The Confabulator Cafe

Author: ljenkins

  • Subplots: Sexy Enough to Deserve Your Time

    Here’s the thing about subplots. They don’t have to be your best friend, but you should treat them like your best friend’s hot sister. Nobody’s asking you to spend a lot of time getting to know her.  (But let’s be honest. Would they have to ask?) Just make sure the time you do invest is quality.  It’ll totally pay dividends in the end.

    Be good to your subplots. Show them you understand their complexities and you know their worth. Make them believe that their development is as important to you as the other plots that occupy the majority of your day. You wish that you had more time to devote, but it wasn’t meant to be.

    You and your subplots are star-crossed lovers. Victims of circumstance, meeting in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps in another life you’ll have more time for each other. Maybe the universe will do you a solid the next time around.

    But rather than bemoan what the fates have given you, it’s better to seize this moment, this day, no matter how brief. Cherish the time you have together and make it something special. If time is the enemy, then ally yourself with memory. Write a story worth remembering. One that outlives its own fleeting arc.

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  • Lost and Found: Navigating Your Way Back to the Story

    Here’s what we do as writers. When we’re asked to write these blogs, about whatever the subject may be, we tell you what works for us.

    We are not experts or authorities on some long-decided rule of law. We’re people with lots of opinions and varying levels of experience, and that’s about it. So when we’re asked to comment on whether or not writer’s block is a real thing, the only honest answer is we don’t know.

    There are a lot of people out there who have no problem telling you writer’s block is a myth. Writer’s write, after all, and if you aren’t doing that, well . . . you’re not much a writer then.  So stop making excuses already.

    I’ve read a lot of posts like that, some of them by authors I admire. But here’s where I part ways with that line of thinking.  If our minds can totally screw with us in every other aspect of our lives, why is it hard to believe it could prevent us from writing? What is so special about the written word that it is somehow inoculated against mental blockades?

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  • Shadow Puppet (Flash Fiction)

    If you’re looking for something profound and spooky that you can share with your friends back home, I can’t offer you that. I can only tell you what happened, what little I know, and from there we’ll take up the thread together.

    This thing … this, whatever it is, I don’t even think you could call it a man … I started seeing it about a year before my wife died. It scared the hell out of me the first time, when it walked into our bedroom, slow and smooth like it belonged. I guess it was about three in the morning, one of those times when you wake up and feel so exhausted you don’t even want to look at the clock. Because no matter how much time you have left to sleep, it won’t feel like near enough.

    When it walked in, this tall, thin man-shaped thing that looked like it was made of shadows, a jolt of adrenaline-laced fear shot through my body. My wife, Ellie, slept peacefully beside me, oblivious to the intruder. I both envied and hated her for that, as if somehow she had chosen for me to be the one who was awake and watchful and terrified.

    This thing, this Shadow Man, walked to the foot of the bed and seemed to consider us for a moment.  In truth, I have no idea. It had no face. How can you know what a shadow is thinking?

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  • Words Matter

    I don’t usually do this, but I thought I’d let you all peek behind the curtain this week.  Maybe give you a little taste of my initial thoughts when I found out I’d be writing about poetry. Okay, kids. Buckle up, here we go:

    “I got nothin’.”

    That pretty much summed up my initial draft.

    Now for all of you out there who are ready to take up your collected works of Walt Whitman or Carl Sandburg and drive me into the forest night, I ask for just a few more moments of your time. I have mad respect for poetry. I love its economy of words, the rhythm of phrasing, and the demands of form that rival even journalism in its need for precision. If you’re wading into the lyrical waters of poetry, you better have a talent for word choice and understand exactly what you want to say and how to say it.

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  • Just Write, Damn It!

    I struggled with my thoughts on the post this week: submitting vs. not. While I think it’s helpful to put yourself out there, if for nothing else than to get feedback on how you’re doing, there are those who would tell you that submission is part of being a writer. That somehow not being willing to fling your work over the transom makes you less of a writer, or at least not brave enough to fully own that title.

    At the moment, I’m not sure that I believe that.

    Several months back, I read a series of articles about what it means to be a writer. My own thoughts at the time were pretty snobbish. I felt that if you weren’t actively submitting your work somewhere then you were just wasting your time, as well as the time of anyone else who had been asked to read your pages. But then one blog post stopped me short. The gist was this: if you write, you’re a writer. End of story. No further validation needed. That really appealed to me.

    Although I like the inclusionary nature of this approach, I feel like I should add a caveat here. Be proud of the work you do. Enjoy the thrill of creation, and soak up that rush of finishing energy you get when you finally type the words “The End.” But understand your limitations as well.

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  • The Care and Feeding of Obsessions

    I don’t have a lot of hobbies any more. I think as you get older and life gets busier, it becomes difficult to make time for the things you aren’t required to do.  Maybe that’s a bad thing. Most likely it is. But it’s a fact of life, and from what I understand, I’m not in this boat alone.

    That being said, not always having time for your hobbies doesn’t mean you let your curiosity go to waste. If there’s a subject that piques your interest even a little, you need to get yourself online or to the library or buried in a reference book, whatever it takes to scratch that intellectual itch.

    It’s easy as a writer to categorize these fishing expeditions as going in search of story ideas, but I think that’s selling the process short. What you’re really doing is satisfying a need to know. You’re curious, so you’ve gone exploring. Even if it’s just along some nameless digital highway, you’re covering ground that’s new to you, and that’s never a bad thing.

    In your search for knowledge, you may or may not find the answers you’re looking for, but in my experience, you always come away with more questions. And more areas that need investigation.

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  • Living Memory (Flash Fiction)

    He called to ask if I was going to my mother’s funeral.  I don’t think I am.

    That he would be in a position to make the phone call at all is, I’m sure, a surprise to everyone in my family. We never imagined the old man would outlive our mother. For as long as I can remember, he’s been sick. We thought either the drink or the depression or the cancer would have gotten him by now. We all know that disease has been secretly feasting on him for years.

    We used to whisper about it behind his back, wondering when it would finally finish the job. For a reserved man with little to say, he wasn’t very good at keeping that particular secret. I guess starting every day throwing up in your sink makes discretion a little difficult.

    He asks if I’ve heard from anyone else, and I shake my head even though he can’t see me. I tell him, no, he’s the only one who’s called. Though there was an email from my youngest brother.  Short, sweet, to the point:

    Mom’s dead.

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  • Love Me! Confessions of an Attention Whore

    I have two sons. One is a quiet, reserved kid, but the other … not so much. My younger boy needs an audience. He craves affirmation the way some people crave ice cream, and he will go to great lengths to get it. (The attention, not the ice cream. Though he’s a fan of that as well.)

    I’d be lying if I said it didn’t drive me batty sometimes. This is a kid who will go through multiple iterations of the same routine just to get a reaction out of you, and if your response isn’t quite what he’s looking for, there’s a good chance he’ll cry.

    In case you’re wondering what exactly it is the 5-year-old is crying about, allow me to quote him directly.

    “Because you didn’t think I was funny.”

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  • Finding Your Online Peeps

    Let me go ahead and apologize in advance. The original draft of this blog was a lot more fun, but apparently it didn’t fit in with the vision that some of “us” have for the Café.

    As it was explained to me, not everyone’s idea of a “helpful online resource” involves gratuitous nudity. There was also some discussion about the appropriateness of promoting websites that depicted adults engaged in physical expressions of love that may or may not be legal in their various states of residence.

    Prudes.

    So here we are, my friends. Stand back. I’m about to go all mainstream on your collective asses.

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  • Entertain Yourself. The Others Can Wait.

    I think a lot of writers hate themselves, at least a little. We desperately want to have someone look at our writing and tell us that it’s good, that they want to publish it, and that we are worthy of the career we’ve been pursuing. We want readers and respect and most of all, validation.

    But every writer I know, at least the ones who are apprenticing the hell out of their work and constantly trying to get better, also have this fear that they don’t measure up. That they probably never will. And in their quiet time, when no one’s around, they wonder if they should just stop. If they should finally let go of the writing and the dream and everything else that goes with it. Because belief is hard and the signs of failure are everywhere.

    Not being able to believe in ourselves prevents us from believing in our work, and this is why many of us never think our stories or novels or screenplays are ready to see the light of day. For all the self-naysayers among us, I have two words for you: shut up. Your head’s in a dangerous place and you’re being self-destructive.  You aren’t preventing rejection. You’re guaranteeing a lack of success.

    It’s time to stop hating on your stories. Write something you like. Write something you would want to read. Tell a story that amuses or haunts or titillates you. Work on making it the best you know how, and then let it go. Send it out into the world, and move on to the next thing. There should always be a next thing.

    When it comes to my own writing, I try to make myself smile. It’s hard to laugh at your own jokes as you’re writing them, but if I do manage to pull it off, I know there’s a good chance I’ve got something good. Sometimes it’s a story. Other times it’s a chapter. I will even admit that I spent the better part of the day chuckling at a one-liner I slipped into scene.

    I realize there’s a chance that my audience could eventually end up just being me. That thought is almost enough to make me want to walk away from the keyboard altogether, but I try not to. Most days I succeed. But when I make myself laugh, I’m having a good time, and it’s a good day. And when other people laugh along with me, well … that’s just about as sweet as it gets.