Blood and Weirdness

Meg wrote me to tell me that she had very strange dreams last time she slept-- dreams including "blood *and* weirdness."

Last night I dreamed of shooting someone in the face with an old-fashioned pistol, the kind you have to pour powder into and ram a ball into and prime the pan and all that. The murder was a very involved process. So. Blood and weirdness. Kind of defines much of my writing, actually. Fortunately it doesn't describe my life.

I sold another story yesterday. "Werewolves and Princesses" to Chiaroscuro. If you've never checked this 'zine out, do so. They publish wonderful stuff, and their site design is dark and cool and lovely. The editor, Trish Macomber, says she loves this story and that I "totally nailed" the voice of a ten-year-old girl. That makes me very happy. She sent me some very reasonable line edits (though she noted that I needed "remarkably little" editing), and I accepted her changes and sent the story back to her this morning.

"Werewolves" was one of the stories that got me into Clarion. In fact, it's probably the story that got me into Clarion, since the other story I sent got pretty lukewarm responses from my instructors (and one went so far as to call it "a piece of shit" that I should stick in a drawer and forget about... and then went on to explain, quite reasonably and perceptively, why they thought so). I wrote "Werewolves" in late 1998... hell, let me look it up exactly (the benefit of keeping a meticulous paper journal)....

Got it. Wrote "Werewolves" on Saturday, October 3, 1998. Here's what I wrote about the experience of the writing directly afterward (with comments/explanations enclosed in brackets):

Started thinking about "Bar Talk: Dreams," one of my ugly little children [that is, a story that died a'borning]. I lost the central image with that, the man biting the fairy in half... it became second-hand, and failed. That image connected w/ an old high-school story about a girl named Brenda Lee (the two ideas weren't that disparate to begin with), and I thought of a short and nasty horror piece.

Then I started it. I wrote one phrase: "Werewolves and princesses." Images occurred. Scenes. Expansions and dynamics.

I got excited. It was direct communication of the "Lake Pirates" variety, a rare thing ["Lake Pirates" was the first story I ever wrote in that levitation-state, the writing fugue where the words seem to pass through you without any effort whatsoever; the wonderfully daemonic possession that happens sometimes].But back then I was a kid and I fucked it up. I’m nearly good enough now. [Heh. I'm always going to look back on "my-self-of-four-years-ago" as a dumb kid, I bet].

I wrote until 2 or 3 a.m., listening to Radiohead, guzzling water. "Werewolves and Princesses" emerged, and she's a pretty baby, if still a bit unformed here and there. She's definitely worth the effort of rearing.

It's been a long time since I've written something that made me feel so good. And if it has a sad ending, well, I think it's sad in a true way, and it's not as sad as it could have been.

I slept very well.

Did you enjoy that look into my scribbled and half-articulated other journal? Anyway, I think the point is clear-- "Werewolves" was a very important story to me, and after about a hundred revisions (including one I did after Clarion) and submissions to lots of places, it's coming out in January. I'll let you know when it appears. Please go read it when the time comes. Roll your eyes, or get annoyed with the ending, or write me and tell me it sucked... I don't care. Just read it.

Sometimes I get caught up in submitting and revising and all the minutiae, and I forget that, at bottom, I'm trying to communicate, to tell the stories that keep me awake at night, to move people with words as I have so often been moved. I was all excited yesterday about selling 3 stories in 2 days, that seemed like the most laudable accomplishment of my recent life... but I missed the point, I think. The laudable accomplishment was writing the stories in the first place, in as true and clear a fashion as possible, and in revising them and sending them out until they were good enough and lucky enough to appear in print... where other people can read them. That's the point. That's the good stuff.

Yesterday I wrote a little story, 1600 words, called "Plastic Scorpions." Meg gave me a glow-in-the-dark scorpion a couple of months ago, and for my birthday she sent me a red plastic one... so I decided to devote a little tale to them. I sent it off to Jackhammer. It's a nice enough story, I think. Maybe Raechel will want it.

Long entry, huh? Well, I'm nearabout done. I went out celebrating with D. and Scott last night. We played pool, I filled the jukebox with quarters and listened to Coolio and Stone Temple Pilots and Jane's Addiction and Counting Crows. I played a racing game with Scott, and talked trash as my car flipped over and burst into flames again and again. I had several Sierra Nevadas (each pint of Sierra Nevada being roughly equivalent to "one sheet to the wind"). Then we went to Saturn, and I smiled dizzily at a beautiful waitress I have a crush on. I was tipsy enough to speak to her (thanks to Scott buying me and D. a liter of mimosa), and would most likely have asked her out ("Hey, sometime when you're less exhausted and I'm more sober, would you like to go out?"), except she'd worked multiple shifts and was about to fall over on her feet. Being propositioned, even most politely (even gallantly) by a drunk, would have likely been too much for her exhausted mind to respond to gracefully. And in a more sober state I'm unlikely to be brave enough. It's always hard to tell if a waitress is being genuinely friendly or just being nice to get better tips... Ah, well... I had a lovely time, anyway. We talked about beating up Keanu Reeves, and how fun it would be if he came into the Saturn after his show at the Catalyst (the Saturn is just a couple blocks away from there). I described gleefully how I would approach him, gushing, and beg for his autograph. Then, after obtaining his signature, I would meticulously tear the autograph into little pieces and drop the Keanu-confetti on the floor at his feet, afterward returning wordlessly to my table...

Ah. Sweet fantasy. He didn't show up, though. Alas.

Today I haven't done much. Read Highland Laddie Gone by Sharyn McCrumb. She writes these lovely funny/mystery novels, set in the south (she lives in Virginia). The novel I read today concerned murder at the Highland Games, and had all sorts of sharp and compassionate observations about Highland Games, observations that can be applied equally well to the SCA and Civil War Reenactments and Renaissance Fairs (all of which are things I have a soft spot for).

Hmm. Enough of this, right? I'll talk at you tomorrow, probably.

(I'm pretty sure "talk at you" is a southernism, but it seems apropos... after all, y'all so rarely talk back...)