The Confabulator Cafe

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  • The Semantics of Writer’s Block

    I’m sure even non-writers are familiar with the phrase “writer’s block” and understand it to mean a point where a writer finds it absolutely impossible to finish writing whatever he or she is currently working on.

    I know that a lot of people, many writers included, would argue that writer’s block is just a myth.

    Let me tell you, folks, that regardless of what my fellow Confabulators might say this week – all of their explaining away of the phrase – writer’s block is, in fact, a real thing.

    I do need to qualify that statement, however. Some writers are lazy, or pretend to be too busy, or just can’t be bothered with the actual act of writing. Even some serious writers (myself included) will use writer’s block as an excuse to avoid working on a project that needs attention because we don’t want to work.

    That is not writer’s block. That’s something else. (more…)

  • We’re All Blockheads

    Lucy yelling "You Blockhead!"
    Lucy Van Pelt from “Peanuts.” © Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

    Every writer can tell you a story about having writer’s block at one time or another. It happens. It’s part of human nature. Just like not doing the dishes or forgetting to get the oil changed on the car.

    We’re procrastinators, and we like to put things off. That includes writing.

    Now, some writers might say that they never intend to get writer’s block. I’m sure that’s true. I also never intend to whack my elbow into the countertop when I’m in the kitchen. But I also know the kitchen didn’t rearrange itself to cause my accident. It was my fault. If I had planned better, it wouldn’t have happened.

    The secret of writer’s block is that there’s no such thing as writer’s block.

    (more…)

  • 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?

    (more…)

  • Punch the Boogeyman in the Throat

    “One reason I don’t suffer from writer’s block is that I don’t wait on the muse, I summon it at need.” – Piers Anthony

    I know some people will hate me for saying this, but there is no such thing as writer’s block.

    Writer’s block is built on shaky self-confidence and not much else. It’s like being afraid of the boogeyman. We can all relate, but there is nothing there. Get out of bed and if something grabs you, punch it in the throat. It’s probably your significant other. That will teach them.

    Chances are, you can think of something to write. You just can’t convince yourself that it is going to be worth a crap. Then it snowballs. You become convinced your ideas suck. Then you start thinking that your writing sucks. Next, you are questioning whether you are really meant to be a writer, at all.

    Just…stop.

    (more…)

  • We Live On the Same Block (Week Ending July 7)

    You know how some guys don’t like to talk about a certain “condition” because they’re afraid it will happen to them? Because they’re afraid they’ll have to start taking those little blue pills advertised so prominently on late night television? Well there’s a condition — an equally performance-inhibiting affliction — that affects writers. It’s called writer’s block.

    Here at the Cafe, however, we’re not afraid to talk about it. In fact, when we posed the question to our writers, they all jumped at the chance to put in their two cents on this often overlooked scourge. Some think it’s real. Some think it’s all in your head. But all of our Cafe regulars have some wise words for aspiring writers facing this problem.

    Until next time,

    The Cafe Management

  • What is the scariest novel/story/poem you’ve ever read?

    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.

  • A Ghost Story for Pat (Flash Fiction)

    It was one of the first festivals of the season and a time to renew acquaintances and to greet old friends. Most of us hadn’t seen one another since that dreary cold day last winter. The sweet smell of woodsmoke summoned us to perch on camp chairs and coolers and begin to spin yarns from memories and moonshine.

    “I first met Davy, we were in high school together. He was one crazy sonovabitch then, too.” DJ’s booming voice carried easily over the crackle of burning brands. “We used to drag race cars down by the lake every chance we got. Of course, the cops know all about us; they knew our cars, and they’d take any excuse to pull us over whether we deserved it or not. One night the deputy sheriff sees Davy’s car parked along the side of the road. He was sitting there with his girlfriend at the time, just talking, and when the deputy shone his flashlight at them through the window, Davy says to him, ‘Now just hold on there! I haven’t even got her pants off yet!’ He never did have too much respect for cops.”

    “He only had the one girl in there with him?”

    “He mostly only ever had one at a time. He tried dating two at once a time or two, but he always said that was too much work.”

    (more…)

  • Two Sides to Each Door (Flash Fiction)

    “You gotta understand,” Momma says to the doctor as though Annabelle can’t hear her. “She has always been a special child. Very particular, you know. Apple of her Gramma’s eye.”

    The Doctor peers over the top of her horn-rim glasses, tapping her pen against the pad of paper in her lap. Annabelle feels small when the Doctor looks at her, even though it was just her birthday and everyone was saying Look how big you’re gotten!

    The Doctor nods slowly and says in her strange, slow voice, “Annabelle, can you draw a door for me?”

    Her heart pounding in her chest, Annabelle looks from the Doctor to Momma before shaking her head. You mustn’t draw a door, young lady — Gramma had been clear about that. She could draw whatever else she wanted, so long as it wasn’t a door. Annabelle rubs her sweaty palms on the skirt of her nicest Sunday dress, trying to pretend she doesn’t know that Momma is glaring at her. “No,” she says, her voice so soft that it’s almost too quiet to be heard over the rattle of the air conditioner.

    (more…)

  • The Death Ranger (Flash Fiction)

    Photo from here.

    “Okay, okay.” I accept the plastic two-liter bottle signifying my turn to tell a story. I need to think about it, size up my audience a bit. I close my eyes and go ‘round the fire:

    Beth – who I have always wanted to go to bed with – is to my right. I want to startle her. Give her the chance to reach out to me instead of George, her boyfriend and an acquaintance of mine for nearly twenty years.

    Todd was next, a friend of Holly. Yeah, she’ll be the most frightened if I tell the story right. She said that Todd was just along for the ride because he had the pot.

    Directly opposite is an empty rock where Noah had been, but he was out gathering wood for the fire. We’ve been friends almost as long as I’ve known George.

    Janice, Noah’s wife. A true stick in the mud.

    Carla is next to her and always game for a good story. She’ll heighten the mood at the right time.

    Mike is off to my left. He’s sullen tonight and drinking too much.

    On my left is Willow, my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. This trip had been planned for a while, and I don’t want to break up with her before I’d given our relationship – if you could call it that – one last chance.

    “Are you finally ready, o master storyteller?” Todd is trying to be funny and already high as a kite. His pot is pretty good, and everyone except Janice and Willow have taken a toke.

    “Yeah,” I say, opening my eyes. “This -” I hold out my hands over the fire and draw them apart, “- state park we’re in has a long history and there are lots of things out in the woods that’ll take you to hell in a heartbeat if you’re unwary. But there’s nothing more terrifying than -” I wait for effect, “The Death Ranger.”

    (more…)

  • Netstrider (Flash Fiction)

    “And then, the Netstrider passes in the night and eats the internet.”  Laney paused to let the chills go down their backs, as they poked at screens under the covers.

    “But Mommy, they can still use their phones, right?” Dana asked. “That’s not the internet.”

    “The Netstrider doesn’t care how you are on the internet, my love. He only cares that you are on, and it draws him like honey. In those lands where the Netstrider has recently passed, oh, the chagrin, oh, the horror–for all around, the phones disconnect, the computers grunt and groan and settle down in a poof of dust.”

    The children gasped.  “Then what do we do?  What does anyone do?” asked Will.  His phone beeped three times then, three messages. (more…)