Day One “We’re putting together an anthology,” they say. They have an email to prove it. Very few combinations of five words so excite The Short Story Guy. Maybe “short stories turn me on,” or “sure, we’re a paying market.” It is not a literary style I’ve written in. Despite that, perhaps because of it, I am intrigued.…… Continue reading The Fall and Rise of Draft One
Author: rtmcontrol
An Open Letter: Hey, Cucumber Guy
Hey Cucumber Guy: An Open Letter You, Cucumber Guy. Yes, you. The one in the restaurant kitchen adding the cucumbers to the salads. You did it again. You served me an otherwise well-crafted salad with cucumber slices like hockey pucks. What am I supposed to do with these? Weight down important papers? Make cucumber water? Treat…… Continue reading An Open Letter: Hey, Cucumber Guy
In Which I Buy a $35 Club Sandwich
No one sets out to buy a $35 club sandwich. You back into that kind of decision later and over time, after long miles journeyed, after tiny losses mounting on your stomach, after foolish choices and opportunities foregone, after hunger sets in and then settles in. The $35 club sandwich is a end-of-the-line choice, almost happenstance, but it happens, and when it happens, it…… Continue reading In Which I Buy a $35 Club Sandwich
Behind: “The Carcassonne Dream”
It is winter. Christmas Eve 2011, and Writer Guy rides the train to Arles. Second class. The South of France trundles by outside, salt flats and olive trees, the mountainside and harbor towns of the Mediterranean coast. I sip my Coca-Cola Lite and return to my laptop. For in France the writing flows, as fast as the sweeping…… Continue reading Behind: “The Carcassonne Dream”