Be Afraid, or Go Home

One of my writing guides has the excellent advice in it that if you are not scared when you write, if you are not putting into your work something from so far inside of you that it terrifies you, then you aren’t trying hard enough.
Everyone is afraid, particularly when we’ve been raised/been working/been loving/been living, inside of a box about whats outside that box. We’re afraid of something.
Rant, and rave, and scream at the moon, the stars and God, to make you afraid, but the truth is if you aren’t feeling it, you’re lying. If its not coming out in your creation, you aren’t being honest – You’re being safe. Safe is rarely honest, it is rarely true – If you keep creating safe, and its dissatisfying to you, then stop. Create in a way, at a pace, that makes you afraid. Stop thinking, start fearing, and do it anyway.
The world is full of people who aren’t going to like you, and you will never make them. Stop placating them, and thinking it’s for your own good. Stop hiding your burdens, your kinks, your bad ideas, and lay them out there. If it doesn’t survive the light of day, then you don’t need it anyway.
If your own voice terrifies you, stop writing in someone elses and speak horror until there is no more.

I was looking around last night/this morning, for some ideas and information on a piece of body-mod I’ve been considering, and happened across an interview that I think is a great expression of this creative verve, this necessary acceptance, and joy, in reveling in what is so intensely you a sane person would be afraid of it.
http://www.bmezine.com/news/steppingback/20051011.html
Now, let me warn ya’, that page contains some nudity. I would call it mild, nip’s and a bare crotch that is not spread, splayed, flayed or filleted, as well as some other “suggestive” images. It’s also a frank, and possibly “suggestive” discussion of things you never wanted to have suggested to you. So, if you cant be an adult, don’t click it. I’m not a fan or advocate of everything promoted by Bella Vendetta, but as the man said, I’ll defend her right to promote necrophiliac heroin addict porn with my life. And I respect the integrity it takes to honestly stand up and say “This is what I like. This is what I will create.” And that’s what I want you to get out of it.

Be terrified, and create. Do not be terrified and lock it inside, do not be terrified of what’s coming out and stop… be terrified and go on.
Even if it is just a mindless rant somewhat inspired by pornography.

A Ponderance Upon Writing (which the author realizes he has been doing little of, of late)

I've been doing my neobohemian thing lately. Occupying a corner of the kitchen, within arms length of the coffee pot, and curling into a literary magazine and my laptop. Writing as the moment strikes me, and reading more often than that. The current fascination is The Pinch, the literary journal of the University of Memphis. Their Spring '07 issue is a tour de force, as I have read it nearly cover to cover now, and rather linearly, without any desire to skip around or go find something else entirely. This is unusual for me and lit journals, as usually I find something I cant help but ask "Why did they waste paper on this shit" about, which lends itself to putting the journal down and going back to a good book. I will be looking at the Fall issue of The Pinch with high hopes when it comes out this fall.
If you decide to go find the Spring issue, I heartily recommend "It's Rough Out Here For Dogs" by Patrick Thomas Casey, on Pg. 19.

I was pleased to discover, in a random web-search the other day, that my favorite piece of short fiction, "Ralph the Duck" by Frederick Busch, is available online. It is the main body of the first chapter of his 1997 novel, "Girls". Said chapter was excerpted by the New York Times, and can be found here: "Girls"
The segment that has been published separately as "Ralph the Duck" begins with the subheader of Ralph, and ends with the chapter.
(If it asks you to log in, use "fuqueewe", minus the quotes, for both login and pass, courtesy of BugMeNot).

On another short story note, I gained a new piece of short short, or flash, fiction tonight. It is the original short short, written by Hemingway who bet his cooperators and cohorts ten dollars that he could write an entire short story in six words. What he wrote was untitled, and is this: "For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn."