The Myth of the Sacred Writing Space

            Someone messaged me on Facebook—one of those mass messages sent by a stranger to a bunch of other strangers—asking if I’d contribute to her blog about “Sacred Writing Spaces.” Well, I had to go be overcharged for a pre-peeled orange at Whole Foods and get my Chakras aligned (I’d had a blowout earlier on the highway and had to have one of them replaced) before I could answer. Maybe Mercury was in retrograde, but I wasn’t feeling it. I wrote her back and said I didn’t really think I had anything to say she’d want to hear, in the politest way possible, though I thanked her for asking. The truth is, after publishing a dozen books with a couple more on the way, I don’t have a Sacred Writing Space. I used to, back when I didn’t actually write or have a life. But I’m a single dad, working three jobs, living in a cramped apartment I can barely afford.  I write when I can, where I can, and with whatever time I can scrounge.

            The idea of a Sacred Writing Space reminds me of those people who drive three blocks to the gym to run on a treadmill, the kind of people who buy special pans to cook eggs. It stinks of bourgeois privilege and spiritual laziness. But wait, says you, how is a Sacred Writing Space spiritually lazy? It’s a spiritual space; it’s got the word “sacred” in it! Well I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but no, it’s not. In the same way that one doesn’t need to go to church to be religious, that church can actually get in the way of spirituality sometimes, one doesn’t need a sacred writing space to be a writer. The idea that it’s essential—she didn’t ask if I had one, she assumed it. All real writers must have one, right?—is damaging because it’s setting up a situation in which this space becomes a crutch. If I can’t get away from the world and focus on my Art, well, I can’t be a writer. It’s more of a status symbol than a tool.

            Now, I’m not saying the opposite is true, that a person who has an SWS isn’t a “real,” OG writer, though I may be implying that I can beat them at arm wrestling. But you know what? People who do, they’re doing fine in life. They’ve had some breaks. They don’t need to be coddled, so let’s set them aside. Maybe they worked hard for it, and that’s great. Go sit in it and enjoy. Have a scone. I’m talking about the implication that it’s necessary, that a person can’t write or do any kind of art as part of their normal, let’s be honest, working class, lives. I reject this idea, not just because of philosophical differences, but because I’ve had to. I don’t have time to sit for five hours while the morning light makes up its mind to flutter in through my hand-made curtains (ordered from Etsy) in my Writing Nook, as I sip coffee whose beans have passed through the digestive system of Venezuelan monkeys and been sifted out by workers paid a fair wage—though really, what would be a fair wage for that, one wonders? I write in the living room when my daughter has finally gone to sleep, while my own eyes droop, and I know I’m going to pay for it tomorrow. It means I don’t get to read as much as I’d like, go to movies, ever, or just relax. I write on my lunchbreak, a sandwich in one hand, typing with the other, ruining the keyboard, I’m sure, with the crumbs. I jot down ideas longhand in the parking lot while I wait for my shift to start and passersby look at me strangely. Sometimes I don't write because I don't have time. There’s an implied bias in the idea of an SWS, that I’m not a real writer because of this, that I’m somehow lesser. And I’m not just talking about me. I’m doing okay. I’m having a scone, as we speak. I’m talking about women throughout history who weren’t born rich, who were expected to dedicate their lives to others. The idea of an SWS might seem like a reaction to that—now, they have time and can focus on their own pursuits--but you know what? There are still plenty of women, and men, and non-gender identifying people, who haven’t achieved that kind of luxury. How many of them might be encouraged to steal some time to write if they only thought it was legitimate? I have known them. I have met them. I have loved them. I have been them, people who thought you have to go to college to be a writer, you have to have been born in a certain place, you have to have time, because those are the prevailing myths. They’re the ones I care about, and their stories, I think, are a hell of a lot more interesting than some time-travelling lycanthropy romance or Great American Novel written in a Sacred Writing Space by someone who didn’t have to fight for every second it took to write it.

          I could really go for a pre-peeled orange right now, though.

-CL Bledsoe   

Books in Progress

I was thinking I need a list somewhere of manuscripts I've completed or have almost completed, but that haven't been published. So feel free to skip this. Most of these titles are placeholders.

Novels
Completed:

A History of the Standard Oil Company On the Moon
A Quarrel of Feathers
Ship of Fools
The Devil and Ricky Dan
Cities On the Moon
Goodbye Mr. Lonesome
A Mischief of Rats
The Saviors (was forthcoming but the press folded)
Odysseus Among the Swine
Sheriff Comes to Zombietown (sequel)
Damaged Seeking Same

In Progress:

Untitled 4th Necro-Files book (50,000+ words)
Beelzebubba
Jubal's Daughter
Flying Dog

Partial Maybe Something Draft:

Not a Princess
Hood
Whitey
Untitled Rice Farming x2
New Madrid
Frankenstein story
Music version 1
Memphis serial story http://www.troubadour21.com/category/series/river-city-blues/
The Cypher

Story Collections
Completed:

Air Is Seen through Motion Not Form
Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down
How to Buy a House
Nobody's Darlings
Naming the Animals (out of print, could use expanding/reissue)

In Progress:

Solum Stories
Weird Arkansas Stories

Poetry Collections
Completed:

The King of Loneliness (forthcoming)
Driving Around, Looking in Other People's Windows (forthcoming?)
Arkansas
You Hated Us for Our Wings, So We Never Flew

In Progress:

The Cypress Trees (sequel to Riceland)
E. Poems
Collaborative Project
Untitled Persona Poems
War Poems
Prose Poems

Other
Waiting for the Miracle (essay collection)
10 (1-act plays)

Couple poems in The Potomac

http://thepotomacjournal.com/issue17/Poetry/bledsoe.html

The Night Was Moist

Someone approached me recently wanting to co-write a screenplay. I've done a bit of collaboration, so I was open to the idea. This wasn't someone I knew particularly well, and as we talked, I mentioned that I'd written a few scripts in the past but hadn't done anything with them. This seemed to astound this person. "They're just sitting on your hard drive?" He asked, as though I'd cured cancer but forgotten to tell anyone. 

My response was one I felt didn't even need to be said: basically, I've written a lot of stuff, and most of it I've never sent out or shown anyone. At this point, I've published eleven books and have two more forthcoming. After the conversation, I dug around and discovered around thirty pretty much complete manuscripts--poetry collections, short story collections, and mostly novels. I couldn't say how many unfinished ones I've got. I didn't count screenplays, but I've written maybe four or five complete ones. It's a relatively new pursuit for me. So what? I've been writing seriously for fifteen years. I would hope to have amassed a decent amount of material.

I was met with not just amazement but disdain. The guy acted like I was lazy and woefully disconnected from reality. "I would have those scripts in the mail," he said. "Are they any good?" Hard to say, but I was happy with a couple of them. "Send them out," he said. Didn't I realize that I could be signing a multimillion dollar production deal right now instead of wasting my life?

That's when I realized two things. One, I wasn't going to be working with this person. Not just because he clearly had a bad attitude, but because of reason two, which is: he's not a writer. Not really. Maybe he will be someday, maybe he's just starting out, whatever. But at the time of this conversation, this guy was not a writer. If he were, he would know that writing isn't about creating a finished project to sell, a screenplay to send out. If it were about that, well it would be a hell of a lot easier. Writing is a compulsion. I read updates on FB from writers saying things like, "I got to 40,000 words. I guess this might be a novel." I imagine a statement like that must be confounding to this person. What it means is that sometimes you write nearly two hundred pages (that's probably close to a couple months commitment) before you even know if you've written anything worth editing. Or, sometimes you write a whole novel, sometimes you write ten novels, and they're just not on the level of your other work. It doesn't mean they're bad. It can mean a lot of things. Maybe they're too personal. Maybe they're just not right. Maybe they're good, but this other manuscript is better, so you focus your energy on that one.  

I'm not saying that writing is a magical unicorn fart and we must all attune ourselves with the crystalline energies of its, like, inspiration, man, and not get bogged down in that whole money thing, ya dig? The hope is always that something really good and, hey, lucrative, emerges from the word pit. Of course. But you never really know until you...well, actually, you just never really know. I've heard writers say they regret publishing a particular novel, so even at that stage, you can still not be sure if what you've written is worthwhile, good, whatever it is we're actually striving for. 

And, to clarify again, I don't have thirty manuscripts and some screenplays (stageplays, a memoir, etc. etc.) sitting in limbo because I'm a perfectionist. That's not what I'm saying. I may well dig several of them out some day. But, to be honest, it's a hell of a process to undertake, not just revision, but sending a book out, waiting, being rejected, finally placing it, revising it ten more times, not really making enough money off it to have bothered, dealing with crappy reviews, if that happens (it's only happened to me once or twice, but that was enough), or the book just kind of being ignored, which is what happens to the vast, vast majority of books published. It's emotionally draining. To be honest, most of the books I've published survived this whole process because they either were really important to me, or, in the case of my genre novels, once I established a relationship with my publishers, it was a lot easier placing more books with them. But it was still a long and difficult process. 

Another thing to consider, not to go too deep into this: it takes me a couple months to write a draft of a book, more or less. Let's say it comes out pristine. I revise it, maybe take a couple weeks to do that because I'm in a hurry for some reason. I tend to revise as I go and mark possible trouble spots, so I can revise pretty quickly usually. But, to be really honest, I'd probably sit on the book for several months, maybe years, before I even look at it. And I'm still writing that whole time. So that's at least one more book. Then, I send it off. While it's in the mail, I keep writing. Let's say the press picks it up in three months. That's crazy-quick, but let's say it happened. Well, I actually wrote another book during that time. The press schedules the first book to come out in six months time, which is pretty quick. Two or three months go by, I've written another novel, and they send me edits. So, I revise, maybe take another couple weeks on that, send it back off, get edits back, this repeats a few times, etc. etc. So, by the time the book comes out, I've written three more books. These are just drafts, mind you. The book does okay, the press liked it a lot, and they want another. But they want something similar. So that means I write a whole new book and go through this process again. What happened to those three books, plus everything I write during the revision time for this new one? They're on my hard drive.   

What I'm saying is: Jesus, a writer fucking writes, just like Billy Crystal's character said in Throw Mama from the Train. If you don't, you're not a writer. Writing one book doesn't make you a writer. Sorry, but it doesn't. (And, hey, if you only ever write one book, you're probably not very good.) I cannot tell you the number of people I know from grad school or wherever who wrote a handful of stories or poems, maybe one complete manuscript, won some award, and never wrote anything again. Hey, guess what? Not writers. Not really. They figured that out--they were lucky enough to taste some success and realize that wasn't enough and quit. Writing isn't about awards or product. It's about process. Being a writer means you write when you can, without anyone holding your hand, without anyone caring in the slightest, and maybe some of it sees the light of day. Most probably won't. Or maybe you quit writing for six months and drink scotch and smoke cigars and then finally, finally put the razor down and get back to it only to write the best thing of your life and then never show it to anyone because you might be wrong. Or you might be right. So yeah, I have all kinds of crazy shit on my hard drive. I've got screenplays. I've got stuff in all kinds of different genres. I dabble. I practice, and I don't send every practice session out into the world. 

-CL Bledsoe  

The 50 States Project: CT, New Jersey, MI, ME

I haven't been sending work out for a good long while because I've been trying to pay my rent. But, hey, it's paid! For now... . So here are a few more states I've cracked in my quest to be published in all 50 states. Spoiler: it will probably be a while before I post another update in this series. Right now, I'm in the mid 20s with this, but I have to send more work out.

18. Connecticut. Connecticut has been a kind of white whale for me for some time. For whatever reason, I had no luck at all from any Connecticut journals for a very long time. To be honest, I quit trying for a while because it started to seem impossible I’ve yet to crack The Connecticut Review, but I also haven't sent them anything in years. The first CT journal kind enough to include me in their pages was a little one called The Broken Bridge Review, which is published out of the Pomfret School. They took a fairly emotional piece from my upcoming collection Driving Around, Looking In Other People’s Windows, which deals with medical issues and the dissolution and collapse of my marriage. And jokes! Clowns throwing pies! Okay, maybe not a lot of clowns. Recently, I managed to place a poem with the Connecticut River Review, published by the Connecticut Poetry Society. Let me reiterate that it took me more than 10 years to break through in Connecticut. I’m not really sure why. It’s very likely that most of what I was sending out early on was too Southern. The piece CRR took is a persona poem about slavery within the prison system in the south, though, which is pretty Southern. But it’s the kind of poem just about anyone would take—except for a journal more focused on experimental writing.

19. New Jersey. Probably the most well-known journal in New Jersey is Story Quarterly, which I've never been in, though I used to buy and read it regularly as an undergrad. I don't know that I've ever sent them anything, actually. If I did, it was before I knew how to write, so that doesn't count. SQ is a beast, a massive David Foster Wallace-sized tome that, I believe, is actually published annually, despite the name. They publish the top names, and will accept longer pieces. Paterson Literary Review is another New Jersey journal I've heard of but don't actually know anything about, other than they only accept mailed submissions. Edison Literary Review showed me some love. They took a dirge I wrote a few years ago about the diminutive actor David Rappaport. It’s part of a kind of series I’ve been working on for several years about the deaths (mostly suicides) of various artists. Also, I really like Time Bandits, which he was in. Again, I think it’s a poem a lot of journals would take because it's a little unusual in subject matter while remaining easily accessible. It deals with some big issues in slightly different ways.

20. Michigan. Probably the most well-known journal in Michigan is the Michigan Quarterly Review, which I don’t believe I’ve ever assayed or even read. I've come across poems in collections that originally appeared there, and I often enjoy those poems, but I've never read an issue. I did place a surreal little poem in Temenos, a journal out of Central Michigan University. I believe I discovered this journal after finding a friend’s work within its pages. This is something I frequently do--if I see that a friend has published in a particular journal, I usually will send them something. When I was just starting out, this was kind of a competitive thing. I would seek out places friends and classmates were published. Nowadays, it just seems like these places might be a good fit. Another Michigan journal I’ve had luck with is Pank, which I’ve been fortunate enough to appear in several times, as a poet, fiction writer, and as an interviewee. Riceland was also reviewed very favorably in an issue. I don’t have a particular connection with them—it’s a damned fine journal, so I’ve sent a lot of submissions to them and gotten lucky a few times. When I first started sending work there, I don't think anybody had heard of them, but now, they've become kind of a big deal. I don't know if they'd publish me as readily if I sent them something now.

21. Maine. For me, the journal I admire the most out of Maine is probably Beloit Poetry Journal. BPJ was one of the first journals I started reading as an undergrad, and though I sent them some submissions years ago, I never sent them anything they'd probably even have considered publishing. My bad, BPJ. Sorry for wasting both our times. Needless to say, I haven't been in BPJ, and I haven't sent them anything in years and years. I should really try again. I did send something to Off the Coast, a quirky little poem from my forthcoming collection Driving Around, Looking in Other People's Windows. The poem is about my marriage woes at the time. Crosscut, out of Husson College, took a couple of emotionally charged poems from Riceland and Driving Around, both about my mother's long illness and eventual death, my relationship with her, and the process of getting tested to see if I had Huntington's Disease, as she did. So, you know, more clowns with pies.

That's it for now!
-CL Bledsoe

Resolutions

I like to post a list of New Year's Resolutions, not that I think anyone cares, or should care, but because I'd probably forget some of them anyway. So this won't be that interesting to read. I've been through a lot fo changes in the last couples years. I think I'm on a pretty good track right now. I've got a new job that pays well. I'm getting to a good place, spiritually. I have a new microwave.

Goals:
I. Myself
A. Physical
1. Lose weight
a. Daily Exercise
b. Eat better
c. Daily and weekly goals
2. Focus on problem areas like diaphragm for breathing, back
B. Mental
1. Depression
a. Go back on Meds? I don't think they really worked.
b. Counesling? I don't think that really worked either.
c. Will exercise do the trick?
2. Focus on activities that help with mental processes like puzzles, reading, etc., rather than watching movies all the time.
3. Read 100 books

II. Ellie
A. Fun activities
1. Create a mermaid penpal for her & send letters with illustrations
2. Reading
B. Be more physical

III. Financial
A. Pay off credit card (hope to do this by mid-year)
B. Student loan
1. Pay off with supplemental income
C. College fund for Ellie

IV. Writing
A. Agent
1. Pick a book to revise
a. I'm thinking either COtM or DSS.
b. Query letter (as in, write one)
c. Make a list of agents
B. Self-publish some things
1. Flash collection-finalize cover
2. House stories
3. AR stories, other stories
4. Poems?
5. Bunny book
a. Editor
C. Write at least 6 books
1. War poems
2. Ellie poems
3. Jubal's Daughter
4. Necro-Files
5. Persona poems
6. Princess (Nobody's Princess?)
7. Hood

V. Lifestyle
A. Move? Have to find a place...
B. Car
1. Serviced
2. New tires
C. Evenings
1. Readings, concerts, pottery class, art class, writing group?

The 50 States Project: CA, MO, IL, VA, CO

This is the continuing saga of my attempt to place my writing in at least one journal in every state, in no particular order.

13. California. California is a big state with a ton of journals. I always thought I’d have a hard time getting published in California for the same reasons I thought I’d have a hard time getting published in New York: because California seemed like a different world to a small-town boy from Arkansas. My first publication in California was in an anthology called Roque Dalton Redux, by Cedar Hill Press, which was an anthology on the poet Roque Dalton. This gave me the confidence to treat California journals just like anywhere else. Next, I placed a poem in The Scrambler a cool journal out of Sacramento with a press attached. They took a very playful, post-experimental poem. Big Bridge was a nice coup. I contributed to their War Papers series with a pretty dark confessional poem.
14. Missouri. One of the first publications I ever had, and we’re talking a decade ago, at least, was in 2River View which is an online and print journal. They took a couple playful, funny poems that ended up in my first book, Anthem. 2River is published in chapbook form, which was my first experience with that kind of format. I continued sending them work, by the way, and they never took anything else by me. Natural Bridge is a print journal out of the University of Missouri, St. Louis. They took an early short story of mine called “The Cow Graveyard,” which was about a couple boys stealing a rifle and going off to shoot it, and then discovering a cow in distress. Very rural, very Southern. A now defunct journal, Margie, provided me an early ego boost. I had a couple poems published alongside some of the biggest names out there. The editor had a habit of calling poets to tell them they’d been accepted. I was still in grad. school, at the time, and really felt over the moon about all this. Probably the best known journal in the state is The Missouri Review, which hasn’t published me, nor has Boulevard, New Letter, River Styx, nor Pleiades, all very well-established journals. To be honest, I assumed they were all out of my reach when I was younger. Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi is another fine Missouri journal, out of Southeast Missouri State University, which took an essay on my family’s fish farming business, and how it was affected by my father and uncles aging. Gingko Tree Review, out of Drury University, is another fine journal which took a post-experimental quirky little poem of mine. Missouri really has a plethora of great journals.
15. Illinois. My first Illinois pub. was in Euphony out of the University of Chicago. They took a poem later to appear in my first collection, a fairly surreal piece. Arsenic Lobster was, for me, a real coup because I tried for years to get in to this hip, independent journal. They took a funny, surreal little poem and then collected it in their annual print issue. Sou’wester is an Illinois journal I haven’t been able to crack, though I spent a while really trying a few years ago.
16. Virginia. The first journal I cracked in Virginia was The Blue Collar Review a print journal of progressive, working class literature. I actually won their Working People’s Poetry Contest with the title poem to my first poetry collection. As you can imagine, Blue Collar likes poems about work with progressive themes. They tend to favor narrative with no frills or tricks. Sow’s Ear Poetry Review is a solid print journal that took a couple tries to break into. They took a narrative, rural-themed poem. The William and Mary Review from William and Mary College, was a recent pub. I cracked with a fairly straightforward confessional love poem. Gargoyle was a different story; I was intimidated by this long-running, independent journal until I did a reading with the editor, along with a couple other editors. I sent some post-experimental poems and had a few accepted. The Hollins Critic was a tough one. I actually worked on staff for two years, and placed several reviews there, along with other material, but no poetry. It took a couple years of rejections to place a poem with them—a nature themed poem about stinkbugs, which I’m sure stood out because of its unusual subject matter.
17. Colorado. I’ll go ahead and say I haven’t cracked Colorado Review, but having a poem published in Copper Nickel, out of the University of Colorado, Denver, was one of my proudest accomplishments. At the time, it was edited by the late, great poet Jake Adam York. He was the second editor to call me about my submission, and his warm personality and friendliness meant a lot to me. He accepted an old punk-rock themed poem from me that later appeared in Anthem. He had also edited Story South and gave me one of the first poetry acceptances I ever had. Even though I only knew him as an editor, his kindness touched me and meant so much, especially when I was just starting out.

-CL Bledsoe

The 50 States Project: DE, KS, NY

10. For the next installment of my 50 States Project, I’ll begin with Delaware. A little background: I started this project a decade ago and then faltered and started again. Back then, I had an acceptance from a little Delaware journal called Mobius, which has since been sold and moved to New York. Mobius was one of my first publications. They took a poem called “Shoes” which later appeared in my first collection, Anthem. The poem was a meditation on fatherhood (written before I was actually a father). I remember that the editor included comments essentially trashing the rest of my submission, which was probably warranted since the other poems were entirely forgettable and juvenile. I can’t really speak to their editorial process now, but I was really pleased that they took the time to sift through my crappy submission and find the one pearl. Recently, I placed some poems in Delaware’s Broadkill Review. Broadkill is a pdf-only journal. They’re connected to a press that publishes some really good stuff, including a collection of Richard Peabody’s work (Peabody is the editor for Gargoyle, among other things). I sent Broadkill some fairly straightforward poems, mostly confessional, dealing with everything from Edgar Allen Poe to spousal abuse. Broadkill is a solid journal focused on publishing good writing, regardless of “name” or affiliation.
11. Kansas: I’ll just go ahead and say I haven’t been in New Letters, which is probably the most well-known journal in Kansas. I have been in Flint Hills Review, though, which is out of Emporia State University. You’ll probably see me refer to Flint Hills several times throughout this series in order to establish a basis of comparison for no-nonsense journals, and that’s because Flint Hills is one of those rarely recognized journals that steadily publishes great writing without a lot of bells and whistles: the little journal that could. It’s an annual, and accepts only print subs, which is something I’ve grown to like less and less. They accepted a poem of mine from my collection Riceland, which are narrative poems about my childhood growing up on a rice farm in Eastern Arkansas. They tend to publish narrative and even the odd formal poems with often rural themes, nature themes, and generally poems in which things happen. They publish similarly themed stories and nonfiction. The criterion is good, affecting work. They like risks, but they really like writing that’s going to stay with the reader after s/he puts it down. I was very proud to have appeared in Flint Hills because of the quality of work in the issue, which, coming early in my publishing career, gave me quite a boost.
At the other end of the spectrum--in terms of style--is Johnny America, out of Lawrence, Kansas. If I were to describe Johnny America in one word, it would be whimsical. The journal claims to be named after a rabbit that lives on the moon, which is totally logical. They publish a bunch of really funny stuff, and they do it with style. They took several of my weirder stories, stuff I might send to Defenestration or Barrelhouse. The journal updates online and puts out about two print issues a year. One I appeared in was published as a series of handmade chapbooks that looked pretty cool. In a similar sense, these sorts of journals are what indie publishing is all about. They’re a little out there, they don’t take themselves too seriously (though they do maintain standards of good work), and they make publishing fun. And that’s important. Journals like Artichoke Haircut and Shattered Wig, in Baltimore, the great Defenestration online or Barrelhouse, and, of course, Johnny America, add the spice of humor and weirdness to the stew of publishing, and keep us from imploding from our self-important pretentiousness. Humor gets a bad rap.
12. New York. For a long time, I was wary of New York. It sounds silly, but I assumed a country boy from Arkansas could never get published in the Big City. I assumed that New York Writers were writing things I could never ken, all dressed in black, smoking cigarettes at little tables outside of trendy bistros with crappy food you weren’t supposed to actually eat. My first publication from a New York journal was, oddly enough, a formal poem I wrote in high school in a journal called The Comstock Review. Color me surprised. It was in Syracuse, though, so that didn’t really count, right? It was a nice little journal that really helped me to understand that there are a ton of journals out there with all sorts of different styles. My next foray into New York came with an acceptance from Barrow Street. This one, frankly, surprised me; this was exactly the kind of journal I thought I could never get into because I didn’t know the secret handshake, and yet they took a funny, weird little poem of mine, sort of a James Tate meets John Ashbury piece that one would think they’d like, but one never knows. Barrow Street is a hip journal that publishes more experimental work, and lots of names. Go figure. After that, I had a couple poems accepted by New York Quarterly. I was, similarly, surprised that I got into this one. They took a couple fairly formally experimental poems (one caveat: they have since sat on the poems for more than a year without publishing them). I went on to write several book reviews for them as well.
I’d like to touch on a New York journal that I really liked which is on hiatus: Caper, from Patasola Press. The thing that impressed me most about Caper, and the press in general, was its eclectic tastes. It’s a solid journal with no real pretentions, which can be hard to accomplish. It publishes good writing from across the spectrum of styles, schools, and approaches. Just really good stuff. I hope it’s able to come back, though if it doesn’t, at least it had a good run.
-CL Bledsoe

The 50 States Project: TX, MD, MA, PA

6. Texas: Texas has been going through a kind of renaissance of arts and literature in recent years. I could list a dozen excellent writers out of Texas and just about that many excellent literary journals. One of the first Texas journals I had work appear in was Concho River Review. CRR is over 25 years old and associated with Angelo State University. I sent them some a handful of narrative, rural farming themed poems, one of which they published. I think of CRR as being similar to Flint Hills, out of Kansas, or Westview, out of Oklahoma: a solid journal that feels a little old-fashioned and tends not to publish a lot of “name” writers, but one that will never disappoint. Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review is based in Austin and associated with the city, funding-wise, but not UT Austin as far as I can tell. It took a couple tries before Borderlands took something of mine. Again, I sent them rural, farming-themed poems, basically using this as a backdrop to play out the drama within the poem, which was family-related. I would say Borderlands is a somewhat selective journal. These are amongst the strongest poems I’ve ever written and appeared in collection Riceland. Texas Poetry Journal took a formal poem of mine about farming. Front Porch is the online journal of Texas State University’s MFA program. It’s fairly new. I placed a rural, farming-themed story with them, a humorous story though it borders on being about child abuse. FP also nominated me for a Pushcart, so I’m partial to them. They have a soft spot for Southern, especially Texas-related work. FP reminds me of a young Story South. Pebble Lake Review was another excellent journal which has recently joined the Big Library in the Sky. Among the many other fine Texas journals I haven’t attempted yet are American Short Fiction, American Letters and Commentary, Gulf Coast, and Bat City Review.

7. Maryland: As I’ve discussed elsewhere, when I moved to Maryland, I began sending work to local journals to try to get involved in the local community. One of the first that I attempted was Potomac Review. PR is based at Montgomery College. I placed with them a couple very strong narrative poems dealing with the effects of a serious medical situation on my relationship with my ex-wife, and also communication issues, but with humor. So there was definitely a lot at stake. Artichoke Haircut was an awesome independent journal run by a group of active literary Baltimoreans. This was the journal I had the most success with, in terms of reading opportunities. They announced a reading for an issue release. I asked if I could join, and I’ve been back several times since. AH publishes funny, experimental, short work, similar to a working-man’s Jubilat or a Good Foot but with much more of a sense of humor, as one could imagine from the name of the thing. Really sad to see them go. Of course, one of my favorite MD journals is JMWW. JMWW is an independent journal based in Baltimore which publishes some of the best writing out there. The way I got into JMWW was a little unusual. I did a reading with the editor. She had a book that needed a reviewer, so I volunteered. After they ran my review, I took that relationship to the next level and placed a handful of poems with them. These were fairly straightforward confessional poems about my past as a musician, so they appealed to a youngish artistic audience.

8. Massachusetts: Up front, I’ll say there are several very well-known journals in MA which haven’t published me. A few have, though. One of my favorite MA journals is the independent journal Naugatuck River Review. NRR publishes narrative poetry. I sent them a handful and they took a page-long poem with a pretty rough-and-tumble storyline (with bodily fluids, drug use, etc.), the kind of poem most journals would ban me for. Ballard Street Poetry Journal is a shortish independent journal. They took a narrative poem about taking my daughter to visit a farm immediately after a cow committed suicide, unbeknownst to us, and the effect that had on two girls that worked there. They also took an homage to Woody Guthrie. Both of these poems have fairly rural themes but could also be interpreted as fairly political. Again, I’d compare BSPJ to Borderlands or a Flint Hills. On the flipside, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, is an interesting little Western Massachusetts journal, much more like Artichoke Haircut. They took a fairly odd prose poem of mine. Boston Literary Magazine is an online, independent literary journal. They took a love poem of mine. Probably my favorite journal out of Massachusetts is Fried Chicken and Coffee an online, independent journal run by the former editor of Night Train, which was one of my bucket-list journals. When it closed, I thought I’d missed that opportunity, until FCC opened. What I like about FCC is that it publishes down and dirty stories and poems about Appalachian life, sort of a rural-themed Thieves Jargon. I sent them a series of stories about a couple of poor-as-dirt, neglected kids who survived by their wits in a hostile world of drug dealers and hard people. Diner is a journal with a food connection that published a poem from my first poetry collection.

9. Pennsylvania: One of the first journals that published me, half a decade ago (in one of their first issues) was the independent Pittsburg journal Caketrain. Caketrain took a surreal prose poem. Caketrain is an innovative journal and press that puts out some cutting edge writing, so it’s quite different from most of the journals I’ve discussed so far. It’s probably closest, again, to Jubilat. Schuylkill Valley Review is an excellent journal with a regional affiliation. I was actually solicited to write an essay for them on Edgar Allen Poe (along with a poem from my first collection). Coal Hill Review is the online wing of Autumn House Press. I’ve had a somewhat unorthodox relationship with them. Often, I’ll target journals that are part of a press as a way to build a relationship with that press. I sent Coal Hill a couple book reviews, and they liked them enough to ask me to do a review column. I have gotten some great books to read out of it. Gettysburg is a very good PA journal that I haven’t breached.

-CL Bledsoe

Found Poem from Doritt Carroll's collection Glttl Stp

This is an erasure from Doritt Carroll's collection, Glttl Stp, from Brickhouse Books.

If there were two birds singing in two trees,
it would be the moment when they both paused--
not to take in air--but because it was the right
place in both their songs to pause.

And you, glass that you were, looked no different empty
than you had, full, as the sun looks down
with its one eye, lizard and blinkless. Everybody dies
the same, boning up like skeletons, stinking
like toilets. Morning comes fast. We're planted

like bulbs. You can't uneat the apple. But there are days
my heart is truly riven with the urge to take a stick
and get it given. I don't understand. I want to know.
We don't need the real thing sometimes. We just need
to think we've seen it.

The 50 States Project: OR, WI

If you’ve been reading this blog series, you may remember that I set out to have work published in literary journals in every state. Scroll down to the previous installment to read my caveat about how I select journals to attempt.
4. This time, I attempted a nice mix of states, starting with Oregon. This might seem a little left-field, but the primary printed journal I targeted in Oregon was Clackamas Literary Review. CLR was one of the first journals I fell in love with when I was beginning to send work out. This is totally random; for some reason, a bookstore near my undergrad. alma mater carried it, so I started reading it and was really impressed. It was the fiction, really. CLR publishes solid fiction that might play around with structural experimentation or unusual narrators, but mostly just tells engaging stories. The poetry ranges from narrative to confessional with few examples of the pop-culture referencing that most lit journals seem to focus on nowadays. The stories and poems in CLR tend to have something at stake. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a story/poem in CLR involving a 20-something hanging out at a bar, complaining about how tough he’s got it. If you were to ask a non-writer What is your idea of good fiction/poetry? Any given issue of CLR would probably have several examples.
Something that surprised me was that CLR is published out of a community college in Oregon City.

This is one of the oldest pubs of mine I’ll reference in this column, but it was a real score for me. Early on, I sent a few not-very-good stories (which were the best I had at the time, as an undergrad.) and the way I finally broke into CLR was with some narrative poetry about a period of my life when I dealt with some severe health issues. What made these poems work is that I tended to focus on other people as much as myself (it wasn’t of the ‘poor me’ variety, but rather ‘me’ as a situation which afforded me the opportunity to focus on someone else.)
For those crying foul, I’ll admit I’ve never even attempted The Portland Review. This isn’t because I’m intimidated by their pedigree and austerity (though, of course, I am) but because they honestly never came onto my radar.

Another Oregon journal, this one online, is Oregon Literary Review. The way I got into this journal was fairly unorthodox. OLR publishes drama as well as poetry and fiction, so I placed a couple ten-minute plays with them. (Backstory: I spent an aborted year studying playwriting at the U of AR MFA Playwrights program. So I had a handful of short plays gathering dust and have written a few since.) These were somewhat surreal, humorous plays.

One thing that became really apparent to me with OLR is that many of these journals, especially older ones and university-related ones are run more or less by one person, exceptions would be university journals run by students. These aforementioned folks tend to have pretty specific, hard-won ideas of what good writing is they’ve developed over years of teaching and editing. They’ve burned through all the posturing and cliques and gotten to the heart of why they do this; they just love writing. If you’re sending them polished work with something at stake, they tend to respond well.

5. Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Review claims to be the oldest journal in Wisconsin. Like most older journals (“older” meaning around fifty years) they tend to publish strong narrative fiction, strong confessional poetry with the occasional narrative poem: work that doesn’t take too many risks structurally or subject-wise. (I’m not implying that risk is bad; risk is good. But the old-fashioned viewpoint is that risk needs to be earned to succeed. I think these older journals tend to feel this way, also.)
I broke in TWR almost by accident; I sent them some narrative poems, again, dealing with a difficult time in my life when I was dealing with medical issues, my childhood and relationship with my father, and basically mortality. Heavy stuff. These poems I’ve referenced are in my new collection Riceland.

Another journal in Wisconsin I really like is Verse Wisconsin. VW is the new incarnation of Free Verse, a well-known journal which first published me several years ago. I was solicited for a special issue. VW also tends to have special themed issues, which is how I’ve managed to place work with them a couple more times. Themed issues are a great way to “back into” a journal, especially a very competitive one. The drawback is one tends not to have work that fits the theme lying around. I’ve been lucky a couple times and have had work at hand. Writing a piece specifically for a themed issue can be tricky because there might not be time, but if it works, do it.

-CL Bledsoe

The 50 States Project: AR, OK, WY

I was doing a column a while back for an online journal. The column sort of fizzled--not to point fingers, but they wouldn't be pointing at me--so I thought I'd revive it here. This is the original post in the series:

When I first started sending work out to journals, I soon became overwhelmed with the sheer number of journals out there. There are tons! Billions! Brazilians! And this was over a decade ago, also, when there weren’t new online journals popping up every fifteen minutes. One way I devised to help me wade through them was to create an arbitrary project: I decided I would try to get published in at least one journal in every state. It’s harder than it sounds: some states (Montana, the Dakotas, etc.) have few journals, and those are often themed or heavily biased in a certain direction. Other states, of course, have tons. Of course, the point wasn’t just to be published–-it was to be published well, to be published in good journals (regardless of their reputation). So I thought I would revive this project and track my success. And failure. So let’s walk through the process, in no particular order. Also, as I’ve pursued this, I’ve placed work in a handful of really good journals that aren’t around anymore, so I’m excising them from the list. I’m also skipping glossies or journals that are pretty much impossible (TNY, Paris Review, etc.) because there’s nothing really for me to share about them other than I sent them some work and they form-letter-rejected it. Also, this isn’t an exhaustive study of every journal in every state: it’s totally biased towards ones I like. So there.
1. Arkansas: Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies. This is a quarterly, print, university (Arkansas State University) journal run by faculty and with little web presence, though they do take email submissions. If you remember your history, you’ll recall that the Arkansas Review used to be the Kansas Quarterly, which published everybody and their famous brother.
I’m from Arkansas, and a buddy of mine was actually on the staff of the AR for a while, but that didn’t mean they’d publish me. I sent them a couple memoir pieces, through my friend, but they passed. I sent them fiction, poetry, etc., and they passed. It took me years to establish a decent relationship. More on that in a moment.
Let me deal with some possible preconceptions: AR is a good journal, by that I mean they don’t publish crap. A story about Ol’ Jimmy, the blues man who played a mean mouth-harp since his woman left him down in Memph-o probably isn’t going to make the cut. Imagine how many stories/poems/etc. like that they’ve seen, and then try something different. They publish traditional narrative fiction and narrative or confessional poetry, but AR has a very specific focus: the Mississippi River Delta. The work they publish relates to place (i.e. the Delta), significant people from the region, cultural elements, etc. What does that mean, exactly? The Mississippi River Delta is one the most impoverished places in the country. Pick a bad quality (drugs, poor education, suicide, etc.) and the Delta is at the top of the list for it. But it’s also the birthplace of many artists, musicians, writers, etc. The editors are very aware of the socio-economic, racial, and historical realities of the Delta. They publish poetry, fiction, interviews, reviews, etc. but they really like scholarly essays when they can get them. This might be a good “in” to keep in mind.
So getting back to my many rejections, remember the buddy I had on staff? He took over as the reviews editor and offered me a book no one else would take. I took it. It was a tough review, but I used that experience to build a relationship with the editor. I did another review for them, and after that, I sent along some poetry dealing with my experiences growing up on a rice farm in eastern Arkansas. They took them. Since then, I’ve had a handful of poems published in the AR and several reviews, though they’ve rejected me plenty of times also. They’ve even reviewed me. I can’t stress how important it was that I build that relationship and “get on their radar.” That’s been a very effective ice-breaker for me with several journals. Reviews, interviews, and nonfiction in general are great ways to do this. There are a Brazilion books published every year and hardly anybody reviews them.
There are a handful of other journals in the state. Oxford American is there, now, but I consider that a glossy which I’m not covering in this project. (OA really likes reportage, though, and unrecognized Southern art – music and film, especially, but also food. But mostly, they like you to already be famous.)(Of course, there’s a lot of weirdness around OA right now.)
Another standout journal in Arkansas is Foliate Oak. It’s not on the level of selectivity of AR, but it’s a fine journal that’s been around for at least five years. It’s an online journal which puts out a best-of print issue, annually. It’s also a university journal (University of Arkansas at Monticello) but is run by students. The first thing that drew me to FO was a “writers we like” list that included Kathy Acker. Okay, says I; let’s do this. (I read a couple issues online to get a feel for their aesthetic.) But this is misleading because FO tends to publish traditional narrative fiction and fairly straight-forward narrative or confessional poetry. They’ve got good taste, though. It’s a solid journal.
* * *
2. Oklahoma: Nimrod is a print university journal (University of Tulsa) that holds a lot of contests. Of their two yearly issues, one is a contest issue, and the other is themed. Either of these can be another great “in.” I discovered Nimrod while at the University of Arkansas just by reading issues on the newsstand, locally. The way I got into Nimrod was through a special issue on the theme of family. I sent them thematically similar work to the poems I sent to the AR. On a side note, it took them a year to publish the poems, and they published one they’d actually rejected, which I’d placed elsewhere in the meantime. They also only take hard-copy subs, which is a pain. But for all its quirks, Nimrod is a standout publication that consistently publishes solid work.
Another, probably better-known journal in OK is The Cimarron Review. This is a top-notch journal that has published who’s-who of American literature. They’re a university journal at Oklahoma State University, staffed by faculty. They also tend towards fairly straightforward fare. I discovered CR, likewise, while I was at the U of Arkansas and read issues on the newsstand. I placed a memoir piece in CR about my late-teens/early 20s experiences working at a grocery store run and staffed, in part, by members of the KKK. It was culturally relevant, provocative, and didn’t cast me in the most positive light, so it took some risks. I have to say, the pieces I’ve mentioned that I placed in the previous journals probably wouldn’t have made it into CR because they were a little too regional.
* * *
3. Wyoming: Owen Wister Review. The OWR is a 30+ year old print university journal out of the University of Wyoming, run by students. Owen Wister was the author of The Virginian, a western, but they don’t focus exclusively on western-themed work. Again, imagine how many stereotypical western stories/poems they must get and how bored they must be of them. And lest we get too uppity about westerns, let’s remember that Cormac McCarthy started his career writing westerns. (OWR has published McCarthy, btw.) I was having a hard time placing my more traditional fiction, so I found OWR. I was impressed with the samples I read online: lots of nature imagery and character-focused short fiction, and just solid writing. I placed a story with them set on a farm about a neglected bruiser-type teenager and his relationship with an alcoholic farmer. I don’t have a ton of stories like this, but I think OWR would be interested in less regional work. A few of the fiction pieces I’ve read have been somewhat formally inventive, though nothing too groundbreaking.

-CL Bledsoe

Having Fun with Writing

This is maybe going to come off heretical in a couple places, but I want to say something about finding joy in the process of writing. There's a great book on writing fiction which you should, of course, not even bother thinking about reading called Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. Where she differs from many other writing self-help gurus is the idea of focusing on the small moments, one at a time. Don’t think about the big picture so much while you’re writing—you will obsess over those things in the shower or as you’re lying in bed trying to go back to sleep a half-hour before your alarm goes off. When you’re writing, be in the moment. I will go a step further and say not only should you focus on the small picture, but focus, above all, on having fun.

Yeah, I know. It’s a hard sell. And your MFA buddies are totally going to make fun of you for not being miserable (like all true are-testes), but that’s okay. It will be our secret until you actually manage to make a career as a writer and they don’t. So fuck them. Here are the basics to get out of the way: I set a 1000 word quota--I do this with poetry (a poem a day) as well--every day. (Lamott says 500. Stephen King says either 1000 or 2000, I forget. I know a writer who does 250 or 300. Some people do chapter quotas. It doesn't matter. The point isn't writing a million words a day; it's writing a little regularly, keeping in the habit, etc. etc.) The reason I do 1000 is mostly arbitrary (I'm not good with math), but I can get a good scene and a little more out in 1000 words, usually. So, for me, a shape emerges. There you go. There’s your regimen. That’s all you need. You’re like a freaking athlete training for the Olympics, if the Olympics consisted of never making any real money at the thing you work your ass off to do. Hmm. Sorry. Maybe you can get an endorsement deal for pizza and Mountain Dew? Anyway, now to the good stuff.

The most important thing about this is finding some element of the story I really enjoy writing--that discovery is what keeps me going--every time I write. I usually have some starting place in mind, an important detail or scenario that I know will probably lead me somewhere. I give the car a push down the hill and keep my eyes open for something fun. Really, this is my goal when writing—not to impress anyone, not to fit a market, hell, not to even be good, but to find something fun. Something interesting. Because all of that other stuff is happening, anyway. (Granted, I’ve been writing novels for a while, now, so I’m kind of on autopilot at times, in terms of structure.) Maybe that fun thing means a gag, which is great, but how often do we find good gags? Maybe it means I spend a hundred words on a really nice description of…whatever. A pleasing turn of phrase. A surprising plot development. Maybe it’s 50 words, 25 words, 10 words of dialogue where I just nail this character’s accent, attitude, background, whatever. And it’s so good and so real that Goddamn. Goddamn.

Okay. Great. Hell, maybe it’s just some detail that makes me smile (like naming all the murder victims after people in my workshop). Just find that fun thing. Nothing else really matters that much. You will take that fun thing with you the rest of the day. That’s why you’ll come back to the keyboard tomorrow, and the day after, and…well, it’s the weekend after that, but totally, again on Monday…

Once I've found that fun thing, I pretty much stop, if I’ve hit my quota. It probably took me a while to set that thing up—getting the characters into the conflict that led to the great dialogue, getting them to the location where I was able to give the great description, whatever. If I haven’t hit my quota—every so often, the best thing I write is in the first 200 words—then I try to get the hell out of that situation and into something completely different so I can set up the next fun thing. Of course, it depends on the scene, etc. But, usually, it takes me a while to get going, so I’m pretty much at my quota.

Of course, one would hope that everything one writes is brilliant. Good luck with that. I will say, for me, once I get the car pointed towards that fun thing—and much of this is instinctual, sure—the writing is much, much better, and I’m really just riding out the clock until I hit my grand. And when I’m not finding it, the writing is shit. So, I change gears, move to a different section, focus on a different element of the story, whatever.

Also, it should go without saying that I’m not talking about filler. I’m not suggesting just to wax poetic about bearded trees and clouds. I’m saying move forward with your story but always be on the lookout for opportunities to explore joy. Yes, these are sometimes detours, but they are also often the best parts of the story. Maybe they take the story in a new direction. Of course, plot can be fun, right? That can absolutely be your fun thing; though, for me, it’s usually more character-driven. If you're having fun, the reader will have fun. But if you are slogging through mud, so will the reader. But hey, they’ll just quit reading.

I also don't spend all fucking day on this. I'm not going to bash my head into the wall every time I write because Jesus Christ why the fuck would you do that? I would never write again! That’s missing the whole point! But people do... This is the same thinking that makes people quit diets or exercise—they make the thing onerous and then wonder why it sucks so bad. Don’t do that. Focus, instead, on joy, on having fun. Yes, it's work, but it's work you theoretically enjoy--that it where the joy comes from. I usually allocate an hour, even a half-hour if I’m busy, but I've been writing novels for years, so don't cripple yourself with ridiculous expectations. Really, try to get to one fun thing and then quit for the day. That way, you've got that accomplishment to feel good about. Hey, I wrote a really nice description of some character’s beard, and some other stuff. Boom. Done. Go have a drink. Wait for that plane ticket to Stockholm.

Arkansas Poems

My last poetry collection, Riceland, took more than a decade to write. It was a focused, cohesive collection, I like to think, and after it was published, I started thinking about all the stories and ideas from my childhood and hometown I hadn't included for various reasons. I'd already written a kind of sequel to Riceland called Driving Around, Looking in Other People's Windows, which is coming out later this year. It focuses on my young adult life, marriage, the birth of my daughter, and the subsequent breakup of that marriage. But it doesn't focus on my hometown really at all. Those stories kept nagging me, so about a year ago, I started writing some of them. I was going through one of the darkest periods in my life, so it was good to look back, but I think the artistry of those early drafts suffered because of all the distractions. But slowly, I've been revising and sending them out. And I'm going to collect a few of the published ones here. Bear in mind that these are just the poems that have been published or accepted for publication. This is 15 out of 75 or 80 poems, and these aren't necessarily the best, though they are some of the more universal ones.

"After He Sobered Up" and "Cows" appeared in Gravel.

Atticus Review featured me back in December along with a couple poems from the manuscript. There's a lovely introduction along with "How to Recycle a Farm Truck," "Tea," and "Etiquette." Another poem, "Hair," which is from Driving Around, appears in this issue.

"Bread Crumbs" should've been in Riceland but didn't make the cut. It was originally in Arkansas Literary Forum. I'm pasting the revised version:

Bread Crumbs
by CL Bledsoe

My brother’s soul was all vermilion and fried chicken, grease
stains sweated through his aura and dribbled behind him
like the path of a slug. I tried to walk in his footsteps, slipped
and slid behind him, sometimes to the ground, sometimes right
into his back. He would turn, grab my arm and lift me up
like so much laundry in the air. Up there I could see his bald patch, eggs
in the bird’s nest in the ceiling of our porch who thanked their mothers
they were born sparrow, gnawed bones spread over miles
like the corpses of winds. He would set me down, hold
me until I was steady, my arm in the air saluting, then turn, plod forward
and never fall. There were children in foreign lands starving
for what fell from him, starving for the air he ate like chocolate.
* * *

"Good Intentions" was in the Kentucky Review.

"Frogs" appeared in Poetry Quarterly. No link so I'll post it:

Frogs
by CL Bledsoe

He made the mistake of leaving her
alone in the truck while he went to check
on the integrity of the levees. She waited
a good fifteen minutes before she put on
man-sized boots, waded out after him,
and got stuck in the saturated soil.

They say you can dive underwater
and a moccasin will pass overhead,
but when she saw one slither across the top
of the water, she didn’t bother testing
this hypothesis and instead set to hollering
until dad returned, neatly chopped
the thing in half with his shovel, yanked
her free and carried her back to the truck.

This time, she stayed only five before
climbing out and finding a slough on the edge
of the field exploding with thousands of baby
frogs. That’s where he found her, some
time later, looking up at him with big
dark eyes and offering him a tiny frog in her hand.

* * *

"Funnel Cloud" appeared in Emerge Literary Journal. No link, so here it is:

Funnel Cloud
by CL Bledsoe

Lightning crackles, illuminating the dark
clouds, swirling black and purple, blue
and gray. My sister and I, propped, all

scabby knees and elbows, on our parents’
bed, watch the churning air. The cloud dips
at the bottom of the hill, sprouts a trunk

that reaches for the ground in hunger
but withdraws, finding only dirt. The gyre
spins, rises back into the air and moves

closer. The lightning is gone. We see
nothing but dark until a white crash reveals
the whirling dervish just outside the window

with a delicious tremble, stretching down, buoyed
by the wind. It passes above us, out of sight.
Darkness settles outside again full of grumbling

thunder, chattering rain, violence we can’t name.
Somewhere behind us, a crash.

* * *

Floodwall ran one called "Hard Times, Arkansas."

Right Hand Pointing ran a couple. Here's "War with Korea." They also ran one called "A Good One," but I revised it pretty heavily, so I'm pasting the newer version:

A Good One
by CL Bledsoe

Dad, swaying, drink in hand, shit-eating grin
smeared across his face as he tells a nasty joke.

Mom, lips pursed, trying to catch any non-
laughing eyes to share her distaste. He’d say,

“Just go to bed.” And when that didn’t work,
“Why don’t you just laugh? Everyone else is.”

* * *

Several have been accepted but not published yet. Cahaba River Literary Journal picked up "Flagging," "It Was Quiet, There," and "Something about Lightning and a Young Girl's Heart." "The Path" was picked up by Concho River Review and is forthcoming.

Fall Into Fantasy Giveaway

I'm participating in an amazing giveaway. More than 50 authors have donated fantasy, paranormal, and scifi books and gifts in this contest hosted by Ash Krafton. You can enter to win a ton of prizes, including a copy of my first Necro-Files book, $7.50/Hr + Curses. Head on over and check it out. Also, my second Necro-Files book, Bloody Sexy, is out as an ebook.

Thoughts While Watching the 50's Drive-In "Classic" Fire Maidens of Outer Space

Well with a gripping opening like that, I'm certainly hooked enough to sit through 15 minutes of credits.
Oh wait now they're explaining everything. Phew. I was worried I wouldn't be able to figure it out.
Well, they're certainly polite.
I'm glad to see they observe the rules of the road.
Protip: if you're going to have dialogue, you should probably use a microphone.
Will she make it up the stairs?!
Ah we're such funny and wonderfully superior males!
That clock is moving real-time!
Wait a minute, that's not the same clock!
Those old-timey rockets were difficult because you had to get out and turn the crank to get them started.
This character is really torn because on the one hand, he wants to do his job, but on the other hand, for some reason, he really wants a Coke.
Why are all the astronauts wearing trench coats? Are they flashers?
Oh crap we've crashed into an Atari game!
That actor just stifled a yawn.
HAHAHAHA HE MADE A SEXIST JOKE!
These guys are going really fast. They're already past the asteroid belt in like 10 minutes.
oops left the parking brake on. That's why the rocket's smoking.
Oh that's a dude-alien's voice. C-blocked!
Those two missiles just turned into a whale and a bowl of petunias!
I hope they have Mars bars. Get it? Oh wait, they're not on Mars.
Just take it nice and slow. Nice and slow. Nice and slow. Nice and slow.
Finally I can light this J up!
Finally we can find the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!
They're throwing paper wads at us! Blow up the planet!!!
Everybody bunch up! I've only got one lens on this thing.
Come on you didn't think something would go wrong on the 13th moon of Jupiter?
"A woman!" *takes a picture*
"Fire a warning shot" *fires* *the screams stop* I hit her!
A space woman! Let's bang her!
Why is one guy wearing a hat?
Wait a minute. That shelf is from Ikea!
Atlantis? I knew it!
I'm with you on the "sub" not so much the "texts."
His name is Blair? What a pansy!
So if they've been on Jupiter's 13th moon all this time, they skipped over the whole "deodorant" period of human development.
If these women don't turn out to be cannibals I'm going to be really disappointed with this movie.
Daddy just likes to watch.
Who's playing the flute?
Those guys are probably just banging a bunch of space chicks. Let's stay out here and admire the foliage.
Did that fern just growl at me?
A student just asked me if she could bring a guinea pig to class.
I'm really glad they added rolley chairs to the space ship. They're so comfortable!
Time for a smoke.
Wake up, time for me to eat you! I mean, breakfast!
Here, have a glass of my urine. It will make you docile and give you a shiny coat.
I like it when chicks don't talk too much.
Are they on the same page of the script?
I'm okay with a little enslavement of women, if it means I get some.
I'm pretty sure that's Hemingway.
Oh sorry, we call them "concubines"
That fern definitely has a cold.
Is that alien in blackface?
No one will be allowed admittance to the theater during the riveting walking across an entire field sequence.
I think the monster represents the unrestrained male libido. Of course, I think every aspect of this movie represents that.
I'm pretty sure this guy is banging his daughters and leaving his male children to be taken by the white walkers.
Wait a minute why are these guys suddenly Australian?
Okay I'm nearly an hour in and I haven't seen any fire.
OMFreakingG it's a tree!!!!
Meanwhile, back in Hollywood.
Tickle fight!
Strippers are here.
No, your other left.
I'm starting to suspect there isn't going to be a shower scene,
Poor monster has hay fever
And....okay that was just a shot of a leaf. Huh.
The leopard print sheets show how advanced this culture truly is.
I'm pretty sure this movie is where Kevin Bacon learned all his dance moves.
The actors started laughing when they saw the monster!
Um so she was totally unfazed by the gas grenade that killed the monster?
Hey, hey, hey, we can't leave now! What about all the other chicks?
Well I'm glad they tied everything up nice and neat with absolutely no plot holes.
* * *

Some flash things I won't be collecting into a book

Sea People
The ad in the back of the comic book said Sea People. He thought it was strange, because he remembered those kinds of ads and they were for sea monkeys, not people. And they weren’t even that, they were shrimp. Brine shrimp. He’d read that somewhere or seen it on TV. He thought maybe it was a new marketing gimmick, an angle, so he sent in five bucks.

Two days later the package came. It was one of those puffy envelopes. Inside, there was another envelope and inside of that, another, and inside of that, a packet like what comes with instant soup and a card. The card said “Add Water” so he took it inside and poured it into a soup mug and added water. Nothing happened so he poured it down the sink.

That night, he remembered that he hadn’t seen it on TV after all, he’d ordered them before, when he was a child. His parents wouldn’t let him have a pet so he’d ordered sea monkeys to fill the void. Nothing had happened that time when he’d added water either. He began to think he might be cursed. He no longer read comic books on the metro. Instead, he began a study of math.

-CL Bledsoe (originally ran in Clockwise Cat)

* * *

A Good Thing

He thought there were fish in the trees. He could see the sun glinting on their scales. He never smelled them, though, so he knew they weren’t dead. All day at work, he stared out the window—he could just see them over the top of his cubicle—until Jen came and told him they needed for him to switch desks with Tim (since Tim was out) while maintenance repaired the air vent just over his desk. He sat in misery—really, it was worse than the other day when he’d typed something especially vitriolic on his blog and waited for the fallout. All week, he waited, until they finished the repairs. Then, he heard that Tim wasn’t coming back. He knew he couldn’t ask them to move him back. Besides, he had an actual office now. Wasn’t that a good thing?

-CL Bledsoe (originally ran in Caper)

* * *

The House
When he was young, his parents never let him leave the house. He knew no one who wasn't part of the household, and on the rare occasion they took him out, he was afraid. But he explored the delicious comfort of the familiar. The carpet was full of crocodiles, the closets, full of monkeys swinging between his father's shirts, the rooms full of memories and ghosts. He felt that it was better to know one place completely than to know bits of many.
As he grew older, he went to school and made friends, but rarely left the house otherwise. The friends came over and sat with him, talking long hours in the comfort of his familiarity. In their own homes, they grew disinterested with the toys, the video games, the rooms they inhabited, and spent more and more time with him. Some mornings, he'd wake to find several of them sitting on the couch out in the living room, talking, reading, surprised to see him as though he were a guest, until he felt crowded out of the house. He began to leave more and more often, graduated high school and moved far away. He hardly saw the friends anymore, except on the rare holiday when he came to visit the house, feeling awkward as a stranger, and found them, clustered on the couch, the loveseat, lying on his old bed, looking pale as though unused to the sun, and comfortable.

Some Funny Things that Originally Ran in Cautionary Tales

Unused Catch-phrases from My Uncle's Failed Novelty Button Manufacturing Business
CL Bledsoe

Blind people do it with feeling.
I heart tofu.
Picture of a baby coming out of a behind above the phrase: "I heart my crack baby"
My other body's a Porsche.
When you're tired of Texas, you're tired of life.
Kiss my ash, I smoke.

* * *

Things I'd Like to Ask the Girl in Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" Video
CL Bledsoe

Have you seen the Halloween episode of "Growing Pains" where Mike gets lost and falls in love with a dead girl?
Did you like that show?
Didn't you think Mike's sister Carroll was kind of cute, in a nerdy kind of way?
Not even a little?
You know, you kind of look like Carroll?
No, I know you're not, but the resemblance is definitely there. I wonder what she's doing now. Have you seen her around?
No? That's cool I guess.
The mom was kind of hot too. What was her name? Maggie?
How'd she end up married to that psychiatrist guy? What a dork.

* * *

Tom Cruise Delivers a Speech to the Cat Fanciers of America Annual Dinner
by CL Bledsoe

Thanks for having me. The first thing I want to talk about is cats. Get to the meat, right? That's what the check is for. That's why I'm here. So cats, to me, are like, well they're like, they remind me of when I was a young man. See, when I was a young man, I thought I was short, oh, excuse me, (makes quotation mark gestures) "vertically challenged." I thought I was less tall than other men, but then I had the opportunity to study with a wonderful man who taught me that I'm really very tall for my size. He taught me that Napoleon was only, well, he was something less than five feet, I don't have the numbers with me. But five feet, I'm taller than that. I mean, come on, and he conquered the world, right?

And Genghis Khan, same thing, he conquered China, right? Look, I know history. You might not know history, you might not have the training, the study that I have, is all I'm saying. You want to talk short? Abraham Lincoln? Wore platforms. I don't need that. Who needs that? Abe did. Old honest Abe. Right? He freed the slaves but he couldn't free his mind from the tyranny of self-doubt. But I have, okay? With the help of a certain man, I'll just go ahead, I'll just say it's L. Ron Hubbard. Because, really, if you're not into L. Ron Hubbard, if you've got something against scientology, then fuck you, really. Fuck you. Okay?
You know what? Katie? Where are you. We're going. If that's how they want to act. You know, I came here of my own volition, to try to educate people on some things, some important things, okay? But really I can see I'm wasting my time.

Found Poem

We p(reach) hate (be)cause t(he) B(i)ble p(reach)es hate. (Found Poem from the writings of the Westboro Baptist Church)

J(u)
st l
(i)ke t
(he) pr(i)
ests, Santa
w(i)ll r
(ape) y
(our) ch(i)
ldren at n
(i)
ght.

E
very h(u)
man, at t
he mom
ent of b
(i)
rth, (u)
tt
erly des
erv
es t
o g
o stra
(i)
ght to H
e
ll.

You
'll e
at y
our bab
(i)es. Santa
(i)
s a f
a
g. God hates f
a
g
s. L
es
b(i)
ans are just f
emale f
a
g
s. God hates t
hem, t
o
o.

A
ll in a
ll, (i)
f you
're c
la(i)m(i)ng t
o be a C
hr(i)st(i)an, b
ut y
o
u den
y w
hat t
he B
(i)b
le s
ays ab
out G
o
d and H
(i)s hat
red o
f a
ll w
orkers o
f (ini)
quit
y, then y
ou'r
e d
eal
ing wit
h the s
cript
(u)re in a wh
o
rish man
ner.

We p
ray f
or man
y mor
e earth
quak
es to k
i
ll man
y more th
ou
sands of i
mpud
ent and ung
rat
eful Chin
ese C
om
muni
sts. The r
ed on t
hat f
lag s
tands f
or f
a
g re
ctal bl
oo
d.

T
han
k G
o
d f
or d
e
a
d sol
d
ie
rs.

Ab
ort
ion i
s m
ur
de
r. God hates b
aby-k
i
ll
er
s.

I
t's a s
in to p
r
ay for A
merica.

-CL Bledsoe

My Top 10 Books

This is a meme going around Facebook, so I thought I'd do my own version: the top 10 books that I've written that were most important to me. And yes, I realize this is incredibly self-absorbed and egotistical and all sorts of other bad things. I'm sure I'm sorry.

1. Untitled 1st unpublished novel manuscript. There was a title to this but I've forgotten what it was. I'm not even sure I still have a copy of it. It took me a year to write this book, which clocked in at about 150 pages, single spaced, with very little dialogue. This was during a difficult time. I was living back in my father's house, starting college, drinking heavily. I'd write ten pages one day, cut eight the next and write ten more, while my deaf father sat, reading, in front of a blasting TV in one room, and my brother blasted 60s music from his room. I took Beckett, Joyce, and Camus as models. There was an extended scene about a homeless serial killer shitting in an alley, a college student who'd been anally raped bleeding through his pants on a bus, and that's all I remember about it. They may have been the same person or at least incarnations of the same person. A friend read it and said it really picked up after 130 pages, which was actually quite a compliment. I was so disappointed with it when it was finally finished that I decided I probably wasn't a writer. Then I sat down and wrote three short stories, which stood as some of the best work I'd produced.

2. Riceland, a poetry collection. This was just published, but it took me over a decade to write it. The first poems came from a workshop I took as an undergrad. I was very disenchanted with much of the other poetry being written in this workshop, especially what I was writing. Everyone was writing about how they'd been to France once, how bohemian they were because their dishes were plastic, how independent they were even though their parents were paying their bills. So I started writing about fish guts and squirrel hunting. These poems have always stood out from my other work. I found my voice writing about farming and my background, which I'd avoided writing about before.

3. Sunlight, a novel. This young adult novel was the third book I finished and the first I published. It's a non-autobiographical story I wrote in about six weeks. I learned how to write a novel writing it. I learned about pacing and what was important to keep. I also developed much of my approach to writing novels during this time, things like revising as I write rather than pushing forward, things I'd been told not to do.

4. Man of Clay. This is a forthcoming novel I started in grad. school but kept putting aside because the idea was too complex for my skill. I had several false starts and came back to it a couple years ago and finished it in a week, averaging 6000-7000 words a day. When my wife became pregnant with our daughter, Ellie, I decided to get serious about writing. I'd published a few books, but I had a huge backlog of ideas and partial drafts for novels, linked story collection, short stories, etc. I started making my way through them and have since completed most of them. This is something I was taught wasn't possible or worthwhile for a writer to do. I was taught that once an idea is abandoned, it's dead. I'm also pleased with this book because it's coming out on a press I really admire.

5. Anthem, a poetry collection. This was my first book accepted for publication. It was accepted while I was in grad. school but wasn't published for three years--so long that I revised it extensively, pulled out about half the poems and reworked those into a collection that was actually published before Anthem came out called _____(Want/Need). Anthem stands as a crowd pleaser.

6. Music/The Vanilla Life, an unpublished novel manuscript I haven't really titled yet. I started this as an undergrad. but was unable to complete it because it was beyond my ability at the time. I came back to it a few times, each time with a different approach, and finally completed it a couple years ago. But the completed version is so different from what I started writing, not to mention the various other false starts, that I could probably piece together a second novel from at least one of the outtake versions. Completing this showed me that Man of Clay wasn't a fluke; I truly could go back to unfinished drafts and turn them into something worthwhile, with some cutting and reworking.

7. The Necro-Files: $7.50/hr + Curses, a novel. I pitched this to the publisher (who later sold the published book to another publisher) before I'd written it. In fact, all I'd written was the pitch. When the publisher asked for an outline, I had to hastily come up with one. Instead, I wrote a synopsis and the first two paragraphs. They liked it, though they told me to cut the first paragraph. I finished the book in about six weeks, my average time for a book, based on the synopsis and blurb. This was the first time I'd written a book, idea to complete manuscript, without at least sitting on the idea, making a couple false starts of drafts, etc. I've since written a few that way.

8. Honus Wagner and the Wittsburg Treasure, a middle-grade novella. This story was solicited by the editor of an anthology of stories by writers for/co-written by their children. This was my first attempt at writing for such a young audience. I took an idea I'd kicked around for a while and wrote it and sent it in, thinking it would be rejected, but it ended up in the anthology pretty much as-is.

9. Last Stand in Zombietown, a novel. I had a lot of fun with this book, but I also had a lot of stress. Writing action scenes was very difficult. I actually wrote the opening--involving a bank robbery and a shoot-out--first and then sat on it for a couple years because I had no idea where to go from there. I went through several versions and false starts before finishing it, mostly because i didn't know how to write action. This might sound absurd, but it's actually the same problem I had with the first attempt at Music/The Vanilla Life. Originally, that book had a drug war episode in it, which was challenging because most of what I was basing it on was really from TV shows and movies. The challenge was that I had to unlearn all the versions of fights, shootouts, etc. that I'd been inundated with over the years and really examine the realities of these situations, though I've never been in a shootout and haven't been in a fight since I was a kid, and even then, not very many.

10. Arkansas, an unpublished autobiography. I wrote this in grad. school. It's about my experiences growing up while my mother had Huntington's Disease. This was the second prose book I ever completed and was never, and I'm sure will never be, published. Basically, I learned a lot about pacing and putting together a long story.The first half is tedious and awful. The second half is readable. When I finished it, I stuck it on a shelf, so to speak, and rewrote the entire thing into about a twenty page short memoir piece that works pretty well.