Anyhow, I am using the word “excuse” here to mean an explanation or justification in the absence of my ability to speak with each reader individually. Bear with me.
As you know, if you are a regular reader, I have several projects going. I have sent the second set of proofs in for Atheists and Empty Spaces for which I had to spend a couple of days carefully editing. Kellie and Cyn Wise are reading my novel The Doll, which may then need significant revision. Of course, I write poems when inspired by something at any time, and, though I have been slacking, I write this blog. Oh, yeah! I also have a job which requires me to create, distribute, collect, and evaluate final exams and papers for about 100 students. I will finish that job today.
About three weeks ago, I started another project that I promised to present to you—what?—two weeks ago, a short story that I plan to produce as a serial project. You get one little bit at a time. I have nearly five thousand words in the story, so I think I am ready to start presenting it to you. I do not know how much is too much or too little at a time, but I think I will keep each part between 300-500 words.
As a poet, I find my models in the classic poets such as John Keats, Samuel T. Coleridge, and some moderns such as W. B. Yeats and Robert Frost. My favorite novelists and short story writers are mostly all still alive and writing: Cormac McCarthy, Donald Ray Pollock, Rae Del Bianco, Daniel Woodrell, Larry Brown, who is dead but died recently, and William Gay. They may not all admit it, but they are a collection of grim realist writers, some say country or western noir. I like to read about characters who live on the edge, and I like to write about people who live real life. I do not believe that I have quite mastered the descriptive art that these gentlemen and lady have, but I do not skimp about telling things like I see them or have seen them or might see them. I write about real; I hope, and sometimes real is not pretty or pleasant. It just is. That leads me to something else.
I write about what I know, but I do not write people I know. I have observed and collected characteristics of my fellow humans all my life, and I combine the traits of many people into many different characters, but I do not put any people that I know in my stories. Please do not look around to see if you can find an uncle, cousin, or friend of mine who is Uncle Boog or Daddy in the story or even me as the narrative voice. A lot of things that I once did are in this story like catching chickens, hauling hay, and cutting firewood, but I write about these things because I know what it is to do these things. I am not giving specific instances. All of the characters and actions in this story are fictional. Any resemblances to real people are purely coincidental. If you think some characters are real people, I guess I have done a really good job, but they are not anyone you or I know in real life.
I do, however, use the real names of real places, the “Pour Off” for instance, but while my description of it may have hints of the real place, and it might be on a road that is Turkey Creek road, again, I am combining a lot of traits of a lot of places that I know to create this fictional place. If you tried to follow the path that my characters take on a map, you would end up nowhere close to the places that I name. The descriptions contain real details but are combinations of places you could never find because they only exist in my mind. They are fictional. Any resemblance to real places is purely coincidental.
Okay! If you have read this, you are ready. Today or maybe tomorrow, I post the first part of Uncle Boog and the Dogfight. I hope you read it and enjoy it and encourage others to visit the blog and read it as well.
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