It was a wrong number that started it,…April 20, 2010

…the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the vioce on the other end asking for someone he was not.”
(first line from Paul Auster’s City of Glass)

Today I’m trying my hand at noir/detective fiction.  Sort of.  I think I’ve been indoctrinated (by MFA programs and manuals on writing) to avoid genre fiction (like Sci-Fi, Mystery, Romance, Western, Fantasy, Hard Boiled Crime, etc…) over the years, and I’ve long wanted to dabble in such genres.  The trap in writing in these genres is that they are usually highly formulaic.  For example, many genre stories comply with the Seven Point Plot Structure, where character is established, then conflict, then setting (in that order).  Literary fiction strives to break free of traditional boundaries and rules.  And yet, I tend to take a stance closer to Robert Frost when he says that free-verse (poetry with no restrictions of meter, rhyme, etc) is like playing tennis without a net.  That is to say, where’s the fun in writing (or tennis) without clearly defined boundaries and rules?  I don’t know if I fully endorse this hypothesis, but there’s truth in it.

So what are the rules of noir/detective fiction?  Well, there’s a crime, and a step-by-step investigation that usually leads to the culprit.  Deductive reasoning is usually involved (think Edgar Allen Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue or Sherlock Holmes).  But noir is a little different.  It gained footing around the 1930′s, with stories by Dashiel Hammet and Raymond Chandler, among many other.  Noir stories are still about an investigation, (or heists, or con games) but with a keen sense of stylization and a heavy reliance on tropes–such as the femme fatale, the anti-hero detective who talks sass and gets beat up in every scene, mistaken identity (people being wrongly accused), oppressive settings and weather, etc.  Noir fiction begat film noir in the 40′s and 50′s, which is what most people think of when they think of noir.  Then in the 80′s, noir begat a wonderful sub-genre called cyperpunk, which combines the tropes of noir with those of science fiction (think the movie Blade Runner, or the book Neuromancer).  A few years later, Paul Auster wrote The New York Trillogy, which includes City of Glass.  These novellas draw from the noir genre, but during their reading all expectations of the genre are thwarted and the read becomes something more of an existential, even metaphysical journey.

So to sum up my dissertation on noir, you can see that it hasn’t ever really died, it just falls below the surface and reemerges every so often.  At present, it’s enjoying something of a rennaissance in both film (think Brick or The Big Lebowski) and literature (Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Dennis Johnson’s Nobody Move).

This is all a very elaborate way of explaining that I’ve been wanting to write in this genre for a while.  Maybe I was afraid of getting trapped in the prescriptive formula of it because there is really a whole lot of really bad noir out there that does just that.   I wanted to do something that thwarts expectations, especially for those who are familiar with the genre.

I can’t say that this story does this at all, it’s my first attempt after all.  I’ve tried to front-load the who-done-it stuff so that the story then turns into a why-done-it.

Hope you enjoy it!

April 20 — Maddy-Rose

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef KApril 19, 2010

…for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.”
(first line from Franz Kafka’s, The Trial)

Coachella was a success!  I even got a little bit of writing done in between band sets and visits to the beer gardens.  To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t easy writing stories with so much going on.  Sure there were tons of interesting people and art installations, a place where you might think you could pluck stories out of the air…but the reality is, writing is a solitary act and it’s hard to get anything done when overstimulation is coming at you from all directions.  Not to mention the sheer exhaustion of the heat, the physical exhaustion from being on your feet all day, and a little sleep deprivation sprinkled on top.

I did do a lot of thinking about stories, though.  And I pretty much mapped out the first two stories presented below in my head.  I scribbled on my notepad a bit, but most of it was unusable for being wildly chaotic.  So much for going back to my roots and writing stories out in long hand.

The germ for the following story was the huge number of tattoos I saw at Coachella.  Some were humorous, some intricate, some confusing, some gorgeous.  At first I thought, what would happen if you had a 3-D tattoo?  And a story began to form.  But it quickly became evident that the tattoo being 3-D in my story was needlessly complicated, so I omitted that detail.  But the shell story around it remained.
April 17 — The Golden Tattoo

This next story is spawned by an actual event.  During the set of a band called Matt & Kim, a streaker flew past the stage and the two members of the band laughed their heads off.  They loved it.  In addition, I wanted to work with a not-quite-stable POV character, but one who is sympathetic.  I guess this is the result.
April 18 — Streaker

And this story, which is today’s story, was written over the course of about half an hour at the end of the day because I’d spent most of my time fleshing out and writing the previous two stories.  It’s another seven-line-story for the seven line competition I mentioned a few days ago.
April 19 — Crosswinds

And now, after submitting these three stories, I am back at par: it’s the 19th and I’ve written 19 stories.  This was the big hump to surpass, so hopefully the rest of the month will be smooth sailing and the stories will flow easily and be entertaining.

Coachella is upon meApril 16, 2010

This weekend, I’ll be attending a 3 day concert, one of the biggest and brightest in the country.  The timing isn’t exactly ideal since we’ve got a half marathon to run the following weekend.  I’ve been to Coachella once before, and the time it took for my body to recover from soreness, dehydration, and tireless traipsing around the desert took a solid 4 days.  To add insult to injury, I’m not sure the hotel we’re cramming in to will have wi-fi or a computer I’ll be able to access.  So here’s the deal: I’m going to bring a notepad with me and write stories “on the road.”  And when I return from this epic journey on Monday, I’ll post them up.

Writing by hand is something a lot of writers swear by (something about your hand being close to your heart, and getting your whole body into the rhythm of writing) but I’ve never been able to do very successfully.  On the other hand, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez said once that a writer must have all the creature comforts around her to write well, and this included writing on an electric typewriter (there were no computers then, if there were I’m sure he would have extolled their virtues as well.)  But out of necessity, I will be writing out stories by hand this weekend.  When I return I’ll be wiser, tanner, and definitely more deaf.  Wish me luck.

Today’s story is another short one.  I found a fancy little magazine called 6 Sentence Stories, where that’s all they do.  After trying this form out, I found it’s slightly less restrictive than the 7 line story.  Although a less restrictive form is easier and faster to write, in the more restrictive form (the 7 line variety) one must work to scrutinize every word, which leads to more polished prose, I think.  I learn something new about writing every day.

Thanks for tuning in, friends, I hope you have a significant weekend, and enjoy the story!

April 16 – 6 Sentence Story

Physical Meaning of Geometrical PropositionsApril 15, 2010

This post’s title comes from the first chapter of Einstein’s Relativity.  I think this would be a great story title…too bad it’s already taken.

So I stumbled upon an interesting magazine called Space Squid, which specializes in humorous speculative sci-fi stories.  Even more interesting, they are from Austin, Texas.  They seem to favor campy, wildly ridiculous concepts that are nevertheless well-written–so I thought I’d try my hand at that style of writing.  This story doesn’t quite fit in with Space Squid’s aesthetic, but at any rate it’s an exercise in using a humorous voice with a somewhat sci-fi concept.

April 15 – Cereal Cabinet of Heads

“During the night something like a miracle happened”April 14, 2010

This is the first line of that time-honored classic, Jim the Boy. I’ve never read it, but I have it on good authority that it’s worth a read.

Today’s story for the day is again a seven-liner.  It involves a disfigured woman who’s been sliced from ear to ear.  But contrary to what you may be thinking, the inspiration is not the Joker, but a Japanese folk-tale about a woman named Kuchisake-onna.  My story actually has very little to do with the legend, I just used the image of the woman as a starting point–and my story takes a few other dark turns.

Anyway, thanks for tuning in!  Enjoy the story.

April 14

Sufficiently death matched

So yesterday I competed in a Literary Death Match, an international reading series put on by Opium Magazine (based in Brooklyn) and Dime Stories here in San Diego.  The event was a blast.  Lots of good readers, and like all readings I participate in,  I took home a lot of great ideas as well as some practical needs I should address in my own performances.  Reading a story (particularly your own) is an art unto itself.  It’s rare to find the serious writer who can deliver a dynamite reading (well, maybe not that rare, but those people are usually famous).  It’s strange, I’ve never been prone to stage fright or making a fool of myself in public, but the older I get, the more my performance anxiety seems to cripple my actual performances.  Part of it is that I have a condition I call “Stage Dyslexia” where whenever I read from a printed sheet to an audience, I spoonerize words, pronounce words wrong, miss whole lines, ect.–so my way of combating this problem is to read very slowly and carefully, keeping myself very still so I can read the words, but unfortunately this method doesn’t lend itself to a very lively reading.  And knowing that I’m prone to lackluster readings lends to even more anxiety… and we end up with a Catch-22.  Oh, the hazards of the craft.

But I digress.  So at said Literary Death Match, I read a story I produced way back around April 5th or so, (the one about the whirling dervishes).  If you’d like to read the revised (and somewhat more up-beat, less Kafka-esque version) click on this link: whirling dervish – LDM version

A contest in Opium Magazine called the Seven Line Fiction Contest is accepting submissions, and I’ve been trying to hone my very short stories.  So partly out of wanting something to submit, and partly out of laziness, today’s story (which is actually yesterday’s) is only seven lines long.  (In case you’re thinking I skipped a day and didn’t write yesterday, pity me because I was revising the Dervish story–also, I wrote a detective/ghost story by hand in my flip-pad, but when it came time to type it out I decided I didn’t like it so I wrote a new one for the 13th.  Seriously.)

Story for April 13

“I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time”April 12, 2010

This first-liner comes from Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children, a book I’ve not read yet but would like to soon.

Another benefit of cranking out stories a such a rapid rate is that I’m learning things about myself as a writer.  For example, many of the problems in my stories focus on death or illness.  I tend to use children a lot, even if it’s not a kid’s story–I also tend to write exotic animals into my stories, though not so much lately.

And though I recognize that I keep circling the same core issues and subjects, I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it.  Thus, today’s story does incorporate illness.  And a kid.  But nobody dies.  Hooray!

Hope you enjoy this one!

April 12 – Fairy Fingers

“It was love at first site.”

The title of day’s post is the first line of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

Although a little belated, this is yesterday’s story.  Today’s story is forthcoming.

April 11

The first state of man after deathApril 10, 2010

Emmanual Swedenborg, in his book, Heaven and it’s Wonders and Hell, says (in the chapter sharing the same name as this blog post):

There are three states that man passes through after death before he enters either heaven or hell.  The first state is the state of his exteriors, the second state the state of his interiors, and the third his state of preparation.  These states man passes through in the world of spirits.

Swedenborg isn’t always easy to understand.  But somehow this seems appropriate to the subject matter of today’s story.

April 10 — Mortal Sin

“An extraordinary thing happened today.”April 9, 2010

Today’s submission is probably the most bizarre yet.  So you’ve been warned.  I thought it appropriate to quote, as the title of this post, the first line from Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Diary of a Madman.”

I don’t know what to say about this story, except that it’s another exercise in the absurd.  I recently learned about a relatively new genre called bizarro fiction.  For Superman or Sienfeld buffs, this term isn’t anything new.  But in the world of fiction it’s a kind of hybrid between surrealism and genre sci-fi.  Wikipedia says:

“While works of Bizarro may have literary merit, the primary focus of the genre is to entertain. In this respect, Bizarro has more in common with speculative fiction genres (such as science-fiction, fantasy, and horror) than with avant-garde movements (such as Dadaism and surrealism) that readers and critics often associate it with.”

Basically, if bizarro fiction had a video-store analogy, it would be the cult-classics section.  I think of this story as an etude, a study.  It strives to entertain first, and making rational sense is a distant second.

April 9th – Leaky Universe