The interview lasted a half hour, so I had enough time to wax philosophical about fiction writing. One point I tried to make was that an advantage of writing over other media is that it isn’t limited by technology. I guess that’s not totally true. What I really meant is that if you are a competent writer, you are only limited by your own imagination.

The reason I was so excited to talk about imagination in writing is that I had a great experience pushing myself to be more imaginative earlier that evening. I started noticing a trend in my stories for Name Your Tale. A lot of them were more realistic than my usual stuff, and some were pretty sad. I was afraid I would start bumming people out after a while if I kept it up, so when I started thinking about how to write my version of “I Want Out” for the Thursday Threesome, I started by telling myself “be imaginitive,” which myself interpreted as “write about magicians.”

Here’s that story:

I Want Out

I threaten to reveal the secrets of Devil’s Chest of Drawers and Phillips says Devil’s Chest of Drawers is no longer NCMA-sanctioned and they explained how you do it in a TV show two years ago, anyway, so everyone already knows it.

“Fine,” I say, “I’ll start cursing at parties.”

“We’ll reclassify you. Adult Illusionist.”

“And I’ll take off my pants.”

“Fetish Illusionist – for adults.”

I say, fine, I’ll just stop doing magic then, and Phillips laughs. “Good luck with that,” he says.

I’m not even twenty yards from the front gate when the first dove lands on me.

***
Title by: Anonymous
Story by: Nick

Check it out, as well as the other stories Johnny America has in their archives. I think it’s safe to say I’m in good company there.

What’s the point of all of this hat wearing? Glad you asked, and good pun, by the way. The point is I started a new web site that I would like you to visit, and it’s called Name Your Tale.

The way it works is this: You think of a story title, we write the story. Now, before you get ahead of yourself, I’m not talking in the Royal We here, when I say “we write the story.” No, I’m talking about me and my good pal Jeremy S. Griffin. The goal right now is to publish two brand new 100-word stories a day, five days a week.

I’ve made some back room dealings with other close friends who will be making other forms of contribution to the site, so keep an eye out for a fancy logo and a fancy podcast with fancy music, featuring our favorites stories, read by Us – I mean, me. That was the Royal We sneaking in there.

It’s so easy, one of those little nodding bird thingies could do it, although the title would probably not make sense to any of us (all-inclusive us, that is).

So check out the site, let me know what you think, and, gosh darn it, submit a title.

It’s always nice to see my words published by someone else.

My good friend David Francois has written and recorded a song about this story called “An Inch Off the Ground,” under the moniker Modern Royal. You can hear it on his blog.

And no, it is not just a cover of that Steve Winwood song.