Relatively speaking, I've used quite a bit of the real estate on this short blog to pimp my own stuff, but I was catching up on a few emails and realized I'd committed a huge friend foul and hadn't pimped something a true pimp should pimp as pimptastically as possible.
So I'm going to put my pimp hand down and share this Kindle Edition of The Disaster Project (link opens in new page) that Ryan posted about a month ago. It contains three stories, which means if you buy the first two, you'll get the third one for only $.99, and that is pretty darn affordable. And if you don't have a Kindle, don't worry; you can use one of Amazon's free Kindle reading apps.
Also, I understand that all proceeds will go toward funding the completion of his life's dream--a life-sized sculpture of Dolly Parton constructed solely of chewed bubble gum.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
A Full Month of Writing? If Only.
NaNoWriMo is coming up, and I wish I could take part. I've never really cared that much about it before, but right now my schedule is ridiculously busy (I shouldn't even be writing this post), and I'm buried under mountains of other peoples' writing. I'd gladly take a month-long sabbatical with no goal but to be creative and write--drivel or not.
This makes me ponder what motivates people to write, and not only write, but what makes them want to write well. I know what it takes for me. The clearer I write, the more interesting the characters I create, and the more vivid the imagery I can produce, the better chance I have of getting my work published. This attention to detail, of course, carries over into my daily (read: non-creative) writing, because I care when I misuse punctuation. I care when I notice that a phrase is sloppy and can be revised for efficiency. I care when I notice--drat, too late!--a heinous error in the email I just rashly clicked along its merry way.
The mystery to me is when I see people who have sufficient motivation to care as much as I do, but they make it all too clear that it's the least of their worries. What bothers me is when it becomes my problem, but I suspect I make it too much of my problem. These kinds of people don't care, and maybe rightly so, because apparently no one has explained why they should care. I wish I could do it, but so far, my efforts have had minimal effect--like taking one step forward and two steps back.
It's tough, though, not to weep for our future when I present a short story (easily a part of literary canon) to a group of people, only to have them moan about how "pointless" it is. Yes, they caught me; they found me out. I thrill to hear the tortured cries of those subjected to the antiquated and the mundane. But wait, how do they react to a piece of contemporary fiction, something with a modern and familiar voice? It's confusing. It's just too hard to understand.
What's most bothersome to me about all this is that these attitudes seem to be held by the majority. I have friends who love to read and write often, and they do it well. We don't have the time to participate in NaNoWriMo, but I have a loose agreement with a friend to finish at least one short story during the month, and I'm afraid I may not even have the time for that unless I do it over the Thanksgiving break. We want to write. We want to share our views of the human experience, the exultant, the decrepit, the honorable, and the despicable. We want to write for people who understand our perspective, and for those who might not but still want to try. We want to write because it feels good to write, for the simple sake of doing, and to hopefully get better at it.
We don't write because it's pointless.
This post didn't really go in the direction I'd intended, but I guess, despite some of the bleakness, the subtitle of this post could be: "A Love Note to All the Writers Who Care." I miss your company. I also spent far too long writing this post, but I don't care. Hear my rebel yell.
*edit: I had to revise a sloppy phrase.
This makes me ponder what motivates people to write, and not only write, but what makes them want to write well. I know what it takes for me. The clearer I write, the more interesting the characters I create, and the more vivid the imagery I can produce, the better chance I have of getting my work published. This attention to detail, of course, carries over into my daily (read: non-creative) writing, because I care when I misuse punctuation. I care when I notice that a phrase is sloppy and can be revised for efficiency. I care when I notice--drat, too late!--a heinous error in the email I just rashly clicked along its merry way.
The mystery to me is when I see people who have sufficient motivation to care as much as I do, but they make it all too clear that it's the least of their worries. What bothers me is when it becomes my problem, but I suspect I make it too much of my problem. These kinds of people don't care, and maybe rightly so, because apparently no one has explained why they should care. I wish I could do it, but so far, my efforts have had minimal effect--like taking one step forward and two steps back.
It's tough, though, not to weep for our future when I present a short story (easily a part of literary canon) to a group of people, only to have them moan about how "pointless" it is. Yes, they caught me; they found me out. I thrill to hear the tortured cries of those subjected to the antiquated and the mundane. But wait, how do they react to a piece of contemporary fiction, something with a modern and familiar voice? It's confusing. It's just too hard to understand.
What's most bothersome to me about all this is that these attitudes seem to be held by the majority. I have friends who love to read and write often, and they do it well. We don't have the time to participate in NaNoWriMo, but I have a loose agreement with a friend to finish at least one short story during the month, and I'm afraid I may not even have the time for that unless I do it over the Thanksgiving break. We want to write. We want to share our views of the human experience, the exultant, the decrepit, the honorable, and the despicable. We want to write for people who understand our perspective, and for those who might not but still want to try. We want to write because it feels good to write, for the simple sake of doing, and to hopefully get better at it.
We don't write because it's pointless.
This post didn't really go in the direction I'd intended, but I guess, despite some of the bleakness, the subtitle of this post could be: "A Love Note to All the Writers Who Care." I miss your company. I also spent far too long writing this post, but I don't care. Hear my rebel yell.
*edit: I had to revise a sloppy phrase.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Shameless Self-Promotion
One of my stories appears in the newest issue of the North American Review--the Summer 2010 issue. I'm guessing most people who visit this blog are already aware of this bit of news via other social channels, but I figured I needed to slap a post up here, and this happened to be all I could come up with.
I mean, all I could come up with, bitch.
I mean, all I could come up with, bitch.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
I Haz A Plan
This post is actually appearing in tandem with my other blog, mainly because I haven’t touched either for a while, and this topic is relevant to both. The issue at stake (mmm, steak) right now is my writing; since the beginning of this semester, what little writing I was doing has slowed to a crawl, but I think I’ve figured out a way to get back on that horse, thanks to technology. Thank you, technology horse.
Anyway, after prepping for courses, teaching those courses, and then evaluating students’ work from those courses, the motivation to write has been beaten right out of me. I wallow in shame at my lack of stamina; however, while the flesh is weak, the mind is still strong and willing. Well, willing anyway. Between blogs, new short story ideas, and The Novel, I’ve usually got quite a few narratives bouncing around in my head—so many that I often find myself thinking, Oh crap, what the hell was that idea about that thing that came to me the other day? The irony in this is that I’ve publicly boasted my habit of not jotting anything down, because if it’s a strong enough or good enough idea, then it’ll “stick,” but my brain has lost its stickiness. It’s like one of those window-crawling toys I had as a kid that lasted approximately half a dozen trips down the window before it just bounced off the glass and landed on the floor every time I threw it. No more sticky. Gone.
So I had to dig down into that crispy decrepitude and figure out some way to get past this, uh, this dry spell (ba-dum bum, crash!). After taking a quick inventory of tangible and intangible assets, I’ve devised a plan based on the resulting list which consists of:
Using my drive as writing time seems inevitable. My collection of podcasts and audio books is dwindling, and lately I’ve noticed my thoughts wandering off from whatever happened to be playing anyway. Focusing those thoughts on talking through my stories should be the ticket for making progress on this stalled creativity, even if I’m doing something as trivial as filling plot holes, talking myself through character profiles, or even dictating stupid blog posts.
Expect progress reports—probably on this blog. The other one will probably be filled with the stupid dictated posts.
Anyway, after prepping for courses, teaching those courses, and then evaluating students’ work from those courses, the motivation to write has been beaten right out of me. I wallow in shame at my lack of stamina; however, while the flesh is weak, the mind is still strong and willing. Well, willing anyway. Between blogs, new short story ideas, and The Novel, I’ve usually got quite a few narratives bouncing around in my head—so many that I often find myself thinking, Oh crap, what the hell was that idea about that thing that came to me the other day? The irony in this is that I’ve publicly boasted my habit of not jotting anything down, because if it’s a strong enough or good enough idea, then it’ll “stick,” but my brain has lost its stickiness. It’s like one of those window-crawling toys I had as a kid that lasted approximately half a dozen trips down the window before it just bounced off the glass and landed on the floor every time I threw it. No more sticky. Gone.
So I had to dig down into that crispy decrepitude and figure out some way to get past this, uh, this dry spell (ba-dum bum, crash!). After taking a quick inventory of tangible and intangible assets, I’ve devised a plan based on the resulting list which consists of:
- 6 hours of commute per week (more to come by the end of October),
- 1 laptop with relatively long battery life,
- 1 earpiece headphone w/microphone,
- 1 voice-recognition software application,
- 1 word processing software application,
- 1 audio recording software application (should the previous list item crap out on me).
Using my drive as writing time seems inevitable. My collection of podcasts and audio books is dwindling, and lately I’ve noticed my thoughts wandering off from whatever happened to be playing anyway. Focusing those thoughts on talking through my stories should be the ticket for making progress on this stalled creativity, even if I’m doing something as trivial as filling plot holes, talking myself through character profiles, or even dictating stupid blog posts.
Expect progress reports—probably on this blog. The other one will probably be filled with the stupid dictated posts.
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Iceberg
Let’s start off with a basic scenario; you’re waiting for someone—in a shopping center, in a café, at the park, anyplace public with other people milling about—and you’ve arrived early enough to people-watch. You see people hunched over laptops, reading books or newspapers, and chatting in small groups, but you see one person on the phone sitting off to the side. The conversation appears intimate; you can tell by the way expression on their face and certain buzzwords that ring of familiarity. Suddenly, their attention is diverted to the person walking quickly toward them, whom they acknowledge with a gesture, and then the phone call is ended abruptly while that person’s entire demeanor transforms—you think you can detect a hint of guilt.
What happens next? Based upon the picture you’ve already built in your mind, maybe the next thing you imagine is a tense conversation between a dysfunctional couple. There are cues which would support your assumptions, but there are quite a few details intentionally missing from the description, like:
Take a look at the first paragraph of Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”:
That’s all you get. This setup constitutes the longest paragraph in the story and precludes a rather ambiguous conversation between the two main characters. All Hemingway shows us for sure is that they’re drinking beer as they wait for the train, he’s an American (an image that has most definitely changed since Hemingway wrote this story), and she’s a girl (nationality curiously undefined). Tense dialog follows this introduction, signifying a possible change in their relationship. There are two standout lines which hint at what is really going on without saying it outright:
And shortly he answers one of her questions by saying:
Hemingway trusts you to see the rest of the iceberg. As writers, our jobs should be to decide whether or not we can show only the tip of the iceberg and trust readers to envision the rest of it on their own. The trick is in getting the reader involved, to make the reader work at it without having to work so hard that they don’t care and simply give up. Sometimes the situation may dictate that we have to lay everything out on the table, but if I read a story in which the author did that, I doubt I’d continue reading for very long—most likely due to a slight case of insulted intelligence.
What happens next? Based upon the picture you’ve already built in your mind, maybe the next thing you imagine is a tense conversation between a dysfunctional couple. There are cues which would support your assumptions, but there are quite a few details intentionally missing from the description, like:
- Their gender.
- How they are dressed.
- Whether the person on the phone is actually holding it to their ear or is using a Bluetooth.
- Exactly which buzzwords are used.
Take a look at the first paragraph of Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”:
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.
That’s all you get. This setup constitutes the longest paragraph in the story and precludes a rather ambiguous conversation between the two main characters. All Hemingway shows us for sure is that they’re drinking beer as they wait for the train, he’s an American (an image that has most definitely changed since Hemingway wrote this story), and she’s a girl (nationality curiously undefined). Tense dialog follows this introduction, signifying a possible change in their relationship. There are two standout lines which hint at what is really going on without saying it outright:
“It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.”
And shortly he answers one of her questions by saying:
“We’ll be fine afterwards. Just like we were before.”
Hemingway trusts you to see the rest of the iceberg. As writers, our jobs should be to decide whether or not we can show only the tip of the iceberg and trust readers to envision the rest of it on their own. The trick is in getting the reader involved, to make the reader work at it without having to work so hard that they don’t care and simply give up. Sometimes the situation may dictate that we have to lay everything out on the table, but if I read a story in which the author did that, I doubt I’d continue reading for very long—most likely due to a slight case of insulted intelligence.
Monday, August 30, 2010
I'm just a rejectionable sort of guy.
A few posts ago I talked about how I'd forgotten to withdraw a piece submitted to a literary magazine I thought had gone defunct, but then they (luckily) rejected me anyway. Now I'm not so certain that people might just be rejecting me for the fun of it.
I checked the mail when I got home today and found a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with the return address of a literary magazine I'd recently submitted to--a place where I'd remembered to withdraw my submission. There was a reply of thanks to my withdrawal email, congrats on landing the story, and well-wishes on any future work, but apparently someone didn't update their records, because I tore open the envelope to find that it was rejected anyway. Unnecessarily. Whee. OK, maybe there was some small part of me that hoped the editor was mailing me personally to tell me just how jealous he (not being sexist by assumption, the editor is male) was that he couldn't publish it himself. Don't tell me you wouldn't have felt the same.
After further consideration, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd have been in the same pickle had they mistakenly accepted it (see earlier post), but I still have copies of the withdrawal and reply, so I'm golden.
Whew, I'm plum tuckered out from posting after all this time away, and this one wore me out. I believe it may be time to knock down a few more pages of Tropic of Cancer and call it a night--it's been too long since I've read this one.
I checked the mail when I got home today and found a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with the return address of a literary magazine I'd recently submitted to--a place where I'd remembered to withdraw my submission. There was a reply of thanks to my withdrawal email, congrats on landing the story, and well-wishes on any future work, but apparently someone didn't update their records, because I tore open the envelope to find that it was rejected anyway. Unnecessarily. Whee. OK, maybe there was some small part of me that hoped the editor was mailing me personally to tell me just how jealous he (not being sexist by assumption, the editor is male) was that he couldn't publish it himself. Don't tell me you wouldn't have felt the same.
After further consideration, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd have been in the same pickle had they mistakenly accepted it (see earlier post), but I still have copies of the withdrawal and reply, so I'm golden.
Whew, I'm plum tuckered out from posting after all this time away, and this one wore me out. I believe it may be time to knock down a few more pages of Tropic of Cancer and call it a night--it's been too long since I've read this one.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Routines, and Why Can't I Fall Into One?
Actually, what I should say is, why can't I fall back into a routine? I mentioned in a previous post that I'm a slower-paced writer; a planner, if you will. But I don't know if what I'm doing right now can be blamed on planning, though. Granted, anyone who can get me talking about my current projects will realize soon enough that I've got all sorts of contingency plans for getting through this, or an idea how to explain my way out of that, and it's all because I try to roll around as many scenarios as I can before I feel satisfied with the credibility of not only my characters, but also the situation they're in. But for the most part, these are all "big picture" concerns for me.
What I find is my biggest hurdle at the moment is word count, and more specifically, language. When I'm going through and explaining to my friends what I'm doing (going to do) with a story, I can jibba jabba on and on about all the different angles I want to hit, and it generally turns into an abstract in monologue form.
OK, one thing I want to do right now is squash comments from anyone who might be reading this and thinking to themselves, "Tsk tsk, you shouldn't be talking about a work in progress until you have a draft ready to workshop." That's all fine and good if that's the way you want to roll, and I know people who tend to follow that rule for themselves, but there have been more than a few times I've caught a continuity error--or simply poor logic--just by talking things out before doing the bulk of the writing. Everyone has their way. So let them do it.
Which brings me to my point; I've been doing a bang up job of finding foundations, the seeds of so many stories, and they've been hitting me so often lately that I'm kicking myself for forgetting many of them before taking the opportunity to jot down a note for later. Yeah, boo hoo, right? A horrible problem that absolutely no one (no writer, especially) will pity me for, and if they did, I'd even wonder what the hell their problem was. But I'm not as concerned about the mystery of the disappearing story ideas as I am about the unfinished projects wobbling around like spinning plates, yet I can't seem to drag myself in front of the keyboard and mash out a page or two. I need to fill out the details of my abstract monologues--to tell not only that he walks to work every day, but how he wound up walking with a limp; to tell not only that she's unusually fidgety during conversations, but whether that's a birthmark or a scar she's trying to hide; to tell not only how these things look, but also how they appear to affect the character's overall disposition and those around them.
I'm having a tough time finding (making) the time to fill in those details. I'll admit, these past couple weeks I've had nothing but time, but it's coercing myself into setting up a timely routine that's just not happening.
Early last month, Ryan talked a bit about "The Workshop," but I have something non-tangible to add to his list of things to expect in a workshop: routine. One thing I'm missing in a big way right now about workshop is the pressure of a deadline, because it's much too easy to let personal deadlines slip. Sure, making a personal deadline is a silent victory, and silent victories are just as lonely as the failures, but I'm afraid that the failures will numb me to the point where I don't care that I'm not disappointing anyone else but me, when I should be more disgusted with myself than anyone else ever could be.
Classes start up again the week after next, and I'm hoping between now and then that if I can't finish a draft of one of these projects, that I can at least fall into some sort of routine. These plates could fall at any time, and I feel like listening to Radiohead all of a sudden.
What I find is my biggest hurdle at the moment is word count, and more specifically, language. When I'm going through and explaining to my friends what I'm doing (going to do) with a story, I can jibba jabba on and on about all the different angles I want to hit, and it generally turns into an abstract in monologue form.
OK, one thing I want to do right now is squash comments from anyone who might be reading this and thinking to themselves, "Tsk tsk, you shouldn't be talking about a work in progress until you have a draft ready to workshop." That's all fine and good if that's the way you want to roll, and I know people who tend to follow that rule for themselves, but there have been more than a few times I've caught a continuity error--or simply poor logic--just by talking things out before doing the bulk of the writing. Everyone has their way. So let them do it.
Which brings me to my point; I've been doing a bang up job of finding foundations, the seeds of so many stories, and they've been hitting me so often lately that I'm kicking myself for forgetting many of them before taking the opportunity to jot down a note for later. Yeah, boo hoo, right? A horrible problem that absolutely no one (no writer, especially) will pity me for, and if they did, I'd even wonder what the hell their problem was. But I'm not as concerned about the mystery of the disappearing story ideas as I am about the unfinished projects wobbling around like spinning plates, yet I can't seem to drag myself in front of the keyboard and mash out a page or two. I need to fill out the details of my abstract monologues--to tell not only that he walks to work every day, but how he wound up walking with a limp; to tell not only that she's unusually fidgety during conversations, but whether that's a birthmark or a scar she's trying to hide; to tell not only how these things look, but also how they appear to affect the character's overall disposition and those around them.
I'm having a tough time finding (making) the time to fill in those details. I'll admit, these past couple weeks I've had nothing but time, but it's coercing myself into setting up a timely routine that's just not happening.
Early last month, Ryan talked a bit about "The Workshop," but I have something non-tangible to add to his list of things to expect in a workshop: routine. One thing I'm missing in a big way right now about workshop is the pressure of a deadline, because it's much too easy to let personal deadlines slip. Sure, making a personal deadline is a silent victory, and silent victories are just as lonely as the failures, but I'm afraid that the failures will numb me to the point where I don't care that I'm not disappointing anyone else but me, when I should be more disgusted with myself than anyone else ever could be.
Classes start up again the week after next, and I'm hoping between now and then that if I can't finish a draft of one of these projects, that I can at least fall into some sort of routine. These plates could fall at any time, and I feel like listening to Radiohead all of a sudden.
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