There're bits of the dead everywhere, and I'm not referring to last night's dinner. Though I wonder how long flesh keeps in the fridge...
Back on track, though, today I found out there's an anthology known as Bits of the Dead that's opened up for zombie flash fiction of no more than 500 words. 500 words, for me, is like twenty minutes of work. So I started on a story after attending a rally to lower college tuition (who am I kidding, I was there to avoid hearing about Africa in another course and to try and look socially aware). Twenty minutes later I had a 499 word piece finished, first draft, edit, rewrite, second draft, another edit, and sent off (though right after I submitted it I found one, count'em, one mistake in the final version and started kicking myself. It's a lot of dialogue, and a bit more light-hearted than I think they're looking for, but I like the way it turned out. I'll find a home for it even when I get the rejection slip back from them. There's just not enough good conversational humor about zombies out there today...
Speaking of zombies, we're at day 67 of the Aberrant Dreams wait for a response. I did get a confirmation that they received the work right after it was sent, but that apparently doesn't mean anything. I've been hearing some real horror stories about their response times, and a few folks have told me they just don't seemt o get back to writer's quickly, or have a habit of never getting submissions. I'll give it 40-60 more days, then I'm withdrawing "Dead Air" from them.
Shoved "THe Tribe of Harry" into a condensed form and handing it over to my writing class today. On Friday I'll be on here about getting ripped to shreds again, but hey. You live, you get critiqued, you get Luvs. Sorry, commercial moment there. Plus, April will be the last month you can read "A Question of Freedom" over at Allegory. C'mon show me some love and read the piece, then blast me out of the water for it.
Got another piece called "Stranger in a Strange Land" (yes, I know I stole the title. I don't think the dead men to use it before me will really mind.) in for submissions at Undergroundvoices.com.
Let's see how it goes, eh?
Peace,
J.C. Tabler
Showing posts with label Allegory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Allegory. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
A Question Of Freedom - Postscript
So tomorrow "A Question of Freedom" goes up on the website at Allegory Ezine. I figure, since I'm sitting in the office trying to come up with scripts for a webcomic a friend is putting out and beating myself over the head with a possible ending to a zombie story, that I might as well go ahead and post about this one.
First off, the story did not start out as what it ended up being. Garrity, originally, was supposed to be a small town sheriff in the rural areas of Kentucky. That much is the same as the original idea. The deep-down idea that formed the story, though, was supposed to be something about werewolves and vampires, along with all other forms of supernatural creatures, living side-by-side with the human populace of a small town in Eastern Kentucky, their existence known to the local authorities by way of a century old agreement. I'll freely admit that this idea was lifted, in small concept parts, from an old online RPG that used to be on AOL called "Black Bayou". The concept of a small southern town rife with supernatural beings is really where the similarity was supposed to end.
"A Question of Freedom", or as I took to calling it, "The Garrity Story", was written over the period of a month. I started it on a Sunday in early September, then, other than the occassional paragraph or two at night, set it aside until the first week of October. I had other things to do, honestly, and the story was going off in a completely different direction. I would say, all in all, it was written in about 2 long typing sessions, the first Sunday morning session and then about 6 hours alone in the living room on that first Monday in October. For those one-or-two paragraph writing sitdowns, there were about four of them that resulted in nothing big. So, what you really have on Allegory's website is a story that was written in about two days with a month between them for me to think and brainstorm.
It really became obvious that this story wasn't going to be about vampires, werewolves, or anything else that would make Anne Rice cream her jeans around the third page. Without trying my heroic, wisecracking, and alcoholic sheriff was transformed into a beaten man in a dystopic America. I wish I could say the background of this America sprang fully formed from my head as I stared at the computer screen and chainsmoked, but no such luck. Halfway through the story I realized I was writing about a different version of the same America that I had jotted down notes on during those long nights working fire watch on the steamboat. This was just a more advanced version of it.
This future was, to clarify the story a bit, one where a horrible virus with a high mortality rate had been unleashed on the American people, and not intentionally. Though the virus was never clearly determined to be natural or chemically engineered, mainly because I could never figure that out myself, it was devestating and resulted in a "Black Plague" sort of situation that cut off the American people from advancement. Enter the Senator, a politician with the charisma to advance his own agenda and the determination to make a difference even if it meant destroying half the world. To control the plague that threatened to destroy America, he instituted a new form of law, becoming less a politician and more of a dictator as he ordered bombs dropped on the cities with the highest infection rate.
Years later, America was a police state. I know, it wasn't an original idea, but I realized as I wrote about Garrity being escorted to questioning that almost all of those "America has collapsed" stories out there deal with the urban experience in despotic America. What if, instead of werewolves and vampires, this small-town sheriff in the middle of BFE, Kentucky (write me an email and ask what BFE is if you don't know!) was just trying to survive the times while keeping a hold on the traditional values that shape the country. It was halfway through writing that I realized what the most important rural value was.
The hell with the Golden Rule. The most important lesson learned in the country is "An Eye for An Eye". A country sheriff is a bringer of justice. Is that conveyed? Well...you guys be the judge. Personally, I liked the Garrity story, but I'm a biased party in the judgment of it.
One last word on this subject, then I'm off to ring in the New Year with my fiancee, my future brother-in-law, and a bar full of strangers. I never was crazy about the title "A Question of Freedom". I stuck it on there as a working title as I sent it off to my buddy, the editor, to get his opinion on what revisions might need to be done to it. His response was to circle the working title of the story and express love over it. Because I generally suck at coming up with any title not directly drawn from the dialogue, I deferred to his judgment. He, after all, knew his stuff when it came to fiction as he was not only an avid reader, but a pro at proofing manuscripts. Even so, I'm still not crazy about the title of the piece.
But hey, what do I know. As I said before, I'm just a hack.
An interesting sidenote, the last name of the character, Garrity, was an intentional nod to Ray Garrity, the main character in Stephen King's "The Long Walk", which was written under the name of Richard Bachman. Yes, I like Stephen King. I really only enjoy the work he did as Bachman. Go read it. I'm sure you'll see a few similarities between his version of America and mine, and I give full credit for the inkling that formed my version of America coming from reading his story in my 7th grade English class.
Happy New Year, folks.
-J.C. Tabler
First off, the story did not start out as what it ended up being. Garrity, originally, was supposed to be a small town sheriff in the rural areas of Kentucky. That much is the same as the original idea. The deep-down idea that formed the story, though, was supposed to be something about werewolves and vampires, along with all other forms of supernatural creatures, living side-by-side with the human populace of a small town in Eastern Kentucky, their existence known to the local authorities by way of a century old agreement. I'll freely admit that this idea was lifted, in small concept parts, from an old online RPG that used to be on AOL called "Black Bayou". The concept of a small southern town rife with supernatural beings is really where the similarity was supposed to end.
"A Question of Freedom", or as I took to calling it, "The Garrity Story", was written over the period of a month. I started it on a Sunday in early September, then, other than the occassional paragraph or two at night, set it aside until the first week of October. I had other things to do, honestly, and the story was going off in a completely different direction. I would say, all in all, it was written in about 2 long typing sessions, the first Sunday morning session and then about 6 hours alone in the living room on that first Monday in October. For those one-or-two paragraph writing sitdowns, there were about four of them that resulted in nothing big. So, what you really have on Allegory's website is a story that was written in about two days with a month between them for me to think and brainstorm.
It really became obvious that this story wasn't going to be about vampires, werewolves, or anything else that would make Anne Rice cream her jeans around the third page. Without trying my heroic, wisecracking, and alcoholic sheriff was transformed into a beaten man in a dystopic America. I wish I could say the background of this America sprang fully formed from my head as I stared at the computer screen and chainsmoked, but no such luck. Halfway through the story I realized I was writing about a different version of the same America that I had jotted down notes on during those long nights working fire watch on the steamboat. This was just a more advanced version of it.
This future was, to clarify the story a bit, one where a horrible virus with a high mortality rate had been unleashed on the American people, and not intentionally. Though the virus was never clearly determined to be natural or chemically engineered, mainly because I could never figure that out myself, it was devestating and resulted in a "Black Plague" sort of situation that cut off the American people from advancement. Enter the Senator, a politician with the charisma to advance his own agenda and the determination to make a difference even if it meant destroying half the world. To control the plague that threatened to destroy America, he instituted a new form of law, becoming less a politician and more of a dictator as he ordered bombs dropped on the cities with the highest infection rate.
Years later, America was a police state. I know, it wasn't an original idea, but I realized as I wrote about Garrity being escorted to questioning that almost all of those "America has collapsed" stories out there deal with the urban experience in despotic America. What if, instead of werewolves and vampires, this small-town sheriff in the middle of BFE, Kentucky (write me an email and ask what BFE is if you don't know!) was just trying to survive the times while keeping a hold on the traditional values that shape the country. It was halfway through writing that I realized what the most important rural value was.
The hell with the Golden Rule. The most important lesson learned in the country is "An Eye for An Eye". A country sheriff is a bringer of justice. Is that conveyed? Well...you guys be the judge. Personally, I liked the Garrity story, but I'm a biased party in the judgment of it.
One last word on this subject, then I'm off to ring in the New Year with my fiancee, my future brother-in-law, and a bar full of strangers. I never was crazy about the title "A Question of Freedom". I stuck it on there as a working title as I sent it off to my buddy, the editor, to get his opinion on what revisions might need to be done to it. His response was to circle the working title of the story and express love over it. Because I generally suck at coming up with any title not directly drawn from the dialogue, I deferred to his judgment. He, after all, knew his stuff when it came to fiction as he was not only an avid reader, but a pro at proofing manuscripts. Even so, I'm still not crazy about the title of the piece.
But hey, what do I know. As I said before, I'm just a hack.
An interesting sidenote, the last name of the character, Garrity, was an intentional nod to Ray Garrity, the main character in Stephen King's "The Long Walk", which was written under the name of Richard Bachman. Yes, I like Stephen King. I really only enjoy the work he did as Bachman. Go read it. I'm sure you'll see a few similarities between his version of America and mine, and I give full credit for the inkling that formed my version of America coming from reading his story in my 7th grade English class.
Happy New Year, folks.
-J.C. Tabler
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)