Hey! Welcome to the Blog of Eternal Damnation! Here's where you will see all the latest crap about the Web's hottest Speculative Fiction ezine, Bambi's Eschatological Underpinnings. And every now and again, just for sport, we just might include a little bit about Fiction Inferno: the Literary Magazine that Burns You Up.

Friday, January 31, 2003

 

I want my truck.

It's been in the shop for three weeks. I want my truck. It will cost a fortune to get it back. I want my truck. It's getting old and tired and I can't trust that it won't die somewhere inconvenient at any given moment. I want my truck.

New issue coming out in a couple of days. In it will be stories that amaze you, worry you, move you, and make you want to touch yourself in forbidden places. Fiction Inferno Winter 2003 Issue, coming February 2 to an Internet near you.

posted by Max E. Keele 6:38 AM

Saturday, January 25, 2003

 

NEFERTITI, ISIS AND ME

In the land of the pyramid graveyards,
where wretched love confronts the shrieking sands,
a dog-faced god waits endlessly
for Isis bearing veils and lotions.

A caravan of resurrected birds,
she rides a phoenix through his godly mind;
he wonders if he'll ever be
the master of turbulent oceans.

Dog-face ejaculates hot viscous words
that drip like blood from his sere, textured hands,
and disappear so silently
that they mummify his emotions.

A blue-black scarab in his brain has stirred
a thought that once he caught and stored behind
a shield of leather poetry
that's iron bound in contradictions.

The rotting truth that time itself obscured
remains a figment in his punished mind--
an image of the mystic three,
a rampant mammoth stone illusion.

And though grimly hoist on his own foul sword,
he hoards his tarnished coins for her to spend
then throws them in the deep red sea
to sink away in dark pollution.

If god-dog could but scream or moan the word
that sticks and burns like tar to foes and friends,
then maybe she would finally see
the pain suspended in solution.

Hung ‘round and ‘round with desiccated sherds
that tinkle lightly in the burning wind,
the prehistoric pottery
that holds the sweet and stinking potion

is cracked and beat and sore yet still is hard
and tightly closed yet waiting to be opened.
And when the thing within is free--
and when the thing within is free,
and when the awful thing is free,
the end will justify creation.

© Max E. Keele

posted by Max E. Keele 9:29 AM

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

 

I used to print out submissions to the magazine, then read them, then reject most of them. Which left me with a very large stack of paper, which I was reluctant to just throw in the recycle bin. Imagine if some story that had been submitted to Fiction Inferno suddenly turned up as the short story assignment in 250 high school english classes? That would be bad, I think. So I bought a shredder. And for the past two weeks, I been shredding. Six garbage bags full of shredded fiction later, I am done. Nowadays, I only print out the stories in the deserves-a-second-read category. A much more tree-friendly approach. Anyway, I now know exactly how many stories I read last year. Many of them twice or more.

683

posted by Max E. Keele 6:44 AM

Sunday, January 12, 2003

 

I can't fully claim the concept (it stemmed from an off-hand comment during a business dinner, actually), but this statement actually defines and explains the concept behind the attitudes and belief systems that the entire human species uses collectively to destroy, abuse, debase, murder, and subjugate one another:

"My invisible friend can beat up your invisible friend."

posted by Max E. Keele 10:22 AM

Saturday, January 11, 2003

 

Writer's Tip #2359245

Characters

Your characters do things because you make them do things.

Not because they should, or because they would, or even because they could, but only because you made them do it. This is an awesome responsibilty. For instance, you've just written a clever, well-developed protagonist named Larry. Larry is sitting in a coffee shop waiting for his ex-wife to show up with stolen plans for an antimatter bomb. She's really late, and you'd like to demonstrate that your protag is getting a bit steamed. Do you make him a) cuss under his breath; b) tap his butterknife against his cup in the rhythm of Iron Butterfly's Inagaddadavida drum solo; c) clench and unclench his jaw so hard a molar shatters; or d) pin the waiter's hand to the table with the butter knife and open fire with an uzi and scream "My invisible friend can beat up your invisible friend!"

If you know your character, you can perhaps make a reasoned assumption about what Larry might do in such a scene, but the truth is, you can make him do anything you want. Should Larry transform into a giant smurf and fart the theme song from "The Brady Bunch?" I can make him do that.

The real skill here is not in making up things for made-up people to do, but it's in making up things for made-up people to do that accomplish one or more of three things:

1. Advance the story or our understanding of the character in a useful way.
2. Set up a scene so that #1 can occur.
3. Keep your invisible friends (your readers, if you will) engaged, and interested, and, well, reading.

To this end, it may be important that Larry's actions seem to come from a core of motivation consistent with his character, and/or seem to be believable (verisimilitude), and/or offer some unique and fabulous insight into the general human condition, then again, maybe not. I think that for the poor, unfortunate Larry, Smurfhood is inevitable.

Class dismissed.

posted by Max E. Keele 11:26 AM

Saturday, January 04, 2003

 

New Years Resolutions

1. Write something.


2. Publish something.


3. Read something.


4. Earn something.


5. Avoid something.


6. Win something.


7. Trust something.


8. Fight something.


9. Learn something.


10. Love something.

posted by Max E. Keele 8:33 AM

Wednesday, January 01, 2003

 

Happy New Year!

Please support FI and our authors in the

2002 Preditors and Editors Readers' Poll.

Click here to cast your vote January 1 through January 21, 2003. Remember! A Vote for Fiction Inferno is a vote for truth, justice, peace, and plenty!

posted by Max E. Keele 9:14 AM

Experimental Exposure Level Detector. If this counter reads 99,999 or higher, you have been exposed to a level of mutagenic particle emission that should cause priapism in men and low-level continuous orgasm in women. Please let me know if this is a problem for anyone.