Hallstatt

Now though, Walking The Gap is out—available online at Liquid Imagination (issue 13). Here is the link:

Liquid Imagination

Also, the story is available in audio format. You can cook your dinner (maybe adding a dash of Salzkammergut Salt) and listen to this terrifying, salty tale, and be smug in the knowledge that you’re one of the few people that know how it arose.

And for anyone planning  a trip to Austria, here is a link to the saltmine:

www.salzwelten.at

For five days in May

I worked on two short stories. One, I will submit to the Bridport Prize competition, which closes at the end of this month. The other, despite my best efforts, needs more work (something that became readily apparent  during a reading).

We also discussed a Vienna Writer’s short story collection, and an original theme or concept to bind these stories together. We think we may have found it. I’m afraid I’m sworn to secrecy at this stage. Publication date: end of 2013.

When we weren’t writing or discussing our writing, we took breaks to explore the town and the lakeside, and various cafes and restaurants and “wirtshaus” type establishments. The cuisine, we all thought, was as agreeable as the location.

Anyway, the writers’ retreat was a success. By the end of it we were already talking about a winter retreat, when we can hole ourselves up in a snow-bound lodge  and create dark masterpieces. I hope it happens.

Strangers

This carriage, hurtling along. She watches everything flitter past—towns with names she cannot pronounce, people whose lives she cannot glimpse. Across, her father sits—a man whose landscape is stranger still.

He gazes at her reflection superimposed on everything, wondering about the years that hurtled by

Perhaps I’ll write more about this town before departing.

A few more photos:

Man sollte gelegentlich zu einer Party gehen

1. Es würde nichts schaden manchmal ein Blog oder eine kurze Geschichte auf Deutsch zu schreiben—egal ob es von einer grammatikalischen Hinsicht wie Spagetti Bolognese ähnelt.

1. Ich sollte mich in kontakt mit der Österreichische Kontrollbank  in verbinden setzen.

 Punkt 2. werde ich hier nicht erklären, nur zu sagen die Name erinnert mich an die Sendefolge „Get Smart“. Control war die Spionageagentur. Daher werde ich sicher diese Bank anrufen (mit meinem Schuhtelefon)

Punkt 1. Vielleicht hat meinen Freund recht—es könnte nichts schaden manchmal auch Deutsch zu schreiben sodass meine Verwandte sowie Freunde und Bekannte hier in Österreich auch etwas von mir lesen können ohne einen Kopfweh zu kriegen.

OK, so hier ist mein erstes Blog auf Spagetti Bolognese Deutsch: Es ist auch mein Abschiedsblog da ich Morgen nach Australien für ein Projekt fliegen werde. Daher wünsche ich alle hier eine schöne Frühlingszeit (kann man so etwas schreiben? Wurscht!) und viel Glück, Freude, und Erfolg. Wenn ich zurück komme kriegen alle ein Glas „Vegimite“ ( Aus Australien, wie Gemüse Pastete nur schwarz und schmeckt grausam für normale Menschen (Australische Menschen sind nicht wirklich normal–mehr aussergewöhnlich!))

Bis Bald.

Paul

Hogglepot

 www.hogglepot.com

(story features as of March 18^th for one week before being archived)

You might notice the e-zine emblem is  a flying pig. And you might wonder about the funny e-zine name–Hogglepot. I’m not sure what Hogglepot means (Google had nothing to offer). I think I get the flying pig emblem though—my story fits this category! But Brooke Johnson is the editor who kindly (and I’d like to think, wisely) accepted Stay The Night. She is also an author and a novelist living in Northwest Arkansas. Thank you, Brooke.

I hope you might read Stay The Night. If you do, also check out James Blunt’s song. Do you get a sense of the song in the story? Does the song evoke similar feelings as the story?

Also, consider this blog my sign-off.  Once again I’ve been summoned to the Land of Oz.  I’m not sure if I’ll get to meet the wizard, but I sure hope I do—I doesn’t hurt to get a wish or two granted.

Until I find my way back, best of luck and thank you for reading my blog.

I call this insight the Character Reality Paradox (until I can think of a better name for it or someone tells me what it really is).  It goes like this:

In reality most of us for most of the time are ghosts in bodies—we’re physically present but our minds flitter everywhere—to the past, future, to fantasies; we’re embroiled in emotions that may have little to do with the present situation.

Yet in fiction, character POV is often so distilled, so logical; they’re following a script; the author is maintaining tight control. Of course there is reason for this—the story should have some coherence, yet it seems to me there is opportunity here to really explore character stream of consciousness. Often this does arise in fiction as character memories—an effective device to squeeze in backstory or discover more about the character. But the random stream of consciousness, is, I think, territory far less travelled.

Perhaps in exploring character stream of consciousness and its apparent disconnect from the present, we might explore characters that are no so much less rounded, as less confined and therefore they might closer mirror our own lives, where the concept of “I” is something of a misnomer.

Am I right? And what should I really call the Character Reality Paradox?

There are these two concrete maidens who greet passersby in my town.

It is from these two statues that the beginnings of a story has emerged. It might  be called The Wonder Tree (Der Wunderbaum). It is a story set where I live–in Purkersdorf: a small town in the Vienna Woods. I’ve often read it is a good idea to write what you know. Stephen King for example often sets his stories in Maine because this is where he lives. Of course he has also grown up there and has some sense of its history and has an intimate awareness of the culture. I’m a new kid on the block in this town, and I’m not an Austrian, still I have the benefit of a fresh perspective, and this I hope, the reader (even if it is just my wife or a few of my fellow writers at Vienna Writers) might enjoy.

How about you–are you setting your stories in your hometown or someplace you know?

Well, that’s enough waffle from me this week. I’ll try and post one last blog before taking an extended leave.

Every  hour on Ö3 Hit Radio

I wonder if he is related to the gloomy station announcer on the Vienna Underground who has been depressing commuters for many years.

These guys make a great pair: Mr. Gloom from the Vienna Underground and Mr. Doom from Ö3 Hit Radio.

Just today I spoke with a neighbour and she explained how she likes to ride her bike to work along the Vienna River in the sunshine and the brisk morning air to avoid Mr. Doom and Mr. Gloom. Now that spring is almost here others too will take to their bikes and embrace the sense of freedom that comes with peddling merrily, under one’s own steam, the wind in one’s hair (if one is fortunate enough to still have hair).

A couple of weeks back

Joe

There was this cop and his name was Joe. He was a good guy and he did his job well. Like many cops, he had his law enforcement idols. Dirty Harry was one because he was tough and didn’t take shit from anyone. Then there was Columbo because he was smart and no one could hoodwink him.

One day Joe was told that he would be in command of a whole damned planet. They didn’t inform him that he would be the only cop on the planet or, in fact, the only person. When he arrived he discovered a pristine wilderness. There was little to do, but Joe still had to write his reports.

There was an ocean on this planet and in it there were these creatures that looked like big salamander only a hell of a lot smarter. Once they sent a message to Earth and this is what they said: “Hey, assholes, keep off our turf!” They also said they liked Hollywood gangster movies and cocaine. This is why Joe was sent.

Joe was issued an underwater camera and he spent much of his days in the sunshine on the beach with the camera’s telescopic arm extended beneath the waves, observing. The salamander guys were bad: They often fought and sometimes even ate one another. Joe couldn’t go into the water to arrest any of them (for one thing he was a poor swimmer), nor did he have a prison to put them in. But he was authorised to shoot any offenders if the need arose. The salamander guys never left the water so the need never did arise.

Eventually Joe became fed-up with watching the salamander guys. He knew their sordid routine and figured he’d just make up reports about them (he wrote they used souped-up underwater cars for drive-by shootings)  while he explored the planet.  He wandered through towering forests that were dark and tranquil beneath their high canopies. He trekked expansive grasslands that were waist-high and  rippled in the breeze like a golden ocean. Eventually he came to  a desert and he tried to cross it. Several days out, low on water, in the blistering heat,  beneath the relentless sun, feeling frazzled, Joe realised his job was futile, that even traffic duty would have been better than this, that he deserved better.  So he applied for a transfer.

When Joe’s transfer came through and he got back to his usual city beat and the familiar gritty urban crimes, he felt far happier. Later it came out that the message from the salamander creatures was fake anyway; they weren’t so smart; some tech-punk was having fun at everyone’s expense.  Joe’s bogus reports, to this day, remain a matter of national security.

How do you warm-up for writing? Or do you just slip straight into it? Have you ever had a dead-end job like Joe’s?