Category: Ephemera

We chose the name “Confabulator Cafe” for our group because in one definition, confabulation is described as the spontaneous narrative of events that never happened. As writers, we are notorious for making things up, so lying is something that comes to us somewhat naturally. Many of us have told some whoppers in our day, and below you will find the most blatent lies the Confabulators have told. If you can believe them.

Christie Holland

I’m a writer. I make up things for a living. I don’t understand this question. What? That isn’t a good enough answer? FIne. I will quote Doctor Who then. “I think you’ll find that I’m universally recognized as a mature and responsible adult.” Yeah. That’s it. No one in their right mind would consider me to be an adult.

Jason Arnett

This is an interesting question. If I ever admit to the most blatant lie I’ve ever told then I will admit to being a liar. It suits me to sidestep this question and deny ever having lied in any way about anything. That, in fact, may be the biggest lie I’ve ever told. Or it may not. You’ll have to decide for yourself. I will say that lying is an essential part of being human. Every story I’ve written is a lie, in fact. None of them ever happened. Or if they did, they didn’t happen in the way I described them or the places I indicated. Or at the time I wrote it. So now you can decide for yourself if I’m a liar, or lying about not being one. Which do you think?

Amanda Jaquays

I don’t lie. No. Seriously. I don’t. Okay, not usually at any rate. Okay, okay, you’ve caught me. Amusingly, that isn’t even the most blatant lie I’ve told (because, come on, we all knew I was lying, right?) No, I usually lie about my productivity. As in, “I’ll get right on that!” or “I won’t procrastinate this time!” It probably says something about me that my worst lies are almost always directed at myself… either that or I just hate letting people down.

Sara Lundberg

Sometimes things will come out of my mouth and after I say them I think, “Jesus, that’s not even remotely true, why did I just say that? Where did that even come from?” It’s not quite a compulsion, and it’s never about anything that matters, but sometimes I am amazed by what I say to people. That being said, I think the most blatant lie that I’ve ever told, and tell repeatedly, is “yeah, I totally have this under control. I know exactly what I’m doing.” If I ever say that to you, laugh at me, because it is a boldface lie.

Paul Swearingen

The most blatant lie was also pretty much the last one I ever told. I was about 8. My folks had gone into town for a Farmers’ Union meeting, leaving my brother (age 5) and me in charge of the place, so we proceeded to bounce on the bed. “Craaack!” One of the side rails split, leaving the mattress and box springs tilted to one side. I tried to fib up some story about dropping a hairbrush on the bed and falling when I tried to pick it up, but of course that didn’t fly, so I got my fanny dusted. From that point, I decided that if telling lies resulted in painful endings for me, I might as well tell the truth, even if they result in painful endings, too.

Ashley M. Poland

I had a lying phase. I lied a lot. I am a lying liar who lies. But probably the most memorabe was the time my brother and I broke our parent’s brand new kitchen table. We were… 11 and 12, I think. They bought it as a wedding gift; it wasn’t more than two weeks old. Jeff & I discovered that if we sat on opposite ends, it balanced right out. The story varies — of course it does — but as I recall it, in a moment of horrible communication, I hopped off just as he jumped on. One foot snapped clean off. We got caught trying to use wood glue to fix it, at which point we tried to blame it on the cat and the dog. We were totally caught. I like to think I’m a slightly better liar storyteller now.

Jack Campbell, Jr.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I don’t lie in ways that hurt people, but I have never let the truth get in the way of a good story, or even a bad one for that matter. As long as you are entertained, does it really matter if I actually did what I said I did? Besides, there are many types of lying. Most people even lie to themselves. They lie when they really think they are telling the truth. At least I know when I am making stuff up.

Kevin Wohler

When I was dining at a secluded restaurant in Savannah, there was a guy at the next table who looked remarkably like Ted Turner. So I nudged my friend and said, “Don’t look now, but I think that’s Ted Turner.” She didn’t believe me for one second. This backfired on me, though. The following day, I saw Michael Jordan at our hotel. (Seriously, it looked just like him. And he said hi to me in that way celebrities do when they know they’ve been recognized.) But because of the Ted Turner lie, she never believed me.

Writers tend to read a lot, and we can’t help but internalize that. As we write and develop our voices, a lot of times we borrow the voices of our favorite authors. Even when our own voice is fully formed, it can sometimes still hold the echo of the writing styles of the authors who have influenced us. Check out who the Confabulators think they sound like – and if it’s an author you like, then you know which Confabulator’s writing career to follow (although we do hope you’ll follow all of us)!

Christie Holland

There’s a website where you can enter excerpts of your work and it’ll compare it to published authors.  I was once told one of my excerpts sounded like Stephanie Meyer so I immediately screamed, deleted the entire thing, and rewrote it.  I haven’t gotten the same response since!  The site also likes to give me a different response every time I try it, (and I am so sorry I don’t remember what site it is) so I have no idea who my style is most like.  Hopefully it’s somewhere between John Green and Maggie Stiefvater, since they’re my favorite authors.

Jason Arnett

Huh. I haven’t really thought about this. With this current work, I’m probably a lot like Lev (The Magicians) Grossman. At least, as far as the construction of the story and some of the pacing go. He’s up among my top five writers, but he’s not the pinnacle of my favorites. That honor goes to Heinlien, who I emulated a lot early on when I started writing. That’s the sincerest form of flattery, isn’t it?

Sara Lundberg

I’ve worked hard over the years to develop my own style and voice in my writing, but just recently I re-read a book that used to be one my favorites from one of my all-time favorite authors, and I noticed how much my writing style is like his without even realizing it or trying. The author I speak of is Clive Barker. I have also been told that my writing is very Terry Brooks-ish, as well, which isn’t too surprising, as he has been another one of my favorites over the years.

Jack Campbell, Jr.

Style-wise, John Gardner (Grendel, not James Bond). Our content is different, but re-reading Grendel a short while ago, I realized that a lot of the techniques I use are similar to Gardner’s. We both use alliteration and variations on sentence patterns for effect. I have a love-hate relationship with Gardner. I have nearly all of his books, both fiction and writing instruction. I love his work. I admire his ability and vast knowledge of literary theory, but he can come off as a literary elitist, sometimes, and I wouldn’t necessarily call him my favorite writer.

Paul Swearingen

I’m not sure that I could say that my style is close to hers, but I do know that my choice of settings and their use in my novels is similar to those of Cynthia Voigt’s. She used the verdant Maryland Potomac shore area extensively in her Tillerman saga novels, almost as a character, and I tend to do the same in my works nominally set in SE Kansas. I’m amazed at how often authors forget that people do not live in a vacuum and neglect to include at least bits and pieces of setting, including weather, in their stories. Western writers almost always make sure that the reader can feel the dry air, the heat, sleet needling bare skin, whatever, in their novels. Urban writers are stuck with tall buildings, sticky asphalt, and trash. Who wants to read about that stuff?

Ashely M. Poland

Honestly, I have the bad habit of absorbing concepts/style like a sponge — so I’m wary of reading & writing at the same time. I was writing a fantasy story last month, with a slight false utopia flavor; I realized my recent read of The Hunger Games had influenced my characters and setting. Thankfully, it was a light influence, not, “Holy crap, you’re writing fan fiction again.” I know my sci-fi is heavily influence by Bujold (which I think I’ve mentioned before) and yes~ I love her writing and world-building. I’d like to be half as creative one day.

Full disclosure: I’d say almost all writers dream of the day that one of their novels gets optioned as a movie. Sometimes writers even imagine certain actors or actresses in certain roles as they write their story. It’s fun to think about words on a page coming to life, especially if you’re the one who wrote those words. So, for all of you Hollywood producers out there, take note: these are the actors we here at the Cafe would love to see on the big screen acting out our great works.

Jason Arnett

Oh, boy, that’s a tough one. Lessee – I don’t really know. I’m not trying to cop out here, just thinking as I’m typing. I see Karen Gillan, probably because she’s made the biggest impression on me lately, but Lynn Collins would be fantastic, too, as the lead in a movie of my current work. For supporting actors Joseph Fiennes (maybe), Diane Lane would be great… There are some juicy roles for women in this book, I think. It’s tough because I don’t cast my characters that way. I think it gets in the way of my writing. However, if there was any interest in making my book into a movie, I’d probably mention those names.

Kevin Wohler

In the short story I’m currently writing, I’ve been pretty void of description of the main character. He’s dead and alone in the afterlife. So there’s not much to see of him, from his point of view. For me, it’s about the voice in the narration, since this is his story. If it were made into a movie — or an episode of some  anthology television series — I’d cast Matt Bomer from the TV show White Collar.

Christie Holland

Ideally, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Arthur Darvill, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, or Tom Hiddleston would be cast for a role in any of my stories, but I have no idea which actor would be good for which role.  I’m still focused on getting something published first.  Making a movie out of one of them is too much to think about.  It’s also really obvious what kind of television programs/movies I watch, isn’t it?

Jack Campbell, Jr.

I think of this every time I write a screenplay, but don’t ever think of it when I am writing fiction. It makes it difficult because I when I write a screenplay, I think of a specific actor, but when I write fiction, I think of a specific character. Fiction character become their own people. It’s hard to imagine replacing them with a real person. If I had to find someone to play my main character from Heaven’s Edge, which is my latest full-length project, I might pick Tom Sizemore.

Ashley M. Poland

If ever I try to tell you that I don’t literally dream of what it would be like to have someone like my novels enough to think they’d made a good movie — I am effin’ lying to you, flat out. I tend to make more name associations than anything else: I had a character named Elijah, and I forever imagine Elijah Wood because teen crushes never die. (Bonus points: my beta actually did this once, and I have never been so tickled pink.)

Writers know it’s not the size of the story that matters, but how effectively we tell it. Usually a story is however many words/pages/paragraphs/sentences that it needs to be. Sometimes, however, we do aim for a particular word goal. As you have seen on this website, once a month we aim to write a story in 1,000 words. In November, we all try to write at least 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month.

It’s true, we know that size doesn’t matter, but sometimes we like to brag about the longest thing we’ve ever written.

Ashley M. Poland

I’m not a very prolific writer, so the longest thing I’ve written is just (kind of short) novel length: a little more than 65,000 words. I still can’t decide if this is just something about me as a writer, or indicative of the sort of plots I tackle.

Sara Lundberg

With several 50,000ish word stories under my belt, last year I decided I was going to attempt my first full-length book; a 50k word novel is really more of a novella. It took me three months of writing pretty much every day, but in the end, the draft ended up being 107,000 words. It may be longer or shorter once it’s edited, but it is the longest thing I’ve ever written.

Kevin Wohler

I’ve written one complete novel that was around 80,000 words. This was about 15 years ago, and it wasn’t very good. Since then, I have tried to write a couple of novels, but petered out before finishing. My most recent attempt from November’s National Novel Writing Month was over 50,000 words, but remains unfinished … for now.

Paul Swearingen

The longest piece I’ve written so far is a post-apocalyptic YA novel of about 76,300 words, entitled You Can Believe It. I tried to keep it shorter. I really did – I killed off at least two characters prematurely and was forced to resuscitate them by members of several writing groups. They insisted that I was imposing cruel and unusual punishment on those poor characters – kids, actually – and to bring them back to life immediately. And so I did. And so the novel stretched on about 20K words longer than I’d planned. And so it’s my first experimental Amazon KDP Select novel, which I may pull the plug on after the minimum three months in the program, unless it suddenly catches on and does well

Jack Campbell, Jr.

Kill Creek Road is right around 75,000 words. That is by far the longest thing I’ve written. I bought in to the traditional model of writing education. I wrote a lot of short stories in the name of learning the craft before I attempted a full-length book. I am writing a second novel titled Heaven’s Edge. It’s a hard-boiled science fiction concept that I am trying to map out for three books, Heaven’s Edge, A Halo’s Slip, and To Hell and Back. If it goes the way I am expecting, all three books will be on the short side for novels. I’ve written a few full-length screenplays, including a sequel to Kill Creed Road, but I couldn’t tell you what the word count’s are. They are all around a hundred pages. Overall, I  still consider myself a writer of short fiction, but I find myself thinking more about longer works.

Christie Holland

The longest thing I’ve written was my last completed novel.  I started it during National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, but by the time I finished it, it was over 90k.

This week at the Cafe, we all wrote stories in an attempt to make you hesitate before turning off the light before bed, question that shadow on the wall, and think twice about that strange bump in the night. If our tales didn’t manage to scare you, or if you enjoyed being scared and want more, try these stories that managed to scare the Confabulators.

Paul Swearingen

I don’t recall reading anything that really scared me, but Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Camilla”, published in 1872, is about the creepiest story I ever read. It’s a Gothic vampire tale that predates “Dracula” by 25 years.

Ted Boone

Scariest story was “The Telltale Heart,” by Edgar Allen Poe. I actually listened to the story on a record player as a third grader at school. That night while I was trying to get to sleep, I could hear my pulse beating against my pillow. I twisted and turned, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t NOT hear my own heartbeat. And every time it beat, I grew more and more convinced something was buried under by bedroom floorboards. I don’t think I slept well for a month after first hearing that story. I still get freaked out sometimes when my heartbeat echoes in my ears late at night. Yikes.

Jason Arnett

Whitley Strieber’s Communion terrified me when I read it because I wanted to believe. I mean really BELIEVE. The fact that these beings could come and go at will not just in his house but throughout his life, as well. I reserve judgment on whether or not Strieber’s accounts are true (he still affirms they are). In all honesty, I’d like to believe that he’s telling the truth even though it is terrifying in the extreme if he is. It would explain so much.

Kevin Wohler

I have read a lot of horror over the years, but nothing scared me like the end of Stephen King’s novella “The Mist.” I was up late reading it one night, trying to finish before I went to bed. Now, in fairness, the story is darn creepy. But it wasn’t the story that scared me. With only a few pages left to go, I was startled when the lamp beside me blew its lightbulb and left me in total darkness. I freaked out. I may have screamed. I’m not sure. No story before or since had me wound that tight while I was reading it.

Sara Lundberg

Believe it or not, no author has managed to scare me with his creatures as much as Terry Brooks. There is a demon assassin in one of his Magic Kingdom of Landover novels that kept me from being able to sleep without a nightlight for days. For a fantasy writer, his novels are pretty horrifying.

Christie Holland

The scariest book I’ve ever read was World War Z by Max Brooks.  I had to stop reading it after dinner so that I wouldn’t have nightmares.  The zombie apocalypse isn’t something to joke about, people.

Jack Campbell, Jr.

I mostly read and write dark fiction, so this is tough for me. There are a lot of different types of fear, and despite being a relatively small genre, horror has a lot of subcategories because of it. Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a classic piece of psychological horror. Clive Barker’s The Hellbound Heart was gruesome and spectacular. Stephen King’s The Shining might be King’s scariest novel. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is beautiful and gritty. Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby deserves a mention, as does  H.P. Lovecraft, but I don’t think I could narrow it down to a single Lovecraftian story. Robert Lewis Stevenson, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, M.R. James, Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, Joyce Carol Oates, Chuck Palahniuk, Jack Ketchum,  Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, Whitley Strieber, Bentley Little, John Saul… Don’t make me choose.

Ashley M. Poland

My answer is supremely uncool, but I don’t actually like to be scared when I read. I had a Stephen King phase in middle school, a horror film craze for a couple years after that, and then concluded I was done being scared by my fiction. (Or more accurately, reading fiction where the only goal was to scare me.) “Cujo” made me cry, though, and always sticks with me as really terrifying. It’s because it wasn’t something big and supernatural: it was a sick dog. Man, sick dogs can happen to anyone.

For some of us, the Confabulator Cafe is our only internet home, and this is the only place to find our words of wisdom. The rest of us have dabbled in varying degrees with our own blogs, from personal to critique, informational to opinion. If you’re ever curious to see what we do outside of the Cafe, take a gander and visit any of the blogs mentioned below.

Jason Arnett

I’m on the Web at www.jasonarnett.com and have been since 2007. What you’ll find there are pages about the stories I’ve written, a short bio, and a page where I take on the somewhat daunting task of writing commissions for anyone who’s interested. I write about whatever interests me but I tend to focus on what I’m writing at the time, where the idea came from, what I’m doing to research it, and where it will eventually appear. I also talk about music, film and books. You know – all the things that go into one’s writing.

Muriel Green

No, I don’t blog. Unless one counts the Confabulator Cafe as blogging. I do, however, make videos which one can watch by going to documinutes.wordpress.com.

Jack Campbell, Jr.

You can find my home website, This Average Life at www.jackcampbelljr.com. I have samples of flash fiction that I have written, and I write about whatever else comes to mind. It began as my thoughts on various aspects of writing. It later evolved to be more about my thoughts on my life, as well as current events. I find that the things that affect you affect your writing, so my blog is mostly about how current events in both society and my life shape the art of writing.

Kevin Wohler

Yes, I actually have a couple of different blogs that I have managed over the years. I used to run a film blog, but that’s been on the back burner for a year or so. I also have a professional blog that I use for my copywriting career. But my main blog is The Creativity Well (www.kansasbard.com). I use it to talk about creativity, writing, and anything that grabs my attention. Though I don’t update it every week, I try to post something new every month.

Sara Lundberg

I’m a bit of a blog addict, which actually makes me a horrible blogger. I have half a dozen blogs, and I’m bad about updating most of them. The two that get the most attention these days (other than the Cafe, of course) are my personal writing blog Prospective Writer (selundberg.blogspot.com), and Red Wine Reminiscence (redwinereminiscence.blogspot.com), which is a blog I use to track and rate all of the different red wines I’ve tried.

If there’s one thing writers love more than telling stories, it’s hearing new ones. While writers do love to read, most of us are also serious movie buffs, as well. A lot of times our writing meetings deteriorate into swapping movie and book suggestions. This week, we asked the Confabulators to share their favorite movie. We hope you’ll discover something new from our recommendations, and that you’ll share with us your favorite movies in the comments section!

 Jack Campbell, Jr.

This is hard for me because I love movies almost as much as books. I think my favorite might be The Shawshank Redemption. I can’t think of a single thing I would change about that movie. Beautiful, gritty, and narrated by Morgan Freeman. How can you beat that?

Muriel Green

The Usual Suspects

Sara Lundberg

I hate this question because it’s hard. I have a hard time claiming anything as a favorite, because it depends on my mood or what’s going on in my life. My Top Five don’t tend to change much, though, so you get five for the price of one: Empire Records, Boondock Saints, I Heart Huckabees, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Labyrinth.

Jason Arnett

Oh, boy. Today my favorite movie is The Dark Knight because I just watched a supercut of the Joker. (Google it – it’s just the scenes of Heath Ledger speaking on camera and runs about ten minutes.) Tomorrow it may be Inception and the day after it may be something else like The Two Towers. I leave it to the reader to determine what these films may have in common.

Kevin Wohler

My favorite movie is M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable. Not only is it an excellent superhero origin story, it is visually beautiful in its camera shots and use of color. Unbreakable also has a personal connection for me. Samuel L. Jackson’s character Elijah Price has a genetic disorder called osteogenesis imperfecta, a fragile bone disorder. That’s why kids in the neighborhood call him “Mr. Glass.” This is the same disorder I have, although my case is more severe than his. Let’s just say Shyamalan didn’t do great research.

Larry Jenkins

I’m definitely a sucker for movies about writers. I personally own Finding Forrester, Wonder Boys, and Dead Poets Society, and I watch those films over and over again.  Sometime I just like to have them on in the background so I can listen to the characters talk while I work on the house or fold laundry. That being said, I also have a soft spot for the cleverly written film. The one that makes me go, “Oh . . . well done. Didn’t see that one coming.” For my money, one of the very best of those is The Usual Suspects. Again, I own this film, but if it’s on TV, I’m definitely giving it a few minutes of my time. It’s also found its way onto my iTunes, so if I’m on a trip and find myself without something good to read, I’m queuing up Verbal Kint and the boys. I always love learning the truth about Keyser Soze.

The dream job for many of us would be to write for our favorite television shows. Or maybe not our favorite. Maybe for a television show we feel could benefit from our superior writing skills. Or maybe a show we don’t necessarily love, but has an amazing writing staff. We all have our reasons, but most of us, at one time or another, have wished to be able to write for television. Here’s what shows we wish we could write for.

Muriel Green

I would love to revive Forever Knight. Forever Knight was a Canadian TV show from the ’90s about a vampire detective who solves crimes in Toronto as a way to atone for his centuries as a killer.

Jack Campbell, Jr.

I would have loved to write a teleplay for The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, or The Outer Limits. I loved the old anthology shows. The Twilight Zone episodes came from the minds of some of the greatest writers of the era. As far as current shows, I would like to write for Southland. I love gritty realism.

Kevin Wohler

Most of the television shows I love have gone to that big blue channel in the sky. That said, there are a few that I would love to bring back. I’d love to revive The Greatest American Hero, the iconic ’80s series about an English teacher who is given a superhero suit by aliens, only to lose the instruction booklet. Though the original premise is a bit cheesy by today’s standards, I think it could be made into a great action series. First, I’d elevate the humor above the slapstick of the original series. Then I’d add a real element of danger. Maybe the suit is to prepare Earth against an invasion. Maybe the instruction book wasn’t lost, but stolen by a covert government agency. Maybe there’s a second suit out there, used by someone who isn’t so nice — and he has his instruction book. I think this series has great potential and could be a hit with today’s superhero-obsessed audiences. With my love of comic books and the superhero genre, I could do it justice.

Sara Lundberg

Definitely Doctor Who. That show’s storylines are epic, the characters are brilliant, and it has such an amazing cast of writers. I’d give a spare organ to be able to work with Steven Moffat. I even wrote a Doctor Who fan fiction story once, so I’ve had practice! Although I’d also probably give up limbs and organs to work on any show Joss Whedon comes up with next. I bet I could have written a pretty kick-ass Buffy episode.

R.L. Naquin

Just one show? Warehouse 13. I could totally come up with some crazy stuff for them to chase after. The mixture of everyday and weird? That’s my writing style. Sign me up!

Jason Arnett

Ever wonder what a writer’s workspace looks like? That place where all of that creation happens? Where we concoct plots and meddle with character’s lives, the space where we spend hours of our time as our stories unfold? This week we asked the Confabulators to reveal their writing space to our readers. Below you will discover where the magic takes place. If you are brave enough to learn.

Muriel Green

I always carry a notebook around with me because I write first drafts longhand. So my writing space is wherever I am.

 Jack Campbell, Jr.

This is “The Dungeon.” No windows, no television, no radio. Cold concrete floors, a few hundred books, a small desk, and my NEO or laptop. The whiteboard tracks whatever I currently have submitted. Otherwise, I write a lot of places. I am pretty portable.

Kevin Wohler

My writing space is wherever I make it. Sometimes it’s at my desk at work, while I eat my lunch. Or it may be in my home office, when my desk is clean enough to actually use. But most of the time, my writing space is a corner of the couch with my laptop on my lap.

R.L. Naquin

I have an office upstairs. I never really used it, and now my daughter is living in it. In preparation of having both kids back home, I’ve carved out a small space for myself in the bedroom — just a table and a kitchen chair, but they face a window. Really that’s all I need, as long as my laptop goes with me. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve been working from the couch for months now. A more formal space will probably do me good.

Jason Arnett

Pretty much wherever I land is my writing space. I’m retooling my home office so I can use it more effectively, but as long as I have a computer and some flat area like a table or my lap, my writing space is wherever I am. That said, the space that really matters is in my head and that requires being able to tap into writer energy we all need to tell stories.