Answering The Trio: Riddle Me This, Writers And Readers

It’s Saturday, which means I gently nudge the ball into your court. See if I can’t trick you into picking it up.

Today, a trio of fiction-related questions. Answer one. Answer all three. Or hedge your bets, go for two.

Staple Your Rejections To Your Chest And Wade Into Battle With Them As Your Armor

Remember: you fail until you succeed. That’s how life is. Life is a game of inches — progress gained in sometimes agonizing increments. Sure, sometimes you make a big leap forward or slide a little backward, but fuck it, what else are you going to do?

Pull The Trigger On These Trigger Words

I am forever in search of tips and tricks to keep me walking the balance beam during the course of writing a big project, especially a novel. I forgot how daunting a process this is — and I say this after having completed it like, six other times now. You get halfway through and you start wondering: how did I get naked? Why am I wearing a cardboard box on my head? Is that an emu? Why is it so angry?

Painting With Shotguns XLVI

You threw your hats into the ring, and I picked names out of a hat. Maybe the same hat. I dunno. It was a Fez. With sequins. It was filled with monkey droppings. Is it yours? (I know it isn’t Doyce’s — his is velvety and dispenses both Skittles and Rogaine.)

Anyway, here are the seven lucky folks!

Who Wants A Fat, Meaty Hunk Of Terribleminds?

The only way I can ensure that radio silence does not descend upon this site is by turning over the keys to you crazy loons. I did this before when hop-skipping off to the Sundance Labs, and the results were troubling. I had to pull someone’s panties out of the garbage disposal. A syphilitic possum lay dormant under the couch. Someone threw up in the fridge. It was a bad week.