Glass Cases

Triple

2012-01-26T17:38:00.005-05:00

Enjoy a bit of science-fiction today with this except from a novel titled The Deep Time Cowboy by Mike Olive. Mike is a writer from Texas, now living in Colorado, and spends non-writing time climbing, mountaineering, camping, hiking, river-running, and other things that I only read about. Mike tries to bring humor into everything he writes to, as he puts it, "retain some sanity."

Triple

By Mike Olive

“A pitiful excuse for a table. Not like the old days.” Jack Poulson had crept up on him. Triple gave an inner sigh. Jack mock-punched Triple’s shoulder.

“Remember when we’d come over here after the Cromwell Lecture and we’d have Russian caviar, a decent Rothschild Cabernet and, thick wedges of Stilton? Piles of meat. Fried chicken, roast beef, baked fish, sirloin steak (medium rare) and, roasted ham?”

Reluctantly, Triple nodded in affirmation. He did remember those long ago days of delicious, plentiful meat.
Skeeter came up. He grinned at Poulson in a nasty manner. “Oh, yes. The Star Wars money,” he sneered. “Those sweet days, back in the eighties, when the Department of Defense thought we could develop the perfect anti-missile system. Truck loads of money given to any idiot who would ignore the math and say - 'Why yes, we can do that.'”

Poulson sniffed. “You’re just jealous, that’s all. No, we weren’t able to build it but, at least, we tried to help our country.” Triple tuned them out. He had found some shrunken pineapple chunks and was loading them onto his plate. Triple was hungry. He wasn't particularly interested in the Star Wars days. The offer had been
made but, neither he nor Skeeter had worked on the gravy train. On the other hand, as Poulson had mentioned, in those days, there had been quite a lot of good meat around.

Triple could still recall the largess seen at certain Star Wars parties and events. People had new cars in those days and they sported fancy sport jackets. And meat, there had been a lot of meat. He distinctly remembered some thick, juicy slices of rare roast beef. Who eats that well, today? Triple saw that Poulson was watching him.

“Ah, Triple. You remember those days, don’t you? The great Star Wars days. We were young then, our salad days, and around us, all that fresh, lovely, juicy meat.”

Triple grimaced slightly, on hearing the word, “Triple.” He rather liked it when friends called him by his old nickname. However, he did not count Poulson as a friend. Still, not many people, now days, knew the nickname or, how he had acquired it.

Suddenly, fresh as green grass on a baseball field, old memories came flooding back. A time before the Star Wars debacle, a time when he had been young. He had played a fairly decent third base on the college team. And Poulson had been equipment manager. During the playoffs, he'd gotten a triple in four successive games.
They’d won the title although, in Triple’s opinion, it had been due to good pitching, not his good hitting. Nonetheless, after that series, in some circles, he had become Triple forever.

Nicknames are like scars, mused Triple. You pick them up when you are young and boisterous. Later on, as you age, you carry them with you. Our nicknames are fading references to an earlier day. Triple aroused from his reverie to notice that Skeeter was sharply elbowing Poulson in the ribs. There was a fair amount of fat surrounding Poulson’s ribs but, nonetheless, that had to be painful. Skeeter’s grin resembled that of a hungry tiger.

“Juicy meat, plump and succulent,” said Skeeter an accusing voice.

“Yes, indeedy. You do remember her, don’t you Poulson? ‘Our Lady of the Ham’? I believe she was 16 at the time. That nice young school girl hired to help out at the buffet oh, I guess it was early autumn, 1988? Such a buxom young lady. Not a natural blond, I think? She had a very gracious manner. We teased her, called her ‘Our Lady of the Ham.’ Surely you remember her, Poulson?”

“What do you want?” asked Poulson in a hoarse voice.

“A trifle, really.” Skeeter's toothy grin was still in evidence. It was not a pleasant thing. It reminded Triple of a cat that has caught a mouse by it's tail. The cat plans to play with the mouse and, chances are, the mouse will not find this amusing.

“Triple and I are running a small physics experiment and need to borrow one of your cyclotron magnets. Your cyclotron is off line right now, correct? Lack of funds, the PERP, our Period of Economic Retrenchment and Prayer, well, hard times are everywhere, aren’t they? We return the magnet in one month, no longer.”

Poulson coughed, then made a choking, gasping sound. He looked strange. Triple felt some qualms. His dislike for Poulson went back to the time when Poulson had been equipment manager. Poulson had enjoyed bullying the smaller players. Once or twice, Triple had had to speak to him. But, right now, the man, truly, did not look good. He was making a weird gurgling noise. His face was turning an odd shade of purple. Further, weren't his eyes becoming rather large and, somewhat bulging?

Suddenly alarmed, Triple moved quickly and gave Poulson a substantial whack on the back. The impact of the blow flung Poulson against the table. He bounced off, staggered wildly, frantically grabbed for the table and then, quite suddenly, coughed violently. After which, clinging to the table, Poulson took a long and shuddering breath. And glared up at Triple.

Ah, he's better, thought Triple, smiling in a benign manner. After all, Poulson had been part of the team. And, really. There aren't so many people left now days that remember my old nickname. Fewer still who remember that old baseball team. On the other hand, there's that young girl, “Our Lady of the Ham.”

Triple recalled that she had been very cheerful, pretending to be older but, actually, as soft and innocent as a puppy. Triple shook his head sadly at the memory. Then he frowned at Poulson in a very severe manner. Damn it all, you don't screw around with children.

“The magnet will be returned in tip-top condition,” Triple said stiffly.

Poulson made a violent grimace. His eyes still looked pretty wild, even glassy. Hmmm, considered Triple, the fellow does not appear to be in good health. Probably, he has cancer only, it’s early, and he doesn’t know about it yet. Ah, well. Karma, of course. What goes around, comes around. That's how we used to say it, back in the day.

Never a Bride

2012-01-24T11:35:00.003-05:00

Last week, Jennifer Weiner pointed out the very real gender bias that exists when it comes to book reviews and author coverage. In short, women are not represented at the same level as men. Now, I have had problems with Ms. Weiner ever since the "Franzenfreude" debacle of 2010, in which she was quoted as saying "I don't write literary fiction - I write books that are entertaining." And while she admits that she and Franzen are too different, stylistically, to compare, there always seems to be an air of resentment in her voice when she talks about literary fiction. But when it comes to the unfair treatment of women in the book world, she is spot on, and I always listen to her when she has something to say about it.

I bring this up because today proved that sexism on the opposite end of the spectrum happens too. The 2012 Academy Award nominations were announced, and under Best Original Screenplay was Bridemaids.

I liked Bridesmaids. It was a comedy and it made me laugh, so therefore it was a success in my opinion. Comedies can be brilliant, as evidenced by the fact that Midnight in Paris and The Artist were also nominated in the same category. Bridesmaids, however, was not brilliant. It was good. Not great, but good. It was called the female answer to The Hangover for a reason. It was the same exact movie.

Praising Bridemaids for its writing is Hollywood's response to a woman being as skilled as a man when it comes to writing raunchy, juvenile comedies. Sure they make us laugh and even can be quite clever, but men behaving badly is par for the course. When women prove they can be equal, they are rewarded with the label of "better" or "artistic." It's telling us, Good for you! You really are as talented as men! Here's a trophy."

Melissa McCarthy is also nominated, and I can see why. Without her inappropriately quirky character, the movie would have been mediocre at best, which is a testament to the power of one performance. Though I wonder if that character would have been considered as "hilarious" if she were a size 4. The role itself is one we've seen a million times - he's been in every '80s teen movie, trying to get the shy main character laid. He's appeared in action movies and thrillers to provide comic relief. But now "he" was a "she," and therefore more credible as part of the film's success. I'm not saying comic relief characters don't deserve recognition, but if I were Zach Galifianakis I'd be pissed.

This week has shown that when it comes to women in media, whether book or film or otherwise, struggles to be considered equal are still very present. When are people going to learn that we want to praised for our talent, but not when that talent is "being equal to a man?" I won't be mad if Bridesmaids or Melissa McCarthy win, just disappointed that this will be Hollywood's excuse for the next ten years to keep women held back, the same way giving Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman the occasional Oscar is supposed to appease African-American actors.

I wish these actors had the guts that Jennifer Weiner has. She's a NY Times bestselling author who refuses to simply "shut up and be grateful." She's able to look outside herself and see bias in the same organization that rewards her. Every writer wants to be recognized for his or her accomplishments, and everyone has the right to question the motives behind that praise. Are we making a big deal out of one woman so that we can ignore the next twenty? Or are we looking at everyone equally for what they've accomplished, and comparing them to others in their field accurately and fairly?

Untitled

2012-01-18T16:12:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. Today author Laura Miller is sharing a piece of flash fiction. It's untitled and, according to the author, she isn't sure where she's going with it, "but it seemed really beautiful." I agree, and am happy to present it for you all.

Laura is a writer from Michigan, where she works as a special education teacher. She has published short stories and poetry in several journals, including Chicken Soup for the Soul, Word Riot, Tonopalah Review and SLAB.

(Untitled)

By Laura Miller

She stood on the seashore, waiting for his ship to make asilhouette of the blushing sky and thus end the fear she had clutched like a handbagsince the evening before when the storm had rolled off the water like so manywaves of nausea, and broken far off shore.

She had watched it from the window of the bedroom theyshared, from the proverbial worn wooden floor she walked when the weatherturned, remembering the first moment she realized Paul loved her, having lovedhim since before she could remember.

But women are foolish, and Grace believed letting this maninto her life had been the most foolish of all. And even with this passingstorm and the appearance of his sails against the rising sun, another wouldform to take its place during the cold season and she would walk again, thebaby in her gut churning as its father did upon the ocean.

She looked down at her hand, the one he had taken inmarriage even before he knew about the child, and saw that it was trembling. The storm had come just past midnight andsettled into a wistful calm by first light, but still she knew it had takenPaul with it.

His ship had been duethis morning, and none had been seen on the harbor or the wide, flat baybeyond.

The faces of thepeople she saw in the streets registered the same fear she felt as they steppedaround her, looked away, watching as she roped her fingers over her growing belly. Knowing. Surely. All of them.

And still she stood because there really was nothing else todo. She stood and watched as the sunplayed coy with the low-lying clouds, twisting them into the shape of a sail,the light catching what had been the color of Paul’s hair, spinning strands of sky into darkenedgold.

Grace stood until someone came to get her, Mrs. Calhounperhaps because she was too numb for certainty, and followed as the woman led her to the bed they had shared as man andwife.

Before that- if she were bold enough to speak the truth.

Mrs. Calhoun’s hands were on her brow, smoothing as shewould a wrinkled sheet as she told her to lie down.

But she would have rather slept in the spare room, for thepillow didn’t bear the imprint of Paul’s head, because Grace did not dare shakeit out when he was at sea.

Because removing this talisman would be part and parcel toremoving Paul himself.

And she was superstitious.

As she had been since she sawher first wraith.

Post-Racial America

2012-01-16T11:07:00.006-05:00

Regardless of our race, we've been affected by Martin Luther King, Jr. just by living in the world he helped create. Almost 45 years since his death, America remains far from perfect. Since 2008, we've tried to convince ourselves we're "post-racial" because our president's father was African and we write books like The Help so that we can pat ourselves on the back for not being so overtly racist anymore. (Whether you loved The Help or hated it, you should read this piece by my client, Roxane Gay.)

Race is still an issue in this country, and those who are not white and (at least) middle class are still struggling to be equal. I understand the comfort denial might bring, but anyone who's watched the news or had to witness the public shaming of Barack Obama over claims he was anything other than American, cannot deny that racism still can cloud our nation's judgment.

I believe we've come a long way, but we have even farther to go. Politicians and leaders are responsible for ensuring legal equality and the rest of us are responsible for practicing tolerance and passing it on to our children.

I also believe there are those of us who make up a third group of people - artists. We are responsible for perception. As long as we create characters who personify a stereotype, then we are guilty of perpetuating that image. The same way "female characters" should be viewed as simply "characters," non-white characters should be written with an identity outside of their race. Which is also to say, they should be written. Can you change the race of your main character without altering his or her personality and circumstances? Is your non-white character defying or challenging stereotypes while remaining necessary to the plot?

Like any good writer, I believe in showing rather than telling. Art shouldn't only reflect society; it should help improve it. As writers, we have the power to do that.

If you have a holiday from work or school today, I hope you can use it to write.

Modern Pioneers

2012-01-11T17:47:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone. I don't usually post much non-fiction on the blog, but it's a new year so I thought we'd start it off with something different.

Sheryl Karas and Paul Hood are a couple who needed to take a journey. Beginning in the New Age town of Santa Cruz, CA, Sheryl and Paul - spiritual counselors and healers - wound up in an ultra-conservative Mormon community in the eastern Arizona desert. Currently residing in Chico, CA, the two have published various works (Sheryl has three nonfiction books with small presses, and Paul has had several articles published in literary magazines and newspapers), and continue to work as healers. You can read more about their book (with links to buy!) here, or you may download a free copy of their e-book here. Enjoy!

Modern Pioneers (from Waking Up in the Great Recession Mormon Desert)

By Sheryl Karas and Paul Hood

In a place like the Arizona outback you take advantage of community wherever you can find it so I accepted an invitation to participate in a brand new women’s group that had recently formed. It was VERY interesting!

First of all, you should know that I have always joined women's groups. I haven't been in one for awhile but they're often a great way to make new friends. This one is made up of a very diverse group of women. There are a couple vocal enough about their Mormon or Christian identities to make a point of letting people know. The rest aren't saying. There are Obama supporters and Obama haters, old women and younger ones. I think there's even a lesbian couple. But none of these differences have been part of the conversation. The commonality that holds us all together is that we all live in the desert in the 35 miles between Snowflake and Concho, Arizona. We're modern pioneers.

This area wasn't settled much 20 years ago and it's still sparsely settled to this day. The roads are mostly dirt. There's no electricity— you have to make your own. There's no water unless you dig a well. Telephone lines only recently made it out here and not everyone has one yet. Cell phones with a service that includes this area are a necessity.

The U.S. Agricultural Department calls this region a “near fatal environment” for growing plants. The earth here is essentially sand and rock and is full of minerals and salts far too harsh for most things to survive in. In the winter it freezes until April or May. In the summer it bakes. There's almost no rain except in July (monsoon season) when it rains nearly everyday. And the wind blows fiercely here, sometimes at 50-100 mph.

The women running the meeting have been here 15-20 years. The rest of us are newbies. “What do you need to know?” they sincerely ask. “We're here to help!” They know that if people hadn't lent them a helping hand they wouldn't have made it. And they started this group to band together and help each other out.

One woman wants to know what can grow here and how to do it: Add LOTS of soil amendments or truck your own soil in, get manure from Debbie or Barbara's chickens, build raised beds, shield them partially from the summer sun, and make sure you use lots of chicken wire to keep the rabbits out!

Another needs advice on building. Lots of patience apparently is required. Most everyone drags a travel trailer to their land while digging a well, building their road, and getting their solar and/or wind setup together. That and a gas-powered generator, at least as a back-up, is pretty much a requirement. They all hope to move into their “real home”—a log cabin, manufactured home or mobile, in a few months but the typical trajectory usually winds up taking years. Two or three years is pretty good. Ten years is not unusual. The women think the locals aren't too dependable when it comes to building and complain that the building department takes it own sweet time when it comes to inspections and issuing permits. But that's nothing compared to the stories of what happens when the companies who deliver manufactured homes and mobiles show up and discover the roads are all dirt that turns to deep mud in the rainy season.

“Oh yeah, everybody! Be sure to give us two telephone numbers for our mailing list! One for regular use and one for emergencies. When someone needs help we want to know who to call!”

911?

“No, no, no. NEVER call 911!” Several women in the group can attest to the folly in that. The 911 service doesn't know their way around here. If you absolutely have to have an ambulance, get help from someone in the group to get you to the highway so the paramedics can find you!

And if you need the police? Call the sheriff directly. He, at least, knows where everything is. But don't expect him to come around too soon! The nearest police station for a lot of these women is 40 minutes away. If the squad car is “up on the reservation” it could take the better part of a day!

That's why everyone has a shotgun. And I mean everyone! Several of the newer women don't know how to use one yet but (except for me and the other very newest person) they all expect that it's a necessity. What if you meet a bobcat or a rattler or come across an injured horse or cow that needs putting out of their misery? And don't get them started on the packs of domestic dogs that sometimes run wild or the rare but not unknown violent criminal. At one point we were all sitting around learning how to make old-fashioned knitted slipper booties while discussing the best time to set up a firearms training as a women's group event. The two of us truly new ones were wide eyed with our mouths dropped open. The rest saw nothing surreal in the juxtaposition of these two activities.

New Title Trend

2012-01-09T21:46:00.009-05:00

Happy 2012, everyone! (It's not past the point where I can still say that, right?)

I'm beginning my 2012 posts the same way most writers begin their novels - with titles.

Titles matter. Sometimes a bad title can ruin a good thing (Cougartown, anyone? But more on that later.). I've been having a problem with titles lately. Specifically, titles of television shows. It's not so much what they are as what they reflect on society. I'm not liking what I see. Usually when I talk about TV on the blog, it's about something that translates to novel writing, and the title trend I've been seeing in the latest crop of sitcoms is no different.

I've spoken before about "strong female characters" and what term means to me. Surprisingly, I think TV has been getting "strong" right more often than many novels lately. There was a lull in the past decade (I blame producers who tried to find "the next Sex and the City" by missing the point of the show.) Things are far from perfect, but in recent years we've been reassured that characters like Mary Richards (and Rhoda!), Murphy Brown, and Roseanne actually mattered. Women have come a long way. We get to be in charge of our sexuality, choose our own destinies, and have dragon tattoos (but more on that later). We get characters like Alicia from The Good Wife, Leslie from Parks & Recreation, and Caroline from The Vampire Diaries.

So if I'm so happy with the way women are finally starting to be portrayed, what's my problem? Men are my problem.

Don't mistake my italics for an emphasis on "men." I like men, as most feminists do. My problem with Men are the titles the word keeps appearing in. It's talked about less, but men suffer from sexism on TV, in movies, and in books too. The difference is that most of the better characters are written for men, so the good often outweighs the bad, and the sexism isn't always as noticeable. But apparently someone over at ABC noticed and wants something to be done about it. Only instead of creating better characters for women, they're leveling the playing field by creating worse characters for men.

ABC seems to be leading the Man Revolution, beginning with its already-canceled Man Up and Tim Allen's return to TV, Last Man Standing. Both shows are about men taking their gender back. From whom, you ask? Apparently women, liberals, and gay/intellectual/vegan/hipsters who are not considered "real men."

Man Up is about friends who need to grow up, but can't seem to shake their college lifestyle. It's a typical boys will be boys character trope that we're used to seeing in small doses, usually through a supporting character in an ensemble cast. Not to be outdone, CBS had the good sense to kill its new show How to be a Gentleman before it spread, yet is holding on tight to the wizened patriarch of all Men shows, Two and a Half Men. Like Man Up, both of these shows feature men in their 30s and 40s behaving like boys. It's all fast cars, hot babes, no ambition, and zero self-reflection. On the other side of the "man" spectrum is Last Man Standing, in which Tim Allen has sacrificed his manhood by living in the same house as his wife and daughters, and now needs to return to his manly, undomesticated roots.

ABC's crowning achievement this year might be their mid-season replacement, Work It, a remake of Bosom Buddies, which should tell you all you need to know. But to elaborate, this is a 2012 sitcom with a premise that was tacky and outdated even in 1980. Two men - extra macho-looking for comedic effect - decide the only way they can get jobs is by dressing up as women. Hilarity, weak premises, and sexism ensue. From the previews, the men look as convincing as women as the Wayans Brothers looked in White Girls. Not only do they neglect shaving and general upkeep even though they are passing as women, but they only wear shoulder-padded pantsuits that I can only assume ABC still had laying around from Bosom Buddies. It's offensive to men as much as it is women. There is no equivalent to these men in real life, and the level of immaturity and stupidity they celebrate is insulting.

But I digress. Back to Men.

I described these shows in case you hadn't heard of them, but what it boils down to is that every man featured on these shows wishes for simpler times (for men) when gender roles were defined and all men were created equal, with the same interests, thoughts, education level, and goals. While each show features men in arrested development, they still get to proudly wave their Man title high. And yet, every magazine cover, news article, and end-of-year round-up has been about women ("finally") being recognized as equals in comedy.

We got to see Bridesmaids... and, um... If you're waiting for me to name another well-received all-female comedy made in the past year (or ten), then you'll have to wait until Bridesmaids 2 comes out. Our "Year in Comedy" consisted of one movie, and two new sitcoms, New Girl and 2 Broke Girls.

Notice the immediate shift in title choices. The irony, of course, is that while Men get to celebrate their lack of growth, the Girl shows feature young women trying to make it on their own as adults. Admittedly, New Woman doesn't have the same cache, but even teen heroines Buffy, Clarissa, Veronica, and Alex Mack got to at least have their names in their titles. (Oh, this year we also got Whitney, which did for female empowerment what its ad campaign did to get me to watch the show.)

Once women are old enough to be taken seriously in the real world, television and media find new ways to infantilize them. Isn't it so darn cute how those Girls are single and independent and trying to live in a man's world? Someday they'll make 3/4 of what those Men do. Then maybe when they outgrow their youthful optimism they can move to Cougartown or become a Good Wife or if they really snap under the pressure, remain a Girl, but ones covered with dragon tattoos. I suppose it's too much to think they'll ever be called Women though, right?

Since two of these Man shows have been canceled already, I have some hope that this trend won't last. I hope that writers will stop thinking that the type of humor that worked 30 years ago is still relevant today, and that the most critically acclaimed shows on TV right now are the ones that challenge gender stereotypes and create non-archetypal characters. And mostly I hope that you, the novel writers, won't let this trend infect your work.

(Parting exercise: Type in "wife" into the Amazon search bar under Books. Scroll through the bestsellers and acclaimed novels that tell stories of women overshadowed by powerful men. Then type in "husband.")

2011: A Year in Queries

2011-12-29T17:50:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone. Hope you all enjoyed the holidays! I'm squeezing in one more post in 2011. This year was my first *full* year of being an agent, so I thought the best way to commemorate this was with data collecting and spreadsheets. At the beginning of the year, I decided to choose three months at random and do a tally of every query I received. I'll spare you from the VERY SCIENTIFIC (not really) charts and day-to-day totals, and just give a brief overview.

(Note: These results are from emailed queries only. Thankfully, I don't receive many snail mail queries, and hope this stays true in 2012.)

In January 2011, I received a total of 442 queries. This is probably the most number of queries I received within a single month all year. January is a big query month. You have everyone who made it their New Year's resolution to get an agent, you have the NaNoWriMo writers who took December to revise, and you have your usual queriers who just felt like querying.

Contrary to popular belief, January queries are not automatically bad, rushed, or even unwanted. I ended up requesting two manuscripts sent on the same day that month, and that day was January 1. Despite the optimistic start to the year, of those 442 queries, I requested a total of 8 manuscripts. Which means 434 people received a form rejection.

The next month I tallied was July. This is a slow month for obvious reasons. It's the middle of summer. Writers are busy writing what they're going to query, or they are vacation. Also, many agencies close to queries beginning in July, so it's probably easier for writers to just resume duties in the fall. In July, I received a total of 388 queries, again including a post-holiday day of requesting two manuscripts in one day's batch. Of the 388, I requested 11 manuscripts and sent 377 form rejections.

Finally, November - the last complete month of the year, work-wise. I received a total of 363 queries, the lowest total, but requested 12 manuscripts. November was also the month in which I received the highest number of queries in one day: 34. The lowest number I've received in one day's batch was 7 (occurring once each month).

Random observation: Tuesdays and Wednesday are the biggest query days, while Saturday and Sunday are the slowest.

Using these samples, I'd say I average about 400 queries a month (4,800 per year) and request about 10 manuscripts per month just from the slush pile. This figure does not include any revisions I had asked for from previous months, contest winners, or requests from conferences. In case you're wondering whether the requests were fulls vs. partials, I honestly didn't keep track. But! I'd say 8 times out of 10 I request the full. It saves time in the long run and I can always stop reading if it comes apart. I request partials sometimes - most often if I'm on the fence about a particular premise (but was intrigued by writing), or if I love a premise (but not sure how the writing will be). Full disclosure: I may go back to requesting mostly partials due to an out-of-control reading pile that accrued around November.

To give you a picture of how many requests result in an offer of representation, out of the 100+ manuscripts I requested in 2011, I took on a total of 4 new clients, only 3 of whom came from unsolicited queries. (Admittedly I had offered on two others but lost them in a battle.) I officially started building my list in April 2010, and eager as I was to find clients, I took on a total of 8 out of a similar - though slightly lower - number of queries and requests.

For those who may not know, my *other* full time job at Curtis Brown is working in the foreign rights department. I love working in this department, but sometimes this means I end up passing on projects I really really like - but don't love - just because I know my time is divided right now. I wouldn't be able to give that person adequate attention. So, I keep my roster of authors purposely small so that I'm able to give proper time and care to my clients equally. By the end of 2012 I hope to raise my number of clients to an even 20. I won't make it an official goal; I just think it'll be nice. Obviously I'll have to receive worthwhile submissions. Hint, hint... :)

While I chose these months at random (beginning, middle, end), the interesting thing I noticed in 2011 queries was that as the number of queries received decreased, the number of requested manuscripts increased. I take this to mean that more writers are doing research before they send. Rather than submitting blindly, more people are taking the time to realize I might not be for them. Meanwhile, those who do query me know exactly what I'm looking for or know why I'd be interested in their story. I hope this, too, remains true for 2012. Though, as you noticed, my reading pile got bigger and bigger at the end of the year. But, I'd rather take the time to read 20 amazing manuscripts than take a few hours sorting through a folder of lackluster premises, genres I don't represent, or (worse) vampires.

So that was 2011 in a nutshell. As I begin Year #2 of being an agent, and I add more clients and book deals to my belt o' publishing, I can only hope that one day I'll look back and say "remember when I only received 100 queries a week?" Until then, thanks readers & writers for making my first full year as an agent pretty darn great.

See you in 2012, friends! Happy New Year!

Coping

2011-12-21T15:29:00.001-05:00

Today's will be the last Glass Cases publication of 2011. There are so many great stories still on deck for 2012, and I want to say thank you to everyone who submitted work this year. This blog wouldn't exist without you, and I can't wait to see even more submissions in the new year.

I hope you all enjoy today's story - albeit a heartbreaking one - by Melissa McNallan called Coping. Melissa is a freelance writer from Minnesota who's been published in regional newspapers and magazines, and has had three short stories appear in various online publications. In 2010 she won the Minnesota State Arts Board

Grant in Prose for her novel currently titled Un(in)tended.

Coping

By Melissa McNallan

As soon as Christopher’s foot hits the brake, I catapult from my seat. I move across the grass to the strong shoulders, shined shoes and military-issue cuts. I wonder if their eyes have been trained to hold a certain look for wives and children – sympathetic and distant. I can only see Mom’s struck face.

“Kate,” Christopher hollers. My head is submerged like I’m bobbing for apples in cold water on Halloween. I can feel the color of my face change. His words can’t penetrate. I wondered about coming up for breath while bobbing, because maybe it’d be cheating, like now. Christopher got through and into me last night in his old Ford truck with the rust above the wheels. The one he bought from his father. While he did, I kept my right leg from bumping into the knobs of the stereo he’d installed a week ago.

I can see the message they’re delivering in my mother’s pinched up face with its black streaks. Her eyes have been hollow for weeks. Panic wielded its chisel on the space just above her cheek bones first. It moved onto the cheek’s hollow, around her lips in thin lines and to the pinch in the bottom of her chin. My Mom’s face transformed into a shrunken head of stress that the soul packed up and left. I’ve never felt anger like this; it’s punching from behind my ribs with hands wanting to break free and strangle the men’s calm faces and Mom’s blotchy one, pathetic on top of her worn housecoat. The house coat is peach and quilted with coffee stains. It’s like the cloak of surrender to a blobby brownie filled existence. I won’t live a life of surrender.

I know she forgot to pray. His safety was contained in her ability to fret, pray and hold her breath. It was her job to keep him from falling.

Mom knew it’d happen from the moment she started packing up the nice Christmas dishes, back when Dad was stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. When the orders were issued for us to move onto Shaw, she started wrapping them in week old newspaper ads. Red dishes trimmed in
silver went into apple cardboard boxes she’d picked up from the back of the grocery store.

It was then that she started praying, morning and night. She baked as though kneading and braiding breads could hold us together. They meant nothing. He’d arrive in a box, like the dishes – broken. She cried about the dishes too. Whenever Mom wants what she can’t have, tears fall. If you really don’t want something wrecked, like the posters I never let the military move, you have to keep it with you.

I push at the soldier’s sturdy arm. I feel my arms swinging. Before I make the kind of connection I want, like hitting a home run in softball, the kind of connection that rings through my body, the sort I’d hoped for in Christopher’s truck hours before. Before I feel that connection, the one the angry hands against the inside of my ribs want to make, arms hold me. Not hard, but firm and I feel my back against a man’s chest. I don’t know who the arms belong to but they remind me of my Dad’s the day he deployed. The arms are strong, holding tight as though one body could press through another and always be there somehow. “Shhh,” I hear soft in my ear.

I see my brother, Bradley, behind Mom. His face is a horrified question mark beneath his parted hair. The man let’s go and I move through them. I kick off my flip flops. My legs take me from the living room, through the hallway and into my room. I put my Green Day CD in, set it to replay on 21 Guns and put my headphones on. I close my eyes until everything is as gone as it can be.

I dream of Scott in Jessica’s basement and the way the combination of kissing him and drinking wine coolers made my lips tingle. I loved looking up into his eyes. In the dream he and I start to dance. We look at each other as our feet make a slow circle; my hands are clasped behind his neck. I put my head against his chest. Then I feel this pull on my sides.

Greedy hands that belong to an unseen man pull me from Scott. I move too hard and fast for him to keep me. Then I’m running through doors, down a hall. I keep worrying that the next one will be locked but they keep opening and I can hear the man’s breath heaving behind me. I will my eyes open and they find Christopher sitting on my chair, the one for the desk that I never use. There’s nothing comfortable about that configuration in life – desk and chair. His head is tilted back at an uncomfortable looking angle and his mouth is open.

I slip off my bed quiet, letting my toes touch gentle to the carpet. My favorite thing about this house is how thick and gentle the carpet is on my toes. I like to squeeze each toe into it.

When I cross the hall to the bathroom I see Mom looking out the living room window. She’s done that for the past few months. I want to tell her the only thing coming back is a box she’ll have to put away. I leave the carpet for the bathroom’s hard tile.

I brush my now blonde hair straight and proper, brush my teeth and put on a little lip-gloss. I go out to the living room where Mom is by the window and say, “There’s a strange man in my room.” I put my arms around her because everyone deserves some sympathy once in awhile I guess.

“He was worried about you,” she says. “It’s not a bad thing.” No guy has ever been allowed to enter my room before, except Bradley and Dad. She pulls toward the window and I know tears are finding their way
easy down her cheeks. Maybe she plans to be some kind of window display. We could put up a sign that says suffering widow and prop it next to her.

Bradley must be playing over at Jonathon’s house. Jon lives two houses down. His mother bakes cookies, plays games and helps the boys write letters and make things. I guess Bradley won’t need to write letters anymore. Mrs. Brighton, Jon’s mom, is young compared to ours. She’s upbeat and strong; and, looks powerful with her apron on.

I go back to my room; change out of last night’s low cut and clingy bubblegum pink shirt and the white Cheap Trick T-Shirt my Dad had given me two Christmases ago. It’s what he and I had: Cheap Trick, The Clash and The Ramones. At least he’d given me a proper introduction to punk rock and its awkward siblings before he left. I wake Christopher.

“What?” He looks confused.

“Let’s go,” I say.

As I walk out of the house with my hand in Christopher’s, he tries to tell the window display thanks or good-bye. The display’s fixed its sight and will not be distracted. He looks at me and I shrug. He wanted in.

“Where to?” Christopher opens the truck’s passenger door for me. He gets in behind the wheel.

“Away.”

“You okay?” He turns the key in the ignition. His light blue button down shirt is rumpled. He looks good when his order is compromised.

“Sure.” I know it’s the wrong answer. I turn the stereo’s volume up.

He turns his truck onto Myrtle Beach Highway. I wonder when Dad’s body will be delivered. Will he be brought back in one piece or in parts?

“Did you hear how it happened?” Christopher asks.

Before Dad left for Afghanistan, he stuck me in Saint Francis Xavier School. I was pissed. On the day he deployed my Dad pulled me to him, pressed me hard against him and my arms just kind of hung there, because they had to. The nuns were better than weepy Mrs. Sandraniski. She’d had glasses, wore skirts with sweaters and really felt for students in her gawky way. The nuns don’t weep. Their attitude seems more, so you have a problem – what is it you intend to do to fix it or cope with it? God doesn’t make mistakes.

“They said his F-16 Falcon collided with another plane, faulty coordinates.” Christopher parks the truck in a lot by the beach. Christopher pulls a bottle of wine out of the back seat of the truck. He uncorks it and I pull the bag of plastic cups from behind my seat.

I hold the glasses as he pours. I’ll cope as we walk along the beach.

Past Matters

2011-12-16T10:29:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone. So that Slate piece got me all riled up on Wednesday, so I postponed this week's publication to today. It's a short story titled Past Matters, and it's one that will fill all five senses, with a certain olfactory emphasis. It comes from Sabine Sur, a writer, a translator and a knitter, which in her words means "she knits narratives, writes from one culture into another and translates patterns into garments." Enjoy!

Past Matters
Sabine Sur

Today Carina could not smell a thing, even though she had just tried out a new perfume. She could merely make out a waft of pink berries. Forget about it, she thought. I’m glad I only got a sample. She had been told that she should wait about fifteen minutes until the head notes gave way to the heart note, where this fragrance really came into its own, but if it was so weak after a couple of spritzes there was no use hoping for more. She decided not to scrub it off her skin because she had no time this morning and she had been long enough in the bathroom already.

Carina was looking for a new fragrance; so she was collecting samples, disappointments and almost-but-not-quites. All the women of her family considered scent to be very important, and a daughter’s thirteenth birthday was the occasion to give her her first perfume bottle, chosen after a complex ritual of subtle questions about favourite smells, and character observation. Carina had been offered a scent of citrus, jasmine and oak-moss: a cheerful, obstinate scent, with so much presence some might have said it was invasive.

But Carina was no longer thirteen and after she had gone through a variety of fragrances—flirty gardenia, sedate and gourmand rose, distant iris sheltered in a secret garden—, she wanted to find a perfume with longevity and spice, but no sourness. She would have loved to wear her mother’s and her grandmother’s scent, a warm and comforting oriental, but her skin made it go awry. So she looked for a scent to the same effect and tried mainstream brands, designer brands, supermarket brands, niche brands, stopping by perfume shops she passed by or going out of her way ordering samples on obscure brand websites, but nothing had come of it so far.

Five minutes later, she had put on the clothes that she had laid out the night before and was making breakfast: hot chocolate for her daughter, tea for her, toasted bread and fresh butter; rich smells that made her forget today’s wispy perfume. She looked at the clock. Clearly her little darling had not heard the alarm and was oversleeping, again.

When she was about to open the door to her daughter’s room, standing in the corridor, she felt out of place. Something unknown was wrong and she felt a knot in her throat. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was a child and her mother was hugging her. Carina whispered a few words into her ear, and concluded by kissing her cheek. When Carina moved away she saw her grandmother sitting at the back of the room, gesturing her to come closer. She ran to her; her mother followed. The two women cuddled her and told her all sorts of niceties, as they always did: my beautiful, my sweet, my wonderful, words filled with motherly love, an ordinary, daily love that was bigger than themselves.

When they kissed her, some of their scent clung on to her clothes.

“This house is yours, explore it as you will,” her grandmother told her. “The scent will guide you. But be careful: you should only open the doors that it will lead you to.”

Carina felt their loving eyes as she left. She was at her grandmother’s, a wooden house by the sea that always smelled of salty air.

The scent directed her to specific places by wafting closer to her nose at times. At the beginning, when she had smelled it on them, it had seemed a bit too strong, but now it was delicious, a bit peppery but sweet, was it ambergris? It smelled like old ladies and clothes so worn they were more than comfortable. Weren’t her mother and her grandmother old ladies, imposing and fragile, tender giants whose smell was a reminder of their love?

As she opened the doors she had the joy of finding her toys scattered on the floor and the ancient furniture. She was dumbfounded when, rummaging in a chest of drawers, she found love letters written in violet ink on thin paper, dating from the last century. She tried to remember what is was that she had whispered to her mother. She had the feeling that it mattered, but it eluded her memory. The thought distracted her and she opened the wrong door.

She was in a hospital room. Her mother, looking tired, was sitting by the bed where her grandmother lay. There was an empty chair where Carina sat. The sick and exhausted body in the bed became her mother’s and she was holding her hand. Her mother’s lips moved and she got closer to her; she had to hear what her mother would say. The words she had been looking for came back to her then and the two women spoke them together.

“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death...”

She was a grown woman helping her mother pass away, and she was a little girl on her mother’s lap; sitting so close, she could smell her scent, a faded smell, sweet with a hint of pungency, the smell of a mature woman, the trace of the fragrance applied yesterday, the one she had started to wear when her body was vibrant with health. The perfume covered the hospital smells. All that subsided between them was the memory of their shared years, Carina’s entire childhood.

“My daughter...”

Carina was surprised to hear her own voice. She was kneeling before her little darling’s bed and held her hand. On Carina’s arm, the perfume was exhaling its heart note, the magical note she had tried to find for so long.

Her little darling opened her eyes and Carina remembered with a shock that every woman in her family had the same green eyes. She remembered the day when her mother’s ashes had been scattered over the sea. Other traces of her, lying in her own genes, like her gestures, and her taste for spices, had been disseminated and thrived; and she was happy to have recovered by chance, with this scent, what she had missed so much: her smell and the memory of her love.

Jocks vs. Nerds

2011-12-14T16:32:00.010-05:00

"When deep-space exploitation ramps up, it will probably be the megatonic corporations that discover all the new planets and map them. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Philip Morris Galaxy. Planet Denny's. Every planet will take on the corporate identity of whoever rapes it first." - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Don't let the title of my blog post fool you. Yes, I fall into the "nerd" camp, but this won't be a revenge of the nerds story. It won't be about staying true to yourself even when you're not popular, overcoming adversity, or realizing that someday you will inherit the earth. In this story, the nerds lose.

Last week, Amazon* took a beating with their "anti-local business" discount program. Only to them, the "beating" was more like an infant punching tiny fists into their ankle. Many authors, booksellers, and publishing folks had reactions to this, but the one that I'll point to specifically is Richard Russo's New York Times op-ed. Russo's daughter works at an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, but his personal connections to bookstores are deeper than that. He discusses what he calls the "literary culture" that come with bookstores, and I'm inclined to agree with him. I'm also inclined to agree with his statement about Amazon's personal investment in what it means to be a bookseller:

"Maybe Amazon doesn’t care about the larger bookselling universe because it’s simply too big to care. In a way it’s become, like the John Candy character (minus the eager, slobbering benevolence) in Mel Brooks’s movie “Spaceballs” — half man, half dog and thus its own best friend."

The thing about Amazon is that it's a monopoly disguised as our savior. It has its hand in every area of book publishing - no longer just a seller, they are a distributor, publisher, and author platform. Eventually Amazon will realize they can't be everything - or at least can't be everything with the same level of success. But what they will always be, I think, is a venue to sell books. I won't pretend that I'm not biased here. I don't buy my books from Amazon because I like to support local businesses.

No, I'll rephrase that.

I don't buy my books from Amazon because I live in a city where local businesses still thrive and I'm physically able to support them. Plus, I'm not a fan of large corporations. (While I'm not against them in a militant sense, it's unlikely you'll see me in a Starbucks or chain restaurant if there is a local option available.) The thing is, I don't think this makes me a better person. It just means I'm lucky enough to be able to practice what I preach as often as I can. Not everyone has that luxury.

I know that for many people in other parts of the country physical bookstores are not available. For those who had Borders instead of Barnes and Noble, even access to chain stores can be nearly impossible these days. Then there are those who can't bring themselves to care about "literary culture" because they are too busy working three jobs in order to pay their bills and feed their families. Maybe you live ten minutes away from your independently owned local bookstore but spending full retail price on a trade paperback just isn't an option for you. Or, simply, you love the comfort of shopping online (which you can do from the websites of many of your favorite local bookstores, by the way). Not supporting your local physical bookstore doesn't make you a bad person, and I understand the many conveniences Amazon has to offer. (As a tiny New Yorker who can only buy as much as I can carry, I take advantage of having things delivered directly to my apartment quite often.)

That's why I was taken aback by a counterpoint piece that Slate published with the sensationalist headline "Don't Support Your Local Bookseller." Rage-inducing as that is by itself, I know that the writer, Farhad Manjoo, most likely didn't write his own headline and that titles are meant to grab attention and aren't indicative of the content of the piece overall. Except in this case, the author is saying exactly that. In fact, it supports such an unpopular opinion that part of me wonders whether it's satire, while the other part of me can see it's a blatant attempt at self-promotion. Then there's the part of me that knows in either case, it was written for the sole purpose of getting a reaction. So, fine. I'll bite.

(It should be noted - if not written in all-caps - that Slate is an affiliate of Amazon.com.)

Manjoo highlights many of the points I made above about Amazon being pretty great for people a) with no other option, or b) who don't consider themselves part of a "literary culture" and just want to buy books. I 100% agree with him on this. Not everyone considers themselves part of the literary class - those who prefer reading to other things have been historically considered "nerds," after all. We are in the minority.

But he goes on to argue that Amazon is not only part of the literary culture, but is actually helping support your local community by providing cheaper models of the same books you were going to buy anyway. He says:

"After all, if you’re spending extra on books at your local indie, you’ve got less money to spend on everything else—including on authentically local cultural experiences. With the money you saved by buying books at Amazon, you could have gone to see a few productions at your local theater company, visited your city’s museum, purchased some locally crafted furniture, or spent more money at your farmers’ market."

Putting aside my continued shock of seeing someone so flagrantly anti-bookstore, I'm more confused by what Manjoo is trying to say with this. The same case could be made for a lover of Applebees who thinks that eating at chain restaurants instead of more expensive family-operated ones could free up some cash to support your local bookstore instead. Or, put from the perspective of a pro-Wal-Mart shopper, one could save enough on groceries, clothes, and appliances to send money to starving children in Africa. It's a weak argument at best, and it brings me to the next point that the Slate piece misses.

Bookstores are about much more than selling books.

If all you want are books, then Amazon is just as satisfying as going to a bookstore. Those who drive to a store are usually looking for more. You can't host an author reading/signing at your local Amazon, meet with your writing group on their comfy couches, peruse their shelves, and meet fellow book-lovers in your community. Your local Amazon doesn't care if your child has a place to go to hear Story Time readings (even if you don't buy the book) so that you can run errands for an hour.

Manjoo refers to Richard Russo as a "bookstore cultist" and admits to not understanding why a novelist, in his op-ed on bookstores, "omits the most critical aspect of a vibrant book-reading culture: getting people to buy a whole heckload of books."

"Literary culture" is not just for the literary elite, which is the image Manjoo is trying to paint with his pro-corporate brush. He's trying to argue that we "bookstore cultists" miss the point of bookstores and are merely part of an Occupy mentality who hate corporations. He doesn't understand what bookstores mean, or that they even have meaning. Who needs a sense of community when there's nothing to buy?

Manjoo fails to see that you can sip your soy latte and be a member of the NRA and shop at Whole Foods and vote Republican. Not everyone needs to be one thing, and not everyone has to want only one thing from their bookstore. Manjoo isn't just telling us to respect Amazon for what it is. He's saying it's the only way to shop, and that even if you're able to support local businesses, you shouldn't because if you do you're nothing but an out-of-touch, overly romantic hippie who doesn't get how business works.

So nerds, we lose again. Because being able to look outside yourself and still see value in the thing you love is totally lame. Isn't it cute how we thought we could compromise and that we'd be able to live in harmony with the popular kids? Sadly, no matter what we do, we cramp their style by merely existing.

Corporate America, you win. Rich kids with your fancy cars and your head cheerleader girlfriends, you win too. Don't provide us with a more convenient option - become our only option. Put us in a headlock and steal our lunch money because, hell, you'll probably invest it for us and make us better for doing so.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

No middle ground to see here, folks.

*Footnote: This post is a response to Slate's anti-bookstore article and should not be read as an attack on Amazon as a corporate competitor. Choice is a good thing. Competition is healthy. People who propose eliminating competition are not.

The Recycle Bin

2011-12-09T14:23:00.004-05:00

Today's post is inspired by my mother, who (unbeknownst to her) raised an interesting question about ebooks. My mother only recently got rid of AOL but has somehow managed to jump immediately to having an iPhone, where - to her delight - she can download ebooks. Just one problem - "What do I do with them after I read them?"

I take after my dad. He doesn't join Netflix for the same reason I don't belong to a library - we need to own, and display, the things we love. With him, it's movies. With me, it's books. I have lots of them, and give or take the sporadic "do I really need three copies of Pride and Prejudice?" I keep 98% of what I buy or what's given to me.

I like arranging books on my shelf, being able to look at them, picking up old favorites to re-read, or just reorganizing my shelves when I'm bored. But mostly I like owning books. For these reasons, I don't really buy ebooks. I say "really" because I've purchased five ebooks in my life, but I don't see myself buying more if they are also available in print. I have nothing against them and see no difference between reading a book and reading an ebook during the act of reading. My love lies in the books themselves. There are books I have in my apartment right now that I know I won't read again, but I like knowing they're there.

But there are those with a less romanticized notion of books. So you tell me, embracers of ebooks, what do you do? If no one can see the physical evidence that you've read Thomas Pynchon, do you bother keeping him on your ereader? Can you delete and move on, the way technology does, or do you transfer each ebook to every new ereader because you just can't let go?

Storm Coming

2011-12-07T15:25:00.000-05:00

For New Yorkers, the title of this story is especially apropos on this gray, rainy day. Storm Coming is the latest story from friend-of-the-blog Melissa R. Mendelson, whose work has appeared on Glass Cases from back in its early days and just last year. Melissa was a newspaper reporter for Long Island's The Smithtown Messenger, and worked as a freelance writer and movie reviewer for other regional publications. She is also a poet and novelist, having just completed her first novel, Glass Skies Over Home. Hope you enjoy her short story!

Storm Coming

By Melissa R. Mendelson

A smell of ocean wafted through the air. The sun rose high above the clouds. A bird’s song followed his every step. Laughter of children, a fountain of youth, echoed in the near distance, and cars slowly drifted on by. And still he walked.

The house was set apart from the road. Little stones decorated the dirt path. A luxurious, green velvet sea flowed before the porch. Small windows welcomed in rays of sunlight. The door was left half open, and the wind gently slipped inside. And it was like he never left all those years ago, and even the peaceful neighborhood seemed the same.

"Can I help you?" A shaggy, stooped man emerged on the porch. "Can I help you, son?" The man merely just stared at him. "What’s your business here?"

"I’m sorry to intrude, sir. I grew up in this house." He let his words settle in for a moment. "My name is Davis Yarn." The older man’s eyes gleamed with recognition. "My family lived here a long time ago."

"I know the name. The man that sold me this house mentioned you as the previous owners." With quick strides, he walked up to Davis. "What brings you here today?"

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I would pass by. The neighborhood seems the same." He followed the older man’s gaze to the area behind him. "So does the house."

"Buildings don’t change, son. People do." He rubbed his chin. "Well, if you want to take a walk inside, be my quest, but don’t disturb nothing. You hear?" Davis nodded. "Good. Storm’s coming, so we best get inside."

Dark clouds gathered overhead. A cold wind rustled through the trees. Cars hurried by before the skies opened up. No bird’s song was heard in the growing silence, and children quickly headed home. And the storm continued on its approach.

"Sudden change in weather," Davis mused.

"Mother Nature has been drinking again." The older man hurried inside, and Davis was right behind him. "She’s been off the wagon for so long that I lost count."

"How long have you lived here?" He watched the older man close the door behind him. "Has it been a long time?"

"Son, I’ve been around for a very long time." Davis stared at him, trying to estimate his age. "Can’t tell how old I am?" Davis shook his head. "Stay out of the heat, boy, and you won’t age. Remember that." A large smile crossed his face. "Now, how about a cold drink?"

"I’m good. Thank you." Davis shifted from foot to foot. "So, can I take a look around?"

"Sure, sure. Be my quest. Take as long as you need, but do not stay too long." The older man sat down in a leather couch nearby. "No business wasting time when it’s all we have."

"Right." Davis moved away from the man. "Don’t worry. I won’t take too long." It seemed like the older man was no longer listening to him.

The house seemed the same but smaller, emptier. Crayon pictures used to decorate walls along with family affairs, but that was a long time ago. The wooden floors of the hallway seemed to pale in age. Relics of the past wobbled on almost broken tables, and plastic flowers tried to lighten up the space. But it was still his home.

Davis remembered the day that his family moved. His parents were battling with their neighbors and were being forced to leave the development. The children were packed into a van surrounded by belongings, and off they went. And home was now in another state, but this house, this place would always shoulder his childhood memories.

Switching jobs was never the problem for his parents, but adapting to a new area proved to be the hardest challenge. His sister did well, spreading wings and becoming a gossip queen, but not his brother. As for Davis, he did okay walking the loner path, but if they never moved, would he have been different? Would his family have been different?

"Lost, son?" The older man was now right behind him. "I don’t have all day to entertain you."

"I’m sorry." Lightning flashed through a window nearby. "I got lost in thought."

"Well, hurry up then. Storm’s coming, and it’s going to be a bad one. I don’t need to be trapped in a house with a stranger taking a stroll down memory lane."

"My apologies." He heard the man mutter something under his breath, followed by another flash of lightning. "I won’t be long."

Stepping into his room, Davis let out a jagged breath of air. This was where he really wanted to go. This was his sanctuary, his world away from life, and he left it all behind. The empty walls now mocked him, teasing him that his secrets had been told, and the floor underneath was no longer soft, no longer safe to support him. But this was still his room, and the older man had done nothing with it but let it fall away.

"What are you looking for, son?" The older man gingerly stepped into the room. "What secrets hide in here?"

"There are no secrets left to tell." Davis ran his hand against a wall. "No sanctuary left behind. Not even a… Scratch." He turned toward the man now grinning at him. "Is there?"

"You figured it out, son."

"I’m not your son."

"I still own you, Davis, and I knew you be coming here." The older man now stood up about a foot taller. "Your movements are predictable. How’s the family?"

"Family’s good. So is my brother." He smiled as the grin faded from the older man’s face. "All’s good in the world." A roar of thunder followed his words. "You lost."

"Did I?" More thunder followed. "Maybe I won."

Years after the move, his brother had gone down a dark path, and time and time again, Davis had come to his rescue. Whether it was drugs, gambling, or even assault, he came to save his brother, but what did it cost him? Everything.

His brother gave his soul to make it big, and he was living large for a few years. He helped his family out, repaid Davis for his sacrifices, and kept on going straight until he nearly stepped over the edge. And then Davis grabbed hold of him before he was taken away down to where he did not belong, and the deal was that Davis would take his place.

"Your brother still living it up?" An ugly laughter escaped from the older man’s lips. "He still hightailing it from the law?"

"He’s married with a child on the way." Davis crossed his arms over his chest. "He turned his life around."

"Because of you." The older man tilted his head to one side. "Was it worth it? Your life for his?"

"He’s my brother." Davis kept his hand pressed against the wall. "I would do it again in a heartbeat." His fingers dug deep against the plaster and paint. "I would do it again."

"I gave you a year, boy to say your good-byes, so why come here?" The older man crept closer to him. "What is it about this old piece of house that you cling to so much?" He reached toward him. "Do you think you are safe here?" His hand shook as it came closer. "Do you think you can escape me?" He tried to touch his arm. "Do you think that you can walk away from me?" His hand slipped through Davis.

"No." Davis continued to touch the wall. "You can’t take me. You can’t touch me. You have no power over me as long as I stay here in this room."

"So, what? You stay here and starve to death? Doesn’t matter. You still come to me."

"When I was a child, I had this friend that enchanted the room from evil. No harm could ever come inside or… Leave." He waited for his words to sink in. "Nobody believes in magic, but nobody really believes that the devil exists either." He laughed at the furious expression on the older man’s face. "When I walk out of this room, I know I will die, but you will not be there to take me. If I am to become a lost soul, then so be it, but maybe I will go to heaven."

"You walk me out of here, and I’ll send you up there." Davis shook his head. "You can live a longer life."

"No." He stepped away from the older man. "It’s over." He moved quickly toward the bedroom door. "It ends here."

He saw the older man struggle toward him, but it was like he was walking in quicksand. The man’s eyes grew wider and wider as well as darker and darker. A snarl covered half of his face, and his hands were clenched in fists.

"There is no such thing as magic," he roared.

"I know." Davis was now safely outside the room. "There was no friend either." He eyed the older man calmly. "I was the one that believed that no harm could enter the room or leave it, and I still believe it today. And that’s all I need. Faith." He turned to walk away.

"Don’t walk away from me! Do you hear? Do not walk away from me! This is far from over! I’ll find you! Dead or alive! I will find you!" But no matter how hard he tried, the man could not leave the room. "This isn’t over!"

Stepping outside, the storm was in full swing. Dark clouds gripped the sky. Heavy rain plunged down into the ground. The wind whipped back and forth, and there was no sign of life along the streets. And as Davis began another long walk, he turned the corner and disappeared.

Stop Helping Yourself

2011-12-05T14:23:00.003-05:00

We all know querying is hard. Personally, I think writers make it harder on themselves, though I understand that keeping everyone's individual guidelines straight can make any person insecure. If you've reached the querying stage of writing, you've probably read that agents get anywhere from 50 to 300 queries per day. While I can't speak for every agent, I personally respond to all them, even if it's ultimately a form rejection. This takes a lot of time (it's also why many agents have a "no response means no" policy that's been quite controversial recently.) Knowing all of this, writers think they need to go out of their way to stand out among the pack even though it really can't be said enough that the only thing that will do that is to have an amazing book.

Writers with the best of intentions will include buzz words in their queries that they believe make them look more professional, and, in their minds, will attract an agent's attention. What they don't realize is that for many agents, these phrases and pieces of information more often serve as red flags that this writer has no idea what they are talking about or how publishing works.

Here are the Top 3 self-praises I see:

"I am a published author."
If you have prior publications, you should absolutely list them in your query. Give the title, date, and publisher. Without that information, we have no way to believe you or take this claim seriously. Saying you are a published author when you've self-published or, worse, haven't published at all makes you look foolish.

If you self-published, own it. Tell us when, with who, and for what type of book - then provide sales figures. If you can't give us this information, don't feel that you have to. If your self-pubbed book only sold around 100 copies, it's not the end of the world. Query agents with a project other than the one you self-pubbed and don't feel as if you need to even mention that other book until you receive an offer of representation.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a debut author with no prior publishing credits. Being unknown or new to writing will never count against you if you have an amazing book, but having a fake or, let's say, questionable publishing history can end up hurting you if you aren't honest.

"My manuscript has been professionally edited."
The first question that always comes to mind is "by whom?" Your friend who works at the local newspaper? A college writing professor? Your aunt who reads a lot? There are plenty of freelance editors out there whose opinions are professional and whose judgment I would respect as an agent. However, even if you used professional services, there is no reason to say that in your query. It tells me nothing about the quality of your writing or whether I'd be interested in your book. "Professionally edited" is a vague term at best, but at worst it can means one of three things:

1) You think the manuscript is already perfect and you won't be willing to revise.
2) You could be willing to revise, but you aren't able to do it yourself.
3) You think copyediting and editing are the same thing. (This last one I see a lot - the "professional eye" who looked over your manuscript made sure it was polished and grammatically correct, but the character development, plot structure, and overall quality of the writing were still severely lacking.)

Every writer needs an editor, but editors can't make mediocre writing great or make an agent fall in love with a premise. All of that needs to come from you.

"My book has already gotten interest from Hollywood."
On paper, this sounds impressive and I can see why writers include it in their queries. But let's break this down. For one, how does anyone in Hollywood know your book exists? If you're sending manuscripts blindly to showbiz people, not only could your idea could get stolen (and you wouldn't be protected), but it tells me you might be signing contracts and giving away rights that renders any interest I might have had useless (not to mention any deal our film department could have made for you).

The second red flag is that "Hollywood interest" is not impressive to me unless you have an actual contract in your hands from an established production company. There is a huge difference between "Paramount Pictures wants to buy the film rights to my manuscript" and "Larry the coke dealer on Hollywood & Vine said he'll give me $50 for it." Both of these can mean "Hollywood interest," and without knowing the specifics, I assume it's the latter. Plus, think of how many promises are broken in the film industry. Some slick suit who calls you "baby" can tell you he loves your book one minute and then throw it in the trash as soon as you look away.

***

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make yourself sound more impressive than you think you are. Being a writer is impressive enough in itself, but I understand that in queries you want to add a little more. It's called selling yourself, and this business is all about selling a product. Specifically, your product. But if you really want to impress an agent and get noticed, all you need to do is write the best book you can and know which agent will want to read it.

You should have pride in your work - if you don't, who will? Saying you're "award-winning" even if it was from your local library in 1998 might not change an agent's mind about a project, but hell, you earned it and you should say so. Just make sure you're not inflating yourself so much that you pop.

Hav-A-Tampa

2011-11-30T20:25:00.000-05:00

Hope all of my fellow Americans had a lovely Thanksgiving last week! I know I haven't been blogging much lately, but I'll get back to a schedule again soon. So in my post-Thanksgiving continuation of giving thanks, let me say how appreciative I am of all of my readers who support my little blog, even when I take a hiatus.

But as always, since it's Wednesday, I have some fiction for you! Journalist and author, Richard Alley, is sharing an excerpt of his extended short story, Headwaters, with a section title "Hav-A-Tampa." Richard writes a regular humor column about parenting in The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal and was the grand prize in the 2010 Memphis Magazine Short Fiction Contest. In 2010, he was accepted into the Moss Workshop for Fiction at the University of Memphis with novelist Richard Bausch. You can see more from Richard at his website and his blog. Enjoy!

Hav-A-Tampa

By Richard Alley

They drove all day, his father smoking one wood-tipped Hav-A-Tampa cigar after another from a box he kept on the floorboard, and drinking coffee from an old Thermos of chipped plastic. To this day, when Ben thinks of the man, it is the smell of tobacco and coffee mingled with the sweat of the road that he recalls. The air in the truck hadn’t worked, Ben wasn’t sure if it even had an air conditioner, he’d never known the vestigial vents to blow more than warmed-over engine air at him. They rode the whole way, from Illinois to Tennessee, listening to the farm report going in and out with the radio’s reception. The windows were down and Ben worked his hand up and down in the rush from the warm air; up and down, up and down, like a wave. By the time they made Memphis his right arm was a shade darker than his left.

At the cotton merchant’s warehouse on Front Street, they stood in a cavernous room while the inspectors studied his daddy’s cotton bales by the sunlight streaming in through floor to ceiling windows. Ben sidled off to one side to watch an old black man push a steel rod into stacked bales, mesmerized by the fuzz set free to float around in the shafts of light. Ben tried holding his breath as long as possible to keep from breathing in the minute fibers.

“He’s aerating ‘em,” a man with a push broom and toothpick in the corner of his mouth said. “Keeps ‘em from bursting into flame.”

Ben only looked up into his creased face and then back at the man with the rod.

“Whole place’d go up with fire.”

After a lot of talking and laughing, and one of the men covering the wood-planked floor around him with tobacco juice, they all went to an upstairs office where one of the inspectors gave Ben a Coca-Cola and helped him onto a windowsill as wide as a sofa to watch the river below. The men, including his dad, all signed papers and shook hands and then Ben and his father left.

“Let’s go to the Greek,” his daddy said as they walked along a sidewalk crowded with men in seersuckers and women discreetly patting their damp faces with stark white linens.

The restaurant was only slightly cooler than the city air, but smelled of pork frying and coffee brewing instead of horse piss and diesel. The place held row after row of red vinyl booths and Formica tables, and the two slid into a booth against a far wall where Ben could see all the action, could watch as the waitresses came and went from the kitchen or poured drinks at the soda fountain against the back wall. Customers entered and left, and the owner worked the register as though greeting family at the front counter.

There were four waitresses working and Ben was glad when the prettiest approached their table with two tall glasses of ice water beaded with condensation, some of which dripped onto his bare knee. He lunged for his glass, drinking down half of the water while his father looked over the menu.

When she came back to take their order, she brought a sweating silver pitcher to refill his glass. “Somebody was thirsty,” she said, flashing him a smile. “What can I get you gentlemen today?”

Without consulting Ben, his father ordered them each pot roast with mashed potatoes, corn and collared greens, a coffee for himself and another Coke for Ben. At home he never had more than one Coke in a day and he wondered if this was something he should keep from his mother. The waitress wrote the order on her pad, took the menus from the table and, before turning to leave, Ben caught her smile and wink at his father.

Ben had heard his daddy called “handsome” by ladies back home. He was tall and lean, the kind of muscular lean you get from eating three square meals a day and working hard in the fields from sun up to sun down. He was a deep nut color year-round and his forearms were strong and sinewy with pronounced veins protruding through the wiry, blonde hair, and rolling down to his fingers. His cheeks were hollow with high, angular bones and his hair, white ever since Ben could remember, and when not under the cover of his red IH cap, was swept back from his ample forehead.

The other waitresses smiled, too.

They ate their meal in silence and, afterward, the Greek’s mother brought Ben baklava. His father stood to stretch his legs and commiserate with the Greek’s elderly father, a half-blind ogre who kept watch over the hallway that led to both the lavatories and the kitchen. As their conversation wound down, his father took the elder man’s hand and squeezed it, patting him on the shoulder and then, Ben was surprised to see, cupped his cheek with a massive hand as though scooping up a kitten. The old man smiled and nodded, looking just to the left of his father’s face.

When they left and walked up the alley, Ben asked him what he and the man had talked about. “Being old,” he said.

##

The smell of the tobacco shop hit him in the face with the force of a feather pillow, all smoke, wood and age. The selling floor was long and narrow with dingy tile flooring and a ceiling that rose up thirty feet, towering over Ben so he had to tip back to see the nicotine stains there forming patterns on the plaster like clouds. His father spoke to the shop’s owner, a slight, bespectacled man with a straight-stemmed pipe jammed into his grin, who must have had twenty years on Ben’s father. His father leaned in to speak quietly and gesture over his shoulder back the way they’d just come. The proprietor peeked around his father as though he expected to find someone there, but only nodded and pointed to the back. Ben followed his father up a slender, creaking staircase to a loft that looked out over the whole of the store.

There were five men huddled around a table in the center of the room underneath a light illuminating the table’s felt; blue smoke, and little else, issued from the men. His father nodded hello to the players, they nodded back, and one opened a box to offer whatever was inside to him. He shook it off and pulled a Hav-A-Tampas from his shirt pocket, lighting it with the silver Zippo he’d had since the war.

As they’d come upstairs, his father had pointed him to a dimly lit corner with a few mismatched chairs and a small table. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Ben saw someone, a human form he’d missed before. He approached and sat across a checkerboard from a gangly black boy about his own age, with overalls and yellow eyeballs. Without speaking, the boy moved a checker piece one space towards Ben then looked back up into his face. Ben, feeling challenged, moved one of his own pieces. They played three games this way, without speaking. Ben won one, his adversary two. During the fourth game, Ben asked him what had happened to his daddy. There was only one black man sitting at the table and he had a leg bandaged from foot to mid-calf, his own overalls pant leg sliced to the knee. “My grand-daddy,” he said before jumping and capturing a piece.

He told Ben that his grandfather had been out fishing from his jon boat in the flooded fields of Arkansas, just across the river from Memphis, when a cottonmouth dropped from a tree into the boat. His grand-daddy pulled a shotgun and blasted the snake away, killing it, but also sinking the boat.

“He walked two miles through water to his waist for the highway, and on the way he was bit on the ankle by a copperhead,” the boy said.

Ben thought for a minute before letting out one shrill bark of a laugh followed by a snort. His new friend, the storyteller, laughed aloud at this and slapped his thigh again and again. The men at the table stopped their game and talk to turn toward the boys who fought to stop their laughter and resume their own game.

Later, through a haze of sleep and smoke, Ben watched as his father peeled bills from the stack he’d won and paid the owner of the store for a box of hand-rolled cigars and a handful of Hav-A-Tampas. The old man tried to give him change but he waved it away and called for Ben to follow. After making one stop for coffee before leaving town, with his daddy giddy on rye and a winning night of cards, they drove straight through the night to Illinois.

Though a silent man, his father talked and talked about farming and people he’d known and city life versus the farming life. He spoke of his own father, a man of stone from a place called Minis that Ben had never visited and wasn’t even sure still existed. His daddy talked with purpose, as though he had to; as though not to would cause him to burst into flame. It was the most he’d ever spoken to Ben at one time and Ben tried his best to stay awake for it, but a 10-year-old boy just doesn’t have the capacity for long-windedness that an adult has.

He must have kept at it all night because as they pulled into their long, rutted driveway and Ben awoke, he was still talking, not stopping until he cut the motor and sat staring at the farmhouse, a deep cigar-rattled sigh preceding silence and keeping time with the cooling of the truck’s ticking engine.

Wake Up Slow

2011-11-16T14:42:00.000-05:00

Hello all. Hope you enjoy today's excerpt from a novel, Wake Up Slow, which follows a family of creative entrepreneurs who are forced to live under one roof to try to make it during the recession. The author, Rea Frey, is a personal trainer, nutrition specialist, and lifestyle writer who was recently voted best local nonfiction writer for the Chicago Reader. She writes a monthly vegetarian column for Martha Stewart's website, is a common guest on WGN radio, and discusses how to live a balanced life here. Her book, The Cheat Sheet: A Clue-by-Clue Guide to Finding Out If He's Unfaithful (Adams Media) was released in June.

~~Milton~~

By Rea Frey

This is what I want it to say on my tombstone: Milton Stewart was the greatest writer who ever lived. No date of birth, no “beloved,” no dried flowers sprinkled around the gravesite. Just that one important line. Of course, I would have probably had to publish a book, or even write something from time to time, but A) I just liked the way it sounded, and secondly, I wanted to be remembered.

Sometimes, in my home, nestled behind a TV tray, I was afraid I would die and no one would remember me. My friend Harry would find me three weeks after I’d passed, a sad, saggy nub glued to his rocking chair. I’m sure that’s a common fear when you get old and live alone, but when you are seventy-two, have two prosthetic legs and a house full of books, it’s not entirely irrational.

Every step could be my last. All the heaps of books and junk and clothes were like landmines to a cripple. I could trip and asphyxiate myself on an unwashed pile of sheets. I could knock my head on a stack of Russian poets. I could get one of my limbs wrapped around an antique tea set and fall down the steps to the basement. It’s amazing what a dangerous life I led. It was kind of exciting when I stopped to think about it. Which I rarely did.

Luckily, my daughter offered me some help. Or rather, she insisted I move in when she stopped by to drop off some mail. The shame crossed her face as she maneuvered between dirty dishes and mounds of dictionaries.

“You can’t live like this,” she said.

“Well, I’m alive, aren’t I? I’m still breathing.”

“You know what I mean.”

Because I didn’t want to disappoint her, I agreed to move in with her and her husband. They lived a nice, quiet life. They had two empty guest rooms. I even got to pick which one I wanted: orange or green. I chose green. It was my wife’s favorite color.

My daughter lived on the other side of town in a suburb of Nashville. She had a gigantic house she’d bought with her husband before the economy had crashed; before her husband lost his job and she started working again, and before her two children got divorced and crushed her lofty dreams of grandchildren filling that big old house with their small footsteps and lively screams.

Because she had no grandchildren, she had cats. Now, she would have me. Perhaps I wasn’t the only embarrassment.

Tomorrow, I would have to pack up my house. But today, I would sit among my possessions and pretend I was somebody great. Every novel was my novel. Every great word that had ever been written was constructed in this very room, with a pen and a pensive look out my dirty window.

Perhaps at this moment in some alternate universe, my wish was coming true. Perhaps I had been a great writer, and that’s why I was so called to words. I lived my life surrounded by dead authors and live ones. Could my novel be tucked somewhere among the thin and thick volumes? Maybe, I thought. It’s not too late. Though I knew it was for me.

Rustling through my junk, I found an old yellow legal pad and a chipped pencil. I brought it up to my tiny writing desk I’d bought at a flea market for $10. I had an Underwood typewriter, sans ribbon, collecting dust. I liked the way it looked, and I often went over and pressed the keys just to hear the melody they brought to the empty room.

I cleared my throat and looked at the stale cup of coffee that had been sitting on the corner of my desk since 1952. I pressed my pencil to the paper, excitement building as it always did – for I figured today might be the day that inspiration hit and I would have a bestseller on my hands. As I pressed the pencil to the paper, the lead broke. I was too tired to look for a pen.

Another successful day of writing: check.

I hated my daughter’s children. Was that wrong to say, since technically, they were my grandchildren? Mainly I hated them because my granddaughter was a writer, and she had just published a book, so really I loved her. She’d actually published two books if you counted her first one, which I didn’t, because it was with a bad publisher and never saw the inside of a bookstore. Her second book was legitimate.

Every time she came in from Chicago with her long, feathered earrings and modern tattoos, I wanted to shake her down for information. What’s it like to have an editor! What do you and your agent talk about! What was it like the first time you held your book in your hands! I also wanted to yell: You have feathers in your ears! You have a husband with a mohawk! You wear platform shoes! Real writers don’t wear platform shoes!

The truth: She was a great writer, and I envied her abilities. She wrote for about fourteen different publications and complained about how much she wrote for such little pay. I scoffed. To be known as a writer, even in this oversaturated world, was much more important than getting paid.

My grandson was a bit more traditional. A schoolteacher, he’d had two marriages in the span of five years, and his new wife (also heavily tattooed) had a real dick of a son from a previous relationship. Every time I was around, Trevor ran around naked with his little uncircumcised penis waving in the air like a human baby toe. He would place it on me, brushing up against my shoulder, my knee, or setting it on my fiberglass legs while I was taking a nap, so when I woke, he would be standing there with his appendage looped over my fake shin like an earthworm.

Every time he opened his mouth to scream, he looked like a scary clown. He did whatever he pleased, and I found myself wanting to yank him up by his elbow as my mother had when I was a boy to tell him that little boys didn’t disobey their parents they way he did. “What a little brat,” I said once, and my grandson’s wife had shot me a look that could have killed me.

“He’s four,” she said.

“Exactly. Who’s the parent here? You or him?”

That was the end of my conversations with my grandson’s wife.

My son-in-law, Duane, was wonderful. Mostly because he was quiet. He was secretly a writer too, and secretly I hated him for his talent, which was wide and gaping and reminded me of Ted Hughes – his poetry was just that remarkable.

My daughter was the best human being I knew. Emma. I’d adopted her with my wife when she was one year old because no one wanted her. She’d had brain surgery at just six weeks old – otherwise her head would have grown to the size of a watermelon – and when she looked up at me in that orphanage, her red hair shining in the bright Nashville sun, I’d fallen madly in love.

“We’ll take her,” I’d said.

Anna had slapped my arm. “She’s not a couch, Milton, she’s a person. There are rules here.”

“Rules schmules. How much is she?”
And so I’d bargained for my daughter, who was the best purchase I ever made. The fact that I had given her a roof over her head, and now she was giving me one over mine seemed cyclical and very ironic.

I’d adopted Emma when I was twenty. The majority of my life had been filled with women. When Anna died five years ago, I’d let things fall apart. I had no desire to cook or clean. I collected things because I no longer collected memories. My house resembled a bookstore that had been attacked by a tornado.

Now, standing in front of my daughter’s door, I fidgeted with my suitcase. I missed my books, my dishes collected over the years, my twenty-five pairs of khakis hanging according to their various hues in my closet. Emma was hiring movers to sell the rest of my belongings and store some of the possessions I just couldn’t bear to part with in a storage unit across town. I loved her for taking care of these things, for getting my house in some sort of working order to sell. I had made what was once a happy home sad and depressing. If anyone could give it life again, it was her.

Like This

2011-11-09T17:25:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone. How about a dose of contemporary YA flash fiction on this Wednesday afternoon? The author, Valerie Kemp, is an award-winning independent filmmaker turned YA writer, and she's sharing with us a piece about the perfect, the imperfect, and oblivious boys. After checking out Like This, head to Valerie's blog where she writes collaborative short stories.

Like This
By Valerie Kemp

It is like this.

The boy walks by in that way the cute ones have. You know, half-loping, half-strutting. Head high, eyes all around. Not sure if they’re the watcher or the watched, but not really concerned. Either one must be good, because life is good.

His life, anyway.

And she sits, breath half-held, half-swallowed. Frozen in that state of “casual” – the one that always looks forced. Cursing herself for being so obvious. Cursing him for not noticing.

Why are they all so oblivious? She wonders, absently striking a pose of disheartened fury. If there is such a thing. She probably just invented it now – her awkwardness always creating something unheard of. She is beautiful that way, but doesn’t know it. A blessing and a curse, or maybe just the way it has to be.

He smiles, crooked teeth and all. So imperfect he cannot be improved upon. It is unfair she thinks, that two odds make an even, and two evens make an even, but the odd that is her is made up of incomplete parts. She is all halves and quarters – unfinished despite so many pieces. Too many to figure out what’s missing.

No, she thinks and boldly points at him inside her mind. He’s missing.

As if he felt her imaginary finger, he turns. Eyes that seem to know so much more about life than she ever will scan the room, pausing with effect on hers for the briefest of moments, but a moment, still.

An old love song she learned in Spanish class, “Contigo En La Distancia” floats through her mind and she thinks (always thinking) yes. That’s it. Someday, somewhere, they will come together. The imperfect perfect and the just imperfect. He will fill her empty spaces. Put her together like the jigsaw puzzle she believes she is.

Yes, she thinks again, and remembers to breathe. The gasp rises from her sharply, pushing its way to the ceiling. The place where dreams sit waiting. Where, if you can reach, you can pluck them down and turn them into a tangible thing.

She watches the flawed boy continue on his way. The blandest of scenery in the journey that is his life. He tilts his head back, staring into the dreamspace with a faraway look, and all at once she understands. She knows what she must do to make her dream reality. For the first time in an eternity, she smiles even though no one is watching.

It’s simple (she thinks, and feels her heart flutter).

She must learn to fly.

The Basement

2011-11-02T13:28:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone. If you need a quick break today, I hope you enjoy this quick bit of flash fiction by Michael Zambotti. Michael is a writer living in New Jersey who despite a background in finance has decided to make a serious go at writing. His flash fiction piece, The Basement, was inspired by a child's birthday party, to which he was "dragged." Enjoy!

The Basement
By Michael Zambotti

The car was gone from the driveway, no telling when it would come back. I'd better make this quick. I leaned my bike against a tree and surveyed the overgrown backyard once more before hopping the chain-link fence. I found a path between the weeds and put my hand on a rusty barrel to keep steady. An unoccupied raccoon trap was off to my left. The thick, summer air smelled of wet dogs and dandelions. Crickets and my heart beat were the only sound. An ancient birdbath had tipped over and now served as home to a beehive. The path pulled me to the house. I was certain no one was inside, although I tried not to make a noise. Quiet as a mouse peeing on cotton, as my dad would put it. The brass doorknob was cold under my hand. It turned. Success!

Adrenaline surged. I felt pricklies all over my arms like when I reach into the pine tree to get the wiffle ball back. This was it. Twelve years old and I was going to be a hero! I was going to discover the trove of bodies in Old Man Smith's Den of Horrors. Jimmy and I had snuck out a few nights ago-- we were supposed to be camping in his backyard-- and saw the lights and heard the scraping, grinding noises coming from the basement. We had planned this entire operation together, but at the last minute Jimmy had to go out of town to see his relatives. I was scared, but secretly glad he wasn't there. I wanted to be the hero, all by myself. I'd be sure to mention Jimmy to the reporter, though. I'd already gone over what I'd say in the interview several times. I turned my “Rick's Drugstore Red Sox” ball cap backward for good luck and pressed forward.

The house wasn't nearly as messy as I'd pictured it in my mind. The kitchen smelled of flowers. As I progressed down the carpeted hallway, I noticed a light coming from under a door and heard a grinding noise. I opened the door and peered down the wooden stairs. The grinding got louder and the air held a hint of smoke. Was he down there? Would I catch him in the act? Too excited to turn back now, I double-checked my camera and put an unsteady foot on the top step. No noise. I lowered myself onto the second step. Quiet. Yes! The third and fourth step were silent. When I hit the fifth step my heart sank. A loud, obnoxious squeak sounded and a graveled voice said, “Who's there?” I froze. A weathered face covered by a worn engineer's hat poked through the door frame. Should I scream? Run? What should I do?

“WHO'S THERE?”

“Come down here, I want to show you something.”

He lunged toward me and took me by the arm. The jig was up. The grinding noise was even louder. Red lights periodically flashed from the other room. I wished Jimmy was here.

My throat was frozen and my fingers felt icy. I followed the man sure to be his next victim. I turned left and entered the large room and saw it. Stretched out in front of me was the largest train set I had ever seen. It was an exact replica of our town.

“I've been working on this for months.” Smiled the man. “What do you think?”

“Uh, um, it's a..... killer layout, sir”

Happy NaNoWriMo Day!

2011-11-01T10:58:00.002-04:00

It's Opening Day of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and it's a day that usually fills agents with dread. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write an entire novel in a month. It's basically a month-long cram session, only there is no final exam. The reason agents get antsy about it is because once November is over, December queries pile up with hastily written novels from hundreds of eager writers. And right in the middle of the holiday season when we're all trying to clean out our inboxes, no less!

Personally, I think NaNoWriMo is great. It's completely unnecessary and necessary at the same time. In my head, it's no different than holidays like Valentine's Day or Thanksgiving. Sure, we should always show the person we love that we appreciate them and yes, we should always be thankful for what we have. And how many of us have used "but it's my birthday!" to have an excuse to do something out of character or take an expensive trip or just get all of your friends in one place when life interrupts other plans?

Just like writers should always be working on their next novel, sometimes we need something like NaNoWriMo to get us to just sit down and write. It's easy to take time for granted (it is infinite, after all), so creating days to specifically set aside for what we should be doing year-round is a good way to make sure nothing else can get in the way.

To have a successful NaNoWriMo, remember these things:

1) Take it seriously. This is your excuse to finally finish that novel you've been "meaning to get to." Don't waste it. Set a word count goal for each day, and don't go to sleep until you reach that goal.
2) Don't expect what you write to be brilliant. See above. As long as you reach your goal, then you're golden. Don't worry about plot holes, character continuity, or whether the prose is even pleasing to read. Just write.
3) Push yourself to go further. One of the goals of NaNoWriMo is to have a "50,000 word novel by the end of the month." That is not a long novel. If you're writing a YA or adult novel, you'll need to add 10K-30K to that amount. Don't do the bare minimum just to reach the goal of the project. Reach your own goal.
4) Be smart with revisions. You just ran a marathon. Rest before you start over again. Try not to even think about whatever it is you just wrote in November (you were probably blacked out half the time anyway). Sometime in the first two weeks of December, read it from start to finish and see which parts need revising. Try not to do more than simple copy-editing while reading it over. Then once you get a feel for the entire scope of the novel, take another month, or longer, to go into heavier revisions.
5) Have a life. Eat, sleep, go out, play with your kids, be a normal functioning human. As we already established, the Great American Novel will not be ready by December 1st. NaNoWriMo is just your way of getting it all down on paper. So enjoy your life and don't let it consume you.

And finally, Be Smart About Querying. This is a race to get your novel written, not a race to get it published. Treat it the way you would anything else you've written. Research which agents would like your genre, what their guidelines are, and which agents are open to submission (remember holidays seasons and even early January are typical "closed to queries" months for many agents).

Are any of my readers participating in NaNoWriMo this month? What are your plans for reaching your goals?

Happy writing, everyone!

A Touch of Madness

2011-10-26T21:30:00.001-04:00

Manette Eaton is sharing an excerpt from her sci-fi novel, A Touch of Madness about a group of politicians' heirs who uncover a plot to create the perfect weapon by experimenting on living creatures.

Manette first appeared on Glass Cases back in June with a sci-fi short story, Thief of Souls. She is a senior in college in South Dakota, preparing for a move east to Pennsylvania after she graduates.

A Touch of Madness

By Manette Eaton

After a couple hours, Gliane got out of bed and turned on the light. She still needed something to put in Ivefrid’s capsule and had no idea what to send with him. If she had been allowed back to Zup she’d have been able to come up with something.

Gliane tried to think of all the things they did together when they were kids. She wanted desperately to give him something, let him know how sorry she was. There was nothing though.

She froze. There was nothing in her room.

Gliane hurried down to the basement and boarded the Manlin. She didn’t turn it on because she didn’t want it asking if she was okay again. Anyway, they’d talk soon. She’d have to go back to Zup eventually since she was no longer welcome on District One.

She did turn on a light though and jumped into the cargo hold. There were boxes of things Gliane had collected while traveling with her father and a few things Ivefrid had sent her from Treya. Those she was keeping. There was something very specific that Gliane was looking for. She was sure that it was here. It had been a special thing from a very special day. She had gotten in the habit a while ago of keeping the things that meant the most to her on the Manlin. It would make escape easier if the opportunity ever came up.

Finally, she found it. A feather from the wild lakrin she and Ivefrid caught when they were children. Ivefrid had taken one as a souvenir too but she didn’t know what had happened to his.

Gliane put the panel back over the cargo hold and turned out the lights then went back to her room. The feather was still in great condition. Gliane had taken it out a few times over the years to check on it before finally figuring out how to preserve it properly. That day catching the lakrin had been one of the few when she and Ivefrid had worked together on something and didn’t tell on each other. They had stuck together the way siblings were supposed to.

She set the feather on her dresser. After a quick look at the clock, Gliane decided she might as well get ready. For this, she’d be able to go barefoot, but it was her brother’s funeral and she wanted to honor him in every way that she could think of. That was what they had done when her mother’s father had died. Gliane barely remembered that funeral though and Ivefrid hadn’t even been born yet. It was the only other funeral Gliane had been to and she hadn’t known the man very well either. He had been sick in his last years so Gliane was kept away.

In the closet Gliane pulled out a white vest with silver thread and trimmings. She put it on then looked for the matching skirt. There should be one in there but Gliane was having trouble finding it. Her mother had sent too many clothes the first time. It always annoyed Gliane how her mother was always thinking about every possible outcome and planning for them all.

Gliane doubted that this had been one of the outcomes she considered when packing Gliane’s things and sending them to District One.

After moving completely into the closet, Gliane finally found the skirt she was looking for. White with silver trim, just like the vest. She put it on then examined herself in the mirror. That would work. She took her hair down and brushed it out. It would stay down for this.

After checking the clock again, Gliane took the feather and left her room. She walked down the hall and stopped in front of one of the doors near the end and knocked.

It took a little while before Drelee opened the door. She looked mildly surprised to see Gliane and said, “Are you alright?”

Gliane shook her head so slightly the motion was almost imperceptible. “Will you stay with me?” She asked.

“Of course,” Drelee said. “Why don’t you come in? I’m almost done getting ready then we’ll head out together.”

Gliane went in and stood uncomfortably near the door while Drelee went to her own closet and pulled out a vest and skirt. Hers were a very dark blue but also had silver trim. But Drelee hadn’t lost a relative, she wouldn’t wear white.

When Drelee finished with her own preparations, she squeezed Gliane’s hand and asked softly, “Are you ready?”

Gliane nodded and they went back into the hall.

Gliane couldn’t remember District One ever being this quiet. Even in the middle of the night, there was always something that needed to be done. No one ever stopped working.

Except tonight. In respect to the families who would be launching their dead, everything had ceased to happen in District One.

Only the families of those who died- the Representatives and the remaining Successors- would attend the funerals. It was better that way to keep things quiet. The last thing the mourners wanted to deal with were a lot of citizens telling them how sorry they were for their losses.

Gliane almost wished she didn’t have to attend. She was so ashamed of what she had done to her brother. True, he had asked her and he had been in so much pain, but if it hadn’t been for her, he would have been left alone. Even Dr. Reptid had said so. The only reason he kidnapped Ivefrid was to manipulate Gliane and she fell right into his trap. She had tried to go against what he wanted but he was a master manipulator. All he needed was for her to be angry enough and lash out at the first guard who touched her.

Many of the attendees were already waiting outside and the rest were just arriving like Gliane and Drelee. Drelee squeezed Gliane’s hand and didn’t let go. They stood on the opposite side of Gliane’s parents.

Four egg shaped capsules lay side by side. They were all open but empty. The four bodies lay beside them in white shrouds that covered everything but their faces. All had been successfully preserved to wait for this day.

Yarid stepped forward first with his wife and lifted Jiden into one of the capsules. They lay their gifts in beside him. Gliane flinched when the door shut and locked.

Next, Mishna and her husband put Ifren into his capsule. Both were sobbing openly, their last child being sent into the sky.

Gliane gripped Drelee’s hand tighter. Another hand lightly touched her back and when Gliane looked around, she saw Miztru. He looked at her sadly then nodded at her parents who had already stepped forward.

Gliane took a deep breath and crossed the empty expanse of soft grass to where her brother’s capsule lay. Her father lifted Ivefrid’s body into the capsule. Gliane stood back while her parents left their gifts. Her mother never turned around. It was unclear if she even knew Gliane was there. Last, Gliane approached the capsule, twisting the feather nervously. She crouched next to the capsule and put it beside her brother. Her mother must have brought some things from home because some of Ivefrid’s charts and equipment lay beside him too. Gliane brushed the tears away, kissed Ivefrid’s cold forehead, and closed the capsule. The door clicked shut and a slight echo vibrated in the air as she locked it. Gliane couldn’t bring herself to turn around when she heard the sobs behind her. Somehow, Gliane got back to her place beside Drelee and Miztru who hugged her tightly.

Xide put Bera into the final capsule. Gliane listened to the last click of the lock. He stepped back into the crowd again.

Jiden’s family stepped forward again and picked up his capsule. They set it on a sturdy stand and set it to launch then stepped back again. The capsule glowed red and shot into the sky. All eyes were on it as it flew toward the stars and exploded. Sparks of red and orange splashed against the sky.

Ifren’s family went next. They clutched each other tightly as their capsule exploded. Gliane wondered where all the little sparks and pieces ended up.

When Gliane’s parents advanced again, she moved forward. Her father looked at her and waved her back. She was too shocked to do anything but obey.