F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction Author

Writers

F. P. Dorchak Colorado Author Interview Circle (CAIC) Interview

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This is an interview I did a year ago. It was my first ever YouTube/video interview and it was such a blast hanging out with these two guys! Cody I’d just met for the interview, but Aaron Michael Ritchey I’ve known for bit and he’s always a trip. Always. And every time I meet him he’s grown another inch. Because he’s tall. And charming. And…he’s Aaron Michael Ritchey.

Thank you, Aaron and Cody, for including me in your CAIC interview circuit! You two are great dudes, and I had fun!

So.

Here it is.

Short Stories–What Have I Learned?

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Upon Reflection.... (Photo © F. P. Dorchak and Jan C J Jones, 2016)
Upon Reflection…. (Photo © F. P. Dorchak and Jan C J Jones, 2016)

After spending the past year going back over all my short stories, what have I learned?

I’ve learned I was a young testosteroned-fueled writer, writing about sex and violence and all-things-weird. There are definitely some things that are going to remain hidden, but those I’ve released and will release 2017 in my short story collection are the best of my efforts.

I’ve learned that all is not all as it seems.

That the veil between our present and the past (and for that matter, the future…) is far thinner than many realize. Well, I already knew this, but as I ventured back and relived my stories—hell, my life—though I may not have remembered writing some of these things, wow, I was instantly transported to and reliving my twenty-something, thirty-something selves! My teenager self! It was weird. In a very real way…my stories are a reflection of my life. Who I was…what I wrote about. How I wrote. How I felt. It’s like I remembered everything, and was as easy as sliding on a well-worn, “experienced” glove.

Isn’t aging fascinating?

There are different perspectives to the decades of our lives. If you’re in your twenties and thirties, wait until you hit your fifties. If you’re in your forties and fifties, wait until you hit your seventies and eighties. Perhaps “wait” is a bad term to use…do not “wait” for anything—live. Live your life to its fullest. And that doesn’t mean becoming an extreme sportster, never sleeping, or being impatient with people and things. It just means being the best person you can be and being in the moment. Discover and understand who you are…and be true to that. Internalize it. Then do what you’re made to do. Discover and explore your hidden little talents…do you secretly like to dance? Do photography? Visit with the elderly? If so, then be that person. Be fully aware of your present moment.

Perhaps others have other derogatory terms for aging, but I do find “the process” fascinating. The shell of our body shows age first…but the soft, chewy center also shows changes—if you admit to it. I don’t believe it’s so much about “staying young at heart,” as it is to be who you are…and you should change as you age. You should wisen…but also keep your sense of wonder, your sense of adventure about you! Retain your elements of joy and fun! It should not just be six and twenty-year-olds who remain physically and imaginatively active and alive! If you’re “not like that,” then try to develop a sense of adventure and curiosity, if you have any interest in doing so at all. But to place so much importance on youth…of being a person you were in the past…is assigning all the power of who you are to the past and dismissing who you are in the present.

If we were meant to be twenty forever we would forever be twenty.

And, no, I would not want to do it all over again. I had a fun and exiting journey…a truly wonderful life…but I am ready to move into my present’s future. To find new adventures, new perspectives. Though elements of that Past Me remain, I am not that me any longer…and some of those short stories (two immediately come to mind) are actually kinda hard to read because of the events that inspired them. But most…most were wonderful with which to reacquaint myself!

I learned (perhaps “re-experienced” is a better term) that I’d taken chances writing my stories. I learned that just because someone tells you to “Do these 12 steps to get published!” does not mean you will get published. That just because you do anything will get you more of anything. It’s a little trickier and fickle-r than that…and metaphysical….

I learned that I am not above incorporating “awkward topics” (e.g., sex) into my work for the proper telling of a good story. Or a little violence…if it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t like writing about violence, especially for extended periods of time, which was why I left writing straight-horror (I call my current work “paranormal fiction”). But all good stories involve elements of conflict…some romantic and emotional…some physical and violent. I’ve written in both arenas.

I have to be true to the stories I decide to write.

A corollary to this is that I am not my stories or their characters. I have a vivid imagination. Period. I read, I observe, I learn. I try to portray things as realistically as possible, so that readers can walk away and think, “Yeah, that really could happen!” If I am compelled enough to write something up, I sometimes have to go places I don’t like to go. Just like all of us out there in our daily lives and jobs sometimes you have to do things we don’t particularly like doing.

And you just can’t please everybody.

I learned that I had not read all my short stories out loud, which I learned later in my writing career to do. It could have saved me some embarrassingly obvious issues! #OMG

I learned (it was actually pointed out to me by Mandy, my copy editor) that I use car wrecks a lot in my stories to off characters. Huh. No shit. I really do? Never realized that!

I also learned that in my short stories I used the name “Phil” a lot. It was a placeholder for a name. “Philip” is my middle name. Not an ego thing, it just kept me from having to “think hard” for character names at the moment.

So, my retro/introspective complete, I’m moving forward! I have new work I’ve started, new stories to tell…and I do have to get this short story collection out there (which will have some brand new stories in it, like “A Beautiful Summer’s Afternoon,” a new story I’m currently working)….

Thank you all for your support, and have an outstanding “Holiday Season”!

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

Related Articles

RMFW Colorado Gold Writers Conference

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Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Wall "Light Display" (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, September 10, 2016)
Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Wall “Light Display” (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, September 10, 2016)

The very first writers conference I ever attended was somewhere around 1987 or so. I no longer remember. But what I do remember is the people and the energy of that weekend! About being a young dude of 26 or so, officially declaring myself as “a writer,” and putting myself out there. I had just moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1985 and had been bouncing around between critique groups. Through various referrals, I’d found out about this group of writers out of Denver, so I checked them out and ended up staying with them for a few years! “The Capitol Hill Group,” was my new critique group and I commuted every week to them. And they mentioned this animal called “a writers conference.”

So I went.

It was an entire world of writing! I was hooked!

But life got in the way, and, well, I ended the commute when I got married and with busy work schedules, et cetera—but I stayed in the writer’s group. Some time later their name changed to their present set of words (Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers), and I’ve always remained with them. But…I also found a local writer’s group that also formed their own conference and had gone to that one for some 20 years, volunteering, et cetera.

But one always remembers their first love with great and misty-eyed fondness!

I’d always wanted to attend another RMFW conference, but it was hard to afford paying for two conferences a year, or I’d be away on vacation or a business trip, or some other event was interfering with my plans to attend the RMFW Gold. But in rolls 2016…and I found I’d had an open calendar!

So…some 30 years later…I’d finally made my way to the RMFW writers conference!

It was…epic.

Not only were the sessions incredible and informative, but the people…oh, yes, it’s the people who make anything good or bad or indifferent, and these people were beautiful.

Yes, “beautiful”!

It was well-organized and oiled!

And I’d met new writers I hope to be able to now call new friends, and met some old friends from my Capitol Hill Critique group days! One in particular (Christine Jorgensen!) I hadn’t seen her in some 30 years!

There is so much to relate from this conference, but it would be a much looonger post, and I’m trying to be better about that, so I’m only going to relate a couple of “situations” that really stood out:

  • Being recognized “in the wild”
  • Relating “weird tales” that really happened
  • Reading porno

Being Recognized

As I checked in to the conference and stated my name…the next thing I knew, this woman was leaning across the table, pointing at me, saying: “I know you: All writing helps all writing!”

Oh, my God—my first stalker.

Clearing my throat and backing away from the table juuust a touch, I squeaked, “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who posts on the loop with the signature tag ‘All writing helps all writing!'” this rather energetic and enthusiastic woman said, still reaching across the table with her pointy finger.

I was, um, well, kinda speechless.

Scared.

Yes, I do have that as my tag line, and yes, I do post on the RMFW loop. She was right. Her pointy finger was also still right in my face (okay, I exaggerate).

She was all smiles as she introduced herself to me as Sheri Duff (no relation to Sue Duff—they call themselves “Sisters by different mothers. And fathers.”).

So…while still keeping the table between her and me, we discoursed and I discovered that she was keenly aware of my e-mail signature block.

Wow.

To say I was stunned puts it mildly. I was also..humbled.

Here was someone “out in the wild” who had recognized not only my name…but part of my brand. Little old me. My branding had actually worked!

Turns out, Sheri and I kept running into (?!) each other throughout the conference, and she is actually a very sweet person.

But, I’m still dumbfounded, humbled, shaking my head…and checking over my shoulder….

Weird Tales

All I can say about this section, is that I am finding—without a doubt—that many people experience aspects of the supernatural than is currently realized. They just don’t talk about it much or openly.

I am not going to get into what others told me—that is not my place—but, man, it raised the Chicken Skin! It’s easy to hear this stuff around noise, commotion, and friends…and quite another to remember those conversations when you return alone to your dark room at night.

But.

I have to say, I did spook one of my friends, Susie Lindau, who write a great series of blogs! I told her about many of my “weird things that happen to me,” and then told her about the “Silver Man” who had visited me as a kid. In this relation, there’s a part where my brother, Greg, told about how the Silver Man, who had been looking at me, turned to look briefly at him—then away. I demonstrated that to Susie, and she cringed and contorted and weird mewling noises emerged from her. I don’t even know if there are vowels in the English language to convey those, um, “intonations.”

Reading Porno

Okay. Porno.

I released my fifth novel, Voice, last year (2105) about a guy’s disintegrating familial and romantic relationships. It has emotional content. It has supernatural content.

It also has erotic content.

Some might call it “pornographic,” but they would be wrong. Porno is written to excite and titillate. I did not write it to that end. It was written as part of the story of this character’s issues, within the confines of working in the fashion and modeling industry and in his dealing with a voice in his head. Yeah.

Next: back in the late 80s, when I was with The Capitol Hill critique group, one of my critique group, Kay Bergstrom, aka Cassie Miles, had signed one of her Harlequin Temptation novels, It’s Only Natural, to me. In it, she signed it as—well, read it for yourself:

Cassie Miles aka Kay Bergstrom Autograph of It's Only Natural, ©1986 (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, September 12, 2016)
Cassie Miles aka Kay Bergstrom Autograph of It’s Only Natural, ©1986 (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, September 12, 2016)

NOTE ADDED LATER: In all fairness to Kay, as I thought about this, I remembered that I’d told her to make the autographing as raunchy as she could!

Well, that has been a long running joke between Kay and me. And I’d found at this conference she and Linda Joffe Hull were presenting a session about “Writing Sex: The Ins and Outs.” Since I had written some pretty steamy sex scenes in Voice, I wanted to see if there was something I could learn from Kay and Linda…see if I’d done something wrong (turns out better writers [Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen] than me wrote far worse scenes that I remember writing…)…better learn for any future sex scenes I might write (Voice is my last and only book of “this nature”; you’ll see what I mean if you read it: be warned, it ain’t for the easily offended—or my family).

And during this session Linda and Kay made it known that they wanted someone from the audience to read a passage from this porno novel that Kay had contributed to.

Say what?

Though I sat at the very front table, I felt the awkwardness of those behind me. I doubt any eye contact was made with Kay or Linda then.

So I shot my hand into the air.

What in hell was I doing?

I don’t know. Didn’t care. Linda and Kay were unabashed, joyful, good-natured, and easygoing about the topic, and I was at the conference to have fun. Even at my own expense. Embarrassment.

I was taking a chance…putting myself out there…and trying to grow as a writer.

That‘s what-in-hell-I-was-doing.

So I found a steamy passage and told the room that I may get red-faced while reading this…but we were gonna work through it!

So…I read.

And I liked it!

I mean, well, yeah, it was fun!

That was the first time I’d done anything like that…in public.

We were all writers trying to learn about how to write legitimate sex scenes in our work. Our work is about people…and one of the things people do…is have sex…and it’s up to us to portray that in as real a fashion as possible, per the genre within which we all write. There are definite dos-and-don’ts.

Put yourselves out there.

In Summation

There is so much more to say about this past weekend, but it’s all writerly-geekness. But I’ve come away with a [re]new[ed] appreciation for newsletters (I’m going to try to restart my previously feeble efforts), “event table psychology,” writing (blogging!) legalities, and new methods of promotion. Found a new and legit need for a smartphone.

I got to meet new people (finally—faces to names!) and renewed current friendships (Karen, Aaron, Bonnie, Janet, Laura, Angie, Warren, Nathan, and so many more)! Cried on the inside at Ann Hood’s Sunday luncheon speech.

And I gained a stalker.

Nice.

What more could an up-an-coming writer ask for?

Write on.

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Rewrite

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Profound Love. Profound Angst. (Image by Leonid Pasternak [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Profound Love. Profound Angst. (Image by Leonid Pasternak [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
This is my newest effort! A brand new short story I was inspired to write April 8th, and wrote April 9th. I’ve since been polishing it (including having Mandy Pratt, my tireless, proofreader/editor, go over it). It’s a dark, troubling tale about what not to do in a relationship.

I was mentally pummeled with the idea while working out at the gym that previous Friday afternoon. This is perhaps the worst time (in my mind) to get inspired to write anything, because, well, I’m working out. I don’t have time to just stop what I’m doing and start scribbling notes for 10 or 15 minutes. It screws up the workout’s momentum, kills the cardio, and puts me in a different frame of mind (I’m in AGF mode at the gym, not Writer Guy mode). But, in this case, I was done with the iron and transitioning into cardio, so I grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled the steady stream of ideas as I used the Elliptical trainer….

This is a story of questionable redemption. This is…#WeirdFiction.

Thanks also go out to Marc Schuster for some literary fiction “technical support,” and to Karen Lin for some “grammatical consultation” on a particularly vexing phrase that I ended up using.

I feel I must also mention Stephen King’s short story “Nona.” This story used to be one of my favorite King short stories. I was not thinking of it when I wrote “Rewrite,” but afterwards the tone of “Rewrite” certainly reminded me of

Do you love?

“Nona.” I have not read “Nona” in something like 15 or 20 years.

So, this is “Rewrite’s” debut! My newest effort! It will be in my short story collection I am planning for release by early 2017.

 

Rewrite

© F. P. Dorchak, 2016

 

Do you love me?

Yes, there were the affairs.

Do you?

The shame.

I can’t live without you.

The disintegration.

How could something that had been so right…so beautiful…turn so hideous, so…obscene?

Whose fault was it?

Does it matter?

 

I was a writer. A literary author, if you must know the truth. Authors are published. Writers aren’t necessarily. I wrote and got paid for it. Rather well, for one in my capacity. But I didn’t want to be like most of my peers, writing about affairs and incest and abuses of substances or the body. I wanted to write about the metaphysics of life. Its philosophy. Things Humanity overwhelmingly thirsted for. Things we could get some use out of…provide application to our daily lives to make them better on a far more expansive scale, thereby improving Humanity’s Collective. Writing about one’s body ink (“tattoo” was far too vulgar a term for my employment) or the evil that men and woman do does not advance the race one bit. Sure, it might be cathartic to the author, stir emotions in the reader, and make both rail against the injustices in the world…but how did it fix anything?

Yes. I wanted to fix Humanity.

So I wrote about hard questions and troubled people. Those looking for something more. Asking and finding answers greater than themselves that transcended societal constraints. Wrote of examinations of the soul and how we can all apply our newfound epiphanies. As a public figure I also attended conferences, spoke at luncheons and banquets. University graduations. Received thunderous applause. Bookers, Faulkners, a Pulitzer. That kind of thing. I say this with no measure of pride. It just was. It was my life.

I’d grown up in a well-to-do family, both parents well-regarded Princeton professors. I attended Princeton and did not disappoint. It seemed writing was what I was born to do. I was born to arrange words and profoundly manipulate their order…able to peer into the hearts and souls of Humanity. Mainly, it seems, those of the long locks and graceful curves (and I did have quite the thing for the ladies)…men, it appeared, were not interested in my words. At least, not straight men. And those were the ones who most sorely needed my words.

I received my doctorate in English, Literary Theory. Conducted writing retreats that quickly became boring. Won many awards that really meant nothing, when you got right down to the writing. The writing stands on its own. It must. To write with honors in mind is to wax mendacious. I cared not for awards. I cared for words. I cared for people.

Like most of the women I met, I met my wife, Emelia, at a literary conference. She was of the aforementioned long locks and graceful curves. Long, dark hair and eyes…eyes that questioned God. She, I’d noticed, had always hung back from the crowds that had gathered around me asking about my sources of inspiration…my deepest, darkest secrets…and whether or not what I’d written had actually happened to me. Many would reach out and touch me, “casually” brush past, while making intended contact. I’m sure they also tried to inhale my scent. But she…this Emelia…would always hang back behind the others who kept trying to get closer and closer…she…kept her distance.

Observed.

I should have paid this greater regard.

We finally met at the conference’s banquet, and my “thing” for other women evaporated. She’d lingered around the table where I sat, one with my name embarrassingly emblazoned upon a tall placard. I invited her to sit in a chair I had secretly “saved” just for her—tipping the chair forward into the table—hoping to again see her. I was incredibly taken by her. Mysteriously so. With some hesitation, she took my offer. We were in bed that night.

We

Do you love me?

married a year later.

I loved her…loved her pain. She was a struggling artist who worked at an art gallery and had read all my work. My work was similar to what she was trying to do with her oils and acrylics. She had a sullen, brooding way about her that belied her desired optimism in Humanity.

Desired.

I deeply loved her.

As our lives progressed, I got more successful, while her artwork languished. But she was good at managing other people’s work…running an art gallery…and perhaps out of some measure of self-pity took the promotions until she was running the gallery when the owner unexpectedly passed.

We talked about it…how it would affect her work…but she’d already taken it. The position. She wanted more and was tired of being left behind. Tired of being…

In my shadow.

Her new position had taken up more and more of her time to the point where she no longer painted. This seemed a more distressing time for me than her. She seemed to fill her days with meetings and luncheons and showings. She’d finally “made it.” On her own.

I couldn’t tell if she was happy…or just occupied.

My schedule grew even busier, and I traveled even more. More speaking engagements, more book tours, and now, film deals—which I fought, though my agent said it was just another way to get my words out there. She said couples go to these films. Couples. That means guys. Straight guys…those who would otherwise never have been exposed to my work. Here was a way to get my message out to an entirely unexplored audience, whether or not they mentally rolled their eyes…consciously or subconsciously they would be receiving my profoundly manipulated words.

So I did them. The film deals.

As I grew busier, my wife also grew busier…and that’s when we began to

Do you love me?

grow apart. Even when we were together, we weren’t…she on her tablet or cell and I on mine. We were both providing our attention to others, not to those with whom we were with. The irony of it all was that we’d both given into these contraptions to get us out from behind our respective businesses

Do you…

to spend more time with each other. I remember one day in particular. I was in contact with my agent, awaiting a response to my next book deal. It was to be my most principal arrangement to date…Emelia and I were sitting in the living room…a fire burning softly…the lights low. She was uncharacteristically not on her tablet. Just staring into the fire, arms comfortably crossed. Quiet. As I attended to another, I heard

“Do you love me?”

I chuckled. “Of course I do!” I said, looking up and casting her an immense, tender smile.

I returned to my agent.

“You’re not growing bored with us? Me?”

I again chuckled as my tablet dinged with the e-mail I had been waiting for and the request for yet more attention.

“Of course not!” I said, amused, as I got to my feet. “I have to take this!” I said to my wife, as I left her sitting alone in our low-lit living room…a romantic fire crackling and sending my shadow across her seated form….

From that point on we rarely seemed to see each other. We’d become more like roommates. We were polite enough, superficially cheerful, even. But, one or the other of us would be too tired for intimacy…or the other had something more pressing to do that would inexplicably materialize and need to be done just then. Someone else needed something. There was always…something…else….

Like energy attracts like energy.

I had my ever-growing conference circuit to attend to. Banquets and book tours. Speaking engagements. Emelia had her gallery showings, her wining and dining of artists and “their people.”

Then, one day, while at another writers conference, I’d received an e-mail from an unknown admirer to my business number. Attached were photos of my wife. Her mouth and hands attached to another.

I excused myself from my table and went outside.

Somehow…somehow…

Do you love me?

Are you bored with me?

…I found myself in my hotel room’s shower with a statuesque woman whose name was “Juliette” or something similarly tragic.

There are no coincidences.

I allowed Juliette her exit…and spent the entirety of the evening sobbing.

I spiraled down from there. Sometimes it’s so much easier to take the wrong path. To feel sorry for oneself. I’d become everything I’d loathed in others…in other’s books. I’d become that novel’s story that everyone loved to read. Loved to hate. That story that fixed nothing.

And I couldn’t stop myself.

I found there were no shortage of women who wanted to “listen”…to…“ease my pain.”

How could I fix Humanity…if I couldn’t fix myself?

And my wife said nothing. Became more withdrawn. We rarely spoke. Our lives had become clinical. Separate. There were times I’d be awoken in the middle of the night by moaning…groaning…in one of our bathrooms…followed by sobbing. And it was during one of those nights that I’d had enough. I had decided to change the course of my story-that-fixed-nothing…to change the course of our lives.

I went to my wife. Found her upon the floor, cradling the toilet and puking up her soul. It seems she was more expressive of her love for me in private.

I begged forgiveness.

Begged to confess all of my sins…to come clean—but she would have nothing of it. She, in turn, begged for mine…just wanted us to start over. To be like we were. How things had been. When we’d been in love.

Once.

Could we—

Do you…

love each other again?

I told her I’d never stopped loving her. I had just become…absent.

We both had.

We spent the rest of the night in each other’s arms.

 

Not long afterward, I was at another engagement, the Keynote Speaker, in fact, when I got the call.

I had just begun my address when I’d suddenly clenched up inside…all my words had seized in my throat, as if a part of my soul had been ripped away.

I couldn’t breathe.

Holding a hand up before myself and my audience, I uncomfortably laughed it off…paused…took a sip of water…found a way to

Do you love me?

continue.

There’s been an accident

Do you…

the voice had said. I collapsed.

It seems my wife…the woman I loved…the love of my life with whom I’d reconnected…had been at a restaurant. They’d all been outside. A car had veered out of the way to avoid hitting another that had run a red light…and

The rest was lost on me.

 

Emelia had come to me that first night.

She’d stood before my bed. Looked at me. Just stared at me as she always did. I looked back to her. I cried. Reached out.

I love you, but the dead can’t return, she said.

I miss you! I cried. I can’t live without you!

I love you, but the dead can’t return, she again said. We can dream…but we cannot return….

And she was gone.

I’d cut off all contact with everyone—my agent, publisher. Family and friends. Women called…came to my door…to comfort me. I sent them all away.

I’d once written a story about a woman who’d died in a car crash. The crash was from a car that had veered out of the way from another…and struck this woman, this fictional character I had created.

For inspiration I’d written it from the point of view as if I’d lost my love. I’d poured all that I thought (at the time) was my heart and soul into what it would have been like….

I…knew…nothing.

I reread it. Cried. Reread it again. I went to my living-room fireplace and started a fire.

Stared into the fire.

Had I killed her?

Had my words? My metaphysics? Had they wielded that much power?

It was but one short story of many.

Coincidence.

But my entire life’s work was about the lack of coincidence in life. How all of life had meaning. Nothing was to be so inconsequentially branded and dismissed as “mere coincidence.” I’d written about lives like these. How my characters had gone on to recreate new lives in the various faces-of-loss….

But my wife was gone.

Forever.

The love of my life.

The woman with whom I’d sinned against…but who had taken me back.

The only hand I’d forever hoped to hold as we grew old together.

She was not some fictional character in a novel.

 

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do!”

“You’re not growing bored with us? Me?”

“Of course not!”

 

My books…my words…meant nothing.

Only Emelia had meant anything. Everything.

And she was gone.

I brought out the story.

Crumpled it.

Uncrumpled it.

Began to tear it into pieces…when I stopped.

No. There are no coincidences.

I believe this.

 

I rewrote the story.

I rewrote our lives.

Top to bottom. Beginning to end. With what I now know. I slept and relived all that our lives had been…and what it’d meant to me.

Was supposed to have meant to us.

I created a new beginning. A new end. A chance to start over.

As I slept, I again dreamt of Emelia. Of those pictures sent to me of her and that man. Only in the dream, the pictures had come to life. Emelia and the man were sitting there…in the restaurant. Casual. Peers in the art community having a few drinks. A few laughs. Joking around with others in their party. Until they kissed. Long. Lingering. Hands everywhere. The rest of their coalition departed.

When they were done, she’d come to her feet and the man left. Simply left.

She turned to me.

But…I brought us back together. Why are you showing me this? I asked.

I’m not showing you anything. This is what you imagined. It’d never happened that way, but it’s what you imagined had.

I love you. I need us to be together again!

We cannot.

Come back to me!

I love you…but the dead cannot return.

 

I awoke and went back to my story. I rewrote it again over the course of several days. Willed it into existence. When I slept…I dreamt about it. About her. She always appeared.

You know what she said.

 

So I rewrote it one more time…then ventured out into the world I had forsaken. I would make my story work. I would compel it into existence. Live my own words and their new, most profound order. I obtained what I needed. I needed something that left no room for error. Something that would perform even if I couldn’t. Wasn’t totally up to the task. On the mark.

I wanted results.

 

I lay in our bed, in the dark. Crying. I’d lost her. Forever. Lost myself. There was nothing left. Nothing more to do. I couldn’t live without her. I grasped the weapon…regripping it several times as if I knew what I was doing…and brought it out from under the blankets and comforter.

Comforter.

I smoothed out the bedding with my hands…remembering all the warmth and comfort it had afforded us over our brief history together. I looked over to her side of the bed and remembered the feel of her nakedness beneath the bedding as she’d snuggled up beside me. How we’d held each other.

Once.

How she used to be there.

Choking sobs erupted from me! Uncontrollable torrents of rain and pain!

Oh, how I heaved!

I wiped away the tears with the back of the hand holding the .45. I closed my eyes and rammed the muzzle firmly up and under my chin, ever-so-slightly angled. The metal felt wrong, but in its wrongness felt…

Acceptable.

I undid the safety. Cocked the hammer.

Could I really do this? What would it feel like to instantly conclude a life? Would there be pain—or would it happen so fast as to feel like falling off to sleep? What was the other side really like? Was my life’s work on the mark…or was I to be damned like all the traditionalists ranted?

I would soon know.

I placed my index finger around the trigger…when I heard…

In the hallway.

Someone was out there.

I opened my eyes.

Footsteps.

I heard them. Soft. Considerate. Mindful.

Hers.

In those slipper-socks she always wore.

Is that something I would really hear?

Do you love me?

I love you…but the dead cannot return.

She came closer. Entered the room. I could feel her…feel her presence!

Her!

She got into bed with me…the bedding lifted, the bed shifted…her body slipped in beneath the sheets. Snuggled up against me.

I was again moved to tears! I couldn’t stop crying! I wailed!

Then her hand…oh, dear God, her soft, warm

(it was not warm)

loving hand touched mine! Wrapped itself around mine…

And together we pulled the trigger.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

Pikes Peak Library's Mountain Of Authors 2016

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Anne Hillerman at MOA 2016
Anne Hillerman at MOA 2016

“If something is holding you back…something is also pulling you forward.” Mario Acevedo.

This past Saturday I attended the Pikes Peak Library District’s (PPLD’s) annual Mountain of Authors (MOAs) event, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This was my second year in attendance, and I continued to have a blast meeting and talking with others interested in books! It was held at the north end’s Library 21C.

There were two panels and one Keynote Speaker—who was Anne Hillerman, Tony Hillerman’s daughter and an author in her own right. People were allowed to mingle with the authors throughout the day’s events. We had full tables to ourselves, as authors, and I got to share the neighborhood with Kevin Ikenberry, who I’d met and been on panels with at last year’s MileHiCon. Good to see you again, Kevin!

It’s A Mystery!

This was the first panel, moderated by K. D. Huxman, and its panelists were Nancy Atherton, Robert Greer, and Manuel Ramos. All manner of questions were asked of our panelists, about writing, being a writer, being a mystery writer. A couple of responses from the panelists grabbed me, so I wrote them down:

“I’m surprised at the sheer volume of writing out there.” Robert Greer. Mr. Greer also went on to say how he misses the old days, when editors really edited material and there was better quality being published. I have to agree with him!

“I still think being a writer is a big deal.” Manuel Ramos.

“Good writers steal from other good writers.” Manuel Ramos. The context was that all good writers learn from other good writers…so we’re not talking about plagiarism, here!

“Read as broadly as you can.” Nancy Atherton. I do agree!

“It’s more important to read than to write.” Robert Greer. I don’t know that I agree with him, here, but the point is well-made!

“You never become really good at anything unless you do it over and over and over.” Robert Greer. I’d been in conversation at my table with a person who was having difficulty finishing a book he’d been working on, and that was one of the things I’d told him: persistence.

“Write the book you need to write…don’t set out to ‘write a genre.'” Nancy Atherton. She was talking about don’t worry what genre your book is, just write it…don’t worry about it…and let the book be what it will be. I liked that.

“Be an observer of life.” Robert Greer. Definitely. I always find myself observing life, nature, people, situations….

10th Anniversary!

The next panel was in celebration of the 10th anniversary of MOA. This panel was moderated by Shannon Miller and consisted of Mario Acevedo, Sandra Bond, and Kristen Heitzmann. I thought it was also cool that it also marked Mario Acevedo’s 10th year of being published, with his Felix Gomez vampire series. Congratulations, Mario!

While there was a lot said during this panel, I didn’t seem to write down much, perhaps because I was too drawn into the conversations and humor (Mario used to be an Army pilot and had sign in his chopper’s cockpit with an arrow pointing up)! I kept trying to write quotes down—when another one was ripped off, and I’d lose the thread of the previous one! With a couple of exceptions, I just stopped taking notes and listened. Guess I wouldn’t make a very good journalist.

Here is what I did manage to snag:

“Paperback books are making it too easy to read!” Mario Acevedo paraphrasing old tyme publishing. Mario was talking about how at the turn of the previous century, publishing was whining about the advent of paperback books! That—much like ebooks today—publishers were crying the sky was falling with the advent of paperbacks! I’d also read some early descriptions of publishing and the issues-of-the-times, and found that there was always something being touted as the “End of the World” for publishing…absolutely no different than today. People are people…and we love to whine and cry about how bad things are gonna be…then we buck up and move forward.

“Be in love with the story…the characters…don’t be thinking about selling.” I believe Kristen Heitzmann said this. I love this advice! You need to be in love with the world, the characters, the story you’re writing! If you’re not, it will show in your work, and no one will be moved/driven to tears/fascinated by your work.

There was talk about the resurgence of short stories. Apparently between 2004 – 2010 nothing was being bought in terms of short stories…but now…since around 2012…some short stories are being bought. This might have come from Sandra Bond. I find this kind of thinking so damned parochial. That “no one is buying anything” mindset in publishing. No matter how stellar an editor, a publishing executive, they are all prone to prejudices and bad decisions. Readers will read anything that’s good! And to “just discover” that today’s readers “have a half-hour there, and hour there” as they go about their lives utterly astounds me….

“If something is holding you back…something is also pulling you forward.” Mario Acevedo. I found this to be perhaps the most profound statement all day! Not only does it fit in perfectly Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,“…but it’s a terrific way to look at and deal with one’s publishing angst! Beautiful, Mario, simply beautiful!

Anne Hillerman

Anne’s Keynote speech detailed anecdotes about her father and her time with him, as well as the benefits of reading fiction. Reading fiction improves brain connectivity and function. One of the benefits-of-fiction discoveries was that reading fiction makes one more sympathetic with others. That people who read fiction were better able to look at pictures of people’s eyes and better determine how the person behind those eyes was feeling. Fascinating. It does kinda disturb me that there are people out there who just will not read fiction. For more information about this research, click here. Anne also took questions from the audience.

In Conclusion

While at MOA, I also met back up with several writer-friends I haven’t seen since the last MOA outing, Denver’s MileHiCon…or longer (one—Chris Goff—my God, it has to have been almost 30 years since we last saw each other). It was so great to see and talk to you all! And, yes, I am looking into this year’s RMFW Colorado Gold…which happened to have been the first-ever writer’s conference I’d ever attended some 30 years ago. I also have not attended it since that first time.

And a special thanks goes out to Darlene B., who is my wife’s client. It was so neat to finally meet her! She stopped by and began by saying that she’d known of my work for some 19 years. Thanks, Darlene, for stopping by! It was a pleasure to finally meet and talk with you!

And a tremendous Thank You! to all of the Pikes Peak Library District and all those who took part in putting this together! And thank you, Bryan Matthews, for again having me! I hope to be back for next year’s!

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What Ever Happened to Book Editors?

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Do It Right. (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by RustyObjects {Own work} [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Do It Right. (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by RustyObjects {Own work} [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Book editors.

We all have images in our heads of what they are. What they do.

But are our images correct?

Marjorie Braman’s article, “What Ever Happened to Book Editors” got me to remembering the first time I’d ever heard about the real working lives of publishing editors. It was at a writer’s conference. From the very editors themselves. What I’d heard sounded more like my own work life (minus the specific book stuff)…meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Budgets. Schedules. Reading queries. Writing flap copy—oh, and trips.

I didn’t hear a whole lotta editing going on in those offices.

Now, they did tell us that any editing they did they had to do on their own time…at home. After looong days at work. So, they had that going for their job descriptions.

But what Marjorie’s article brings out is that publishers believe it’s all about acquiring and selling. She was flat-out told by her publisher at the time—as she says, “almost in passing”—that “We don’t pay you to edit.” She says that one little quip meant to her (and rightly so, as I’ve gathered over the years I’ve experienced being in the publishing world) was that editing is no longer important. It’s all about buying and selling. She says this has been true since she came into the business in 1985.

This date, I found curious.

You see, I started getting serious about writing around that time (May of 1987). I still have my original log books—see, I even started treating it as a profession back then…doing it every day, studying it, going to critiques groups, keeping track of all my work.

But, man, talk about being a day late and a dollar short in an industry where editors were editors and authors were cultivated!

On the flip side to Marjorie’s article is that she became a freelance editor and left trad publishing, so all of the above no longer applied to her. Now…she’s full-bore into helping authors write the best books possible.

But what she’d described above is what I’m seeing everywhere: the constant focus on the bottom line to every business. It’s all gone to bean counting. Bean counters are even making heady corporation direction decisions, all based upon what’s making money and what’s not. That’s not a good perspective. A good perspective would be the overall picture/health of a company and what needs to be reworked…sometime a “minor” correction in one department can generate huge, positive outcomes (yes, even positive revenue generation) elsewhere. It’s not just a “this makes money and this doesn’t.” What is working and what isn’t…how can we improve processes…more intelligently schedule…make better use of existing capabilities…make a better product/give a better service…and the rest will follow?

How can we publish better books?

Better cultivate authors?

Not just sell crap cause crap sells?

If all you have is crap (or “the same old thing”) available…that’s all anyone can buy. If you don’t challenge people, they do not grow.

A fair cost-benefit analysis (again, I find this different and more in-depth and useful than a mere “this makes money…this doesn’t…” indignance).

Just how much of a profit is really needed for an industry to survive?

Hire the people you need…staff the actual positions with qualified individuals…cultivate better authors…and let editors do what editors are supposed to be doing. I know all this “costs.” So do books. And there are other options out there for readers…for writers.

My dad always used to say, if you’re gonna do something…do it right, for God’s sake.