I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

It seems appropriate to start a blog about writing (by an all-but-unknown writer, no less) with a confession: I hate writing. I hate the process. I hate sitting down and trying to focus on the work at hand. I go to mighty lengths to distract myself from it; I am in fact much better at not writing than I am at writing, which is why at 34 I only have a small handful of stories in print, and run the very real risk of being one of those sad souls who could have made it, should have made it, but just didn't have the gumption to get the job done.

The bitch of it is there's nothing else I'd rather do. When I've finished a story, or even a paragraph I'm proud of, I literally feel like I've snorted a line of cocaine. My body is electrified, the endorphins are crackling, I punch strangers in the face because dammit, I can. Luckily I'm pretty good at it (writing, that is; not so much with the punching (at the end of this little post I'll list some of the places you can find my stories, so you can come to your own conclusions on whether or not I'm full of shit)). And I certainly don't want to end up on that scrap heap of might-have-beens. So -- for the first time in my life -- I'm making a commitment to writing every day. That's part of the reason that I started this blog; even if no one ever reads this thing (and, really, let's be frank: if you're here, who the fuck are you? What is the matter with you?), I'll feel as though there is a presence over my shoulder, which I should not disappoint.

In this blog I will likely write about my daughter, though I've not decided yet how much I should. I'll write about bartending in New Orleans, which I did for nearly ten years, and bartending in Asheville, which I've done for four months so far, and which is far less interesting. I'll try to avoid politics, though no promises there. Let's just say I'm on the left and leave it at that (for now). I'll write about writers I admire, and why I admire them. I'll probably write a little about horror fiction, and why I'm drawn to the genre despite being uncomfortable with its existence as a genre. God knows what else. I've never done this before.

Here's a list of my stories so far and where they might be found, starting with the most recent.

"S.S." The 3rd Alternative #41
"You Go Where It Takes You" SciFiction (reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 17)
"The Malady of Ghostly Cities" The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts
"The Casual Conversation of Angels" The Silver Web (#11) (apparently to be reprinted in their forthcoming Best Of anthology)
"She Found Heaven" The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, (reprinted at Fantastic Metropolis, and included in Breaking Windows: A Fantastic Metropolis Sampler)