Category: Publishing

posts related to publishing the book

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Sore thumbs

Here’s something I know. When you are compiling a bunch of stories you’ve written over the course of ten years, there’s a seemingly endless round of revision. I’ve already decided to scrap the plays and rewrite them as narrative. That was easy. But there’s also passages of interior monologue that I just don’t know what to do with. Here’s a sample. Taken out of context of the collection, this is fine … but inside the book, it’s a sore thumb:

Strange room—nothing familiar. The smells were different than what I remember things smelling before. Back home. When I was back home. Was I back home? Strange person in bed next to me. OK, I think, you just have to get over this sick feeling you get where you don’t know where you are. So I say aloud, “Where am I?”

No answer.

OK. No answer. No light. No smell. Nothing familiar. OK. So I fumble around in the dark for a bit, feeling my way along a wall. Or what I think must be a wall. There must be a door somewhere.

Someone was in the bed next to me. Huh? How do you like that? I was used to sleeping alone. OK. Door handle. Aha! I think. A handle. As if the uniqueness of a door that opened with a handle rather than a knob was still as new as it was when I woke up. Handle. Door. Simple.

So I pull the door open and there it is. The living room I couldn’t remember just a second ago. This is it. I’m in a con—do—min—i—um. Cavalier By The Sea. A condo on the ocean with my family and my cousins. That was Hughie. Was that Hughie? I go back into the room and there he is. Deeply sleeping. OK. Condo. Ocean. Gotta pee.

It’s kind of nice, I think, getting up in the middle of the night all by yourself. Once you get your bearings. Once you know. Really know where you are. And how you got there. And what that strange person was doing in bed with you. Hughie. Cousin Hughie. OK.

So I pee. And there I am at, like four in the morning. Must be four in the morning. Maybe not. I don’t know. I can’t tell time in a place where I don’t know where the clock is. And I hate wearing a watch. Watches are for girls. Well, that’s not exactly true, I guess. Watches on my wrist look like watches a girl would wear. It’s my single physical flaw, as far as I can tell. My wrists. They are so girly. I mean really, really girly. I hate them. OK. Four in the morning. Just peed. Go back to bed with Hughie?

No. I don’t think so. Let’s do something interesting. I mean, here we are by the sea. Let’s do something downright interesting. Make breakfast? No. I don’t think so. OK. I slip back into the room and get dressed. I think about waking Hugh, but I don’t. Instead, I take a long look at the room, close the door and leave the condo. It’s dark, but not really dark. I noticed how it wasn’t really dark, when we pulled into the parking lot the night before. Just before we unpacked and got into fights and had dinner and went to bed. Just before the last thing I remember hearing was the rain. I mean real rain. Biblical rain. Pounding on the roof of the condo. We never get rain storms back home. I mean not legitimate rain storms. Maybe an occasional shower or something. Lightening, thunder, sure. But this was driving rain. Driving. It sure wasn’t raining now. And it wasn’t dark. Not really. It was kinda gray and dark and light at the same time. Must be four in the morning, I think.

Away I go. Trundling down the rickety steps of Cavalier By The Sea to the beach. It occurs to me, like out of nowhere, how what I’m doing isn’t exactly dangerous. I mean, you can’t really get lost on the beach. There’s one way down the beach. There’s the ocean, and there’s the land. Go in the ocean and drown. Go up on the land and it’s pretty easy to get lost, I imagine. But once you’re on the beach, really there’s only up the beach and down the beach.

I like that.

On the beach in the dark at four in the morning. Or what must be four in the morning. Maybe four fifteen.

Anyway. Eighth grade. God. Eighth. Fucking. Grade. This is so going to not go well. I can tell. I tried all summer to not think about it, but here we are, the whole fam damnly at the beach for the last hurrah before I have to go back into that cess pool. School is so stupid. And hard. Well, the school part of school isn’t hard, but the rest of it is so not easy. If I was like Hugh, I’m sure it would be fine. He’s great. He’s great looking. At least, you know, for a boy. And he’s smart and he’s funny and I just bet he has, like, a dozen friends. That is so …  not me. Well, the friends part. And the good looking part. If I wasn’t so fat, I’m sure I’d be OK looking. But I’m not … not fat. In fact, I’m willing to bet I’m the exact opposite of not fat. Let’s face it, OK? I’m fat. Fatty. I’m just fat. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with what I hate about school. I just hate the people. The people are awful. Well, the cool ones aren’t awful. They’re great. But they are pretty awful to me. In fact, if I was cool, I probably wouldn’t be awful to anyone. But I wonder: Do you have to be mean to be cool? Is that what it is? Because I could be mean, I guess. If I wanted to. I’ll have to check on that with Hughie. I’ll ask him, when I get back to the condo, what it’s like to be cool, and if you have to be mean to fat people to be cool. It’s probably different for him, though. In Boise, there’s probably plenty of fat people. In fact, I’ll bet they have their own group that they hang out with. Not me. In Anaconda, I’m like the only fat person. Well, that’s not true, but I’m the only fat person I’d hang out with.

I try not to think about it.

The beach was all full of stuff that had washed up the night before, and I headed past the soft squishy sand to the place where my feet didn’t slip, and my footprints disappear. The fog and the beach and the water and the sky. It was like it was all one color, but not. It was hard to see where the beach ended and the water began. Just like it was hard to see where the water ended and the sky picked up. In fact, I bet I could walk right out into the water and not even know I’m drowning. So, I pay attention to the stuff on the beach. As long as I can see the stuff on the beach I know I’m not in the water, and oddly enough, not in the sky.

The sun was starting to peek over the rim of sea grass that lined the high side of the sand dunes leading down to where I was walking. It was going to be a cloudy day, that’s for sure. Maybe even driving rain. Maybe not. Like I said before, I don’t really know anything about rain. Or the beach. Except it’s absolutely impossible to get lost on it. Even in the dark. At what must be four thirty in the morning.

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The plays are the thing

Okay, so this is a paraphrase of an actual conversation I had with an editor at the annual PNWA conference last summer:

Me: Right now, the book is 16 short stories and 2 ten-minute plays.

Him: Ten-minute whats?

Me: Plays. There’s two of them.

Him: Why would you do that?

Me: What?

Him: Include plays? That’s messing with the form.

Me: Because the stories are better as plays. The stuff that happens in them are better in play form than they are in story form.

Him: Don’t include the plays.

Me: What?

Him: I wouldn’t include the plays.

Me: Why not?

Him: Because no one has ever done it before.

Me: Isn’t that a good reason to include the plays?

Him: I thought you wanted to get this published.

Me: I do.

Him: Well, no one is going to want to publish the plays.

Me: Really?

Him: Well, maybe one play. Keep one play, but not two. I wouldn’t do it.

As I format these pages to go to my volunteer editor, and I spend most of my Saturday writing time formatting the damn plays, and I’m starting to think that the sourpuss editor had a point.

In my heart of hearts, though, I think the plays are terrific, and should travel along with the rest of my work.

This is the dilemma of the weekend.

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Excerpt from Smelter City Boy

1966 Chrysler Imperial

December 1966
I was too preoccupied with the monkeys to pay much attention to the shoes. We were Christmas shopping in Butte, in the only store that had shoes that fit my sister’s feet. It was really snowy and cold outside, but inside the store the steam heat, the monkey pee and the new leather melded into a hot, sticky smell that made me think of barf. While my mom and sister argued about heels and toes, I split my attention between the monkeys and the Hush Puppy poster. I wanted Hush Puppies, but they were out of my size.

I would have liked to have seen penguins, but I didn’t mind the monkeys. They lived in a cage that ran all around the top of the store, high above the stacks of boxes and racks inside Keene’s Shoes. My mom said they got the monkeys—she called them recess monkeys—just to bring people into the store. My dad called the store a menagerie, and dropped us off before heading to the Ranch House Bar and Grill to talk about business.

My sister hated the monkeys. But I think that’s because the only shoes that fit her feet were really ugly. She was always in a mood when we went shopping for shoes. I usually just said okay to anything put on my feet. This time, it was a pair of hard, patent leather Sunday shoes.

We were at the checkout stand paying when the monkeys started screaming. They huddled to the front window and stared out into the street. I glanced out the frosty window and there, on the sidewalk just beyond our parked Chrysler, was Santa Claus. My heart stopped.

I’d never seen Santa for real before. I’d only heard stories and seen pictures in books. But there he was, with a bag of gifts on his back, talking to some kids across the street. I tugged my sister’s sleeve.

“What?” she asked. I pointed across the street, and she shouted “Mommy! Look! Santa Claus!” B.J. was clearly excited about Santa. I was terrified. I grabbed my mom’s leg just in case B.J. was thinking of dragging me across the street to talk to him. She was a year older than me, and always dragging me into stuff I really didn’t want to do, and places I didn’t want to go.

“Don’t be silly, honey,” my mom said. “That’s not the real Santa.”

I was skeptical. He sure looked real to me. Besides, I didn’t know of anyone else that even looked a little bit like Santa. Except Mrs. Claus. And this clearly wasn’t her.   “But I want to go talk to him,” my sister whined.

“Okay, go take your brother and meet Daddy and me at the car,” my mom said.

The traffic on East Park Street whizzed by. B.J. and I had to stop at the crosswalk in the middle of the block. Butte was a half-hour drive from where we lived and twice the size of Anaconda.

“I’ll wait in the car,” I said as the light changed.

“No you won’t,” B.J. said.

She was right. She had been put in charge. I knew what that meant. I had to do everything she wanted to. So that was it. I was going to see Santa.

As we crossed the street, I started getting a stomach ache. My eyes started to burn. My tongue swelled up in my mouth. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

He walked right past our car and joined the crowd of kids. When I got a closer look, I thought maybe my mom was right. The whole thing was fishy. Why would Santa be out of his house two weeks before Christmas? What was he doing in Butte, Montana? Where was the sleigh? The uncertainty of it made my knees weak. I looked really closely at Santa. His beard was real, his glasses were real. His suit looked like red velvet. Maybe my mom was wrong.

Suddenly, I was star struck. I started to pull my hand away from my sister’s grasp, but she was steadfast. As the kids filed away with a new toy from Santa, I started to think up excuses for leaving the scene. Needing to pee was out. There weren’t any bathrooms nearby. Needing my mother was out, too. She was off talking business at the Ranch House Bar and Grill. The only excuse I could think of as possibly working on both my sister and Santa, was that I needed to go feed the monkeys in the shoe store.   B.J. had an entire catalog of gifts she was expecting for Christmas. As she rattled off the names of toys and treats she had seen advertised between Saturday morning cartoons, I decided my shoes were way too tight. I was going to spend another year of Sunday School in shoes that were too small.

“How about you? Have you been a good little boy?” Santa asked.

I stared at my shoes.

“What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

I stared at my sister. Certainly she would think of something to say. The pit in my stomach grew deeper by the second.

What I wanted for Christmas was to climb into the backseat of our car.

“He’s shy,” my sister said. “And he used to be tongue-tied, so he doesn’t talk much. The doctor clipped his tongue a couple of weeks ago, so he should be able to talk.”

Right again. I really didn’t have any good reason to not talk to Santa anymore. Up until a couple of weeks ago I would tell B.J. in secret what I wanted to say and she would interpret for me to my parents. I was going to start kindergarten after Christmas, and I was going to have to talk there. I was sure of it.

“Do you want to whisper in Santa’s ear?” Santa leaned down and put his ear right up to my mouth.

“Monkeys,” I whispered.

“What?” Santa asked.

“Monkeys,” I whispered.

“Speak up, son. It sounds like you are saying car keys,” Santa said.

“MONKEYS!” I screamed.

Santa stood up straight, narrowed his eyes and reached into his pack. He thrust a small, plastic fire engine into my mitten-covered hands without saying another word. Off the hook to continue our conversation, I turned abruptly and headed back to the car.

Nothing my family owned was more beautiful than the inside of our Chrysler Imperial. The front seat was for grown-ups only. But the backseat belonged completely to my sister and me. It was roomy and beautiful. My dad said the car smelled like a million bucks. In the back, we had our own Kleenex box, door locks, window cranks and ashtrays. The front seat had a huge pocket sewn into its back big enough to hide in.   My favorite part was the back window. I loved to climb up on the back of the seat and lay on the ledge and watch the cars behind us. The window was always cool on my face. Sometimes, on long trips I would fall asleep watching the world move away from us.

Climbing into the back of the car, my sister and I staked out our territory. I sat behind my dad, mostly because I wanted to look forward and see my mom. I felt special when she looked into the back seat and saw only me. Santa was still standing in the crosswalk, but the crowd of kids was pretty much gone by the time B.J. rubbed the fog off the window just in time to see my folks come out of the bar and cross the street.

My dad opened the car door for my mom, then walked around the front of the car and checked the tires and the headlights. As he pulled on the driver’s side door handle he dropped the keys. I heard him say “Damn!” when he lost his footing and bumped into the car for support.

“Dad just said Damn,” I said.

“Honey, just because adults use swear words doesn’t mean it’s okay for you,” my mom said. Then she thought for a second. “If you are repeating something they said, you can use their words, though. I mean, don’t use it as an excuse to not talk.”

My dad swore again, once he settled into the driver’s seat. My mom looked over her shoulder and winked at me after she lit a cigarette.

“Did you talk to Santa?” she asked.

“Yup,” my sister said. “And he agreed to bring me everything I asked for.”

“Oh he did, did he?” my dad asked. “I hope you didn’t ask for a new bike, because I heard Santa was promising new bikes to kids all over town and the kids end up with each other’s bike and not the one they wanted.”

“Stop it, Bob,” my mom said, taking a drag off her cigarette.

“I’m just saying if Bobbi Jean asked for a bike, she might get one, but not the one she thinks she wants.”

“What did you ask for Grantsy?” my mom asked.

“Monkeys,” my sister said.

“What?” my dad looked into the rear view mirror.

“He asked for monkeys,” my sister said.

“Well, that’s … new,” my mom said to my dad. She glanced back at me and smiled. I just shrugged and played with my fire engine.

As my dad started the car, I turned around and leaned up against the back seat. Santa was standing right behind the back of the car, waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk. For a second I thought he looked right at me, before turning around to look up the street for on-coming traffic.

“Sit back Jean, I need to see if there’s any traffic coming,” my dad said. My mom leaned as far back as she could and my dad looked out past her into the street. “Looks like we’re good to go,” he said.

“You’re completely clear up front,” my mom said. My dad hit the turn signal to pull forward out onto the street. “Grantsy, do you see any traffic coming up from behind?”   I looked up the street. Both lanes of traffic were stopped a block away.

“Nope!” I said. My dad looked straight ahead, put the car into reverse and gunned the engine.

The car lurched backward into the crosswalk. From my vantage point, I could see Santa fly sideways, landing all splayed out in the muddy snow bank on the side of the road. The car stalled.

“Jesus Christ!” my dad bellowed. “Who hit us?”

“You hit Santa!” I said. Santa was almost immediately up on his feet staggering around, brushing snow and mud off his suit.

“What?” my dad asked.

“You just hit Santa with the car!” I said.

“Oh holy shit!” He threw open the door and trundled around to the back of the car.

I jumped up and looked out the back window. My dad had his arm around Santa who seemed to be pushing him away, holding him at arms length. I couldn’t hear what my dad was saying, but he was clearly sorry for hitting Santa with the Chrysler. It didn’t look like Santa wanted any part of it.

Through the window I did actually hear Santa shout something at my dad.

“What did he say?” my mom asked.

“Santa just called Dad a son of a bitch,” I said. My mom turned and stared out the front window.

“That’s not the real Santa,” she said.