THE STORY COMPOST IS OPEN

In my years of writing, I've concocted some blisteringly bad stories. Stories that, surprisingly, seemed like flashes of genius before everything went sour. I doubt I'm alone here. And let's face it, this stuff piles up. So rather than see this literary manure go to waste, the Story Compost has opened to collect rotten or ridiculous tales -- the discarded narratives you started on a frenzied caffeine binge only to abandon a week later…you know, the ones that will make onlookers of our strange rooftop garden shake their heads in wonder and think: Somebody actually thought this was good?

Yes. Compost your one-dimensional character, over-complicated premise, and the juicy alien abduction plot that went saggy and rotten overnight. The garden will make fertilizer of it all.

The flying dream poem you have no use for? Kick open the compost bin and throw it in. The unpublished short story about talking orangutans not even your grandmother can appreciate? It's time, really, to put it to use here and help this bizarre community garden blossom.

Like all public gardens, the produce is free for the taking. See a character you like, bring him home and re-use him. Find a plot device that works for your current mystery novel? Swat away the flies and plant it into your story. Nothing in the Story Compost goes to waste.

ENJOY, and please shut the gate on your way out, the raccoons are terrors around here.


(SEE BELOW HOW TO ADD YOUR COMPOST STORY)

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

FIRST COMPOST; ALERT THE GNATS

I wrote a story about fifteen years ago, I'm not kidding, about a special needs teenager (sorry) who became a rock star. The kid was like Bruce Springsteen meets Rain Man. I smelled Academy Award. It should be no surprise I was the only one. See, it wasn't enough this guitar strummer was a reclusive savant, I had to give him alcoholic parents (his father might've been a minister, I can't remember). Anway, this kid gets a couple songs on the local station and fast-forward to the end, he's selling out Madison Square Garden.

This story has been quietly rotting for decades in my high school shit pile and now it's time to compost. A couple hundred more of these and we're going to have a garden.

***To add your story, place it in the comments or e-mail it to wellfleet.surf@yahoo.com, and I'll post it here.
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