Stuff

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Our 5th Issue

Here's where you can get your free download of Thrice Fiction. And things are going quite well there, thank you for asking. The publication, I feel, has grown up a lot in the year and 2/3 it has been in existence, and it is exciting to see independent reviews of our work being published out there without us having to prompt anybody.

The amount of readers we're collecting is kind of astonishing to both Dave and I. Around 5,000 independent downloads of the last issue (#4) took us both by surprise. But that's why we are both committed to keeping the downloads FREE.

Equally astonishing is the location of readers and contributors. In just over a year we have been read in numerous countries and hosted writers from Ireland, Germany, Wales and - by the look of some of them - the Moon. Plus much more.

There's a lot going on in issue #5, not the least of which is a showing for an art form known as "micro fiction." Micro Fiction is pretty cool because it's a story told in the barest possible amount of words. The idea is to generate a reaction in the mind of the reader to where they are filling the "blank space" with things left unsaid on their own. It distills a story to maybe three sentences and the main thing is evocation. Really good micro fiction evokes a reaction in the mind of the reader. Really BAD micro fiction is a real hot mess. It is NOT easy to create, but when it is done well - well, why not take a look at the samples we have in #5 and see for yourself what I mean.

I truly believe the artwork is getting better and better with each passing issue. Dave Simmer has a very good article on his blog about the background and idea to the art work in #5 here.

And in just a few days the submissions will come open for issue #6 due out in November. With each passing issue the amount of submissions increases remarkably. And that's a good thing. I get to pick only the best of what we have been given. It's a great job for a picky sumbitch like me.

But that happens August 1 - so there's still some time for a few cocktails...

Um... Oh.

Oh hai. Did you know you can turn on the old Blogger interface and make like none of the stupid changes they made ever happened? I didn't. I didn't because the only real way to find it is to click a little enigmatic sprocket thingee in a corner somewhere that releases a menu that has the option on it.

Jesus I'm glad I have at least a modicum of internet savvy, albeit to a limited degree, otherwise I probably would have never found it. Is it any wonder that people with real lives don't often bother with the internet? No. No, it isn't. As the days progress I find myself more and more wanting to be on their team.

So it's been a while, no? And I'm sure all seven of you that are left haven't wasted a minute wondering wtf was up here; and to that I say good for you. As for myself I don't have much to say, unless it entails bitching about the state of things in a society I more and more want to have nothing to do with.

Politics has been replaced, in my life, with baseball. I find that I have actually reverted to my pre-teen childhood wherein I ate, slept, talked, thought, and cared about nothing but baseball. It's to the point also where I actually don't care if anybody else "gets" it. I mean, who cares if you do or not? I'm me, not you.

"On many summer day I played baseball starting at 8 in the morning, running home at noon for a quick meal, and again with fielding and batting until it was too dark to see the ball. There were times when my head seemed empty of everything but baseball names and figures. I could name the players who led in batting and fielding, and the pitchers who had won the most games. And I had my opinions - about who was better than anybody else in the national game."

Carl Sandburg

Dude, Carl Sandburg was born in 1878, so he's talking about "baseball" as it was known in the late 1880's. "I could name the players.." Think about that a second.

This year I went to a day game at The Cell to watch the White Sox take on the mighty mighty Baltimore Orioles. The Sox played so bad they made them look like world-beaters. Turns out now that, actually, the Orioles are doing pretty well considering nobody thought anything of them.

But wait!

In Auguest I'm going to 3 games. I'll watch the Sox take on Oakland, Anaheim and the New Yok Yonkees, whoever they are. All within a matter of a couple weeks. I'm going to be baseball crazy. As if I already amn't.

In other news there's not much other news. We're winding our way down to the July issue of Thrice and I've still got a MOUNTAIN of submissions to get through before May 31. Ouch.

I'm still working my crazy 3-day/40 hour job. I am also convinced that every one of these online job search things is a scam. The only answers I'm getting (outside of "sorry we're not wanting follow-up, if we're interested we'll call you") is "Hey for $500 I'll let you sell this with me. Then if YOU can get people to sign on for $500 you get a piece of them." Yeah right. Bull.

Don't expect me to care or weigh in on the politics of the day. I'm at a point where I don't give a shit & let's keep it that way, shall we? I've rarely been happier. Conservatives are assholes and liberals are hot dogs. They belong together. Huzzah for the Black Bloc. All I'm saying.

And now, a bit of something that helped inform the culture and make you wonder what it is you're supposed to reply with in the comments...

Baseball, Black Bloc, and Eraserhead. You KNOW you want to hang out with me, don't you? Ha...

EDIT TO ADD: Jeez, forgot the other news. I had a couple poems accepted by The Argotist Press (UK), which is doing an anthology of "Otherstream" writers (not mainstream, see how that works?) and it was supposed to be out in May but now it's going to have to wait until the fall because of printing/printer issues. I'm not very good at touting where to find my stuff. I don't think I've actually told anybody that, to be honest. Maybe one or two. Oh well...

Thrice #4 Is Up

I am so very proud of this collaboration I can't explain it. The writers and artists come shining through. This is the one I'm sending out to reviews. Go see. I absolutely promise you will love it, quite simply. Thrice Fiction #4

EDIT TO ADD:I should say this issue is rather a kind of homecoming for me. Larry Oberc, who did my artwork for the old Fiction Review back in the 90's, has contributed his artwork, at one point appearing beside a piece by John M Bennett, and there are two bits from the inimitable and quite daunting mIEKAL aND. This represents a return of part of the crew from those days all in one place again. & I can't tell you what a head rush it is to see three of my old friends from the "writer thing" summoning up their old powers one more time.

Where I'll Be

What starts now is my period of wage slavery at the hands of good church-going Catholics everywhere who only show up on Easter and Christmas. They have a name for that kind of attender but I can't remember what it is. Anyway I owe my income to these folks because for those two holidays we have to put in a ton of overtime making 50% more bulletins than we normally do for all 1722 churches we handle around the country. So I may not be around much as of tomorrow all the way up to Easter. In the meantime I've posted a picture of a pretty little Spanish woman who was part of the anarchist militias in 1937.

Hey I found out today that Rush Limbaugh's show is put on by Clear Channel, and that the company that has Clear Channel in their portfolio is something called Bain Capital. So see? Who says Governor Romney doesn't have conservative credentials? He owns - oh alright used to own - a piece of ol' cyst butt. Seems as though Rush, the voice and conscience of the GOP, is having a little trouble these days. But he'll weather the storm. Losing a few sponsors with so many on the waiting list is not a big deal. There are plenty of companies looking to sell products to conservatives and Republicans. Burial plots. Gout remedies. Viagra. Happy pills. Nazi collectables. Nude photos of Ayn Rand. Phone numbers of available little boys for fun and profit. Bibles. Investment property in Utah. That kind of thing.

Funny if you characterize black people by some stereotype you lose your radio job, but do it to a woman and nothing happens.

To be any part of the Republican Party these days I guess you have to be real crabby. It seems to be their cultural trait nowadays. Angry white guys unite!

I'm hoping and praying for, and willing to actually send money to, Senator Santorum's campaign. I have a driving need to see him carry the GOP banner this fall. Since there will end up being virtually no difference between Governor Romney and President Obama the potential for entertainment this campaign seems very low. We need Senator Santorum now!

I see also where the Speechdollars (it's a word I made up to label the money given by faceless PACS who can now spend unlimited funds on lies and treachery and be protected by the 1st Amendment, meaning that their speech is freer than your speech simply because you can't afford to broadcast your lies like they can broadcast theirs) have been being spent by the millions already just among the Republicans. There's a robocall going around Ohio right now telling people they can "Vote for Santorum and American values or vote for homosexuality and Romney." Wow. Just... wow. I hope you members of the GOP reading this right now are proud of yourselves.

Dumbasses.

So anyway sorry to say you won't be seeing much of my happy happy thoughts for a while. No doubt the conservatives among you are quite satisfied with that. But in the meantime you can always visit my official website that went online a while ago.

Also, get ready for issue #4 of Thrice. I saw some of the first "rushes" from dave2 this weekend and it's so good it will rot your liver. We're guessing it'll be out by the 18th. I may be back for a little while before then. Who knows.

Hey, my old magazine got listed at Read/Write (formerly the Underground Library) in Chicago. Here's our page.

Oh and here's Charlize. Darken her hair and sling a rifle over her shoulder and she could almost be part of the militia. Hmmm...

What Part Of No...?

Sixty-two rejection letters sent out so far for issue 4 of Thrice. There are three works on the "maybe" pile, and ten yet to be read. All-in-all I expect we hit one hundred submissions easy before this is over.

It's not hard to write rejection notes. Sometimes, if the person is obviously sending their material to the wrong place, you can get away with a form letter. People should read the magazine before they submit so they may get an idea as to what we're doing. In truth, however, maybe the first three issues didn't have the complete vision in place yet; so I can't fault people too harshly for what may be my incomplete idea from before. But other times I find myself writing a more personal note. "You lost sight of what tense you're in", or "I was hooked but when it was over I wasn't sure I wanted to be." I try very hard to be constructive. I have kept every rejection letter I have ever gotten (I think) and have them in a box. Anyway... somewhere. So I don't say what some have said in my rejections. There's no need to be a jerk and, to be honest, most people aren't. Even a form rejection can be written with some measure of respect for the trying. I ran into a lot of angry young editors, mad at the world, in the past. I refuse to be one of those. Look out at you from my picture as if I hate you and everybody you know, sucking on a cigarette. No thanks.

But it is a two-way street. Writers can be pips just the same. I got one answer from a rejection almost demanding a detailed explanation as to why what they sent didn't work. I mean, my God, they had an appropriately quirky bio already contained in their cover letter and they seem a little out there, so why on Earth didn't you use my story? That kind of thing. Also "what did you mean when you said...?" Yikes. No, I do not answer letters or emails like that. Two or three submitters have sent something else on the heels of their rejection notes. One has done this twice, giving me three stories to nix. Some people are close. Some people will never get it.

Here's the deal - I want there to be nothing in Thrice except stuff I CAN'T WAIT for you to read. You. You, sitting there reading this right now. I want to look at something and say "This is great, I HAVE to show this to ___." And so far every piece, from some of the more traditional to some that are almost impossible to describe, fits that requirement.

No matter what you do, there are going to be people who don't like it. That's life. And I send rejection letters off knowing that some people will be pissed, some will take it in stride, and others may generate a small crisis for themselves. But something happened over the weekend that made this all superfluous. There have also been people who have questioned what we've put in Thrice. "Disappointed with the fiction," I recall being told at one point. And it's important what people think, because we're putting out an entry into the public media. So it's hard not to look back and ask yourself "what could I have done better?" It's only natural. But, as I said, something happened this weekend that made even this less important.

I'm having a service build me a website. A .com for myself. And I spent some time preparing some background information for them to add to it. While doing this, making a bibliography of my stuff and all that, I also made a list of some of the people who I published in the first zine I had in the early 90s. I published. That's the operative term. It was my call to put them in, amid all the other submissions I chose these people. My people. My picks. And when I looked at the list I realized that it hasn't all been a secret world of my own making, or a mystery achievement nobody knows of. I'm very proud - exceedingly proud - of the voices I picked for the Fiction Review. And we're doing it again. Only this time I have Dave2 as a co-creator, co-founder, and also the adult in the room. :-)

None of these people are great big honking names like Stephen King and all that. 99% of published writers still need to keep their day jobs. That's just how it is. You don't quit your job to "become a writer." You're cursed with it. But what they have done is had actual follow-up careers. They were for real, and I saw it coming. Me, over here. And some of the people who were already somewhat established sent stuff in on their own volition. I asked no one to help.

So the #4 issue of Thrice Fiction is a month or so away. And every last word in it is going to be pretty good. After all, I have a track record of finding people who seem to make something out of their disease.

Here's some folks who made it into the first magazine I did. Some were just getting started, others were established in a small circle and were starting to expand their audiences. I think it's a pretty good group. You should check them out.

Just a few Fiction Review alums...

Thomas Wiloch
Richard Kostelanetz
Paulette Roeske
Hugh Fox
Gorman Bechard (he has the story "A Pretty Girl" which first appeared in the Fiction Review, on his website.
William P. Haynes (aka Elliot)
Sheila E. Murphy
Jack Foley
Lorri Jackson (also pictured on the right side of the title banner above)

Plus there's Charlize Theron up there. So there is that.

Sometimes...

...I'm not sure if holding down a regular job all the time has been good or bad for my publication record - or lack of one. On the one hand it keeps me grounded in real life, hones people watching and - more importantly - people listening skills. But on the other hand it has chewed up a shit-ton of my time I could have otherwise used following my goals. Oh well. Buying another lottery ticket this Saturday, you can be sure.

Sent out the first large batch of rejection notices for Thrice #4. I have developed quite a huge slush pile or back logged stuff to read. Somebody asked me what I'm reading lately. I answered "a lot of bad fiction."

I think it's funny when I point people to Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of writing, then someone sends me a story they wrote and in the cover letter the writer explains that it was my pointing to Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules that led them to submit to Thrice, and then they proceed to break every one of the god damn rules - meticulously - before I can get to the third page.

I FINALLY got my own copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. Yes I know it is something that, as a writer, I should have had thirty years ago (and the fact is that having it at work-side is more liberating than restricting, seriously). But it was always so expensive. $65 and I just could never justify plunging. Well I got a $50 gift card from work this Christmas and put it all out there for the manual, so that I ended up shelling out only $15. This is OK.

It's a pedant's dream. So don't give me any of your punctuation/grammar guff from here on out. I've got the Gold Standard eight inches from my elbow.

But, seriously, just thumbing through it makes me realize it is not actually something that bottles up and restricts creativity as some have suggested. It is written in such a broad, accessible way, and is so eager to point out antiquated practices in writing that tend to stifle common sense that I am quite surprised. Where have you been all my life?

When all is said and done, I've been somewhat embarrassed by some of the editing faux pas I am responsible for in past issues of Thrice. This will be corrected. Nobody to blame but myself.

You'd think I'd apply what I have learned from the Manual to blog posts, wouldn't you? Yeah... um. Sure! Just look in your Google Reader how many times I posted this entry. I'm never happy...