NUMBER ONE SELLING ANTHOLOGY (and I'm in it)

Free Short Story No More.

Several months ago I posted a two-part installment of my short horror story titled "Marge," which originally saw publication in the "Hospital" anthology published by the now defunct Static Movement Press. It was based on an experience I had while visiting my mother in the hospital.

I left the story up far longer than I'd intended. Statistically, it did rather well. A respectable amount of views were earned for part one and exactly half of those people returned for part two. It it had been a TV show it would've been picked up for the rest of the season. But after a while it just sort of sat there and, frankly, I would prefer not leaving it somewhere that anyone can copy and paste it.

I wrote all that to announce that it will be showing up on my Patreon page, most likely next month.
So if you haven't read it and you want to, I'm afraid you'll have to commit to at least a dollar per month in order to do so.

*Correction*

In reference to the post about my short story "Soulmate Express" not having ever been published, thanks to a keen-eyed co-worker, I know that it was!

She located it on my Twitter page which I haven't used in nearly a decade (image below)

Now if I could just locate the damn thing!

Memo to Game of Thrones Fans...

Sad fanboy is Sad.

Is it over? Can I come back out now?

Good.

The “Game of Thrones” series finale has finally aired. To be honest, I thought the show had gone off the air a year or two ago. Obviously I was not among its devoted followers. I did watch the entire first season which kept me reasonably entertained, but by the second season, the show had succumbed to what I like to call “Mad Men Disease.” I define that as a show that was perfectly entertaining for a year’s worth of episodes but could have easily ended after that and it would have been just fine. “The Walking Dead” falls under this category as well. In fact, several cable series do.

So, I’m not here to discuss what happened in the show’s final, controversial season. I am here, however, to discuss the response that supposed controversy engendered and the disturbing trend I’ve been witnessing for the past decade. I’m also here to commiserate in a manner of speaking, er, writing.

Many of the series fans were outraged at whatever dramatic directions their favorite show took in its final season. I don’t pretend to know what those were but the outpouring of disgust all over social media was palpable. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen something like this, but I usually saw it in response to movies. But GOT is a blockbuster-level TV series and its viewers connect with it in similar ways.

We’ve all been disappointed by the way a favorite TV show ended. Many viewers of “Dexter” and “Lost” expressed their disdain for the finales of those shows. However, nobody decided to organize a slacktivist revolt and make the sort of demands GOT fans who hated the finale have mounted. Now, rather than simply wallow in perceived self-righteousness like “The Simpsons’” Comic Book Guy, these people feel they are owed a refund! Not on the money they paid to HBO for a subscription, but on their very hopes and desires when it comes to the show’s storyline.

These people created and signed a petition  to demand that HBO scrap the entire final season and redo it. Yes, grown people demanded a do-over because they were drowning in butthurt tears.

Over one million people signed this thing. Petition creator “Dylan” said he came up with the idea as a way to vent about his dissatisfaction, adding, “There is so much awful crap going on in the world, people like me need to escape into things like Star Wars and Game of Thrones. We fans invested a wealth of passion and time into this series... I love this story, and I, like most of you, was crushed to see how the last season (and season 7, let’s be real) has been handled."

Crushed. He was crushed.

Again...grown man.

To paraphrase that fun-loving cut-up Richard Nixon, let me be perfectly clear. I understand the sting of disappointment all-too well when it comes to having elevated hopes about the way a work of fiction turns out. Even I as a writer have taken issue with an ending from time to time. And I’ll just say it, I can relate to feeling seriously let down after having invested so many years and, in my case, so much money into a franchise only to see its final concluding installment turn out to be a disappointment.

That’s how I felt recently when I saw “Avengers Endgame.” My initial reaction was a stunned sadness. I didn’t hate the movie but it was not at all a satisfying or particularly thrilling conclusion in my opinion. But somehow, maybe because I have actually written fiction, it never occured to me to create a petition demanding that the Russo Brothers reshoot the parts of the movie I felt didn’t work and make it more like I would have.  

I’ll give “Dylan” credit for one thing, however. He does admit he has no idea what he would have done differently. Much like a Flat-Earther who can’t tell you why they believe in a conspiracy to make up think our globe is round, (see what I did there?) the petition-creator just knows he needs to speak up.

Against what exactly?

I’m sorry but creatives do not owe you what you think you want any more than your parents do. Just because someone has disturbed your comfort zone does not mean they are responsibility for comforting you. That’s your problem, not theirs.

The Russos chose a certain path for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I think it mostly sucks and is the result of terrible writing. I was bummed for about a week and then I moved on. I do know what I would have done differently and I’m arrogant enough to think of it as an improvement. But you know what? It ain’t gonna happen. The movie made two billion dollars. As far as millions of folks are concerned, they got it right. Likewise, GOT followed its creative path, got your money and your time, and now it’s over.

As with all other aspects of grown-up existence, we take our chances every time we indulge ourselves in some form of fiction. And like adults, we should be able to express our disappointment, feel our sadness until it runs its course, and move on to the next thing. But to expect a cable network to re-shoot something that cost them millions just because of all the mopey fans is ludicrous.

Much like those whiny man-children who spent a year complaining about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” because it subverted expectations, the GOT fans need to learn a little thing called acceptance of the things they cannot change.

It’s just a TV show, people.

Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have Endgame fan fiction to finish!

New Other Blog Post About "Avengers Endgame"

Now that I have fixed the many, many formatting issues with the post, I will share a link to it. This one was written by me and me only, so save any ire or crappy diatribes for me and not my blog partner.

Read the post here.

When Writing Hurts.

Two days ago, I finally located the flashdrive that had so much of my work on it, both finished and in-progress. I wasn't too worried about finding it. I knew it was safely put away in my house and I had gone through a rather impressive creative spurt these past few months that kept my submission rotation going strong.

While revisiting some of the stories on the drive, I located one that I thought had been published before. However, when I asked Google, the only result was a post by yours truly discussing the odd rejection letter it received from an editor. That post was written nine years ago and can be read here. (For the record, it is no longer the oddest rejection letter I've received) Since this was the only thing I could find associating that title with my name, I had no choice but to conclude that it had never been published. There's probably a good reason for that.

This story, possibly more than any other I've written, is so uncomfortably personal, so intense and unflinchingly honest about its subject matter, namely the complete loss of sanity from rejected love and the depths to which one can sink, that I'm surprised I finished it without winding up in a fetal ball in a puddle of my own drool.

Yes, it's that intense.

The amount of pain and anger that went into that story makes me uncomfortable, so I can only imagine how the editor felt!

But a writer shouldn't shy away from baring his or her soul. Ever. If you ever doubt that I fully embrace that philosophy, you should probably pledge at least a dollar to my Patreon page and see for yourself.  The third and latest post in particular will tell you everything you need to know.

I feel this decade-old story deserves to be published, but I also know it's a difficult sell because of its subject matter and execution. So, I'm going to send it out once or twice and see what happens. If no one bites, it will wind up on the Patreon page and, somewhere down the line, in a short story collection.

When writing hurts, share it with others so they can experience it, too. Not to be sadistic, but shared human experience shouldn't stop at fuzzy self-help moments. Unless you're open as a reader to all that life offers, you are cutting yourself off from truth and that, my friends, is when things will really start to hurt~

My Trump Story.

My short story "The Best Story Every Told, Let Me Tell You" about the supposed divinity of Donald Trump has been pulled from Amazon Kindle and will be exclusively available to read on my Patreon Page next month.

Second Patreon Post is Up!

I'm not exactly sure what this one is. It's too short to be a story, not to mention the significant lack of characters, plot and story. It's not lyrical or image-evoking, so it definitely ain't no poem. I guess that leaves essay, that wonderful catch-all.

Anyway, for just a dollar or more per month, you get work like this which you can't actually read unless you do!

Become a Patron. Become MY Patron.

Hot off the heels of my post about how I avoid shameless self-promotion comes this post where I indulge in...shameless...self...

Ummm, promotion.

Well, I was overdue for a dash of hypocrisy, right? I'm always so damn lofty and full of scruples.
I wrote that last line with a straight face.

I also set up this Patreon page with a straight face because who doesn't like getting paid for what they write? For as little as one dollar per month, you get me doing my thing at least twice a month! Imagine it, Me times two!

Up first is my never-before-published "Twilight" parody called "Dusk." But don't worry, regular blog readers. I'm not abandoning this page, nor am I going to make you pay for the type of material you have been getting on here in the past. The Patreon account will have its own character and feel. You will, however, have to deal with me plugging that page when something new is published there.

But that shouldn't bother you because you've been loyally purchasing everything I've had published anyway, right?

Shameless Self-Promotion and why I still avoid it.

Yesterday I was chided by a co-worker as we walked into one of the libraries I work for to start our day. She and I have worked together for at least two years  now if not longer and somehow she had never heard that I was a published author.

Keep in mind, this is a library. A place that could potentially carry my work and larger collections containing my contributions. Most of the people I work with know I'm a writer, although some of them may not know how much I've actually had published. Some of you are probably reading this in disbelief, thinking about how if you were a published author, everybody would know about it. I have no problem with that, it's just not how I have chosen to live my life.

I am by no means an extremist, however. I have a colleague from my old writing workshop days who doesn't tell co-workers anything about her secret identity as a published author. She prefers to keep the two parts of herself separate. I don't mind mixing them because, to my way of thinking, they aren't separate.

Being an author isn't a "side-hustle," that loathsome, ubiquitous expressions notwithstanding. It is the direct end result of being a writer. The author completes his or her work and sees it published and, gods willing, read by at least one dedicated, lonely individual out there living in a Unabomber-style shack, with apologies to The Simpsons. It is the final manifestation of all those undeniable creative urges we have felt since we can remember. The need to tell a story, to express one's self, cannot be reduced to a mere "hustle" to obtain extra cash. We'll leave that to dubious success stories such as the so-called "Food Babe and this guy.

So, when pressed to talk about my writing, a small part of me feels like a cheap huckster if I go too far, which I define as mentioning all the low, low prices my work can be purchased for if you just act now! 

What do I look like, one of those brazen self-publishing fanatics who fell for the algorithm-manipulating strategy of the mid-2000s?

I suspect my co-worker felt out of the loop more than anything else. When I told her I post on Facebook about my work all the time, she told me she only went on Facebook to read my bizarre, funny rants. I didn't have the heart to tell her she basically has seen my writing in that case.

However, in the interest of not alienating anyone who might be unaware of how or where to find the bulk of my published work, click this link.