not based on a true story

So I read more fiction than non-fiction. It’s a moral failing, I know: I prefer the make-believe. Too, though, I mean I write fiction. Makes sense to read it, yeah? Where else am I going to learn technique, cue into little narrative shuffles this or that writer pulled off, all that? To take it a little further, if I want to be part of the ‘dialogue’ of fiction, then I need to be listening to what the other writers are saying. But this starts …

In Five Words or Less:

Boring title, good movie.

In More than Five Words, with / without spoilers:

In 1998, Sam Raimi adapted Scott Smith’s debut sensation A Simple Plan (1993) for us, and, though a lot of the narrator’s nuances were lost in the compression, still, Smith had written a strong enough dramatic spine that his story survived the transition, and made Paramount some money. Ten years later, now, Ron Howard has adapted Smith’s sophomore novel The R…

AVATAR 3D in IMAX, wow. it’s SCANNER DARKLY and FERN GULLY and BRAVEHEART as percolated up through DANCES WITH WOLVES and POCAHONTAS. loved it in spite of those last two, even. and, though I can’t find it in his bibliography now, I was pretty sure I’d read a Samuel Delaney book/story about wearing bodies like suits to explore alien planets, and the explorers wearing those bodies of course just running off into this new place, never coming back. help? were th…

which is what Bo and Luke used to always do, once the day’s chases and jumps and explosive archery fun was over. but, for me, “Jukin” is having another story in the cool JUKED. “Wolf Island.” completely safe for work, unless you work at a pet store.…

new (old) story, “The Many Stages of Grief” (one of my maybe four favorites ever. of mine, I mean. which, yeah, that’s like 180th in the Great List of Stories I Love). the debut issue of PALIMPSEST. Also, a short story “Girls” (only a third as good as the Crue song, yeah) and an essay, “Another Final Frontier,” soon to be real in a special issue of FLORIDA REVIEW.…

New interview. All kinds of fun, as always. If I remember correctly, too, that pic there, the shirt I’m wearing, I borrowed it from somebody in the driveway of the photographer’s. Had a red outline of the state of Arkansas, I think. Kind of liked it, but then he wanted it back. People (okay: one of my brothers), and al…l their memories, and ‘ownership.’…

Especial for Halloweentime, “The Ones That Got Away,” the somewhat-title story from the new collection and proud participant in Paul Tremblay and Sean Wallace’s Phantom: Going Beyond the Scare.…

One of the big axioms of storytelling is that you know a character best by the decisions he or she makes under extreme circumstances. It’s why you push your characters out into the street, see how they react when traffic’s slamming in from all sides at once. Granted, you can rig your story so that it’s all kitchen sink drama, low-key enough that ‘extreme circumstances’ gets redefined as a standoff about who’s going to answer a ringing phone, but that kind of slow-ha…

Got an article/review/essay (‘response?’) up for it over at Popmatters. Kind of wanted to call it Geppetto mon Amour, but figured that might show my roots too much. Those being all in France, yes.

The LINK. Would slap some cool images up here, too, but the guys who do the art over at Popmatters have already got it all done and done, much better than I ever could have.…

I read this review then, no lie, went upstairs, found some shrimp on the counter, ate them. which, for those in the know [see below], kind of matters.

too, I’ve noticed my blog posts in here lately are more ‘blog’ posts, as in, they take the space where a blog post would go, but, really, they’re about Facebook length. can’t imagine why.