I tried to think of the last time I saw you naked, and I couldn’t. The way your jeans fell off of you at the barest provocation, your breasts that you always said were too small and engendered a sense of ungender. I thought that they were pretty okay, and that’s the best I knew how to say aloud that they were God’s own perfection, that there’s the proof against my unbelief. You never forgave me my understatement.
Did I take note of these things the last time? It seems important that I did, so let’s just say that I did. Let’s just say I looked for you and I found you, that last time, you either stepping out of a shower or in bed on a Saturday morning with the sun streaming in and interrupting the best kind of sleep. Or, if I get to choose a last time, which I think that I do, I choose that September afternoon when the power was out on account of a glancing hurricane, you sprawled all the way apart on the wine-stained carpet and laughing, because what else was there to do in the muggy open-window heat but laugh about nothing making sense when you try and tell a life like it’s a story. Which that’s always the mistake that we were making.
And now (and now) I stand there in front of him all sworn in and knock-kneed nervous reading my prepared testimony when I sputter like an airplane engine flaming out, and I stop, and I say Your Honor, I guess it’s that things like this are never really finished. And he says I know, and he thumbs through my papers, and he waits for me to be ready.
_________________________
I've decided that the time has come (and it's been coming and coming for awhile now) to stop posting weekly vignettes to this blog and start focusing on turning this book length project into a real book. I've been doing this for over a year now, I have well over a hundred vignettes written, what started out as a way for me to fictionalize and process my life (a false autobiography, if you will, but then that's most fiction) has become something significant to me outside of the context of my personal history. It's time to move forward.
I will be sending out some of the vignettes for individual publication in various places (and feel free to solicit them if you happen to own a literary magazine or website or something or know someone who does), and I'll be shaping them into a novel, and I will keep you posted on all of that here. I'll also post vignettes here and there when I feel like sharing or whatever. Your feedback, as always, is appreciated (in fact, I wish there were more of it). To those of you who look forward to Thursdays: I'm sorry. I'm still here, writing, doing what I love, and you'll still get to see it. I just have to focus on making sure it's presented and presentable in the way that it should ultimately be presented, and I feel lousy that I'm holding back my favorite or best vignettes for a "real" venue, but there it is.
I hope you all continue to share this blog with people who might like it, even though updating will be more sporadic, and I hope you'll still continue to like what I do. And... that's it, I guess.
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"You never forgave me my understatement." That right there is a line that resonates. For your characters in this project and for vignettes in general. And the last paragraph. You're on to something there, what with the whole delightful meta-ness of the project coming to a head. The courtroom scene needs its own vignette. Or two, or three. At least. Anyway, I haven't read all of these, but I've been following for a few months and there's some really good stuff here. You have to read them slowly to get everything, which is a pleasure for the patient reader, but it's also going to be an obstacle when it comes to putting them all together and selling them. You know my feelings about vignettes haha. Those aside, there's no doubt in my mind that you have (or soon will have) mastered the form. Good luck with these. I'd be happy to do what I can, if you want to send me anything for looking over.
ReplyDeleteAs always, thank you for sharing what you share.
ReplyDelete-Jasa
I've read through every vignette, but I've never commented before. I guess now that it's ending I feel as though I must. I wanted to say thank you for writing these. It's one of the things that I've truly loved reading. I was one of those people who looked forward to Thursdays. I wanted to say something about the emotion I feel from your writing, but I think, as in the vignette, any words I could write would be an understatement. I guess I'll just settle for one more thank you, and wait patiently for more writing.
ReplyDeleteMm. Reading this vignette is like therapy. like. A bar of dark-chocolate melting in your mouth. like. a hot shower to thaw frozen-fingers at 32 degrees celcius. like. a stroll in the park. In short. I like. (As Mike alluded earlier,'that’s the best I knew how to say aloud that they were God’s own perfection").
ReplyDelete-Lauren M. M.
Thanks for the brief respite during otherwise bland weeks, Zach.
ReplyDeleteI'll miss the updates, but I'm glad to hear about bigger plans for all these vignettes. I admit to harboring secret hopes that they might be collected in some fashion.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen or are you on fictionaut? It might be a place to get more feedback. I've occasionally seen people there solicited by publishers for short works, as well.