Here’s some good news publishing wise:

My adult storybook of 172 short fictions previously published in paperback has now emerged with the same title DIFFICULT PEOPLE in Kindle e-book format.

FREE SAMPLES are available from this collection of adult storytelling with a distinct blend of erotica without apology. Sexuality plays a central role in most people’s lives. Some of these stories are comic in nature, others more tragic, but all speak to the idiosyncratic natures of “difficult people” who give us unique pictures of human nature.  The opening of the collection can  be sampled free off of the Amazon.com site. Click this site link and take a free read and we hope you will download the entire book at the quite reasonable price of $4.99. Here’s the link:

http://amzn.to/exOreA

A second adult storybook of short-short fictions (flash fictions) is planned to explore these karmic portraits in words.

Best to all readers of creative fiction. It’s not easy to stay on task sometimes but the joy of invention in words keeps us hopeful to do more uniquely rendered volumes. Thanks for touring this blog. In May we hope to dip into samples of other works now in manuscript.

See our main website of published works at:

http://www.jimstallings.com

Gracias, amigos!

Coast Near Portland (sometimes adrift it’s thought) is

Witts Inn Writers Summer Retreat (2010):

follow the fun goings on of a scribe tribe on a spooky island

 & listen to the gossip as they learn how to battle their uncertain

writing & social skills.

Go to: http://twitter.com/StallingsJim

Begins May 27/Memorial Day weekend & ends after Labor Day

******More to come here on blog after Labor Day

a spontaneous Twitter novel by Jim Stallings

The experimental dispatch novel is now only a week or two old but we’re hopeful our link to the island will remain viable and that we may learn a few things about the introvertive universe of writers in residence. Below are a sampling of recent communiques into the cyberspace void. Drop in at

http://twitter.com/StallingsJim

and read the latest.

Here on the Weblog we’ll continue to post other works-in-progress & literary commentary.

JS

Samples:

At Witt’s Inn Island Retreat, literary writers clean communal bathrm; news fr NYC: vampire novel earns 6-fig advance. Gnashing of eye teeth.

Male residents of Witt’s Inn artist retreat think Al Gore’s breakup aftr 40 yrs of marriage is only way to reclaim unsown oats. Go Al!

At Witt’s Inn female residents argue Peace Prize went to Al Gore’s head & drained his tiny bit of Jack Daniel charm & thus estranging Tipper

At Witt’s Inn Island Retreat when the fog lifted & the sun emerged, writers knew the island was all too real w/ absurd real estate prices.

At Witt’s Inn on foggy Monkfish Island, rumors started w/ resident writers that the “island” was really a boat & they were being shanghaied.

On Monkfish Island at Witt’s Inn for Writers & Artists, guests sit in small rooms & listen to rain tapping a hideous message fr the Gulf.

Lover playmate

Joy person

We skated

On the frozen canals

And drank libations

At parties on the shore

We hugged

We kissed

We united

Till your boat

Rock solid

In ice tied

We entered

The cozy warmth

Of naked embraces

Under your covers

Kept secure in arms

Loving smile

Tender laughter

Nights passed

In spring thaw

Freed from ice

We bade loving farewell

A kiss & a ring.

At the doors

Pressed ugly faces

To double pane windows

They stripped naked

Humping rain spouts

Splashing in the bird bath

They ate the arbor vitae

Like tossed salad

Poked sticks up their asses

And raced about the lawn

The police fired

Rubber bullets

Canisters of tear-gas

Brown outs of stun guns

And still the zombies

Cavorted about our American Dream

Our lovely suburban bungalow

Flinging themselves insanely

Against plastic siding

And air conditioners

Chewing off chunks of

Of  mid-size SUVs

Like just so much hard candy.

Noses stuffed with cotton

Knees corroded with oxides

Backs frozen in Velcro

Feet stiff like brackets

An assurance hung like wires

Wrapped to nails in ceilings

The cluttering mess a puzzle

Of blocks & fragments of cloth

Awaiting an electric current

And a copper spark

Like fire from the Heavens

To activate this puppet

In its weird dance

Of simulated life

A shoe worn & sad

Flying toward the audience.

Betray me if you will

Time has our measure

Don’t let go now or ever.

The wind’s blast frigid

My face cuts with tears

Bent backs and head down

You turned in the plaza

And stared at me

Like I was a wild animal

Intending you ill—

But in truth

My efforts are more random

If such is the case

Chance plays its game

With all the human race.

The challenge for writers of electronic texts was to find an audience and build on it. Especially for writers of text who wanted to be paid in electronic credits deposited to their electronic bank accounts. After all, that was the definition of a ‘professional writer’…getting those currency credits. Herein are the tortured guts of the market consumption of texts: those who want to be paid social money credits (and a few intellectual credits tacked on for good show). But keep the chow train going. A scribe has to eat and so far, electronic food, well, it’s a mean lean meal.

E-Sluch Pile.

The electronic web at this soon to be reached point of publishing…well, you can imagine: it’s going to be a nasty war out there to make a paid living for writing and transmitting e-texts around the globe (maybe into colonies on the Moon and Mars).

For the radicals and anarchists and hermits, it probably won’t matter much who succeeds financially. They will reject such crass concerns. Writing into the ever expanding E-Slush Pile is a moral right and privilege, not to be denied by anyone.

Once denied by publishers, editors and critics, the slush pile publications, the great unwashed, the geniuses, freaks, schizos, world conquerors, puppets, psychotics and undiscovered talents, all in fact, the whole sum of the e-publishing networld, this will be the undifferentiated Mass. And who, may we gently ask, who will play gatekeeper and rater of quality of these billions of text issued worldwide each solar day/night? Who will step up and play critic? Who will find the so-called sweet two percent that justifies news about publication? Who will accept a corps of critical texts that serve to rate and rank the writers and texts in terms of worthiness?

These islands of recommended quality, more e-text themselves, will be those critical surfaces where favored texts are modeled for all to read. Cliques. Favored status. Elites. Tribes of good taste.

But these will come and go and meanwhile the tsunami of e-text publication will wash away at the limited exposure of one group’s favored, fair-haired. Literary class warfare.

And it will lead to self-erosion and a greater drift toward anonymity and freedom to write when and how you want.

So to all those writers out there struggling with the old trade book dilemmas, hung up on “making it’ in the paid, commercial fashion, take a deep breath and get ready to enjoy the freedom of nonattachment. Step back and watch the fishes play!

a crass commercial from this author still caught in a marketing age :

http://www.jimstallings.com see my latest BOOK: “Difficult People: Flash Fictions”: 172 short short stories for adult storybook reader. Stop on by and climb Slush Mountain!

She seemed to bloom

Not in spite of him

But in fulfillment

Of a unique journey

One of the heart & soul

Which in its flowering

Later than mid life

Gave proof to her theme

That patience and kindness

Were the basis of wisdom—

And the fount of joy,

Meanwhile her mate

In his exhaustion

Stood about and stared

As if there were nothing

Left to be seen.

Of soul meanness

Those who spoil

As daily sport

Joy of put-down

Envy of success

Of the real kind

Requiring heart & passion

That staring into horizon

The gaze that frees

And waits on knowledge

The shape of things to come

Like cloud masses from Canada

Weather of a changing kind

Sending the faint-hearted in doors—

There to await their polar fate.