What we mean when we ask “Have you ever written anything?”
“And no, I’ve never written a screenplay you old fuck tool, but I vote with my eyeballs and mine are busy with other shows now. Yea, noob, you are old. Look in the mirror and see the epic failure that is your life, how you have been an abject failure at everything you have done. [...]
Okay, now I just think I’m being pranked
Another of my stories has been picked up for publication – “Marvin Karl and the Whatsit He Found on Tuesday” will appear in the April edition of Front Porch Review. The reader said “I am reminded of Garrison Keillor – a human story plainly told.” Which makes that reader my new most-favorite human. I had [...]
Sweet acceptance
Good news today! My short story “How to Be Depressed in the Sunshine” will be published in an upcoming issue of the literary magazine A Few Lines. I originally wrote this one a couple of years back – it’s been rejected on an even dozen occasions (that’s duotrope keeping track, not me), but I gave [...]
Submitting feels like the right word after awhile.
Sending a freshly-edited batch of short stories into the ether. Literary magazine guidelines always make me feel so inadequate. I’m afraid my story probably isn’t an incendiary mind-torpedo of subversion that peels the doubt-flesh from our meat lives and makes quivering, bloody-but-whimsical protoplasm out of expectation. It does have clear sentences and a cute ending, [...]
Stoking the Fire
I remember a few years back when I was regularly lamenting the weeks that would go by without any real writing (other than blogging). I remember when I got hired to co-write that novel (which fizzled, as many large projects do, although it was my partner/patron doing the fizzling), that I made it a decided [...]
Just another name in the pile
I’ve been mulling why last night’s semi-finalist announcement gave me so much happy vim. It’s definitely good news but a long way from being significant in the long-run. It will take a lot more of this to build a profile as a playwright. Finishing one small step is worth some inner glow but this feels [...]
I must write ALL THE THINGS
Last night I found an excellent resource for identifying theater companies around the country that support new work either through productions, readings, contests, or fellowships. What’s funny to me is that even though I was writing plays before I ever finished a screenplay, I am decidedly behind-the-curve now when it comes to the process of [...]
Good thing he’s here to tell me these things
Someone in a writer’s community who doesn’t know me reviewed the script for the short film I am going to make, and called it “something that completely ignores the primary principles of good film making.” He added that “it feels like you are totally missing the point of what the “medium of film” is all [...]
The Dreaming Space
As I said, I wrapped up my evening at a reasonable hour last night, feeling satisfied about a productive coffeehouse writing session and relaxed after treating myself to a little bedtime reading. I never spend enough time with BOOKS. I felt myself ready to go to sleep, but decided to try something. I had just [...]
That’s weird
I’m sitting down to write. I’ve got my Iced Vanilla Chai next to me, the music is at the right volume, and…nothing. Have you ever looked at something like a toaster and had that moment where you momentarily have no idea what it is, what it does, or how to use it? That’s how I’m [...]