Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 14

Kids aren’t the only ones who should get a summer break

Have I mentioned lately that I’m revising two novels? Yes, two; one two buckle my shoe novels. One is the as-yet unnamed sequel to The Unwanted, and the other is a revision of the near-future dystopian speculative fiction I wrote in grad school. For many industrious and talented writers I know, this would be no big whoop.

I am not one of those writers, however.

Anyway, my goal is to finish these revisions by the end of the summer, so I’m taking a temporary hiatus from here (and yes, I know “temporary hiatus” is redundant, but I can live with that, and so can you). So that I can focus (something I always have problems with, as you know if you’ve read, like, anything I’ve posted here), I’ve also deleted a whole slew of apps to make my smartphone as dumb as possible. I’ve caught up on all my must-see TV (which, granted, isn’t much) so that I can ignore all the other things piling up on the DVR, and I’m not going to even think about seeing what’s new on Netflix.

At the moment, as in last week and this one, I’m focusing on the as-yet unnamed sequel to The Unwanted. (At some point, I really should come up with a title, shouldn’t I? What do you think of Prophecy Sucks? No? Maybe?) I finished revising chapter 15 this weekend, and chapter 16 in its current form is a bit, well, sketchy. There are lots of bracketed notes to myself that say helpful things like “[FIX THIS]” or “[MORE HERE],” Will I get them both done before September? Maybe not. Probably not. Maybe I’ll get one of them in the can, though, and the other one farther along than it is now. We shall see. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, maybe you’ll find something worth reading in the archives. I’m going through them and clearing out some of the mundane stuff from the early years, but I’m also working on organizing the rest of it into more helpful categories. Because good heavens, looking back at posts from 2006 and 2007, it’s like Captain Kirk opening that storage unit on Space Station K-7 and getting buried under an avalanche of Tribbles….

Kids aren’t the only ones who should get a summer break

Have I mentioned lately that I’m revising two novels? Yes, two; one two buckle my shoe novels. One is the as-yet unnamed sequel to The Unwanted, and the other is a revision of the near-future dystopian speculative fiction I wrote in grad school. For many industrious and talented writers I know, this would be no big whoop.

I am not one of those writers, however.

Anyway, my goal is to finish these revisions by the end of the summer, so I’m taking a temporary break from here (and yes, I know “temporary break” is redundant, but I can live with that, and so can you). So that I can focus (something I always have problems with, as you know if you’ve read, like, anything I’ve posted here), I’ve also deleted a whole slew of apps to make my smartphone as dumb as possible. I’ve caught up on all my must-see TV (which, granted, isn’t much) so that I can ignore all the other things piling up on the DVR, and I’m not going to even think about seeing what’s new on Netflix.

At the moment, as in last week and this one, I’m focusing on the as-yet unnamed sequel to The Unwanted. (At some point, I really should come up with a title, shouldn’t I? What do you think of Prophecy Sucks? No? Maybe?) I finished revising chapter 15 this weekend, and chapter 16 in its current form is a bit, well, sketchy. There are lots of bracketed notes to myself that say helpful things like “[FIX THIS]” or “[MORE HERE],” Will I get them both done before September? Maybe not. Probably not. Maybe I’ll get one of them in the can, though, and the other one farther along than it is now. We shall see. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, maybe you’ll find something worth reading in the archives. I’m going through them and clearing out some of the mundane stuff from the early years, but I’m also working on organizing the rest of it into more helpful categories. Because good heavens, looking back at posts from 2006 and 2007, it’s like Captain Kirk opening that storage unit on Space Station K-7 and getting buried under an avalanche of Tribbles….

The post Kids aren’t the only ones who should get a summer break appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Finding writing inspiration… at a leather convention?

You never know when inspiration is going to cross your path. In my case, I never would have expected inspiration for my young adult writing to arrive at a leather convention.

Let me back up. Recently, we went to Chicago to visit my friend Scott. He’s a photographer and a good friend I originally got to know through blogging. Yes, it was that long ago. Blogging wa still a thing, dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we all drove Model Ts. We’ve known each other for about 15 years, but I hadn’t seen him since before I went to grad school, so five, maybe six years. This is far too long, and I hadn’t been to Chicago in about as long a time, and he’d just recently moved there. So, up we went.

Amid all of our sightseeing and museum-going and dining and cocktailing (is “cocktailing” a verb? Well, it is now), Scott also was scheduled to promote a book of erotic photography that he’d published and was getting ready to publish a second edition. So he had to work a shift at the book table at International Mr. Leather.

Yes, that IML.

Even casual readers can probably guess that a leather convention is generally not my scene. I’m a relatively recently lapsed vegetarian (but only went so far as seafood, and that’s probably a topic for another essay at some point) and I still don’t buy leather (because if I’m not going to eat it, I’m probably not going to wear it, either).

I still have misgivings about the fish, by the way.

Anyway, so, me and leather? Not so much. But! I’m game for anything, or as comedian Deven Green says, as long as I don’t bleed or cry, I’ll do it.

With some additional exceptions.

So, off we went to IML to see Scott work the book table and have a look around. As we were waiting for Scott’s shift to begin, I started talking with the guy staffing the table before him, Cesar. (He was wearing a Black Adam superhero costume, so how could I NOT strike up a conversation?) He was promoting an erotic BDSM superhero series he was close to finishing up (under another pen name) and selling copies of the first three installments. He also had written a novel, 13 Secret Cities, that dealt heavily in mythology which is something that, as you know, I’m very interested in.

Scott gave me a nudge and said, “Jeff’s a writer too.” Yes, talk about burying the lead. I hadn’t even mentioned that. When it comes to building awareness of my own work, I’m sometimes my worst enemy. That’s why it’s easier for me to talk about other people’s work.

Anyway, as we got to talking, I told him about The Unwanted and the ways it touches on Greek mythology and how I’ve been working on (struggling with, really) the sequel. The more we talked, the more I thought about that sequel, which I’ve left on the back burner lately while I revise another novel. I’ve worried about its complications, whether it moves enough, wondered if I’m treading over ground that I’ve already visited exhaustively.

We exchanged contact information, bought some of each other’s work, and threw around the idea of doing a podcast episode about mythology and how we deal with that in our work. After we both went our separate ways, I kept thinking about the Unwanted sequel (I have to come up with a better way of saying that since it sounds like “the sequel nobody wants”) and where I left off in it. Even though I’d left my laptop at home on this trip, I keep a copy of the latest chapter in my Google docs, so I pulled it up on my phone. And I started working on it again.

Sometimes it just takes a little while away from a project to come back to it and see it more clearly. A framing device I’d considered using was just an unneeded distraction, I realized, a delaying tactic that was keeping me from getting done. A lack of movement in the chapter I was working on could be solved simply by forcing a character to make a decision and then act on it. That led to another idea, and another. I have had the end in mind ever since I started the book, and now I can see how to get the rest of the way there.

If I’d begged off of going to a leather convention, I still might have reached those conclusions. But maybe not. Maybe it would have taken me longer to get to those decisions. I said yes to a novel situation, and that turned out to be the right choice.

Inspiration isn’t something you have to wait for, of course. It’s something that I think comes more readily the more you make yourself available to it. But it can still surprise you every once in a while.

Still, I’m not about to start wearing a leather harness or anything.

Finding writing inspiration… at a leather convention?

You never know when inspiration is going to cross your path. In my case, I never would have expected inspiration for my young adult writing to arrive at a leather convention.

Let me back up. Recently, we went to Chicago to visit my friend Scott. He’s a photographer and a good friend I originally got to know through blogging. Yes, it was that long ago. Blogging was still a thing, dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we all drove Model Ts. We’ve known each other for about 15 years, but I hadn’t seen him since before I went to grad school. So five, maybe six years. This is far too long, and I hadn’t been to Chicago in about as long a time, and he’d just recently moved there. So, up we went.

Amid all of our sightseeing and museum-going and dining and cocktailing (is “cocktailing” a verb? Well, it is now), Scott also was scheduled to promote a book of erotic photography that he’d published and was getting ready to publish a second edition. So he had to work a shift at the book table at International Mr. Leather.

Yes, that IML.

Even casual readers can probably guess that a leather convention is generally not my scene. I’m a relatively recently lapsed vegetarian (but only went so far as seafood, and that’s probably a topic for another essay at some point). I still don’t buy leather (because if I’m not going to eat it, I’m probably not going to wear it, either).

By the way, I still have misgivings about the fish.

Anyway, me and leather? Not so much. But! I’m game for anything, or as comedian Deven Green says, as long as I don’t bleed or cry, I’ll do it.

With some additional exceptions.

So, off we went to IML to see Scott work the book table and have a look around. As we were waiting for Scott’s shift to begin, I started talking with the guy staffing the table before him, Cesar. (He was wearing a Black Adam superhero costume, so how could I NOT strike up a conversation?) He was promoting an erotic BDSM superhero series he was close to finishing up (under another pen name) and selling copies of the first three installments. Another novel he’d written, 13 Secret Cities, dealt heavily in mythology which is something that, as you know, I’m very interested in.

Scott gave me a nudge and said, “Jeff’s a writer too.” Yes, talk about burying the lead. I hadn’t even mentioned that. When it comes to building awareness of my own work, I’m sometimes my worst enemy. That’s why it’s easier for me to talk about other people’s work.

Anyway, as we got to talking, I told him about The Unwanted and the ways it touches on Greek mythology and how I’ve been working on (struggling with, really) the sequel. The more we talked, the more I thought about that sequel, which I’ve left on the back burner lately while I revise another novel. I’ve worried about its complications, whether it moves enough, if I’m treading over ground I’ve already exhausted.

We exchanged contact information, bought some of each other’s work, and threw around the idea of doing a podcast episode about mythology and how we deal with that in our work. After we both went our separate ways, I kept thinking about the Unwanted sequel (I have to come up with a better way of saying that since it sounds like “the sequel nobody wants”) and where I left off in it. Even though I’d left my laptop at home on this trip, I keep a copy of the latest chapter in my Google docs, so I pulled it up on my phone. And I started working on it again.

Sometimes it just takes a little while away from a project to come back to it and see it more clearly. A framing device I’d considered using was just an unneeded distraction, I realized, a delaying tactic that was keeping me from getting done. A lack of movement in the chapter I was working on could be solved simply by forcing a character to make a decision and then act on it. That led to another idea, and another. I have had the end in mind ever since I started the book, and now I can see how to get the rest of the way there.

If I’d begged off of going to a leather convention, I still might have reached those conclusions. But maybe not. Maybe it would have taken me longer to get to those decisions. I said yes to a novel situation, and that turned out to be the right choice.

Inspiration isn’t something you have to wait for, of course. It’s something that I think comes more readily the more you make yourself available to it. But it can still surprise you every once in a while.

Still, I’m not about to start wearing a leather harness or anything.

The post Finding writing inspiration… at a leather convention? appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

A story: Murder on the Midway

[image error]This story was a step outside of my comfort zone, something that my editor Greg Herren has always encouraged me to do. He’s commented how funny it is when writers are approached to contribute to an anthology outside their usual genre, the frequent response is “oh, I don’t write mystery/noir/horror/erotica/literary clown fiction.” (I made up that last one, but it’s got potential, don’t you think? No? Just me? Let’s move on, then.)

Where was I? Oh right, stepping outside of your comfort zone. Instead of responding “I don’t write that,” Greg told me, you might consider “I’ve never tried that before.” You never know what you’re going to enjoy writing.

“Murder on the Midway” was my submission to the anthology Men of the Mean Streets, a collection of gay noir fiction that was edited by Greg and J.M. Redmann. I wrote this in 2010, and looking back, of course, there are things I’d probably change about it now, transitions that are too abrupt or things that don’t quite tie together as nicely as I’d like them to. But woulda, coulda, shoulda.

I still like Sam Page, the private investigator who’s the main character here. I thought this was going to be a one-off appearance for him, but imagine my surprise in 2014 when he came back for a visit while I was in grad school. I wrote another story featuring him, and to a person, everyone in my fiction workshop that year said this isn’t a story, it’s a book. So there’s another project I need to get around to.

Like many of the anthologies Greg has edited over the years, there are a lot of writers in that book who’ve become friends. That was another of the added benefits of stepping outside my comfort zone: all of the other people I met by doing so.

I’m sure there’s a metaphor for life in that.

Murder on the Midway

Summer in St. Louis was three months of misery. During the day, the sun tried to burn you to a crisp, and if that failed, at night the humidity tried to boil you alive. It was as if the city wanted you dead.

In Jacob Anderson’s case, the weather didn’t kill him, but he was still just as dead: face down in the middle of the carnival that had taken up residence on the parking lot of the Unitarian Church, just as they’d done for the past several years to raise money for Building Our Youth, the local gay support group that was Jacob’s primary mission.

Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the back of the head from the mallet used in the Test Your Strength booth. Whoever killed Jacob could probably have made the bell ring.

It was an undignified end for someone who was immediately trumpeted in the media as a pillar of the GLBT community, always willing to lend support and hard work for a good cause, especially if it involved helping rejected gay teens and young adults. It didn’t take long for the phrase “hate crime” to get tossed around, an accusation against the less tolerant corners of the city, which was most of them.

Sam Page was surprised when Milo Leveque came into his office two days later to discuss the case.

Milo was one of St. Louis’s A-list gays. Independently wealthy and semi-retired after making some incredible—and incredibly well-timed—real estate deals a few years earlier, he now devoted himself to civic life. He was seen at all of the right art gallery openings, served on the boards of Food Outreach and Effort for AIDS, gave money to the cultural bulwarks of the city, and helped plan A Tasteful Affair every year. He helped raise money for Pride St. Louis even though he never set foot in the park for the sweltering summer festival. Maybe he didn’t want the heat and humidity of St. Louis to kill him.

He was also blond and fit, and Sam would have paid attention to him even if he wasn’t a potential client and loaded to the gills.

“Someone is threatening me,” Milo said, incongruously sitting in Sam’s shabby office. “They think I know something about why Jacob was killed, and they want me to keep quiet about it.”

“What makes you think that?”

Milo reached into his front pocket and pulled out his phone. The gesture lengthened his torso and gave Sam a glimpse of what he might look like lying in bed. He flipped it open, pressed a few buttons, then handed it to Sam. It was a cheap phone, which surprised Sam. Milo seemed like the sort of person who would be first in line to get the latest iPhone—or rather, the sort of person who’d pay someone to stand in line for him.

It was a text message, the sender’s number blocked. “Keep your mouth shut. I’ve still got a few swings left. Just ask Jacob. Oh, wait….” Sam snapped the phone shut and handed it back.

“Any idea what they think you know?”

Milo shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “If you know something and want me to help you, you’d better tell me. I don’t like it when clients only tell me half the story.”

Milo leaned forward. “So you’ll take my case?”

Sam waited long enough to instill a hint of doubt, then said, “Nicely played, Mister Leveque. And yes, I’ll take the case.”

“Do you think you can trace that text message?”

“If the sender had any sense, it’s probably from one of those pay-as-you-go phones. Or it could have been sent anonymously over the web. Hard to trace, especially if you don’t want to go to the police. Which I’m assuming you don’t.”

“You assume correctly, Mister Page.”

“Well, I’ll give it a shot anyway.” Sam picked up a pen and positioned a legal pad in front of him. He was not a note taker, but he found it helped to have props, and putting something in his hand kept him from wanting to reach for a cigarette. “So,” he asked, “do you think Jacob’s murder was a hate crime?”

Milo shook his head and smiled as if he knew something no one else did. Sam was determined to know what that something was. “Spit it out, Mister Leveque. There’s only one thing I require from my clients: complete honesty.”

“Please, call me Milo. And how often do you get complete honesty from your clients?”

“Almost never. But I require it anyway. So tell me why you think Jacob was murdered.”

Milo leaned back again and put his hands behind his head. His biceps rose like hills. Clearly, he devoted himself to civic life and to gym life. “Because Jacob got his biggest charitable donations by using his best asset: his ass.”

“Excuse me?”

Sam turned on his computer and typed in a URL Milo gave him, and soon he was staring at a profile on a site called rentboy.com with a photo of a lean, muscular, and almost completely naked Jacob Anderson. In the spirit of the Internet, he’d described himself being three years younger than he really was at his time of death and a “nonstop pig bottom who’ll let you do anything you want.”

Charming.

“This still doesn’t explain why someone would want to kill him,” Sam said.

Milo rolled his eyes, as if amazed that he had to spell it out. “Jacob specialized in wealthy, closeted clientele. People who had certain tastes but didn’t want them widely known. He saw to it that such tastes found expression.”

Sam had to smile at Milo’s delicate euphemism. “For a price, I assume.”

Milo nodded. “Sometimes his clients weren’t aware of this arrangement until after Jacob offered them some visual incentive.”

Blackmail. Now there, Sam thought, was a reason. “Pictures?”

“Videos. Easier to set up and more persuasive.”

“Were you one of Jacob’s clients?”

Milo paused for a moment, as if deciding how to respond, which as much as answered the question for Sam. Milo definitely had been a client, but something about the nature of their relationship must have changed in order for Milo to come to Sam.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Milo said. “I was either stupid to get involved or foolish to admit it.”

“I don’t judge.”

“Of course not. You’ll have to believe me. Jacob may have been doing a lot of things to me, but blackmail wasn’t one of them. I want you to find out who killed him because I don’t think the police will.” He leaned forward and placed his hand over Sam’s. “Please.”

Sam stared at their hands for a moment, then turned his over in Milo’s palm to end with a handshake. “I’ll do my best, Mister Leveque.”

“Please, call me Milo.”

“Right. Milo.”

So, that’s just the first part of the story. To read the whole thing and more like it, sign up for my mailing list.

A story: Murder on the Midway

[image error]This story was a step outside of my comfort zone, something that my editor Greg Herren has always encouraged me to do. He’s commented how funny it is when writers are approached to contribute to an anthology outside their usual genre, the frequent response is “oh, I don’t write mystery/noir/horror/erotica/literary clown fiction.” (I made up that last one, but it’s got potential, don’t you think? No? Just me? Let’s move on, then.)

Where was I? Oh right, stepping outside of your comfort zone. Instead of responding “I don’t write that,” Greg told me, you might consider “I’ve never tried that before.” You never know what you’re going to enjoy writing.

“Murder on the Midway” was my submission to the anthology Men of the Mean Streets, a collection of gay noir fiction that was edited by Greg and J.M. Redmann. I wrote this in 2010, and looking back, of course, there are things I’d probably change about it now, transitions that are too abrupt or things that don’t quite tie together as nicely as I’d like them to. But woulda, coulda, shoulda.

I still like Sam Page, the private investigator who’s the main character here. I thought this was going to be a one-off appearance for him, but imagine my surprise in 2014 when he came back for a visit while I was in grad school. I wrote another story featuring him, and to a person, everyone in my fiction workshop that year said this isn’t a story, it’s a book. So there’s another project I need to get around to.

Like many of the anthologies Greg has edited over the years, there are a lot of writers in that book who’ve become friends. That was another of the added benefits of stepping outside my comfort zone: all of the other people I met by doing so.

I’m sure there’s a metaphor for life in that.

Murder on the Midway

Summer in St. Louis was three months of misery. During the day, the sun tried to burn you to a crisp, and if that failed, at night the humidity tried to boil you alive. It was as if the city wanted you dead.

In Jacob Anderson’s case, the weather didn’t kill him, but he was still just as dead: face down in the middle of the carnival that had taken up residence on the parking lot of the Unitarian Church, just as they’d done for the past several years to raise money for Building Our Youth, the local gay support group that was Jacob’s primary mission.

Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the back of the head from the mallet used in the Test Your Strength booth. Whoever killed Jacob could probably have made the bell ring.

It was an undignified end for someone who was immediately trumpeted in the media as a pillar of the GLBT community, always willing to lend support and hard work for a good cause, especially if it involved helping rejected gay teens and young adults. It didn’t take long for the phrase “hate crime” to get tossed around, an accusation against the less tolerant corners of the city, which was most of them.

Sam Page was surprised when Milo Leveque came into his office two days later to discuss the case.

Milo was one of St. Louis’s A-list gays. Independently wealthy and semi-retired after making some incredible—and incredibly well-timed—real estate deals a few years earlier, he now devoted himself to civic life. He was seen at all of the right art gallery openings, served on the boards of Food Outreach and Effort for AIDS, gave money to the cultural bulwarks of the city, and helped plan A Tasteful Affair every year. He helped raise money for Pride St. Louis even though he never set foot in the park for the sweltering summer festival. Maybe he didn’t want the heat and humidity of St. Louis to kill him.

He was also blond and fit, and Sam would have paid attention to him even if he wasn’t a potential client and loaded to the gills.

“Someone is threatening me,” Milo said, incongruously sitting in Sam’s shabby office. “They think I know something about why Jacob was killed, and they want me to keep quiet about it.”

“What makes you think that?”

Milo reached into his front pocket and pulled out his phone. The gesture lengthened his torso and gave Sam a glimpse of what he might look like lying in bed. He flipped it open, pressed a few buttons, then handed it to Sam. It was a cheap phone, which surprised Sam. Milo seemed like the sort of person who would be first in line to get the latest iPhone—or rather, the sort of person who’d pay someone to stand in line for him.

It was a text message, the sender’s number blocked. “Keep your mouth shut. I’ve still got a few swings left. Just ask Jacob. Oh, wait….” Sam snapped the phone shut and handed it back.

“Any idea what they think you know?”

Milo shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “If you know something and want me to help you, you’d better tell me. I don’t like it when clients only tell me half the story.”

Milo leaned forward. “So you’ll take my case?”

Sam waited long enough to instill a hint of doubt, then said, “Nicely played, Mister Leveque. And yes, I’ll take the case.”

“Do you think you can trace that text message?”

“If the sender had any sense, it’s probably from one of those pay-as-you-go phones. Or it could have been sent anonymously over the web. Hard to trace, especially if you don’t want to go to the police. Which I’m assuming you don’t.”

“You assume correctly, Mister Page.”

“Well, I’ll give it a shot anyway.” Sam picked up a pen and positioned a legal pad in front of him. He was not a note taker, but he found it helped to have props, and putting something in his hand kept him from wanting to reach for a cigarette. “So,” he asked, “do you think Jacob’s murder was a hate crime?”

Milo shook his head and smiled as if he knew something no one else did. Sam was determined to know what that something was. “Spit it out, Mister Leveque. There’s only one thing I require from my clients: complete honesty.”

“Please, call me Milo. And how often do you get complete honesty from your clients?”

“Almost never. But I require it anyway. So tell me why you think Jacob was murdered.”

Milo leaned back again and put his hands behind his head. His biceps rose like hills. Clearly, he devoted himself to civic life and to gym life. “Because Jacob got his biggest charitable donations by using his best asset: his ass.”

“Excuse me?”

Sam turned on his computer and typed in a URL Milo gave him, and soon he was staring at a profile on a site called rentboy.com with a photo of a lean, muscular, and almost completely naked Jacob Anderson. In the spirit of the Internet, he’d described himself being three years younger than he really was at his time of death and a “nonstop pig bottom who’ll let you do anything you want.”

Charming.

“This still doesn’t explain why someone would want to kill him,” Sam said.

Milo rolled his eyes, as if amazed that he had to spell it out. “Jacob specialized in wealthy, closeted clientele. People who had certain tastes but didn’t want them widely known. He saw to it that such tastes found expression.”

Sam had to smile at Milo’s delicate euphemism. “For a price, I assume.”

Milo nodded. “Sometimes his clients weren’t aware of this arrangement until after Jacob offered them some visual incentive.”

Blackmail. Now there, Sam thought, was a reason. “Pictures?”

“Videos. Easier to set up and more persuasive.”

“Were you one of Jacob’s clients?”

Milo paused for a moment, as if deciding how to respond, which as much as answered the question for Sam. Milo definitely had been a client, but something about the nature of their relationship must have changed in order for Milo to come to Sam.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Milo said. “I was either stupid to get involved or foolish to admit it.”

“I don’t judge.”

“Of course not. You’ll have to believe me. Jacob may have been doing a lot of things to me, but blackmail wasn’t one of them. I want you to find out who killed him because I don’t think the police will.” He leaned forward and placed his hand over Sam’s. “Please.”

Sam stared at their hands for a moment, then turned his over in Milo’s palm to end with a handshake. “I’ll do my best, Mister Leveque.”

“Please, call me Milo.”

“Right. Milo.”

So, that’s just the first part of the story. To read the whole thing and more like it, sign up for my mailing list.

The post A story: Murder on the Midway appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

What the things I repeat tell me about my focus

As a writer and someone who writes about writing (insert obligatory “dancing about architecture”-type comment here), there are two things that I tend to worry about more often than all the other things I worry about: repetition and focus.

This applies to my fiction writing as well as whatever half-baked principles and ideas about writing I may spout off. (Just kidding; all my ideas are fully baked.) Case in point: in one of my fiction workshops in graduate school, when my story was up for discussion, a friend of mine* started off by saying “this has the trifecta of a Jeffrey Ricker story: love, longing, and loss.” As the discussion went on, I missed a few things because I kept wondering, wait, is this story a retread? Am I just writing the same thing over and over?

It was a different story from all the others I’d submitted that year—different characters, plots, settings—but as I mentally scrolled through my pile of stories for that class, it was true. I was writing about people longing for other people, losing other people, and loving and unloving other people.

Love, longing, loss. Surely there’s more to the world than that, isn’t there? On the other hand, those three things count for a lot, don’t they?

When I sit down to write a blog entry or a letter to you about writing—about the things I think about when it comes to writing—at some point in the process I usually flip back through the last few entries/letters I’ve written to confirm that I’m not rewriting the same thing I sent a month or three months (or six months) earlier. And sometimes, while it’s not word for word the same letter I sent, the topics and the points are… well, familiar.

[image error] photo by Matthew Hamilton, Unsplash

I could look at this as a failing of my memory, the same way as when I pick up a book and it takes me twenty pages until I think hey, haven’t I read this before? That doesn’t always mean I stop reading, though.

So, instead of just taking it as a memory lapse, I also take it as a sign, an arrow pointing to the things that matter to me, the things that confuse me, and the things that make me go I wonder…

That repetition leads me to another realization, one that has to do less with what I write about and more to do with the genres I write in. Some writers, for instance, you think of them first and foremost as a mystery writer, or a YA writer, or a horror writer. I’ve landed in all three of those genres at one time or another, along with contemporary literary, speculative fiction, fantasy, and—ahem—naughty stuff. (Don’t read any of those, Mom.) Going back to that same fiction workshop in grad school, where I submitted a science fiction piece, a contemporary piece, and a humorous one, among others, someone** described me as a “genre chameleon.” In contrast, a lot of my peers were focusing really strongly on certain themes, plots, or milieus (ooh, twenty-five cent word). I began to wonder, do I lack focus? By shifting among genres, am I making it hard for readers to follow me?

In worrying about these two things, though, I figured something out: those things I repeat? Those are my focus.

So, I’m going to keep repeating myself, I think, until I figure out what I’m trying to understand. Let me know what you find yourself repeating, returning to, revisiting. Love, longing, and loss are all pretty high up on my list, and figuring them out could take a while. I can think of worse ways to spend a life, you know?

*Hi, Taylor!+

+He doesn’t read this, actually. But still, hi, Taylor!

**Hi again, Taylor!

What the things I repeat tell me about my focus

As a writer and someone who writes about writing (insert obligatory “dancing about architecture”-type comment here), there are two things that I tend to worry about more often than all the other things I worry about: repetition and focus.

This applies to my fiction writing as well as whatever half-baked principles and ideas about writing I may spout off. (Just kidding; all my ideas are fully baked.) Case in point: in one of my fiction workshops in graduate school. When my story was up for discussion, a friend of mine* started off by saying, “This has the trifecta of a Jeffrey Ricker story: love, longing, and loss.” As the discussion went on, I missed a few things because I kept wondering, wait, is this story a retread? Am I just writing the same thing over and over?

It was a different story from all the others I’d submitted that year—different characters, plots, settings. However, as I mentally scrolled through my pile of stories for that class, it was true. I was writing about people longing for other people, losing other people, and loving and unloving other people.

Love, longing, loss. Surely there’s more to the world than that, isn’t there? On the other hand, those three things count for a lot, don’t they?

When I sit down to write a blog entry about writing—about the things I think about when it comes to writing—at some point in the process I usually flip back through the last few entries I’ve written to confirm that I’m not rewriting the same thing I wrote a month or three months (or six months) earlier. And sometimes, while it’s not word-for-word the same, the topics and the points are… well, familiar.

[image error] photo by Matthew Hamilton, Unsplash

I could look at this as a failing of my memory, the same way as when I pick up a book and it takes me twenty pages until I think hey, haven’t I read this before? That doesn’t always mean I stop reading, though.

So, instead of just taking it as a memory lapse, I also take it as a sign. An arrow pointing to the things that matter to me, the things that confuse me, and the things that make me go I wonder…

That repetition leads me to another realization. This one has less to do with what I write about and more to do with the genres I write in. Some writers, for instance, you think of them first and foremost as a mystery writer, or a YA writer, or a horror writer. I’ve landed in all three of those genres at one time or another, along with contemporary literary, speculative fiction, fantasy, and—ahem—naughty stuff. (Don’t read any of those, Mom.)

Going back to that same fiction workshop in grad school, where I submitted a science fiction piece, a contemporary piece, and a humorous one, among others, someone** described me as a “genre chameleon.” In contrast, a lot of my peers were focusing really strongly on certain themes, plots, or milieus (ooh, twenty-five cent word). I began to wonder, do I lack focus? By shifting among genres, am I making it hard for readers to follow me?

In worrying about these two things, though, I figured something out: those things I repeat? Those are my focus.

So, I’m going to keep repeating myself, I think, until I figure out what I’m trying to understand. Let me know what you find yourself repeating, returning to, revisiting. Love, longing, and loss are all pretty high up on my list. Figuring them out could take a while. I can think of worse ways to spend a life, you know?

*Hi, Taylor!+

+He doesn’t read this, actually. But still, hi, Taylor!

**Hi again, Taylor!

The post What the things I repeat tell me about my focus appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

A story, “Multiverse,” at Phoebe Journal

I submitted “Multiverse” to Phoebe Journal, the litmag of George Mason University, for their fiction contest, and while it didn’t win, apparently the contest readers liked it enough that they named it their Reader’s Choice entry. Here’s the first bit:

You learn about the multiverse theory from your Facebook feed, when a story about it appears above a photo someone posts of your best friend from high school. It’s unexpected, that photo. He’s in his forties, like you, and he looks almost the same as back then…and yet, not. It takes a moment to pinpoint: His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He used to smile with his whole body, his eyes most of all. Not now.

His sadness makes you wonder, and the multiverse theory makes you think about worlds in which you tried to kiss him….

[image error]

It’s not a long story at all. You can read the rest of it here. There’s more fabulous writing available there, too.

I’m not so much proud of this story as bemused by it, as it seemed to be one of those that emerged almost whole, unbidden, out of the ether. Mind you, I don’t really think writing works that way. A kernel of this idea has been in the back of my mind since—well, since high school, if you must know. It just needed the right spark to catch fire, and honestly, a friend’s Facebook post (back before I ditched my personal Facebook profile) provided the necessary catalyst.

I also need to thank my friend, fellow writer Ruth Daniell, for her valuable feedback on it before I sent it in. (Ruth is a fantastic writer, by the way; you should read anything she publishes.)

I hope you enjoy it.

A story, “Multiverse” at Phoebe Journal

I submitted the story “Multiverse” to Phoebe Journal, the litmag of George Mason University, for their fiction contest. While it didn’t win, apparently the contest readers liked it enough that they named it their Reader’s Choice entry. Here’s the first bit:

You learn about the multiverse theory from your Facebook feed, when a story about it appears above a photo someone posts of your best friend from high school. It’s unexpected, that photo. He’s in his forties, like you, and he looks almost the same as back then…and yet, not. It takes a moment to pinpoint: His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He used to smile with his whole body, his eyes most of all. Not now.

His sadness makes you wonder, and the multiverse theory makes you think about worlds in which you tried to kiss him….

[image error]

It’s not a long story at all. You can read the rest of it here. There’s more fabulous writing available there, too.

I’m not so much proud of this story as bemused by it. It seemed to be one of those that emerged almost whole, unbidden, out of the ether. Mind you, I don’t really think writing works that way. A kernel of this idea has been in the back of my mind since—well, since high school, if you must know. It just needed the right spark to catch fire, honestly. Lucky for me, a friend’s Facebook post (back before I ditched my personal Facebook profile) provided the necessary catalyst.

I also need to thank my friend, fellow writer Ruth Daniell, for her valuable feedback on it before I sent it in. (Ruth is a fantastic writer, by the way; you should read anything she publishes.)

I hope you enjoy it.

The post A story, “Multiverse” at Phoebe Journal appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.