Jennifer Marie Donahue

Nothing Down

2012-01-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

I remember all those years where I stared, with slack jawed paralysis, at the blank page. The inertia of inaction breeding only more inaction. Simple physics. My brain, my body couldn't focus and bring words to life. I read a book once about a school for teenagers where dead spirits possessed their body and they blacked out only to wake hours later with completed paintings, stories, symphonies. I would sit there in my living/dining room chain smoking and wish that kind of creepy would propel me into motion. Because not knowing where to start, the myriad ways to fail was too much weight on my young shoulders.

I started lots of things only to abandon them half formed with flailing, malnourished prose arms. Reaching. Reaching for more. I feel that way, even now, even those in this space more than ten years later where I've written two novels. There was a time where I never knew if I could do that or if I ever would. Birthing those words felt very nearly impossible. Wrapping myself around another idea right now does too. But I'm at a different angle of the abyss now. I know, despite the daunting crevice, its possible to shape, pare, and cultivate these seeds of an idea into something cohesive. Good? Only time will tell. For now it is enough to keep working.

Happy 2012.

An Ugly Word

2011-09-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

While at the store last week I spied a very ugly word scrawled in blue crayon on the back of a box. It was a racial slur. The worst one, in my opinion. I felt violated by that ugly word and I didn't know what to do. So I cradled the box in my arm, careful so no one could see the word, and marched to the customer service desk. The woman was smiling, she had just been chatting with her friend and the laughter was still dying out on her lips. I put the box on the counter and pointed to the word. She squinted at the box, perhaps just as disbelieving as I, and then grimaced. The other girl came to take a look and flinched when it registered, as if the word itself had teeth and could bite."We should go see if there are more," she said and disappeared. I wondered if they found any more words. Or perhaps the crayon hidden behind a box of cereal or a under a bag of cookies.

I realized later that the word itself only had the power that I gave to it. The shame that I felt was real, palpable, but in part because where I come from. I don't want to be from the kind of people who would say that word without pause, but maybe I need to explore that side, the bigotry that hides in sleepy towns, still very much alive in the minds of another generation. Have you ever seen an ugly world out in the wild, where you didn't expect it?

Smothering

2011-07-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine read a story and wrote me a long note with some super smart observations. This was the most intense analysis of my work I'd ever read. It was amazing and flattering and gave me lots to think about. One of the most interesting comments was about theme. She noted that many of my stories feature characters who feel smothered by their daily existence and are "longing for release."

It is so true, but I'm not sure I knew how to articulate it in quite that way. I'm playing around with the idea of a novel in stories. I went back and read the two stories I've been working on to kick off this collection and sure enough, I find that sense of smothering as a strong line of tension on the page.

What is the most surprising thing you've learned about your own writing? Are your characters feeling smothered too?

Photo: eye of einstein

What season are you?

2011-07-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

When I was at the delicate age of twelve there was a summer class offered on beauty. I remember the class description being vague, at best. My mother was thrilled, she has always been one for layering beauty on oneself. I thought the class might be more about cultivating inner beauty and positive self image. But I was wrong.

The beauty class explored practicalities: how to wear make-up, buy clothes and plan your image. A required beauty workbook (yes, you read that right - a beauty textbook!) explained the central unifying theory of image making: find your season and how to structure everything around that theme. Everyone could be grouped into one of the four seasons, and each season had a natural color palate and sense of style. Due to my brown hair and brown eyes I was placed into Autumn with a rust, gold, burgundy and brown color scheme. I remember the ache in my heart as I watched the summer and spring girls around me, with their shiny blonde hair and crisp, bright colors. Fun colors.Theirs was the domain of green, pinks and turquoise. Cute dresses. Then there were the mysterious winter girls with their alabaster skin and dark, exotic hair and eyes. They got to explore the jewel tones of that season, the lush feel of velvet, and clothes with romantic flowing collars and lace trims. By comparison, I felt a decaying time of year. Dressed much like a boring pumpkin.

I was thinking about this beauty class recently as I've been considering what project I want to work on next. Sometimes I feel like I get stuck in my own season, jealously observing others who are working in different genres and styles. I know theme isn't set in stone. There is room to explore other areas of interest. That is how voice and style grow, by pushing the boundaries of what is known. There are no real rules. Only the rules you make for yourself. I can write about anything I want. It is one of the great things about being unknown (see, there are great things about it!), there is freedom to explore and write that space-cowboy-ninja adventure tale if I so choose. Or not.

Incidentally, I did learn some things in that beauty class: how to use clear nail polish to stop a run in pantyhose, how to get a fresh bloodstain out of your clothing, and how many different kinds of infections you can get from mascara. So, armed with this info, I'm all set to write a beauty of a fight scene.

Photo: Ramón Peco

first day of summer song

2011-06-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

Last year I was traveling with my husband and son in France on the first day of summer. June 21 is more than the summer solstice there, it is the Fête de la Musique. Paris becomes a living, pulsing music box when the sun goes down. Changing the channel is as simple as walking from one street corner to the next. We found a salsa band with people dancing in the street, a deejay playing electronic dance music and a string quartet. Walk farther still and you can find folk, punk, rock, jazz, rap, and just about anything else imaginable. Driving in most places becomes nearly impossible. The streets are full of people and exploring the scene is really more of letting go, letting yourself be taken with the crowd along a steady stream of bodies. There is a frenzy to the whole affair, a delicious sort of energy that presses between bodies and rides the currents and sound in the still warm evening air.

So, in the spirit of celebrating music, enjoy the following video of "Wayfaring Stranger." (It plays a big part in my novel, RIDING THE BLIND).

So True, Dr. Seuss

2011-06-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

"Well... that vent where I went
Was a sort of funnel
That led me down into
A frightful black tunnel.
The traffic down there
Was a mess, I must say,
With billions of birds
Going all the wrong way.
They bumped me with bikes
And they banged me with dishes.
I ran into ladders,
Beds, bottles and fishes.
I skidded on garbage.
I fell in a horn.
Troubles! I wished
I had never been born!"

Source: I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss

Photo: Stuck in Customs

YA Literature & The Mommy Book Club

2011-06-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

I belong to a book club. I refer to it as the "mommy book club" because all the other members are mothers like me. It is a nice monthly escape for an evening, a chance to get together and talk about books and life. There is copious wine, beer and sweet treats involved. It gives me an opportunity to read books outside of my normal interest areas.

Now, to be completely honest, as a writer (secretly, if you will, since most people in the group don't know about my writing) it is a little difficult to be a book club member. I read books differently than the rest of the group. I notice technical issues in a novel, quibble about plot or character points that don't register on their radar. There have been a few books that I just couldn't bring myself to finish or even pick up. (I've heard the character sparkle, so um no). One of the reasons I like the book club is the sense of how real people read. I interact with a lot of writers, online and face-to-face, and the types of book discussions with writers is wildly different than the "mommy book club" conversations. In a way, it gives me a glimpse into the minds of the people who really drive the marketplace. Buyers. Readers.

That is why the Wall Street Journal article "Darkness Too Visible" on June 4th by Meghan Cox Gurdon is so interesting to me. "Mommy book club" met last week to discuss The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. There was a lively discussion about the novel, and I was surprised by some of the feedback I heard. Most people I've interacted with who've read the novel (writers for the most part) loved it. It is really well written and engaging. A book with buzz.

But not all the mommies were impressed. They conceded that is was well written and the story itself interesting, but they didn't like the violence. They understood the larger thematic ideas and social commentary on both war and reality television. Many took issue with the idea of the main characters in the book being teenagers and that the book is marketed to teenagers. This interpretation of YA books had not really occurred to me. I don't read the genre exclusively, or even really widely, but I am familiar with it and dip in from time to time. I could understand how they had concerns, particularly given the context of their teenage children reading the book. I argued during the discussion that teenagers who read are a good thing, and they will always read the dark, scary stuff no matter what you label it. I remember stealing my mother's Stephen King books and reading them despite the nightmares I would sometime have. The discussion evolved: what is YA literature? Why is so much of it being published? Is it really kids or adults reading it? I literally had to clamp my mouth shut and just listen because I was in danger of giving myself away to the mommies. My secret writing life could have easily been exposed.

I've read industry analysis of YA literature being read by many adults. Adults are one of the target audiences. The mommies took a more hardline definition of who would be reading YA and felt adults reading it were the anomaly not the norm. This is an issue about perception, not necessarily about facts.

The backlash I've witnessed on twitter and blogland about the WSJ article gives me pause. I've seen lots of rants about the issue and those who are aggressively arguing against all the points in the article and claiming "#yasaves" on twitter. But the fact is that YA literature is more mature than it was a decade or two ago. Is that a reflection of our current society and values or something that is actively shaping it? I'm not qualified to answer that. But I think you are being very closed minded and silly to discount a whole group's opinion on the issue. YA may in fact save those who feel marginalized, but it may also jump start the imagination of some younger readers in a negative way.

The mommies in the book club were split down the middle about Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games. When pressed, some admitted that independent of who the book is marketed to, they found the content distasteful and couldn't get past the gore and the age of the narrator. Before publishing dismisses their opinion as belonging to old people who don't understand current trends, they should take a long look at who holds the pocketbook that funds the purchase of much of YA literature. A discussion is more valuable if you give credit to the other side's opinion and try to see what perspective they bring to the issue at hand.

So that's my report from the front lines of reading, where important book matters are discussed over tepid Chardonnay and between conversations of toilet training and teething. Make of it what you will. But make it a conversation and dialogue and not just a rant. Because good literature gets us talking, thinking and sharing. It isn't just about the words on the page, it is how those words reflect back on the lives we are living.

Five Things I Learned When Querying My First Book

2011-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

As a writer new to the world of agents, submissions and publishing a novel there are many things you don't know. And even more things you don't know that you don't know. I'm at the beginning of querying my latest work RIDING THE BLIND and as I set out on this quest I'm reminded of all I've learned about the process with my first book.

1. Publishers Marketplace. Get the subscription. Seriously. Just pay the $20 for a month and you will be knee deep in all the data you need about agents and editors. I once lamented "but this agents SAYS they are looking for literary fiction with a strong voice! but they've rejected me!" Now I look up an agent on PM and see that they may say they want to see fiction like that, but what they sell by a margin of 8 to 1 is nonfiction. Or YA. Sometimes there is a discrepancy between what an agent says in the laundry list of interests and what they consistently sell. I'm interested in targeting agents that have a track record of selling my kind of book. Be professional. Use the best tools at your disposal.

2. Write the best query letter you can, but don't stress over it. OMG the DRAMA about query letters! All over the Internet I see people wailing that they are getting no requests so they are rewriting their query letter for the fifteenth time. And they've only sent out fifteen queries. Put that energy into your manuscript! Research! Sometimes it isn't the query letter. It may just be the book. Or it may be that you haven't found the right agent.

3. Luck. This is, by and large, not a popular perception, but I stick by it. You can do your research and target the right agents with a great query letter and STILL be rejected. Why? Tons of reasons. Subjectivity. They already have a project like yours. The assistant or intern didn't get enough sleep/coffee/sex. Who knows. But you need a pinch of luck to be in the right inbox/mailbox at the right time. Put the odds in your favor.

4.Rejection is inevitable. Don't take it personally. File it and move on. Don't spend your time trying to "decode" what a particular rejection means. It is very simple, whatever nice or not so nice language is used to deliver the message, the answer is no. Don't be fooled by well crafted forms. You will get rejections that use your name, the name of your book and perhaps even your character's names that are still forms. They will use language like: "Truth be told, though, I'm afraid these pages just didn't draw me in as much as I had hoped" or "I didn't fall in love with" your book. When I was new to querying I would spend a lot of time trying to figure out what this meant. How could I change my manuscript to have writing that pulled an agent in, or had a stronger voice? Don't fret! It is just a form.

5. Get to work on new writing, even if all you are doing is writing exercises. Querying is brutal for self-confidence in one's work. It can really make you crazy - the waiting, the endless waiting and seeing success stories that aren't yours. A note about those: try not to set your expectations too high or too low. I recently read a story of a woman who started querying a book and within one week has seven offers and one agent fly out to meet her over lunch. This is not the norm. You can't compare yourself or your work to others. Everyone has their own path. It may take you one week or one year. You may get an agent with your first book or your fifth. The key is to persevere and give it everything you've got until you reach your goal.

Secret Lives

2011-04-13T04:26:00.000-07:00

I'm mildly obsessed with advice columns. There is something so awful/amazing about the questions people will ask under the guise of anonymity. I love stories. I wouldn't write them if I didn't. And there is no better place to find the snapshot of a well-developed character in the throes of a high conflict situation than an advice column.

In each question is a distinct voice. Here can be found the emotional truth of different points of view. What does an angry, homophobic mother sound like? Now I know. There is a staccato to the words of an angry person. Passiveness and longing in word choices of an insecure one. Each word of a question is a clue that can unravel that secret life, a nugget of hidden truth. What do kleptomaniac tendencies really sound like? I'm working on a story about such a person right now. Holy shit, look at this! The response digs down to give me the theme I need to address in my piece, to make it real.

There does come a point where the root problems start to recycle. This is when the skill of the columnist is paramount. A great writer can frame each question in a distinct way each time as to elevate one person's problem, small and finite as it might be, into the scope of something thematically relevant to all of us. JUST LIKE FICTION ATTEMPTS TO DO.

Ahem.

I love Dategirl at Seattle Weekly for her humor and honest, blunt approach. Carolyn Hax at Washington Post has this same, level-headed quality about her responses. Dear Prudence at Slate makes me laugh out loud sometimes and cuts right to the heart of the matter. There is no one better for sexual insight than Savage Love. And Dear Sugar over at The Rumpus blows me away every single time with amazing insights. "Write Like a Motherfucker" might be one of my favorite advice columns of all time. If I didn't have a three year old on the cusp of learning to read I'd have one of these mugs for sure.

Let me know if there are any others I should be reading.

Photo: laughlin

My adventures in E-Reading

2011-03-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

For the holidays my wonderful husband gave me a Nook by Barnes & Noble. I had expressed some interest and curiosity about the emerging world of e-readers, but wasn't quite ready to take the leap. The idea of reading on a device still felt wrong to me on some fundamental level. So, I was a bit surprised by the gift. Surprised and nervous. The truth is that I've got physical books all over our house. There isn't enough room for all my books. They are stacked up in piles in my office, our dining room and our bedroom. So, given the lack of shelf space in our house this was a very thoughtful and well-timed gift.

I've been busy working through my physical stack of "to be read" books since the holidays. But with our annual trip to Florida approaching I decided the Nook was a much lighter option than packing along a few volumes to read. So, I downloaded a few titles from my local library and set out to test my new device. The process of checking out library books and transferring them to my Nook took a little more work than I bargained for initially. There was installing and re-installing software. Hair pulling. Messages that read "user not authorized" and google searching message boards until I figured out a solution. I cursed under my breath, "no real book gives me this trouble." All told, it took a few hours to download, transfer and finally get up and running. I wouldn't consider myself particularly inept with technology, so this process frustrated me a bit. Okay, in the height of it, more than just a bit.

But once I got up and running, I started reading Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and sort of fell in love. There is much to love about an e-reader. For one, the words on the virtual page felt natural to me. I can read it in varying types of light including sunlight. I can hold it with one hand and read, using my thumb to scroll forward to the next page. This is particularly helpful when I'm dealing with my three year old and three month old. If I get interrupted (see aforementioned children obstacles to reading) the Nook remembers what page I was on and goes into a sleep mode that changes the page to pictures of famous authors. Hello Virginia Woolf! Kurt Vonnegut! Oh, you handsome devil, Mr. Whitman.

While my daughter napped on my chest, I could read laying down without my wrist groaning under the weight of a heavy book. As we traveled to Florida, I found it easy to slip the Nook in and out of my bag to read. I like how I can switch books if I get bored, without having to dig through my bag.

There are a few things I don't like about the e-reader. I like to take notes as I read. This is possible, but awkward and cumbersome to highlight the correct text and punch out each letter of my observation on the tiniest keyboard imaginable. Worse than text messaging. I didn't want to take the Nook everywhere on our trip. The beach? It just seems like a bad idea for something electronic. I did take it to the pool, but I worried about my three year old's proclivity to getting water where it doesn't belong. It has a decent battery life, but does need to be charged. Books, obviously, don't need a plug to work.

Otherwise, I'm happy with my e-reader and glad I've ventured into this brave new world of books. I recently purchased my first few books too. That led to discovering another feature -- I can "lend" my purchases to others. One book I wanted, The Things They Carried, I snagged electronically for only 99 cents. (I'm really interested in linked story collections right now. Playing around with the idea of working on a project like this.)

Anybody out there with an e-reader? What are your thoughts?

I would like to thank...

2011-02-08T05:29:00.000-08:00

I recently received an email from an author friend who is being published Fall 2011. She was checking the names and spelling of those people that would appear in the acknowledgment section of her book. I was overwhelmed with this honor and deeply gratified to be on her list. It made me feel as though I have arrived -- my name will appear in the thank you section of a book put out by a major publisher! Later this year I can walk into a real bookstore and flip open the pages and see my name there. Amazing.

It got me to thinking about my own potential thank you list. I wrote down the names of everyone who has read a portion of my most recent manuscript. The list started to get really long. Six people have read the complete manuscript. Over twenty have read a portion. Add to that people who have been integral in other ways with my growth as a writer.

What impresses me the most about all of this is how much difference there is between a thank you list for my first novel versus my most current work. I didn't have many readers for that first novel. I wasn't as involved in the writing community yet, and didn't have my great group of local support. This support makes a world of difference. My most recent book is exponentially better because of all the feedback I've garnered on the work. Readers have pushed me to hone this manuscript into something better and better with each draft. I've learned so much about writing and publishing.

All of this has given me some much needed perspective as I am knee-deep in the revision of RIDING THE BLIND. This work feels like it has so much potential and I have a long list of people to thank for that.

First Footing: How We Burn

2011-01-28T07:13:00.000-08:00

My story "How We Burn" is up today over at Necessary Fiction. "First Footing" is January's theme for the Writer in Residence feature on the site. Contributors were invited to take the last line of an established story and use it as the jumping off point for a new work. My story is inspired by Dorothy Parker's "Such a Pretty Little Picture."

I really enjoyed working on this exercise. It was a great break from novel revision. I found the story in a the book, First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers, Edited by Kathy Kiernan and Michael M. Moore.

This anthology is an interesting read. I recommend it.

Image: net_efekt

The Good Daughter

2011-01-24T14:06:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik and highly recommend it. I had pre-ordered this title in the fall, promptly forgot all about it, and was pleasantly surprised when it showed up on my snowy doorstep two weeks ago. (That is why I love pre-ordering things, it feels like a present I'm scheduling for myself sometime in the future.)

So, I immediately started reading this debut memoir, and despite my harried life at the moment (revising Riding the Blind, caring for my new five week old daughter and three year old son) I just couldn't put it down. At night when my daughter was done nursing and had slipped into sleep and I should have gone back to bed I would keep reading. There I was, with the lamp still on, telling myself "just a few more pages." The Good Daughter is that kind of work.

I met Jasmin at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers in August 2010. I was very impressed with her work and the insightful and intelligent comments she offered to other participants during our workshops. I am grateful to have spent time with her. Without Jasmin I would never have actually seen Lake Tahoe. I am very thankful that she invited me on that little adventure during our free afternoon. I probably would have done something lame like taken a nap had she not.

The Good Daughter is a memoir about three generations of woman and follows the narrator's discovery of her mother's secret early life in Iran. This secret life included a marriage and another daughter. One of the things I most admired about the work was the honesty and focus brought to the narrative. The personal stories that unfold illuminate many larger themes, in a way that both informs and engages the reader, without being heavy-handed or sentimental. I loved the descriptive language and how every detail and nuance works to build the framework of this rich story.

Congratulations to Jasmin on this remarkable debut!

For Shame

2010-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

So, when I was young and starting out in my writing I fancied myself a poet. I filled notebooks with quasi-confessional prose poems (all very terrible), one of which started out with this line:

"If it wasn't for shame, I'd have nothing to wear."

I won't bore you with the rest of this overworked, tired metaphor about shame being an article of clothing. It went on and on in that sort of melodramatic way one hopes is confined by adolescence. There is a beginning and end to those sorts of leanings, right?

I digress. The idea of shame is a powerful one, and I came back to ponder on this topic a few months ago at Squaw Valley. I took the Gil Dennis "Finding the Story" workshop. Would I have signed up for this if I had truly known what it entailed? Probably not. I had to share with a group of strangers (about a dozen) three stories: my most terrifying moment, the moment where I felt the most shame and finally the moment where I felt the most joy and/or pride. Talk about feeling over-exposed.

We all wrote down each person's story and in the end found patterns in how all three stories were related. In essence, we learned each person's individual story. We all have one, and shame is the back story to everything else.

It is a compelling idea, really, if you think about it. Shame is what drives us, drives characters. On the plane ride home I went through the characters of my novel in progress and wrote down each of their shame stories. Most of these are not elements of the book itself, but knowing what defines each character's story gave me a new perspective and insight on their motivations. I had been struggling with one character in particular. There was something that didn't feel right in the narrative. Something was off. Digging into her shame story showed me that I wasn't being true to her personal story. I was molding her to fit plot, not the other way around.

Exploring shame can be one of the most powerful tools to elevate your fiction. Just stay away from wearing it.

I'm surrounded by talent

2010-11-17T06:45:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a moment to congratulate my writing friends Laura Maylene Walter and John Frank on their recent publishing success.

Laura's story "Live Model" appears in the most recent issue of the Crab Creek Review (issue 2010, volume 2).

Laura's article "Why We Write: The Pressure of Young Promise" appears in the November/December 2010 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.(You need to buy the print edition to read the full text).

John Frank's "Pink Suitcases" appears in November 2010, Issue 419 of The Sun Magazine. (You can read a snippet online, but need to buy the print edition for the full text.)

Congratulations to both of my talented writer friends!

Signs

2010-11-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

About this time last week I was contemplating the wonder that is NaNoWriMo. I participated last year for the first time. Though I did not reach the 50,000 word goal, I did get a solid 35K or so in, enough to complete a novella that ultimately became part of my first novel ALIGNED. That novella helped me re-frame the entire structure and focus of the work. It was the missing element I needed to propel that work into something better.

I didn't start NaNoWriMo for the writing discipline and practice, I already do a good job with that on my own, but the month long session did force me to up my production to a higher level than normal. My average word count hovers around 2,500 words per week. It was fun to push myself and see the results. To try and hit between 1,600 and 2,000 words per day. In some ways, I do think that NaNoWriMo encourages the elimination of the inner writing critic so the writing is raw and has a ton of energy. On the flip side, what I wrote was a big, hot mess. Revision isn't even really the word for what I did to that novella. It was more than that. It was deconstruction.

Anyway, so I shipped off RIDING THE BLIND to beta readers in October, and though I have been getting some feedback already, I've decided to let that novel rest until all the comments and suggestions have been received, mulled over and processed. I've accepted this next round of revision might have to wait a few months. While I've been waiting (anxiously, if you will pardon my use of an adverb here - but is there any other way to wait for feedback on your novel?) I realized that in the vortex of revision I've gotten little new writing done. As the last days of October faded away I thought, "November. I can start one of those new novels I've been pondering!"

So, I signed up for NaNoWriMo again, logged in my idea and set out. The novel is tentatively titled DISSONANCE and the description would be: doomed love. The structure I have in mind flashes around in time and character, so I thought this vignette sort of approach would be perfect for a marathon month of writing. Short sweet puzzle pieces I can fashion together later.

Here is my first sentence:

"I hate Chicago."

Catchy, no?

I'm 3,000 words in now, but it is day six. A variety of factors are at work thwarting me right now, and I'd be foolish to ignore these signs:

1. I'm eight months pregnant. My blood pressure is unstable and I don't feel well. My energy is low. My feet and hands are really swollen. Picture, if you will, fingers that look like plump little sausages - stretching their casing. Typing for more than 30 minutes is painful. Writing longhand is impossible.

2. I have a two year old little boy (soon to be three). He has experienced a string of difficult days. No naps, temper tantrums, the works. It takes every ounce of my energy to keep up with him and try to navigate his recent uneven moods. Is this sign related to #1? Is the prospect of a new baby sister becoming real to him and causing him to act out? I'm not sure, but either way, it has been a hard couple of days.

3. My husband is out of town. So #1 and #2 are things I need to manage on my own.

So, a serious NaNoWriMo effort will need to wait until next year. I'm still going to work on DISSONANCE. I've sketched out some scenes and ideas about the characters. There is something both really fascinating and complicated about this project. So, maybe it's better that I need to take it slow. No worries. To all you working on a November novel, good luck! I'm with you in spirit, I just wish my fingers could keep up.

Long Time

2010-10-20T04:09:00.000-07:00

Oh blog, how I have neglected you! Forgive me for this long absence. I attribute my inability to post to the brain drain associated with the novel revision process. Revision. It is like a vortex sucking away my time, energy and motivation. I know there are people who become energized by this process, who revel in the sentence by sentence deconstruction and polish. "What is this character's motivation?" is a question that makes some writer's hearts swell with joy. But not me. To me, the whole process is a struggle. A slog. A grueling thing called work. Where I have to stare at my work head on and figure out a way to make it not suck.

Please, book, can you not suck?

The good news? My novel is in the hands of critical readers now and I have a few weeks to forget it even exists. The bad news? It will be returned to me, needing even more revision. That is the point, after all, of using beta readers.

I wish there was some magic that could be used to make revision less daunting. I admire those, like Holly Lisle, who can use the One-Pass Manuscript Revision process. For me, the process takes more repetition.

Here is what I've learned about revision with my novel-in-progress (or how I managed to have a readable draft in six months instead of two years like I did with my first novel):

The first pass of my revision included just reading the text, cleaning up obvious errors (grammar, punctuation, etc.). After a month long break, the rest time I took between completing the first draft and starting revision, this read was to get reacquainted with the text and make a list of notes I could use to start major changes.

Then, I did the following with my next draft:

1. Make a master outline. I write by the seat-of-my-pants method, but an outline is one of the BEST tools to navigate revisions. Mine includes the chapter number/title, the word count, number of pages and a section for notes.

2. Drill down. For each chapter in my novel I wrote out a brief summary, the conflict, listed all the characters, and the overarching theme (if any).

3. Break the novel into parts. We all know about the story arc, the standard building blocks of both small and large projects. Breaking the novel into three distinct parts helped give me a global view of the work.

Each draft worked with these tools to refine the structure of the story. My last pass was focused on a sentence level analysis: omitting needless words, trying to get rid of crutch words and other problems with my prose. Admittedly, I need more of this work done in my manuscript. I didn't want to polish each and every sentence to a sparkling shine without more input from readers. There is something really unfortunate about polishing things that wind up needing to be cut, rearranged, etc. So, I'm saving that final push until the very end. I will read the novel aloud and find the places that need more work.

Published

2010-08-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

My short story "Resting in Place" is up today at Necessary Fiction. Here is the opening few sentences to entice you to go have a read:

"My father saved me from drowning in the Atlantic Ocean. I remember, even if he can’t anymore. My tiny self toddled around on the hot sand. I scooped up fistfuls, threw it into the air, and watched the wind whisk it away. Waves crashed, the peaks of white foam beckoned and I entered the water without fear."

This is my first publication credit, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

A big thanks to Steve Himmer; his reputation as an excellent editor is well-deserved. He really helped me push this story into something great.

Week in Review

2010-07-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

I've had an interesting week.

Last Sunday I broke my foot. There is nothing quite like being 4.5 months pregnant with a broken foot. Nothing quite like the amount of lead they drape over a pregnant woman before they take x-rays, or the joy of chasing after a 2 year old while wearing a super attractive surgical shoe. The good news? It will heal. The bad news? It is painful.

My email account was hacked this week. As if the broken foot thing wasn't enough to deal with. This is the account I use solely for my writing contacts and career. So, every author, agent, and literary magazine I've ever emailed got a message about an online pharmacy and a no doubt nefarious link attached. My apologies to those out there in the publishing world who received this missive from me. Just know that I was horrified. Still am, really. I've set up a new account just in case my messages are forever targeted as spam to those that matter. Let this be a word of warning to you writer peeps - change your passwords often. I do a lot of writing at coffee shops and check my email over open access networks. No doubt this played a role in my password being stolen. So, you know, be careful out there. The Internet can be a scary place.

I'm busy getting ready for the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop coming up next week. I can't believe that I will be leaving on Saturday. I hope to blog about my experiences there.

Here are so interesting pieces I read this week:

"What took you so Long?" by Susanna Daniel in Slate. Here is the opening paragraph:

"There is surely a word—in German, most likely—that means the state of active non-accomplishment. Not just the failure to reach a specific goal, but ongoing, daily failure with no end in sight. Stunted ambition. Disappointed potential. Frustrated and sad and lonely and hopeless and sick to death of one's self."

This essay goes on to aptly describe the writing struggle. Well worth reading.

I loved the story "Last Seen Leaving" by Laura Ellen Scott up at Smokelong Quarterly. Go check it out.

Acceptance

2010-07-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've read many blog posts by publishing folks about rejection. Rejection is a hot, juicy topic: dealing with it, decoding it, moving on from it, etc. There are whole sites dedicated to rejection. In some ways, rejection and the tally of these missives are a badge of honor to the aspiring writer. I've had my fair share. I queried my first book and lost track of the number of "this is not for me" responses. Most of my responses were kind, even the forms, and I had many requests for the manuscript. Rejection on the partial or full manuscript were harder to deal with than just a query, but you slough off the initial sting and keep going. Same thing with short stories. At first, it hurts to get back that rejection on your work. As a young writer there is this fantasy that you will be the exception - you will find an agent right away, your brilliant story will be picked up by the first literary magazine you send it to. The reality is much different.

To be honest though, I have become accustomed to rejection. I open up emails RE: my work and read them expecting the "but..." There is always the nice "thank you for sending STORY NAME" and sometimes a compliment about the work itself. I've even sent back a thank you to really nice rejections. I'm probably bothering the poor editor to death, but sometimes I think it important to give that feedback. Thanks for taking the time to give personal feedback.

In the last month I've received two welcome doses of acceptance. I've found that it feels just as good as I had hoped. First, I've been accepted into the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop in Fiction taking place August 7-14. It was a great feeling to get the email letting me know I had made the cut, that I would have this opportunity to meet other writers and hopefully improve my craft.

Last week I received my first short story acceptance. On Monday I received the email and it started out like all the others: the standard, "Thank you for sending your work." It was the next sentence that caught me off guard - "It's a powerful story, and I would be glad to publish it." WHAT?

No one really talks about acceptance. What does it feel like? How does it change where you stand as a writer?

At first I was stunned. I felt the flood of endorphins rush through my body. Relief, elation. But then I wondered: Could this be true? Maybe there has been a terrible mistake? I quickly downloaded the document with the editor's comments inside. That was my story alright. The comments made sense to me, and there were just a few small things to address. Whew. Relief.

Sort of. Small as the requested changes were, it was something to stress about, to mull over. I took all week tweaking the sentences, eliminating needless words, and trying to make the thing perfect. I received confirmation today that the story is ready to go. It will be published online August 4th. I will make a special post that links to it, don't worry, so you can see the result of all my hard work.

Acceptance of your work is a great thing. It is an elevating event that functions as a significant confidence builder. It is hard to be a writer and toil in your own words without that interaction with the outside world. It is hard to keep going when you are faced with the doubts about your work - is it good enough? is it improving? Yet, acceptance doesn't solve these problems. Doubt still lingers, rears its talkative head continuously (particularly for me when I'm knee deep in my third set of revisions for the current novel in progress). I think this is probably true for the most prolific and well published authors.

So, I'm getting used to this new feeling of acceptance and looking forward to more.

Photo credit: jcarwash31. You should really click over to this guy's photo stream. There are some great images here - some funny, some artistic, but all really interesting. I only hope I can write a blog post that will justify using the zombie eyeball cupcakes at some point.

Things that made me think

2010-06-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

First, I just finished the incredible Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (I know I'm like 2 years late in coming to this book, so I'm not claiming what I have to say is relevant) This is one of those books that I loved: prose that enthralled and surprised, characters that come alive on the page, the kind of writing that feels so effortless that it makes me feel sort of unworthy and sad inside. Do you ever have this experience? You read a book so good, so beautifully wrought that it makes your own writing feel like hack scribbling. A great book, but like other great books and writers (Ian McEwan is a big offender and Toni Morrison too) that are so good I wonder why I keep plugging away. The dream, the hope, that one day too I can make someone hate their own work. (I'm just kidding, of course. Sort of.)

The 826 National "Are you Absolutely, Positively, and Wholeheartedly Ready to Publish Your Novel?" poster is highly amusing.

Over at The Rumpus, Steve Almond's feature "The New Yorker's One Over 40" is one of the best comments I've read on the 20 writers under 40 list. There have been tons of chatter about that list and it has been great to read through the emotion this concept inspires.

In lit mags, my latest obsession is Storyglossia. The latest issue is from February 2010. I adore all of the work in the issue, but "Dirty Girl" by Yvette Ward-Horner is extra special. Read the archives if you aren't up to date with this online magazine. They have great stories from original, fresh voices.

The difference between writing and publishing

2010-06-10T05:29:00.001-07:00

Writing and publishing are very different beasts.

This feels like an obvious statement, doesn't it? Sometimes when you are thick in the middle of collecting those rejections (though as kind and personal as they may be: "we'd like to see more of your work" and "please try us with another story"), and revising, rehashing and editing until your eyes bleed it gets hard to draw a line between writing and publishing. Things get mixed up in the writer brain because the hardships of attempting to get your writing to the world, be it in print or online, is hard on a writer's confidence. Writing confidence is integral to the writing process. Without it, or with that doubt looming, the writing process itself becomes difficult, cumbersome and even sometimes without the joy of discovery.

I love writing. Sitting down with the blank page and a fast pen, writing quick and without that internal critic getting in the way, energizes me in a way little else can. I love working on a long project, being surprised where the narrative leads me. Revising, while not as pleasurable to me, also has its benefits. There is something almost magical about reading an early draft and molding that prose into something polished and strong. I recently compared an early draft of the first chapter of my WIP to the revised version I have now; I felt a sense of pride, a sense of maybe I really know what I'm doing.

I've been revising my novel the last two months. I'm about two-thirds done with my first pass. In this round I am addressing major structural and plot issues, smoothing out characters, and filling in holes. What that means in real terms is cutting and adding new scenes, transitions and details for consistency. This pass takes the most time, so I'm pleased with my progress. What I'm not pleased with is my sour mood at times over the big ball of writing/publishing.

With my first book I was not indoctrinated yet into the submission process. Now, I am working on submitting short stories to literary magazines, essays to anthologies, and thinking hard about jumping on that query-go-round when this new book is ready to go. It is daunting. I had thought, in the beginning, that once you get established it would be easier. There is that idea that you struggle up front, but once you have some publishing credits that the publishing side of this process gets easier. After meeting and talking to established writers I've discovered that this isn't always the case. Established writers get rejected too. Credits help, but it won't erase the hurdles in the process. Everyone deals with those hurdles of rejection or bad reviews, of how publishing impacts the personal side of the craft.

So, it is important I think for the writer to be very clear about the difference between writing and publishing. I periodically need to remind myself why I'm doing this, this crazy thing as to create stories. I love writing. Publishing sucks. There I said it. It sucks. I'm going to keep chasing it, trying to break in, but it is important to let the writing side be free from the worries and harsh terrain of publishing. The writing is special, creative, and not bound in by limitation. Publishing is business. It really isn't personal.

One of the things that really helps me keep things clear, that gets me back to the writing, is being a part of a community of writers. There is something very inspiring about talking to other writers, getting feedback on your work, and having people to cheer you along with every small success.

Photo: McBeth

Stuff Worth Reading

2010-05-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

Check out Laura Walter's story "The Second Rule of Yoga" at Northville Review.

Writing Prodigy or Late Bloomer?

2010-03-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

I was tooling around on the web and came across a link to an October 2008 article in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell - "Late Bloomers." It is a great read - go check it out. Gladwell makes some interesting observations about the nature of artists and the process of creation.

He cites evidence from David Galenson at the University of Chicago that equates a different philosophy between prodigies and late bloomers - conceptual versus experimental - in how they execute their vision.

Picasso is utilized as the prime example of a prodigy, he is quoted as saying:

"I can hardly understand the importance given to the word ‘research.' The several manners I have used in my art must not be considered as an evolution or as steps toward an unknown ideal of painting. . . . I have never made trials or experiments."

Picasso represents artists that have a clear vision of what they want to do and they execute it into the medium in which they are working.

By contrast, Cezanne is shown as an example of a late bloomer - working by trial and error to search out the artistic vision. Cezanne is quoted as stating: "I seek in painting.”

Gladwell points out the implications of this research and understanding of the creative process - late bloomers are not just overlooked prodigies, or late to discover their gifts and talent, they are fundamentally different. At first glance they look like failures, before that seeking and experimentation leads to a unique style and success. And to complicate matters, not everyone will evolve to that next level. Gladwell writes, "Whenever we find a late bloomer, we can’t but wonder how many others like him or her we have thwarted because we prematurely judged their talents. But we also have to accept that there’s nothing we can do about it. How can we ever know which of the failures will end up blooming?"

This is a compelling idea to consider. We can't know for sure who will bloom and who will not. But one element that must play a role is perseverance. Gladwell points out that success for a late bloomer hinges on the support of others. That is true, but that support is hard to come by if the artists has no faith in their own talent. That faith is the seed for endurance. The prodigy and the late bloomer are different creatures, each following their own path. I can't help but think that recognition of their talent inspires different outcomes as well. In the prodigy, the recognition puts them on the path of the artist and gives them expectations to live up to. In the late bloomer, recognition is at the end of a long process of discovery.

I turn another year older very soon - tomorrow- and in that context I wonder about how my career will take shape. What book will I write next? It is nice to look at this in terms of process instead of the ticking clock of age. There are plenty of late bloomers, but recently out out of my own insecurity, I've been paying special attention to the age of debut novelists. I like to see where I fall within the spectrum. Now, I see that what I should have been looking at is how I work compared to others, instead of how that work will be recognized.

This is difficult for me. I was a precocious child, in accelerate academic programs with names like "gifted" and "talented," and I skipped the second grade. (This, incidentally is the reason why I can't write in cursive - in my school that was the year to transform your print into something flowing and beautiful. I missed it.) So, I've struggled with the burden of having so much potential. Potential became a dirty word. Certain things came easy for me - mathematics, science, history and abstract thinking. "Don't you want to be a doctor/lawyer/something highly valued and perceived of as smart?" people asked me.

No, I thought in my head, I want to write stories. And you know what? In the beginning I wasn't good at it. Unlike other things I tried, writing did not come easy. I've worked at it - read widely, turned conscious effort to developing voice and craft, and spent the time. None of my English teachers ever praised my attempts at creative writing, but maybe that lack of potential gave me room to explore.

That exploration has been wonderful. So, how do I work? What is my process?

Every story I've started has begun with examination of a catalyst incident. What would happen if a man committed suicide by running into the middle of traffic? What if yours was the car that struck and killed him? I wondered this when on my way to work a man did run across the road. I saw his face, his body blur by my car. I didn't hit him, but I wondered how my life might have changed if I had. So, I began that first novel with a conceptual idea, but writing it out gave me the freedom to seek the answer to that question and recognize the importance of all the small moments that can add up into something significant.

My recent novel has similar origin. What would happen if a woman left her family and reappeared thirty years later? How does the absence of a generation shape identity? The process of writing and creating a journey for my characters has given me answers I didn't expect. And I believe in the emotional truth I've found.

I seek in my writing. Who knows when I will bloom, but I'm happy to be on the journey.

Photo credit: Satosphere

I'm Finished!

2010-03-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to announce that over the weekend I finished the first draft of my novel RIDING THE BLIND. Right now the word count is 80,055 words. I expect that number to grow during the revision process as I expand on some key scenes. On Saturday my husband and I went to dinner with some friends and I celebrated with a glass of champagne. There is something about bubbles to really make things feel really special.

Now, I just need to be patient enough to let the manuscript sit before diving into revisions. Perhaps it will ferment into something wonderful...

I think I will use this time to write my query letter and work on a dreaded synopsis. To be honest, I wish I would have thought to use this rest before revision time to work on those selling tools for my first novel. There is something about the process of working through those items that helps me focus on the major themes and plot points. I think I can use that knowledge as a guide to start off the revision process.

But for now - hooray! I feel great.

Photo credit: bfick

Week in Review: Stuff worth reading

2010-03-13T14:16:00.001-08:00

Stories that blew me away and made me insanely jealous because I wish I had written something that awesome:

"The Mountains of Instead" by Edward Mullany - in the Northville Review.

"Of Time and Wind" by Meaghan Mulholland - in /One/

"Allison Trainor is Talking to Strangers, 23 minutes ago " by Lori Walker - in Literary Mama.

On the blogs – I smell controversy and ire:

This agent post has stirred up a vigorous discussion in author communities about rights to privacy, agent and author behavior, and the codes of professional conduct.

I found another sort of controversy centered on the found poetry “Types of Bitches.” You can read the original post here , the backlash/damage control post here and the discussion on Big Other here.

Elsewhere:

In conclusion, an interesting quote on the nature of belief:

"I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of the Earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator, while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order."

-Thomas Jefferson

The above quote explores what I consider at the heart of a philosophy of independent deism. I started thinking about how to classify someone who believes in a god or all powerful entity, but doesn't associate with one of the major world religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. They are not athiests nor agnostic by strict definition. So, now I know. Cool.

Photo credit: tuchodi

Teaser - Riding the Blind

2010-03-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

This teaser is from my novel in progress, RIDING THE BLIND:

It could have been any number of towns that snake along the backbone of the mountains, and dive into the verdant valley that follows the river: muddy in the spring, engorged with all that rain, melting snow, and remaking a boundaries. The New River, the second oldest river in the world meandering through the Appalachians in Virginia. You tell someone that and they apprise you with a strange countenance – disbelieving, marveling at the oddity of something so old and yet so close.

I’ll bet you could hear the music before the field opened up. I’ll bet the path through a thicket of trees was pressed down with those skimming over the surface fast and following the beat. In the clearing, around the makeshift wooden stage, people would have been dancing, looping around in circles, stepping together in orchestrated tapping – all elbows and feet spinning with a beat – a beat not hammered out or expelled hastily. Rather it was pulled across all those strings and likewise pulled a body along with it.

“What is this?” she would have asked him. He would have looked at her, half bemused and half perplexed.

“Music,” he replied.

“But what kind?” she would have insisted. Ginny would have tried to map the notes she captured in her ears, imagined it graphed out in shapes on a page.

“There aren’t kinds of music. Music is music,” he said and pulled her toward the circle of those dancing. She would have protested, not knowing the steps.

“There aren’t steps,” he would have insisted, “they’ve all been dancing together so long that they just do it all the same.” He winked at her. They stayed on the periphery of the circle, dancing till the sweat beaded along their faces and the flush of exertion made their cheeks red. She slipped off her shoes, letting the grass ride between her toes. Her sweater was abandoned and her bare sun kissed arms shone. The long ponytail her hair would have been gathered in swished around her head and the stray strands fell across her shoulder.

One band departed the stage and another waited in the wings. A small man with a lilting, radio ready voice announced the next act, drawling out the words in a thick, heavy accent. Ginny couldn’t make out the words.

But it wouldn’t matter, you wouldn’t be able to find those bands on a marquee somewhere or on an album cover. This was the moment to savor, it couldn’t be played back – the twang of the banjo, the man picked at it in a different way – slapping the strings. She recognized some of the tunes, like “Banks of the Ohio,” but others like “The Swapping Song” were new to her. Odd lyrics that had been traced down from person to person like the ancient stories were once communicated.

What does it mean?

Nothing at face value, it was the song your father hummed when he chopped wood, or skinned a rabbit for dinner. He or an uncle or brother would pluck out notes on the old guitar after a long day and the smell of pipe tobacco would linger on, a piece of that same spiny, alien plant that burned the land. The same brown, dark earth held all these sounds together. This was the land of music where you were born into it, lived with it just like every ordinary piece of life – washing, eating, cleaning, fighting, loving, pain, joy and suffering. All that living was in there, in the space between the notes. That is how you hear the sound, by measuring the distance between. All that history was thrown together in that pattern of notes and in the lilt of a voice, the soft cadence of a bow kissing the string or a finger strumming out a tune. It can sound like any kind of thing – a storm, an animal, a laugh or a cry.

The pair stopped dancing, out of breath, and tumbled down to the ground. The hum died out beneath them and was swallowed whole. I picture Ginny leaning back on her elbows, with her eyes closed and imagining the instruments as voices that conversed in a language that only she could understand. But even if you didn’t understand it you could feel it working raw, unadulterated and slipping into the bone. Gnawing. It was celebration, it was lamentation, and it was all these things at once.

Ginny looked over at William at his long body stretched out too close to her bare legs. The music continued to liven the air, to make its presence known and press against those who opened up to the dialogue. People pawed their hands together in appreciation, the clap rippling around the grass in a crescendo. To those who were older, it was the nod of recognition – everything comes full circle – light to dark and then back again.

The world had at once been broken apart and put back together again. Something had died and risen again. To her, to Ginny, and to the young and lucky untouched by grief, it was the space of darkness and the abyss of something deep and unknown, followed by that feeling of being untethered and free to roam. The sun was going down and the shadows grew long.

This must have been the moment that my grandmother, Ginny, fell in love. With music and with William.

Did they kiss in the swollen silence that followed? I can almost see it.

Photo Credit: icahla

Down the home stretch...

2010-03-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

My apologies for being so quiet. I've been working. And that, my friends, is the best excuse for absence in the rest of my life right now. I've been busy finishing my novel. Not quite yet, but I'm definitely just a few days away from typing "the end" on RIDING THE BLIND.

Of course, this just means that I have an ugly draft complete, a hunk of clay that needs to be shaped, molded and in some cases cut away to reveal something coherent and pleasing. This last 20,000 words has taken me a while for a few reasons:

1. Ending are hard. How do you want the reader to feel when the book closes? Open or closed? Hopeful or sad in that way that mirrors the unraveling of real life? I've been lurching to the finish line, slowly, considering all those loose ends that I need to tie up in a neat package. Or, if not neat one, a believable one.

2. Finishing the draft means the revisions begin - all that work, ripping things apart, making my color coded outlines on index cards, writing a query, synopsis and figuring out a one sentence way to describe my book. All the hard work of looking at the big picture - does every plot and subplot have a clear arc?- to the micro level of each individual sentence that needs loving attention. Revision is daunting. Revision is unpredictable. I don't know how long it will take, really. I can set a schedule, but depending on what needs to be done, rearranged and changed it could take a while longer.

3. Grappling with the idea of the value and worth of what I've created. Always subjective for sure, but I wonder - is this book good? Does it have the bones of something worth reading? It is coming to the end and seeing everything that needs work that the question of ability rises high and demands answer. All along I've been working and thinking - the first draft is just that FIRST, and next I will make it beautiful. But can I?

I will say that at least this time, having written one book and revised it extensively, that I have a toolbox to attack the revision process. I plan to re-read the following books to get me into the right mindset:

If you are a writer you should own these and they should be marked up just like mine.

With my first book I was so overwhelmed by the idea of revision such a large document that I attacked it in fits and starts, not really knowing the best way. I've learned from that experience. First thing I know - I need a break from this book. It has been taxing to write and it needs a period to rest and gather a bit of dust in my mind. I need fresh eyes to give it what it needs to be great. How long? I don't really know. I feel like at least a month, but maybe more.

What will I do? A new story? Short stories? I hope all of the above.

Now, to get back to those final two scenes.

Photo credit: Chris Devers

On this day

2010-02-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

On February 20, 1940 my grandmother was born. (The older child in the photograph is her) She would have been 70 this year. I miss her very much and I've been thinking of her all day.

She died on August 16, 2009, a Sunday. I saw her for the last time four days before. If I had known that was going to be the last time - I maybe would have said more, something different. Thanked her for all she did for me over all the years. To be honest, I can't remember if I told her that I loved her. I hope that she knew. I'm sure she did, but I just wish I could remember saying the words to her and seeing her smile.

I wrote the following on August 18th, it is the best tribute I can think of right now:

--

My grandmother died on Sunday morning just before the sun came up. All day I could hardly speak. I found out around 10am as we drove to church. The church where I got married and where our son was baptized. My grandmother had been there, walked on those same wooden floors and sat in that pew just a few back from the front. I tried to sing during the service, but I couldn't push out enough air.

Everything fell upon me in waves - little bits of her essence - the way she looked, her voice and her all-knowing blue eyes. Old memories kept colliding with the cold, hard truth of her absence. I can feel the absence, the palpable sense of her missing in the world.

And the tears make it hard to see, like looking underwater all day long. Everything is sensation - pain - in my eyes, my skull and swollen stabbing itch in my gut.

There were things I should have asked her. Things I should have known about who she was.

Edith Marie Moses McCall. It is hard for me to think of her that way - she was just my Nanners. That strange amalgam of a name, the unique moniker I always used with her - even as an adult. She wore the name proudly. It suited her. Nanners. The word itself draws me to her and whispering it is a mantra now.

My Nanners. Some people work in paint, drawing, pottery or textiles. Her art was food. All her food contained careful consideration, the right balance - love and offering. She kneaded, dredged, chopped and added a dash of just the right thing. Always working herself into the process so conscientious, joyful and full of purpose. She tried to teach me how to make fried chicken. We stood together in her cramped kitchen and maneuvered floppy, fleshy chicken into something succulent, crispy and golden. Her face would consider my questions, "How much salt and pepper do you add to the flour?" and tried to find an answer. She didn't really know. Her ingredients and their amount were the natural extension of herself. There was no measuring, just adding until the balance struck the right color or smell or taste. This is a hard thing to learn.

I called her once, after a particularly disastrous attempt to make fried chicken in my apartment, for advice as the blackened chicken still smoldered in the pan and the haze of acrid smoke layered the air. I may have cried when I talked to her that day, about my chicken failure. She assured me that with time and practice it would get better. Then she asked me, "How were you feeling when you made the kitchen?" I thought about it. About how all week I'd been barely keeping myself afloat what with my menial job answering phones, a jerk of a boyfriend and a broken down car. I didn't say those things to her, just thought how they had frayed me apart. "Why?" was what I asked back. She told me - your feelings get absorbed by the food. Anxious and the food gets cooked too fast, sad and the seasonings are off kilter. You have to fill the food with love is what she told me. Hope. I laughed at her. But now I know, that was really her secret. I will never be able to make her dishes the way she did because she always put in a part of herself.

--

I am happy to report that I have successfully made fried chicken. I hope she would have been proud. I love you, Nanners.

In Review: What I've been reading this week

2010-02-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

The website of Mary Herczog - "Cancer Chick"
The world lost something special this week with her passing. Her account of her struggles with cancer is deeply moving, funny, real and positively heartbreaking all at the same time.

There has been a plethora of good reading at the literary magazines this week. Some of my favorites included:

"What Passes for Normal" by Michelle Reale in SmokeLong Weekly.
"American Past" by Dana Masden in Pindeldyboz
"The Glass Coffin" by Lucas Southworth in The Collagist.
"Things the Dictionary Will Not Tell a Person" by Brandon Will in Monkeybicycle.

Articles and other marginalia:
New York Times Book Review of THE POSSESSED by Elif Batuman.

PHOTO CREDIT: thespeak

Laura Pritchett

2010-02-18T05:15:00.000-08:00

I am in the middle of reading SKY BRIDGE by Laura Pritchett and there is much to admire in the writing. It is too early for me to review the book, but I wanted to share how much I am enjoying this work. There is something raw, gritty and true to life about the characters that Pritchett creates in this novel. I can't wait to read more of her work. It is always so exciting to find a new author! (Well, new to me anyway... this book was published by Milkweed Editions in 2005)

Pritchett has a great collection of short stories in The Sun well worth a read. Check it out.

On the nature of narrative

2010-02-12T05:06:00.001-08:00

I have a short story that is 6,300 words long. Trying to find a home for this story is proving challenging because the nature of the short story market has shifted toward short-short work or what some call flash fiction. These are stories that are less than 1,000 words. I have written exactly two stories that are this short. And the best of these stories started out at 2,200 words and I sliced and pared it down to 993. As an experiment, really, to see how far I could break it down and still have it make sense. To me, it was an incredible exercise in the nature of both narrative and sentence structure. My story, even at less than 1,000 words, has conflict, a strong sense of characterization and a beginning, middle and end. I am very proud of the work and trying to find it a good home. I have confidence that it will be picked up and published. (Not to say that I am full of that kind of self-confidence normally, but I think this story is pretty good.)

This hulking six thousand word story is an entirely different thing. My options are very limited. So far as I can tell there are a number of problems at work: the trend toward shorter stories to accommodate a short attention span, a focus on experimental works that eschews more traditional narrative structure, and the problem of a story that does not open with a bang and that grab-you-by-the-throat sort of moment.

First, attention span. Some journals have imposed five thousand word limits on submissions. Some of this, no doubt, is a residual component of our shortened attention online. We hear this all the time - the Internet (how evil and insidious that machination of man) with it overload of information is trying to make everything fit into small spaces, neat compact little cubbies. In 140 words or less. I know Hemingway wrote an eight word story. Good for him, but alas I am not Hemingway. I need a little more space.

Experimentation and the narrative structure. I recently received a rejection (no, I'm not going to start cataloging those since there are far too many sites that do just that - Literary Rejections on Display and Jac Jemc are the best I've found) that said in no uncertain terms that exposition, and traditional narrative was out. For the record, I don't blame him for rejecting my story - it isn't very good. I excerpted it from a novel and the piece standing out, naked and alone from the other text, doesn't have the impact it does in the book. But it started me thinking about this whole thing. So, no hard feelings.

I researched the editor a bit and read a few posts that gave his point of view of the aesthetics of a good story. I admit that I didn't quite understand all of it, but my take away was that they were looking for the fractured prose that could be termed experimental. Non-linear, deconstructionist prose that plays with form and pushes conceptions of what IS narrative.

But what does that mean? AD Jameson at Big Other has two great blog posts - "Innovation in Art" and "Experimental Fiction as Genre and as Principle" on the topic of experimental work. Well worth a read to wrap your mind around this issue. Jameson highlights the importance of pairing innovation with convention, and how works often straddle these labels and fall along a spectrum.

Charles May also tackles this question on his blog Reading the Short Story. He references the Ben Marcus essay in Harper's Magazine (October 2005) that defends experimental work in response to Jonathan Franzen's criticism that it obscures language. You can read that article here.

To quote Mr. May, whose thoughts mirror my own on the subject:

"I align myself with Marcus’s argument that fiction writers use syntax to explore human complexity, but would further argue that writers such as Alice Munro and William Trevor, who are often called “realists” or “traditionalists,” use language in this self-conscious way, as well as so-called “experimental” writers such as Evenson and Caponegro."

This recognition of subtlety within the work of more traditional writers is important. It certainly supports Jameson's argument that convention is necessary in innovation in order to engage the reader. Recently in my face-to-face critique group a writer submitted a story that I would term traditional with experimental features. The story, at first glance, appeared ordinary - BUT there were subtle thread and use of narrative that really grabbed me as the reader and altered my experience in understanding the characters and the story. There were no direct quotes, the imagery was nontraditional and complex, and on an individual word level the language worked together in a way that both surprised and challenged me upon reading. Yet, I am sure that when this writer sends that story into the world at first glance it will be labeled "quiet" and the subtlety will be missed. One member (a smart, astute reader) in our group missed that subtlety completely. Maybe the lesson is: just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it isn't there?

So, I would argue that experimental work is a broad category with many subcategories including form/structure, characterization and style. I admit that I read some stories that fit an experimental aesthetic with form and I am left scratching my head. Perhaps they don't embrace enough convention that gives me an entry. I understand that the stream of consciousness technique and metafiction (nothing new there by the way) does help impart a mood and tone particularly important in capturing the modern state of mind. But these stories delve deeper than Joyce or Woolf into terrain that doesn't work for me. I appreciate work that crosses boundaries and straddles the line between poem and prose, but I want it to have a backbone of inertia, conflict or character that makes me care. I have read many, too many to list, that open up a door in my mind and give me that grand a-ha moment. But too often the works I see that are promoted as cutting edge all sound the same to me.

See, that sounds kind of bitchy. I know. I don't mean to be. I've just noticed a trend with these stories. Frankly, it is good that they are so short because the best element I've noticed is the opening line. It starts with a bang, maybe a good "fuck" thrown in, something sexual, something deviant, and something trying to be shocking. After this grab you by the throat start things often peter out from there. That is the disappointment, really.

What matters is that you read what is out there - to know where your stuff falls on the spectrum. I admire those who experiment, even if I don't always get it, but I recognize that whatever experimenting I may do it will be more subtle. I like a straightforward narrative, a good traditional story form, that transports me somewhere new into a new perspective or take on the complexity of character and relationships.

Photo credit: Coolm36 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/coolmars/

RIP Salinger

2010-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

I was on vacation when I heard the news. We were driving to the beach and the NPR station was in the middle of a piece about good old JD when I turned it on. Somebody was blathering on about how Franny and Zooey was the best of his works. That always riles me.

Me - "I wonder why they are talking about Salinger..." I'm sure my tone was edged with something like irritation.

SO - "Oh, didn't you hear? He died yesterday."

I knew that he was 91 and cantankerous to beat the band. I knew he was the guy that inspired crazies, endless speculation and the literary lust in many. Yet I cried. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Despite enduring many a dismissive glare when I would announce how much I loved Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction I still love it.

Chris Wilson has a great article in Slate about why Seymour an Introduction was Salinger's best work.

Most of the articles I've read in the last week, since returning from vacation, have focused on Salinger as the voice of adolescence. Many have commented that they grew out of J.D. Salinger. I picked up my well worn copy of his last book and realize that these people have never read it. Because it isn't the kind of work you grow out of. You read it again and again and marvel at the layers, at the complexity of character and most of all how someone so personally damaged could write something so beautiful and true.

Here is my favorite line:

"If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself."

standing in the wrong bank line

2010-01-21T05:46:00.001-08:00

Or, perhaps -- more aptly titled - "Don't follow me." Maybe I should have that made into a button that I can pin onto my shirt.

I'm using this terrible, overworked image to talk about querying. Yes, you heard me - whisper it with me in that tone of proper reverence - querying agents with my novel.

Except that everyone who has ever strung together thousands of words into a cohesive (or not) sum is also querying a novel right now. The words "deluge" and "overflowing" has been bandied about in the agent blogs. So, great. Now I drift in a sea of queries - hoping that mine will get plucked from the masses. This happened to me before, last year when I started querying the old manuscript. I suppose it has something to do with starting fresh with a new year (not decade!) and sending out work.

Certainly, this problem is not confined to agents. My response times on literary magazines has been working at a slow pace too. Some venues have closed to submissions, trying to stop the flow of what is coming their way.

Now, all I can do is wait. Hoping that this line gets moving and I'm not greeted with a surly teller. Just like when I was little, I'm hoping for a lolly pop at the end. Really.

And, yes, just in case you were curious - I BLOGGED TWO DAYS IN A ROW. For real.

Can you believe it?

2010-01-20T15:32:00.000-08:00

It is 2010! Amazing, no? I feel rather like a prig though because I must tell you that this monumental year is the end, not the beginning. I think you should know this small fact despite all the evidence that abounds to the contrary. Maybe, like me, you have been reading the lists of the best books/movies/celebrities/deaths/shoes of the decade and pondered on the selection process. Only after an appropriate amount of vapid speculation and wasted moments in that whirl of thought does the small voice of reason whisper, "the new decade starts NEXT year."

After a small search, I realize that I'm not the only one giving voice to the logical fallacy all around. Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe) points out that the new decade begins in 2011.

I remember having this same problem in 2000.

EVERYONE: "Woohoo! 21st century, awesome."

ME: "Actually, the new century doesn't start until January 1, 2001."

EVERYONE: "Whoa, like a whole century. Monumental. I wonder what it will hold..."

ME: "But, really it hasn't -"

Everyone grappled with the champagne bottle and fell into a moment of repose as the fireworks boomed overhead. The bar was relatively quiet, sparse. Plenty of room to move around.

EVERYONE: "Toast to the new century!" Glasses clinked. I lit a cigarette. If I had known then I would have said something really witty about how the new century made smoking sort of a criminal thing, how you can't even smoke in bars anymore. I don't care now, because I don't smoke anymore and I'm glad to be rid of the stink when I go out to have a beer. But then, boy that is like.... crazy. Crazy new century kind of shit.

ME: "To the last of the century!"

EVERYONE: "That girl is a complete fruit. And, hey man - the world didn't end. Y2K!"

More glasses clinked together.

That is the way it really happened.

Really.

plugging back in

2009-12-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

In the last month I have deliberately unplugged myself. There are so many blogs, message boards, emails, and things other than writing that left me feeling worn out. Now, I'm ready in this last week of 2009 to look at the year in review - both the good and the not so good - to take a deep breath and move forward.

I had a lot of fun during NaNoWriMo. While I did not officially "win" I did write a little over 35,000 words. More than that, the process of stringing together so many words forced me to figure some things out. I can say, for the most part, I know where this WIP is headed - the shape and form of how it will all pull together, the threads that tie in and form the foundation. What a wonderful feeling, now that I am nearing the end - there is a map to follow!

NaNoWriMo also helped me to finish the novella I was working on, each section based on the movements of the Brahm's requiem. I am revising this work now and I am amazed at how powerful I am finding the writing. It is great to have that moment of "oh my god, I can't believe that I wrote this!" This novella is now part of my first novel, soon to be resubmitted to an agent who read the first version of the book and offered detailed feedback.

This year has been filled with highs and lows. 2009 marks the first year that I started to actively pursue publication. I queried agents, submitted stories, applied for grants and entered contests. Trust me, I have the rejection letters to prove all of this. In the process of I have learned a great deal. It has been a hard year, a year of learning the ins and outs of writing queries, responding to requests and revision, revision and REVISION.

In the beginning, I would have thought that success had only finite measurements - landing an agent, getting a story accepted, winning top prize in a contest. Now I know that my success in this last year has been different. My success is in building the foundation to my future accomplishment. This year I have found two great writing critique groups - one online and one face to face. I have started working with a mentor, a published literary writer, who provides both insight, encouragement and that push I need to better my craft. I have become friends with amazing writers - including two talented women that I meet with every week to write.

All of this knowledge and these people are necessary for a good writer to get even better. This is what an acknowledgment page is built upon - thanking these fine people for their support and feedback. I didn't know at the beginning of the year that I was lacking critical elements of success, but now that I have this firm foundation I have new hope for the new year.

I plan to elaborate on all I've learned in the coming week. This is just my "I'm back" post, to give a preview of why I feel so lucky and thankful.

crazy, crazy, crazy (shake your head sadly as you utter these words...)

2009-11-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

See how crazy the month of November has made me? I'm telling you how to read AND using adverbs in my title.

I broke 30K on my NaNoWriMo mess. Hooray, but no. Last week or so, some kind of massive evil took over my body in form of a cough, headache and congestion that involved me hacking up things that could rightfully have a place in a bad movie on the Syfy channel. Attack of the green globs!

I'm not going to make it to 50K, the sad reality has dawned upon me. I would have to write nearly 3K per day. See, now that I do the calculations the insipid inspirational, messages those people keep sending me makes me think - MAYBE I CAN DO IT. Maybe I can stop sleeping, cut out one meal a day. I've gained a few pounds, this could be a win-win.

But, see the problem with my situation? Right now I should be working on my 3K for today and I'm watching Gilmore Girls.

I hate November. That is all.

a new way to go crazy, part II

2009-11-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

Good news! The slash & burn (s&b) continues with some success. I now have successfully reorganized the original material into the new format (three novellas). I have settled on a new title - THE OBSCURITY OF OTHERS.

It comes from this quote:

"We should blunt our sharp points,
and unravel the complications of things;
we should temper our brightness,
and align ourselves with the obscurity of others."

-Lao Tzu, 4, Tao Te Ching

Each individual novella has its own title as well, Novella One is LOST IN ORDINARY TIME and it is now complete.

Novella two is THE CURIOSITY OF CHANCE and is also now complete. This section has been rewritten from 1st person to 3rd person limited. A bit of work that became more extensive than I had originally intended, but I am thrilled with the shape of the new story. Most notably I was able to strengthen two plot lines that really tie everything together and highlight my theme.

Now I am working on writing the final novella that will comprise the new and improved book. Novella three is titled REQUIEM, written in the 2nd person pov. I have about 2K words written so far out of a planned 20K.

BUT in the meantime I am throwing a whole new complication into my s&b - National Novel Writing Month. (Or NaNoWriMo if you like acronyms) Yes, I've signed up to be one of those crazy people who attempts to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. My blogging will be sporadic since I plan to spend as much time as possible writing. Wish me luck. I've got 1,170 word so far today. I'm hoping to reach 2,000 per day to keep up the pace. I hope to have so many words around me by December that I can go swimming in them :)

a new way to go crazy, part I

2009-10-22T14:22:00.001-07:00

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I am in the middle of revising my first novel. Except the word revising feels too tame a way to describe exactly what I am doing to the manuscript pages. Another writer once referred to her process as "slash and burn" and that feels like an apt description. As a refresher - I am rewriting half of the novel from 1st person to 3rd person limited pov, adding in approximately 25K of new material by way of a new narrator, and shifting the structure of the book to three interconnected novellas that all work together to tell one overarching story.

So, this slash & burn (s&b) has my mind twisted into knots. I dream about it at night - this often involves me sitting in a chair, surrounded by mounds of papers (unnumbered of course) all marked with thick, red notes where I am trying to put everything in order. I think Metallica is playing in the background - loud, heavy and it leaves me feeling like I've downed way too much coffee and I am just a quick movement away from barfing it all back up.

The dream is not far off from my s&b. The very nature of this process involves revisiting elements of my work that I've thought about far too long already. This process is a long, drawn out game of second guessing myself. When I originally wrote my first novel I put it away for two months. After that cooling off period, I spent the better part of 18 months editing, rewriting and revising the thing. I filled a whole spiral bound notebook with notes - tracing the story arc, details about characters appearances, personalities, and speech patterns, noting words to check. I remember spending two weeks searching through the entire document to rid it of crutch words and other forms of repetition that struck me as inane. I polished and perfected the manuscript until I felt it shined so bright I was practically blind with the gleaming light coming off the damn thing. Revision is not a step in the process that I enjoy, it requires a certain amount of organization a certain level of thinking that doesn't feel particularly creative to me. But, I gave it my best go. I tried to find information online about how to do it and I pulled all of this together into a large, lumbering system that seemed to TAKE FOREVER.

There was a point, at the end of revising, that I realized I could get stuck in a loop. Revising becomes an all consuming process, there is always more to do. Indeed, even after reading the entire manuscript aloud I still find small typos.

The s&b brings this all back to me. Once you pull the thread out, things begin to unravel - new problems crop up all because of this clever way you thought of to improve the manuscript. Then there is the danger of going too far and getting consumed by the s&b. I wonder - Am I being too ambitious? Should I just put the novel away and focus on my WIP?

I've considered moving on, but I can't let it go just yet. Maybe this is a rookie mistake, but sometimes you have to know when to keep going. Sometimes you must listen to your gut - mine says, this s&b is reworking my novel into something great.

Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-10-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Fran Caldwell who gave me a Kreativ Blogger award! Isn't it a beauty?

If you don't know Fran's blog, check it out - she has many insightful posts about the writing and publishing process. Well worth a read.

Here is my task for accepting the award -

Seven Things That No One Knows About Me

1. I have an unnatural obsession with Thomas Jefferson.
2. This week I've been singing that Black Eyed Peas song "I gotta feeling" when no one can hear me.
3. Sometimes I refer to my 21-month-old son as "shorty."
4. I am in the middle of deconstructing my first novel. That sounds fancy, doesn't it? Sure, it is on Top Chef, but I'm not talking about food here, people. I am rewriting a whole portion from 1st person to 3rd person limited. I'm rearranging the way I broke up the book previously. I'm adding a whole new narrator. *sigh* This is going to take a while.
5. I would like to learn how to make a quilt.
6. I just recently started believing in ghosts.
7. Squirrels freak me out.

Okay, so I nominate the following people for this award: Hilary, Lynn, Sue, Hope101, Steven, The Ink Wench, and Rose.

Let's talk beginnings

2009-10-07T07:22:00.001-07:00

Although I am still writing and working on the first draft of RIDING THE BLIND, I recently submitted the first chapter to a critique session for review. Based on the feedback, I am working on revising the all important opening to this new novel. It has gotten me thinking about beginnings - how a work draws a reader in, how it sets up the rest of the novel in tone, voice and style.

Some authors wait until the first draft is completed to do any revising. Others revise as they write. Complete one chapter, revise it and keep moving on. The trouble I have with this approach is that I get stuck in revision and never seem to move forward. My strategy for RTB is to write each part of the novel - there will be three (I think) and revise each part as it is complete. I have taken this approach because I find the editing and revising process so involved and daunting that I hope to tackle it in sections. Revising an entire novel - from first draft stage - overwhelms me. So, I'm risking the interruption to my creative process to save me (hopefully) some stress down the road. Once this first section is pretty, I hope to feel more grounded in how I want the next section to take shape.

So, back to the beginning. What are the important elements to include in the first chapter? Here is a list that I've developed for myself:

1. Character - In literary fiction, this is the glue that holds a work together - the driver of the action and story arc. In the first chapter the reader needs to know who the main character is right up front, get a sense of their personality, their conflict and what the stakes are for this person. I recently critiqued the first 25 pages of a writer's first novel. When I began to question the main character who was the focus of these pages I got a surprise. That person wasn't the MC! This knowledge left me wondering what the story really was and how I was going to understand that right off the bat.

2. Setting - Where and when is the story taking place? Grounding the reader with this relevant information, without dumping it off in a string of boring description, is critical. There are, of course, examples of works that lack specifics and build them later as the story arc takes shapes. Perhaps a novel begins in one setting or time, never to return. Still, it is important that a reader has a frame to see the characters moving around in, talking and getting into trouble.

3. Conflict - I mentioned this under character, but it is important enough to bring up again. I love novels that open with a catalyzing incident, giving the conflict right up front. Knowing the stakes for the main character in the first 10 pages is important, otherwise you get stuck in a bunch of beautiful words that say little. No navel gazing allowed - give the reader tension, conflict, and contradictions right up front.

4. Voice - The all important voice, the element that will pull a reader through lack of conflict, confusion over character and setting. (Not that you should lack these elements at all) I've noticed that voice in each work takes time to ramp up and become strong. It is important to go back to the beginning of a work and make sure the voice matches what develops by the end of the work. As with anything, beginnings in writing are full of the unknown. Every beginning I've written requires significant fine tuning as the story blossoms out and takes shape. I want the voice, tone and description to match and mirror what is to follow.

I'm sure there are other elements important for beginnings, but these are the top four that I worry about. Beginnings are critical to laying out the groundwork for what follows in a novel. No one wants to be the writer that says, "It gets good on page 50." It must be great on page one. Hooking the reader is no small feat. In fact, some will only give you a paragraph not even an entire chapter.

Nathan Bransford is running The 3rd Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge right now. This is a great exercise to see how beginnings are formed from that kernel of a first paragraph. Which ones hook you and leave you flat? Why?

from the folder of random ideas

2009-09-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

The music throbbed through the floorboards and skimmed over the bodies of a pressed in crowd, no longer individualized but branching together in a group of swaying motions. The white light strobed above and cut everything into chunks, stuttering pieces. In this pulsing air, fragmented light, haze of smoke and din of sweat some spark of newness assaulted me. Originality or something akin to the taste of a first kiss slithered around and sought refuge in bright eyes. Too many.

My ears popped, and adjusted to the loud voices of the instruments. After just a few moments the noise separated into layers, each so thin and ethereal that I could almost get lost in that subtlety. Switch on. To follow - rampant, intruding thoughts orbiting my swollen head. Once thrown, the switch was stuck on. All that distraction got in the way of processing, knowing the harmonies. All I could muster was reaction, a cluster of goosebumps formed along my exposed arm.

I recognized the gorilla head attached to a body clad in a dark tuxedo. He hovered near the window, backlit by streetlights and that swollen moon. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could feel his eyes eyes on me, watching me walk. He followed the sway of the purple fringe of my dress and lingered on my fishnet stockings. I was cold, but I pulled that shawl off my shoulders anyway.

when popular is good

2009-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

There is much lamenting over the widening gulf between prose that is innovative, artistic and what sells. In literary circles there can be heard an audible sigh of frustration flowing out of this discussion. Normally, this turn in a conversation boils down to a fundamental disagreement over taste. There are some authors and books in the world, in fact one such prime example drops into the hands of fans tomorrow, that mesmerize large swaths of readers - pulls them in to a world, a character or a story but in a rather predictable, perhaps imperfectly crafted way.

Not so with The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Here is a work that has enjoyed wide appeal, lavish praise and rose to the ranks of that elusive title - NY Times Bestseller. Bestseller. Oprah Book Club selection. If only all books that reach this pinnacle represented the intersection of great writing and beautiful storytelling. Truth be told, I often stay away from works like this because I often find myself disappointed. As a writer it is hard to be a gracious reader. I find problems. Sometimes the problems needle me in such a way that I can keep going. I close the book and feel sad for myself and the writer. But things get in the way. It feels like a bad relationship, the kind you stay in only because you don't know what else to do. Everyone gets hurt in the long run.

It all feeds into the argument about truly great works not getting recognition in our society, our crazy marketplace. But here, I hold the weight of the work in my hands and feel something like redemption. Something like hope. People love good stories, all is not lost. This is an incredibly good story. So good, in fact, that I feel sure that this can't be David Wroblewski's first novel. Sure, it is his first published work but the mastery he demonstrates shows the kind of skill developed only after a long slog in the process.

I'll bet he has written something else worth reading. I'll bet in another time, another age there would have been a different first book - smaller, less complex - that we readers would have enjoyed and waited for more. That is how it worked in the last century. Read Willa Cather's first book, the bare outline of what amazing works were to come. Every writer builds on that foundation - that first book - fleshes it out and makes it come alive. I miss watching the progression, that development of an artist.

I will go into detail on why I liked The Story of Edgar Sawtelle so much later this week. For now, I just wanted to post about how happy it makes me feel to read a popular book that is also very good.

the cone of uncertainty

2009-08-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

All last week meteorologists on television were using this term - the cone of uncertainty - to discuss a hurricane/tropical storm threatening the Atlantic coast. Danny, I believe was the name given to this system of low pressure, clouds, wind and rain. This term is the weather equivalent of saying - "we aren't sure where this thing is headed." The cone gives them the leeway of prediction, by as much as hundreds of miles.

What will happen? Where will it hit and when?

There are always a multitude of possibilities. To me, this term is larger and more relevant to life in general. I want to take it out of the weather related context. Life has a cone of uncertainty too. My last novel focused on this point. It has always been an idea that has felt important to me - how all the small choices you make add up to alter your life (and other people's lives) in significant ways.

This point has been hammered home to me, most recently, with a death in my family. I search for meaning in this uncertainty, to try and fill the void that has opened up in my life. I feel the absence in a very concrete way, there is something missing in the world. I'm struggling with this now. Loss is terrible. There is no need to dress it up in complex ideas and language - it hurts.

For me, my plans are all off kilter. My writing stalled. This is part of that uncertainty of life I suppose. I may have to put my work in progress away for a while. My family saga is a bit too close right now, a bit to raw.

So, I'm going to work on an idea that I outlined a few months ago. The tentative title - "Dissonance." It is a hulking piece of angst, doomed love and pinpointing that sense of generational isolation. I think it will serve as a nice distraction.

searching through email

2009-08-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

One of the most stressful phases of submitting requested material to agents or unsolicited short stories to lit mags is the waiting. Waiting to hear back can drive a writer crazy. Or, to new levels of creativity. In some cases this waiting manifests in the insatiable urge to check email every few minutes. *refresh, refresh, refresh*

Sometimes the checking is so often that the email program cries.

Now this obsessive checking comes and goes, some days are easier than others. I am now in the habit of checking the spam folder after my manuscript request got lost in that quagmire of a folder. With no news in my inbox, and no surprises in the spam folder my boredom seeks an outlet. Now, here it is.

This poem is made up almost entirely of the subject lines in my spam folder. The words in italic are my own. The rest is....

Pure Spam

Dear Jennifer,

What is your purpose in life?

Maybe you want to..

Become king of the bed,

see your love tool grow, or find out

what secrets do your love cards hold?

The time is now, the time to

embrace your personal power,

look into the future, and find

peace in the middle of war.

Still, the drama continues…

countdown to 2012.

We have anxiety medication, steel casinos,

sleep and hope for all.

See, it all makes sense.

The good you do comes back to you, and

the new day is here.

Just make sure - you don’t get swine flu.

I am one in a million

I’m glad I found this

Out.

Finally.

stepping into the void

2009-08-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

My writing critique group met last night. This is the new group that I was invited to join back in July. It was a great meeting. I submitted a story that teeters on the edge between fiction and truth, and all the members provided valuable feedback that will help me improve this work. For me, the stories with large grains of truth are harder to write and rewrite. When art mirrors life this closely I'm not sure what details to include and what to leave out. This group really helps me see the weaknesses of a piece that I can feel but I can't figure out. Do you know this feeling? You read a scene and think - something here isn't working?

Having a fresh pair of eyes to pick out exactly how it isn't working - invaluable. This is something I think every writer really needs. Of course, I am in awe of all the good writing I get to read from the other members, too. It is a little intimidating and I just hope that my work is on par.

One person is working on a larger narrative project and has submitted two different starts, with two different focus points and themes. This writer is struggling on how to tell the story. I can empathize with this trouble. For me, all the longer works of fiction that I have tackled have raised structural issues early on. In my first novel, I wrote two first person narratives that weave together. While writing I had a hard time slipping in and out of the voices. I kept fretting about how it was all come together in the end and spent a lot of time thinking and not writing. Finally I resolved to write out one perspective entirely, that way I could focus on one voice at a time. It didn't solve my structural issue, but it did help me move forward.

I had to just write the story out - let the story take its own shape. It feels a lot life stepping out into the void, dipping a big toe into chaos - not knowing if and how you will emerge on the other side. For me, this gets the words on the page.

I am doing this now with my novel-in-progress. There is only one narrator in this work, but the story straddles time. I've been writing it in chunks. By the end of the month I am hoping to be finished with the chunk that involves my narrator at nine years old. I might even go and edit this chunk, add in all those details that I've learned and have become relevant along the way. I'm still not sure how the structure will work out, still, but for me the only way to figure it out is to just keeping writing.

Teaser Tuesday

2009-08-04T08:18:00.001-07:00

This is from my first novel - the one that refuses to go quietly -
LOST IN ORDINARY TIME.

*

Is it possible to still believe in something, but not be able to live up to it?

It was hot that night, perfect summer. We dosed on magic mushrooms, with peanut butter to make them taste better, and I kept complaining about how they weren't' working. Finally Katie asked me, "Do you want to go for a walk?"

We walked, layers peeled away, and the world began to take shape around me despite the darkness. Sometimes things don't get started until you move around a bit, or you don't notice anything looks different until you change your scenery. There is something so cathartic about walking too. You notice all the details that usually blur by. Our hands, clammy from the summer heat, pressed together, and I hardly even noticed at all. It felt like her hand was the natural extension of my own hand. Where one body stopped the other began and we were one person now, instead of two, fused together.

We strolled under the heavy boughs of a tall, stately tree. She stopped and pointed, "Look at them," she said, her voice laced with reverence. My eyes focused as a single firefly lit up, inches from her finger. "They are all around us." Indeed, I looked around and saw them hovering mid air in a cloud of green luminescence. We sat down on the ground, in concert with each other, in the same spot we had stood and laid our heads back side by side. We stared up together, and watched the fireflies flicker and dance around the tree.

"They are trying to mate." I breathed the words in her ear, and she giggled. I would whisper anything she wanted to get that close to her.

"Do you know, I read fireflies only live for about thirty-six hours," she said.

"What? That seems weird. Where did you read that?"

"I don't know, I remember reading it and realizing that explained why all the ones I used to catch and put in a jar would be dead in the morning. It made me feel better. I hadn't killed them, they died the way they were supposed to."

"So, do you think these guys will be dead in the morning?" I asked her.

"Probably, but tonight is their whole life. To them tonight spans fifty or a hundred years."

"Your right, in firefly time, these few hours stretch out longer than we could ever imagine. It is like those stars up there. To them, our lives are a blink of an eye," I said. All around the faint flickers of light grew brighter.

When is the last time you stayed up all night for no reason?

It's like a bad omen. My only desire was to expel this creeping bad feeling, to an open night sky. We were pressed to the ground under the blinking stars, caught up in their glory. Some of them might have burnt out thousands of years ago, though their light only reached us now. That energy carried their light forward. I looked over at her, leaning back on her elbows in the dewy grass, and I watched that star's light fizzle out in her eyes. Her eyes were like mine, in that moment, and it hurt to see them understand never, it hurt to watch them dawn upon another harsh reality. She didn't look at me, she kept staring at those dead stars and soon to be dead fireflies.

My light may still reach her, through her even, but it will only be a glimmer that flashes in unpredictable moment like lightning or streaking meteors that disappear before you can even say that you saw them. "I'm scared," she said to me, never loosening her eye's grip on the expansive darkness. "That's good" is what I wanted to say, but the words got lost on the way to my tongue. Sometimes I can't find the words; everything gets lost and burns out like that light trying to reach escape velocity.

written in the margin

2009-08-03T14:41:00.001-07:00

I found this little idea in my notebook:

I saw a man last night dancing on the roof.
He wore a dark cowboy hat and a white jumpsuit.
A window just where his heart would be,
the light was on. That is when I knew,
he wasn't real. I put on my glasses and he faded
into my imagination. I'm blind
but sometimes I see.

i love this quote

2009-08-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

"Writing a book is an adventure:
it begins as an amusement,
then it becomes a mistress,
then a master,
and finally a tyrant"

-- Winston Churchill

Spam

2009-07-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, just when I think I am old hat at the querying process the universe throws me a new one. I checked my spam folder today and found a request for the full manuscript of LOST IN ORDINARY TIME.

This request thrills me since it is from an agent who has already read the partial manuscript. Those partial to full conversions are the best feeling.

So, lesson for the day - check that spam folder. Sometimes there is more hiding in there than it seems at first glance -- you know stuff other than offers for certain body part "enlargements," cheap pharmaceuticals, or dating resources.

Off to mail the manuscript, and concentrate on being hopeful.

the process

2009-07-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

Every writer develops their own distinct process. I've found that my process is constantly evolving and changes with different stories that I may be working on. One thing that is constant is time writing response to prompts. I fill a notebook per month with these exercises and I've found that it really helps me get into new places with my work.

To outline or not to outline? Sometimes an outline is too restrictive to my writing, too rigid in laying out the expectations of events that little room is left for the surprise (and joy) of discovering something new about my characters, theme or plot. But sometimes I find myself drowning in a sea of non-linear vignettes and I must sit down and sort it out - draw up a time line, a character list, a bare bones outline that can be a guidepost to where I've been and where I want to go. If I skip this step I risk repeating myself, losing track of small, subplot details and creating a whole heap of work in the revision stage.

I am steadily making progress on the new novel and I have reached that point where I need to sort a few things out. For one thing, I'm less and less enamored with my working title RIDING THE BLIND. I love the idea - born in the blues music lyrics, the idea of riding the rails without a particular destination, but the focus of this work doesn't feel as though it is moving in time with this overarching concept.

I recently incorporated some of the lyrics to an old, folk song titled "Wayfaring Stranger" into my work. I think this title has possibility. It immediately connects with the idea of a generation, of a mother, leaving her family -- going missing for thirty years. Maybe something else will crop up, just around the bend in my writing.

I need to sort out the structure. How do I incorporate the present, 1980 and the late 1940s into the novel in a fluid way that continually engages the reader? My new critique group felt the opening prologue was less engaging than chapter one. I had originally intended to frame this work with the narrator in the present tense, dipping into the past and the story she wants to tell. That is the trouble. This story isn't just about the past, it is about how the narrator feels about it in the context of the present.

I've been writing in longhand recently, nearly every piece of this new novel-in-progress has been born this way. I notice different things when I write this way, the rhythm is different.

Last night I had a writing date with a new writing friend. This was our second meeting at a local coffee shop. For two hours we both wrote and wrote, entirely engaged in the work. Each time we plan to meet I wonder how productive I will be, but each time I really break through on my story and churn out thousands of words. Perhaps there is something to getting out of your environment and setting aside that special time to write? Either way, I want to keep doing it. These meetings are now a helpful part of my process, and today I have that glow of confidence that I can keep working and finish this novel. As I am still in the middle of the querying process, this hopefulness is more valuable than I can really express.

anatomy of a dream agent

2009-07-02T13:56:00.001-07:00

Often, when writers are knee deep in querying a book there are references to a dream agent. This label is often applied in the following ways:

"I just queried my dream agent."

Or, even better:

"My dream agent just requested a partial (or full)!"

What is a dream agent anyway? At the beginning of this process I pictured this mythical dream agent as a major power broker, a mover and shaker in the publishing business. This was the kind of person who eased into cocktail parties with grace; the agent was noted for their witty banter and ability to remember everyone's names, their families, summer vacation plans and favorite dessert. A person of this caliber is tuned in, reaching beyond trends in publishing and seeking out quality and originality.

That the dream agent would command the attention of editors at the major publishing houses, accomplish a high rate of sales for their clients work was obvious. A dream agent would have a cadre of high profile, bestselling clients that they provide with insightful feedback and comments in regards to career development. I always imagined the dream agent firmly established at a well-known agency, the kind of office buzzing with possibility and important lunch meetings Monday through Friday. That was the basic sketch - perhaps the dream agent is also snappy dresser, with a kick ass ipod shuffle mix, and impeccable taste in wine.

Here is the problem:

"My dream agent just rejected my full manuscript."

This is a devastating turn of events. How can you go on, without the dream agent touting your talent and promoting your work?

I've learned the secret - there is no such thing as a dream agent.

At least not in the way that I imagined initially. If that high-profile agent was my dream agent, well, then they wouldn't have rejected my book. I am looking for the agent that believes in my work, who loves my book as much as I do. This is akin to dating. If you have a picture in your mind of who might fill the role of significant other, well then you might miss the best thing for you because they scored low on your ten point checklist.

Don't misunderstand me, the reality of the dream agent is not a form settling for something less. Every agent that is to be queried must be investigated to make sure that they are reputable and have relevant experience. But, here is the thing: I am more open to the new agents in the world. Maybe the up and comer will take a chance and I can be their high-profile client.

Ah, a girl can always dream.

a little conversation

2009-06-18T17:09:00.001-07:00

I've been struggling lately in regards to querying my book. Struggling because after the initial fun of sending out emails and letters, well, it started to take a toll on my emotional health. The rejection wears you down. I know it isn't personal, but it sure stings. Confidence, what the hell is that?

Recently I had a talk with my novel. It went something like this -

ME: "So, it might be time to take a break from querying. The responses are just not what we expected."

BOOK: "What? Are you serious?"

ME: "I know how you feel, but this economy just has everything in some kind of eternal holding pattern."

BOOK: "But I thought you believed in me? What about QUERY AND CONQUER as our mantra?"

ME: "Listen, I love you. I think you deserve the best, I really do. You are a great book, but what is the point of throwing you out there when the agents aren't responding?"

BOOK: "But, but... what about NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER?"

ME: "I knew you would take this poorly, that is why I wanted to just talk about it, you know just think about it--"

BOOK: "It is that other book you are working now, isn't it?"

ME: "You know I've started something new, but this doesn't have anything to do with RIDING THE BLIND."

BOOK: "I'm NOT going in that trunk. NO, NO, NO!"

Huh. Conversation over and we sent out a few more queries. Lo and behold, early this week I get a SASE envelope containing good news. A partial request from a great agent. Today, TWO full manuscript requests within hours of each other. Now what? I don't know. Hopes are soaring again despite my best intentions.

My book, of course, is all "I told you so."

Writing and Self

2009-06-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

Many writing related books state to write what you know, and in my literature classes there was always much discussion on how much truth or life experience an author injected into their respective work. Criticism becomes bound up in decoding what parts of a story have autobiographical elements and which elements are masks for the author.

I've found that stories that come close to my own experience, or even touch upon themes that I've dealt with are the hardest to write. Right now I am working on a new novel that could best be described as a family saga. I reached the 15,000 word mark yesterday and it has been hard to get even this far. My speculation is that this difficulty is more than figuring out plot, characters and theme. By concentrating on this fictitious family I am forced to think about my own family -- the secrets, quirks and dynamics.

I know that parts of me will slip into this new novel, parts of my feelings and experience will inform some of what happens independent of the dramatic arc I am trying to fashion. I can't help that, it is all part of the process. What is so interesting is how writing a long work can help you see parts of yourself you've never noticed before. Writing, in some fashion, is a form of self-discovery.

That sounds very self-aware and pleasant, doesn't it? The thing is that those parts you discover aren't always positive. Sometimes you find things that are scary, ugly and contradictory. I have a feeling though that kind of energy is probably the most powerful. Continuing down that vein of writing will have powerful consequences even if wrestling the words out is hard.

I will keep going, but I give myself permission to take breaks along the way.

away, far away

2009-05-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to leave for a vacation to San Diego so I won't be checking in here until June. Hopefully I will be back with some good news, or in the very least some beautiful photos :)

I haven't been updating anything on the writing/agenting front because, well, I've got nothing to update. Right now, I'm waiting to hear back on some requested materials and lots of queries. I keep trying to send good, positive vibes out into the universe. Let's see if that works.

Work on my new WIP, Riding the Blind, continues at a slow pace. Still, I'm doing lots of plotting, thinking and mulling over these new characters. That is always a good distraction from the "no news is no news" status.

I found a lovely Edgar Guest poem, "My Aunt's Bonnet" last night that really inspired a scene I am trying to write. Here is the opening stanza that resonated with me and my new work:

They say life's simple -- but I don't know.
Who can tell where a word will go?
Or how many hopes will rise and fall
With the weakest brick in the cellar wall?
Or how many hearts will break and bleed
As the result of one careless deed?

Source: Edgar A. Guest, Collected Verse of Edgar A. Guest, Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., 1940, p. 634.

There is something very "of the earth" about Guest. I like the way his lines remind me of certain style of blues, like Blind Willie McTell and the more hopeful Georgia twang.

Well, off to finish packing. Have a good week everybody.

then and now

2009-05-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

I have been traveling, and will be again soon, but I wanted to touch base with the blog and share a small insight. In my recent trip back to the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. area I had the opportunity to reconnect with a number of long lost friends. Behold the power of Facebook in this ability to see those from the far flung recesses of the past. Scary, but amazing all the same.

At first, I was nervous at the prospect of seeing these individuals again. For one friend it had been about 16 or 17 years since our last meeting. That is half my life ago. How would I connect with someone who knew such an old version of me? I need not have worried. It was a warm and lovely reunion. My son and her daughter played together as we both sat on the couch and talked about what we had been doing for the last decade or so. There was something light and comfortable about the ease at which we picked up where we had left off. I was tempted to ask stupid questions, like "Do you still love I Love Lucy?" or her perhaps gauge her affection for Broadway musicals. Curiosity sparked in me a desire to know how she had evolved, changed. The truth is though, I got the sense that her essence was very much the same. There was something in that familiar smile and her laugh that left me reassured that the person I knew at the tender age of six still thrived, albeit in a more mature form now.

I realized, with a fair amount of bewilderment, as I drove away from her house in the Virginia mountains that we were both changed but still very much the same. I think this only is possible with someone with whom you are able to share your true self. Sure, she didn't travel along the path with me as I went through a dark time, a difficult road. Maybe she sensed the imprint it left on me, but it is only a small part of the sphere of influences that have shaped me. And really, there is only so much shaping the world, other people or experiences can do -- there is something innate, core to my being that remains untouched, unchanged and true to itself.

This rather simple idea was only reinforced with my next stop on the reunion tour. I had dinner with two women I had known in middle and high school. The one friend and I instantly reconnected, and the ease of slipping into each others lives felt sincere and important. With the other friend, I had a harder time engaging with on this level. I think we never really knew each other the same way, stripped away from all that other stuff that defines us. For a long time I felt like we had unresolved issues, a lack of closure on our friendship. Now, I realize that the friendship wore away because it lacked a firm foundation. I still value our time together, but I realize now that we were not meant for the long haul. It isn't anyone's fault. Life brings many people in and out of your sphere, and some will always have a place no matter how much time passes. This single idea makes me feel amazingly hopeful.

sign of the times

2009-05-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this has absolutely nothing to do with writing, reading, or anything even pretending to be intellectual.

This is a post about Barbie.

I was watching the news last night, to check and see if the swine flu had transported us all into Stephen King's THE STAND yet, when I saw a feature story about Barbie.

Yeah, you know the broad with the impossibly big boobs, tiny waist, long blond hair and feet that are forever flexed due to fifty years of high heels? Well, she has stirred up a new controversy for herself recently.

Cue the lights, here comes

Totally Stylin' Tattoo Barbie!

She comes with a series of tattoos that can be applied to her plastic skin. This has made some parents really angry, and if you google "tattoo barbie" you will find many a rant and complaints that this doll and concept is inappropriate for children.

Here are some photos, lifted from The Examiner, that show Barbie with her new ink:

The thing is that no one should be surprised that Barbie has a "tramp stamp" now. I mean, look at her - she has always been a bit slutty, let's be honest. Plus Barbie is tragically hip now, she has her own blog and is on facebook.

If parents are going to be upset about something it should be that Barbie promotes a body image for young girls that is unrealistic and impossible to attain. Or, what about that stamp above the tattoo that shows us that she was made in Indonesia? I'm betting the people who worked in that factory didn't get paid a livable wage.

A tattoo? Jesus, everybody has those now. Not me, but practically everyone I know my age has one or two (apparently they are addictive because many people have a few). I find this whole controversy highly ridiculous. Be outraged about the crippling self-esteem issues you load on your young daughters, not the small marks of rebellion on a doll's skin. Be outraged about the pervasive corporate imperialism that takes advantage of poor countries to supply labor to churn out these plastic little beauties.

Get your head out of the prudish sand.

wordy wednesday: lugubrious

2009-04-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

lu·gu·bri·ous

Pronunciation:
\lu̇-ˈgü-brē-əs also -ˈgyü-\

Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin lugubris, from lugēre to mourn; akin to Greek lygros mournful
Date: 1585

1: mournful ; especially : exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful
2: dismal

Source: Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary

I'm in love with this word right now - it is a real beauty. Also, I am not too proud to admit that when I first encountered this word at the Art Institute of Chicago I had absolutely no idea what it meant. The context was unclear. I found it in the description card of a Monet painting. The artist was quoted as describing the setting, the cliffs in Brittany, as "lugubrious." Of course I furiously scribbled it down for later reference and research.

Here is the painting,Rocks at Port-Goulphar, Belle-Ile, 1886 by Claude Monet:

Source: The Art Institute of Chicago

happy release day to Cindy Pon

2009-04-28T05:50:00.001-07:00

Congratulation to Cindy Pon on the release of her book SILVER PHOENIX today! Cindy is a true inspiration for those aspiring to publishing success. My copy of her debut is due to be delivered today, and I urge you to pick up a copy too. Here is the book trailer:

Cindy is holding some release day fun on her blog - a contest to celebrate her release - with great prizes. You could win a signed copy of SILVER PHOENIX and an original, signed brush painting or a $100 gift card to the bookstore of your choice.

Have a great release day Cindy!

teaser tuesday -

2009-04-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

From my work in progress tentatively titled Riding the Blind.

July, 1980 - Seven year-old Rachel Linden has just met her grandmother, who has been missing for nearly thirty years, for the first time.

***

I sprinted up the stairs and all the way to my mother’s room. My scratched up knees knocked together and my bare feet paddled across the wooden floorboards. By the time I reached the end of the hallway I was out of breath, from both the exertion of my wild dash and from the excitement of my supposedly dead grandmother showing up at the kitchen door.

The bedroom door squeaked as I pushed it open. I tiptoed inside careful not to make too much noise. My sister was asleep in the small bassinet near the open window. I put my hand on my mother’s warm shoulder and whispered for her. Her eyes blinked open, and I felt the initial sting of her tired gaze on me.

“What is it Rachel?” she yawned and didn’t bother to cover her mouth, her nostrils flared. Her words edged to anger.

“There is someone downstairs who wants to see you.” My eyes must have looked wild with just the mention of the stranger, my mother bolted upright in bed.

“Who is it? What’s wrong?” She grabbed my arms and pulled me in close to her.

“A woman, she says she’s your mother,” I told her. She released me, her face paled and she dropped her blue eyes to the floor.

“Oh my God,” my mother said, not to me but perhaps to herself. She swung her legs around the side of the bed and fiddled with the loose strands of light brown hair poking out of her bun. Her hands trembled as she grabbed the light yellow dress hanging on the rocking chair and pulled it over her head, buttoned the front and smoothed out the collar. She sucked in air at her cheeks, and bit down on the sides of her mouth in a nervous gesture I recognized.

“Would you mind staying with Sarah, dear, until she wakes up?” her voice resembled my mother’s, but the tone had evolved to something higher-pitched and the rapid pace reminded me of a young girl. I nodded yes. She scurried out of the room and the stairs groaned as she made her way to the bottom. A familiar creak floated my way as the screen door opened and slammed shut. The old woman’s voice, loud and rasping, punched the air but I couldn’t make out the words she spoke.

I looked into the bassinet to Sarah, clad only in her diaper, and I traced my finger along her soft, clammy skin. Her breath fell gentle and quiet. I settled down in my parent’s bed. I opened and closed my arms and legs like I was doing snow angels in the sheets. The cotton smelled of violets and the brambly light scent of my mother.

Could this old woman really be my mother's mother? Why did everyone tell me she was dead?

I strained to hear the words of the women downstairs, but all I could hear were the sound of voices rising and falling. In the distance the familiar horn of the train rang out, though muted through the cover of summer foliage. Still, I could hear the rumbling of the locomotive growing closer, thundering down the tracks. Soon, the sound changed and the train wasn't coming anymore, it was moving away. I listened to the rolling whisper grow faint and before I knew what had happened, I had fallen into a hot, fitful sleep.

2009 - the year of the rant?

2009-04-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Recently, there has been a flurry of rants and confessional postings that examine the relationship between writers, agents, and publishers. Some of this has been thoughtful and constructive. Of course the most incendiary writers garner heaps of attention, and the agentfail fiasco along with rants on the "talent killing" agents have shown the ugly side of accumulated rejection.

It is a shame too, because the grain of truth that sits at the bottom of some of these arguments gets lost. Thus, the whole idea of thinking about how the industry is changing and the way traditional roles might also change in the process gets overlooked. All because some bat-shit crazy writer got themselves puffed up full of self-entitlement. A note to you (you know who you are) - thanks for nothing.

The industry is changing and everyone will have to adjust to the brave new world of publishing. I was fascinated to read a post today by David Hewson on ways that might take shape. In that weird way that linking around works I found my way at HarperStudio where I learned about the "Are you the Next Mark Twain?" contest to complete the unfinished story "Conversations with Satan." The deadline is May 31 in case you are interested. I love the idea of this, it reminds me of an assignment I had in seventh grade to rewrite the ending of "The Lady and The Tiger." My twist was particularly dark. It probably went into my permanent file somewhere.

Great transition just now, in case you didn't notice it - hold on.

In my wanderings around the Internet I also stumbled across a great view and personal account of the other side of the querying hurdle - success, well sort of. Sarahbeth Purcell shares her journey in nine parts on "The Great American Novel." Beautiful writing and a deeply moving account of her journey.

typos, terror and other assorted info

2009-04-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

I just realized the last batch of queries I sent out have a typo in them. It burns my perfectionist soul. Somehow the "t" got left out of the following sentence:

"Getting fired from the car dealership is just the latest in a string of failures."

Must have happened in a random cut and paste somewhere. Just goes to show that it is imperative to read every query with a detailed eye for errors EVERY SINGLE TIME. Irritating because I do read them each time, but I guess my mind kept filling in the missing letter.

I noticed this happened in my manuscript too. A few weeks ago I read through the full just one more time to make sure there were no glaring errors before I sent it off to the requesting agent, and I noticed a missing word. I don't remember what it was now, but fortunately I found it and fixed it.

Well, now I can correct future queries and hope that agents out there don't hold it against me.

In other news, as many bloggers have noted, Nathan Bransford is holding a Be An Agent session on fifty queries. Very interesting reading and peak into the world of an agent's inbox. I don't envy them, I really don't. I stopped reading the comments after a few as many felt harsh. I think writers are harder critics than the agents.

This leads me into my next rambling. Some writers, in the glow of their own ego, are insufferably mean. I was surfing around today and found an author asking about query stats. This person had a 40% request rate on their query. It felt too much like shopping with that really skinny girl who tries on a pair of size 2 pants and then asks you, "Does this make me look fat?" I wouldn't mind the question if it was asked in pure seeking of knowledge way, but it really didn't feel that way to me. After a quick check, this person appears pretty publishing savvy which means they know that request rate kicks ass. The question is posed as a way to get compliments and as a backhanded announcement of how great they and their book is doing. I don't even know why I bother getting riled up by this. I need to remember what a wise woman said - follow your own path.

Sure, some people query ten agents and land an offer of representation. Some people query one hundred agents before that happens. It doesn't make sense to compare you or your book to anyone else because you and your work are unique.

I am genuinely happy when people find success, but not so much when the path feels insincere or manipulated.

I will follow my own path and have confidence in my work... set it on repeat.

...yawn

2009-04-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

I am long overdue on a blog post. Lots has happened in my world.

I turned one year older on Sunday, and that ushered in a week of the worst sleep I've had in some time. For a few days I kept waking up at four o'clock in the morning for absolutely no reason. I tossed, I turned and could not find my way back to sleep. Then my darling son decided to preempt me on Wednesday and arouse at three thirty in the morning and scream inconsolably for a some indefinite period of time. Time does tricky things at that hour, stretching out and around you like a scratchy wool sweater. Finally we watched a Baby Einstein video, and boy, more than usual it was a real blast. Good times.

Last night was the first good night of sleep I've had all week and I woke this morning feeling like a new person. It is amazing how much you take sleep for granted until it is elusive and you need it as desperately as those sad people on Intervention need their booze, drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, etc.

I've spent way too much time this week trying to setup my new ipod, my first ever ipod because I am tragically un-hip, and way too little time writing. Everything feels fuzzy right now with my new work. I wrote a scene and realized that maybe it wasn't my new character or anything to do with this book. What is it then? Another book? A short story? I have no idea. I guess I will have to just write it out and see where it takes me.

One of my writing groups meet this weekend. I am supposed to arrive prepared to share my longterm writing goals. This is proving harder than I would have imagined. Maybe I will just make something up, I do write fiction after all.

wordy wednesday: repose

2009-03-25T04:37:00.000-07:00

repose- function: noun

Text: 1 a natural periodic loss of consciousness during which the body restores itselfrepose, is served lunch, and then embarks on an exhaustive afternoon of shopping>— see sleep 1 2 a state of freedom from storm or disturbancerepose of a serene summer evening>— see calm 3 freedom from activity or laborrepose for the patient recovering from pneumonia>— see ¹¹rest 1

Source: Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary

My recent vacation is best as entry number 3, and this freedom from activity and normal life imparted a much needed dose of patience and renewal. The word repose is fresh in my mind because I toted along Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose for reading. I was worried, at first, that this work, while beautifully wrought, would be too serious, too complex and require a concerted effort to really appreciate. In fact, this book was a wonderful retreat, a tight, well-paced story perfect for long mornings on the screened in porch sipping coffee. I will do a full review later this week. Suffice to say this book has climbed high on my best books list, the portrait of a woman in the American West reminded me of Willa Cather works in some ways - the landscape as character. More on that later.

Captiva, Florida is an island on the Gulf coast about twenty miles away from Fort Meyers. The area is known for the large numbers of shells that decorate the sandy beach, new specimens wash up with the morning high tide and lay in wait for those who trespass on the cool, hard packed sand. We found the known species - starfish, multitudes of different kinds of clams and mussels, bay and rough scallops, and the occasional oyster with the distinct dark, bumpy surface poking through the sand. We also found the unknown marvels - a kitten paw, the florida prickly cockle, and the cut ribbed ark. We sifted through different variations of broken conch, but never found one intact. Yet, the small conch shells we found, with the distinct swirls tumbled into new forms by the force of the water, were beautiful and something to marvel about.

What a wonderful place for repose. The white sandy beaches, the cool and gentle clear waters of the Gulf and the waves that lapped the shore, without being rough and too loud, was the perfect backdrop for pondering my own little stamp of the world, my own goals and ideas. I thought much about my writing, about my future. Sitting on the beach, hidden under a large hat to shield my fair skin, I thought about my new novel and had all the joy of plotting out new character's histories and motivations. I love learning my own character's deep, dark secrets. It was in the reverie that I realized, with a fair amount of bewilderment - I am a writer. No matter what. If I get published, whatever happens to my first novel - this is my truth. I don't want to do anything else, and I have that compelling urge to continue to weave stories together, to put those words down on paper. What a beautiful thing, really, to still want to invest yourself, push forward with hard work despite the uncertainty of rewards.

I am still going to search for an agent and send out my short works to journals and magazines. I will still seek the reward and recognition, but I don't need it to keep going. This writing thing is deeper than that, and while this is a simple revelation it gives me that renewal I need to keep going. I am following my passion. That is all I can do and hope for the best.

I was going to post some photos of the beach and the shells, but technology thwarts me again. I can't find that little camera connector cord! Ah, I will look tonight. Maybe some photos for tomorrow. Something to look forward to.

in search of circles

2009-03-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Wendy at Spread Change for the link to my blog today. Spread Change is a great site dedicated to budget philanthropy, so go check it out and do some good in the world!

I must say that having a link to my blog makes me want to clean this place up a bit, squirrel away any rants or silly things, and perhaps write something important. There is so much pressure to be clever with blogs, message boards and all the social networking sites. Sometimes it feels like I've wandered into a happy hour with all the cool, hip people online. I flounder to find the small talk that marks me as interesting, yet of course, not seemingly like I care if I am interesting. The perils of this brave new world online.

I am currently working on creating a website. This has been a fun refresher in xhtml and coding everything by hand instead of relying on a WYSIWYG editor. Websites are better with images so I've been going through my photos from the last few years, and looking for nice shots that I can use. In this process I've noticed that I have a habit of visiting places and pointing my camera up, down and noticing all the small details of a space. I am also drawn to similar shapes.

Here are a few examples:

This is the ceiling view inside the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

This is the view, straight above, inside the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

This is inside the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco.

Finally, this is looking down to the floor of a church in Jerusalem, near the Garden of Gethsemane.

I love circles and geometrical patterns. I love how this common element reappears across all continents and cities, the beauty can be found in the mosaic of the rooster or the grand windows of the cathedral. It is funny because my husband was my companion in all these locations, but he looks at these same photos and asks, "Where was that?" We all notice different things, different details. Sometimes it really is the little things.

My writing space

2009-03-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

So I have a new friend (real life here people) and I recently was invited over to her house for coffee. I love coffee, so this is clearly an easy route to my heart. While we sipped on some South American blend she took me on the house tour. *Side note here: I love looking at houses. I go to open houses because I love to see real, lived in spaces.*

She calls her office the "situation room." The best word to describe this space was organized. It had an air of seriousness, of efficiency and industry. I found myself in the center of sturdy maple furniture, all matching, the centerpiece was a grand desk free of clutter. Did you get that? FREE. OF. CLUTTER.

A quick swipe of the finger would have revealed a dust-free space, I am positive of that because it was gleaming in there. The desk was flanked by filing cabinets, full no doubt with alphabetized files and book shelves with volumes all lined up in pretty rows. It looked like the kind of office you see in the pages of a magazine. I was, for all intensive purposes, amazed.

My office, by comparison, lacks all that clean, orderliness. My office looks like a hackneyed, adolescent laughing at stupid jokes compared to that refined space.

Here is one view of my office, the two bookshelves smooshed together and loaded with my treasures:

So the neon fake flowers are a little garish, I will admit that. I love my Thomas Jefferson bobblehead with a passion. I'm not exactly sure why I have Garfield coffee mugs, a tiny red car, a jar full of change, or a hunk of 2x4 on top. The gathering of life, I suppose. The cat clock hanging on the wall is one I made in 7th grade. It has long since stopped working. But hey, I made it with my own hands so there it is in a proud place of honor. I refused to use power tools of any sort because on the first day of class a boy cut off the tip of his finger. Do you know what it is like to look for part of someone's finger on the floor? If no, trust me on this one, you don't want to.

Here is another view, you can even make out my wall of shame (rejections):

The old typewriter is moderately classy, writerly even. I've got crayons - everyone needs crayons for when they feel cray-zy. Oooh, look! Get out of hell free cards. Want one?

Let's move to the real work area, here is a photo of my bulletin board:

This is just above my workspace. The painting in the bottom left is by my son (he's a genius with acrylic). Some Appalachian Trail stuff here, a photo of my own hand (there is a butterfly you can't see) the clock in the Orsay museum from the inside, a Birthday card, a snoopy patch, a story I wrote that was published last year "Going Places" and this weird ass flier I got in the mail for a farm magazine. It reads, "There's a farmgirl in all of us." Sure there is.

Anyway, I'm not trying to torture you with all of this. My point is simple - my space is amateur at best. I can only imagine what my friend would think. Sure, she had a bulletin board, but it had useful stuff on it - like a calendar.

I am not even going to show you a picture of my actual desk, the piles of paper, or all the books that don't fit on the bookshelves and now line up in towering stacks on the floor. But you get the picture, or rather my word picture instead. Trust me, it is a mess.

So, where do you work? Is your space neat or does it look like a paper monster threw up in it?

wordy wednesday: plethora

2009-03-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

Main Entry:

pleth·o·ra
Pronunciation:: \ˈple-thə-rə\
Function:: noun
Etymology:: Medieval Latin, from Greek plēthōra, literally, fullness, from plēthein to be full — more at full
Date:: 1541

1: a bodily condition characterized by an excess of blood and marked by turgescence and a florid complexion2: excess , superfluity ; also : profusion , abundance

Source: Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary

***

Okay, so I'm attempting to get this train wreck of a week back on track here with a regularly scheduled wordy Wednesday. I missed my Proust post yesterday, but honestly I was feeling so full of ennui (next week's word?) that I could not manage it.

Plethora is one of those words that I enjoy using and I have never looked it up before. Honestly, most words are this way for me. I learn words in context and sometimes that context is wrong or a modern usage skewed a great deal from the original. My understanding and usage is plethora = excess. Would knowing that plethora is associated with blood and bodily related issues caused a pause in my usage? No, I still like the way the word rolls out of my mouth. Fancy!

Plus, it works with so many things, non-blood related, like:

I have a plethora of laundry to do.

My son broke out into a plethora of angry hives after he ate an egg this morning.

Note, all of these examples are drawn from real life today. Exciting times here. At any rate, I can't even imagine using this word (I'm not going to type it again because it is starting to look funny to me) in the original 16th century usage.

Friday Fun: Writer seeks Agent

2009-03-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be fun if instead of writing queries, finding a literary agent was accomplished by a personal ad?

Here is what I came up with:

Aspiring writer, with no delusions of grandeur or streaks of crazy, seeks accomplished agent for a debut literary novel. Must love first person point of view, present tense, and prologues. Prefer AAR members, but will consider others with solid sales records.

Okay, so mine sucks. I better stick with query letters after all. Here is a collection of the 10 most bizarre and real personal ads for some laugh out loud fun.

Now, a top ten list.

You know you are a writer trying to land an agent when:

1. You read a new book and wonder: How much was the advance? Did the book sell at auction, pre-empt? Did the author hire a publicist? You scan the acknowledgments for the literary agent's name. You add this person to your list of victims (potential agents).

2. SASEs in your mailbox fill you with dread. Then you start to think - maybe for once something good will come in one of these. The answer is no.

3. You have dreams about sending queries.

4. Any phone call from a 212 area code sends you into a panic.

5. Your family and friends start to wish you'd taken up quilting or rock climbing, or something that did not involve endless speculation about what the words, "isn't right for my list" means or if a full manuscript out for 5 weeks is a good or bad sign.

6. Rejections begin to just roll off you, the collection of which grows and spreads like weeds in the summer garden. You become proud and wear these like a badge of honor. "Oh yeah? Well once I got an eject in eight minutes...."

7. The only people that understand what the hell you are talking about are writer people. Revenge query, pre-revenge query, form R, a stash of rejection chocolate....

8. You obsessively check email, multiple times per day; hitting the refresh button so often that you have injured yourself and now are wearing a hand splint. When you see the new message icon your heart starts racing with hope.

9. You've lost count of how many times you've rewritten and tweaked your first chapter, query letter, synopsis. You could probably recite said items from memory now.

10. You begin to live in the publishing bubble: you subscribe to Publisher's Lunch, hang out in the Absolute Write Forums, make multiple visits a day to Agent Query and Predators & Editors, and follow all agent and writing related blogs, twitters and interviews.

wordy wednesday: De Quervain

2009-03-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Main Entry:: de·Quer·vain's disease
Pronunciation:: \də-(ˌ)kər-ˈvaⁿz-\
Function:: noun

: inflammation of tendons and their sheaths at the styloid process of the radius that often causes pain in the thumb side of the wrist

Quer·vain \ker-vaⁿ\, Fritz de (1868–1940), Swiss physician. The author of a major text on surgery, Quervain was known for his work on the pathology and surgery of the thyroid. He worked also on the prevention of goiter. He described the inflammatory process now known as deQuervain's disease in 1895.

Source: Merriam Webster's Medical Dictionary

My own definition:

Current state of my right hand. I wish I could cut off the afflicted appendage, and be rid of the incessant stabbing, biting pain. I can't sleep, the pain wakes me up. In my dream last night I was hiking in a dark wood and I sat down to rest when my hand became entangled into one of those rusty, jaw hinged old beaver traps. Or muskrat. Hell, I don't know. Some awful thing that kills small animals.

Oh my God. I wish I could elaborate on the awfulness of this, but I can't type anymore. It hurts.
Carry on.

proust: a continuing stream of answers

2009-03-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

16. When and where were you happiest?
I think of all those moments, those big moments, that characterize most answers to this question: getting married, having a baby, etc. Those were great, but full of anxiety and the hectic rush of something new and unknown. I find my truly happy moments in the everyday, in living in the now. My husband and I when we wandered through Montepulciano, bellies full of handmade pasta and a lovely wine, kissing under all the awnings we found. Or the way my husband, my son and I all snuggled together for a nap a few months ago on a Sunday afternoon.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?
I wish I could play the piano. My tiny hands thwart my ambition in this area.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Well, I've already stated I wish I had more self-confidence. I want to be a firm believer in myself, always, despite the obstacles. On a more practical level, I wish I had bigger feet. My feet are way too small for my stature. It is like walking around on tiny little pegs.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I can't narrow down just one thing, there are so many things I feel I've achieved all in the context of overcoming adversity, my own individual circumstances. I've succeeded in crafting together a wonderful life with a family - a wonderful, loving husband and a smart, curious son - and the ambition to go after my passion of writing. I wrote a book! I tried for years, and the graveyard of abandoned projects in my filing cabinet can attest to that struggle. I overcame myself, my youthful insistence of a path of self-destruction. I hiked 120 miles of the Appalachian Trail solo, despite my fear of snakes and hungry bears. I am almost finished with my B.A. degree, a long arduous journey of one or two classes at a time. Yet, there is so much left to do ;)

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
I always joke that I would like to come back as one of my own cats. They live a life of spoiled luxury.

Wonder When You'll Miss Me - Book

2009-03-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Amanda Davis' first and only novel. It was published in 2003, so I am late to this wonderful work. Better late than never though and I urge everyone who loves language and a good story to read this book.

Wonder When You'll Miss Me is a heartfelt coming of age story full of brutal honesty and beautiful, lyrical prose. Sixteen year old Faith Duckle has just returned from a stint in a mental hospital after a failed suicide attempt. Her classmates, including the group of boys who sexually assaulted her at homecoming, barely recognize then new thin Faith. With her significant weight loss Faith now must contend with the fat girl, a girl only she can see and hear, who is hellbent of revenge and running away.

Faith finally gets retribution and leaves town in a hurry on the trail of the former busboy, whom she befriended, from her job at the restaurant. Faith doesn't find her friend Charlie at the Fartlesworth circus but she does find a job shoveling elephant dung and a new person she crafts for herself, a girl named Annabelle.

Davis weaves in eccentric characters that spring to life on the page. Her descriptive language brings the colorful world alive, lighting upon all the senses, without calling undue attention to itself, without boring the reader with pure cleverness. But it is clever, inventive and fresh.

Sadly, right after publication of this debut Amanda Davis died in an airplane crash at the tender age of 32. Michael Chabon articulates the tremendous loss in the afterword of the novel. It is heartbreaking to lose such talent, such promise and someone who through writing can connect on such an emotional level. I wish that there was more of her work to read, consume and ponder. I will have to be content with her short story collection Circling the Drain that is now moved up to next on my reading list.

Friday Fun - The Plug

2009-02-27T10:43:00.000-08:00

My new favorite thing:

The Plug - "Coat to Coast like buttered toast"

This site rocks. Funny, creative, wacky... ah, the adjectives fail me. So far, Issue #36 "Mystery Can 2" made me laugh so hard that I nearly wet myself. Here is a snippet from Tracie's log:

"People, do yourself a favor. If you ever eat most of a can of quail eggs, DO NOT FART FOR AT LEAST THREE DAYS. I actually thought that I'd somehow gotten sprayed by a skunk without realizing it. Little did I know this would end up being one of the least disgusting cans."

Pure awesomeness.

wordy wednesday: akimbo

2009-02-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

I love this word even if it is a dreaded adverb. My love is effusive and overflowing. I can't even articulate how many ways the hard consonants please me.

→ adverb
with hands on the hips and elbows turned outwards: she stood with arms akimbo, frowning at the small boy.

• (with reference to limbs) flung out widely or haphazardly.
- ORIGIN late Middle English: from in kenebowe in Middle English, probably from Old Norse.

Source: "akimbo adverb" The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press

proust: digging deep

2009-02-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

11. Which living person do you most despise? I have a long list of enemies; I think every really interesting person must. There were a series of girls in middle and high school who made my life a living hell. Mean girls who picked me apart - my looks, smarts and systematically tried to crush whatever floundering confidence I possessed. Now I realize it was their massive insecurity driving the pattern of bullying, but you know something - I still despise them. Really. If I ran into them I would be tempted to just spit in their face or knock them to the floor. Maturity be damned.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
I think confidence is the sexiest quality a man can possess. That and the ability to laugh at himself.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
I like real people, gender is unimportant, who are sincere and honest. I appreciate most the qualities I lack, so friends who are gregarious, socially adept beings with a spot-on sense of humor really intrigue me.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Not sure about what words I overuse in speech, but I've made quite a list of those I overuse in my writing. I won't bore you with the whole thing, but I always keep on the look out for the "weasel" words seem, perhaps and maybe. I've noticed that silent, shadow and darkness as well as glinting, flash and whirl are also prevalent.

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My husband is the greatest love of my life, and by extension of him our son. I love books and that feeling of being alone in the middle of the woods under a canopy of large trees, but people come first.

wordy wednesday: corpulent

2009-02-18T12:49:00.000-08:00

corpulent
→ adjective
(of a person) fat: a short, somewhat corpulent man.
- DERIVATIVES corpulence noun corpulency noun .
- ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin corpulentus, from corpus ‘body’.

"This Adonis in loveliness was a corpulent man of fifty." - Leigh Hunt

Source: The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.

***
I am not sure why but I've taken a strong liking to this word this week. It implies something worse than fat, or even obesity. Corpulent conjures up a largeness and girth so profound as to be just one moment away from heart failure. I just described a funeral director this way in my new story "The Perfect Solution."

Proust and his questions, part II

2009-02-17T05:33:00.000-08:00

Tuesday will be Proust day. Seems fitting.

I will tackle the next five questions:

6. What is your greatest extravagance?

Oddly, the two things that immediately spring to mind are coffee and wine. I guess that means I am a drinker.

First, coffee. I will admit it, I am a secret coffee snob. We have a standing order from Green Mountain Coffee that comes every 5-6 weeks filled with aromatic treasures like Sumatran Reserve, Guatemalan, and Costa Rica Peaberry. All of these beautiful little beans are processed through our rather fancy, schmancy grind and brew Cuisinart coffee maker. Truth be told, while I consider my coffee an extravagance it is really considerably less expensive than my old habits of paying $5 every day for a cup of coffee retail.

Okay, now wine. I love wine, red in particular. My husband is quite the oenophile and turned me on to drinking old wines, French and Italian variatels. One of the best wines I've ever tasted was the 1989 Chateau Mouton Rothschild we had on our honeymoon while dining in Florence, Italy. We've visited Bordeaux and the first growth Chateaus, sipping barrel samples of wines as magnificent as Chateau Leoville Las Cases while my husband tried to communicate with the winemaker in his high school French. We have a nice sized wine cellar in our house filled with bottles from California, Oregon, Italy, France and every region where they can take those tiny pieces of ripe fruit and turn it into something truly worth savoring.

7. What is your current state of mind?
Right now I am feeling very scattered. I am brimming with new ideas and stories. Hunting agents is very distracting to the process. Winter makes me antsy, I want sunshine and a long walk without the slush and snow for a chance to clear my head. I feel hopeful today, determined.

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Hmmm. This one is hard. I get all tangled up in the concept of virtue, how can a virtue be overrated? If pressed for an answer I would say bravery. I appreciate the ability to meet challenges but doing it without fear? Maybe that just means you aren't afraid of the right things. I think bravery can just be ignorance in disguise.

9. On what occasion do you lie?
In general I try not to. I value honesty, but I do fall victim to the white lies. When I can't bear to hurt someone's feelings, or when I don't want to reveal my feelings.
"How are you?" someone will ask.
"Fine," I reply, without even considering the truth.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Right now I struggle with my body image in that way that all women must after having a baby. I'm carrying around extra weight, those five pounds that I can't shake loose.

the end of the secret agent contest

2009-02-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

All weekend I've been checking Miss Snark's First Victim to read the Secret Agent comments and all the entries. I had a feeling, as noted before, that the Secret Agent was an agent with my partial manuscript. Well, I was correct.

Unfortunately the agent passed on my partial manuscript yesterday, but she did include a very nice personal note:

"I thought this work was really nicely done. It just isn't right for me. "

Very classy. She would have been a great agent to work with, but my work just wasn't a good fit. I'll admit, at first, the rejection hit me a bit hard. Some days they just roll right off, but I did have a little cry over this one. In the end I know the personal note was above and beyond. It was nice and thoughtful. I am really grateful for even a small acknowledgment that my novel has promise. It makes the unknown, form rejections a little easier to swallow.

The querying agents process leaves me feeling like I'm back in middle school waiting to be picked for the dodge ball team.

My congratulations to all of the winners in the Secret Agent contest. I learned a lot by participating and it was great to be a part of all the excitement.

friday the 13th

2009-02-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

I loved the Friday the 13th movies when I was growing up. Scary, sure, but off set by that silly, campy humor. There is something so entertaining about laughing and screaming and hiding your face in your hands, peeking out between the fingers to see if the fear is gone.

Here is the new Friday the 13th movie trailer

Yeah, it looks scary as hell, but where is the humor? I don't see a trace of it anywhere. I miss the old movies for that. Everything is so real now, so devoid of the tongue and cheek that made the horror of my youth so much fun.

I guess this is just more evidence that I am getting to be an old crony.

stranger than fiction

2009-02-12T06:33:00.001-08:00

I watched this movie a few nights ago, and even thinking about it now makes me laugh. I love the concept of an ordinary, boring man that begins to hear a woman's voice narrating his life. When she says, "Little did he know..." Poor Harold Crick was going to be killed by the writer, and he has to figure out a way to stop it. Who do you turn to? A literary scholar, of course.

I remember watching a trailer for this movie and thinking, That looks really good but I wonder if it is just a clever idea that will fall flat. This movie really worked on a number of levels and did not disappoint me.

I did wonder if my status as a writer made my take on the film different, but my husband really like it too. Maybe not as much as me (he was not laughing so hard that tear leaked from his eyes like I did) but he did enjoy it.

Put it on the old Netflix list.

secret agent

2009-02-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

Miss Snark's First Victim is having the Secret Agent Contest this week. Sixty entries are now posted for comment here.

The rules of the contest are relatively simple: each aspiring author posts the opening 250 words of a completed manuscript. The secret agent will comment on the entries and pick the top three. I believe the decision is made by Monday. The top three win some level of manuscript review.

My entry is post 19. I love constructive feedback, so please feel free to leave a comment. I've been reading through the other entries and WOW, very humbling; there are some great ideas and great writers participating. It will be a difficult job for the secret agent to select the best out of this diverse and interesting field of concepts - I don't envy that person.

AND I might have figured out who it is too. The funny part is that this agent may already be reading my partial. Maybe. I can't be 100% sure, but wouldn't that be a riot? ha.

Proust Questionnaire - Part I

2009-02-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

So, I was cruising around the blogosphere and found this post with a reference to the Proust questionnaire. A funny twist from the agent perspective.

After a bit of sleuthing I found the origin of this reference, it was a parlor game that Proust famously participated in, and a list of the questions at Vanity Fair.

It seems like a fun, blogging thing to do. So, here we go with the first five:

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
My perfect happiness is dwelling in possibility. This can be one minute, one hour or even an entire day. My husband and I spent a day in Venice that was just beautiful, bordering on magic - art, music, love, good food and wine. That is what I remember when I think of perfect happiness. In a smaller slice, last year my husband, our son and I all fell asleep on the beach while the Gulf waves lapped the shore.

2. What is your greatest fear?
Snakes. Something bad happening to those I love.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Self-doubt, and issues of self-confidence. Social awkwardness.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Dishonesty.

5. Which living person do you most admire?
My husband. He is brilliant, kind and generous.

I will do some more questions next week. Maybe I should pick up Remembrance of Things Past again too.

life changing

2009-02-05T16:30:00.000-08:00

WNYC's Soundcheck had a great episode yesterday "The Album That Changed Your Life." It is well worth listening to the entire program. One caller stated that Marvin Gaye What's Going On was his life changing album. A quick search of YouTube reveals that this song and album have political and social significance for many. I found tons of video montages with images as diverse as Dr. King to the Twin Towers burning. I now hear and experience this music in a new way.

There was much discussion about the formative time of life, adolescence, when music has the most power to change your life/make an impact. I get that. You are struggling to figure out who you are, fit in, and feel much like an outsider in your own body. Angst. Yeah. Nirvana and Kurt Cobain are often tossed around for my generation, the group that changed an era of teens, and are often revered as the kings of that grunge sound. I liked the band, don't get me wrong, but that wasn't the collection of songs that really made the biggest impression on me.

Dirt by Alice in Chains was the album that spoke to me. That was the group that turned me on to a new sound, and that sound wasn't prone to fitting into labels. They called it grunge, but it really wasn't. I loved the song "Them Bones" with its haunting, dismal lyrics:

"Dust rise right on over my time
Empty fossil of the new scene
I feel so alone, gonna wind up a
Big ole pile a them bones"

Loved it. BUT, I've loved lots of music before that day (Alvin and the Chipmunks, anyone?). I've loved a lot of music since that day. Was this the album that changed my life, just because it is what I struck upon in my whiny, teenage angst? The answer is no. Many albums have "spoken" to me, depending on the various points of my life. I know this album isn't the one because I don't continue to listen to it. My copy got lost long ago. So, for the me the way to look at the life changing album question is to figure out, what do I keep going back to, to listen to time and time again?

There are a few:

1. Robert Johnson, the complete recordings
2. Tracy Chapman - self-titled debut
3. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes (though this is a close tie with Winter)
4. Felix Mendelssohn's symponies (the violin concerto rocks too)
5. Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See (to be honest though, this one has a lot of emotional baggage with it so I listen to it very, very rarely)

Sure, there are other artists too, but it is their general collections not a specific album that I keep going back to: Johnny Cash, Ella Fitzgerald, Lucinda Williams, Counting Crows, and tons of classical stuff. A list of songs that changed my life would have a different flavor, different artists. I'm sure there is new stuff that will come along, but my list will just get longer. There is no "one" album or song that changes me. They all do that.

What is your life changing album, song?

Wonder...

2009-02-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

Spirits are up at the start of this new week in a new month. I just sent out a new round of queries. Half went electronically and I will be heading out to the post office with a batch to ship off in the mail. It is nice to have the hope of something new.

The groundhog saw his shadow. No surprise here. Winter is sure to last more than six weeks here in Ohio. Only six more weeks until our spring getaway. I dream of the beach....

I was cleaning up my office and found a great book hidden in the stacks of paper and junk. Art & Wonder: An Illustrated Anthology of Visionary Poetry. The book combines poems with works of art, some pairings expected and some that reveal new ways to see or read each work and its theme. Wendell Berry meets Henri Matisse, Juan Ramon Jimenez meets Marc Chagall, Arthur Rimbaud meets Vincent van Gough. There is the beautiful juxtaposition of Walt Whitman's "Grand is the Seen" paired with the cobalt, grinning image of the Sphinx of Amenhotep III.

I love this book, it is truly a feast for the eyes and mind, and it reminded me of a favorite quote:

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the
heart's affection and the truth of imagination"

-John Keats

How wonderful in the spirit of February.

Huh.

2009-01-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

So I had planned out a whimsical, benign post. But honestly, I just don't feel it today.

I recently read someone compare the search for an agent to being bipolar. How true. I find myself alternating between feelings of pure confidence and hopefulness to the way down, dark pit of despair. A request has me flying high, sure that everything is right with the world. A poorly time rejection rips the rug right out, and I feel like I'm wasting my time. Right now I am feeling down, defeated. I don't even know why because this week has been very quiet. I've had no responses to my queries, nor to my partial or full requests. Yet I can't shake this feeling, this fatigue with the process.

Some of this surely has to do with hearing stories of those who have landed agents, the speedy time which it took. Oh, Agent X receives query and then magically two weeks later a contract is being signed. *Sigh* I knew going in this was going to take time, and be hard. I knew all this but in that same way that I knew childbirth was going to be painful, messy. Yet you don't really know until you are in the thick of it, breathing heavy, trying to focus on that positive glimmer all the while ignoring the pain, the exhaustion.

Maybe this is just the winter too, wearing me down. It happens every year. Moving to Northeast Ohio just exacerbates the problem, the never ending gray sky greets me, day in and day out. I need sunshine, I need to feel the warmth of it on my skin. It wakes up my soul. Thank God I was finally able to book our family Spring trip to Captiva Island. I can't wait until March. We have never been to the island, but it sounded nice, quiet. Warm. I need something to look forward to. My new edition of A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh arrived yesterday. She wrote it on Captiva. It gives me a glimmer of hope, somehow.

Please stand by....

2009-01-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

Last week a series of ills fell upon my electronic devices.

First, my computer became very ill. A "hole" in the Internet Explorer security (I loathe you MS) allowed a malicious program to infiltrate my computer. It caused a version of computer cancer that wrecked havoc with many of the critical systems. Fortunately I was able to lift off my writing, photos and even some music before things got really ugly. After many resuscitation efforts my computer was declared FUBAR and I planned to reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows. I know, the prospect made me nauseous.

So, I spent days searching for the disk that came with my computer to do all this. Finally I called Dell. My service agreement had long ago expired but they agreed to rush me all four disks I would need for this operation. The woman on the phone also gave me detailed instruction on how to try a PC Restore (different than a system restore in case you were wondering). So, this worked. My computer is healed. Programs are reinstalled, and it only took nary an hour. It felt like a miracle. Thank you Dell for agreeing to help me without even asking for a dime. I heart you.

The other electronic trauma occurred when my washing machine broke down, mid cycle and refused to drain out all the water. When the hubby had no luck I called a local repair man. He came out Tuesday and I was sure it was going to be, "we'll need to order this part..." No, not at all. He sheepishly appeared in the family room holding a 4 inch metal wire.

Do you see where this is going?

"I think this is from your bra. It was lodged in the motor," he said. So, the clothes washing can now continue. But, yes, the embarrassment will linger on.

Book Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

2009-01-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

Ten plus inches of snow here today in Cleveland. It was a good day to curl up with a book. Fortunately for me, my copy of Jamie Ford's debut novel arrived late yesterday. It isn't enough to say I read the book, I consumed it.

The first chapter, set in 1986, shows us Henry Lee among the crowd in front of the long-ago boarded up Panama Hotel. The crowd is watching workers remove the items found in the basement. These items belonged to Japanese families sent to internment camps. I am immediately drawn in to the question of why this Chinese man is interested in the belongings of Japanese families, what deep rooted memory is stirred by the sight of the parasol. Truth be told, the next couple of chapters read a bit awkward to me. I'm not really even sure why, but I had trouble connecting with the characters. I pushed on and was rewarded when the writing, story and voice found cohesion and pace. From about chapter four on, I was fully hooked. I couldn't put the book down.

You can read the full blurb over at Amazon, but this novel adeptly drops into another time in history and reveals so much about the lives of the individuals. Not only that but you have the great themes of parental approval, first love, and loss. I just wanted to post my view that this is an impressive debut, and it made me cry. I'm sure we will be hearing more about this title in the weeks and months ahead.

Old School

2009-01-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about J.D. Salinger today. His book Raise High the Roofbeams and Seymour an Introduction is one of my most favorites. I can't even tell you how many times that I have read it, or how many copies I own. I like to give them out to people, especially people who have only read The Catcher in the Rye.

Anyhow, I was wondering, what the hell happened to J.D. Salinger and that book he was supposed to be releasing a few years ago? I remember pre-ordering it from Amazon.com and that sad feeling when I checked my cart and the order had a note attached stating that the work was no longer slated for publication. The New York Times has a December 30, 2008 article here on Mr. Salinger. The short answer is that he is still the most famous recluse in America.

Happy belated Birthday Mr. Salinger!

Busy in the broken machines and Chinese New Year

2009-01-26T05:52:00.001-08:00

I'm still pondering the inaugural poem "Praise Song for the Day" by Elizabeth Alexander. My favorite lines:

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Beautiful, distilled truth.

Last week proved challenging. Mercury retrograde is to blame, no doubt. The washing machine broke, and the computer too. Now I must reinstall and reformat the hard drive, windows, all programs. Yuck. Thankfully I was able to pull most of my documents and photos off the sick machine. My poor computer. Thank goodness I have a backup laptop to use until I can fix it.

In good news, I had a request for the full manuscript. It was sent with much pride and anxiety on Friday. I still have a few partials floating out there and more than 20 queries. I imagine I will get some responses this week.

I was listening to NPR yesterday (I'm a junkie, I admit it) and heard an interview with some of the women involved in the 1968 protest of the Miss America Pageant. PBS has a good overview page here. The interview was both awe inspiring and humorous. When asked about the "freedom trash can" where many burned bras, high heels, etc. one woman laughed and said, "honey I was a 36 double something and I wasn't going to be burning my bra, I needed it!" I laughed so hard at this that I snorted coffee. I feel ya sister.

Dear January,

2009-01-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

You are a strong, proud month named after the Roman god Janus. You are the god of beginnings and endings -- you hold the key, and usher us all through the doorway of a new year. I like you, even though you can be cold, you are a passionate month full of ups and downs. So, there. Bring me some good news, please.

It is a slow, slow day today. It certainly has the holiday feel. Thank goodness AW is back up and running, a nice place to go to keep the boredom at bay. I just realized I won't be getting any mail today which makes me sad. I keep hoping to hear back from Rosebud. I mean, I paid a whole shiny dollar for that reported 45 day response time. I want my money's worth.

In other news that does not really surprise me, nor anyone who has met the black and white devils I call my cats:

I miss purgatory

2009-01-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

The website Absolute Write has been down all weekend. I was curious what was going on so I googled it and found the disturbing news that nobody really knows what is going on.

People are gathering online at AW Refugee Camp and (Not) Written in Stone to get info.

This is terrible; I miss the purgatorians and all the great information on agents and publishing. I will admit it, I am in withdrawal.

Radio food for thought

2009-01-17T14:31:00.001-08:00

I was listening to the Bob Edwards Weekend Edition on the way home from my monthly writing group meeting today, and I heard a really interesting interview. Bob was interviewing Edward Zwick the Director of the new film Defiance. I wish I could have listened to the whole interview, but I only caught the tail end. Zwick was discussing the change in the film industry and the difficulty in making meaningful movies.

Essentially, the appetite for easily digestible stories that can be pitched in a sentence or two has eliminated the chance for complex films making it to the big screen. He described how some stories resist being distilled to this level; you can't just jump into the action as these works require a certain coaxing out,a building of layers and levels. A clear point was made that viewers don't want to work to understand the theme anymore, everything should exist above the surface easy to consume and understand.

Hemingway would be horrified, no doubt.

I think there are a number of clear corollaries to publishing and writing. Often I find the stories I want to read are the hardest to find; they don't get the big marketing dollars and push. Thus, I am sure the sales are lackluster. This only reinforces the notion that these types of complex, serious works "don't sell." I think the market is large and diverse. There is no reason to believe that only serious/complex works have more value, but they do have a place.

Maybe I just feel a bit dejected. My writing group sessions leave me feeling this way. I greet different genres and ideas with an open mind. It is certain not everyone extends this same courtesy. The last time I submitted I was told, "literary fiction is a waste of time." I totally understand how people who write sci-fi or fantasy feel like they have to defend their genre against the snobby remarks of some. I've been in the crowd at a party where whispering that you liked to read Stephen King or Roger Zelazny books would mark you as a social outcast, a writing imbecile. There are groups of people who believe writing has to be nearly unintelligible to be good, to follow the formula of whatever writing program they sprung from. These sycophants give good writing programs a bad name, making writing an exclusive club that only those whose overwriting and overtheorizing can allow membership.

I share equal disdain for both the literati elite and the genre group who insist what they do is the only thing worth reading. It is a big wide world full of brilliant ideas that come in all forms.

The great big wait

2009-01-14T05:19:00.000-08:00

So, I never intended to be one of those aspiring writer/bloggers who writes about the process of finding an agent.

I see blogs full of stats and mood checks. Long paragraphs of woes or effusive happiness at good news. It would be easy to do that because the process is making me a little obsessive, and just a touch crazy. I check my email a lot, I read a lot of blogs, and I check the Absolute Write website all the time.

Trust me, it isn't like I don't have anything else to do. I recently made a big book buy on Amazon with titles I have been wanting to read for a while. My 'to be read' stack is laced with a few new titles-- Home by Marilynne Robinson, To Feel Stuff by Andrea Seigel, and Letters Between Us by Linda Overman. I went ahead and even pre-ordered Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, and look forward to it arriving at the end of the month (he is an AW'er).

My freewriting goals for the year have proven very successful. I have discovered tremendous energy and inspiration for new works. The process of laying down new ideas is thrilling and full of that buoyant hope of something fresh, untested. I feel that sense of urgency to get out my thoughts, and I find myself scribbling down notes at the grocery store, at dinner, or right after my pilates workout. I love that feeling.

With all this reading, writing, and playing with my son I still have this nagging thread of thinking about all the querying. It slips in, those questions and wonderings, when I least expect it. I feel like everyday on the querying merry-go round offers the opportunity for the highest highs and the lowest lows. Waiting is hard. I've had good news -- yay! partial requests -- and the impersonal form rejections. What does it all mean? It is hard not to ask those questions; is my query working? do the agents like my sample pages? I knew this would be a long, arduous process but I underestimated the emotional toll. It is hard to put yourself out there, to get those responses. It is hard to get good news or requests and be cautiously optimistic, and not get your hopes up. It is equally hard to get the "no" and wonder why it wasn't quite right for that agent.

Everything is subjective. I believe in my novel and I will just have to endure with this itch I can't scratch for now.

Hemingway in his own words

2009-01-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast over the weekend. It took me a while to get through this small work, but it always does when I'm reading old Ernest. I love his short stories, but his longer works are difficult for me. I know- it is me Ernest, not you.

Hemingway relates his time in Paris in the circle of fellow artists like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald among others. I bristle at his descriptions of Fitzgerald --there is too much jealousy hiding there. It almost feels like Hemingway doesn't think Fitzgerald deserved to write such a good book as The Great Gatsby. In a 209 page book he spends 45 pages on Fitzgerald relating everything from his drunkenness to his fears about the size of his manhood. Okay, I know that is a silly way to describe it, but stay with me here.

Outside of this snarkiness, Hemingway provides remarkable insights into his craft, his practice of writing and the challenges his faced. I gathered some interesting ideas like cleaning your brain after writing by reading. I think I will try this too. He discusses how being poor and hungry had him focus on characters with big appetites. I thought, this sure explains a lot. Hemingway is dedicated to his craft, working and reworking a single paragraph. He is true to his own vision, and believes that saying less is really more. All good stuff.

There are some great gems I found, reflection on life, like this one about the false spring, "You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason" (Hemingway, p. 45).

Beautiful, really.

The ending left me cold. After his long rant about Fitzgerald he concludes by describing his book publication and his affair with another woman. I think this felt so sour to me because since the beginning of the work he would make references to his wife, and all I could think was What is HER story? That would be worth reading. What did she do all day when he was out writing at cafes or meeting with other artists? I think she might be more honest and sympathetic.

Once I longed for a group of writers and artists that I had heard about gathering in Paris. Now, I wonder if it was just messy. It sounds like Hemingway engaged, but kept the scene at arm's length. So, maybe I am better off with the less eccentric folks in life. You know, ordinary real people.

Resolutions - 2009 Edition

2009-01-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

Normally I am not a big believer in making resolutions. It feels like a great way to set yourself up for failure. This might be due to all those years when I used to smoke, and I would resolve to quit. That one held firm, at most, until I woke up the next morning. Then there are all the other lifestyle changing resolutions that are such herculean tasks and probably best left to more pleasant weather - getting in shape, eating better, etc.

My resolutions this year are not life changing, it is more about getting back on track. These are things, good habits I've fallen away from for whatever reason. Most, no doubt, fell away as a result of my new hectic life, i.e., my one year old son.

So, here we go:

1. Free write for 10 minute everyday. I love doing this exercise following Natalie Goldberg's wonderful rules: "Keep your hand moving, don't be logical, don't correct, go for the jugular, etc." This type of writing really helps me dig deep for authentic voice and ideas, and give me confidence. The beauty is that even you don't feel like writing, it is only ten minutes and that is doable. I have my mason jar full of new prompts, and I just finished my ten minutes today. It felt great, and helped me get to work on the next piece I think has potential as a long work of fiction.

2. Read more. I have a long list of titles I've been meaning to read. Right now I am in the middle of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. In order to stay realistic, my goal will be two books per month. I have a tendency to read classics (there are so many I still want to enjoy) but I resolve to designate half of my list for contemporary titles.

3. Once a month, go to a museum! This will be especially helpful this winter as I combat the gray Cleveland days. First stop - the rain forest at the zoo.

4. Do something new and creative with my son every week. He loves painting, and we just started drawing with toddler crayons. I resolve to finish those puppets I bought all the clearance fabric to make, and use my "Busy Book" to do something new, creative and fun once per week.

5. Be present and engaged. Okay, so this one is kind of spiritual/zen for me, but I think it is a good idea. Too often I find myself either thinking ahead or reflecting back, and I want to live in the moment and appreciate all the beauty and joy around me.

With that I am done making resolutions. You'll notice there are none of the following: get published, get an agent, finish my late-bloomer History degree, or finish my next book. Why? Well, all those things would be great, but they are better goals rather than resolutions. I will work to achieve my goals, but resolving to make those things happen isn't going to help bring them about. There are too many other factors I can't control. I want resolutions that I can control, and that will ultimately make me a happier healthier person.

Yayness.

Curious

2008-12-31T07:28:00.000-08:00

So, perhaps you’ve seen the blitz of advertising for the new movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”? I have not seen the movie, nor do I plan to see it. The movie is based on a short story of the same name published by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1922. So far as I can tell the name is where the similarities end.

First, I understand that translating literature to the big screen requires changes and alterations. These are two different mediums and I tolerate many of the books I read that go this route. Yes, often mumbling about how “the book was better,” but for the most part I can appreciate the intent and recognize the original spirit of the work. In some cases, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the movie is almost verbatim and that was disturbing in its own way. I have to say it what really bothers me the most is when the original spirit is lost.

Based on the trailers for this new movie I fear that this is the case. Ordinarily I wouldn’t really care, but I love F. Scott Fitzgerald and it really bothers me that this dark, fantasy driven story has been stripped of all its real power. I read this story years ago and it always stuck out in my mind; such an odd little piece. I just re-read the story to refresh my understanding, and the movie is even worse than I originally feared.

The short story is set in Baltimore, in the middle of the 19th century at the start of the Civil War. While the movie takes this time period to heart it moves the setting to New Orleans thus losing some of the inherent tension. Maryland was a southern state for all intensive purposes, but situated just north of Washington D.C. it was made to declare itself for the Union. Thus, leaders from Maryland were jailed to prevent the state from joining the confederacy. So when Fitzgerald describes the Buttons as part of the old peerage the “This or That family” it is relevant to Baltimore specifically. I lived in Baltimore for years and I can attest to the uniqueness of the city. It is no mistake that John Waters sets his strange movies in the charm city. If you’ve ever spent much time there you realize that his stuff isn’t so much fantastical as it is true. So, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could only really happen in Baltimore in my mind.

So, far as I can tell about the movie from the trailers this whole film is about Brad Pitt ageing in reverse. “Hey look Brad Pitt is old!” except if I wanted a glimpse of that I could just look at Robert Redford. So the idea of ageing in reverse is the premise for the story, certainly, but much of the work is focused on the father’s inability to deal with this anomaly. In the movie the father abandons the child. Maybe it feels like I’m splitting hairs here, but the truth is that emotional abandonment has a different tone that the physical. When you are reading the story you wonder, “why did he take him home?” and you start to understand that there is an effort to “fix” Benjamin to make him conform. The movie appears more focused on a love story, about using this odd premise to make us all warm and fuzzy about the nature of ageing and life.

Aww.

The movie may be good, great even, but it isn’t in the spirit of the original work. As such, it should have a different title. Seriously. I hope that none of my stories are ever bastardized this way. Or if they are, I hope I’m not around to see it.

One Word

2008-12-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

"don't think. just write," says the great website one word.

Everyday a new word appears when you press "go." You have sixty seconds to freewrite, to lose control, to be illogical. Just keep going. This is great practice. I try to do something like this for ten minutes every day. It can be really amazing what you find when you lose yourself in the words.

I love to read through the other entries, to see how other people can interpret the same word so differently. Neat-o.

So, go on now. Get to it.

Submission to VQR

2008-12-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

For the acronym challenged, that is Virginia Quarterly Review, one of the best. My new theory is to start out with the top tier publications when I have a great piece of writing -- that way I am not really expecting to be accepted, and the rejection can be softened with well, it is VQR afterall.

All this being said, I can't stop obsessively checking my status. Damn these electronic submissions. I just sent another story to Rosebud, but that is all snail mail so I will just have to daydream and wait for my S.A.S.E. (oh, the acronym challenged - that is Self Addressed Stamped Envelope). Anyway, today my VQR submission is as follows:

"Nightmares and Fireflies
This poetry submission, which you provided to us 3 days ago, is currently under review by VQR."

I guess that means it is being read. My understanding is that a quick turnaround means no with this group. Yet, this note left me feeling sad:

"Because of a backlog in accepted work in poetry and nonfiction, VQR will be closing submissions temporarily, beginning on January 2, 2009. We’ve accepted a year’s worth of poems and essays, and it’s just not fair to writers for us to continue soliciting work in those genres. We’ll begin accepting poetry and nonfiction again when our regular reading period begins again on September 1, 2009."

Yes, they've accepted a year's worth of stuff already. So, even if they like something they will be hard pressed to find room for it anywhere.

Oh well, I will go check the mail slot now.

A Neoteric Letter to my son

2008-12-13T19:57:00.000-08:00

The Wicked Rejection

2008-12-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

This is the very first rejection I ever received. I sent out a group of three poems to this publication right before my seventeenth birthday because I felt sure my genius required some outlet. How or why I chose this particular journal I can't say. This was the days before web searches and the ease at which we research markets. I will tell you that I sent something to The New Yorker too, but never heard back. Imagine.

My eagerness to publish was rooted in this theory that I was falling behind -- getting ready to turn seventeen -- hadn't Arthur Rimbaud published his first collection at the tender age of only sixteen? I needed to get my publishing life started, so I thought, and to be honest I thought this route might help me find some kind of mentor. We would have some kind of clandestine exchange of letters like Emily Dickinson to Mr. Higginson.

With this nearly fourteen year old letter my secret of writing poetry is revealed. I have pages and pages of quasi-confessional, obtuse lines. Some are written on the back of napkins and one scrawls across a smashed down pack of smokes. (I used to smoke too, because wasn't that a prerequisite to writerly cool?) Back then I scoffed at the idea of fiction. "Less is more," I chanted with a supreme ignorance. I disdained the rambling nature of fiction, I thought, and yearned for the subtlety and symbolic reach of verse.

I can find no record for The Wicked still being published. It is shame really because even though I don't know who "F" the Editor is that signed the letter I wish I could thank him/her. Back then I was crushed. I didn't know that receiving a personalized letter that quoted my work and urged me to submit new material was such a good sign. I never did mount the courage to send anything else to him or any other publication for that matter. It was just last year that I sent a short story out, but it was electronic and all I got was a change in status.

So, rejection but the kind you can be proud of.

10,000 hours

2008-11-22T05:54:00.000-08:00

Malcom Gladwel has tackled the question of success in his new book OUTLIERS published this week by Little, Brown and Company. I find Gladwell and his work interestng for two reasons. The first is that I've seen this guy everywhere this week -- his publicity push for this book has been nothing short of amazing. In one day I saw him on the Rachel Maddow Show, the Daily Show and heard him on NPR. This New Yorker journalist is a case study in the right way to promote a book.

Secondly, the subject matter of this book grabs my attention -- challenging the idea of the self-made man (person). Gladwell seeks to answer the question, What makes some people successful? In the interviews I've seen he lists cultural factors and small advantages that individuals are able to leverage into a real competitive edge. Innate talent and intelligence isn't enough, it must be married with social and emotional skills as well as dedication and practice. 10,000 hours is what Gladwell has determined is the amount of time needed to become skilled at a given task.

10,000 hours is a lot of time -- have I put in my time yet, with writing? I wonder, when does the clock start ticking. I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I find stories in old notebooks from my childhood (labeled "private keep out this means YOU") with stories about orphan girls who run away to Norway, or pocket fuzz that comes to life and goes adventuring. Did all of this imagination start my clock ticking? Did the 10,000 start when I finally sat down and decided that writing is doing not being. A writer writes. Did the invisible minute and hour hands start moving at that point, logging my time for greatness?

I think it requires more than just the 10,000 hours to become good. I think there must be an active commitment to that goal on the part of the individual. Otherwise people who work for 10,000 hours waiting tables or building cars or selling beds should be the best. Yet, many are only mediocre.

I better get back to work.