More Stories

I posted a few more stories on my Google story blog. Here's the line up so far as of this date (Nov 8 '09):

Soar Legs
Jug Chablis
Old Seinfeld
Let's Play Overkill
A 'D' in French
California Dreaming
Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat


“California Dreaming” is perhaps the best “commercial” story of the bunch. (In the previous blog I wrote that “California Dreaming” was the best story I ever wrote, but let's face it, I got too sentimental.) I wrote it as a frame for a novelized version of the Dana Point stories. That trick didn't work because no matter what I did the stories themselves (the meat of the “novel”) still made the enterprise obviously episodic. Curiously though the artificial frame turned out to be a good short story itself with sharp dialogue somewhat in the manner of Neil Simon.

“Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat” is an example of a very good story with no commercial value. It has artistic value, satirical value, maybe even historical value, but there is no chance that, e.g., The New Yorker is going to pick it up. A little literary magazine might, but by the time I had really polished it, I no longer needed to see my name in print.

“Breathless Prose...” was originally titled “The Failed Writer,” which is a more descriptive title. The strength of the story is in (1) the pitiful yet somehow triumphant character of Raymond, the failed writer himself, and (2) the satirical critique of the publishing industry as seen from a writer's point of view.

--Dennis Littrell