The story, One perfect riff, which follows this brief indulgence, is the 366th in this series and hence of some significance.
When I published the first of these stories, on this site on July 1, 2010, my aim—it seemed an absurd one at the time—was to write and publish a new story every day for a year and a day. With the publication of today’s story I reach that goal. Thanks to all the readers, subscribers and supporters who have been part of the process, including my family, Polly and Thomas, for their forebearance. This project has taught me much about writing and about persistence. I hope it has made me a better writer.
I have other writing projects that have not been getting the attention they deserve. I hope to be able to dedicate more time to them now. But I also want this site to remain active. I’ll continue to publish new stories whenever I have them. And when I don’t (because I’m no longer going to torture myself to get them the way I’ve sometimes had to over the past year) I’ll revisit the story originally published on the corresponding date. If it is in need of editing then I will polish it and republish. If it is already reasonably polished I’ll treat it in one of the following ways; I’ll republish it with illustrations, republish it in a different format (such as prose poem or concrete poetry), or I’ll publish it as an audio file. I hope, in this way, I can keep this page alive and interesting. If, as a reader of this site, you have any other ideas you’d like explored as part of this project please let me know.
As well as refocussing on other writing projects (particularly two half-finished novels), I hope to prepare a collection of these stories for submission for publication. I’d also love to explore the performance possibilities of these stories. There’s never enough time, of course, but by relaxing my self-imposed rules about this site I hop to get a little of mine back. Thanks for supporting Small Stories about Love.
– Richard
One perfect riff
When the call about the support gig came Pen’s thoughts went immediately to Laszlo. He was the one who’d seen the ad at the guitar shop and told her to audition. It was meant to be a bit of fun. Now she’d be leaving for four months on the road. His companionship would be replaced by the band—Petra and Carl and Dylan.
Dylan who played without effort.The day would come when, after a killer show, he’d tell her what she already knew; that he wanted to be with her. And she’d say she wanted that too, because she’d dreamed of herself adrift in a sea of his cool tones and silky licks. And Laszlo would be at home, pouring over chord charts and songbooks and trying to sound like everybody else. He’d had one perfect riff in him. He’d shown it to the band and it was part of their set now, and it would never be his again.
2011-Richard Holt / small stories about love (smallstoriesaboutlove.wordpress.com)
small stories about love 