Rummaging in the drawers

for more than dust bunnies and paperclips

This past week, I worked on the stories that will be included in the Family and Other Ailments collection recently accepted by a publisher. You would think there’s little editing needed on tales that have already gone, individually, through several rounds of submission. And it’s true that compared to a novel, the changes are minimal, mostly to ensure spelling consistency across the pieces. I also found a couple of typos. It’s always surprising how these pesky critters manage to slip through multiple readings by multiple people.

What I found most interesting about the process was the “rediscovery”, not of the stories themselves—I remember them fairly well—but of specific lines of text. I forgot I wrote that. Or, rather, I forgot I described that this way. It may seem like a silly comment. After all, nobody expects an author to remember every single paragraph of a book. Short stories are different, however. They pack a lot in a small suitcase. In flash fiction, defined as less than 1000 words (about 4 pages of double-spaced text), that suitcase is more like a handbag. Every sentence has a big job to do and words are weighed. They literally count. In theory, I should remember them. Yet, I didn’t and the rediscovery was a pleasant gift.

Like this from the story No Recoil:

The barrel of the rifle rests on the windowsill catching the rays of the midday sun. It could be made of liquid gold. A burnished wasp lands on the end of it, swings its nipped waist, jiggles its probing antennae against the mouth of the gun and peers inside.

Or, from the story Spiked:

He has no name and no face. Nobody knows what his voice sounds like or in what part of the country he lives. He’s spread so thin across so many police files that he’s achieved invisibility. Like the Bible says: he is many.

(Both stories are included in the collection)

If you asked me to write a story right now, off the cuff, about a girl who protects her family, or the last days of an elderly killer-for-hire, I would not come up with the fragments quoted above. Those words were conjured out of the particular atmosphere of the story and cannot exist outside of it. They are of the moment. Ten minutes before hitting the keyboard I didn’t know I would write them.

For me, that’s the charm of short stories. The pleasure of pulling something intriguing out of the hat. Or as Roald Dahl titled one of his collections: Tales of the Unexpected. His stories are about surprising events, but maybe they were a surprise for the writer too.

The downside of short stories is directly linked to their spontaneous nature.

They have a much shorter shelf life than books. They’re quick magazine or blog reads, then they go to archives. When the magazine is online, the story may live for a week. Slightly better than a mayfly, much worse than a mosquito that has a 1-3 months life expectancy away from insecticides. Which is why writers like collections. To give these nimble narrative performers another chance to show their stuff on stage.

For a few months, I played around with the selection. What stories to include in the collection, what to leave out. I had the title from the start. Family and Other Ailments is one of my favorite stories. It introduces Mae Rollins, a sheriff deputy that will star in a book down the road. She definitely needs more time in the limelight.

That title is also a solid thematic anchor. I realized, rummaging through the story drawer, that many of my crime, or crime-adjacent tales revolved around families. Happy ones, troubled ones, challenging ones. It helped with the choice. The retro noir and PI stories (except one) were set aside, those that flirted with science fiction or fantasy were also excluded.

In the end, after pruning, it came to a total of twenty-six pieces for a book-size word count.

I believe in giving readers something to sink their teeth in!

More news to come …

In the meantime, more stories will be published. There are some exciting ones on the horizon.

The most recent tale published is On a Dusty Road (free to read on The Yard Crime Blog). It was inspired by an April 2019 trip to West Texas, where I took the pictures that accompany the post. We drove through the pumpjack, truck-clogged area where Jamie is at the beginning of the story and it’s bleak beyond belief. I did not stop to snap pictures. I was in too much of a hurry to get the hell out of there. The picture below was taken on the way to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

A recipe - It’s fig season - Fig Cobbler

Super easy. I use orange juice rather than milk, and pinot grigio for the wine, and I keep the sugar down (our figs are very sweet). I found this recipe on Unpacked, I’ve made it many times. People love it.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sugar, and another 1/2 cup later
2 tablespoons softened butter or margerine
2 tablespoons milk or orange juice
1/2 cup sweet or semi-sweet wine
3 or 4 cup figs, sliced into quarters
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375° F (190° C). Use a medium cake pan or quiche dish.

Cut the stem end away from the tops of the figs; discard them and quarter the fruit. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the figs and set aside.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Beat the eggs; add 1/2 cup of sugar. Add the butter or margarine and the milk or orange juice.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Stir gently until everything is combined. Pour the batter into the pan.

In a medium saucepan, boil the wine and the second 1/2 cup of sugar for 5 minutes. Add the figs; turn them over in the hot syrup and pour the mixture over the batter.

Bake 30 minutes.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

Photo by Tetiana Padurets on Unsplash