In a recent blog post I alluded to a project called “14 for 14” and said that I should do a post on it. Well, here’s that post.
At some point during the year 2014, I noticed that I was writing at a fairly good rate and it just so happened that I was writing a lot of “new” stories. Stories were popping into my head and I was punching them out as best I could. A few months into the year I thought of challenging myself at doing one story a month. And then I realized, this is (was) 2014 so I should do 14 of them, at a slightly higher clip.
I succeeded in this endeavor, though this isn’t too surprising. If I failed I wouldn’t be writing this blog post.
The 14 stories from 2014 are (in the order written):
Rendezvous With the Secular Church of Gasoline
The Last First Days of School
Virtual Jehovah
No Bars at the Gates of Heaven
Clyde Chesterfield’s Invitation to the 1%ers Ball
The First World War Considered as a 2D Tournament Fighter
Small Low-Flying Planes
The Devil’s Playlist
Redacted
Tomorrow and Onward
Legbaugh’s Holistic and Alternative Healing
Scheiskopf 88
The Oppression of the Ziggernauts
Hitching a Ride on Flying Colors
If you’re further interested, here is a brief synopsis of each story, the background story, and the current status w/r/t publishing and such:
Rendezvous With the Secular Church of Gasoline – this is a longer and somewhat experimental story that consists entirely of dialogue between two unnamed characters as they discuss an abandoned gas station/general store and all the things that may have occurred there throughout the years. The story was written after having read a healthy amount of David Foster Wallace. For years I had been writing in the Wallace forged style of “Hyper-Maximalism” which is marked by items such as: long sentences, long paragraphs, heavy detail, obscure references, jargon, and a focus on minor detail. Other (published) stories I’ve written more or less in this vein are: Illogical Traffic Patterns, Tunneling Into Infinity, and The Flute Not Played With Factory Recommended Techniques. This story is kind of the last I’ve written in this style since I have tried to steer closer to a semi-minimalist style. Currently, I essentially blended the two and created my own voice. This story has been submitted to 7 publishers, rejected by 4, withdrawn from 1, lost from 1, and finally published in a Downingtown Doo-Writers Anthology. Because I don’t submit the same story at the same time to multiple places, I can’t tell you how much a non-responses piss me off.
The Last First Days of School – This story is one of my first forays into the genre of Creative Non-Fiction. Heavily inspired by “University Days” by James Thurber. I started writing this story in a very cold house during a power outage caused by a massive ice storm. The story is about my various mostly humorous and mostly negative first days of school. It was originally title “Falling Down a Well of Transitory Players” and it has been published by Independent Noise (which is now defunct and the website no longer accessible), in total it was submitted to 6 other publishers (twice under its original title), rejected by 3 and lost by 2.
Virtual Jehovah – this story is about a guy who invites a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses into his house when they knock on his door during a rainy weekend morning. I was hesitant to submit it to places because it could have been perceived as “possibly offensive” of course the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not a group of people who often receive sympathy. The story isn’t all that offensive really, it focuses more on the idea of how religious people like to share their beliefs with you but are not receptive or open to hearing your own beliefs. Regardless, I didn’t want to offend a specific publisher that I might have a chance with at a later point. I’ve submitted the story to 5 publications, 4 rejected it, and it was picked up by The Library of Rejected Beauty (which publishes only rejected stories… there’s a handful of places like this believe it or not).
Clyde Chesterfield’s Invitation to the 1%ers Ball – back in 2012 I had a summer-long interest in biker gangs, and learned a lot about them. One of these things of course is that the Gang Bikers refer to themselves as “the 1%ers.” Based on the old concept that 99% of bikers are good law-abiding people, the other 1% are the outlaws, some embrace this label. Later on, during the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the term One Percent took on a whole new meaning, referring to the wealthiest people in the world. I started thinking and comparing the two, which lead to this fictional invitation to a dinner/dance celebrating the two, the quasi-narrator of the story is a good combination (if I do say so myself) of a stereotypical biker first name (and the first name of a notorious bank robber) “Clyde” with the stereotypical blue blood WASP last name “Chesterfield.” This story was published by my first (and most loyal) publisher the Short Humour Site, but before it was, it was submitted to 2 other publications, both of which rejected it. Though I tend not to do this, I will mention that one of those publishers was The New Yorker. It was submitted to their “Shouts and Murmurs” section, which publishes generally flash fiction with a humorous bend. It was formally rejected too, which is nice, and atypical, so I guess someone there actually read it. I mention this because a few months after I had submitted it, there was a story in the New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs section called “The Dad Restaurant” by Scaachi Koul, that I thought was just a little too similar to my story, not enough to be anything remotely near plagiarism of course, but enough to see that perhaps I inspired someone at the New Yorker? I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking too much on this. I’ve included links to both so you can judge for yourself, and you can also judge which one’s better.
No Bars at the Gates of Heaven – this story occurred after a friend of mine asked me (during a religious discussion) when I die and meet God, what would I say to him. Personally, I am an openly devout atheist, and the question got me thinking about all the questions I might ask. This story is basically a narrative of that list. The title itself is actually a triple entendre, referring to: barriers, saloons, and cellphone reception. I’ve submitted it 7 times, lost by 1 and rejected by the rest. I have another plan for this story but will get to that in a minute.
The First World War Considered as a 2D Tournament Fighter – the spring/summer of 2014 my interest in retro video games leveled up (inspired in large part by AVGN), an interest which is ongoing. My interest in WWI is even older. I read a story back in 2011 called “The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race” by J.G. Ballard, which in turn was based on another very similar story called “The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race” by Alfred Jarry. My story is considerably different than the other two, and I wouldn’t say nearly as good. But I did my homework with this one and made it fairly accurate. The story has been submitted to 8 publications, formally rejected by 7 (thank you), and finally published in 2017 by the Corvus Review.
Small Low-Flying Planes – this is more or less the best/most important story I wrote in this batch, and easily one of my top 10 favorite stories (that I’ve written). It’s also a major turning point in my writing style, as it is the first to be written using specifically a minimalist style (which was inspired by reading some of my good friend Nick Gregorio’s stories, which are very minimalist). The story is about a man who is agoraphobic but decides to see the country, by driving cross country without leaving his VW Microbus. The story also deals heavily with clouds and depression and drew from many sources of inspiration. It has been submitted 11 times, rejected by 7, lost by 3 (fuck you very much), and was finally published in a beautiful slick literary journal with pictures called “Concinnity” in 2021.
The Devil’s Playlist – I consider this story to be the sister story of “No Bars at the Gates of Heaven” and I’m planning on merging the two together into the same story. This story I kind of based on a practice I do at work. I won’t go into too much detail, but I often have community service helping me with my job, and while they help me I have music going, and I always tell them that they have to name all the songs and if they miss one then they get an extra hour of community service. Taking it a step further, the story is based on the idea that if you die and you still owe community service you have to finish it in hell, the devil plays his music, and the story wrote itself from there. This one is also very minimalist. At this point, it’s been submitted 10 times, rejected 9 times, and lost by 1.
Redacted – this was published under a pseudonym, I’ll go into no more detail than that.
Tomorrow and Onward – this story was inspired by an article that a friend of mine sent me on time capsules. I decided to work on a story about a reverse time capsule, i.e. one that would send future items back to the past. It’s also heavily based on my personal argument that if time travel exists in the future there would be more evidence of it in the past. The story was ultimately submitted to 1 place and was published. Sadly though it was Fast Forward Festival that published it (they also published my stories “A Little Too Smart Phone” and “Wit Thee Well”), and this story was my last to be published there because the publication went defunct. If I’m not mistaken this was in fact the last story to be published there at all.
Legbaugh’s Holistic and Alternative Healing – this story is partially based on something that happened to one of my ancestors, and a story that a friend of mine from Africa told me about the witch doctor in his town. Evidently, if someone has wronged you, then you would go to the witch doctor who would (out of his own pocket) pay you, and then put a curse on the offending party, following which the offending person would have to pay 4 or 5 times the investment to the witch doctor to lift the curse. It might seem goofy, but the fact that the witch doctor would pay you first is interesting. In this story, the main character hires a western witch doctor to put a curse on a family that wronged his family long ago. The story has been submitted to 10 places, rejected by 8, and 1 publication closed before replaying (that was Fast Forward Festival) and was eventually published in the God’s and Services Anthology, it is officially the first (and only) story that I was paid for, a full 20$, plus a copy of the anthology.
Scheisskopf 88 – I wrote this story in October because that’s when my Dad and I go to the Annapolis Boat Show. This is another creative non-fiction covering various episodes of my Dad and I going to the Annapolis Boat Show and the following myriad traditions there, among them lying about the kind of boat we have. This is probably my Dad’s favorite story of mine. I’ve submitted this to 11 places, 2 of which were sailing magazines, 1 was lost, 9 were rejected, and eventually picked up and published on Independent Noise. I got more bummed out when this one was rejected more than others, for two reasons, first it’s my dad’s favorite story and I knew seeing this story published would make him very happy, and second it’s really fucking funny. Since this is kind of a sister story to “The Last First Days of School” I was very happy it was published in Independent Noise, less happy now that Independent Noise is defunct.
The Oppression of the Ziggernauts – this story, along with the next one, were both written at the end of the 2014 NaNoWriMo novel, as bonus stories. It was inspired by another story called “Body Ritual of the Nacirema” by Horace Miner. My story has a punchline ending that changes everything you’ve just read and will make you want to read it again, luckily it’s very short so reading it twice in a row won’t be a problem. This story was submitted once to one place, where it was rejected, re-edited, and then submitted to the Short Humour Site, where it was accepted.
Hitching a Ride on Flying Colors – this story was based partly on something that happened to me back in 2013, and the second half was based on a picture I saw on Deviant Art. It’s hauntingly beautiful, dark, and poetic, in my opinion. My friend who usually is the first to read my stories claimed that this story was his favorite of this particular run of 14. It was been submitted to 10 places, rejected by 8, lost by 1, and finally accepted to the Ginger Collect.
So there you have it, 14 stories, the products of 109 hours of writing, 87 submissions, 66 rejections, and 11 published pieces, as of right now. Currently, I write about 20 stories plus a rough draft novel per year, and perhaps in the future even more. We’ll see what happens.