from Sean Lovelace

Last night I ate dinner with Harvey Pekar, the famous curmudgeon, underground comic author, the movie star.

I was a little nervous. I don’t know celebrities. My stomach did the runover snake, the chips of flint sparking or maybe Pringles (the crumblets). On the way over I drove my Subaru and drank a tall, cold can of Budweiser. It was about an hour after sundown. The moon was a Canadian quarter. I thought, “This Budweiser will make me talk OK with Harvey Pekar.”

[Flash tip: When expressing internal emotions, use figurative prose. Sarah isn’t bored. Her eyes glaze over like a dead fish. ]

Harvey Pekar had an odd voice, scratchy and high at the same time, like maybe a metal file rubbed across a unicycle. At first, I couldn’t understand his words. Then I listened closer, I locked into the cadence, the tick and flow. I could now understand. He said, “Killing an animal ain’t ethical.” I said, “Well, it’s all a spectrum.” We talked about whitetail deer and insects and then about whether or not we wear leather shoes and then Harvey Pekar said, “It’s what you said, a spectrum.” Then we ate big-ass greasy onion rings.

[Flash tip: Readers will learn, quickly. So a new voice or style of way or writing flash is perfectly fine. I might represent insomnia as fragments and shards. I might inhabit Elvis as a vignette of cocaine. No worries. The reader will eventually come along. ]

Harvey started talking about jazz and I didn’t understand a fucking word. I drank a jager, a jager, a Stella, a Stella, an IPA. My legs floated around the room and said hi to the ceiling fan and admired the ceiling fan’s whir, the sweet white crystal noise, host of fireflies, there goes the bubbles rising in the glass, glass elevators, and my legs hovering down, settling down, feet into shoes, thighs into pelvis, Jacuzzi soft jeans feel lovely, and I am back again and say to Harvey, “Look man, I don’t know about Jazz. If you are going to talk about jazz all night you’re going have to define terms, OK?”

Harvey defined terms (I clearly remember micro-tonal), then changed the subject. He told me about two pitchers for the Boston Braves, Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn. Harvey said, “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." I thought this was pretty clever and had a nice ring to it. Then Harvey talked about the Russians and I know a shit-load about the Russians so now we were really talking. A little neighborhood of conversation. A summer breeze and jangle. I said, “I’ve never heard of that guy, Harvey, and I know all the Russians!” We laughed. Harvey drank another cherry Coke and I had a beer big as Kelly Clarkson. We laughed some more.

[Flash tip: Chekhov could teach you anything you need to know. Read every single story. Then read his letters to his brother. Then read the biographies (there are 314 at this time). OK, now write. Write about your job. If you don’t have a job, get a fucking job. Work there. Ok, now write.

Here is my nursing job

Here is my dog washing job

Here is the time a young lady cut out my heart with a ice-cream spoon and served up my soul on a saltine right before leaving me forever and stealing my dachshund.

but I digress…]

Then Harvey said, “My wife can’t stand me to be around the house” and I laughed too loud and I shouted “My wife can’t stand me either man!” and all the people at the table stared at me and so I felt all tree fall/square and got up and walked right out the door to my Subaru and drove directly home. I almost hit my own dog on my own street. That dog isn’t supposed to be running free. But it happens, man. There he goes—blur of white/spark of black—a dark ghost skittering off after the razor’s glow of streetlight…

[Flash tip: end on an image]

[Flash tip: or try the truth]

I am going to drop some 100% truth on you right now. As I was writing this, 9/22/09, after a lunch of diet Coke and pretzels, Harvey Pekar just dropped by my office here at Ball State University. I felt odd having Harvey Pekar standing in my office. He handed me a handwritten note. The writing is terrifically cacographic. I mean brutal. Loopy, crazy blue squiggles and lizard coughs. Jesus. It’s a long note, so I will just end on:

The beginning line of Harvey Pekar’s note: Sean, If you intend to pursue…

A middle line of Harvey Pekar’s note: More daring are Kotekletaev and his…

The Ending Line: Good to meet you Harvey.

Sean Lovelace blogs at Sean Blog: It All Relates 2 Writing

from Tara Laskowski

My random thoughts about flash fiction:

Writing flash is no easier or harder than writing a regular short story. You can just write more of them, so your chances of getting a good one among the pile are higher.

Don’t try to be too profound. I suppose this is a personal preference, but my favorite stories are the quiet ones. I would prefer to read a 200-word story about a couple who, while washing dishes, realize their differences might doom them, rather than a 200-word story that tries to incorporate a car chase, zombies and a moralistic ending about human nature. (Actually, if someone could do that, it would probably be pretty cool.) Not to say you should be boring or mundane, though. However, bringing out the extraordinary in what otherwise might be boring or mundane is what really gets me.

You’ve got the opportunity to drop into people’s lives at just the right moment. No set-up, no history, no getting-to-know-you first dates—jump right to it. You can sneak up on your characters at that very moment the change is happening, the verdict is in, the sex is bad, the relationship is doomed, the gun is fired, the vampire is bitten, etc. And then leap out again, leaving the reader with just enough information to get all that’s come before and all that’s to come in the future and why all of it matters deeply.

Flash takes up less space in print journals, so editors are happier to see your work than the 29-page short story you slaved over for months that would take up 1/3 of their real estate.

There are tons of amazing web-based journals out there that publish flash, and they have quicker turn-around times. So you get rejected (or sometimes accepted) quicker!

There are tons of amazing web-based journals out there that publish flash. So if you do get published, you can send the link of your story to aunts, cousins, friends, enemies, pets, and they can actually read it. And like it. (Except for your pets, who, unless they are really really interesting, will probably just sniff the computer screen and walk away to pee.)

Flash is like poetry. The words matter. Every one. And don’t be afraid to cut them.

Know your strengths. I think every writer is different. Some have a better grasp on the moment, some drift towards more complex, longer stories that would do better in novel form. While I think everyone has the capacity to write all different lengths, it’s important to know what attracts you and what you think you do best. And go with it.

The most important thing, and sometimes the hardest thing, is to have fun. The stories that I think are my best are the ones that I had fun writing.

Bio: Tara Laskowski is the 2009 Kathy Fish Fellow and writer-in-residence at SmokeLong Quarterly. She earned an MFA from George Mason University and continues to fight traffic living just outside of Washington, D.C.

Read “Ode to the Double-Crossed Lackey in ‘Thunderball’” in Barrelhouse

Read “Only a Number” in decomP

Read “The Hamster” in Smokelong Quarterly