Archive for 2013

  • Do You Make These 7 Mistakes In the Beginning of Your Story?

    Do You Make These 7 Mistakes In the Beginning of Your Story?

    November 21st, 2013 | Beginnings | journalpulp | No Comments

    Do you forget to establish your setting early on? Do you forget to give us The When, The Where, The Weather — the overall tone? Is your story happy, soft, somber? John Steinbeck does not forget to do this in the beautiful opening of Of Mice and Men: A few miles south of Soledad, the […]

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  • Bleach-Haired Honkey Bitch

    Bleach-Haired Honkey Bitch

    November 14th, 2013 | Bartending | journalpulp | 7 Comments

    I am, as many of you know, a writer by day and a bartender by night — and yet, as many of you may not know, I’m not merely a bartender by night: I’m also a very passionate man. As such, the creative spirit I strive to pour into my literature occasionally spills over into […]

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  • The Goths & Gothic Literature: A Halloween Post

    The Goths & Gothic Literature: A Halloween Post

    October 31st, 2013 | Gothic Fiction | journalpulp | No Comments

    The Goths, as recounted by a Gothic historian named Jordanes (mid 6th Century AD), were a Teutonic-Germanic people whose original homeland was, according to this same Jordanes, in southern Sweden. At that time, this half-barbaric band was ruled by a king called Berig. It was King Berig who led his people south to the shores […]

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  • Autumnal

    October 12th, 2013 | Poetry | journalpulp | 7 Comments

    Summer dies, the long days wane away. The heat in the sky melts like lead to liquid pools. The hills beyond are as white as clay. Now creep in the gentle autumn ghouls, Trailing behind their silken shawls of Lethe- an mist. Shadows warp, gourds enlarge. And now what is always there but not Quite […]

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  • Update On Pale Criminal: Over 6,000 Downloads In Five Days

    Update On Pale Criminal: Over 6,000 Downloads In Five Days

    October 3rd, 2013 | Pale Criminal | journalpulp | 5 Comments

    For all who have been kind enough to ask about Pale Criminal, the first phase of my book re-release — via Kindle Direct Publishing (i.e. KDP Select) — is over, and I’m happy to report that it was more successful than I’d imagined it would be. I tallied a total of 6,322 downloads. I was […]

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  • May Swenson: the best poet you’ve never heard of

    September 12th, 2013 | Poets | journalpulp | 4 Comments

    Have you ever heard of May Swenson? Most people have not. And yet she’s undoubtedly one of America’s greatest poets — a poet and playwright, I should say, though it’s for her poetry that she’s most often praised. She was born May 28th, 1913, in Logan, Utah, the oldest of ten children. She was raised […]

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  • Tequila!

    Tequila!

    September 6th, 2013 | Bartending | journalpulp | 6 Comments

    Four tequila cocktails, the latter three of which — Tequila Sangria, Tequila Sazerac, and El Chupacabra — are original recipes. Thanks for watching.

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  • The Most Amazing Thing

    The Most Amazing Thing

    August 29th, 2013 | More and More unto the Perfect Day | journalpulp | 7 Comments

    The most amazing thing happened to me today. I read the following from my friend Jacinda, who posted it on her website: I finished reading Ray Harvey’s More and More unto the Perfect Day more than a year ago – for the third time. I had intended to write a review of the book immediately […]

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  • High Cheekbones (A Post about Beauty)

    High Cheekbones (A Post about Beauty)

    August 21st, 2013 | Beauty | journalpulp | 7 Comments

    At the bar where I work (and work), when after an interview the drunken reporter asked me “Are you a tit man or an ass man?” I replied: “High cheekbones” (improvising a little on my favorite poet, whose name is Karl Shapiro): Verlaine compares the buttocks and the breasts: Buttocks the holy throne of the indecencies. […]

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  • In Defense of Description

    July 25th, 2013 | Literature | journalpulp | 3 Comments

    There’s a common misconception — unfortunately growing — popular among so-called commercial-fiction coaches predominantly, though not exclusively, that stories and novels have one and only one real purpose: storytelling. Which is to say, plot. Which is to say, conflict. Anything, therefore, that slows the pace of the plot — or anything that disrupts the plot […]

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  • Lyrics Without Music

    Lyrics Without Music

    July 18th, 2013 | Song lyrics | journalpulp | 8 Comments

    Lyrics without music are like a clam without a shell. Songs lyrics are called melic — a word that means the lyrics are intended to be sung. The word melic comes from the Greek word melos, meaning “song.” It’s no surprise, therefore, that no matter how much one might enjoy a song, the overwhelming majority […]

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  • Ayn Rand On Literature And Popular Fiction

    Ayn Rand On Literature And Popular Fiction

    July 11th, 2013 | philosophy of art | journalpulp | 1 Comment

    Just recently, I came across the following Q & A, which, whether you agree with it or not — and her name, I know, is either toxic or life-affirming (I’m not an objectivist, for the record, but I liked The Fountainhead) — you will almost certainly find as provocative and thought-provoking as I did. It’s […]

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  • Pulp Paperback Redesigns of the Classics

    July 2nd, 2013 | Book Covers | journalpulp | 5 Comments

    It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for pulp and good packaging, so when I came across the following redesigns, you can only imagine my delight. The Tess of the D’Ubervilles gave me a particularly big boner.

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  • Want To Be A Writer? Drop Out of College

    Want To Be A Writer? Drop Out of College

    June 20th, 2013 | Writing Talent | journalpulp | 4 Comments

    In an interview Truman Capote once gave, he said the following about becoming a writer: “The last thing in the world I would do was waste my time going to college, because I knew what I wanted to do. The only reason to go to college is if you want to be a doctor, a […]

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  • Tiananmen Square: Twenty-Four Year Anniversary

    Tiananmen Square: Twenty-Four Year Anniversary

    June 4th, 2013 | Tiananmen Square massacre | journalpulp | 2 Comments

    Do you remember Tiananmen Square? It’s difficult to believe that it was over two decades ago, but today, June 4th, indeed marks the twenty-four year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China. This was when the communist dictatorship of that country quashed a political reform movement, which was begun by Beijing students who […]

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