October at Every Day Fiction

Lots of good stuff coming in October over at Every Day Fiction.

Gallery Four, by Dave MacPherson, is set for October 4th. It's a sobering story we critiqued in the EDF Writers' Group. Kevin Shamel continues his run of great stories October 8th with Outlast the Stars. In addition to being a great writer, Kevin sells shamelessly funny tee-shirts at Shameless Humor.

My take on a time-travel tale, In His Prime, will appear October 16th. Alex Burns, who holds forth at Meanwhile..., will serve up Apotheosis Cake on October 20th.

My friend, Erin, who speaks so eloquently about the writer's life at Living the Fictional Dream, shows us A Million Faces on October 25th. And Sylvia Wrigley's pre-Halloween chiller, Darren Is Updating His Facebook Status, will be ready to read October 28th. This is another story that worked its way through the critiquing process at EDF Writers' Group; it creeps me out.

You can check out the entire month's lineup at the October TOC and then read the stories, every day, at Every Day Fiction.

A moving line: about writing

One of the most valuable tools a writer can have is a good critiquing group.

For a time, when we lived in the Florida Keys, I drove to Miami once a month to sit with other writers and critique each others work. Even after a change in my work schedule forced me to give up that pilgrimage, I maintained contact with two of the other writers in the group, and they continued to read my work-in-progress. That was my novel, Lifting Up Veronica.

When we moved to Seattle, I wasn't able to hook up with another group, and my work suffered, I think. Then in June, Jordan, the managing editor at Every Day Fiction, was kind enough to set up private space at the EDF web site, and the Every Day Fiction Writers' Group came to be.

In the four months since then, I have found that there are differences between a face-to-face group and an internet group; good and bad.

The bad is that you have to post work to be critiqued and wait, for which I have no talent. Life makes demands; not everyone in the group has the amount of time I have to devote to the group, and so those waits can be frustrating.

For the good, critiques, when they come, are less complicated by the hangups of face-to-face communications; and when presented by someone who truly is interested in helping you improve your writing, the results can be incredible.

That has been the case; I have come to value the opinions of the other writers in the group in a very short time; and the stories we have been critiquing for each other are starting to find their way into print.

The Banshee by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley was in Every Day Fiction this month, and got rave reviews; Dave MacPherson has a nifty tale about a sea serpent and some art students coming in October in Abacort Journal and my flash, Stand and Deliver, is in the fall edition at Boston Literary Magazine.

Stand and Deliver is a great example of the magic of a critiquing group.

It is a tale of the Pizza Dude; I conceived the character as an unassuming fellow with superpowers, who uses his ability to manipulate the flow of time to help him in his chosen work. Delivering pizzas. However, he is not above acting as a good Samaritan when the need arises.

I was so pleased with the results, and when I submitted it to the group, Dave MacPherson posted almost right away, praising the story, calling it "fast and funny". And then he said, "My one question. Is the fantasy element necessary at all?"

Was it? I rewrote the story and Dave was right; the Pizza Dude didn't need superpowers to be a hero. And the story wasn't different, just better. It was right there in front of me, but I was too close, too invested in what I already wrote, to see it.

I liked the rewrite so much, I sent it to Boston Literary Magazine, a site I have been trying to crack, and the editor replied twenty-four hours later; she said, "Fantastic. I love it. You nailed the sense of a True American Hero ... a great, great job!!"

What writer doesn't love to hear such words.

Thanks, Dave; I owe you one.

If you would like to read the Pizza Dude's adventure, check out Stand and Deliver at Boston Literary Magazine.

At Boston Literary Magazine

Good news!

My flash fiction story, Stand and Deliver, was accepted for the Fall issue of Boston Literary Magazine. Robin Stratton, the editor, said I "nailed the sense of a True American Hero".

Here's the link, if you would like to check it out:

Stand and Deliver

I'm it

I have been tagged. My friend, Kevin, over at Shameless Stuff ask me to play the game, and so I will.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Write 6 random things/unspectacular quirks about yourself
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

Here is my list:

1. A lot of people suffer from Acrophobia, which is a fear of high places. I suffer from Catapedaphobia, the fear of jumping from high places. Anything above nine floors and my feet and legs tingle; anticipating the mad rush to the edge.

2. My favorite color is red. Every automobile I have ever owned has been red. My favorite was the 1996 5.0-liter Mustang. It would get up and run. I sold it to pay for the move to the Florida Keys; that was a mistake.

3. I worked as a comic and improvisational performer for five years, while living in Ohio. It is such a rush; talking to strangers and not knowing what you’re going to say next.

4. I am left handed, but swing sticks (softball bat, golf club, tennis racket, and such) right-handed.

5. The movie Jaws upset me so much that even now, almost thirty years later, I will not swim in the ocean. What a bummer that was; living in the Keys.

6. I am hopelessly addicted to red cinnamon gummee bears. You know; the giant ones that are nothing but sugar and cinnamon and red dye number five and stick to your teeth worse than peanut butter.

Kevin, I'm sorry; Everyone that participated used up all the folks I know who blog, so I wasn't able to pass it on. Even so, thanks for asking me to play: it was fun and painless.

A moving line: about writing

Someone asked me, awhile back, if there was a single book that changed my life.

There are a number of books that are on my short list of influential works -- Huckleberry Finn by Twain, Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, The Caine Mutiny by Wouk, Catcher in the Rye by Salinger, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway -- but if I had to pick just one, it would be Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

It was published in 1961, my freshman year in high school, and the only way I got my hands on it, because there was a fair amount of controversy tied around it, was through a retired librarian named Emma Huber, who first hooked me on reading when I was nine and with whom I had become good friends, despite a difference in age of five decades.

If I was a book junkie, which I was, then Mrs. Huber was my dealer. God bless her, for I am the person I am today, in large part due to her.

The book opened my eyes to the absurdity of life; I grew up in a rural community in Ohio in the 1950s and until Catch-22, I had no idea that the rest of the world was so different from what I knew or that adults were just muddling along, too, trying to figure it all out. And it made me wish that I could write like that.

I have heard the suggestion that you should not read, while you are writing, because your work will become derivative. I don't agree with that; if it were so, I would have to pick one or the other -- reading or writing -- for I am always doing both. And, oh, what a dreadful choice that would be.

Tick tick; tick tick

I am not a patient person.

Standing in line drives me up the wall, whether it is at the bank, on the interstate or at a restaurant. Someone I used to know, gone now from this world and much missed, once told me that she did not think I would wait an extra five minutes to have lunch with Jesus.

One of my favorite cartoons, I have a photocopy of it in a folder somewhere, shows two vultures, sitting upon a sagging branch, and one says to the other: "What do you say we kill something?"

It is a character flaw for anyone; it is particularly troublesome for a writer. I have been writing fiction for almost five years; short stories since February, last year (I started when I finished my first novel, Lifting Up Veronica).

During those eighteen months, I only submitted a few stories for publication, in part because I didn't believe most of what I wrote was good enough (I'm still not certain of that), but mostly because I couldn't stand the thought of rejection. And so, waiting wasn't even an issue.

I submitted flash stories to Everyday Fiction because I fell in love with the site; Jordan and Camille's acceptance of my stories has given me the courage to submit to other publications. I have fourteen stories out right now, one of them for a print anthology and another to a professional-rate publication, and having to wait for the responses is driving me mad; I haunt my mailbox and the Hotmail site. Maybe I should have something to eat while I wait.

I wonder if Jesus is available for lunch?

A moving line: about writing

I got put down, in a back-hand, over-the-shoulder sort of way, in the EDF daily comments the other day because I said I wasn't always sure where the story was in a piece of literary fiction.

The words that were used were "insular" and "two-dimensional reading."

I didn't bother to respond because there already was a donnybrook going on over what the author meant to say. I didn't bother to say that I appreciated the way the author used the language, and the complex play of emotions she presented. I just didn't see a story there.

Maybe that's why I like genre writing so much. If you don't have a beginning, middle and end, if you don't show some sort of character development or deliver a punch at the end, it is really obvious that you blew it.

That's my ten cents.

Oh, and one of my poems, Murphy's Flaw, was accepted by Every Day Poets, sister publication to Every Day Fiction. But the poem rhymes; so I guess I am beyond hope.

Introducing Lilly

My grandson, Dylan, has a new dog. In e-mail yesterday, my son said:

Wanted to share these photos of our new dog, Lilly.

With Schatzie gone, we've tried to get back to normal as soon as possible and after a couple of days decided to start searching for a new family companion.

We found Lilly on a website and picked her up today just before lunch. Dylan is so excited, he can barely contain himself.

Life goes on; which is, after all, as it should be.

My first hat trick

Another piece of my short fiction, I must to the Barber's Chair, was published today at Everyday Fiction. It is the third in as many months, sort of a literary hat trick.

My stories tend to be heavy on satire or mayhem, so I am particularly pleased that the folks at EDF decided to publish Barber's Chair. It is a love story, with a fantasy twist, and it is light and upbeat. In fact, this is so out of character for me, that when Rachael read it, she deadpanned, "What? Nobody died?"

BTW: the neon signs that start Cora on her journey are real; although in the real world, and upon examination in the light of day, it can be seen that they belong to two different side-by-side shops. Too bad; the world could use more barbers like Gideon.

Anyway, the link below will take you to EDF. There's a spot to leave comments, too, or to give the story a rating up to five stars.

I hope you like I Must to the Barber's Chair. If not, I offer my apologies and the promise that there will be another story along tomorrow to takes its place.

I Must to the Barber's Chair at EverydDay Fiction