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**Kanna** · 10-27-2019, 11:59 PM

Dyn watched anime for the first time and he loved it. Suppose that you were sitting down at this table. The napkins are in front of you, which napkin would you take? The one on your ‘left’? Or the one on your ‘right’? The one on your left side? Or the one on your right side?

Usually you would take the one on your left side. That is ‘correct’ too. But in a larger sense on society, that is wrong. Perhaps I could even substitute ‘society’ with the ‘Universe’. The correct answer is that ‘It is determined by the one who takes his or her own napkin first.’ …Yes?

If the first one takes the napkin to their right, then there’s no choice but for others to also take the ‘right’ napkin. The same goes for the left. Everyone else will take the napkin to their left, because they have no other option. This is ‘society’…

Who are the ones that determine the price of land first? There must have been someone who determined the value of money, first. The size of the rails on a train track? The magnitude of electricity? Laws and Regulations? Who was the first to determine these things? Did we all do it, because this is a Republic? Or was it Arbitrary? NO! The one who took the napkin first determined all of these things!
Johnny Joestar

With each new part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the protagonist of the part, or "JoJo", has tested the boundaries of what it means to be a "JoJo" more than the last. The original, Jonathan Joestar set the precedent. He was honorable, righteous, and fought only for good. His grandson began to push this boundary. Joseph Joestar was a liar and used underhanded tactics to win his fights, but at least he had a good moral compass and knew what was right and wrong. Part 3's Jotaro Kujo was a delinquent; he beat people up, he stiffed the bill at restaurants, but at least he knew true evil when he saw it. You could go through and do this with each of the first six JoJos, but every time, you could prove that they are worthy to carry on Jonathan's legacy. Part 7's Johnny Joestar, however isn't a descendant of Jonathan.

One question I see getting asked a lot is whether or not Johnny is the "good guy" and antagonist, Funny Valentine is the "bad guy". At the beginning of the story, it's easy to see why Johnny could be considered to not be the good guy. He's in the race solely for himself. He was mean to someone else and got punished for it by losing his ability to walk. He's in the race to regain his ability to walk; not to absolve himself of his sins, but solely to remove the punishment for them.

Funny Valentine

President Funny Valentine is clearly the antagonist of the story, but is he the villain? Many people consider Valentine not to be the villain because, in a story populated so densely with selfish characters. He's fighting for the good of the country. However, it's important to remember that he's fighting for the good of his country. His desire to use the holy corpse to "take the napkin first" and turn the US into a higher power than the rest of the world goes against a major part of the American Dream: equality. He doesn't want the US to be equal, but to be greater. If his goal is so contrary to the American Dream, then it's only natural that the race that he's using to accomplish this goal is not symbolically following this dream and going westward. By participating in the Steel Ball Run and traveling eastward, the racers are symbolically undoing the American Dream. This is why Valentine is the villain.

Gyro Zeppeli

If Valentine is the villain, then Johnny, who opposes him, must be the hero, right? Well, not really. Johnny isn't the only one who opposes Valentine; there's also Gyro Zeppeli. But why would Gyro be the hero when there are so many other characters that oppose Valentine, like Lucy Steel, Hot Pants, and Diego Brando? Well Gyro is the only one who fights for an entirely just cause. He's fighting to save an unjustly convicted child. His fighting of this injustice ruling is symbolic of fighting for equality, making him the hero that's necessary to fight Valentine.

Ball Breaker

So now we seemingly have our hero, Gyro, and our villain, Valentine. These two finally clash in the arc known as "Ball Breaker". In their fight, Gyro uses the final technique of the spin which he uses to fight, the super spin. However, it is not enough to defeat Valentine, and our hero dies. However, he uses his last moment to give Johnny one last lesson. His final words are, "I always tried to take the fastest shortcut in this Steel Ball Run race, but, the shortest route was a detour. It was the detour that was our shortest path. It's been true the whole time we've been crossing this continent. And because of you we were able to take that route." Throughout the entire story, Gyro has never been very successful in the race. Johnny has clearly outperformed him. This is him admitting that no matter how hard he tries, he will never win the race and never save the kid. Gyro only ever has half of what it takes to be the hero. He has the righteous ideals, but Johnny has the skills to make them happen. In death, Gyro passes his ideals off onto Johnny, turning Johnny into the true hero. Johnny uses this newfound wisdom to defeat Valentine and save the day, but this is not the end of the story.

High Voltage

One major complaint about Steel Ball Run is that the final arc, "High Voltage" feels tacked on and purposeless. However, I believe that High Voltage is the most important part of Steel Ball Run. Just as Gyro was the hero, but not the true hero, Valentine was the villain but not the true villain and just as Gryo used his last moments to impart his ideals onto Johnny, Valentine used his last moments to impart his ideals onto alternate universe Diego; Diego who wants to finish the race, completing the ritual of undoing the American Dream and elevate the country above the rest, not because of any connection to or love for the country, but simply to ride on its coattails to elevate himself. That is true evil. This new Diego also has a different stand, The World, the same stand that the original Dio had. This fight is very symbolic. Johnny has finally earned his right to Jonathan's legacy and now he reenacts the classic battle: JoJo vs Dio. Every previous JoJo has fought the evil of Dio in one way or another. Now Johnny has earned his right to fight the power of Dio himself and his place as the seventh JoJo.

Conclusion

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run is the story of Johnny Joestar earning his place among the legendary heroes of a universe that doesn't exist. Despite the universe being reset, the spirit of "JoJo" lives on and that spirit is the only thing that can stop the plot to elevate the United States to a position of power over the rest of the world, and in turn, undo the ideals on which it was founded. This is what makes Steel Ball Run so beloved among fans of the series, even if they don't realize it. Johnny is so refreshing as a protagonist because he isn't just handed his status as a hero on a silver platter; he has to earn it. I really do think that Johnny's words while battling Valentine really capture what Steel Ball Run is all about, "[It] is truly a detour. It's truly, truly, a very long roundabout path." The story of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has finally come back around to the start. The universe reset at the end of Part 6 was a detour to where the path had been leading the entire time: the very place where it began. JoJo is finally back and now the cycle begins anew.

The rules of this world are determined by that same principle of ‘right or left?’! In a Society like this table, a state of equilibrium, once one makes the first move, everyone must follow! In every era, this World has been operating by this napkin principle. And the one who ‘takes the napkin first’ must be someone who is respected by all.

It’s not that anyone can fulfill this role… Those that are despotic or unworthy will be scorned. And those are the ‘losers’. In the case of this table, the ‘eldest’ or the ‘Master of the party’ will take the napkin first… Because everyone ‘respects’ those individuals.

Any dramatic tension is ruined whenever Gyro shows his carved/grilled set of teeth.
Nyo-ho!
Stephen makes a horrible joke after going into a speech about a large block of ice holding the SBR trophy:
Stephen: Well, I think those comments broke the ice, don't you think?
Everyone: [Collective Groan]
Lucy: [Supportive clapping]
The president of the United States shotgunning a beer.
Johnny screaming "What the hell are you?!" at his stand, this positively tiny, cute-looking fairy creature with a metal beak and shiny Black Bead Eyes. It actually looks sad afterwards◊.
Diego's joke about the cougars and rattle-snakes was pretty funny, if not cringeworthy.
Johnny somehow doesn't know what a dinosaur is.
"Dino-sore? What's a dinosore?"
After getting lost a few times, Johnny and Gyro meet Hot Pants, who moments ago tried to kill them. Hot Pants asks for cooperation. Their response?
Gyro: Tell him to go eat ****, Johnny!
Johnny: Tell him yourself.
Gyro: EAT ****, *******! FALL OFF YOUR HORSE!
Gyro's out-of-nowhere song about cheeses. Best part? Johnny likes it. Maybe. Although, later on he's shown singing the song with Gyro, and suggests that they should start a band together.
Scarlet is chock-full of them:
Scarlet just playing with Lucy's nose, lips, and cheeks.
Lucy: Scarlet!
Scarlet: Ohhhhh!
Scarlet: On my face, Lucy! I want you to squish me with that cute little butt!
Magenta Magenta and Wekapipo's introduction. It starts off with Magenta Magenta licking his hands clean of the phlegm he coughs up, then turning to show Wekapipo his 'Tears of the Himalayan Yeti' joke (which involves him pretending to cry chunks of ice). When Wekapipo ignores him, he's mildly offended...only to start babbling about airplanes. Wekapipo complains that with the invention of airplanes other people will take their jobs (as assassins...?) and Magenta Magenta pulls the most offended face◊ and asks if he ever has fun.
On another note, although we can't hear his voice per se the translation team assures us that, due to the way his speech is written in Japanese, that Magent Magent sounds like "a more coherent Donald Duck or a male Fran Drescher".
Gyro's bad joke in "7 Days A Week." Or rather, the thrashing about he does during it.
On a meta level, the fact the joke got its own mini-chapter.
Gyro's jokes makes sense in the original japanese, but don't translate into other languages at all; as a result, translated!Gyro appears to have a completely nonsensical concept of "humor". Likewise, japanese!Johnny seems to genuinely appreaciate Gyro's jokes, while translated!Johnny passes for either a Deadpan Snarker, or someone with an equally absurd sense of humor.
The "Like a winter catfish" guy.
When Valentine belts out a "DOJYAAA~N!"
Also worthy of mention is the Napkin Speech Valentine delivers in order to explain his motivations. It's just as brilliant and enlightening as it is absurd and ludicrously thought-out.
Valentine's power explanation◊ is conveyed through sponges, in arguably one of the most confusing panels of the series for anyone new reading it.
P.S. Dyn dies
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career. While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

- - - Updated - - -

While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

**Yell0wTail** · 10-28-2019, 12:14 AM

Originally posted by Kanna View Post

Dyn watched anime for the first time and he loved it. Suppose that you were sitting down at this table. The napkins are in front of you, which napkin would you take? The one on your ‘left’? Or the one on your ‘right’? The one on your left side? Or the one on your right side?

Usually you would take the one on your left side. That is ‘correct’ too. But in a larger sense on society, that is wrong. Perhaps I could even substitute ‘society’ with the ‘Universe’. The correct answer is that ‘It is determined by the one who takes his or her own napkin first.’ …Yes?

If the first one takes the napkin to their right, then there’s no choice but for others to also take the ‘right’ napkin. The same goes for the left. Everyone else will take the napkin to their left, because they have no other option. This is ‘society’…

Who are the ones that determine the price of land first? There must have been someone who determined the value of money, first. The size of the rails on a train track? The magnitude of electricity? Laws and Regulations? Who was the first to determine these things? Did we all do it, because this is a Republic? Or was it Arbitrary? NO! The one who took the napkin first determined all of these things!
Johnny Joestar

With each new part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the protagonist of the part, or "JoJo", has tested the boundaries of what it means to be a "JoJo" more than the last. The original, Jonathan Joestar set the precedent. He was honorable, righteous, and fought only for good. His grandson began to push this boundary. Joseph Joestar was a liar and used underhanded tactics to win his fights, but at least he had a good moral compass and knew what was right and wrong. Part 3's Jotaro Kujo was a delinquent; he beat people up, he stiffed the bill at restaurants, but at least he knew true evil when he saw it. You could go through and do this with each of the first six JoJos, but every time, you could prove that they are worthy to carry on Jonathan's legacy. Part 7's Johnny Joestar, however isn't a descendant of Jonathan.

One question I see getting asked a lot is whether or not Johnny is the "good guy" and antagonist, Funny Valentine is the "bad guy". At the beginning of the story, it's easy to see why Johnny could be considered to not be the good guy. He's in the race solely for himself. He was mean to someone else and got punished for it by losing his ability to walk. He's in the race to regain his ability to walk; not to absolve himself of his sins, but solely to remove the punishment for them.

Funny Valentine

President Funny Valentine is clearly the antagonist of the story, but is he the villain? Many people consider Valentine not to be the villain because, in a story populated so densely with selfish characters. He's fighting for the good of the country. However, it's important to remember that he's fighting for the good of his country. His desire to use the holy corpse to "take the napkin first" and turn the US into a higher power than the rest of the world goes against a major part of the American Dream: equality. He doesn't want the US to be equal, but to be greater. If his goal is so contrary to the American Dream, then it's only natural that the race that he's using to accomplish this goal is not symbolically following this dream and going westward. By participating in the Steel Ball Run and traveling eastward, the racers are symbolically undoing the American Dream. This is why Valentine is the villain.

Gyro Zeppeli

If Valentine is the villain, then Johnny, who opposes him, must be the hero, right? Well, not really. Johnny isn't the only one who opposes Valentine; there's also Gyro Zeppeli. But why would Gyro be the hero when there are so many other characters that oppose Valentine, like Lucy Steel, Hot Pants, and Diego Brando? Well Gyro is the only one who fights for an entirely just cause. He's fighting to save an unjustly convicted child. His fighting of this injustice ruling is symbolic of fighting for equality, making him the hero that's necessary to fight Valentine.

Ball Breaker

So now we seemingly have our hero, Gyro, and our villain, Valentine. These two finally clash in the arc known as "Ball Breaker". In their fight, Gyro uses the final technique of the spin which he uses to fight, the super spin. However, it is not enough to defeat Valentine, and our hero dies. However, he uses his last moment to give Johnny one last lesson. His final words are, "I always tried to take the fastest shortcut in this Steel Ball Run race, but, the shortest route was a detour. It was the detour that was our shortest path. It's been true the whole time we've been crossing this continent. And because of you we were able to take that route." Throughout the entire story, Gyro has never been very successful in the race. Johnny has clearly outperformed him. This is him admitting that no matter how hard he tries, he will never win the race and never save the kid. Gyro only ever has half of what it takes to be the hero. He has the righteous ideals, but Johnny has the skills to make them happen. In death, Gyro passes his ideals off onto Johnny, turning Johnny into the true hero. Johnny uses this newfound wisdom to defeat Valentine and save the day, but this is not the end of the story.

High Voltage

One major complaint about Steel Ball Run is that the final arc, "High Voltage" feels tacked on and purposeless. However, I believe that High Voltage is the most important part of Steel Ball Run. Just as Gyro was the hero, but not the true hero, Valentine was the villain but not the true villain and just as Gryo used his last moments to impart his ideals onto Johnny, Valentine used his last moments to impart his ideals onto alternate universe Diego; Diego who wants to finish the race, completing the ritual of undoing the American Dream and elevate the country above the rest, not because of any connection to or love for the country, but simply to ride on its coattails to elevate himself. That is true evil. This new Diego also has a different stand, The World, the same stand that the original Dio had. This fight is very symbolic. Johnny has finally earned his right to Jonathan's legacy and now he reenacts the classic battle: JoJo vs Dio. Every previous JoJo has fought the evil of Dio in one way or another. Now Johnny has earned his right to fight the power of Dio himself and his place as the seventh JoJo.

Conclusion

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run is the story of Johnny Joestar earning his place among the legendary heroes of a universe that doesn't exist. Despite the universe being reset, the spirit of "JoJo" lives on and that spirit is the only thing that can stop the plot to elevate the United States to a position of power over the rest of the world, and in turn, undo the ideals on which it was founded. This is what makes Steel Ball Run so beloved among fans of the series, even if they don't realize it. Johnny is so refreshing as a protagonist because he isn't just handed his status as a hero on a silver platter; he has to earn it. I really do think that Johnny's words while battling Valentine really capture what Steel Ball Run is all about, "[It] is truly a detour. It's truly, truly, a very long roundabout path." The story of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has finally come back around to the start. The universe reset at the end of Part 6 was a detour to where the path had been leading the entire time: the very place where it began. JoJo is finally back and now the cycle begins anew.

The rules of this world are determined by that same principle of ‘right or left?’! In a Society like this table, a state of equilibrium, once one makes the first move, everyone must follow! In every era, this World has been operating by this napkin principle. And the one who ‘takes the napkin first’ must be someone who is respected by all.

It’s not that anyone can fulfill this role… Those that are despotic or unworthy will be scorned. And those are the ‘losers’. In the case of this table, the ‘eldest’ or the ‘Master of the party’ will take the napkin first… Because everyone ‘respects’ those individuals.

Any dramatic tension is ruined whenever Gyro shows his carved/grilled set of teeth.
Nyo-ho!
Stephen makes a horrible joke after going into a speech about a large block of ice holding the SBR trophy:
Stephen: Well, I think those comments broke the ice, don't you think?
Everyone: [Collective Groan]
Lucy: [Supportive clapping]
The president of the United States shotgunning a beer.
Johnny screaming "What the hell are you?!" at his stand, this positively tiny, cute-looking fairy creature with a metal beak and shiny Black Bead Eyes. It actually looks sad afterwards◊.
Diego's joke about the cougars and rattle-snakes was pretty funny, if not cringeworthy.
Johnny somehow doesn't know what a dinosaur is.
"Dino-sore? What's a dinosore?"
After getting lost a few times, Johnny and Gyro meet Hot Pants, who moments ago tried to kill them. Hot Pants asks for cooperation. Their response?
Gyro: Tell him to go eat ****, Johnny!
Johnny: Tell him yourself.
Gyro: EAT ****, *******! FALL OFF YOUR HORSE!
Gyro's out-of-nowhere song about cheeses. Best part? Johnny likes it. Maybe. Although, later on he's shown singing the song with Gyro, and suggests that they should start a band together.
Scarlet is chock-full of them:
Scarlet just playing with Lucy's nose, lips, and cheeks.
Lucy: Scarlet!
Scarlet: Ohhhhh!
Scarlet: On my face, Lucy! I want you to squish me with that cute little butt!
Magenta Magenta and Wekapipo's introduction. It starts off with Magenta Magenta licking his hands clean of the phlegm he coughs up, then turning to show Wekapipo his 'Tears of the Himalayan Yeti' joke (which involves him pretending to cry chunks of ice). When Wekapipo ignores him, he's mildly offended...only to start babbling about airplanes. Wekapipo complains that with the invention of airplanes other people will take their jobs (as assassins...?) and Magenta Magenta pulls the most offended face◊ and asks if he ever has fun.
On another note, although we can't hear his voice per se the translation team assures us that, due to the way his speech is written in Japanese, that Magent Magent sounds like "a more coherent Donald Duck or a male Fran Drescher".
Gyro's bad joke in "7 Days A Week." Or rather, the thrashing about he does during it.
On a meta level, the fact the joke got its own mini-chapter.
Gyro's jokes makes sense in the original japanese, but don't translate into other languages at all; as a result, translated!Gyro appears to have a completely nonsensical concept of "humor". Likewise, japanese!Johnny seems to genuinely appreaciate Gyro's jokes, while translated!Johnny passes for either a Deadpan Snarker, or someone with an equally absurd sense of humor.
The "Like a winter catfish" guy.
When Valentine belts out a "DOJYAAA~N!"
Also worthy of mention is the Napkin Speech Valentine delivers in order to explain his motivations. It's just as brilliant and enlightening as it is absurd and ludicrously thought-out.
Valentine's power explanation◊ is conveyed through sponges, in arguably one of the most confusing panels of the series for anyone new reading it.
P.S. Dyn dies
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career. While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

- - - Updated - - -

While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

Was this necessary?

**Kanna** · 10-28-2019, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by Yell0wTail View Post

Was this necessary?

yes it was

**NotTheCat** · 10-28-2019, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by Kanna View Post

Dyn watched anime for the first time and he loved it. Suppose that you were sitting down at this table. The napkins are in front of you, which napkin would you take? The one on your ‘left’? Or the one on your ‘right’? The one on your left side? Or the one on your right side?

Usually you would take the one on your left side. That is ‘correct’ too. But in a larger sense on society, that is wrong. Perhaps I could even substitute ‘society’ with the ‘Universe’. The correct answer is that ‘It is determined by the one who takes his or her own napkin first.’ …Yes?

If the first one takes the napkin to their right, then there’s no choice but for others to also take the ‘right’ napkin. The same goes for the left. Everyone else will take the napkin to their left, because they have no other option. This is ‘society’…

Who are the ones that determine the price of land first? There must have been someone who determined the value of money, first. The size of the rails on a train track? The magnitude of electricity? Laws and Regulations? Who was the first to determine these things? Did we all do it, because this is a Republic? Or was it Arbitrary? NO! The one who took the napkin first determined all of these things!
Johnny Joestar

With each new part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the protagonist of the part, or "JoJo", has tested the boundaries of what it means to be a "JoJo" more than the last. The original, Jonathan Joestar set the precedent. He was honorable, righteous, and fought only for good. His grandson began to push this boundary. Joseph Joestar was a liar and used underhanded tactics to win his fights, but at least he had a good moral compass and knew what was right and wrong. Part 3's Jotaro Kujo was a delinquent; he beat people up, he stiffed the bill at restaurants, but at least he knew true evil when he saw it. You could go through and do this with each of the first six JoJos, but every time, you could prove that they are worthy to carry on Jonathan's legacy. Part 7's Johnny Joestar, however isn't a descendant of Jonathan.

One question I see getting asked a lot is whether or not Johnny is the "good guy" and antagonist, Funny Valentine is the "bad guy". At the beginning of the story, it's easy to see why Johnny could be considered to not be the good guy. He's in the race solely for himself. He was mean to someone else and got punished for it by losing his ability to walk. He's in the race to regain his ability to walk; not to absolve himself of his sins, but solely to remove the punishment for them.

Funny Valentine

President Funny Valentine is clearly the antagonist of the story, but is he the villain? Many people consider Valentine not to be the villain because, in a story populated so densely with selfish characters. He's fighting for the good of the country. However, it's important to remember that he's fighting for the good of his country. His desire to use the holy corpse to "take the napkin first" and turn the US into a higher power than the rest of the world goes against a major part of the American Dream: equality. He doesn't want the US to be equal, but to be greater. If his goal is so contrary to the American Dream, then it's only natural that the race that he's using to accomplish this goal is not symbolically following this dream and going westward. By participating in the Steel Ball Run and traveling eastward, the racers are symbolically undoing the American Dream. This is why Valentine is the villain.

Gyro Zeppeli

If Valentine is the villain, then Johnny, who opposes him, must be the hero, right? Well, not really. Johnny isn't the only one who opposes Valentine; there's also Gyro Zeppeli. But why would Gyro be the hero when there are so many other characters that oppose Valentine, like Lucy Steel, Hot Pants, and Diego Brando? Well Gyro is the only one who fights for an entirely just cause. He's fighting to save an unjustly convicted child. His fighting of this injustice ruling is symbolic of fighting for equality, making him the hero that's necessary to fight Valentine.

Ball Breaker

So now we seemingly have our hero, Gyro, and our villain, Valentine. These two finally clash in the arc known as "Ball Breaker". In their fight, Gyro uses the final technique of the spin which he uses to fight, the super spin. However, it is not enough to defeat Valentine, and our hero dies. However, he uses his last moment to give Johnny one last lesson. His final words are, "I always tried to take the fastest shortcut in this Steel Ball Run race, but, the shortest route was a detour. It was the detour that was our shortest path. It's been true the whole time we've been crossing this continent. And because of you we were able to take that route." Throughout the entire story, Gyro has never been very successful in the race. Johnny has clearly outperformed him. This is him admitting that no matter how hard he tries, he will never win the race and never save the kid. Gyro only ever has half of what it takes to be the hero. He has the righteous ideals, but Johnny has the skills to make them happen. In death, Gyro passes his ideals off onto Johnny, turning Johnny into the true hero. Johnny uses this newfound wisdom to defeat Valentine and save the day, but this is not the end of the story.

High Voltage

One major complaint about Steel Ball Run is that the final arc, "High Voltage" feels tacked on and purposeless. However, I believe that High Voltage is the most important part of Steel Ball Run. Just as Gyro was the hero, but not the true hero, Valentine was the villain but not the true villain and just as Gryo used his last moments to impart his ideals onto Johnny, Valentine used his last moments to impart his ideals onto alternate universe Diego; Diego who wants to finish the race, completing the ritual of undoing the American Dream and elevate the country above the rest, not because of any connection to or love for the country, but simply to ride on its coattails to elevate himself. That is true evil. This new Diego also has a different stand, The World, the same stand that the original Dio had. This fight is very symbolic. Johnny has finally earned his right to Jonathan's legacy and now he reenacts the classic battle: JoJo vs Dio. Every previous JoJo has fought the evil of Dio in one way or another. Now Johnny has earned his right to fight the power of Dio himself and his place as the seventh JoJo.

Conclusion

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run is the story of Johnny Joestar earning his place among the legendary heroes of a universe that doesn't exist. Despite the universe being reset, the spirit of "JoJo" lives on and that spirit is the only thing that can stop the plot to elevate the United States to a position of power over the rest of the world, and in turn, undo the ideals on which it was founded. This is what makes Steel Ball Run so beloved among fans of the series, even if they don't realize it. Johnny is so refreshing as a protagonist because he isn't just handed his status as a hero on a silver platter; he has to earn it. I really do think that Johnny's words while battling Valentine really capture what Steel Ball Run is all about, "[It] is truly a detour. It's truly, truly, a very long roundabout path." The story of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has finally come back around to the start. The universe reset at the end of Part 6 was a detour to where the path had been leading the entire time: the very place where it began. JoJo is finally back and now the cycle begins anew.

The rules of this world are determined by that same principle of ‘right or left?’! In a Society like this table, a state of equilibrium, once one makes the first move, everyone must follow! In every era, this World has been operating by this napkin principle. And the one who ‘takes the napkin first’ must be someone who is respected by all.

It’s not that anyone can fulfill this role… Those that are despotic or unworthy will be scorned. And those are the ‘losers’. In the case of this table, the ‘eldest’ or the ‘Master of the party’ will take the napkin first… Because everyone ‘respects’ those individuals.

Any dramatic tension is ruined whenever Gyro shows his carved/grilled set of teeth.
Nyo-ho!
Stephen makes a horrible joke after going into a speech about a large block of ice holding the SBR trophy:
Stephen: Well, I think those comments broke the ice, don't you think?
Everyone: [Collective Groan]
Lucy: [Supportive clapping]
The president of the United States shotgunning a beer.
Johnny screaming "What the hell are you?!" at his stand, this positively tiny, cute-looking fairy creature with a metal beak and shiny Black Bead Eyes. It actually looks sad afterwards◊.
Diego's joke about the cougars and rattle-snakes was pretty funny, if not cringeworthy.
Johnny somehow doesn't know what a dinosaur is.
"Dino-sore? What's a dinosore?"
After getting lost a few times, Johnny and Gyro meet Hot Pants, who moments ago tried to kill them. Hot Pants asks for cooperation. Their response?
Gyro: Tell him to go eat ****, Johnny!
Johnny: Tell him yourself.
Gyro: EAT ****, *******! FALL OFF YOUR HORSE!
Gyro's out-of-nowhere song about cheeses. Best part? Johnny likes it. Maybe. Although, later on he's shown singing the song with Gyro, and suggests that they should start a band together.
Scarlet is chock-full of them:
Scarlet just playing with Lucy's nose, lips, and cheeks.
Lucy: Scarlet!
Scarlet: Ohhhhh!
Scarlet: On my face, Lucy! I want you to squish me with that cute little butt!
Magenta Magenta and Wekapipo's introduction. It starts off with Magenta Magenta licking his hands clean of the phlegm he coughs up, then turning to show Wekapipo his 'Tears of the Himalayan Yeti' joke (which involves him pretending to cry chunks of ice). When Wekapipo ignores him, he's mildly offended...only to start babbling about airplanes. Wekapipo complains that with the invention of airplanes other people will take their jobs (as assassins...?) and Magenta Magenta pulls the most offended face◊ and asks if he ever has fun.
On another note, although we can't hear his voice per se the translation team assures us that, due to the way his speech is written in Japanese, that Magent Magent sounds like "a more coherent Donald Duck or a male Fran Drescher".
Gyro's bad joke in "7 Days A Week." Or rather, the thrashing about he does during it.
On a meta level, the fact the joke got its own mini-chapter.
Gyro's jokes makes sense in the original japanese, but don't translate into other languages at all; as a result, translated!Gyro appears to have a completely nonsensical concept of "humor". Likewise, japanese!Johnny seems to genuinely appreaciate Gyro's jokes, while translated!Johnny passes for either a Deadpan Snarker, or someone with an equally absurd sense of humor.
The "Like a winter catfish" guy.
When Valentine belts out a "DOJYAAA~N!"
Also worthy of mention is the Napkin Speech Valentine delivers in order to explain his motivations. It's just as brilliant and enlightening as it is absurd and ludicrously thought-out.
Valentine's power explanation◊ is conveyed through sponges, in arguably one of the most confusing panels of the series for anyone new reading it.
P.S. Dyn dies
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.
While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career. While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

- - - Updated - - -

While it’s often said that few people read literary journals, especially the writers who want to get published in them (ahem), one great reason to read lit mags is to discover writers who you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
Think about it. When you go to the bookstore, at least if you’re like me, you’re either looking for the latest book that received buzz or you’re searching through the stacks for books that have been on your list anywhere from a week to years.
How often do you peruse the shelves to read even a few paragraphs by someone you’ve never heard of? Someone who doesn’t have a publicist, perhaps not an agent, and certainly not a marketing machine behind him or her.
When I read lit journals, however, I often avoid the name authors and only read the writers I’ve never heard of. Perhaps just because I’m suddenly in the world of my peers and I want to see who they are. It’s exciting.
So I’m grateful that I read Ted McLoof’s wild, long-ass, touching sentence/story in Monkeybicycle, “Space, Whether, and Why,” which totaled 1,394 words (seriously—top that).
McLoof’s sentence was not only an achievement of word length, but of storytelling. Although I imagine a Guiness Book of World Records type of competition where people cram donuts in their mouths, except with authors stuffing words into a sentence, there was nothing extraneous or gorged about McLoof’s story—every word and comma felt necessary. The lack of a period felt intrinsic to the meaning of the piece.
In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a single sentence until afterward, and then I traced back through it looking for a period.
I’d seen Monkebicycle’s one-sentence story feature before and considered how to write such a piece, but I admit that I conceived of it as a typical sentence—20 or 30 words or so, max.
So I asked myself, who the hell is this guy, Ted McLoof, who writes sentences longer than my granddaddy after his third bourbon? Let’s find out.
Interview by Grant Faulkner
How did you decide to become a writer?
Short answer: I’ve never been good at anything else, really. In the same way that when a person loses one of his senses, the others get heightened, I think that, if I have anything to offer in the field of writing, it’s probably because I don’t have much to offer anywhere else. Oh, I’m pretty good at pool, too.
Longer answer: I basically grew up in front of a TV, and spent pretty much all of high school watching movies, so most of the time when I was a teenager I’d be writing screenplays instead of doing actual homework. These screenplays weren’t very good, but I loved writing them. But the thing about screenplays is, when you finish them, you’re really only done with the first leg of a much longer process. You still have to get them, you know, made.
Then I took a fiction workshop as an undergraduate, where we were made to write actual stories—not just journal entries or thinly-veiled recreations of our own lives, but real stories, with stakes and epiphanies and everything. As soon as I put the last period on the last sentence of my first story, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Why did you decide to write “Space, Whether, and Why” in such a long, single sentence?
I always prize interesting characters over interesting style. In other words, I’d never tell students to avoid writing interesting-characters-for-the-sake-of-interesting-characters, but style for the sake of style tends to be a real issue among younger writers. Usually it supplements story instead of complementing it. So if there’s an out-of-left-field choice (like a 1,394 word sentence), I always think it’s right to demand a reason.
In this case, the story’s about two people who are so stymied by a lack of space in their relationship that they never get to examine it properly. Each event piggybacks on the last one, and they never get the benefit of perspective, and that dooms them. I wanted the reader to have that same feeling of breathlessness, of an inability to pause even for the length of a period to reflect, because that’s a distance my characters weren’t allowed.
Do you hold the world record for the longest sentence for a short story?
I just Googled that; it was a half-hearted search. But without any concrete answers, let’s just say I do. It’ll make me feel good.
Your stories are interesting because your main characters are often unable to truly communicate with those around them—they’re connected to a community, yet alone, struggling to find a place of solidity in the world’s moral ambiguity. What’s your take on the existential situations you place your characters in?
I think there’s nothing sadder than someone who has something to say but who can’t articulate it, either because he lacks the vocabulary or because no one wants to listen. It’s a very lonely feeling, that kind of isolation—surrounded by people but still alone. I think maybe I write about those people because then, at least, their stories get told.
Since you write about families and have a nice touch with younger characters, have you ever thought of writing Young Adult fiction since it’s such a booming market?
I would totally write Young Adult fiction, mostly because I think that's a completely admirable audience to try and reach. As far as being part of the booming market you're talking about, I don't think I'd fit in. That market has gotten very cynical. It's all sexy pouting vampires and well-to-do upper East Side boarding school kids. They're easy to churn out because they're not very well written, and they're easy to sell because they're wish fulfillment.
My favorite kind of Young Adult fiction is the kind that happens to be about young adults, but is universal in its themes. I mean, Holden Caulfield was an upper East Side boarding school kid, right? It doesn't all have to be wish fulfillment.
What's the most important thing you've learned from a favorite author?
A really pretty wonderful piece of advice from an author came from Nicholas Montemarano, who visited my undergrad right before I left for grad school. He mentioned that the great advantage you have before you ever get published is that "no one is waiting for the next Ted McLoof story."
In other words, without an agent or a publisher or fans, even, you don't have the pressure to a) produce, and b) write in whatever milieu you've carved for yourself. Because you don't have one yet. So it's a good time to try new things, to stretch, to find a voice, which is something that surprisingly few young writers do, I think, in the rush to get published.
Are there any authors you've tried to imitate? Has it helped or hindered your craft? Or both?
I don't think there was a syllable I wrote in my first five years of writing that wasn't in some way trying to sound like Nick Hornby. I fell head over heels for him at sixteen, and that was partly a good thing. Mainly, it gave me an outlet: I had all these things I wanted to say, and aping his style gave voice to those somethings. But eventually the problem became that I was too successful at imitating him. What started out as an avenue to get my voice heard turned into the opposite. I couldn't say anything that wasn't drenched in a complete stranger's tone.
Eventually I broke out of it, but it would be appropriate to paraphrase Hornby from an essay in which he discusses his early love of Anne Tyler, and how he still doesn't feel he's expressed himself in his own writing as well as Tyler once did on his behalf. Hornby speaks to what I hesitate to admit is the real me, the me who reads High Fidelity every time I get dumped.
How do you choose where to submit your stories?
When I first started sending out, the standard was, Whoever Will Have Me. Now...well, it's pretty much the same. But I think what's changed is that I actually do my homework now (I read like twelve interviews from The Review Review to prep for this interview). For a while, the only journals receiving submissions from me were major cities with the word "review" after them, just 'cause I thought it sounded professional. Now, though, I surf duotrope.com regularly, and I make sure to read a journal's issue before sending, and to make sure the story I'm submitting matches their aesthetic.
Do you read lit journals regularly? If so, which are your favorites?
The only old standby I have is Tin House, I think because, for a major journal, it's kind of inspiring how you never know what to expect. And not in a McSweeney's, we're-so-quirky-you-don't-know-what-to-expect! kind of way, but just in a way where you totally buy that all they're really looking for is quality, and other than that it's fair game. Otherwise, I tend to read stories I like in end-of-year collections, and then read the journal they came out of. That's how I found Monkeybicycle, from a story in Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Have your stories been shaped by the editors you’ve dealt with?
Sure, if you expand the definition of "editors" to include "anyone who reads an early draft." Two of my mentors helped me a lot: James Hoch told me no one would ever read my stories twice if I didn't start surprising people with where they went, and Manuel Munoz advised me not to ignore going to my "dark side," which I think is good advice, even if my dark side is probably more boring than other people's.
My best editors, though, are the people from my hometown, about whom I write. My friend Melissa, who I've written about a great deal, is always very patient about that, and tells me whether I've been accurate while occupying space in her head.
How do you deal with editorial suggestions that you don’t agree with?
I have a lot of blind spots, but perhaps the biggest one is the editorial process. I'm simply a bad reader for my own work. When I first started out, every time someone criticized something I wrote, it was just, you know, "**** you. You don't know what you're talking about." And then later I'd read the piece with the suggestion in mind and, yup, they were right, of course. Because of that, I'll listen to pretty much anyone I trust now, no matter how off-kilter the suggestion, so long as they seem to get what I'm doing.
You’ve published several stories now. Are you ready to publish a collection?
Are you offering?
I’ll have my people call your people. Short of that, do you enter contests? Do you have an agent, or are you looking for one? Do you go to writers’ conferences?
My manuscript when I finished grad school was a collection of seven stories. I've now published two of those seven, so my plan is to try and publish all seven, and then see if that garners any interest from an agency. I have zero idea whether this is a good plan.
What's the single most important thing you learned in your MFA program?
Well...we more or less lived at the bar. And the classroom is obviously the place where ideas get focused and contained, where you learn craft, and where there's some sort of order. But I think I've learned that it's the community itself that really feeds you material. Everything is looser at the bar, and your real opinions can run wild, and you can meet plenty of characters to write about. Maybe that's the Jersey boy in me talking.
What’s your take on Rimbaud’s dictum that writers should undergo a “immense and rational derangement of all the senses”?
Well, Rimbaud was a poet. I'm pret-ty far from being a poet. When I think of poetry and fiction I always come back to Roddy Doyle's thing about jazz and soul music, respectively, in The Commitments. Jazz is free-form, it's experimental, you can rehearse a thousand times and then, bang, mid-show someone busts out a twenty-minute solo. Soul music has corners, it's the working-man's music. If you have the heart, you can learn it and play it.
That's like poetry and fiction to me: both totally noble pursuits, but if you're writing the kind of plain, clear prose I read, you're probably not all that concerned with deranging your senses. It's much more about keeping your wits about ya in our business.
What do you think of the maxim that writers should “write what they know”?
It's pretty hard to avoid, and why should you? I think the only trouble is figuring out why you're writing what you know. It can't simply be for lack of imagination. Too often I'll get fiction students who take that phrase literally, and turn in meta-fiction or autobiographical stuff. Like, a student from the "University of Schmarizona" goes to a party, gets drunk, and has to put the pieces together the next morning. It's more about writing the emotional truth, writing what you know.
How do you make sure that you’re always taking risks with your writing and stretching yourself?
Usually, I just get in moods. I'll go on a kick, I'll read a story that connects with me but that has a sensibility I've never even thought of approaching before, and then I'll read a bunch of novels by that author, and I'll just say to myself: okay. Here's something new. Here's something you've never tried. How can I keep the stuff that makes me me, while blanketing my story with what that guy just did? It's a tough balancing act, one I haven't really perfected at all yet, but if I can come close, I think that'll be a satisfying enough career.

Did I mention 1 sentence only?

**Yell0wTail** · 10-28-2019, 12:17 AM

Originally posted by NotTheCat View Post

Did I mention 1 sentence only?

It takes a good minute to scroll all the way down without the scroller on the side.

**NotTheCat** · 10-28-2019, 12:18 AM

Originally posted by Yell0wTail View Post

It takes a good minute to scroll all the way down without the scroller on the side.

Glad that I didn't forget to put on the spoilers tag.
(Ignore the previous comments except the first one and continue.)

**Kanna** · 10-28-2019, 12:23 AM

henlo devours no

The series is set in 1890 in an alternate reality from previous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure parts, where racing jockeys from all over the world flock to the United States to take part in the Steel Ball Run — a cross-country horse race from San Diego to New York City with a prize of fifty million dollars. Johnny Joestar, a former jockey who fell from glory after a shooting paralyzed him from the waist down, enters the race after meeting the mysterious Gyro Zeppeli to learn the secrets of the man's Spin technique which temporarily restored his mobility. While beginning as rivals, Johnny and Gyro become friends as they travel through the wilderness while fending off violent competitors.

As Gyro begins teaching Johnny the secrets of the Spin, his own background is explored through flashbacks. He is a former executioner from Naples who is competing in the Steel Ball Run not for his own gain, but to win the favor of the Neapolitan royalty and thus prevent the unjust execution of a young boy, Marco, who has been falsely accused of treason. The two continue their progression through the race, all the while being attacked by various assassins, terrorists and outlaws.

Although the Steel Ball Run is organized by the eccentric oil tycoon Stephen Steel, it is revealed that the race is backed by the United States government. Steel is unaware of the actual agenda of US President Funny Valentine: the race is a means for Valentine to collect the scattered pieces of a two-thousand-year-old corpse known as the Saint's Corpse (implied to be the body of Jesus Christ, brought to America by Joseph of Arimathea) so he can use the reassembled body to achieve incredible power. Stephen's wife Lucy discovers this plot and finds out that Valentine already possesses one part of the Corpse, the heart.

After Johnny and Gyro encounter another piece of the Saint's Corpse, it is absorbed into Johnny's body and he develops the Stand Tusk, allowing him to fend off one of Valentine's minions. Later, they meet the mysterious racer Diego Brando (a counterpart to the character Dio Brando, a major antagonist in previous installments of the series), who obtains one of two Corpse eyes, while Gyro gains the other.

Lucy intercepts a message to Valentine about the Corpse parts, making her a target for his men. She is able to escape him and with Johnny and Gyro's help she finds one of the parts. With the information provided by Lucy, Johnny and Gyro decide to search for the next three Corpse parts while sending Lucy, with the advantage of Gyro's Corpse eye, to take the Heart from Valentine himself.

Meanwhile, Diego makes a deal with Valentine to help him deal with the traitor (who Valentine does not know is Lucy). Partnered with another racer, Diego attacks Johnny and Gyro. Gyro teaches Johnny how to use the Golden Ratio found in nature to amplify the power of the Spin, which evolves his Stand and allows him to defeat the other racer with this technique, but Diego escapes and all but one of the Corpse parts are stolen by another racer, Hot Pants.

Johnny and Gyro are next forced to deal with a Stand based on the fable of The Honest Woodman by Aesop, which grants them a considerable fortune alongside another Corpse part but forces them to get rid of both before sunrise or else they will be trapped within an ancient tree forever and become the new users of the Stand, making the same deal with passersby. The duo spend the money hiring a mercenary force to fend off Valentine's henchmen, but Gyro is nearly lost forever until Johnny trades away the Corpse parts to the last survivor of Valentine's forces, saving Gyro's life but leaving them with nothing.

Lucy uses Hot Pants' Stand to disguise herself as Valentine's wife Scarlet, while Hot Pants steals several Corpse parts from Valentine, including the Heart.

Johnny and Gyro are led to a garbage dump by Hot Pants, only for all three to be nearly defeated by one of Valentine's men, who takes all of the parts they have collected. With the help of a vision of the Saint, Johnny's Stand develops new powers in combination with the Spin. Before he can win the battle, however, Valentine arrives and kills his own minion, then leaves along with all the Corpse parts except for the undiscovered head and the eyes possessed by Diego and Lucy. Upon returning to the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Valentine uncovers Lucy's disguise and takes her captive after she fuses with the Corpse and seemingly becomes pregnant with the Corpse's head.

Lucy escapes from captivity, only to be lured into Valentine's clutches once again. Diego and Hot Pants ally against Valentine, chasing him and Lucy to a trainyard while being followed themselves by Johnny and Gyro. Diego and Hot Pants fight Valentine on the moving train but his Stand's ability to travel between parallel universes proves too powerful and he kills them both. Meanwhile, Lucy begins to metamorphose into a being resembling the Saint's Corpse. This grants Valentine even further powers.

Johnny and Gyro arrive and battle Valentine. Valentine kills Gyro but Johnny's powers have reached their ultimate form and are able to pursue Valentine no matter what universe he tries to escape to. With no other choice he attempts to make a deal with Johnny, offering to resurrect Gyro by finding a version of him in another universe in exchange for the Corpse. Johnny nearly agrees but realizes that this is a trick after he notices Valentine holding a gun taken from another universe, which he intended to kill Johnny with if he let his guard down. Johnny kills Valentine but realizes somebody else has taken the Corpse, now separate from Lucy.

Pursuing this unknown enemy into the final stage of the Steel Ball Run, Johnny is shocked to find that it is an alternate version Diego Brando, taken from a different universe by Valentine and entrusted with the Corpse. Unlike the previous Diego, this one possesses the time-stopping Stand of Dio Brando. The new Diego is able to incapacitate Johnny and wins the race in first place. He brings the Corpse to Trinity Church, where Valentine intended to lock it in a vault so that its powers would protect America forever. At the last moment, Lucy arrives with the severed head of the previous Diego. The new Diego, unable to escape due to an injury Johnny gave him, fuses with his parallel self's head and disintegrates, because parallel instances of the same person cannot come into contact without destroying each other.

With Diego missing, first place is awarded to the carefree Pocoloco, who had slept through the start of the race and only caught up by sheer luck. Valentine's death is covered up as a retirement from public life, with concerns over the race placated by the donation of the prize money to charitable causes. Johnny, having regained his ability to walk through the power of his Stand and the Spin, leaves America to return Gyro's body to his family. On the boat he meets the Japanese racer Norisuke Higashikata, whose daughter Rina he later marries, leading to the events of Part 8, JoJolion.

**Yell0wTail** · 10-28-2019, 01:06 AM

Originally posted by Kanna View Post

The series is set in 1890 in an alternate reality from previous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure parts, where racing jockeys from all over the world flock to the United States to take part in the Steel Ball Run — a cross-country horse race from San Diego to New York City with a prize of fifty million dollars. Johnny Joestar, a former jockey who fell from glory after a shooting paralyzed him from the waist down, enters the race after meeting the mysterious Gyro Zeppeli to learn the secrets of the man's Spin technique which temporarily restored his mobility. While beginning as rivals, Johnny and Gyro become friends as they travel through the wilderness while fending off violent competitors.

As Gyro begins teaching Johnny the secrets of the Spin, his own background is explored through flashbacks. He is a former executioner from Naples who is competing in the Steel Ball Run not for his own gain, but to win the favor of the Neapolitan royalty and thus prevent the unjust execution of a young boy, Marco, who has been falsely accused of treason. The two continue their progression through the race, all the while being attacked by various assassins, terrorists and outlaws.

Although the Steel Ball Run is organized by the eccentric oil tycoon Stephen Steel, it is revealed that the race is backed by the United States government. Steel is unaware of the actual agenda of US President Funny Valentine: the race is a means for Valentine to collect the scattered pieces of a two-thousand-year-old corpse known as the Saint's Corpse (implied to be the body of Jesus Christ, brought to America by Joseph of Arimathea) so he can use the reassembled body to achieve incredible power. Stephen's wife Lucy discovers this plot and finds out that Valentine already possesses one part of the Corpse, the heart.

After Johnny and Gyro encounter another piece of the Saint's Corpse, it is absorbed into Johnny's body and he develops the Stand Tusk, allowing him to fend off one of Valentine's minions. Later, they meet the mysterious racer Diego Brando (a counterpart to the character Dio Brando, a major antagonist in previous installments of the series), who obtains one of two Corpse eyes, while Gyro gains the other.

Lucy intercepts a message to Valentine about the Corpse parts, making her a target for his men. She is able to escape him and with Johnny and Gyro's help she finds one of the parts. With the information provided by Lucy, Johnny and Gyro decide to search for the next three Corpse parts while sending Lucy, with the advantage of Gyro's Corpse eye, to take the Heart from Valentine himself.

Meanwhile, Diego makes a deal with Valentine to help him deal with the traitor (who Valentine does not know is Lucy). Partnered with another racer, Diego attacks Johnny and Gyro. Gyro teaches Johnny how to use the Golden Ratio found in nature to amplify the power of the Spin, which evolves his Stand and allows him to defeat the other racer with this technique, but Diego escapes and all but one of the Corpse parts are stolen by another racer, Hot Pants.

Johnny and Gyro are next forced to deal with a Stand based on the fable of The Honest Woodman by Aesop, which grants them a considerable fortune alongside another Corpse part but forces them to get rid of both before sunrise or else they will be trapped within an ancient tree forever and become the new users of the Stand, making the same deal with passersby. The duo spend the money hiring a mercenary force to fend off Valentine's henchmen, but Gyro is nearly lost forever until Johnny trades away the Corpse parts to the last survivor of Valentine's forces, saving Gyro's life but leaving them with nothing.

Lucy uses Hot Pants' Stand to disguise herself as Valentine's wife Scarlet, while Hot Pants steals several Corpse parts from Valentine, including the Heart.

Johnny and Gyro are led to a garbage dump by Hot Pants, only for all three to be nearly defeated by one of Valentine's men, who takes all of the parts they have collected. With the help of a vision of the Saint, Johnny's Stand develops new powers in combination with the Spin. Before he can win the battle, however, Valentine arrives and kills his own minion, then leaves along with all the Corpse parts except for the undiscovered head and the eyes possessed by Diego and Lucy. Upon returning to the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Valentine uncovers Lucy's disguise and takes her captive after she fuses with the Corpse and seemingly becomes pregnant with the Corpse's head.

Lucy escapes from captivity, only to be lured into Valentine's clutches once again. Diego and Hot Pants ally against Valentine, chasing him and Lucy to a trainyard while being followed themselves by Johnny and Gyro. Diego and Hot Pants fight Valentine on the moving train but his Stand's ability to travel between parallel universes proves too powerful and he kills them both. Meanwhile, Lucy begins to metamorphose into a being resembling the Saint's Corpse. This grants Valentine even further powers.

Johnny and Gyro arrive and battle Valentine. Valentine kills Gyro but Johnny's powers have reached their ultimate form and are able to pursue Valentine no matter what universe he tries to escape to. With no other choice he attempts to make a deal with Johnny, offering to resurrect Gyro by finding a version of him in another universe in exchange for the Corpse. Johnny nearly agrees but realizes that this is a trick after he notices Valentine holding a gun taken from another universe, which he intended to kill Johnny with if he let his guard down. Johnny kills Valentine but realizes somebody else has taken the Corpse, now separate from Lucy.

Pursuing this unknown enemy into the final stage of the Steel Ball Run, Johnny is shocked to find that it is an alternate version Diego Brando, taken from a different universe by Valentine and entrusted with the Corpse. Unlike the previous Diego, this one possesses the time-stopping Stand of Dio Brando. The new Diego is able to incapacitate Johnny and wins the race in first place. He brings the Corpse to Trinity Church, where Valentine intended to lock it in a vault so that its powers would protect America forever. At the last moment, Lucy arrives with the severed head of the previous Diego. The new Diego, unable to escape due to an injury Johnny gave him, fuses with his parallel self's head and disintegrates, because parallel instances of the same person cannot come into contact without destroying each other.

With Diego missing, first place is awarded to the carefree Pocoloco, who had slept through the start of the race and only caught up by sheer luck. Valentine's death is covered up as a retirement from public life, with concerns over the race placated by the donation of the prize money to charitable causes. Johnny, having regained his ability to walk through the power of his Stand and the Spin, leaves America to return Gyro's body to his family. On the boat he meets the Japanese racer Norisuke Higashikata, whose daughter Rina he later marries, leading to the events of Part 8, JoJolion.

This community is so toxic smh

**10bang** · 10-28-2019, 01:39 PM

i almost graduted from 11th grade reading kanna's reply

also dont understand where it came from but eh.

**Electrolava9** · 10-28-2019, 01:44 PM

Dragon speaking...

Originally posted by NotTheCat View Post

Let us do this again. It's kinda fun so why not?
I mean, it is old but gold.
(One sentence only)
I shall start first.

"One day, a dragon killed a furry."

[I should back to this topic]
and makes all dragon happy, and then..

**DynPlaysGT** · 10-28-2019, 01:54 PM

Originally posted by Electrolava9 View Post

[I should back to this topic]
and makes all dragon happy, and then..

The world rejoiced becaues furries were no more.

**10bang** · 10-28-2019, 01:54 PM

The relatives of the furry found out...

**Recreate** · 10-28-2019, 01:59 PM

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Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet. Morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget. Orci ac auctor augue mauris augue neque gravida in fermentum. Vel elit scelerisque mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi. Venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor. Mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a. Nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec. Eros donec ac odio tempor. Faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget. A cras semper auctor neque vitae tempus quam. Eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus in. Facilisi cras fermentum odio eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat. Facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi. Tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor at risus. Aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend. Nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec ullamcorper. Metus dictum at tempor commodo.

Sed pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit lectus. In metus vulputate eu scelerisque felis. Pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras tincidunt lobortis. Ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa id neque aliquam vestibulum. Condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor id aliquet. Erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem. Quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat id. Tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod. Ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus quam id. Lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo a diam.

Viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu. Turpis egestas sed tempus urna et. Sit amet nisl purus in mollis nunc sed id. Sapien faucibus et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus. Duis ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa id neque. Elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo odio aenean. Non tellus orci ac auctor augue mauris. Aenean sed adipiscing diam donec. Amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc scelerisque viverra. Ac auctor augue mauris augue. Etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem. Lectus mauris ultrices eros in. Viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim. Risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in est. Arcu cursus euismod quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis nunc. Donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum. Faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est.

Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Varius duis at consectetur lorem. Neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus. Suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer quis. Lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus id interdum velit. Sit amet dictum sit amet. Mi tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed. Augue eget arcu dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem. Tortor at auctor urna nunc id cursus metus aliquam. Nisl vel pretium lectus quam. Eget lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum. Mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi.

Scelerisque eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam. Cras tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at. Et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed. Eget duis at tellus at. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras ornare arcu dui. Nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus gravida quis blandit. Leo integer malesuada nunc vel risus commodo viverra maecenas. Aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at. Morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod. Blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam etiam erat velit. Turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna sit.

Nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec ullamcorper sit. Non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem. Mattis aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl. Pharetra diam sit amet nisl. Facilisi morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat. Pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus. Dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna. Elementum pulvinar etiam non quam. Orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis. In fermentum et sollicitudin ac orci phasellus.

Eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis tristique. Lectus mauris ultrices eros in cursus turpis massa. Tellus mauris a diam maecenas. Dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit ut aliquam. Sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus. Auctor neque vitae tempus quam pellentesque nec nam. Senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac. Morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod. Nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor eu. Eu turpis egestas pretium aenean pharetra magna ac placerat. Porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas quis ipsum.

Massa eget egestas purus viverra accumsan in nisl nisi. Hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac auctor. Augue eget arcu dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem donec. Et magnis dis parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae. Platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit amet. Euismod quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis nunc. Vel facilisis volutpat est velit. Enim sit amet venenatis urna. Amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies. Convallis aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at in. Auctor neque vitae tempus quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam. Cras semper auctor neque vitae tempus quam. Malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus et. Interdum posuere lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Id cursus metus aliquam eleifend. Risus sed vulputate odio ut. Enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget sit. Tincidunt dui ut ornare lectus sit amet est placerat. Amet tellus cras adipiscing enim eu turpis egestas pretium aenean.

Varius vel pharetra vel turpis nunc eget lorem dolor. Eget gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis. Congue quisque egestas diam in arcu cursus euismod. Diam maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget. Aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis. Risus feugiat in ante metus dictum at tempor. Diam maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet. Eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet massa. Quisque sagittis purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue. Proin sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus. Neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus. Magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor.

Eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in aliquam sem. Orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue lacus viverra. Feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper velit sed. Tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames. Nullam eget felis eget nunc lobortis mattis. A lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio. Lacus laoreet non curabitur gravida arcu ac tortor. Turpis egestas pretium aenean pharetra magna ac. Urna molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis. Gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient. Hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non. Diam volutpat commodo sed egestas.

Purus in mollis nunc sed. Nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu. Vel risus commodo viverra maecenas accumsan. Arcu non odio euismod lacinia at. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. In nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor eu augue. Amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate. Arcu felis bibendum ut tristique. Pharetra vel turpis nunc eget lorem. Non sodales neque sodales ut etiam sit amet nisl. Donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum. Cursus vitae congue mauris rhoncus aenean vel elit. Aliquet sagittis id consectetur purus ut faucibus pulvinar. Eros in cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui ut. Diam sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer. Accumsan sit amet nulla facilisi morbi. Nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus. Enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus. Purus non enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla est. Ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu scelerisque felis.

Sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo nulla facilisi nullam vehicula. Volutpat est velit egestas dui id ornare. Diam ut venenatis tellus in metus. Varius sit amet mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor lacus. Aliquam id diam maecenas ultricies mi. Sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae. Tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis. Tortor at auctor urna nunc id cursus metus aliquam. Congue eu consequat ac felis donec et odio pellentesque diam. Dui nunc mattis enim ut tellus elementum sagittis. Nisl pretium fusce id velit ut tortor pretium viverra. Facilisis magna etiam tempor orci eu lobortis elementum nibh. Nibh tortor id aliquet lectus. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim nec dui nunc.

Feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper. Feugiat nisl pretium fusce id velit ut tortor pretium viverra. Orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero. Egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices. Iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum. Fusce ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque. Pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. Risus at ultrices mi tempus. Id porta nibh venenatis cras sed felis. Elit ut aliquam purus sit amet. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis tristique. Congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus. Elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. In eu mi bibendum neque. Consequat id porta nibh venenatis cras sed.

Massa tempor nec feugiat nisl pretium fusce id. Commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus. Semper risus in hendrerit gravida. At urna condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor. Tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros donec. Tincidunt eget nullam non nisi. Aliquet risus feugiat in ante metus. Et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis. Ante in nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie a. Arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor at risus. Ac felis donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo. Tortor pretium viverra suspendisse potenti. Accumsan tortor posuere ac ut consequat. Auctor elit sed vulputate mi sit amet mauris. Pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit lectus a. Viverra nam libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet. Eget mauris pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean. Massa sed elementum tempus egestas sed sed risus.

Feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec. Sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque. Mollis nunc sed id semper. Tellus rutrum tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla. Quisque id diam vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam non. Natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes nascetur. Sed viverra tellus in hac habitasse platea dictumst. Molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis. Massa enim nec dui nunc mattis enim ut tellus. Enim ut sem viverra aliquet. Lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum.

Cursus sit amet dictum sit. Pretium aenean pharetra magna ac placerat vestibulum. Posuere urna nec tincidunt praesent semper feugiat. Est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing. Congue eu consequat ac felis donec. Fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh. Posuere sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a scelerisque purus. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra. Faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum dolor. Quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis nunc. Facilisi cras fermentum odio eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum. Odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit. Urna condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh. Aenean sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat. Erat nam at lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus id. Duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo nulla facilisi. Magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non enim. Aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at.

Amet est placerat in egestas erat. In arcu cursus euismod quis viverra. Eget velit aliquet sagittis id consectetur purus ut faucibus pulvinar. Tortor consequat id porta nibh. Turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus feugiat in ante. Scelerisque eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada. Fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis. Venenatis cras sed felis eget velit. Morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet. Risus sed vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat. Tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue. Pharetra massa massa ultricies mi. Arcu risus quis varius quam quisque id.

Volutpat est velit egestas dui id. Donec massa sapien faucibus et molestie. Nec ullamcorper sit amet risus nullam. Elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae. Sem et tortor consequat id porta nibh. Euismod lacinia at quis risus sed vulputate odio. Sit amet luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor. Vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu. Senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis. Justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non.

Nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus. Integer vitae justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam. Quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat. Nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor. Diam sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas. Orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis at tellus at. Magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Mattis ullamcorper velit sed ullamcorper. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed. Ultricies leo integer malesuada nunc. Faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam.

Morbi tincidunt ornare massa eget. Potenti nullam ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed. Elit duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo nulla. Magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Mauris augue neque gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin ac. Eu turpis egestas pretium aenean pharetra magna. Duis at tellus at urna condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh. Volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate. Commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed arcu. Et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies. Lacinia at quis risus sed. Consectetur libero id faucibus nisl. Pellentesque elit eget gravida cum sociis natoque.

Egestas tellus rutrum tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt. Orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis. Augue interdum velit euismod in. Aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum curabitur vitae nunc. Porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non enim praesent elementum. At volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus in metus. Parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris. Ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin sed libero. Magnis dis parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae. Sed vulputate odio ut enim. Cras pulvinar mattis nunc sed blandit libero volutpat. Mauris augue neque gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin. Tristique et egestas quis ipsum. Tristique magna sit amet purus. Faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus in. Integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque. Auctor elit sed vulputate mi sit amet. Accumsan tortor posuere ac ut consequat semper viverra nam. Suspendisse in est ante in nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie.

Leo vel orci porta non pulvinar. Id leo in vitae turpis massa sed elementum. Non enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel. Tristique sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo nulla. Quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar. Scelerisque felis imperdiet proin fermentum. Sollicitudin ac orci phasellus egestas tellus rutrum tellus pellentesque eu. Non curabitur gravida arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean et. Sed odio morbi quis commodo. Faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl. Vel turpis nunc eget lorem dolor sed viverra. Aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut. A condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque habitant.

Et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin. Sem viverra aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing enim. Libero nunc consequat interdum varius sit. Ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim. Est ante in nibh mauris cursus. Arcu odio ut sem nulla. Curabitur vitae nunc sed velit dignissim sodales ut. Est placerat in egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod. Augue ut lectus arcu bibendum. Gravida quis blandit turpis cursus. Quisque sagittis purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue. Bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel. Elementum sagittis vitae et leo duis ut diam quam. Enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam. Et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin libero. Habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada. Aenean pharetra magna ac placerat vestibulum lectus mauris ultrices eros.

Faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est. Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero. Lorem donec massa sapien faucibus. Accumsan sit amet nulla facilisi. Arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas. Nisi lacus sed viverra tellus in hac. Nec dui nunc mattis enim. Egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie at elementum eu. Volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris. Imperdiet proin fermentum leo vel orci porta. Vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor. Cursus sit amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam.

Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit. Orci phasellus egestas tellus rutrum. In nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat. Cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui. Risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum. Nulla pharetra diam sit amet nisl. Sem et tortor consequat id porta nibh venenatis. Ultricies integer quis auctor elit sed vulputate mi. Quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque. Eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo odio. Enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in ornare quam viverra. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Auctor augue mauris augue neque gravida. Donec ac odio tempor orci dapibus ultrices in. Quisque egestas diam in arcu cursus euismod quis viverra nibh. Malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum curabitur. Nunc aliquet bibendum enim facilisis gravida. Morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed.

Sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt. Velit scelerisque in dictum non consectetur a erat. Morbi blandit cursus risus at. Quam quisque id diam vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam. Odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam etiam. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames. Turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst. Montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae ultricies leo. Lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo a diam sollicitudin tempor. Fermentum leo vel orci porta non pulvinar neque. Sed velit dignissim sodales ut eu sem. Aliquet risus feugiat in ante metus dictum at. Morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis. Orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna. Habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames. Fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique. Pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo. In vitae turpis massa sed elementum tempus egestas. Ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus quam.

Lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet. Vitae sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique. Vitae sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus. Facilisis mauris sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia. Ut porttitor leo a diam sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl. Aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis. Quis varius quam quisque id diam vel quam elementum pulvinar. Donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo. Faucibus pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. In eu mi bibendum neque egestas. Laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet. Neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl. Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend.

In aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt. At volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu. Hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque. Mattis aliquam faucibus purus in. Enim sit amet venenatis urna. Bibendum est ultricies integer quis auctor elit sed vulputate mi. Placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit. Molestie ac feugiat sed lectus. Porta nibh venenatis cras sed felis eget velit. Etiam dignissim diam quis enim. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et. Vitae congue eu consequat ac felis donec et odio pellentesque. Massa sed elementum tempus egestas sed sed. Quam quisque id diam vel. Volutpat sed cras ornare arcu dui vivamus arcu. Id cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi. Et leo duis ut diam. Elit at imperdiet dui accumsan. Dignissim convallis aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing.

Non enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla. Lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in ornare quam. Risus quis varius quam quisque id diam. Id porta nibh venenatis cras sed felis eget velit aliquet. Sed risus pretium quam vulputate. Est velit egestas dui id ornare. Viverra vitae congue eu consequat ac. Leo in vitae turpis massa. Orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis. Euismod lacinia at quis risus sed vulputate. Dictum non consectetur a erat. Faucibus turpis in eu mi. Sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna.

Sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget. Cursus euismod quis viverra nibh. Lacus viverra vitae congue eu consequat ac felis donec et. Egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi. Arcu dictum varius duis at consectetur. Urna nunc id cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi. Faucibus scelerisque eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam. Magnis dis parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae. Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec. Tellus id interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices. Non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla. Eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus. Arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean. Enim diam vulputate ut pharetra sit amet aliquam id diam. Lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus. Sed nisi lacus sed viverra. Feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt praesent semper feugiat. Quis hendrerit dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit.

Id volutpat lacus laoreet non. Donec enim diam vulputate ut pharetra sit amet. Libero justo laoreet sit amet. Facilisi morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus. Diam ut venenatis tellus in. Tellus id interdum velit laoreet id. Arcu odio ut sem nulla. Amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer quis. Vel risus commodo viverra maecenas. Cras semper auctor neque vitae tempus. Sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a. Consequat semper viverra nam libero. Gravida neque convallis a cras semper auctor. Nisl tincidunt eget nullam non. Ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod. Fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit. In nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae. Enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget. Aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis.

Amet est placerat in egestas erat imperdiet. Nulla aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna nunc. Purus ut faucibus pulvinar elementum. Eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse. Tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at in tellus integer. Aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend. At lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus id interdum velit. Mi eget mauris pharetra et ultrices neque ornare. Convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie at elementum eu facilisis. Elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo odio aenean. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus. Malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius sit amet. Pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit at imperdiet dui. Tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam. Nisl tincidunt eget nullam non nisi est. Amet venenatis urna cursus eget. Magna sit amet purus gravida quis blandit turpis cursus. Nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing. Arcu vitae elementum curabitur vitae.

Platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque. Mi sit amet mauris commodo quis. Egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida dictum fusce ut placerat. Sed euismod nisi porta lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor. Lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas. Faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum dolor. Donec massa sapien faucibus et molestie. Nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus. Urna molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis. Malesuada nunc vel risus commodo.

Id diam maecenas ultricies mi. Facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo odio. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin. Dignissim suspendisse in est ante in nibh mauris cursus. Integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc. Pulvinar mattis nunc sed blandit libero. Pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras tincidunt lobortis feugiat. Vel risus commodo viverra maecenas. Et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl condimentum id venenatis a. Nibh nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum.

Consequat semper viverra nam libero justo. Vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi. Risus feugiat in ante metus. Sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus. Laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non sodales neque. Morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque id diam. Diam sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus. Diam sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum est. Arcu cursus vitae congue mauris rhoncus. Et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse. Diam ut venenatis tellus in. Dui ut ornare lectus sit amet est placerat. Consectetur lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et molestie. Elit at imperdiet dui accumsan sit.

Varius sit amet mattis vulputate enim. Sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu. Ut faucibus pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. Facilisi morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus. In pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis. Lectus arcu bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel turpis. Dolor morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque id. Sed risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim. Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id. Enim ut sem viverra aliquet. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit. Urna cursus eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris. Nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum sociis. Nunc eget lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet. Ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit. Amet risus nullam eget felis eget nunc lobortis mattis. Tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget.

Est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. Vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla. Amet cursus sit amet dictum sit amet justo donec enim. Elit ut aliquam purus sit. Odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit. A arcu cursus vitae congue mauris rhoncus aenean vel elit. Aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam. Eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies. Tellus orci ac auctor augue. Eget arcu dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem. Nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt praesent semper.

Amet mauris commodo quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien. Vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus at ultrices mi tempus imperdiet. Adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer quis auctor elit sed vulputate. Est sit amet facilisis magna etiam. Tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at in tellus integer. Nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis. Nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget dolor morbi. Enim tortor at auctor urna nunc. Sem nulla pharetra diam sit amet nisl. Mollis nunc sed id semper. Dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum. Tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida. Nam libero justo laoreet sit. Egestas purus viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices. Arcu dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem donec massa sapien. Nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin sed libero enim. Interdum posuere lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit.

Proin fermentum leo vel orci porta non pulvinar neque. Lacinia quis vel eros donec ac odio tempor orci. Facilisi nullam vehicula ipsum a arcu cursus. Aliquam sem et tortor consequat. Vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed. Pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem. Non blandit massa enim nec dui nunc mattis. Sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada. Sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum. Neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus. Feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus quam.

Ut tortor pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam. Vel turpis nunc eget lorem dolor sed. Eget dolor morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque. Viverra aliquet eget sit amet. Interdum velit euismod in pellentesque. Nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida. Donec adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum. Eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus. In hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est. Metus aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam. Donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed. Donec adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Faucibus in ornare quam viverra orci sagittis eu.

Gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin ac orci phasellus egestas tellus. Fusce id velit ut tortor. Diam volutpat commodo sed egestas. Id aliquet risus feugiat in ante. Risus nullam eget felis eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus. Quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc. Lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus id interdum. Ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu. Tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros donec ac odio tempor. Odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla.

Quisque id diam vel quam. Ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa id neque aliquam vestibulum. Quisque egestas diam in arcu cursus euismod. Auctor neque vitae tempus quam. Porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut consequat. Lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere. Aenean sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing. Porttitor massa id neque aliquam vestibulum. Penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere. Et magnis dis parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus. Laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt eget. Sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare massa. Cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere. Mi sit amet mauris commodo quis imperdiet massa. Integer enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt. Tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor at risus. Nisl tincidunt eget nullam non nisi. Etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus.

Pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id. Tristique magna sit amet purus. Lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non. Pretium lectus quam id leo in vitae turpis. Hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit. Magna etiam tempor orci eu lobortis elementum. Fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis. Nibh venenatis cras sed felis. Feugiat in ante metus dictum at. Interdum velit euismod in pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies. In ornare quam viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis. Dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem donec massa sapien. Egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque eleifend donec. Ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis. Lacus viverra vitae congue eu consequat. Dolor purus non enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla. Pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac. Augue eget arcu dictum varius duis at. Ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi. Parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris.

Quam nulla porttitor massa id neque aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit. Purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl. A erat nam at lectus urna duis. Libero nunc consequat interdum varius sit amet. Facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum. Volutpat diam ut venenatis tellus in. Odio aenean sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing tristique. Felis eget velit aliquet sagittis. Commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum. Sed felis eget velit aliquet sagittis id consectetur. Orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis. Varius duis at consectetur lorem. Pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada. Duis at tellus at urna.

Tincidunt praesent semper feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit. Vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros donec ac odio. Suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed. Fusce ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit amet. Eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl. Sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum. Imperdiet proin fermentum leo vel orci porta non pulvinar neque. Elit duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo. Diam vel quam elementum pulvinar. Sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus. Leo in vitae turpis massa sed elementum tempus. Leo duis ut diam quam nulla. Sed augue lacus viverra vitae congue. Euismod quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis. Facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui id ornare. Amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia.

Aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at in. Purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl. In fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt praesent semper. Cursus euismod quis viverra nibh cras pulvinar mattis. Risus quis varius quam quisque id diam vel quam. Ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue lacus viverra vitae. Et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing. Suscipit tellus mauris a diam. Massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna eget. Facilisis magna etiam tempor orci eu lobortis elementum. Facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam. Tellus cras adipiscing enim eu turpis egestas pretium aenean pharetra.

Arcu felis bibendum ut tristique. Pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras fermentum. Lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas. Massa eget egestas purus viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque. Imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor. Eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique. Lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non enim. Vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam. Pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in est ante in nibh. Dui id ornare arcu odio ut sem. Nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis. Odio aenean sed adipiscing diam donec. Risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna. Adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi. Arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean et.

Volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit. Urna molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi. Sed sed risus pretium quam. Adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Eget felis eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus. Non odio euismod lacinia at quis risus sed. Amet cursus sit amet dictum sit amet justo donec. Eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla ut. Lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim. A pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget dolor morbi. Amet dictum sit amet justo donec. Eget duis at tellus at urna condimentum mattis pellentesque. Donec enim diam vulputate ut pharetra sit amet aliquam id.

Mattis rhoncus urna neque viverra justo nec. Viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim facilisis gravida. Habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et. Donec ac odio tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis. Sit amet luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus. Arcu non odio euismod lacinia at quis risus sed vulputate. Porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse. Et leo duis ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa id. Eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus. Odio tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed. Quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat id. Turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi.

Vitae auctor eu augue ut lectus arcu. Quam id leo in vitae turpis massa. Dolor morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam. Pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus. Pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt. Nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec ullamcorper sit. Ornare arcu dui vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut tristique. Sem viverra aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras. Arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor at risus. Nunc sed augue lacus viverra vitae congue. Id ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla pharetra diam. Massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna eget est. Mi eget mauris pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean. Tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio. Et netus et malesuada fames ac. At urna condimentum mattis pellentesque. Iaculis urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non curabitur gravida. At auctor urna nunc id cursus metus aliquam. Faucibus in ornare quam viverra orci sagittis. Laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt.

Consequat semper viverra nam libero justo laoreet sit amet. Vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam. Blandit aliquam etiam erat velit scelerisque in dictum non consectetur. Tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod in pellentesque massa placerat duis. Ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet. Et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis. Tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at. Eget egestas purus viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque. Pellentesque elit eget gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis. Nibh nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien. Faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros donec ac. Amet purus gravida quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse. Gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac auctor augue mauris. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere.

Diam ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu scelerisque. Id porta nibh venenatis cras sed. Magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed. Blandit massa enim nec dui. Viverra maecenas accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est. Mauris commodo quis imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien. Pulvinar mattis nunc sed blandit. Congue mauris rhoncus aenean vel elit scelerisque. Sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna neque. Ultrices tincidunt arcu non sodales neque sodales ut etiam. Arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean. Aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac ut. Sagittis purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris. Cras fermentum odio eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl. Mattis enim ut tellus elementum sagittis vitae et leo duis. Aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna nunc id. Purus in mollis nunc sed.

Id ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla pharetra diam. Aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat. Nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae ultricies. Malesuada nunc vel risus commodo viverra maecenas accumsan lacus. Aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl. Sapien faucibus et molestie ac feugiat. Eget mi proin sed libero enim sed. Neque egestas congue quisque egestas diam in arcu. Etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem. Dis parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus. Molestie at elementum eu facilisis. Quam viverra orci sagittis eu. In metus vulputate eu scelerisque felis. Pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel. Fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim.

In eu mi bibendum neque egestas congue quisque. Accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor eu. Tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl condimentum. Quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl. Ullamcorper sit amet risus nullam eget. Massa tincidunt dui ut ornare. Amet nulla facilisi morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus. Massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna eget est. Pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras tincidunt lobortis feugiat. Egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere. Vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse. Cras adipiscing enim eu turpis. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer quis auctor elit sed vulputate mi sit amet.

Massa sed elementum tempus egestas sed sed. Enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam etiam erat. Ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio euismod. Est pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim. Sed libero enim sed faucibus turpis in eu mi. Venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque. Sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Gravida dictum fusce ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim. Sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum est. Amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris.

Nisi lacus sed viverra tellus in hac habitasse platea dictumst. Hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum. Sit amet nulla facilisi morbi tempus. Velit euismod in pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus sed. Tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum. Amet massa vitae tortor condimentum. Blandit cursus risus at ultrices. In egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi. Est ultricies integer quis auctor elit sed vulputate. Habitant morbi tristique senectus et. Diam donec adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum. Morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque id diam. Fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt. Aliquam id diam maecenas ultricies mi eget mauris.

In iaculis nunc sed augue lacus viverra vitae. Sed cras ornare arcu dui vivamus arcu. Dui accumsan sit amet nulla facilisi morbi. Porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id. Duis at consectetur lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et molestie. Elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus. Porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non enim praesent. Ut sem nulla pharetra diam sit amet nisl. Et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius. Tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et. Odio morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed adipiscing. Viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim facilisis. Enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae. Vestibulum sed arcu non odio euismod lacinia at quis risus. Nibh praesent tristique magna sit. Ornare arcu dui vivamus arcu. Vitae nunc sed velit dignissim sodales ut eu. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque vitae tempus. In metus vulputate eu scelerisque. Elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus.

Etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis. Enim sit amet venenatis urna. Leo integer malesuada nunc vel risus. Nunc eget lorem dolor sed viverra. Sagittis vitae et leo duis ut diam quam nulla. Odio eu feugiat pretium nibh. Condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh. Molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper. Ante in nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at. Ultricies leo integer malesuada nunc vel risus commodo. Pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie at. Quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem. Nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus quam. Urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit. Eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus. At risus viverra adipiscing at.

Facilisis magna etiam tempor orci eu lobortis elementum nibh. Risus sed vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse. Egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies. Orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis at tellus at. Enim facilisis gravida neque convallis a cras. In tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc. Magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit. Ornare arcu dui vivamus arcu felis bibendum. Hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit amet volutpat. Magnis dis parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris. Convallis convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices. Vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum. Tempus urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies.

Nulla porttitor massa id neque aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit cursus. Pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem mollis aliquam ut. Vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et. Molestie at elementum eu facilisis. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget. Amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia. Sed elementum tempus egestas sed. Urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non. Odio facilisis mauris sit amet massa. Mollis nunc sed id semper risus in hendrerit gravida. Purus ut faucibus pulvinar elementum. Curabitur gravida arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean.

Quis auctor elit sed vulputate mi sit amet mauris commodo. Lectus arcu bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Nunc eget lorem dolor sed. Cras ornare arcu dui vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut tristique. Odio ut sem nulla pharetra diam sit amet nisl suscipit. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla at volutpat. Vel pretium lectus quam id leo. Neque aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus at. Ante metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper. Egestas diam in arcu cursus euismod quis viverra. Eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in.

Ultricies mi eget mauris pharetra. Quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in est ante in. Eget dolor morbi non arcu risus quis. Viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac tortor vitae purus. Ultrices mi tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget. Dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem donec. Turpis in eu mi bibendum. Egestas dui id ornare arcu odio ut sem. Malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum. Egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque eleifend. Suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer. Sed augue lacus viverra vitae congue. Arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et. Nulla facilisi morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat. Et leo duis ut diam quam nulla porttitor. Cursus metus aliquam eleifend mi. Ante metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus.

Adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer quis auctor. Risus nullam eget felis eget nunc. Faucibus purus in massa tempor. Consectetur purus ut faucibus pulvinar elementum integer. Lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio euismod lacinia. Mauris augue neque gravida in fermentum. Varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque. Dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus eget. Etiam tempor orci eu lobortis elementum nibh tellus. Senectus et netus et malesuada. Dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc scelerisque. Et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla ut. Lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper velit sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare. Duis at tellus at urna. Sagittis id consectetur purus ut faucibus pulvinar elementum. Dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc.

Eu consequat ac felis donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat. Risus viverra adipiscing at in tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius. Quam nulla porttitor massa id neque aliquam vestibulum morbi. Massa enim nec dui nunc mattis enim ut tellus. Risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at. Vel turpis nunc eget lorem. Fusce ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque. Laoreet non curabitur gravida arcu. Et leo duis ut diam. Eu non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed. Elit scelerisque mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque. In cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui ut. Auctor urna nunc id cursus. Dui nunc mattis enim ut tellus elementum. Eu mi bibendum neque egestas congue quisque egestas.

Sed felis eget velit aliquet. Lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in ornare quam viverra. Ac felis donec et odio. Rutrum quisque non tellus orci. Commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque eleifend donec. Pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus. Tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis. Arcu felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas. Ornare massa eget egestas purus viverra accumsan in. Ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla pharetra diam. Est ante in nibh mauris cursus mattis. Turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus feugiat in ante. Mauris rhoncus aenean vel elit scelerisque mauris. Elit scelerisque mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique. Magna etiam tempor orci eu lobortis elementum. Egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna. Velit sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare massa. At quis risus sed vulputate. Pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at.

Convallis a cras semper auctor. Tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque. Amet justo donec enim diam vulputate. Neque sodales ut etiam sit amet nisl purus in. Sapien nec sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum. Tellus molestie nunc non blandit massa enim. Urna porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non enim praesent elementum. Vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut. Nulla aliquet enim tortor at auctor urna nunc id. Pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna eget. Justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus. Tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida cum. Diam maecenas sed enim ut.

Maecenas accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas. Scelerisque felis imperdiet proin fermentum leo vel orci. Mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo a. Suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer quis auctor elit. Sit amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue nisi vitae. Tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non. Commodo viverra maecenas accumsan lacus vel facilisis. Rhoncus est pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras tincidunt lobortis feugiat. Nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna. Aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat. At varius vel pharetra vel turpis. Magna sit amet purus gravida quis blandit turpis cursus in. Amet luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus.

Est pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras. Eget lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum. Eget felis eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam. Aenean vel elit scelerisque mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi. Vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed. Tellus in metus vulputate eu scelerisque felis imperdiet proin. Enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui. Maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet. Sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at. Risus quis varius quam quisque. Libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam. Tincidunt arcu non sodales neque sodales. In egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod. Aenean pharetra magna ac placerat vestibulum lectus mauris ultrices.

Magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing. Mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit. Velit ut tortor pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam. Sed elementum tempus egestas sed sed risus pretium quam vulputate. Viverra adipiscing at in tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius. Suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus. Condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae. Dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a. Sit amet est placerat in egestas. Amet nisl purus in mollis.

Diam vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus. Lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus. Elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis. Eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet. Consequat id porta nibh venenatis. Lacus sed turpis tincidunt id. Dictum sit amet justo donec enim diam vulputate ut pharetra. Tortor posuere ac ut consequat semper viverra. Quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum. Fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Vitae elementum curabitur vitae nunc sed velit dignissim sodales ut. Quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat id. Mollis aliquam ut porttitor leo a diam sollicitudin tempor id. Faucibus et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper. Vitae ultricies leo integer malesuada nunc vel risus commodo.

In egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem. Purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc. Ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla pharetra diam. Purus non enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla est. Risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui. Mauris a diam maecenas sed enim. Diam vel quam elementum pulvinar. Tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus. Viverra adipiscing at in tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi.

Accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui id. Ut sem viverra aliquet eget. Et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas. Aliquet risus feugiat in ante metus. Pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis. Ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed. Mauris nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris. Leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim. Sagittis orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis at tellus. Felis eget velit aliquet sagittis id consectetur purus ut faucibus.

Volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris. Arcu odio ut sem nulla pharetra. Fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi. Sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus. Id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl condimentum id venenatis. Egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna sit. Ut faucibus pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. Lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus. Egestas dui id ornare arcu. Ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam. Nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a. Elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere. Orci ac auctor augue mauris. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Mus mauris vitae ultricies leo integer. Feugiat in ante metus dictum.

Magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor. Dignissim sodales ut eu sem integer. Ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae. Proin sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna neque viverra. Interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt. Id neque aliquam vestibulum morbi blandit cursus risus at ultrices. Elementum sagittis vitae et leo. Ut tellus elementum sagittis vitae. Turpis egestas pretium aenean pharetra magna ac. Integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus. Nisi porta lorem mollis aliquam ut porttitor.

Libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt. Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis. Tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis. Sagittis aliquam malesuada bibendum arcu vitae. Mauris nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a. Integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna. Vitae purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra. Facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo. Gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus. Scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in ornare quam viverra orci. Nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi. Non odio euismod lacinia at quis risus sed vulputate odio. Feugiat vivamus at augue eget. Amet nisl purus in mollis nunc sed id. Imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit. Faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor.

Pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor consequat id porta. Ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis. Nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec ullamcorper. Tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras. Placerat in egestas erat imperdiet sed. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis. Vel risus commodo viverra maecenas accumsan lacus vel facilisis. Laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt. Nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec. Sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum est ultricies integer. Malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius. Rhoncus dolor purus non enim praesent. Tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras. Tortor posuere ac ut consequat.

Vel pretium lectus quam id leo in vitae. Enim ut tellus elementum sagittis vitae et leo. Vitae turpis massa sed elementum tempus egestas sed sed risus. Integer enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis. Sagittis id consectetur purus ut faucibus pulvinar elementum integer. Et molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis. Ornare quam viverra orci sagittis. Scelerisque viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi. Odio tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed. Et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at in tellus. Ultrices eros in cursus turpis massa.

Nullam vehicula ipsum a arcu cursus vitae congue mauris. Justo nec ultrices dui sapien eget. Arcu non sodales neque sodales ut etiam sit. Semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque. Phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies. Est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Donec adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna. Eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus. Ut lectus arcu bibendum at varius vel. Faucibus turpis in eu mi. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames.

Porttitor leo a diam sollicitudin tempor id eu nisl. At varius vel pharetra vel turpis. Cras adipiscing enim eu turpis egestas pretium. Tempus urna et pharetra pharetra. Sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus. Aliquet risus feugiat in ante metus dictum at. Porta nibh venenatis cras sed felis eget. Aenean sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing tristique risus. Dui id ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla pharetra diam. Nunc aliquet bibendum enim facilisis gravida neque convallis. Sit amet nisl purus in mollis nunc sed id. Tortor posuere ac ut consequat semper viverra. Aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing. Duis at tellus at urna condimentum mattis. Velit ut tortor pretium viverra suspendisse potenti nullam ac tortor. Ut aliquam purus sit amet luctus venenatis lectus. Varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit. Ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tempor id eu nisl nunc mi ipsum. Fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor purus non enim.

Ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing. Donec et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas. Tristique magna sit amet purus gravida quis. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo. Venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu scelerisque felis imperdiet. Aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a scelerisque purus semper eget duis. Condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor id. Quis hendrerit dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum. Purus faucibus ornare suspendisse sed. Magna eget est lorem ipsum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc faucibus. Euismod quis viverra nibh cras. Accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui. Velit sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare. Adipiscing elit duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit.

Vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor. Varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor. Nulla at volutpat diam ut venenatis. Cras semper auctor neque vitae tempus. Rhoncus dolor purus non enim praesent elementum. Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer. Sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing tristique. Mauris ultrices eros in cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui. Amet tellus cras adipiscing enim eu. Mattis aliquam faucibus purus in massa. Dolor purus non enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla.

Duis ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet. Porttitor massa id neque aliquam. Faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum dolor. Molestie ac feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper velit sed. Ut porttitor leo a diam sollicitudin tempor id eu. Maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet. Faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi. Cursus eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris. Eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna. Gravida rutrum quisque non tellus. Arcu dui vivamus arcu felis.

Porta non pulvinar neque laoreet. Arcu risus quis varius quam quisque. Nunc sed id semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque. In hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque. Nulla facilisi morbi tempus iaculis urna. In cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui. In aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum. Ultrices sagittis orci a scelerisque purus. Etiam erat velit scelerisque in. Tristique magna sit amet purus. Mattis aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque. Id ornare arcu odio ut. Sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet. Turpis nunc eget lorem dolor sed viverra ipsum.

Sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis orci. Morbi tempus iaculis urna id. Enim sed faucibus turpis in eu mi bibendum. Viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices. Nascetur ridiculus mus mauris vitae ultricies leo. Erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit at imperdiet dui. Lacus sed turpis tincidunt id. Aliquet bibendum enim facilisis gravida neque convallis a. Tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras fermentum. A lacus vestibulum sed arcu non odio euismod. Diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque. Et netus et malesuada fames ac. Facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui id ornare arcu odio. Volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet. Molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque. Aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat nisl pretium. Consequat interdum varius sit amet mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet. Laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt.

Sed vulputate odio ut enim blandit. Laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus nisl tincidunt eget. Ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus. Amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc. At lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus id. Congue mauris rhoncus aenean vel. Est velit egestas dui id ornare arcu odio. Diam quam nulla porttitor massa. Dignissim diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque. Auctor urna nunc id cursus. Habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque elit ullamcorper. Aliquam ut porttitor leo a diam sollicitudin tempor id eu. Nullam eget felis eget nunc lobortis mattis. Mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor id. Maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie. Congue eu consequat ac felis donec et. Ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum.

Elementum tempus egestas sed sed risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim. Nulla aliquet porttitor lacus luctus. Id venenatis a condimentum vitae. Id semper risus in hendrerit. Sit amet risus nullam eget felis eget nunc lobortis. At in tellus integer feugiat scelerisque. Sagittis vitae et leo duis ut diam. Pellentesque dignissim enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus. Orci ac auctor augue mauris augue neque gravida. Nunc sed augue lacus viverra vitae congue eu consequat. Odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus. Blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam etiam erat velit. Nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus in massa. Dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor.

Nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus. Amet nisl suscipit adipiscing bibendum. In nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices. Venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus. Tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt. Commodo viverra maecenas accumsan lacus vel facilisis volutpat est velit. Feugiat sed lectus vestibulum mattis ullamcorper velit sed. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et. Turpis cursus in hac habitasse. Faucibus scelerisque eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam. Quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl. Mattis enim ut tellus elementum. Quam quisque id diam vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam. Morbi blandit cursus risus at ultrices mi tempus imperdiet nulla.

Nunc consequat interdum varius sit amet. Orci phasellus egestas tellus rutrum tellus. Quisque id diam vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam. Eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit amet massa vitae. Arcu bibendum at varius vel. Ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi. Dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque elit ullamcorper dignissim cras tincidunt. Faucibus in ornare quam viverra orci sagittis eu. Risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in est. A diam maecenas sed enim. Tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum sed. Pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae. Rutrum tellus pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam. In eu mi bibendum neque. Nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor. Ante metus dictum at tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus.

Mollis nunc sed id semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum. Enim neque volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper. Risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum. Aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan tortor posuere. Tincidunt praesent semper feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida. Massa tincidunt dui ut ornare lectus. Erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem mollis aliquam. Morbi blandit cursus risus at ultrices mi tempus. At tellus at urna condimentum. Tincidunt praesent semper feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit. Ornare quam viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris. Vitae ultricies leo integer malesuada. Et netus et malesuada fames. Proin sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus. Ultrices mi tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit eget gravida. Volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam etiam erat velit scelerisque in.

Fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque eleifend donec pretium. Non curabitur gravida arcu ac. Sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing tristique risus. Enim ut tellus elementum sagittis vitae et leo duis. Iaculis urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non curabitur gravida arcu. Viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque. Faucibus in ornare quam viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio. Turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst. Posuere urna nec tincidunt praesent semper feugiat nibh. Elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper. Sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit. Ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu scelerisque felis. Aliquam id diam maecenas ultricies mi eget. Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero. A scelerisque purus semper eget duis at tellus. Dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque. Morbi tincidunt augue interdum velit euismod. Eget arcu dictum varius duis at consectetur lorem donec massa.

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Vestibulum mattis ullamcorper velit sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt. Sollicitudin aliquam ultrices sagittis orci a scelerisque purus. Viverra nam libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Quis blandit turpis cursus in. Scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a. Duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit amet commodo. Tristique risus nec feugiat in fermentum. Parturient montes nascetur ridiculus mus mauris. Pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus sed turpis. Volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam.

Aliquet nec ullamcorper sit amet risus nullam eget felis eget. In ornare quam viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio. Eget mauris pharetra et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum. In iaculis nunc sed augue lacus viverra vitae congue eu. Vulputate mi sit amet mauris. Malesuada bibendum arcu vitae elementum curabitur vitae nunc. Enim praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper. Est ullamcorper eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim. Tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor. Fermentum et sollicitudin ac orci. Vitae elementum curabitur vitae nunc sed velit.

Lacus sed turpis tincidunt id aliquet risus feugiat in ante. In tellus integer feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc faucibus. Vel eros donec ac odio tempor orci dapibus ultrices in. Turpis egestas sed tempus urna. Sagittis purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris. Eu augue ut lectus arcu. Risus nec feugiat in fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt. Convallis aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing. Id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non sodales neque sodales. Egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi. Lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus in massa tempor. Egestas sed sed risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse. Feugiat scelerisque varius morbi enim nunc faucibus a. Molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis. Faucibus scelerisque eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec. Nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet. Mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor lacus. Ultricies mi eget mauris pharetra et ultrices neque.

Morbi blandit cursus risus at ultrices mi tempus. Nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus. Neque gravida in fermentum et sollicitudin ac orci phasellus egestas. Leo vel orci porta non pulvinar. Convallis aenean et tortor at risus. Semper auctor neque vitae tempus quam pellentesque. Nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin libero nunc. Turpis in eu mi bibendum neque. Dolor sed viverra ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim facilisis gravida. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh. Sed velit dignissim sodales ut eu sem integer vitae justo. Ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit. Id semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non. Faucibus nisl tincidunt eget nullam non.

Ullamcorper malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius sit amet. Pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus. Diam maecenas sed enim ut. Pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus. Imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit. Justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet. Eget gravida cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis. Imperdiet dui accumsan sit amet nulla facilisi morbi tempus. Sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis. Mauris augue neque gravida in. Amet risus nullam eget felis eget nunc. Tincidunt lobortis feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum varius. Vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique.

Ultricies lacus sed turpis tincidunt. Imperdiet massa tincidunt nunc pulvinar sapien et ligula. Morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor eget. Curabitur gravida arcu ac tortor. Gravida rutrum quisque non tellus orci ac auctor augue. Eros in cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui ut. Ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida dictum fusce ut placerat. Mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Eu nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet nec ullamcorper.

Consequat id porta nibh venenatis cras sed. Nunc sed id semper risus in. Elementum nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis. Pellentesque eu tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras fermentum odio. Suspendisse in est ante in nibh mauris. Est placerat in egestas erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi. Aliquet enim tortor at auctor. Tempus quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et. Velit egestas dui id ornare arcu odio ut sem. Felis eget velit aliquet sagittis id consectetur purus ut. Laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Justo nec ultrices dui sapien eget. Ante in nibh mauris cursus mattis molestie. Id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.

**NotTheCat** · 10-28-2019, 02:01 PM

Originally posted by 10bang View Post

The relatives of the furry found out...

...that there is a disturbance of the time progress as toxic people were spamming without them noticing.

Announcement

Continue the story [Good ol' classical Forum Game]

Continue the story [Good ol' classical Forum Game]

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