The Jazz in her Soul by Darlene Cah

Howdy folks:

A wonderful piece of flash fiction by Darlene Cah for your reading enjoyment.

This piece originally appeared on Staccato Fiction.

xoxox

DSH

The Jazz in her Soul by Darlene Cah

Little Man, he was on that night, pounding those keys like they was congas. JoJo blew notes made your teeth hurt. And me, I slapped a bass line made the scratched-up old bass dance, just like my granddaddy used to do.

I couldn’t see real good with all the smoke, but I could tell them folks in the front row with their pinched faces and tree trunk backs, looked like that picture of the farmer with the pitchfork. Stuffed. Stuffed Man and Skinny Girl. I seen them over to that Rocco’s mission on Mermaid, serving chicken soup and rolls and handing out beads to pray on.

I spun that bass around and ashes from my Marlboro flew in the air. Some must have set on the table up front ‘cause the man flinched. Maybe they come to expand their horizons, or maybe they thought they come to hear some folk music, but they ain’t never heard no fiddle played like Sam and Shoot played that night. Those strings screamed.

I laughed a big laugh and I know my gold front tooth scared Stuffed Man ‘cause he looked away real quick, but I saw Skinny Girl smile and start tapping her hand on the table. Everybody around them swaying and nodding, stomping their feet. JoJo hit a high note and a voice from way in the back, out of the dark yelled, “Yeah!” Skinny Girl getting in the groove now and Stuffed Man give her a hard look. Diminished chords. Sharps and flats. Devil’s music. Heaven’s gift.

We finished our set and he grabbed her by the arm, and even over the applause, I heard him growl, “How you gonna save souls, you can’t save yourself.”

I went out back to smoke a joint before the next set, and there go Stuffed Man pulling Skinny Girl across the parking lot to their van. Her voice filled the air with “Amazing Grace.”

Sweet notes. Soulful notes. Jazz notes.

Darlene Cah was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She now lives in a place where there are more cows than cars. Her flash stories have appeared in Smokelong Quarterly and Mindprints, among other journals. She has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte.

Proud to be a Geek - Notes on Why I Love Geeks.

Geeks:

"Ask what if...?" 

Not, "why?"

Believe in redemption.

Believe in bloody retribution.

Have a child-like sense of wonder.

But are in touch with their inner criminal.

Have traveled to worlds others only scoff at.

Understand humanity a bit better.

Look up, instead of down.

Are voracious readers and watchers.

Have a wicked sense of humor.

Know smart is sexy.

Wear black.
Mock folks wearing black.
Look good in black.

Feelings are easily hurt.
Don't care what you think.

Know the true spirit of community.

Have loaded Kindles.
Have tattoos based on obscure, but non-hipster references.

Write the books you love.

Respect the source material.

Make the movies you really like.

Designed the device/computer you're reading this on.

Have a secret special skill.

Got us to the moon.
Will get us to Mars.

Are passionate
Are Seekers.
Are cool.

Proud to be a  geek, 
DSH

David Scott Hay is the former owner of Zonk! Comic & Cool Stuff.


In addition, he is the author of the postmodern literary novel FOUNTAIN*  as well as two genre books Cloning Christ and FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar as DS Hay (clever, huh?).


The writer/director for the award-winning indie feature Hard Scrambled (click here for a funny post about HS).

He is also a Contributing Editor for Digital Americana Magazine.

And is currently co-authoring the Civil Rights play THE MARKER with David Barr III and Glen Jeffers, slated to premiere Feb 2012. david@davidscotthay.com

Fall: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar

AN AMAZON HOT NEW RELEASE!! 
TOP 20 CONTEMPORARY FANTASY!
FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar
(The Fallen Trilogy: Book One)

Now just $3.99. Cheaper than a cup of java.
For fans of Neil Gaiman and Steven Brust

And so it came to pass in the waning days of our century that a curious deal was struck between Heaven and Hell, or more specifically between Lucifer Morning Star and the Presence.

The Book of Life, that book that holds the names of those souls deemed for salvation has been stolen from the Silver City. Without the Book there can be no Judgement as foretold in the Revelation.

Two renegade angels are suspect and are believed to be on Earth. For reasons known only to himself, Lucifer accepts the deal with Heaven to recover the Book of Life. 

But jealousy and pride are not an exclusive domain. A small band of angels lead by Mika’il, the Angel of Vengeance seeks to stop him.

Accompanying the Morning Star on the most important quest in Creation are Maggie McCreedy, a recently widowed romance writer now witness to Lucifer’s Testament; Duma, a misfit angel who almost joined in the Fall; Andrew Honeybone, a not quite yet dead, but rotting lawyer, and Mr. Pouge, an enigmatic gorilla of a man.

Together their journey takes them from the Silver City of Heaven to the Ninth Circle of Hell to the now desert wasteland of an earthly Eden.

It is a mythical mystery tale of redemption, deceit, salvation, betrayal and faith.


FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar
$3.99 on Amazon Kindle. Contains excerpts of FOUNTAIN (or Art Has a Right to Children), CLONING CHRIST: The Second Book of Daniel and Skin Deep (coming soon). 


 FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar
$3.99 on Barnes & Noble NOOK


Thanks for your amazing support! And drop me a line: david@davidscotthay.com.
xoxoxo
DSH

DAM

The Digital Americana Magazine

Howdy folks:

If you're not reading this digital magazine you should. It's chock full of great writing, essays, design, and cultural (pop) touchstones. It's the one mag you should have on your iPad. And for you tactile peeps, you can even order a print copy. Which I am certain to do.

The Digital Americana Magazine

I first met Tony, the editor/founder/publisher/multi-hyphenate at a bar in Charlotte. I won't give you the preamble as it's kinda boring, but we struck up a nice conversation. I'd seen his magazine, he saw my reading of FOUNTAIN at Queens and now I'm, at least for this issue, a contributing writer.

I've got a nice little essay/piece called POST MFA, that gives you some insight into approaching an MFA writing program, some friendly advice on keeping your eye on that prize and then a nice excerpt of my book. But that ain't all folks. This is their huge summer issue. 100+ pages of the good stuff.

The Digital Americana Magazine

I can be a sumbitch critic and mean drunk when it comes to these matters, cuz, shit, this stuff is important. So let me say, regardless of being included in this project, it's one I would have followed and will follow. And I'm proud to be a part of it. Heh.

Check it out.

The Digital Americana Magazine

The Window by Catherine Campbell

Howdy folks:

I'm posting/reprinting (with permission) this lovely short piece of fiction for your reading enjoyment.

xoxox
DSH

The Window by Catherine Campbell

My mother loved my writing very much. She took my stories from my hands like newborns. She leaned down into them and hummed songs that she never hummed to me as a child, and she hummed to them as she slowly curled each story in on itself. She tied them with twine and hung them upside down from the rafters in the room we called Our Room. We did not have a refrigerator. We did not have a trunk.

I paced up and down our room beneath white bouquets of paper. I perpetuated our spring. The walls and floor and ceiling were chestnut planks and they threatened me with their darkness, so I wrote stories as quickly as I could. Sometimes I had to tell the same story again. My mother would take it from my hands and read it and she would smile as usual, but she would not touch my cheek as she did when I wrote a new story. She curled the paper up and hummed, and then cried because she could not have something new to dream about that night.

My father, who lived in Daddy's Room, was not here very much and when he was he did not stay for very long. I heard him enter his Room late in the evening when I was supposed to be asleep. He came with friends. I listened to them talk, their voices deep and well-worn like mud boots. I repeated their words over and over into the dark, up to the rafters above me, hoping to imprint the paper with my breath. What pieces I remembered I built into the next story. Those were my mother's favorites because they were from The Real Outside. Sometimes we opened the door from our room to look out there. We took turns turning the knob. My mother and I were free. But we just stood there, breathing, looking. We closed the door as quietly as we could, as if it had never happened.

Daddy's Room stayed empty one time for three weeks, then a few years. I waited to hear him come back one evening, but he never did. I wrote stories about what might have happened to him, but I quickly learned that these made my mother cry, and I didn't like to see her cry, so I wrote stories about her and my father together. I wrote about the wonderful places they saw in the Real Outside. I wrote about their sailboat, and their cave of crystals, and the time they danced in a deep forest and slept until they were covered with sand.

My mother died with twine in her fingers. I buried her beneath the floorboards with one of my stories covering her eyes so she would have something to see on her way. She never taught me to bundle my writing so the bouquets above me yellowed. The floor, instead, grew white. I waded through loose papers. The stories mixed themselves up. The silverfish came. The moths crowded my eyes so I could not see what I was writing. One day I took our axe for wood and chopped a window into the chestnut wall. I pulled up a chair to the hole in Our Room, and felt the moths desperately flutter around my body, bumping into my neck, confusing my skin for the brightness of the Real Outside. They spilled out into the fresh air and disintegrated. I pulled my pen from my dress pocket and set it in my lap. Then I pulled a pack of matches that I used to fight the dark. I lit one and dropped it at my feet.


Catherine is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. She can be reached at lostsurfboard@hotmail.com or Twitter: @bookish_type.

How Not To Do A DVD Audio Commentary For Your Feature Film Debut

Stay up very, very late at a wedding (best man). Get up very, very early. Fly from South Texas to LA. 

Get picked up by a PA who is wondering outloud about how he's going to get repaid for the money he spent on lunch for the producers. Go see a bad student film at USC. Grab a quick bite.

Do an on camera interview for over an hour. Forget to pretend the interviewer is one of your producers whose voice will be dubbed in later. Make eye contact with crew when you're supposed to pretend they're not there.

Deal with the landlord of the rental space who wants to load in his music equipment so he can start recording an album the next morning.

Watch the movie in a sun-filled room with the TV on the floor, in a chair a different height from your co-commentator Hex (Director of Photography). And no beer. Try to be funny out of the gate.

Hear that the producers only made it halfway through their commentary. Vow to make it in one push. Drink Coke. Out of the can. Burp into microphone several times. Talk through movie -- something your instincts will scream is wrong. Interupt each other all the time.

Omit every funny story related to the shoot that you've used to entertain friends and family.
Realize that the five minute story related to a 20 second scene will carry you past your favorite scene in the movie. Realize how many things you would have shot differently.

End the commentary as soon as the credits start to roll. Plug website. Knock over Coke can. Forget free copies of the movie. Make mental note to rerecord.

Accept that you probably never will.

Realize that no one will listen to the commentary for six months to a year.

Realize that no one will listen to the commentary.

Write blog about it.

Repost blog about it.

HARD SCRAMBLED feature trailer

Click here: HARD SCRAMBLED Pay Per View 

A Group Critique (Where's the Blood? - writing advice for my peers)

Fellow writers: 

The following is a group critique I did for my Small Group during the course of my MFA. I've excised names, but looking back over this I think the advice could resonate for any writer. Myself included. And remember, I've got just enough experience and expensive whiskey to be a danger to myself and those around me. Heh. 

xoxoxo

DSH

Dear Podmates:

Each of you will be receiving your marked up pages with my indecipherable line notes and suggestions. I keep a copy, so if you ever feel the need for clarification I’ll be able to refer to the gibberish that graces your stories.

Now that being said.

Something I’ve noticed after reading these submissions, and perhaps it’s been true for most of the previous submissions as well, and that is there’s a dearth of camera movement. Emotionally, as well as technically. It’s as though the writer’s mind’s eye is stuck at eye level twenty feet away, in a medium shot. Everything is described as you would see on a safe TV show. Every action, description or emotional reaction seems to have the same weight. A line or two, a few well chosen adverbs. We never seem to zoom in on an object, let alone an emotion.  (And by “every”, I mean in a general, but dominant sense.)

A great technical example would be the opening to THE LOVE OF A WOMAN and the examination of the deceased opthamologist’s tool.  It’s a bit more akin to Eastern filmmaking where one opens a movie or a scene on an object that resonates thematically. Western filmmakers have a tendency to open on the dreaded establishing shot.  (A cityscape, the Brady house, the Seinfeld diner).  Nothing is ominous, devastating, ornate or intricate. Everything seems to be given the same perfunctory muted weight.  And this applies to emotions as well. And sometimes this is fine, as in a muted stabbing to death with a bagel knife (XXXXX, you gotta make that a bagel knife, not a bacon knife-- set-up, pay-off). That distancing has a chilling effect, but when the whole piece has that weight it tends to read cold. I feel like the stories are just going through their paces and I don’t mean that as hack pieces, because clearly there is some strong talent here-- please understand that.

What I don’t sense is an intention in the writing. A driving force.  Or an emotional investment. It’s more of a so, that happened. Not the work of a writer with something to say, let alone an exploration of themes or meditation on larger issues. We seem to be for the most part plot/vignette driven. I for one would like to see some abstractness or dirty laundry hung on these plotlines. No one seems to be putting themselves out there.  I don’t see any blood on the page. And like a shark, if I don’t sense blood, I’m not interested.

One of the first assignments I give in my playwriting and screenwriting classes and were I to teach fiction writing, I would do so as well, and that is to make a list of your deepest personal beliefs. It can be pages and pages or a list of sound bites. A list of human traits you admire, a list of traits you despise. What are some of the greatest things a human can do? The worst? Give examples. What were some of your darkest moments, your brightest. Your life motto. Now that they have that down on paper, they can mine it for their stories, characters, and structure to enhance and enrich their initial concepts.  I mean, aren’t stories supposed to be vehicles for this? I’ve seen your math, pod-mates, I’d love to see your jazz.

And maybe these are pieces that are leading to something greater, maybe it’s the pressure of having adult lives and deadlines. And perhaps, I’m projecting. Perhaps, I could be guilty of the same thing in the early stages of The Fountain. Satire does retain a certain distance, but going forward I’m trying to be more cognizant of the emotional gravity of the piece. Something I confided to Pinckney back at Queens that this was my greatest fear for this project. I want the story to resonate emotionally. To have a heart.  Some gravitas, as he suggested in my last critique.   Not just, as XXXXXX put it, making fun of art and artists. I’m trying BJN, there’s a lot of blood and fear hidden in those pages.

Your friend of the Text,

DSH

David Scott Hay is the author of the postmodern literary novel FOUNTAIN*  as well as two genre books Cloning Christ and FALL: The Last Testament of Lucifer Morningstar as DS Hay (clever, huh?).

He is also a Contributing Editor for Digital Americana Magazine.

And is currently co-authoring the Civil Rights play THE MARKER with David Barr III and Glen Jeffers, slated to premiere Feb 2012. david@davidscotthay.com