A Story About Guns

A Story About Guns

When I got my first and last gun, I was in the morning kindergarten class. The bus dropped me off after school and I'd watch TV in the living room while eating my lunch. Old reruns of some of the best shows were on in the afternoon: Batman. The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman. I ate my sandwich with Adam West, George Reeves or Clayton Moore, then I'd run off to read my comic books, or play outside. I had no siblings, so I usually played make believe by myself. Sometimes I suited up in my Wonder Woman gear to save the world. Other times, I became Supergirl, flying around by fastening some sort of cape around my neck and hanging from my swing set. And when I had my little cap gun, I was just as brave and heroic as the Lone Ranger.In my mind, it wasn't symbolic in any way of a thing that hurt people. It...
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Writing a Frankenstory: Reality in Fiction

Writing a Frankenstory: Reality in Fiction

"My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head."  -S. E. Hinton"Any writer’s work is a map of their psyche. You can really see what their concerns are, what their obsessions are, and what interests them.” -Kim Addonizio“To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.” -Robertson Davies *** A few nights ago, Olivier, the cat and I were curled up in bed, enjoying our pre-sleep reading time. Me & Cat with a paperback; Olivier reading my latest short story published by an online literary journal.When he finished, he turned to me and said, "Yeah, I know where you got that idea from.""What? No you don't. I made it up.""Sure. Parts of it, but...
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The Detritus of 2010

"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." - T.S. Eliot ◊ The year of 2010 just didn't go according to plan. Then again, looking back, I can't recall a single year of my life yet that has. That'd just be spooky and weird if nothing unexpected happened. Not to mention boring, eh? For the two residents of the Rasmenian Nation, the year of 2010 began with chaos, anger and the frustration of international and cross country travel in the dead of winter. Indeed, our last days of 2009 and first few days of 2010 were spent engaged in family squabbles, re-routed Greyhound buses and bumming around airports. Oh... and I was fucking sick, choking on and snorting my own phlegm, which is just as sexy as it sounds. But, we summoned every bit of patience we had and made our way There & Back Again. So, we eventually made our...
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