Eric Ross: Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. November of last year, in fact. Not because I haven't been writing. I have.

Over the past few months I’ve been experimenting with writing styles to see what happens if prose is driven not by plot mechanics, but by something like musical architecture.

I’ve tried a Philip Glass approach — repetition with variation, small shifts accumulating into pressure. I’ve experimented with Beethoven-like structural escalation — themes introduced, stressed, resolved. I’ve leaned into Miles Davis minimalism — restraint, silence doing the heavy lifting. I've also tried the painter Jackson Pollock as inspiration-immersive saturation, narrative as surface, not sequence.

The most successful of these, in my view, is what I’m calling "Parker Unhinged" — a tribute to Charlie Parker.

Parker’s genius wasn’t chaos. It was disciplined volatility. Rapid phrasing. Fractured lines that recomposed mid-flight. Breath you could hear inside the instrument. Precision without politeness.

That’s the model.

Parker Unhinged on the page means rhythm over polish. Psychological immediacy over physical sequencing. Sentences that interrupt themselves. Memory colliding with present action. No tidy thematic summaries. No authorial reassurance. You stay inside the character’s nervous system.

The new story, 1:13, is the cleanest expression of that approach so far.

At 1:13 a.m., a message is sent — a confession that crosses a line long held in place. By morning, it’s been read. The story unfolds not as spectacle, but as interior detonation: two people on a borrowed couch confronting years of restraint in real time.

You’ll notice something else: it’s less explicit than some of my earlier work. That was a conscious choice. I wrote several more graphic drafts. They worked technically. They did not work rhythmically, and they broke the tone and voice of the story. In this style, explicit anatomical detail turned the story back into choreography.

So I pulled back.

The sex is there. It’s just not itemized. It lives in pressure, breath, friction, decision. In my judgment, that makes it more volatile — and more honest.

I’m continuing to experiment with this musical-structural approach to prose. I’m interested in whether the cadence carries the heat, whether the fragmentation deepens immersion, whether the restraint sharpens rather than blunts.

If you read 1:13, tell me what you think. Does Parker Unhinged work?

— Eric Ross

I have always loved music. Songs tell stories too, and many of my own tales have been sparked by a single piece of sound.

The Sitarist’s Requiem began after listening to Paint It Black—that sitar line was dark, frantic, searching. The story mirrors the grief that the song is about.

The Mask and Chain came together while Brown Sugar was playing and I found myself wondering, What if this energy belonged to a woman who knows exactly what she wants, and what it costs?

Usually, the music comes first. It's my spark.

But this time, I reversed the order. I wanted to see if I could craft a song that grew out of a story instead of the other way around.

That experiment became Tongue Tied and Terrified—a story about obsession, a man addicted to “dining at the Y,” and the lessons he learns from three very different women.

To follow that energy, I wrote a blues lyric to match the narrator’s voice and heartbeat, and used Suno to set it to music:

Woke Up This Morning (Tongue Tied & Satisfied).

It’s old-fashioned juke-joint "dirty" blues--rough, hungry, and full of the kind of double-entendre the old blues greats understood perfectly.

I’ve included the track with the story. It’s available as a standard MP3—

stream it if your browser allows, download it if it doesn’t.

Either way, I hope you hear the same rhythm I felt while writing.

Enjoy—and let me know what you think of this little creative detour.

-Eric

P.S. Many thanks to Laz for indulging my experiment and hosting the song file for me here on SOL. I could have hosted it offline somewhere, but he very kindly agreed to host it here.

We’ve reached the end of Ambassador Whiskers’ Curriculum of Desire, and our beloved diplomat in fur would insist I announce it with proper ceremony, a bowed head, and perhaps a saucer of something vintage.

Chapter 9: The Graduation of Ren is now live.

In this final lesson, Ren stands where Lawrence once froze: the old forum open on his screen, the rain at the window, the past asking for one more confession. But this time he answers differently. Quietly. Decisively.

Transformation, as Whiskers reminds us, rarely arrives with fireworks. More often it sounds like a kettle clicking off and someone humming in the next room.

There is domestic tenderness, a few final philosophical jabs from our resident Ambassador, and a resolution so understated he’d call it “tastefully dignified.” Whiskers gets the last word—of course he does—and then makes his exit the only way he knows how: dramatically, mysteriously, and without cleaning up after himself.

This chapter brings the whole arc home: humiliation, risk, surrender, connection… and finally, belonging. Ren earns not just a new name, but a life he can actually inhabit. And yes, for those following the saga closely—he even makes coffee that doesn’t taste like awful.

Thank you for reading this strange, tender, ridiculous story.

Comments are, as always, considered diplomatic messages.
Whiskers insists on them. I merely encourage.

— Eric

Ambassador Whiskers' education of Ren continues—and this time, the lesson comes wrapped in rainlight, charcoal, and a woman who can dismantle his defenses with a glance.

Chapter 8: Elena and the Art of Belonging brings us to the first moment when Ren and Elena finally stop orbiting and collide. And yes, things get intimate. Very intimate. But I won’t ruin the details. Let’s just say: if Chapter 5 was glitter-slick chaos and Chapter 6 was emotional first aid, this one is… the point where theory meets practice and practice involves considerably fewer clothes.

Ambassador Whiskers, of course, oversees events with the solemn dignity of a small, judgmental monarch. He offers commentary. He offers critique. He offers absolutely no privacy whatsoever. (It is unclear whether he believes in boundaries or simply rejects them philosophically.)

This chapter marks Ren’s first real step into something that isn’t performance, self-defense, or panic. Something that feels—dare I say it—welcome. Elena doesn’t teach him how to be seen; she shows him what it’s like to be met.

What happens after that?
Well. The cat would say: read and observe. I would simply say that tomorrow will conclude Ambassador Whiskers' Curriculum of Desire.

Comments, as always, will be archived by Ambassador Whiskers, who insists they count as diplomatic correspondence. He has also requested more flattery and fewer typos.

— Eric

After Cassie’s gentle lesson in staying present—and the glittering chaos of Claudia’s masquerade—Ambassador Whiskers’ Curriculum of Desire takes a quieter turn. The Ambassador, ever opinionated, calls it “fieldwork in sincerity.”

In Chapter 7: Elena and the Fine Art of Listening, Ren (formerly Lawrence, recently human) ducks out of the rain and into Ink & Echo, a bookshop café that smells of espresso, paper, and possibility. There he meets Elena—painter, barista, accidental philosopher—whose calm isn’t silence so much as focus, the kind that draws people closer without trying.

What follows isn’t seduction by spectacle, but by attention: two strangers speaking in low tones, laughing too easily, and discovering that honesty can be its own form of heat. Whiskers supervises from the windowsill, tail curled in elegant punctuation.

This chapter is about connection in its simplest, most dangerous form—the kind that asks you to stay, to listen, and to mean it.

The devotees of desire here smell faintly of rain and paint, and they teach us that being understood might be the most erotic act of all.

As always, your comments are welcomed, studied,...and possibly judged by a cat in formalwear.

— Eric