story in The Legendary and opinions on publishing

I have a thing in The Legendary.

I figure since I spend so much of my time at work, I might as well write about it. I mean, I got home and have dreams about tenants and maggots and carpet and roofs caving in. There has to be some benefit to it.

There's also writing by Timothy Gager and a lot of other folks. Timothy Gager's story is very good. It's probably my favorite in the issue.



I saw someone on facebook bashing publishing short fiction a few days ago. I'm not sure if they were talking smack about internet journals or indie/small press stuff or the whole game in general. After seeing that, I sat and thought a while about why I send stuff out and try to get published. The more I thought about it, the better I felt about it. Above everything else, I've learned a lot. I read more things online and buy more things. Most of the people linked on the right of my blog are writers I feel very interested in. I'm interested in their futures. It's educational to see how they're making it work. I mean, look at Shane Jones. He published in some online places and some smaller print magazines and now his book is being reprinted by Penguin.

But it's more than that. It's more than "look how successful these other people are." It's a continued learning. I'm not in school, but I'm still reading, seeing how other people take and twist words. Seeing the ways they format things. I don't think I'd put the same effort into reading all this if I wasn't trying to send writing out too. How can you not be inspired? How can this not spur ideas? How can it be anything but a positive experience? Of course it will improve you.

I think this whole online 'thing,' this blogging, publishing thing has helped me a lot. It's put me in contact with people that have been very helpful, in both editing my work and helping me explore new options. Recently, Meg Pokrass has been more than helpful in trying to direct me to different online sites and tools. Sasha Fletcher had encouraging words about those dreaded grad school applications.

I'm still very much at a 'beginning' point in my writing. I'm still trying out different voices and formats and trying to hack at it. I love seeing the ways different writers are stringing things together, where they're getting published at, etc. I look to writers like Blake Butler and Molly Gaundry and Matt Bell and Jason Jordan and JA Tyler and Barry Graham and think, maybe I can do it like that.

Anyway, I think anyone that so openly bashes getting published, must be very self assured. Probably cleans their genitals with pages of their own writing.

books this year

I had such high aspirations for reading this year, but so far I'm coming in at a measly 18 books after over eight months. So I'm not even reading three books a month. I guess there were a lot of half starts, so that took up a good deal of time. So far the list is:

Waste, Eugene Martin
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
Endgame, Samuel Beckett
The Fuck-up, Arthur Nersesian
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender
Monkeybicycle 6
The Wavering Knife, Brian Evenson
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Open Curtain, Brian Evenson
Last Days, Brian Evenson
The Tracey Fragments, Maureen Medved
Geometric Regional Novel, Gert Jonke
It was like my trying to have a tender-hearted nature, Diane Williams
Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
Oh Baby, Kim Chinquee
Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
No one belongs here more than you, Miranda July
Bust Down the door and Eat all the Chickens 8

I really love Brian Evenson, Miranda July, Cormac McCarthy and Samuel Beckett.

And I couldn't find any enjoyment, other than the structuring, in The Tracey Fragments. Maybe if I had read it a decade ago when I felt like an emo teenager. The movie worked much better than the book for me. I was able to tolerate the whining.

Geometric Regional Novel took a lot of attempts to read and I found myself rereading sections because I wasn't paying attention. It was a good book that I might not be smart enough to fully enjoy. I like certain parts of it very much.

I don't like Kim Chinquee as much as other people seem to. Very hit or miss for me.

Reading Bust Down the Door made me like Bradley Sands more than I already did. He has great taste and I remember really liking the story by Darby Larson.


So my goal for the rest of the year is to read 22 more and make it an even 40 for the year. This can be easily accomplished if I can finish some of my half starts. Some of these include:

Blood Meridian
The boring ass Lovely Bones
Barrelhouse 7
How much of us there was
Ninth Letter, volume five
The Things They Carried
Diary of a Drug Fiend
Hobart 10
Petals of Blood
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Elephant Summer

xtx has been posting elephant writing all summer. Today, my elephant story is up

other people's lives

Monkeybicycle's online fiction has a different feel to it lately. I like this story by Angi Becker Stevens.

Former classmate Zachary Bush has a book out. Get it

Darby Larson has a post up about his submission process, which is interesting because he doesn't do sim subs. Read it here

That post got me thinking about the Brandi Wells Review, which I started as a kind of joke. But then people started sending me their writing and I thought, this is great. After a while people quit sending me things. But doesn't everyone have writing that they haven't submitted or had success with submitting or they aren't sure what they want to do with? Send that to me. brandiwells at gmail dot com

These guys are my neighbors

Drawn on an abandoned apartment wall

Recently Purchased for very cheap:

The End of Alice
Me Talk Pretty One Day
What I Know So Far
Mourner at the Door
Men and Cartoons
Crowe's Requiem
Distortions
The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas
I Am Death: Two Novellas
Waste
Coming Through Slaughter
Music for Torching
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Et Tu, Babe
Wonder When You'll Miss Me
Arcade or How to Write a Novel
In the Blind
Circling the Drain
Whale Season
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Trailer Girl
The Last Novel
Baaa
Fog & Car
Home Land
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Middlesex
Yonder Stands Your Orphan
The Book of Revelation
Paradise
Mustang Sally
Towelhead
When I was cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School

Meatloaf cake