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William Shunn
shunn
08 April 2007 @ 11:39 pm
Care and feeding of your piano  
What a long, long day! Laura went to Long Island to partake of Easter dinner with friends and their families, whilst I wrote pretty much from 5:00 am to 10:30 pm—with breaks, of course, for food, playing with the dog, a nap, coffee-brewing, and general screwing around.

Anyway, I took a break from novel-writing today to write a 2,500-word short story entitled "Care and Feeding of Your Piano." Or maybe Perry Slaughter wrote it, I haven't quite decided yet. It's a narrative cast entirely in excerpts from a fictional future product manual. Light, offbeat, and nasty in a way Perry could certainly claim responsibility for with pride.

I never mix writing and alcohol, but now that the story is done I'm enjoying a celebratory Talisker and some nicely atmospheric music. The Talisker bottle has at most two pours left, which means I'm about half a week away from clearing one more of the low bottles from the liquor cabinet in preparation for the big move. Woo-hoo!

Anyway, this story's title is one that's been hanging around in my files without a story attached for maybe a decade. In fact, it's been a title without a story for so long that it feels a little surreal now to be on the far side of the divide. That's all right, I guess. There's plenty more titles and ideas where that one came from.

And now back to my regularly scheduled novel, already in progress.


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Current Music: Pat Metheny Group, "The Roots of Coincidence"
 
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PixelFish[info]pixelfish on April 9th, 2007 05:31 am (UTC)
Why did you choose the name Perry Slaughter? (Out of curiosity.)
William Shunn: Elder Shunn: John Inspector[info]shunn on April 9th, 2007 10:21 pm (UTC)
Slaughtering Perry
Well, Perry derives from something of an embarrassing period of my life. When I first moved to New York 12 years ago, I was convinced to think it was a good idea to change one's name to suit oneself. (Maybe for some people it is, but not for me, as it turns out.) I didn't want to change my name completely, like to Barriemore X. Grogstedtler or anything like that, but I did want to discard the pesky first initial from my byline ("D. William Shunn"), owing to the fact that I didn't like my father very much at the time and Donald William Shunn was his name.

William Shunn, I thought at the time, sounded kind of paltry and thin, at least to someone who had always had three parts to his name. So I concocted a middle name, Perry, which was short for Peregrine, which I liked because it sort of meant "wanderer," and that's what I felt like. So I started calling myself William Perry Shunn online.

No one bothered to tell me at the time that there was a Secretary of Defense named William Perry, not to mention a very big football player named William "The Refrigerator" Perry. Eventually I dropped the pretension and went to just plain old William Shunn. (Thank God I never published anything under that tricorn-y moniker! The progression from D. William Shunn to William Shunn is, I think, one that makes sense to people without having it explained to them.)

Anyway, when I wanted to publish something a little atypical under a pseudonym, that name Perry came to mind. I like the name fine, just not in the middle of my name. I really can't explain the Slaughter part, except that it just came to me, and I thought it sounded really badass.
PixelFish[info]pixelfish on April 9th, 2007 10:24 pm (UTC)
Re: Slaughtering Perry
I had a character named Peregrine for similar reasons. (But she was a she, and went by Peri.)

I empathise with the desire to give your given name a kick in the patoot though.
William Shunn: Astounding Science-Fiction April 1941[info]shunn on April 9th, 2007 10:33 pm (UTC)
Re: Slaughtering Perry
Well, since I couldn't kick my namesake....

Do or did you have inherited name issues?
PixelFish[info]pixelfish on April 9th, 2007 10:36 pm (UTC)
Re: Slaughtering Perry
Not inherited as such. Perhaps, lack of inheritance--my parents didn't give me a middle name with the idea that I would get one when I got married....ie, my maiden name.

Also, there is an actress called Elizabeth Mitchell, and I keep getting her fan mail.
William Shunn: Jules Verne[info]shunn on April 9th, 2007 10:24 pm (UTC)
P.S.
There are other William Perrys of some renown, and even a few William Parrys!
What a long, long day! Laura went to Long Island to partake of Easter dinner with friends and their families, whilst I wrote pretty much from 5:00 am to 10:30 pm—with breaks, of course, for food, playing with the dog, a nap, coffee-brewing, and general screwing around.

Anyway, I took a break from novel-writing today to write a 2,500-word short story entitled "Care and Feeding of Your Piano." Or maybe Perry Slaughter wrote it, I haven't quite decided yet. It's a narrative cast entirely in excerpts from a fictional future product manual. Light, offbeat, and nasty in a way Perry could certainly claim responsibility for with pride.

I never mix writing and alcohol, but now that the story is done I'm enjoying a celebratory Talisker and some nicely atmospheric music. The Talisker bottle has at most two pours left, which means I'm about half a week away from clearing one more of the low bottles from the liquor cabinet in preparation for the big move. Woo-hoo!

Anyway, this story's title is one that's been hanging around in my files without a story attached for maybe a decade. In fact, it's been a title without a story for so long that it feels a little surreal now to be on the far side of the divide. That's all right, I guess. There's plenty more titles and ideas where that one came from.

And now back to my regularly scheduled novel, already in progress.


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