Jason Clarke

As you may have noticed, I have a new short story out, and I want to tell you all about it. It’s called “A Hard Word to Pronounce”, and it’s about a young twenty-ish guy on the day of his best friend’s wedding.

Because it’s a short story- and not a novel, or collection- I’m releasing it in e-book format, which basically means that it’s a great quality PDF. When you get it, you can either read it on your computer (or iPod or whatnot), or choose to print it out and take it with you. It’s $2 to own, and you can read an excerpt and purchase it right here:
http://jasonclarke.org/hardword

Whoah…a short story, in PDF download format, for two bucks? That sounds a bit crazy, no? But really, if you think about it, it’s kind of cool- because besides the fact that it gives you the option of saving some trees (and hasn’t it been a while since you had a chance to do that?), it’s also neat because it dramatically lowers the costs of production- savings which are passed directly on to you, dear reader.

Let me tell you just a bit more about this process, because I think it’s a direction that publishing is moving in. In this case, instead of packaging the story into a larger book– and that has to be done, because most printed books have set minimum page counts– you’re getting just one short story, but for much less than you’d pay for a typical book. That’s because it’s being delivered instantly (another benefit), without the interruption of a vast set of fixed costs such as printers, shippers, and even publicists and marketers.

That’s it for now. Even if you don’t care about the future of publishing, or saving a tree or two, please head over to my website, check out the story, and perhaps purchase it for yourself or a loved one. You can find all the info, plus order it, right here:

http://jasonclarke.org/hardword

And please do send me your thoughts and/or comments. I look forward to hearing from you, and I promise to keep you updated.

For a long time I’ve been drastically private on this site about writing-related matters. While the debate about private vs. public on a blog carries on, I’m in a bit of a writer’s block/rut so I’m taking the easy way and out being slightly transparent in an effort to jab myself with some possible new perspective.

The rut comes in part from waiting, which unless you’re good, can breed self-doubt. I have a short story out to an agent right now, and I’m waiting to hear back from her about whether or not it’s total crap.

If it’s rejected, I’m either going to submit it to Amazon’s Shorts program, or I might just post it here on this site and offer both a free web version, as well as a high-quality download for $1 or something like that. And maybe even a $1 audio book (is storycast - that would be “story” + “podcast” - too annoying of a term?) version, too.

If anybody has any comments, suggestions, feedback about the idea, please by all means share them in the comments.

Also: I’m currently 10-5 in my football pool this week, now waiting on the Monday Night game to start. I picked the Bears again (they won) because I heard Mike Golic saying their defense was underrated a few weeks ago on ESPN’s radio show Mike and Mike in the Morning. That’s part of why I sometimes take a bit of a longer way to work…The football pool.

What it’s like to be a writer for Late Night With Conan O’Brien, in diary format.