“So we tremble. / Do we tremble? // We tremble.” – Mathias Svalina, “The Wine-Dark Sea”
But first, your weekly Vine: it’s plagues week! Monday was Chapter 57: “The Plague of Greed.” Tuesday was Chapter 58: “The Plague of Blood.” Today is Chapter 59: “The Plague of Closings.” We’ve only got two more weeks of Vine left. If you’ve been reading and following along, our endless thanks. If you haven’t, there’s still time to do what I did when LOST was on, which was not watch any of it, then watch every episode in the span of like two months so that I could watch the finale as it broadcast.
Let’s be real, first: I didn’t publish much this year. Not for lack of trying, but also, I didn’t try too hard. That said, I’m beyond thrilled at what I did publish.
Also, let’s be really real, second: my kid’s got the entire week off of school for Thanksgiving. Are you serious. Anyway, this is about all I got time for this week, because we’re hosting at Casa de Corlew, and I need to go make pies.
Short Fiction
“Remodeling,” published in Whisk(e)y Tit. Y’all (awards people) wanna read a ghost story I wrote?
Novel-In-Stories
Vine, co-written with Brendan Johnson, self-published at storiesfromvine.com. Look, I don’t know if there are awards for a self-published novel-in-stories you wrote for fun with your best friend and self-published because going through the submission hoops would take the fun out of it. But it’s a full, 76k word novel, and we think it rips. Which brings me to another point.
Awards Are Cool But Also, Like, It’s Cool
Don’t get me wrong, if I got nominated for or God forbid won an award, I’d be pretty insufferable about it. “Hello and welcome to The Line Break podcast, my name is National Book Award Winner Chris Corlew, and with me as always is my friend and co-host, Bob Sykora. Bob, won any awards lately?” That whole shit. But idk. Our world is small, and that’s not just the presses. This is a scene fueled by weirdos and artists and True Believers, and honestly? The rest of humanity thinks we’re pretty weird.
I will never forget the way Dustin, Kitchen Manager at the Chili’s on Grand & State in 2011, looked at me when I said my favorite writers were Aimee Bender and Gabriel García Márquez. I don’t remember that look because Dustin was especially dismissive, or blank-faced, or condescending. Dustin’s cool. I remember that look because it was the time I decided to stop telling people who my favorite writers were. It was the time I decided to stop saying anything beyond “I want to be a writer.” It was less than a year out of undergrad, and too many coworkers had already given me that look. No one knows or cares about us, fellow writers.
When I started writing for Cracked, I felt some validation, like, “oh, I’m a writer, I write for Cracked dot com, you know that one, the place that just laid off Daniel O’Brien and Robert Evans with a straight face.” And it is validating! To work with editors, to have an editor course-correct you, assign you something just to push you, or simply go to bat for you as much as I know Logan Trent and Cyriaque Lamar and Chris Pauls did for me—that rules. Still—and as I type this, I realize it’s as much for me as it is for You, The Reader, but—find your own validation.
Sure, I want a published book. I want a book that I can hold that has my name on the cover. I want about 12 of them, honestly, but let’s not get greedy. Other than that?
I feel like a fucking writer, dudes.
I’ve written so goddamned much this year, the people in my life are still asking where I find the time. I write this blog twice a week, the one person who kept me tethered to the lit world during my burnout phase (and tethered to his ass boxing me out for rebounds) now records a The Line Break with me once a month, my Literary Bestie has asked me to work at a sick journal with other people I absolutely adore, and my best friend since I was eight years old and I started a “company” that is an excuse for us to write novels and records together.
I write because it’s fun, I write because I don’t want to do anything else, I write because I feel physically possessed by my stories and songs and poems and they need to get out of my body, and yes, I write because one day I think I’ll be paid and lauded halfway handsomely for it. But that’s the order: fun, hatred of other work, demon possession, then desire for money and plaudits.
As long as I’m getting the work done, I could give a fuck about an award.
waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait shit AWARDS PEOPLE! YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO READ PAST THE VINE COVER! IS IT TOO LATE TO GO BACK AND CHANGE IT? *touches ear* I’M BEING TOLD THERE’S NO DELETE KEY. AWARDS PEOPLE, HEY! DON’T READ THAT OTHER STUFF, JUST READ “REMODELING” AND VINE!
Sorry you got an email,
Chris