New Year, New Start

In the year 2020....

Some sci-fi masterwork of yore probably began with these words, then delved into a fantastical far-flung future featuring rocket cars, condominiums on the moon, and food in capsule form. The reality of this date, we all recognize, is a whole lot messier, but here we are, living the dream, one full week into the future.

I've started jotting some decidedly un-science fictional ideas in a composition notebook that hadn't been getting any use. Another book project bubbling up from the creative depths — or wherever such ideas come from — surprised me this past weekend. At this early stage, I'm not altogether sure I know how to classify it. "Speculative fiction" seems too vague; "horror" isn't it at all; "fantasy" involves too much whimsy. My elevator pitch would begin, So it's David Lynch meets Franz Kafka....

Last year saw me finish my first novel, a ten-part collection of interwoven narratives about the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. (It has yet to be published. I can only do so much to push this process along.) Finishing that methodical work took a lot out of me. So much research! So many delays! I honestly wasn't sure when or if I'd write long-term fiction again. Now, unexpected but welcome, the Muse reappears. She looks different than when I last saw her. There's a wild look in her eyes, and I know that this one's going to be a much more frenzied, inspired affair than my last effort.

My sangha chose for our January theme "New Year, New Start." Like a mantra, we've been repeating it to each other at times when our adherence to Buddhism's precepts seems most strenuously tested. It's like advising our Buddhist brethren (and ourselves) to be mindful: "Hey, remember your practice." But it also serves as a source of inspiration. Every breath, every moment, every hour, every day is a rebirth. We are continually in this state of flux and therefore capable of an infinite range of changes.

According to Writing in Flow, one of the last books I read last season, falling into the deepest possible state of engagement with your writing project often demands that you perceive it as a challenge. Well, here's a fresh puzzle for my mind to work out — a weird new world for me to discover, with myself being remade in the process.

Beginning afresh can be intimidating. We humans are such creatures of habit. The familiar, the tried and true, the relatable — these comfort us but can also hinder our growth and leave us stagnant. I have the benefit of seeing the same gray concrete walls day in, day out. There's no way out. This sameness makes it essential for me to stretch my mind through the cracks, out into realms of thought and fancy to which reality sometimes pales in comparison.

This strange new book is going to be like nothing I've tried writing before. This year is going to be like none I've lived before. The two are connected, but there's more to it than just the imaginative journey I'm about to embark on. Other good things are happening. The world is constantly changing. We're constantly changing. Look around: we're already living a speculative-fiction future. This is amazing stuff.

Fiction Contest Frustration

I submitted my short story "Such Misery Moves through the World" to Glimmer Train's New Writers Contest last October. It was my very first time entering a writing contest. As exciting as you'd think this was, I put it out of my mind the moment the envelope went out.

A willed forgetfulness is a crucial skill for all writers who want their work to be published: we send out the submission, we log it in our records, and we move on to the next piece of writing that calls for our attention. Dwelling on the odds of a forthcoming acceptance is a sure-fire way of going insane — and not the good, clever kind of insanity, the checking-your-box-every-ten-minutes-while-pacing-a-furrow-into-your-floor kind. It isn't productive or pretty.

So I waited patiently. A few @Free_Byron_Case followers saw my #ByronSays tweet about the contest and probed for updates, otherwise I might've forgotten it altogether. My writerly anticipations lay mostly in wondering when the essay and poems already accepted elsewhere would be published. Whether this constitutes another kind of madness is debatable, but at least it's based on the written agreement to publish my work, not just wishful thinking.

Three months flew by. Then the envelope arrived. I managed my expectations by thinking, They returned the whole manuscript, but at least they'll have included criticism on the story.

The thirty pages of "Such Misery Moves through the World" were held together by a mini binder clip, my cover letter at the back. A printed announcement of winners had been stuck into the envelope, on top. My name wasn't on it. I read it twice to be sure. Riffling the manuscript pages revealed no footnotes, marginalia, symbols, underlinings, Doritos dust, or dried bodily fluids. I was disappointed.

I hadn't actually expected to win. Glimmer Train attracts a crowd of fiction writers who've yet to publish stories, so the competition is stiff. Also, the story I submitted is pretty fantastical — "Neil Gaiman channeling Garrison Keillor" is how I've described it, and speculative fiction is not the most likely to win over the magazine's editors. For the $18 entry fee, though, I'd think some indication that my manuscript was read by a conscious, literate, human being would've been a given. Other contests' entry fees entitle entrants to one-year subscriptions or copies of the publication they submitted work for. I only got that binder clip.

These things are contraband. Crossroads' mail room should've confiscated it but was apparently in too great a hurry. So, yeah, the one thing my first writing-contest entry got me I had to throw away. That kind of irony is almost good enough to put in a story.