Publication Alert: "Something"

Dear Reader,

No, the title is not a joke. "Something" is really the name of my newly published piece.

I was delighted to have this little flash fiction piece picked up by Cheat River Review, a lovely journal run by the MFA program at West Virginia University. You can view my piece here.

About the Work:

I consider this piece as proof of my conviction that intimate conversation fuels creativity. I was working on a series of experimental forms for a Writing Fiction class. After playing around with condensed prose, parables, and strategic conceits, I had only the flash fiction form left (also known as micro-fiction or a short-short), which essentially means an extremely short story. Having never written a story without all the usual elements of plot, I found myself suffering from severe writer's block with this assignment. At dinner with some college friends, I lamented to a buddy of mine about my futile attempts to start and start over this project, to which he perked up and replied, "I know who you should talk to."

Ken (name changed for privacy) is a mutual friend known among our school's music students for three things: his dry sense of humor, his insane sax skills, and his habit of having crazy things happen to him. When he told me one of his ridiculous experiences at dinner that night, the wheels in my head turned madly. As soon as I finished eating, I rushed to a computer lab and typed up an off-shoot of his story (taking creative license, of course) in about 45 minutes. For someone who usually takes half-a-day to write the first words of a story, that kind of inspired drive is refreshingly thrilling -- that excitement is what writers live for.

Moral of the tale: converse with others often. You have no idea what amazing stories they have to share.

In other news, I am happy to say that I wrote my first decent poem in months yesterday while recovering from a cold. It's been a slow process, but with more reading and hard work, my writing confidence is gradually coming back. Hurrah writing!

Grace and peace to you.