Back into short story mode, I pulled out Confrontation No. 84/85. Don’t laugh–this is the Fall 03/Winter 04 issue.
I’d love to write a novel, but even in my own life it seems I live in short story format. A dozen different unrelated stories going on each day, a different path for each to take.
This morning, for example: How would I write about a frantic trip to a glass company because I had already broken three sheets of 36 x 60 glass that I tried to hand-cut for a piece that a customer was going to pick up in a couple hours. Paying $40 for that single piece that I had paid $8.00 for wholesale. Almost breaking it at the glass shop as I talked with my hands–wildly thanking them for coming though on such short notice (for forty bucks?). Driving back oh-so-gently with the glass balanced in the car–they didn’t even wrap it up–and being Susie Goodriver as I waved at instead of cutting off the drivers that I passed. And then, a bunch of turkeys step into the road in front of my 45 mph coming car.
Did I slam the brakes and break the glass? Why should I, I like turkey; especially in a pot pie. But I as framer, driver, and writer can combine this experience from every viewpoint to end up with a story, one unrelated to all else that’s going on in my life right now.
I live in short story form.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Great effort this week. It pours out of you.
Thanks but did I get into the literature and make my points any more effectively? Cripes, it was enough work to go back ito it, and it’d be nice to know if it was at least a worthwhile effort.