Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A Free Story At New Voices In Fiction, Plus Some Pissing And Moaning

I sketched this at the botanical gardens up at UC Berkeley. Man, it's gorgeous up there. I want to go and sketch there again, once I'm all caught up... which will never happen.


Well, I recently had my second troll show up -- go here and scroll down to the bottom for a nice dose of dumbass -- and I decided to Google his name. Which is my name but since Googling yourself is fucking obscene I'm not going to cop to it in public. This time.

Anyway, in the process I found that New Voices In Fiction had posted my most recently published story on their site. It's in the same sequence/series as the story I posted about a couple of days ago. This one is about those most inseparable of twins, booze and brain surgery. It's just good plain fun, chock full of the optimistic view of human nature you've come to expect from me.

Here it is!


On a more distressing note, my back is giving me hell. I've pushed it this last week -- had school four days in a row, did a skeletal drawing, and carried some groceries home. Pathetic, huh? It's not the pain that bothers me so much as the sensation of weakness -- physically, that is. I can feel the vulnerability of my back right now. It's like there's a hinge there and if I stand wrong the top half of my body will just flop over.

Of course it's the pain that keeps me from sleeping. And I don't have any fucking pills and I missed my appointment last week and I'm gonna have to pay for it and shit. Just a bit of a bummer, you know? Ah well and oh my.

But the real issue here is that I'm having to let go of a project I've been wanting to do for more than a year now. Here in the East Bay Area there's an annual tradition of having open studios. A local arts organization, ProArts, organizes the whole thing and it's a real circus.

Now that I've decided to try and do something with my art I wanted to participate. But it would involve spending two weekends in a row of pulling eight-hour days on my feet. I should have known better than to start into something like that but I gave myself the old, "You fucking lazy-ass hypochondriacal goldbricking bastard, go out and try and make some fucking money," speech.

That one always gets me in trouble. The people at school who are doing this need everyone they can find to participate so I feel really bad about having to withdraw from this.

Stupid back.

2 comments:

robp said...

Hey, any idea when Ligature Marks comes out? The website says "coming in 2009."

Read the NVIF piece; that's a tough site to read, I had to turn off the page style or I never would've made it through. If you have any ins with them, I'd advise telling em to make the pages readable.

Enjoyed it, of course, but it doesn't feel fully realized. There's a guy in a bar telling a very strange story so matter-of-factly that even when the thinking cap is revealed it doesn't seem dramatic. The whole thing for me felt like a concept, like you were saying "hey I've got this really cool idea for a story." And despite its publication, that's what I think it remains.

You see, Sean, I'm a fan of your writing, and I know you can go farther with this if you want to. Or perhaps not - what if you aren't the real Sean Craven?

Sean Craven said...

No idea what's going on with Ligature Marks -- but the economy seems to have hit the publisher pretty hard. Still, a Joe R. Lansdale story should be a money ticket no matter what.

My asshole side giggled when you mentioned how hard it is to read the NVF site. I know I'm a jerk for saying it but colored type on a black background...

Oh, forget about it. I said nothing.

And as for your critique, well, you're right. As my newest post says in excruciating detail.

And yeah, I'm the real Sean Craven. And I will destroy all false Seans.