Ramblin' Gamblin Man, or You Can't Keep This Elephant Caged

Today's ramblings are brought to you by Cage the Elephant's latest album, Tell Me I'm Pretty (not Bob Seger, sorry Bob). When I first saw these boys at Lollapalooza in 2009, I knew they had something great going. Two albums and an EP later, and they only continue to prove it.

Anyways, for those of you who are relatively new to reading my blog, I haven't written a post this rambling in a while. I apologize to those who are used to my more polished prose. Blame it on the cold medicine. To be honest, though, I am not really that sorry. This is more of a return to form for me, since I spent the first several years of this website's existence just rambling about whatever topic struck me at the moment, which is what I am feeling like doing today. If you don't like it, don't approve of it, I will give you a moment to find something else to do...

Alright, are we good? Everyone still here? I am counting heads, and I only seem to have lost a few, just as I thought. Most of you are pretty loyal, which I appreciate. Keep up the good work!

I think I have come to an answer regarding the dilemma that I outlined last Saturday about the novel that I have partially written (a first draft of). Namely, I am going to finish it. Huzzah! When it comes down to it, not finishing it is a cop out, and I know that it is good, I just needed to remind myself why I chose this particular story to tell in the first place. In short, I wanted to make an artistic statement, as well as make a social criticism, and the time is right for me to do it now. If I wait, I could miss my opportunity, and I don't want to do that.

Right about now you are probably thinking, "But Gabe, you have told us about this novel more than once, but you have not told us a goddamn thing about it!"

That's true, and I am at the moment wrestling with myself about whether I want to tell you about it or let it remain a secret. The part of me that wants to tell you just punch the part of me that doesn't in the face. However, the part of me that doesn't is pretty resilient and is in quick order going to retaliate--I will let you know how it goes. It could be a long fight.

Hold up a second! That's actually not true that I haven't told you anything about it. I have in fact alluded to what it's about, possibly more than once. Without combing through several blogs, I remember specially telling you at some point over the past year or so that it takes place in Chicago in 2009 during the Great Recession.

Take that, bitch!

Okay, so I see that some of you who were expecting me to ramble are starting to lose interest. I built it up but then started talking about my book, and, with the exception of these talks about my rambling, and the intro paragraph, it has been pretty focused on that. The problem is, I don't really know where to go from here. My mind is pretty focused on this topic right now.

I could talk about the election, but I am pretty burnt out on that, to be honest. I have followed politics pretty closely for all of my adult life, and I was even the precocious middle school journalist who, while not taking it too seriously, followed politics at that time. Hell, I even attended a Bob Dole rally with my 8th grade newspaper staff, which basically meant standing in line for a really long time outside of Ashland University, which I spent most of entertaining (or annoying) those around me with my Ross Perot impression, which I basically stole from Dana Carvey: "Would you please just let me finish, Larry..."

What's going on this time around, though, what a shit show. Seriously. Just a real big fucking steaming pile of shit. And, if you thought it was going to end on Election Day, just wait. The candidate who I dare not speak his name is probably going to draw this out for a while, that motherfucker.

It's not like I am particularly excited about the other candidate, either. It's like choosing which rabid animal I want to rip my face off. What a fucking time to be alive! No matter what happens, I am still probably going to be poor and just smart enough to know that I don't have to be poor, but just dumb enough to lack the means of actually pulling myself out of poverty.

This election has made me feel almost completely disenfranchised. While I technically have the right to vote, and will still exercise it, I kind of want to give it back and go vote somewhere else. I hear Northern Europe is nice this time of year. I don't know Swedish, but I could learn. I mean, I have followed Ikea instructions, so how hard could it be, and Finland's education system has it's appeals...

That brings up a question, though: does a legal entity have to take away your right to vote (or prevent it) in order to disenfranchise you, or can they do it merely by setting a system that is so convoluted, that it doesn't actually matter how you vote?

Certainly there is a big difference in the candidates' polices (or lack thereof), so I am not suggesting there wouldn't be differences between a presidency of one or the other, but what I am suggesting is it doesn't matter whichever one gets elected, because there won't be much either one will actually do or change to make a significant impact on my life, realistically. I mean, look at all of the stuff President Obama tried to do for the greater good, that only turned out to be half measures or symbolic gestures, at best.

I am not suggesting he didn't ultimately make a difference in some peoples lives--although, to be honest, the biggest of those changes happened through the court system--but things he actually did initiate, or attempt to initiate, like healthcare reform and immigration, are even bigger issues, now, than they were before him. And it's not like he didn't try to make a difference, but when the system is set up to largely benefit those who already have everything, then it is their policies that are going to hold, in the end, rather than ones that are intended to make the system more fair for everyone. Oligarchy, anyone?

The only way any changes will happen that will have a lasting impact is through actually changing the constitution and leveling the playing field, and that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon. I feel like it would be healthy for our country if the states decided to hold constitutional conventions and passed a measure that would make a real difference, but are we even capable of that, as a country,  as a people?

Seriously, though, Northern Europe, I can handle your winters if you can handle my American loutishness. Once I chill out and calm the fuck down, it should go away in a relatively short order. We can make it work. Think on it...

Okay, so maybe my ramblings are more focused now, but I guess that could be a sign of my overall growth as a writer, rather than as a weakness. I don't want to end this on a political rant, though, but I do want to go to Taco Bell, so I need to decide on something more satisfying pretty quickly.

I guess I could bring it around full circle. Doesn't that sound nice? I think so. I think that's what I am going to go with.

This Cage the Elephant album is pretty fucking great. I have listened to it twice now while writing this, and I can honestly say that I might listen to it again. "Mess Around" is catchy as hell, as well as "Trouble," but really it's just a solid fucking album all the way through. If you like rock n' roll, it's fucking worth the ten bucks. Seriously.

I did this with Melophobia, too. That album blew me away. That transition in "Spiderhead" is fucking phenomenal, and "Cigarette Daydreams" gets stuck in your head, in a good way. Hell, maybe I will listen to Melophobia instead, now that I think about it.

There, that should get the bad taste out of your mouth from the discussion which I shall not mention the topic of that came just prior.

Speaking of tastes, Taco Bell beckons. I guess I should probably take a shower, too. 'Toodles!

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.

September 24, 1991

Two albums that have been pivotal to my life came out on the very same day, my ninth birthday, 25 years ago today. While it's true that I would not discover them for maybe a few more years, they eventually became pivotal in my life, both as an appreciator of music and a wannabe musician/songwriter. Probably even as a writer, too.

I was always kind of into music anyways, because I was always sort of just surrounded by it, and I loved Disney and Don Bluth movies. When dad wasn't home, I would sometimes run around the house and sing the songs from the movies, sometimes at the top of my lungs, to the detriment of my siblings and my mom. However, both of my parents and my older brother all listened to music a lot, too. While we also watched plenty of TV, the stereo, on average, was on way more often.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Nirvana's Nevermind, as it was to many, was a revelation. For one thing, I was a geeky, overly sensitive kid, and, finally, after years of taking shit from assholes, I had found an outlet for my angst. There was also this sudden injection of testosterone and whatever other hormones that probably also made it necessary, and this album, and soon this genre of music, seemed to fulfill my need on a level that I had not previously experienced with any other music, or anything else, to that point in my life.

It may not have been the first album or the first band that drew my attention, but when it hit me, when I really listened to it the first time, it became one of the most important in life. Soon, others would join it.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

I was older yet when I discovered the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I had heard songs from it many times as my brother listened to it and the radio played "Give It Away" and "Under the Bridge" on heavy rotation, but it was another one that suddenly just made sense to me one day, and in a language I was just beginning to understand: as a bass guitarist.

At the age of 13, with money saved from my allowance from recycling pop and beer cans, I bought a 3/4 scale Kramer bass guitar from my brother. He had bought it and owned it for a while but never really played it, and decided to sell it, and I was the only one willing to pay what he was asking for it. It was cherry red all over, including the neck and the head stock, shiny, and cheaply-yet-sturdily made, and not until I had the vocabulary from playing it did the Red Hot Chili Peppers make sense to me.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

As far as I was concerned, Flea was just the greatest musician on the planet. It would take a few years before I was able to play anything remotely resembling anything by him, but I eventually taught myself how to play "Give It Away" pretty adequately.

Now, however many years later, when I listen to these two albums, although I don't get the same rush that I once did, I still sort of experience the memory of the rush. I can only image what it must have been like for those people in those bands, and how great it must have felt when they were making that music at that time, and I wonder if maybe they had gone through similar sorts of things to create these sounds, songs, albums that I have so identified with over my life.

Created by Gabe Gott.

As an artist, I appreciate the difficulty, and really, luck, that it sometimes takes to find the thing that others identify with about you. It is something that I have sought through my writing for years. and I finally feel like I might be getting close, but only time will tell. That's probably why I listen to music by bands like Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers when I write, because it helps me find and convert, then focus that energy in a way that makes my writing more powerful.

Maybe, if I am lucky, I can help even just one other person go through a difficult period in his/her life the way those bands and those albums did for me. That's why I do this, and why I will continue to do this. That, and my ego, of course.

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.

Space... The Final Frontier

Now that "The Ever-Present Moment" is out, I can focus my creative attention on my next chapbook, "Dispatches from the Information Age," which I would like to publish in the next six months.

Another stand-in for the cover.

I soon hope to have a more concrete idea of when it will come out, but it is being held up for a good reason---namely so that the journals that are going to publish or are thinking about publishing stories from the collection are able to do so (since they have first rights).

Two more stories from it are going to be published in October, and there is one more I am waiting to hear about. It has been six months, so maybe I should reach out and find out for sure that they have rejected it.

The journal in question only stopped accepting submissions in May, and I submitted my story for the Fall 2016 issue, so I should be hearing soon. It only publishes annually, so they don't move as fast as the quarterly or monthly people, and they have a Submittable, so they should at least mark it as rejected (or accepted) when (or if) they do reject (or accept) it.

Courtesy of Pixabay.com

I have also been thinking about submitting to a few select journals one or two more of the stories from "Dispatches," just to see what happens. You never know. The likelihood is that they will get rejected, but it is not definite. After all, sometimes I am surprised, and my stories don't get rejected. It happens, and there is no way to know until you send them out.

It does take some thick skin, but everyone gets rejected. The writers that "make it" are the ones that keep trying, and keep sending stuff out until they make a name for themselves, and journals start asking them for stuff. I don't know if that will ever happen for me, but I can dream, right?

In the meantime, I  also have to decide for sure on whether or not to continue writing the novel I have been writing. Part of me really wants to ditch it and start on something that more accurately reflects where I am and where I want to go as a writer. While I like literary fiction, I see myself writing more sci-fi and absurd, satirical stories, which seems to be what draws people to me the most.

My current novel is interesting, but no one really reads literature anymore, and those that do could give two shits about my writing, so why would I bother continuing to cater to a market that has no interest in my writing? It doesn't make much sense.

Plus, if I abandon literature and pursue the direction I have been going, I will be building on the audience I have already been building on with the stories that I have thus far gotten published.

Courtesy of Pixabay.

Except for the very first one five years ago, every story that I have written that has been published by others has dealt with topics such as alternate dimensions, Reagan clone invasions, time travel, and distant alien races taking over the galaxy. The next two that are going to be published are about Bigfoot and electronic devices coming alive, so it only continues.

I would rather write for people who want to read what I am writing, and I have always been a fan of sci-fi and the like. While Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury are two of my favorite writers, I am not the best read in this area---however, that can easily change.

So maybe "The Ever-Present Moment" will be my farewell to that style of writing. It's been real, but it hasn't been that fun (overall), and I want to have fun with it and lay off the serious shit for a while.

It sounds like I have already made up my mind. Maybe I have. I guess there is only one way to find out.

Available Now!

The Ever-Present Moment

$5.50 Print | $0.99 eBook

ISBN-10: 1534992529 

ISBN-13: 978-1534992528

Createspace | Amazon | Kindle

Description:
Through the nine stories collected in this flash fiction chapbook, Akron, Ohio, author Gabe Gott explores what it means to live in the moment. Featuring “Brakes,” “Catharsis,” and “Priorities.”