Rarely Likable

The Things I Bookmarked in the Last 30 Days Linkbucket

J. Robert Lennon on endings.
Rule of the Bone is, indeed, awesome.
Google Classic.
Chewbacca as depicted in cake form.
FlatmanCrooked and Emma from Avery on The MFA.
Alan Rossi on Fictionaut.
World's Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Waldo.
Brad Green on intentional misarrangement.
Some talk of one of my favorite novels so far this year.
Daniel Nester on Peter Conners' Growing Up Dead.
Alex Rose on Fallout 3.
John Madera (and many others) on the novella.
Laura Ellen Scott on the standing room only flash fiction panel at Conversations and Connections.
William Patrick Wend on electronic literature.
The Real World: DC (by neighborhood).
Kim on masters of the obvious.
If your IM buddy list was honest.
Dough-Nu-Matic, the personal donut maker!
Christine Hartzler on Shadow of the Colossus and other games.
Only a couple more days to enter the Hint Fiction contest!
Cliff Garstang on Chris Adrian's "A Tiny Feast."
Adam Robinson on getting mugged.
Tod Goldberg, Carolyn Kellogg, and Antoine Wilson on the LATFOB.
Catherine Lacey's Vicarious MFA, now with workshop topical roundup!
Michele Filgate on reading old and new literature.
A photo essay by Jimmy Chen Philip Roth.
Sean Lovelace on Matt Bell's How the Broken Lead the Blind.
Tayari Jones is teaching at FAWC this summer. Sign up!

In the beginning = 3 words

I *was* going to go out and get a cup of coffee, but then I decided to check my email one last time.

20 minutes later, I'm sitting here running Bible stories through word counts, to see if they're under 1k and therefore could be considered flash fiction (or flash stories, if you prefer):

First creation story (God creates the earth in seven days): Yes - about 850 words.
Second creation story (Adam/Eve/snake): No - 1200 words.
Noah's Ark: No - 2400 words. (There's a fair amount of room for edits, though!)
Abraham called to sacrifice Isaac: Yes - 550 words.

I don't think many of the parables of Jesus are more than 200 words.

I think I'd better go get that cup of coffee before I figure out whether Revelation is a novella, or a collage.

Since about Friday...

I've been traveling and taking notes and trying to use the Internet with a smartphone, which is like sending a firehose through a drinking straw. Conversations and Connections was great fun -- got to catch up with old friends and meet new ones, always a good combination. I spent almost all of Sunday on the road -- starting in Washington, DC and ending in Le Roy, NY by way of NYC and Albany. Go look that up in Google Maps and then guess at my state of mind around, oh, 10PM or so.

Today, I've got a story in elimae called "There are always children." I owe many thanks to Lauren Becker for her help with this piece. My current favorite story of Lauren's happens to be the one discussed here.

As always, here are some fun facts about "There are always children":
-- The story is based on a dream I had. The dream was unusual. Most of the time I dream I'm back in college with no dorm assignment. Make of that what you will, armchair therapists.
-- I went through several drafts to get the English proficiency where I wanted it to be. The action, on the other hand, has always been in place.
-- My mom thinks the main character is a cat.

It is what you think it is.

I have a short story up over at Wigleaf. It's called "Orange." Wigleaf is one of my favorite places to read flash fiction, so I'm very happy to be a part of it.

Time for fun facts. As of this writing:
Number of times I have been asked what the narrator's disease is: 3.
Number of times I have been asked what the painting is: 0.

Me post, me post, this is the me post.

-- I've been observing National Poetry Month by writing a poem every day in my Hannah Montana composition notebook. My poems have been terrible. Today I wrote a sestina. It didn't fix the terrible. (More 30/30 fun here.)
-- Fiction topics lately: Highly obscure 70's West Coast cults, digging up bodies, The North Face jackets and sadomasochism. Those last two are in the same story.
-- If you are my Facebook friend (and really, why aren't you?), then you may know I killed a favorite pen recently. This is the pen. I dropped it on the floor, and cracked the barrel. I can't say enough about how awesome this combination of pen and ink is...and I'm left-handed. Anyway, I'm going to try a Lamy Safari and converter as a replacement. Someday soon? I will write a full post that flaunts my pen dorkiness.
-- I downloaded these two songs within five minutes of each other yesterday:


-- I'll be at Conversations and Connections this coming Saturday, doing some representing of America's Next Top Online Litmag and also, hopefully, saying some hellos. Someone asked, and I have bad news: There will be no swaggy keychains at Northville's table. I usually have caffeinated mints in my purse, though! Just ask.