My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #31. Either different types of short short fiction have been properly labeled in the past several years or I stopped caring. If it matters, I consider his more of a prose poem than a piece of flash fiction.

I don’t often start writing something and not know what it’s going to be. At the very least, I’ve got a final image in my head and a list of points that need to be hit, scenes or conversations that need to happen. It’s even more rare that I finish a story and don’t know what it is. This isn’t an experimental piece of fiction by any means, nor is it the sort of frivolous emoting that reads like a journal entry. I can see the craft and the way things hook onto one another, but I’m not sure if it’s a story.

The song was the only piece of classical music I had to deal over the course of the entire project. It’s a bummer of a tune, probably on a lot of mixtapes labeled “SUICIDE MIX” that belong to the sorts of somber, terminally serious people who would never kill themselves in the first place.

That’s probably where a lot of the imagery comes in, talk of the end of the world and creationism and all other sorts of heavy things people like to get drunk and ruminate on. Always being the sober person at bonfires has opened up a lot of avenues for listening to sophomoric prattle, none of which made it into the story in specifics, but definitely manifested itself in the actions that the story resolves in: hold your breath and wait for it.

This is unhealthy, and I swear I’m trying to be a better person. However, some things are glacial. Some things are gone. I cling to the nonsense of my guts.


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My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #38. The romance in strippers is usually either in the idea of rescuing them or banging them. I’ve often wondered if I’m the type of person who could have a relationship with a stripper or a porn star. To do so, I think I would have to rise above those two original notions, that the woman is not by default a damsel in distress or a public depository.

Of course, I’m totally not that good of a person. As a far more righteous surrogate, Rob in this story is hooked up on a date with a stripper and is already beyond caring about what she does.

At the time, I was kind of obsessed with Marisa Tomei’s character in The Wrestler. The parallels—and differences—in the redemption stories of her character and Mickey Rourke’s character are obvious and many. But, as endearing as Randy the Ram is, he proves in the end that, above all else, he’s a wrestler, an identity that transcends being a human being. The same cannot be said for his female counterpart, who is “merely” a human being who strips.

I obviously didn’t have the space to do the same sort of development as a full-length film, and with that being my most solid reference point, I’m not sure if I did the right thing with the female character, as she comes off as any other nineteen year old girl with problems. On the other hand, it’s possible that that’s exactly why it may have worked.


Tomorrow: A story named "Things That Are Glacial, Things That Are Gone" that is based on the piece of music Adagio For Strings by Samuel Barber. Suggested by writer/nuisance Stephanie Momot.

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My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #32. Biblical tropes aside, floods are some serious shit. I live in a somewhat wavy part of the country—driftless is the geological name for it—and almost every year there’s at least one-to-three days of rain that ruins lots of things. Back in 1995, a large part of a nearby city, the part was called The Flats, was beyond fucked due to a flood. Two years ago, an elderly-yet-spry man I know was the only casualty in a minor flood that broke suddenly and swept his car off the road. Water is indifferent.

The flood in this story keeps coming back once a year every once in awhile as well, and the carnival described is actually a take on two local events of local importance: East Dubuque’s Fun Days and The Kieler Picnic. To the best of my knowledge, there’s never been a kissing booth, but I’m sure there has been young boys trying to figure out their newfound sexual feelings and directing them toward a woman old enough to be their mother. (Again, Oedipus and Freud had a lot of shit down.)

I was never a big Bob Dylan fan, though I’ll always respect him for the pathways he’s made in American songwriting. This song was one I was unfamiliar with, a deeper cut (to me) from Blonde On Blonde. I was stunned at its length and narrative, the number of versus and the loose, wavering arrangement. Fitting in the shamed woman who is still desired by a single entity was easy, but the language and imagery I was able to pinch from Dylan’s lyrics really made a lot of the lines and, at the end, the arc itself work wonderfully.

And of the end, it’s one of the few where there’s a bit of a surprise that changes the entire last section. I’m normally against surprises—they’re almost always cheap gimmicks that do-away with the possibility of rereading—but there’s always an exception. And just like Dylan himself, this song is an exception, and I’ve loved it ever since.

(Also, Patrick Fleming of The Poison Control Center was one of the most appreciative people to work with me on this project, and I cannot thank him enough. His band rules and you should definitely check them out.)


Tomorrow: A story named "Refund" that is based on the song "On To You" by The Constantines. Suggested by musician Kevin J. Frank of Haymarket Riot. 

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My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #37. I write fondly and frequently about the destruction of gazing balls, those stupid decorative globes people in the Midwest keep on display in their front lawns. Once, in high school, some of my friends—I, honestly, was not there—went out and collected about a dozen from the main drag of houses in our home town. Once in their possession, the only thing they could think of to do was break them.

This random act of youthful terror informs the idea that we forgive people easier if they are on the cusp of becoming an adult. I’ve called upon that in several stories, but this is the only one, in which a man’s demure son wants piano lessons instead of a bike and his disarming wife agrees out of fear that the son will follow in his father’s young trespasses, where it’s examined from the more whimsical, feral side of nostalgia.

Kevin Wilson’s writing was a big influence on this story. I always comment on his ability to handle the absurd and the familiar in one felled swoop, and I hope I did the same style justice. I’ve always leaned toward that anyways, and this was one of those that rounded out nicely.

The man’s wife, Brenda Day, a woman “who has one of those names where everyone, even me, has to say both parts,” is named after a buddy of mine from high school named, of course, Brandon Day. The title plays into piano lessons, but has more to do with synchronicity: a B-sharp is a C and a C-flat is a B, but are named differently and in a more complicated manner according to which scale is being played in at the time.


Tomorrow: A story named "Flood" that is based on the song "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" by Bob Dylan. Suggested by musician Patrick Fleming of The Poison Control Center.

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Pre-order the book so my nose will stop bleeding.  

My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #25.  In the middle of his wife telling him something, my 76-year-old buddy, Frank, turned to me and said, “If I’d strangled her on our wedding night, I’d be out of jail by now.”

This is one of many reasons that Frank is a wonderful man. Lately, his health has been shitty, and he’s had trouble getting through the jokes he normally told me—some clean, some with a punchline that goes something like “Lift your head up, idiot, you’re licking the carpet.” I would trade this story, most stories, to have him back in prime condition. As such a deal is impossible, I’ll settle for this as a tribute to him.

The one or two times I’ve met his daughter, a woman old enough to be my mother, I noticed her never finishing his jokes for him, but always knowing where they were going and still being surprised, still laughing at the end. The daughter of the Frank in the story is more affected due to her father, a sort of pixie dream girl who is more of a prankster than a mess.

I had trouble with the song and, admittedly, pinched very little from it. The title and a sense of danger are the only things, and neither of them really comes in until the end. I hadn’t written a sweet story in awhile for fear of sentimentality leaking in, and if this story works at all, it’s because of the real power of an absurdity that has nothing to do with me. The suspension necessary to disappear into a life that isn’t just not our own but is, in fact, no one’s, is a quality with a high possibility of resolving itself in joy. (Or drug addiction.)


Tomorrow: A story named "B Sharp, C Flat" that is based on the song "Bicycle Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle" by Be Your Own Pet. Suggested by writer Kevin Wilson.

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My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #26. Small town baristas—waitresses of any kind, really—are the best girls, and there are days where I think I could live forever just through the love of a pretty girl with tired legs.

The baristas are only a minor point of entry for the real story, in which innocuous poetry readings during the summer in a college town reveal a layered, odd relationship between a couple thought to be undeniably right.

I worked not at a coffee shop in a small town, but, even worse, at a record shop in a small college town. Neither one did particularly well in the summer, but the coffee shop is still open and the record store isn’t, if that tells you which one did worse. The coffee shop would only be open for about four hours in the mornings, about long enough to afford to keep the lights on and pay the barista.

We ran a couple readings there when I was in college, but nothing nearly as exciting as an imploding marriage came from them.

The whole thing with the H was something I said to an ex-girlfriend’s sister once, a Sara, but not the one in the story. About the only thing I knew was that, biblically, Sarah (with an “h”) was holier than Sara (without an “h”). If this sounds like a rather flimsy thing to build a story on, that’s because it is. I had to research the letter “h” for about an hour just to round out the climax of the story.


Tomorrow: A story named "Mythology" that is based on the song "Bullet and a Target" by Citizen Cope. Suggested by writer Keith Scribner.

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My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

(Read "This Illusion" over at Prime Number Magazine)

Exclusive to SATCD. Big Star really only fired the same few longing-related synapses over and over, so I knew immediately that the story was going to be about a guy and a girl and a disappointment sitting comfortably between them. What I ended up with was a guy dating one of “exactly four-dozen registered female magicians in the United States.”

I remember being obsessed with magic when I was younger. Not real magic—I’m obsessed with that now, though it’s even more fruitless than the other kind—but magic tricks, the kinds done with prop metal rings and slight-of-hand. I had books and learned some tricks and, until I decided I wanted to be a pro wrestler, was convinced I would be a magician someday.

Obviously, this never happened. I knew a magician in high school tangentially. His sister was in my grade. His license plate said MAGICEJ and he was kind of a fucking dork. The ghost was long given up, but that wasn’t very endearing.

I’m sure there’s a bit of GOB Bluth in here somewhere, but mostly it’s just a bunch of stuff I made up. I may have gotten the idea for a “female magician convention” from a porno. If that doesn’t actually exist, someone should make it.

As for the story, I think it was a bit of a turning point in my writing. After years of doing it accidentally, I finally figured out a way to be a little funny while still having that feeling of a big, functionless Midwestern heart somewhere at the center of it all.


Tomorrow: A story named "Where Is Your H?" that is based on the song "Smile & Wave" by Headstones. Suggested by writer Tim Trenkle.

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Pre-order the book like all your friends already have. 

My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Exclusive to SATCD. Barring a total void of talent, the idea of a troubadour is one of the more romantic things I can think of. Shakespeare, too, is kind of a big deal when it comes to that shit. Combining them was another one of those simple, dumb things

The romance of being a troubadour isn’t just a matter of love—possibly not at all even a matter of love—but is instead a matter of excitement and mystery. The ill-fated nomadic hurt both inside and out along the musician’s path is, most likely, not really a thing anymore. I think the internet sort of hipped everyone to that idea and now everything is some base-level variation on irony. It’s a sad thing.

I got halfway through this one and realized I had fucked myself on an ending, so I gave away the ending in the middle, blatantly, through exposition. I pretty much forced myself to come up with something better, which I’m hoping I did.

A few words on the songs in here: “$1000 Wedding” by Gram Parsons is in there because someone, I can’t remember who, said it was the saddest song ever. I don’t necessarily agree, but it’s a great title to throw out there based on name alone. “Help Me Make It Through the Night” by Kris Kristofferson is a song I read a 20+ page essay on around the time I wrote the story, so I had to throw it in so I could feel I took some useable knowledge from it. “She’s No Lady” by Lyle Lovett is a song I used to quote when asked about my girlfriend, back when I had girlfriends. “The French Inhaler” by Warren Zevon is one of my favorite WZ songs that I didn’t discover until watching old Larry Sanders Show reruns. “Changed the Locks” is Lucinda Williams, so it’s great. No questions.

The story itself came together quickly. How could it not have? Steve Earle creates the sort of highway love songs that practically rise up from the speakers and lay themselves out in front of one’s vision, for as far as it will go.


Tomorrow: A story named "This Illusion" that is based on the song "Feel" by Big Star. 

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My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Originally OBCBYL #39. The question of “what makes a man?” is only slightly less interesting than “what makes a woman?” in that, after it’s been squared away that we’re all human, I think that there’s more depth to a woman. I don’t mean this in the manner of sitcom tropes—the Simple Husband, the Confusing Wife—but more in the manner that the world makes it more difficult to be a woman than it does a man, and the success or failure of any woman that is even tangentially related to their gender is, for better or worse, a point of curiosity.

I’m not saying I’m very good at writing in the first person voice of a woman. I’m not even saying that I’m a good feminist. I’m certainly better at both than I was when I was, say, twenty years old and thinking I was really doing some good by writing first person as a woman. As you can imagine there was a lot of internal dialogue about “supple-yet-firm breasts” coming out in a voice eerily similar to that of a sexually frustrated boy with good intentions.

The stories in the book that are told from the first person POV of a woman, this one and “Focus” and “Jests At Scars,” weren’t meant to be statements of any sort. I’m guaranteeing I would have fucked it up had it been my intention to do otherwise—I’m not entirely sure I didn’t fuck it up anyways.

If the stories succeed on any level, I think it’s one of delightful inoffensiveness. I want people to finish the story and think not about how I did writing in the voice of a woman or whether or not I painted a fair portrait of a female, but to instead wonder about the fate of the characters I’ve created, in all their human glory.

Also, the scene where the musician boyfriend is on set is based on the episode of the Valerie Bertinelli sitcom Café Americain where her real life husband Eddie Van Halen played a minor role as a coffee shop guitarist. And by “based on” I mean that I’ve never seen it but I know it happened. I will send $10 to anyone reading this who’s actually seen an episode of that show.


Tomorrow: A story named "Jests At Scars" that is based on the song "Hard-core Troubadour" by Steve Earle. 

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Pre-order the book before the sun gets you.  

My upcoming book of short short stories, Shake Away These Constant Days, originated as a project called Our Band Could Be Your Lit, in which I wrote a story under 1000 words every week. To generate this much content, I based the stories on songs suggested my musicians and writers from around the world. The original idea was 100 songs, 100 stories: find the creative common ground between two mediums and cultivating the virtue found therein.

Until September 25th, I'll be doing a blog post a day about the stories in the book. After that, it's all up to you.

Exclusive to SATCD. I follow enough porn stars and pro wrestling divas to know that stupid girls don’t interest me much. Crazy girls, on the other hand, are endlessly interesting. Unfortunately, it’s hard to realize right away that an attractive girl who gets drunk and lights garbage cans on fire is both completely charming and entirely relationship-proof.

The story isn’t about much, just two people who shouldn’t be trying anymore finally realizing it. I don’t (purposely) write many things without an arc, so I like rereading this one every once in awhile just to remind myself that I don’t need to be such a slave to narrative all the time. Sometimes people can just light shit on fire and then punch one another and then possibly have sex later on and that’s all that needs to happen.

This story was actually written a couple years before the OBCBYL project started up, but it was, in fact, written about a song. I used “Alcoholiday” as the name of the original story, too, because it was too good to pass up. The current version is titled with apologies to the band Don Caballero.

Tomorrow: A story named "Let's Go Shoot Her While She's Crying" that is based on the song "Black Coffee" by Sarah Vaughan. Suggested by writer Dena Rash Guzman. 

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