Emilio & Marigold Suspended

***EMILIO & MARIGOLD SUSPENDED***

The deadline for submitting final drafts to Hollow Hills’s anthology “The Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim” is today, August 31, 2019. I’m sorry to say that Emilio & Marigold will not be able to make that deadline. Even after all of the rounds of editing it has been through, it’s still not ready by final draft standards. The characters are still two-dimensional, the world isn’t descriptive enough, and the prologue I wrote for the story to increase the word count is a rough draft in and of itself.

Marie Krepps, one of the CEO’s for Hollow Hills, assured me that everything will be okay since she’s already in talks with Aurora Styles about next year’s anthology, which will be animal-themed. Even with Marie’s comfort, I still feel like I let a lot of people and myself down. I’ve never missed a deadline before today. I was always a good college student who turned in my assignments on time without asking for an extension. Must be the Impostor Syndrome creeping up on me again.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Emilio & Marigold, it’s a Jack and the Beanstalk parody that stars my former kitty Emilio instead of a young boy. Emilio passed away back in June due to renal failure and I wanted to dedicate my story to his memory. Looks like his dedication will have to wait a little longer. Remember, this project is suspended, not scrapped. Suspensions are temporary and can be lifted anytime I damn well please. Emilio & Marigold will see the light of day, just not today.

So the question now becomes, where do I go from here? Do I continue to send Emilio & Marigold to paid beta readers? Do I start thinking about editing Beautiful Monster instead? Do I keep pumping out short stories for Poison Tongue Tales 3 and American Darkness 3? Is there another story that’s on my mind? I need some way of keeping my writing sharp until Emilio’s day in the sun comes.

Luckily, I’ve found just the Good Reads group for doing that. In addition to writing short stories and poetry for the WSS, I’m also part of a group called Character Therapy, a role-playing game where characters go through, you guessed it, psychological therapy. Any guesses as to which character I chose? Any pointy-eared, green-skinned elves come to mind? Hmm…

Character Therapy allows players to create more than one character, including therapists themselves. World? Meet Jerry Frost, an art therapist with an extreme case of Impostor Syndrome and a strong passion for creative development. Will Jerry become a permanent character of mine to be used in other stories? If I develop him far enough, he very well could be. He can’t be any more confusing than Tristan Jealous, whom I’ve written a poem about back in 2018.

So here I am, a man without a country, a ship without a rudder, wondering what’s next on my agenda. I suppose I could keep pumping out micro fiction. That’s basically what chapters of a new novel would be since they meet my 1,500 word quota. I know I should be more worried about editing the first drafts I already have instead of pumping out new ones, but keeping my writing sharp is essential to my success as an author.

I haven’t always been this zealous when it comes to my writing, though. The past three days in particular have been the worst mental slog I’ve been through in recent memory. Normally when I’m going through a slog, I can at least concentrate long enough on other forms of reading and writing, like answering Face Book questions or writing two-sentence horror stories. I couldn’t even concentrate for those things. That’s how fucked up things got. This mental slog happened just as I was getting prepared to put together the final Emilio & Marigold manuscript, which wouldn’t have been accepted anyways, but it still would have been nice to get that done.

The point of this journal is to let you all know that this isn’t the end of Emilio & Marigold. It’s merely a roadblock on the way to my final goal. Emilio will be remembered. He will purr at me from beyond the Rainbow Bridge. My love bug will be immortalized one way or another. He really was a love bug. He head butted me, climbed up on my lap, slept on my chest, and purred in my ear. Just talking about him like this makes me miss him even more. Gone, but not forgotten. I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight!

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“God creates all men equal, but once they’re out of the womb, he starts playing favorites.”

-Vic Mackey from “The Shield”-

***POST-SCRIPT***

As long as I’m talking about releasing micro fiction to the public for free, here’s the next short story on my agenda. It’s called “Balls to the Wall” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Shane Herman, Game Show Contestant

2.      Ambrose Kaider, Corpulent Space Mercenary

3.      Georgia Cushing, Shane’s Girlfriend

4.      Morgan Burch, Game Show Host

SYNOPSIS: Shane is competing on an obstacle course game show called “Balls to the Wall” and due to his lack of athleticism, he’s failing horribly. He’s ready to throw in the towel when Morgan introduces a new twist to this game: Ambrose is holding Georgia hostage behind one of the obstacles. If Shane doesn’t man up and complete the challenge, Ambrose will take his plasma rifle and blow Georgia’s head off. Questioning the legality of all of this is not an option since Shane signed a Hold Harmless agreement prior to the taping of the episode.

Double Dare, eat your heart out! Suck it, American Gladiators! Eat a big one, Finders Keepers! Okay, you get it by now.

Hollow Hills Presents: Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim

***HOLLOW HILLS PRESENTS: TALES OF THE SIBLINGS NOT-SO-GRIM***

Every year the fine folks at Hollow Hills Publishing put out a new anthology and 2019 is no different. Last year it was Still Standing, a collection of short stories with an anti-bullying theme. The story I submitted to that one was Savage Beatings, a prequel to a novel I’m currently rewriting called Beautiful Monster. Copies of Still Standing are still available (why wouldn’t they be?) and all proceeds will be donated to the Crisis Text Line. What are you waiting for? Wait, I know. You’re waiting for me to start talking about what Hollow Hills is doing in 2019. Of course, silly me!

Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim, unlike Still Standing, will be lighthearted in nature. Comedy and romance are welcome, but they’re not required. This will also be a collection of stories with a PG rating, so there’ll be no excessive swearing, erotica, or ultra-violence. As you can probably guess from the title, each story will be a fairytale of some kind, though it doesn’t have to be a parody of an existing Grim Brothers Fairytale. It can be completely original or a parody of something else.

Of course, anytime Hollow Hills puts out a collection of short stories, I’ll want to throw my name in the hat. Yeah, I’m normally known for stories with excessive ass-beatings and over-the-top craziness and anger. But just for this anthology, I’ll temper myself as I write “Emilio and the Scratching Post”. It’s a clear parody of Jack and the Beanstalk except instead of a beanstalk it’s a gigantic scratching post and instead of a boy named Jack it’ll be my elderly kitty Emilio. Immortalizing my pets through my stories and poems is kind of what I do. I’m sure old man Emilio would love his own story. Right, cuddle bear?

Stories submitted to this anthology must be between 8,000 and 13,000 words long. In order to meet my minimum requirements, Emilio and the Scratching Post will be five chapters long and every chapter will be at least 1,600 words long, which is one hundred more than I normally do. Easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy! It’s even easier considering Hollow Hills will start accepting submissions between April 1^st and June 1^st. I’d love to get my story done before the first due date, but I’ve got a lot of time between now and then. Like I said, it’ll be a piece of cake. Or in the case of Emilio, a piece of pizza pie!

I’m announcing this new project for a couple of reasons. One, I need something to snap my five day streak of mental sluggishness. I already drew a picture of a novel character named Animal, so this blog entry was naturally the next step. The other reason is because all of my other creative projects will take a back seat to this one. Beautiful Monster, Incelbordination, and any WSS contest entries I write will have to wait for Emilio to climb the magical scratching post to the giant’s fortress in the clouds. I don’t mind putting those other projects on hold, because having a singular focus is better for me than having a cluttered workload.

Speaking of chaotic workloads, tomorrow night I’m headed to Seattle to see Within Temptation perform at the Showbox SoDo. If the Soulfly concert before it was anything to go by, then my sore legs, feet, and back will come back to haunt me the next day and I’ll want to continue the five day streak of laziness. Actually, this concert shouldn’t be anywhere near as tiring because it probably won’t go past midnight and there are only two opening behinds before Within Temptation. Maybe if I’m lucky I can write the first chapter of Emilio and the Scratching Post before I go to the show. I’ve done that before. I wrote chapter fifteen of Silent Warrior before going to a Starset concert back in February of last year, so why not?

The deal with this anthology is the same as the last one: I can’t post my chapters online since Hollow Hills forbids it. That’s something I can live with. They’re a business and they need to make money, so why should anybody have their books for free? Speaking of profits, this new anthology won’t be for charity, but you should buy it when it comes out anyways, because you’re awesome like that. Right? If you’re wondering why I’m not posting as often as I do, it’s because my attention is fully devoted to this new project. Plus, there’s that whole mental sluggishness thing I was talking about earlier. Wish me luck! I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Sunday morning I’m waking up. Can’t even focus on my coffee cup. Don’t even know whose bed I’m in. Where do I start? Where do I begin?”

-“Where Do I Begin?” by The Chemical Brothers-

***POST-SCRIPT***

The next time I post a blog entry, it’ll be about my favorite time of the year: the release of the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic awards from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter! They came out yesterday and boy, were there some whoppers. One big winner and six runner-ups. Not as many as I anticipated, but still, these are pretty god awful. Get your barf bags ready! It’s going to get ugly! Hehehe…heh…heh….I’m on an island.

Lysergic Fairytales

***LYSERGIC FAIRYTALES***

What I’m about to tell you will sound like whining at first, but I swear it has a positive purpose. Are you ready? Here it goes. My last four unpublished novels have something in common: they’re about mentally ill protagonists who find healing through Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Watch You Burn features a schizophrenic college student named Mario Bryan whose obligatory MPDG is an anime fan named Jessica Harley. Demon Axe is about a heavy metal singer with PTSD named Daniel Mercer whose special someone is an elven warrior named Raven Triscloud (my friend Heather’s former D&D character). Silent Warrior is about a high school student with night terrors named Scott George who dates the daughter of his nasty ass history teacher. And then there’s Beautiful Monster, which is about an elven mercenary named Windham Xavier who gets raped for a week straight and becomes infatuated with fellow mercenary Tarja Rikkinen.

So what do I do with four novels that have way too much in common? First order of business would be to edit the shit out of them and make the female supporting characters more than just MPDG’s. And then once that’s done, I’ll do what any sensible author would do: publish them together in one volume and call it “Lysergic Fairytales”. Besides the mental illnesses and subsequent love interests, the other thing these novels share in common is that they’re trippy as fuck. You don’t necessarily have to drop acid or smoke weed in order to enjoy these stories…but you’d probably be more likely to give them a five star rating if you did. Pleeeeeeease? Hehehehehe!

Of course, Silent Warrior is a modern day drama and not a fantasy story, but I still consider it to be part of the Lysergic Fairytale genre because it has its own set of trippy moments, whether it’s Scott having an awful nightmare about puppet teachers or Alan Young (bully) hallucinating an entire conversation with his mother in a solitary confinement cell. I once joked that Silent Warrior was basically Pink Floyd the Wall fan fiction. That might not be a joke anymore.

Now that I’ve got plans to combine these four stories into one volume, I should probably try to figure out how they’ll be interconnected, if they are at all. I think back to other examples of this such as Tales From the Hood or Pulp Fiction, where there were four acts apiece. Pulp Fiction’s acts were all tied within the canon while the Tales From the Hood stories were standalone and were only connected because an undertaker named Simms was telling them out loud. Considering Beautiful Monster takes place in the distant past and the other three stories take place in the present day, I don’t see how they could be easily connected unless I happen to pull off some kind of miracle.

Maybe they don’t have to be connected, though. Maybe they’re just in one volume because I’m insecure about the size of my books. Anytime I talk about how my only published novel Occupy Wrestling is less than a hundred pages, I feel as though I’ve stumbled upon a Viagra commercial. Well, I’m pretty sure these four Lysergic Fairytales novels are individually shorter than Occupy Wrestling. Shorter books don’t get as much recognition as longer ones. It’s sad and unfortunate, but it’s a truth I’ll have to come to terms with eventually. For all intents and purposes, the four novels are complete stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, so it’s not like I cut them off too soon. It’s just that I don’t have the endurance for longer stories, mainly because I wouldn’t know what else to do with them.

On the day I do decide to publish Lysergic Fairytales, it’ll be pretty damn far into the future due to how painstaking it is to edit the shit out of complete novels. I plan on starting with Beautiful Monster and working my way backwards chronologically. But the important thing I have to remember is that there’s no rush for publishing novels. I’d rather have a late blooming book that’s clean and readable than a quickly published book that’s a piece of shit. That’s one of the knocks on Occupy Wrestling: it was published before it was ready, which is probably why it’s rated at less than three stars right now. Well, that and I foolishly marketed it to non-wrestling fans. I won’t make that same mistake with Lysergic Fairytales, that’s for damn sure.

It’s a long road ahead of me in terms of editing, but it’s one I’ve traveled before and it’s one I’ll happily travel again. What does this mean for novels like Incelbordination and Filter Feeder? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ll still put in the work for Incelbordination like I always do. Filter Feeder, though not beyond repair, doesn’t fit in with the Lysergic Fairytales motif, so it’ll be left out. Anthologies should be somewhat homogenous when it comes to genres and I’m pushing that envelope by including Silent Warrior, a modern day drama.

Wish me luck on my long and tiring journey! I’m not naïve enough to deny needing it! I’m Garrison fucking Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain! My, how true those words will become during the editing process.

***BOOK REVIEW***

As many of my Good Reads followers can tell, I’m on the verge of finishing and reviewing “Truth Is Fragmentary” by Gabrielle Bell. I’m only twenty-five pages away from pulling the trigger on this creative project. I should have finished it a long time ago since it’s a graphic novel and it’s easy as fuck to read. Psychological exhaustion, like it always does, got in the way of my best intentions. But read this book and review it I will. I still haven’t decided if I want to give it a passing or mixed grade. While the themes of exhaustion, depression, and being overworked are all relatable, I’m not so sure if the overall story did anything for me personally. Like I said, I haven’t decided the final grade yet, which means Gabrielle Bell has 25 pages left to, in Steven Crowder’s memetic words, “Change my mind.” And by the way, I’m only channeling the meme he’s famous for, not the actual person. The actual person makes me cringe.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Take one of those and two of these, then watch the walls begin to breathe. I can taste the color of the lights. Wings are growing out of me. The floor is floating underneath. I can see the future burning bright. The ceiling has us mesmerized. It feels like we can never die. Heading for the dark side of the moon. As we lift off into the sky invincible and so alive. Ten feet tall and fucking bulletproof. Insanity is setting in. Reality is getting thin. The universe just started slowing down. Then suddenly we’re traveling a million miles an hour. The shadows all start breaking free, no longer held by gravity. How did we get so far off the ground? Speaking to the galaxy, received and sending back to me. I can finally hear the speed of sound. I like this everlasting pill, ‘cause time itself is standing still. Why’s the room still spinning just the same? Turn off your phone so no one calls, ‘cause you and I are tripping balls. I can still hear ringing in my brain. Insanity is setting in. Reality is getting thin. The universe just started slowing down. Then suddenly we’re traveling a million miles an hour. Insanity is setting in. Reality is getting thin. The particles are dancing all around. I can’t deny the hardest thing for me is finding time to finally breathe. See no signs of ever coming down. Another wave is coming in a million miles an hour.”

-Nickelback singing “Million Miles an Hour”-

***POST-SCRIPT***

I came very close to giving you guys a sneak preview of Incelbordination’s fifth chapter, but I won’t do that because even the slightest details could be deemed spoilers. No spoilers for you, motherfuckers! Even if you bribed me with a Quintuple Whopper with extra bacon and cheese, I still wouldn’t give you spoilers! Hahahahahahaha!