F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

writing

St. Vincent

by

Bless Us All. Every One. (Image by CC BY 4.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Bless Us All. Every One. (Image by CC BY 4.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

I follow a belief system that is not traditional. I don’t say I follow “XYZ” because I don’t like attributing labels to what I believe in. But some of its concepts can be quite a reach for many: that we create and control our own lives, not a divine being (though I feel the Divine Being is the medium, love, and impetus for our very existence). That we are not at the mercy of others…but attract into our lives all that we get…that we set up our own challenges…and one statement in particular really inspired this particular story…

I think you’ll figure out which statement.

This story was originally published in Black Sheep #40, the April-May 2001 issue.

Saint Vincent

© F. P. Dorchak, 1995

 

Vince ground his booted-heel into the Arizona sand, thoroughly pulverizing the beetle beneath it.

“Must have been your time to go…just like me.”

I raise my head and look up to the scorching sun, smell the fumes of my still-burning Camaro, and feel the heat where I stand. “Why’s everyone so afraid of dying? It’s just part of living.”

I lift my dusty .44-caliber, Dan Wesson to eye level and blow off loose sand. I look it over. What was really responsible here? Me, or this miraculously crafted piece of stainless steel? This wonder of human engineering?

I chuckle.

What a work of art, indeed, from its utilitarian lines to its perfect heft and balance. I drop my hand and weapon back to my side and think about the trooper burning away within the remains of her vehicle and mine. I hadn’t meant to kill her, but she came at me and I just didn’t want to go. Yet. I probably did her a favor. She would have died some other time, under the hand of one who didn’t care nearly as much as I did.

At least I meant well.

I limp away from Route 93 towards the jagged precipice ahead. I stop and turn one last time to consider the wreckage of my ‘67 Camaro and the trooper’s brand new Camaro. Life can be so funny sometimes.

Must’ve been her time.

 

So why doesn’t anything matter?

We’re born, we die; if we’re lucky, we get laid now and then…maybe have a family or two…pay taxes from a job we more often than not can’t stand…then die. I’m not finding any answers, damn it, and I’m damn near the end of my rope—

I move off the pavement.

Vince climbed ever higher up the crags, his gun tucked into the rear of his jeans, waves of heat radiating off the rocks and sand beating into him. He sucks in thick gulps of air into aching, straining, lungs…

Where had I first heard—or read—it? The statement still plagues me like a festering wound: Fact is official fiction.

I mean, who comes up with this shit?

All my life I struggle…try to do the right thing…be the nice guy…and I’m told that everything, everything I’ve ever believed in, everything I’ve ever worked for…is false?

Fact is official fiction, all right.

If we make it all up, then what’s right (is there even a “right”)? Are we actually alive or mere characters? Me killing someone isn’t really killing since I’m not really taking anyone’s life—it’s all an illusion, fiction. There isn’t even a God because we make it all up.

Try to prove it otherwise.

Faith doesn’t work because we create that, too—sure, we create the ideas as well as the substance. It’s all part of how life works—am I the only one who sees this? But, no, it gets better, since we made up this idea of killing, now we must create the idea that if you kill someone—an untruth to begin with—you have to pay for it—another untruth.

Why? Why?

So am I really crazy…or is crazy just another made-up fallacy? And if I’m not real, then others can’t do a damned thing to me, right (and I can’t do a damned thing to them, either)?

Look at me so far: I’ve told my boss to go to hell (punched out the idiot, in fact) then robbed an all-night supermarket. So, several hundred miles, four days, and three dead bodies later, here I am, stuck out in the middle of the Arizona desert, drying up from the summer sun, and hungrier than a circling buzzard.

Yet, here I am.

Vince climbs higher, but never sees, or hears, the Arizona troopers below who block off the road. His mind swarms with tortured, philosophical arguments full of possibilities, probabilities, and inspirations. Finding a particularly good handhold, he pulls himself up and finds a ledge large enough to allow him to stretch out…but which also extends back out of the reach of the sun under an outcropping of rock.

I pull myself onto the ledge and enjoy the feel of the rock. I sense how it reaches out to me as I grab for it. I smell the dryness and timeliness of the earth. Even though my fingers, arms, and legs scream with pain, I enjoy where I’m at and how I’ve gotten here. I settle in on my ledge and stretch out. “So what have I really done?” I casually ask the rock walls. “Have I really robbed anyone…really killed anyone?” If there’s nothing to rob, then I didn’t really commit the crime, now, did I? If there’s nothing to kill, then I didn’t really commit a crime there either, did I?

Then why do I feel so damned guilty?

How can it all feel so genuine if it’s all so illusional? I feel like I’m watching myself—or someone else is—like I’m a-I’m a character in a book, or a movie. I feel like there’re these gigantic faces peering down at me from some ungodly distance….

Why can’t I figure this out?

In a sudden burst of anger, I toss my weapon away—only to realize a moment later what I’ve done—but it’s too late. I watch as my beautiful piece of utilitarian artistry flips and sails through the air…end over end, roll after roll…until (ages later) it clatters and bounces and discharges twice off the rocky escarpment below. The discharges echo wildly and I continue to watch stupidly, even after it has settled quietly somewhere in the rubble below.

“So…what did that mean?” I again ask the rocky walls.

Did that have any significance? Was that just some random act of man, God, or nature? Someone or something guiding me? Why would I do such a thing—and furthermore, would I require further use of the weapon? If no one’s ever really killed what need do I have of the thing?

If there‘s no death, then do I need to fear for my life? Do I need a killing machine to protect a life that can’t be taken away—

This is all so damned confusing.

Why is this happening to me? Am I missing something? Getting a vital part of the equation all fouled up and confused?

I fold my legs before me and clasp them with my hands. I look about. Feel the gentle breeze that softly caresses my skin—it doesn’t care what I have or haven’t done. I enjoy my solitude—that I’m alone on this ledge—just me, nothing else, and revel (did I actual use that word?) in the fact that I got myself here. I never would’ve considered doing something like this before, climbing sheer rock walls.

I try to relax, and inhale deeply; close my eyes. When I reopen them, I notice some strange little creature, like a scorpion, but without that menacing, curving, tail, curiously checking me out. It also doesn’t seem to know what I’ve done, what I’m capable of. It cautiously approaches; stops. Comes a little closer…then again stops. It’s quick. We look at each other. I know not what this thing is, and curiously enough, feel no need to kill it.

Why is that?

I reach out to it and it scurries back a step or two, then stops. I keep my hand where it is, and it reapproaches…pauses…then touches my skin.

I feel nothing.

It takes a tentative step or two with its little legs up onto my hand—then scurries the rest of the way up. I lift my hand to eye level and examine it. Whatever it is, it, too, is magnificently crafted and suited to whatever is its purpose. I smile, but suddenly feel sad, and lower my hand back to the dirt ledge. I allow the creature to hop off and continue on in its adventures.

Maybe I’ve misinterpreted everything. Maybe—

I consider suicide.

Launching myself from this ledge to soar like my gun, until I, too, strike the rubble below…but know I could never do such a thing.

Is suicide different from so-called “natural” death?

If fact is fiction, and we make up everything, then doesn’t that also apply to death, that we choose our own time of passing? If this is so, then how is suicide any different from dying from a heart attack? Either way we take our own lives. Could it be our own perceptions that make things right or wrong…our intents—

This is too weird. If I’ve figured it all out, then what am I still doing here? There has to be more…has to be something I’ve missed….

I again close my eyes and lay back against the rock.

“Oh, God—if there is a You—this feels soooo good.”

No deadlines…no hassles…no worries—current philosophical dilemmas notwithstanding. I feel like that book, Catch-22. How can I say I’m crazy, because if I say I am, am I? I wish I had that book here, now, I never did finish it.

I shuffle my hands through the dirt alongside me and touch something unexpected for my surroundings of sand and stone. I look down and find a paperback novel. I pick it up and read its title.

Catch-22.

It’s a worn copy…just like the one I last remembered reading.

“Wait a minute…this…this can’t be…unless—”

At that precise moment a rifled bullet slams through Vincent’s forehead, fired from the muzzle of an Arizona State Trooper’s rifle, and Vincent achieves sainthood. It was also then that I realized I was telling my own story…and that though I was a character in that story—as are any of us—characters need to care about themselves, just as readers need to care about them. It’s not about nothing—or even fiction—it’s about love, emotion, and experience—all that and more. It’s what each story means to each individual, each character. We all get out of our stories what we put into them. This is my story.

What’s yours?

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Brains

by

"Mozky," by F. P. Dorchak. Published in Ikarie (Index 46 711), July 1992
“Mozky,” by F. P. Dorchak. Published in Ikarie (Index 46 711), July 1992

This story gives new meaning to someone who has a “mind of their own.”

Stories about parts of our bodies taking on lives of their own can be interesting. Is it an obvious story idea for writers…or is it more symptomatic of something else? A lack of trust in ourselves? Our perceived “dueling nature”? I don’t know. All I wonder is how heinous (I use this word a lot) would it be if something inside us…that was so a part of us…was trying to get out…?

This story was actually published in the Czech magazine, Ikarie—and even had a cool “pulp” illustration you can see at the end of the story (the illustration isn’t exactly as it should be, you’ll understand after reading it, but it’s still so dang cool—someone created an interpretation of something I wrote!—which is why I love having cover artists come up with their own ideas about my work)! The illustrator was Renatá Fučíková. It was also translated into Czech, which I also thought was extremely cool, my title translated into “Mozky.” The translator was Jan Kantůrek. And how cool (did I mention?) that I found some links to these two after all these years! I’d also received payment for the story, and no, I no longer remember how much it was, but the thrill of it was priceless! People in another land were reading my words in another language!

This was published in the July 1992 issue of Ikarie : Měsíčník science fiction.

 

Brains

© F. P. Dorchak, 1991

 

Migraines.

What causes them? Why do people get them? What makes them so painful? There are many different trains of thought, but I know what really causes them and why they’re so painful.

Something’s trying to get out.

I get them all the time now and have seen their end results. I will be an end result.

It all started—hell, I don’t even know how long it’s been anymore—these damned headaches—migraines—have begun to distort so much of what we call reality I’m beginning to wonder what is truth and what is reality! God, how it hurts! The pain, here it comes! It knows what I’m saying, of course, so there is little respite in what I do, but I have to get it all down before I, like the others, have my turn at death. Shit, it hurts.

It began, well…when it began.

I was taking a walk down a beach one night, by myself as I usually do anymore since the divorce, and I came upon this body in the darkness. At first I thought it was the usual variety of beach bum that inhabit these shores, but something was different about this one, even in its death as I soon discovered it was. It seemed more than vacated; ravaged. I know that the prime directive of discovering bodies (besides calling the authorities) is to leave things as they are, but I felt there was something I should see, something more than the husk that lay before me, curled up on its side, water just barely lapping beside it. Picking up a stick, I poked around, then brought out the mini flashlight I carry with me on such nightly excursions. It was then that I found that ghastly opening.

In the head.

God, the memory of that still fills me with such unutterable dread!

I should have turned away and gone for the phone immediately, should not have indulged my curiosity and dilly-dallied one second longer! Oh, that god, Hindsight!

But I did and here I am, cursed by that decision that the day holds so many of.

I took my stick—and flashlight riding shotgun—did a most fiendish thing. I stuck it inside.

I felt it tapping the hard edges of the skull…inside…I felt it disturb the violated air…inside…air that shouldn’t have been in there. And I felt yet another blasphemous thing, something I should not have felt, but did.

Nothing.

I felt nothing inside that skull. It was totally devoid of any so-called gray matter. This was probably the most heinous instance of the entire encounter that made my blood run cold. What was such a large opening doing there, inside this poor dead man’s head? What or who had done such a thing?

I didn’t stay any longer at that point, tossing the stick aside and sprinting to the nearest phone booth. Fear added the speed as I am not one prone to the current fitness craze, and it drove me madly indeed! But in my initial haste, my feet nearly fell upon something in the sand not far from the body. I know now what that thing was—but not then. I thought it a jelly fish and just narrowly was able to avoid it. I didn’t see where it went off to, but as it turned out, didn’t have to worry about it. They…would find me soon enough—

Pain, more pain.

God, I think it does this to tease me! It has no intentions of killing me just yet, I think. If it had wanted to, it could surely have a long time ago. It’s playing with me, the bastard. I think it wants me to do this.

Anyway, I finally called the cops and gave them all the information they wanted and, naturally, they kept me away from the scene once they got there. They were just as flabbergasted as I was when they found…that hole. But after grilling me for what seemed like weeks, nothing more came of it. I found the incident reported in the papers sometime later, but, curiously so, there was nothing mentioned of the hole in the head. The lack of a brain….

So my life went on as usual for a while and I continued to take my nightly strolls—ever careful to avoid that one particular spot. Glancing at it occasionally from afar, I wondered if the surf from the sea could ever adequately wash the lingering abomination from those sands.

Well, one night, a moonlit one, I found myself walking behind a fairly amorous couple, up ahead from me some hundred feet. There was lots of the usual hugging and handholding, all of which made me surprisingly angry. My divorce was barely a year old and I didn’t need the memories that now flooded my…my mind.

As the lot of us continued up the beach, I noticed the couple suddenly part, the screams from the woman brutally assaulting my ears. I stopped, initially wondering if they were horseplaying, but soon noticed that wasn’t the case. Then the girl turned in my direction and saw my silhouette. Help, she screamed, it’s attacking him, she cried! That’s when fear again made me sprint. I began wondering if maybe I should have gotten caught up in this fitness thing….

When I got up to them I found the girl kicking at the thing that was on her boyfriend.

I stopped in horror, I couldn’t believe what it was I was seeing!

It looked like a gigantic spider, its spindly legs gripping the guy’s back as he thrashed around in the sand. The thing’s body was about the size of a cantaloupe, or melon, and it seemed dark in color, its legs shooting out like unwieldy sticks. It was most horrendous to look at…to touch…to…grab it was unthinkable.

The girl continued screaming and pleading for me to do something, quickly pulling me out of my daze. So I began kicking at it. A few of my kicks missed their mark and I hit her boyfriend, but I’m sure he didn’t mind all that much. Shortly I was able to loosen it and watched it tumble off and roll along the sand, its legs curled up like a spider’s would, but it quickly rolled around and got back up on its legs—and scurried back for the guy. I intercepted it, but it then tried to get me. It was almost like trying to swat an annoying insect buzzing about your head. And the thing seemed ungainly swift for all its awkwardness. Looking for the couple, I saw the girl desperately pulling her boyfriend to his feet and dragging him away. He appeared hurt. The thing had hurt him. That was a mistake, looking away, and before I knew what was happening, the thing was upon me.

It climbed steadily up my legs…my chest…and I became almost as helpless as the man I had been trying to save was!

I felt its spindly legs grappling my body, felt its sustained movement up my body like nausea—then I felt it.

I was closer to it than I had ever wanted to be—and just moments ago I was so afraid of touching it! Now I was fighting for my life, valiantly trying to push all my repulsion aside. I grabbed for the thing and felt its legs fight me. In the moonlight I finally got a good look at it. A good look.

It was no spider.

This thing had implications a mind as mine couldn’t begin to comprehend, let alone want to. It was something worse than any spider I’d ever seen or heard of—it was…it was

(oh, the pain is so terrible!)

a brain.

I’m no anatomy expert, no spider-ologist or whatever the term is, but this thing looked exactly like a human brain, grooves, ridges and all.

Except for the spider legs which transported it.

I think I vomited at that point, but I don’t remember…all I knew was that I had to get this abomination off me!

The couple had long ago run off, and I was left alone to fend for myself, wrestling with this demon-thing. I grabbed it with both my hands….

The feeling was as one would expect from handling a brain, except for its pulsating movements. It was alive in more than the intellectual sense. I could feel life surging through its form, contracting against my hold, fighting. I gripped tighter and tried to pry it from my chest. It was easier to do then I had thought, especially after having had seen such a large amount of horror movies showing things like this as hard to remove. Holding the slimy thing away from my body I took a moment to inspect what this…brain…was. Its legs curled and continuing to fight, the whole of the brain pulsated, but underneath I saw something else. Where this one part of the brain tapers down and has the connection with the spinal cord—I’m not sure what it’s called, the medulla or something—was a scene so utterly horrid and vile I could stand it no longer. This…medulla…was undulating in a most revolting and sickening fashion. The only thing that came to mind was a man’s actions during copulation…and this I know forced more vomit from me. I cast it away from me…the ocean I thought…I had hoped the salt would have an effect on it, a wholly negative one I prayed….

Collapsed and exhausted on the sand, I tried catching my breath.

What manner of beast was that?

What…what could cause a human brain to transform itself into as such a vile nightmare?

I was numb. I momentarily forgot about the thing as I wallowed in my own contempt and vertigo and disgust…became suddenly hateful of life—of myself, of my brain. That that thing could take such a beautiful act of love-making and make a hideous mockery of it—a travesty beyond all description!

That was when I felt it clamp down on my neck from behind.

It had hopped back up on me and lay straddled there, legs wrapped around my neck!

I could feel the horribleness of its pulpy sponginess—like someone had laid a sloppy internal organ on the back of my neck. I could feel the salt water dripping down around my neck and into my chest.

Then I felt it copulating me!

Oh, God, the repulsion!

I felt the forceful insertion of its medulla into the base of my skull as easily as a man inserts his organ into a woman, then felt with shocked, childlike helplessness as I was raped, brain-semen pumped into me. The violation was far too intense for my conscious mind to bear and my body—my mind—was frozen…locked…in fear. I was utterly unable to move. The only thing I was able to do to combat the rape was to close my eyes and try not to think about it.

It seemed to take forever. I lost consciousness before it was over.

 

I woke up early that next morning with an acute migraine, dry heaves my only breakfast.

Rolling over, I felt a crunching sound and spastically pushed myself away. I saw the brain’s legs smashed, its body desiccated and shrunk. Trying to stand, a pain stabbed me in the base of my neck. Managing to get to my feet I looked around me…the world reeled and spun. Bringing my hand to my neck I felt the hole of insertion now closed…remnants of some God forsaken violation still spent about my neck. Its stickiness and repugnance drove me to the sea where I tried to cleanse myself and again and again I vomited dry heaves….

 

I brought myself in to the doctor’s later that day, under the ruse I had been out swimming and was stung by a jelly fish, but all the doctor could say was that I was indeed having migraines and prescribed me medication—which, by the way didn’t even begin to help—and sent me on my way. As he walked out, I noticed how he clenched his teeth and rubbed his own neck.

God, won’t this pain ever stop?

Right now the pain is a dull, throbbing ache deep within my head—my brain. I can feel it trying to get out—it wants out, damn it! It knows what I know, knows it must rally with the others! It is a squeeze worse than any diver’s squeeze I’ve ever experienced, but in the reverse.

I’ve since terminated my nightly walks along the beach…the pain too great…the-the implications too great…not to mention the thought of finding others like what I found terrifying. I don’t know what their purpose is…other than to kill and reproduce…but I do know they are multiplying.

It’s like I can feel them…feel their forces growing….

Maybe there is a psychic link or something between them, maybe they already know I’m on to them…why people are getting migraines…why they are so unbearable. I only wish there was more that I could do! The thought of something coming to life inside my head…trying to get out is unbearable…but the thought that countless other demon spawn are doing the same thing all over this country—maybe the world—is much worse. I don’t know if I have the strength to do what needs to be done, but hope I do. How else will others believe me? These things are somehow growing in strength and they need to be stopped. I don’t know how they’re doing it without most people knowing about it—in people’s sleep maybe—but maybe just by pure out-and-out attacks. Maybe…maybe they’re getting bolder. I have pictures in my mind—

Ahhh….it’s…pushing…harder!

I don’t have…much…time!

Oh, dear God, it hurts!

I-I have pictures in my mind of…multitudes…of these things running loose. They’re…getting smarter. More daring….

It’s time…I can last no longer.

I’m going to let it come, let the world see its coming and hopefully somebody—somebody stronger than I—can put an end to this. To them. Good bye, and…and…God bless. I’m so scared…God bless us, everyone….

 

Doctor Filbert hit “pause.”

“Are you sure you want to see the rest of this?” he asked.

Doctor Stevens “He is clearly having a mental breakdown of some kind…,” she said, unconsciously played with the box the video had come in.

“It’s not a very pretty sight,” Filbert said, with a slight grin. “In fact it’s pretty gross…even for me.”

Tina could’ve sworn there was a slight grin at the corners of his mouth. She never did like the man, but he was a decent surgeon.

If this poor man in the video was telling the truth, she hadn’t any idea what was going to happen next. She again looked to the note that he had left beside the video cam: “If anybody finds me, get this video to the medical authorities as if your life depends on it, for in truth it does. And be careful for your brains. You can’t trust them—especially those of you with migraines. Beware migraines! Beware brains!”

“Okay, here it goes.”

Filbert hit “play” and the screen came back to life.

The man was no longer talking, but crying. Huge tears poured out of his eyes as he struggled and pleaded with an unseen something in his seat.

But he’d done a good job of securing himself with Velcro and rope.

Then he screamed, and Filbert quickly lowered the volume. They were screams unlike any Tina had ever heard, the tortured screams of a dying man. Tina couldn’t turn away.

The man’s tears gave way to blood.

Tina watched as the man’s head bulged and swelled…his voice grew so strained she heard it crack…and finally die, as the man finally slumped.

Out from his head legs sprouted.

The legs were followed by a silent explosion of gore from the side of the head, some of which landed on the camera lens—

And out from the head crawled the brain—his brain—just as the man had described. It scampered down his lifeless form and across the floor somewhere…out of camera view. Filbert shut it off. Tina sat stunned.

“What a show, eh?” Filbert said.

“How—how can that be real?”

“What, you think that’s real? C’mon, Tina, it’s the product of a crazed—”

“I don’t believe so. This was too real. Too intense.”

“Well if you believe that, you’re not much better off than the whack job who made it. I’m trashing it—”

“No! Not until we look into it!”

“Right, who’s going to believe you?”

“Me. And that’s where it all starts. This guy gave his life to get…this…to us and I think we owe him, owe ourselves, no matter how outrageous it must sound, to look into it! How did you get this?”

Filbert looked to her. The lights were still off in the x-ray room where Doctor Filbert had dragged her into, to watch this.

“Thomas, let me ask you something. Why did you show it to me if you don’t believe it then?”

Filbert stood silently for a moment, casually placing the video on the patient slab. He paced the room.

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I wanted to get you in here, alone with me. Wanted to share it with someone before I trashed it.”

Tina suddenly realized where the video was and where Filbert was standing. He was by the power panel.

“You wouldn’t.”

He just smiled. “Tell me you wouldn’t—”

“Oops,” he said, smiling, and Tina heard the power switch on just as she got up to snatch the tape. She heard him laughing behind her as the x-rays poured out of the instrument and into the tape.

“Jesus, Tina, it was just a joke I was playing on you, God! I made the whole thing up! It’s a practical joke—you know! I wanted to get you alone so we could go out tonight. What do you say? Date?”

Tina looked up at him from the slab as she leaned over it. Hate filled her eyes.

“Never. In a million years. Would I ever…go out with you.”

Filbert laughed and he continued laughing.

He laughed as she stormed out of the room.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Tina!” he shouted out after her, “I’ll get you, one way or the other, I will get you, Doctor Stevens!”

The door swung in her wake as Filbert went over to the slab and picked up the video.

“Yes, Tina, we will get you,” he said, stuffing an errant leg back into his left ear.

"Mozky" ("Brains"), illustrated by Renatá Fučíková, 1992
“Mozky” (“Brains”), illustrated by Renatá Fučíková, 1992

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Publishing Monopoly?

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Get The Right POV. (Image by By Taken by Shmuel Spiegelman using a Canon 10D [CC BY-SA 1.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Get The Right POV. (Image by By Taken by Shmuel Spiegelman using a Canon 10D [CC BY-SA 1.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
I’m not as “hooked” into the whole publishing angst like I used to be, and to be frank about it, I’m glad I’m not. I’m tired of the same old arguments…tired of the animosities…and how much of it what is being slung at Amazon seems to come from Traditional Publishing’s ilk (and I’m really not even all that “against” Traditional Publishing like I used to be).

It’s all about degree. Perspective. Point of view. Intent.

I’m just me…trying to make my own dent in the world of books and short stories. But I just read an article (once again) about the Evil Empire Amazon’s “monopoly” on the world of publishing. Good points were made to be sure.

But we seem to forget something here, or maybe I’m just too naive and not plugged in anymore, but we all railed on and on about TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING, too, remember that?

Yeah, how those “Gatekeepers” (we used to call them) were so Ivory Towered and incestuous and so looking for that Quick Buck that all this “crap” was getting published. Or the Same Old Thing. That “They” Talked-the-Talk-but-Didn’t-Walk-the-Walk.

Remember?

How they screwed over authors with crappy covers and even shittier terms.

Remember?

Well…comes along a New Gorilla and—whoa!—the guns are quickly swung over to them as the newly painted target.

Pourquoi?

Because they’re kicking the snot out of traditional publishing.

(my enemy’s enemy…)

And I’m not saying all their business practices are stellar—but neither is traditional publishing’s!

But, oh, how quickly we forget.

Sure, if Amazon’s doing something illegal, they need to be held accountable for it—just like Traditional Publishing should similarly be held accountable (and has been taken so to task). New York—you’re not exactly smelling like a rose bush, either. But I find it so fascinating how articles and the Loudest Shouters are making a new “fact”; how everyone’s dumping on Amazon—but they ARE selling books…oh, and yeah, like Traditional Publishing. But Amazon gives authors a little more for their blood, sweat, and tears and they seems far more innovative than the Traditional world. And even Amazon is adopting similar “traditional practices,” like not publishing everything they get and instituting their own “Gatekeepers.”

Big Businesses are big businesses. They’ll always be doing something illegal or not-quite-moral somewhere. It’s what those entities do and the people who run them do. They’re not authors, they’re not editors. They’re Money People. Period. Sometimes they get caught…especially when spotlights are swung their way. Then they lawyer-up and the best arguments win and they move on.

It’s a business expense.

So don’t blindly be dumping on Amazon while forgetting all that Traditional Publishing also hasn’t done for you.

Nobody’s perfect.

Media needs stories.

Conflict sells.

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Amazon Sales Top $100 Billion

 

The Ballad of fReD BeAn

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That's No Way To Get Ahead. (Image by weisserstier from Wien, Austria, 130706_Schrems_A_004; [CC BY 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
That’s No Way To Get Ahead. (Image by weisserstier from Wien, Austria, 130706_Schrems_A_004; [CC BY 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
Where do I come up with this shit?

Who knows…but this humorous little oddity (like “Fear”) just popped into my head one day—pardon the pun!—and I do like to occasionally pen the macabre!

Also reminds me of that comedic sketch where you drop something…bend down to pick it up…and keep kicking it away….

Enjoy my sickness!

This has never been published as far as I could find.

 

The Ballad of fReD BeAn

© F. P. Dorchak, 1988

 

Fred Bean rolled over in his bed

The only problem with that

Being

Fred Bean’s body stopped, ‘cept his head

It rolled ’til stopped

By the intersection

Of

The wall and the floor

Some five feet away, by the door

Police said it really hadn’t been all that messy.

 

Related Posts

What NOT To Do in Publishing

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Oh, Grow Up. (image by Crimfants, http://flickr.com/photos/crimfants/327861820/ [CC BY-SA 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Oh, Grow Up. (image by Crimfants, http://flickr.com/photos/crimfants/327861820/ [CC BY-SA 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Okay, so I’ve been seriously writing since I was six…and since 1987 as an actual business…and I’ve heard a lot of what to do to get published. Heard all kinds of advice. Which I’m going to share with you, now. Kinda.

Yes, I’m going to tell you what not to do to get published.

And it will look strangely like what to do to get published.

It will.

But don’t let that fool you, because everything I’m going to mention here I’ve tried and am doing…and none of it has led to publishing riches. So, in the interests of informing my readership, I feel it my writerly duty to burst everyone’s bubble and tell you all that writing advice? All those “helpful” “friends” of yours?

They’ve been lying to you.

Yes. Lying.

And why are they lying (or is that “laying”) to you?

Because they can.

Because they’re already successful and they have to provide sound bytes. Publish or perish. I mean, really, how stupid would they otherwise appear if you came to them and you asked for advice and this was their reply:

Unpublished Person (UP): “Hey, F. P.!”

F. P.: “Hey!”

UP: “Um, do you have any sage advice for an unpublished writer such as I?”

<awkward silence>

F. P. : “Ummm, no. I got nuthin’, sorry.”

UP: “Really?”

F. P. “Really. Got nuthin’, kid.”

UP: “Not a @#*!$& thing?”

F.P.: “I’m at a loss for words.”

UP: !@$&+!

So, yes, they’re lying/laying to you because they want you to buy their books (aka “products”). They want you…to look up to them…feel them to be knowledgeable and pithy. Mostly pithy. They want you to continue about your day quoting them…talking about them to your friends—and even, yea, verily, blogging and tweeting about them.

You think they’re being nice to you?

Lending you a helping hand?

It’s all about promotion, my friend.

And that brings up another thing—“friending.”

They’re not your friend, no matter how many “likes” you both exchange over the Interweb.

But none of them can tell you that.

You see, they’re all part of a Secret Society that meets for a certain amount of time during a certain time. And they are in cahoots with their publishers and agents.

And they talk.

About you.

Cause it’s all about YOU buying THEIR books.

And obfuscating the truth to other Wanna Be’s. Because, if you’re a WANNA BE you’re not a WRITER. And to be a writer you become a threat to them and their income. There’s just that much less they’ll make if you join them…and they limit who may join their ranks. For each who enters…one of them must die…or join the Postal Service.

So, just like fitness magazines that need to publish articles to fill their magazines (BTW the real secret to getting huge, ripped muscles? Working out like a monster and taking lotsa steroids; forget about diets—none of them work), writers give out platitudes.

Okay, so now that I’ve warmed you over, here are the platitudes they will all tell you with their saccharine smiles and faux-concerend tilted heads…and none of this is true, because I’ve done-or-am-doing all of these things and none of it has led to any definition of the term “Publishing Riches”:

  1. Write every day
  2. Attend critique groups
  3. Learn the craft
  4. Attend Writer’s Conferences
  5. Network with other writers and publishing professionals
  6. Give stuff away for free
  7. Blog
  8. Tweet
  9. Go Indie
  10. Publish your short stories for free every week
  11. Allow pirating of your work because it’s all about promotion and you WILL GAIN other readers who WILL SPREAD the word about your work
  12. Do book signings
  13. Get an agent

There are many more things-to-NOT-do to get richly published, but I think 13 is an appropriate place to stop. 13 loops in a noose, 13 at the Last Supper, Friday the 13th (the ones with “Jason” in it). And now 13 things to NOT do to get published.

Don’t listen to anyone who throws “advice” your way on your quest for publishing riches. Nothing you do will get you richly published. Not even going Indie. It doesn’t matter if you ever learn your craft or start blogging three years in advance of your publishing goal. It matters not if your words sing…or sink. It’s all a conspiracy perpetuated at the highest levels of government—I mean publishing—and is completely out of your hands and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s all in the hands of the publishers. Or in the annoying fact that there are only twelve Friday the 13th movies.

12?

Really?

So, the Hell-bent-determined-of-you might well force…”C’mon, maaaan…is there any true, sage advice you can offer one-who-wants-to-get-handsomely-richly-published? You been around. You got great reviews. You know people.

“You’re.

“Published.”

Yes, by my own hand (like some other things…). Not another’s. I fell into the same trap as many of you, but I am breaking out and exposing the conspiracy and its conspirators for what they are—

Writers.

The rest of us are Wanna Be’s.

I, like many of you, followed their advice, but have seen it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter a flying fig if the writing is stellar or trash…you know your nominative case from a hole in the ground…or you “have” an agent…I’m telling you there is no spoon.

Advice?

Sorry. I got nuthin.

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Kirschner Cover Art: In Pinelight, by Thomas Rayfiel

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In Pinelight, by Thomas Rayfiel, Triquarterly (Publisher), 2013
In Pinelight, by Thomas Rayfiel, Triquarterly (Publisher), 2013

When I first saw this cover, I was stunned—stopped in my tracks, much like The Grievers.

I loved this cover!

Much like my discussion of Grace, this cover also brings me back to my life in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. The North Country. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I had a great upbringing. I loved where and when I grew up. Love the wild lands…the brooding mysteries of the dark waters and woods. I spent so much time roaming the woods on my own…hanging out at the lake across the road from our house. Soaking in this cover really brought it all back. Now, the story itself…it’s method of delivery…did not work for me. I wanted it to…because of the cover…because of the subject matter (an upstate NY town that was flooded out)…but simply couldn’t. It simply didn’t work for me.

But…back to the cover…I love the feeling of foreboding…the mystery…the darkness. I love the trees and all their shadows…how trees and shadows and mist-over-water lends toward an implied deep, dark mystery…implied goings-on that are hidden in either-or-both the water and the woods. Again, since I had not finished reading this novel, I can only guess…but it all implies some dark dealings going on in some dark woods…and/or water. Back country secrets….

I can feel the crisp coldness of the water…the resilient bounce of the humus-carpeted forest floor…inhale the heavy scent of the pines. Feel myself weaving in and out between the trees…moving deeper into the mystery forest and snapping off dead branches as I go. Holding the stiff, dead branches in my hands as I trek ever farther into the woods…listening to the distant woodpeckers and the wind….

Yet above it all is the sky with rising ground fog.

Whatever darkness lies below…there is “a light at the end of the tunnel”—or, in this case, “above the trees.”

But in the woods there be secrets.

“Book covers are visceral,” Lon says it best on his book-cover-dedicated website, lonkirschner.com. “A good cover grabs you in an unexpected way,” he goes on to say, and In Pinelight had done just that…much like Grace had also done for me. Some covers you “just like”…they’re eye candy, they’re cute, they’re whatever (in a good way)…and some just immediately get under your skin and into your marrow. And that’s what’s happened in In Pinelight. Lon’s work has a “heart” to it…and maybe it’s because he reads every manuscript for which he creates a cover. Maybe he’s just good.

No “maybe’s” about it!

So, yes, I think In Pinelight has become one of my favorite covers.

What went through Lon’s mind as he worked this cover?

Here are his words:

“Yes, you are correct. This was a difficult book to read because it uses no punctuation or paragraphs. It is the ramblings of a thought process put to words. As you know, I make a commitment to read every book so I can (hopefully) get it right. The author gave me a warning about the quirky style of this book so I was prepared. It was a slow start, you had to get into the rhythm of it. I found myself enjoying it because it was like I was uncovering a mystery. Sometimes you had no clear idea what was going on but then out of nowhere you made a connection. You are the listener to this man’s oral history of his life. It was a strange life with many twists and turns but the constant was the lake and the trees. You would feel their presence on almost every page, it was the natural way to go. The problem was to find an image that had the right sense of place and mystery. I came across an image that felt good but there were things that just were not right. Fortunately we are able to make corrections with the tools we have available to us. The shape of the tree line wasn’t quite right. There were a few disturbing branches and several tall trees sticking too far up above the rest. The trees had to look a little other worldly. This was fixed by pushing the color toward the almost unnatural green. The final element was to enhance the mist coming off the water. These were all relatively simple to do but combined to change a rather ordinary photo into the type of image that can stir up all sorts of emotions and memories as it did with you.

“The final element was the font choice for the title and author. I felt strongly that this had to be extremely simple so it would not compete with the image, the real star of the show. A clean sans serif font solved that problem.

“This publisher had requested to see several concepts. When I did this one I knew the job was done but did the others and submitted all together. To say I was not surprised when the Art Director emailed me with the news that this was the choice is an understatement. One, it made me feel like I really did know what I was doing and two, I knew the Art Director was smart!

“It is actually harder to do a book like this because it is really a mood piece. So much of the work I do is compositing and creating original art that piece together a book in a visual way. This type of cover is much more visceral and relies on pure emotion to get the concept across. Another interesting fact is that you were drawn to the book and wanted to read it but in the end, your enjoyment of it came from the cover and not the text.”

Ha—I like how Lon points out that my enjoyment of the book came from the cover and not the text! This is quite ironic for a writer, because so many authors complain about their covers because they feel the traditional publishing houses have “slapped on” some trite, awful cover to their manuscripts…covers (these authors lament) that have little to do with actual story…or are just plain heinous, with little thought or effort having gone into them….

Thank you, Lon, for your insight! Maybe some later day I’ll again attempt to complete reading this novel…and I’ll definitely check out his other, Time Among The Dead.

Thomas Rayfiel doesn’t appear to have his own website, but here’s his Amazon page.

*******************************************

Lon Kirschner may be contacted at:

Phone: 518/392-3823

E-mail: info@kirschnercaroff.com

Site: http://www.kirschnercaroff.com

Book Cover Site: http://www.lonkirschner.com/

 

Related Articles:

Kirschner Cover Art: Grace, by Howard Owen (fpdorchak.wordpress.com)

Cover Artist Lon Kirschner Interview (fpdorchak.wordpress.com)