Thursday, August 11, 2011

Flash Fiction Sounds So Dirty

So over at http://blog.lettersandlight.org/post/8782943627, Chris A issues a challenge - namely, hit the random article generator on Wikipedia and write a super short story based on whatever pops up. Mine was Emmylou Harris' hit album. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_I_Intended_to_Be) Yes, it was as painful as it sounds. But the exercise was fun! And I think you guys should do it, too. :D

Jake pounded so savagely on the door he thought it might break. And good news if it did! He wasn't going to put up with this nonsense a moment more.

“Angie!” he barked. “You're being immature! Open this door right now!”

There was no appreciable response, aside from the muffled, mournful strains of Emmylou Harris being turned up to drown out his voice. Jake hissed in agitation. Angie didn't even like country music. She only broke the stuff out when she wanted to wallow in self-pity. He resumed his banging.

“Stop that,” Helen scolded. She was click-click-clicking her way up the breezeway in her vicious-looking boots, a grim expression on her pretty face. “Battering your way in won't do us much good when the cops get here.”

She brushed past Jake and rummaged in her purse for her spare key. A moment later they were pushing their way into Angie's apartment and groaning. The object of their annoyance lay face down on her cheap gray carpet, dark hair fanned out around her in a tangled mess. She had taken to pinning rejection letters on the baseboard over the couch. Her cat was investigating the body, perhaps wondering if she was dead enough to be worth eating, and a half-empty wine cooler sat several inches from her head. A wine cooler! She couldn't even drink real liquor.

“Angela Carmen Barr!” Helen hollered; she could barely be heard over Emmylou's wail. “You will stop behaving like a child right- oh for god's sake, Jake, will you turn off this racket please!”

Jake was too happy to comply. He snatched Angie's iPod right out of the docking bay and seriously considered removing the album all together. Sweet, blessed silence washed over them all.

“Now,” said Helen, composing herself. “You need to knock this off. You are a grown woman and you will start conducting yourself with dignity if it's the last thing I do.”

What sounded like a gurgle rose up from Angie's general direction. Jake left the room, stalking off towards the bathroom.

Helen tried a different tactic. “I know it's difficult. I do. I've dated my share of artists and musicians, Angie, and I admit that creative types are always a little crazy. Writing a book must be hard enough, and I've heard that getting published is an uphill slog at the best of times. But you can't just lock yourself in here to decompose every time someone turns your work down, right?”

The cat mewed towards Helen. Helen didn't care for cats. She crouched down low beside her dear friend, swallowing the urge to spritz Angie down with deodorant.

“How about you get up, scrub up a little and you, me and Jake will all go out to dinner, huh? Our treat. We'll even let you scribble notes at the table like a mannerless little barbarian.”

No response. Helen uttered a small cry of frustration. But Jake was then sweeping back into the room, making a beeline for Angie's prone form and scooping her up. She lolled doll-like in his arms.

“You're not going to get anywhere bargaining with her,” he explained.

Helen followed curiously as he carried Angie down the hall and dumped her uncerimoniously in the tub. It was full to the brim of what looked like very cold water. Angie gasped and sputtered, hair flying wildly, and for several moments concerned herself with the business of coughing, swearing and splashing. Finally, she seemed to still, sat up and blinked. She peered at her friends and shook the water from her eyes.

“Right,” she said, sounding perfectly reasonable. “Okay then. So. Revisions.”

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

I Mean Tea Party in the Theoretical Sense

So I've been up all night driving myself slowly insane throwing an impromptu tea party for Doubt and her adopted sister Fear, who are not, by the way, particularly gracious guests. I don't know what it is, but something's been eating at me lately. Part of it must be the shambles I see whenever I find the strength to hold my head up and have a look around at the empty room that used to be my life, but I think it's more than that. I think it runs a little deeper than shame or dissatisfaction. Must be mortality.

But this is the right age to start pondering it, right? I mean, my biological clock shuddered to life sometime last year and immediately began trying to trick me into believing that I like babies in a lean and hungry bid to ensure I don't take my leave of this world without leaving an indelible imprint. If my ovaries are concerned about whether or not I'll contribute anything to the human experience, that's got to be a hint for my more sensible bits to follow suit.

I have been tying myself up into knots since 8 pm (we are now rounding 6 in the morning and it is a beautiful sunrise, wish you were here) worrying that I have nothing inside me worth saying or, worse, worth hearing. And what's the fucking point if that's true? If what I contribute doesn't resonate with other people and shape their realities as they shape mine, couldn't the whole thing be chalked up to illusion and perception and let's all be done with it?

But I got some excellent advice indirectly via twitter - let it be known that my twitter feed, specifically, is the great bubbling wellspring of all wisdom and insight - and it has occurred to me that maybe I worry too much.

"What if my work never connects with anyone?"

Correct response: So what?

I'm not saying that isn't important to me. It's so, so important, and everything I've dreamed of all my life. I don't want to be rich, or famous, or beautiful, or clever. I want something I think or feel to resonate with another person and so create something new, because that is the innermost core of the human experience. I want to write something someone likes. That's it. Really.

We dream pretty big up in Taylorsville, didn't you know?

But sometimes I get to feeling that what I'm working on or whatever's weighing on my heart at the moment isn't going to be worthwhile to anyone else in the world, and I think, what's the point? As if my experiences are immediately invalidated by being mine alone. What's the point of singing without an audience? Why speak if no one's there to listen?

The point is singing. Speak because you have something to say.

I can't control whether anyone listens, or if they connect with me when they do. Audience reaction just can't be the reason to get up in the morning, to sing or write or do the thing you do. It occurs to me that even if I spend my life speaking into an empty void, at least I'm speaking, and that's more fulfilling and steadying and nourishing than silence borne of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of irrelevancy; these are risks that come once the glory of the initial endeavor is already wrapped around the brave adventurer that so dare speak up. They're icing on the proverbial cake of accomplishment.

In summation:

If nobody likes my books, fuck 'em. I like my books.

(Which isn't to say I don't want you to like my books.)






(Please like my books.)