Under a Black Rainbow

This is the first of these I've done on this blog since starting it almost 5 years ago. To experience both writer's block AND reader's block for close to 4 years is...well, it causes certain strains on the mental. Especially when both are so tied to who you are as a person.  I started with baby steps, using graphic novels as a kind of crutch. Not that they are lowly reading, or that there's something wrong with them, only that I know I needed to begin with formats that weren't just pure walls of text. My brain needed other ways into the narratives, and the accompanying illustrations helped dislodge me and made the reading easier. It wasn't until October, however, that I was finally able to devour some text-only books. I also started REALLY writing again.  Anyway, another hard year down. I'm going into 2024 with zero expectations as I am often let down by what actually ends up happening in reality. I'm not even doing a year in lessons post; the lessons ar...

The title of this blog entry is also what I'm calling my new grief-based writing project. I read off several of the potential titles to a few friends and this was always the one that got the most visceral response. Honestly, it felt like the right one before eliciting the opinions of others, but I'm glad to have that affirmation.  I've got a basic idea of the structure of the thing. I think I'll probably dig into it pretty hard this weekend since I don't have much planned for Friday or Sunday. Unplug all but the most necessary of tech items, throw on some dark ambient, work.  I started up a new focus med called Concerta this week. It's not having quite the same effect that it did when I visited family in Indiana earlier this summer, so I'm hoping a week's worth of introduction into my system will help tilt my axis back to focused form. Though, to be honest, I've been bitch-slapped pretty hard by the oncoming winter doldrums. My friend Shannon made a ...

 I've been bad at updating things here, despite being pretty busy with both working on new DJ mixes and (finally) finishing another story that I began last year. I've since updated all the thumbnails for each of the new Story Time with Bucho videos I've posted, giving them a more thematic feel. I bought a new microphone to help with volume control (it's better, but not great).  Anyway, here's episode two. I'll post up the others every day this week for those of you that follow the blog. Feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you like what you hear. Feel free to purchase a couple books as well (see below) to help a struggling fiction writer out.  Enjoy! "The Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories"   (A collection of interactive short stories) "Scaring the Stars into Submission" (A surrealist version of a science fiction collection of short stories) (1,644)

A bit of a click-baity title as I can neither confirm nor deny that to be true (unless I'm going purely off of book sales). But I've also had good conversations with local friends who *have* been reading the book and letting me know what they think of particular stories, which is great. I love having those conversations because readers don't always get that face to face time with authors. I think the chats are as fun for me as they are for others. But, if I'm basing this assumption off the metrics of the interactive parts of the book, a better way to say it would be "people aren't interacting with the book." This is both disappointing and unsurprising. Rob and I had this conversation well before the book came out this past May. Would people know how to interact with the book? Was the technology we embedded in the pages well-known enough that the majority of readers would simply know what to do? Would they even care? The overwhelming results and co...

The Stove-Junker Little Feather Books, Inc.  Released 4/21/2015 350 pages *     *    * My dear friend and author, Surya K. Kalsi, has released the audio book version of his debut novel, The Stove-Junker . The book itself is beautifully written; it is dark, it is lovely, it is haunting. It is one of my favorites from the last several years and not just because I know him and am fortunate to call him my friend. The writing is incredibly strong; the story, completely engrossing. Surya and I come from two different styles of writing. Where I am more firmly on the experimental/surrealist side of things, he comes from a more grounded school of maximalism. His literary heroes make up some of the greatest foundations of literature: William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, William Maxwell, so on. The authors that paint a detailed scene rather than throw color every which way upon it. So, too, does my friend paint a story in great detail. So...