Well,
it seems that the end of my live stories (for now) has come at the
right time. I posted Midnight at the Bowling Alley a week or two back,
and since then, I’ve struggled to get views for it. I was hoping to
retire my live writing with more of a bang, but it is what it is. I’ll
continue to market it as usual, but I suppose the target number of views
before I take all the stories offline will have to be lowered, lest I
wait forever.
Granted,
this new story contains some disturbing elements, but the ones
mentioned in the trigger warning (which I am obligated by human decency
to include in the description, for those of us who find such
descriptions to be triggering, hence the phrase) are brief. What’s more
disturbing than those elements, though, are the actual elements of the
story. This is my first story to deal directly with the idea of an
afterlife, and some of the actual imagery in the story is completely
surreal.
Oscar,
having been dragged along to his partner’s mother’s bizarre late-night
birthday party at a bowling alley, finds that he may never be able to
leave. That’s the no-spoiler version of the summary. Anything beyond
that would ruin it for you. You should read it.
In
the meantime, let’s have a look back at my short gig as a live fiction
author (live poetry is another thing altogether; whole other blog) and
see what each piece represents. The titles will be presented with the
view numbers, as of right this second from my end.
This will not be funny, so you can pull the funny stick right out of your ass X____x
This
story was the first short story that I wrote for the series. It’s the
story of Josh, the narrator, spending the day in the park with his
mother, who has just been diagnosed with cancer. The entire storyline
revolves around their shared memories of a particular tree at this park
and how it relates to Josh’s childhood, but the underlying themes are
loneliness, disease, and the uncertainty of life itself. I wrote this
story for English 111 originally, and my professor ran copies of it and
distributed it to the class after this particular assignment was graded
to “show them how it ought to have been done.” Quite embarrassing, but
it was also a nice rush. The assignment was to select a picture from a
set of pictures she gave us and write a story about it. I picked a
lonely, dead tree next to a river.
Thus
began my very long obsession with marketing and being an annoyance. I
know you all love my frequent links to my stories, so shut up.
This
story was the second story that I wrote for the series. It’s the story
of Carol, who avoids bill collectors by never answering any of her
phones. The story revolves around her musing that any one of the
constant calls that keep coming in might be her mother. At the end, a
message left on her answering machine suggests that something malicious
might be at work. This story is not inherently a bad story, but it is,
to this day, my biggest let-down. I was overconfident from the reaction
that A Tree In The Park got from both readers and college faculty alike,
and I wrote this as another assignment in English 111, completely
confident that I had rewritten “The Lottery” for my generation this time. I shat odorless
feces.
While
it was still referred to by my professor as well done, she didn’t have
the same kind of enthusiasm for it that she had had for the previous
piece. Readers confirmed for me that this story was somehow inferior,
and I attempted no less than 65 times to rewrite it into something
better. Ultimately, the issue lies with the opening paragraph. It will
need to be fixed before this goes into print.
This
was my third story for the series, posted quickly after It Might Be My
Mother. The story concerns Drew, who has just graduated from high
school. He learns a very difficult lesson about friendship, betrayal,
and reality. This story was the first to wear a trigger warning, as it
contained a rape scene and blatantly addressed the issues of homophobia
and trust between gay and straight male friends.This story was, for lack
of a less cheesy way of putting it, wildly successful. I received
messages from people who related to the main character, and my
readership numbers reached levels I was unaccustomed to. In fact, it was
so successful that it caused me to go on hiatus from live writing for a
few months because of the pressure to top it. Once in awhile, I’ll
still see a view of it pop up here and there.
Everyone
likes a good rape scene, as it turns out. Just pull some painful event
out of your past, decorate it with some surreal elements, and put a
trigger warning on it. People like to watch other people in pain,
because they’re sick fucks.
This
was my first story in months following Spin The Bottle. I almost didn’t
post it, because I was afraid that the ending was overwrought and too
dramatic. It was the first story in my catalogue to question the
existence of a god. I wanted to leave the answer ambiguous, because
fiction is hardly the place for personal beliefs to overwhelm character
development. I am not Ayn Rand, after all. The story concerns Henry, who
was born on a space station. He’s lived there all of his life, as has
his partner, George. Henry wants to know what’s waiting in the starry
void outside the flat they share and their minimum wage service jobs in
the bowels of the space station, but Henry has no such curiosity.
This
story’s success was such a pleasant surprise after being scared to post
it. It continues to be a favorite among my readers, returning at least a
few views every week, even now. After this story, though, there was
even more pressure to perform. I nearly shit my pantaloons when I saw
the views jump to 40 in the first 24 hours.
This
story was doomed from the start. It was posted only 13 days after The
Dead Astronauts, and was not nearly as successful. This was my second
story to wear a trigger warning due to the portrayal of emotional abuse.
It was the first story in which the narrator not only spoke in first
person present tense, which is common in my work, but spoke as though
having a conversation with the abusive partner, who is omnipresent. The
story concerns Todd, who has just gotten out of an emotionally abusive
relationship. His ex is still using him for sex, and he avoids thinking
of the damage the situation is doing to him by planning a fictional life
revolving around an abandoned house with his straight friend Mark. By
all accounts, this story should have been written better, and will
likely undergo a rewrite or two before being put into print, but it was
not as disappointing for me as It Might Be My Mother. The biggest issue,
I thought at the time, was the sub-par cover art, which was then
revised twice, to no avail. The views simply did not come as easily as
they did for The Dead Astronauts and Spin The Bottle.
I
remember actually saying to myself after posting this story: “Damn it,
that’s the end of the whole thing. It’s all downhill now.” I subsisted
on Little Caesars and broken dreams for the next month.
About
a month after We All Come Home Eventually, I posted Our Lives In Ruin.
This was my first attempt at horror, and it was surprisingly successful
in that aspect. The story is about Joey, who lives with his alcoholic
mother (who has a strange habit of packing up the entire living room
into boxes after a night of drinking) in a truck stop town. He meets a
dark, charming stranger one night, and suddenly life is bearable, maybe
even pleasant. But is this new friend just another way for Joey to hurt
himself?
I
posted this story all over the place, like feces. I smashed it into
communities until I was banned and read it aloud to unwilling victims.
I’m sure everyone loved me by the end of it.
This
story got most of its views, I’m sure, from my constant advertising of
it as a vampire story. And that’s not exactly a lie. The character of
Franklin (the stranger) is indeed a creature of the night, but he’s a
little more complex than the average fictional vampire. He represents
the sum of all human hope and fear in a single, understated (and
regrettably unexplored) character. I had planned for this story to be
longer, but at 16 pages, it still stands as my longest short story to
date. I plan to expand it into what it was meant to be before it goes
into print, as it’s been suggested that the ending is sudden and
unexpected, and not in a pleasant way. Still, the views continue to come
in for this one as well.
One
thing I can say with some confidence is that Franklin is not Edward
Cullen. Stephanie Meyer fans beware. Actual vampires are contained
within this story, and they are not sad emo heaps of perfection.
This
was my second attempt at horror, and was written originally for English
112 as a metafiction piece, which is a reworking of another story. I
chose to work from Little Red Riding Hood, inspired by Angela Carter’s
Company Of Wolves. The story is about David Hood, who goes to visit his
grandma in a retirement community in Indiana. He meets Peter Wolfe, a
staff member, at a diner down the road from the complex. When he arrives
at the condo, he realizes that his grandma has been eaten by a wild
animal, and when Peter shows up to help, David notices that his
fingernails are stained red. The final scenes are some of the most
surreal that I personally have ever committed to writing, and I
attribute the success of this story to those scenes, among other things.
I
marketed this story relentlessly, too. Whatever channels had not yet
slammed on my forehead were utilized, effectively piping the words of
this story into the ears of everyone who would listen, much like polka
music to the residents of downtown Berne, Indiana. MAKE IT STOP @_@
This
is my third attempt at horror. I’ve already described the storyline (go
back to the top, poopmouth), and it has all the makings of a grand
story. Granted, I just posted this a couple weeks ago, but I’m already
slotting it with It Might Be My Mother and We All Come Home Eventually. I
can’t quite determine just yet what needs to be fixed with it, but I
have really struggled to get views for this story. I think part of it
was that it has taken me months to actually post it, and when I did it,
I’m sure it was old news. The Dirty Red Fingernails had 34 views the
first day. Maybe I’m just bitching. But that leads me to my next item...
A New Story: 0 views because it’s not confirmed or posted yet.
Yes,
I may write one last live story if Midnight At The Bowling Alley
continues to disappoint me. I am determined to retire from live writing
on a positive note. I have several ideas I’m working on, but the most
prominent is based on the ever-popular ghost hitchhiker tale that people
have passed down for centuries. I may throw in an element of love
surviving after death, maybe another story dealing with the idea of the
afterlife. I haven’t quite put it all together yet. I’m sure the cover
art and title will be done long before the story, as is my tradition.
And now, the biggest item in my catalogue...
Holy
shit, people. This novel was what started it all. I have had so many
people reach out to me after reading this poorly written, grammatically
incorrect pile of nonsense to tell me that it made them cry, or made
them realize they weren’t alone. I had no idea anyone was actually
reading it at first, and even throughout posting it chapter by chapter, I
still didn’t fully get just how many people were reading it. I am very
proud of this novel, though it definitely needs a few rewrites before it
goes into print.
So
there you have it. A blog that is singularly the most boring piece of
shit I have ever written, about other pieces of shit I’ve written. I bet
you’re glad you stayed to the end. Congratulations. There is no pot of
gold at the end of this rainbow, only a sandpaper butt plug. I warned
you.
:D SIT DOWN.