When I write a story, there’s about a 40-percent chance that I’ve given any thought to the theme of what I’m working on. I don’t believe every story has to comment on the human condition. A story can simply be an enjoyable read about what this person or these people did under these circumstances. Just because the stories that were read to us as children ended with a moral doesn’t mean that our adult stories have to have them.
Month: October 2011
Fiction: A Halloween Interlude
“Pumpkin! Pumpkin! Come here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Pumpkin!”
As twilight approached, Karen zipped up her jacket against the chilly wind and searched for her cat. He had managed to slip past her as she gave a candy bar to an early trick-or-treater.
Karen pulled the flashlight from her jacket pocket and used it to search the places where evening’s shadow had already fallen. When she reached the end of the block, she aimed the light at the porch of the long-empty house just in time to see Pumpkin enter through a broken window. She huffed and trotted up the sidewalk.
It was an early ranch-style house and wouldn’t have required much work to make it look nice again. But silly rumors about odd noises and spooky sights combined with the horrible economy to keep the “For Sale” sign permanently at curbside.
Karen was surprised that the real estate company hadn’t put a lock box on the door. The doorknob turned easily and she went inside.
“Pumpkin?” She walked in, shining the light around the floor. “Kitty, kitty, kitty?”
She turned to look down a hallway. There was Pumpkin, placidly considering the ghost at the far end.
Quotable 75
I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.
– Ernest Hemingway
haiku 186
dogs’ water bowl –
ladybug floats
on leaf life raft
Pen to Paper: Do You Swear?
I’m not going to get into all the ins and outs of swearing – how it works in the brain, the reasons for using it, the social implications. All very interesting stuff, but it’s not our purpose here.
I’m going to quickly remind all and sundry that if you’re a writer of children’s books or religious matter, this stuff is radioactive and isn’t for you. Other fiction writers should merely be certain that a cuss word is the mot juste, just like you do with every other word you use.
Ursula K. LeGuin takes a dim view of writers who overuse the good old Anglo-Saxon imperatives, and she’s got a pretty solid point. These are people who take their cue from B.D. in Doonesbury: A fellow soldier B.D. was heading with to the first Gulf War said he had been a civilian so long he no longer knew how to use the f-word; B.D. said, “Easy. You just use it like a comma.” These words can be dynamite if used sparingly and trite if used like commas.
And that reminds me of this oversaturated paragraph from a college textbook:
Fiction: Odd Man Out
Jonathan sat perfectly still in his cubicle, staring at the computer screen but not seeing the numbers as they scrolled by. He was trying to maintain a façade of normality in the face of an enormity. His reputation for being a little odd generally kept his co-workers from stopping in to chat, and he was glad of it now.
Jonathan knew – firsthand – that extraterrestrials were making plans to conquer the Earth.
Quotable 74
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
– Jean Cocteau
haiku 185
across the yard
little girl watches
father fly the kite
Pen to Paper: Copyright and the Public Domain
Copyright is pretty important to writers. Like most aspects of the law, there are ins and outs that it doesn’t hurt to have a law degree to understand. But Brian Klems over at Writers Digest has collected some of the popular copyright Q&As for easy access and comprehension. You can read the official word on copyright matters at the U.S. Copyright Office’s FAQs.
How long copyright lasts depends on when something was published and how it was published. The length of copyright now far outlasts the creator’s lifetime thanks to Mickey Mouse and Sonny Bono. (Come to think of it … did we ever see them together?) Increasingly, some corporations are using the copyright laws to enrich themselves at the expense of the public good (like they use or break or bribe their way around all the other laws). This is turning copyright law into a minefield for creators and is shrinking the public domain. For a guided tour of what’s good and what’s bad about the present state of copyright law, read this excellent graphic presentation (okay, it’s a comic book) written by three lawyers; the PDF is freely available at the Public Domain website. It focuses on documentary filmmaking, but don’t let that deter you from reading it.
I’m a great believer in copyright while I’m living and could (theoretically) earn some part of my living from what I write. And this is a good time to remind everyone that my stories and haiku (indeed, all my words here at Catsignal) are copyrighted and made available through a Creative Commons license. Scroll down the About page to see both.
But there will come a time after my inevitable death when there will be absolutely no good reason why my work shouldn’t be freely available to all. Why wouldn’t a creator want his stories to join those of Aesop and Shakespeare and Dickens in the public domain? Without that escape hatch, a creative work faces the possibility of being orphaned and lost forever.
Fiction: Released from the Morgue
The seating hostess led Emily and her mother, Amelia, to a booth. In due course, a waiter took their luncheon order and delivered drinks and salads. When he disappeared again, Amelia opened the conversation.
“I am growing weary of that measured look you’ve been giving me since we met outside, Emily. You have something on your mind. May I know what it is?”
“Do you know what the Herald has been doing over the course of the last several years, Mother?”
“That’s a rather oblique answer to my question. No, I don’t believe I do know what the Herald has been doing. Does it have anything to do with your unusual mood?”
“Indeed it does,” Emily said. “The Herald, bless its editor, has been steadily working to put all its past issues – the newspaper’s morgue, as it’s called – online. They’ve gotten at least as far as 1957.”
Amelia swallowed a forkful of arugula dressed with raspberry vinaigrette. “Have they?” A silent moment passed, and Amelia sighed. “Dear, if there is some point to be made here, please make it. I’m too old to play guessing games.”
“Nothing about that year rings a bell?”
“That was the year the Russians launched their Sputnik, as I recall.”
“And you launched something else.”