I don’t suppose I have too many readers here, not many at all who might be hanging on waiting for the next installment of the SerpentBlog. But I’ve only got myself to blame. I’ve not written here in awhile and I want to tell you why.
What I have been doing instead of writing blogs is writing stories. As much as I like blogging I like writing stories better, and that’s what I should be doing because I’ve stiffened up lately like the Tin Man and the stories are my oil.
So in the next few days or so I’m going to post the latest little piece of fiction I’ve been working on here – right here in the blog itself. I’m going to buck convention and let you see it before anyone else does. I’m going to let you see a rough draft of a tale written to be told by mouth.
I don’t have much time to write these days. Unfortunately I have no patron. I have a job. I work now on my fiction about an hour a day and that’s not nearly enough to do the kind of work I really want to be doing. But it’s enough time to write small stories of small consequence.
These past few months, every morning, I’ve taken out my oil can to lube my elbows and loosen my knees. And I like what I’ve written. So I’ll let you see that soon if you want.
The working title for this new piece is U-Boat and here’s a preview:
“…We called him the captain. He was a man who spoke few words but those words he did speak carried with them the weight of one who knew the sea and all her means of betrayal… He had the tanned and leathered skin of a old waterman. His face was deeply lined and he had a great head of silver hair. But the thing I remember most about him was his hands. His hands were things of true ugliness and strength and they appeared to have been forged with hammers of ice…”
On to business.
On Saturday October 4th I’ll be reading at the San Francisco Public Library as part of Litquake.
Saturday’s event is called “Off The Richter Scale” and if you live in the Bay Area I would just live to see you there. I have been given six minutes to read so I’ve chosen a passage from Serpent Box that I promise will deliver the goods. If you don’t know it already, I love to read aloud and I write all my stories with the spoken word very much in mind.
Oral story-telling is an incredibly important and endangered form of art and expression, especially in these i-Phone, i-Pod, I-M, I-seclude-my-self-behind-a-glass-screen digital times. So please, support reading, story-telling and old fashioned human interaction by attending a Litquake event this coming week. It is a great San Francisco tradition I am honored to be a part of.
Though I realize it is unlikely you’ll attend, here is the Litquake website and calendar of events:
http://www.litquake.org/the-festival/opening-day/
I’ll be at the Koret Auditorium at 2pm and later on at Books Inc, Opera Plaza for a signing at 5.
Meanwhile, I’m going to get my oil can out again. My story is calling me, and I need to live. Thanks loyal readers, see you all Saturday at the temple of books – The SF Public Library. 100 Larkin St.
VLC
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