HEY, TEAM

IT’S ME, YOUR OLD PAL, CHNURK MANDOG

and it’s time to —

*jumps up in the air, a trail of stardust and rainbows firing from my feet and/or butt parts, freeze-frame, kapow*

— do some NaNoWriMo!

*winks*

*bing*

*doves fly*

Ahem.

Here’s the thing about the ol’ National Novel Writing Month: it both didn’t work for me when I tried it, and also, at the same time, kinda works for me in my actual career. What I mean is, when I tried to do NaNoWriMo way back when in the Happy Days of egg cream sodas and hitting jukeboxes to make them play music, it didn’t click for me. It was too rushed, I was too unfocused, the pressure crushed me like a human baby dragged to the deepest undersea canyon. At the same time, I am now a full-time AUTHOR OF BOOK-SHAPED THINGS, and that means I quantum entangle my ass to the office chair every day, and I write like I’m dying and each page is my last chance to be heard in the abyss preceding my demise. I tend to write 40-60k words per month, as a result. That doesn’t often complete an individual novel, though sometimes it does: I’ve written several books in a month’s time (first draft only, to be clear).

So, I tried to think, what is it that gets me there?

What gets me to write that fast and iterate so quickly?

And what can be taken from what I do and potentially foisted off on my unsuspecting audience as “useful tips” that would “get them to buy my book.”

(I kid.)

(Mostly.)

So, I’ve decided to write this as a recipe! Because everyone needs a gimmick, am I right? What better than the super-twee format of pretending that I’m writing a recipe, like for food, except for your novel? Ha ha ha it’ll be great shut up and follow the instructions.

Zesty NaNoWriMo Roulades with Havarti Pumpkin Chunks

Ingredients:

1 to 5 free-range characters with problems to solve

1 sheet of shattered, status quo (candied)

dash of constant conflict (set to boil)

8 oz of pure mystery syrup

3 TBsp a reason to give a shit

1 daily syringe of discipline, but substitution of cocaine coffee is acceptable

zero fucks in your fuck basket

50,000 words, some duplicates okay

one labyrinth

a metric shitload of blank pages, analog or digital

also 300 lbs of havarti pumpkin chunks

Instructions: 

First, you’re going to need to butcher your characters. I know, gross, right? But we need to crack them open, we need to split them down the middle, see that they have everything they need. The key thing here is that the characters must possess problems to solve — meaning, they have a problem right out of the gate. The moment the characters step onto one of those blank pages, they need to instantly be introduced to their problem. That problem is, for them, something far greater and far less soft-and-wifty than “motivation.” Motivation can be vague, like, oh, I want true love, but a problem is concrete, like, I am constantly being attacked by bats, or, my father has been taken prisoner by a cabal of goat-people. A problem is some shit you can act on in a story — and, Moving At The Speed Of NaNoWriMo means you need to activate the narrative quickly and be able to get this slurry a-bubblin’.

You will season to taste.

One character may not be enough. For more complex flavors, add more characters with problems. Preferably with problems whose solutions compete with one another.

Next, you’re going to need to take a sheet of shattered status quo.

An unbroken status quo will not do, because it will not fit in the pot.

A story must begin for a reason, when something has changed. Normalcy is broken. Things are no longer as they were. Hence: broken status quo.

Then, add in your spices: first, stir in the constant conflict, which can be in the form of really anything you want, including but not limited to: heartbreak, bees, lightning, wolves, assassination attempts, kobolds, ninjas, debts, deceptions, pirates, weaponized cole slaw, lack of coffee, addiction, serial killers, ancient freemason conspiracies, l33t hackers, wayward lumberjacks, sentient dildos, and also bees.

Next comes the pure mystery syrup, which must not be added all at once. Mystery is added at various stages throughout — questions drizzled in at the ends of chapters or even at the conclusion of vital scenes. The goal here is to create enticing odors and also to activate various tantalizing glands, ensuring not only that the readers will be excited to consume your Narrative Goop, but also that you’ll be excited to hover over the pot for 30 fucking days as this thing cooks down to a rich protein pudding matrix.

Dump in the three tablespoons of reasons to give a shit, which is to say, you need to know why the fuck you’re writing this damn thing — I mean, “cooking this soup or whatever.” You caring about the characters and the problems and the story is the most meaningful ingredient you bring to the broth. If you don’t care, if the story doesn’t speak to you, eventually you’ll wander away from the pot to do something else. And you won’t come back, because you don’t give a rat’s right foot. Be advised, that’s not an ingredient —

DO NOT ADD RAT PARTS TO THE BREW.

Then, time to use that syringe of unfiltered discipline. This is liquid work ethic, and is earned, over many months and years, by being a hardworking human being. Plunge it into your bloodstream and enjoy the cool saline rush of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps! If you don’t have a syringe of this, like me, then you can just drink a lot of coffee or inject Red Bull into various areas of your body.

Now, check your fuck basket. Is it empty? If not, take the fucks present, and discard them. Throw them fucks the fuck away. Into the garbage disposal they go, or feed them to your dog, I don’t care. You can’t have any fucks left in there. You’re going to have to care literally not at all how this Narrative Casserole looks as you make it and bake it. You’re going to put a helmet on your head and run careening through this recipe for thirty days, and even a single untoward fuck in your fuck basket will cause you to stumble. Later, you will heartily refill this basket when it comes time to edit this casserole into something vaguely edible.

Oh, wow, time to add the 50,000 words. Here’s the trick with this, and this is a persnickety step — you’re going to need to add these words in sensible order. Like, you can’t just add them willy-nilly, or you’ll end up with a lot of “niagara monkey dump certification” and “whistle jumper sassafras cheese” nonsense. This shit has to make at least a little sense, like, “Dave went to the store and fought a freemason ninja.”

Dump all of this into a giant labyrinth. The labyrinth is the perfect baking vessel for this unholy stew — as your characters are attempting to make a beeline to solve their problems, you’re going to stick them in this labyrinth instead and watch them run around that thing, and every mystery and every bit of conflict is going to force them to take another circuitous bend in the maze — this will delay your Roasted Narrative from cooking too fast.

To finish, slather all of it on a series of blank pages.

Digital or analog is fine, we’re not uppity, here.

And that’s it! Enjoy the heinous but delightful mess called a “first draft.” Sure, it probably tastes like shame and rat parts, but that’s okay — because the great thing is, you’re still not done, and get to keep cooking it down, reducing it further, adding new spices and mysterious meats until it actually tastes good. This may take a second draft, or maybe three-hundred-and-thirty-first draft, but you’ll get there, chef.

You’ll get there.

Okay, What I’m Trying To Say Is

Writing a story fast and frenzied is tough stuff. But it’s doable, and one of the ways that I find it to be doable is to — assuming a lack of any meaningful outline — be able to put compelling, active characters with agency onto the page and let them run in the maze in order to solve their problems. Give yourself the advantage of letting them create the plot for you. Fuck structure. Fuck an elegant architecture. Seriously, just create some interesting characters who have problems to solve, and let them work at solving them. Get excited. Find a reason to care. Make characters you want to watch get into various shenanigans for 30 days and 50,000 words — don’t worry about your audience. Worry about your reasons to get through this thing.

Okay, What I’m Really, Really Trying to Say Is

BUY MY BOOK

NO REALLY IT’S CALLED DAMN FINE STORY AND IT TALKS A LOT ABOUT THIS STUFF AND YOU NEED IT OR YOU’LL DIE

IT’S LIKE, YOU’LL BE READING THIS THING AND SAYING WHOA AND DANG AND YOUR MIND WILL BE BLOWN WITH ALL THE SHIT IN THERE ABOUT CHARACTERS AND PLOT AND THEME AND BEACH DOGS AND ELK-WHACK AND JOHN MCCLANE AND PRINCESS LEIA AND

IF YOU DON’T BUY MY BOOK YOU CAN’T BE A REAL AUTHOR

I’M PRETTY SURE THAT’S TRUE*

YOU CAN GET IT IN PRINT IF YOU LIKE HAVING AN OBJECT YOU CAN READ BUT ALSO THROW AT PASSERSBY

OR YOU CAN GET IT IN ELECTRONIC FORMAT WHICH ACTUALLY USES DIGITAL INK MADE FROM THE GHOSTS OF OLD FORGOTTEN BOOKS, SO THAT’S PRETTY COOL, HUH

ANYWAY GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH**

* totally not true

** also don’t forget to read Fonda Lee’s Anti-NaNoWrimo Case Study post

* * *

DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Behold: I got to meet Fonda Lee, author of the fantastic Zeroboxer, a few weeks back, and she said she had a post for me, and it was tied into how she wrote the book and how it tied into (or did not tie into, as it were) National Novel Writing Month. So, here is that epic post, and check out Jade City when it comes out:

* * *

It’s November, which means that quite a few of you have just a few minutes to read this guest post before cracking your knuckles, shutting down your browser, and getting back to pounding out the 1,667 words you need to squeeze from your gray matter today if you hope to stay on track to hit the lauded “Look Ma, I Wrote a Novel!” goal of 50,000 words this month.

I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. That’s because my novel, Jade City, releases next week and I’m kind of insanely busy with that. Also, I flat out suck at NaNoWriMo. I’m currently writing what will be my fifth published book in five years, and I have never once successfully “won” the damned challenge. In fact, I was on this very blog at the beginning of the year talking about how my second novel, Exo, started out as a failed NaNoWriMo project.

I’m in no way unhappy about this; six years ago, I might’ve taken it as a depressing sign that I couldn’t be a Real Author, but by now I know I’m capable of sticking to a writing schedule and finishing novels, and I don’t need the valuable kick in the pants that NaNoWriMo offers to thousands of writers every November. (My editor’s deadlines do that for me just fine.) I would never begrudge anyone the camaraderie, energy, and motivation that NaNoWriMo can inspire.

That said, it’s important to recognize that NaNoWriMo promotes one particular strategy—fast first drafting—that does not work for everyone. It doesn’t work for me. And if it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine. Take it from me, it’s possible to be a Real, Published – even, I dare say, Reasonably Prolific – Author without adhering to a lot of the advice you’ll hear this month.

Jade City took me two and half years to write. It’s an epic gangster fantasy saga, the first in a trilogy to be released by Orbit, that’s been described as “The Godfather with magic and kung fu.” When it went out on submission, it sold in less than three weeks. Here’s how I wrote it.

WAITED UNTIL I WAS GOOD ENOUGH

The first notes I have in my Scrivener files for Jade City date to mid-2014, roughly a year before my first novel, Zeroboxer, was published, and the ideas behind the story had been percolating in my brain well before that. I did not, as some might’ve suggested, dive with squealing gusto into my exciting, shiny new idea. That’s because I knew the story was in a league above my abilities at the time. I could write novels—novels that sold and even won awards—but Jade City would require me to level up in terms of storytelling, worldbuilding, character, plot, everything. So I began slowly—researching, outlining, writing—and wrote two other books in the meantime.

Fortunately, writing my young adult science fiction novels and going through the editorial and publishing process with them taught me how to write tightly-paced, single POV narratives—something that absolutely helped me to stay focused when wrangling a multi-POV epic fantasy. It’s tempting to jump at your most ambitious idea—but ask yourself if you can do it justice. Yet.

IGNORED (SOME) BETA READERS

I normally don’t show anything to beta readers until I have a draft of a complete manuscript, but I broke that rule this time and showed the first six chapters to a few readers. The reaction was mixed. A few were unreservedly enthusiastic and exhorted me to continue. A few thought it had promise but wanted me to change the beginning. One reader, however, hated it. Hated my characters, my story, hated it all. That reader basically told me, in a nutshell, to burn the fucker.

Thank heavens I didn’t listen. Oh, by the way, I changed the beginning. Agonized over it too, writing and rewriting. My agent said, “What in the hell did you do that for?! Change it back to the way it was.” I changed it back. It sold that way, with my original beginning. Last month, Max Gladstone told me that he used my book in a class he taught on effective beginnings.

Critique groups really are invaluable. Except when they’re not. Readers, like reviewers, are going to give you mixed feedback, but there’s a chicken-and-egg conundrum going on here of, “I need critiques to learn to write well, but I need to know how to write well to be able to effectively judge my critiques.” Early on, everyone tells you to get a critique group, and it’s true you need feedback—but you need the right feedback, from the right readers, always balanced with your own artistic judgment, experience, and vision. It takes time to gain all of that.

WROTE SLOWLY

I have what feels like a dirty secret: I write slowly. You know how some writers do word sprints where they shoot for a thousand words an hour, or aim for twenty thousand words in a weekend? I’m not that person. On a normal writing day, I write one to two thousand words. It takes me between three and eight hours. For quite a while, I imagined there was something wrong with my process, that if only I outlined more, or “shut off my inner editor,” or used an Alphasmart Neo, or reread 2K to 10K once more that the words would begin to flow from my fingers in a torrent.

I’ve since given up on that ambition. Not because I don’t want to be more efficient; I do—namely by finding a way to shut off distractions like social media and being in the right positive mindset when I sit down to work—but I discovered that, paradoxically, as I became a more experienced writer, I wrote slower. My standards kept getting higher, and I have a much lower tolerance for going off in random directions and spending precious weeks wandering in my own word swamps when I’m on deadline. My friends who swear by fast first drafting can finish a draft in six weeks—and then spend months or years on multiple rewrites. By my second or third draft, my manuscript is damned clean. We all pay the piper in some way; you choose how. I wrote Jade City like a blind mountain climber scaling Everest: slowly and methodically searching for each handhold, stopping to rest, unable to see the summit but always going up.

TOOK A LOT OF LONG BREAKS

I set Jade City aside at least three times. There was a reason for this: I had deadlines on other books. But also, there were times I simply could not see how to make the words on the page match the glorious vision in my mind. In June of 2016, I hit a roadblock. I’d revised and revised and even though the thing seemed complete and it all hung together, it was still not quite what I wanted it to be. It needed 5% more of something—I didn’t know what.

I gave up for the time being. In fact, I spent the next five months writing another book. When I returned to Jade City with fresh eyes, it was miraculous: all the changes I needed to make popped like neon flags. There is truly no substitute for not rushing. So, if you’re planning to submit your NaNoWriMo project to agents or editors in January? Yeah, rethink that idea.

BROKE A LOT OF RULES

Omniscient voice? Passages of exposition? In-scene flashbacks? Mixing past and present tense? Blurring genre boundaries? Yup, yup, yup, yup, and golly yes. All done very deliberately and after careful consideration to create the narrative tone and effects I wanted to achieve.

Would I have tried any of that on my first novel? Hell no.

WROTE SOMETHING I THOUGHT MIGHT BE UNSALEABLE

I’ve come to the personal conclusion that if I’m one hundred percent certain that what I’m writing is saleable and marketable, I’m probably not pushing myself enough. At the time that I was writing Jade City, I could not think of any comp titles to “modern era Asian mafia epic fantasy magic martial arts family saga.” Not a one. I decided there was a chance that the market for this book consisted of one individual—me—but dammit, it was exactly what I wanted to read. I told myself many times that even if it never sold, I would still be awfully proud of it.

I’m not advocating that you go off and write the weirdest, most potentially unsaleable idea that you have, but rather: don’t be held back from writing the book that burns brightest inside you. Take your time if you need to. It might not get you that agent or book deal—this whole writing business is unpredictable—but the odds are honestly pretty good that there are people out there who share your sense of awesome, and your passion for the story will come through on the page.

So there you have it: an antidote to the relentless urgings to write with abandon, spew words onto the page, hit word count every day, just get that first draft done as fast as you can! You can take your time, build your skills, and write toward your singular vision slowly and in stages. If NaNoWriMo works for you, fabulous. If it doesn’t, fabulous. Like me, you can stink at it year after year and still end up with a bunch of books to your name. Don’t confuse speed for progress, but also don’t make excuses to let yourself off the hook from getting shit done. Often, we writers are like competitors on the Great British Bake Off comparing kitchen gadgets and recipes and proving technique when the only relevant question is, “Is the cake done and does it taste good?”

Mine is out of the oven and I hope you like it.

Jade City will be available next week (11/7) from Orbit.

Fonda Lee: Website | Twitter

Jade City: Excerpt | Print | Ebook

Above, you will see two pumpkins. The first (left) is mine. The second (right) is my 6-year-old son’s pumpkin. I call the one on the left: 2017. I call the one on the right: IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

Anyway, hi!

Not much to add here this week, except I’m going to info-dump a bunch of horror stuff into your faceholes — right now, as I type this, we await the first domino to fall in MUELLER TIME (spoiler: turns out, it was Manafort and not Hillary Clinton, gosh, who knew), but I thought we’d stare at something else, something more primal, something more HALLOWEENIE.

Here are my top ten horror movies.

I think.

I mean, this list changes moment-to-moment, but it’s what I plastered on Twitter the other day, and it’s what I’m gonna stick to here and now:

1. JAWS

2. THE THING (John Carpenter)

3. THE SHINING

4. IT (2017)

5. DEVIL’S BACKBONE

6. GET OUT

7. HELLRAISER 2

8. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (original)

9. THE EXORCIST

10. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

It’s an imperfect list, because it misses some great flicks: the original Hellraiser, or The Descent, or The Orphanage, or or or.

But that’s the nature of lists.

Here, too, are some of my favorite horror novels, though these are in no such list, of preference, because it’s honestly too damn hard —

Swan Song, Robert McCammon (seriously, I re-read this massive epic horror novel once every 3-5 years — it’s harrowing and beautiful, also just read anything he’s written)

The Three, Sarah Lotz

The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes

Misery, Stephen King

Lost Souls, Poppy Brite (though bonus points for the most wonderfully vile novel I’ve ever read, Exquisite Corpse)

NOS4A2, Joe Hill

My Soul To Keep, Tananarive Due

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty

Rosemary’s Baby, Ira Levin

Head Full of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay

Hammers on Bone, Cassandra Khaw

Last Days of Jack Sparks, Jason Arnopp

Watchers, Dean Koontz

The Drive-In, Joe Lansdale (read everything Joe Lansdale, tho)

Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton (shut up, is too a horror novel)

Monster Island, David Wellington

And that’s just like, the teeniest sampling.

Curious to hear yours, both movies and books.

Also, I’ll do the shameless self-promo shuffle, because ultimately I think what I write — despite their labels — ends up being horror as much as not.

If you want some scary business, get you to these two books:

Blackbirds (young woman can see how you’re going to die by touching you; print | ebook) or Invasive (futurist consultant to the FBI learns about a killer who is using genetically-modified skin-cutting ants as his weapon; print | ebook).

And as a reminder, today and tomorrow are the last days to get the MEGA ULTRA WHOADANG BUNDLE for $10 — use NANOCTOBER as the coupon code and get eight writing books and two novels. BUY IT NOW OR BE THROWN INTO HELL’S FURNACE

OKAY BYE

I have Yeats on the mind, today, so we return to the flash fiction challenges (hi! back from traveling!) with you writing a story based on that central theme of Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, meaning this gem right here:

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

You will take this core idea, this theme, this argument.

You will write it into some flash fiction.

Length: ~1000 words.

Due by: November 3rd, noon EST (Friday).

Post at your online space. Link to it in the comments.

Go write.

If you don’t know the origin of an actual scapegoat, it’s this:

In ANCIENT TIMES, they’d take a goat. Not sure how they chose it. A lottery? Did the goat choose itself? Doesn’t matter. Upon the goat they would heap their sins — a metaphorical act, as sins do not necessarily create physical baggage. The goat was now a vessel for the moral stains put forth by the individuals and by the community. They would say, “Fuck you, goat. Look at all those ugly sins, you shitty, shitty goat.” Then they’d punt the goat in the ass and force it into the desert, as an outcast. An exile. Carrying their sins away from town, buh-bye.

Later, the goat would return, a gunslinger here to bring revolvers and redemption.

I might be making that last part up.

More seriously, sometimes they wouldn’t push the goat out into the desert.

Instead, they’d just fucking kill it. Regardless of whether the goat wandered away or was bled out, the emotional result was the same:

We are cleansed of our sins.

The taint of our poor choices is gone.

We may start anew.

It’s bullshit, of course. It’s a supremely lazy way of negotiating your own errors, either as a single person or as a community of people. Instead of taking responsibility and performing actions of accountability and recompense, you just make up some fancy nonsense about goats being a receptacle for sins, and then you’re free and clear, brah.

Thing is, it’s transparent to us when I put it this way, but keep in mind, this is still sometimes the way of the world. Sometimes the sins of a community are piled onto a single sinner and then, when that sinner is dealt with, we pretend the culture that spawned him has been mystically cleansed of his rot and his ruin, and surely it will never happen again (they say as it keeps on happening again and again). It’s a performative act designed to make us feel better, not actually to fix a single fucking thing. Honestly, it’s a wonder that the Harvey Weinstein situation has not yet been performed similarly — though it’s far from played-out, presently he has not served as the lone goat emblematic of the grotesque sins mired in Hollywood, but rather, has been more a cork unpopping on a bottle of demons. It’s spraying everywhere, but at least we’re starting to see — and name — the demons, rather than assuming they all entered one lone pig that could be driven into the sea.

Enter Senator Jeff Flake, from Arizona.

Recently, as most of you well know, the good senator from Arizona — a Republican, unsurprisingly — stepped away from the comforting firelight of the Grand Old Party to announce not only that he would not seek re-election, but also that he had some strong words (if softly spoken) for the Narcissist-In-Chief. On the Senate floor, Flake delivered a speech that reads better than it listens, as he’s not precisely a gifted orator, and you can read it here.

(Note that his comments to “Mr. President” are not necessarily to Trump himself, but rather, to the president of the Senate, currently Orrin Hatch.)

Here are some snippets from the speech —

“It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret — regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by “our,” I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and accommodation of the unacceptable to end.”

And

“In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order, that phrase being the “new normal.” That we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue, with the tone set at the top. We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country. The personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve.”

And

“What happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition, what happens if ambition fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability, if decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course, we wouldn’t and we would be wrong if we did.

When we remain silent and fail to act, when we know that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because “ad finitum, ad nauseam” when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of our institutions and liberty, we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.”

And finally

“Despotism loves a vacuum and our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States senators have to say about it? The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics because politics can make us silent when we should speak. And silence can equal complicity. I have children and grandchildren to answer to.”

It’s a good speech.

It is a clear, bold indictment of where we’re at, and ultimately, of the entire Republican Party — spoken with some honor and some craft, and more than a hefty dose of authenticity and earnestness.

And we’re all applauding him for taking a stand.

Even though I’m pretty sure he’s still sitting down.

Let’s unpack this a little, because what exactly has Jeff Flake done? He’s announced no bid for re-election, which is itself an action, though one could argue that the braver action would not be to abandon the post but rather, to attempt to hold onto it where he can continue to affect policy beyond 2018, where he can shape the party from the inside, where he can vote with conscience and principle rather than paving the way for another Roy Moore (or Donald Trump) to fill his shoes. He’s also stood up and said a lot of very fine, very pretty words and ideas.

And then he got up the other night and voted to dismantle the recent rule that would allow customers to not be forced into arbitration to deal with the crimes and scams of big banks and other financial institutions (cough cough Equifax, cough cough Wells Fargo).

The gist of this rule is that put power in the hands of the consumers by taking the power out of the hands of big companies.

Flake voted to gut that rule. Bye-bye, consumer protections. High-five, big corporations.

Now, the common refrain response to this is:

“Well, he is still a Republican,” said as if that explains it.

And there begins the disconnect.

The GOP indicted Hillary Clinton because she would be cozy with Wall Street. They wined-and-dined on opposing her corporate connections — and by proxy, her supposed corruption in that realm — and sided with the common man. Main Street, they might say, versus Wall Street. Hillary, that venomous bat-witch, would surely stock her cabinet with the vintage of Goldman-Sachs, would vote to protect Big Banks, would vote against Middle Class Americans and Small Businesses and also she’d probably take out a loan to pay some stockbrokers to kill puppies on the market floor, that monster.

And yet, demonstrably, they do the opposite.

They are what they claim to combat.

Flake voted against consumers.

Flake voted to confirm Mnuchin.

Flake voted 92% in line with Trump.

And when asked about impeachment or the 25th Amendment, Flake — despite claiming Trump is a danger to our democracy — bunts, saying, ennh, no, I don’t think actions like that are really necessary.

But — he made a speech! He said some things. Applause. Hooray. And you can feel just a little shift — a lot of his speech is one that attacks the tone and tenor of affairs in 2017, if not just the politics. You get the sense he thinks that Trump is not the GOP, not really, not really for really real, that the two are separate, that the despotism of our president does not represent the party to which he belongs. It is a speech of subtle reformation and redemption, attempting to disentangle the GOP from Trump. And you can almost feel it working.

Flake is a scapegoat. He will take the sins of his party and wander into exile, if we let him. But we mustn’t allow that. The GOP is not separate from Trump. Trump is the Pokemon evolution of that party — you can’t separate a tree from the ground in which it grows, even if that tree bulges with rotten orange fruit and seeds the ground with more sexism and racism and intolerance. It is not enough to simply say these things and then sashay off the fucking boat as it sinks in the harbor. There must be accountability. We must ask for responsibility. Flake says these things but owns none of them, placing himself as more a victim and a vessel rather than an actor and craftsman of the politics in which we presently swim. He talks a good game, then goes and votes against our interests anyway, and votes for Trump’s interests — even when he could’ve been the deciding vote, even when he could’ve demonstrated that his words held intent and power, not just hollow rhetoric.

Remain dubious about attempts to rehabilitate the party.

Beware any efforts to separate Trump from the GOP.

Resist the idea that one is not the other. Because they are tangled together on purpose. The denial of Merrick Garland did not come under Trump, but under Obama. The GOP has long been working itself into a froth against climate change, health care, and the welfare of the middle class. They’ve long fed on the bread-and-butter of oh shit, a black Democrat is in the highest office of the land, we better stoke some racism to get shit done.

I admire Flake’s words.

I hope he does more to back them up.

But for now, let’s not applaud him as if he’s standing up when he’s still sitting down. Right now, his words are more a balm for his own party than part of a larger effort to fix what’s really gone wrong — an error that is as much Flake’s fault as any in his party, an error that must be corrected with effort, not words, with action, not speeches. Hold him accountable.

Hold them all accountable.

No rehabilitation without reconciliation.

Don’t let the goat get away with all their sins.

Here’s Dan and Kate Malmon to talk briefly about a charity anthology you can buy right now (print, e-book) — get some stories and support the fight against Multiple Sclerosis.

* * *

Sometimes – often times – life is weird.

In 2014, Crimespree Magazine held an online flash fiction contest. The theme? Somewhere in the story, “Dan Malmon” had to die. Funny, sad, serious, or scary, Malmon had to meet his maker. Flash forward to 2016, when Jon Jordan of Crimespree Magazine is talking to Eric Campbell of Down and Out Books (UGH, namedrop much?) and Jon says, “I think the stories should be collected.” Eric says, “Yeah, cool. Let’s do it.”

Kate and I say, “WhaHUH?”

The whole concept was always equal parts flattering and equal parts oogie to us. But, bind the stories up into a for-real book? That for-real people could buy? With for-real money? Call it old fashioned Midwestern values, but we weren’t down with that.

But, how about if we could sell it for charity? I’ll always put myself out on a limb for a laugh, er, good cause. Down and Out was down for it (Oh, come on). We have always been deeply invested in the fight against Multiple Sclerosis. Kate has had her own Bike MS team, Saint Kate’s Cycling Saints, which has been raising money for the MS Society for years now. We figured we could use KILLIING MALMON as another way to keep the spotlight on this horrible disease, and keep throwing cash at a good cause. But the collection needed more words than the initial online contest provided. So, we turned on the Bat Signal. Or Facebook Messenger. You get the idea.

Anyway, we put out the call. Friends, old and new, sent us story after bloodthirsty story. 360 pages of gleeful gunshots, disgusting decapitations, and pitiful poisonings. Eric Beetner created the eye-catching cover. Now the rest is up to you, the reader. KILLIING MALMON is a great experiment: How would 30 different crime writers, both amateur and professional, off the same, poor schlub? While everyone is getting their bloodthirsty kicks, the MS Society is getting 100% of the proceeds.

Now everyone can feel good about getting their bloodthirsty kicks.

KILLING MALMON is available now from all the usual suspects (click here).