The Day Before My Birthday

There's a scene in the first (and best) season of Denis Leary's series Rescue Me where a firefighter who was a first responder on 9/11 has joined a survivor's group. As the others recount their stories, he gradually realizes that they have no "real" connection to what happened that day and he lashes out angrily, mocking their claim to the pain that has engulfed him. It's a powerful moment and it works for the episode, but it also trivializes the very real emotion that swept the nation on that day.
In the days and weeks and months and years that have followed the events of 9/11, the urge to find a point of connection, a stake in the events, has remained strong. What amazed me at the time, and continues to astonish me, is that in a country of 300 million people, almost no one I've ever talked to didn't have a story to tell, some anecdote to share, some memory that has refused to die. I am a storyteller by trade and yet my own story is not coherent, but made up of fragments of thought and scraps of emotion, and a sense of surreality blanketed with stunned and numbed disbelief.   Here it is.

Social Media is Our Friend

I joined Twitter kicking and screaming. And found I LOVED it. Now I am pretty obnoxious about urging my friends to join the party. I'm still learning my way around, but I have my own personal social media consultant in my long-time friend Janette Kotichas. (Follow her @janettekotichas.) I've read John Locke's book on marketing, and I just ran across Chris Brogan's "An Author's Plan for Social Media." He put it out there a year ago but everything he suggests still makes sense. Writing is a solitary occupation. Get social!

Impersonating a Fairy

Petrillo stuck one of his size 12 shoes into the elevator just as I pushed the “down” button. The closing doors slid open again.

“Got a minute Doc?” he asked.

“Got a minute?” may just be the three scariest words in the English language when your life is measured in appointments and you haven’t eaten lunch or dinner.

“It won’t take long,” he promised. “And I think you’ll find it interesting.”

I sighed and got out of the elevator.

“Thanks,” he said.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he said and I sighed again.

It wasn’t like Petrillo to play coy so whatever was going on probably was worth my time.

We walked through the squad room and into the hallway overlooking the interrogation room. His partner, LeAnne Jacoby, was questioning a handsome blond man who appeared to be amused by the process. He was practically sprawling in a metal folding chair pulled up to a table, his body language completely relaxed.

“Who is he?” I asked Petrillo.

“That’s a good question,” he said, “but a better one would be, ‘What is he?’”

I raised my right eyebrow, a useful skill when I’m trying to figure out what to say next while waiting for someone to fill in the blanks.

Petrillo obliged.

“He claims he’s a fairy.”

He saw my expression and quickly clarified. “As in one of the fae, not as in the derogatory slang expression for a homosexual.”

#

LeAnne looked up with relief when I entered the interrogation room. She gave me an eye-roll as she passed me on the way out and whispered, “Good luck.”

I turned toward the prisoner. He was smiling slightly, his expression open and sincere.

“So you broke into the museum to steal a bracelet you think was stolen from the fairies?” I asked. “Haven’t I seen that in a movie somewhere?”

“You’re thinking of Hellboy 2,” he said, “except it was a crown in an auction house and they were elves, not fairies.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

A story a day?

Now that I'm putting together my second fiction collection (Toxic Reality, available October 31), I'm looking through my files to make sure I haven't forgotten any stories. What this has shown me is that I'm really pretty bad at organizing--I have four or five files of "completed" and "submitted" and "in progress"--and that I have a ton of stories that are almost but not quite finished. One of the reasons for this half-assed, half-baked, half-finished state of affairs is that I often begin a story in one of the notebooks I carry around in my purse. I hate waiting around, so if I'm at a bus stop or waiting for my monthly shot at the eye clinic, I'll work on a story or play with a stray idea.  The problem is I'm not particularly disciplined about transcribing those pages into my computer. And I have a LOT of notebooks.  So sometimes stories get lost in the process.  I ran across one such story this morning. "Impersonating a Fairy."  It's lighter than my usual fare--I can't be noir girl all the time--and all it needs is an edit. 
My goal today is to finish that story. My goal this month is to track down any other stories in the same condition and finish them.
It's good to have goals.

Alt-Dead is in the house

I have my contributor's copy of Peter Mark May's Alt-Dead anthology in my hands and I am fondling it.  It looks really sharp--the blood-red font against the white backdrop. It's available as both an ebook and print and it is priced to sell!  If you love zombies, or just like short stories, check this collection out. Contributors include Stuart Hughes, Stuart Neild, Stuart Young, Stephen Bacon, Steven Saville & Steve Lockley, plus a whole crew of other writers who are neither named Stuart nor Stephen like Jan Edwards, Ian Woodhead, Zach Black, and more. 
Let me know if you'd like to review the anthology--I can hook you up with a copy.

September Six Questions Schedule

Jim Harrington's Six Questions For blog has scheduled next month's interviews. Here's the list:

Below is the schedule of posts for September at Six Questions For. . . . http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/

9/01—Six Questions for Sam, Editor, Spilt Milk Magazine
9/05—Six Questions for Anne M. Stickel, Editor, Black Petals
9/08—Six Questions for Gay Degani, Editor, Flash Fiction Chronicles
9/12—Six Questions for Tyler Gobble, Editor, Stoked Journal
9/15—Six Questions for Kristin Ginger, Editor, YoYoMagazine
9/19—Six Questions for Dena Rash Guzman, Editor, Unshod Quills
9/22—Six Questions for Doc O'Donnell, Senior Editor, Dirty Noir
9/26—Six Questions for Bjorn Wahlstrom, Owner/Editor, H.A.L. Publishing
9/29—Six Questions for Meredith E. Torre, Editor, Bumble Jacket Miscellany

I Tremble For My Country

This morning CNN.com posted a story about a Syrian cartoonist who was kidnapped, beaten, and threatened.  His abductors broke his hands as a warning to stop drawing.  He's now in the hospital. The story is here.
The story is horrible and a reminder to anyone reading that "freedom isn't free."  What's even more horrifying, though, are the comments.  There's the guy who thinks the story is made up. There's the guy who uses his comment to rag on "Shrillery Clinton." I read through dozens of comments and there were very few addressing the actual subject of the story--Ali Ferzat, a brave and idealistic man. Comment after comment spewing rage and bile and toxic ichor.  Comparing Obama to Hitler.
(Seriously?  Hitler?  Really?)
I'm particularly horrified by this display of  hate because two days ago, when CNN.com ran a story about a woman in dire financial straits, the story elicited almost 500 comments.  Most of them were of the "Poor woman, how can I help? variety, but a lot were ugly.  For some reason the one I found most damnable was an accusation that she probably had enough money to support her two-pack-a-day cigarette habit.  (Nowhere in the article did it mention that she smoked.) 
I know, I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I still am.  The utter conviction in these posts is as predictable as the bad spelling and specious arguments.  The people who write these posts are registered to vote. And there are more of them than me.