The Fleeting Blog...

Where'd it go?

If you are saying that in regards to the blog I posted yesterday, I deleted it. What may seem like a good idea can seem stupid and maybe not so funny once it is in "print". Tis the nature of the beast.

If you are saying that in regards to something else, check under the couch.

And since we're here, I, umm, totally failed to reach the 50,000 word mark for November. I'm up to about 22,000 good words with a couple thousand bad ones floating around the bottom of the document. But I won't delete them until the thing is done. "Use all parts of the buffalo," I say. I'm thinking about posting the first chapter in all it's bad metaphor, awkward sentence, and poor plot device glory. The first draft is never pretty. It's the skeleton. The story doesn't begin to come alive and take shape till the 5 or 6th draft I think. If I remember correctly, Whitman worked on "Leaves of Grass" his whole life. There were something like a half a dozen or more printings of it. Not rewrites and drafts, but actual printings.

But I digress. I will finish the thing. I like my characters and I like my story. I want to see where they go and what they'll do. Hopefully you will be able to as well in a few short months.

Until then,

D

Hello Window,... (hello, hello, hello)...

There's nothing like the fresh smell of a rejection letter in the morning. I love it. It makes me feel like I'm doing something right. I'll not dwell on it though, in as much as posting it and talking about it on here. The only reason I give this one more attention is because it is the first one that has actual comments from the editors about my story. They are short one line comments, but it is something. Baby steps my friends, baby steps.

Here is my newest letter, complete with comments:

Thank you for your interest in flashquake. Our decisions were difficult, but we have decided not to use your submission(s). We have included below our editors' comments on your work; we hope you find them useful. Please note that we are closed to submissions until December 1, when our Spring issue reading period opens.


Daniel DiFranco

fiction

Waiting For Kairos

Editor 3 Vote: No

Ed. 3 Comments: The writing seemed a little plodding.

Editor 4 Vote: No

Ed. 4 Comments: Intriguing, but some of the writing feels awkward.

Who's writing seems plodding and awkward, yet intriguing? Mine. That's who. And you know what? I reread the story and they're right. Back to the editing table with this one while I juggle my NaNoWriMo story.

Someday soon,.....someday soon......

I Think I Can...

Current word count: 19,299.

Words left: 30, 701.

Days left: 9.

Words per day needed to 50k: 3412

Average words per day: 919.

I hired Will Smith to sit behind me and yell, "I ain't heard no fat lady!" Strangely, I found Jeff Goldblum wandering the streets and muttering, "Forget the fat lady. You're obsessed with the fat lady. Just get us out of here!" while feeding geese on the toe path by the canal behind Main St. I lured him back to my house with a trail of circus peanuts (he likes the styrofoamy squish noise they make).

Well, back to writing, or in the words of William Goldman in Which Lie Did I Tell?, it is time to "get those fucking toys over the mountain".

NaNoWriMo

What the hell is that you ask? It is National Novel Writing Month over at Nanowrimo.org. And what is that you ask again?

"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30."

I've been rolling the idea around in my head for the last month on whether or not I'd do it. Well, I just signed up. Check out me profile here.

I now have the impetus to finish this idea for a story that I've been chewing on and false starting for a while now. It's a little more "non-literary" in the sense that it is not like "Waiting For Kairos" from my 10.24.09 blog.

Think Roald Dahl's works for adults and that will give a better sense of where I'm at. I'm just trying to tell a story and tell it the best I can. So, if I disappear for November it's because I have 30 days to write 50,000 words.

Wish me luck on finishing.

At the very least, I will be the proud, public symbol of abject failure. And who doesn't like a good train wreck every now and again?

Until then,

-D

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble."

We've all seen the countless variations of the pumpkin throwing up. It's funny, but, after a couple hundred times it gets a little old. Not to discredit it. I love seeing pumpkins throw up - probably one of my favorite things. But, like all things that become viral, its moment in the sun wears off. Though, I'll still never not laugh at The Grape Lady.

I found these pictures the other day. They just tickle me. They remind me of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comics with the snowmen.

I present to you, Pumpkin Man the Destroyer and Cannibal Pumpkin (If these have been out for a while and have had their moments already, I apologize for my lameness).

Happy Halloween friends.

Until then,
-D

Here, There, and Everywhere

I have recovered from my sombre mood - at the very least, I have the fortitude to present my outwardly self as other. I just submitted the short piece I wrote about last night. The site I submitted to doesn't consider "publishing" on a personal website the same as it being published on a site that is selective. Neither do I. This is more of an open journal of sorts. Not a venue for publication. I digress. I present to you my latest completed piece. Comments are welcome (I am always open for constructive criticism. Don't fret - I am the harshest critic of my own work. There is nothing that could be said that wouldn't be a mere reflection or intimation of things I have already thought). Enjoy and wish me luck.

Waiting for Kairos

By Daniel DiFranco

There wasn't much he could do by way of his profession. The man had been dead for hours. Even if the roads had been clear and he arrived the night before as was planned, he was certain he could have done nothing but alleviate some of the man’s suffering as death spread through his body. His instruments were crude. They were nothing like the type he would have had in a hospital in the States. It was hot here. The people wore the heat like a shiny coat they were born with and have never taken off. He could sense a distrustful reverence in the way they looked at him. The sun had just come up and he was already sweating. He thought about the air-conditioned tent back at camp. The next bus wouldn't come through until mid day. He would have to stay.

The family crowded around the dead body while a man with paint on his face chanted and performed rituals that seemed strange to the doctor. He thought about Julia and the last conversation they had. They would stay friends even though they both knew they wouldn’t. She didn’t blame him for her father’s death but she did blame him for not being there when she needed him. He couldn’t tell the difference in the way she spoke to him. It was hotter in the hut than it was outside. He made awkward half bows and attempts to let someone know he was leaving. No one looked at him. He might as well have not been there. Flies landed on the dead man and on the mourners. They landed on him too. He swatted them away and backed out of the hut onto the small bamboo porch.

There was a boy, squatting down, looking in the hut. Curiosity and sadness taunted comprehension. Julia wanted children. They said they’d wait until the time was right. The divorce came before the right time did. The air was still. He tried to convince himself that it was not as hot as he thought. The boy looked up at him. The doctor said, “Hello.” The child did not respond. The doctor went to the edge of the porch and sat down next to him. The child did not move and the doctor made no attempt to talk to him. They sat there, surrounded by thick air, the doctor looking past the small village into the forest, and the boy looking into the hut. The sun was beginning to come through the sparse leaves of the Palo Santo trees. It would get hotter as the day went on. The shadows of the leaves rippled against the dusty ground.

The doctor opened his bag and took out a cherry flavored cough drop. He unwrapped it and held it out for the boy. The boy took it and smelled it. The doctor motioned that he should put it in his mouth. The boy turned around and hung his legs over the side of the porch. He held the cough drop and studied it before he put it in his mouth. A small breeze picked up and excited the shadows. In the distance, a margay cat climbed down a tree and leapt at a moving current of light while the boy still sat, rolling the cough drop around in his mouth, and the doctor felt grateful for the small wind cooling the back of his neck as chants rose outward and upward into the past.

The End

"When I have Fears that I may cease to be..."

It's been a while my friends. Tonight finds me in a disposition rather less than cheery. Be it the weather, the impending Halloween holiday, missing people who are not near or no longer of this earth - or the weight of years to come pressing down and forcing indecision to take hold, pushing out all motivation but that of contemplation. This post, my return to this blog, is a bit on the morbid side. Read on if this is the kind of thing that interests you.

But first, an explanation of my absence. I began writing a screenplay, at the bequest of a fledgling filmmaker friend, back in the spring. Several re-writes took me through the summer and filming begun a month ago. The good: I finished something of substance and of a length and arc I have never done. The bad: It was exhausting and did not afford me any time to really work on anything else. When I finished I wrote a very short piece of flash fiction (see blog "Good writing for people who like bad writing" for more)that I will submit to an online journal. Since I have not fared too well with the print world, I figured I might scale back my aspirations a notch or two and let the dice fall where they may. I have high hopes for this piece. Maybe I'll post it here after I submit it. Well, I promised you morbidity, and by Jove, morbidity you shall have.

I stand on the precipice of my third decade of life in this world. I have done nothing great or of substance. My life has not been marked by any great tragedy or triumph. I have done things. But in the grand scheme these things are mediocre and without significance other than the small fleeting sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that accompanies my recollection of these things. If life quite this body of mine tomorrow, my life, the memories of my existence would be nothing but a faint etching on the tablet of time eroding away year by year until not even the echoes of my being would remember what they were repeating.

.....

I was engaged into a conversation the other week with some friends about how we would like our funeral arrangements. Not that we were all planning on dying together from drinking poisoned kool-aid like some whacked out over zealous cult. It was typical Friday evening, wine and cheese, cigarette smoking conversation. That's what everybody talks about, right?

I know how I want to be buried. I want to be buried by a stream, feet down, so to make my body erect as if I were standing upright in the ground. Above me I would like planted a willow tree. Seeds, a young sapling perhaps. I would like my body to fertilize the soil that feeds the tree. I want the roots to entangle my bones. I want children to think the tree is haunted. Circle of life kind of shit.

My friend was so taken by my wish that she, later in the evening, after I had already left and her boyfriend had retired, drafted a poem about my wish. I present to you, 100% unauthorized by Miss Ellen Brown, the final "stanza", which I thought captured the essence of my upright tree planted burial:

"his thoughts will grow up into the trunk and weave into the limbs and spread through to the leaves and in autumn the leaves will fall upon the children playing underneath, his soul and his talents his childhood and friendships. every tear and his first kiss will be a part of their games. couples picnicking will be shaded by his tattoos and hear his music in the branches.

weeping willows live a long time. they are graceful. leaning movement."

May we all live a long time and do things that are graceful...that inspire "leaning movement".

Happy Halloween my friends.

Until then,

D