Derrrrrrrrrr......

Listening to: MC5, Kick Out the Jams

Already the second day of February and I'm still working on my January short story.

It's been an interesting process, trying to finish up the story, not at all like my previous experience. Last year I wrote a story based loosely on an anecdote from my band days (picking a fight with racist skinheads and then soundly humiliating the lot of them) and it was wretched, no echo of my own voice, an exercise in excess, Joyce meets Faulkner meets William Burroughs meets Hunter Thompson meets post-modernist pretension. It took me three months to write that crap.

This story, however, has evolved much more organically, the narrative developing from the sheer joy of telling a story, the rhythm resonant of the throb of my heart.

Strictly speaking, I'm on track for holding to my New Year's resolution of writing a short story a month. Sure the thing is still in the roughest of drafts - just a step up from an outline - but it's complete as far as the story has been told and now awaits fine-tuning.

Um, so does the start of my February task. So posts have taken a backseat in priority, here.

I have my Democracy For America meeting tonight (I'm the county coordinator) and most likely won't post until tomorrow. Maybe I'll come up with a blog to post my short stories... OK, I'm riffing here. Thanks for everyone's patience (especially after the rant in my last post).