bad grammar at work

You may remember the post I did some time back about the percentage of sentence fragments in my recently published story “The Lonely Road.” I determined that nearly a quarter of that story was ungrammatical.

Of course I had to do it with “Open Country: an allegory” too. I made a rough count last night (whilst drinking a semi-sweet red wine, so don’t hold me to the numbers). My violations weren’t as serious as in the first story. I counted 108 sentences and 9 fragments in the latter story. Once again, I counted fragments that were dialog to be whole sentences, so once again, it could have been worse.

The editors didn’t blanch a moment over my many violations. Makes me wonder whose advice I should listen to and whose to ignore.

Okay, my rant is over.

“Open Country: an allegory” is now published

This is another of my stories that snuck into publication sooner than I expected. “Open Country: an allegory” popped up yesterday at About Place Journal. They had told me that they would send me an official email with all kinds of legalese in it before the story appeared. But they didn’t, and it did.

So take your fine self over there if you’re so inclined and give the story a read. Then let me know what you think.

runaway writing

Last summer, when I ran my first 5K, I knew (as I was plodding along, surprised at myself) that I would somehow incorporate running into one of my Fathers and Sons stories. I wasn’t sure just how at the time, but I realized that this sport was going to take up a large part of my life, and I figured I ought to put the experience to work.

Fast forward to April. I completed the Trolley Run in Kansas City last month, and I finally felt I was ready to begin that running story. Now, there are a couple of things you need to know. First, unless a plot bursts fully formed in my mind (and I’m not sure that has ever happened), I tend to “accumulate” a story in pieces. Images present themselves. Bits of dialog. A theme that seems worthy of developing. I collect these bits and copy them into a file that seems suitable until the story itself begins to gel. When I reach some intangible tipping point, I generally start writing the first draft of the story, knowing that it will evolve from there, sometimes in far different directions than I ever imagined.

The second point is that the Trolley Run was a watershed for me in many ways. When I first began trotting around the dog park with my Border Collie a year ago, I couldn’t conceive the notion that I could run a quarter mile, much less the 3.1 miles of an entire 5K. But I thought that if I stuck with it, pushed myself farther, and kept my eyes on a goal, maybe, just maybe, I could do it. I set the Trolley Run this year as my goal. (I didn’t know at the time that it was 4 miles long, longer than a regular 5K.)

The running story continued to accumulate, and the general outline of the plot revealed itself to me. Basically, a son it taking up running, which is an activity his father doesn’t share, and though this is a good thing in general, it becomes another thing that divides the two. (My working title right now is “Runaway” with multiple possible meanings, of course.) I thought that the Trolley Run, which is an annual event of some renown here in Kansas City, would be a good setting for my running story. Thus I had to wait until I had done the Trolley Run before I began the story in earnest.

Well, I completed the Trolley Run, and last weekend I started on the story. Even though I’ve done a half dozen 5Ks and three 10Ks, and even though my afternoon runs are generally far longer than 4 miles, the Trolley Run had become my psychological barrier. Because it was the goal I had set for myself a year ago, it was far more meaningful for me to complete than any of the other runs I’ve done. Well, I burst through that barrier (at a pretty decent pace for my ability, even setting a PR), and while I’m not sure that’s given me any insight to my story, it’s given me the raw, real-world material I needed.

I had reached the tipping point. As I said, I started on “Runaway” over the weekend, and I think I made pretty good progress on it. I’ve mentioned here before that I really need to devote some effort to working out the timeline of these stories. Three generations of men, spanning a lot of years, but so many of the stories are particular moments in their lives, not sweeping themes. How old is the central character in each story? When was he born? When does it have to take place so that subsequent (and prior) moments fall in line properly? Does it make sense that he is this or that age when this or that happens? And so on.

Right now, I can write most of these stories without obsessing too much over that. But someone needs to tell me to buckle down and work out the timeline.

(I’m training now to run a half marathon in October. It’s my new psychological barrier. Yikes!)

“Open Country: an allegory”

So I spent Sunday at my cabin in the Ozark woods. My wife and I planted forty trees (most will die, alas), I threw a lot of rocks in a hole that is threatening to wash out my spillway, I cleaned the flotsam from my dam overflow drain, I fed the birds, I discovered that a goose is now nesting on small island in my pond (nice!), I spent some precious time in a comfy chair on a shady porch overlooking a sparkling lake, and I liberated a few cedars from their earthly toil.

Then I came home and found an email waiting for me from About Place Journal. They said that they love my submission of “Open Country: an allegory” and intend to publish it in their next issue. Nice way to end a weekend, but I immediately re-read my story because I’m always surprised when someone actually likes my stuff.

A lot of people worry that a writer will use them as a character in their stories. In this case, I worry that people will think the character in my story is me. True, there are many parallels. My character has a small cabin in the Ozark forest, and I have a small cabin in the Ozark forest. My character likes to drink too much beer around a campfire and get talkative. I like to drink too much beer around a campfire and get talkative. My character worries about forest fires burning down his precious cabin. I worry about forest fires burning down my precious cabin. My character cuts down cedar trees to help prevent fires from spreading. I cut down cedar trees to prevent fires from spreading.

But the subtitle of my story is “an allegory” and it’s pretty blatantly the case. I think from the opening line even the dullest reader can figure out what I’m doing. I had fun writing this in part because I had very clear direction from my theme and in part because I could draw so much experience from my own life. But I am not this man. What the allegory is standing in place of is not a value I hold. Yet I found it so perfect for my nefarious purpose and so tangible in my experience that I had to go with it. (When the piece goes online I’ll post a link and you can see if this paragraph makes any sense at all.)

I’ve flirted with this idea for a long time, and I had even considered it as background for one of the characters in my Fathers and Sons stories, but I dropped that idea early on. I wouldn’t want to write a sustained character who is like this guy. The story itself, once I started the actual work on it, came together quickly (unlike many of my stories that can take years to “finish”). It relies a great deal on dialog, which I don’t consider to be one of my strengths (assuming I have any strengths, of course). But I must have done something right because the editors liked it.

I had submitted my story to this magazine because they had made a call for stories about trees, (thank you Duotrope’s Digest) and as the allegory, cedar trees are central to the story. I figured my nefarious purpose would quickly disqualify the story, and I was already looking around for other possible markets for it (dealing in social justice). In fact, I was about ready to start resubmitting it around, but my busy weekend got in the way. And then the email arrived.

So I’m doing cartwheels down the hallways of my mind right now. Thanks for your understanding.

“The Lonely Road” is published

A day earlier than expected, but just in time for Pi Day, my story “The Lonely Road” has come up at Penduline Press. It’s in Issue 8, and once again, it is accompanied by a photo that I grabbed randomly off the internet. (Really.)

“The Lonely Road”

And then, out of the blue, the acceptance came!

Over the weekend an email popped up in my box from Penduline Press. They’ve accepted my story “The Lonely Road” and it will be coming up on their site later this month!

I’m proud of this story. I think it may be the best realized of my Fathers and Sons stories. It’s one of those that I read through and can’t think of a single word I would change. Penduline Press had put out a call for stories with a theme of “Bound.” While I think themes can be helpful for targeting submissions, they are also generally vague enough to let anything or nothing apply. My story features a character who is struggling with some of the bonds in his life — at least that’s how I pitched it. And I guess the editors saw it that way too. This is the first of my Fathers and Sons stories to see print.

The stories in this cycle, however, have all been evolving as I’ve come to understand the universe they’re set in, so occasionally I will tinker with this or that detail in one of them to make it comply with the back story or some future event or character development or whatever. In a way, I imagine that whatever I’ve had to say about that universe in “The Lonely Road” is now carved in stone since it’s (going to be) in print. So it becomes the stillpoint in that universe, and however I tell the stories going forward will have to comply with whatever I’ve said in this story. Or not. I suppose I’m over stressing this.

I spent a good deal of time withdrawing the story from simultaneous submissions elsewhere. I hadn’t realized how many places I’d sent it.

Once the story is up, I’ll post a link.

thick skin report

I received a rejection email yesterday for a story I had forgotten I’d even submitted.

I’ve mentioned here once or twice that I had lost track of some of my submissions; I knew I had made them but I could find no evidence of them in my submission log at Duotrope’s Digest or on Submittable. Nor could I seem to find them in my sent email. Over the months, when a rejection came in that I couldn’t trace back to a submission, I figured it must have been one of the lost boys. And I assumed that they must have all been accounted for by now.

But then yesterday’s came in. It seems that back in April of 2012, I had submitted my Fathers and Sons story “The Death of Superman” to a lit mag that I thought was suitable. As it turned out, I had used the mag’s own online submission form and then, for whatever reason, I did not track it beyond that.

In any case, aside from a few submissions that I’ve never heard about again, this nine-month response time may be the longest I’ve ever waited. I don’t suppose I mind. That must have been submitted shortly after I “finished” the story, and I’ve tinkered with it quite a bit since then as the Fathers and Sons universe has become more clear to me.

So, onward!

“Pandora’s Tackle Box”

Let’s start the new year (arbitrary transition that it is) right.

My story “Pandora’s Tackle Box” has been accepted for the Harnessing Fire anthology. The collection is subtitled A Hephaestus Devotional. Hephaestus was the blacksmith to the Greek Pantheon and, among other things, he is said to have created Pandora to bedevil poor Epimetheus. My story is a modern retelling of that myth, centered in the Missouri Ozarks and dealing with a fishing tournament, thus the tackle box. My character’s name is Old Festus, and he is a blacksmith, as it happens.

The Harnessing Fire anthology will be a print publication, due to come out this spring. I’m eager to see it since it appears to be focused on literary and scholarly writing. I feel classed up a bit.

Long time readers (or those who have delved into the sidebar of this humble blog) will recall that “Pandora’s Tackle Box” has already seen publication. It first appeared in A Golden Place in the Spring 2011 issue. Now a new set of readers will have a look at it.

Simple pleasures.

that rejected feeling

I received one rejection this week (so far?). I had sent my Fathers and Sons story “Comfortable in his Skin” away to a magazine that was looking for pieces about “childhood.” Given the broad and vague nature of that call, I thought my story had a shot. It does deal with a pivotal moment in the childhood of one of my three characters.

My submission was only out for two months, but it seemed longer. It’s a quirky piece, and I’m not sure just what kind of market it is suited for. Perhaps if some mag puts out a call for stories dealing with skinny dipping, I’ll be set. Actually, I’m not sure that the story is ready. I think the writing is about as good as I can make it, but as I’ve said here before, the universe these stories take place in is still revealing itself to me, and since this story is supposed to be pivotal in the character’s life, much of what I later come to understand about that life may affect what I’ve already written there. So revisions and enhancements may be necessary. (I have another, bigger story called “Sins of the Father” that is this same way. Everything before and everything after in these characters’ lives channels through the events of that story, so it will never be “finished” until all of the other stories are first.)

No news yet on my other many submissions, though November 1 was the deadline for many of the submission periods at the various mags, so perhaps I’ll get some news in the days to come.

I keep on.

“The Infinite Regression of Jerry C”

My story “The Infinite Regression of Jerry C” is up over at Danse Macabre du Jour. Follow the link and have a read if you’d like.