50-Word Fiction

            No one can believe the house is gone.  Everyone ran into the street, even the neighbors.  Mom can’t stop crying.  Dad lies, saying, “It’s only stuff.”  He holds her.  She holds herself.

            They’ll never find the guilty party.  I threw the evidence into Lake Michigan.

The Sick Bed

    I sneezed hard three times, my throat raw as a smoker’s.  Spit hung off my lip.  The pile of tissues in the basket grew by the minute and I blew my nose one more time.  Dropping the snot rags off the edge of the bed into the shiny mesh bin was my only entertainment.
    She entered with (another fucking) cup of salty soup when what I wanted was to be left alone, or, at least, a mild clear broth.  The salt scraped along my coarse esophagus like hot gravel.
    I closed my eyes and wished it all away - the sneezing, the fever, the stabbing pain in my chest like acupuncture needles on the inside, my girlfriend and the fourth cup of soup in the last two hours.
“Hey, baby.”  Her lips pouty, her eyes almost weepy with sympathy, she sat softly on the edge of the bed, pulling up the blankets I’d pushed off.  God, I was fucking sweltering.
She held the cup up to my lips and I wanted to yell ‘my arms aren’t broken.  I can feed myself.’  I hadn’t said a word in two days, the last thing out of my mouth (other than the spit of my last sneeze and the vomit from yesterday morning) was, “Oh, shit,” just before I ran to the bathroom to project that morning’s omelet into the toilet.
I coughed, (fucking needles in my lungs) and she quickly pulled the cup away, accidentally dribbling soup onto my chest.  She daubed at the Campbell’s with Kleenex as if she’d spilled wine on a priceless rug, apologizing profusely and needlessly.
“Do you want me to bring you something to read?” I shook my head and tried to sneer, to add authority to my no. 
I tried to say NyQuil and my swollen throat wouldn’t let the sounds form, so I pointed at the bottle on the nightstand behind her.  “Tissue?” she asked, and I shook my head, pursing my lips and furrowing my brow, like a mime, all my emotions expressed through exaggerated facial gestures.  I coughed twice more, keeping my lips closed tightly to try and suppress it. 
“NyQuil?” 
I nodded slowly, as if communicating with a foreigner relieved to have found a point of agreement.
“Are you sure?  It’s only…” she checks the clock.  “…Two o-clock.”  I wanted to hang the green bottle upside down and run an I.V. drip from it to arm, my head, straight into my fucking chest and into my lungs and heart.  I smiled as sweetly as I could, like a child begging for a cookie he knows he’s going to get anyway.
“Ok.  You need your rest,” she said, rationalizing on my behalf.  She tilted the bottle and filled the measuring cap to the brim then held it up for me.  I opened my mouth and she poured the elixir down my throat.  One more, I thought.  I’m a junkie -and I don’t care.  If this is being an addict, right now, I don’t want to be clean.
I fought off sleep as long as I could, not because I didn’t want it, but because I liked the descent.  Drowsiness takes the medicinal edge off the taste in my mouth, and guides me into the sweetness of dreamless sleep.

Publication!

A photo I took of Jack is being published. Annette Gendler is the editor of book called Our Chicago: Eleven Writers on their City. I'm don't know which essay my photo is paired with, but I'm excited to find out.

Same World, Different Realities

I believe that there's an underlying reality to everything.  (So did Einstein, so there.)
It doesn't matter whether one thinks the earth is flat; it's not. This, sadly, is problematic on a global scale. The world is littered with people committing horrible acts of kidnapping, murder, rape, sometimes all three. The people responsible admit to these acts freely, proudly, though they don't believe they've committed a crime. They BELIEVE, regardless of the chasm between their own thoughts and the real world, that they did something righteous, noble.

When I say Jewish and you say Muslim we are building on two different foundations. This isn't to say that there can't be consensus, peace, even friendship. But when fundamental realities differ then you're treading on the thinnest veneer of ice. When I say science and you say faith it makes it difficult, sometimes impossible, to reach agreement. How can we agree on ends when we can't even agree on beginnings? I get the appeal of religion, especially as a parent:

"Hey Dad, where does the universe come from?"
"God did it."

I can appreciate both the ease and brevity of that conversation.  It's sure-as-shit easier than explaining (or understanding) Bell's Theorem. Easier answers are sought not by those who want the truth (oh, the irony) but by those who can't be bothered (for whatever reasons) to delve. Of course, they'll argue that they do delve, they read all kinds of things: the bible, things that tell them the bible is true...other things that tell them that scientists are often wrong and that the bible is NEVER wrong.

As I sat in the grocery checkout line recently, Riley facing me from the basket, I noticed the child in line in front of me, about the same age as Riley, his hair was white-blond, his teeth were crooked as a canyon, and his mouth seemed to be frozen open in a squared-O shape that I took to be a crooked smile. An Asian child, also around the same age, sat in the shopping cart facing her mother.

All three babies noticed each other, and of course all three parents noticed their kids noticing each other. These three kids all occupy the same reality. Their needs and wants don't differ much, in general, one from the other.

When I skim the news about, say, the pissing contest between Boehner and Obama I can't help but be distracted by the thought that these men are living in different realities. They're not reading off the same menu but they can't figure out why they can't decide on what to order. Boehner lives in a world, regardless of his partisanship, that apparently dictates tax cuts raise revenues. If I owned a store and I needed more money, would lowering the cost of items raise my bottom line? This isn't politics, it's simple math.

I looked from one kid to the other, each of them now babbling happily, kicking their legs, each of them laughing and pointing, and started to wonder how long their internal realities would stay so similar, and how wide it might grow by the time they become parents.

Huntin'

"Are you goin' huntin'?"
"I was just...No."
"What're you gettin' the rifle for?"
He paused. "Cleanin'." He grabbed the door of the cabinet, his fingertips staining the beveled glass. He held it open and moved as if to close it, then paused again, remembering the confrontation; his stomach fluttered with the raw anger that had caused him to vomit in the church vestibule not an hour earlier. "You should be in bed."
"I feel better."
"You don't look no better."
They watched each other across the expanse of living room, though neither moved.
The chill of the cold wood floor traveled through the soles of Frank's stockinged feet, his toes turned partially inward, the pose indicating all the shyness he would never outgrow.
"Go."
"Go where?"
"Back to bed."
Frank watched his father's hand still lingering on the case, his hand gliding up and down the length of the veneer as if feeling for a ridge, some small imperfection. But the case didn't close.
"Are you..." Frank started, his eyes like the setting sun slowly dropping from his father's hand to the floor and tracing a single two-inch plank its entire length to his own feet.
Dad swung quickly away from the case, leaving it open. Frank rocked back on his heels then fully off his feet as his father swooped past him, grabbing his arm and yanking him, his body resisting but relenting.

First Impressions and the U.S. Mail

The first batch of query letters is in the mail. If this works the way I think it does, between 9:00 am and lunch tomorrow 10 people with a serious amount of influence over the direction our lives could take will be opening envelopes, then judging me.

A query letter is essentially a job interview. If you do well, if you stand out, then you get a second interview.  More than likely, however, the response will be a form letter, or worse – nothing. 

I’ve taught a few semesters of an employment preparation class to college freshman and sophomores. The syllabus I created was pretty straightforward: resume basics and interview pointers.  Don’t lie, don’t misspell, don’t use an idiotic sounding email address.  Dress well, look people in the eye, don’t chew gum.

In a more general way we discussed how to stand out…but in a good way.  “Yes, an interesting font will make you stand out, but may be hard or annoying to read.”

One thing we never discussed was stamps.

Most resumes these days are emailed or posted online, so maybe the stamp thing is a moot point. But any way to stand out, right?  When I asked the woman at the post office what my options were at the current rate (I didn’t know how much a first class stamp costs) she seemed almost happy to pull out the book and show me.  She flipped the pages, sort of softly narrating, like she was going through a photo album. 

Nothing struck me until she said Mark Twain.  What says, “Hey, look at how clever I am,” more than a Mark Twain stamp?  Then two pages later she opened it up to Legends of Hollywood. Gregory Peck.

Done!

Of course, in the end what really matters is the letter.  That makes or breaks the deal on its own.  But like in an interview, if you can make someone smile for even a second right when you meet them, that’s irreplaceable.  Everyone knows first impressions matter, but few people (in my experience) appreciate how much it matters. 

Maybe they won’t even notice it; they open a thousand letters a day. But it’s a damn good looking stamp, a good size too.  No offense to anyone else who’s played the role, Peck is Ahab.  

But if they look, and if they see it, and if they’re a movie fan (as you'd expect at an agency that reps actors and screenwriters), then maybe they pause for a second, linger on Peck’s face, think about his place in the history of film, and that makes them smile, then when they start reading the letter I have them right where I want them, if only subconsciously, of only for a second.

I’m thinking about ordering the Cary Cooper stamp for the next batch.  

Deconstructing the Query: or Query for the Leery

Dear Whomever

The one thing any letter has to have going for it is sincerity. If it’s not honest in content and tone, then it’s built on a shaky foundation; this seems obvious, and maybe even like an oversimplification, but it bears keeping in mind.  More than the thesis, more than erudition, if a letter’s not honest then it’s worthless. The best thing this letter has going for it is the sincerity and earnestness of its author.  The trick is getting that across without using either of those words.

Beyond the obvious and general tenet of honesty (a characteristic many people seem to be lacking) a letter must be keenly focused; what is your thesis?  (Or, as I used to ask my ENG 101 and 102 students, what’s your fucking point?) 

The point here is to garner interest; interest in our work and talents as screenwriters in particular, but as dramatists in general: we can write for film, stage, comically, dramatically...you want it, we’ll put it to words.  We’ve written great stuff and will continue to do so.  Now pay us.

With the poignancy of a character-driven drama and the tension of a great thriller,   This isn’t a poker game, we’re not romancing agents; we’re trying to convince them.  And like a script (or a short story, or novel, or play, or joke...) if you don’t hook them immediately then you don’t have them at all.  There’s no second chance.  What’s your script? It’s poignant, character-driven, dramatic, and thrilling, that’s what it is! Ashes follows the lives not a day in the life, but their lives of brothers Patrick and Andrew Sullivan who specialize in sterilizing crime scenes after homicides, suicides, and “bio-hazardous events.” The unrelenting violence in Chicago that toddlin’ town with one of the highest murder rates in America is great for business, but it threatens to shatter the lives, and even sanity, of everyone it touches, especially those paid to clean up the mess. Aftermath, Inc., was a quarterfinalist in the BlueCat Screenwriting competition, earning praise from its judges, who said it was “a rewarding read,” with “great tension” and “great dialogue” “created[ed] with a highly enjoyable style and the polish of a professional storyteller.”

There’s nothing like third-party affirmation. Yes, it’s important to think your work is good. And it’s great when friends and family think it’s good (“seriously, it’s reeeeally good”), but when outsiders, especially professionals, tell you it’s good, then you might be on to something.

Since completing Aftermath, writers Ken Gayton and Pablo A. Rajczyk have gone on to complete four full-length screenplays, Armchair Quarterbacks, David’s War, Official Rejects, and Rednecks vs. Zombies.[1]

Yes, that’s a footnote in a query letter. In the research I did I found nothing about pitching multiple scripts or multiple writers. By simply adding two biographical paragraphs we solve the latter problem.  It’s a little more complicated with five scripts and this is our intelligent but hopefully successful strategy.  Query letters are supposed to be one page, and this one is. The script summaries will also be one page.

We don’t mention ourselves until the second paragraph.  It would be easy to jump in and say, ‘Hi, we’re Ken and Pablo and we rock the shit.” But, like a good screenplay, we start with the action, and the story is the action.  We’re selling ourselves (there’s a loaded sentence) but what matters is the work, so that’s the starting point. 

Pablo Rajczyk was awarded the Harold Washington Scholarship, a full academic grant, to attend Wright College, earning a degree in journalism with honors. Penny thinks I should eliminate the previous sentence.  No one, she says, cares if you earned an associate degree in journalism. While I get that point, and it’s probably true, it’s not the degree I’m trying to showcase here, but the fact that A) I have a degree in journalism, AGS or otherwise, and that B) I finish what I start and seek betterment. I also don’t think it hurts to point out that I earned a full academic scholarship in a city-wide program.  He went on to receive his BA in English from Columbia College. Sadly, the Columbia in Chicago, not the one in New York City.  There’s nothing wrong with Columbia College, there’s everything right about Columbia University.  Pablo then earned his MFA in creative writing from the New School University in New York City. You know, of Inside the Actor’s Studio and Project Runway fame.  Pablo won 2^nd place in Writer’s Digest Magazine’s play writing competition for his play Living with Women.  His second play (in a planned trilogy), Holding Court, was produced by La Costa Theatre in Chicago.

In the first draft my biographical paragraph was too long (and was actually two paragraphs). It’s a weird thing pitching yourself to strangers with money. How much information is too much, and conversely, how much is too little? Should I include my years of teaching college? I think not; who wants to hire an English teacher to sell sex, drugs and rock and roll?  Should I mention that I’ve had a couple short stories published (online)? Definitely not. I mean, shit, who hasn’t had stuff published online? (I love Divine Caroline, but does an agent really care?)

Ken Gayton studied comedy at Second City, Comedy Sportz, and Improv Olympic in Chicago.  He co-wrote, starred-in, directed, edited and independently produced his first film The Truth About Average Guys, which was awarded multiple prizes at the East Lansing Film Festival including best feature. Is there anything this guy can’t do? His second film S.O.L., also featuring Ken in numerous creative roles, won the Audience Choice award at the Trail Dance Film Festival.  I’ve read that winning the Audience Award at a film festival is better than winning Best Feature because that’s who buys the tickets.  I think I read it in an interview with Ken, actually, but fortunately Boy Wonder has done both.

Ken’s bio was also longer, but for the same reasons I kept mine brief, I did the same with his.  Ken’s accomplishments can easily fill half a page, but the question every writer needs to ask of every scene, every page, every word is a simple ‘what’s relevant?’  That’s the only question that matters.

Compelled to create, This is true...we are compelled Ken is currently preparing to film his script Wingmen, Inc., while Pablo is putting the finishing touches on his play Dadville and working on the nearly two dozen screenplays he has in various stages of completion. Ken and Pablo are currently writing episodes and three-season character arcs for a potential television series based on The Truth About Average Guys. I’m fully aware that the ‘a’ in ‘about’ should not be capitalized: don’t capitalize prepositions in a title. But it looks better capitalized, and it’s as much a logo as it is a title – TTAAG looks better than TTaAG.  To paraphrase Melville in Moby Dick, aesthetics is a part of everything.

What have you done for me lately? That’s what most people want to know. In friendships, relationships, even parenting (at least so far) the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question is the same: what are you doing NOW? For us this isn’t about selling a script, or even a handful; it’s about making careers. If you like what we’ve written so far, wait to see what we're truly capable of doing. 

We would be grateful for the opportunity to send a longer synopsis or the full script of any of our stories.

Finally, we get to what I call The Ask. When I was teaching college prep (BUS 200) we did a lot of work with cover letters and resumes, and one of the things I always emphasized was The Ask.  It’s like a date...you want a second one, you gotta ask. “Can I see you again?”  If the date is going well and you don’t want it to end quite yet, “Can I come up for a drink?” It’s really hard to get to yes if you don’t ask the right question the right way.

Sincerely,

Ken Gayton and Pablo A. Rajczyk

We’re hardly the first to struggle (emotionally, at least) about the seemingly opposing forces that are Art and Commerce. As any writer (from Nobel Prize winner to closet scribbler) knows, it’s easy to become emotionally attached to every word put on paper. Self editing is hard, outside critique is even harder (and sometimes harsher).  But as the cliché goes, writing is rewriting. That applies to everything. Of course I’ve made typos in blog posts or emails, dropped an occasional preposition or ‘s’ when meaning to pluralize, but that’s not an option in a letter like this.  We’re writers, and even the smallest grammatical error can mean the difference between a form letter and a phone call.

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[1] Please see second page for a synopsis of each script.