Creepy!

Confession: It feels like I'm posting this late, but I wrote the last entry in the morning, and today in the late evening. And it has been a loooong day.

Reading:

• "My Brother Eli" by Joseph Epstein
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
  

Revising:

• "The Revenant"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008

First off, the reading went swimmingly. Almost literally--it started to rain during the second reader, and didn't stop until the seventh. Still, "Cora and the Sea" is all about weathering storms, so it fit. Everyone said I did a great job, which made me glow in several non-visible ways. I was even more gratified just by the presence of those who came. They know who they are, and they know it meant a lot to me.

I'm on a work trip to Miami right now, so my entries might be short for the next couple of days. The one good thing, though, is that plane rides give you lots of time for reading! And I finished "Riding the Doghouse" at 30,000 feet today.

It was a creepy, creepy story. It's constructed as a frame of the present day, with the author worrying about his son in the middle of the night, which then transitions to the author at that age. There is some unsettling imagery in the first section, but not enough to send it completely off the deep end.

At first, I think the story is a pretty straightforward one, of a boy who is slightly ashamed that his father drives a truck while his friend's dad works in an office. I was comfortable with that kind of story. I knew where it was going.

Which is why when the boy got on the CB radio and began talking to an initially-friendly trucker, I thought he was just breaking Daddy's rules. As it turned out, the other trucker was in the same parking lot--and Daddy was nowhere around. The conversation soon became very, very disturbing, in a way that I associate most with horror movies--non-sequitur philosophical statements paired with threats and baseless hostility and oh my GOD that was a creepy story.

I think what made it so effective was the way the mood transitioned from youthful rebellion to near-horror. Had it begun as a horror story, there would not have been as far to go. The author does the storytelling equivalent of cranking us up the first big hill of a roller coaster before letting us go. He gives us plenty of room to drop!

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3