Just found out that my story "A Eulogy for Dr. Nostalgia" has been accepted for publication at Diet Soap Magazine for their February issue. KICK ASS!

This story was rooted in a challenge whipped up by Justin Howe, Dave Hendrickson, and myself. We all took subject lines from SPAM messages and tried to write a short story with them. I've actually lost the subject line that inspired this flash story. The core is that once upon a time, people with OCD knowledge of pop culture's lost underbelly had a value in today's society like a seer. They remembered old cartoon jingles, lost "Very special episodes," and secret knowledge about punk rock bands from Scandinavia that only existed for half a hiccup but changed the world a music in that time. Now, Wikipedia and youtube have destroyed their value. Anyone can be one of these seers! Nooo!

And, yes, I was one of these Gandalf-the-Obscure knowledge types. Sniff.

Thanks to Justin and Dave for contest that generated the story. Thanks to Camille Alexa for suggesting Diet Soap as a good home for the tale. And thanks for Doug Lain for buying the tale.

This is my eleventh sale this year. Colour Me Impressed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n4b0nw7H5Q&feature=PlayList&p=D0ADA851F56989CD&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

JSR

Somedays, this is the best way to start your morning. Too bad last time I tried it I ended up feeling like ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag.

Maybe next time I'll be more Tao of Steve about it.

JSR

Extra Extra! Read all About it!



Another salvo from The Good News Front!

Big Pulp has agreed to buy my story “Suckerpunch” for their winter issue!

This sale brings a smirk to my face. I wrote this story at Odyssey. It was a revised version of a story I’d written a week before (“Gallows Birds of Wonderville). And it was perhaps my first real attempt to write a gory horror story with a heart of gold. One of my colleagues could barely finish reading it. So I guess it worked?

So if you want a story filled with cola, corpulent parents, and carney grifters, look no further.

Now that’s a great way to start a weekend! And it turns out that this is my tenth sale this year thus far. Time to celebrate!

Cheers!

JSR

Some days, you're sailing. No matter how bad the day gets, love and enthusiasm for what you do carries you forward. Life can punch you in the teeth and you smile back like a hockey goon and keep going.

Other days, it's a grind. Everything carries new weight. Mole hills are mountains touching clouds. You can't seem to catch a break and you feel like you've been a day late and a dollar short for a brief eternity.

Most days, you're grooving between these two poles and just doing the best you can.

And today, I just want to shout, "BANG BANG BANG BANG! VAMANOS, VAMANOS!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx6FV2qR2TY

JSR

Time to put on the history geek hat and extol the virtues of his kick ass mini series. Before James Bond, their was Reilly. Smart, savy, a lady killer and master spy. Another difference: Reilly was real! Much like TE Lawrence, Reilly and his story are among the great wild tales of the Great War that are steeped in truth, lies, and mystery. The series explores the career of Britain's controversial covert agent, born in Russia and of Jewish heritage, as he plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with arms merchants, oil barons, and the national governments of Japan, Germany, and Russia.

Indeed, it is in the heart of Stalin's Soviet Union that the charismatic and unrepentantly amoral Reilly meets his maker, on a mission of vengeance. He is betrayed by the Checka's counter revolutionary front organization, The Trust, all masterminded by Dzershinsky, head of the secret police.

The series is well written, acted, and absolute crack for history buffs as Reilly's schemes take him through "The Great Game" between Britain and Russia in the Near East, the naval arms race, the Russo/Japanese War, and, finally and sadly, The Great War and its aftermath.

My only complaint was that the series abruptly jumped in time during the final episodes, ignoring the first three years of the Great War to focus on Reilly's failed attempt to overthrow Lenin's government (thanks in part to those shifty Latvian Riflemen who would not join his cause!). I suppose they had to make a cut somewhere, but ignoring the Great War, when its origins were so keenly dissected in earlier episodes, was craptacular.

But that's a minor quibble.

The story is hyperbolic, and Reilly's efforts were not as world changing as the series would like you to think, but it's terrific stuff none the less.

JSR

If you can vote on such things, why not toss some Ridlermania at the Nebula short story list? It would be righteous!

"Advice from the Devil's Handbook," Big Pulp,
http://bigpulp.com/m_ridler_handbook.html
(Heavy metal, bible burning, skiddy fun!)

"Paladin and the Concrete Blond," Nossa Morte (November 2009):
http://nossamorte.com/nov09issue/paladin.html
(Magic Realism with a noir twist!)

"Anodos Amongst the Elves," New Myths, (September 2009)
http://63.64.44.120/index.pacq?id=163&tier=2
(Ivy League Fantasy Grit Fic!)

"Billy and the Mountain," in Tesseracts Thirteen, Nancy Kilpatrick and David
Morrell, eds., (Calgary: Edge Press, 2009
(A comic-book junky's homage to the magic and terror of childhood morality)

"Charlatans and Magi," Flashquake Vol. 8 no. 4 (Summer 2009).
http://www.flashquake.org/fiction/charlatans.html
(A YA tale of grifter magic and the price of ego!)

"Melancholy Dust," Big Pulp (Summer 2009).
http://bigpulp.com/lore_ridler_dust.html
(sad tale of bookstores and ghosts)

"The Desert Island Fifty," Fantastical Visions IV, William Horner, ed.
(Wilmington: Fantasist Enterprises, 2009).
(My only ever story about a deal with the devil-and it's about a writer! And it got published!)

"Salvation," New Myths. March 2009
http://63.64.44.120/index.pacq?id=43&tier=2
(the only real SF here: a black humour horror story about the price of war in the future)

"The Last" Nossa Morte (2009) http://www.nossamorte.com/feb09_issue/thelast.html
(Rough fable of alcoholic memory loss and recovery)

"Retreat into Victory, Dark Recesses vol. 3, issue 13 (2008); 15-22.
(PTSD, Balloons, and quotes from Marcus Aurelius!)

"Blue Harvest," Nossa Morte Anniversary Issue (November 2008).
http://nossamorte.com/nov08_issue/blueharvest.html
(a werewolf story that isn't really a werewolf story . . . or is it???)

Whatcha gonna do, Nebulas? When the Ridler runs wild over you!

Remember those days where you read Blackbelt magazine by flashlight, believed ninjas could fly, and saved up for pennies for your very own own pair of Chuck Norris action jeans (manly mullet and mustache combo not included)?

Those were the days!

JSR

Ever since taking a stab at the vocation of writing, I've come across writers who flipped my wig. Writers who made me say "you can do this with fiction?" Writers who have both inspired and/or intimidated me in some capacity. This ranged from the legacy of whole careers to individual stories. For shit and giggles, I thought I'd share my thoughts on them:

Harlan Ellison: Forget the persona for a second and just think of the work. When I flipped open the cover of Angry Candy, the first Ellison collection I read, I was amazed by the body of work in his bibliography. And the stories were angry, driven, emotionally wild, often literary and/or pulpy exploration of themes that I'd missed in other genre or literary fiction. And so to with his other collections. Paladin of the Lost Hour, Mephisto in Onyx, Pretty Maggie Money Eyes, Jeffty is Five, Soft Monkey, Broken Glass, Glass Goblin . . . I could go on. Each collection a loot bag of stories, from crime to mimetic to fantasy and sf to whatever. I loved that variety. I loved the energy and passion in the stories. Yes, I liked the angry young man becoming bitter old man essays, too. But the stories are what should matter, and they do. Ellison made me want to write great short fiction.

Joe Lansdale: Like Ellison, I was wowed by the varied and massive output of the Master Mojo Storyteller hisownself. There was sex and violence and humour and cross genre nonesense and painfully serious looks at racism and the cultural baggage of Texas and all told with a unique storytelling voice. The Drive In books, Bubba Ho Tep, The Bottoms, A Fine Dark Line, Mr. Weed Eater, The Pit, The Night They Missed the Horror Show, The Hap and Leonard series. It's a laundry list of great stuff, of a unique career that chose to ignore the "just write one thing" approach in favour for the cascade view of variety. I tend to think that what I've taken from Lansdale is a sense of freedom as a writer. To ignore artificial boundaries, to go for the throat, to carve your career as you see fit and write the stories you want. I can dig it.

Gary Braunbeck: No other writer I have read has grabbed me as emotionally as Braunbeck. Painfully human, almost Russian in the pathos, his short stories and novels are treatise on the nature of human condition at a raw and yet refined level. Duty, Safe, The Friendless Bodies of Unburied Men, Some Touch of Pity, The Indifference of Heaven, In the Midnight Museum . . . each one is a knock out. Braunbeck's work inspired me to be as emotionally honest as I could be in my work, and to realize their is a difference between action and violence in storytelling and you have a responsibility to know which is which. Braunbeck also champions a multi genre approach to reading, writing, and thinking about the value of story (his essay "Storytelling Unbound" is a personal fave, and his novel Coffin Country is the best attempt to put the thesis of that essay in prose-a kick ass book).

Jeffrey Ford: Like Ellison and Lansdale, Ford's imagination and stories are an essay on the value of freedom in fiction. When I read "A Night at the Tropics", I again had a smack of that feeling, "You can do this with fiction"? The Fantasy Writer's Assistant, Exoskeleton Town, The Night Whisky, The Scribble Mind, The Goldon Dragon. Damn. Every time I read Ford, it's a healthy reminder to write my stories my way, no matter how wild, weird, or dangerous they might seem.

So, what lessons have I garnered from these chaps? Write the story your way, be emotionally honest with the material, and let your imagination be free to follow wherever it might lead you. And work like a muthafucker.

Good idea! Time to work on a story!

JSR

Well, I got my gladiator at kid's parties story done and fired it into the slush. Thanks to everyone who voted. It was fun to write. I don't do variants on high fantasy/sword and sorcery much, but I enjoyed polishing this one a great deal.

I updated my files and found I had forty eight stories working the slush. What's funny about this is that for the past six months or so, when I've gotten to forty eight stories, I sell one. My most recent sale came when I bumped up to forty eight again two weeks ago.

So, while I've always thought it was cool to make it to fifty stories going to work, I'll be happy if forty eight is my magic number! Perhaps there is some credence to that old Soviet proverb: "Quantity is its own form of quality."

I must be losing it if I'm quoting the commies!

JSR

Today, we honour the veterans and war dead. While Nov 11 has come to be a moment of contemplation and appreciation for all those who have served their countries and paid the ultimate price, including in contemporary conflicts such as Afghanistan and Iraq, its origins lie in the First World War, and the genuinely catastrophic impact that conflict had on those who fought it and the world at large.

 

All wars are profound in unique ways. But the Great War is often seen as a watershed moment in world history. Truly, it was a rendering of the world through blood and iron, as Bismarck might say, a shattering moment when a confluence of elements (political, social, military, economic, technological, medical, artistic) engaged in the dance of death and a new world emerged from the graveyards world created by four years of total war.

 

In the aftermath, titanic horror and wounded hope wrestled with each other in the shadow of No Man’s Land, producing the Lost Generation, the Roaring Twenties, the Dirty Thirties, and more, while setting the stage for an even more horrific world conflict not twenty years since the last war dead was buried in 1919.  

 

Historians continue to debate how and why such an awesome event unleashed itself upon the world in 1914. Blame has been spread in slivers and heaps at various doors. But few can deny it reshaped the world we live in, for good and ill. And critical to that shaping was the efforts of the regular soldier.

 

I’m proud of my country’s efforts in that war, as historian and a Canadian. The romantic in me believes we came of age as a nation in that war, creating a national effort and a national impact that punched much higher in our weight class and made distinct contributions toward allied victory.

 

All of which cannot undo the horrors faced by the soldiers of the trenches, fighting a war no one could foresee, a war that some thought might become eternal, a war that no one had planned for but had to be dealt with on its own terms if it was to end at all.

 

So I’d like to end with a quote from Siegried Sassoon, decorated war veteran and critic of the war effort, on the complex experience of battle, its power, its awe, and its awfulness.

 

”I, a single human being with my limited stock of earthly experience in my head, was entering once again the veritable gloom and disaster of the thing called Armageddon. And I saw it then, as I see it now—a dreadful place, a place of horror and desolation which no imagination could have invented. Also it was a place where a man of strong spirit might know himself utterly powerless against death and destruction, and yet stand up and defy gross darkness and stupefying shell-fire, discovering in himself the invincible resistance of an animal or an insect, and an endurance which he might, in after days, forget or disbelieve.”

We Remember.

 

JSR  

Hi Folks,

Bart Leib at Crossed Genres has accepted for publication my short story "Knight in the Kingdom of Rain." Huzzah!

This is a YA story filled with asthma, adventure, and perhaps the best monster I've ever created: the infamous MUD SHARK!

I wrote this one in late 2007, during a period of recovery from burnout and fatigue associated with an insane workload and the first draft of my thesis. After writing an awful attempt at "gritty magic realism" (not the good attempt that became "Paladin and the Concrete Blond" up at Nossa Morte), I switched gears and decided to just write something fun. I grabbed two images I recalled from dreams and wrote a story around them: a gal "skating" on a soaked field in rain boots, and a giant shark fin that cut across my lawn as if it were an ocean covered in rippling grass. Take those two images, fill it in with a childhood hatred of running and a childhood wish to be a Jedi and, voila! "Knight in the Kingdom of Rain."

Special thanks to Scott Andrews and Mike Deluca who gave this story a whirl back then and helped me get it in shape.

Eight story sales thusfar this year. If I can make it to ten, do I get a unicorn? Can it be these Cold War unicorns?

http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AU11674

Now, back to my Gladiator story.

JSR

Wow! Thanks to everyone who voted in my "Choose the Ridler's Next Adventure" Sweepstakes. The winner, with 56.2% of the total votes, is my tale of a washed up gladiator working kids parties, followed by my retelling of the Minotaur myth in the Depression with pro wrestlers, my sleazy comedian noir story, and, in dead last, my story of a Latvian bodyguard in near future Moscow. Well, we Latvians are the underdogs of empire, so I'm not surprised!

Here are the results:
http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1480762

Now it is off to clean up my tale of gladiators, kids parties, and ancient battle cats with no teeth. And, no, it is not a comedy.

Thanks again, folks. That was fun!

JSR

Ok, thanks to the two votes I've got, I'm in a tie-breaker mode for revising my next short story! Now, it is up to you! What story should I work on next???

Vote and win the chance that I will thank you for voting! And a year's supply of turtle wax and a copy of the Jay Ridler Home Game!Poll #1480762 The Ridler's Next Adventure
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

What story should I write next?

I finished the revisions to my YA book. I added about 10,000 words, tried to make everything more active and represent our heroes POV, and generally try to make it snazzier. I've got a friend lined up to give it a read, and after getting that back and making corrections, off to agentville it goes.

It will be weird not having the book in my head for  a while. It has dominated my horizons since August. I also realized this week I've been gunning it pretty hard and may have been getting close to "well depletion" for creative stuff. While I let the novel cool, I gunned it on short fiction and wrote about eight stories in six weeks or something. I often feel that if I'm not putting down new words, I'm being lazy (stupid, stupid, stupid). So, I think I'll switch gears. I think I'll take my time and revise some of the story glut I've got lying around.

The question is, what story should I work on next? My retelling of the Minotaur myth set in the depression with pro wrestlers? My nasty noir story set in a neon Bijour stripper/comedy joint? My tale of a Latvian bodyguard and his low ranking Russian crime boss? My fantasy story about an aging gladiator doing kids parties? My flash story about punk rocker at the end of his rope and a talking crow who wants his last song? Pop me a line and let me know what you think.

All the while, I'll be doing my prep for the next novel: either a balls to the walls space epic, or historical fantasy horror thing. I'm leaning toward the space epic, but nothing definitive yet. I know genre hoping is supposed to be career suicide, but, as the atheist saint George Carlin noted:

"The status quo sucks."

JSR

My short story "Paladin and the Concrete Blond" is now live at Nossa Morte:

http://nossamorte.com/nov09issue/paladin.html

I've been a light reader of magic realism, and have discussed with my good friend Mike Deluca (a thorough reader of the genre) whether or not horror and noir are anti-thetical to the ethos of whatever magic realism is or was or whatever, and what hybrid genres could offshoot from a magic realist root. This was an attempt to see if one could write "gritty" magic realism, a la Ridler.

Mike was also kind enough to give this story a crit, and, go figure, it sells not too long after to Nossa Morte. Thanks to Mike and Melissa at NM for believing in this madcap tale of truck drivers, raingels, and a city that bleeds colour when it rains.

Huzzah!

JSR

My interview with Elizabeth Hand is now up at Clarkesworld!

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/hand_interview/

She was an instructor of mine at Odyssey at 2005 and there's lots of great advice and ideas on story and craft here, so go read and enjoy already!

Thanks again to Neil for buying the piece, and to Liz for taking the time to provide such great answers. I can't believe she's working on a book that involved BLACK METAL! That shit is crazy, and I'm sure the book will be a twisted delight. (unlike Black Metal, which I tried to listen to in undergrad and came away thinking I must be too old because it sounds like a broken washing machine with a distortion pedal).

Hope folks had a great Halloween,

JSR

I watched a biography of George Carlin a few months back. It seems his career had three stages.

 

First was his post DJ stand up work with Jack Burns in the early sixties, followed by a solo career. He was popular, toured a lot, and made some good money. The material was slick, often goofy, and occasionally sharp.

 

Then in the 1970s Carlin changed his appearance, attitude, and material. His comedy was bizarre, observational, and harsh, with a critical bent on freedom of speech and thought. And his career ascended as the counter culture took him in as one of their own, despite the fact that he was older than most boomers.

 

By the 1980s, Carlin was a seasoned pro whose keen mind was most critical against the collective stupidities of the human race. Popular targets for his venom were politics and religion.

 

To be a successful comic in any sense of the word is damn tough. So I find this kind of success story very inspiring. Carlin was told throughout his career that changing his approach was professional suicide. That it wouldn’t work to get new fans and he’d lose the old ones. But he knew in his guts that the best material in him could not afford to remain in the same package. For him, change was necessary for his artistic survival.  And he knew the price. It could fail. But the tough work of a comic had prepared him for the worst and he knew he was tough enough to take the failure if it happened, going back to earning dinner wages or gas money or less.

 

I’ve been thinking about my career lately and something about the Carlin route appeals to me. Granted, I’m no George Carlin, but I think there is much to be gained from studying mavericks as well as sure things. Every career choice comes with risks. But I’d like to hope that writing my stories my way can lead me to a strong career, one on my terms, even if it means jumping genres or whatever.

 

So, thanks, George, for the laughs and the inspiration. If there was a heaven, I’m sure you’d be making fun of it from hell and getting a standing ovation.

 

JSR

In case you didn't know, friend, fellow writer, and fine editor Mike Kelly has a new anthology out: Apparitions!

http://www.undertowbooks.com/

I just got my order in and there's a deal on right now, so if you like your horror with a heavy dose of wild, evocative, and literary imagination and talent, grab this antho POST HASTE. GO GO GO!

JSR

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

Huzzah.

JSR

My story of heavy metal skids and eeeeeeeevil rock bands is up at Big Pulp. If you remember the 1980s as a time when Judas Priest records could kill you, and Dungeons and Dragons was a threat to National Security, please enjoy this tale. 

http://bigpulp.com/m_ridler_handbook.html

I originally wrote it for the Wolfe Island Scene of the Crime Short Story Contest, but it found its home in a more supernaturally friend venue for horror and crime fiction. Thanks to Bill at Big Pulp for buying it.

And now, Iron Maiden, with Number of the Beast!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrSiIqCpxB8

JSR