Turkey Shoot

Back to reality from a lo-o-o-ong Thanksgiving break. The time off was nice...I didn't get  a single line of writing done, but the break was much-needed.

Living in Vegas, Thanksgiving with out of town guests is different that what I've experienced in most cities I've lived in. We spent most days all together in our tiny house, but the last two days we split up--girls did shopping and girl-oriented shows, and the guys shot automatic weapons and did boy stuff. Most of the time was spent with the kids--we did a Renaissance-style show at the Excalibur, a movie, and some time in a massive underground video arcade.

And, of course, way too much food and drink and not enough going to the gym.

♣♣♣

I mostly focus on long-form stories, which is why I have so few credits to-date...but, every once in a while, I sneak in a short story between failed attempts at finishing a 70k manuscript that is worth revising.

And...as I mentioned a couple of months ago, I recently wrote a poem (yak, that even looks weird written down). Like I've said, I'm not a poet; most poetry to me is as abstract and hard to understand as Pollock paintings. Sometimes I "get" the cadence or emotional outflow, but a lot of the time it's just stuff.

But, apparently that isn't enough to keep me from writing one.

The Woodsman's Son, published up at New Myths today, started out as a short story that was heavily inspired by the Dresden Dolls song The Gardener. Whereas, I think, the Dolls saw their tale as more of a co-dependent, love/hate story, mine went more in a hero-worship, misplaced trust direction. As I wrote it, it took on a natural staggered cadence that kind of reminded me of Poe's The Raven (not in quality, per se, but in rhythm), so I decided to re-do it as a poem over a couple of months last winter.

Anyway, it's different. It was fun. I'm very curious to see if people who read it interpret it the same way I do. I suspect the reactions will be mixed.

Enjoy. And, congrats to everyone who finished NaNoWriMo! Now go take naps.

Wink Wink Nudge Nudge Saynomore

We inturrupt the Halloween prop gore-fest for a couple of literary announcements:

1. I learned last night that I've been accepted into the Hint Fiction anthology! Woo Hoo! Very excited about that. I've seen some other folks announce, and being in the company of people like Barry Napier and Mercedes Yardley, not to mention Pulitzer nominee Joyce Carol Oates, makes me smell way smarter than I really am. sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiffffffff....ahhh...that's good fiction.
2. Secondly, it occurred to me that during my last blog hiatus, I sold a poem and failed to post about it (although I think I did tweet it). So, in December my poem The Woodsman's Son will be up with New Myths. Very excited for that as well, particularly because 1. it was my first poem and 2. I don't know beans about poetry. It's not the smart-sounding kind of poetry with blocks of words that seem arbitrarily sewn together to invoke an emotion--it's the other kind, the kind that rhymes and tells a story and that nobody seems to write anymore. So, that is very exciting and although I admit I still don't really "get" poetry, I am content to call myself a poet--because that, too, makes me smell smart.

So that's the day's news. I'll be throwing up a post (HORK!) detailing part III of my 2009 props soon.