A Self-Made “Promise”

This weekend, I will write my last short story for awhile. After this weekend, the Jackalope demands that I pay attention to a bigger thing.

It would be easy to stay quiet, to continue dodging that bigger thing. But the Jackalope demands that I speak up, and let people know what I’m doing so I can’t sidestep things any longer.

In the past, when working on novels, people knew what I was doing. They asked about my progress, and I had no excuses not to be writing. I wrote the first draft of my second novel mainly on lunchbreaks. I got the first draft done in a handful of months because co-workers not only asked about my progress, they could see if I wasn’t working and call me on it.

The current novel has been pushed around for years. Sure, I completed two other novels in the time since starting it. Sure, I spent two and a half years watching my sister die from cancer during that time. And sure, I’ve spent years dealing with a health issue of my own.

But it’s time to stop making up excuses. More importantly, it’s time to stop writing other things in an effort to avoid writing what I really want to finish.

I’m on the fourth rewrite of the current novel that’s been “current” for years.

It’s time to finish.

The Jackalope demands nothing less!

———————————————

Okay, so the Jackalope’s demand is to not even finish the short story.

It has to be all about a little novel called Promise.

Be a Man

This may be the shortest thing I’ve ever written for the Jackalope.

- Christopher

BE A MAN

Benny puts another shell into the old ten-guage goose gun, levels it as his son, Stevie and says, “You’re next.” The family dog, Duke, lies dead at Stevie’s feet.

“Thought I told you to wash that damn dog up?”

“I did.”

Benny locks eyes with Stevie, reminding him to show respect. “I did…Sir,” Stevie says.

“Then why’s it covered in fuckin’ fleas?!” Benny’s been drinking. His pastime is drinking beer while sharpening knives, cleaning guns, and watching television. The leftovers of a case of Shlitz are scattered about the floor in crumpled little balls. A whetstone and cleaning kit are at his feet. He kicks a can at Stevie’s head and shouts, “When ya gonna be a man, boy?!”

“I don’t know, Sir”

Stevie is fourteen and will never be a man as long as Benny’s around to remind him he’ll never amount to anything. Benny tries beating manhood into his son whenever he can.

“Get that damn mutt out of here!”

Stevie looks down at Duke. He wonders how someone could kill an animal; he wonders how someone can be so mean. Benny wonders how his son ended up so weak; he wonders if he’ll ever be a man.

“What the hell ya doin’, boy?”

Stevie pulls a buck knife from his pocket—his father gave it to him the previous year. He taught him how to take care of it, how to sharpen it to a razor’s edge. “This is a man’s knife,” he told him. “You take good care of this, and one day it’ll take good care of you.”

It’s time to test his father’s advice.

Benny laughs as Stevie opens the blade and locks it into position. “What the hell ya gonna do with that? Knife ain’t no match for this.” He rocks the goose gun in his hands and Stevie takes advantage of the moment. He leaps forward, moving in past the bad end of the gun before it goes off. Benny pulls the trigger and bird shot flies across the living room, taking out the TV.

And with one quick thrust of the knife, Stevie becomes a man.

Jackalope Links

Sometimes the Jackalope wants us to post links, so we can tag them and refer to them later.

At the last meeting of the Jackalope Preservation Society (JPS), I mentioned a writer named Jeffrey Ford. One of my favorite artists, John Picacio, gave me a collection of Jeffrey Ford short stories during a recent visit by my wife and I to San Antonio. Since reading Ford’s short stories, I’ve also read his wonderful novel, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque.

On his Twitter account, John Picacio posted a link to this Ford piece, called Baby Hand. I’m posting it for Mark and Deacon because I think they’ll dig it and see why I like Jeffrey Ford’s stuff.

On the business side of what we do to honor the Jackalope, I found this article about book groups very interesting.

So there we are, a handful of links.

Now it’s time to obey the call of the Jackalope!

- Christopher

J is for Enlightenment

The jackalope is large.

When you are within dismemberment distance of an animal many times larger than you, certain mammalian instincts kick in. My skin lit on fire, a mix of itch and heat and pain burrowing through the pores. My scalp attempted to peel itself from my skull and run. An electrical current sizzled up my spine and demanded a response.

But I just stood there. I’d like to say that a calm came over me, that my mind vibrated at an ancient frequency and I prepared myself for enlightenment. But I was simply scared pissless, and couldn’t manage to move one muscle.

Then I remember a small detail. I have an illogical fear of rabbits. Something about the way they stare at you blankly, silently. Cat goes meow, cow goes moo. What the hell sound does a rabbit make? I’ll tell you. When they’re dying, they squeal. Otherwise, they watch you in the night with their dead doll gaze and they whisper to the woods.

And the jackalope before me was the one who listened to them, who sat burrowed in the heart of one of those great forests, of the black forests, the places where lost children meet witches, the deep dark forest floors where things are dragged away to be hidden or eaten, and the rabbits watch with blank, silent stares and whisper what they have seen to the jackalope, their dark rabbit god.

And then he whispered to me.

I was wrong about enlightenment. It burns.

Somehow, I’m here now, a whole past behind me that I don’t remember as my own. I look in the mirror and poke at my features, wondering if they’ve always been mine. And at night, I don’t sleep. I only enter a dark forest in my mind and listen to whispers from as many times and places and worlds as there are rabbits.

Deacon

Living on scraps…

Being a writer is a terrible thing.  You sit alone in a room, ignoring your loved ones, often writing stories so horrific that they burn your mind and singe your soul, or so sublime that you end shaking or in tears.

And that’s the good part.  Then comes rewriting, which is like eating yourself, using only a blunt spoon as a utensil.  It’s a constant battle against complete ego dissolution.  You change and you cut until you’re not sure if the story is getting better or not, until you’re not even sure who you are or what made you think you had anything to say.

And then it really gets bad.  Then you select a market for your story.  The choices here seem to get smaller every day. Either the magazine/webzine/etc. is entirely vanished, or it’s closed to submission until some months hence.  You eventually find just the right market — one that wants complex stories that aren’t quite one thing and aren’t quite another — and is actually willing to read your work.

You send your darling child, your bastard curse away to some stranger, knowing that it’s one of dozens or hundreds gone through by an overworked editor who’s just finished reading his 27th re-telling of true vampire love, and you hope she isn’t having a bad day.

And when the rejection letter comes, it’s enough that it holds one sentence more than the last rejection letter they sent you.  I tiny line encouraging you to submit something else.

Most days, that’s the payment for all the work and worry, and somehow it’s enough.

Mark

Tennis Lessons

Yesterday, I watched a very close finals tennis match at Wimbledon. For nearly 20 years, I’ve played tennis with a good friend as often as we can play. While we are a far cry from professional level, we get better each time we step onto the court.

I love playing tennis, even though I lose more matches than I win.

I’ve been writing with the goal of publication for about as long as I’ve been playing tennis with this friend. Like tennis, I’ve lost more than I’ve won–I’ve faced more rejection than I’ve had stories and articles accepted.

I think about the parallels between tennis and writing each week driving to tennis matches with my friend.

Every time I’m on the tennis court, I’m right there in it, even if I lose. Over the years with writing, it’s always close. When I do win on the tennis court, it feels great because I’ve worked so hard getting to where I am. It’s the same thing with writing–when I’ve sold a story or article, it always feels great because I’ve worked so hard to get where I am.

If I won all my weekly tennis matches by a long shot, I don’t think I’d enjoy playing as much as I do. I love having my back to the wall and pulling off a win. And it’s the same thing with writing–I love that feeling of seeing a story or article come together and getting something accepted that I wasn’t counting on.

I’m looking forward to a great tennis match tomorrow evening, and some great writing tonight and the rest of the week. As long as I keep moving, I’ll keep getting better.

- Christopher

The Jackalope’s Advice…

After the last meeting of the Jackalope Protection Society, Mark and I talked about the novel I’m working on. He asked me how it was going.

I haven’t worked on the novel for months.

While the Jackalope understands, the Jackalope is always in my head telling me that there are no excuses. “Write, or don’t,” it says, “but only writers write!”

I do write. If I finish the novel this year, I’m on pace to have produced a novel every three years. Looking back, I wrote during crappy jobs in the Texas heat. Looking back, I wrote a novel while caring for my sister as she died from lung cancer over a couple years. I wrote a novel (mainly on lunch breaks at work), while struggling with a pituitary tumor. And the current novel? I made a lot of progress on it while dealing with round two of the pituitary tumor.

Lately, I’ve found it easy to write articles, essays, and short stories. I always find time for those things. But this novel is more serious than most things I’ve written, and to really get through this fourth rewrite, I need to be able to focus for hours at a time.

Work, working out, and life rarely allow that, lately. Not that that’s a valid excuse. Like the Jackalope says, “Write, or don’t…”

I tend to write bigger things when my life is in turmoil. I tend to write bigger things out of a fight reflex. Whether it’s been working a crappy job, watching my sister take a couple years to die, or dealing with my own illness, I write best when my back is against the wall.

My back isn’t against any walls these days. I have a job I don’t hate, and my life is good.

So I’ve been enjoying it!

But that is still no excuse. While the Jackalope has been saying, “Write, or don’t!” the people who care the most about me are all saying, “WRITE!!!” My wife, Deacon, Mark, my family, and all my friends.

They don’t even give me the option that the Jackalope gives me–I must write.

But I like the Jackalope’s advice the best: “Write, or don’t.”

I do have a choice…

And I choose to write!

JPS Meeting Minutes (07/01/09)

Members Present:

Mark Felps, Deacon McClendon, and Christopher Gronlund. Oh yeah, and Rufus Starpenguin!

Members Absent:

None–it’s all or nothing, just like the Three Musketeers!

Procedings:
Meeting called to order at approximately 7:30 p.m. (Deacon was kept late at work.)

Critique - “El Concusso,” by Christopher Gronlund.

• The board agreed that it’s a perfect little story.
• Christopher wrote it as a throw-away story in honor of Deacon surviving a car wreck that landed him in the hospital.
• Mark and Deacon agreed that it’s ready for submission.

Critique – “Butterfly, My Queen,” by Rufus Starpenguin.

• The board agreed that Deacon’s deliberately bad story is better than many serious stories out there.
• Mark and Christopher would not mind seeing more deliberately bad writing from Deacon.
• Some utterly hysterical lines, like: “His heart skipped a beat and his liver wrote a love letter, scratched onto his insides with a tough, scabby part at the end of the liver.”

Critique – “Two for the Price of One,” by Mark Felps.

• The board agreed that Mark’s story (one of the shortest he’s ever written), is damn good stuff! (Although it may deserve a deeper title to match the content of the story.)
• Based on a true story about a person who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mark’s good writing was all over this one.

Critique – “Grounded,” by Deacon McClendon.

• The board agreed that this one is good, but needs work.
• Deacon’s attempt at writing a “Chris” story.
• This story is definitely worth saving; suggestions were given to make it better.

New Business:

• Deacon has until July 8th to post something to The Jackalope Preservation Society Blog, or suffer the wrath of the Jackalope!
• Christopher let Mark borrow Robert Olmstead’s book, Coal Black Horse.
• Christopher let Deacon borrow Larry Doyle’s, I Love You, Beth Cooper and Jonathan Tropper’s How to Talk to a Widower.

Old Business:

No old business discussed.

Other Business:

The typical chatting about what’s been up in general:

• Mark is enjoying the part time job he has.
• Deacon is raising a baby with very dramatic facial expressions.
• Christopher is working at the longest job he’s ever held, which Mark finds funny given Christopher’s one-time resentment for “jobs” in general.

Assessment of Meeting:

• The board agreed that it was a very productive meeting.
• It is the first meeting for a while where all board members present had stories for review.
• The Jackalope was pleased.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 9:30 p.m., when Deacon needed to go get food and get home to his wife and daughter.

Addendums:

• After the meeting closed and Deacon left, Mark talked about his next story. It sounds very, very cool…
• Mark and Christopher talked about Christopher’s novel-in-progress-for-far-too-long: Promise. Christopher was shamed. Christopher will send large parts to Mark and Deacon soon.

Minutes submitted by Christopher Gronlund

The Call

This weekend, I belong to the Jackalope.

Christopher

Kia vs. Jackalope

The Kia is a destructive bird.

The Jackalope is a mighty beast.

If the two come together, the ensuing battle would turn the Rocky Mountains to powder.

The Kia wanted me to not see my Jackalopean brothers tonight. It turns out that the Kia’s powerful, 6-cylinder wings are powered by a water pump and a timing belt. When things go wrong with these parts on a 100+ degree Texas day, the Kia goes down.

The Kia sleeps in a garage tonight, smirking, thinking that it has ruined my evening. It has flown over 80,000 miles without stopping once.

I can appreciate that, but I am not happy that it resorted to such a cheap shot on our Jackalopean plans for the evening.

While there is not a full meeting of the Writing-Club-That-Cannot-Be-Named tonight, the Kia will not stop me.

I have no work-work tonight.

So tonight I shall bow before the Jackalope.

Christopher