Steve B. Howard's Blog, page 156
August 23, 2018
Benevolent Insanity
Photo by Elijah O'Donell on UnsplashI think I’d like to spend my final years
growing a long white beard, wearing a
simple brown robe with a hemp rope belt
and dirty sandals.
I’d like to find a large park
somewhere in a massive metropolis
(preferably with perennial warmth),
where I can spend my days running
around spouting off philosophical and
spiritual sounding gibberish.
If only the powers that be didn’t
“adjust” their less well adjusted citizens with
batons, pepper spray, and long stays
in lonely but well padded institutions.
Benevolent Insanity was originally published in Publishous on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
August 22, 2018
Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting. I appreciate it. Yeah, I figure the stories are going to be rattling around in my head anyway, so I may as well put them down on paper. Get them out of my head is an accomplishment in itself.
Why Write? Hell if I Know.
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on UnsplashWhen there is little chance that anything will ever come of your novel in progress it makes it a whole lot easier to set it aside and just do nothing with it. I know the numbers. There’s only about a 2% chance I’ll ever make a living solely from my writing. And since I’m already three years and 7.5 drafts into this novel with no payoff in sight it makes me wonder why I even write.
Funny thing is, the thing I’ve learned about writing is that even though I’m extremely passionate about it I can’t say I really enjoy it most of the time. It feels like mental ditch digging once I sit down with pad and pen or in front of the computer and start typing away.
Photo by Darran Shen on UnsplashWhat brings me back then? Why for over twenty years has that callus on the first joint of my middle finger where the tightly held pen rests continued to harden?
As far as I can tell there are two main reasons why I sit my butt in the chair nearly every day and write.
The first being when that initial idea rips through my brain and heart so brightly that my daily life goes on auto-pilot while the potential of the story spins in my mind sometimes for days.
The second is due to those rare payoffs. Whether they are the tiny pittance I get from my poetry and short stories, the glacially slow book sales that barely cover the cost of the subway and single short coffee I drink at Starbucks while I write. The much more valuable payoffs though are the kind comments and encouragement I get from readers of my work that remind me that I might just be good at this goofy art form.
But even these two reasons don’t really explain it. They don’t get to the heart of it. Honestly, I think it’s an addiction. Not like a classic addiction exactly though, the shit bum drunk, the junkie slamming smack, or even the methhead inhaling their euphoric death deep into their lungs type of addiction.
No, this is more like the gambler’s addiction. This evil monkey on my back is the about flailing after a minuscule potentiality so slim that years spent chasing the end of a rainbow in the hope of finding a Leprechaun's gold would be much more productive probably.
And so for the umpteenth time I find myself wondering why the hell I do it. Why the hell then do I even bother to put pen to paper? The only answer I’ve ever gotten is the first line to my newest story.
If you enjoyed this please check out some of my other stuff below or one of my short story collections and novella on Amazon .The Query Letter I Really Want to Send OutThe Creative Spark is Only the StartThe Fear of Obscurity
Why Write? Hell if I Know. was originally published in Redoubtable on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
August 20, 2018
I have to agree with Howell.
I have to agree with Howell. Stalin’s plans to invade Northern Japan on August 12th is a very important part of the story. Also, the fact that leaflets were dropped on all the possible target cities in Japanese warning civilians that a new weapon had been developed and that they should evacuate their cities.
And you might want to mention that the Japanese Imperial Army repeatedly told the Japanese civilians that this was all US propaganda and that they were winning the war. In fact, even after Hiroshima they were telling Japanese civilians that the city hadn’t been bombed and that they should all continue sharping bamboo stakes to repel a ground invasion even if it meant sacrificing the lives of every last Japanese citizen to do it.
The real tragedy is that Japan didn’t surrender after Midway. This would have prevented Okinawa and the fire bombings of Tokyo which killed at least 100,000 Japanese civilians.
Probably the lives of millions of Allied soldiers who died in Japanese POW camps.
And possibly the invention of bacon.
And possibly the invention of bacon.
Badly paraphrasing here, but the Nabokov quote that always makes me laugh, is the one where after a…
Badly paraphrasing here, but the Nabokov quote that always makes me laugh, is the one where after a reporter asked him what he thought of other novelists of his day and he said something like, “I see Nabokov and then I see not even the shadow of a shadow of Nabokov.” Lol. A titan of a writer as well as a titan of an egomaniac possibly. But has, you know, Nabokov, lol.
August 19, 2018
Great article.
Great article. I feel the same way. I’ve only been using Medium for about a year, but the changes especially since they started the Partner Program have been pretty shocking. I remember when I first joined I had two short stories featured in one month. Since the Partner Program started I haven’t had any. Sad to see that us Indie writers are being mostly ignored now.
Presidential Bar Darts
Photo by Marc A on UnsplashIf you spend every waking hour throwing
darts at the dart board and steadfastly
focusing only on your bullseyes
you too can convince yourself you
are a resounding success.
Sociopath(ing) your way to the top
only draws the blood of those
you throw under the bus, so
why care who you betray when
you know it will be you who feeds
on the entrails in the end.
August 18, 2018
Bone Splinters and Booze
Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on UnsplashOld Zenard used to say, “Never throw a damn punch when your so tanked you’re seeing double, Too numb to feel the impact.” Should have taken his advice. Wouldn’t be using a rusty pair of needle nose to pry Burpie’s tooth out of my knuckles right now if I had. Didn’t even know I’d slugged him till I came to this morning.
Woke up in the weeds here just out of town and staggered down to Bernie’s broken down shack cuz I knew he had an old tool box. Been sitting out here in the sun on the hood of this busted down Packard in this meadow trying to get this guy’s molar out of my hand ever since. Bastard didn’t even have a gold filling for my troubles.
“Hey there Trip,” I hear Little Vern call.
I smell the booze coming off him before I even look up to see him. Man’s nearly forty, but with his carrot top, maze of freckles across his face, and thin wormy body he could pass for a teen any day of the week.
“Whatcha hear Vern?”
“Trouble Trip. Burpie. He didn’t make it.”
I’m off the Packard fast leaving a streak in the dusty hood. Vern backs off me a step.
“You here to stir the pot Vern? Cuz I ain’t in the mood.”
“Gosh Trip, not me. You’re a big fella like Max Baer. Just thought I’d warn ya was all. Last night when ya popped Burp he went down and lit on the back of his head. We all thought he was just passed out or something, but come closing time at the Bucking Wheel he never woke up.”
“Shit. Whattda think that’ll get me? Six months in the poke for manslaughter? Something like that?”
“Small town Texas like this and Burp being related to damn near everyone that lives here. You probably won’t even make it to the county court house Trip. Pistol to the back of the head and a burial out in the sage brush be my guess. I didn’t see no sheriff this morning though when I woke from my drunk in the alley,”
I sit back up on the Packard and go to work on my hand again. Finally pull the tooth free with a big gush of blood. Hurts like hell, but I can still move my fingers.
“Got some hooch back in the alley you can pour over that for the infection if you want it.”
“Naw, save it. I’ll dip my hand in gasoline later. I should stay out of town today. Hell, probably forever.”
An old Model T passes on the county road heading into town and Vern watches me track it. The dust hangs in the air a long time.
“Easy to steal, but hard to do the time once they catch ya,” Vern says.
“Yeah, train’s my best bet I suppose. I can hop a freight. The yard is outside of town at least.”
“Hey Trip, you know those fellas coming down the road?” Vern asks pointing east into the sun.
Three figures still in the shade at the edge of town were pointing at us and moving our way. Two of them look to be carrying bats. I stand up the and start to move off trailing blood from my hand. Fool Vern calls after me.
“Follow Heart Creek through the trees yonder, That’s the fastest. I’ll talk to them when they get here. And watch out for Clyde the railroad bull over there. Him and Burp are cousins.”
“Heard it,” I yell as I wave off all his blabbering and run for the treeline.
I crash through the brush for five minutes along the creek and make my way to the train yard. A line of box cars hooked to a freight engine are just hissing into motion. I’m about to hop one when old Clyde’s double barrel against my ribs makes me reconsider all my options, past and present.
Bone Splinters and Booze was originally published in Other Doors on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
August 17, 2018
The Razor Blade of Duty or Chase Your Dreams
Photo by Val Vesa on UnsplashThey stab it with their steely knives,But they just can’t kill the beast — Don Henley
Always that depressing tension
between lovely aspirations and
the blade hard reality of avoiding
starvation by ensuring with bloody
fingers others live like kings and queens.
The Razor Blade of Duty or Chase Your Dreams was originally published in P.S. I Love You on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
