Wayzgoose: Blog

My original intent was to add my short story "The Burgundy Chamber" to my collection of short stories, but then the Halloween contest came up and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Thank you to those who voted for the story and to those who continue to read.

But I continue to dig out old stories and get them cleaned up for presentation in my collection To Make a Long Story Short. Today, I've added the very short story, "Lenny Brown."

Telling about the story might take as much time as reading it, but I'll try. Back in the late 70s and early 80s, I was still nursing aspirations of becoming a famous novelist. Everything I read said to start short, and a writing class advised me to pick a character and write a short, defining story that showed what that character was like. We were limited to one page.

I had in mind the creation of a little town in Indiana that would interweave the lives of its residents and tell a folksy tale a la Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebegone." Some twenty years later, I wove that mesh of stories into the web novel, Willow Mills.

But somehow, I missed including the story of Lenny Brown. I present it for you today.

To all those who read and voted in the Halloween story contest. Wow! Twenty-seven entries this year and some of them were massive good. I'm happy to be in the company of these authors.

Congratulations to Kin Asdi--The Mirror; Old Grey Duck--Arthur and the Bog Witch; and Switch Blayde--Soulmates.

Of course, we couldn't say anything about our entries during the competition, but "The Burgundy Chamber" is another story I dug up out of my archives and rewrote for entry in this competition. I believe the first draft was dated 1982 but was never published. I had intended to put it in my collection of short stories, To Make a Long Story Short, but the Halloween competition just happened to come up at that time.

So you know, I've not stopped writing and getting stuff together to post. It's just that aroslav has been hogging the keyboard with his NaNoWriMo project, Bob's Memoir: 4000 Years as a Free Demon, and I only stick my head out when I'm not afraid to get it bitten off. Or if I'm hungry. He listens to me then.

Anyway, thanks again for the votes and for reading all our stories!
Wayzgoose

There are some cool things that occur when you are attempting to move from one home to another, but are determined not to move anything that you don't really need to move. I've made four trips in my truck to Goodwill with donations. And my new trailer is still packed full. I'm determined to dump more junk in the near future!

But the cool things: I found a box of manuscripts that I thought had been lost years ago. It is full of short stories and humorous essays that date back as much as fifty years. Occasionally, I read one that hits me square between the eyes with the sheer putridness of what was written. I resolve at once to give away my computer and never write another word. There are others, however, that I look at and think, "Hey, that's not bad." Most of them need a little cleanup before I am willing to let anyone else see them. Or a lot of clean up with the old toothbrush that is under the sink dedicated to cleaning the mold out of the grout between the tiles.

Well, I know short stories aren't the bread and butter here at SOL and I don't even turn on voting when I post short stories. I have done volumes of them, however. Steven George & The Dragon, for example, has a "Once upon a time..." story in every chapter as the hapless hero attempts to find his way to his dragon. Also, aroslav's book Pygmalion Revisited is a small collection of short stories all on the theme of the myth of an artist who falls in love with his artwork.

I've decided to create a collection of my miscellaneous short stories and it will be titled To Make a Long Story Short, Nathan Everett's Collected Short Stories and Essays. As I get these older stories dusted off and rewritten, I'll post each as a chapter of that series.

And wouldn't you know, I've already cleaned one of them up and had it ready to post anyway, so it gets to be first. "What the Sergeant Didn't See" is a story in the world of Steven George and might have described an encounter the Sergeant might not have had with the story teller. Um... Well, you'll have to decide that. It's the first story in the collection of To Make a Long Story Short. And it should be up today or sometime soon. This one only dates back about eleven years.

I hope you'll all join me for this little journey into the recesses of my files. I'll have to translate some of the stories from chicken scratches that I assume were my handwriting.

Oh... What's a short story? In my mind, a short story is any complete story that can be read independently of any other context or setting. It has a beginning, middle, and end. But it's too short to make a whole novel or novella out of. I consider anything shorter than Steinbeck's The Pearl (about 100 pages and maybe 35,000 words) to be a short story, even if it has chapters. I don't think any of my short stories exceed that. Or even come close.

An essay, does not really have a plot or much in the way of character development. It is topical rather than a story. Sometimes, it's hard to tell which is which when it comes to short stories and essays, so I'm lumping them all together in this volume.

Okay. I'm shutting up now. You'll never believe I can write something that short!

Sadly, Jackie the Beanstalk came to an end today. I sure had fun with that story, and according to the comments and the email I received, others enjoyed it as well. Of course, it will remain here on SOL, but is also available for your eBook collection on Bookapy. If you'd like a paperback or hardcover version of the book, contact me. The hardcover would make a terrific holiday gift for the unstoppable reader on your list. The author on Bookapy is Nathan Everett.

So, what's next? Well, aroslav is hogging all the writing time at the moment for the Team Manager series, but I'm trying to shake loose some time to finish my first draft of A Place Among Peers. In the meantime, as I'm moving out of my current trailer into a new one, I uncovered a box of old (very old) manuscripts that include a raft of short stories and humorous essays I wrote back in the 1970s. As time permits, I'll start pulling those together and posting the short stories that aren't too embarrassing.

As is always the case, I'll not turn on scoring for short stories. People don't come here for short stories, so they simply don't score well, no matter who writes them. I'll compile them all into an unordered series and will include the one I've currently published, "A Dangerous Woman." Like that piece, some of the other stories I have are within the universe of my longer stories. I expect the next one I'll release is "What the Sergeant Didn't See," a story in the Steven George & The Dragon universe, but not part of the general storyline.

So, it will be a month before I get anything new out here, but more is in the offing.

Thank you all for your comments and email about Jackie the Beanstalk. Enjoy!

I'm more than happy to be releasing Jackie the Beanstalk today. It begins serialization on SOL with "Chapter 1: Cap and Gown," and is now available on Bookapy.

Tall skinny Jackie is a fresh 18-year-old high school graduate, still in her cap and gown when she is given the keys to her grandfather's 1968 Ford Fairlane 500 Fastback. Jackie, her 25-year-old Aunt Misty, and her dog Roadkill jump in the car and take off following an old fashioned TripTik map into an alternate dimension. In this alternate dimension, Jackie is a Warrior Wizard encountering robbers, mountain monsters, ogres, rival clans, obstreperous customs officials, a stowaway princess, an adopted bobcat kitten, werewolves, ghosts, giants, and dragons-all on her way to rescuing the Sovereign's kidnapped son. As she travels, she discovers her magic powers, and the powers of all the weapons she carries-her cap and gown, honor cords, stole, basketball, and things she picks up along the way-including a pocketful of magic beans.

This "fractured fairy tale" takes place in a folk tale reality where you'll almost recognize the world we live in and fairy tales you read as a child-monsters, ogres, giants, werewolves, and ghosts! Oh, my!

Jackie is also available in paperback.

Disclaimer or whatever you want to call it.

I've had a couple of messages regarding confusion over my names. Me, too. Pixel the Cat got tired of addressing me by my aliases and just changed my email name to 'Whatever'. So, in full disclosure I have three identities on SOL.

aroslav: my original identity under which I have released some 45 stories here.
Wayzgoose: the identity that I had in other online forums where "serious authors" are recognized.
J-Hop: the identity I adopted so I could publish a story under the name of the leading character in aroslav's Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins series.

It is challenging to keep the voices in my head separated. But wait. There's more.

In the world of commercial publishing, people generally use names rather than avatars. The published name of aroslav is Devon Layne. The published name of Wayzgoose is Nathan Everett.

So, when you see my works on Bookapy, they won't be by aroslav or Wayzgoose. They will be by Devon Layne and Nathan Everett. I know it can be confusing, but the world is not a simple place.