I’d like to thank Steve Himmer for providing this Residency at Necessary Fiction this month. I had a great time, even though it was a scramble some nights putting together a postable fiction.

The Residency prompted me to open lots of old files and scan through many notebooks. I worked on stories that I’d abandoned years ago and I found near-complete stories hiding in odd places on my computer. I inched a few current works-in-progress to the finish line. And I made a few Frankenstein stories out of two (or three) incomplete shorts. I also cheated a few times, posting pieces that appeared in my recent Keyhole Press mini-book PATHOLOGIES.

The Residency made me think about an article I read years ago about David Bowie when he was working with Tin Machine. It was an “in studio” interview in either SPIN or ROLLING STONE. Bowie was working through a song with Reeves Grabrels, his guitarist, and he told Gabrels the song needed a “guitar event”. Not a solo, but a “guitar event”.

In terms of story structure, the guitar event is a nice little additional component. If Bowie’s song can be composed of a few verses, a repeated chorus, a bridge, a guitar solo, and a guitar event, then a short fiction can be made complete with a verbal guitar event (a short character riff, surprising detail about the setting, or a whack piece of dialogue).

Probably more to be said about this. But I’ve got a wedding to go to later on and a five-year-old to play with now.

Thanks to those who read along this month and sent me nice notes. And best of luck to Matt Briggs, August’s Writer in Residence at Necessary Fiction.