Goodreads, the site which encourages grandma's, "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all"* has a lot of nice comments up regarding my "Treating A Sick Animal"
Here's a few summaries, but to see who said what, click the previous link:
"One of his opening shorts “In and Out” sucked me into a vortex, and I couldn’t escape until I finished the book from cover to cover."
"One of my favorite things is the way the author takes an object and twists it into something else entirely. This concept can be found in many of the sories, but my favorite one was "Just Dessert." The focus of the story is on a belt buckle and then it morphs into a love story. "
"Tim Gager's book of flash and micro fiction reads like an old wooden roller coaster ride, where the carnie is on speed and you've just eaten a plate full of nachos, with extra ghost chilis. It's dangerous stuff, but in a good way."
"Gager does it again with raw, eclectic stories that sometimes make you sick and sometimes give you the warm and fuzzes."
"Tim's flash stories are little gems. He has a gift for revealing the exact moments in his characters' lives when everything changes."
"Sometimes surreal, sometimes all to real, always gritty, raw and original, Timothy Gager's flash fictions say so much with so little. These are literary delights you're going to want to savor."
* unless it's a well known author whom you'll never interact with or someone you have a juvenile running internet war with.
No new news lately as I've not been submitting and have been putting all my time and energy into finishing draft one of my novel,
An Angry Therapist's Thursday Appointments. (Name subject to change but I like it).
In reality it's not close to being finished, although a version called the first draft certainly is. There is revisions and editing to do, which is boring to speak of and no one is really interested in hearing about. That will be followed by the hunt for an agent, which will lead to more boring to talk about revisions and editing. Next is the hunt for a publisher, which will lead to etc., etc., etc....you get the picture.
I will talk more about the book at some point and post the synopsis when it's time to do that. After that, people shouldn't be bored or not want to hear about that or else I've not done a very good job.
Coming March 15, 2011, Curbside Splendor's first semi-annual print journal featuring short stories and poems by James Greer, Ben Tanzer, Yovani Flores, Brandon Jennings, Michael San Filippo, Lara Konesky, Ally Malinenko, Timothy Gager, Frankie Metro, and much more. A collection of work we've published online, and some new pieces never published before.
Currently available on a pre-order basis. Books will ship March 15.
ISSN 2159-9475
5.5" x 8.5", perfect-bound paperback, 125 pages long.
Designed by Karolina Faber.
Edited by Victor David Giron and Stephanie Waite Witherspoon.
Photography by Garett Holden, Michael San Filippo, Eirik Gumney, Karolina Faber, and Stephen Schwegler.
The Soul Must Go On is a story about the afterlife and not wasting life's time which is a phrase I've
used to base my own actions on. To me it means to live life as if it's your last day and to try to make that last day the best one possible.
Metazen has been good to me. They've previously published some of my more symbolic prose. You are right here in the universe now and in this moment. Care about what is important to you. Don't waste life's time.
From today's story: The next morning Wolfboy and Snickens raked my remains in with the dirt. They tossed two bits of bone to Joe and Bangles but they only sniffed at them.
When I analyzed this for this blog post it made me think how exactly I knew people's ashes had bone in them. Years ago a co-worker named Herb died and he wanted people to celebrate his life at his memorial service. The event was held at the Cyclorama in Boston, which was a huge art space. They poured his ashes out on the floor. I saw that the ashes weren't similar to the kind you'd find in an ashtray but they were chunky. There were white bits of bone in them about the size of a knuckle.
Then the music started. It was eighties electronic music and the leader of the festivities shouted that we should celebrate and dance in Herb's ashes. I remember dancing and the sound "crunch, crunch, crunch" under my shoes.
When driving home I realized that someone would have to sweep up the ashes. What do you do with ashes that have already been celebrated upon by a group dance? The sweeping up afterward seemed so odd. Did it go from the dustpan to the trash? I really felt I needed to know.
--------------------------------------------------------- Now to the promised dissection: The story is titled, Everyday There is So Much About Elephants because the week I wrote it conversations and references to elephants were occurring at an abnormal rate.
Here's some specific lines and why they got placed in the story:
I'd been told that elephants could change your life. I also had been told that I could change the life of an elephant by protesting the circus.
I have many friends whom champion causes. This was the week Jess Barnett and Laura Kiesel both happened to mention this fact.
The paragraph this appears in is a set up and perhaps totally written for that cheesy punch line. Art imitates life. If I'd used all the jokes from that link I think the story would have turned out different.
I never heard, "You look great today" or, "Why don't you take a drive to the Cape?" The voices never said, "Have another donut." or, "Your professor loves your work." They only told me to kill my parents or someone important like John Hinkley Jr. The voices never said, "It's a sunny day, you should wear shorts."
These line were spun off an old poem of mine. "Hearing Voices" appeared in We Needed a Night Out and in the 63 Channels Fall-Winter Print Issue. The anniversary of John Lennon's murder reminded me of this poem.
The job paid well but when the company had a Team Building Exercise at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus my boss introduced me to Billy Barnum, a friend of hers and a poet.
Billy Barnum exists in this capacity. He has ties to the circus He's also friend of mine.
On Monday night I watched "Fatal Attractions," the show on Animal Planet where people raised exotic animals that grew up and killed them. That night it was about someone that held a baby elephant named Sophie
I'm a little obsessed with this show. There is NOT an episode about an elephant named Sophie. Sophie is the name of the pet rabbit owned by my children.
It was interesting timing because usually people were fired on Fridays. That's why suicide hotlines were their busiest before the weekends. If you're fired during the week there was a better chance you'd come back to the office with a gun.
I learned the fact about suicide hotlines from Ned Vizzini when I read with him in November. Ned wrote that in his fantastic book, It's Kind of a Funny Story when the protagonist is being screened for a psychiatric hospitalization on a Friday.
"I'm buying this gun so that people won't forget me," I said. In life, people aren't good enough. They'll light candles. The elephants won't forget anything.
It's good when the last line wraps it all up. I'll wrap this up by saying, "Thanks for reading!"
