Short Story Weekly: The Writer

Thank you for reading the Short Story Weekly posts, I’m glad people are getting into them, and actually enjoying them for what they are supposed to be: new stories original stories, every single week. This week is no different, and will be the last story of the month that follows the monthly theme. Next week’s story will be a new theme, and being that it’s October, it may be more obvious as to what that theme actually is. For now, I’d like to leave you with this parting story that is short, much shorter than the last several stories, and I truly mean that, and yes it’s one part. It’s called: The Writer, and here’s to another month of great stories only here on the Malacast Editorial. The Writer I have but a short matter to speak of, and then we shall end this pitiful tale with a bang. It wasn’t long ago that I was trapped somewhere between Aruba, and Fargo, a place of milk and cow dung. Yet, I was most surprised by the amount of work I had completed on my novel. It was a short novel, a mere fifty thousand words long, far below the media of eighty thousand, but it was still something of a masterwork that far and few would den. I had shipped it off to several houses, most of which were willing to publish it with some charismatic stipulation that only come from the demon soul eaters that work at such publishing houses, doing Satan’s bidding. I wasn’t about to take on the industry for my own work, because I’d rather go unpublished another year than be blacklisted by every publisher in the market worth the salt his or her words were pressed upon. Who has ever seen the face of a righteous author? One that does the work for the art, and not for the glory so many have lost the way of the artistic chalice that once was the key aspect of entertainment and enlightenment. Still I was amorally objected to ever selling a work for profit’s sake. Which meant I was a foo, headstrong to believe that the author matters far less than the written work. The book should stand alone: Melville was not why you read Billy Budd, but rather you read Melville because Billy Budd was a damn good book. Oomoo was another example of knowing title over writer. I wanted to be known for my titles, those brisk, introductory benchmarks that seldom make people’s work ump off the shelves. Still, I pined over the long ours, expecting to hear back from one of several publishers. The hours turned to days, and turned to months. I was excepted b some, but not the major publishers that would bring a vast audience to my work, as I could sense its appeal breaking down borders. It was my best work, it had to be my best bet as a writer, and it had! Nothing else ha ever compared to what I’ve typed, and nothing has looked so prominently finished. I have sent many a terrible manuscripts off t be rendered, and most were barely legible first drafts. For this work, I mastered the craft of editing, I used every writing bible known to man, and one or two I’ve written as a faux pas to support my narcissism of being an excellent writer. Finally, I heard back from Black Sorcery Publications, they were the most respected Euro-Thrash, Experimental house on the scene. They were what I knew would bring my manuscript to the masses. But everything was looking dreadful, as I read through the letter. It wasn’t necessarily a rejection letter; it was barely a letter at all. I was surprised by I’s blatant honest of how sophomoric my character sounded, almost as though he were a man-child hell-bent on suffering pre=pubescent outrage forever. No, I could take the criticism, I yearned to be critiqued, it’s the writer’s desire to be told the most hurtful things about a work that touches base to he very psyche of the artist that penned it! I wasn’t upset at all at the wording but the idea that the wanted me to edit it down a bit, as though it were ostensibly longer than average, despite being under publishing norms, well I was prepped to take on the next bid, and that was Cromwell Inc., a publisher down in Melbourne. They were newer in the field, but something told me that they had potential and sometimes being associated with a growing press was almost as important as being herald by even the most established of publishers. The irony is that most individuals fail t realize that event he big boys have to tumble, or link up to stay alive. Even Penguin Random House can’t survive the publishing climate simply by being a name. Rejection letters, and semi-rejection letters began to pour in from all markets: snail mail, and e-mail boxes were overflowing like Christmas and Ester have been rolled up, and the greeting cards have run amuck. Every rejection made me stronger, more willing to find the one letter that would establish me as a published author. For years I’ve tried to write down everything I could to make myself a proponent for becoming the next big storyteller. Every book I’ve written had humanity, and my soul was ripped out in chunks to b e placed in the field of disparity, which made up the graveyard of rejection slips for most writers. Mine was at the bottom of my sock drawer, and only after my first was framed in my study. I never once took my eyes off that slip of paper, even as it yellows behind the portrait glass, stained by coffee mug ring from the morning t was first read allowed, and a few tear stains to wash away the fact that this was going to be harder for me than it was for many great writers. You question if you are even in the caliber of he most decent writers, and you later discover that there is no true caliber, but luck of the draw on the market’s full-blown potential. I sifted through so many letters, and have not been published for anything much more than an Opinion Article about spiders in a garden and their mutual benefits. It was a callous article, but I made it work. Still, I didn’t mind the potential of getting my name drawn up in a periodical You have to be narcissistic if you want to be a writer, it’s almost expected, because if you don’t obsess over yourself in this generation, who else will? I know it’s about the work, and I make it clear that my work takes center stage whenever I seek openly about being a writer. However, I see the added benefits of being someone that is all about making that big impression, so the work will carry itself long after one’s gone. Nothing but contempt enrages me as I look out upon the millions of writers worldwide that had made it o the first try with little influence, or little respect t the medium. The lack ambition, tied into pressure stories from publications to fill genre, a made-u term b the industry to merely categorize success b trend. It was fashionable to do nothing more than to make the book sell, the author hot shit, and leave the work entangled in a glorious mess of sequels that bare as little semblance to the original title, while also never tying loose ends Like films of the same stock, they breed continuous attempts at revenue, without ever finishing a story, and the audience far and wide take this as a means of respect to reality and open-endedness, when really it’s just a tactic to build off a capital gain while you slowly forget the work, and focus dearly on the author. Authors are now keywords, and sound bites, only to oppress the form, and gain some sympathetic heartstring to buy their new title, because the last flopped so dangerously that it nearly sunk their proverbial ship. How quaint! How obtuse to think that they re merely remnants of what they were meant to be, and now they too struggle with the same form of writers remorse that so many other great leaders of the pen have come to be! Phantoms, walking off in time, and their dreadful prose is left behind finally separated like a conduit of shame to an ever-oppressing spirit that sells tickets to seminars and symposiums on how to battle the brink of mediocrity, while signing off a thankless autograph to a wretched tin copy of something that used to be a spark of innovation. I la away in my d, reading through the echoing sounds of editors of corporate taste, as they read my work through the fulcrum of five pages or less, and it’s a blessing to be acknowledged as a writer, yet a shame to be belittled to nothing more than a peak observation, with little remorse, and little understanding as an artist. I didn’t care that they rejected me, I didn’t care that Cromwell Inc. had the audacity to call me a hack, but what upset me the most is that they not only rejected me, but questioned my loyalty to print. I pissed on the pages of their rejection slip. I sued to old each one as a testament of acknowledgement, but as I grew wiser, I’ve learned to have micro-aggressions towards these pitiful publications, and only respect those who critiqued me positively. I flushed Cromwell Incorporated’s letter down the shitter, and was off to typing again. No matter how many rejections I’d receive in a given time, after reading through every three, I would write a page of poetic nonsense, and save it to a special drive on my laptop. Still, it was glorious to see how much venting I could do in the most procured language available to myself, and a lengthy thesaurus to gain optimistic revenge against those who have spited me with such flair and arrogance. My desire to become a writer that was accepted by many was not stifled by the rejection letters. I wanted to spread my novel as far as the printed word could reach. I imagined it being handed out in libraries of the third-world, and being downloaded via the Internet on the International Space Station. I imagined m story being interstellar as an achievement that few could claim to hold. I printed another copy, and heralded forward another printed attempt of getting established as a writer. Eons can go by, and I manically wrote what I could, and my nubby fingers pressed keys they’ve pressed millions of times before, and I knew that I have reached the limit that my fingers could click, and I’ve taped up every possible manuscript, and bled out every last paper cut on my way to the mailbox. I sent out the work, and the multiple copies to more presses, and counted out my money, as the ink dwindled from the printer. Months went by, years since I first finished writing that book that took me only weeks to complete. I knew my mother would be disappointed in me on how I’ve wasted my life. “You always do this!” she would chide me. “You always put our hopes into the impossible, and you know that deep down you’ll never be a proper writer! You’re wasting your life, child! Go do something productive, don’t falter to the pressure that comes fro an honest day’s work!” Yes, she was disappointed, but I wasn’t worried, I fell to my bed, and closed my eyes as the light passed, and the sun dawned on another date where my book would be shipped off for potential publication. I loathed the process, I hated my attempts at publication, and I despised the methods that were as old as the first ice. I hated that life was pressuring me to go forth, and find my voice. The years passed, and rejection slips have grown to outweigh any successes. My mother was right; I’ve wasted my life trying to publish, because the market simply didn’t want me. Still, I wanted to right, I yearned to write, and the typeface started back from my crippled computer like a crow’s gaze, mocking me with fright. I took the final rejection slip I received; it came from the last of the printed pages I’ve sent out. I grew depressed by the prefect manila envelopes that came back to me barely rustled open, with egg-white pages of guilty verdicts. I took the last page, and I lit it aflame, torn fro out m heart, and thrown onto the pile. The pages burned brilliantly, and the heat was excitedly strong, bursting to the seams with molten temperatures. I rolled into the flames, and felt my skin burst and blaze wit the ample scent of burned books, and shattered dreams. I loved the scent of the old wood turned to ash, burning around me, on me, as I smiled and let out a laugh. A laugh that turned into a shrilling scream, as the darkness took over, and I lay atop my burnt ashes of hope and facsimile, a broken syntax of life, a broken writer.