On my 33rd year...
What my accident can do for you, yeah, you!
Writing this post has been a chore. I started on my phone but had to switch to the computer because I cut my left thumb making dinner. Also, I’m elevating my hands because there is Aquaphor on the healing scrapes from falling last week. It’s funny how all this happened because of an uneven concrete sidewalk. Thankfully, no broken bones. The abrasions look kind of like stigmata, which is ironic because I turn 33 in just a few weeks. They say it’s called ‘Jesus Year’ because that’s allegedly the year when Jesus Christ was crucified & resurrected, performing what Christianity claims is the most important sacrifice of God.
To your fortune, this isn’t a post about religion.
It is, however, a way to expel some of my sins. Envy, wrath, sloth, what have you. Instead of bottling these things up as I search for a compatible therapist, I’m turning these feelings outward and into the universe. I am doing the following 3, mindfulness practices:
Getting back into my long-lost manuscript, Tony, the Health Inspector,
Embodying The Meat Man credo, and
Announcing this special, once-in-a-lifetime, submission call…
*slow heavy metal music playing*
Calling all demons, warlocks, and barbarians!
My 33rd Birthday is coming up and for my ‘J Man Year’ I am opening an exclusive story call. I want to read your sinister, seditious, sludgy, and subversive spawns of the written word. Please submit only 1 fiction story or prose poem of 3,000 words max. The themes are: Sanguination, Incantation, Resurrection + all things heavy metal.
The winning story will be published online right here on Backroads Driving/Windows Down and all of my social accounts + I will solicit you with a manuscript contract for winter 2025. It is implied that the selected story/poem will be included, along with other similarly-themed works.
But first, you have to devastate me with your fireball of fiction!
Email your ‘J MAN STORY' as an attachment to jdalewrites[at]gmail[dot]com on my birthday, July 4th, 2024, between 12 AM & 11:59 PM only. If you’re a minute early or late, that sucks! But not my problem!
I’ll make sure to remind you as we get closer, but I suggest getting to work now or telling a beloved metalhead in your family. You can’t wield a battle axe until you can swing a stick first! I’ll speak to you all again soon with some updates on my manuscript, life in general, and any new scars and/or bruises (hope not!)
Oh, one last thing. Come out to Bring a Blanket 11 this Saturday for a reading & zine launch. I just finished printing it and there are 18 contributors. Fun in the sun outside in Washington Square Park. Starts at 2 PM.