Rarely Likable

Storybucket 2011

Nick Antosca, "The Girlfriend Game."

Lauren Becker, "There Was Nothing We Could Do."

Matt Bell, "An Index of How Our Family Was Killed."

Steinur Bell, "The Whale Hunter."

Mel Bosworth, "Halfway."

Mel Bosworth, "Loveland Pass."

Randall Brown, "It Doesn't."

Chloe Caldwell, "Hunger."

Chloe Caldwell, "That Was Called Love."

Ryan Call and Christy Call, "Snowstorm as Nostalgic Accumulation."

Catherine Chung, "Burial."

Christy Crutchfield, "Summer in a Glass."

Nadine Darling, "How To Disappear Completely."

Matthew Derby, "Full Metal Jhacket."

Sarah Rose Etter, "Stolen Fat Baby."

Sarah Rose Etter, "Tongue Party."

Kathy Fish, "Blooms."

Erin Fitzgerald, "How The Interplanetary War Began."

Erin Fitzgerald, "This Morning Will Be Different."

Erin Fitzgerald, "Three Stories."

Jen Gann, "Nighttime Penguins."

Scott Garson, "About Me and My Cousin."

Roxane Gay, "Baby Arm."

Roxane Gay, "Knife Man."

Roxane Gay, "Notes on Motorized Carts."

Kathleen Hale, "The Corn."

Amy Halloran, "The Epidemic of Weariness."

Geoff Herbach, "Co-op."

Micah Dean Hicks, "Where The Electrician Went."

Frank Hinton, "Comorbidity."

Emily Howroth, "Look Away Dixieland."

Lindsay Hunter, "My Boyfriend Del."

Lindsay Hunter, "Unpreparing."

Shane Jones, "I Will Unfold You With My Hairy Hands."

Jeff Landon, "Starfish."

Tara Laskowski, "Ode to the Double-Crossed Lackey in 'Thunderball.'"

Robert Lopez, "One Of My Daughters Is Called Resnick."

Susan McCarty, "The Last Night They Spent Together Before The Separation."

Ally Malinenko, "Wintering."

Ravi Mangla, "Ways."

Meghan, "Oh You Have Got to Be Kidding Me."

Franz Nicolay, "Complicated Gardening Techniques."

Gina Ochsner, "From the Bering Strait."

Mel Li Ooi, "Comida Tipica."

Joe Owens, "Contemptibly, A Hair."

Ellen Parker, "Metallic."

Hannah Pass, "Pieces of Animal."

James Robison, "The Guard."

Andrew Roe, "This is What It's Like."

Ethel Rohan, "Beast and the Bear."

Shya Scanlon, "Forecast: Chapter 1."

Laura Ellen Scott, "Crimson."

Mike Sweeney, "The Werebear Who Wished To Come In From The Rain."

J.A. Tyler, "The Rhinoceros."

Scott Wrobel, "The Absence or Addition of Fish."

xTx, "The Mill Pond."

xTx, "Standoff."

Edith Zimmerman, "Office."

Leni Zumas, "An Account of My Death in the Mountains."

Storybucket: Methods, Thoughts

Storybucket will go up a little later this morning. A few things I'd like to say first...

-- Writers and readers like to share their excitement. Most of the good reading I find is by recommendation. But there's an added element to that sometimes, isn't there? Consciously or not, friends recommend friends, mentors give props, people return favors. On the reader end, sometimes it's tempting to stop paying attention to the work and pick apart everything but the work. My hope is that Storybucket, by eliminating the identity of the recommenders, presents something of interest and value to everyone.

-- I have not told anyone who participated or who sent what, nor do I intend to. Ever. I will only say that Storybucket is not simply List of Stories That Erin's Friends Like. 

-- In an effort to forget who sent what, I entered people's choices and then immediately deleted their emails/PMs. This also meant foregoing thank you notes. My method to forget was largely successful, but it does mean I owe many thank yous. Please accept yours here: THANK YOU!

-- If you are a writer who has work on the list, someone who saw my various social media requests took the time to contact me and recommend your story. What you write matters.

-- If your work is not on the list, you should know that I did not hear from everyone who saw my various social media requests, and there are plenty of people who didn't even see my various social media requests. What you write matters.

--Next time, suggestions will go to a general mailbox. They'll be compiled by someone who isn't a potential candidate for the list, and sent to me when the deadline is up. Assuming this list doesn't generate a lot of Internet ill will, the next round will be a Storybucket of print fiction, probably this fall. Start thinking about your picks...you may be limited to three.

-- I should have removed my work from consideration, and will likely do so going forward. In putting this together, it never occurred to me that my stories might be suggested. Go ahead and roll your eyes, but it's true.

-- I'd love to hear what you think of this experiment, good or bad, positive or negative. Feel free to comment below, or drop me a line at gnomeloaf at gmail. (Comments on the Storybucket itself will be closed.)

An experiment: Please help!

The next linkbucket at Rarely Likable will be links to online short stories that other people love. 

The catch: All recommendations will be anonymized.

What else: Stories will be presented in alphabetical order by author. Stories with multiple votes will be indicated.

Two rules: You may recommend no more than five stories. You may NOT recommend your own stories.

How to play: Email me at gnomeloaf at Google, or via Facebook, or via Twitter PM. 

You have until March 25, and the list will go up shortly after that.

I hope this has interesting results.

5 Days until the 2,055th Anniversary of Julius Caesar's Assassination Linkbucket

I know I don't usually do this, but: Before you read any further, before you do anything else, please read Roxane's essay if you haven't already. The NY Times article to which it refers made me nauseous, and Roxane does a fantastic job of putting it in a broader (and equally disturbing) context. 

J. Robert Lennon on forbidden things writers can do anyway.

Yelizaveta P. Renfro and I are leading a workshop for Dzanc Day at UConn Torrington! Scroll down for the gory details. I'm looking forward to it, because it's going to be great. Sign up!

Sugar at The Rumpus often puts something in my eye, but this one is special.

I also really like the idea of "Fitzgerland." In Fitzgerland, video game playing would be a paying occupation, and all hairdressers would be mediocre. The national anthem would be a different mashup tune every week. There would be spacious skies, and off-white waves of string cheese.

David Mitchell on The King's Speech (which I still haven't seen...).

I did some DIY hair highlighting last week. It turned out just good enough to make me realize that yes, I need highlighting in my hair, but bad enough to be a really bad highlighting job. I'll put up a new profile photo at Facebook, or something. I have no shame about my crappy colorist skills.

Steve, I'm really touched -- I can't wait until everyone gets to read it.

I have a gift card from GameStop, and I've been trying to figure out what to spend it on. Dragon Age 2 just came out, as did Dead Space 2.  And there's Dungeon Siege III just around the corner. Marvel vs. Capcom is a possibility, because the only fighting game I have is The Force Unleashed and that's got platform elements to it and I SUCK AT PLATFORMS. But I might just blow the card on used games known to be good.

Art Edwards on ABBA literary doppelgangers.

Should I start getting more serious about Goodreads? I tend to just skim the feed and see if there's anything that looks good to me. I never remember to add friends, and I don't rate or review what I read. I don't know if I want to really take on Even More Social Media, though.

Jenny Hayes on the fun and the crusty.

I'm working on a thing. It feels good to have a project in the center of the universe again. I hope it stays that way for a while. We'll see.

Ethel Rohan hosts Irish writers at Necessary Fiction this month. Definitely worth visits. Yes, plural.

The snowpocalypse in my part of Connecticut is now a floodpocalypse. Sometimes it sucks to live on the top of a hill, but this is not one of those times. The main intersection in my town is completely closed off until further notice.  I have had lengthy discussions with people about how to now drive to various places, discussions which may or may not have affected my will to live. There is also lots of mud. For the most part, the mud is business as usual.

An unearthed Daphne du Maurier story about a sex robot? This is so totally on my preorder list.

Book that's on my iPad that I haven't cracked open yet: Lydia Davis' Greatest Hits. (Yes, I know. But wouldn't it be right if everyone just said "greatest hits" instead of "collected stories?" My supermarket has a bin of Greatest Hits CDs. I'd love to find a bin of Greatest Hits books, complete with airbrushed author photos clearly taken from other places on the front.)

Amy McDaniel on neurology, experience, age, and rereading.

Might have some Girl Scout cookies available for purchase, for a very limited time. Most flavors. Inquire within.

"In fact, my college experience –or, at least, the repercussions thereof, are closer to my parents’ experience than they are to my friends’ who were born half a decade later. If that’s not evidence of something radical happening, I don’t know what is."

I literally cannot watch the episode of Strange Addictions with the girl who eats pottery. It's too much. I'm sure TLC is minutes away from creating a show called Strange Aversions. 

Roy Kesey interviewed at The Collagist. Pacazo is next up in my TBR pile.

Warning you now, fun facts will be coming soon. Cue LL Cool J.

Myfanwy Collins on Randall Brown's Mad to Live, which is now in PDF format with bonus material.

My iPod is set to shuffle albums so that, just like at classic rock stations, "Feeling that Way" by Journey is ALWAYS followed by "Anytime."

"How do you measure your success in life, by your score or your level?"

Here's some of the health stuff for anyone keeping score: I went to the eye doctor earlier this week and everything was...better. I'm going to go back this summer for one more round of tests. If the trend continues downward, I may be out of the pre-glaucoma woods. Whether I resume my shameless and sloppy love affair with Diet Vanilla Pepsi at that hypothetical point remains to be seen. 

Laura Ellen Scott on the P.U.

I didn't mention this on the Interwebs but I also had a skin biopsy a couple of weeks ago and that came back benign yesterday. Have you ever had a skin check from a dermatologist? I highly recommend it. You sit in the waiting room with old people and teenagers with their cranky parents, and your heart breaks a little for the teenagers because you remember what that's like, and you always will. Then you go in and they look you over and point out all the stuff you get vaguely nervous about in the shower and then forget about when you're dressed, and they tell you it's all normal. Or, in my case, almost all normal.

Aubrey Hirsch on what to do with a novella.

The dermatologist took a dime-sized circular chunk out of my upper back for the biopsy. Now it looks like I have a PS/2 input between my shoulderblades. As you might imagine, it's extremely badass.

And finally: Is it me you're looking for? (via Google Reader...I wish Reader kept who shared what...)

Leeroy Jenkins Linkbucket

OH MY GOD I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH YOU PEOPLE! 

Inquiring minds want to know...what's your stuff?

Don't believe me? HA! Here are some great stories. Plenty more where those came from, too. 

Tayari Jones' Lucky Charms method for first drafts.

Reading fiction online is getting to be like gaming. I want to sit here in front of the computer for 20 hours at a time, with empty bags of potato chips at my feet. Let's hope I don't start looking for a poopsock.

Essential writing about writing.

A poopsock is exactly what you think it is. I don't know any gamers who have poopsocks. Then again, would they admit to it if they did?  I'll admit that I've eaten dinner in front of the computer screen. I'll admit I've stayed up until six in the morning, in front of the computer screen. I've dreamt about places that are only real in games, and I've occasionally spent more on a game so that I could have a cool horsey in it. But you're just going to have to believe me when I say I have never had a poopsock.

Responses to VIDA's The Count. (There may be some crossover here, but I'm all about completism for this.) Vaguely related, I suppose: Writing across gender.

I've been playing a bit of this, which I absolutely positively do NOT have time for. I play a female dwarf. Amazingly, I have never played a female dwarf before. People are peculiar about dwarves and gnomes in games. Some will say they hate them, using turns of speech that would be highly uncomfortable in the real world.  Others obsess over one characteristic, usually the shortness. And every once in a rare while, you hear about a player with, well, a fetish. 

Video games need more writers. Discussion at The Rumpus.

Before I let my World of Warcraft subscription run out this last time, I visited the Moon Guard server one Saturday night. Moon Guard is the most populated server in the game. It's designated officially for roleplay, and very unofficially for erotic roleplay, also known as ERP. Blizzard tries to crack down on ERP from time to time, particularly in chat channels that are visible to everyone. So I made a little human hunter and went to the inn at Goldshire, which is where you go on any server if you want to see a night elf female dancing on a table. It was packed inside. Everyone was naked. And because of Blizzard's crackdown and animation limitations, everyone appeared to be silent and standing in place. It was like a game of naked elven sardines. The general channel, which is visible throughout the entire zone, was full of people like me who'd come from other servers to have a gawk. Except for one guy, who was advertising for a female draenei slave. No one hit on me, which is just like the real world.

Ethel Rohan reviews Kathy Fish's forthcoming collection, Tenderoni.

I've never been interested in ERPing, myself. Besides the whole fictional species problem -- at this point in my gaming career, it'd be too much like bonking a coworker. What happens when you're at the next raid and you're rolling for the same rare drop? Awkward. 

Caleb Das talks about metal.

Gaming, fiction. I straddle two worlds sometimes. Both have dedicated, talented citizens who really love what they do, who are exceptionally good at it, and often (bonus!) have great personalities. Both worlds have quests of varying lengths and challenge levels. New zones, new prizes, new adventures open up all the time.  

Levi Asher on his Jersey Shore addiction.

I don't think the fiction world ever goes down for maintenance, though. 

Tyler Malone bought many of David Markson's books from the Strand, and now he's putting the pages up on Tumblr. (via)

And finally: video game terms that need to jump to the real world (I'd add "faction work" to this list.)