The Stories

"Testimonies" & "Elementary, My Dear Twain"
A two-fer, in Adobe's pdf format: a crime story inspired by New York City crime scenes photographs from 1915, and a rewritten version of my Mark Twain/Sherlock Holmes story
A short comic piece about a man, a woman and a dead groundhog.

"Groundhog Day"
A short comic piece about a man, a woman and a dead groundhog.

"Elementary, My Dear Twain"
A Sherlock Holmes pastiche narrated by Mark Twain.

"Nobody Gets Hurt"
In which Ernest Hemingway meets Roger Maris at Yankee Stadium. A baseball bat and a body are involved.

The Commentary

Since I was given a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories as a child, I've been fascinated by mysteries. It has not been a constant affection. Fantasy stories caught my attention for awhile, and I've read science-fiction during the cyberpunk heyday and literary fiction throughout.

But after writing a number of stories that will make great landfill fodder someday, I figured out that sincerity is the little-discussed x-factor in the success of your writing. You have to believe in what you're doing, because insincerity, whether it takes the form of "I'm going to write what sells," or, "I'm going to write this because everyone else is writing this," just doesn't work.

There's a form of arrogance in this belief as well, and that's another characteristic to the fiction writer. Breaking into print means that your stories have to be so wonderful and so compelling that an editor is willing to publish your story. Name writers can afford to slack off; their name will carry them. Unpublished writers don't have that luxury.

But the bee in the ointment means that you have to believe in the quality of your work, and in the beginning, you will be the only one in the marketplace to do so. That tends to give you the air of arrogance, but it's absolutely essential to the success of your work. After all, if you don't believe in yourself, who will?