 "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe" by Vincent Van Gogh |
A story that lasts the lifetime of a smoked cigarette? Condense. You've got more layers in second-person. The "you", the "I", the filter through which the "you" is described. It's very personal, psychological without trying to be. Of course, I didn't restrict myself to second-person pronouns. Gotta keep it natural.
There's the fantasy aspect as well. Two-headed boys...not so normal. Two choices the way I see it: The scientific approach—imagine lots of banal, technical details, list them, work some complicated plot into those details. Or you can put the two-headed boy just out of reach, put the reader and the narrator in the same shoes, a memory, a construction in the imagination. I chose the latter because that's what I'd want to read.
Neutral Milk Hotel has a great song titled "Two Headed Boy." First verse: "Two- headed boy / All floating in glass / The sun it has passed /Now it's blacker than black /I can hear as you tap on your jar / I am listening to hear where you are / I am listening to hear where you are." Any idea what it means?
Yeah, I've heard that song. Discovered college radio a couple years back, lots of amazing things going on in that world. Makes me feel with it. Not a big fan of trying to interpret songs like that though. It's got that fuzz thing going on, like a folk song layered in static—gotta let it just hover in your ear, then let it go. Like a piece of flash fiction read out loud. Ephemeral. I'm sure it was lurking in my mind when I wrote this story.
What does it mean to "rebuild the foundation with words"?
I'm just at this point in my life where I feel shitty all the time. If I slow down for a minute, I dwell, I churn, I lose sight of the big picture, and I make bad decisions. Then I met this guy, older fellow, one of those chance encounters, kept running into him. He was a storyteller, a liar really. Couldn't trust a word he said. Pissed me off at first. Kept my mouth shut though. His lies were better than real life. Stave it off for a bit. Then something occurred to me. Fuck the truth. I realize now it's old hat for academic folks, but for me, that real life application...life changing. This whole network of words to buttress myself with. Just live in my stories for as long as they last, then move on, occupy a new one, borrow someone else's, take it apart, make it mine. Beats the hell out of church.
If I do run into your ex-husband, what five things should I make him tell me before I make him cut himself somewhere important?
Just ask him where he's going. He'll say, "Over to the deli," or something like that. Then you say, "No, I mean, where are you going?" and he'll probably break down and cry. Depressing period of my lif
The titles of the stories in this issue wowed me and got me thinking about the value of the great title. What are some great titles—for novels, stories, movies, albums, CDs, and the like? And what is the worst title you've ever encountered?
Great titles? Well, titles that don't lie, that's for certain. Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain." How perfect can you get? That title reflects both the plot and the way that story affects you. Beowulf is another one. That's a powerful title. It's funny... people are afraid of that thing. I don't understand why. It's power put into verse form. The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins is another. Captures that lowlife feel perfectly. As for bad titles...how about those horrendous mysteries by Sue Grafton, K is for Killer, etcetera. Come on. Very lame, maybe appropriate though.
Read My First Two-Headed Boy.
