Tag: writing

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30Hz Bl-g On Writing

Putting Fun Back in Short Fiction? Now that’s funny.

MFA Workshop by Stoning

I haven’t lost my sh!t about this particular topic in a few years, but like the hook from “Holding Out for a Hero,” it’s always there, lurking in the back of my mind, ready to cloud all conscious activity until I spin Side A of the Footloose soundtrack for three straight hours. At which point I will either eradicate Bonnie Tyler from my mind or pass out from Kenny Loggins overload. (Which could never happen. Not really.) My beef has nothing to do with music so permit me to rampage about my life of writing for a few paragraphs. I do hope you are sufficiently entertained by rage-fueled hyperbole. I speak today of literary narrow-mindedness.

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30Hz Bl-g On Writing

Words and Music

Words and Music
Quick one of these stars is still alive. The time to cash in on the sequel is running short.

I don’t mean to trod on the coattails of the magnificent 1948 Judy Garland/Lena Horne/Gene Kelly/June Allyson/Mickey Rooney flick but sometimes there’s no other way around it. Truth be told, I’ve never seen this movie and I’m just ripping off the title for a rumination on the relationship between writing and music. But seeing as how I’m providing more press for this movie than it’s received in fifty years, I feel I’m paying my royalties.

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Non-fiction & memoir Writing

Mickey Tettleton

(originally published @ Specter Magazine)

creative non-fiction by JAMES DAVID PATRICK

Randall hated pitching. He preferred fielding grounders and jumping the fence to retrieve home runs. But it was his turn, and there were no allowances in the rules for Rolaids Relievers. Jeff had collected four consecutive singles, groundballs beyond the pitcher, before turning to Mickey Tettleton, our favorite Major-League emulation, to cap his miracle comeback. The eophus pitch countered the Tettleton. With a hitter slinging a weightless plastic bat through the hitting zone at hernia-inducing speeds, it proved nearly impossible to wait long enough for the loping perabula to drop into the hitting zone. Jeff’s first and second swings resulted in air displacement, neither within three inches of Randall’s eophus. I expected a third. As Randall started his motion, Jeff stood tall (but still very short), limp-wristed, bat cocked. He waited… waited… waited… timing the moment he would throw his hands forward… and then… contact. More than contact. A roof shot, fair, careening off the pitched roof.

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