This was a nice surprise. I used to have a major fear of sending my stories out to magazines and podcasts, and then, when I discovered self-publishing, I never had to get over that particular fear because, now, I could just publish them myself. Hey, it works for Drac Von Stoller, and that guy has as much talent in his little finger as I have in my . . . wait, that guy has no talent at all.* That's the point I was trying to make, sorry.
Anyway, I've been self-publishing a bit (not nearly as much as I ought to, but I'm trying), getting over my fear of sharing my work, and here TWOTB is to remind me that it's really cool when somebody else does it. Hugh was the first place to run my story "Subtext," and Dave Robison's grand reading of my tale "Old Man River" is on there too. His podcast has been around a while, this is his (Star Trekky) seventy-ninth episode, and I really ought to ask him if he needs a promo or a silly voice for his show.
"The Pen Was Mightier" is a light and silly tale about a writer who obtains a magic pen that creates only inspired art. It's not hard to guess where I got the idea, but it's short, and it's cute, and it's available to listen to right here. Thanks.
Rish "You're givin' away Penis Mightiers?" Outfield
*Do you know about this guy? He's a writ--no, no, I gotta put it in quotes--he's a "writer" who consistently publishes his almost-stories which are usually one or two page present tense recaps of campfire tales and urban legends, but with absolutely no editing, pacing, grammar, or even a simple spell check. His output is prodigious, and when I first got into audiobook production, I discovered a slew of his projects in search of narrators, and was frankly, bowled over when I attempted to audition for one. No worries about pacing, character, depth, symbolism, or suspense, these stories hadn't passed the fourth grade checkpoint of Are there paragraphs? Did you capitalize words or punctualize sentences? Are they complete phrases or just jammed together strings of partially-digested writing? Is there an ending to your story? Does writing "The End" partway through count as an ending to your story? Does your title give away the ending of your story? Can people lick too? Are you sure you mean "Your going too regret it?" But hey, you have cover art, and that looks pretty good.
Anyway, I wouldn't be wasting my few remaining minutes before I have to go to work with this if it hadn't been for an interview I read with the guy. Turns out he's a middle-aged man rather than an eleven year old with internet access, and he shocked me--I mean absolutely bowled me over--by not caring that his stories are really, really badly written and could be fixed with a simple seven or eight minute edit on each one, but doesn't care about all of that stupid stuff. "A good story is a good story," he said to the interviewer, "and I don't think a person cares about how it's spelled or typed up if he's reading a good story." And you know, maybe he has a point there (I'm willing to bend a little bit on this one) . . . IF it were a good story he was talking about here. But his stuff is just awful, not even caring if it's in the same tense all the way through. Big Anklevich's kid fancies herself a writer, and having read a couple of her stories for school, I'd be much more comfortable planting that moniker on her than on Drac Von Stoller. She at least knows how to put a period on the end of a sentence.
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