A Little Bit of Writing: Short Stories

I wrote a little on my short story today, not as much as I would have liked. Combining my 30-year-old fragmented knowledge of Chicago with Google Maps and my near-future dystopic imagination is challenging. The result will hopefully be a background story developing a one sentence aside of the book I just wrote. Many of my short stories begin as character sketches, and this one is no exception.

I would like to write more short stories that don’t tie into characters in my novels. If I do that, I might submit more writing to Submittable contests and publishers. If you don’t know what Submittable is, it is a website that publicizes writing contests and journals and magazines that are looking to publish poetry and short stories. It’s a great way for a writer to get some exposure in those venues. There’s often a small payment for readers or subscription fees, but it’s rewarding to be published even in small venues. The last story I got published was “The Inner Child”, which was published by Flying Ketchup Press last fall.

I feel like I would have trouble publishing my tie-in stories because they are so character driven, but I guess I could always try to see. I have had little luck publishing them in the past, but had one story receive an honorable mention, so there’s that. Although I write as a flow activity, I still have a desire to be read.

Wish me luck!

My life in writing

There’s days I’ve sat at my computer screen and ask myself, “What can I say that I haven’t already said?” And not just my blog, but stories in general?

Christopher Booker, in his book The Seven Basic Plots, holds that there are (you got it) seven basic plots in fiction out there, and that they all share one basic metaplot: being called to the action, a positive, almost dreamlike state, frustration, meeting the enemy, and resolution. If this is the case, nothing I write is original — unless you take into account the characters (especially the protagonist(s)), the setting, the specifics of the plot, etc. The reader expects the plot but revels in the journey to the end.

And so I keep writing, because I care about the characters first and foremost, and want to see how they fare on the journey. I want to see their journeys.

And I want to see my journey as well. In all of my posts, there is a journey, although sometimes (especially in writing Gaia’s Hands) I go in circles in the wilderness. My journey is not as sharp and clean as a novel or short story, and it doesn’t seem to have a plot. I doubt my memoirs will be worth reading. But as a series of essays, it may not be too bad.

Potential

More than anything, I think the thing that inspires me when it comes to writing is the potential a story has. The potential to be read or heard, the potential to speak to someone’s condition, the potential to make someone laugh.

This is more important to me that simply writing for the joy of it. For me, the joy is from a human interacting with the humanity of my stories. My love of stories predates my love of writing, coming from a family where both sides excelled in their kind of stories. My dad’s family told hunting stories with a sense of slapstick and absurdity, except for the Native American tale about sacred white deer disguised as something my Grandfather had witnessed. My mother’s family loved wordplay, and very often my grandmother served as the “straight guy” a la vaudeville who would set up the play on words.

When I write characters, I want to bring them home for dinner and have a dinner party. When I write themes, I ask myself if they will entwine into my readers’ lives and change them. When I write plots, I think of my family stories and how they walked me into surprising places.

It’s good for me to think about why I write.

The situation is that I don’t have much patience. Much perseverance, but not much patience. Oh, well, I forgot to get that when I grew up. I’m trying new things now, like maybe small press even though I will be lucky to get 100 readers, and Wattpad, which is the massive marketplace of ideas with no curator.

Find me on Wattpad — you have to subscribe, but it’s free. Read my story collection as it develops. Say hi. Feel moved to interact with me.

Wattpad

And if you want to write me? lleachie AT gmail.com