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From the Dark Side: 2
Last week I posted an excerpt from an unpublished horror story of mine, “In the Ruins on Borphyr Road.” If you read and liked that excerpt, I’ve just posted a second part here. Don’t try to read this second excerpt, though, if you haven’t read the first: I haven’t provided any sort of “as you’ll [...]
From the Dark Side
I’ve written before (here and elsewhere) about the writing workshop I participated in, fifteen-some years ago. An odd cast of characters, maybe: three writers of poetry and literary fiction then seeking their graduate degrees in English, with an emphasis on creative writing; one writer of comic action stories (think Carl Hiaasen, maybe with a touch [...]
The Fundamental Things Apply
[Below, click Play button to begin well, playing. During this time, volume control will appear at left -- a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 4:22 long.] [Audio clip: view full post to listen] On March 1, 1991 — twenty years ago yesterday — I got an email from a stranger who’d downloaded [...]
Paying Attention to the “Take Her Hand!” Moments
[Video: scene from David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway. Soundtrack: Lou Reed's interpretation of "This Magic Moment"] Almost every writer of stories, I bet, has had at least one “Take her hand!” moment. Here’s why I call them that: Over twenty years ago, I was working on a longish short story called “Sing, Sing, Sing.” [...]
Even I Didn’t Miss the Closed Captions
["Bottle," by Kirsten Lepore] It’s hard enough to tell a complete story with words…
The Breathing of Summer Mountains, the Hissing of Summer Lawns
From whiskey river: It was almost dark on an early summer eve, and the forest was never more enchanting than now, at dusk. At dusk the mountain begins to withdraw its force back into itself and become quiescent. If you too can become quiescent, so still that you can’t think of your name, you can [...]
Pushing Your Writing, Pushing Your Mind
Remember The Querulous Squirrel’s 100-stories-in-100-days challenge? Ambitious, wot? Supremely well executed, eh? Okay, now start with a similar premise: Write a story a day for an entire month. Saturdays and Sundays included. Holidays, too. No limit on word count. Just write a complete story each day. Simple to say, hard to execute, right? Just as [...]
LitFic: Online Resources
The other day, Moonrat replied to a question about the acceptability of collections of “linked” short stories: stories united by a common theme, cast of characters, whatever. Along the way, she wondered what the state of short fiction in general might be, in these days when writers seem so focused on books.* (The comments surprised [...]
There’s Got to Be a Morning After
Centuries after the Eastern Orthodox Church began celebrating the Epiphany, the Roman Catholic Church decided to start doing so too. But for some reason, the Western Church really latched on to this image of the Persian priests bringing gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to the infant Jesus, guided from their homeland of Iran by [...]
