FIRST OF ALL: I have a short video greetings for 2011 if you want to have a look click here.
NOW.
For those paying attention, all five of you, after serializing Brussegem, a snug hell during the last limping weeks of 2010, I’m looking at this as my publishing schedule for 2011:
THE BOY IN THE SANDWICH (children’s fiction)
HOW TO FIND YOURSELF (illustrated version)
Stories on Stuff (Dot Hippo – kid’s textiles)
THE NICE GUY (first novel)
SLICES (novel on business)
INTIMATE DIALOGUES (short stories)
Stories on Stuff (Polite babies)
THE NEXT GENIUS (Novel on artist)
THE BLUE SPOT IN MY HEAD (Part One in fictionalized trilogy)
Stories on Stuff (3 & 4 – kid’s for Christmas)
“The Boy in the Sandwich” will be presented for the world to lick and look at very shortly. Will be putting some free chapters online on a weekly basis, along with audio clips from the novel.
The comes the new, illustrated version of “How to Find Yourself (or a reasonable facsimile)”.
Maybe a couple of chapters of that, too (again), and me reading some chapters. Also free and weekly.
These two books were supposed to see the light of day toward the end of last year, but things got reshuffled and re-organized. The first “How to” book had to be fully reformatted and laid-out due to errors I wrote about somewhere in this blog during the last year. We can’t have that again, so took time to reorganize the publishing work flow. I thought each book would take three months from finished manuscript to launch, but there’s far too much to do properly; properly takes time. So now I’m aiming at a four month launch of each book, from final period to book available.
And adjust accordingly if that still doesn’t supply enough space & time. See whether I actually keep to the publishing schedule this year….
As I have had occasion to mention: I have well over a decade of experience in international publishing in one of the top three media companies. But it is one thing being part of a system, and being the whole system oneself. So refinement in my hidden people venture was called for. To Get It Right. And no doubt this, like life, will be an on-going process.
Beyond books, next up is a final setting up with audio book distributors as I have three audio books just about done and wanting life. Same with my Stories on Stuff T-shirts and textiles and whatnot spin-offs (with “Boy in the Sandwich” and “How to” coming fully born with illustrations…).
Meanwhile, I’m thinking up stories on t-shirts and for kid’s nightwear. Then I want to make a video, or write a play, or write a 300 word story. So that’s what I do: Whatever Comes Up Next.
Thanks for dropping by and reading. –Vincent
Posts Tagged ‘writing’
Puppy Dead! Video story….
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
Wrote a short-short story a while back called Puppy’s Dead.
Seems to be one of the more popular stories–at least people keep coming back for it.
So I’ve made a little video of it. Did the voice over myself.
CLICK HERE TO SEE IT.
Hope you enjoy. Thanks for coming by. –Vincent
STORY – Museums and the sexual instinct
Saturday, October 16th, 2010
It never failed to happen—it always happened—he always went into a museum ready to be stimulated, amused, moved, awed by art—but inevitably, before he’d gotten twenty-six paintings or three rooms into an art museum, he’d start feeling sparky.
There was no fuller, better, harsher word for it. Slowly, subtly, before a picture any picture—didn’t matter which—his hands would begin sliding up and down the back of the woman he was with.
Before another dozen paintings were out of the way, he’d want to head her to some impossible secluded corner in the museum to grope.
It had happened before. And before. And before that. For years, every time. Once he’d dished up an explanation for it: “I think it’s because in museums there’s this sense of extinction. It’s all done, dead, hanging on the walls, inert, trying to be masterpieces. And I react to this by getting a certain base, jumpy, grabby horiness. I’m fighting the overwhelming sense of still life and eerie permanence by being invaded, overwhelmed by the possibilities of a woman’s flesh, alive, new, there.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, looking around, squirming out of his clutches.
He tried to take his mind off the matter by going to stand and look at another painting. He appreciated. The colors, the composition, the brush strokes … and then he’d glance sideways, and there’d be another woman. He’d stand back, as though appreciating the painting by giving it a fuller view, from a fine connoisseur’s distance. He’d study the woman instead. He’d study any woman. Face, eyes, hands, thighs, ankles and everything in between.
The museum was filled with wandering women. The pictures, the chef-d’oeuvres, the exhibit that had cost so much to get into—it all became incidental background compared to the alive and moving women.
Outside, escaped, the drums of sex would dim.
“What gets into you?” she asked.
He took in a chestful of outside air. “I don’t know,” he said, quieting. He breathed.
They began descending the cement steps.
Two women passed, ascending. His eyes followed. Followed.
Within, deep within, a muffled drum beat on.
STORY – Puppy’s dead!
Friday, April 9th, 2010
Puppy dead!
My cutie little puppy.
I used to hold him fluffy and round and all warm all in my arms.
Now he’s a flat rug in the driveway. He no move.
I throw the ball for him to go fetch but he still no move.
Daddy bad daddy forgot to look when backing up big car this morning.
Puppy-doggie all brown and flat and squishy and not my cuddly-cuddly doggie out in the middle of the red wet driveway.
Who let puppy out?
Bad puppy.
Bad all the way asleep now puppy.
Why did this happen when I went to bed a happy very happy boy with puppy-puppy in his life?
Is mommy bad a bad mummy too?
Is Daddy dumb daddy?
My puppy is all dead and I am feeling dead, all too.
I cried.
Cried real loud, real long.
I cried for three days.
I cried for two and one half nights.
Then I sobbed some more.
Everyone left the house to take a walk around the block.
Away from my unhappy sobs for the dead puppy.
Then someone cleaned up the driveway.
No wet red driveway ex-puppy spots.
I walked to the middle of my lawn.
Stood there green all around my feet and the sun came out. Big and wide where I could not miss it.
I stretched me big and rolled down to the grass bounced once and smelled it deep in my nostrils and then in my all my insides.
Turned over, looked at some funny clouds for a while.
I wondered, cloud wondering, if it wasn’t time I ask to get a pussy cat.
Kitty, kitty, I will call. Kitty, kitty.
Story – Big Toe Walkabout
Friday, March 26th, 2010
My big toe detached itself from my foot and took a walk. My foot said, Ah shit, not again. I said, You let him go. My foot said, I didn’t let him anything. He does this when I’m not looking. I never see it coming. He just ups and—what’s he doing?
I looked at my big toe waddle over to the nearest corner and stand, like a little bald egg with hands if he had hands tucked behind his back rocking slightly to and fro and staring intently at the corner as if he was in a museum and he had finally come upon a painting worth his attention.
He’s looking in the corner, I told my foot and my foot said, What’s he doing that for? What’s in the corner that’s so special? I said, Nothing special that I can see. It’s just a corner.
My foot shook itself slowly back and forth. Toes. I’ll never understand them. And with that my other big toe detached itself.
Oh no! my other foot moaned. Oh please, I said.
This big toe headed over to my trash container and stood before it. I watched my toe watching itself in the metal reflection of my trash container and my feet tried to tuck themselves up under me to keep the other toes in place but I wasn’t having any of it.
Feet, I lectured. Feet. Two things I ask, one large thing, one small thing. I ask you to get me from one place to another. Also, I give you the small duty to keep my toes attached to the front of you. And you fail.
Hey, we tried—
I don’t want to hear it, I told my feet, who shut-up. Now I have to get up and go over there in the corner and then over near the trash thing, and retrieve them.
No! said my foot. No! said the other foot. We don’t have any experience walking around without the two big toes and cannot guarantee your safety. We would instead highly recommend that you remain seated until both the big toes return of their own accord.
What if they don’t return?
My feet thought about that. You could crawl?
For my toes? For my toes! I have my self-respect. So I sat there, waiting for my big toes to return but I waited so long that I got drowsy and fell asleep and when I woke up the light from outside was beginning to dim its end of the day light giving the room a soft blue look I always liked and I stood up without thinking and didn’t fall over. I looked down to make sure everything was back in its place before taking my first step.
I said, Hello, again, Big Toes, and welcome back, and then I went for a short walk.
Audio book/podcast from “Self-Portrait of Someone Else” — Part Two, Chapter 5, Alisa’s Statement, Psychologistic’s Report
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Monday. Following previous Mondays, the next podcast/audio clip from “Self-Portrait of Someone Else”. This one is short, less than four minutes. It readies the listener for the crucial intense next chapter coming next Monday.
To listen or download, click here: Self-Portrait of Someone Else, Podcast, Part TWO, Chapter 5, Alisa’s Statement, Psychologist’s Report.
Enjoy, and please leave a comment, if you have one.
Short story “Interruptions” published in The Cortland Review, issue 46
Friday, March 12th, 2010
This Friday, instead of my usual short-short Noises from the House story, I have a longer story that has just been published online at The Cortland Review issue 46.
The story is called “Interruptions” and is taken from my collection of short stories that will be published near Christmas this year under the title, “Intimate Dialogues”.
Hope you like. The link: INTERRUPITONS at The Cortland Review. Thanks for any commentary you have…