Blog Archives

Handing It Over To The Promo Team

With two short works published under the Cenolith imprint, it is time to hand over promotional work — including this blog — to my promo team.

Veda J. Taylor is an artist and professional session photographer living in Virginia.

John C. Sorello is a political activist  and “book addict” in the District of Columbia.

Samson Krugg is an intelligence professional and amateur comic designer in Maryland.

They’ll be discussing literature, art, publishing, and other matters here at Leith Literary.  They will also be promoting my writing and their own artistic endeavors.  Feel free to say hello!

What’s J Been Reading? [Bounty Day, 23 Jan 12]

I haven’t been posting about everything I read lately.  To be honest, the constant updating was a bit tedious and the feedback lukewarm.

But, every once in a while I find something that is just too good not to pass on.  The short story “What Everyone Remembers” by Rahul Kanakia is one of those stories.

This is a good example of fiction that breaks the “rules of writing” successfully.  For example, the protagonist-narrator is largely passive while the other characters take action around her.  Also, most of the story is dialogue.  Lastly, a lot of the information you need to understand the story is established by telling, not showing.*

Yet, this is a well-written, emotionally engaging story nevertheless.  The language is touching, the character interactions natural despite the strangeness of the main character.  I believe these aspects of story-telling are far more important to literary quality than most of the mechanistic advice we typically read in writing blogs and books.   I encourage writers and readers to take a look!

And, once you’ve read it, take a moment to think about how perfectly the title matches the precise boundaries of the story.

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* This final point might be more a consequence of length than style; if Kanakia were to make a novel of it, he might show more.

Odd Thought on Historical Ignorance

At some point, one of our grandchildren is going to read the name “Bin Laden” and think: “weighed down by a lot of containers?”

Now Available on Kindle – On The Head Of A Pin

I am a firm believer in the “traditional” approach to publishing, with its dreaded “gate-keepers” filtering literature’s incoming content for quality. And, of course, for commercial viability. It’s an imperfect, uncomfortable process, sure, but even an imperfect process is better than anarchy.

So then, why self-publish On The Head Of A Pin?

After years of writing without submission, mostly short stories but also a couple of novels, Pin forced itself into my consciousness … the way stories do. It started as a single sentence, which is still the opening line of the story, but quickly exploded into the sort of metafictional literary stunt commercial authors typically wait to pull until well after they have achieved some degree of success.

Having completed it, I could have shelved it while working on more conventional fiction, but I recognized (as the story itself demonstrates) that Death might find me at any time.  And, Pin is clearly not the sort of thing that would turn an agent or editor on to a first-time author — try pitching a novella sometime, even a high-concept one.  “Private detective on a missing-person case, and the missing person is an angel?  Cool!  Only 20 thousand words?  Hmmm, have you considered expanding it into a novel?”

After you read Pin, you’ll realize the story could not be stretched far without undermining its pacing reference to the inter-medium romance between text and film.  From a literary standpoint, the story must remain in that unGoldilocks dead zone between the periodical-friendly short story and the house-friendly novel.

So the only option was to don armor and rush into the self-publishing riot.

Odd Thought On Revision

I want to rewrite O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi” so that Della decides she can’t part with her hair after all, then abandons Jim because she can’t be with a man who doesn’t own a watch.

The Guy Who Could Take A Punch – Flash Fiction In Three Acts

Again, it’s not Saturday, but here’s an episode of Saturday Shorts.

This time, it’s a piece of flash fiction called “The Guy Who Could Take A Punch – Flash Fiction In Three Acts.”

Enjoy!

An Epitaph

Ab-Ráhám wagered God ten worthy souls
Démosthenés and I sought only one
but — though the standard in each survey differed —
all met the same outcome

Odd Thought On Literary Criticism

I wonder if, in literary heaven, Homer ever gets angry at being deconstructed out of his own oeuvre and shouts “BA-A-ARTHES!”

Available on Kindle – “Winterfesto : America Needs A National Winterfest Holiday”

I finally buckled and self-published.  Okay, it’s not fiction, it’s a political proposal for a new federal holiday.  Even so, a big step!

There is a common sentiment (scientifically confirmed by psychologist Dr. Cliff Arnall) that January is the saddest month of the year.  Yet, the typical American pattern is simply to collapse in a festivity coma immediately after New Year’s Eve, plunging into the cold, wet numbness of January with the momentum of a skydiver without an emotional parachute.

This manifesto lays out the emotional, political, and economic reasons America should establish a federal Winterfest holiday in late January or early February celebrating the arts, sports, food and other joyous aspects of the winter season.

A quick but inspiring read, the Winterfesto is chock full of ideas for transforming the post-holiday slump into a bright cap on the holiday season.  It’s a holiday with something for everyone, conservatives and liberals, sports fans and arts fans, businesses and consumers, foodies, outdoorsy folks, and history buffs alike!


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