"You're a loony." —King Arthur
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Down At The Muslim Synagogue
When people turn up their noses at the mention of self-publishing, thank this guy.
"You're a loony." —King Arthur
"You're a loony." —King Arthur
Friday, August 6, 2010
Dishonesty: A Makeshift Tourniquet
"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be." —Socrates
The liar is someone I will never understand. It's no secret that all of us have lied at some point in our lives—because that is normal. But even in those instances, there's often integrity to be found—a doctor telling family members that their dying mother is in no pain when he knows otherwise, for instance. Integrity is a personal rite, and from it comes the gift of honesty that we can only give to others. And it's so damn easy to do.
Yet I'm continuously amazed at how so many embrace the opposite. It's not easy being dishonest, lacking personal integrity. It's hard work. But I see it on a daily basis; people going to great lengths simply to avoid doing the right thing, always looking over their shoulders and slinging snide, diversionary accusations, fogging up the mirror that they stand before just so they can avoid looking upon the truth. But they know it's there, just on the other side of their veil of self-denial. It's a makeshift tourniquet. They trudge through a vast mire thick with petty excuses and meaningless lies. And for what reason? Where does it get them in the end? Oh, dishonesty has made many a man very successful, but I can only imagine that, on a real level—a human level—they're immensely sad.
Maybe I'm a fool for thinking that doing and saying the right thing is the only way to live. I've surely found myself questioning the sense of it all after losing so-called friends or being labeled a self-righteous asshole or having family members selfishly hack away at the pillars of my soul, but I can live no other way.
It's a lonely road, but it runs straight and sun is always shining.
The liar is someone I will never understand. It's no secret that all of us have lied at some point in our lives—because that is normal. But even in those instances, there's often integrity to be found—a doctor telling family members that their dying mother is in no pain when he knows otherwise, for instance. Integrity is a personal rite, and from it comes the gift of honesty that we can only give to others. And it's so damn easy to do.
Yet I'm continuously amazed at how so many embrace the opposite. It's not easy being dishonest, lacking personal integrity. It's hard work. But I see it on a daily basis; people going to great lengths simply to avoid doing the right thing, always looking over their shoulders and slinging snide, diversionary accusations, fogging up the mirror that they stand before just so they can avoid looking upon the truth. But they know it's there, just on the other side of their veil of self-denial. It's a makeshift tourniquet. They trudge through a vast mire thick with petty excuses and meaningless lies. And for what reason? Where does it get them in the end? Oh, dishonesty has made many a man very successful, but I can only imagine that, on a real level—a human level—they're immensely sad.
Maybe I'm a fool for thinking that doing and saying the right thing is the only way to live. I've surely found myself questioning the sense of it all after losing so-called friends or being labeled a self-righteous asshole or having family members selfishly hack away at the pillars of my soul, but I can live no other way.
It's a lonely road, but it runs straight and sun is always shining.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Bye-Bye, Little Doggies
There were three of them, and they were about to die.
Mikey stood there, head cocked, watching. This wasn't his first time, and he felt a familiar smile tug at the corners of his lips as he regarded the thrashing forms. They squeaked and yipped, and would not stop.
He wanted them to stop.
The water wasn't deep. If the annoying things stood on their hind legs, their heads poked just above the surface, high enough so that their constant whining—a terrible buzzing wail—rattled throughout Mikey’s head. And worse, because of the shallow water, they still lived.
Determined to put an end to their taunting cries, Mikey knelt down, leaned forward, grabbed the fattest of the three—its soft body twisting in his grasp—and thrust it under the surface.
Mikey’s eyes widened and he sucked in his breath as the puppy tried to break free. He squeezed even harder, until blood darkened the water. The other two bumped and clawed at his forearm, trying to climb their way to freedom, while the one in his clutches continued to squirm. Then—finally!—it went still. A silver bubble rolled from its mouth, floated to the surface, and vanished amid a small ripple.
Mikey exhaled.
One down, two to go.
His heartbeat quickened, his skin grew warmer, then hot. A tremor of excitement passed through his body. It was like when the ice cream truck would come slowly down the street, its bell ringing, ringing, ringing, its music playing, and he would run into the house, screaming for a dollar. It was that kind of feeling, but more insistent, stronger. And he almost did scream. Instead, he giggled and clapped his hands in elation.
The remaining puppies went under together, one in each hand. The feeble things writhed between his powerful fingers. One of them fought hard, took longer to die. But in the end, Mikey won.
He felt strong.
Satisfied, Mikey rested his arms on the cold toilet seat, nestled his head on his shoulder, and stared at the lifeless things below the water, now thick with blood. He blew a strand of hair away from his forehead. He stirred the water with his fingertip in hypnotic circles. As his body cooled, pulse slowed, and the excitement of the moment seeped away, Mikey felt his eyelids grow heavy.
"Bye-bye, little doggies," he whispered.
He didn't hear the door open.
"Mikey, what are—" His mother gasped in shock, her nostrils flaring like fish gills. "My God! What have you done?"
Her voice had dropped so low Mikey could hardly hear her. He tried to look confused, afraid. "I don’t know," he replied.
She stood next to him, looking down. She just stared for a time, her face slowly turning red, like an oven burner. Mikey was in trouble, the really bad kind of trouble. He knew it. He cleared his throat, readying an apology, but then his mother turned away, walked to the door, and shouted, "John! Get up here and deal with your son. Now!"
Time slowed. Mikey sat there, hands folded in his lap, quiet. His mother's heavy breathing the only sound in the small room.
Ascending the stairs from the living room, Mikey's father asked, "What the hell has he done now?" Entering the bathroom, his father looked around and wrinkled his nose. He folded his arms and chewed on the corner of his bottom lip, trying—and failing—to bite back a smile.
"Oh, it’s a real knee-slapper, isn’t it, John?" Mikey watched his mother's face turn a deeper shade of red. "This is your fault," she continued.
"My fault?" His father chuckled, rolling his eyes and shaking his head at the same time. "He’s six years old. He’s just a boy!"
"Do all six-year-olds play with shit?" she shouted. "Do all forty-year-old men constantly forget to flush the goddamn toilet?"
"Sometimes," he said, looking back toward Mikey and the toilet. "Obviously." And then he laughed again, long and loud.
Mikey's mother inhaled sharply through her nose, fists clenched at her side. She stood motionless, saying nothing, just glaring at his father. Mikey knew that look. His father was in trouble, too. His mother then stormed out of the bathroom. Down the hall, a door slammed shut. The noise thundered through the walls and floor, up through Mikey’s legs and into his stomach, as if the big tree out front had fallen onto the roof. The water’s surface shivered.
When silence returned, Mikey's concerned but clearly amused father sighed, reached down, and flushed the toilet.
Mikey smiled as he watched the dead puppies swirl round and round and disappear.
END
Thoughts: This is an old story, but one I've always liked. Its original purpose was to simply work with flash fiction, which I'd never done before. I never intended to publish it when I began working on it. I just came up with an idea and rolled with it. Thus it's gone through a million rewrites. I tried all kinds of different things: voices and styles, extended endings, more characters, and so on. All of which I've saved. To my disappointment, this caused a bit of confusion down the line. More on that in a bit, though...
"Bye-bye, Little Doggies" is more than it appears to be. It's a story that many people have loved; but it's also a story that just as many have hated and actually been angered by. Without scratching the surface, one may find it to be little more than a joke story, a setup for a punchline. It's not. In fact, that which some people find to be nothing more than a punchline is really secondary, if not tirtiary or irrelevant, to the meat of the story: a young child destined for terrible things. It's the everyday serial-killer-as-a-child story, only before real animals are the victims (a cliché, I know, but again it was an "exercise in writing" kind of tale...plus I thought it was a sort of different take on the subject by going back to an earlier age). On the flip side, you have the parents, totally oblivious—and like many readers, they find it gross and amusing, the mother and father, respectively. I was going for disturbing, and with such a love/hate split, maybe I achieved that.
Publication Note: To my surprise, this was included on the Necon 30 Audio Horror Collection—featurning Rick Hautala, Althea Kontis, Weston Ochse, Bev Vincent, and 13 others—and passed out to all those who attended this year's Necon. As cool as that is, upon listening to it I quickly heard lines that were from a long-ago version of the story. In fact, I think it's a version that was in mid-edit, like I began to change things and then abandoned it. Basically, crap lines. No pun intended.
Mistakenly, I sent an older, far less enjoyable version. If that's not a tragic lesson in properly syncing your saved files, I don't know what is. From what I was told, though, far more stories than those that appear on the CD collection were submitted. So maybe it's not as bad as I think. What you read above is the final, much better version.
Click here to listen to the older version of "Bye-bye, Little Doggies," read by Gard Goldsmith.
Mikey stood there, head cocked, watching. This wasn't his first time, and he felt a familiar smile tug at the corners of his lips as he regarded the thrashing forms. They squeaked and yipped, and would not stop.
He wanted them to stop.
The water wasn't deep. If the annoying things stood on their hind legs, their heads poked just above the surface, high enough so that their constant whining—a terrible buzzing wail—rattled throughout Mikey’s head. And worse, because of the shallow water, they still lived.
Determined to put an end to their taunting cries, Mikey knelt down, leaned forward, grabbed the fattest of the three—its soft body twisting in his grasp—and thrust it under the surface.
Mikey’s eyes widened and he sucked in his breath as the puppy tried to break free. He squeezed even harder, until blood darkened the water. The other two bumped and clawed at his forearm, trying to climb their way to freedom, while the one in his clutches continued to squirm. Then—finally!—it went still. A silver bubble rolled from its mouth, floated to the surface, and vanished amid a small ripple.
Mikey exhaled.
One down, two to go.
His heartbeat quickened, his skin grew warmer, then hot. A tremor of excitement passed through his body. It was like when the ice cream truck would come slowly down the street, its bell ringing, ringing, ringing, its music playing, and he would run into the house, screaming for a dollar. It was that kind of feeling, but more insistent, stronger. And he almost did scream. Instead, he giggled and clapped his hands in elation.
The remaining puppies went under together, one in each hand. The feeble things writhed between his powerful fingers. One of them fought hard, took longer to die. But in the end, Mikey won.
He felt strong.
Satisfied, Mikey rested his arms on the cold toilet seat, nestled his head on his shoulder, and stared at the lifeless things below the water, now thick with blood. He blew a strand of hair away from his forehead. He stirred the water with his fingertip in hypnotic circles. As his body cooled, pulse slowed, and the excitement of the moment seeped away, Mikey felt his eyelids grow heavy.
"Bye-bye, little doggies," he whispered.
He didn't hear the door open.
"Mikey, what are—" His mother gasped in shock, her nostrils flaring like fish gills. "My God! What have you done?"
Her voice had dropped so low Mikey could hardly hear her. He tried to look confused, afraid. "I don’t know," he replied.
She stood next to him, looking down. She just stared for a time, her face slowly turning red, like an oven burner. Mikey was in trouble, the really bad kind of trouble. He knew it. He cleared his throat, readying an apology, but then his mother turned away, walked to the door, and shouted, "John! Get up here and deal with your son. Now!"
Time slowed. Mikey sat there, hands folded in his lap, quiet. His mother's heavy breathing the only sound in the small room.
Ascending the stairs from the living room, Mikey's father asked, "What the hell has he done now?" Entering the bathroom, his father looked around and wrinkled his nose. He folded his arms and chewed on the corner of his bottom lip, trying—and failing—to bite back a smile.
"Oh, it’s a real knee-slapper, isn’t it, John?" Mikey watched his mother's face turn a deeper shade of red. "This is your fault," she continued.
"My fault?" His father chuckled, rolling his eyes and shaking his head at the same time. "He’s six years old. He’s just a boy!"
"Do all six-year-olds play with shit?" she shouted. "Do all forty-year-old men constantly forget to flush the goddamn toilet?"
"Sometimes," he said, looking back toward Mikey and the toilet. "Obviously." And then he laughed again, long and loud.
Mikey's mother inhaled sharply through her nose, fists clenched at her side. She stood motionless, saying nothing, just glaring at his father. Mikey knew that look. His father was in trouble, too. His mother then stormed out of the bathroom. Down the hall, a door slammed shut. The noise thundered through the walls and floor, up through Mikey’s legs and into his stomach, as if the big tree out front had fallen onto the roof. The water’s surface shivered.
When silence returned, Mikey's concerned but clearly amused father sighed, reached down, and flushed the toilet.
Mikey smiled as he watched the dead puppies swirl round and round and disappear.
Thoughts: This is an old story, but one I've always liked. Its original purpose was to simply work with flash fiction, which I'd never done before. I never intended to publish it when I began working on it. I just came up with an idea and rolled with it. Thus it's gone through a million rewrites. I tried all kinds of different things: voices and styles, extended endings, more characters, and so on. All of which I've saved. To my disappointment, this caused a bit of confusion down the line. More on that in a bit, though...
"Bye-bye, Little Doggies" is more than it appears to be. It's a story that many people have loved; but it's also a story that just as many have hated and actually been angered by. Without scratching the surface, one may find it to be little more than a joke story, a setup for a punchline. It's not. In fact, that which some people find to be nothing more than a punchline is really secondary, if not tirtiary or irrelevant, to the meat of the story: a young child destined for terrible things. It's the everyday serial-killer-as-a-child story, only before real animals are the victims (a cliché, I know, but again it was an "exercise in writing" kind of tale...plus I thought it was a sort of different take on the subject by going back to an earlier age). On the flip side, you have the parents, totally oblivious—and like many readers, they find it gross and amusing, the mother and father, respectively. I was going for disturbing, and with such a love/hate split, maybe I achieved that.
Publication Note: To my surprise, this was included on the Necon 30 Audio Horror Collection—featurning Rick Hautala, Althea Kontis, Weston Ochse, Bev Vincent, and 13 others—and passed out to all those who attended this year's Necon. As cool as that is, upon listening to it I quickly heard lines that were from a long-ago version of the story. In fact, I think it's a version that was in mid-edit, like I began to change things and then abandoned it. Basically, crap lines. No pun intended.
Mistakenly, I sent an older, far less enjoyable version. If that's not a tragic lesson in properly syncing your saved files, I don't know what is. From what I was told, though, far more stories than those that appear on the CD collection were submitted. So maybe it's not as bad as I think. What you read above is the final, much better version.
Click here to listen to the older version of "Bye-bye, Little Doggies," read by Gard Goldsmith.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Comprehensive Update of Mostly No Importance Whatsoever
Not a lot of updates lately. You weep, I know.
I stopped doing the writing progress updates because...well, I found them boring. Maybe not necessarily boring to me, but they didn't seem to have any real entertainment value. I will continue doing writing updates, but less frequently, and only when there is something more significant than word counts to discuss.
I also stopped doing the Friday short-story updates because it was becoming the creepy Friday "I Love Dean Koontzypoo" update. But I do like discussing what I've been reading, so I will continue to do so soon, only this time I'll discuss everything I read, from short stories to blogs to novels to bathroom stall walls.
Anyway, I've had a bit of success with some stories lately. At least beyond flat out rejections. Nothing to report yet. But soon. I hope.
The bigger news is that issue #2 of Shock Totem is out and availble.
You can order it here. Issue #2 is a different sort of animal from issue #1. This one is a bit more fantastical and...odd, surreal. Still dark, of course, but a different kind of darkness. You'll dig it.
Tomorrow I'm heading down to Necon until Sunday. Then it's up to Maine until the 26th. A vacation long overdue. I hope to get a lot of writing and fishing done.
And with that, I'm out. Take care, kids!
I stopped doing the writing progress updates because...well, I found them boring. Maybe not necessarily boring to me, but they didn't seem to have any real entertainment value. I will continue doing writing updates, but less frequently, and only when there is something more significant than word counts to discuss.
I also stopped doing the Friday short-story updates because it was becoming the creepy Friday "I Love Dean Koontzypoo" update. But I do like discussing what I've been reading, so I will continue to do so soon, only this time I'll discuss everything I read, from short stories to blogs to novels to bathroom stall walls.
Anyway, I've had a bit of success with some stories lately. At least beyond flat out rejections. Nothing to report yet. But soon. I hope.
The bigger news is that issue #2 of Shock Totem is out and availble.
You can order it here. Issue #2 is a different sort of animal from issue #1. This one is a bit more fantastical and...odd, surreal. Still dark, of course, but a different kind of darkness. You'll dig it.
Tomorrow I'm heading down to Necon until Sunday. Then it's up to Maine until the 26th. A vacation long overdue. I hope to get a lot of writing and fishing done.
And with that, I'm out. Take care, kids!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Cast Of Nasties Invades Britain
UK-based author Simon Marshall-Jones invited us Shock Totem dummies to run amok on his blog, Ramblings of a Tattooed Head. Thus, he and his garlic neckless are rendered powerless.
You can find us blathering on here. Check it out, say hello, and before you ask: Yes, that tattoo fucking hurt!
(And in case you were wondering, we're still waiting for issue #2 to show up online. It should any day now, though.)
You can find us blathering on here. Check it out, say hello, and before you ask: Yes, that tattoo fucking hurt!
(And in case you were wondering, we're still waiting for issue #2 to show up online. It should any day now, though.)
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