brianrayfiction.com Blog

One more review of my novel up on the web, for any curious folks out there. In other news, Gov Blago has just published a memoir, which some say reads like a frolic in the land of denial and myth-making. Most politicians don’t plan to spend much time on this act of literature. But prosecutors seem to think it’ll be useful for building a case against him. I also heard that the thin pages make for good toilet paper and/or kindling.

Here’s what the NY Times says about public response to the memoir:

Around this city last week, some Chicagoans, spotting the book cover, responded with weary eye rolls and complaints that Mr. Blagojevich, whose corruption scandal enveloped the state last winter, now seemed determined to gain wealth or more notoriety from his travails.

But we should be kind to Mr. B. He’s gone through some hard times, and his journey has approached true epic. Did you know that his story actually parallels that of many epic heroes, like Odysseus and Icarus – and also some tragic Shakespearean heroes like Hamlet, Lear, and Othello? Oh, and Macbeth? Neither did I, until I read a little about his book:

When Mr. Obama and Mr. Blagojevich first met, he wrote, they were seen as rising stars. “He’s now the president of the United States, like Zeus in Greek mythology, on top of Mount Olympus,” Mr. Blagojevich writes. “I’m Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. And I crashed to the ground.”

Obama as Zeus, I like that. So who would play Aries in this dramatization of American politics? I nominate Dick Cheney. No, wait. Too easy. How about General Petraus? Closer. I’ll keep thinking about this. Now, on to Aphrodite. Hillary Clinton should play the goddess of love, obviously. Or, wait. Scratch that. She’d make a much better Hera. But then that role’s reserved for Michelle Obama – if we’re going to go the literal route. So perhaps Clinton should play Diana – goddess of the hunt.

This could get complicated. But at least we know who ought to fill the role of the Minotaur. Who better than Joe Biden? Can’t you just see him lurking through the Rose Garden, on the lookout for lost tour parties to gobble up?

I’d like to imagine some conversations between Blago and his editors on these concepts. Blago says, “So I’ve been thinking and, you know, I think my story has a lot in common with the Illiad? Right? Because, like, Agamemnon is a real sonuvabitch. And so am I?”

His editor responds, “But Blago, baby, Agamemnon is the bad guy.”

“Oh, well. Wait. Wasn’t he the one that caught the arrow in the ankle?”

“No, that was Achilles – the unstoppable killing machine.”

“Hmmm. I guess I’m an unstoppable machine in some ways.”

“Tell you what,” his editor says. “Why don’t you just compare yourself to Icarus?”

“Is he the guy who makes the first woman?”

“No, he’s the one who…oh, forget it. Look, just say you’re like Icarus. Okay? I’ll take care of the rest. Oh, and this chapter you sent me. It needs more references to Obama and other politicians with solid reputations. Okay?”

Click.

The End.

Now here’s a daily-blog double, and proof that googling yourself at 1 am when you should be doing work does yield results sometimes. A thoughtful review of Through the Pale Door is up at the Hipster Book Club, a featured review in fact.

This is the first review to explicitly (and fairly) point out some flaws. There will be no Alice Hoffman twitter revenge on reviewers in these parts, nor a need for it in this case. (For kicks, read a response to a response to a review by my novel’s reviewer). Now, a preface: In MFA land, we were all trained to play dead on workshop day as, one-by-one, our peers sliced open the cadavers of our stories and measured their internal organs. Then, sewn-up and jolted back to life, we could respond. Thus I think authors can and should address items in their reviews if they can do so in a civil manner. (continue reading…)

Friday night I headed to Atlanta for the Decatur Bookfest, with a short stop in Salisbury where I sat looking intellectual and hopeful as possible as Salisbarians (?) wandered through their local bookstore’s new digs. (They moved across the street.) One woman I met had gone to UNCG back when it was the women’s college. She said “your book was so horrific,” although whether that was good or bad seemed unclear. Nonetheless I said, “Thank you!” and signed her copy. The only other person who came to my table was a young kid, about ten. When he approached, I thought better of trying to sell him a copy. I thought maybe he liked the art on the cover or wanted to know what it was like to be a professional writer. But instead he asked, “Do you guys have movie monster books? Where are they?” I said we certainly did and that Through the Pale Door had tons of movie monsters.

Around nine I was on the road to Decatur. Rolled up into that joint around 1 am and stood anxiously at the reception desk with my bags, feeling a little like Raul Duke in Fear and Loathing as the woman clicked the same button over and over while muttering she didn’t understand why the system wouldn’t check me into my room. There was no way of explaining the terror I felt. I was pouring sweat. My blood is too thick for this climate. “But we must have that suite,” I said. “Yes, we must have it! So what’s the score here? What’s next?” A poet and teacher from Greensboro I ran into later said the hotel had overbooked and that he’d had to stay with friends. How close I came to the same dismal fate, we can only guess.

Around four am, some jerk pulled the fire alarm and a hundred traveling authors drug themselves downstairs in boxers and bath robes. The thing about hotel fires is that nobody seems worried about burning alive; we care more about how much sleep we’ll loose waiting for the fire department to ride out and inspect a gigantic hotel to conclude indeed no fire was transpiring. To our luck, as soon as we’d gathered into our pool of skepticism and dry jokes, a fire fighter waved us back inside. I had the distinct pleasure of riding up to the third floor with Robert Olen Butler, who seemed quite pissed but that’s just my impression. “What I want to know is how they figured that out so fast,” he said. A day later, I also had the distinct pleasure of seeing him ask someone for directions to some place. I wanted to stop him right there on the street and slap him on the shoulder. “Boy, remember that night some jerk pulled the fire alarm? Oh, man, that was a wild ride, wasn’t it, Robert? By the way, do you like darkly funny Gothic novels? I just happen to have written one.” I can only imagine how he’d have responded.

My favorite panel on Saturday: George Singleton and Daniel Wallace. Both funny guys, although Wallace admits that he has to research his jokes, whereas Singleton is naturally funny. Wallace also said he sort of hated Singleton before they met. Why? Because Singleton published in all the journals he wanted to be in. “And so I saw the space that George was taking up in those magazines as my space.” But I’m going to one-up Wallace and say that I hate Wallace and Singleton because combined they’re taking up my space in magazines like Oxford American, etc. No, not really. But I hope to make that joke in about, eh, five years. I’ll keep everyone posted.

Saturday night, watched an amazing film called The American Astronaut. Imagine Tarantino and Joss Whedon and, say, Fellini directing a science fiction grunge musical set in Outer Space where women actually do live on Venus and seeing a woman’s breasts can make you famous, as with “the boy who once saw a woman’s breast” can attest to. Shot in B&W, it’s one of the most beautiful and funny films I’ve seen. And yet nobody seems to know about it, including me until recently. But I order you all to order it off Netflix. Now.

On to the main event. Me, reading. When I arrived at the church where my event would take place, I gazed out at the sea of 200 or so people and thought, “My God, these people have come to see me. I must give them a show they’ll never forget.” Then I was reminded I’d be reading with Jack Riggs and Philip Lee Williams and said to myself, “Oh…” (Not really.) We had a great time. I was surprised by how kind everyone was. And I had no idea that Riggs had shot the first two Guns ‘n Roses music videos. Just wait until my mom hears this. Seriously, dude. My mom got me started on that band – and, hey, 20 years later I religiously listen to Chinese Democracy every night and pray to the lord that “this time, I’ll enjoy it.” Ah, Axel, what happened? There’s another blog post entirely.

Now here I am in Greensboro, typing away at novel #2 and pumping myself up for some Heidegger. Feels good to blog again after three days off. And I hear that Governor Blago has a memoir out. So, fellows, you can guess what’s coming down the pipe.

Seems like only yesterday I was walking around USC’s campus with coffee, making mental plans to revise and send off my mss on the assumption it didn’t win the first first-novel prize. Now, alas, some other poor joe or jane can have that pleasure. The SC Arts Commission has just announced the second first-novel prize:

Bret Lott, the author of 12 books, most recently “Ancient Highway” (Random House, 2008), is the contest judge. Lott is a former editor of the “Southern Review” and teaches creative writing at the College of Charleston.

That’s right. Another big-time author whose opinion you can trust. You don’t have to worry about Danielle Steele or Thomas Pynchon judging the award (two polar ends of the spectrum). As for a testimonial, consider going to my website and looking at the reviews – if you don’t believe the $25 entry fee is worth it. Buy a copy of my novel, or just go to B&N and hold one of those hardbacks in your hands for a few minutes, and ask how you’d like that to be you. Now some advice on submitting to a first-novel prize if you’ve never considered doing so before. The deadline is Jan 5, 2010.

1. Money helps. Slipping a $20 or even a $50 into a blue envelop is the way to go. The first round of readers are usually overworked editors or college/grad students like myself. A little bone here and there cheers us up.

2. Wine helps more. Especially a vintage. Odds are, we’ll just spend the $20 you give us on booze anyway – being literary types. You might as well save us a drive to the grocery store. Trust me. Envelops big enough for wine exist. But if you’re a cheapskate, most stores are selling those little mini-bottles now.

3. Cigarettes not so much. Do you want to stink up your manuscript, or give one of us cancer? Also, cigarettes are prison currency. Consider the implication that sends. Same goes with cigars. And even if the reader happens to smoke, shipping will likely grind them into tobacco dust.

4. Illustrated stationary a plus. When I worked for Yemassee, we always smiled upon seeing monkeys or unicorns on every page. Really, even if the stationary makes the words difficult to distinguish, go for the glory. If you really want to impress, print on pink construction paper and encircle your name in hearts.

5. Food to be avoided. Except for dry and canned, non-perishable gourmet items. Do it with class. Don’t insult us by including Ramen noodles with your submission. That stuff is loaded with Sodium, and it’s cheap. Nor would you be wise to go with candy bars or M&Ms. There is only one kind of chocolate. Godiva. The rest is imitation.

6. Pet food. Obviously, unless your stalking the contest judges and readers, you can’t know what kind of pets they might own. Chewable dog bones, on the other hand, can be digested by humans and taste quite good, um, I’ve heard.

7. A cover letter. Absolutely. First sentence should say something like, “You’re looking mighty fine today” or “You are so smart!” Most people enjoy compliments, and it puts your novel on a solid footing. To be honest, you might even want to make a compliment the first sentence of your novel. Consider the difference between a novel that opens, “It was a dark and stormy night” and one that opens “Have you lost weight? It was a dark and stormy night…” No contest, my friends.

*Take this with a grain of salt. I’m not actually serving as a judge or reader in any way. Just speaking as a former editor, judge, of a humble literary journal.*

Disney just announced plans to buy Marvel. Can’t wait to see how this marriage goes and what the kids look like. Whether Marvel and Disney characters can make friends remains to be seen. As far as combining characters and plots, Disney villains might want to keep their distance from Marvel super heroes. In turn, Disney heroes ought not to piss off Marvel villains. Imagine Aladdin against Venom. Or Peter Pan against Silver Surfer. No contest. Here’s the details:

The deal was announced by Disney president and CEO Bob Iger at an investor’s conference call, where details of the new Marvel emerged a bit. Iger said buying Marvel made sense for Disney because “Marvel has done a good job of understanding its characters and story lines. What was attractive to us about this deal was that it was about acquiring writers who know these chraracters and story lines well.” Marvel’s chairman and principal stockholder, Ike Perlmutter, will remain in charge of Marvel’s operations, and Iger stressed that the current Marvel management team has been doing a great job and would be allowed to continue doing it.

Scripts have leaked that Disney and Marvel have drafted in the months before announcing the deal. A grime outlook for Disney. Consider these concepts:

First – Insertion of Donald Duck into the next X-Men Origins. Several drafts of said concept exist, and producers on both sides have fought a lot. In one version, Donald follows Wolverine through the underground world of mutant criminals and vigilantes like a miniature Jar Jar Binks. Executives have pushed to transform Donald from a cartoon into a CGI character with his own claws. The US Government kidnaps the duck halfway through one version and attempts to hold him ransom. Marvel screenwriters have had trouble thinking up Wolverine’s motivation for saving anything other than babes, and so they’ve proposed that Donald should die pretty fast. Disney execs balk at this proposal because 1) it would make Logan look heartless, and 2) kids would cry and parents would boycott the film.

Second – Magneto in Wonderland. Ian McKellen’s character chases a small, rabbit-like mutant down a hole and winds up in a magical world full of mystery and wonder. In Disney’s preferred version, Magneto meets Alice under the Cheshire tree and together they search for a way home – only to realize at the film’s end that they don’t want to go home. Marvel has suggested that happiness would appear out of character for their super villain – that instead he should use metallic objects like tea spoons and cushion pins to enslave Wonderland and have his way with the White Queen. Disney’s answer: “we can always bring in Peter Pan.”

Third – Magneto in Neverland. Same concept. Except Marvel wants Magneto to kill Captain Hook by turning his own claw-hand against him. This project hasn’t lifted off quite yet since everyone at both companies realizes Peter Pan would last about five minutes in this movie. “I can fly. Wait. Shit, I’m wrapped in metal.”

Fourth – The Foiled Prince. Prince Charming dares to rescue a Marvel babe from Mr. Sinister, only to wind up fighting the X-Men out of misunderstanding. Cyclops accidentally vaporizes him. As a result.

Fifth – The Professor’s House. Professor Xavier drops by most of Disney’s classic fairy tales and untangles all of the evil step mothers’ neuroses. Snow White’s step mom treks out into the woods and apologizes for banishing her, for example, and then they reunite. Xavier then wakes up Sleeping Beauty as well before convincing the wolf in Red Riding Hood that he’d much rather eat some other girl or go drown in a well.

Sixth – Mary Poppins. She shows up and finds out the two kids she has to babysit are young Logan and Victor Creed. After three crazy nights she quits, opens her umbrella, and flies off. Or she would fly off. But they’ve shredded her umbrella in their rough housing. Boys will be boys. Except they’re mutants.

Novel update. This Friday I read in Salisbury and then head straight to Atlanta for the Decatur Book Fest. If you haven’t seen the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s review yet, it’s online now.

Just posted the full version of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s amazing review of Through the Pale Door online. Now let’s get right down to business. The Wall Street Journal yesterday published an even more amazing article on books. I’d never read anything like it before. In it, Lev Grossman hits the nail on the head.

This article makes all kinds of insightful assumptions. Boldly speaking for “the novel,” but focusing mainly on Americans, Grossman says the trick to fiction in the new century lies in tight, quick-paced literary stories. Forget Rushdie and Marquez. What about House of Leaves or The Corrections or Beloved? Screw ‘em. What about the Harry Potter books? No comment.

Wait. Here we go: “The revolution is under way. The novel is getting entertaining again. Writers like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, Kelly Link, Audrey Niffenegger, Richard Price, Kate Atkinson, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke, to name just a few, are busily grafting the sophisticated, intensely aware literary language of Modernism onto the sturdy narrative roots of genre fiction…” This is news to me. Who are these people? I’ve never heard of Neil Gaiman before. Is he that folk singer? No, no, hold on. That’s Neil Diamond. Neil Diamond. Or Neil Young. Now what about this Jonathan Lethem, was he the guy on “Third Rock from the Sun” and The World According to Garp? Come to think of it, what was The World According to Garp? There’s some guy out there I heard who’s also part of the revolution. Name’s John Irving. Another one, Tom Wolf or Wolfe or something.

I’m getting distracted. Back to the main point. Grossman goes on to make a lot of fine pronouncements. Previously literary authors are turning their eye to this thing called popular genre fiction, whatever that is. Ha! I guess I just can’t keep up with the ever-changing world of literature. (Good thing we got Grossman!) So here’s what he says: “Look at Thomas Pynchon—in ‘Inherent Vice’ he has swapped his usual cumbersome verbal calisthenics for the more maneuverable chassis of a hard-boiled detective novel.” This is absolutely right on the money, Liv. I heard that Pynchon also has plans to write this short, plot-driven mystery novel called The Crying of Lot 49. Can’t wait to read that one. Oh, wait, it’s already out? Even better!

Here’s another great comment: “The Modernists introduced us to the idea that reading could be work, and not common labor but the work of an intellectual elite, a highly trained coterie of professional aesthetic interpreters.”

You better believe it, brothers and sisters. Those traditionalists were way too easy. Henry James, get out of here with your simplistic three-page sentences. Same with you, Thomas de Quincey and Tristram Shandy. Your stuff belongs in the elementary school.

And take that, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein: “To the Modernists, stories were a distortion of real life. In real life stories don’t tie up neatly. Events don’t line up in a tidy sequence and mean the same things to everybody they happen to.” I always thought Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo and Balzac were way, way to kind to their characters. And Flaubert. His novel Madame Bovary wraps up a little too neatly for my taste, as well. So does The Sorrows of Young Werther and The Scarlet Letter. Those Gothics and Romantics. You can have them. I want tough, sad, drama.

“There was a time when difficult literature was exciting. T.S. Eliot once famously read to a whole football stadium full of fans.” Well, hmm. By football, do you mean soccer? And what do we mean by fans? I also wonder if this was the football team at Yale or Harvard. Makes a difference, you know.

Grossman also says that The Modernists thought pleasure wasn’t the point of their writing. I couldn’t agree more. I really hated reading all that stuff and the only reason I stuck to it was the lessons it taught me. In the 1920 we was just learning good compared to the now-times. But the answer is plotting. Plotting, let it ring from the stove tops and bell towers. Let plotting ring from the shores of Allegheny to the mountains of California. Let plotting ring. We should dispense with commentary on life and leap full on into the headlights of pure entertainment – the new, uncharted waters in writing. It’s murky, foggy territory out there. Who knows what we’ll find. Certainly none of the familiar insights afforded by Tolkien or Kurt Vonnegut. Plot-driven fiction. Woo. Boy. Pack your bags. Make sure you’ve got plenty of beef jerky in there. Gonna be a long trip.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I leave you to go enjoy (sigh) some mindless Pynchon novel.

A week of trying to squash the spoiled-kid-on-Christmas Eve feeling, and finally: the book review appears. The Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the inside of which I saw way back in second or third grade. Who knows? Maybe even first-grade. Back then, they still laid out the newspaper partially by hand, if I remember. No Quark or Indesign. Boy, there’s a way to feel old.

Now that autumn lurks around the corner with its switch blade drawn, ready to mug us all, I reflect on my summer of happiness. One of my biggest regrets was missing out on all of the MJ memorabilia. I bought none of it. The pang of remorse didn’t hit me until I passed a rack of crap left over from the big commotion. Let’s hope that book stores and other retailers can move the rest of this stuff before shelves and tables begin filling with issues and histories and memoirs dedicated to Ted Kennedy. A story from PW says book sales have already jumped way up thanks to the senator’s passing. There’s only one other business I know of that benefits more from death, and it ain’t the fast food industry.

Kennedy’s death doesn’t seem to have caused quite the uproar that Jackson’s did. Nobody in my neck of the woods is pondering suicide, and although he was a helluva speaker his voice doesn’t fill the air waves. Too bad. But I’ll say this. The magazine stands are going to look like one gigantic American flag in about a week. Mark my word.

Enough about important deaths. Let’s talk about trite ones. I lost $1 in the laundry machine downstairs. It’s kaputz.

Now that we’ve discussed trite deaths, let’s move on to mid-range deaths. Summer is gone. Where did the bad boy go? I find myself looking back with fond memories already. What all happened this summer? We lost some celebs. We almost lost track of a governor, but thank the lord he turned up (in Argentina). Iran had some trouble with an election or something, I hear. (Joke.) I zoomed around the Southeast reading from my book. Graded 700 or so AP Lit exams. Spent a little time in Charleston. Spent a little time in Atlanta. Spent some time in the Rockies. Wrote most of another novel. Read some good books. Avoided the beach. Not bad.

My biggest triumph, however, was avoiding the Transformers II movie. I’m so glad I resisted and gave my slow summer afternoons to something else.

So now we move on into fall. This coming weekend I head to Atlanta for the Decatur Book Festival to meet fancy authors and read from my book. Looking forward to it. Must remember to get oil changed tomorrow.

Saturday morning. The sky opens and leaves streets in NC gushing with water. I head onto the highway for McIntyre Books for an 11 am reading. When I reach my exit, Google Maps says “Take a left at 64-West.” I look at my directions. I look at the road. Going left at I-64 means I would drive onto I-64 East. Why doesn’t Google just tell me to go I-64 East. Oh, why do they always do this?

So I do what any natural person would do. I assume that my gut is right and go the wrong way, driving for about 20 minutes. This means I lose 40 minutes at least in the end.

I arrive at the book store in the midst of a flood. They say, “It’s okay, Brian.” For the first time in my life I want them to say, “Nobody came to your reading anyway, so you didn’t let anyone down.” But I did.

Good news is we’re rescheduled for 0ct 9. Now, a few days later I give a reading in Greenvillle full of dinner tables. It’s great. I read with Joni Tenvis, who read a little bit about everything – including a job at a cemetery. Definitely grimmer than working at a steel mill. Among some familiar faces in the audience and surprises were John Jeter and George Singleton.

Now I’m wrapping up my first day of the fall semester. Almost. Still have a three-hour seminar to sit through. At least I get Mon, Wed, Fri off so to speak. It will help now that the book tour is kicking into high gear. I’ve got something every weekend from now through mid October. If anyone’s interested in buying a book so that I’ll be sure to afford the oil changes and tune-ups ahead, you’re welcome to do so. Otherwise, I’m fully prepared to walk up to strangers on the street with my novel and say, “Hey there, sir. How are you? Good, good. Can I ask you a question?” Or, no. Perhaps I should sit on the curb and shout, “Good afternoon, how are ya’ll? Do you have a couple of minutes? You see, I’m an emerging author whose aunt is in the hospital with amnesia…”

All this said in jest. Like all panhandlers, I have 50k in the bank. Seriously, dude.

Finally, the new Pynchon novel is either in my gym bag or my apartment. I’m so thrilled. The last Pynchon book I read the whole way through was Mason & Dixon. I’ve made it about 1/2 through GR. I think Pynchon might be the only author whom you can claim as an influence while having read less than .5 of his works. Anyway, this one’s only about 300 pages! This is a great new direction for him. I was expecting Inherent Vice would fall around, oh, say, a gagillion billion pages.

Other updates: Hub City has secured funds for the second first novel prize. Now this promises to be confusing. “Hub City is pleased to announce the second first novel prize.” Wait. The first second novel prize? I like the sound of that much better, must say.

Wrapping up another major revision of my new top secret novel. Book touring. Watching weird movies (Eraserhead, anyone?) What a summer. The latest cult film, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, has got me thinking a lot about constraints, audience expectations, and creativity. No easy answers here, but I was stunned to find out how badly that film flopped in the US despite considerable success abroad. And, about fifteen years later, not even JK Rowling could convince Warner Bros to give the cult auteur a chance at the Harry Potter franchise. Of course, having swum the depths of Tim Burton’s career, the fact that big movie companies give creative directors a hard time doesn’t come as a surprise.

I’m of the mind Brazil’s US flop had nothing to do with Gilliam and everything to do with terrible decisions aimed at mainstreaming the film. They cut out the best parts, glued on a cheesy happy ending, trashed the original symphonic score, and then to top things off they tossed in a bunch or “rock music” to “attract teenagers.” It so happens that Warner Bros. tried to do the same thing with Burton’s Batman back in ‘89, foisting the hipster god Prince onto Burton who miraculously managed to ditch most of the corny 80s music for Elfman’s now-unforgettable motion picture score. (Ever wonder why there were two soundtracks to that film? Now you know.) Really, people. Imagine watching this film with “Purple Rain” playing in the back ground. It’s like eating a peanut butter and shrimp sandwich. Both good but the idea of them combined triggers your gag reflex.

What’s this got to do with writing? Way ahead of you. I’ve given a lot of thought to the love-hate relationship between creativity and marketability. When and where they meet, how they fall in love, and what do their kids look like? On one side of the spectrum we have terrible works like LA Candy. On the other we have DeLillo’s The Names (my favorite novel but not a big seller). And then we have miracle writers like Pynchon, Marquez, Rowling, Gaiman, and others who do more than straddle two worlds. Writers like these folks take the biggest risks. They break the most rules, in some ways. And they wind up legends in their own time. And now for me to reference my own novel and compare myself to the pantheon. (What’s that, you say? Stick my foot in my mouth? No problem.) My own first novel, Through the Pale Door, takes significant risks that seem to be paying off when it comes to sales.

What has this got to do with Southern Lit and reality? Way ahead of you. Over the past few months I’ve heard many writers, editors, readers, and agents say the word “reality,” speaking to me or about me or about Southern Lit. I’ve heard the old adage that asserts the “it really happened that way” argument holds no water for creative writers. I beg to disagree. Yes. Credulity can be strained. Stories need a degree of verisimilitude. But the “it really happened that way” case means, to me, that writers, et al need to open their minds to what constitutes reality. For example: a friend recently told me the story of how a distant relative was obliged to attend a friend’s funeral with a knife in his back pocket and a bodyguard in tow because he feared some attendees would try to settle an old score. I recently heard a somewhat famous (and true) story of a town in Tennessee that spent an entire day trying to inflict capital punishment on an elephant for killing its owner – they finally had to hang the thing with a construction crane. Many writers, et al would tell me that none of these events could make a decent story. But they certainly could. If you can tell it over a table, you can write it down. It’s a matter of how confident your voice is. (Marquez has said the same thing, but I guess nobody remembers.)

All right. Taste is subjective, but mine’s less so. I promise. The End. Been writing for 12 hours a day the past two or three days. Now it’s time to rejoin the world.