BEST BOOK THAT MADE ME WANT TO WRITE A BOOK LIKE THAT

[Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison]

This book isn't disjointed--it's shattered. Mary Robison had writer's block for years and years so she just started writing down individual thoughts on notecards. After awhile, she assembled them into this book. As a base-level theory, that's somewhere between genius and fundamentally retarded, but Robison is too good. The narrative isn't buried or secondary. It's right fucking there. It just happens to be delivered in the form of 530 short short short stories.

I want people to quit writing stories and poems and collections that try too hard at sounding disjointed and come off as sounding like Mad Libs for MFA dickheads. But, since they probably won't, it really made me want to do it. So I think I'll try that in 2013.

BEST BOOK THAT MADE ME NEVER WANT TO WRITE A BOOK LIKE THAT

[A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley]

Definitely a book I had to slog through at points, but when I finally just gave in and started high-lighting the best lines and paragraphs, everything unlocked. Exley seems like a terrible, wonderful mess: alcoholic, sports obsessive (hence the title), destructively impulsive. I will never write like this, partially because I just don't, but mostly because I can't put my life through the wringer like he did and come out with enough energy--or whatever it is that it takes--to document it, to essentially go through it all over again.

BEST NOVEL BY SOMEONE WHOSE STORY COLLECTION I DIDN'T LIKE VERY MUCH

[The Ask by Sam Lipsyte]

Am I missing something with Venus Drive? I just can't get past the terrible people never learning anything. I went into it after reading (and loving) Homeland and was beyond excited. Venus Drive felt like pointless nihilism to me. I read The Subject Steve next and began to think Homeland was a fluke. Then I read The Ask and realized that Lipsyte is the real deal, beyond capable and into the realm of crushing. His dialogue is unfuckwithable and in The Ask is a grand realization of the promise Homeland delivered on originally: what in this goddamn life is worth it and what is "it"?

BEST NOVEL BY SOMEONE WHOSE STORY COLLECTION I FUCKING LOVE

[The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson]

[Barely edging out Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, which is brilliantly constructed and written and worth it]

The comparisons to The Royal Tennenbaums are unavoidable, but when it comes down to the meat and mystery of the book, the similarities drip away. Whereas The Royal Tennenbaums was a family torn apart and eventually reassembled by its figurehead, The Family Fang is a family torn apart by art and reassembled by it in a completely different way. The abstractions are big, but Wilson's smart enough to not let them drive the story. I don't think it's as good as his collection Tunneling To the Center of Earth, but I don't think many books are. The point here is that The Family Fang delivers.

BEST CHAPBOOK I CONTINUE TO TAKE EVERYWHERE WITH ME

[Less Shiny by Mary Miller]

It's a tiny, perfect thing. I keep it in my computer bag and use the book more than I use my computer. Everything Mary writes seems like a streamlined play-by-play into a real woman's mind. There's impulse and focus and the magic is that I can see them and not understand them. This book could be a thousand pages and I'd know nothing more and be no less captured by it.

BEST OTHER BOOK BY MARY MILLER I'M LOOKING FOR AN EXCUSE TO PUT ON THIS LIST

[Big World by Mary Miller]

I ordered Big World and spent two days at my shitty janitor job reading it, sneaking off to unmonitored offices to devour it. It makes me want to call up all of my ex-girlfriends and then hang up the phone right away and then do it again. Is there higher praise?

BEST BOOK I DIDN'T REALLY UNDERSTAND

[The Book of Freaks by Jamie Iredell]

[Barely edging out Variations of a Brother War by J.A. Tyler, which I understood a bit more and liked just a bit less than The Book of Freaks.]

I read other books this year that I liked more, but few of them were as interesting as The Book of Freaks. Iredell's a wizard. It's not unlike Louie in the ways in which it shows how each of us, if you move slowly and look hard enough, are special. Louie tends to focus on the ways in which we are individually incredible, whereas The Book of Freaks is a stripped-down outing of just that: freaks. Meaning, of course, all of us. The narrative junkie in me wanted more of a story-story or a character to latch on to, but even those things emerged in time. The story is my life, the character is everyone. I'm not claiming to understand it or its fucked up bits-and-pieces structure, but thinking about this book is one of my favorite things to do.

BEST BOOK ABOUT BASEBALL AND THE MIDWEST

[The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by WP Kinsella]

Baseball stories are great and the Midwest is great. And, except for the time when he ends up sounding like Garrison Keillor--Box Socials fucking sucked--W.P. Kinsella is great as well. This definitely revisits the sort of magical realism of Shoeless Joe (the Field of Dreams book), which is the sort of magical realism I can handle.

It's hard for me to sit through an entire sporting event, but I'll read a good sports story any day. This is one of them.

BEST BOOK I FORGOT I READ UNTIL LOOKING BACK OVER THE LIST OF WHAT I READ THIS YEAR

[The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera]

Not only did I forget I read it, I forgot entirely what it's about. Let me take a shot at this:

A young/old man has a sort of existential crisis regarding his age or relationship. A somewhat-tangential side-story about sexuality/politics runs through the entire book and becomes less and less tangential for some odd, philosophical reason.

Close? Probably. I liked the book, but I don't think Kundera's going to blow me away like he did back when I first read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I gave up on expecting the sort of love I was in at age 20 to keep coming back, and I'm giving up on Kundera "really opening my eyes, man" now that I'm almost 30 and living in a basement and haven't had a blowjob in like five years.

BEST BOOK THAT COMPLETELY CHANGED THE WAY I WRITE SHORT FICTION

[Stories In the Worst Way by Gary Lutz]

Those sentences. Holy fuck. I read A Partial List of People to Bleach before this and liked it, but I wasn't blown away. It took a whole book of Lutz to show me that his compact non-sequiturs run so deep they end up meaning more than any narrative. If Barry Hannah made it off feeling and style, Lutz makes it off style and more style. People complain that he's all voice and no story (on the rare instance I hear people complain about Lutz), but those sentences. Holy fuck. What else is there?

BEST BOOK THAT MADE ME HAPPY I WAS YOUNG AND EVEN HAPPIER THAT I'M NOT ANYMORE

[Legs Get Led Astray by Chloe Caldwell]

[I reviewed this at length over at [PANK].]

Chloe and I have led vastly different lives in terms of sexuality and experimentation, but her feelings are so big that I see myself in these essays--in my early-twenties, not waiting, but actively searching for the next thing that will change my life. Every five minutes.

It's manic and impossible and real and only getting better from here. I think one of the reasons the book works is that those big feelings are their own end at this point, the period in life Coco's writing about. Eventually, she'll have to learn to process all of that into a bigger meaning, tighten things up and strip away the listing and the sections that feel like journal entries, but in Legs Get Led Astray, there's a ghost with too much energy making it all fit together in the scariest, most joyous of ways.

BEST BOOK OF POORLY-DISGUISED AND HIGHLY-EFFECTIVE WITCHCRAFT

[Tongue Party by Sarah Rose Etter]

Sarah, dear, you freak me the fuck out. Never go to Salem or read me a bedtime story. Also, never stop writing, because these stories are like rock candy the dark house on the street gives out on Halloween, and I couldn't be more thrilled about it.

BEST LONG BOOK I DIDN'T THINK I'D FINISH BUT ENDED UP NOT BEING ABLE TO PUT DOWN

[Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S by Jeremy Leven]

Satan getting psychotherapy, as narrated by Satan, who is embodied in a hand-assembled super computer. (This book came out in the 70s). For like 500 pages. I wouldn't have picked this up on my own, but a friend with excellent taste (aside from his dislike of Rush) sent it to me insisting I read it. And he was right. It's excellent and worth the time.The narrative aside from Satan shows the effects of fate and happenstance as they fight against human-made decisions, as embodied in the life of one man, the aforementioned unfortunate Dr. Kassler. All of it together is a solid mix.

BEST BOOK WHERE SOMEBODY DIES IN PRETTY MUCH EVERY STORY

[Phantasmagoria by Thomas Cooper]

Life is a dream and you wake up when you die. Either that or the exact opposite are true. Phantasmagoria doesn't answer the question, but there's so much loss, so much funny magic, that it makes the question an enjoyably honest one, if not full of odd hope. Stories like this made me start to understand flash fiction back when I was just starting to write it. The only ting better than unpacking these stories for study is simply reading them for the reasons I'd take in any sort of a masterwork.

BEST BOOK THAT MADE ME REALLY EXCITED FOR CONTEMPORARY SHORT FICTION AGAIN

[Short Dark Oracles by Sara Levine]

[I reviewed this at length over at [PANK].]

With everything being on the internet, I'm just like everyone else in that i read tons o awesome stuff and tons of bullshit. Every once in awhile, whn the bullshit outweighs the good stuff, I start to wonder if people are interested in writing pure fiction anymore. (I don't mean sci-fi or fantasy, which I've heard people argue is the "real pure fiction" because these people are assholes.) Sara Levine's writing is vibrant and creative and funny and there's a goddamn story there. It has nothing to do with oblique narratives or writing from a constructed personality. Let's hope she writes forever.

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO READING

[The Watchmen by Alan Moore]

I'm the last person in the world to read this. I think it's great. Go somewhere else for real thoughts.

(Except this one: who picks a fucking owl as their superhero character? Come on.)

BEST BOOK THAT I WROTE THAT WAS PUBLISHED

[Shake Away These Constant Days by Ryan Werner]

I sold a few of these. I think people were mostly neutral towards it. Mostly, I really like the book.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD ORDER ONE FROM ME.

I also read and wrote a ton of garbage this year, but let's try to be positive, all right?

RW

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When I need hyper-emotional instrumental music in the fall, Explosions in the Sky is the go-to. I'll switch to Sigur Ros when the first snow comes down, back to Don Cab when it all melts.

I had a new publication go up at a new publication. Justin Lawrence Daugherty started up a lit journal that intends to scorch the earth. So far, I think he's done a bang-up job. My story is called "The Ultimate Warrior, Sitting In His Kitchen in the Middle of the Night, Practicing Applying His Face-Paint in Anticipation of a Return That Will Never Happen." It's one of those self-explanatory titles. Check it out, along with great work by Aaron Teel, Edward Hagelstein, Helen McClory and many more.

"The thing about being dead is that I have no idea what it’s like.

I got a haircut and took some time off and people started to talk because they either think that life is as fake as wrestling or vice versa.

But remember that guy in the promotion who was pretending to be me? Suicide. When they finally hired the real me, he had a pity spot on the roster as my stunt double and then he got fired and then he shot himself."

My column proposal, Love Dumb: A Song-By-Song Analysis of the Nonsensical, Incompetent, Sophomoric, Confusing, Beautiful KISS Discography, got accepted over at Used Furniture Review. This, too, is fairly self-explanatory. I'll be analyzing two KISS songs every week for the next two years, at which point I will have dissected all of their songs and decided that I actually fucking hate them. I'm three songs in so far and aside from reinforcing the basics--Peter's not very good at drums, Paul's the weirdest straight gay dude ever--I've learned that I only like KISS when I don't have to think about them. If I'm just feeling the music, they're the best. The second I turn my brain on, they just turn into some mediocre Jews singing about their dicks.

In trying to come up with a name for the column, I called on my friends to help. My buddy Bob suggested, "Get a girlfriend."

Going back to pro wrestling, I'm considering proposing a column to Fear of a Ghost Planet in which I take old wrestling PPVs and compare them based on the month and year in which they appeared. So, Hog Wild '96 (WCW) would go up against Summerslam '96 (WWF). Sure, it was the beginning of Hogan's first title run as a heel and it was the end of Vader's push in the WWF because Shawn Michaels was a real cunt back then, but what about he shows themselves? I'm curious as to which one is better to just put on and enjoy, free of nostalgia, (mostly) free of wrestling-nerd snobbery.

On the surface, these two columns appear to be way more niche than the stuff I normally write: short stories, book reviews, essays. Really, I think it's about the same. It's 2012 and I'm writing stuff that mostly appears on the internet, a place that already has millions of stuffs of all kinds and doesn't necessarily need any of mine.

In short, maybe I need a girlfriend.

I'm not sure why I've taken a sudden interest in writing a column, but I'm afraid it's because I'm running out of ideas. I'm not counting on my chapbook winning the Caketrain competition because they get a bunch of awesome submissions that are probably more geared toward their aesthetic, but they have to choose someone. (Every writer needs this attitude. No journal or zine or whatever exists without shit other people wrote. You could totally be other people. They have to choose someone.) So, on the extremely offhand chance that it wins the contest, I'm pretty much out of publishable material.

The more likely situation here is that it won't win, but I've already got some self-defeating bullshit for that, too. When it doesn't win, I'll shop the first half--the story cycle--around as a short, 20-page chapbook. That leaves the other three longform stories for another collection, which I would then set about finishing using a few older stories that need massive revision and a few newer ones that need to be written. Still, this is only maybe a year's worth of work. That's not a lot considering that I want to write for fucking ever.

So I'm a bit scared that I'm out of ideas. I haven't reached the point where I'm considering making some poor decisions just so I have some shit to write about, but I'm getting there. (A girlfriend? Come on. Desperate times . . .)

This is how I justified watching all of Party Down on YouTube last week. Just, you know, stirring creative juices or whatever.

Shake Away These Constant Days, my mostly-ignored debut short story collection, is now available for your e-reader. Get the Kindle version on Amazon or, if you think Amazon is the devil, Smashwords.

Also, in an attempt to maybe get some people to buy the book, I'm going completely backwards in terms of logic and giving away two copies. Head over to Goodreads and sign up for the Shake Away These Constant Days Giveaway.

I'm selling a surprising number of books at the bar I work at. Drunk people love feeling smart. I did, however, have a better reaction to the ice cream I brought in and scooped for everyone. I knew my book couldn't compete against mint chocolate chip. Regardless, a busty girl named Floro took a picture of me scooping her an ice cream cone and texted it to her mother as a means of informing her of our inevitable marriage. We then discussed the finer points of the Aggro Crag from the Nickelodeon show Guts.

Things are fine, everyone.

RW

I spent a lot of time listening to Teenage Fanclub in 2007 and became convinced that four chords and nice harmonies were about the only necessities in life.

I've got Stories In the Worst Way by Gary Lutz out on inter-library loan and it's overdue. Do libraries still charge fees for overdue books? "Things happen when you are younger and have it in you to pinpoint your satisfactions."  I wish I would have written that sentence.

There are going to be a lot of blog posts coming up in the next month or so. About thirty of them. The plan is to do one a day starting on the 25th of this month. Thirty days, thirty stories, thirty explanations. Because of that, I'll keep this short.

My chapbook, Murmuration, is almost done. I've got one story left to finish, and, with apologies to the band Police Teeth, it'll be called "Pyramid Scheme." It's about rock & roll and being 25 and realizing that one of those things will win and one of those things will lose and that you won't be able to tell which one it was until it doesn't even matter anymore. After this, the book is done. I'll have some tweaking and revising to do to a couple of the stories, but I'm expecting to be able to send this thing out by the fall and recieve some rejections by winter and eventually get pissed and self-publish it by the spring.

Sam Snoek-Brown is on vacation right now and taking the entire collection. We're like the mortal enemies in comic books who need each other to exist. But we're pals, too, and I trust him to make some good edits/comments on my stuff because he's completely addicted to fiction. (He's pretty good at it sometimes, too. His newest prose poem up on the ridiculously-named online journal Visceral Uterus is called "Duel." What a doozie.) Also, he recently turned an age I won't reveal, though I will say that he should be gearing up for some prostate exams.*

In an attempt to keep my author brand fresh and interesting, I'm going to be branching out onto a few more social networking mediums. Never mind I don't really know what an "author brand" is ad that I just wanted to sound official.

So, I'm on Twitter now/again. Follow me. RyanWerner and pretty much every variation--except possibly XxRyanWernerxX, but I'm not a goddamn dickhead, so I didn't even bother trying--were taken. So, @YeahWerner it is. Chelsea Peretti and I already shared a brief moment concerning cats and fingerless gloves. The internet is a wonderful place.

And I'm officially a Goodreads author. Become a fan of me and give my book five stars even if you don't mean it. The page for the book, Shake Away These Constant Days, is here. It's not out yet but you can add it to your "to read" shelf and become a fan of me, of which I have two at the moment. At practice last night, our drummer replaced various lyrics of the song "Sara" by Jefferson Starship with the title of the book, and I can't unhear it.

The first blurb for SATCD has come in, and I'm already loving this whole idea of people I love and respect saying nice things about me for free. This one is by the incredible Sarah Rose Etter, author of Tongue Party, one of the best short story chapbooks I've read in the past few years:

"Each of the stories in Ryan Werner’s Shake Away These Constant Days ends with a sentence that’s a fist to the ribs. The collection builds into repeated shots to the soft part of your guts, a beautiful pummeling. By the end of Shake Away These Constant Days, you won’t even notice the bruises, the missing teeth, the pain. You’ll only want to go another round."

Of course my natural reaction to anyone complimenting me is to adamantly deny it, but I'm trying to be a better person. THank you, Sarah. May the Flyers win lots of hockey games I most likely won't watch.

I recently learned how to do laundry because my mom got headbutted by a horse. She was riding in South Dakota and a hailstorm spooked her horse, who, while being corralled into the trailer, flipped his shit and hit her in the face with his face. His face was significantly larger and harder. Tough break, ma.

I'm still plugging the writing contest over at HAL Literature that is free to enter and comes with a sweet prize. Here are the details:

"The theme is open to interpretation and can center around China, the history of China, life in China, life after China, life without China, fortune cookies (which actually are not Chinese, but whatever, we don’t care, we are open to anything), grandma’s china plates, Chinese take-out, Shanghai, being shanghaied, stuff for sale at Target, trade deficits, foreign affairs, NAFTA, firecrackers or gunpowder, silk dresses, opium dens or railroads in the American wild west, the struggle of Chinese immigrants to the West, Richard Nixon, Chinatown, or any other conceivable application of the theme ”China.” We might not be ready to read Deadhead stories about China Cat Sunflower, but if that’s what you’ve got, send it in."

Three finalists will be chosen, with first place winner receiving

1) $50 USD, or the converted equivalent to US dollars at the time the award is made
2) publication in Shanghai at www.haliterature.com
3) One copy each of HAL’s Party like it’s 1984: stories from the people’s republic of; and Middle Kingdom Underground: stories from the people’s republic of, as well as a copy, upon publication, of HAL’s forthcoming book I Am Barbie by HAL author W.M. Butler.
4) winning story will be read live, in whole or in part, at a H.A.L. Lit event in Shanghai, China by a regular contributor to HAL residing in Shanghai at the time of the event. Alternately, the winner may travel at his or her expense to perform the piece in person, or send an audio or video recording of the piece along like a literary postcard of freedom and joy.

Second and third place winners will be published online by HAL.

Deadline for entry is September 15, 2012 at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Winners will be announced by October 15, 2012.

GO.

Okay, that's it for me. Look for several upcoming book reviews on [PANK], including glowing praise of Sara Levine's Short Dark Oracles and Gregory Sherl's Heavy Petting.

Stay loud.

RW

Alex Chilton is bad at talking to girls but really good at musically documenting it. That's always comforting.

My book has a face. Here it is:

Katie Duffy designed it and did a great job. We went through a lot of brainstorming, looking at book covers we admire and talking about big abstract ideas that gave me sweaty flashbacks to the times in college when I actually had to think about stuff. I've done some minor design work for local and touring bands when they come through the area--some of it good and some of it questionable--so I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to design. Still, Duff is a pro, both at art and at telling me that I'm a fucking dickhead.

With this cover, she hit all the key spots we talked about--ephemerality, time as a confuser, open space, redheads--and ended up with something I'm proud to have visually represent my first book. I'll let you do your own interpretation, but I like how it all blends, how there are blue spots between and tons of white space, a big redhead at the center of everything. I'm going to get her some pencils or mescaline or whatever shit artists use. Thanks to Holly Wilson and Terrance Maule for being the models.

I also got a galley of the newest issue of Fractured West, a UK-based literary magazine who accepted my story "--:--" late last year. The issue will be out soon and I'm excited for a number of reasons.

1) Fractured West is a really great magazine that publishes excellent writing.
2) I can now say that I'm an internationally-published writer.
3) Publishing a story with an unpronounceable title, in addition to calling myself an internationally-published writer, puts me in the running to be the biggest dickhead in literature, right next to Garrison Keillor and that dude from one of my college writing workshops who told me his novel doesn't need an editor because his mom read it and said it's good.

Seeing that galley actually made me want to get back on the submission train, but I used up almost all of my A-material on the book. I did find a piece of flash called "Western v. Eastern" and a long-form story called "Shoot Out the Bright Lights" that are both ready to go, so I'm working on sending them out. I also tested the waters with a revision of the story "Trace" (which I previously talked about taking through almost a dozen drafts over the course of four years) and a revision of the story "Backlit" (which is in the same revision purgatory as "Trace").

And, as I did with "Trace," here are two different version of the opening to "Backlit."

That first draft was more of a slow burn. It starts off with a nice line, if not too-easy line--that listing technique with an oddball third item. There's a lot of wasted space, though: that second sentence is essentially pointless, and the stuff about leisure suits and sunglasses doesn't add much of anything except a sort of "look at us being silly" quality to the narrator that isn't exactly appealing. The stuff with Mikey and Jayne goes nowhere after this, too, just some material for awkward conversation and bad segues. Also, whereas the opening section of Draft 7 stops right where it stops above, the first section in Draft 1 goes on for 2192 words, almost the entirety of Draft 7. I think it may have been worth it, to some degree, once the story got moving, but absolutely no one wants to wait four pages for a story to warm up.

The opening in Draft 7 is about as abstract as I get. I think the sentences are all great, though. "Drilled-through with tedium" is a nice phrase, as is "an enthusiasm for new and simple movement." As an introductory section, I think it serves its purpose better. We know none of the characters--even the narrator is obscured by the hazy summary of what is, essentially, the entire story--but because it's so short and the next section immediately goes into both the characters (Mikey and "the rest of us"--the narrator's two other friends--have been cut) and the story, it works. Or, at least, it works for me.

Let's not forget about the writing contest over at HAL Literature, too. It's free to enter and comes with a sweet prize. Here are the details:

"The theme is open to interpretation and can center around China, the history of China, life in China, life after China, life without China, fortune cookies (which actually are not Chinese, but whatever, we don’t care, we are open to anything), grandma’s china plates, Chinese take-out, Shanghai, being shanghaied, stuff for sale at Target, trade deficits, foreign affairs, NAFTA, firecrackers or gunpowder, silk dresses, opium dens or railroads in the American wild west, the struggle of Chinese immigrants to the West, Richard Nixon, Chinatown, or any other conceivable application of the theme ”China.” We might not be ready to read Deadhead stories about China Cat Sunflower, but if that’s what you’ve got, send it in."

Three finalists will be chosen, with first place winner receiving

1) $50 USD, or the converted equivalent to US dollars at the time the award is made
2) publication in Shanghai at www.haliterature.com
3) One copy each of HAL’s Party like it’s 1984: stories from the people’s republic of; and Middle Kingdom Underground: stories from the people’s republic of, as well as a copy, upon publication, of HAL’s forthcoming book I Am Barbie by HAL author W.M. Butler.
4) winning story will be read live, in whole or in part, at a H.A.L. Lit event in Shanghai, China by a regular contributor to HAL residing in Shanghai at the time of the event. Alternately, the winner may travel at his or her expense to perform the piece in person, or send an audio or video recording of the piece along like a literary postcard of freedom and joy.

Second and third place winners will be published online by HAL.

Deadline for entry is September 15, 2012 at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Winners will be announced by October 15, 2012.

FUCKIN' DO IT.

And that's it for me, folks. Stay raw.

RW

Ritchie's important, but it ain't Deep Purple without Jon Lord. It's incredible that he survived rock & roll culture in the 60s and 70s, let alone lived to be 71. A Hammond B3 has never sounded sweeter than when it was in the hands of Jon Lord. (Fuck Rick Wakeman.)

I've got a couple new publications up, one a review for J.A. Tyler's newest book Variations of a Brother War and the other a piece of flash fiction that will be in my upcoming short story collection.

Excerpt from my review of Variations of a Brother War (at [PANK]):

This stacking of dualities—of trialities, really, with each character being part fairness and part love and part war—allows Tyler to create depth in small pieces. By cutting up the story and characters into three 100-word sections each on multiple topics and then pasting them back together in the vicinity of their congruent parts, a straightforward love triangle set against the backdrop of the American Civil War gains a certain spongy quality that allow it to breathe and contract and, most importantly, wander.

Excerpt from my short short story "Wide Right Game" (at Jersey Devil Press):

There’s an apartment building I used to steal from when I was old enough to know better but young enough to be forgiven. The people who lived there were described as lower middle class, but bullshit aside they were poor people who owned a few small things like CD players and deep fryers. Often enough they hoarded comic books and sports memorabilia that they refused to part with. Mostly they just buried all their stuff in a pile somewhere and forgot about it. 

I'm currently stuck in the hell of asking people who are more known and more talented than I am to blurb my book. I feel like a dickhead writing to people and essentially saying, "Hey, I know you don't know me, but will you read my book--for free--and then think of two sentences worth of really nice things to say about it/me--also for free?" I'm only asking people whose writing I respect, so buttering them up with praise is effortless--I've sent e-mails to people before simply to tell them I admire their work, not even asking for a reply--but I feel like I'm taking advantage of an unspoken fan/artist relationship. I don't have a problem counting on the goodwill of people, especially writers, since we all started at about the same level of not know shit about fuck and we've all had to ask people to blurb our books, but there's a nagging sense of entitlement that I can't seem to get rid of whenever I send an e-mail for a blurb request. I deserve this because I like your work. I know that's not true, and I know I don't feel that way, but I don't want the authors I ask to think I feel that way, either. It's like subtle Midwestern racism: I hope this black person I'm talking to doesn't think I'm racist. Guess what? That's fucking racist.

That said, I'm lucky enough to have three incredible writers already agree to blurb Shake Away These Constant Days. I don't know if it's in good taste to say who it they are--I don't know the social constructs of the indie lit community, the same one that most likely doesn't read my blog and probably doesn't care about me anyways--so to play it safe I'll just say that I've loved and respected their work for a long time, knew immediately upon reading them that they would become an inspiration to me in many forms.

W.P. Kinsella hasn't gotten back to me yet, though. I will say that.

I'm ready to move onto the fourth story in my chapbook, Murmuration. I nailed down a solid first draft of "Cool Tits, Moxie" and I've got my first and last story set in stone. I also decided to pitch this thing as "A Midwest Story Cycle" when it's all complete. Shit like that's important to not exactly creating a mythos, but in rounding out the edges of a persona. I would love to be known as a Midwest writer, someone who writes the sort of stories that the fly-over states can hang their collective hat on, and I think it's my responsibility to plant that seed. It's possible that people would pick up on that right away upon reading the work--the inadvertent celebration of ennui and the prolonged unfulfilled desires are obvious--but I want to write my own history.

You think Bob Dylan is an accident? Come on.

The cover for my book has gone past the "talking about how my book needs a cover" stage to the "Duff started working on the cover for my book" stage. We've decided on a sort of washed-out, layered photograph look, similar to the cover for Elliott Smith's album XO. (Which I like, but didn't really realize they were the same until after we had already decided on the theme.) She's taking the pictures for it this week, and the only thing I told her was to get different shots of people in different states of interaction as well as pictures of people by themselves, all from different distances and angles. I'd also like it to have a cut-out/pasted-on look when it's done, too. Mostly what I want is for it to not look like like some butthole made it in five minutes with stock photos. Really, though, I've got total faith in Duff, despite how often she tells me to fuck off.

Okay, I've got Ted Nugent records to listen to.

RW

I bought a Jazzmaster and I shouldn't have. I don't know anything about jazz, but I know a lot about J Mascis. The way "Freak Scene" sounds is enough reason for me to go back to saltine/peanut butter sandwiches for a couple more months.

I took some time to type up the non-story pages for Shake Away These Constant Days. Got the legal/business junk and dedication (it's for my parents . . . and those about to rock) on one page in the beginning and then a page at the end for acknowledgments (yes, Shawn Michaels is thanked) and another page for the details on who suggested what song for each story. We were thinking about doing an essay explaining the Our Band Could Be Your Lit project, but I'm lazy. In the end, we decided to not pitch it as an OBCBYL book at all.

One of my dream publications finally came through. A few blogs ago I mentioned a story I wrote about a guy who just crashes cars with his buddies. It turned out to be about a little bit more than that--not much, though I do finally get a chance to use the phrase "marble dicks" in a piece of writing and get it published--and Smokelong Quarterly picked it up. When it comes to flash fiction, no place is better. They've published Dan Chaon, Kevin Wilson, Thomas Cooper, WP Kinsella, Steve Almond, Sara Levine, and dozens of other awesome writers who I love. And now me.

One of the editors there was kind enough to not reject my story wholesale despite not liking the ending, and after sending in a couple new drafts, we came to an agreement. It was kind and I was grateful, because I've been rejected a lot by Smokelong, more than any other journal. "Jalapeno Summer" was the eighth story I've submitted to them. I guess this just proves the old saying right: If at first you don't succeed, use the phrase "marble dicks."

My friend Dena's manuscript is almost done on my end. One last piece to go, and while it's the longest one, it's still the last one. She sent me a bunch of e-mails asking me why I used a bunch of fancy words, to which I had t reply, "Because I want people to think I'm smart." I had to look up "ennui" the other day to figure out if someone was talking shit about me. Turns out they were just being accurate. Dena's going to get into the real nitty gritty of editing this week, so wish her luck. Or don't. She doesn't need you. She's a pioneer, motherfucker.

On my other friendly philanthropic endeavors, my first YA workshop ditched me this week. No clue why. One of them submitted work, even. I'm trying to think if I made a bad joke about not showing up the week prior. I'm trying to think of anything that isn't "They just think I'm a weird dickhead." The second group made it just fine, though. We read "Mexico" by Rick Bass and talked about it. I'm trying to find the one thing that they'll latch onto and make theirs. "How To Be a Writer" by Lorrie Moore is on the table in the next couple of weeks, which I think they'll respond well to.

Monkeybicycle posted something on Facebook today saying that they want some new columns and features on their website. I sent them an e-mail that included this paragraph:

"I've been thinking lately about a column wherein I do an album-by-album review of an almost arbitrary band with lots of albums. Like .38 Special--also known as the dudes who sang "Hold On Loosely" and "Caught Up In You." Did you know that they have 12 studio albums and 3 live albums? Kansas have 14 studio albums and 6 live albums and one song from a Will Ferrell movie that came out 25 years after it really mattered. Chumbawamba have 20 albums. (Right Said Fred have 8, which, though fewer, is still impressive when considering that they're the band who did "I'm Too Sexy" and nobody has ever cared about them beyond the potential for using their song title to justify making a stupid joke when taking off their Marlboro jacket.) Tom Cochrane/Red Rider--that goddamn "Life Is a Highway" song that's so bad that even cover bands in small Midwestern towns won't even play it--has 13 albums. Figure it out.

I went on to explain this in detail, which, regardless of what you may already think about the idea, was most likely overkill. I also offered to review books if they agree to send me free ones. Then I offered to review anything. I'll consider any response that isn't "Please never e-mail us again" a victory.

I've got shit on YouTube to watch while I'm busy not writing. Stay handsome, America.

RW

I went on vacation to Grand Rapids and played more pinball in a weekend than I played all last year. I was tearing up Simpsons Pinball Party on Saturday night and some guy asked me if I felt like The Who's Tommy. Then the ball went down the middle, and I said, "Yeah, I feel blind, deaf, and dumb." I was never a Who guy anyways.

Then I saw Reigning Sound in Chicago on my way back. They make me think that the fifties were badass. I was always partial to odd-numbered decades anyways.

I didn't get any writing done when I was gone, which is not fine. I was still looking toward the time off I was going to take in April anyways, so I guess I'll count that as now. I'm still working on that chapbook, but it's still going slowly. No new thoughts on whether or not to throw away my old stories or rework them, which makes me think I should go back and actually read them again. I'm only going to go back a few years on this, though. Nobody needs my bullshit from 2008 except maybe other people who were boring pricks and want to relive the navel-gazing glory of twenty page stories where nobody talks to each other, later on describing their story as having "a subconscious arc to the narrative, lending it organic qualities than really bloom upon multiple readings." (Also: Fuck.)

My friend Dena's manuscript is shaping up. (Probably. I haven't actually read the second draft, but she's a smart little firecracker and I trust her to work hard at it.) I'm sixteen pieces away from finishing up my comments on it for her, at which point I'll sit back and see if she wants me to look at the second draft or if she'll be sick of my shit by then. I'm pretty sure I say "This does nothing" and "Take it a bit further and see what happens" far too often, to everyone about everything, that I myself am sick of my own shit already when it comes to advice.

It's also that time of year where I run a weekly writing workshop for young adults at the public library about twenty minutes away. Sign up is down this year--I was assured that sign up for all things at the library was down this year, though I'm still considered the reckless, nonsensical one in the library hierarchy--and I think a lot of it has to do with Harry Potter and Twilight both dying down in popularity. A couple years ago when those books were a cultural phenomenon, kids thought it was cool to be a writer. Now that the YA thing has fizzled a bit, they all want to go back to doing whatever it is that kids do normally.

So I've got two groups of kids: four 12-14 year olds (1 age 12, 3 age 14) and four 15-17 year olds (3 age 15 and one age 17). All girls except one fifteen year old dude named Matt who totally has his shit together. He's working on three screenplays and a "psychological thriller." When I was fifteen I was working on new ways to masturbate and lists of my favorite wrestlers. I look forward to resenting his success.

I showed the older group "The Harvest" by Amy Hempel. They had never seen anything like it before, and I think it added something to their thoughts about what writing is, rattled loose some thoughts that were already there. That's what any good writing should do, especially "The Harvest," a story I read about once a month. I'm trying to find other stories to share with them during our time together, but it's tough because we're only in workshop for an hour and a half each week, and I want to make time to show them how to workshop each other's work. Even if we did have time, though, I'm not so sure I want to sit down and have them read a twenty page short story out loud to one another. I'm already bored by that option. But I am going to show them stories each week. I'm thinking Barry Hannah's "Love Too Long" next, but he says nigger a couple of times in there and the violent sexuality might be a bit much for kids who are just learning about what all that stuff is for.

For the younger group, I'm really trying to focus on in-workshop writing. Lots of exercises, lots of stuff just to get the juices flowing. The first session together was taken up mostly by introductions, including me rambling incoherently for 45 minutes in an attempt to tell them, simply, that I am 27 and have a book coming out. They all said they had stuff written already, so I want to do some traditional workshop stuff with them, too, but it'll mostly be hammering ideas into their heads through prompts.

In previous years, the groups weren't separated, which was a hassle for everyone. Everything changes once kids get into high school, so the cut was perfect: incoming Freshmen and younger in one group, everyone up to recent graduates in another. Other than me finally realizing that I am not cool, have never been cool and am no longer able to convince myself that I am cool as a means of survival, and that I am an unfortunate adult in the eyes of teenagers instead of just a rad guy who happens to be a bit older, things are going fine so far.

I'm trying to figure out a way to reference the show It's Like, You Know . . . but I'm pretty sure I was the only one
who watched it, proving that it really isn't a generational gap that makes me look like a goddamn loser.

I want to end this by thanking everyone who donated to the Jersey Devil Press 2012 Collection Kickstarter. It was funded last week, which means Eirik won't have to fork out the cash from his pocket, which means that he can live comfortably and still support rad things like my book. There's still a week and a half left, and any money over the scant $630 goal goes toward a third book that JDP will be doing. Really, though, thank you so much to everyone who donated. You will be receiving your promised rewards this Fall when the book is released, in addition to a bonus reward from me. Because I'm a pal like that.

Thanks, pals.

RW

Naming songs is easy because I write stupid songs. If I want to call a song "Fake Tits (Real Problems)" I totally can. "Release the Grease" is a go. "Ready, Set, Get Wet" is a must. As long as it's about having sex or drugs or just generally being rad, I can just ramble on about whatever.

That's why I'm having a fuck of a time naming this book. We went through and looked at the the story title first, because that's the easiest way to go about things. Most of my favorite short story collections are named that way, too, so it's not like I could have any sort of pretensions about not coming up with a new title for the whole thing. So when none of the titles looked like a good representation of the book as a whole, I was pretty much fucked.

So I had to read my book again. It's a good book. I'm happy with how it's turning out. But I was pretty sick of myself by the time I had to read it for the third time in a week. I had already read it for sequencing purposes and again for typos and grammatical issues. And now once more to see if a title was buried somewhere in the text? I'm dumb.

I came up with a long list of shit from the text that stood out, none of which I was particularly blown away by upon review.

All At Once It Becomes Important
(From "Sergei Avdeyev." Not a bad title, but I don't want people to think I'm bragging. If I went with this, I might as well include a free video download of me singing "I'm the Man" by Anthrax and flexing.)

Only the Black of the Birds
(From "Plots." It's good, but not for this collection. Maybe I'll write something about crows someday, but probably not, since I only passed my college zoology class because I cheated on all those tests with the stupid Scantron sheets.)

The Band Has Been Around Too Long
(From "When There Is No Road." Because we've decided not to pitch this as an OBCBYL book, it's probably best to back off on any music-related title. Plus I didn't want Gene Simmons to sue me.)

An Old Television Turned Off And Then Back On Quickly
(From "When There Is No Road." It's fucking dumb, that's why.)

And the Way They Swing Around
(From "It's Been Far Too Long Since You Woke Up In Someone Else's Shoes." This one's just not very good, is it? Too vague--they?--and a bit stuffy with that "and" at the beginning. IBFTLSYWUISES was considered as a title, too. Not as an abbreviation, but look at that abbreviation. If that's the short way to write your book's title, you're an asshole.)

Climbing Toward the Sun
(From "Haunt." It was originally about tendrils or vines or whatever, which makes sense. I just can't bring myself to go with any title that could be turned into that of a self-help book by adding "MAKING YOUR LIFE THE BEST LIFE" in the sub-heading.)

How I've Earned My Darkness
(From "After I Threw the Ball At Thomas Hernandez and Before It Killed Him." Sounds like the title of a self-published memoir.)

Whatever You Do
(From I can't remember because it's so generic, and I refuse to go back and check the word doc. Who cares?)

Seven As A Threat
(From "Follow the Water." I must have been tired when I pulled this.)

Long Enough Will Be Long Enough
(From "Follow the Water." Or maybe not too tired, because this one I like. But I'm a bit torn on it. It sounds a bit like a simple truth and a bit like something my mom would have on a magnet on the fridge.)

Bite Off Your Tongue and Tell Me
(From "Follow the Water." This is a paraphrase of the end of the story, and while it sounds cool, it might be a bit too hard for what the book is doing. I do a lot of soft endings, so maybe this stood out for being considerably less soft. And I don't want to give away my punchlines.)

With Suddenness
(Again, no idea what the fuck I was thinking.)

Distortion
(Yep, really grasping here. I think this is from "Signal" but I have no idea. It doesn't matter. We're not going with it.)

Pure Smoke
(From "Refund." This is one of the few later ones I really liked. The word that keeps coming up when I think about the themes of the collection is "ephemerality." I think Pure Smoke has that built into it, plus it's punchy. Still, it didn't grab me by the collar and tell me it was the title, so onto the burner it goes.)

I Imagine A Few Moments From Now
(This could be from any of the stories, really. No clue.)

You Can Be Twenty Things
(From "Refund." Another paraphrase, this time from dialogue. I was definitely barely awake when pulling this aside.)

You Think of Breathing Out
(From "Things That Are Glacial, Things That Are Gone." I don't mind this one, but it's nothing special. I almost like the title of the story better for the collection title.)


Somewhere in the middle of all this bullshit, I came up with a couple titles that weren't from the text.

Shake Away These Constant Days


and

Every Day A Juggernaut

After all that deliberation to find something from the text, the two I like the best aren't even from it. "Shake" and "juggernaut" are two of my favorite words--I had planned a solo album years ago called Shake that never happened (the cover was going to be me in the pose from Electric Warrior) and "Juggernaut" is my favorite Rick Bass story.I e-mailed all of this (sans commentary) to Mike at JDP and he once again told me to settle down, that we've reached the point of diminishing returns on new titles, and that we should pick from what we have. This is sound advice, somewhat, which I wouldn't say if I wasn't already partially in love with Shake Away These Constant Days. Barring a rejection from JDP fearless-leader Eirik, that's going to be the title of the book.

What a long, drawn-out process of explanation for no reason.

On the chapbook front--the title of that is going to be Murmuration--I'm about halfway through the second story. It's called "Cool Tits, Moxie" which I'm excited for because writing about strippers is always fun and I haven't used "tits" in a story title since I was in third grade. My band starts recording our first EP and second full length today, so time will now officially be split between writing and rocking, not that I'm trying especially hard at either one.

I'm reading Home Land by Sam Lipsyte right now--The Ask is still waiting--and it's so fucking rad. If I would have had this in high school instead of The Catcher In the Rye, shit would be significantly different.

Also, the older I get, the more I aware I become of how I write, meaning that I can love Lipsyte's stuff and not feel compelled to rip him off. Not all genius is transferable. (I wouldn't mind copping his dialogue, though.)

Okay, we all stopped giving a fuck about what I think somewhere in that title mess. I'm out of here

AFTER I QUICKLY PLUG THE JERSEY DEVIL PRESS KICKSTARTER PAGE FOR THEIR 2012 BOOK COLLECTION, WHICH IS IN NEED OF YOUR HELP. KILLER REWARDS FOR ALL, INCLUDING SUPER SECRET SPECIAL REWARDS FROM ME. DO IT.

Let's rock.

RW