Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – Phil’s Last Journey by Diane M Dickson

ireneallison12

Today we travel back to the early days of the site. Our own Diane M. Dickson wrote today’s replay, Phil’s Last Journey. This is a wonderful yet simple idea. Quite often simplicity carries the day, much as the sea carries away the unfortunate protagonist, whose death and natural burial swept past essentially unnoticed.

Q: This is a great idea. Did it just pop into your head or was it reasoned out?

Q: The piece is a fine example of timing. It flows by, like the river, at precisely the right speed. You inserted the backstory toward the back half, which worked out quite nicely. Although it is getting close to nine years since it appeared do you recall the choices you made in its structure?

Leila

***

First of all Leila thank you so much for choosing this piece, it’s always a thrill to see something get another go round.

Q: This is a great idea. Did it just pop into your head or was it reasoned out?

I’ll confess that this piece is an extract from a novel I wrote quite some time ago called The Grave. It’s quite a dark and dreadful book in parts and some of it was hard to write, but this particular chapter (with slight amendments to make it suit a short format) almost wrote itself and I just let it have its head. One of the great things about novel writing, I find, is the research and Google Earth is a wonderful resource. I was able to follow the course of the river and the flow of the tides and work out where the body would eventually end up and the idea of its solitary journey through the storm was just my Muse playing with words.

Q: The piece is a fine example of timing. It flows by, like the river, at precisely the right speed. You inserted the backstory toward the back half, which worked out quite nicely. Although it is getting close to nine years since it appeared do you recall the choices you made in its structure?

That is very kind of you and I have to say that sometimes the writing pretty much does itself and I simply lend it my fingers to get the thing on the screen. So, I can’t accept too much credit for the structure – I guess at times like that ‘it is what it is’ and I thank whatever controls these thing for it.

Phil’s Last Journey

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Published by ireneallison12

21 thoughts on “Literally Reruns – Phil’s Last Journey by Diane M Dickson”

  3. Dear Diane
    This is truly one of those pieces that makes me proud to be associated in any way with LS, because of how good it is! My comments are fairly long because of how inspired I was by this piece, but they could be even longer…I’ll limit myself to a few key points.
    The prose is absolutely fabulous, the way the words flow and create the world in the reader’s mind is amazing. I can understand that this was easy to write, because it’s so good! It shows how a writer becomes a master of her craft, there isn’t a single wrong or false note in this entire story, the word choices and sentence rhythms/structures alone are fun to read because of how vivid and seamless it all is!
    John Milton, in his PL, in book 9 and other places, asks himself, in a variety of uncanny moments, WHO IS IT THAT IS TRULY WRITING HIS OWN POEM? He comes up with various answers, but the answer he returns to most is that his “celestial patroness” is composing the words (and sending them down from the sky into his own brain while he rests or sleeps in his bed, which makes Paradise Lost almost like science fiction in many places)…because he can’t believe he would have been able to write this well otherwise. But he also says, “unless all be mine, not hers who brings it nightly to my ears,” in which quote he admits that it’s actually he himself doing the writing while continuing to assert that it’s HER who’s doing it (thereby defining the art of paradox and complexity). He claimed the entire poem was easy to write and left out all the struggles of finding someone to write it down for him, etc, being blind. (He was an endless pain in the ass to everyone who knew him about writing it down…)
    In a similar way, the ease with which you wrote this shows mastery after what must have been a long, dedicated, and committed practice before you got to this point, or this couldn’t be as good as it is!
    Along with the prose, the point of view is amazing. It’s the almost-omniscient novelist’s point of view (pared down or re-shaped in this piece to compose a short story) and it, too, is masterful.
    The simple, wide variety of characters presented is an example, from the three folks who observe the body in the water (including cop and bum) to Phil’s long-suffering mother, and Phil’s gang of grimy, grubby criminal cohorts, including two who seem to have done him in, plus their girlfriends, etc., all drawn with fast, quick, vivid strokes of the pen (or keyboard).
    In another writer’s hands, this would be way too many characters in such a brief space, but that is absolutely NOT the effect your story gives; on the contrary, it’s completely convincing and totally “realistic” in a fictional way.
    This story also has suspense, intrigue, mystery, interest, and empathy/sympathy/understanding combined with irony, and unique humor.
    Finally, thanks for sharing how you use modern technology to research and create great fiction. There are many ideas about how modern technology is ruining us all…There are few who ever point out that it’s not the technology itself that’s doing the ruining, it’s HOW it’s being employed by the too-unoriginal users….because when used in a creative way like you did with Google earth, modern technology can indeed be amazing and a complete boon in our modern world.
    For example, the LS site brings the right kinds of readers and writers together instead of tearing people apart, thereby undercutting the notion that the internet and modern technology is all evil and destructive and bad for us…sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps (or brings) people together in this alienated, atomized, massively populated, far-flung, globally connected, and personally unconnected, lonely world we inhabit.
    Finally, the way you described the river and made it a character in its own right was also amazing! And the originality of the fact that the main character is what we call deceased, passed on, terminated, finished, and so long! The MC is dead, but the story lives and is alive…
    Thanks for a great, inspiring piece of truly creative writing!…
    Dale

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    1. You are really too kind. I don’t have a celestial patroness I don’t think but certainly when the wiritng is working well it takes little effort on my part. In fact when it isn’t working I am very aware of that fact and back off and leave it. As I said to Leila this is from a dark and dreadful novel which really did cause me pain to write. Knowing the whole story is quite fun when I read others take on the plot (that is wicked of me, I know) It is a very early published work and, as with so many others, I would do it differently if I were to do it again, but yes, Phil’s journey seems to have stood the test of time for which I am really grateful. Thank you again for your overly generous comments on my work. dd

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      1. Dear Diane
        Thanks for sharing, including that part about how the novel you refer to was actually painful to write. Writing itself is definitely painful at least half the time (if it’s done well, and when it’s not going well), but not necessarily in the way I think you mean. To face down the pain of that kind of writing is a rare act of courage and I applaud you no end both for undertaking such a writing journey, and for sharing what it felt like…It’s inspiring in a world full of too many people who always try to take the easy way out!
        One of the things I truly admire about LS is how all three of the editors are not “just” editors, but are also just as much creative writers themselves…There are and have been a lot of literary journals and sites that are run/edited mostly just by editors who can’t or don’t or won’t do it themselves (much or at all)…The fact that all three of you are equally or more talented as creative writers yourselves, as well as being editors, is definitely near the very top of the list re: why I like LS. I really enjoy reading the writing of all three of you when it appears, as well as from the vault. If LS’s editors weren’t all creative writers themselves, and three very different kinds of creative writers as well, it would be a much less interesting place. This kind of “self” publishing is truly literary and harkens back to folks like Virginia Woolf when herself and her husband set up their printing press on the dining room table and proceeded to publish all of her works themselves! Marcel Proust also self-published, early and late, as did DH Lawrence, Nietzsche with parts of his Zarathustra, and many others…The fact that you, Hugh, and Leila also appear in LS as well as editing and running it is, again, one of my very favorite things about it! All three of you are amazingly talented, dedicated, and committed!!! Thanks!!!
        Dale

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      2. thank you again. The novel is nasty and there were parts that I wasn’t sure I should include but I try to write honestly and facing a challenge always makes us stronger, doesn’t it. The five original editors agreed at the very start that we would try to keep our own work to a minimum on the site because the idea was to help other writers experience the joy of being published but when there was very little coming in we had to fill the spaces. Now it’s fun to publish our own things in with the multitude of stories. The work always goes through the same procedure as those from other writers and some are rejected. I don’t think you’d be suprised to know that we’ve never rejected anything from Leila – either before or after she became part of the editing team.

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      3. Dear Diane,
        Hi!
        Yes, I’m not surprised at all that you’ve never rejected a Leila story…that can be chalked up to the editorial genius of yourself and Hugh as much as to the uncanny fiction-writing genius of Leila….
        And it can also be chalked up, I believe, to the fact that English, Scottish, Irish, French, and German readers and writers have always been far, far, far, far, far ahead of the Americans themselves in discovering, and reading, great new American writers.
        This phenomenon goes as far back as Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Henry James, and is as recent as Charles Bukowski, Barry Hannah, William Gay, and Larry Brown, with Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound in the middle….and the list is much longer than this, too…
        As usual, and for always, thanks for all you do!
        Sincerely,
        Dale
        PS, If I had any editorial suggestions right now, it would be that you, Hugh, and Leila publish more of your own work, not less, so please continue to do so at whatever amount you feel is the right one…Edgar Allan Poe published almost all of his best essays, stories and poems in magazines he was himself editing, as one example…One reason I cite him is because so many people on LS like Stephen King and King is of course a fan (and heir) of Poe…

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  4. Diane

    I just read Phil’s Last Journey. Nice! I was thinking: whether Phil just floated away un-missed or got a St Patrick’s Cathedral extravaganza funeral wouldn’t make any difference to him. Once the light is out, it’s out! (I think.)

    I love the idea of these regular re-runs with the questions & answers for making the experience more personal. It also gave me an idea or two for ‘chunking’ out or liberating ideas from larger work and using ‘Google Earth’ for background. Thanks. — Gerry

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    1. Thank you Gerry. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Yes, indeed, I use Google Earth a lot. My novels are mostly set in places I know but it’s great to be able to remind youself of routes and of course things change when you turn your back. dd

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      1. dd

        Yes. It’s good to know how the geography ‘really’ was to not only get it right., but to get into the flow. It’s the mental picture that might help. At least it’s a jolt.

        Sometimes I hit my head on the desk, take a walk, or a shower. Now, I’ll Google Earth. I know everything has changed, but once it was. — gc

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  5. The sort of story one wishes one had written! – its premise so apparently simple, its churning detail extraordinary. That gradual unloosening of the body from its wrapping adds mightily to the momentum. Vivid too the briefly apprehended worlds of the three persons who glimpse the “strange flotsam”; and the mother’s response so absolutely smacks of the real. The missing are not always missed. In fact the whole piece brought to mind, among other things, the many fleetingly-mourned kinds of Phil I’ve known over the years, those whose passing also prompted an immediate divvying up of their earthly goods – TVs, stereos, stashes etc – dishonour among thieves being of course the norm.
    Know of no story quite like it.
    Geraint

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    1. That is a very generous comment and I truly appreciate it, thank you. Yes, there are world’s that we are lucky (if that is the right word) not to be a part of. Thank you again – dd

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    2. Dear Geraint,
      As usual, fascinating, accurate, eloquent, perceptive, wise, interesting commentary! Thanks for all you do!!…
      Sincerely,
      Dale

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  6. Hi Diane,

    We were weans (HAH!! I know I have explained that Scottish word for ‘children’ is pronounced ‘wanes’ before – But just in-case anyone else wants to know????) of the site when this was published, three months in! I have always loved the darkness in this and the masterly but subtle way that you used the unsaid has always stuck with me.

    I was interested to read your answer to Dale. I think you stating that stories telling themselves is so true. Many writers try to force the issue with their thoughts, opinions and hang-ups. This never comes across well! When we read excellent stories like this one, we know that the story has spoken to the writer. That may sound a disservice but it takes talent, perception, confidence and skill to simply listen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    All the very best.

    Hugh

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    1. thank you Hugh – it’s a long time ago now, isn’t it? I do love writing when the words are flooding in from elsewhere and then you read it back and think – oh – did I do that? Thanks as always for reading and your kind thoughts. dd

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  7. I love the re-runs, not only because it introduces stories from before I started coming here, but also for the insight into how other writers think and what goes into their process.

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