It’s a blur, really — time seeming to expand and contract at the same time. Typical in many ways, especially this time of the year when people look back and then forward, wondering where the time went and what is to come in the new year.

Today is the darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere: Winter Solstice. In honor, I released the third annual Christmas/Holiday episode, featuring two somber tales people already seem to love…and a ridiculous thing in the middle that’s cracking people up.

A strange thing about this year: it seems as long as today’s darkness. I cannot look back at 2019 and say, “Man, where did the time go?” because it seemed like a right and proper year for me. Sure, it had its ups and downs as all years do, but it’s a year mostly full of great memories.

I don’t know what 2020 holds for me. The novel I shared a bit of, here, in the past seems to be getting a bit of interest. I’m working on the next book while also working on more stories for Not About Lumberjacks.

And maybe that’s why this year hasn’t seemed too long or too short: it’s been a productive year with plenty of time spent being still, even during its hurried days.

Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks. I hope you and yours are safe and sound as the light of a new year begins to emerge…

– Christopher

* * *

Photo: Aditya Vyas

And just like that, another year is behind us.

I’ve seen the blog entries and chatting on social media that come with this time of the year, much of it being, “Where did 2018 go?”

For me, 2018 seemed like a very long year…

The Year that Was

2018 was the year a layoff at work put another technical writer’s job in my lap, on top of an already full time position. It was the year that saw a Not About Lumberjacks story selected for the HEAR Now Audio Fiction and Arts Festival. But the biggest thing to happen in 2018 was completing my novel, A Magic Life.

If you’re a regular listener, you know working on the novel often got in the way of monthly releases of the show. Thank you for bearing with my sporadic schedule. I can’t say it will never happen again, but at least into spring, I have stories lined up. And while I will soon be shopping A Magic Life around, there will be more time for short fiction in 2019.

Why I Do This

I started Not About Lumberjacks because — as my attention shifted to novels in recent years — I stopped writing short fiction.

When I decide to dedicate time to a novel, I give myself to something requiring more than I feel might be in me. I dedicate efforts toward something I hope has a balance of literary merit and commercial appeal. I write novels with the hope of publication.

With short fiction, I can do whatever I want. Most of the stories, here, are quirky in some way…even some of the more literary tales. I like intricate novels, but a short story can hinge on a single idea, or feel like a novel reduced to its essence.

Add to all that inviting friends to narrate the occasional story, and Not About Lumberjacks is a thing done simply because I love it.

I hope you love what I have in store for the coming year…

* * *

Photo: Kiwihug

It is officially autumn, fall, whatever you call it in your part of the world. For pagan friends, it’s Mabon on top of other things, so eat well tonight.

For me, it is the second wind of September. September 1 is kind of like my writing new year. And then comes the autumnal equinox, the official start of my favorite season — even though it will be in the 90s in north Texas.

I like the image above because it’s what I love about autumn: it is quiet and often a bit obscured. It’s a time when my mind craves [even more] silence, and deliberate slowness seems to take over — even though it’s also the beginning of the more active part of the year for me. (I hate being outside in the summer…give me fall, winter, and early spring year-round!)

Obviously, I’m back to recording stories…the next one being a much happier story dealing with a bully than last year’s bully story.

And now, a return to the silence of a darker morning. Much like the trail above, there’s a path to finish walking with a bigger writing project and plenty more shorter trails to be walked.

It should be more than clear with Not about Lumberjacks that I’m a big fan of short stories. I started the show almost a year ago to force me to return to writing short stories. What you may not know is that short stories were my way into more serious fiction.

As a kid, I read Ray Bradbury’s collection, The Golden Apples of the Sun and devoured Stephen King’s short stories. But it was The Stories of John Cheever that was my first exposure to literary fiction. So I enjoyed reading Junot Diaz’s introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2016.

Some gems from the piece, but really…read it yourself:

I love the form’s spooky effects, how in contradistinction to the novel, which gains its majesty from its expansiveness, from its size, the short story’s colossal power extends from its brevity and restraint.

* * *

This is a form that is unforgiving as fuck, and demands from its acolytes unnerving levels of exactitude. A novel, after all, can absorb a whole lot of slackness and slapdash and still kick massive ass, but a short story can unravel over a pair of injudicious sentences. And while novels can dawdle for chapters before sparking into brilliance, the short story needs to be about its business from its opening line.

* * *

To me this form captures better than any other what it is to be human—the brevity of our moments, the cruel irrevocability when those times places and people we hold the most dear slip through our fingers.

* * *

It dawned on me finally that this was no intermediate form, a step en route to the novel, but an extraordinary tradition in its own right, not easily mastered but rich in rewards.

* * *

Those rewards are wonderful. I have experienced more pride and received more praise from stories sometimes written in a matter of days than I have from novels that took me years to write. You might be quick to think that exuberance comes from being able to read (or listen to) a story in a sitting; whereas a novel requires more time and attention. But I don’t think it’s necessarily that…although time is a factor. Short stories hit on something visceral in an instant, while novels require time. Obviously, one is not better than the other, and the rules that bind them become a bit flexible once mastered. Still, you can get away with certain things in short fiction that you often cannot in novels.

One person who loved “Horus” said, were it a novel, that they would have wanted a detailed explanation of how a parrot can talk like a human and live for centuries. There is a built-in willing suspension of disbelief in the short story, though, and “Horus” is a story that made more than a few hardened individuals cry because they quickly accepted the premise. Perhaps at novel length it would have the same effect, but we are a society that looks for cracks. Novels are more of an investment, and if a person invests days with a story (rather than minutes or hours), they often want a bit more explanation than they are willing to accept as part of the form in a short story.

None of this is to say that writing short stories is easier than writing novels. Many writers fear short stories because, while they allow for a certain bit of misdirection, they are everything laid open for all to see. There’s no room for pages of beautiful prose just for the sake of beautiful prose. Not that brevity is the main strength of a short story, but one must get to the point a bit quicker when writing short fiction. And because of that, it’s like performing a difficult, exposed routine on a high wire.

Novels cover the ground, with roots running deep into everything — a solid mass of a thing that seems immovable when done well. But a short story is not anchored in the same manner, even though — when done well — they can carry just as much weight.

It’s not easy to do, but it’s definitely worth the pursuit!