/lit/ - Literature

I one time got a lot of attention because of a big autofiction story I wrote.

I wrote it late at night. The kids were in bed. My wife was in asleep. I wrote it straight through, no corrections, no revisions. I was shaking, trembling. My hair stood on end. I felt as though I had my finger stuck in the electrical socket of the universe.

Ive done it, I said to myself, Ive finally done it.

I had finally alchemized years of agony and private suffering into gold—pure autofictional gold.

My story was rejected by 27 online lit mags. It was rejected by Muumuu House, House of Vlad, Hobart, 3am, Forever, Believer, Expat, Backpat, the Three Penny Press, The Tin Cup, Cutty Spot, Heavy Traffic, The End, n+1, Swamp Lit, Bullshit Lit, Last Ditch Lit, the Shit-tube Press, and 22 other online lit mags unworth mentioning.

My wife hated my story, my wife didn't care, but I knew I had done something big. I knew I had written a story as good, or better, than anything Robert James Waller, Elizabeth Ellen, or Delicious Tacos had ever published in any online lit mag.

I had done wrong in my life. I made a lot mistakes. But I had done this.

It was late November, gray and bare. I visited every billboard in Madison County—billboards for cheap cremation and hair removal, billboards for East Side Electric and Rocket City Motors, billboards for personal injury lawfirms, billboards for Jesus, and a billboard for an enormous Italian combo, at an Italin import delicatessen—there were no billboards for rent in Madison County.

There WAS a billboard just outside Madison County, over a six lane highway interchange that locals called 'The Mix Master.'

It was like a third world country. Scaffolding and orange traffic cones everywhere, flashing signs pointed every which place. The breakdown lane and the liminal space beyond was littered with the anamalous detritus of the American roadside; broken glass and nails, blown out treads, plastic lawn chairs and—inexplicably—a microwave.

I popped a poloraid. The flash went off needlessly. The film fed out like a half limp dick.