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6/23/2020
On Baseball’s Return...
At this writing, it appears Major League Baseball will begin playing a pandemic-shortened season next month.
I like baseball, and plan to watch. And I’ll endure—just barely—announcers and other pundits who will herald the game’s return as if it would cure COVID, bring racial justice and provide puppies who never have accidents.
Those commentators will tell you that baseball—or any major sport—lifts the spirits of its fans. Probably true, and a good thing if it is. But all that eloquence about field happenings as, say, drama without consequence? You can find that on streaming services, too.
Pundits will talk about sports heroes as role models. Some are, for sure. But that positive influence is often canceled out by other athletes who lead public lives that are, um…not admirable.
On the other hand, there are folks who desperately need big-time sports. Young people, for instance, who chase the dream of a pro sports career because it may be their best chance to escape poverty. Not because they’re stupid and couldn't make it any other way. But because our leaders stubbornly refuse to adequately fund education, even as they channel taxpayer money to build stadiums for wealthy owners.
Sports also is critical to those who feed their families and pay the rent by processing ticket orders, selling hot dogs, staffing restaurants near sports venues and the like. As with education, our leaders refuse to fund decent safety-net programs for people who, despite often working more than one job, find themselves living paycheck to paycheck.
So welcome back, baseball. We need you for reasons that have nothing to do with what happens on the field.
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6/15/2020About “Hemingway Would Understand”
When I first published this story, I assumed everyone knew Ernest Hemingway was a much-praised author. Yet at that time one reader referred to him as “obscure.”
I mean, the guy won a Nobel Prize for literature. Sic transit, huh?
In fairness, that prize doesn’t always go to a great writer. Rudyard Kipling won it, for crying out loud. This is the guy who came up with the execrable phrase “white man’s burden.” He’s also remembered for “If,” a favored scaffolding for trite commencement speeches before “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” came along.
Hemingway—guns, alcohol, misogyny—was nothing like a humanitarian. Which is why he’d understand the uncle in my story.
Anyway, at the first publishing, some thought the ending of “Hemingway Would Understand” was too sentimental. As I re-read it, that thought occurred to me, too.
Just curious, readers: What would you think if I took out the two sentences at the end?
That would leave the main character in the basement, “Smelling cordite. Listening to the adults argue. Trying to choose.”
If you can spare a minute, let me know what you think, okay?
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6/8/2020
Here we go, again…
In an earlier blog (April 30, further down this page), we noted ways in which large organizations were leveraging the pandemic to thump their chests for doing what the law required and other things that they should do anyway.
Well, in the wake of the George Floyd killing, they’re at it again. At least some of them.
One bank emailed customers about their “commitment to equality & your safety,” due to what they call “unrest.” Unrest—massive protests across the nation for two weeks, and counting? If that bank’s leadership plans anything to get at the root causes of the “unrest,” they kept it to themselves.
A big investment company took at least a step in the right direction. Their CEO stated the firm’s commitment to equality and will provide $5 million in financial support to organizations that address injustice and racial disparities. Good stuff. But the photo of a large group of employees that ran with it? If there was more than a smattering of people of color, it wasn’t obvious to these old eyes. Addressing racial disparity begins at home, no? And while $5 mil is better than nothing, for a company that that size it’s pretty much the dictionary definition of a drop in the bucket.
C’mon C-suite habitués.
It’s shameful to use this crisis to burnish your corporate image. But since many of you are going to do that anyway, at least pair the words with meaningful action—something that will make a difference long after this particular time of “unrest” is past.
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6/1/2020
About “BIG CHAIN SHUTTERS…”
The story I just posted is the shortest I’ve ever written. But according to legend, Ernest Hemingway wrote one that was even shorter: “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.”
Six words.
Regular readers know it is not false humility for me to acknowledge Hemingway did a lot of things better than I do. I cite “Baby Shoes” only to illustrate the power of very short fiction. Short on details, strong on suggestion and implication.
The “Baby Shoes” writer might easily have fleshed out an arc of several thousand words, taking us from anticipation to worry to sadness and despair. That might have been a very good story. But it’s hard to imagine it delivering more of a gut-punch than the six-word version. And it might not engage a reader nearly as much.
Anyway, one day I challenged myself to write something very short. “Big Chain Shutters…” suggests (I hope) at least two struggles. And it runs only fourteen words.
But you’re already ahead of me, right? You know I cheated with a nine-word title. Because, as I said, I’m no Ernest Hemingway.
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5/22/2020Anyone for a listen?
I made a voice file of “Broken Hearts,” one of the stories you’ll find on this site. If you reply via “Contact Us”, I’ll email the voice file to you. If you’d like to read along, you can find the story here.
Why not download directly from this site? I’d love to have set that up, but the deal I have with the web-hosting company doesn’t allow for it.
I hope you enjoy listening, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!
5/13/2020 See What Happens?
A belated Mother’s Day memory, sort of…
When I was growing up, Mom had a way of imparting object lessons in the form of rhetorical questions.
See what happens when you don’t take care of your things? See what happens when you don’t prepare? See what happens when you lie?
In this time of pandemic, I can imagine Mom posing See what happens questions to childish leaders of all stripes.
See what happens when you don’t have a plan for a foreseeable crisis?
See what happens when you put partisan interests above those of the people you’re sworn to serve?
See what happens when your own hypocrisy leads those people to mistrust you at a moment when trust is more important than ever?
Eventually, I understood the object lessons implied in Mom’s questions and changed my behavior.
I'm not optimistic all of our leaders will do the same. But hey, they might.
Let's see what happens.
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5/5/2020The Laughing Monarch: What’s It All About?
Sometimes, after a story is finished, I still don’t quite understand it myself. “The Laughing Monarch” is a case in point.
As a larva, the protagonist longs to emerge from his cocoon as a monarch butterfly, and even prays for that. If his prayer was answered, does that signal a benign supreme being? If so, why would that being allow others just like our hero to die before their time, often horribly? Or was becoming a monarch simply chance, the die having been cast from the instant of conception?
Either way, is this monarch’s very existence part of a grand plan? If so, how does our protagonist fit in?
Readers, a couple of questions for you:
- Do thoughts like these ennoble the butterfly? Or, having been posed by an insect, do they demean ruminations like these?
- At the end of the story, as the protagonist knows he is about to die, he reconsiders his life and laughs. Why the laughter?
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4/30/2020Of Self-Serving Messages in the Age of COVID
Those self-serving, COVID-related emails, texts, flyers…Anyone else feel like certain organizations are trying to play us?
For example…
- The bank that told customers to check its website for help in getting a stimulus check. That help consisted of a link to an IRS tool plagued by many well-publicized failings.
- The big grocery chain’s chest-thumping announcement that its workers would henceforth wear masks. In other words, their stores will comply with a new state requirement.
- The utility that let customers know it has umpteen emergency plans. Planning is good, but execution is what matters. And this utility’s reputation has been…um…bad.
The purpose of messages like these is to build good will so that customers will keep investing, buying, supporting rate increases.
But help that is no help at all? Framing that makes a government mandate seem like a voluntary initiative? Pretending a history of incompetence simply doesn’t exist?
To organizations everywhere: We, your customers, are not naïve, stupid or uninformed. Messages like these do not simply fail to serve your purpose. They run counter to it.
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4/20/2020Ecce Romo--Writers can’t help it: They’re all about Themselves.
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the ending of “Ecce Romo.”
In that story, the grandfather is at first surprised that his writer-granddaughter would turn his recollections into her memoir. That she’d be the Romo being ecce’d.
Well, of course she did.
Writers are all about themselves. Consciously or not, they run every word through the filter of personal experience. Parents that were strict or permissive. Loves lost or found. Acquaintances who left a mark.
Romo’s granddaughter did this more consciously that some writers. But her writing was part of a long and rich tradition.
Readers do this, too. What each each of us takes away from a given piece of writing really is a combination, a reflection of where reader and writer have been and who they are in the moment.
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4/15/2020You can edit %$#@, but Not a Blank Page
To state the absurdly obvious, we’re going through a wretched time.
I wish I could write about more timely topics like epidemiology or vaccines or quarantines. But I know nothing about those things. So, begging indulgence, I’ll turn to writing about writing--a subject of which I know not nearly enough, but at least have some experience.
The Current Unpleasantness has made so much recent fiction seem—well, dated. Nostalgic. On this site, for instance, “Raptured” is set in an office workplace. (I know, right?) In “Babysitting Michael,” characters go to a restaurant--a restaurant, for crying out loud--and one of them stands close enough to smell another’s onion breath.
So what’s a writer whose stories usually occur in a now-ish timeframe to do?
Probably just keep writing. It’ll be harder. It’s been harder. But I keep reminding myself to keep the words coming, even when what shows up seems like %$#@.
Because, as the saying goes, %$#@ is editable, but a blank page is not. Do what you can now, and fix it later. Keep on, keeping on, as the song goes. Conceptually, a principle one might apply to all to all sorts of endeavors.
PS: To lighten things up, check out the (fictional) thoughts of Shakespeare as he struggles with writer’s block during an earlier pandemic.
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4/6/2020About Broken Hearts... And an Alien with Human ProblemsBefore writing “Broken Hearts,” I was plumbing the depths of a creative slump. To snap out of it, I considered going full Hemingway. But as a fan of neither guns nor tequila, instead I tried writing in a genre I hadn’t attempted before: sci-fi.
The dilemma: as a flash fiction writer, I limit myself to 1,000 words or less. Given that need to go small or go home, how could I both tell a story and include strange worlds, gee-whiz technology and odd creatures?
It was easier than I thought. Readers in this genre often are more than willing to suspend disbelief. In “Broken Hearts,” for instance, Melinda is a female from another planet. Well, yeah. This is sci-fi. Ergo aliens.
Her home planet had two suns. A bit of a cliché, but why not?
Melinda doesn’t look much like us. Why would she? You already said she was an alien.
But advanced technology allows her to appear human. Uh-huh.
Details like those place “Broken Hearts” in the science-fiction genre. But to whatever degree the story succeeds, it’s because Melinda and her situation are familiar—in this case, wretchedly familiar—to real human readers.
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4/1/2020Groceries in the Time of COVIDIn ordinary times, the subject of this week’s epistle would sound even to me like the title of a children’s book: A Trip to the Grocery Store. It wasn’t exactly a descent into the heart of darkness. But, to use an increasingly overused phrase, it was far from ordinary.
Yeah, COVID-19. I’m lookin’ at you.
My wife and I have none of the medical conditions that could make us particularly vulnerable. But our age puts us right in the virus’s wheelhouse.
To limit our exposure, we tried to have groceries delivered, or at least arranged to pick-up an order that already had been bagged and paid for. But demand for those services has exploded. After days of fruitlessly trying to set up a time, we gave up.
The best we could do is take advantage of a nearby grocer’s offer to let seniors shop an hour before it permitted others into the store. I made my way there, driving nearly alone down streets usually choked with rush-hour traffic.
As I waited for the store to open, I saw two employees coming to work. Friends, I suppose. They hugged each other, and then went into the store. WTF?! Well, at least I had a small bottle of hand-sanitizer.
Now some authorities are saying all of us should wear masks when we go out. But at that time, the advice was to mask only if you had symptoms, or knew you’d been exposed. That wasn’t me.
But lots of other shoppers were masked. For the most part, we kept the required distance from one another. Yielded right-of-way as appropriate. Under other circumstances, yielding would elicit a polite smile and nod. This time, there were nods. But no smiles, even from the unmasked. And in the eyes of nealry everyone, wariness. Worry. Apprehension.
The shelves were reasonably stocked. But my wife needs a special diet to stay healthy, and some of those items were missing. Also most dried beans. And things that probably are not so essential, but make sheltering in place more bearable. Strawberries, for instance. There were no strawberries.
By the time my cart was full, I felt pretty good. Righteous, even. I was purchasing less than the prescribed two weeks’ worth of groceries.
Approaching the checkout, I was pleased to see the cashier was wearing a mask. Also, the store had installed a plastic wall between her and the customers. Something to keep both of us safe. Safer, anyway.
Still, I made a detour to buy something not on my list. A bottle of wine.
At home, we sanitized everything according to instructions from a physician’s podcast that had gone viral.
As I went to bed that night, I realized that we hadn’t opened the wine. Maybe we'll save it for after my next grocery run.
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3/23/2020About “Bigger Lies” …and Maybe Prophecy
Several years ago, after reading “Bigger Lies are Coming” and other stories written around that time, a friend said, “Man, you have really gone dark.”
Well, yeah.
That was shortly after death ended my father’s long decline, and as my mother was heading the same direction. Neither of my parents fell into the cognitive state of Stanley in “Bigger Lies.” But as their time drew nearer, each grew increasingly angry or confused or both.
I especially recall a moment with my dad. As he and I watched TV one night my mother, with the help of an aide, left the room to change for bed. No sooner had they gone than Dad began to fret about what could be taking Mom so much time.
I reminded Dad that it had only been a couple of minutes. And, besides, the aide would let us know if there were a problem. That did nothing to ease his anxiety. He grabbed the handles of his walker and, rising from his chair, took a step toward the bedroom.
By that time I was a little frustrated, myself. Without much thought—thoughtlessly might be the more precise description—I told Dad that Mom was just fine and he might as well sit back down.
Dad glared at me for a moment. Then, he dropped back into his recliner and said, “You’ll see.”
Knock on particle board, I'm physically healthy and my cognition today is pretty much where it’s always been.
But, assuming I remain above ground long enough, I know that’s likely to change.
And Dad’s words probably will turn out have been a prophecy.
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3/21/2020Write Your Own Adventure?Stories tend to begin with a catalyst. A big change for the main character, accompanied by challenges he or she never dreamed of facing. Maybe something dystopian, a scary scenario that upends social norms. A deadly and highly contagious virus threatens the globe, where many of the people in charge are unprepared and slow to act. Misinformation and disinformation exacerbate the confusion and fear.
It’s been said that each of us is the protagonist of his or own story. We’re also the authors, people whose choices shape the narrative, determine how the main character turns out.
As in many stories, the conflict is a moral dilemma.
Will the character act instinctively, reflexively hunker down, look out for Number One? Hoard. Maybe buy a gun to protect that hoard. Leverage the global crisis to advance a political or social or corporate objective.
Or will our protagonist go the other direction? As means allow, support charities and local businesses. And, most importantly, keep in touch. Reach out to loved ones, of course. But also to others who are needy or anxious or just need someone to talk to. Probably not in person, but maybe in some tech-savvy way. Landlines work, too.
While your character ponders the choices, maybe the author will consider these words from Poet Lynn Ungar’s “Pandemic:”
...reach out with your heart. Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful…
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3/16/2020About “Raptured”
“Raptured” is set in a dysfunctional workplace.
A phrase some may consider redundant.
On the other hand, let’s acknowledge there are some who LOVE their jobs. Folks who can’t wait to start the work day. Who, with their dying breath, might well say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”
This story is for everyone else. Those who, absent the need for a paycheck, might start their own business. Pursue a career that doesn’t pay nearly as well. For folks who, like “Raptured’s” Art Grimes who explains,“A systems analyst is…only what I get paid to do. What I am, is an artist .” A Shakespearean actor, to be specific.
Readers, if you had your druthers and a paycheck were unimportant, what might you do (or have done) with the time you spend at work? Drop me line, okay?
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3/10/2020Thoughts on writing advice…A quick web search will turn up a boatload of advice for fiction writers.Stick to writing about what you know, for instance. OK. Where does that leave fantasy and sci-fi authors? Broadly speaking, the best writers in any genre explore the human condition. But all of us are human. (At least, so far.)
Some urge writing a minimum number of words per day. The logic: Feces can be edited; not so a blank page.
But others will tell you to stop writing before you feel ready to quit. Presumably, that practice builds momentum by filling an author with anticipation for the next writing session.
Ernest Hemingway would begin by typing the word “The.” If inspiration hadn’t struck by the end of his writing time, Papa added the words “hell with it” and walked away. (Or more likely, toward a Tequila Sunrise.)
Purely personal observation: There are no silver bullets. So, embrace the contradictions. Try stuff. And keep what works.Read storiesComment or question?Sign up for alerts when new content is posted
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3/4/2020Education of a Writer, Part I
In high school, I took a journalism class taught by a middle-aged woman relatively new to the faculty. All I knew about Mrs. G was that she was prematurely gray; favored dresses with an alligator logo on the front, and wore half-moon reading glasses. But, hey. Writing always had come easily for me. Why should this class be different?
Full of sixteen-year-old hubris, I turned in my first assignment. Mrs. G read each student's submission aloud to the class, following up with her critique. I listened indifferently until she came to my piece.
Peering through those reading glasses, Mrs. G matter-of-factly flagged long words where short ones would do. Needlessly complex sentences. Irrelevant details. She called these novice mistakes, explained how to correct them and moved on.
Nothing mean or even condescending about it. But a novice? Moi!
Deflated ego aside, what really took me off guard was the way Mrs. G said those things. I didn’t know it then, but teaching was her second career. Her first was as a reporter on a big-city newspaper. In tones I wouldn’t hear again until I began writing for a living, she addressed me as if I were a professional.
Buried lead? Unsourced fact? Failure to indicate a piece was over by typing “-30-” at the end? Fix it, remember and move on.
As I progressed, I think Mrs. G took a special interest in me. With more patience than I probably deserved, she showed me how to write tight. That less could be more. The stuff of good writing in general, and both journalism and flash fiction in particular.
Once, disappointed and maybe a little sad, Mrs. G took off her glasses, sighed and asked why an opinion piece I’d written went on so long.
“For goodness sake,” she said. “Make your point. And then stop typing.” -30-Read stories
2/27/2020What I Learned by Writing “Four-One-One” Most of my story ideas come from chance encounters—phrases and situations, for example, I simply stumble across without intending to. Another way for a writer to go is a formal prompt—words, pictures, etc. whose sole intention is to trigger the imagination.
I used to scorn the latter approach, and still find it a bit contrived for my taste. But I’m not as dogmatic about that as I used to be, mostly because one prompt—a photo of an old rotary phone—gave me the idea of “Four-One-One.”
An idea—an opportunity—that might not otherwise have come my way.And a lesson for me that extends to realms well outside of writing.
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2/24/2020Hope that Springs Eternal: A DialogThe late Detroit Tiger announcer Ernie Harwell always began his first broadcast of the season with words from The Song of Solomon: “…the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing birds is come, and the voice of the turtle [dove] is heard in our land.”
In the part of Michigan where I live, temperatures turned unseasonably warm late last week, and crocuses poked their heads above the dirt. As flora go, crocuses have to be among the most optimistic. Maybe spring will come early this year.
Why not?
Meanwhile, another sign of spring: Major league baseball teams are training in Florida and Arizona. Baseball writers, without much of substance to report, speculate this untested player could be 2020’s rookie of the year. That declining veteran could have one more stellar season in him. And shoot, if that happens, maybe the team will be a lot better than most people expect.
Not so sure...
This past week has been a tough one. Aging issues for a close and beloved relative. Health crisis for a friend and neighbor. Death of my best friend’s brother. News reports of war and cruelty and pandemic. But maybe things will work out for the best.
Um…what can I say?
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2/18/2020The Evolution of “Babysitting Michael”A long time ago—Reagan was president and people still were renting rotary phones from Ma Bell—I greased up my Royal and wrote about a pair of thirty-somethings trying to re-connect with their college activist days. It was not a good story. It was so not good, I didn’t try to publish and kept no copy.
Years later, thinking about our current ethically challenged era, I took another crack at the story. I aged the main characters and made it into an elegy, of sorts. (Maybe the theme song would be “Revolution,” but in a minor key.)
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2/14/2020Why Flash fiction?Some call flash fiction—often defined as a story of 1,000 words or less—a form for short attention spans. Sometimes. Maybe.
But as a reader, I’ve found that catching all that’s happening in well-written flash requires a good deal of focused attention. A quick read just won't do it.
As a writer, creating a flash can take me anywhere from a week to a month or more. Sometimes, even after spending that much time on a story, I throw up (my hands) in despair and move on to something new. But even when it comes to that, I’ve lost only a month. It can take a couple of years for a novelist to realize the same thing.
Personally, knowing I won’t have to invest a huge chunk of my life in any given piece gives me the mental space to experiment with different genres and try other things I might not in a longer form.
And, I hope, make my flash fiction worth your time to read.
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