Originally published at Ron Earl Phillips | Writer. Please leave any comments there.

Life’s a funny thing. You make plans that either get delayed or rushed because events happen, rarely–at least for me–do they ever play out as planned.

Since November I’ve been laying out a business plan that would allow me to start a side business in order to enhance my families’ income, prepare us for our daughters education, make much needed upgrades to the home, and try to give us some semblance of stability. My services, web and graphic design. I’ve done both in the past as a contractor for nearly a decade, and the day job is as a web developer for small news media organization.

The plan was to roll out REPO Book Company in April and solicit customers with a shiny new website and a full outline of services. As you can garner from the company name my services are to be offered in general to the book market, specifically authors and small press publishers. Even had the slogan in mind, Reclaim Your Book.

That was the plan, but life had other ideas.

We were given Devlin for Christmas. He’s a bengal cat mix, and the most active, rambunctious kitten I’ve ever owned. Looking at him running around, dragging his toys all over, attacking our other three cats, you’d never guess that he has a life threatening condition, a congenital defect, called pectus excavatum or funnel chest. As he grows because of this condition his heart and lungs can become compressed leading to failure, death. Essentially they run out of room to function. It’s repairable and the surgery is highly successful, unfortunately it’s not a common procedure and will have to be done by specialist or university. Neither of which are available nearby.

I don’t have many outlets for earning extra cash outside my regular skill set, so I’m flipping on the switch for REPO Book Company for a limited time to offer digital cover design starting at $50 + donation. Final cost will vary on a case-by-case basis.

If you are interested please leave a comment and I will respond to your email.

Originally published at Ron Earl Phillips | Writer. Please leave any comments there.

Hey all, how was your holiday?

Mine was odd and busy. Things change, dynamics change. Nothing like it was as a kid. I guess that happens when you grow up.

We got a new kitten, a part-Bengal Cat terror we call Devlin. He is a constant source of entertainment, except when he decides your leg or arm is the toy he wants to play with. His transition with the older cats has been better than we expect. They tolerate him at least, and they’re getting a little more exercise when they become his next toy.

The New Year was no big shakes. Diner alone with my Granddad. Kelly had to work, and Kassy was off at the Farm with my Mother. I cooked a rack of lamb with couscous and a vegetable medley. I’ve become a better cook since my Mother got cancer, moving out to care for herself, and I’ve become his evening caregiver most nights. It’s been a team effort. But sitting alone with my 96 year old Granddad was a little different from New Years gone by. Things change.

My daughter, Kassy, turned 18 on the 4th. How did that happen? Eventually she’ll act 18, eventually. We did finally have a big family meal on Saturday as my Mom made us, Kassy and I, dinner for our birthdays. Yep, I had a birthday too, winding away at the death clock. 43 for me. How did that happen? It was a nice prime roast with polenta and vegetables. A really good meal with family. I miss that.

I want to thank everyone for the many birthday wishes on Twitter and Facebook. Makes those 43 years worth it, having so many well wishes. It wasn’t a bad 43rd birthday — I did manage to catch a cold — it could have been better.

I want to give Glenn Gray a big shout out for the unexpected, though solicited as a lark, gifts of various eBooks I had been remiss of getting this year. A gift of books in my house will always welcomed.

My wife gifted me with SATAN IS REAL: THE BALLAD OF THE LOUVIN BROTHERS by Charlie Louvin with (my buddy) Benjamin Whitmer. It’s a biography, which I don’t read often, the last being AMERICAN REBEL: THE LIFE OF CLINT EASTWOOD. Plan to crack that open this weekend.

I thought about rambling on a bit more, but I guess it can wait for another day.

Happy New Years to all, and I hope you all had a great holiday season.

Type at you later.

Originally published at Ron Earl Phillips | Writer. Please leave any comments there.

Five months ago, just shy, I participated in one of writing zenfoodu Chuck Wendig’s writing challenges. A string of five words which included: “Figure”, “Dusk”, “Flirt”, “Mobile Phone”, “Wig”. Minds being the way they are, and mine meanders quite a bit, I instantly thought of writing a Western.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of the Western, at least in the TV and Movie format. I even took a stab at Louis L’Amour because I had a serious man-crush on both Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott. And of course there was ol’ squint-eyed Clint and his Spaghetti Westerns, and then his astounding The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Unforgiven.

From F-Troop to the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, I was mesmerized by the Western in all its forms.

I had never written it. Not a Western story in my repertoire, until Wendig’s challenge. And even then due to the word usage, I turned it around at the end and cheated.

Ever since though, especially with the original comments, I’ve wanted to revisit writing a Western. A true Western and not something with a fandangled twist at the end. The thought lingers.

This morning those thoughts were amplified when a good friend, Ray Dillon, who in his own right is a talented renaissance man who can write as equally well as he can draw and perform miraculous feats of digital art, sent me a link to my story, The Greenhorn, that he on a whim narrated.

I know I might be biased, but it’s a pretty good story to hear and Ray reads it well. Well except for pronouncing Godot. And his natural Kansas twang was perfect for this reading.

Go have  a listen. It’s a good 5 minutes.

Leave him a comment and then come back and let me know if I should tackle a Western story head on?

Five months ago, just shy, I participated in one of writing zenfoodu Chuck Wendig’s writing challenges. A string of five words which included: “Figure”, “Dusk”, “Flirt”, “Mobile Phone”, “Wig”. Minds being the way they are, and mine meanders quite a bit, I instantly thought of writing a Western.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of the Western, at least in the TV and Movie format. I even took a stab at Louis L’Amour because I had a serious man-crush on both Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott. And of course there was ol’ squint-eyed Clint and his Spaghetti Westerns, and then his astounding The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Unforgiven.

From F-Troop to the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, I was mesmerized by the Western in all its forms.

I had never written it. Not a Western story in my repertoire, until Wendig’s challenge. And even then due to the word usage, I turned it around at the end and cheated.

Ever since though, especially with the original comments, I’ve wanted to revisit writing a Western. A true Western and not something with a fandangled twist at the end. The thought lingers.

This morning those thoughts were amplified when a good friend, Ray Dillon, who in his own right is a talented renaissance man who can write as equally well as he can draw and perform miraculous feats of digital art, sent me a link to my story, The Greenhorn, that he on a whim narrated.

I know I might be biased, but it’s a pretty good story to hear and Ray reads it well. Well except for pronouncing Godot. And his natural Kansas twang was perfect for this reading.

Go have  a listen. It’s a good 5 minutes.

Leave him a comment and then come back and let me know if I should tackle a Western story head on?

So, that’s what it feels like to pretend, he thought, as he laid in bed staring at the water-stained ceiling, trying to fall asleep for what felt like the millionth time in his fifteen years of living. It had been a normal day. It had been a rough day. In Abel McIntyre Junior’s family, there was no difference. In his family, in the trailer park with the neighbors that surrounded him like ghouls from a house of horrors, the best days for him would likely kill any other kid, he always thought.

Abel knew how other kids lived, and it wasn’t like him. He could see their houses on the soft, rounded hills across the Mystic River through the loose glass slats of the crank-open windows in his tiny wood-paneled bedroom. They had yards with grass and swing sets in them where children played all summer, and mounds of colorful flowers that gleamed in the most carefree way from mid-spring to mid-autumn. Even in the winter when those same hills were just grey mounds spiked with the craggy skeletons of oaks and maples, the houses glowed golden and warmly, twinkling on the coldest of days when there was ice in the air and the river looked as if it was frozen solid.

They lived in actual houses, and those houses they lived in didn’t have wheels under them. This fact alone seemed to provide those kids with some sense of permanence and security that Abel never knew. This fact alone, Abel sometimes caught himself believing, raised them up above him and his ever-toiling Ma, Ethel, and drunkard Da, Abel Senior, and their house with the wheels underneath it just in case they needed to make a run for it again.

“Pretending,” his mother always said “is much better than reality.” For Abel, there was always a certain disconnect between that mantra of hers and how he thought he lived his life. He never thought what he was doing was pretend, it felt more like protection. It was what he did to make do as the poor kid who lived in the trailer park that was essentially used as a halfway-housing complex for the underfunded and understaffed loony bin on the edge of this otherwise rich white town. For Abel, it was survival.

* * *

“Don’t you ever change your pants?” taunted Fred, the super-popular star of the soccer team at school. “I can smell those filthy things from here.” The reality of it was, Abel rarely did change his pants. In fact, he only owned three pairs; one for every day, one for Sunday, and one for the rare occasion when Ethel would sneak their dirty laundry into the laundry room of the loony bin where she and her sorry excuse for a husband, Abel Sr., worked.

Abel always loved laundry day. He relished the brief moment when the few clothes he had were stiff and crisp and smelled like the industrial detergent they used to kill off every biting, burrowing, stinging, blood-sucking creepy-crawly he imagined inhabiting the flesh of all those crazies where his parents worked. Every time he slipped into a clean pair of trousers or a fresh shirt he felt, if only for a second, reborn.

Abel could feel his face redden as he froze from a sickening mix of anger, humiliation and disenchantment. He’d been caught out again. He’d been targeted by yet another wicked prick who had nothing better to do than pick on the one kid in school who did everything in his power to be invisible to all those around him. Abel always kept quiet. He always kept to himself. He never did anything to anyone. He never did anything to deserve the sort of treatment he got over and over again.

Sometimes he thought he was cursed. When Abel was little, back before he started going to school, he fantasized about what it would be like to be able to get away from his Da every day. He thought it would be some sort of safety-zone, a cinder block oasis where there would be kids just like him, a place beyond the reach of his Da’s roaming hands, or worse yet, drunken fists. It didn’t take Abel long to discover the difference between fantasy and reality. To Abel, school seemed like the place people like his Da went to learn how to curse, fight, and in general, grow up to be an asshole.

“My gawd!” Fred hollered across the crowded cafeteria. “Didja shit yer pants, or what, Abel?”

Just then, at the very moment Fred called Abel by his first name, the name his worthless father burdened him with, everything else he said, could say, or would ever say again, meant nothing. At that moment, he could hear nothing but the blood rushing in his ears like the roar of the hurricane that crushed the crazy gay twins under the huge choke cherry tree that set their ragged pack of scabby, inbred cats free through the torn sheet-metal of their old 12’ by 40’ two lots down from the McIntyre’s.

At that moment, all Abel could see was Fred, his mouth flapping mutely before him. After that, all he could see was red — red from the mouth of that nasty boy Fred where Abel’s first punch landed with a stomach-churning crack, mashing Fred’s thin, pale upper lip into hanging shreds of gore. Fred’s mouth kept moving, but his face no longer read as arrogant. He looked truly shocked, and under that, truly terrified.

Abel couldn’t hear if Fred was trying to backpedal his way out of the suddenly desperate situation his mean mouth got him into. He couldn’t hear if Fred was screaming for help. Abel landed another punch, this time, to Fred’s jaw. He could feel himself smiling as his now torn knuckles made their impact, and the bone of Fred’s jaw gave way with a pop, down and to the left; a deformity deserved.

Abel could see the teeth swimming in Fred’s mouth, and his left eye instantly swollen, the indentations of Abel’s fist at its rim like the dimples on a fat lady’s ass. It looked as if Fred was shaking his head in a frantic NO gesture, but there wasn’t
any NO left in this. There was only GO left in this.

Abel heard later that he was growling and grunting like some sort of rabid animal when he was on top of him, that is, when he wasn’t laughing like one of those fellas from the fenced-in gravel lot in front of the nut house. Despite being one of the smallest boys in his ninth grade class, it took three middle-aged teachers and a Puerto Rican dishwasher to get him off of that poor boy. Abel was expelled that day, and day later, he was sent to juvenile hall.

* * *

A week after he got out, Abel saw Fred with his mother at the local grocery store. He was shattered. Fred acted like he didn’t see him, but Abel knew he did.

Abel didn’t know what happened that day at school. He relived it in flashes that provided neither context nor explanation. What he did know, is that it was like a dream coming true. All the times he’d been picked on, and all the times he’d been beaten up, had been erased by latching onto that smart-ass, Fred, and beating him to within an inch of his life.

Abel pretended to be sorry in front of the judge. He pretended to be sorry in front his so-called anger management counselor in juvenile hall. He even tried to pretend to be sorry in front of his Ma after his month of being locked up behind a tall chain link fence and those thick concrete walls, but she could see right through him.

“You don’t have to pretend to be sorry in front of me, mister,” she said smiling wryly.

Abel said nothing in response. He just smiled and thought about how everything was gonna be alright from that point forward. He had no idea if he believed that, or if he was just fooling himself, and to be perfectly honest, he didn’t care either way.

From the day we are brought into the world until the day we are unceremoniously kicked out, we are marked by each passing moment. We are carved like soapstone into our ever growing imperfection by intrinsic, personal events. A map of personal history. We are but the lives we live.

As a toddler, my family lived outside Covington, KY on a horse farm. My memories of that time are most likely manifest from stories told and pictures seen, though some seem so crystal clear when I think upon them.  Too clear not to be my own. I don’t know, I wasn’t much taller than a knot on a log.

What does this have to do with CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA? Nothing and everything.

My folks split when I was three and through out my childhood, bolstered by mom’s venomous hate towards my absent father, it marked me more than it should have. It grew from a scratch to gash to near abscessed pain and anger. By the time I was 15, I didn’t much like either of my parents.

Frank Bill‘s book CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA is chock full of wonderful stories about people marred by experience, circumstance and isolation. Most have little vindication or happy resolve, but each carves a dark image of life in southern Indiana.

I was 25 when I met my father again for the first time. At the insistence of my young bride, I called him from a hotel room just outside of Cincinnati. I half expected him to have horns and a tail or eyes pitch coal black and filled with evil. I was awash of emotions, all including hate, disgust and anger. That all but melted away when I opened the hotel room door. He was my blood.

I had gotten about halfway through CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA when I read “The Old Mechanic” which depicted a young Frank meeting his estranged grandfather for the first time. It immediately pulled at those old scars. The memories of a fatherless youth and reconnecting with a past I never really had. It reminded me that we are very much the definition of our past, but our past doesn’t have to define our future.

CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA is rich with local experience and setting, but the characters’ lives are very much the stitches of an unraveling patchwork Americana. For better or worse we are the lives we live.

Have I mentioned I got a chance to read Frank Bill‘s debut book, CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA? I wasn’t sure if I had?

Might as well get used to it. I’m going to be talking about it all month and I plan on it being a busy month down here on the blog.

I’ve been re-reading CRIMES this last week because I want to do a slam dunk review of it next week to post around. I don’t do reviews much. I give them a shot, but I tend to be so damn casual about it. All my structured English education just flies out the door. That’s alright though, because I never believe anything that reads scripted or not from the heart. And if I didn’t like CRIMES I’d kindly thank Frank for the opportunity and move on to the next book. I don’t believe in negative reviews.

But I did like CRIMES so there will be a review in a weeks time.

As reviews go, I recently read a lot of good things about Donald Ray Pollock — some bad too, but those read of personal opinion and not capable review — so he hit my radar. Last week Amazon had a ridiculously good deal on his first novel, THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME. I couldn’t pass up the discount on top of my free shipping. Only a chapter into it and I ordered KNOCKEMSTIFF — Pollock’s first book, a short story collection — for my Kindle.

I don’t have a vast library of crime fiction. Only what I’ve engulfed myself in over the last couple years. So I’m not deeply familiar with  Harry Crews or Larry Brown, though I have a book or two of each to read, but I understand that in their time they were the voice of southern noir. Neither Pollock or Bill are what I’d call southern, rather two country boys living in the mid-west. One in Ohio and the other in, well, Southern Indiana.

They both have a similar voice developed from what they know, where they grew up, and the lessons life have taught them. Reading their bios about and interviews with them, and of course the words they’ve both written, though their styles may differ I connect with the heart of what they write about, as well as some odd parallels.

Growing up a West Virginia boy, I so desperately wanted to be gone from country. As soon as I could stand I swore I’d run the first chance I got and never look back. I made it to Colorado, but rough times and bad decisions had me tail tucking it home with a new wife and baby on the way. Back to family, back to home.

It’s strange that it’s taken me nearly two decades of struggling with work, with writing, with life, to realize it’s not about where you live. And realize the experience of those two decades if honed with my natural predilections could tell stories people want to read.

So to writers, who I now admire, like Frank Bill and Donald Ray Pollock, thank you for showing me my stories don’t have to go far. They only need to run away home.

–

Don’t forget the deadline for the Frank Bill and Write Where You’re At challenge ends August 25th. 2000 word story about where you grew up.

Women are weak.

Powerless. Defenseless. Victims.

Right?

In fiction their only purpose is to act as a catalyst for our strong male protagonist to either save or avenge. They are props that get killed, raped and mutilated. Titillating pieces of  meat, flesh, that are vapid set decorations to high testosterone storytelling.

Right?

I’m co-editor of an online flash fiction magazine called Shotgun Honey. We specialize in short crime, hardboiled, noir fiction. Talking about gender roles or submissions in general puts me front stage, breaking the fourth wall. But, I think it needs to be done.

It is easy to make women the victims. Most atrocious crimes committed by men are against women, generally acts of passion, rarely pre-meditated. I am not opposed to reading or receiving  stories that harm, maim or kill women. What I find appalling are stories whose only purpose is to glorify the act(s) and make no attempt to tell a story. The act itself cannot be the story.

Horrific violence happens in real life. Yes. Crime fiction for the most part is violent volatile fiction. Often to an extreme. Good crime fiction takes the foibles and tells a story.

I can’t speak completely for my co-editors, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a story where the typical gender roles are reversed. Yes, at Shotgun Honey we’ve published stories with female protagonists in the past from Matt Funk’s Det. Jari Jurgis and Fiona Johnson’s undercover cop Gemma.

We’ve also published John Rector’s “Folded Blue.” The ultimate culmination of degradation and depravity towards a woman, so it sounds hypocritical to call out stories who parade such violence. Rector’s story stands alone, it tells a story of depression and rejection. It burns slow until the reveal. The story isn’t about the act, the murder or the post-mortem interaction. It’s about the character, not the victim.

The question as a writer that has to be asked: Is the violence for the sake of the story or the story for the sake of the violence?

I’m not asking for a spate of stories where women who dole out some desperately needed comeuppance. Variety is the name of the game. And on that note, as a writer considering to submit to Shotgun Honey or one of the other many venues, think about how broad crime fiction can be? Violence is easy, telling a good story is harder.

I had the pleasure this last Spring to be offered a chance to read an advance copy of Frank Bill’s CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA, a collection of short stories, Frank’s first book. I was thrilled, though I have to admit when the offer came up I’d been angling for a copy of DONNYBROOK, Frank’s second book and first novel. I had read an excerpt DONNYBROOK on the Do Some Damage blog the previous Spring and was deeply envious of anyone who’d gotten an early peak of that glory. Bastards.

CRIMES is an exceptional collection of story from Frank Bill’s heart and home and if I could I’d buy out the entire first run, giving each copy away because this book needs to be read. The reality check is I can’t. I did pre-order a copy when it first became available and as you know I really don’t need another copy. So I’d like to give it to you. One of you at least.

Would you like a free copy of CRIME IN SOUTHERN INDIANA?

If not, I suppose I can just put it on my shelf never to be read. Collect dust and when Armageddon comes and all the electronics in the world are destroyed by EMP or solar flares, some zealot will find it on my abandoned copy and devote an entire religion to the House of Grit. I think Frank would like that.

So you want a free copy? Well you’re going to have to work for it. Write for it.

In CRIMES there are several stories that are interrelated, tied together, but if you’re really reading the stories you’ll see a character that ties them altogether. A character with a powerful, but silent voice. Southern Indiana, with all her rural harshness and nurture. Like Daniel Woodrell’s Ozarks or Dennis Lehane’s Boston, Frank Bill captures the heart of Southern Indiana, elevating her above just a setting or a location.

So if you really want to win a copy of CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA, I give you this task:

Write a story that lives, breaths and could only exist in your own back yard. Fill it with local color and give your hometown a voice that walks effortlessly among its characters. Your story doesn’t have to be a crime story, but does need to be a good story.

Deadline: Thursday, August 25, 2011.
Word Count: 2000.
Genre: Open.
Prize: A copy of Frank Bill’s CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA.

Winner announced August 30, 2011.

Update: I failed to mention how to submit your story. In order to enter your story post it to your blog or other public venue so it can be read and commented on by readers and other entrants. If you don’t have a post location, contact me.

I have a lot of kettles, personal and professional, to watch right now, but this last week Thomas Pluck joined the crew of Flash Fiction Friday as the Week 3 moderator and came up with a dandy of a prompt. There was an eloquent introduction to the prompt, but the balls of it was write about the old man in the picture above.

I went back and forth, because the story that came to mind — which could have been a bigger story, better told — isn’t in my usual wheelhouse as they say. I may go back and rewrite/edit it for submission somewhere. I think it’s got legs.

Read “Until Again.”

–

As for writing, I’m at a crossroads. In late winter I had a very clear idea of what I was going to do in preparation for my weekend at BoucherCon 2011. Have a finished draft of DIMES FOR DYING or ONE WITH A GUN. Then life got a little wonky in April, leaving me with little time to focus on the larger projects. Just bits and pieces. Doubtful of a finished product, at least in terms of finding an agent.

–

Shotgun Honey continues to do surprisingly well. Enjoying the submissions from all the great talent. I have some favorite new writers now. We’ll be running an interview series over there soon on the off Tuesday or Thursday.

–

Next week I’m going to announce a writing contest. You’ll get roughly a month to complete. The prize will be a copy of Frank Bill’s CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA. A book of short stories from the darker side of rural Indiana. I can’t recommend it more, but I will. You don’t have to wait until the contest, go ahead and pre-order a copy today.