An incomplete list of various things inspiring my writing lately

No fiction so defaulting back to a list of things consuming my thoughts lately

Draft 0.1 of a new story

Cinnamon sugar and bread dough rising in the early morning sun. He was stuck in rumination.

Rewrite

You tell yourself you’re ready to rewrite Big Bend. It’s been enough time and your attachment to it is gone. You think, to do it accurately, you must return. This time alone.

3 for friday

Last remnants of the green spring cling to newly installed metal fences. You’ve been spending too much time inside: scrolling endlessly and hoping someone you used to know will contact you just to spice things up.

Please Hurry Leave Me (Excerpt)

Now, gaunt, and always coughing. Each hint of light turning his skin bright rash-red. As he sleeps the disease works its way through his veins.

Metaphor

There is no conclusion here, just a long unbroken thread of related thoughts hanging over my writing like an overworked metaphor.

Scarlett red petals

I need space from him, she says, taking a step back and pinning her hand under her chin as she cranes her neck up to examine the painting.

Motivation

In the short story I’m writing the central piece of feedback I keep getting is that readers don’t understand the character’s motivation for starting wildfires.

two snippets inspired by NY

just to keep writing.

Sunflower in Continual Bloom

two for an overcast Saturday

Soft pink blooms rise from tender green stalks as J tells me he’s been thinking of killing himself again.

three short consumptions for a rainy day

Tattoos, songs, and pokopia

our thick skins wearing thin + life snippet

The bright red drooping buds of flowers speckle the brush on the side of the road, blooming tight against a fence, knocked down by March’s heavy winds and rains.

Life updates and fiction

Pink, magenta blooming in the early spring; your mother asks me how I’ve been and I tell her about my new promotion as we wait for your arrival.

Trevor

We were barely together, though I guess I was meeting his parents. We got together every couple of months out of pure obsession, spent all our time around each other, got mad, broke it off, and continued the cycle again.

Ramblings on revision

I am revising a story about two men traveling to the coast in search of a magical cure to the disease killing one of them. In this story the forest is alive: a tangled character that is supposed to represent the dark and gnarly parts of their present situation but also the lush and blooming parts of their past.

3 for practice.

I am writing a short story nobody will ever read about harsh winter blizzards, lacquered Matryoshka dolls, and a man who weaves trauma out of men’s bodies.

The Antidote: Karen Russell

Bits that I loved, some small scattered thoughts about the novel as a whole.

4 seasons

I am convinced it is the only thing we truly own. It is the thing we make for ourselves with each new hour and, when I gaze upon that, when I travel my fingers across its ragged edges, it is always begging or pleading. It demands attention. Someone to need it. To love it. To own it.

Nothing left to say

in America you can suffer a mortal wound on a Wednesday afternoon and be expected back to work after lunch.

Thoughts on a failed short story: part two

Sam+

Cause I was lonely here and it's lonely still In the rugged country where the weeds grow fierce Quicker than the crop I keep running from In this rugged country.

Tops from a top

The top things I've consumed this year, since that's what this newsletter was originally about.

on writing a short story again and again and again and again

For a latest story (that I started with the title Drought) I worked on this board, so what follows is some rambles about the different parts of the board and what my thinking was attaching/creating them.

Kameron+

At night Kameron would pull up outside my house, leave his truck running, text me, and wait for me to crawl out the second-story window.