King Snake "Descendants of Iniquity"
by Christopher Piper
Price: $5.99 USD. 33810 words.
Published by Brighton Publishing LLC on January 31, 2012. Fiction.
Told by a common narrator, King Snake traces the heritage of the tiny, faded towns along one bend of a great river. Founded by hustlers, moonshiners and savage criminals, the anarchic spirit of the area lives on in this story of their modern day half wild descendants who are absurdly humorous, frightening, and tragically American.
Member Since: Jan. 31, 2012
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Christopher Piper
Biography
The living of this life has always been a very serious business for me. I grew up in an economically depressed area, where even feeling special was officially discouraged. My family was half-famous for a kind of creative boldness that was both admired and mistrusted. Through example and exhortation, we were taught to make and to do, and to feel that there would be some prerogative in our world.
Maybe everyone feels the light of chance on them, but I have seen it to be a thing that dims with time. Our drive, our passion to live, and our lists of what is possible are all expected to dwindle naturally as we mature. In a way, our growing is become a process of shrinking, with the world and our place in it becoming exponentially smaller each year.
I fought like hell against this entropy of potential. Instead of dwindling, any loss of drive or intensity that I've suffered has been through more of a grinding process. I never let go of a dream without a struggle, and the yanking of any one hope always seemed to stimulate the growth of others in its place. A friend told me once, and meant it as criticism, that I "fight for everything." After some time to think about that, I came to understand it in a slightly different way - that I fight for one thing, and that thing is to prove my gratitude for a chance to really live. A lifetime of playing music, writing, adventure, and making things has been nothing but my attempt to stand a Monument as evidence of my thanks for it all. To keep acting, moving, yelling, and just dreaming, is a mission, and its focus has only intensified with time.
All this inspirational talk about passion and the brevity of life is just a very broad explanation of why I write, and probably more directly, how I write. I write because, if you are living hard and think it to be sacred work, then who wouldn't write about it? If this passionate life is a mission, then an accurate log of the details is imperative. If your eyes are open, and that part of you that feels the right to create is still there at all, then there are stories all around you. I know they are all around me, and an integral part of my mission is the telling of them.
To that end, I am proud of one thing mostly - that I have developed a style. All art may be derivative, but I feel that I have done my best to derive something potent. I like to think that the passion and intensity of which I preach are right there, seeping through and coloring the tone of each character, each setting, and each description of every thing. I've also worked for a long time to try and build a deep sense of rhythm into my work. As a life-long musician, I believe that a sort of lyrical symmetry in words causes a primitive and personal response and those that read or hear them. It is in the synthesis of this deep rhythm and intensity of experience that I hope to someday really get it all right.
In the meantime, I will stay here in a place called Panther's Den Wilderness, in a house I built myself, with my incredible family and many vicious dogs, living and writing as hard as I can.
Maybe everyone feels the light of chance on them, but I have seen it to be a thing that dims with time. Our drive, our passion to live, and our lists of what is possible are all expected to dwindle naturally as we mature. In a way, our growing is become a process of shrinking, with the world and our place in it becoming exponentially smaller each year.
I fought like hell against this entropy of potential. Instead of dwindling, any loss of drive or intensity that I've suffered has been through more of a grinding process. I never let go of a dream without a struggle, and the yanking of any one hope always seemed to stimulate the growth of others in its place. A friend told me once, and meant it as criticism, that I "fight for everything." After some time to think about that, I came to understand it in a slightly different way - that I fight for one thing, and that thing is to prove my gratitude for a chance to really live. A lifetime of playing music, writing, adventure, and making things has been nothing but my attempt to stand a Monument as evidence of my thanks for it all. To keep acting, moving, yelling, and just dreaming, is a mission, and its focus has only intensified with time.
All this inspirational talk about passion and the brevity of life is just a very broad explanation of why I write, and probably more directly, how I write. I write because, if you are living hard and think it to be sacred work, then who wouldn't write about it? If this passionate life is a mission, then an accurate log of the details is imperative. If your eyes are open, and that part of you that feels the right to create is still there at all, then there are stories all around you. I know they are all around me, and an integral part of my mission is the telling of them.
To that end, I am proud of one thing mostly - that I have developed a style. All art may be derivative, but I feel that I have done my best to derive something potent. I like to think that the passion and intensity of which I preach are right there, seeping through and coloring the tone of each character, each setting, and each description of every thing. I've also worked for a long time to try and build a deep sense of rhythm into my work. As a life-long musician, I believe that a sort of lyrical symmetry in words causes a primitive and personal response and those that read or hear them. It is in the synthesis of this deep rhythm and intensity of experience that I hope to someday really get it all right.
In the meantime, I will stay here in a place called Panther's Den Wilderness, in a house I built myself, with my incredible family and many vicious dogs, living and writing as hard as I can.
Where to find Christopher Piper online
Website: http://www.brightonpublishing.com