Author: Trace

For Fans of the Office and Religious Open-mindedness

I recently stumbled upon some interesting perspective on religion and the Baha’i faith from Rainn Wilson of The Office, who is apparently a pretty deep individual.

He appeared on Oprah’s Sirius Radio show to talk about his brainchild, called SoulPancake.

While not big on Oprah, I am certainly a big fan of The Office, and of The Schrute, and now I like him even better.

Of course, I’m one of the “hippy-dippy” ones Rainn is not keen on.

Flash Fiction?


Now that I’ve cleansed the palate with a couple of silly posts… something completely different.

I’m collecting bookmarks for flash fiction websites, as I’ve recently learned of the idea and find it intriguing, at least as an exercise to tone writerly muscles.

Check out 365Tomorrows, Every Day Fiction and Vestal Review. Any other ideas?

I’ll be ready to submit soon! One particular tale jumped out of the percolator and is struggling toward completion.

Ganesh says, “You can do it!”

How Could I Not Know About This?

Maybe this is completely insane or just borderline gender confusion, but I’ve had several opportunities to wear glue-on mustaches in my lifetime, and I enjoyed those experiences a bit too much (folks from the Lunch Bunch will know what I mean by that). Being a fan of both silly mustaches and tattoos, how could I miss a whole subcultural niche concerning cute mustache tattooing?

There’s even social networking for these folks at http://fingerstache.ning.com

Oh, stop worrying. I’m not going to do it. It’s very silly.

Coffee is Bad

A great cup of coffee is a joy. Hot, creamy, sweet and comforting. After drinking it, I begin to feel a sense of overall well-being, then a sort of euphoria, and then I experience a period of zippy, enthusiastic productivity. I can do stupid things faster, with more energy!

But apparently a really great cup of coffee makes me ill. After a while, I withdraw and feel awful for hours, woozy and even nauseated. Of course, I tend not to eat much because I’m feeling satisfied. Maybe it’s the sugar, or the caffeine, or a combination of both. Another problem is that people look at me funny when I’m talking, as if I am behaving oddly or possibly speaking faster than I should for good communication. Maybe I’m even slurring like a drunk, who knows.

Enjoying and craving that sense of well-being makes it easy to forget the bad feelings that are sure to follow. I feel like an addict, I guess. Not that I know what that’s like.

Anyway, I need to cut back.

On Fire

Woo-hoo! Ideas are brewing in the noggin!

I am very pleased with the fact that in spite of my busy life, I am creating. Mostly outlined and jotting, but new story seeds are being collected. I am also researching markets and have found three that I plan to submit to in the next month or so.

The freelance writing is also going well; I have two new projects.

Hopefully, a more substantive post will emerge a little later. Gotta go to see to that progress.

Had to do it!


This is so cool, I had to repost.

From E.J.’s blog over yonder:

“If I were an earthworm….”

“If I were a dragonfly….”

Over at the Sundance Channel website, you can watch Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porno videos, in which she dresses up in colorful costumes and enthusiastically and accurately demonstrates the sexual behaviors of various invertebrates. Utterly fabulous.

Check it out, especially those folks I know are Rossellini fans.

Omens, Free Association and Writing

Yesterday, before the bad news, I went into a used bookstore to drop off some posters for a local concert. I happened to be waiting in line at the counter just long enough for my eyes to drift over the rack containing film novelizations (which I generally look down upon, bleh). The very top and left book happened to be The Affair of the Necklace, written by Elizabeth Hand, a Clarion workshop leader. Was it a sign? Not a good one, as it turned out, but I did receive news just a short time later. However, it should not surprise me to see an author’s name, on a book, in a book store.

The day before that, I was in the bath, trying to relax and stop obssessing about acceptance/rejection, when the shampoo lather floating in the tub formed into the shapes of two fish. The smaller had a wide-open mouth poised to consume the larger. A sign? I don’t even know of what, but I was distressed and dashed it away.

As a child (and even then I was an aspiring writer), I used to think that writerly work was mythically channeled from some great source, that the ideas burned writers up from the inside until they were let out. The whole notion was that writing is always passionate and exciting, and that great writers were like half-mad artists. When I was a kid, I wanted to be that. Of course, now I’m actually writing, and although at least one story kinda burned its way out, the work I’m doing now has more to do with craft. The difference is that writing craft is taught and learned and shared (and requires time-consuming self-discipline); it’s not wild talent that madly creates in an isolated trance. Ideas come from everywhere, especially for speculative fiction, and random word association can springboard the writer into exciting new directions. All this has something to do with omens (random signs and symbols that are assigned meaning) that I’m not expressing very well here. Maybe you get the point.

Now that my summer has been freed up, I am hard at work on new writing, with the goal of two fresh subs before June in mind.

The current project, tentatively titled “In Like the Lion,” is a short story I started during the wait. It began with a phrase of simple word association, and at the time, I thought of it as very goofy, but at least diverting from the stress of waiting. Now, it seems to be taking on a life of its own, as stories tend to do, and the characters want to go places and see new people. And there it goes, with me in tow.

I’m also shopping around for good online writing workshops to join, if anyone has suggestions.

Back to Normal?

Finally, word from Clarion, and sadly it’s no. But also some encouraging words:

“The admissions panel feels that you (sic) work shows promise and says you came ‘very close’ to being admitted.”

I’ll keep working and try again next year. At least the process has motivated me to rethink my life a little and put me over the hurdle of first submission fears. In the meantime, I need to start subbing my work elsewhere.

And, my posts can go back to normal instead of just functioning as Clarion tweets.

A big thank you to everyone who sent me good wishes and support!