The Grinder

Put it in, turn the handle, good stuff comes out. [ Photo courtesy Manfed Heyde]  Rather, stuff you use to make good stuff.

There we have it. That's out writing analogy. Those hours alone turning the handle makes material which itself might not be that good...but which can be used as an ingredient in something pleasurable.

In the can tonight: The Threepenny Review. Wonderful. The thing is gorgeous. The writing is engaging. The photos are stunning. Even the crisp paper is pleasing.

Subscribe. This issue: A Symposium on Revenge. Wonderful writing. In bed tonight I'm going to read the short story The Bullet of a Gun by Jill Kato and the poem Heretic That I Am by Tomas Morin.

Now Jill Kato is a mystery. I can't find a thing about her. This is a new work and I don't see squat on the author. The magazine simply says she is a native of Southern California  and this is her first published work. Tomas Morin teaches at Texas State and has been around a bit.

Subscribe.

I did the "books on the nightstand" routine tonight prompted by Elizabeth Spann Craig.Wow - what a varied pile that is. On top: Thomas Hardy's Complete Poems.

Poetry helps when you are grinding. It helps more than that television ever will. Throw that piece of shit to the curb right now. You're a writer. You don't need it. Those are other people's stories dramatized. You've been alive and watching for more than twenty-five years. Get rid of other people's stories and write your own.

Write. Grind. Make something that becomes something good. Oh - and subscribe to the magazine. I subscribed for $25.