Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 72

Chuck Wendig slays the Duke of Doubt

Kung Fu Master Pen Monkey Chuck Wendig likes issuing flash fiction challenges. A while back he asked for a three sentence story, and I condensed a revenge tale of mine called "Two to Tango" into three brutal lines for him. He liked it so much he sent me a copy of his e-book 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, a compendium of his hilarious and incredibly helpful advice for writers. Go get it now, really. Okay, if Lawrence Block is reading this, he doesn't have to listen. Or Neil Gaiman, he's exempt. But the rest of you, including Philip Roth, should pick up a copy (it's okay, Phil, it's not a novel) and enjoy the hot knowledge injection to your pineal gland.



But I forgot that Chuck also said he'd send me a postcard, and it arrived last night. And let me tell you, it made my night. And my day. And my next night, and my next day. It's like cocaine. Only better.




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See, as a writer, I am plagued with Doubt. The Duke of Doubt from the '80s Burger King commercials, he hovers over my shoulder and tells me things like, "just because readers like your stories doesn't mean you can tackle a big ol' novel. So what if you're 42,000 words in and closing fast on the brutal climax (ed. a great name for a rock band -Dave Barry) and you've finally gotten to the really fun parts where all three storylines converge and you realize, childhood, prison and a revenge spree have a disturbing amount in common? You should stop writing it, and go write a story, because that's EASY. You know you can write one of those."





And that's when Chuck Wendig's postcard flew out of my mailbox and severed the Duke of Doubt's pharynx like a pen monkey shuriken laced with special sauce. Repeat after me:



I am the Commander of these words.

I am the King of this story.

I am the God of this place.

I am a Writer, and I will Finish the Shit that I Started.




It was like that kung fu flick Circle of Iron where the dude fights for this secret book that shows the secrets of mastering his art, and he opens it, and there's a mirror. He also wrote some cute 'n cuddly stuff on the other side that you will not be privy to. Let's just say we're both married men with wild thatchy beards and do a web search on "hot bear man love," and you'll figure it out. And because there's nothing wrong with that, I am very proud to be Chuck's special bear buddy.

(This is how I check to see who reads the whole blog post).



But seriously folks, to name my favorite Joe Walsh album, Chuck gave me the boost I needed. And he has a couple books coming out soon that will kick your ass. One's called Double Dead and is about a vampire- not one of them pussy vampires either- vs. a horde of zombies. But even better, he has an e-book series about a bullied high school girl named Atlanta Burns who racks the slide and serves up an Elvis-size portion of SHOTGUN GRAVY. I got my copy, now go get yours. His kind words about my writing would only mean so much if he weren't a mad-killer wordslinger himself. Quit denying yourself the pleasure like a tantric sex weirdo, and go get some.








© 2011 Thomas Pluck[image error]

The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology

The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology




When I asked Fiona "McDroll" Johnson to take the guest spot at Ron Earl Phillips' Flash Fiction Friday, I had no idea the response she'd get. She gave us a meaningful challenge, to write about neglected, abused or otherwise "lost" children. Together we decided to donate $5 to PROTECT and £5 to Children 1st for every story submitted, and we told everyone we knew. We ended up getting 44 entries, and raising $600 for the charities, plus the donations from individual writers such as MaryAnne Kolton.

We received entries from all over the globe and from writers from the FFF community, Fictionaut, Facebook and Twitter, and from the ever-supportive online crime fiction community. We decided that more could be done. We chose 30 of the stories to include in The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology, all proceeds of which will be split between PROTECT and Children 1st. The e-book will be offered for $2.99 on Kindle, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. After the vendor takes their cut, that's $1 for each of the charities for every purchase.



If you don't have an e-reader, it will be available in PDF format from Smashwords and Goodreads, or you can download the Kindle for PC app, or the Nook for PC app. It's all for a cause, so there's no need to buy a e-reader if you want to support two institutions that are on the front lines in the war against the exploitation, abuse, and neglect of children.



I will put the sale links here on the blog on NOVEMBER FIRST when it is released, but to follow updates and read short bios contributing writers, please visit the blog for THE LOST CHILDREN: A CHARITY ANTHOLOGY.





© 2011 Thomas Pluck

Sugar Shane Mosley tells it like it is

© 2011 Thomas Pluck

Calling Occupants...

I was listening to Sirius satellite radio, The Boneyard, this afternoon for a little heavy metal nostalgia. It's a good station usually, where I can hear AC/DC, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy and other hard rock bands I grew up on. Comedian Jim Norton drops in as DJ sometimes, and his tastes lean to Black Sabbath like mine. He wasn't DJ today, I don't know who it was, but whoever it was, was a fucking stooge, and not the good Iggy kind. In a break after Def Leppard's "Wasted," he says this:



"You know those Occupy Wall Street douchebags? Well one of them climbed up a tower or a pole, and says he's not coming down until Bloomberg quits. And get this, he's from Canada."



Now, I know the Occupy Wall St. protesters are hippies, and as a metalhead in high school we sneered at the hippies and mocked their gentle nature. However, metal has always been a music of rebellion against society,  and the early pioneers like Sabbath were in fact hippies. "Children of the Grave" is anti-nuke, their first album is practically a fantasy novel written on weed. If anything, metalheads, punks, and hippies could agree on flipping the bird to The Man, getting stoned, and hating the cops. Now some metal DJ is supporting the fucking mayor over some dude bad-ass enough to climb a tower. What the fuck?





And he spouts this brownshirt drivel as a lead-in to "Dedication" by Thin Lizzy, which actually, is a socially minded song that says "this is dedicated to the millions who are starving," and "the millions dying on the front line."



He went on to call the protestors losers, or something. It actually sounded like the poor slob was reading from a script, and after reading a totalitarian satire like The Curfew it made me wonder if our corporate overlords were forcing their talking heads to attack this movement. Maybe they're afraid. If you've watched any TV coverage, well-coiffed anchorbots do no reporting, but instead pick fights and mock them. "You don't know what you're protesting!"





I give SNL credit for goofing on Bloomberg instead. In a few weeks we'll get tired of hearing about the protesters, and NYC will be locked down tighter than a city getting a visit from the G20 summit. There's a reason they don't hold them in America anymore, we don't like driving into our cities and seeing martial law in action. I accidentally drove through Pittsburgh during G20 with my Marine buddy Johnny, and he said the checkpoints reminded him of Iraq... except they didn't light up our car with the SAW. It took 3 hours to make a U turn out of town. We have made so many bylaws to violate the 1st Amendment right to assembly, from "free speech zones" three blocks from nowhere to needing permits, that anyone who purports to care about what the Founders wanted should be shitting themselves in an apoplectic rage about now.



The protesters should be glad that Bloomberg is generally humanitarian, if Giuliani were mayor they'd be in the holds of ships offshore getting pissed on by their keepers.



Writers who support accountability for Wall Street should head to Occupy Writers.





© 2011 Thomas Pluck

Faggot

This is for Chuck Wendig's 100-word bullying story challenge in support of Spirit Day, a campaign to end LGBT bullying, and the bullying of anyone. For more info: It Gets Better












Faggot




In study hall Brandon sat like a little faggot so I said "Hey faggot."
"That's right, faggot. Don't look at me. I don't like faggots looking at me. I don't want their faggot eyes on me, faggot."
Bell rang and he walked like a faggot and held his books like a faggot so I knocked them out of his gay little hands.
"I bumped past him as he bent to pick them up. "Fag."
Last bell. Walked home, played X-Box.
Dad kicked my feet off the coffee table.
"Keep your damn shoes off my furniture, faggot."






© 2011 Thomas Pluck

Live Wire

This is the unofficial theme song of Jay Corso, whose novel I am currently writing. He appears in a short story called "Gumbo Weather," which will appear in the Winter 2011 issue of Needle Magazine. By then I plan to have the first draft of the novel finished. "Problem Child" also fits him quite well, but this song builds up slowly to explosive rampage for the final third, and that's how the novel is structured. I've been told a few times with recent stories that I have a talent for building tension and sustaining it, and that's the plan with Jay's story. He is out of prison and is torn between "living well" (the best revenge, some say) and serving the dish cold to those who've done him wrong. Jay is my favorite kind of character, who tries to do the right thing, and not just for himself, but never foresees the consequences of his rash actions, and leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.

He'll be tackling my favorite targets: corrupt policemen, entitled power brokers, and bullies who were all "fucked up in their turn," as Philip Larkin's famous poem goes. No one is innocent and no one thinks they're the bad guy.







© 2011 Thomas Pluck

Review: The Outlaw Album: Stories

The Outlaw Album: Stories by Daniel Woodrell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Daniel Woodrell has been called a regional writer. That's what we call writers who don't write about suburban Connecticut. It's insulting and dismissive, and I'd burn John Cheever's stories for light to read this collection by.
He writes with the artistic efficiency of poetry without artifice, and knows exactly where to begin and end a tale. The rage of class, the inequality that dare not speak its name, begins and ends this collection, perfect bookends for 12 tales of people who've lost something, and try to find what it was, how to get it back, or just how it was stolen from them.
I could have read this in an evening, but chose to savor them. They bring you to a place in the mind. I've never been to the Ozarks, and I may never visit outside of a national park, having read these tales, but I felt like I drove through, stopped for a slice of pie and chatted up a lifelong local who told me the tales of the town that form its mythology, giving me a sliver of understanding the strong bonds of family and place that define its people.
An excellent collection by a master of the short story.




View all my reviews

Flash Fiction - High Yaller

This story is for Patti Abbott's charity flash fiction challenge, based on the following photo by Reginald Marsh of Harlem in the early 1900's. She's donating $5 to Union Settlement, an East Harlem charity, for every story. My wife Sarah lived in Hamilton Heights for some time, on Convent Avenue in Harlem. It has many churches, City College, and a lot of old grandmothers who are kept safe because, as one resident told us, "that street's protected by God." I remember the churchgoers filling the streets on Sundays, dressed smart and colorful, and thought "High Yaller" looked angry at something, so I gave her a reason. The title is from the painting, and while it may have offensive connotations now, I chose to keep it. Caldonia is of course named after the song; we don't learn what makes her big head so hard, but she's a tall woman and the name fit.













When her boy Lewis didn't come home that evening, Caldonia Peele prayed he wouldn't break her heart. When he didn't slink in, weary-eyed with slept-in clothes that morning, her chest fluttered with worry. But when he didn't tiptoe into church, her heart went cold.

"He's at the age, Callie," Mabel said. They both worked at the post office. Seen each other through three husbands, four children, a riot and a burst appendix.
Callie and Mabel navigated the Convent Avenue throngs after church. Had to get to Sylvia's quick, if you wanted a table. Three children walked behind in their Sunday best. Jerome, Mabel's second husband, walked alongside.
"I'm not about to lose my Lewis like his no-account father."
Lewis Senior was gone five years now, same as Mabel's first. Hard times drove men to gambling and drink, made them quick with their hands.
When they came to the corner Jerome said, "I didn't think much of it, but I saw your boy with Cat Ferris. I hear he rolls dice behind Netty's place. I can go ask for him, you like."
"Thank you kindly, but I'll handle my business. Mabe, will you watch Tara while I'm gone?"
Mabel scrunched up her nose as if offended to be asked. "Course I will."
Caldonia turned on her heel, yellow taffeta a-twirl, and bent to stroke her daughter's braids. Tara smiled. Going on five, cute as the buttons on her hand-sewn dress. "I'll be good, mama."
"I know you will."
"Netty's can be rough," Jerome said. "You should leave your purse."
Caldonia smirked, tapped her carnelian hat pin. "Let 'em try."

Nettie's was by the Hudson, tucked behind the mechanic who sold black market tires during the war. She walked with purpose, face firm and lip curled. Angry her boy had been lured astray.
Looking for a man to fill the hole his father left, maybe he missed the hard knuckles and cruel smiles. Soon as her boy turned thirteen, his eyes were tugged to their corners by the sight of rough men on stoops, calling out to women walking by, whistling at the Cadillacs rolling down Broadway.
Caldonia envied Mabel her man. Jerome was as country as hoppin' John, but he was true blue. Callie had men courting, but they all had the glint in the eye that Big Lew had, which shook her faith in their word.

She heard the juke shaking the clapboard walls. Fat man perched on a stool by the door, like a stout mushroom after September rain. One wooden leg and two mismatched shoes. That would be Al, older brother of Carl Nettis, proprietor. He shook his head as she strutted to the door.
"Your man ain't here, and if he was, he's gone now."
"I'm here for my boy Lewis. I'm told he's with Cat Ferris, one of your regular customers."
"Where'd you hear that nonsense?"
"Everyone knows he rolls dice, back of your place."
"Anyone knows that, they're lying. Don't serve boys, only men."
"A churchgoing man told me otherwise," she said. "His word's worth a damn sight more than yours."
The alleyway was filled with bald tires and trash. Only way in was through the door. Or maybe the car shop. She pointed her chin that way.
"Maybe you prayed, your boy'll be home when you get there," Al called.
Caldonia felt her slender fingers turn to fists. She spun and stomped to an inch from his face.
"Alfred Nettis, you don't want me to burn up every check you get from the disability, you will step aside and let me find my son."
His sleepy eyes had little skin tags around them like flies, swatted by his girlish lashes. They blinked.
"You have a cruel soul, Caldonia Peele," Al whispered. "What your Jesus think about that?"
"He'd say the Lord helps those that help themselves," she said and sashayed past.

The joint was crammed with hunched over men nursing dirty glasses, a low buzz of mutter and chuckle muddling the ears like its scent of unwashed bodies and whiskey did the nose.
A brief silence as drinkers assured themselves their wife wasn't the invader. Carl, lean as his brother was fat, sneered and wiped out a dirty glass with a dirtier rag.
She paid them no mind and ducked out the back door.

The caged-in yard was a mess of lawn beaten down by feet. Cat Ferris sprawled in a Chrysler's leather bench seat planted in the grass, resplendent in a turquoise suit. Before him, Lewis ran dice for three men huddled over a slate slab. Lewis wore his Sunday shirt and shoes, suit coat folded in the grass.

She cocked her hips and planted a fist on each. "Hope you ain't betting that suit of yours," she said. "That property is mine."
"Mama," Lewis gasped, looking up.
The dice men laughed, and Ferris leaned back, baring golden fangs. "Your boy's a man now, Ms. Peele. He 'bout to run off like his father did. Man can't take a six foot hellion telling him what to do."
She saw her boy blush.
"He was a man, he wouldn't be fawning over coward in a silk shirt."
"Who you callin' a coward, woman--"
Caldonia slipped the little nickel .32 from her purse. It barked loud, punched a ragged hole in the upholstery a hand's width left of Cat's arm. Before the report was done echoing off the tin roof, the dice men snatched their bills and scattered. Cat kicked and squirmed into himself. A dark stain spread across his slacks.
Lewis huddled in the grass, hands covering his head.
"Son, get your suit on. We're going to supper."
Lewis threw on his jacket, straightened his tie.
"This ain't over," Ferris stuttered.
"You better hope it is."
There was more than one way to skin a cat, and there was plenty room in the hole Big Lew and Mabel's first husband filled, down at the old quarry.
She offered her arm to Lewis, and they walked out primly.










© 2011 Thomas Pluck

They must've played the record backwards...

My story "Not With a Bang, But a Squeaker," originally written for the Fictionaughties writing prompt "Apocalypse," is in 69 Flavors of Paranoia Menu #14. Thanks to Erin Z. for the prompt and inspiring me to write this one.



If you ever wondered what four metalheads circa 1987 would do if they summoned the horned one himself while listening to Metallica's classic Kill 'em All, this story is for you. And if that never crossed your mind, I hope you'll laugh anyway, because there's something for everybody. Even an in-joke for people from Bangladesh.









© 2011 Thomas Pluck

Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled

I have a story appearing in BEAT TO A PULP's first e-book anthology, fittingly titled Beat to a Pulp: HardBoiled. Drop by David Cranmer's blog to see the gritty pulpy cover and the line-up. A great group of writers, as you'd expect from BTAP, that I'm proud to be a part of.



It will be available November 2nd.



On another note, this is my first blog post from my new laptop, a 13" Macbook Air. I saw Josh Stallings using one, and he's my hero, so I had to get one. This is my first Macintosh. Yes, I'm old enough to remember when the first Mac came out. I'm looking for a screen theme to make it look and sound like an Apple IIe...







© 2011 Thomas Pluck[image error]