There is a tendency for people to call me by my last name.  I don’t know why this is.  Furthermore, they have a tendency to shorten my name to Shonk, or Shonky.  I hate this with a passion.  What I don’t hate, though, is when my name gets turned into a verb, which has now happened twice.  It came about this time around a flip-cup table, when two of my opponents started calling me Shonk, and after their defeat it was declared that they were shonked.  Yeah.  Back in Ohio it’s  a little more lurid.

Good Halloween party, that.  Chauffeur and I shonked the competition at flip-cup and beer pong.  We went to the party as each other, which was a good laugh for the few people that were familiar with us.  I donned  a pair of fairy wings for part of the evening.  At some point before I bedded down with a laundry bag as a pillow, next to a girl nicknamed Armyfuck, Chauffeur and I managed to switch back into our own clothes.  Neither of us remembers how this happened.  It’s the great mystery of the evening.  The next morning we bailed a bit early and got breakfast at this great joint called Flo’s.  Come’a the pancakes.  Sometimes this place ain’t so bad.  Then you come home like I did today to a parking ticket and an overdue fee on a book.

Soon, I promise, a writing post.  You pick the topic:  1. On the muses, or 2. On how I write in two completely distinct voices depending upon whether it’s a short story or one of my novels.  Pick the first one, please.

Hovering under 39k on AAM.  Started writing a new short story tentatively titled “Anhedonia”.

Oh, hell, I didn’t tell you, did I?  I was invited by the good folks at The Splinter Generation to read “My Wakeup” at Avenue 50 in LA.  December 16th, 7-9PM.  Mark your calendars.  I’ve got a practice reading tomorrow in class.  Wish me luck.

Aaand one last thing.  00:50-1:22 and 3:16-3:27 of this video.  Killer.

In lieu of a real writing post–one soon to come, I promise– here’s a couple links, related and unrelated to writing.

Most of you probably know that I’m pretty old-fashioned.  Something in me shrivels up a little every time I send a text.  But this is the age we live in, and it’s how I keep in touch with people.  If I could knock on my momma’s door every day I would.  It’s good to know, though, that in spite of the advances of technology and the regression of most methods of conduct, some folks are trying to set an example.  I give you The Art of Manliness and 1001 Rules for my Unborn Son.  Both of these sites hark back to an older time when being a man didn’t mean slick hair and muscles, it meant being educated, gentlemanly, and moral.  A quick look through the Art of Manliness will yield articles like “30 Days to a Better Man Day 14: Write a Letter to Your Father”.  This while Asylum’s comparable articles are “How To Surreptitiously Ogle Women” or some such nonsense.

Next up is a topic near and dear to my heart, but one I play close to the chest when it comes to my writing.  i09, a site I’ve never heard of, has an article up about the changing trends in apocalyptic literature.  It seems that, lately, people don’t care or write about how the apocalypse comes about, they just care that it happens.  The Road explains precious little about its apocalypse, as the current shining example.  And apparently this is happening a lot.  People just want the aftermath–they want to see people struggle.  This topic has had me thinking for a while.  The number of groups on Facebook that involve zombies in some manner is 1,400.  The most popular group has over 80,000 members, and that group is “The Hardest Part About a Zombie Apocalypse Will be Pretending I’m Not Excited”.  Ask any of your friends, seriously, any, if they’ve given thought to the zombie apocalypse–in particular, not even just “the end of the world”.  I’d wager if you ask ten you’ll come back with 9 yes answers.  It’s this weird drive we’ve got, particularly these younger generations, for a real, pan-level struggle.  We don’t want WWIII because that involves morals.  We don’t want a pandemic because that can’t be fought clearly.  Zombies provide a tangible enemy without any moral hangups.  We want to fight.

Chew on that for a while.

It was almost ten years ago that I fell in love with a girl who cannot be overstated in my life.  I don’t remember how exactly things came about–I don’t recall any seduction.  I remember sitting on the sidewalk with the sun beginning to set, thinking about God, and her, and hoping she’d come outside.  And she did.  From then on, for a good two years, she was what I thought about, straight, solid.  There wasn’t much else.  She was my first, an early first, depending on who you talk to.  The second time we made love it was to this song, on repeat.  I had just turned sixteen.  The stereo was this modern-looking thing, all gray with blue lights.  I think I remember how she felt now better than I did a few years ago.

She was pretty hard on me.  Broke my heart.  I was who I was then, and that was considerably weaker than I am now.  But she set me on this path, and I wouldn’t change any of it.  Still getting roughed up from time to time.  But I guess I grew an appreciation for that, too.  Writing fuel.

She sent me a letter last night, apologizing for everything.  It was sort of shocking, bewildering, and completely plain.  This was the sort of thing that happened in movies, you know?  Girl of your dreams, the first girl you put away in that hallowed part of your mind or heart, comes to you and says, “I did you wrong”.  I wasn’t sure what to say to that.  So I told her I accepted, wasn’t even really sure she needed to apologize, given who I am now.  Where would I be if she had treated me differently?  Who would I be?  Husband to her, father to three, first kid aged six?  What a difference.  And I’m not knocking that, either.  Lord, but I loved her.  That could have been a great way to live.  But it’s not what happened.  I didn’t repeat a generation, didn’t become my father–though I am becoming him in many ways.  You all know where I am now.

It’s life, yeah?  You do things that make you who you are and make other people and you don’t realize until later, long after things have sealed, the mortar has dried.  What do you say to that?  I don’t think you say anything at all.  You smile a little sadly, maybe you shake a hand or offer a hug.  And then you move on.

Walked out of my new house this afternoon with Long December playing.  Strange to listen to it while in California, strange still to see palm trees, to walk outside in late October with the sun hot.  The song means a lot to me.  Like most songs I’ve pinned it to a woman, and in this case two, because I’ve yet to shake my world from the second.  I was walking down my new street toward campus and I realized this place will never reflect my emotions.  It is stagnant, if you can call a blue sky stagnant.  It is defiant.  I suppose that does reflect me at times.

Two nights ago I went out with Chauffeur (one word, goes with his nickname for me) and a girl to a supposed dive downtown.  We had burgers and beer, had a shot to celebrate the girl’s birthday, and went across the street to check out another bar, a little closer to an actual dive.  As we walked in a fellow playing pool turned and put his hand in the air and I high-fived him and shook.  As we waited on our beers he pointed at the three of us and the bartender wouldn’t take our money.   We drank and went out to the back to let Chauffeur smoke and watched this half-pint latina with a lot of metal in her face rap very, very poorly in front of a camera.  (Riverside, side, side, on the mike, mike, mike…ad nauseam.)  We went back in for a while and met Joe, our drunken benefactor, play pool with one hand–his non-dominant.  He’s apparently some sort of drunken savant, because he was sinking shots pretty consistently.  I followed Chauffeur back out for another smoke and we were making fun of the rapper when we realized she was still at it, still saying mike, mike.  We dove behind a brick wall and laughed for a good five minutes.  When we went back in Joe decided to give us a tour of downtown and we followed him directly next door to a gay bar where he bought us more drinks.  We moved on, discussed random things.  Chauffeur and I wandered off briefly to look at a war memorial and I remember telling him that I write because I didn’t serve, and that’s mostly right.  I wouldn’t feel like I have to write if I served.  It was a good night, maybe the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here.

Yesterday I moved everything out of the apartment and into the new house.  I don’t know how to feel about that.  I should feel good to be shut of it, because truly little good happened there.  And this, here, is all new.  As fresh as can be without a bout of amnesia.  But I couldn’t help but feel like I was giving some things up.  Signing off on memories, devaluing them.  I don’t like that.

In the evening the owner of the house, another grad student, took me out to a coffeeshop downtown on the back of his scooter.  I got some writing done.  And today I went back to the apartment to clean it and I was struck again with the knowledge that I am leaving one of two places that I’ve known her.  I stared at that damn futon and at the couch and the pool and the lounge chair as if I could place them more firmly into my memory.  But they’re already relics.  Already cherished in their way.  Walking back home I was taken by the smell of the orange trees and I stood at the intersection of Canyon Crest and MLK, standing in the thin shadow of the lightpole, this song came on:

I watched a woman pull up to the light in a rusted truck, watched her look at me.  She was beautiful, and it was a romantic contrast.  When I crossed I glanced her way again and she locked eyes with me and I passed on and I thought about the few times a woman has touched me out here.  A hand on my shoulder, arm around my waist.  I thought about reservoirs, literal and figurative.  I thought of how quickly my reservoir dries out here, how soon a night like Wednesday can fade.  It’s not a matter of whether or not I can make it.  I know I can.  It’s whether or not I come out the other side having gained ground, rather than lost it.  I haven’t regretted the way I’ve spent my life so far, and I’d hate to start now.

I love the hell out of this song.  The voice just barely holding onto its hushed tone.  You can hear Beam biting on the end of every word.  I picture teeth chopping at the microphone.  I think I’m exaggerating a bit, but when I sing it I can’t help but sing it loud.

Anyway.  That song is one of 90 on the “refined” playlist for AAM.  Refined from 221.  I wanted to share the brief story of my good day.  It’s brief because it’s been good only for about 5 hours, since I started writing at the coffee shop.  The fellow at the counter knows me by now and greets me warmly.  I asked for coffee and apparently I’d earned the honor of a house mug, as he took one down and gave me my coffee in it.  I love getting coffee in different ways from drinking other things at a coffee shop.  The first time I drank coffee and liked it was in Valparaiso, Nebraska.  I had it doctored heavily but I still felt strangely adult, accomplished, looking out at the fields around the bed and breakfast.  I’d run away from home, you could say, and came to that town through a series of odd coincidences involving my first book and second heartbreak.  It’s one of my favorite places on Earth.  I ate grilled chicken sandwiches for lunch and dinner and drank beer and got the strangest look when I showed the lady my Ohio ID.  I drove 14 hours to get there.  God, it was worth it.

Right, so, I was talking about this cup of coffee.  In a black and white mug with kitties on it.  Drinking the coffee and sitting at my laptop, man, did I write.  And I looked over earlier passages for reference.  I had myself grinning.  You know that’s a good sign.  Or that you’re delusional.  I chose to believe the former today.  I wrote, and things showed themselves, and the dialogue was sharp and the threads came together.  I finished a scene and started another and I feel good about the openness of it and about what’s coming.

There was an MFA reception today, and I zoned out for a good part of it, sitting in a corner, and for the first time in a while I felt my tanks getting refilled.  I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it on here or not, but my subconscious sometimes puts the rest of me on hold and makes me sit wherever I am and space out while it drinks something in.  It did that today, and I remember getting a few looks, had a fellow come over to me and tell me I was marginalizing myself (nice guy, pretended he was my dad so I could pitch my book to him–I guess as an exercise in clarity).  But lately the only voice that’s been coming to my mind was that of Samuel, the main character’s son, who will eventually take the reins of the book.  It’s great to feel that voice, and it’s great that it’s so insistent.  He’s hounding me.  I know I’m bordering on hokum, here.  Believe me when I say I don’t plug myself into the ether like some writers feel they do.  But there is an element of writing that you can’t pin to the conscious.  And it’s lovely when that element shows itself.

I wrote about 1,500 words today, 500 over the weekend, and I’m set for another easy 500.  Gravy.  Now let’s just hope I can find the time through everything else to keep up this pace.  Might have to start foregoing sleep.  It’s not like I really need 8 hours a day anyway.  Not like I’m working, or anything.  Looking back, this post wasn’t very brief at all.  Guess I lied to you.

I imagine some of you folks aren’t familiar with that name.  Let’s rectify that.

That Evening Sun is an adaptation of one of Gay’s short stories.  I can’t believe I haven’t heard about it until now.

Here’s an excerpt of Provinces of Night, in my opinion, his best work.  In Provinces and in his first, The Long Home, Gay follows the trail of Cormac McCarthy’s early southern fiction and does something McCarthy had a hard time doing– making it readable.  People sing the praises of Child of God, and some of his other early work, but I have a hard time making heads or tails of it.  Gay is able to carry off the same tone without the labyrinthine prose.  He reads with the relative ease of McCarthy’s more palatable Border Trilogy while staying deep in the Southern Gothic tradition.

Gay is hopefully going to come into some fame shortly.  A movie of Provinces is in post-production and it stars some big enough names to get it off the ground: Val Kilmer, Kris Kristofferson.  He’s also got a new book coming…soon.  It’s been pushed back a time or two.  So, look him up.  Get on the train before he’s popular and one-up your friends.

It’s the colors that I remember most.  The room is dim but lit sourcelessly. I can see the walls, cream colored, and the sheets I’m tangled in as pink like a conch.  And your hair, dark as the corners of the room, dark as the door.  You get into bed and I put my arm around you and you curl up to me.  I know it’s a dream now.  But it goes on, and I put my cheek to yours and you turn to me, and we’re resting our heads against each other, and I feel your skin against mine and my hands are nowhere, it’s just our faces, our necks.  We fit perfectly.  And then I wake up.

Name your five most character-building memories.  Your five happiest.  Top five kisses.  Your desert island albums and books.  I know mine, I think.

Last Thursday a good friend of mine flew in from out of state and stayed with me until Monday evening.  Old readers will know her as the Antagonist.  The moment we got in from the airport we set her things down and watched Casablanca, a favorite of ours.  The next morning we went to the grocery store and she made dinner and I invited over a friend from the MFA program, who will probably figure into things enough that I may as well assign him a ridiculous blog-codename.  When I figure out what they call his hat I’ll name him that, I guess.  Anyway.  We drank, watched Dr. Strangelove.  Drank some more, had a few more friends over.  It was a good evening.

Saturday we stayed in and watched M*A*S*H and a backlog of The Colbert Report.  She cooked this killer meat dish.  Sunday was the Mojave, which kicked our asses in one way or another.  Routine scratching of the eye, dehydration.  The muffler clamp on my Cav rusted through and snapped while we were trying to see some lava cones, and that was a pisser.  We made a fire and set up the tent outside of the Hole-in-the-Wall canyons, sat around feeding the flames and watching the stars come out.  We’d gone on a short roadtrip in January and had a great time, and this was a bit disappointing.  She came out here as therapy for myself and for her, and it doesn’t seem like we managed to fill each other’s tanks like we expected.  We commiserated, we stood-in.  Maybe we were one of the 13 steps for each other.

Monday, driving her back to LAX, we riffed off an episode of The Office and went back and forth asking desert island questions, and eventually we got to the memory ones.  That was a little cathartic, I think.  Realizing where things fit, what’s shaped us.  I’m realizing just how long life is, and how much of it I’ve lived.  I’m happy about where I am as a person but I’m not happy about where I am.  Maybe it’s important that I run myself aground against a place, that I come to realize not everywhere is home.  Place is important to me as a person and a writer.  Finding a place that’s a source of conflict is just a new experience.  Not an enjoyable one, but one I can learn from, maybe.

My short story is up on Splinter Generation. An early review from a friend calls it “The Big Two-Hearted River of the Iraq Generation.”  I expect “sensational” and “spellbinding” to come soon.  In all seriousness, it’s been a good experience working with the editors at Splinter and I fully recommend submitting to them.  Thanks, guys.  And thanks to the folks who’ve already read it.

In other writing news, the novel is dragging because of classes, and I’m sort’ve pissed about that.  Broke the 30k mark two days ago, but I’m only getting about 1000 words a week.

In other, other news, here’s a short roundup of articles from the depths of the litblogs:

An interview with Margaret Atwood over at Jacket Copy.  I don’t like Atwood’s writing much, but I respect a lot of her views.  She talks blogging, science, and writing sex.

An interview with Sherman Alexie. He also talks some sex, re-attacks the Kindle, and discusses the state of technology on reservation grounds.

For viewers of Californication, The Rumpus has an article that lambasts the lack of literature on the show.  Also, apparently, the big book in the show, God Hates Us All, has been ghostwritten by…someone.  You can check out the first chunk at Amazon.  It’s atrocious.

Finally, John Crace condenses Blood Meridian into a misread and misguided eight minute sneer. I wonder if he actually had to read the book in eight minutes as well, or if he, well, fill in the blank.

I’ve got some links, a contest, and some thoughts for you.

First off, the second issue of The Collagist has been released–I don’t know how long ago, it’s the September issue, I just happened to look.  Along with some excellent fiction and poetry, there’s a review of Josh Weil’s The New Valley, a book I’ve recommended to others but never read.  More on that in a minute.  In addition to their new issue, The Collagist has a flash fiction contest starting up.  There’re fees attached, but they pay, as well.

Second.  In the spirit of this being something of a place for writers, I want to use my wide interwebs to haul forth catches like this: Edan Lepucki’s short essay at The Millions, about time spent at the Ucross writer’s retreat.  Applications for Ucross’ fall session are due next March.

Third, Sonya Chung reviews Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living, and she compares it to Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, which ought to be enough reason for all of us to add it to our carts, yes?

Last, brought to my attention by The Rumpus, is an essay on pop-culture/Americana/the self, written by Dana Vachon. It’s an interesting idea, that our culture is not the I-nurturing beast it seems to be, but rather one that destroys the I and turns it into an amorphous and ravenous You.  We’re so empty, so hungry to begin with, that we eat whatever’s before us.  That alone wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t told by the hand that feeds that what we are eating is manna.

New cold does things to me.  Portland was cold when I left and seeing the leaves churned things up in me.  I wake in the middle of the night with blankets wrapped around me and cold night air blowing in from the window and I think that this is how it feels in Ohio.  If I were in Ohio I would get up in the morning and find my slippers and go downstairs and make toast with peanut butter and I’d huddle next to the toaster with my blanket on my shoulders and hands over the glowing grills.  I’d sit on the broken couch and look out the stained glass windows at the falling leaves and maybe the few students walking to class, crunching by.  I’d look at the stains on the carpet and at the TV we never watch and the beanbag chair in the corner.  The wind would make the house creak.  I’d feel the cold slipping down through the thin glass of the windows.  I’d bundle myself aggressively against it and glare at the gray sky.

Instead I’m here.  It gets cool at night and that sets my mind off but when I wake up I eat some fruit and shower and when I go out it’s already hot.  I still look at the palms with wonder.  The pool is full of leaves and is green from disuse.  Last night I went out with some people I can happily call my friends and we drank and ate and had  a great time.  We talked our pasts and I got asked about my accent.  I begged one of the girls to come to poetry workshop and be scared with me. Talked whiskey and beer with the other guy there, who is a match for myself, in some ways.  We both like to drink, we both have signature hats.  We were both up for the first fiction workshop slot.  I’m excited to be with these folks.

We all agree that Riverside is a hole.  The bar closed at midnight on a Friday.  Places like this truly exist.  I thought that somehow only an outsider could feel that way.  How do you live in a town with no soul?  How do you stay and work in it?  How can you thrive.

I find myself yearning for a long drive.  I want to see Nebraska again.  I want to go to Lincoln, to Valparaiso.  I see myself living in Lincoln like I saw my character living there, above a bar, looking out of a window at the brick streets below.  I want green, and corn, and I want cold that I have to fight.  I want to wear my leather jacket.  I want gray skies passing overhead and I want that passing beneath me, too.  I want to wander.  I want to load a box of books in my car and give the rest away and drive.  Cut the few strings I have left.  See what work there is in Vega, Texas and maybe pass through Austin, see what that place is like.  Head to Murfreesboro, head to Picher, to Centralia, head to the Badlands of South Dakota.

I’m not ready to put down roots.  Two years here isn’t gonna change that.  It’s gonna make it worse.  But I’m prepared for that, and I’m more than okay with it.  I’ll take what I can from this.  It’s how I’ve always lived, and it’s worked out so far.

This afternoon I found a draft I’d saved about a month ago, a drunken take on Hemingway’s inner dialogues, ala The Garden of Eden and Islands in the Stream.  It’s funny, but it’s how I sound when I’m sad.  I guess I go to him for strength:  Do not do this now.  Things have been better than you thought they would be.  Much better. Do not lose it now.  You didn’t before when things were harder and even then they weren’t that bad, so why lose it now?  Everything has shielded you, from sleep to drink to everything.  Why sit here, crumpling your handkerchief?

Funny stuff.  But true.  A little glimpse into my whiskey-soaked brain.