Sheldon Lee Compton's Blog, page 3
November 26, 2016
My interview series Chaos Questions is back at Enclave
Some time back I thought to collect the interviews I had shared at CCM’s Enclave as a contributor known as Chaos Questions into a single volume and seek publication. Following this thought, I asked the writer and editor and Enclave maestro Janice Lee and current Managing Editor Sam Slaughter if I might take the interviews down in order to pursue this endeavor. I never really sought publication and the thought was forgotten, like so many these days, I’m afraid.
This is to say that I will again be posting the new interviews and certainly reposting those I had already conducted and which were once at Enclave for anyone to read and enjoy, or otherwise. I’m grateful that the spot is still open and, in particular to Sam Slaughter. I look forward to the continued pleasure of engaging in these insane conversations with some of our brightest creative minds.
On that note, should you or someone you know perhaps be interested in taking part in a Chaos Questions interview, do not hesitate to contact me at my personal email shelcompton (at) gmail (dot) com. Please do put Chaos Questions somewhere in the subject line.
I hope for Chaos Questions to feel something like a public place you feel compelled to hang your Christmas stocking, if only for a time.

November 24, 2016
New Film and Television column upcoming at Change Seven Magazine
I’ve held a secret obsession for several years now – a love of film and television that surpasses even my love for reading. As a writer, this outright adoration of the big and small screen alike is sort of my literary black eye. Nonetheless, for every book I read, I binge watch two full seasons of one show or another and watch no less than three movies. This has given me a fairly good palate for the medium.
Now I’ll be writing a regular column for Change Seven Magazine about the cultural importance of film and television, how narrative and characterization is flourishing within the art forms, and also general commentary on some of the most exciting work currently on offer from both. This may be presented as criticism, it may be presented as flattery, but it will always strive be honest, informed, and relevant.
Of course a huge thanks is owed to author and Change Seven editor-in-chief Sheryl Monks, who is willing to let me ramble about movies and TV and everything in between.
I’ll update here when the first column runs. Until then, brush up on your movie quotes.

November 23, 2016
Happy To Be at Bartleby Snopes, Sad To See It Go
Bartleby Snopes is a journal I’ve long wanted to be published in. This past week that became a reality as my short story “Pull” was published there Monday.
The journal, which was founded in 2008 by Nate Tower, will cease publishing new work at the end of this year. There will be a final print issue put out in January of 2017 and then visitors will be able to visit the archives from that point on. And those archives are rich – some 750 stories from some 600 authors over the course of the last eight years. I’m so happy and proud that mine will now be counted among those.
Thank you Nate and the many other editors, including my friend April Bradley, who have worked diligently to bring us solid fiction over the years. You have left a mark.

November 21, 2016
“After Watching Ido Mizrahy’s Film Gored — July 9, 2015” published today at New World Writing
Pleased to have a new story published today at New World Writing. Grateful thanks to Kim Chinquee for picking it up. And if you’ve not seen the documentary the title references, you should do so soon. It’s really interesting.

November 20, 2016
Forthcoming Stories Set for Publication
For the past two months I’ve been submitting work again for publication. I spent the past two years submitting very little and writing more, but I had enough finished pieces recently to send a few out and see what would come of it. I was pleased to find that some of the stories have been accepted and will soon be shared with readers of the fine journals kind enough to take them. Below is a list of forthcoming publications as of today:
“Seven Drums” – forthcoming in Bull
“Support System” – forthcoming in This Zine Will Change Your Life
“Pull” – forthcoming in Bartleby Snopes
“Textbook,” “The Same Terrible Storm,” “Intruder,”More Sideways Than Up” forthcoming reprints in Great Jones Street
“Birthright” – forthcoming in Flash Frontier
“A Dragon Shall Ascend to Heaven” – forthcoming in Change Seven Magazine
“The Fittest” – forthcoming in Five:2:One Magazine
“After Watching Ido Mizrahy’s Film Gored – July 9, 2015” – forthcoming in New World Writing
Grateful thanks to the following editors – Ben Drevlow, Michelle Elvy, Nathan Alan Schwartz, Ben Tanzer, Kim Chinquee, Nate Tower, Sheryl Monks, and Kelly Abbott.

October 18, 2016
27 Update – Word Count: 0. Progress: Vast and far-reaching
DAY 138 – (October 17, 2016) – Not a single word today and it was probably one of the more significant days of work on this novel so far. After a full day feeling the total lack of inspiration each and every time I set myself to write, I went to bed. Throughout the evening I had not read a word, either. In fact, I’m reading less and less these days and watching more television series (Westworld, The Exorcist, American Horror Story, to name a few) and movies. Feeling guilty about this, as reading is a part of writing, tied together forevermore, I lay awake in bed trying to figure out why the sudden shift in my interest had occurred. An hour later I had no answer but I did have a breakthrough for both the structure and direction of Book Three of 27. It’s a risk, so I know I’m on the write path. I’ll likely fail, but, if I don’t, it might be good. Either way, it’s a major breakthrough and the that reminds me that the writing of a novel isn’t only about word count. Word count: 0. Progress: Vast and far-reaching.
Source: 27

October 2, 2016
27 Update – Nostalgia Is Fine By Me
DAY 123 – (October 2, 2016) – A day of work that kept me in a nostalgic grip. I’ll put a sample of it below. Total word count: 519.
“The boy notices the closer he gets to the tracks, the louder the lonesome sound becomes. He takes careful halfsteps, can see the shimmer of the puddle to the side of the mounded earth, lets out a long-held breath, and is then startled when the lonesome sound stops in mid-note. Now, and this is the paramount thought in the boy’s mind, the only thing that exists is the silence, a deep wealth of it, a heaving animal, large and dying, fixing itself across the surface of all the earth. It is a vacuum now, the field, the railroad tracks just before him, the clapboard house far behind, a vacuum in which sound is dead. And then, subtle and lightly at first, comes the lonesome sound again. A bleating? A croaking? Was it the sound of the boy himself crying beneath the bedsheet and quilt, an echo of this crying, a low moan of such helplessness and aloneness only a child could bear it?”
Source: 27

September 21, 2016
New short story published at The Miscreant
Thanks to editor Amanda Harris for publishing my short story “Henry VIII with Fever Nearly a Decade after Publication of the English Bible” in Issue 12 of The Miscreant. I wrote it after watching a documentary on Henry VIII, the same documentary that led me to find out through a fair amount of research that William Compton was my ancestral great-grandfather. William Compton was, as far as I can tell, like Henry’s wingman or something.

September 7, 2016
New Story Published in 4ink7
I’m pleased to say I have a new story called “Beautiful” that just appeared in 4ink7‘s new issue, which is wonderfully titled Wash Your Needless Soda Down as Anton. I’m very thankful to Russell Helms for taking my strange little story and including it in such fine company. The print issue can be bought via Amazon at the link below:

August 21, 2016
27 Update – Never Give Up
DAY 53 (July 26, 2016) – No words.
DAY 54 (July 27, 2016) – No words.
DAY 55 – DAY 60 (July 28, 2016 – August 2, 2016) – No words.
DAY 61 – DAY 65 (August 3, 2016 – August 7, 2016) – No words.
DAY 66 – DAY 72 (August 8, 2016 – August 14, 2016) – No words.
DAY 73 – DAY 77 (August 15, 2016 – August 19, 2016) – No words.
Day 78 – (August 20, 2016) – Never give up. Total words: 587.
Source: 27
