Short fiction

[desayunoencama]

I've been writing shot fiction again this week. On Monday I finished a gay romance story that I'd begun the year before, which mostly just needed the holes to be patched and the ending fleshed out.

And I had been working on a pseudonymous story, and I wrote a little bit on it on Monday or Tuesday, I forget which, but haven't really been able to get back into the mood of the story.

But yesterday I got ambushed by a different pseudonymous tale, and wound up writing 3000 words, and this morning I've finished it off with another 1200 words.

This one wrote itself very smoothly, which was nice. Haven't had that happen in a long time. Hope too long doesn't go by before I'm able to repeat it again...

Comments

[scottynola.livejournal.com]

Well, that is awesome news!

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Are you surprised that "shot fiction" has holes in it, needing to be patched or not?

Well done though.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Very amusing, hadn't noticed the typo (obviously).
;-)

[scottedelman.livejournal.com]

Why pseudonymous?

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

I have used a number of pseudonyms over the years. And I've published books under three pseudonyms. So sometimes I need to support these bylines with short work, as well.

Sometimes I use a pseudonym to not overpublish if the books are too close in genre or theme. (There is a limit to how many of my queer titles the media can give review attention to in a given season, for instance, but if they're under separate byline I'm not competing against myself for that attention.)

Sometimes it's dictated by the subject matter. I did some Christmas anthologies under pseudonym, for instance, around the tile I was publishing my gay judaica under my own name; the gay jewish titles were the more important ones for me, in terms of publicity/promotion, if not sales, and not to mention the personal importance of those projects...

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Yay! Short fiction! Were all of these written in English?

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Yes, in English.

Re: Ups and downs and awards

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I would imagine that wring 3000 words in one clip would be enough to count as a high--I don't know about you, but 3000 words in a morning is an extraordinary and exhausting abount for me to write--but then again you do seem to be one of those writers who go into overdrive--at least your bibliography would indicate that. As to recognistion, yes, there is something a bit surreal about the experience, something detached from the regular pace or rythmn of life--especially for a writer who spends most of the working life basically talking to himself via a computer screen--or--as I still do--scribbling first drafts on paper. I just spent two hours fiddling with a short stretch of dialogue and description and the thing is still not right or finished, but at least better. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be dictating prose to a secretary like Henry James did late in life--but then again I don't think I have the ability to "weave an endless sentence" speaking simply into the air. Few of us speak in paragraphs, though I've know a few--or at least heard a few--Borges comes to mind. I only heard him once at Johns Hopkins very late in his life, blind and led out upon the stage by a young lady--rather like Homer. he sat and began to speak in absolutely unaccented English--American English. He sat in a simple chair on an the empty stage in a rather harsh light. Sightlessly he stared straight ahead just above the heads of the audience and began to speak. the erie thing about it was that his voice (and this could have been the way he was miked) seemed not to eminate from his mouth but from about mid-chest as if his voice wre hovering just before him. Much like Borges and his daimon. His talk was on Walt Whitman and the flawless delivery could have been attributed to memorization--though every once an a while at the end of a paragraph he woudl momentarily fall silence, and then with a slight stutter start up right where he left off. But it was the question and answer period that proved that the perfomance was not simply memory, for he fielded the questions the same mantic fluent way as he had delivered his talk. When asked to recite one of his poems, he began immediately in Spanish, of course, but then just as immediately produced its English counterpart. An almost inhuman facility in "fluency," language and I guess "performance".
Such experiences do reinforce the mythology of both the importance and, oh, well, why not say it "magic" of art, of writing. But one does go home and face the regular duties and responsibilities, again in one's study with the computer screen or the sheet of blank paper in front of one. And translation work can frustrate one like no other literary work--it is literary in tht a real translation is a recreation or the capture of the original--or even the "platonic" form of the poetry or prose the writer in the "original" language attempted to capture (Though your translation work covers a lot of different materials, obviously not just the literaty--but still, a technical manual may not be poetry, but it certainly is still that old adversary, language!) For me the daily writing stint can feel much like a fallen world. But then again, when the writing has gone as well as you report, I think that few experiences of happiness and satisfaction can compare. Given all this, I'll have to check out your latest book...have much enjoyed those of yours I've read. Well, thanks for letting me ramble on, and perhaps being a tad pretentious...Best

Re: Ups and downs and awards

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Hi, it was interesting rambling, although of course the anonymity is intriguing/curious.

I definitely find that writing is a physical act for me, and very different from speaking. I write or type very differently than I speak, and I definitely don't speak in paragraphs,or in any ordered way. When I was dealing with RSI problems, people kept suggestion word recognition software, and couldn't understand how for me the process of creating is dependent on my dealing with words as compounds of letters, not just word-units such as happens when spoken aloud... A lot of people couldn't understand what the difference was, but for me it makes a tremendous difference.

3,000 words in a day is a tremendous amount, and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to do another 1,200 the next day. Today I've not written anything, mind, but that's fine. I often find I need the "breather" after such uncommon productivity.

And I've always been a binge writer.

How lovely to have had occasion to hear Borges in person, reciting in both Spanish and English!

Re: Ups and downs and awards

[(Anonymous)]

I am a bit envious about the binge writting--I, as I indicated, am I very slow plodding scrivner--and the physicality is a great pleasue--you're right about that. As to the Anon. Well, I am somewhat of a ludite and and I do rather value privacy--which is, I find is increasingly a thing of the past--and this posting is "out" there--I tend to be discrete in general. I don't maintain a website or MySpace, etc. But both your work and your blog are very open and direct--which I find refreshing in the literary world--gay or otherwise. So I thought I'd give a message a shot.
I was in Ljubljana last summer for a conference and it was a real pleasure--a small compact city center around a market place and cathedral with very pretty bridges. I found one spectacular restaurant there just outside the city center though within walking distince of my hotel the Lev (of course since I don't drive I walk everywhere so walking distance for me is perhaps a bit different from the usual.) Where is your confernece? Anyway, I see that you've had some food issues and you'll find that Slovenian cusine is a fussion of Austrian, Italian and Slavic elements--very heavy and emphsizes game and pork--but fish can be had. The little place I found with a friend was to the south of the center of the city--one walks down the river embankment and I think the street was Gradashka Ulica--if you're interested I can check--anyway it was appeared singilarly unpromising--about five table out in the open with red checked plastic table cloths and a couple of cats strolling about. Definitely a hang out for the locals. So we took a table and sat down for a couple of the local beers. As we sat there drinking some realling fine smells came from the kitchen of the ramshackle building--so we asked the waitree (everyone in the service industry speaks a bit of English--in fact in town the service staff often speaks German, English,Italnian and Russian as a matter of course--in fact they are assigned to table according to language ability in some if the restaurants and bars. Well, we were told that there was no menu, just what they had today--I kinda like that type of thing so I asked what they had. "Oh," she said, "we have boar, venison, pheasant, turkey, chicken, beef, pork"...and she went on to list a few fish also. Stunned i asked what perperations did they have for the turkey that day. "Turkey breast in a clear basil sauce, in a cream and truffle sauce..." the list went on and climaxed (so to speak) with Turkey a curried turkey breast stuffed with corn chips! Needless to say, we ordered gladly--I the turkey and basil sauce, my dinning partment a venison and cranberry dish--and a garilc soup (different from the various Spanish versions I've had)and of course dessert and schaps afterwards--the whole thing came to about the equivalent of 30 dollars a piece! Of course the euro has gained over the year--it was about 1.37 last summer. Well, enough food porn. I think you'll like the place--was not really there long enough to find out much about the life there--but one felt that it was both an "out" and closeted society if you know what I mean. have a great trip and if you wish I'll write again soon. MTD

thanks much

[(Anonymous)]

favorited this one, brother