Bonus Stuff
Well, ain't this somethingI don't know how it works for other storytellers, but for me, when a story idea comes to me, it comes all at once...BAM! This happens to this guy, then that, and he's this sort of person, and at the end...ZANG! It feels like the whole thing has been implanted from some sort of contactless mindmeld. All I have to do is fill in the details, work out some problems, then write it. But sometimes this process goes on the fritz, and all I get is this quick little snippet--maybe a character or a place or an ending with no beginning. Other times, it's a sentence. In an effort to flesh out the idea, I'll write these sorts of ideas as a short story and see where it goes. My recently completed demon novel started out this way.
A few notes on the stories below:
The story "Eyeballs" was originally published in 2011 in an anthology called "In Mt. Diablo's Shadow", a collection of poetry and prose loosely centered around the theme of suburban life. At the time it was written, I lived on a cul-de-sac and had five properties wrapped around mine--one on each side, and three along the backyard fence. I hated it. Since all of the houses are two-story, there was no chance of privacy in our backyard. I wasn't trying to nude sunbathe or start a marijuana farm, and never saw anyone staring from a window, but it just didn't seem right. And it wasn't because I spent most of my time staring into their backyards.
"The Twisted Tale of Molly Zee" came from a single sentence that popped in my head one day, out of nowhere. I may have been driving at the time. "It was the kind of town you went to buy a monkey." I imagine I frowned at this thought, thinking "Where the hell did that come from?" I didn't know if I had overheard it somewhere, but it was super random. It got me thinking...what would that sort of town look like? Who lives there? And who's telling this to whom: "Oh... Mill Flat? Yeah, an all right town, I suppose... kinda place you go to buy a monkey, if you know what I mean..." No, I don't know what you mean. Is that a euphemism for something?
A few notes on the stories below:
The story "Eyeballs" was originally published in 2011 in an anthology called "In Mt. Diablo's Shadow", a collection of poetry and prose loosely centered around the theme of suburban life. At the time it was written, I lived on a cul-de-sac and had five properties wrapped around mine--one on each side, and three along the backyard fence. I hated it. Since all of the houses are two-story, there was no chance of privacy in our backyard. I wasn't trying to nude sunbathe or start a marijuana farm, and never saw anyone staring from a window, but it just didn't seem right. And it wasn't because I spent most of my time staring into their backyards.
"The Twisted Tale of Molly Zee" came from a single sentence that popped in my head one day, out of nowhere. I may have been driving at the time. "It was the kind of town you went to buy a monkey." I imagine I frowned at this thought, thinking "Where the hell did that come from?" I didn't know if I had overheard it somewhere, but it was super random. It got me thinking...what would that sort of town look like? Who lives there? And who's telling this to whom: "Oh... Mill Flat? Yeah, an all right town, I suppose... kinda place you go to buy a monkey, if you know what I mean..." No, I don't know what you mean. Is that a euphemism for something?