7:05 p.m.

I've been putting in several hours a day writing just like every day. It's the same thing all of us do. Work, work, work, and keeping working. Make sentences, tell stories, build something memorable with our craft. All the things we all know. 

So work.

I received a submission today from a writer who stated in his bio that he had had more than fifty pieces published. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. The website he linked to for himself only had an About page. I'm not trying to be a prick. Really, I'm not. If he's working hard every day to improve then I'm all for that. If he's not it's his business. But I rejected his story. 

Cliché. Worn out language. You have to get rid of that immediately before phrases become sentences and they breed and before you know it every paragraph is generally something somebody else said before you. 

In his first paragraph there were four of these - an ill-fitting suit, beads of sweat dancing, broken dreams, and the other I can't remember. 

He could have sent me something shitty, something from his bottom drawer, something he knew wasn't good hoping I would just publish it because I can't help but to publish any and all submissions sent my way. I don't know. And I just don't know. I only thought I'd mention this. I wanted to write him and offer some feedback but couldn't figure out a way to do it without seeming like a prick. So I'm sharing it here because I had to get rid of it from my mind. 

Sometimes this place is a dump station. I'm sorry about that.

Adam Van Winkle's THE RED KNIFE PLAYS adapts my fiction to the stage

 

He did it. And it's fantastic. 

A New Story Published in Vending Machine Press

I have a new story at Vending Machine Press. It's called "Quietning Man" and I have Mike Lafontaine to thank for it appearing for people to read.

A little background on this one, something I've not really done before outside of an interview question. About two months ago I started to notice that my thinking was different than most of the people I'm around from day to day. Not better, not smarter, not anything like that. Just different, whereas others seemed to have at least some kind of consensus among each other. When I gave advice (advice I would absolutely take myself) I could tell they thought the idea monumentally absurd or just fantasy all together.

After a time, I started to believe that I should just be quiet. There was no reason to waste my breath. And let me make clear, I did not feel that I was above anyone's thinking. 

The ending, when the children come into play, is nothing more than my lifelong fear of destroying my kids in some way I never saw coming. It's in a lot of my stuff.

Read the story HERE. 

Breathe, honor is on the return

I wanted to come here while Joseph Biden is still preparing his victory speech and say that we made it, folks. We got through four years with a child as the perceived leader of the free world. Soon we'll have an adult in the highest office again. Just think of the progress we can now be confident will come. Progress in human rights, progress in bringing honor back to the United States again, progress in repairing our global relationships. Progress in ways we've not seen in the last long and disgusting 48 barren months. Breathe, everybody. Breathe.

TEXTBOOK

by SHELDON LEE COMPTON

Science class. Patricia pays attention. Pays attention like she’s got credit cards full of it. All the plastic attention they can handle.

The rest of the class pays attention to Patricia, the tight t-shirt even more tight over her melon belly. Chatter over her shoulder, food chain chatter at the front of the room where Mrs. Evans explains and explains. Chatter in Patricia’s head so that she can almost hear her thoughts in her throat, real words vibrating downward.

She raises her hand and Mrs. Evans calls on her without looking away from the caged boa propped on the edge of her desk.

“Can a baby inside of you hear what you’re thinking?”

Mrs. Evans says nothing and does not call down the kids laughing at the back of the room. Instead, she takes a white mouse from a box the class prepared the day before. Tiffany stabbed holes in the sides and top so the mice could live long enough to die.

Patricia raises her hand again but Mrs. Evans and the rest of the class watch the mouse and the snake. She writes another note in the margins of her textbook instead and resharpens her pencil.

In the textbook are pictures. Anatomy. The insides of men. Of women. The insides of her. She draws ash-light lines, curling around the skinless woman’s legs, wrapping them until they meet at the exposed stomach and then slickly enter her.

Blunt, Patricia sharpens.

Now the lead, knife-slender, continues its cut through the small and large intestine. Patricia works the pencil down to a nub again, circling a dark mass in the stomach. She hardly hears Mrs. Evans calling her name.

“Patricia. Am I boring you?” Mrs. Evans says. She is fumbling the chalk through spider web fingers, picking at it with her long, red nails.

“No, Mrs. Evans.”

The whispers. Patricia always has somebody to do. She’s never bored. Not Patricia. The giggles.

Patricia writes the names of three boys beside the skinless woman when there’s a snapfast thud from the boa’s cage. The mouse is a cotton ball in the unhinged mouth, a bloodied clump of twitch and panic.

Again, Patricia raises her hand. This time Mrs. Evans waves to the door, agitated, already sure a bathroom request is coming.

Patricia edges sideways out of her desk, closes her eyes and moves in a wobble across the classroom. She does not need the bathroom, only the silence. She rubs her stomach with snowflake fingertips and leans against the wall. When a student bangs open a locker just out of site she turns back to the door.

Walking into the classroom is crawling across broken glass, a gallows walk, the laughter a noose with teeth. Her textbook is in the floor, opened to her page. In red ink are the names of eight more boys scrawled beside the three she wrote. The circled mass in the stomach is now covered over in red. There is an X over each of the lidless eyes.

The crack of the book closing is the thud of a rattled cage and she thinks to herself, hopes it can hear her. That she can hear her. That he can hear her. 

(Originally published in Necessary Fiction).

10:49 a.m.

It's back to work on The Orchard Is Full of Sound today. Two days off has made me more hesitant than anything else, really. I thought it might give me a chance to reboot and start fresh with new ideas and some kind of steam for pushing through to getting at least the reworked sections placed and building up a different narrative arc. Or not different, but stronger, better woven. Instead, I'm gun-shy.

Maybe the issue is that I have my pain medicine today, Tylenol 3, which always sort of gives me an energy boost (this due to the lifting of my back pain for a period of time) but then leads to a crash. That crash is essentially a sudden wave of grogginess that cuts through any creative drive I might have managed.

I will write on this today. In fact, I'm dead set on getting the manuscript to better match the table of contents outline. Thing is, I had a look at some of the short stories I have in progress yesterday and now my head's in that space.

UPDATE: It's now 4:03 p.m. and I opened the Orchard folder and had a look, got overwhelmed, and then closed it, came here to finish a blog post instead. Not sure how I'm going to finish the book if that's the approach I'm bound to take. What I do know is that writing about not being able to write is getting me nowhere.

10:44 a.m.

Watched a couple short horror films last night. One called I Heart It Too got me in all the spooky spots. Have a look.

5:58 p.m.

Taking two days off from Orchard. Today was the first of two. I've been working four to five hours a day on it for the past month. I'm not good at math but let's give it at try.

Added up that's a total of about 150 hours in four weeks. And I went from a 226-page manuscript down to a 93-page manuscript. Not one solitary word added as of this evening. Tomorrow is another day off, and I should be glad, really. If not, by tomorrow at this time I'd maybe have a 20-page essay, a far cry from my contractual obligation.

Heather talked me into taking the two days off. I didn't complain. It seemed like a good idea then and I know it was a good idea now. Six or seven times today I started to open my laptop, Golden Boy, and dive into my Orchard folder. Each time I did other things instead: I checked Twitter, checked on my MFA students, started to watch a movie on Amazon Prime, and actually did buy a really fantastic cardigan button-up sweater. That's the fourth sweater-type shirt I've bought in the past three days. I also bought a Polo long-sleeve button-up this past weekend. I don't know what's wrong with me.

All I knew was that I had to write something today. Other than days and nights I've had surgery or was in recovery from surgery I have written. Something, anything. But I've written nearly every day for the past 34 years. Wasn't about to let today go by without continuing that obsession. 

10:37 p.m.

Watching the Braves trying to win the pennant. They're leading the series 3-1. But that stupid Seager hit another home run. I hate the Dodgers. Almost as much as I hate the Nationals. But not as much as a hate the Packers. I'd say I will though over the next few years. It's going to clash with the stupid Dodgers for a while. I think we'll win. I get too invested in baseball games. I get nervous, giddy, enraged, elated. I wish I could just watch a ball game without all the emotional pain. 

I nearly aspirated about fifteen minutes ago. Acid reflux. It's about to kill me. That's twice I've almost choked to death in my sleep in the last two weeks. All I know to do is not eat at this point. Nothing is safe after about 5 p.m. I'll have to wash my blanket tomorrow and an outfit to wear to the wedding. I'm tired. I want to just sit here with nothing to do and nothing coming up, nothing to be nervous or worried about.

I'm working on draft eight of Orchard. Burnout doesn't begin to explain where I'm at with this book. All I'm sure about is that this is my last full-length work. I had two novels in progress before I even started this book and I'm going to stop working on them. It's short stories from here on out. Full-length works are just exhausting, and it doesn't help that I'm not as talented at novels and longer nonfiction books. After 34 years writing, I know where I'm strong, and that's with short stories. My novels have been mediocre, and you could fill Truist Park with all the mediocre novels that have been written and exist in this world.

I'm tired even writing about writing.

This fall's MFA class is wrapping up. It was a good one. I had three graduating students. A small class but advanced and enjoyable. And a wide spread of different kinds of literature being written. Fantasy, literary short stories. A good mix. I did the best I could trying to help them become better writers. Sometimes I struggle with that, talking about writing, helping people write better. I don't know if it's because I'm not as good a writer as I think I am or if it's because I've had limited experience talking to other people about writing. No idea. Nothing.

Tired of writing and here I am just pecking away. I've worn out two laptops in the past three years. 

Oh, I also hate Mookie Betts. Stupid Mookie Betts. He's already won a World Series with the stupid Red Sox. Give me a break. 

Go Braves.

If it ain't not broken

 I've done a lot of reading in the past several days. Finished Amelia Gray's first book, AM PM. It's really very much like a Lydia Davis book. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Gray was influenced by Davis quite a bit. AM PM was a good book though. The Featherproof copy has text that is waaaaaay too small. I don't know why they did that, and I don't think it's just that I'm older and my eyesight is worse. This text was TINY.

I finished up John Langan's Sefira and Other Betrayals. The opening novel, Sefira, was just too long. It might have worked as a short story but not as a novel or, as this is referred to, a novella. A lot of the main character traveling and thinking that could have been cut out. But I like Langan's work a lot. The rest of the book was filled with good, solid short stories.

I also finished reading the Berkley lecture book of Julio Cortazar. I can't figure out why Latin American writers always have to talk about politics. I mean I get that Latin America is messed up and there are a lot of political problems there, or at least there was during Cortazar's time, but my gosh don't let it paint everything about your work. I'm definitely more into his short stories than his novels or lectures.

I'm trying to kick up my reading again. I've been neglectful of it for the past year because I've focused so much on Orchard. I might as well read because I've found out in the past week that my writing mind has shut down. I know enough about all this to know that it's not permanent, but it's still no fun.

I am a poor boy too

For eleven years I've been opening new posts here and then sort of talking to myself. But that's only when I don't have something to say about other things, other people. Today is one of those talking to myself days.

I can't seem to get motivated to work on any pieces. I sent in my latest draft of The Orchard Is Full of Sound last week and since then I've managed to write about two paragraphs on a story I realized I needed to write differently. 

I have a new approach to stories that I want to keep using, resisting the reflexive path to a traditional narrative. I like the new way. There have been some of these put out into the world and I've gotten a little bit of feedback. Positive feedback. 

Going to close this post out. I thought maybe if I came in and talked for a bit I might get jarred into writing some worthy fiction. Still not feeling it, though. It seems just mean-spirited to have nothing else to say and to be trying to say it only to get my fiction brain going. I wish I was keeping up with the lit scene enough that I could recommend some stories here and leave posts to them, but I've been out of the loop for so long. I don't even know if many of my friends have books newly out right now. I wish I did. But I can correct that. 

Watch this spot for future plugs for friends with new books discussions.

I finished a sixth draft of Orchard, YES!

Finished it last night. I may have another draft to go through, though. I won't know until I hear back from the press. I'm sure they'll have some thoughts for tweaking, etc. no matter what. But I hope the big stuff is behind me. I started this book in July of 2018 and handed in the first draft November of 2019. Since then it's been redrafting, editing, adding and taking away, leaving in, leaving out. Combing, turning this way and that, longer chapters, shorter chapters, less hillbilly, more hillbilly. The feedback from one of the peer review readers was incredibly helpful and sent me back to the drawing board on drafts five and six. But I think it's really close. Really, really close.

I'm still working on Orchard, yes.

I should be writing new material for Orchard. I've spent the last three weeks combing and editing and rearranging and polishing about 140 pages of the manuscript to have it ready for submission as a new draft, a fourth draft. Now I'm to the harder part - writing new material for the last section, the last five or so chapters, which could become, under an alternate five draft, ten to fifteen shorter chapters. 

I've been polishing and rewriting and editing so long for so many hours a day that I think I've forgotten how to write new material. And this new material, these final chapters, are the most important under my new vision for the book as a whole. I've switched focus in part to hone in on the question of his suicide. I'm trying to make part of the book about my trying to understand it and come to terms with it, something that I will not manage, to be candid about it. 

This makes the final section - which is entirely about the suicide - much, much more important than before.

Long story short, I have to kick everything up a notch, and I'm tired. I'm worn out. I want to write short stories so bad right now. 

But I should stop whining. I'm lucky to be writing the book and even more lucky to have it accepted for publication at WVU Press. I'm just venting, to be honest about it. A release valve is something I can't usually find all that well. I woke this morning and remembered that I have you, select few readers, who are more or less okay with lending me an ear. I thank you all for that, and I'll finish this damn book. I will. I promise. 

First review of SWAY, Sheldon Birnie calls it "dark as a moonless Appalachian night"

Author Sheldon Birnie offered his thoughts and they were fantastic. Among other good points he discussed he mentioned that my short story "Pepper" was "one of the finest baseball stories" he'd ever read. It's one of my favorites from the collection, so that was very pleasing to hear. 

The first review of my new short story collection out recently from Cowboy Jamboree Press was sent my way this past week. 

In addition to this, Birnie (a fine writer himself with a great first name) found several of the stories that worried me the most among the best in the collection. What a relief, seriously. I've been taking my short fiction into some different places over the past year or so and it's great to hear good things about those risks. 

Hey don't take my word for it, just go read his review here.

My new short story collection SWAY published today by Cowboy Jamboree Press

It's publication day for my new short story collection Sway from Cowboy Jamboree Press. This one is my favorite collection so far.

Below is the link to buy it at Amazon, which I would greatly appreciate, and a link to add it at Goodreads, which I would also greatly appreciate.

BUY @ AMAZON

ADD @ GOODREADS

New Author's Page @ Cowboy Jamboree Press, Home for All of My New Fiction

Cowboy Jamboree Press's author page for me went live today!

HERE!

A lesson on the Compton family tree

Here's Sunday and I'm starting to feel a little trapped, or bored, to be more accurate. I've not felt bored in years and years. But I've not written a word of fiction or nonfiction in three days. No poems, either. The last thing I wrote was a book review. The words have slowed down a bit.

I'm still reading, though. Working through Wolf Hall and also Men Without Women and the Peter Orner book about reading and Russell Edson's The Tunnel. Yeah, still reading. A lot. And also watching The Tudors when I get tired of reading.

I have an ancestor depicted on that show - William Compton. He's my ancestral grandfather. Compton's are big in England. But it's a good show so far. I have to say that it parallels a lot with Wolf Hall. I often wonder which one came first because of this. But then I guess history is pretty set that way.

So how did my line end up in Podunk Kentucky? Well, my ancestor Henry Compton, the Bishop of London at the time, sent his ward, a son of his brother, my ancestral grandfather, named John Compton, to the estates and lands in the Colonies that had been given to him by the king. This was Maryland. Henry instructed John to build a church and continue the good work there. I suppose he did, but at some point we started filtering south, and the line eventually landed in Kentucky. Just so you know, there are honestly about forty John Compton's in my family tree.

But I'm a little bored. And this even though I'm an essiential healthcare worker and get to keep going to work every day. It's the weekends that are rough. So I probably should stop complaining. I get to get out five days a week for entire work days. I guess I'm lucky, but I sure wish something would give with this. I wish there were more news stories about where they're at with a cure. I'm tired of stories giving all these huge numbers of those infected and dead. I get it...we're in a bad situation. Give me something to look forward to why don't you?

Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of my poetry mini interview with Thomas Whyte

Here are the links to the five parts for the full interview Thomas Whyte did with me over at poetry mini interviews. I'm so appreciative that he talked with me. Thomas has a great thing going over there.


PART 1

       PART 2

              PART 3

                     PART 4

                            PART 5


Thanks so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed.

I noticed it's quiet around here again

Noticed from the stats that it's slowed down here some. That's fair. It's all fair. But every time it does, I become compelled to stretch and walk around a little.

I'm always talking about writing. I tweeted recently the only time I get to talk about it is with the folks on there, but I'm always having a discussion with myself about writing, storytelling, literature. I've been doing it every day since I was ten years old. That's thirty-four years this April. Now, walking around in here in this emptier space, I wonder why for the first time. The very first time, if you can believe that.

The thing is, I'd always thought it was general hubris to a certain extent. It was something I could do pretty well and I wanted people to see that I could do it well. But all these years later I've accomplished more than I would have thought I would. I'm not famous or rich due to my writing, but I have published numerous books I believe were as good as a could write at the time they appeared. Before 2009, not one word I'd written had been published anywhere. So to go from that low status to seeing seven books, nearly 200 short stories, a host of poems and essays published is more than I ever figured would happen.

So hubris ain't it. I've got nothing else to prove to myself. Or anybody else, as far as that goes.

So why am I still having conversations with myself about this thing called literature? Still working for hours each day in hope of creating it at some level worth someone reading?

At this writing, I still don't know. Lately I've come to the basic realization that I'm driven forward by it. I still remember the first time I sat down to write a story, a real story. I found a spiral bound notebook and a pencil and cleared off the coffee table in my grandparent's living room. It was winter and dark. The house was quiet, exactly the way it is here now. I don't remember thinking before I started writing. All I know is that I started that December night and have not stopped since.

Saying it that way, though, I feel I should explain that there's nothing magical about it. I long ago stopped romanticizing the act of making literature. So now, without hubris and without romantic notions, I just keep going. In an empty room, forever alone, I would write and keep writing and keep writing because I simply enjoy it. Why do you?

Part three of the interview with me @ poetry mini interviews

The third part of my interview at poetry mini interviews, very short interviews with poets, curated by the generous and enterprising Thomas Whyte.

Sheldon Lee Compton: part three

BULL had me interview Wes Browne about his debut novel

BULL Interview - Wesley Browne

poetry mini interviews: Sheldon Lee Compton: part two

The second part of my interview at poetry mini interviews, very short interviews with poets, curated by the generous and enterprising Thomas Whyte.

Sheldon Lee Compton: part two

Read this book by José Angel Araguz

Just follow the yellow brick link: The Book of Flight. And because Goodreads is awesome, here's the Goodreads page.

Some words from Peter Orner

poetry mini interviews: Sheldon Lee Compton : part one

poetry mini interviews: Sheldon Lee Compton : part one: Sheldon Lee Compton is a short story writer, novelist, essayist, and poet from Kentucky. He is the author of seven books, most recently t...

Among other things, I am a poet. But I'm feeling insecure about that. Also, I'll have an interview going up soon at a poetry website.

So a writer I have been aware of in my periphery for over a decade wrote a hate piece about me a couple years ago. Or a year ago. Doesn't matter. Still hurts, but it doesn't matter for the purpose of this update.

Shockingly, the hate piece has nothing to do with what I've come to call The Great 2015 Online Attempted Social Murder of Sheldon Lee Compton. Well, it's possible it does tangentially have something to do with it. Sideways relating to. Tangential, that favorite catch word from a few workshop semesters ago.

There's a reason for going into all this. So yeah, I guess is matters for the purposes of this update. I was freely given unsolicited advice to not engage in social media in a way that, well, I tend to engage with most people when I'm wrongly challenged or accused or understood.

Crux: This hate piece by this writer I don't really know but know of that included two other writers (one of whom is incredibly, incredibly famous) who I won't name in a journal I won't name stated that I was a joke as a poet. Not in those words; in funnier words.

Today, I'm told, an interview with me will be published at poetry mini interviews by curator Thomas Whyte. I know I did the interview I just don't know if it will for sure go up today. Point is, I'm feeling insecure because of the aforementioned hate piece, which I do mention in the interview. I hate that I feel that way, that I'm allowing this peripheral writer who I would love to name but won't have that effect on me, but it's what it's.

I'll update with a link when the interview is published.

A Painful Trip to the 80s: "Night Tracks" published in Atticus Review

photo courtesy of Atticus Review

I'm so happy to say that my piece "Night Tracks" was published this past week at Atticus Review. I've always enjoyed AR's content, and it's good to be a part of it again.

I'm grateful to Michelle Ross for liking this enough to publish it. It's set in the 1980s and includes references to the song "Mickey" and the arcade game Ms. Pac Man. And, of course, Night Tracks, the 12-hour long marathon of music videos popular on TBS during that time.

I love the 80s. But as this piece hopefully shows, the 80s didn't always love me.

Here's the link to go read. And thank you.

Cowboy Jamboree Press is now the exclusive home for all my published work. Good god that's a beautiful sentence to write.

Here's the thing.

Sometime a few years back I was scrolling through the list of journals at Entropy's incredibly helpful "Where to Submit" feature and came across Cowboy Jamboree Magazine. The name was bold, fearless, and I knew right away I wanted to submit something to them. I did and editor Adam Van Winkle accepted the story.

It was the beginning of a fantastic friendship. And now I have news that would give any author goosebumps....As of today, every piece of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and all the rest I might write and they might see fit to print will be exclusively published by Cowboy Jamboree Press.

People, how I can explain what a great feeling this is? I'm rarely at a loss for words, but it's nearly happening. My work will appear in book form exclusively from a press that has supported and loved my writing as much as one could ever hope for a press to do so. As a kind of bonus, when, for example, a short story collection of mine comes at from CJ, those stories will be appearing for the first time ever, not reprinted from one of the journals it appeared it before. That is especially interesting to me. I've never had that kind of reading experience with my work. In fact, I've never had a short story appear in a collection (this over the course of three story collections) that did not first appear in a journal. Novels, poetry collections, essay collections - all of which I have on the burners as we speak, will also appear exclusively with CJ Press, which is to say no a single excerpt will be published anywhere else. Other than, perhaps, Cowboy Jamboree Magazine.

It's a whirlwind fever dream for me at this point. The most exciting thing that's happened to me since I started writing 33 years ago. It even surpasses the publication of my first book, and I didn't think that would every happen.

I do have one book, The Orchard Is Full of Sound, that will appear later from WVU Press, but that was accepted and contracted prior to this new agreement with CJP. Also, there will be two pieces coming out in Atticus Review and Cobalt Review, respectively, that were also accepted and scheduled for publication before Adam and I discussed the exclusive stuff.

Now, for the bonus-bonus: I no longer have to spend countless hours upon hours, days upon days, filing and organizing and writing cover letters for submissions to other journals and presses. Those who write professionally will truly understand how important this is. It means all those hours and all those days and weeks and months will now be freed up for writing. Since 2012 I've had seven books published and more than 200 short stories, poems, columns, and essays. And each one of those required submission-related tasks. Those tasks are a thing of the past for me.

Good lordamercy, Adam. How can I ever thank you enough, my great friend? I'll say so now, thank you so much, but I'll also thank you by providing the absolute best work I can create for CJ Press. I'll work harder than before to polish my work. I'll write more and produce more and all of it will be the most focused work I've ever completed.

There's just not enough thank yous to express it. It truly is exceptional.

New essays soon to come from Atticus Review and Cobalt Review

Some writing news...

It just occurred to me that I pretty much only share writing-related stuff here. Well, trust me, about eighty percent of my energy day to day is spent on writing. Thinking about writing, actually writing, reading others, making notes about stories, reviewing books, buying books, adding books to my respective wish lists, including my local library. Seriously, I don't see how anyone who takes writing seriously has much time for anything else. That's just my opinion.

That said, some writing news...

I'm excited to say that I'll have two more essays published soon. Coming up in Atticus Review will be a piece rooted firmly in the 1980s called "Night Tracks," which will be the title essay for a collection I'm now working on. Soon after that, I'll have an essay called "I Saw Absolutely Nothing When I Died, but Carl Jung Did" at Cobalt Review.

Here and now I want to thank editors Michelle Ross and Andrew Keating with Atticus Review and Cobalt Review, respectively. It still thrills me when good people see something they like in my work and share it with others. It's always been payment enough, and for that I suppose I'm lucky.

Look for posts here about these upcoming publications soon.

Dysphoria lands on the Goodreads Appalachian Horror list

So I forget how I found it, but my novel Dysphoria is 14th on the Goodreads list for Appalachian Horror.

Now that I'm here and writing about it I realize there's nothing else to say about this news. I'm happy about it. There's that.

I don't know who added it, but likely it was Adam Van Winkle, mastermind of Cowboy Jamboree Press, the press that published it last year.

The Short Story Becomes Essay Becomes the Short Story Again, or I Use Labels a Lot Even Though I Hate Them

So the wheels are moving on The Orchard Is Full of Sound. The call has been sent out by WVU Press for readers, which means the final touches are near. I started working again on short stories the day I sent the last manuscript their way back in November. Wrote quite a few and am still working on one that has stretched to an infuriating 15 pages. But then something else happened.

I must have missed nonfiction because I started writing essays.

And I'm reading the crap out of essay collections and anthologies of great creative nonfiction. I bought a total of 14 books along those lines around Christmas. Turns out I have enough already for most of a collection. So that might be something that happens at some point. Depends on whether or not I can actually write in that form in the way I feel a writer should be able to write. The line is thin that must be walked and still be interesting. A few names as examples:

Eliot Weinberger
Paul Crenshaw
Lydia Davis
Eula Biss
Anne Carson
Joan Didion
David Foster Wallace
Hunter S. Thompson
John Jeremiah Sullivan

There's countless others, but a list of examples needs to end somewhere.

I have been guilty in the past of trying to push myself into a form simply because I want to move around in it, wear it around the store for a couple laps, etc. I'm likely guilty in this case. But I do enjoy the essay, the personal narrative, the lyrical essay, nonfiction. Like short stories, it does have too many names, though. But that's just part of my crusade against labels.

However, work does and will always continue with my true form, the short story. I'm putting together the final touches on the new collection, Sway, due out from Cowboy Jamboree Press this coming spring.

So it's back to the 15 page behemoth I can't seem to wind down.

Pray for me church.

Servant To My Imagination

I'm procrastinating my way in a different direction than this latest story I've been writing for the past week or so. I promise you, this post will have no structure or definite point. I'm here when I should be on that story. I do this sometimes, stop with a story at the exact moment it starts gaining momentum during a writing session. I have no idea why.

It's really humming along this evening. The scenes are spilling out with conversational ease and without many hiccups along the way, characters are developing before my very eyes, there's even the glint of an ending becoming a little brighter up ahead. Of course I should stop. What's wrong with me?

Thing is, I don't actually question my process. If my instincts say move away, that's what I do; if my instincts say push and push and push even though nothing feels like it's sparking, that's what I do. I'm a servant to my imagination. It's only when I lose confidence in this approach that I lose the thread of a story and have to send it limping off to the potter's field. It sincerely is like a dance for me that way, balancing my own movements with the movements of the narrative. It's not magic by any stretch, but it's not mere drudgery either. It's why I can't understand formulaic narrative, why I can't imagine being a writer who would engage in that kind of behavior. 

The story is getting a bit longer than I usually write, though. And I'm trying to not get caught up thinking about this. I'm trying to block out that thought altogether, in fact. I hate that I still, after writing for 30 years, concern myself with page count. I only do that with short stories, never with novels. When I'm writing a novel I already know that it's coming in under 200 to 225 pages. I don't sweat that. But with a short story, a form I focus more fully on and with more energy and, frankly, hold in much higher regard, I get that old nagging feeling once I vault past about page 10. It is what it is.

And here I'm starting to feel a nudge to head back to the manuscript. Like I said, I knew this post wasn't going to come out nicely formed and neat. I knew I'd have to go when my gut said go. Nothing personal, dear friends. And thanks for listening.