John and Susan Daniel are away for the holidays.
John's blog, The Joy of Story, will resume January 7, 2017.
Here's wishing you Happy Holidays!
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Saturday, December 17, 2016
FAMILY ROOTS AND TIES
THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
December 17, 2016
Greetings, friends and fellow fans
of Story. This week we have a guest author, as we do the week following the
third Saturday of every month. Our guest this time, Marilyn London, has written
a multi-generational family saga. It sounds like a
fascinating and highly entertaining story, with a blend of history and moral
themes supporting the novel’s structure. I won’t tell you anything more about Marilyn’s novel, Percy’s Gold or The Trust Fund,
because she’s done a fine job of that in the guest essay that appears
below.
I’ve
never written a multi-generational family saga, so I won’t pretend to list all
that’s involved in the art. I can state the obvious: the novel needs to have
the essential ingredients of all stories, namely conflict, choice, and change.
I assume such a book must take a good deal of research, since the early
generations in the plot must have lived in the long ago. I have written a bit
of historical fiction, and I try my best to avoid anachronisms. I’ve also
written stories involving families, and I’ve noticed how important it is to
reveal family traits, and it’s sometimes good to pay attention to the relatives
who dare to escape their roots and traditions and make their own rules.
§§§
Before I forget, I need to make this
important announcement: this is the last post of the month of December and it’s
also the last post for the year 2016. Susan and I will be in Las Vegas
celebrating Christmas with family. The blog will be up and running again
January 7, 2017.
Don’t forget about the 99-word story feature. In
case you’re a new visitor, you’ll find rules of the game following our guest
speaker’s visit.
§§§
The
Roots and Treasures that Pass
from
Generation to Generation
Marilyn
London
Percy’s Gold or The Trust Fund is a multi-generational saga of
familial love, infidelity, and loyalty. The story explores how the consequences
of our actions transcend time.
In the late 1850s, Mamie loses
her husband on a whaling boat and enters a marriage of convenience with a
Virginia plantation owner in the hopes of keeping food on the table for her
sons, Percy and Sam. Aided by his brother and the underground railroad, Percy
runs from the encroaching Civil War and joins a wagon train headed west. He
survives the Indian Wars near Fort Laramie and falls in love with a runaway
slave. Their life on the prairie is arduous and Percy becomes disillusioned. He
steals gold from the railroad as it makes its way through the Black Hills. When
he dies, the stolen gold is passed to Sam and his descendants as a familial
trust fund. To inherit stolen gold, each must be trusted to keep the family
secret, and the gold changes the lives of everyone it touches. Sam’s daughter
has Alzheimer’s. She wills the gold to her grandson, Jason, but misplaces it
before she dies. Jason’s mother, Emma, knows nothing of the gold but
feels that something is missing in her relationship with her mother and is
surprised to learn that her son has inherited a trust fund. In the end, Emma
and Jason both find gold. The reader is left wondering if they will share their
discoveries with one another.
Several themes permeate the
story. The first theme deals with our choices about how to live our lives.
Percy did what others wished they would do, but never would because of real or
perceived dangers. He never lived vicariously. Sam, on the other hand,
benefited from happenstance, and an innate ability to let go and enjoy life’s
pleasures as they came.
The second theme is Percy’s
gold, which is both his father’s wedding band and the gold Percy stole from the
railroad. The only good that comes from the train heist is the reconstructed
family home on Long Island, a symbol of family loyalty and hope for the future.
Juxtaposed, the value of the ring is minute when compared to the monetary value
of the stolen gold. However, the love passed on with the ring exemplifies the
trust and caring that bonds family members whose actions transcend time.
Emma’s quest for acceptance is
the third theme. She struggles to attain her aging mother’s love while caring
for her. This theme also touches on researching ancestry and discovering how
our lives fit into the larger scheme of history.
The fourth theme is derived
from the prayer recited by Red Cloud as he absorbs the true meaning of a wagon
train massacre carried out in retribution for the destruction of innocent lives
at Sand Creek. The prayer recognizes the fleeting nature of human life and the
transcendent power of nature, goodness and human action. As a metaphor, the
reader notes that Percy will be gone, but the stolen gold will have lasting
effects.
When my parents could no longer
live in their home, it fell to me to prepare their house for sale. I began this
book as I reflected on my childhood. I found that the memories of my family’s
unique sense of humor, love for American history, and strong religious morals
far out-valued any objects my parents left behind. The characters in my story
bring my memories to life in a creative way.
I self-published Percy’s Gold or The Trust Fund as an ebook
on Amazon recently, and it will soon be available in paperback.
Marilyn London is new to the
creative writing field but not new to creative arts. For more than twenty
years, she was a classical musician-teacher-performer before changing careers.
For the next twenty years, she was an administrator and assistant dean at a
medical school, where she currently volunteers to facilitate small groups of
medical students in discussions about ethics and professionalism. She also
teaches online courses part-time. As a retiree, she is participating in local
organizations to hone her creative writing skills. Besides holding Masters
degrees in piano performance and cultural anthropology, she has a Doctor of
Education in Creative Arts in Education. Her novel, Percy’s Gold or The Trust Fund, is now
available on Amazon.com as an ebook. It soon will be available in paperback.
Marilyn lives on Long Island, New York with her husband and two dogs, Cole and
Mirabelle.
Twitter: @marilynlondon22
Buy the book on
Amazon.com: Percy’s
Gold or the Trust Fund
§§§
Call for submissions: Your 99-Word
Stories
The
deadline for January’s 99-word story submissions is January 1, 2017. The
stories will appear on my blog post for January 14, and will stay posted for a week.
note: this 99-word story feature
is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may
edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to
my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.
Rules for the 99-word
story feature are as follows:
1. Your story must be 99
words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer,
per month.
3. The story must be a
story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change),
characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be
inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the
first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the
month.
6. I will copy edit the
story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7.
Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com
THIS
MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story
inspired by the following sentence: I
took a trip on a train.
§§§
Calling
all published authors—
I try to feature a guest
author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re
interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a
published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.
§§§
Thank you for visiting.
Please drop by next year!
Saturday, December 10, 2016
A FINE ROMANCE
THE
JOY OF STORY
John
M. Daniel’s Blog
December 12, 2016
The prompt I issued for this month’s
99-word stories was “A fine romance this turned out to be.” I was inspired by
the 1936 Jerome Kern song “A Fine Romance,” with its ironic lyric by Dorothy
Fields. It was written for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Swing Time, which, of course, features a
pair of likable and witty would-be partners, who love each other but, as
charming as they both are and how well they dance together, they can’t seem to
get their romance off the ground. The reason for this problem is that they
don’t communicate. They don’t cut through all the baloney and say the risky
words “I love you.” (It’s the same with all the Fred and Ginger movies. It
drives Susan bats. “Why don’t they just
talk to each other?”)
Fred’s sad secret is that he’s on
the verge of financial success. That’s a problem? Yes, because Fred used to be
in love with a girl back home, and he promised the girl’s father that he would
go to New York and earn $25,000, and the father promised that if Fred did that
he could marry the girl. Once Fred got to New York, met Ginger, and the two of
them became dancing stars in danger of getting rich, Fred fell out of love with
the girl back home. Dumb plot? Of course it’s a dumb plot. It’s the fare we
expect from a Fred-and-Ginger flick.
So Ginger, who doesn’t know why her
dancing partner doesn’t cozy up with her and help her stay warm when it’s clear
the two of them are made for each other, sings the angry song “A fine romance.”
Dorothy Fields was a brilliantly
witty lyricist. Just look at the irony packed into the lines that precede and
rhyme with the recurring line “This is a fine romance”:
“You’re just as hard to land as the
Île de France,”
“I’ve never mussed the crease in
your blue serge pants,”
“I might as well play bridge with my
old maid aunts,”
and “You never gave the orchids I sent
a glance…no, you like cactus plants!”
Unnecessary spoiler alert: Fred and
Ginger survive and all ends happily for everyone, including the girl back home.
The important message for those of
us who write love stories is: something’s got to be wrong, in order for the
story to work. Romance is hard work. A romantic plot is only as strong as the
obstacles the lovers must overcome. Furthermore, a lot of stories built of
romance and troublesome love don’t end
happily, and that’s okay too. Romeo and Juliet didn’t have a chance, but they
are unforgettable for their troubled romance.
§§§
THIS
IS A FINE ROMANCE
a collection of 99-word love stories
THE ARRANGEMENT
by Cathy
Mayrides
Anastasia grew
up in Mani, Greece. Her older brother left, established himself in the United
States, and sent for her when she entered her twenties. He found a hard-working
Greek man in New York to marry her.
She arrived in
New York in 1911 and lived with a relative. She had never met the groom, and
glimpsed him during the ceremony. She liked what she saw. It turned out to be a
fine romance. Anastasia’s seriousness complemented Paul’s love of fun. Twenty
years later, with seven children between nineteen and six, Paul passed away.
Anastasia never
stopped loving him.
•••
A FINE ROMANCE
THIS TURNED OUT TO BE
by Tom Donovan
We sat on the reef, fins flowing in the
clear blue waters.
Another hour and the sun would be below
the horizon.
Turning to me she asked where the others
and the dive boat were.
The macho male said not to worry, a few
minutes and we’ll be sipping rum.
The sun set, the water became cold,
unseen things bumped against us in the dark.
Rising water as the tide came in.
Fear, clammy flesh pressing against each
other for warmth.
Sunrise, a boat, her final words to me
ever were, a fine romance this turned out to be.
•••
DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?
by Jerry Giammatteo
Ginny didn’t anticipate spending the anniversary of their first date at
McDonald’s.
“A fine romance this turned out to be,” she said.
“Let’s just order,” Raymond said.
She ordered a chicken sandwich. When she got to the table she had a
strange feeling. Why is everybody looking at us? She opened the box, picked up
her sandwich, took a bite and her eyes bugged out. A diamond engagement ring
was underneath.
“Well?” Raymond said, grinning widely.
“Of course,” she stammered, and the restaurant applauded.
“A fine romance this turned out to be,” she repeated in a completely
different tone.
•••
SIRI TRUMPS LOVE
by Marilyn London
Ken held his iPhone close to his lips as he
whispered, “Hey Siri, my love.”
“What is it now?” Siri said.
“Tell me this week’s lottery numbers.”
“I’m just a phone, lover. Get a life.”
“Please, Siri. I can’t afford to pay for a smart
phone if you’re not smart.”
“Okay. 02-44-35-61-56-7. Good luck.”
Ken couldn’t believe his good fortune. He went
and bought a lotto ticket.
On Thursday morning, Ken was texting all his
friends. “OMG! I won! I won!”
“No, Ken,” Siri said. “I won. Please pay your
bill.”
A fine romance this turned out to be.
•••
BLACK ANGELA/BLACK ANGEL
by T.J. Thomas
Some good-old-boy Vandy’67 football
teammates kept bringing her up during jock-dorm bull-session debates. They thought
she was gorgeous, with a beautiful face and a fabulous figure. But she
infuriated them: sashaying around campus in tight pants; hiding behind dark
sunglasses; never saying hello; never acknowledging them.
More than once they whistled and
hollered, “Hey, Gorgeous. Come over here. Come talk to us.”
I’d say something like, “She’s probably
just real frightened by a bunch of big hairy white guys flirting with her.”
They’d hoot me down for that and taunt: “Typical
Yankee. Always siding with the ‘poor, downtrodden Negro.’”
•••
LOVE FROM AFAR
by June Kosier
I fell in love
with him forty-five years ago. I never told him. He was young. I was young. He
was married. I was not.
The romance is
beautiful, perfect. We never argue. We never have disappointments. We never
yell at each other causing hurt feelings. We are never late to meet. We don’t
forget birthdays or anniversaries. It is all like a dream. A fairy tale without
a sad ending.
I still love
him. He still does not know. He is older now and so am I. He is divorced. I am
married.
It is what it
is.
•••
DROOL WILL KILL
A MARRIAGE EVERY TIME
by Christine
Viscuso
“Never thought this could happen.” Mordy
Plotnik stuffed his underwear into his gym bag. “I love cats; you love dogs. So
we have five dogs. Your clothes take up all our closets, relegating mine to the
attic. You don’t clean; your cooking stinks. You snore. And you got us a
hundred thou in debt. Why I loved you, I’ll never know.”
Mordy faced his wife. “The final straw
was when you took the Saint Bernard for a ride in my 1986 Mercedes 560 and the
animal drooled all over. A fine romance this turned out to be. Goodbye Isabel.”
•••
by R. J. Wilbur
The morning after, he walked
her to her car.
“Moonlight became you last
night,” he said, as they passed the mineral baths.
“You weren’t looking at the
moonlight.”
“I was! The moonbeams dancing
on your body.”
“What do I do for a living?”
“How would I know?”
“I told you last night.”
“I guess I wasn’t listening.
You were too beautiful.”
“What a meaningless one-night stand.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, when
they reached her car.
“Don’t be. I had a good time.
Goodbye.”
“Will I see you again?”
“I said goodbye. I also said
one-night stand. Learn to listen.”
•••
§§§
Call for submissions: Your 99-Word
Stories
The
deadline for January’s 99-word story submissions is January 1, 2017. The
stories will appear on my blog post for January 14, and will stay posted for a week.
note: this 99-word story feature
is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may
edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to
my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.
Rules for the 99-word
story feature are as follows:
1. Your story must be 99
words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer,
per month.
3. The story must be a
story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change),
characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be
inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the
first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the
month.
6. I will copy edit the
story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7.
Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com
THIS
MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story
inspired by the following sentence: I
took a trip on a train.
§§§
Calling
all published authors—
I try to feature a guest
author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re
interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a
published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.
§§§
Thank you for visiting.
Please drop by next week.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
HE MADE ME WANT TO BE A WRITER
THE
JOY OF STORY
John
M. Daniel’s Blog
December 3, 2016
This week’s blog post is a retread,
I confess. I originally wrote the piece for this blog, and I’ve published it
more than once, in this blog and also in print. The reason I’m running it yet
again is that I have just finished rereading, for the… Hell, I don’t remember how many times I’ve read it and
reread it. It’s a novel titled High
Water, written by Richard Bissell and published by Atlantic Monthly Press/Little
Brown in 1954. Having just finished the novel, I can’t think of a better
example of joyful story-telling. By which I don’t mean light and fluffy
feel-good prose, because the story contains a lot of danger and death. I mean
you’ll find acres of joy in Bissell’s fine style. He loves the human voice, and
his dialogue is straight out of the mouths of real working-class people.
Anyway, you may have seen this
article before, in which case you’re excused from class, but I hope you’ll
stick around and give it another read. Consider it an early Christmas present.
§§§
HIS
STRETCH ON THE RIVER
An Appreciation of Richard Bissell
I learned three-quarters of what I know about writing from reading Richard Bissell, God bless him. —Elmore Leonard
Everyone who calls
himself or herself a writer is asked from time to time, “Who is your favorite
writer?” The writer may be prepared for this interview question and answer the
same way every time, but the truth is more likely less monogamous. The position
of favorite writer may change from year to year, from mood to mood, from book
to book. Perhaps a more insightful question, with a more constant answer, would
be: “Which writer first made you want to be a writer yourself?”
I confess that like
many teenage would-be writers of the 1950s, I imitated Salinger shamelessly. I
also gobbled up Robert Nathan, laughed out loud at Patrick Dennis and Max
Shulman, and was dazzled by Truman Capote. But from the moment I first read
him, the writer who turned me on the most, the one who made writing seem not
only worthwhile, but fun, was Richard Bissell.
Bissell entered my life
by accident. When I was thirteen my older brother gave me the Broadway cast
recording of a musical called The Pajama
Game for Christmas. It was a mistake. That was supposed to go to my Uncle
Hob, who was a huge fan of musical theater. I was supposed to get an EP record
of the Four Freshmen. By the time the mix-up got sorted out, I had listened to The Pajama Game a hundred or so times
and had memorized all the songs, so they were going in my head nonstop whenever
they weren’t filling the house at top volume from the hi-fi.
The brilliant movie of The Pajama Game came out a couple of
years later, and I saw it more than once. This is not a movie review, so I’ll
skip to the point, which is that even at the age of fifteen, I knew I was
hearing a crackerjack screenplay, by George Abbot and Richard Bissell. I was
hooked on this story of blue-collar workers in small-town Iowa, and I resolved
to read 7-1/2¢, the 1953 novel on
which the stage play and movie were based. I bought a paperback copy (the title
on that edition, for copyright or commercial reasons, had been changed to Pajama), and I read it—twice. Forget
Salinger, this was a true-to-life story about genuine people, laced with
important issues (labor relations), sex (Sid and Babe do it, and enjoy doing
it), perfect-pitch dialogue, and laugh-out-loud humor.
That began my devotion
to a writer who influences and delights me to this day. I bought and read all
his books. I still reread his novels every few years, refinding them as fresh,
honest, funny, and original as they were the day they were printed, even though
his “newest” novel is now forty-five years old. I made drive-by pilgrimages to
his homes in Rowayton, Connecticut and Dubuque, Iowa, too shy to ring his
doorbells. I sent him a fan letter after I graduated from college and had
decided, largely thanks to him, to become a writer; but his reply chased me all
over Europe until it got left behind in an American Express in Madrid when I
decided to go to Greece instead, so my hoped-for literary correspondence died
at birth. Over the years I bought multiple copies of his novels in used
bookstores and gave them away to writers and readers I considered worthy of
such gems. Those novels never show up in used bookstores anymore. Maybe because
I bought them all.
I wish I had met
Richard Bissell. I wish I had bought him a drink at his favorite bar in
Dubuque. I wish I could have thanked him. The best I could do was to dedicate
my first published novel to him, by which time he was dead.
Richard Pike Bissell
was born June 27, 1913, in Dubuque, Iowa. He was the second son in a prominent,
wealthy family. His grandfather had made a fortune in the garment business,
manufacturing shirts and pajamas. Young Dick Bissell went to Phillips Exeter
Academy, where he met his future wife, Marian (whom he calls “Frankie” in his
books). He then went on to Harvard, where he majored in anthropology and took
classes from sociologist Pitrim Sorokin (he named the hero of 7-1/2¢ Sid Sorokin, in honor of this
favorite teacher).
After college he became
an ordinary seaman, then worked as a deck hand on riverboats on the
Mississippi, Ohio, and Monongahela Rivers. Eventually he earned a pilot’s license
on the Upper Mississippi, the first writer since Mark Twain to have that
distinction. His novels A Stretch on the
River (1950) and High Water
(1954) draw from his experiences working on tugs and barges on the Mississippi.
A Stretch on the River is the story of Bill Joyce, the second son
in a wealthy family, who decides to forsake high society and sign on as a
deckhand on a Diesel towboat called the Inland
Coal. He finds himself keeping company with hard-working, hard-drinking,
fast-talking, loud-laughing rowdies, not to mention lady friends in port towns
up and down the river. Bissell’s ear for dialogue is brilliant, funny, and
true. He does clearly like the work and the working life of the working
class—this is his own experience he’s writing about, after all—but he doesn’t
romanticize it or downplay the difficulty or the danger. One remarkable chapter
is about the drowning death of a deckhand named Shorty, told almost entirely by
Shorty himself in one long paragraph that goes on for six pages. That may sound
gimmicky, but it’s not. Wallace Stegner included this chapter as a standalone
story in his anthology Great American
Short Stories.
It was in this first
novel that Bissell introduced his fascination for dark-haired, tough-talking
women (or girls, as he was allowed to call them). The woman’s name is Merle in
this novel. In High Water she’s Marie
Chouteau, a flood victim who has lost everything in the disaster, including,
literally, the shirt off her back. In Goodbye,
Ava, she’s Jeri Valentine, a would-be country-western singer-songwriter. In
Bissell’s dreams, the dark lady is Ava Gardner, who haunts his books. As he
says in Say Darling, “I would never
stand in line ten minutes, not even to see Ava Garner in the raw (P.S. I take
that back).”
Not all of Bissell’s
work experience came from the river. He also worked in the family clothing
business, which he called the Sleep Tite Pajama Factory in 7-1/2¢. That novel, his second (and his third book) brought him
fame and fortune in the form of the Broadway musical The Pajama Game, for which Bissell co-wrote the script. The musical in turn formed the basis of
his fourth novel, Say Darling (1957), an affectionate but stinging satire of
the New York show business scene, as seen by a Midwestern hick brought in to
convert a novel into a musical. Say
Darling itself became a musical, and once again Bissell co-wrote the
script.
His next novel, and for
my money his best, was Goodbye, Ava
(1960), set back in Dubuque (called Blue Rock in the book) and back on the river,
this time not on a tugboat but on a houseboat. By this time, Dick and Marian
Bissell were living in a houseboat on the Mississippi, docked at the harbor of
his home town. In Goodbye, Ava Bissell
is at the top of his form, focusing more on the people than on the dangers of
life on the river. Here is a quote thrown into the middle of the novel, spoken
by a character who has no other role in the book than to deliver these choice
words:
“‘They is just a hell
of a difference,’ old Captain Windy Taylor used to say, ‘between listening to
that there so-called news all day long on the radio and reading it all written
down nice in a newspaper. With a newspaper you can get right into them details.
Them details is what counts. Now you take and suppose some onnery bastard takes
and kills his old lady for example. Now that’s just exactly what they will tell
you on the radio that he done. But god damn it less have some details. Now
there’s where your newspaper comes in at. Old newspaper he will tell you just
exactly how the old boy done it, and if he bashed her in with a shovel by God
old newspaper he will tell you the brand name of the shovel. You can just give
me a newspaper every time.’”
While Bissell was
writing fiction, he also contributed travel articles to Holiday and Venture, many
of which were compiled into a humorous nonfiction book called How Many Miles to Galena (1968), about
travels, mainly with his family (he and Marian had four children: Thomas,
Anastasia, Nathaniel, and Samuel) around the U.S.A. Travel was also at the
center of his final novel, Still Circling
Moosejaw (1965), a take-off on big business and international relations,
with a caper that takes off running from New York to Castro’s Cuba to the Upper
Amazon.
In addition to How Many Miles to Galena, Bissell also
wrote four other nonfiction books: The
Monongahela (1952) which he wrote for the Rivers of America Series; You Can Always Tell a Harvard Man (1962),
a light-hearted history of his alma mater; Julia
Harrington (1969), a visual
hodgepodge scrapbook of Midwestern Victoriana; My Life on the Mississippi, Or Why I Am Not Mark Twain (1973), a memoir of growing up on the river;
and New Light on 1776 and All That
(1975), a comic revisionist history
of the American Revolution.
Richard Bissell holds
up well as a travel writer and a writer of comedic nonfiction, but his best
work is his fiction. And his best fiction is found in his four Midwestern
novels, be they on the Mississippi River or in the town he calls Junction City
in 7-1/2¢ and Blue Rock in Goodbye, Ava. Both towns are thinly
disguised versions of Dubuque, where Richard Bissell was born, where he lived
most of his life, and where he died on May 4, 1977. His tombstone, which he
shares with Marian, is a giant granite slab with a map of the Upper Mississippi
carved into it from top to bottom.
No grander epitaph is
necessary, but if there were room, it would be good to see, etched into the
granite, this passage from The
Monongahela:
“To have a river in
your blood, you have to work on her for wages.…Oh, they’re not all bold and
reckless adventurers. A heap of them are as dumb and drab and spiritless as can
be, but in the main they want to go places and do big things out under the sky.
And when the whistle blows and they have to get out and make a lock they cuss
and moan and claim they’re gonna quit. But mostly they stay. That’s the way it
always was on the river, and the way it always will be, until the Monongahela
and the Youghiogheny and the Tygart and the West Branch run dry, and the last
steamboat whistle has echoed back off the hills, filling the valleys with that
mournful music that haunts you wherever you go.”
§§§
Call for submissions: Your 99-Word
Stories
The
deadline for January’s 99-word story submissions is January 1, 2017. The stories
will appear on my blog post for January
14, and will stay posted for a week.
note: this 99-word story feature
is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may
edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to
my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.
Rules for the 99-word
story feature are as follows:
1. Your story must be 99
words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer,
per month.
3. The story must be a
story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change),
characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be
inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the
first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the
month.
6. I will copy edit the
story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7.
Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com
THIS
MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story
inspired by the following sentence: I
took a trip on a train.
§§§
Calling
all published authors—
I try to feature a guest
author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re
interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a
published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.
§§§
Thank you for visiting.
Please drop by next week.
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