I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if I didn't have a story with 'Hell House' as its title. The idea for Hell House came from Christmas 2006, when I began referring to houses with red lights as their sole decorations as Hell Houses. Like calling out a car with a broken headlight, every time such a house caught my attention I oozed the phrase from my half-frightened lips.
Anyone who reads Hell House right now might go 'hey, wait a minute -- isn't Douglass Gorn actually Koi from Radar?' The answer to that would be 'yeah'. Its the same awkward young gentleman who prefaces every sentence with an uncertain 'uh'. All the mannerisms are there. I felt the character type worked for a short story, but figured it would probably alienate any reader if Douglass Gorn was the protagonist of a novel. So I started Radar a couple years later.
The character Nasser was renamed Morris Lee and became the star of End of Sinema. Morris Lee also appears in Radar.
The bit about a girl having her heart literally stolen was reused for The Light In Glass Flowers. Despite no longer being proud of Hell House -- I don't even enjoy it anymore -- I must admit it's been a storehouse of ideas for me.
Paper-Thin Punks
Paper-Thin Punks is a roman à clef -- well, a roman à clef with a very subjective view of reality. It is made up of separate vignettes, with each vignette being about a person I know. The first vignette -- Paper-Thin Punks -- has all of these people going up in a hot air balloon together. With this story I began introducing influences from film into my writings, so the bit that goes
PAPER-
THIN
PUNKS
is actually a nod to Godard's use of intertitles. Kind of odd, I know, but I still think it works in this short, and is probably my favourite thing about it. However, it's a trick I doubt I'll ever use again.
This Pretty Mountain is about Simon. Right? Yes, 'Simon'. All of the people that Paper-Thin Punks makes use of read the stories about themselves, and all of them loved their individual depictions. Everyone except for 'Frank'. Sorry, Frank. I guess we'll never be friends again! I'm not friends with Simon anymore, either, but that's a short story I'd rather not write.
Paper-Thin Caspar is more early Koi. Read this vignette and you're reading about the creation of one of Koi's tracks. Radar Doesn't Believe In The Supernatural really runs deep.
No Thanks to Godard is -- okay, here's another experimentation I'm still quite fond of. No Thanks to Godard is actually an adaptation of an essay by John Wilkins, containing about 90% of the content of his essay while inserting John Wilkins as a character into it. John's named was changed to Edmond but I think I should've just left it alone.
And then Let's Be Frank. This is a vignette I'll salvage. Along with Melodrama/A Play, it's one of the very few 'early' stories of mine that I'd like to put into a collection. It involves a ghost, a girl, Frank, and all that's left of love.
Let's continue this another time, shall we?
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