REALITY FICTION

I once read an article in Discover magazine about a new experimental form of male contraception. Although I don’t remember all the details behind the scientific research, I do remember the observations of a female molecular biologist. She had discovered that a certain drug used to treat high blood pressure in men, also coated their sperm in cholesterol, blocking the sperm’s ability to penetrate an egg. Sounds wild, I know. But that little piece of information became a very minute detail in my story, “Bread And Water Revival.”

I’m a firm believer in not overkilling the details in a story. I like to write my ideas down and put them on ice for a while. Let them chill. Somehow, in the organized chaos of my scrap sheets of paper, I found the master plan to a short story. In this case, a smorgasbord of ideas set everything in motion. I had notes on the following:

1) a new male contraceptive
2) a yogurt incident I observed while traveling on a highschool bus
3) my failed attempts at fixing a laundry tub
4) my friend’s backyard wedding reception where everyone took pictures with the complimentary disposable cameras of the happily married couple’s Australian Cattle Dog
5) my nightmarish experience chauffeuring a bunch of middle-aged women around Detroit
6) a female friend who happened to be heavily involved in the National Organization of Women
7) my shared pallbearer duties with the ex-husband of the dearly departed
8) my wife’s keen observation that only my prison stories were getting published.

Don’t ask me how I managed to write a short story based on these hand-scrawled tidbits, but I did.

Tomorrow I will post “Bread And Water Revival.” I realize that it may be too long for the Internet (approximately 1500 words), but due to my scheduled surgery, I may not be posting for a day or two. A special thanks goes out to Dante Rance for his illustration. And as usual, feel free to criticize.