Category: Writing

  • Short Story Review: “In the Garden” by Elliot Harper

    (The flash fiction story, “In the Garden” by Elliot Harper appeared in The Molotov Cocktail.)

    (Yes, I would say that this story will be spoiled.)

    I like flash fiction, and, I do take some responsibility for this, but most of the flash fiction I encounter is rather serious. Coming across a piece that is humous, and one that also delivers a punch, is like finding a tiny gem. “In the Garden” by Elliot Harper is that sort of flash fiction. I mean, it is about a foul-mouthed gnome who lives in a garden, and has a rather unconventional philosophical conversation over tea with the narrator.

    The story exists in a dream the narrator is having, and a bookend structure is used here; the story fades in from darkness to light, and then ends by going from light to darkness. Between those fades, we are in the narrators garden, but it is never clear if the garden exists only in this dream, or is the garden from the narrator’s real life and is being dreamt about. We can assume that the garden is from real life, as the narrator claims ownership of it, knows the gnome because the guy is referred to being in his usual place, and the narrator says he has worked hard on the garden – but is this setting from the narrator’s real life? I say this because the gnome says to the narrator that everything one sees is just the brain’s interpretation. Do we even see the same things? Can two people interpret reality the same way?

    And then I started to think that this story might actually be a metaphor about death, and how our existence is only momentary compared to the totality of the Universe. The gnome has a mini-milky Way galaxy under his red hat, and then the narrator mentions how it will be a shame to have to leave the garden soon. This lead me to start wondering about the bookend structure again; the story ends with a fade to black, and not the narrator waking up. Such as, the story comes into existence, and then goes out. Even the last line, referring to the fade out as “existence” in a “half-forgotten dream.”

    Did I mention that the story is funny? It is, by the way.

    It’s refreshing to read a piece that makes you think. It’s impressive to do it in such a compact form.

    (Hey! Thanks for taking the time to visit, and if you enjoyed the ride, please take a moment to give a like, leave a comment, share the post, or start following my blog.)

  • Short Story Review: “Big Phipps Climbs the High Dive” by Brendan Gillen

    (The short story “Big Phipps Climbs the High Dive” by Brendan Gillen appeared in Volume 5 of Taco Bell Quarterly.)

    (Things will be spoiled!)

    I like flash fiction. It’s a literary form that I think correctly reflects the time we live in; cut the bullshit and get to the point. And it also feels like it’s a big middle finger to those writing professors that used the cliched response to their students that “less is more” but then would turn around and complain that their short story didn’t take enough time to develop theme, character, setting…

    Where stream of consciousness tried to capture the feeling of how thoughts and emotions roll around in one’s mind, flash fiction is an example of a thought, emotion, or memory that explodes to life in your mind, then fades away. “Big Phipps Climbs the High Dive” by Brendan Gillen is a sharp piece of flash fiction that seems to fit that definition.

    The piece is a memory from high school, and not a particularly fond one, but I wager that most people who write fiction don’t have good memories from high school. It’s about Phipps, a larger kid who is about to win a belly flop contest. The narrator unfortunately gave Phipps an awful nickname “Beans” which he regrets, and even tries to get other students to stop using, but the cats out of the bag. There is a sense that the narrator regrets many things when it comes to Phipps, but the narrator never gives us what Phipps full, real name is. It’s as if Phipps never became real to the narrator, even though we are given insights to who Phipps is. He is a boy forced to play football because of his size. He likes playing Warcraft, which the narrator has done with him at Phipps’ home, but the narrator won’t let himself becomes friends with him. An example of peer pressure on the narrator is given, and the feeling of shame just oozes off of the story. And after Phipps has won the contest, the narrator tries to talk to Phipps, but the narrator admits what he wants is for the charade of their “friendship” to continue. Phipps response is a perfect button for this piece, as Phipps is aware of the type of person the narrator really is, and is done with playing along.

    (And we are at the part of the blog post where I ask if you liked it. Then I ask you to please like, share, comment, or follow this blog. You know…)

  • Thoughts While Alt Side Parking: Rejection

    First of all, it’s cold out. Second, the car that is parked in front of me is like six inches from my bumper, which does hack me off. And third, the traffic cop is here to write tickets, he’s checking cars, but he’s not writing tickets. All of this is very strange to me.

    Seriously, the cop just made a second pass, and he’s still not writing tickets. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not rooting for the guy to write tickets, but if your job is to write tickets, then why aren’t you doing your job? And, we’re all watching him not do his job.

    Anyway, I go that off my chest.

    I got rejected from my fifteenth magazine yesterday. I have one more submission that is floating out there, but being that this piece has been rejected seven other times, odds don’t seem to be good. BUT, I do have three other magazines lined up that I am planning on submitting to, which I will hopefully send off this weekend. I had wanted to get something published this year. Anything, anywhere would have been fine, but you know, things don’t always work out.

    With the situation I am in, the lack of publication, I have been trying to do a round of honest circumspection of my efforts, and see where I need to improve and make changes.

    First of all, I need more material. The last five months of the year I have not been as productive as the first six months. That includes not only creating new work, but also rewriting and editing. Though I am confident in what I have written, I do think the beginning of my stories could use a little more work – refining to better get the story started. I also subscribe to the John Lennon theory of writing – “You got to write a lot of bad songs first before you start writing good songs.” I may still be in my bad song phase.

    Second, I don’ think I submitted to enough publications. Well, I don’t think that, I know that. Just twenty-ish submissions in a year is too low. I should have put more of a priority on researching publications, and prioritizing who I felt would work best with what I write. (This process does feel a bit like throwing shit on a wall, and seeing what sticks.) Funny thing is that this part of the process reminds me the most of my acting days back in Dallas. I really love rehearsing, and performing, but I hate auditioning. So, submitting is paralleling auditioning in my mind, as these are the least fun parts of both processes. Yet, I went on a ton of auditions in Dallas, and I got rejected more than cast, but I did get cast a lot, because I went on so many auditions. I just have to remind myself of that; you got to show up if you want to be seen.

    Third, I just need to relax. Maybe something will come from all of this work. Maybe nothing will happen. But all of this does give me the felling of purpose, which I haven’t had in a while. I don’t wake up angry or dreading the day. Maybe I am delusional. Maybe I’m lying to myself to think that some unemployed forty-five-year-old guy can just up a start a new career in a creative field that is notorious for being highly unfair, and for those who do “make it” is laughably under compensated. But this delusion has made not as angry at the world. It’s helped me process the passing of my mother, and deal with all of the Covid anxiety. That’s worth something.

    Anyway, I have room to grow, and I also need to do better. Like all things in life, if you want it, it takes hard work. I just need to relax and work harder.

    That was a decent pep talk.

    And just so you know, that cop came by again, and still didn’t write any tickets.

    (So, umm… You know, if you are enjoying this narcissistic delve into my id this morning, then please, by all means, give this blog a like, or share, or comment on your struggles. And I’m open to follows as well.)

  • Dispatch from the Car: Schedule Issues?

    Let me establish this from the beginning, it is 9am and I have my computer on my lap while I sit in my car. I’m doing the Alt Side Parking dance, and any minute the street sweeper will coming rolling by. I bring all of this up because I’m having more issues with scheduling my life. The only time I would have today to get any writing done is this magical hour and a half; sitting in the car on the streets of New York.

    I write about scheduling often, I know. I just might be on a Quixotic quest to somehow find the perfect way to lay out all the tasks I must accomplish in a week, and like puzzle pieces, find a way to make them all fit together for maximum efficiency, and minimum effort. I am positive that I can create this system.

    And the reason that I think this is because for ten plus years, my day job was scheduling. I scheduled, rehearsals, classes, and events for a couple of studios in New York. The more efficient and tighter I could make a schedule of studio spaces, the more money I could make for the company, and the better off we all were. I wasn’t the greatest at it, but I was pretty good, and had a decent career because of it.

    Yet, in my personal life, I am really shitty at it.

    I could also argue to myself that what I am really trying to do is put order on the uncontrollable. It’s like I’m taking chicken nuggets, and trying to assemble them to recreate a chicken. Sadly, those pieces, no matter how much energy is devoted to this endeavor, will never fit together to form anything resembling a chicken. Let alone, I’m not even sure nuggets are chicken.

    I hope you get my metaphor.

    The point here people, is that I feel compelled to blame my lack of an effective schedule as the reason why I am not accomplishing more in my day. I need to complete something every day, check a box, cross it off my list, as long as I get something done. (I think this is the real reason I blog every day. I accomplish a task five days a week regardless if anyone sees it.) And right now, I don’t feel like I am accomplishing anything.

    And I haven’t gone to the gym in three weeks, but that’s a different story.

    (Like, Comment, Share, or Follow. Any one of those will do, but a combination, or selecting all four will make me a very happy blogger out here in the sticks. And Thank you for taking the time to read it.)

  • Personal Review: One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak

    I had received One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak as a Christmas present back when it came out a couple of years ago. Friends had recommended it to me, saying that this is a really funny book that I’d love. So, I have kept it close to me on my night stand over the years. It even moved cross country with me, but I never got past the reading the first few stories. Not because they were bad, or that they weren’t funny. Just, something would come up, I’d put the book down, and then time would pass before I would pick it up and try again.

    I made a promise to myself that this year I would get back to reading as much as I can, and I am up to about a book a month now. (Last year I read two books, and this year I should complete twelve. That number might not be something to brag about, but it is a vast improvement from the year before.) I am also trying to clean out my huge back log of books that I bought or received and never read. Hence how One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories got back in the rotation.

    I read through it pretty fast, and I appreciated that many of the 64 stories were short; two or three pages. The writing was impressively efficient, both in storytelling and humor. There weren’t crap sentences filling the space, everything felt like it was there for a reason. It made me feel that Novak was very seriously not trying to waste my time while making me laugh. That’s not to say that he didn’t have longer stories, or jokes that had huge set ups, but in both cases, they landed.

    There was one minor issue that had had with this book. It was the final story, “J.C. Audetat, Translator of Don Quixote.” There is nothing wrong with the story, so to speak. It’s a longer piece, that isn’t knee slapping hilarious, but it is very witty and which makes a fine point. The issue I have is its placement in the collect, as the last story. (I am aware that “Discussion Questions” is the last piece, but that is more of a running gag, and not a complete story.) For a book that had so many, for lack of a better word, laugh out loud funny stories, I found the choice to end with an “internal acknowledgement of wit” type of story rather than choosing a story that would garner an external involuntary laugh, odd. Maybe the choice was made because “Translator” was the longest story in the collection, and that seems to be the unwritten rule of short story books; you end with the longest one.

    It’s a minor complaint, and I enjoyed the running gags between stories, and the sense that I was being included in a very funny ride.

    With someone as talented as Novak is at writing stories, I wonder is why he hasn’t written more books? I know he did the “Book with No Pictures” as we have that one in our house, and my daughter loves it. And not too long ago he wrote and directed the movie Vengeance, So I guess he’s been busy. It would be nice to see another collection is all.

    (Okay, we all know how this works. I am in need of “likes” and “shares” and “comments” and followers. If you enjoyed what you have read here, then if you could, please, do one of those four things. I appreciate it. Thanks.)