[Listen]
[Intro music plays]
[Woman’s Voice]
This is Behind the Cut with Christopher Gronlund. The companion show to Not About Lumberjacks.
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Christopher Gronlund:
Behind the Cut is an in-depth look at the latest episode of Not About Lumberjacks and likely contains spoilers of the most recent story. You’ve been warned…”
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Somewhere along the way while writing the latest Not About Lumberjacks story, “Gerald’s Grail,” I realized it was going to run longer than expected.
By the time it was done, it was the longest Not About Lumberjacks story to date.
While the mystery “Under the Big Top” was the first to cross the one-hour mark (by 1 minute and 49 seconds), “Gerald’s Grail” beats that by roughly 22 minutes.
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I wrote “Gerald’s Grail” in the hope it would have the feel of an 80s teen adventure movie. I think I pulled it off, down to the run time.
Here’s a little secret: I could have kept writing.
I had so much fun with this story and had other ideas I wanted to run with.
When my wife read it, she said, “This would make a fun novel.”
She wasn’t the only one to think so…
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There are several Not About Lumberjacks stories I think would make good novels. In fact, when the last novel I finished ran its course through the submissions process, only to end with the usual rejection of: “Great writing—ambitious project, but…I don’t know how I’d market this,” I thought about setting the following books in the series aside and turn “Standstill” into a novel.
With “Standstill,” I barely touched on what the protagonist’s husband, Aaron, was up to when time stopped for the couple. There was a scene I wanted to write in which Maddy hopped on a bike and pedaled out of Chicago for days, riding until she came to a place where the fog and clouds broke, and she felt the sun on her face for the first time in who-knows-how-long.
There is so much more in that story, and—at least until writing “Gerald’s Grail”—it’s the story I’d give the novel treatment to, were I to turn a Not About Lumberjacks story into a book.
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“Gerald’s Grail” and “Standstill” aren’t the only stories I’ve written for the show that could be decent novels.
We don’t know exactly how old Horus is in the namesake story about a talking parrot—or how much of what he claims to have experienced is even true—but it would be fun to find out. Perhaps see flashbacks to his life, rather than him just telling his tales to Sarah.
The first 1980s story featuring Dungeons and Dragons-playing teenagers I wrote for the show, “Purvis,” could easily be a novel.
“Cubicle Punks” could end up a hip little book about a strange friendship and people on the cusp of middle age coming to grips with how different their lives are compared to what they imagined when they were younger…and another office story, “Alone in HQ,” could easily be longer.
I already mentioned “Under the Big Top” being the first story breaking the one-hour mark—I think mysteries lend themselves to novel-length treatments. I’ll call it right now, July’s mystery, “God Speed, Crazy Mike” could likely be much longer than it is.
The quirky tales, “Pepper” (about the protagonist’s father being reincarnated as a talking Boston terrier) and “A Deathly Mistake” (in which Death accidentally harvests the wrong person) have more story in them.
Hell, “In Cypress Slough” could easily be a novel as well.
So why, then, are they short stories?
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I started Not About Lumberjacks because I’d gone years without writing a short story.
I used to write stories regularly when I was in a writing group with a couple friends, but when that faded away, I ended up moving on to novels.
Obviously, novels take more time to write. And when you consider the submission process on top of that, you’re looking at years of effort for a writer like me…for a single story.
In its most prolific year, I shared 14 Not About Lumberjacks stories. In my slowest years: 5. (Well, year three saw 4 stories, but one was the first Christmas episode…and that episode contained 7 stories so make of that one what you want!)
With a full-time job and a life, short fiction fits my life better.
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I do plan to record and release a novella I have sitting around, and I’m thinking about how to handle recording and releasing the most “me” thing I’ve ever written: a novel about a celebrity-chef who sells his two Chicago restaurants following a divorce and moves to the north woods of Wisconsin…just as the most hated person in town goes missing.
And, of course, there’s the last novel I finished, about a girl born in a circus in the 1920s and her rise to fame as a magician in the 40s and 50s (along with the not-yet-written novels in that literary series).
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Perhaps the reason I focus more on short stories than novels these days is I have an audience. It’s not huge, but I know the Not About Lumberjacks regulars enjoy the show.
There’s really not another fiction podcast like this one, with no particular genre and one person writing everything. (Granted, that might also account for why Not About Lumberjacks isn’t as popular as shows written by one or more people, and focused on a genre, like horror or sci-fi.)
A novel takes me several years to finish. In that time, I can have a pile of new stories, here.
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There may come a day when I take a short story from the show and give it the novel treatment, but I doubt it.
Make no mistake: I think about it, knowing I’d be able to complete a novel like that much quicker than something totally new to me. But I’ve never been that writer who looks back and wants to keep tinkering with older things. For that matter, even though I have a list of close to 100 story ideas, I’m also not the kind of writer who chases something new when things get hard.
Perhaps because of Not About Lumberjacks, I finish the things I start and then move on.
I would love for fiction to be my full-time job—to have time for short fiction and novels—but that’s not my reality.
And so, every month or three, I record and release another short story…and then turn around the next day and begin the next one.
It’s a pretty snazzy gig!
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Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks and Behind the Cut. Theme music for Behind the Cut is a tune called “Reaper” by Razen. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the music, the episodes, and voice talent.
Also, for as little as a dollar a month, you can have access to a bigger behind-the-scenes look at Not About Lumberjacks on Patreon. Check out patreon.com/cgronlund if that sounds like you’re kinda thing.
In July, it’s the mystery set in a bog in Northern Illinois.
Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!
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