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
Author: rtmcontrol
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”
Behind: “La Upsell”
Here, in honor of its recent republication, is a “Behind The Short Story” I wrote for “La Upsell.” The short story is its own literary animal, a wholeness experienced in few words and on small bones. Some writers get a sunbeam and angel choir moment of inspiration. Others grit it out, go find the story. I’m…… Continue reading Behind: “La Upsell”
Mark Antony, Two Hours Before His Big Speech
Murrayus, you have the revisions?…Finally. Two hours, and I’m up to my toga pleats in angry rabble, and that last draft you brought me was excrement. ‘You get drachmas, and you get drachmas, and you get drachmas!’ What was that? I’m not looking like a fool in front of the plebes. I just heard Brutus…… Continue reading Mark Antony, Two Hours Before His Big Speech