On a coolish autumn night in New York's Lower East Side...

A reading. In front of an audience--that, let it be said, contained only two friends of mine. Only two people I knew from before that night. Everyone else--and it was a pretty solid crowd--was a stranger or had been until an hour or so earlier.

The crowd.

A whole month off...

Where did May go?
(Image credit)

May flew by and--not a single post. Oops.

Yes, the A-to-Z took a lot out of me this year. Never again with more than one blog, never again in the middle of another project...

'S a matter of fact, maybe never again. Or maybe just not next year. It would be nice to just spectate for once. Get to visit blogs instead of stressing over my own posts or about not keeping up with the lovely comments y'all leave here. Which I love, and which I'll miss...

Well. We'll see. I love being a part of the A-to-Z, but I feel I miss out a lot. Yes, pre-writing is the key. (Why the hell is it so hard to follow one's own advice?) If I'm able to get at least half the post prewritten by January, when the sign-up list opens, maybe--maybe--I'll consider having another go. Right now I'm simply too exhausted to consider it.

What's been happening here over the last 30 days? Well, my laptop broke down mid-March. (The fact I did the A-to-Z on a borrowed computer might've contributed to the aforementioned exhaustion.) No, it's not fixed yet. It's a 2007 MacBook, and one of the fans is shot--but Apple doesn't manufacture it anymore, which means the pseudo Apple store here can't order it. They told me it's available on eBay or similars, but they've failed to give me (in spite of numerous calls to remind them) the specifications on what, exactly, I need to order.

Perhaps a new laptop is the solution. Sadly, seeing as I'm a starving artist (ahem) with a copious family of dogs who cannot starve, that solution isn't much of a solution at all.

Then the washing machine broke down. And then my car broke down.

This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.

I'm done whining, though. I have this awesome borrowed laptop (borrowed from an even awesomer person--thank you, Cor!) to keep me connected to the world and--most importantly--to keep writing. The washing machine couldn't be fixed, so said Awesomer Person bought a new, supersonic and super quiet, one (thank you, Cor!)--and, as an added brushstroke of the Universe's goodwill, the delivery guys even took the old one away. And my car has been fixed. It was expensive, and it's not perfect (yet), but it drives. (Thank you again, Cor!)

It's possible the dogs might've missed the car more than I did. Which is saying a lot.

Awkword Paper Cut

Another marvelous thing that happened in May: I was featured all month on Awkword Paper Cut, in the Writers on Writing section, along with two other (pretty fantastic) writers to talk about Mexico and why we writers must (sometimes) leave our countries to find our writing. Awkword Paper Cut is a beautiful literary journal, and the Writers on Writing pieces provide powerful inspiration--as well as much-needed diversification--every month. Bookmark them, visit often, and enjoy.

2014 A Year In Stories
A 12-vol anthology
published by Pure Slush Books

And then there's the Pure Slush 2014 A Year In Stories project. Yesterday was the deadline to deliver all 12 stories in our cycles. I've delivered 9, have #10 in an almost-workable draft.

(Today, by the way, my June story is happening. Want to read it? You can, for free. It's part of the Amazon preview for the book. Just click on the Look Inside link and... enjoy. If you do like it, please remember I'm the ugly duckling among these swans of writers. Their stories are so worth your time. And money.)

As of last count, there's 315 stories (out of 365) delivered and approved for print. The July volume is now out, too, and volumes January through May have a 20% discount on Lulu.com.

Aaaaaaand... The fantastic Susan Tepper, another of the magnificent 2014 authors, has snagged a reading date for the project at the KGB Bar in New York's East Village. Talk about illustrious venues! We'll be there on Wednesday November 5th--so if you're in the NYC area, it would be a super treat if you stopped by.


All right. You're all caught up. Now it's my turn to catch up with you.

#atozchallenge: Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, or Union Square?

Uganda

Exotic (to a Westerner like me), alien, hard to get to. A challenge.

Ukraine 

The seat of current conflict, a long and bloody history; the sort of place a wanna-be journalist might dream of visiting.

Uruguay

New Zealand in South America. A quasi-mythical place or a tax haven (depending on how you found out of its existence). 

Union Square

Familiar and safe, even to those who've never been to San Francisco (or even the U.S.).

So. Which of these places would your 2014 character most likely be found?

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Uruguay! Because it is the hardest to say. Trudy would probably end up on a cattle farm that's going broke so she has to supplement her income with rodeo shows--but in pidgin Spanish.

Or something like that.

Sally-Anne Macomber

Union Square.
Mandy Nicol

Luis Villalobos thinks he'd choose Uganda. In truth, and given his career in international tax, chances are small he'd be anywhere but Union Square. Or Uruguay. But highly unlikely he'd cross paths with Trudy in her failing farm; he'd stick to the financial center in Montevideo.

Guilie Castillo

Under fences, bushes, shrubs--wherever Pedersen can watch but not be seen.
Susan Tepper

Sally-Anne, Mandy, and Guilie: Eww!
Susan: Yes, well. He's a creep.

And you? Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, or Union Square? 

~ * ~ 

Thanks for the visit, and happy last full week of A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Quandary

Nothing like a difficult situation to reveal character in fiction (and in real life). A really really difficult situation.

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Q: Your character is trapped in a dark alley late at night with three men that don't seem to have honorable intentions. What does s/he do? Fight? Flight? Panic and go into hysterics? Sprout a pair of wings and fly away? 

(No, don't laugh--there's a 2014 character that flies. Sans wings, even.)

STEPHEN V. RAMEY: "As my story cycle opens, Stephen would be nonchalant about such an encounter. He has no money, nothing much of worth, and yet he's not going to let these men intimidate him into giving up what little he does have. He might try to reason. Failing that he would defend himself if necessary, even if it meant a beat down. Once the cancer diagnosis is in, he might actually confront these men, and egg them on. On some level he's looking for a way to prove (to whom?) that he deserves to survive. He's trying to turn his life into a story, with purpose and a resolution."

(More on Stephen's 2014 stories.)

SUSAN TEPPER: "What would Pedersen do? He would probably piss his pants. He is mistrustful of grown men. His father beat the crap out of him. In Bellevue, he came out of shock therapy to an orderly fondling his genitals. He likes the small boys so he can always be in control."

(More on Susan's 2014 stories.)

MANDY NICOL: "As long as Nadia has her sensible shoes on, she’ll make a run for it."

(More on Mandy's 2014 stories.)

GUILIE: Luis Villalobos would probably try to talk his way out of it. (He's a lawyer.) He'd be too busy evaluating possible escape routes, gauging the attackers' level of distraction, keeping his facial expressions in check, to feel fear. But once it was over, assuming he got away safe and sound, he'd probably curl up somewhere where no one could see or hear him and bawl his eyes out.

(More on my 2014 stories? An interview and an audio version of the first story.)

~ * ~

What would your character do? What about favorite characters--say, Atticus Finch, or Odysseus? Walter White? Florentino Ariza (from Love In The Time of Cholera)? Oh, and his beloved Fermina Daza? Of the two, I'm pretty sure she'd be the kick-ass. 

And you? What would you do? What does that say about you?

~ * ~

Thank you for visiting on this beautiful April Saturday, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Morgana Malone and The Mysteries of Matt Potter's Masterpiece(s)

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Today you're in for a special treat. Susan Tepper, who's not just one of the 31 2014ers but has also published five books of poetry and fiction, including The Merrill Diaries (Pure Slush Books, 2013) and the Pulitzer-nominated What May Have Been (Cervena Barva Press, 2010), is interviewing Matt Potter--editor extraordinaire, brilliant author, mastermind of ground-breaking projects, the reason all of us 2014ers are here to begin with--about his story cycle in 2014: A Year In Stories.

Susan Tepper

Susan Tepper: Your January 2014 story, Morgana Malone and the Case of the Mysterious Flood (has a Nancy Drew ring to it, doesn't it?) introduces the theme of water. In general, do you enjoy partaking in the rituals of water: the bath, oceans, lakes, the 8 oz bottle?

Matt Potter: I deliberately chose a title like that... I would never read stories like that (never did as a kid either: I thought they were silly, even then!) but I did want a Trixie Belden / Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew-sounding title for Morgana Malone...

ST: Sort of every girl’s dream. I wanted to be Nancy Drew, and I sort of still do.

[GUILIE: Me too!]

MP: Actually, there was a series of books published from 1941 to 1947 by the Whitman Publishing Company, and this is a quote from Wikipedia so I don’t know what the original source is, so I assume the publisher itself, but the books feature plots where “the heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person.”

I always thought this was hilarious and all their titles were similar: Ann Rutherford and the Key to Nightmare Hall (1942), Betty Grable and the House with the Iron Shutters (1943), Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume (1945), etc etc. 

All my stories in 2014 have (or will have) titles like that: Morgana Malone and the Miracle of St. Francis Xavier, Morgana Malone and the Mystery of the Manna from Heaven, Morgana Malone and the Mystery of the Family Trust. All are humorous references to the action in their stories.

ST: My, but you can digress.. the water???

MP: Ah, yes. Well, I always have a shower and never a bath, and it has to be quite hot (not just warm) for me to go swimming. But it’s the ocean or sea for me (I loathe swimming in lakes and rivers) and there must be sand at the bottom: no mud or stones or moss or squelch. Yuk! We are spoiled with beaches in Australia. Sand sand sand and nothing else! My favourite drinks are sauvignon blanc, beer on a really hot day, and most often water, plain water.

Matt Potter
Author, Editor, All-Around Great Human

ST: Your answer, "We are spoiled with beaches in Australia..." was the defining moment in your psyche, I believe, for what opens the Morgan stories saga: water... ever present... and water is biblical. You have created Morgana as a TRIPLE THREAT: brains, beauty and inquisitive nature. BUT!!!— you added vulnerability. I'm quite interested to see more of why her ex-husband has 'his hold' over her still. He was her psychiatrist, which adds an extra layer of psychological intrigue to the saga of Morgana Malone.

MP: I would say rather than biblical, water is natal. In a geographic context, Australia is a country and a continent and an island, we are surrounded by water and if we have to go anywhere outside Australia we have to go over the water. For Australians international is overseas. (As it is with most of the 7 countries where English is the main European language. But here more so.) 

The beach was part of my childhood – summer holidays at the beach, one or two weeks just before the school year started, and for us kids it was quite idyllic, though I am unsure if I thought quite the same at the time – and we had older relatives (now dead) who lived one street from the beach and we would visit them often – but it’s not really part of my life now … though we do holiday on the coast towards the end of summer, beginning of autumn, for one week every year. (And there’s some incredible statistic about 90% of Australians living within 100km of the beach or something like that. See, all that Outback nonsense is just that, mostly a myth.)

ST: OK, natal. It is your story.

MP: Actually, what opens the first story and thus the saga is art. But both water and art are emotional, no? Art features much more in my life on a conscious level. (The look of things is very important to me. BUT, something looking good is not enough, there MUST be meaning beyond the surface, otherwise there is no point, then it’s just marketing and Life according to Barbie™.) 

Bad psychiatrists and bad therapists feature quite often in my stories. I had a counsellor once who was wonderful and helped me a lot – the only time I ever sought such help – but I’ve always been a talker and a thinker and an analyser and people who are blind to their own faults and issues are (1) very funny for me but also, in real life (2) damned annoying. Perhaps it is no coincidence in my day job I am surrounded by counsellors, their offices are all around mine. (I actually quite like that environment, though the political correctness can be frustrating.) But counselling is about getting to the emotional truth and learning and discovering ways to cope with life and relationships and feelings. Most of the characters I write about are heavily flawed so of course, some kind of help is needed!

ST: So why does Morgana put up with her ex?

MP: Grigor? Well, clearly she doesn’t want to, but he is very persistent and plays on her weak spot, her passivity. She lets things happen. But Grigor is, basically, a shit, and very unethical. Morgana meets other people through the course of 2014 who are not great for her either. The trick for her is: how can I recognize these patterns and change them?

ST: Never easy.

MP: I think she recognizes the patterns but she hasn’t moved to the next step to changing her behavior. 

I don’t see Morgana as beautiful – she would not think of herself that way at all – or even brainy, but what she does is survive. She has street smarts in a lower middle class way. I am about to write a story with Morgana and her mother and it could be interesting, how her mother sees her. Grigor was Morgana’s psychiatrist because he used her as a guinea pig PLUS he needed the money. He was probably still her psychiatrist after their divorce too. See, he really is a shit. 

OK, you can stop me now …

Susan Tepper

sfloris@att.net

www.susantepper.com

~ * ~

Thank you, Susan and Matt, for the insight--and the chuckles. You make me laugh without even trying. And Matt, Morgana is a centerpiece creation.

Thank you all for visiting, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Jobs R Us

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Does your occupation define you? Or does who you are define your occupation?

I submit that, in a world that relies on stereotypes, jobs become a part of society's perception of us--accurate or not. And fiction's no different. The work that a character does becomes a cornerstone of the image we create of this person.

Am I right or am I right?

These are the jobs some of the 2014 characters have. Unconventional, borderline stardom, eccentric, mundane. What kind of person do you think they are? Share in the comments; I'd love to know.

MATT POTTER: Morgana Malone starts the series on her first day (Jan 25th) in a new volunteer position: guide in an art gallery. In February she's working as the Admin Junior in her ex-husband's therapy practice, 'up-managing' the Admin Senior, the ex-porn star Zebadie who is set to marry Morgana's ex-husband Grigor. (Zebadie can't use a computer for the patient billing while Morgana can.) Through the middle of the year she is unemployed and spending too much time on the internet. Then she takes a job delivering junk mail for 'Knights of the Polish Cross' sauvignon blanc. Later, under family pressure, she starts work in the family business, a bakery... and just what she is doing by the end, in December, who knows... But the last day will be Christmas Day so it may well involve food and Christmas cheer.

SUSAN TEPPER: Pedersen doesn't make a living, he collects checks from his stint at Desert Storm. They probably discharged him on mental disability.

MANDY NICOL: Nadia is a seamstress. She loves fabric and colour and fashion and creating with her hands. She's a very good seamstress. She works from home--great idea, hey? Be your own boss, work your own hours, no commute to deal with. Except she lives with her demanding and overbearing mother so she is slowly but very surely suffocating.

MICHAEL WEBB: Mark Hamilton is an American professional baseball player, specifically a short reliever. He is not a star, but is very well compensated, and has managed to earn a good living through his career. He is a somewhat fungible commodity, valuable, but not special, someone who gets the team out of a sticky late game situation, ideally preserving a lead so that the team's star reliever can come in and earn the save and the glory at the end. His team is never specifically named, but he and his family live in Arizona full time, since his oldest son is now in elementary school.

He is uncomfortable with the fame and money that comes with so simple a profession, but he has no other really marketable skills, so he is somewhat happy to keep doing it for as long as they wish to pay him to do so. He understands the necessity of the constant travel, but he misses his family, specifically his daughter, who he barely knows because he has been gone for so much of her life. He also knows well that the attrition rate for professional pitchers is very high, so he constantly fears a career ending injury that would force him to get a real job.

STEPHEN V. RAMEY: Stephen is a writer, which at this point means he picks up a few dollars with nonfiction and editing, but is mostly focused on his fiction. The first three novels were never finished, but he's working on one now that's going to put him on the map. Anne manages a museum and volunteers with a local nonprofit. Stephen resents that she has sold out her dream. Anne resents that Stephen has sold out their marriage: if he worked part time, at least, life would be much easier.

Jobs are relevant to the story cycle, in that they provide tension between Stephen and Anne and narrative complication. Writing credentials get Stephen into the tent city and allow him to repeatedly avoid dealing with real problems. Anne's volunteer work brings them into direct conflict in one chapter.

GUILIE CASTILLO: Luis Villalobos is a tax lawyer, and a damned good one. His father is a lawyer, too; so was his grandfather, and two of his uncles. He got his first legal dictionary when he was seven, and he carried it around in his bookbag. It made him feel safe: he belonged in his family, his future was clear.

For Luis, his profession is a means to an end, and that end is fame and fortune. Fortune, first; fame only in the right circles. His profession is membership to the ultimate club of exclusivity. Which is why he came so close to turning down the Curaçao offer. A backwater in the Caribbean after the greatest financial centers of the world? But there was the possibility--certainty, if one read between the lines--of taking over as Managing Director next year. And that was irresistible.

~ * ~ 

What image did you form for these characters? Did you change your mind about whether a job defines you?

Thanks for visiting, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Family & Fiends

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books.

Ah, family. The home of our souls.

Where no one judges us, where no one makes demands on us.

"Graduate college!" your parents tell you. "Go get a job and live your life!" Well, plonk, here I am. I've graduated college. I've got a job. What do you want me to do now, authority figures? Give me a map, because without all those demanding voices in my head, I'm a little bit lost.

Isa, by Rachel Ambrose (2014 January Vol. 1)

Going back home, his own tail between his legs. Begging for his old job back. Giving Pa the satisfaction of another I told you so. They say decisions are choices between consequences. Compared to Pa, Milena is a beast he can tame.

The Miracle of Small Things, by Guilie Castillo-Oriard (2014 January Vol. 1)

#atozchallenge: Anthology of an Anthology

This April it's all about the 2014: A Year In Stories project I'm participating in via Pure Slush Books. (You were warned here.)

What is the 2014: A Year In Stories project?

A twelve-volume anthology, a volume per month, throughout 2014. The writers involved were assigned a specific date of the month, and they each write a story every month that takes place on that date. Mine, for example, is the 1st; my stories take place on Jan 1, Feb 1, Mar 1...

Yep: today is April 1st. A story of mine is happening. Interested? You can read it in the April volume's Amazon sample. You can also read Stephen V. Ramey's review here. (He reviews the day's story every day, and has been doing so since January 1st. A round of applause for Stephen, please!)