StoryShedding: #2
A weekly digest from StoryShed Media for the week of Dec. 15, 2025
WHEN THINGS ARE GOING well and I’m satisfied with my day, I always say it: “Beauty.”
That’s my epithet for satisfaction. Happiness. Contentment. I’ll even share it, like, if we’re chatting and you are impressed by something and share it with me, and I like it too, BOOM—“Beauty.”
Because beauty should always be celebrated, right?
Beauty.
As I’m a reluctant collage artist, calling out S.W. Lauden since he’s doing some great work (this should be filed below, but it lands where it lands).
Bad me, but I GAVE this collage to a Minnesota writer whose name is Chris but I didn’t get his last name or handle when we met on Twitter (when I was Comdar, ugh.)…Chris in St. Paul (last I heard) has the original artwork. Here it is in full:
Warm Bake > Hot Take
Probably never was a time Rob Reiner wasn’t somewhere in the back of my mind.
Even watching my Nixon-voting Republican father laughing at his exchanges as Mike Stivic (Archie Bunker’s daughter Gloria’s husband) harangues in All in the Family. We laughed as a family. I remember that. I loved that (in retrospect). We were all there: Mom, Dad, me and my brother. In front of the television.
Now?
Fuck TV.
What Is the Sound of One Substack Clapping?
Shouts ‘n’ Murmurs. Kudos to stuff we’re seeing on the ’stack…
“Print books aren’t competing with screens. They’re doing something else entirely. They’re not optimized. They’re not efficient. They don’t scale.
They endure.”
—from “Print Books Are Not Dead” by the Framing-the-Story with Alex Kustanovich Substack. I was so inspired by this that I mentioned some project ideas to my new printer (who does book manufacturing as well as cards, letterheads, and envelopes) this past week. We’ll see, but the ship has sailed for me on self-publishing. Only online or with other writers in an anthology (I’m looking at you J. Curtis and gang!).
My iPhone alarm goes off at 5:30am every morning. In the winter I’m often up earlier, so I have to babysit the alarm. At EXACTLY 5:44am (it would be 4:44am Mountain Time for the original author) Diamond-Michael Scott sends out his daily Chocolate Taoist message. If you’re not getting those, well, get those.
So much great reading. So little time.
Into the Shack
You may or may not be curious about “what I’m doing.” Hey, I barely know myself.
That is not to say I haven’t done things in the past. But the past has passed and what’s done is done and nigh the twain shall meet except when things are left undone.
In an effort to encourage community (i.e., accountability) I’m reminded of past creative projects (abandoned stories and novels, wished-for poems, screenplay concepts of a concept, and unfinished artwork)…so in StoryShedding going forward, I’ll lay out the creative work and a calendar for hitting those marks. Likely the first of the January will see drafting of the memoir Daytalking, Nightwalking, Stargazing ms., since there’s a support structure for doing just that!
Stick around.
The Morning Muse
What, you probably wonder (at least I do) is the freakin’ point of the Morning Muse? Why spew out things that don’t mean anything if you’re not going to use them in a creative meeting, brainstorming session, or in a novel, play, or poem?
Why indeed! So to answer that…
Without further ado, here’s the Morning Muse from the past week:
Lily von Carnage
Think “porcupine” but say “Porky-pine”
Montenegro slaghog
Profferole—I don’t know…something gustatory? (Almost there, a profiterole is edible, a “profferole” is a position or acting role, I guess, you can pre-offer?)
Camera as object only, no pictures
Into the geriatric swirl we go
stultifying investiture
your jiggle-swiggle is worth a giggle
aqua cleavage response time
Dorks With Corks (wine shoppe)
artery parchment
Kiki Blurg-Personae
Testicle bicycle basket
Staring at ominous tree branches and feeling oddly comforted
…yet ribbons of distraction ensue
From a Dec. 16, 1986, journal entry:
I know I’ve told myself in the past that it’s easy to ascribe too much value to something: a person, an event… but sometimes these things move as if they had a will of their own, and I’m just there to watch as it bobs to the surface every now and then. But wanting love, returned love, unearned love. That’s approval, part of the ties with a family; even it it’s a family of two; me, and another, no doubt, no distrust.
That should do for now. Ahem.
Thought for the Week
“IT IS TODAY A commonplace of American journalism that a news story must illustrate hind-to-end writing. Unlike other literary forms, the climax is at the beginning. The lead, or opening paragraph or paragraphs, gives the reader the essential facts. The body of the story is merely detailed expository material, its paragraph structure a series of separate units without transitions connecting them with what went before or what is to follow, and arranged in order of decreasing importance. The body of the news story must meet the cutoff test. If at any point after the lead a deletion should be made in the story, the essential facts will remain.”
—Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris, A Treasury of Great Reporting, 2nd edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962.
Tuneage for You!
Out we goooooo…
“Born Fighter” Nick Lowe (1979) here with Rockpile on “Get It Together,” filmed on Dec. 26, 1979! (Rockpile: Billy Bremner, guitar; Dave Edmunds, guitar; Nick Lowe, guitar, and Terry Williams, drums)
Enjoyed the rec of Alex, much thanks
Michael, that collage was amazing!