Shorts Weather

As I write this, it's a beautiful Saturday morning in Maine, the temperature climbing, the sun shining bright. I should be raking my yard, or spreading mulch, or whatever it is normal, decent folk do instead of killing imaginary people messily on the page.

Instead, I've been killing imaginary people messily on the page.

See, a while back, Nigel Bird and Chris Rhatigan cooked up an anthology idea. They wanted pulp tales inspired by tracks from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. And they invited me to contribute one. Of course I said sure. The track I was assigned was "Royale with Cheese." So I popped onto iTunes and gave it a listen. (What? Mr. Self-Styled Pulp Writer doesn't own a copy of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack? As a matter of fact, he does. It just doesn't have tracks per se, on account of it's a store-bought cassette.)

Anyways, today I put the finishing touches on my contribution to the PULP INK anthology: "A Night at the Royale." Old-school Tarantino fan that I am, it's got more references per page than maybe any story ever. (There's even a Four Rooms reference or two. Seriously, who the hell but me even remembers Four Rooms?)

Oh, and in other pulpy short story news, I have no other pulpy short story news. So beat it. To a pulp. Say, two rounds worth of pulp-beating, just to be on the safe side.

Hmm. BEAT TO A PULP: ROUND TWO. That's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? (See what I did there? Ring? 'Cause the title has a boxing theme?)

Great idea though it would be, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of BEAT TO A PULP: ROUND TWO. Which would make speculation that Matthew P. Mayo was joining David Cranmer in putting together one of the most startling collections of pulpy talent for it the world has ever seen premature at best. And don't even think of asking me whether my ghost story "An Open Door" is to be included, because obviously, I couldn't say...