Trunking It

The fabulous Bluestocking has a post up today about her decision to trunk a story.

She writes,

This was a tough decision for me. I’m not one to give up easily. I do think any idea can be salvaged. But that still doesn’t mean something is publishable, or a least publishable in the way I want it to be. Or that the time spent fixing the story isn’t better spent on writing new ones.

The entirety of her post - which has amazing advice in it about why you might consider the trunk and how to know when it's time - had me cringing and nodding in sympathy. I just retired the first story of 2012, which was also one of the first stories I wrote a few years ago when I decided to take a serious stab at writing.

The first time I wrote it, it was a flash piece (based on a dream, I might add). It always bugged me that I couldn't place it. It bugged me even more that there was something about it that just didn't feel right.

This year, short on ideas for Write 1, Sub 1, I decided to take a stab at rewriting it, from scratch. This second effort was much longer. It had more developed characters. I introduced an amazing grandmother character. I cooked up a central romance that was sweet and endangered. The main villain got a fair shot at redemption. The tentacles were writhing. I sent it out a couple of places, but gee if I didn't still think - sorry, know - that there was something essentially wrong with the whole thing. Probably that same thing was wrong when it was a flash piece.

I'm not sorry I tried to rewrite it. It was a good lesson. I didn't have a clear idea of any changes I wanted to make to the original story. "More detail" was how I approached the rewrite, but I laid that detail out on the same skeleton as the original piece.

The bottom line for me is that I don't want to fool myself into sending something out when it's got my Spidey Sense tingling. If it doesn't feel right, I might not be able to put my finger on it, but I would rather put my efforts behind a piece I believe in. Other shorts I've written this year have come together in a much more felicitous fashion. I couldn't necessarily put my finger on why they work and this other piece doesn't. I don't think a writer always knows, either. There are plenty of pieces that I am not sure about that I send out anyway. Sometimes that works out, and the story becomes brilliant in my mind in retrospect. (Yes, because someone else liked it. I am sometimes shallow.)

It's just that when there is that feeling that something is missing or lacking, that there is something about a piece that gives me the hinks, I would rather put it aside.

Things that Will Make You Happy Unless You're Dead Inside

Via This is Not Porn

This is not porn: this is pure beauty. Gorgeous, off-kilter, candid, and surprising photos of celebrities.

"The late fees had reached the point where the injustice of paying any more than I already owed outweighed my apathy. I considered just keeping the movies and never going to the video store again, but then I remembered that I still wanted to re-watch Jumanji."

Allie of Hyperbole and a Half writes and draws about depression achingly, tragically, and triumphantly.

Matt Cardin's Teeming Brain brings you Joseph Campbell's idea of a global mythology, along with an incredible new video of time-lapsed images taken with low-light cameras from the International Space Station in 2011.

Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald," dressed up like a Victorian newspaper, is for those of you who have always wondered why there aren't more Sherlock Holmes / Cthulhu mashups.  (p.s. if you need more, there is the anthology in which Gaiman's story first appeared: Shadows Over Baker Street)

The Last Orange (First Campaigner Challenge of This, the Fourth Campaign)

Shadows crept across the wall. Mitch picked up the coffee can filled with coins and rattled it. The shadows zipped out the window. They were skittish, nothing to fear.

Mitch continued peeling the orange - the last orange. It was the tail end of winter, and the grocery stores had been closed to all but looters since late January.

Most of his neighbours were gone now. Cowards. Mrs. Kowalski said they’d been eaten, taken over, or some such nonsense. Mitch figured they’d fled.

He would rather starve than leave his home. Besides, the shadows weren’t dangerous.

To his surprise, the orange wasn’t dry at all, but juicy and tangy.

Something stirred in the corner. He picked up the can and shook it. The thing didn’t budge.

Mitch stood. “Bold, are you?”

The shadow shifted into the shape of a man. Mitch staggered back, sat down hard in his chair. He shook the can, harder this time.

The shadow lifted away from the wall. It loomed over him.

Mitch screamed as the shadow slid its fingers under the skin of his face and peeled the first strip. He looked dried out, but inside he was still tangy and juicy.

Everything faded.

Notes:
"Shadows crept across the wall" - check
"Everything faded" - check
"orange" - check
Horror genre - check
200 words - check


BOOM! 


Looking forward to reading everyone else's entries. 


If you liked this story, give me a quick thumbs up over here - I'm number 192, waaay down at the bottom.

11 Semi-Random Answers to 11 Random Questions

My new friend, fellow campaigner, and fantasy and horror writer Angeline Trevena (who is also our new best hope for an accurate and effective dick joke evaluation scale) has tagged me to answer eleven questions. Thanks, Angeline!

1 Do you like your handwriting? 

A German who is unknown to me once read a letter I wrote to my best friend Wendy and said, "Wow, that handwriting is like a Victorian cityscape." I therefore feel duty bound to love my handwriting.

2 If you were another person, would you be friends with you? 

If I were another person who is also me, like a clone or evil twin or something, I think I would be friends with me, if only because I could then enact every Shakespeare twin plot in real life. Making people fall for me and then substituting my twin! Strategic cross dressing in order to infiltrate gender specific scenarios! Losing one of us at sea only to find each other years later and cause untold mayhem! It would be awesome.

3 Do you still have your tonsils? 

Nope. I am of the generation where you got a couple of throat infections and they whipped 'em out.

4 Scary movies or happy endings? 

Either way. In movies, I like both. In books, I find unambiguously happy endings feel a little fake.

5 What technology scares you? 

Almost all of it. GMO foods, fracking, vaccines, pharmaceuticals. Not to mention crowd control devices, subliminal advertising, groupthink, and Trump's hairpiece.  

It's enough to make you miss the days of old school, frivolous uses of technology, like fluoroscopes (x-ray machines) that used to be a standard fixture in shoe stores.




6 What's your favourite item of clothing and why?


A black wool beret. It is cute, it keeps me warm in winter, and I bought it for a dollar at a used clothing store.

7 What's the next planned event you're looking to in your life?

Buying a house and moving into it. The timing isn't locked down, but the plan is in place. After a million years of being a renter, I can't wait to own my own place.

8 Are you more comfortable in someone else home if it is messy or very tidy?

Messy. Very tidy people intimidate me. I fear that I will screw up their perfection by sullying it with my mere presence.

9 What in today's society do you feel should be free but is not?

Heath care and dental care. In Canada health care is mostly free. I am lucky to live here. Needing medical treatment and not having access to it is just a crazy nightmare. It should be the same everywhere. Ditto for dental care. Look after your teeth, kids!

10 If you could choose to stay a certain age forever, what age would it be?


I have no idea. I've recently realized that every five or six years, I look back and can barely recognize myself, and I realize how ignorant and unwise I was. I expect this trend will continue, so being older will always be better until I hit some kind of cognitive decline. So, eighty-eight? Ninety-two? Whenever I start to get stupid again.

11 What would you name the autobiography of your life?


No clue, so I flipped through options on this Random Book Title Generator. I don't know what kind of book would go with these, but I enjoyed The Woman in the Husband, Voyagers of Kiss and Sharp Secret. (Actually, I really like Sharp Secret as a story or book title. Anyone feel like brainstorming?)

Thanks again, Angeline! That was fun.

Here are eleven questions for YOU.

Feel free to tag yourself. Leave a comment to this post with a link to your responses: I am dying to know what you answer!

I'm tagging these folks specifically:
Kelda Crich
Alex Villasante
Jay Noel
Jen Filipowicz
Jacob Adams
Fantasy Writer Guy
David Powers King
Stella Atrium (O how I love your name, Stella Atrium!)
Jennifer Baker Henry
Cherie Reich
Alberta Ross


My questions for you:

1. What are you reading?
2. What is your favourite creative activity that is not writing?
3. Where or how do you get your best ideas?
4. If you could magically and painlessly change one thing about your mind or body, what would it be, if anything?
5. What's the scariest movie, story, novel, or scene you can recall?
6. What's the weirdest thing you believe?
7. Super strength or super intelligence?
8. You're granted the ability to become invisible. Where do you go and what do you do? (Bonus question: are you wearing clothes? I mean, what about YOUR becoming invisible makes your clothes invisible too? This has always bothered me.)
9. What one change do you think would have the most positive impact on the world as a whole?
10. What is the crappiest advice you've ever been given?
11. What's your favourite song right now?

Current Inspiration: Guys and Dolls

Source

No, not the musical, the BBC documentary about sex dolls.

Sex in itself is almost like a violent act. But you know, the dolls are made for it. They can handle a lot of physical abuse.
...
I've had sex with a couple of dolls. Over the years that I've worked with them, there have been a couple of dolls that I had that were amazing. Amazing. This hundred pound doll came to life. It's pushing back, it's not just I'm pushing on it, but all of a sudden it's starting to push back. It's creating motion and friction. And the weight of the product, and how it behaves in this manner is very stimulating. It was an amazing thing. Very life like, very realistic, very odd. But it's just a doll, a very high form of masturbation.

                                                                        ~Slade, sex doll repair man.


Watching this documentary got me thinking about love, about the compelled and manufactured relationships in our lives, about the ways in which masculinity is a friable construct. It got me wondering about whether authenticity is possible in a relationship with a synthetic creature, and to what extent, and under what conditions.

Fourth Writers' Platform-Building Campaign

Last year I discovered blogfests. I participated in one or two simpler and more modest fests, and loved meeting new people that way, especially fellow writers. Then I learned that there are some blogfests so massive that they grow out of their names and become....something else.

I give you Rachael Harrie's Fourth Writers' Platform-Building Campaign. 

Go here to get your very own badge.

The Campaign is grassroots social networking at its finest. The Campaign starts today, and you have until February 15 to sign up. Basically, the Campaign serves as a hub where you can find fellow writers who want to be found. Find people who write the same genres and forms as you do! Expand your list of followers and subscribers! Participate in awesomely fun challenges! With prizes!

A good time will be had by all. Go here to sign up. 

Broken Realities and Other Delights

Source: Want to go halfsies or third-sies on this apartment?

My imagination likes to linger in certain places. This past month I've been returning to certain themes in much the same way that a tongue returns to the empty socket of a tooth that's been pulled.

In more than one story I've included tentacles, realities that bleed into each other, demented mentors, primal religious impulses, gleeful hedonists, and practical jokes.

In the coming month I'm anticipating stories about alien encounters and underprepared persecutors.

What's punching its way out of your brain these days?