get all clicky . . . now.…

Over Caleb J. Ross’s AWP Blog. Here.…

not based on a true story

So I read more fiction than non-fiction. It’s a moral failing, I know: I prefer the make-believe. Too, though, I mean I write fiction. Makes sense to read it, yeah? Where else am I going to learn technique, cue into little narrative shuffles this or that writer pulled off, all that? To take it a little further, if I want to be part of the ‘dialogue’ of fiction, then I need to be listening to what the other writers are saying. But this starts …

In Five Words or Less:

Boring title, good movie.

In More than Five Words, with / without spoilers:

In 1998, Sam Raimi adapted Scott Smith’s debut sensation A Simple Plan (1993) for us, and, though a lot of the narrator’s nuances were lost in the compression, still, Smith had written a strong enough dramatic spine that his story survived the transition, and made Paramount some money. Ten years later, now, Ron Howard has adapted Smith’s sophomore novel The Ruins to the scr…

New interview. All kinds of fun, as always. If I remember correctly, too, that pic there, the shirt I’m wearing, I borrowed it from somebody in the driveway of the photographer’s. Had a red outline of the state of Arkansas, I think. Kind of liked it, but then he wanted it back. People (okay: one of my brothers), and al…l their memories, and ‘ownership.’…

First story, “Monsters,” with Niteblade. A nice little ‘What I did this summer’-story. Or, ‘What I did this summer and who-all died,’ kind of, I suppose.

Second story, in the “Broken Clocks” issue of ColoredChalk, “Good Times.” It goes maybe three hunrdred words? Not even that, likely. Things take a pretty sharp turn down some hill, though. One nobody should ever really ever even look down.

Third story, &…

Doing a reading today, a Dead Authors thing, where we all take turns reading stuff from writers who died this year. I’ve got David Foster Wallace, and’ll of course be doing the aloud thing to some Infinite Jest. Too, it was cool: I wrote a friend, asked him what I should read, and one of the two passages he got back to me about was one I already had marked. So that one it’ll be.

Anyway, paging through again, and I remember buying this book. I was in Tallahassee at the …

That sounds like some secret cousin to the incubus, yeah? If I’m even spelling it right. Anyway, was digging through some old stuff yesterday and found this sheet of paper from 1997, when I was finishing Fast Red Road, trying to make it all straight in my head (somewhat). Think the only other novel I’ve done something along these lines for was All the Beautiful Sinners. Though I did, a while back, while paging through some years-old notebook looking for something I …

One of my better memories is working for this seed research company fifteen years or so ago. Way out north of Lubbock, TX. There was this guy called Rooster who ran a lot of cotton and sorghum out there, fields which were all on the way to the plots we worked every day. Rooster was a shortish old guy who wore these round black sunglasses. I only ever saw him sitting in his truck. To paint it better, really, I only ever saw him sitting in his truck when I was running fast away, pretending no…

from trying on just a whole lot of women’s clothes:

1) While I can wiggle into 9/10 pants or slacks, 11/12 is a lot more comfortable.

2) Extra-large in a blouse isn’t even a large in men’s sizes.

3) People will watch you, if you carry enough blouses and pants suits into the dressing room.

3b) That makes it better, really.

4) Even when I’ve got them on, still, women’s clothes are hard to get into.

5) Stretch pants are the answer. Reason: they’r