FEATURED AUTHOR: STEVE MYERS

ABOUT THE BOOK

Dreaming .400, like baseball itself, exists outside of time. Its 11 short stories are infused with the magic of the game—in the seductive swing of a girl who turns tinsel into gold; in the passion of an orphan on a quest to reach the Astrodome; in a vision of the future in which players are made, not born.

Dreaming .400 spawns pen pal love between friends that grows into poetry; it shrinks the gap between the head and heart of a Brewers’ fan; provides a way out for a teenager stuck in the shadows; inspires a vagabond to an impossible dream to be lived out between the white lines.

GUEST POST BY STEVE MYERS

Writing fiction is medicine. A window opens. There's access to an often closed, cut off world of dreams, memories, and motivations. The bluesy side of that window opening is that when a story ends, the window shuts. There's an emotional let down. The hunt and feast are finished. The carcass sits like some bony exposure beside the water. 

This is where the title of my recently published collection of short stories -  Dreaming .400 becomes more than a name. It becomes like a raft in water to get me going again, towards more trouble and tranquility, round and round, gathering up debris along the way which became new memories to explore and write about. 

I don't find many absolutes in this process of writing, but the intoxicating effect of a smell is definitely one of them. A smell hijacks and transports me to far away forgotten places in my past. I can see things in ways I've never seen before. I can be courageous. I can be honest and discover my real motives and fears and transform them into the traits of characters I create. 

Let me talk about smells some more. We have so many ways to store data and sounds. So many efficient ways but when it comes to smells, we have perfumes and after shave and cleaning sprays, but is there any way to store the smells we generate? So darn elusive. Like a vapor or water or sand slipping between our fingers and yet so potent and powerful.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking Mr. Clean or Endust. No way at all. I can be walking along and get hit by a spray from one of those bathroom cleaning sprays and well, I'm transported back to being 11-years old, in my friend's attic, playing strat-o-matic simulated baseball. All the wonderful details float through my mind like a slow mo parade – my friend's fat cat in the window sill looking orange from the sun, the cemetery across the street, my fears.  I'm not sure how this happens, olfactory speaking, but the smell is definitely an ol' factory of memories. That's for sure.

It's for this reason I keep anywhere from 20 to 30 stories, maybe more, active in my mind, in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes, as wordpress posts or Word documents, all of 'em waiting to be smelled again and if they are and if I'm lucky, they go epic and my mind and pen gushes. The story picks up speed and behaves like snow melting down a mountainside in spring and other times, it gets snagged and fizzles out of existence.

I think stories definitely have finish lines. It may take 23 years but it's out there somewhere in the fog and this has nothing to do with improving a sentence or adjusting the flow. That could go on forever. I'm talking about a theme. Often times, I am not aware of one during that initial gush, but as I read over what has happened...what I have written, what I have spit out on the page, I begin to see one there. Then I begin fleshing it out, the theme that is and making it clearer to the reader.

Don't get me wrong, I never want the message or whatever to be too obvious. I'm not writing Cliff Notes of crystal clarity here. I want the reader to do some work, to think a little, to connect some dots,  but at the same time, being cryptic is not my style. There's nothing sadder to me than a reader saying, “I didn't get it.” That means I failed them and I don't want that. Then again, I don't write with readers in mind, not when it comes to subject matter and themes. That's the stuff of dreams and subconscious. I can't control that, but I can read and reread and read some more what I've written and make sure it flows so the reader doesn't have to be bobbing for apples while reading what I've written, up and down, gasping for air. I want their experience to be more like sledding down a winter hill or a water slide;  weeeeeeeeeee. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Myers grew up in Milwaukee, walking distance from Lake Michigan. There was no other side, not visible anyway. The water went on and on. The cliffs were savage. The trees left to die. The abandoned boat houses not bothered.

Steve attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and earned an honers degree in history. He studied in southern Spain, lived in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and for the last eight years Montreal, Canada.



He recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Journalism. He is the author of two blogs. Brewers Baseball and Things is where Steve experiments with baseball and fiction. Broken Bats is home to his poetry.





Connect with Steve:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook 

Buy the book:
Amazon

FEATURED AUTHOR: STEVE MYERS

ABOUT THE BOOK

Dreaming .400, like baseball itself, exists outside of time. Its 11 short stories are infused with the magic of the game — in the seductive swing of a girl who turns tinsel into gold; in the passion of an orphan on a quest to reach the Astrodome; in a vision of the future in which players are made, not born.

Dreaming .400 spawns pen pal love between friends that grows into poetry; it shrinks the gap between the head and heart of a Brewers’ fan; provides a way out for a teenager stuck in the shadows; inspires a vagabond to an impossible dream to be lived out between the white lines.

INTERVIEW WITH STEVE MYERS

Steve, how did you get started writing and when did you become an “author?” I was a sportswriter in high school, mostly game summaries and a few editorials. I remember a massive letter writing explosion with friends when exiled from my childhood home, to attend University. We asked and discussed the typical existential questions. I kept writing. I traveled. I wrote poetry, short stories and a few reached novel length. I applied for a one year graduate diploma program in journalism. I learned a lot about being precise and focused, but fiction and poetry would not leave me alone. Dreaming .400: Tales of Baseball Redemption is my first book to be published.  

What's your favorite thing about the writing process?
Discovering what I'm trying to say. It's very much a psycho-analytical experience, as my own life and motivations, emotions get splintered into the characters I create, plots weaved and lessons learned.

Can you share some of your marketing strategies with us?

Word of mouth, Amazon, and my wordpress blog.

You have a day job . . . how do you find time to write?
It finds me.

If you could only watch one television station for a year, what would it be?

Hmmmm, good question. A year is a long time. Whatever station offers movies, sports, and historic/music documentaries at different times. Did I just squiggle out of answering your question?

Yes, pretty sure you did! That's okay. 
How often do you tweet?
Never.


How do you feel about Facebook?
I think it's a brillant and wonderful idea, but it makes me paranoid and self-, I avoid it like an old lover, but all of my wordpress posts get automatically uploaded to my Facebook page, and I did announce my book on Facebook, but I treat it like a shop selling little glass and ceramic chotchkies. I get in and out of there in a hurry.

For what would you like to be remembered?
Integrity.

What scares you the most?
The 12 hours leading up to any surgery.

YouTube is . . . Heaven with a few beers.

What five things would you never want to live without?
My girlfriend, my parents, my brother, baseball, music.

Who would you want to narrate a film about your life?
God.

Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
I think I'm addicted to the moon, so both.

Do you spend more on clothes or food?
Food for sure.

What’s the worst thing someone has said about your writing? How did you deal with it?
That I tended to be long-winded. I made a conscious effort to be more concise.

Who would you invite to a dinner party if you could invite anyone in the world?
My girlfriend.



What's your relationship with your cell phone?
I don't have one.



Gasp! How many hours of sleep do you get a night?
Six or seven.

What is your favorite movie?
One of them is The Hustler. Such a great redemption story and the absence of color and special effects almost forces the dialogue to be elemental and it is.

Do you have a favorite book?
In order for a book to be my favorite, I would have to read it more than once. That's the only way I would get caught using superlatives. So let's see. I read Aldous Huxley's Island two times as well as Kerouac's Dharma Bums and also George Plimpton's One for the Record. Did I just squiggle out of a question again?


You're a good squiggler. How about a favorite book that was turned into a movie? Did the movie stink?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I loved both the book and the movie. It seems silly to me to compare books and movies. It's like walking or riding in a car. When I'm in a car, pedestrians have no respect for us drivers and when I'm walking, “Those damn cars!”

Do you sweat the small stuff?
Absolutely, I'm very uptight.


If you had to choose a cliche about life, what would it be?
Sing, dance, scream. Do whatever it takes, but get yourself feeling good and happy.


What are you working on now?
A new set of short stories, a book of poems, and paintings with my girlfriend, and a novel based on a blog I kept in the summer of 2014.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Myers grew up in Milwaukee, walking distance from Lake Michigan. There was no other side, not visible anyway. The water went on and on. The cliffs were savage. The trees left to die. The abandoned boat houses not bothered.



Steve attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and earned an honers degree in history. He studied in southern Spain, lived in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and for the last eight years Montreal, Canada.



He recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Journalism. He is the author of two blogs. Brewers Baseball and Things is where Steve experiments with baseball and fiction. Broken Bats is home to his poetry.



Connect with Steve:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook