Tag Archives: Monkees

New short story, new anthology: I’ve been looking forward to DAYDREAM BELIEVER all year

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Sometimes crime short stories are mean and brutal. Sometimes they’re nostalgic, or at least my story “This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day,” in the new anthology “DAYDREAM BELIEVER: Crime Stories Inspired By the Songs of the Monkees,” is.

When I heard that my friend and author Michelle Kubitz was accepting submissions of short stories for the anthology, which she was co-editing with Lawrence Allan for publication by Ron Earl Phillips and Shotgun Honey, I knew I had to contribute. I even went up to Larry after he appeared on a panel at Bouchercon in Nashville and excitedly told him I had a story I wanted to sub.

As a grade-schooler in the 1960s, I loved the Monkees. The music and the silly TV show definitely, but what made me jump at the chance to submit a story was my association with the Monkees and my brothers.

Before I was certain who the Monkees were exactly – TV actors? TV characters? Musicians? Four cool and funny guys? All of the above? – I spotted their debut album in my oldest brother’s room. I put it on the turntable and immediately loved the music. It wasn’t a new album by that time, but it was still fantastic, with songs that cemented the Monkees in my mind as a favorite band.

My brothers were 10 and 12 years older than me, so it was more like having a couple of uncles around than brothers. But I wanted to be accepted by them, and finding some common ground in music was something I dearly loved. One album cut in particular, “This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day,” stands out in my memories as a fast, funny song that I listened to over and over.

About the time I was 10, my brothers were planning a party in a field our dad and mom owned, south of our 100-year-old farmhouse and south of the equally aged barn, and I really wanted to be a part of it. I wheedled my way into going around town with my brothers as they picked up things they needed for the party: ice, beer, extension cords, probably other things I was too young to understand.

My story in the anthology varies from that real-life day – although both ended in a fairly dramatic manner at the party that night – but both accomplished something I desperately wanted: To be closer to my much older brothers.

Not all of my stories are as nostalgic, or true-to-life, as this one. But thanks to DAYDREAM BELIEVER, I can relive that day and its fairly calamitous ending.

Thanks to Shelley and Larry and Shotgun Honey for the chance to relive that day and that evening.

I think you’ll like DAYDREAM BELIEVER, and not just for my story. The other authors with stories in the anthology are Holly West, Lawrence Allan, Eric Beetner, Lina Chern, Libby Cudmore, Michael Downing, Jeff Esterholm, Michel Lee Garrett, Paul J. Garth, James D.F. Hannah, Sean Patrick Little, Alan Orloff and Raquel V. Reyes. It’s a great group of talented people.

You can find DAYDREAM BELIEVER at

https://shotgunhoney.com/announcements/news-announcements/book-release-daydream-believers-anthology/

It comes and it goes and it comes around again

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My morning began with a rejection but ended up with signing a short story contract, all threaded through writing some totally separate piece of work.

Man, every day is a little game of expectations versus reality for all of us, but that’s especially evident for writers.

The rejection email, as these things go, was from an editor and fiction outlet I haven’t tried before. It was direct and to the point but also gracious, saying a couple of nice things about the story I’d submitted and they’d rejected. Much better than a form rejection – I got one of those just a while back – and even thanked me for my support of them on social media, which will absolutely continue.

This rejection stung, man. It was for a story I wrote for an earlier anthology call for submissions and honestly, I really like this story. It’s not my typical crime-wimey story. It was, dare I say it, hearfelt.

But I’ll submit it again somewhere and I’m sure I’ll submit something else to the humane editor who rejected this particular story this particular morning,

So i got back to work. I’m close, very close, to finishing a 5,000-word short story to sub to an anthology/collection that I really want to be included in. I’ve got a few more words to write.

Then I signed a contract for the anthology you see above, DAYDREAM BELIEVER: CRIME STORIES INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF THE MONKEES. The anthology comes out this fall and has some wonderful writers in it and I’m happy that editors Shelley and Larry chose my story to include.

Then I got back to working on that 5,000-worder. And I wrote this.

(I’m thinking about having a snack later, if you need that much insight into my day,)

All of this could be filed under the life in a day of a writer. Or maybe managing expectations. Or dealing with rejections and successes.

To writers and other people: Push on. The only way out is through.