It's only fair...

Well friends and neighbors, neighbors and friends...

I come here to post all of my successes, however minor they may be; so it's only fair that I tell the other side of the story as well.

My "Wolves and Coyotes" story was rejected last night (I saw the e-mail this morning) and to tell the truth, I'm more than just a little bummed out by it.  I put a lot of myself into that one, and that being the case, the rejection feels much more personal than the other curt dismissal letters I've received.

Oh well, I'll make a few changes, spool up a new cover letter and get it back out there this weekend, if not sooner.  Try, try again, they say.

And I was working on the "Ghost Train" short story/novella thing again last night and that sucker is pushing 24,000 words...  Sure, I'll edit that down some during the next re-write (currently in progress), but dang! this was just supposed to be a 6,000 - 8,000 word short story.  The printed copy is over 70 pages long!

Amazing how these things get a mind of their own and carry the old writer along for the ride, huh?

Anyway...  wherever you are...  I hope you're having a better day than me so far, and hey, look at it this way:  Tomorrow's Friday!

Finished... now back to "the train"

Well kids, my short story for the most recent Aphelion challenge is finished (I think).  That's right, the "haunted mineshaft" a.k.a. "Jake's Mountain" is a done deal.

The word limit was 2,000 words and I stopped right on word 1,995.  Actually had to go back and edit some things down from 2,002 at one point, but anyway...

What does that mean for my small but devoted crowd of loyal readers?  Well, it means a short wait until the story's posted on the site for voting.  Sorry.

But it also means that I've finished the last of my time sensitive work for the moment.  Which implies another interesting bit of just-between-us-kids information....  It's time to get back to the "ghost train".

So with that in mind, here's some train-writing music:

   Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cold Roses

      Elvis Costello - Kojak Variety and National Ransom

         Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline         

      Jamey Johnson - The Lonesome Song

   Lyle Lovett - The Road to Ensenada (yes!), My Baby Don't Tolerate and It's Not Big, It's Large

      Son Volt - The Search and Honky Tonk

         Wilco - Being There, Summerteeth and Sky Blue Sky

      Neil Young - Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and Prairie Wind

Enjoy!

New(ish) poem posted...

...over on the Aphelion site.  Many thanks to those guys for including it in this month's issue!

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/poetry/2013/06/LawthornCemetery.html

An excerpt from "Jake's Mountain"

As promised, here's a brief excerpt from a short story I'm writing for this month's challenge over on the forum at the Aphelion site.

And happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there!

# # # #

Jake heard the gunfire echo throughout the confined space – even thought for a second that it was coming from some adjacent shaft in the mine somewhere – but then the pain filled his eyes with a deeper darkness than the ill-lighted caverns afforded him and his company of hard scrabble men.

                He collapsed on the ground, blacking out, and immediately, his mind flashed back to the saloon in the town of Diablo Canyon, where he heard again the voices of men arguing over the mine and its hidden veins of pure silver.

                “You can’t get to the treasure,” a wily old timer with an unruly grey moustache proclaimed.  “You can’t get to it on account of the ghost that haunts the mine!”

                “There are no such things as ghosts,” a solemn Navajo in Western dress responded.  He wore a dark pinstriped suit, with a crimson vest, a black bow tie and carefully polished riding boots.  His hair was tied back in a satin ribbon of a color that matched his vest.

                “You would know,” Jake said, walking over from the bar, carrying a beer in a crystal stein.

                “Good evening Jacob,” the Navajo turned and greeted him.  “Keeper of unsavory legends and robber of women’s virtues.”

                “That woman didn’t have any virtue left to claim,” Jake answered.  “And she was the one pouring the drinks, not me.”

                The Navajo patted him on the shoulder.  The pain was unreal and it whipped him back to a conscious state, brought him back to the unsettling darkness of the dusty mine shaft.  The bullet had torn through the upper part of the pectoral muscle going in, and shattered the scapula in the back coming out.  Jake used his other arm to pull himself up to a sitting position.

                Tuh-wang!  Another bullet whizzed by his head and he shimmied his seated body back behind an ore car rolled over on its side just off the rail way in the center of the shaft.  Jake shifted his Colt .45 to his left hand and returned fire.  A barrage of gunfire answered his small volley.  He looked right and motioned at his German counterpart, Wilhelm Schliemann, holding up three fingers to signal the number of gunmen, then pointing across the open space at a spot in the darkness behind a barrel where the gunfire originated.  The German raised his rifle, a Dreyse needle gun and aimed down the top of the long barrel, slowly applying pressure to the trigger. 

The flash blinded them both for a half-second.  The recoil kicked up a faint cloud of dust.  The body fell out from behind the barrel and Jake and the German were now facing only two assailants.  It was the same situation back at the saloon with the Navajo when an Englishman took exception to his presence there at the bar with the other immigrants.

“You clean up well for a savage,” Henry Waldegrave proposed between sips of whiskey.

The Navajo made a move to respond, but Jake placed his hand on his friend’s arm and pushed his body forward into the Brit’s space.

“You oughtta watch how you talk in here, mister.”

“And why is that?” Waldegrave said in return, his heavy accent lingering over the last two words for added emphasis.

“Because I’m not liking your tone,” Jake answered, closing the distance between them so that the stubble on his cheek almost brushed the side of the clean-shaved gentleman’s face.

“You’re as uncultured as your native friend,” Waldegrave added, backing away.

“No sir,” Jake responded.  “I’m a lot wilder than he is.”

The Englishman drew his pistol, but never fired a shot.  Jake grabbed Waldegrave by the shirt with his left hand and thrust a knife up under the man’s ribs with his right hand.  The Englishman gasped for air.  Jake removed the blade and wiped it on the man’s coat before letting him fall on the dusty ground in front of the bar.

But Waldegrave was not alone....

...and here's a playlist...

Filled with (mostly) Texas music!

   Hayes Carll -  Trouble in Mind (especially "It's a Shame") and KMAG YOYO

        Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal and Big Station

The Jayhawks - Mockingbird Time

       Robert Earl Keen - Ready for Confetti

             Lyle Lovett - Natural Forces

Old Crow Medicine Show - Big Iron World and Carry Me Back

   Old 97's - The Grand Theatre, Volume 1

           Son Volt - Honky Tonk

(Final) storyboard update!

These are the last two storyboard sketches from the current "work-in-progress".

4. The "silver" man's radiance...

5. Something in the dirt...  and footprints leading to/from it...

Once again, I'm not an artist.  I only use these to give me a sense of direction when writing whatever piece I'm working on that week (or month!).

Anyway...  stay tuned for an excerpt from the new story.  It reads a little like Wyatt Earp meeting the "Silver Surfer" in a reportedly haunted mineshaft.  I'm not even sure how it's going to all come out just yet.

Storyboard update!

The new "haunted mineshaft" story has a title, "Jake's Mountain" and the next two "storyboard" shots in sequence are...

2. ...Ore car... shoot out!... and ....

3. Cross section of mine with "cave in" area depicted....

Again, please remember that I'm no artist.  Never claimed to be.  These are just the rough sketches that get my mind going on things like plot, setting, scenes, etc.

But stay tuned, because the next one's where it gets good!

Storyboard sketch: The mineshaft!

Started:  A new story for a contest over on the Aphelion forum...  As with all of my stories, I like to begin with a little storyboarding.  My apologies for my lack of talent as an artist; hopefully my writing makes up for it.

Almost finished:  A new story in my "New Mexico" series.  This one involves a new set of characters (i.e. not Clifford Sloan and co.).

Resting:  The "Ghost Train".  It's finished and not finished.  The writers in the audience will know what that means.  For the rest of us...  ha!  I'll translate.  The story employs a series of flashbacks to a similar incident involving the train in Mexico.  I'm trying to decide whether to include this element or not.  Pros:  I think it's a pretty neat addition to the story...   Cons:  It does delay some of the action and it certainly raises the old wordcount.

I also want to re-write the current draft and "beef up" the dialogue a little...  okay, a lot.  Writing dialogue is always an area that I struggle with, and I don't feel like the verbal exchanges in this story "work for me" yet.  And if it doesn't work for me yet, then there's a pretty good chance it wouldn't work for my small, but wonderfully loyal band of avid followers!  :-)

Tied for third!

I entered one of my recent short stories, "The Lunar Earthrise" in the monthly forum contest over at Aphelion; and I'm proud to announce that the results are in and my humble offering finished in a three way tie for third place.

Special thanks to author David Alan Jones for his kind words about the piece and to Mark Edgemon for coordinating the contest and inviting me to participate.

Check out all of the contest stories on the Aphelion forum, by clicking on the following link:

www.aphelion-webzine.com/forum/

...And looking under the "Fun and Games" section.

Win some, lose some...

We all know the addage:  win some, lose some...  Well, it has certainly described this week for me.

Received news yesterday that a poem of mine will be published in next month's edition of Aphelion!  I'm very excited as it is one of my favorite online journals.  What's more, I really don't consider myself a poet.

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy reading poetry.  T. S. Eliot and Harold Bloom's "true Whitmanians" (Wallace Stevens, D.H. Lawrence, and Hart Crane) are some of my favorites.  I also like W. B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas, John Ashberry, Elizabeth Bishop, Pablo Neruda and Mark Strand, as well as Ezra Pound, Allen Tate, John Berryman (especially The Dream Songs) and some of Sylvia Plath's work.  So yeah, one might say that I'm kind of a big fan of poetry.  However, that being said, I very seldom sit down to write a poem; but anyway...  I am truly honored to have this one published and extremely thankful for the recognition.

In the "lose some" category, I learned this morning that a short story I submitted to a different 'zine will not be published in next month's issue.  This rejection stings a little, as it was a paying venue, and the money while nominal, would have been -- in my eyes at least -- validation that I'm not too shabby at this whole writing thing.  Oh well, what's that other cliche?  Better luck next time, right?