each other.

TGIF and TGISB and DIY

IIIIIIIIITTTTT'S FRRIIIIIIIIIDAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And not just any Friday, but the Friday before Spring Break!  While I will definitely be keeping myself busy over the week, I don't have class or work, so my schedule is what I make it!

Still proofreading, tweaking the format and editing.  Since I have changed the spacing, indentation, and the font to make it look more professional, with the twelve stories I originally planned to published in it, I will only have about 100 pages.

So I am going to include three more previously unreleased stories, bringing the grand total up to fifteen.  It will be approximately 140 pages, and I will likely lower the price when I finalize it all.  I am still planning on releasing it by May.

The addition of these stories won't substantially increase the amount of work I have to do to get it publishing ready.  More details to come.  As I work on it and it gets better and better, both the stories, the design, and the typesetting, the more excited I get.  I can't wait to release this to you all.

Also, I *think* I have figured out the formatting problems I was having with the e-book format.  *fingers crossed*

While I am figuring out everything while putting together and preparing Tales from the Fringes for official publication, I have also begun formatting and typesetting my first novel, Out in the Garage, for a late-summer/early fall release. 

The more I think about it, the more I work towards it, the more my DIY mentality takes over, and the more I want to lean toward self-publishing.  The trick is in being able to market and sell my products on the Internet to a wide enough audience, which is the next step in the process.  Either way, I feel like it suites me.  I like the idea that I can do my own thing in my own way.



Especially if it is an ideology or an ethos, as long as there is people who don't want to take all the mass media corporate bullshit, the it will never die.

Some might say, "But Gabe, you are using the products of a large corporation, doesn't that make you a hypocrite?"

My reply?  Not when I have complete creative control.  And fuck off.  If anything, I am using the corporate mass media to get my stories, ideas, philosophies out to people I don't have the means to otherwise reach.  It's not like I have some dictator standing over my back telling me what to write.  I am my own dictator, goddammit.  Also, I am not trying to get rich, I am just trying to create the means to continue doing it.

Besides, most writers don't make a living writing.  That's why I'm in school.  That's why I will get a job after school and work towards paying off the debt I have incurred.  I would rather do it myself on my own terms -- if the outcome is going to be the same either way.

It's time to embrace the future, because the future is now, and I am not getting any younger or smarter.




Look at the Descendents.  Those guys all have like PhD.s and shit now, and they are still fucking awesome.

It's not about making money, it's about doing what I love.  Self-publishing is the way to go.