My First Story

January 31, 2012 8:46 am | Tags: Beginnings, Fiction, Franz Kafka, Mary Tabor, Ohio State, Phantom Tollbooth | No Comments

Last week, in my first blog post for this site, I wrote that it had been fourteen years since I wrote my first story. I was working on an introduction to myself, this site, my book, and I wrote that post fairly quickly without thinking a tremendous amount about all the details. I made sure my spelling was accurate, commas were in right place, and that was about it.

Since then, however, I’ve been thinking about those fourteen years.

In 1998, I was a junior at Ohio State. During my first two years in college, I kicked around various majors, but nothing really stuck. Everything was mildly interesting but nothing really jumped out. For fall quarter, I signed up for my classes months in advance, and apparent, sometime during the spring quarter, I thought “Intro to Writing Fiction” would be a good idea. (more…)

And So We Begin

January 16, 2012 7:01 pm | Tags: Beginnings, Fiction, Ohio State | 4 Comments

What on earth do I say in my first blog post? I might as well be honest: I have absolutely no idea. I imagine this is a common thought for many people when they sit down and write their first blog post for a new website, and perhaps others are just as honest about not having the first clue to what to say. Or maybe they are more clever than I am and just come up with something pitch perfect, and I’m making a big mistake by admitting otherwise.

Ah, well. So be it. I’m really happy that this site is live. I’m really happy there is a reason for it – my first collection of short stories is forthcoming – and that you’ve stopped by to read this post. Most other things that you might want to know can be found on other pages on this site – who I am, when the book’s coming out, what events and readings are scheduled (and where) – and there isn’t any reason to rehash any of that.

I guess it’s appropriate that my first book will be a collection of short stories. I wrote my first short story for an intro to writing fiction class that I enrolled in during my junior year at Ohio State. This class was taught by the fabulous Mary Tabor, a terrific writer herself, and we had to write one story for that class. We had to read John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, which referenced a ton of books that I have never heard of, let alone read. For Mary’s class, I wrote a story about an adult man, on the verge of being a new parent, visiting his incarcerated father. I don’t have a copy of this story (unless it is buried in a box of papers somewhere in my house, which is incredibly possible) and don’t remember much about it.

That was 1998. Now, fourteen years later (whoa!), a book of my stories is coming out. Wow. I mean, I just thought about this as I typed it. Fourteen years, from beginning to … well, the next beginning, I guess. I must be one stubborn dude to have kept at it this for fourteen years. And I must be a little nuts to think – hell, to know – that I have many more stories to tell for the foreseeable future.

Anyway. Like that story, whose title and characters I hardly remember, I had to start somewhere. Same with this. First blog post on this site. How about that? I have no idea what stories are coming next. And I’m really excited to not yet know.