March 2008

Is it Friday yet?

I’ve got nothing. Nothing to say, nothing to write, nothing done on the next story. Nothing.

Earlier in the week a friend of mine sent around a funny picture of marshmallow peeps at a strip club and reminded me of this study done to test the impact of smoking and drinking on a marshmallow peep.

Here. Enjoy.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Show me how this ends

Matthew and Epp have started to take over this project.  I’m having a harder and harder time leaving their world after every story and thinking about them when a new story is rolling around starts earlier and earlier.  This is understandable I guess, and, judging by how that last story came out of me, has zero bearing on what actually happens.  I seriously thought Kyo’s story would be summed up in a quick little flashback.  Oops.

Anyway, I find myself with eight days until I need a new story and while I have something of an idea, I can’t seem to get my head to focus and instead I’m constantly toying with Matthew and Epp ideas.  It’s clear where their story is heading at this point but how it ends is not exactly obvious to me.  I should rephrase that. I have no idea where it’s heading but I have a number of scenes that keep rattling around in my head that it’d be a shame not to have happen.  And, well, it’s so much fun to play in their world.  I mean, this is a series of stories where I could have a gun toting outlaw from the 1800′s American southwest fighting it out with a member of Napolean’s infantry…and they could do it on the deck of the Titanic.

Not that that’s going to happen but with that sort of creative freedom it’s difficult to leave their world.

I don’t know.  I need to get my head together.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Stupid hubris

My idea for next week’s story is odd. I was all excited because I got a decent idea this past weekend, mere days after finishing the previous story. This never happens. But it did and so I assumed I would have an easy time of things this go around. But the idea is really quite strange and frankly I’m not sure what to do with it. So now I’m getting worried. Also I’m very sleepy.

I knew I shouldn’t have let myself get ahead of myself.

In other news, over at Tim King’s blog, Be The Story, “Private Showing” has been decreed to not be crap. High praise indeed.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Whoo-hoo!

I just found out that another old story of mine was accepted for publication. The magazine that picked it up is Ellipsis out of Westminster College.

I don’t know when it’s going to be out in print, exactly. After a story gets accepted it can take six months to a year for it to appear in an edition of the magazine and sometimes it never makes it at all. I wrote this story in college and mailed to Ellipsis in November of 2006. It’s now March of 2008. It’ll be a few more months until it shows up in print.

You can read the story I finished writing last Thursday here. Right now. No wait.

I already went through this in this post but I’ll mention again that I’m pretty sure the smaller short story publications could start utilizing the internet to streamline things a bit and spend more time doing the work they want to be doing. Like me. I hate putting together mailings. It takes me weeks and weeks and I get all thrown off track and my work routine goes to hell. Now, though, I just copy and paste into my WordPress dashboard. Then I hit the publish button. Then you can read it. Pretty simple.

As I mentioned in that other post I don’t claim to have all of this worked out. But I’m pretty certain some things can be improved.

I’ll let you know when Ellipsis puts my story out and you can buy a copy if you want.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I have no idea what I’m doing

I really don’t have any idea how to go about running this site.  None.  I’d like to make it as enjoyable as possible, and I’d like for you to play on here as much as possible…but this project makes that difficult sometimes.  For one thing, as more and more readers come in, more and more people are commenting on stories that were posted, like, eight months ago.  Which is great, I love comments, but it’s hard to get a sense of community going when my main content is buried in the archives.  I threw up a “Most Popular” sidebar a few months ago, and hopefully that helped people pick the stories out from the daily babble. And the “Stories” page up along the top seemed to help too.

But what I’m talking about now are the comments that are slowly starting to amass on some of the stories.  I’ll say again that I love comments and there isn’t anything that makes a story come alive for me more than hearing how readers respond to the characters I’ve created.  There’s a metaphor, not mine, I forget where I heard it, but it compares art to gambling at a casino.  The basic premise being that it’s all sort of fake, you have these chips and you know on some level that they’re real but it doesn’t hit home until you go to the cashier and get actual money.  That’s what you all are.  My cashiers.  You make this real for me and I thank you for it.

And from the other end of things I think reading what other people have to say can be an eye-opener and can enrich your reading of a story.  Some people don’t like that, I know, but some people do, and for those people it’s hard to keep track of comments since the meaty ones are going to be way back on the stories.

So, I’ve also added a “Recent Comments” thingy into the sidebar.  You can see all the latest comments if you scroll down…and look in the sidebar.  Likewise, you can subscribe to the comments via a feed.  That’s up in the sidebar as well by the orange chic-let.  Although that’s probably just for die-hards.

I’ll also add that the comments sections for stories are yours and yours alone.  I know a lot of bloggers will pop in and say hi and “chat,” so to speak, via comments, but I don’t think I’m going to do that.  It’s just not me.  Once I hit the publish button on a story I’m a firm believer that I should then back away from the story and let it be yours entirely.  So I won’t be popping up to reply to comments.  Sorry.  I will, however, happily respond to e-mails.  Relatively quickly.  And maybe maybe maybe I’ll give you a nod if you’ve been getting busy on the old comments (Give me a “T!” Give me an “A!” Give me an “M!”  Give me an “M!” Give me a “Y!”).

Generally speaking, though, the comments are all yours.

And, for the first time in forever, I’ve got an idea for the next story right off the bat.  Kind of.  At the very least I’m not nowhere.

Popularity: 2% [?]

My apologies to the entire nation of Japan

I’m very unsettled by that last story. For a number of reasons. For starters, though, I’ll mention again that me being unsettled is generally a good sign for you, the reader. You don’t want me positive a story was good. But still, that last story drew on some weird things and I found myself in the annoying position of wanting to do a good job portraying ancient Japanese culture while at the same time needing to completely ignore everything I knew about Japanese culture in order to just tell my story. That was unsettling part number one.

Unsettling part number two was that I’ve got to get a move on here with the main players in the world of Matthew and Epp, and I thought I’d be jumping around from place to place in that last story, putting a few more pieces into place before letting the whole thing start to unwind naturally on it’s own. Only, I decided to dip a bit into Kyo’s history and thousands of words later, there I was, still investigating Kyo’s history. Nothing else in the Matthew and Epp universe got advanced very much.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be extending this project by a story or maybe two in order to wrap up that world.

For now, if you enjoyed “The Monk, the Warrior and the Lord,” than I would like to credit the large number of Japanese myths and folk tales that I drew on. If you weren’t so crazy about it than that’s on me. Either way, it is absolutely necessary for me, once a deadline is done, to just move on to the next story. If I let myself linger this whole project goes to hell. So that sound your hearing is my hands being wiped clean and me moving on to Untitled 19.

Anyone have any ideas?

Popularity: 2% [?]

An interview with Nyx

In June I began writing a new original story every two weeks and posting them to this website. Much to my surprise, one of those stories, Second Choice, spawned a second story, then a third, then a fourth and so on until it became clear to me that this was actually one novel length story coming out of me in installments. This was all fun and good but now that seven months have gone by since the first story it has become clear that a brief refresher course is needed for me and many of my readers. Therefore, leading up to the publication on this site of Part 7 on March 6th I will be interviewing a number of characters from this work here on my blog.

(In a sparsely furnished room sits Nyx. Nyx is young, barely in her twenties if not still a teenager. Her hair is dark black and pert bangs rest on her forehead over heavy lidded eyes rimmed in purple eyeliner. She is sitting back in a semi-daze, as if contemplating taking a nap. She reaches up lazily and wipes a bright scarlet smear off of the corner of her mouth. A fine mist of something similarly colored is splattered over the carpet and the interviewer’s chair which sits across from her, noticeably empty.)

Popularity: 4% [?]

An interview with Hector

In June I began writing a new original story every two weeks and posting them to this website. Much to my surprise, one of those stories, Second Choice, spawned a second story, then a third, then a fourth and so on until it became clear to me that this was actually one novel length story coming out of me in installments. This was all fun and good but now that seven months have gone by since the first story it has become clear that a brief refresher course is needed for me and many of my readers. Therefore, leading up to the publication on this site of Part 7 on March 6th I will be interviewing a number of characters from this work here on my blog.

(In a sparsely furnished room the interviewer sits across from Hector. Hector is broad shouldered, his large frame is barely contained by a three-piece suit. His eyes are covered with mirrored sunglasses that hug his face close. His arms are folded and he doesn’t seem to happy about being here. Up against the near wall Gregor is seated, his face hidden behind the newspaper he’s reading.)

Joseph Devon: Okay, Hector, it’s good to have you here.

Hector: Yah.

JD: Now we’ve covered most everything in other interviews except what’s been in the works on your end of things.

H: What’s that mean?

JD: I mean we’ve gone into what testers are and how they work and live and some of their history. All I really have questions about for my readers is what you’ve been up to in the graveyards.

H: I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. (The newspaper rattles and Gregor’s face appears. Hector glances over and gets an assenting nod from Gregor.) Yeah? (Gregor nods again) Okay. (The mirrored sunglasses turn to face the interviewer again) You want to repeat that?

JD: I was wondering if you could say a few words about what you’ve been up to in the graveyards.

H: A tester stops pushing, they start to rot. A lot of these end up in graveyards, you know, because they wind up chasing after their choices. So, yeah, I’ve been doing some work in graveyards.

JD: Were you the first one Gregor brought back?

H: (Hesitant) No, there were others. I’m just naturally suited to the work that needs to be done.

JD: And can we talk about that work? Frankly and openly?

H: How’s that?

JD: You were a goner, you were a decaying corpse of a tester, weren’t you? And Gregor figured out, (looking over his notes) I’m not sure when, but he figured out that if you feed healthy testers to a rotting tester, the rotting tester begins to grow back. In fact, he found out that they grow back far more powerful than before. Is that right?

H: (Looking over at Gregor) How much does this guy know?

Gregor: It’s okay.

H: You sure about this?

G: It’s okay. I talked to him yesterday. You can talk to him today. And Nyx will talk to him tomorrow.

H: (Indicating with his finger as he talks this through) You talked to him yesterday? (Gregor nods) And I’ll talk to him today? And then Nyx is going to be here tomorrow? (Gregor nods again. Hector thinks this through one more time) Okay then. (Turning back to the interviewer) I guess fire away.

JD: When a tester rotting in a graveyard gets fed enough healthy testers, they come back stronger-

H: That’s right. We’re stronger than before. Much, much, stronger. And faster. Make sure you put down faster.

JD: Okay, yes, I think I’ve got that. But some parts of you don’t quite regenerate fully, do they? Like your eyes? Or Nyx’s hand?

H: Yeah, that’s right. Some parts don’t quite grow back again. They stay a little rotten.

JD: Can we see your eyes?

H: Fuck off.

JD: (Forcing a laugh) So that would be a “No?”

H: (Not responding)

JD: Okay. So can we talk about you for a bit? You were in a graveyard at one point. So that means you gave up as a tester, you refused to work. Would you care to talk about that?

H: This is ridiculous. (Turning to Gregor) How much of this do I have to sit through?

G: I thought it would be interesting. I guess not. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. We’ve really got nowhere to go, though. You might as well kill some time.

H: Nah. (Turning to interviewer) We’re done.

JD: Um…I…okay. I guess we’ll just finish with the questionnaire created by Bernard Pivot and used by James Lipton from “Inside the Actors Studio.” What is your favorite word?

H: Love. (To Gregor) Did you do the jumble yet?

JD: What is your least favorite word?

H: Let’s just go ahead and mark down that I answered “Love” for all of these okay? (Takes a section of newspaper from Gregor’s outstretched hand and begins flipping through it)

JD: Well. I guess that means we’re-

H: Shhh.

JD: (Whispering) Sorry.

Popularity: 2% [?]

An interview with Gregor

In June I began writing a new original story every two weeks and posting them to this website. Much to my surprise, one of those stories, Second Choice, spawned a second story, then a third, then a fourth and so on until it became clear to me that this was actually one novel length story coming out of me in installments. This was all fun and good but now that seven months have gone by since the first story it has become clear that a brief refresher course is needed for me and many of my readers. Therefore, leading up to the publication on this site of Part 7 on March 6th I will be interviewing a number of characters from this work here on my blog.

(In a sparsely furnished room the interviewer sits across from Gregor. Tall, lean, and pale, Gregor has a sharp confidence to him that he emits through an easy smile and casual attitude that seem at odds with his gaunt coloring and middle aged face. When he needs to, he can appear imposing, if not downright frightening, with a pointed gaze that burns through sallow eyes.)

Joseph Devon: Gregor, I thank you for joining us.

Gregor: And I thank you for having me.

JD: Now, we’ve been through a number of interviews and we’ve covered most everything concerning your world, I hope. But before we get started, is there anything you’d like to say about being a tester that you want to make sure gets mentioned?

G: Nothing that comes to mind, no.

JD: Right. I suppose if we’re going to talk to you we’re going to have to talk about the Council. Is that going to be a problem for you?

G: No, what happened there happened centuries ago. I’ve long ago made my peace with the Council.

JD: And have you made your peace with Epp?

G: (Smiling his easy smile) I hardly think it’s right to go blaming Epp for the actions of a hundred other testers, do you?

JD: (Slightly put off) I suppose not. Um…(Looking through his notes) so can we talk about what brought on the Council’s punishment for you in first place?

G: Of course. I was opting to do things a little differently when I first started testing.

JD: How so?

G: I’m sure you know the basic idea, we interfere in the lives of humans and we gain energy from them by altering them.

JD: By pushing them forward.

G: That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. At any rate, I decided to see what I could draw out of an entire village up in the mountains of Eastern Europe.

JD: And how did you do that?

G: I’m not going to give up any secrets here, Mr. Devon, but it’s enough for you to know that I was striving to become an icon, a myth, a legend amongst those people. I was curious to know what ways we were allowed to interact with humans, how many undiscovered tools were still left to be found.

JD: And what did you become?

G: I became myth (smiles). I became legend.

JD: You became the origin of vampires.

G: I did. But don’t say it like that. My work has been used and ingested and chewed up and turned around so many times that I actually like to distance myself from today’s notion of vampires. All the stories and movies you have today, they really stray away from the simplistic beauty of what I did up in that village. Of the reaction I was able to build. It was wonderful.

JD: You were just trying to see what was possible.

G: That’s right.

JD: And you ran headfirst into another group of testers, also sensing that new things were in the wind, and also curious to see what was possible.

G: That is a very good way of putting it. I ran right smack into the newly formed Council.

JD: And they opted to punish you, which we’ve already discussed with Kyo.

G: You talked with Kyo, did you? You didn’t get anything interesting out of him, did you?

JD: Not a lot, no.

G: That one’s a bit of a mystery.

JD: That’s for certain. Anyway, is it true that Epp was against the Council by the time they had decided to punish you? He says that he was leaning towards considering your work genius.

G: That sounds correct, yes.

JD: Epp was against the Council?

G: No, that sounds like something Epp would say.

JD: I see. And you, during those years, spent a lot of time in graveyards?

G: That was where they drove me. I didn’t have many other places to go.

JD: And you learned a lot while you were there?

G: Not so much, no. I think maybe you’re going to want to save those questions for Hector.

JD: Hector hasn’t agreed to meet with me.

G: (Surprised) No? I’ll have a word with him. You’ll want to see him and Nyx I’m assuming?

JD: Well, yes that would round out the week nicely. Thank you.

G: (Waving off thanks) It’s not a problem.

JD: Okay, so to end, can we just talk a little bit about what you have in the works currently?

G: I’d really rather not talk about it. You know how it is as a fellow creator. You don’t want to give too much away. It ruins the effect.

JD: Yeah…yeah that makes sense. But it’s safe to say that you don’t entirely agree with Epp’s school of thought.

G: Let’s just say that I don’t think Epp speaks for all of us.

JD: I suppose that will do for now. Um…well okay then. Thank you. I guess we’ll move on to the questionnaire created by Bernard Pivot and used by James Lipton from “Inside the Actors Studio.” You ready?

G: I am.

JD: What is your favorite word?

G: Possible.

JD: That’s interesting.

G: Why?

JD: That’s the same…never mind. What is your least favorite word?

G: Structure.

JD: What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

G: A blank canvas, or the equivalent thereof.

JD: And what turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

G: I don’t know. Too many rules, I suppose? That sounds so corny but I suppose it’ll do.

JD: What sound or noise do you love?

G: Bacon frying.

JD: What sound or noise do you hate?

G: I loathe loud trucks. Or cars. Those muscle cars? Ugh. Get a life.

JD: What is your favorite curse word?

G: Motherfucking hell.

JD: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

G: I could see a pilot. Not a pilot today, but back in the old barnstorming days. Flying a biplane in loops and that sort of thing.

JD: What profession would you not like to do?

G: I have no interest in math. So anything too math heavy. Income tax filer.

JD: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear god say when you arrive at the pearly

gates?

G: Your gains have outweighed your costs.

JD: Thank you. Very interesting.

G: Agreed.

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