Good news and Bad News

This past week I’ve sold two pieces. “The Neighbor” is going to Fifty-Two Stitches for their 2010 line-up. I wrote this one, really, for Paul, because I figured he’d get a kick out of it. And he did. The other, if I remember right, is called “A Two Flush Toilet” (it might be as silly as it sounds, but I had fun writing it) and is going to Three Crow Press-Morrigan Ezine. Naturally, the title, and idea for this story, really, came from our own two flush toilet. We have bad water pressure upstairs and I thought of it while I was waiting for the second flush, which is perhaps altogether too much information.

And now for the bad news. Arkham Tales is now closed, the final issue is up at their site now. Naturally, I’m disappointed that my story never did make it in, but really, I’m just more bummed that they’re closing, because I hate to see that, you know? You want to see these small ventures succeed not as a venue for your work, but because it’s a hard nasty world out there, and you want things to flourish just to know that they can. That there’s room for and interest in this collection of distinct voices. Because if there’s not, well, that’s just a son of a bitch. Adios, Arkham Tales, it was good while it lasted.

Done!

With my sonnet. I hope.

It’s not all fun and games

Sometimes, there are serious issues to be considered. Why are there no such things as butt callouses?

Thoughts

The mind sifts too much, something is there, considered, gone forever unless it’s been put down. I used to save thoughts when I was a kid. That will be good for thinking about before bed, that sort of thing. It’s like a guilty pleasure, thinking. Something that must be done alone and in the quiet. Milton wrote Paradise Lost to justify the ways of God to man, so he wrote. But God is incomprehensible. We can only understand by making God ourselves. Yet, we in turn are incomprehensible. Even in the mask of man, we cannot understand God because we cannot understand ourselves.

Last night I had a nightmare. I was on a tour of a house of illusions. Illusions that were real. Led by an old woman, an ugly place, an ugly toothless woman. It was dirty, everything, and full of death. It was like a farm. There was a great giant pig who was dead in a bigger bin with a lid that closed like an attic door. I knew he was dead in there, lifted the lid and saw him. He had the eyes of a human, but they were glazed over, milky. He skin was at once soft and flaking. And it stunk. I should have done something, disposed of it somehow, but it was too heavy. I didn’t want to deal with it. I knew the stench would fill the place, but told myself it would be contained by the bin. I dropped the lid and walked away to other horrors I don’t remember now.

Before I woke, we returned to that room. It still stunk, but the pig was alive, and not a pig, but a man, standing on two legs, but still piggish, if that makes sense. But his skin  was still soft, his eyes still milky. He explained that it was all an illusion, but the revelation made things no different. Was death the illusion? Can you make it so with denial? But if illusions, what are they at the heart? Why do they still look the same?

What are we?

It is the job of the novelist, poet, artist, to justify the ways of man to man. To create understanding where there was only darkness, at least for the creator.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, and I’ve gone on longer than I intended. I just didn’t want my mind to sift it out.

Personification Allegory

So, I got this rejection letter yesterday for a story I’d written over the summer and sent out a couple months ago. I did it for a fiction workshop (Flash Me’s flash fiction workshop) so the length had been restricted. And you know what? (This has never really happened before) I was happy that I got rejected. Probably not as happy as I would have been if it had been accepted, being that I’m stone broke and it was a paying market, but I wasn’t at all disappointed even though I thought it might be accepted. I was glad to have the opportunity to rewrite (again something that never really happens) and to extend this story. To make it a part of the novel that I’m working on now, but also write it so that it could still stand alone. It’s a personification allegory, and I know it’s way old school and possibly lame, but I totally have a thing for those. Why, you ask?

I don’t think this is unique to me, but when I was a kid, I assumed everything had feelings and thoughts like I did. I tried to play with my toys equally so they wouldn’t get jealous of each other or feel left out. Something about wanting everything to be as alive as I was. Naturally, I grew out of it. But there are those things that still rule our lives, time is the big one for me, I’ve always been fascinated by it, like, is it a construct of people? A way to mete out our limited lives? But it can’t be just that, because it’s like a great immutable ruler in its own right. Like a god. It should be real, alive. It should have reasons. So, a lot of my personifications have to do with time. I’m not saying that I’m good at writing them, only that I enjoy it. When I got that rejection last night, I got right back to it. I love writing. It makes me happy. Even when I don’t know or think anybody will ever read it. Maybe especially then.

I’m in hate

With sonnets. Or at least with writing them. I can’t seem to get more than four beats to a line. I hate counting. It makes me want to tear out my hair strand by strand (but not count them).

It makes the causes of the Civil War assignment seem absolutely riveting.

 

November, you’ve done it again.

It’s looking grim for completing my national novel writing month novel again this year. I have reasons but no excuses. I realized the choice once again became writing the novel or keeping up with my schoolwork. I kind of arranged a little nano rip off in August, because I knew this was bound to happen, and I did make my 50k that month. But, yeah. I wish I had thought more about my story before starting. However, I’m not giving up. I’m restarting the novel, except I’m not holding myself to this frantic pace that requires quantity over quality. I want my novel to be good, this time, and I’m not ready to rush it and lose interest by doing so. So, I’m working on it, but I’m writing it out by hand. I have more time to think about each word that way. It makes me feel more connected to the story than typing it out right off. NOT giving up. Just demanding more of myself than what can be confined to November. Besides, by the time I’m really getting into it, it should be winter break!

Why am I not writing my novel RIGHT now?

Cake Wrecks. Damn your delicious hilarity!

Oh, so. I’ve decided I’m going to use my middle initial for awhile and see how it goes. I hadn’t really considered it before, but I’m still looking for a way to differentiate myself from porn Dawn Allison. C stands for clean. Clean, you trollop!!! I have to look that up and make sure it means what I think it means. Yes, a trollop! And a strumpet! Although strumpet sounds like it ought to be some sort of delicious pastry. Cake wrecks really got in my head, apparently.

Actually, the C. just stands for Christina. Now you know!

What I love about National Novel Writing Month

Yes, I’m still plugging away at my novel. I’ll hit 15,000 words easy tonight. That includes about three chapter ones and two chapter fives. I know it’s a sad discombobulated novel. But I can see the beauty in it. To find it, all I had to do was let go of all my plans, expectations, and ideas. November is the time to let the story write itself without interference from you, author and editor extraordinaire. Already I know my beginning will need rewritten, and I’m seriously lacking on description, but magical things are happening, you know how it is. You’re writing things and they take a turn where it seems like you had to have planned it that way, but you totally didn’t. I’ve lost some time on working on the novel from being a world of sick (I think it’s that mucking swine flu) I mean, the one night, I don’t think I could have managed writing the word NyQuil 1667 times to fill my quota even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. It wouldn’t have moved the plot forward at all. Although it might have been nice if I’d had some on hand. The thing about being mad sick and trying to write at the same time is that, provided your brain isn’t torched with fever, it takes your mind off all the misery going on in your head (and sinuses).

Also, I’m doing some reading for school that’s super inspirational, the novel Possession, which I’m really digging, and Tennyson and Browning for another class. LOVE The Lady of Shallot. Ironically, I saw the painting before I ever read the poem, and it kind of inspired the turn-around in my novel, which the poem totally reinforces.

 

Such a shitty day.

It only takes two angry men with guns to make you feel your existence is tiny and fragile.  I slinked away in silence. I am not proud.