\u201cWhat’s your deal?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to get this fuckin thing under two thousand words.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat thing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. I thought something was really wrong. Like you got an email with bad news or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I kinda did.\u201d He counted the journals in his OpenOffice Spreadsheet. \u201cThat makes fourteen. Rejections. For just this one fuckin.”<\/p>\n
She stretched out on the couch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy’s it gotta be under however-many words.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCause that’s what they say on their Submittable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. Sorry. What’s their Submittable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat website I use. And it’s not just one journal. It’s just, I’m at a point with this story where every time I look at it I just end up adding another hundred words or so. But if I can whittle it down to an area where it’ll almost be acceptable as Flash Fiction, it’ll at least get considered. Get read, at the very least. I know this is boring to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. It’s… not. How many words over are you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven hundred and ten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her phone said, \u201cBark like a dog. Woof.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven, one, zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t realize that was still a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWord counts? I know, right? It’s fuckin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, this Tiktok whatever-you-call-it. Where people bark at their dog and record its reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn’t respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich story is it? One of the ones I read?\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn’t respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it the one about that kid at his grandpa’s funeral? That first one you sent me? Don’t edit it down!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s the one about the kid with diarrhea. At school. I sent you a version like two months ago. Don’t think you read it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. I must’ve missed it. Sorry. Send it again. When you get a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He exhaled. Start at the top. Consider every word as if all of life depends on it.<\/p>\n
Does the reader really need to know the story unfolds on a Monday? He imagined himself choking down cigarettes with Jason Robards, legs resting on a cluttered desk, flipping and conferring over a wrinkled printout. If he were a better writer, the story would already have that \u201cMonday\u201d feel to it. And look at all these prepositional phrases and idioms that can also be got rid of.<\/p>\n
He checked the word count again. He’d excised fifty or so words but had added about half as many when he included those two lines about Coach Taylor’s breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHm?\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, I agree that it’s a really dumb rule\u2014these word counts. But I can also kind of see the logic to it. I mean, everyone’s got the sense that the world’s ending. Global warming, war, genocide–\u201d<\/p>\n
Trimming around the shitstain description could wait.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cYeah but how many people are actually paying attention to any of that, anyways? I mean, really?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c–attention spans getting shorter. Like, get to the point already.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, but noone fuckin thinks for a second about watching fifty hours of a tv show.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that because I’m watching Lost again? I’m trying to help you out. Cheer you up. Don’t take your frustrations out on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not. I mean, I don’t mean to. And I mean, noone fuckin reads anything anymore anyways. Which makes it even more absurd. Accidentally describe a mop and you can’t even get that pyrric, phyrric, however you say it, dopamine rush that comes with publication.\u201d<\/p>\n
The whole section where there’s no toilet paper and he has to use his socks is 277 words long. Get rid of that and you can scratch out that whole interaction later at the principal’s. The call home to the family. But the build-up of anxiety in the stall, up through the bullying scene–there’s a kind of cleansing pay-off quality when the second round hits him in the locker room shower.<\/p>\n
Craig Googled \u201csynonym for baptism\u201d because it really was too obvious a word. He turned to Becka.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t mind. Sorry, you don’t mind reading it do you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I love reading your writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tried to not read too deeply into her wording. She was on Instagram. He could see an image\/headline. The president’s talks with Netanyahu were \u201cAbout to Get Real.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you have to be honest. Let me know what you think. What should be deleted. If anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
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