On Fiction and Reality

The reason I have trouble crafting stories is simple. I have little concept of how people react in a given situation. This is key in creating meaningful stories with believable characters. To do this one needs to do what seems almost impossible: fully live in the world while having the cognitive distance to observe and retain the nature and form of its machinations. My attempts have manifested as false reality or, at best, experimental.

I want to whisper this to strangers on a train. I want them to understand without pity. I want to feel something other than egoism for worrying about it so much. I've always thought treated field recordings possess a certain breath that overly produced songs do not. White noise that improves. It should be a balance. I've no desire to sit and warble in the kudzu. Nature does that well enough already.

I want to see a light somewhere up the far end of the street, a light that shows me exactly the new form this work should take. It has to be a new form that fits, not a consolation for inability. I want this form to be so perfectly timed that the whole of me can gush forth in fearless orgasm that wants to beget, validate all hidden explorations, actively seek out hand-crafted effigies and take them to town as proof that the hills are good for more than just retiring.

Score

http://www.paperdarts.org/flashes/

Paper Darts Writing Contest...Not too Late

Just wanted to let my few blog followers know about a writing contest I enter occassionally over at Paper Darts Magazine's Facebook page. They provide a prompt and conestants submit an entry up to 1000 characters on the page's wall.

This time the prompt is to write an obit for an inanimate object. Those who know me well could see the wheels clunking in my brain. Yes, I wrote about killing a beer.

There is still time to vote on my or any of the other entries. The voting stops at 11:59 p.m. CST today, Feb. 4, so head on over now. Here's what you need to do to vote:

1. Go to the magazine's Facebook page: http://tiny.cc/ZJGZL .
2. Become a fan of the page (required to vote).
3. Scroll down the page's wall and read the entries.
4. Vote at will.
5. Mine is entitled "Local Beer Killed", and is located about halfway down the page.

Thanks for your consideration. I hope you find it enjoyable. More next week.

Best,
m.

New, Leafy Vignette Published at Paper Darts

Newish local literary magazine.

http://www.paperdarts.org/fiction/

New Year. New Energy. New Focus.

Truth: I had meant to write a long piece here on January 1 on my new sense of direction, of energy. I blinked and January is gone. I see. That's how it is going to be. Okay, I'll just have to pay closer attention.

I will not bore you with the activities of the previous year. Suffice it to say that ducks were aligned, energies stoked and stored away. Muscles stretched and warmed appropriately.

This year is the important thing, is the year of doing. I have plans and am taking steps to make these plans come to fruition. No excuses. No fear. One of these plans is to maintain this venue of writing more committedly. I write by hand nearly every day, however, so little finds its way here. I want to share my thoughts and creative works with you, and I need to show it.

Starting today, I will update this journal every week with new material. Flash fiction, poetry, essay, meandering thoughts. It will all be here. It will be the best illustration of what is going through the errant circuitry upstairs. I will update on publication and on insights. Should I manage to chat with Buddha, I'll pass along his best wishes.

That said, Happy New Year. Let's make this the best one so far.