I Now Declare Crap Month...

Officially closed. I think tonight I managed to break my writer's block with an image of a decomposing corpse reflected in a bar mirror. After that I started another piece, a bartender narrating a ghost story to a patron, with the reader as the patron. No, there's no expected dialogue to be imagined. I just kinda wanted to put the reader into the position of being the guy on the other side of a wooden bar with a talkative (and bored) bartender.

I checked my submission list the other day and came up with:

"Dead Air" at Aberrant Dreams I'm thinking this one either got lost, or was a rejection that never got sent out, or some other such thing. It's been well over 100 days. I had heard stories about slow response times...but man oh man...

"Tribe of Harry" at The New Yorker All I want this year is a rejection on their letterhead and a bit of personalization. That'd be almost as good as an acceptance from anywhere else.

"Demon Whiskey" at Harvest Hill I have no illusions of this one getting accepted, but I am looking forward to the comments when that rejection finally comes in.

"Poppa Bear" at Cause and Effect This piece has been called interesting but too sentimental, strong characters that turn into caricature, etc. The general consensus was that it needed some story work, which got done and got it resubmitted somewhere else.

"The Simple Account of Sergeant Shea, Immediately Prior to the End of the World" at Allegory Ezine , a piece that I had fun writing and submitted after a rewrite only at the urging of the undeniable Ms. Gardner, who insisted it could be found a home somewhere. I don't really mind, it was written for me.

"Big Jim Can Wait" and "Winter Wonderland" at Northern Haunts Anthology , if for no other reason than I had so much fun writing my accepted piece, "Many Comforting Words", that I wanted to write two more.

"Linguistic Prescription" at Postcards from Hell , a surefire rejection in waiting, but I'll be honest, I'm starting to get a kick out of reading the rejection letters for this piece, so I'm going to keep sending it out there.

"Sacrifice of Man and Cloth" at Saint Ann's Review , because, like the New Yorker, I want a rejection from these people.

"No Tell Motel" at OG's Speculative Fiction Magazine . Ever since it got shortlisted and then cut from Voices Anthology , this sucker has been making the rounds, racking up two form rejections in less than a month and a half.

In addition to this, I have a basic idea for the Malpractice anthology if I can get it running, the aforementioned Bar Story got it's first two intro paragraphs done tonight (my writing time must be fit into a busy schedule, don't harp on me), and a developing idea for a serious piece after I finally finish "Norton's Watching".

On other fronts, work is going well. A couple more weeks and I'll be shifting calls without supervision, the pay is good, and even on a tight budget we manage to live a decent life. Worrying now about Christmas, what with three kids and all.

So...how're you all doing?

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

A post for y'all

Because I have to mow the lawn and go buy fireworks, I don't really have time to do a nice, long update. Instead, I present something from my crap pile, a scene from a story that never got finished and probably never will. without any further pause, here's the introduction to Stranger in My Homeland.

The first Saturday in May, as written about by Hunter S. all those years ago with his limey friend in tow, was decadent and depraved. It lacked the civil or social value that was inherent in every other high class society meeting this town threw. Instead of string quartets and cocktail conversations about recent pieces of art, there were garish hats and strong mint juleps that stained the white linen suits of the men on the way down, then on the way back up as they hunched over a toilet. Meanwhile, from their boxes in the bandstands, those wealthy few watched the teeming masses on a sea of green surrounded by brown track, a mob of humanity that was circled sporadically by the rumble and pound of hooves on mud as thoroughbreds strained by. High society watching low society as the sport of kings separated the two into their proper social standings. It always seemed strangely appropriate to me.

“Damn tourists,” I mutter, stirring tea and staring into the roiling crush of bodies.

A crowd has moved into town in their bright suits and ties, fat men with faces reddened by muggy air and liquor. Their voices bray through the air, calling to one another in an intense mixture of affectionate curses and amounts of lost money. The tongues curl with accents that sound as foreign as Arabic. Clipped words and missing r’s drown out the lazy drawl that normally fills the street. My knuckles turn white against the cool glass.

“One mint julep,” a portly man in a lime green suit yells out, “and make it good this time.”

The green man wraps one fleshy arm around the waist of a blonde haired faux-southern belle. He whispers something in her ear and she laughs, a harsh nasal noise. Her hands flutter weakly in the air to catch the sun on the gold rings that line her fingers, and she licks his ear as she mumbles something back. Judging from the hungry look that crosses the green man’s face, I guess her response was a lewd suggestion that almost overrode the desire to watch horses run.

I watch the crowd mill about in front of Churchhill Downs. Down the street come the raucous catcalls and hoots of the local revelers. Adopted locals, every one of them, as no self respecting Louisvillian would actually attend the Derby. It was an unwritten rule, like nodding to complete strangers on the street when meeting their eyes. The actual citizens, those born and bred on the too-small streets of Kentucky’s largest city, were at home watching the race on TV, placing their bets in small pools, drawing horse names from a hat as they drank heavily with close friends and not in close quarters with heavy people.

“Heigh-ho Silver, away!” the man in the green suit brays a foot away my steps, flinging his arms into the air so violently that his julep splashes over the side of the silver cup and smacks wetly onto the sidewalk, a mixture of booze and crushed ice.

The suit is glaring in this crowd, a beacon of poor taste and too much money. Lime green, so bright that it looks as if it belongs in the window of a seedy bar advertising a second-rate beer in flashing neon, it’s the sore thumb of a gaudy circus. The color isn’t found in nature, isn’t found anywhere down here except on tiny, old black men headed to church or on the backs of pimps down in Portland. It’s a hustler’s suit, a hustler’s color, what money would look like if a madman with a box of markers designed it, and this guy thinks it makes him fit in. What he doesn’t want to say, the loathing and superiority that brought him south to view the sport of kings in a neighborhood of peasants, is shouted by that garish color. It says, very simply, that he has the money and ability to dress this way anytime he wants, that his status lets him pull it off.

“Jackass,” I mumble, taking another sip of iced tea.

The horses would run later in the afternoon carrying their miniature riders. Every breath would be held as the first leg of the Triple Crown played out in a town that, the rest of the year, was considered a backwater city in a backwater state. By the end of the week these people would be in their homes telling tales of rednecks and hillbillies as they dined over tiny portions of overpriced food. While swigging martinis and ignoring strangers they would laugh uproariously at the simple folk of the south, of Kentucky, and swear that they would never come back.

What I’ve never understood is why they even bother to make a pilgrimage down here. Was it to bask in the decadence of a city they knew nothing about, or just to get drunk like the green suit and his whore? They could just have easily stayed home, these two invaders, watched the race on television and placed their bets with some high class bookie in a quiet little bar where a she-he that looked like Marilyn Monroe crooned Ella Fitzgerald in front of a small jazz trio. If they hate us, our city, our people, our way of life the rest of the year, then I don’t see why they should embrace the worst of the state for a few days in May before going back to treating us like the redheaded stepchild of America.

His face goes blank as the julep is swigged, then twists into a mixture of disgust and perverse delight at tasting something that, no doubt, he thinks is a true delicacy of a backwards people. His whore laughs again, a nasal sound that slices into the very core of the skull and dances on the bone. She wants a drink, tugging the cup from his hands and spilling a mixture that no Kentuckian ever really touches down the front of her dress. Even from here I can see her makeup, placed so carefully on cleavage, start to run down the fabric. Any self-respecting woman would have started crying, screaming at the injustice done to such an obviously expensive outfit. Her response is to grab the green man and force his face between her breasts, to lick the offending alcohol off her body. He goes to work at his new job with vigor and determination, sliding his tongue furiously over exposed skin.

Now the mob continues in its movement, pushing along the man in the green suit and his painted bride-for-a-night, a rolling river of decadence surging through the gates of the Downs. I sip the last of my tea, set it on the rusted metal porch table. In an hour it would be time to go to the bar and settle onto a corner stool before the race was run. Once the drunks had lost their money and gone to draw out more they would flood the Rose Bar with their foreign accents and noxious, whiskey-fumed breath. Any longer than an hour’s wait and it would be impossible to find a seat after these invaders on my peace found out there was a bar within walking distance. I heft myself out of the chair, slip my hat over a balding scalp, and decide to brave the crowd in favor of a quiet drink away from this madness.

Replacement Therapy

Abotu half-done with my first draft of a new story, violating the basic rules for "CRAP PILE MONTH" by producing a new and original work. After polishing it I'll be going back to nothing but pure crap, but for now I want to finish this one.

Work is going well. Quitting smoking, not so much. I've slipped a couple times, but the patch keeps me good on nicotine. My problem now is I've started sucking on toothpicks throughout the day as a replacement for constantly having a cigarette hanging from my lower lip.

This means I will have to institute a monthly "toothpick budget".

Waiting on a few subs, Harvest Hill and all that, to come back into my hands. Other than that, not much else to say. Started riding public transit again today, and had a flash or two for a story while doing so. Might flesh it out some, might not, not sure. I do know that after this one piece is done I'm going back to polishing up another turd I have with some potential.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler

Snuffed Out

Grab your ass, folks. I quit smoking. This is day one of "no cigarettes for Daddy", and it's been a doozy. What keeps me from flying off the handle? That small, flesh-colored patch on my arm delivering a constant stream of nicotine to my blood.

CRAP PILE MONTH has already resulted in one "gem", or rather a kernel of corn. Polished up (sorta) and sent off "Poppa Bear", a literary piece with a hopeless sort of dark ending to it (it made my wife ask what the hell was wrong with me). Johnny America got back to me in three days, sending a response that read:

"A good read, but just not right for us. Please remember us in the future."

That's not exact, but the gist. It was short and sweet, but obviously personal, so I view it as a good sign. Anytime a personal rejection has no real...well...criticism, I take heart.

CRAP PILE MONTH is continuing, but at the same time I'm working on a possible submission for the Necrotic Tissue Malpractice anthology. It concerns Medicare Providers and insurance companies. I'm enjoying it, working on it after work and some turd-polishing.

Yes, I really am that crude without a cigarette between my lips.

Anyhow, off to put my daughter to bed, get a bath, and change out this nicotine patch before bed. Christ, I want a cigarette BAD!

Peace (but not for me),
J.C. Tabler

Weekend Update, with J.C. Tabler

Week one of the job over. Last night was my sister's wedding. Sitting down today to start outlining an idea or two.

Here's the thing: writing is, unfortunately, taking a back seat until I get this house in order and settle into my job. Let's call it a month long hiatus. Instead of coming up with new stuff, I'm spending weekends in June and most of July re-working old pieces that I didn't like after the first draft. Some of them have a lot of promise when read later, others (I was surprised to find) are almost complete stories that I just got distracted from by something else. So, I hereby name Mid-June to Mid-July "CRAP PILE MONTH"

Got a rejection back from Unspeakable Horrors the other day, with good criticism in it, which was nice. I don't think I'll rework that story. Reading back over it, I saw it was written for one anthology, and probably wouldn't fit anywhere else. So, there we go.

Now, to take a bath, get my tux back to the rental store, and come home to figure out dinner before doing some more revisions.

BTW, congrats to Cate Gardner.

She's been having a spectacular 2008 so far, with acceptances into some very, very good areas, most recently with SAND. If you haven't read her work yet, hop to it. We're gonna see a lot more form her.