I’m Going To Skip A Guest Post For The Story Prize

If your book is up for The Story Prize, you get invited to write a guest post. Essay only, about 750 words. Here are their suggestions:

Describe your writing practice.


Describe a breakthrough you’ve experienced.


What are the most difficult conditions you’ve successfully written under?


How do you get yourself back on track when your writing isn’t going well?


What are your reading habits like?
What new story collections are you looking forward to reading? A literary touchstone (e.g., a book or books you have reread many times and return to often).
A letter to a young writer, a la Rilke.
Ten pieces of writing advice

Most of these simply did not interest me. Not their fault if that’s what their blog is, but the idea of writing a blog post about this bored me to tears. I tried to come up with a creative way of approaching this that actually seemed fun and worth reading, but they responded that they didn’t think it was right for The Story Prize blog and offered to let me try again. At that point, I just filed the emails away. Any free advertising didn’t seem worth having to write something I had no interest in, and I could think that any person who wanted that would also want my book. Knowing already how little chance my book had at The Story Prize given how things typically go over there, I just decided not to spend any more time on it. Instead, I’ll share the guest post they didn’t want here instead:

 

The Electro-Whipping was Bad Enough, but the Midwesterners Constantly Commenting “It’s Not the Volts, it’s the Ampage” Really Drove Me Over The Edge: The Most Difficult Conditions I’ve Successfully Written Under

So, what are the most difficult conditions I’ve successfully written under? I think that goes back to the time Marc Summers found that story I’d written about locking him in my toilet with a bunch of quick lime. He didn’t take too kindly to it and got his revenge using a flail made from a live 220 dryer cable, stripped to the individual copper strands, while I was trying to get through Flash-Nano.

Hurt like the dickens, and it was distracting.

Worse, he kept messing with me. I mean­­, Flash-Nano is a thousand words or less piece a day for the whole month of November. He’d hidden a pocket full of words he’d ripped out of a Webster’s Unabridged (Non Touch Tone) Telephone Lineman Repairperson’s Dictionary and, just as I was getting close to done with a story…BOOM! He’d toss a whole ton of words in. Suddenly I was in short story territory and needed to write a whole new flash piece if I was going to keep up.

It was hell.

But, I kept at it. Through all the makeshift violet-wanding, through the third-party word count overages, through the force-feeding of mustard-flavored cold instant mashed potatoes, I kept writing. Really, it’s all I could do.

No, really. Marc had a restraining order barring anything else. My hands were tied.