Aaron Polson's Blog, page 3

Love Wins

Sometimes, a guy needs to stand up and be counted.

I love my state; I do not love nor do I agree with the bigots in charge.

I fully support the right of anyone to marry and enjoy the same legal protection afforded anyone else. More than that, I believe love is love and gay men and women deserve the same shot at the uphill battle of lifelong commitment and fidelity as any straight man or woman.

You may not agree with me, but your view on gay marriage does not matter to me.

You may not agree and say your faith informs you. Okay. Fine. As long as you're using Biblical support, have fun with your multiple wives, slaves, and stop eating ham, okay? And really, stay away from cotton and wool together (yes, that's banned, too). Thanks, Leviticus. You're full of fun. And there's that part about women being silent. (Timothy 2:11) And the stuff about wounded penises and testicles. (Yes, that's in there, too--Deuteronomy 23:1--but it evidently doesn't have anything to do with a botched circumcision... or does it?)  But I'm not the guy who's going to use all this Biblical mumbo-jumbo to pretend I'm going to sway your opinion about gay marriage or civil rights in general. You've already made up your mind. This is not a debate.

Let me repeat: your view on gay marriage does not matter to me. And I don't suspect that my view matters much to you. 

What does matter is right and wrong--civil rights and civil wrongs.

My state, Kansas, just did a big whopping wrong. Let me revise: the leaders of my state (at least the House of Representatives) did a big whopping wrong in passing House Bill 2453 (which explicitly protects religious individuals, groups and businesses that refuse services to same-sex couples, particularly those looking to tie the knot.) For more, CNN has a pretty good break-down of the law. Those crying "liberal media" can check out this Fox affiliate's take and realize it's the same press release from CNN.  Keep crying.

And our Governor, Mr. Hypocrite himself, told the Topeka Capital-Journal, "Americans have constitutional rights, among them the right to exercise their religious beliefs and the right for every human life to be treated with respect and dignity."

Every human life? How about gays. They're human. Hell, any gay individual I know is pretty much more human than the legislators who voted "yes" to this piece of garbage.

I'm proud to be a member of an open and affirming congregation in Lawrence, KS.  (Love you, Plymouth Congregational Church.) I'm proud to know plenty of wonderful Kansans who think our legislators are morons.

I'm proud to call several gay men some of my closest friends--not because they happen to be gay, but because they are some of the most amazing people I know. Folks who have been there for me in tough times and good times. Family.

Don't mess with family. 

It doesn't take much to imagine a world in which I couldn't marry someone I loved. Kim and I are in our second marriage--and our union would not have found favor with Biblical law at one point in history. Hell, we'd probably be stoned to death or something asinine like that. It sounds ridiculous now, but the slope is steep and quite slippery when a modern political entity in a democratic nation can start to write bills promising discrimination and promoting bigotry. 

I've tried to keep this as positive as I can. It is Valentine's Day and love wins. Love always wins in the end. Your view on gay marriage does not matter to me, but in promoting a law like House Bill 2453, Kansas made this a civil rights issue. Kansas is poised to make history--on the wrong side of history.

 

Dollar Signs

 Money kills creativity. Money breeds censorship. Money destroys art. Money breeds derivative, "safe" art. 

Once money enters the equation, creativity suffers. Yes, it can offer powerful inspiration, but think about what Rod Serling has to say about "pre-censorship" in this clip:


If a writer is thinking about what is and is not acceptable even before a piece is written, it kills the creative process. Damon Knight offers a very important piece of advice in his seminal Creating Short Fiction. To paraphrase, a writer should never say "no" to his/her subconscious in the creative process. It seems Serling's mention of "pre-censorship" is just that. It hacks creativity at the roots.

And here's a little something from Ira Glass about the time involved to make your art what you want it to be:



Did you catch the part about time (Mr. Glass talks about "years")? It takes time for a creative individual's ability to catch up with her/his taste. It takes time for creativity to really bloom. Money kills that time. Money makes everything urgent. If you need the money, you will do whatever it takes--even cutting corners in a process that just can't be rushed.

Wait, you say. What are you saying? Are you saying writers should write "for the love"? That's an insult, Aaron. Writers should be paid. Didn't you post that video from Harlan Ellison ranting about paying writers? Have you changed your  mind?

No. Absolutely not. But--and this is the important moment, the epiphany--if a creative type does his/her work solely for money, that work is robbed of its potential.  For example, if I write a story solely to try and publish at a specific market because said market pays well, I'm no longer thinking about the story. I'm thinking of the market and of dollar signs, and I might just make some (conscious or unconscious) decisions based on the potential pay day. It's why I have a hard time writing stories to target for specific anthologies. I'd rather write the stories I need to write and then find them homes. It's how I work.

And there's another, more insidious cancer growing here... self-publishing. If it takes time for ability to catch up with taste, it will take time before work is ready for the public. I know mine did--and even upon my earliest publications, some of my stories were not all that good. Read the first page or two of a self-published novel from someone with no other experience or "time" at the craft. Rarely will you find anything I'd call literature. And yes, speculative fiction is literature--it can still be art. It takes time. You can't rush it.

I'm still working. I'm also blessed that now, at this point in my life, I don't need to make money with my creative endeavors. I'm free to let them be the best they can--even if it takes the rest of my life for them to be where I want them to be.

Neil Peart explains in Beyond the Lighted Stage that upon the creation of 2112, Rush decided to do it their way or go home. If the record company pulled out the rug, so be it. They would remain true to their vision.  One of the greatest rock drummers of all time was willing to go work at his family's tractor dealership rather than compromise on his art. I hope all creative types have the time and financial resolve to be so uncompromising.


Hell yes I do.

(And did you see how I worked three of my heroes into one blog post? Well played, Aaron. Well played.)

How Video Games Saved My Life

Some of my earliest memories start with video games. When I was five, the family received an Intellivision II from Santa Claus. We spent hours playing Burgertime and Astrosmash. I wore callouses on my fingers on the black disc and burned holes through the keypad. My brother, twelve years older than me, and I played marathon sessions and bonded over strategy and high scores.
Yes kids, video game consoles used to look like this. No WiFi, either.Soon enough, my brother graduated from high school and moved to college. I grew up and so did the gaming systems. There was a brief affair with Atari 7800. The family purchased our first home computer when I was in middle school, a Laser 128 (Apple IIe knockoff). Gaming continued with Conan and Montezuma's Revenge played from floppy disks.

Conan was a helluva lot more difficult than it looks.Video games were my friends--not my only friends--but good buddies during some trying times. My father developed a brain tumor when I was in kindergarten. He and Mom were gone most of the year and part of the next. Once my sister (ten years older than me) left for college, I was left at home with an ailing father and overworked mother. Games were an outlet, a way to manage and control something in a life where so much seemed out of control. When things were really bad at home, when my father resembled a man thirty years his senior with dementia, I met the Nintendo Entertainment System. Three of my buddies spent the night with a rented NES and The Legend of Zelda on my birthday in 7th grade. I mowed lawns that summer with my brother to earn enough money for my own NES. I played it into the ground.

Hooray! A golden triangle!I grew older... Sega Genesis... SNES... N64... my friends and I played too many seasons of Super Tecmo Bowl to count. We lost countless hours in basements with Mario Kart and Goldeneye 007. A few Madden Football tournaments earned me one of two Cs in college. (Why go to Survey of Art History on Friday afternoon when I was making history on a virtual football field?) Capcom's Resident Evil 2 and Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night got me through a rough student teaching semester. Video games have always been an escape, a way to let off steam. When I found myself dumped and alone in a new town during the fall of 1998, Metal Gear Solid and Bushido Blade were there.

Yes, games have been with me a long time. When my thirteen-year-old stepson found me playing an emulated copy of Symphony of the Night the other day, he told Kim, "you've got a good man there, Mom."
Awwww shucks... I'm just a fan boy. I hope so. I hope so. 

Friday Flashback: Ghouls 'n Ghosts

Today's flashback features one of my favorites from the Genesis/Mega Drive era, a rather challenging port of an arcade classic: Ghouls 'n Ghosts. 


Ghouls 'n Ghosts had great legs and a lot of lasting value. It was straight-up arcade action/platformer but without the cute plumbers. (Instead, it featured a knight who was occasionally caught with his armor down.) For the time, the music was brilliant, the sound effects solid, the game play uber-challenging, the graphics colorful and vibrant, and the concept fun. In today's world of super-realistic first person shooters and mindless touch screen nonsense, I miss those button-mashing days...


(Let's just not discuss the hours I wasted spent playing my Genesis back in the day.)

2013 Taught Me These Things

Hello, 2014. You've been around for a little over a week now, and I wanted to give you a proper greeting. So, hi. You're going to be a good year. I know it.

As I say hello to 2014, it's only fitting to say one last goodbye to 2013. It was a very good year--and one which taught me a few things:

1. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And by Santa Claus I mean a woman with whom I am madly in love. We married in July and care for a half-dozen kids in our home. And-- AND I am very happy. Yes, it can happen like this. It does every day.

2. I can still write. I've had to shake away some rust (some of my work hasn't been my best), but the desire is there--not the feverish drive it once was, but that came from managing demons as much as desire to tell stories. Now, I have the desire, but the demons are not snapping at my heals. This is a better seat from which to write.

You can read the first published piece I penned after my hiatus at Weirdyear. It's a bit of flash I call "Doubt"--and I'd be thrilled it you'd give it a read. 

3. Even while I spent more than a year on hiatus, books and stories continued to sell via Smashwords and Amazon. Upon returning, I've found Amazon a much more crowded landscape than ever. My sales through Smashwords and its affiliates were roughly flat. Considering I spent zero time promoting my writing for the majority of 2013, I find that quite interesting. I actually broke down my numbers (which weren't record breaking in any way), and found a few interesting tidbits. My top five paid sellers* were as follows:

A Feast of Flesh: Tales of Zombies, Monsters, and Demons 141 Violent Ends: Horror Stories 120 Thirteen Shadows: Ghost Stories 76 The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories 74 Write Hard: Prompts, Prods, and Pep-Talks for Writers 26

Some books sold very litte--only 4 copies of The House Eaters for example. Was it the presence of words like "horror stories" or "ghost stories" or the goldmine "zombies" in the titles of the others? Was it price? None of these numbers will break records, but I like to think about data. Freebies "sold" many more copies, but I didn't include them here. For those keeping score at home, Write Hard was my bestseller for Kindle via Amazon.com, but not all of my books were available for Kindle during 2013. 

4. I missed shouting at the universe via this blog, Twitter, and the InterwebTM in general.

5. I have much more to say before I take the big dirt nap. Years and years of stories to tell. Will you listen?

My 2014 goals are forthcoming. Really.

I promise.

*for the past two years, I've donated every dime of my net Smashwords earnings to local and international charities. No writer's work is paid what it is "worth" but I can make my work worth more in terms of education, food, and healthcare in the right hands.  Heifer International and Health Care Access are two of my favorites.

The Care and Feeding of a Story

Let me tell a story about caring for and feeding your writing. 

"Wanting It" is one of my favorite stories to date. Like Ramsey Campbell, what keeps me going is the idea that I haven't yet written my best story, but "Wanting It" makes me a proud papa. I'm working with a student who struggles with writing because he wants it to be "perfect" the first time. It never is.

"Wanting It" began life as a feeling more than an idea. I wrote it during spring, 2010--several hundred thousand words and more than three years after beginning my writing journey. My heart ached. I was missing something, but I couldn't put my hands around "what" was missing. "Wanting It" began with longing, and there were tears when I wrote the story. It's biographical without telling details from my life--other than the protagonist's first name. Thanks, Tim O'Brien, for that trick.

I edited and polished and sent the story to Ken Wood at Shock Totem on April 26, 2010. I'd come to a place in my writing where I knew stories needed to start at the top no matter the odds. I found a rewrite request in my inbox on June 17. I read Ken's email several times. I looked at my story. I tried to find the "confident writer" he described hearing in the last few pages. I did what I could to tighten the story, had three friends read it and provide feedback, and sent it back.

The good people at Shock Totem liked it, but liked parts of my first version better. Ken and I began a back and forth discussion about what to change, where to change, how much or how little to change, keep, crop, blend... We exchanged several messages about what to call a guy's butt--not because we didn't know, but what would the narrator say? Ass? Rump? Buttocks? Yes, we had that conversation.

After months of writes and re-writes, Shock Totem #3 came out with "Wanting It" in the line up.

But "Wanting It"'s story wasn't over. It still isn't. The story garnered some nice reviews, including this one from Joshua Jabcuga (Bookgasm):

"I was genuinely moved by Polson’s entry, one about nostalgia and memories, and as some of us know, these ghosts of what-was or what-can-never-be-again can create the most haunting experiences of our lives, the kind that no amount of beer can drown, no pill can numb, and the type where no amount of distance or time will help us escape from it... horror at its finest."

Horror at its finest? Thanks, Joshua. Thanks Ken and the Shock Totem crew. "Wanting It" went on to land an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year volume 4 (my name was even mentioned in the year in review--this small town kid is humbled). Yes, hundreds of stories receive honorable mentions each year, but the four I've garnered mean so much to me. They're my own little black ribbons.

So what do I tell this student?

Keep writing. Nothing is ever finished. Ever.

(And if you've never read a page of Shock Totem, start now.)

My Favorite Yeast Bread Recipe

This really is a bread recipe, not some hack or spam post. Enough folks have asked for this recipe, I thought I'd share--especially now, during the cold winter holiday season when the smell of baking bread is the only thing that keeps me going some days. This is my favorite yeast bread (maybe my favorite thing to bake, hands down).

Grandma Joy's Refrigerator Roll Dough

Start with:
1/2 cup warm water
1 package yeast (I always use rapid rise)
1 tablespoon white sugar

Stir yeast and sugar in the water to dissolve. Let this react for about 5-10 minutes until the yeast foams. While you are waiting...

Combine:

2/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup melted and cooled butter (or margarine; I prefer butter)
2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs

Add the yeast mixture. Then mix in 6-8 cups of flour. You want to use a majority of white flour because whole wheat flour will not rise the same as white flour. I usually use 8 full cups with 7 being white flour and one whole wheat for good measure. I always use unbleached/enriched flour.

Knead for 5-7 minutes until smooth and elastic. Kneading can be a real cardiovascular workout. Here's some good technique to try:


Let the dough rise for about an hour in a lightly floured bowl. Make sure to cover with plastic wrap and a towel. When doubled, punch down and divide into two lumps. I always place them in lightly floured gallon freezer bags and send to the refrigerator. When you are ready to use the dough, you can make all sorts of goodies--from dinner rolls to donuts. One of my favorites, of course, is the good old fashioned cinnamon roll. Shape, cut, etc., and let rise for a while (the longer you wait, the more puffy/air-filled the dough will become, but you run the risk of it falling or drying out). Bake for 15-20 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. If you like soft crust, brush with butter before removing from your pan to cool on a rack.

And just how does one roll out cinnamon rolls?


Much better than that crap from a can or impotent frozen rolls. Just my humble opinion. Enjoy!

*I didn't make the videos, but I did make this:

Aaron Polson is Dead, Long Live Aaron Polson

Remember when Garth Brooks pulled that stupid Chris Gaines stunt?

If you don't, don't worry. In the days of my youth, when I was trying like hell to figure out what it means to be a man, Garth Brooks dominated popular music. I was never a fan, but no high school dance was complete without "Low Places" being played. This is a snapshot of a moment in time, part of my generation, and part of something I'm not sure future generations will have the chance to experience.

Insomnia and I have been wrestling a bit of late, and last night, while watching one of the more horrid (and not in a good way) episodes of Hammer House of Horror on DVD, I started thinking about the fleeting nature of fame in the 21st century. Andy Warhol is my prophet.

Garth Brooks had a solid decade of serious, multi-million-selling fame. Me? Never a fan, but plenty of people loved the guy. He became so famous he could have a bizarro out-of-body experience and pretend to be someone else (Chris Gaines) and the dude still sold billions of albums and won a shit-ton of awards.

This isn't all about Brooks. This is about now, the 21st century, and the lightning strike of fame. Fame is nothing of which I want a part. I do not write for fame, I do not tell stories to become famous, I have no desire to attach "best-seller" to anything I do. I am a writer, I am a story-teller, and I do like to create the best I can.

But fame? Never heard of it. And, like the old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be--at least I suspect she ain't--er, isn't. Remember the guy who wrote the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies mash-up? I don't. But hey... I could Google him*. How about the band which had that song which was popular a year ago? No idea who we're talking about.

Maybe fame has always bounced around, leaving us only with the big names which last for time immemorial. Maybe fame has always worked this way. Maybe I'm just a crabby, sleep-deprived, middle-aged hack. Maybe.

But fame does distort reality. Fame makes a guy like Garth Brooks, king of the popular music world (in the U.S. at least) in the 1990s, think Chris Gaines was a good idea.

I pray I'm never famous.

*Okay, so I looked him up. I guess he wrote the screenplay to the recent Dark Shadows movie. That sucked, too.

Author's Notes: "13 Pieces, Also the Dark"

Friday was one of those strange days in which two stories of mine were made available on the same day after months of nothing. If you missed "13 Pieces, Also the Dark," don't be surprised. I pimped "Digging Deep" with more gusto because it was the featured story at Every Day Fiction.

Today, I want to tell you about "13 Pieces, Also the Dark" which is available to read as a free PDF download from Black Frost Media. Please read it--it costs you nothing more than a few minutes of your time, and I am forever grateful for each reader.

And now, the obligatory spoiler alert...

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The title of this piece, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, is an un-abashed knock-off of Kij Johnson's "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss". Please know the story, other than an experiment in style and the titular hack, has nothing to do with Johnson's. I like to experiment, and that's how this piece started.

The narrator is a voyeur, at first describing the slow death of his neighbor and the comings and goings of said neighbor's children. If any of you dear readers remember Gary Sump, you'll note this isn't the first time I've written from the POV of a voyeuristic narrator. As the story progresses, however, the reader learns the narrator's past and what he suspects happened in the house across the street.

As a guidance counselor (and English teacher when I wrote "13 Pieces, Also the Dark"), I see into the lives of my students--tiny little peeks--and construct their realities from these fragments. Maybe that's what bubbled to the surface with this story; the "pieces" are the bits from which one can fashion a whole life story.

Of course, in my tale, the pieces are also, quite literaly, the parts of the dying man our narrator helps carry away in the end.

I wrote this one before my self-imposed hiatus, and upon re-reading it a year+ later, still felt a good amount of discomfort. More maybe than "a good amount". And that, dear readers, is what indicates, to me, a fine story.

Please give "13 Pieces, Also the Dark" a read if you have the chance. I'd love to hear what you think.

My Notes on "Digging Deep"

"Digging Deep" is up at Every Day Fiction today. I think they're switching servers tomorrow, so it's only appropriate the last story before blackout is about death. Sort of.

Let me tell you about "Digging Deep". 

Here be spoilers.

Read the story first, if you would.


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I wrote "Digging Deep" shortly before Aimee died and submitted it one time before my hiatus and return to writing. It is a story about death as I mentioned above, but more. It is a horror story, but not a Horror story. "Digging Deep" talks about Truth like I hope most of my work does. Although I've capitalized it, this Truth is human-truth, not God-truth. I'll leave that for the theologians.

I want readers to understand what moves the narrator. This is a story of big revelation rather than big events. It's not about what happened to the mummified remains the narrator helps to exhume or the horrors which might lurk on the English countryside near his home. No, it's about real horror--horror any of us can feel.

On one level, there's the horror of losing a child (or any loved one). You see, the narrator feels the connection between his daughter, Ellen, and the awful things they dig from under the standing stones. The braided hair sets him off.  My grandmother buried both of her children--my Aunt Norma Jean (who I never met because she died at 21, decades before my birth) and my father (brain cancer shortened his life). I look at my own kids, those with whom I share genes and my stepchildren, and can't imagine--don't want to imagine--such terrible ends for them. I fiercely love Kim, and the thought of anything, anything happening to her abhors me. Anyone who loves so fiercely can feel the inevitable pang of death. So yes, death stalks the narrator as it does all of us.

But that, dear readers, is only a bit of the story--even for a tale just shy of 1,000 words, there's more.

"Digging Deep" is also about the horror which comes when people become little more than objects. The mummified bodies, once living, breathing people (again, the braids), are now objects for the university men. Waxy broadens the theme when he talks about the barmaid, saying, "Wouldn't mind a roll with that one," making her little more than a sexual object. For the poor narrator, Ellen becomes a thing--both an object for the "university men" and, by extension, a sexual object for men like Waxy--as he connects the dots between the three. In the end, especially in the end, death leaves each of us nothing more than objects.

Yes, that latter bit is implied. It's what the story means to me, now, nearly two years after originally writing it. But the truth--and the truth of all fiction--is that any reader's reality is just as valid as mine.

I've written the story and now it's time to share.