Evidently there are lots of mysteries to solve in Ventura County.
And look! There's Scooby in the window! Hope he lets me drive...
Lori Schafer's Short Subjects I Feel Like Writing About
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine - Another Reason Why I Love Oxnard!
Evidently there are lots of mysteries to solve in Ventura County.
And look! There's Scooby in the window! Hope he lets me drive...
Friday, July 25, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Heads of the Line: Flash Fiction in Word Riot
http://www.wordriot.org/archives/7084 (print version)
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/a/b/1/ab110a9430fb41a6/20140715-schafer.mp3?c_id=7388729&expiration=1405960069&hwt=c671a6151875883dbc45283362dbfd2d (Podcast with my commentary)
As it turned out, I was unable to attend college my first fall after high school. My status as an unemancipated minor made me ineligible for the financial aid I’d been expecting, which necessitated a quick - by which I mean long, arduous, and painful - change of plans. I did eventually land a minimum-wage job at a bakery, and being now a veritable miser with money, by the following spring I had three hundred dollars saved. I decided to invest this massive sum in a trip to Alaska, where I had been assured by all manner of people who had never been there that you could earn colossal columns of cash working in the canneries. “Big money!” and “Signing bonus!” and “Free room and board!” the newspaper ads all promised. What they didn’t tell you, of course, was that the people who earned the “signing bonuses” and “free room and board” were those who went to work on the boats themselves – and that the reason they made “big money” was because the living conditions were horrible, the job was tough and scary as hell, and they worked twenty hours a day whenever there was a catch. I opted for the more palatable version, which was not actually a cannery, but a fish packing plant –several notches further down on the dirty jobs scale.
It wasn’t a bad job, all things considered. Yes, you worked fourteen hour days whenever there was a delivery, but since that was when you made your overtime pay, nobody complained too much about that. And yes, your feet and hands were constantly cold and cramped – it was months before I could comfortably hold a hairbrush again, and it took more than a year for all of the feeling to finally come back into my fingertips. On the plus side, you got to camp for free on site, and my particular facility even had an indoor bathroom and hot showers – a true rarity in those parts. To help pass the time, they cranked up the radio on the plant’s loudspeakers and let us listen to it all day – the unfortunate part being that the only station that came in clearly only played Top 40. Can you even begin to guess how many times a day a Top 40 radio station plays the same songs? So many that eventually you adapt and learn to enjoy it. You have to. Otherwise you go crazy!
I never got my big money – in fact, shortly before I was due to come home, my station wagon died, and I ended up having to spend what seemed like an eternity of days riding a bus all the way back to California. I wound up with forty bucks in my pocket and the satisfaction of knowing that even if I never travelled again, at least I’d been to Alaska, which is so unbelievably worth seeing that I’m not even going to begin to talk about it now. And a good thing, too, because here we are, twenty years later, and I’ve yet to have the chance to go again. It’s the one place I want to make sure I revisit while I can still travel, which is why I’m making it the primary destination for my road trip this summer, during which I’ll be drafting my second memoir, The Long Road Home.
I don’t think I’m going to go searching for employment, though. Somehow I think I may be past the age for factory work, particularly when it involves fourteen-hour days, Top 40 radio, and thousands of pounds of bloody, frozen fish. But who knows – perhaps when I get up there I’ll be inspired to try it, for old time’s sake.
Just don’t put me on the header.
"Heads of the Line" is one of the stories featured in my autobiographical short story and essay collection Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past (only $0.99 Kindle, $5.99 paperback). To learn more about it, please visit the book's webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/a/b/1/ab110a9430fb41a6/20140715-schafer.mp3?c_id=7388729&expiration=1405960069&hwt=c671a6151875883dbc45283362dbfd2d (Podcast with my commentary)
As it turned out, I was unable to attend college my first fall after high school. My status as an unemancipated minor made me ineligible for the financial aid I’d been expecting, which necessitated a quick - by which I mean long, arduous, and painful - change of plans. I did eventually land a minimum-wage job at a bakery, and being now a veritable miser with money, by the following spring I had three hundred dollars saved. I decided to invest this massive sum in a trip to Alaska, where I had been assured by all manner of people who had never been there that you could earn colossal columns of cash working in the canneries. “Big money!” and “Signing bonus!” and “Free room and board!” the newspaper ads all promised. What they didn’t tell you, of course, was that the people who earned the “signing bonuses” and “free room and board” were those who went to work on the boats themselves – and that the reason they made “big money” was because the living conditions were horrible, the job was tough and scary as hell, and they worked twenty hours a day whenever there was a catch. I opted for the more palatable version, which was not actually a cannery, but a fish packing plant –several notches further down on the dirty jobs scale.
It wasn’t a bad job, all things considered. Yes, you worked fourteen hour days whenever there was a delivery, but since that was when you made your overtime pay, nobody complained too much about that. And yes, your feet and hands were constantly cold and cramped – it was months before I could comfortably hold a hairbrush again, and it took more than a year for all of the feeling to finally come back into my fingertips. On the plus side, you got to camp for free on site, and my particular facility even had an indoor bathroom and hot showers – a true rarity in those parts. To help pass the time, they cranked up the radio on the plant’s loudspeakers and let us listen to it all day – the unfortunate part being that the only station that came in clearly only played Top 40. Can you even begin to guess how many times a day a Top 40 radio station plays the same songs? So many that eventually you adapt and learn to enjoy it. You have to. Otherwise you go crazy!
I never got my big money – in fact, shortly before I was due to come home, my station wagon died, and I ended up having to spend what seemed like an eternity of days riding a bus all the way back to California. I wound up with forty bucks in my pocket and the satisfaction of knowing that even if I never travelled again, at least I’d been to Alaska, which is so unbelievably worth seeing that I’m not even going to begin to talk about it now. And a good thing, too, because here we are, twenty years later, and I’ve yet to have the chance to go again. It’s the one place I want to make sure I revisit while I can still travel, which is why I’m making it the primary destination for my road trip this summer, during which I’ll be drafting my second memoir, The Long Road Home.
I don’t think I’m going to go searching for employment, though. Somehow I think I may be past the age for factory work, particularly when it involves fourteen-hour days, Top 40 radio, and thousands of pounds of bloody, frozen fish. But who knows – perhaps when I get up there I’ll be inspired to try it, for old time’s sake.
Just don’t put me on the header.
***
"Heads of the Line" is one of the stories featured in my autobiographical short story and essay collection Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past (only $0.99 Kindle, $5.99 paperback). To learn more about it, please visit the book's webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Igpay Atinlay Oetrypay / Ashflay Ictionfay Ontestcay
http://backhairadvocate.wordpress.com/pig-latin-poetryflash-contest/
Literary humor magazine "Back Hair Advocate" is running a contest for poems or flash fiction written in Pig Latin. Come on, you know you've already got a bunch of them written - all you need to do is submit one!
Literary humor magazine "Back Hair Advocate" is running a contest for poems or flash fiction written in Pig Latin. Come on, you know you've already got a bunch of them written - all you need to do is submit one!
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
"Morning After" in Erotic Review Magazine
http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/fiction/menage-a-trois-morning-after/ (Adult Content)
The inspiration from this story came from my second novel, Just the Three of Us: An Erotic Romantic Comedy for the Commitment-Challenged. The style of this piece differs somewhat from that of my novel – the humor here is more restrained – but it’s very much in the same vein. Frankly, I was delighted to revisit the concept because I really, really enjoyed writing that book. I love the characters, I love the setup, I even love the somewhat silly premise that three friends could just “happen” to fall in love in almost exactly the way that two friends might. In fact, I liked it so much that I’m halfway through writing the sequel. Plus I wrote this story. And then I got the idea for another short story called “Avalanche!” in which three friends… well, you get the drift.
The funny thing is, I never would have thought I’d find the whole threesome concept so intriguing. And honestly, I’m not sure that I really do. For me it’s not threesomes in general, but more this particular threesome that’s so endlessly amusing. Of course, maybe that’s how it starts. Maybe it always begins with plain old monogamous, monamorous folks who, by chance, meet the two other people who make the perfect corners on that kind of triangle. One day you’re hanging out with your best friends – the next you’re in love. It could happen to you!
Okay, probably not. But don’t discount the idea entirely, because you never know. And if it does happen, and it does work out, would you let me know? I could use another idea for a sequel…
"Morning After" is one of the stories to be featured in my forthcoming collection To All the Penises I've Ever Known: Romantic and Erotic Shorts by Lori Schafer. For more information, please visit the book's webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.
The inspiration from this story came from my second novel, Just the Three of Us: An Erotic Romantic Comedy for the Commitment-Challenged. The style of this piece differs somewhat from that of my novel – the humor here is more restrained – but it’s very much in the same vein. Frankly, I was delighted to revisit the concept because I really, really enjoyed writing that book. I love the characters, I love the setup, I even love the somewhat silly premise that three friends could just “happen” to fall in love in almost exactly the way that two friends might. In fact, I liked it so much that I’m halfway through writing the sequel. Plus I wrote this story. And then I got the idea for another short story called “Avalanche!” in which three friends… well, you get the drift.
The funny thing is, I never would have thought I’d find the whole threesome concept so intriguing. And honestly, I’m not sure that I really do. For me it’s not threesomes in general, but more this particular threesome that’s so endlessly amusing. Of course, maybe that’s how it starts. Maybe it always begins with plain old monogamous, monamorous folks who, by chance, meet the two other people who make the perfect corners on that kind of triangle. One day you’re hanging out with your best friends – the next you’re in love. It could happen to you!
Okay, probably not. But don’t discount the idea entirely, because you never know. And if it does happen, and it does work out, would you let me know? I could use another idea for a sequel…
***
"Morning After" is one of the stories to be featured in my forthcoming collection To All the Penises I've Ever Known: Romantic and Erotic Shorts by Lori Schafer. For more information, please visit the book's webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.
Monday, July 7, 2014
"Fog Line" Or How I Became a Victim of Vehicular Profiling
My short-short "Fog Line" has been published by Every Writer's Resource:
This is one of my odder travel stories. I was actually somewhat
surprised that I was able to get it published it as an individual piece,
because the concept of vehicular profiling seemed to go straight over a lot of
reader’s heads. In fact, the first editorial team that reviewed it responded
with some rather biting criticism, including the comment “All that and he
didn’t even ask for a date?? Where’s the story?!”
"Fog Line" is one of the stories featured in my autobiographical short story and essay collection Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past (only $0.99 Kindle, $5.99 paperback). To learn more about it, please visit the book's webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.
I
loved that Dodge Van, I truly did, but, ancient and unusual as it was, it was a
veritable magnet for attention from law enforcement. In my freshman year of
college, I worked graveyard loading trucks for a shipping company, which meant
driving home at four o’clock in the morning five days a week. I once got pulled
over three nights in a row, with a new excuse from a different police officer
every time. At least that sheriff in North Dakota was nice – and honest – about
it. But then, he seemed to be motivated more by curiosity than suspicion.
Maybe
it didn’t make for the most relatable story, but if nothing else, at least I
learned what a fog line was.
***
"Fog Line" is one of the stories featured in my autobiographical short story and essay collection Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past (only $0.99 Kindle, $5.99 paperback). To learn more about it, please visit the book's webpage or subscribe to my newsletter.
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