I have a short story published today at The Ginger Collect for their Issue Nine. It's called "Her Eulogy, Etc." and it has a really long and strange story itself. I'll share that here at some point, but today I just want to shine a light on Lauren and the good people at The Ginger Collect for sharing this one with their readers. Below is a link to read the story and you can also follow it to see the entire issue.

Read "Her Eulogy, Etc."

Tried to move to Tumblr again and failed again. I think I'm actually here to stay.

Well, I tried to switch to Tumblr again. The reason is because the theme Atlantic looks so nice there and there's not an option here that even comes close to such coolness. But, once again I've realized Tumblr's limitations: no pages. That makes it hard to post links to my stories and my reading log.

So I'm back. A decade strong. I stripped the theme down here as plain as possible. Still, it's nothing nearly as minimalistically beautiful as that Atlantic theme.

So I'm about to finish a story I've been working on for a long time (at least for my output lately). It's taken about four months, and I've had the title for much longer than that. It's called "Psychic Mountains Ten Thousand Feet High" and I think I can finish it by tomorrow evening. I think. Things seemed to break loose for it after I got home this evening.

I spent the day helping my gal's dad repair his rental property. I've spent the last three weekends doing this and I'm about tapped out. We've stripped wallpaper, did mud work, primed, and painted every wall in the place. Tomorrow will be putting down carpet. And I'm killed. The place got destroyed by the last folks to rent the place, a bunch of pill head pieces of shit. They basically forced us to redo the entire interior. It's hard work, and made even harder when considering why we're having to do it. It's tough also because I help him on the weekends fix damage done by addicts and then start back on Monday mornings helping by counseling addicts at a clinic in a neighboring county. I'm going to let that thought go. Nothing good can come from me thinking about that dichotomy.

I want to buy around 3,000 books at the present moment. And I'm also beginning to panic at least three times a week when I consider the fact that I'm not going to be able to read those 3,000 books, which make up my Amazon wish list. Again, I've pushed myself into an emotional train wreck of a corner.

Okay, good thoughts, good thoughts, good thoughts. Whatever those are.

Joseph Young’s Always Never Speaking: 50 Flash Fictions

 Joseph Young’s new book, Always Never Speaking: 50 Flash Fictions, with Commentaries by the Author, is now available for preorder.

The book’s 50 very short stories articulates the lives of many characters from numerous shades of life, telling of their pleasures and sorrows, mysteries and loves, in sparing but vivid prose. These stories are collected from among 10+ years of Young’s published and unpublished works. Young also provides very brief commentaries on each of the stories and on the mercurial and beguiling nature of flash fiction itself.

Young is self-publishing his book under the imprint RowHouse Press. Although he is a big fan of traditional publishing houses, Young is compelled with the ideas of DIY art making. Through such projects, artists get to bring their aesthetic ideas not only to the making of their work, but also to the packaging and design of their art and the assembly of novel and creative promotional tools.

As such, Young designed and made the cover art for his book, filmed a book trailer, and created a playlist of sound collage and voice recordings of four stories from Always Never Speaking.

Always Never Speaking is Young’s third full-length book. His award winning book of microfiction, Easter Rabbit, was released by Publishing Genius in 2010, and he self-published his vampire novel, NAME, in 2012. His flash fiction has appeared in many literary journals.

This book is Young’s first major project since his MicroFiction RowHouse in 2017. For MicroFiction RowHouse, Young installed numerous tiny stories on the walls, ceilings, bedsheets, tablecloths, and many other surfaces of his Baltimore rowhome to tell the story of a fictional family who might have once lived in the home.

In the near future, Young will hold a book release party for Always Never Speaking at MicroFiction RowHouse, which has been the site of literary readings, music shows, workshops, and other get-togethers over the past few years.

Always Never Speaking is 220 pages in length, and sells for $15 on Young’s website. During the preorder period for the book, Young will waive the shipping costs.

For media inquiries and requests for review copies, please see the information below.

---------------------

What: Release of Always Never Speaking: 50 Flash Fictions, with Commentaries by the Author

When: Book now available for preorder for $15 on his website (free shipping during preorder), 220 pages

Contact: Joseph Young, youngjoseph21@gmail.com, 443-858-9855

Eating and Watching Baseball and Such

My gmail account won't work properly. Couple this with the fact that my subscription or whatever it is of Microsoft Word lapsed (ended, terminated, skipped out?) Now, consider that I write exclusively on my Google Drive now and you get kind of a calamity: I can't work on my ongoing projects, of which I have a'plenty.

I could write here at Bent Country and then safe it and paste it over whenever things straighten out. But that's not how it works for me. I have to be inside the document. So this sucks.

The truth is that I have to write everyday, not because I'm a writer, but because I just have to and that's it.

***

Ghost Adventures is on. I love that show. It's entertaining and sometimes cool. Investigators who don't like the show don't like it because them boys act crazy and get worked up and claim it's entirely the work of spirits. They also don't like that they say "dude" a lot. Big deal. There are some people who will never be happy as long as they live, and that's the way they way they want it. Don't waste your time on people like that.

*** 

The Braves are 11-12 in spring training play. It's not looking so good. Acuna will have a good year and Freeman probably one or two more decent years. Albies will have more good games than bad, but there will be bad games. The pitching is the problem. Folty is hurt; Terehan needs to be let go or moved to a closer or something, but they'll just keep starting him. Unless something changes with our pitching, this year is going to be a long one. I think I'll focus on Acuna and enjoy watching him. I'd say within a year or two he'll be playing for some other team; I better watch him while I can be happy when he succeeds.

***

My final pass draft of Dysphoria is in Adam's hands now and it's time to work on getting some blurbs for the launch, etc. I asked some people, but I swear to you that I have no idea who still likes me or not. I've lost all sense of that kind of thing. Liked or not liked starts becoming way less important as you get older and I, for one, am thankful for such progress.

I'm having a final look at my draft for an upcoming collection called Absolute Invention for Mike Lafontaine over at Secret History Books. I've not announced anything about this on the social medias but I'm saying it here, for all the millions of my fans and friends who stop by hourly to see what's up with SLC. Well there you go: I'll have a third story collection out this spring in addition to the novel from Cowboy Jamboree. I'm as excited as I've ever been as a writer. And, to the best of my knowledge, I should have The Orchard Is Full of Sound out from WVU Press some time in 2020.

***

I'm hooked on pecan pie lately. It's always been one of my favorite foods, but lately I've been eating it like they'll never make pies again. Wal-Mart is where I'm buying it. These boxes of pies lined up like I don't know, like boxes of heaven, like boxes of pure contentment. I don't know. The catch is having to go to Wal-Mart to get them. I didn't used to have a problem with going there. People never bothered me in large numbers. Now people bother me in any numbers.

It got so bad at one point (I was getting a couple other items for Heather while I was out) that I had to go to the furniture section and rest for a minute in one of those aisles where nobody ever goes. When I had my breath again I headed back out into the dark waters of the Wal-Martian waters.

***

Cross your fingers that I get to start on my writing projects again soon, or there's going to be a lot more of these posts about eating and watching baseball and such.

Read this story by a writer named K.B. Carle!

Just popping in to share this a story I came across on Twitter today by a writer named K.B. Carle. The story is called "Vagabond Mannequin" and it's really fun and original. It appeared today at Christopher James's Jellyfish Review.

READ "Vagabond Mannequin by K.B. Carle @ Jellyfish Review

I have the flu and I'm trying to write anyways.

Hey kind readers. Hope all is well with you all. I have the flu and like a dummy I didn't start taking some medicine until yesterday. This is making writing harder than usual, which is to say nigh impossible.

But I'm trucking right along. Today is Proof Day, or day one of Proof Day. I'm giving a final pass to an edited draft of Dysphoria. Adam Van Winkle of Cowboy Jamboree Press has worked hard to get this edited draft into my hands and I'm trying to do right by him in return. It's all for the better of the novel. It's all about getting another story out there in t he world. Man, what a noble goal, right? Yes indeed.

I've stopped first draft work on The Orchard Is Full of Sound for the time being. But I'm close there, too. I've only got three more sections to finish and that book will be initially ready for the Sept. 1 deadline. Of course I'll tinker with it and add and delete and rewrite daily until that date. It's just how I write books. Always tinkering and twisting and refitting until the very end.

What do I plan on doing once these two contracted books are finished or near-finished? Well then I've bought myself time to write short stories. My break from writing is writing, no lie. I really think that after writing everyday for the past 30 years that I just write everyday now; it's just something I do. It might not always be good sentences, but I'm in there swinging.

Ten years ago this October I started writing here at Bent Country. The lit community was a different scene back then, but much the same, too. Writers supporting each other, etc. Some of my frequent readers are still friends, but the energy has went a little, or something. I'm not sure. I'm still in very infrequent contact with many of these folks - xTx, Mel Bosworth, Roxane Gay, and Marcus Speh, for instance. But there are others who only existed in that magical two or three year period such as Dave Erlwine, Cami Park (rest her soul), and Chris Okum, to name a few. What am I trying to say? I don't know, really. Things are different; it seems like all of us either wrote our books and had them published and then sort of went quiet or we are still in there sending out stories and writing books and just babbling all hours of the day. I'm of the latter group, and I'm not sure if it's the best group to be in. I just no I'm always going to write, so why not share it with people if I can.

So I'm off to proof some more and probably jot a little on a story or two today. I'm got one story in the oven right now I'm really excited about, but I can't remember what I've titled it. Strange. Maybe ten years doesn't just take a toll on creative energy.

A post about things and then, of a sudden, a small story about a worm.

So I want to write but I'm wrote out on all my ongoing books or stories. I mean I have written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of words day after day after day for many weeks. The Orchard Is Full of Sound, short story 1 Dyphoria, short story 2, short story 3, Absolute Invention, short story 4. Back and forth. And back and forth until I don't know if I'm coming or going.

But I must write.

So here I am.

I have a lot of news that's come my way in the past week or so, but I'm not sure how much of it I can really share right now. I know there's one thing I can't share yet. That's fine. The other I probably can but I'm going to keep it under my hat until I see some buzz out there I didn't generate. Wow, with vagueness like this I should be posting on Facebook.

But let's just say there's been good news and I'll share it as soon as I can. I will say that I'm closing in on a completed first draft of The Orchard Is Full of Sound. I've no doubt the good folks at WVU Press will have many good ideas to share with me on the book and that it will come away from that a much better book. I'm actually looking forward to that.

I read something about there not being any worms around anymore. I think they're around as they ever have been, we just stopped turning over logs and rocks and so forth.

It made me want to imagine something about a worm...

Once there was a worm. He was the last worm on earth, but didn't know this. He didn't know enough to be lonely, but he was lonely all the same. During the day he stayed beneath a flat, gray stone. No one knows what he did under the stone. Each daybreak he came out into the sun. But not for long, because he would dry out and die. What he longed for more than anything was to find a companion. Even in his short life loneliness grew heavier by the seconds. There were no others, though, and he became sad, beyond sad. So one daybreak he came from beneath the flat, gray stone and never returned.