I’d Write More if it Weren’t For Real Life

Responsibility is awfully inconvenient sometimes. It’s the little things like paying the mortgage, buying food for the kids to eat, and sleeping that take time away from my writing habit. And since this blog is part of my writing habit, the aforementioned necessities also take time away from it. Sorry, folks.

It’s going to be a rough December for me—I know this already. I’m absolutely scheduled out through the end of the year with finalizing reports, doing close-of-year inspections, and generally trying to get billables in before it’s time for the boss to cut Christmas bonus checks. (Yup, it’s not all altruism, friends.) This means that my workday will often be a 7 – 5 affair with long road trips and longer report-writing stretches.

That’s not the kind of writing I want to be doing.

On the other hand, it’s a wonderful thing just to have a stable, reliable job in this economic climate, so I’m definitely not bitching. It’s a good problem to have, when you put it in perspective. And on the plus side, I get to see fun and interesting parts of the country, like, uh… Long Island. And Dover, NJ. Yeah.

I’ll still be around, though, putting my occasional two cents in on all your blogs, tweeting scintillating little 140-character tidbits, and purging random thoughts here on my blog. Bear with me, folks—it’s going to be a hectic holiday season.

I’m thankful for Scotch…

… and right now I’m very, very thankful for Glenfiddich 12-year old single malt. I’ve been sick as a dog for a few days, at the tail end (hopefully) of a slow burn cold that’s had me coughing for three weeks now. Yes, it sucks. Thanks for asking. Right now, the scotch is helping though, so I feel up to at least a few paragraphs’ worth of blog post this evening.

It’s sad, but I haven’t felt like writing much this week. All those late nights, banging out the grafs on my short story, taking side trips into flash fiction for blog contests and such (thanks, Shannon!), seem to have finally caught up with me. It doesn’t help, of course, that the children have been up coughing too, so I’ve been lucky to get 2 or 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. (Cue outpouring of sympathy here. Alternately, cue outpouring of scotch here.) Whatever the case, I haven’t had the brain for writing. And I’m okay with that. I have to be.

But then we have Hilary, who gets sick and feverish and churns out into an idea for a new novel. So perhaps my excuse won’t work after all. (*curses* *sips more scotch* *sighs*)

Still, I’ll cut myself some slack. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind month or so, writing-wise. I’ve had a string of really cool things happen, so it’s about time I got taken down a peg or two by old Mr. Murphy. I should have known he was getting ready to kick me in the tenders after that last acceptance. Mine is not a charmed life, folks, no matter how much it might seem that way sometimes </sarcasm>. Plus, it’s a holiday week. with the attendant family responsibilities, so a short writing break won’t hurt nuthin’.

I’m sure I’ll be back on track by the weekend—the cough receding, the family healthy again, the agents knocking on my door to see when I’ll finish that great American novel.

And yes, this is totally a throwaway post. But some days are like that. Can’t be witty and entertaining all the time, can I? What? Seriously, folks, lay off the pressure, wouldja? You’re giving me performance anxiety…

Now where’d I leave my scotch?

On Submitting

I confess. I’m lazy sometimes. Well, if not lazy, then at least awfully good at procrastination. Aren’t we all? And in some cases it’s okay to put off doing certain things—haircuts… (wait, can anyone think of something else it’s okay to procrastinate? I just got stuck without a witty example. Dang.) I think the point I was trying to make before the parentheses was that for me as an aspiring author, one thing I shouldn’t be procrastinating is submitting my work.

Now, when I say that, I don’t mean I should send it out before it’s ready. That’s counterproductive. But a quick browse through the writing folder on my computer reveals 3 complete short stories and 14 flashes, and thus far I’ve only submitted 6 flashes to 5 markets. I’d say I’m being a bit slow in getting my stuff out there.

I really should submit more, is what I’m saying. Patty Jansen over at the Beyond Infinity blog posted yesterday about selling your fiction. She set herself a goal in 2009 to be rejected 100 times. Now that’s a commitment to submitting your work! Go read the blog to find out how many times she actually submitted, and what the results were. (Hint: it’s pretty inspirational.) And in more “submit, already” news, Anne Mini at the astonishingly comprehensive Author! Author! blog has been gently urging us all to Send It Out Already! in a five-part series that dovetails nicely with my theme today.

The coolest thing about submitting, of course, is getting the occasional acceptance. That’s what I found in my inbox yesterday morning, and I gotta tell ya, it makes your day to wake up to that. (It almost counteracts the effects of being up most of the night with coughing children who then decide to wake up at 7 am and demand breakfast loudly and insistently.) I’ll post the link when it gets published in December, but if anyone’s curious about that particular market for flash fiction, check out Flashquake. They have some great stuff up right now.

And what’s even cooler? When I sent an e-mail round to my critique group, I got a note back from my friend Laurel saying that she had a piece accepted for the very same issue of the very same litmag! How strange and serendipitous is that? Congratulations to Laurel on that sale! (And no, we did not coordinate our submissions, for you conspiracy theorists out there…)

So it’s about time I started submitting more. Pull out those old stories, get them out on the internets, and see what happens. At worst, I get my name out in front of editors who, even if they don’t like any given story, may well like my writing enough to remember me the next time around. At best, I get another few acceptances, and keep adding publications to my author bio paragraph.

What about you, dear readers? Is your work out on submission right now, or is it languishing like mine on your hard drive? Are you up for 100 rejections in 2010? Are you ready for the acceptances that’ll inevitably arrive if you’re actively submitting? What are you waiting for?

Friday Flash: All in the Timing

I only have time for a quick post today, but I thought I’d jump on the #fridayflash bandwagon over on Twitter. This is a piece I threw together for the NPR 3-Minute Fiction Contest a few months back. I had fun with it, but didn’t win or even place, so figured I’d give it a (short) new lease on life in my blog.

The prompt for the story was the first line: The nurse left work at 5 o’ clock. You should have seen what people did with it—really, some fantastically creative stuff. But here’s my entry, for your edification and delight. It’s what came to me.

* * * * *

The nurse left work at five o’clock. By six minutes after five she was getting into her car, and at exactly nine minutes after, she turned onto the street outside the parking garage and drove to the liquor store. At five eighteen, she parked next to a hydrant with her flashers on and went in to buy a bottle of wine. She stood in the Australian wines section for two minutes, trying to decide between the Zinfandel and the Shiraz-Cabernet and chewing at one fingernail. She looked at her watch, exhaled between her teeth, and grabbed the Shiraz-Cab. Six minutes later, she was back in her car and heading for Restaurant Row. One minute after that, she remembered to turn her flashers off.

The traffic lights on the way there cost her a few minutes, so it wasn’t until 5:43 that she squeezed her Accord into a tiny space and walked three blocks to the new BYOB at which she was meeting her boyfriend. When she arrived, he slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her. He smelled of oil paints and cologne. She liked this very much. It was 5:48.

At six o’clock, her phone rang. She pulled it from her purse, glanced at it, frowned, and let it go to voice mail. She turned the ringer to its lowest setting. It rang again at 6:04. She started to reach for it, but hesitated. After it stopped ringing, she flipped it open. She looked at it for a moment, biting her lip and frowning. She started to stand, but her boyfriend reached for her hand and pulled her down again. “Don’t,” he said. “Later.” She paused, then turned the phone off and smiled at him. He smiled back and refilled her glass.

They left the restaurant at sixteen after seven. Her boyfriend nuzzled at her neck, and the two bottles of wine they had finished between them sang in her temples. Her body tingled. “Your place or mine,” he breathed in her ear, and licked it. “Mine’s closer,” she panted “There’s still time.” Fourteen minutes later they left her car with one tire half on the curb and stumbled up her front steps.

He caressed her hips and grazed her neck with his teeth as she fumbled to put her key in the lock. She shivered and had to try several times to get the door open. It took her one whole minute. Then they were in. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard as the door swung shut behind them. He backed her against the wall, and the leather jacket on the hook by the door creaked as she slid against it. Her eyes went wide. It was 7:32.

The man seated on the couch cleared his throat. Her boyfriend whirled toward the sound, then froze. “Honey,” she said, “what are you—” The question died in her throat.

When her husband spoke, it was through clenched teeth. “I got laid off tonight,” he said. On the floor in front of the couch was a box filled with jumbled photo frames. On top was the paperweight she had bought for him on their honeymoon.

It was 7:33. “I’m so sorry,” was all she could think of to say.

On Entering Blog Contests

Why enter blog contests? In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like it matters all that much, does it? Unless it’s a really prestigious, highly trafficked blog, it’s not going to gain you much in the way of traction with agents and editors, right? Well, unless you happen to win a blog contest run by an agent, that is. But those are few and far between which brings us back to the original question: why bother entering blog contests?

Well, there are lots of reasons people might, but I can only speak for myself, and the main reason is that it’s just plain fun. Yup, fun. Often you don’t have to write very much—2,000 words seems to be the upper limit most of the time, and Nathan Bransford’s recent contest asked for only a single paragraph (that one turned out pretty well for me, too). If you enjoy writing flash fiction, or even want to give it a shot, why not post an entry to a blog contest and see if you like it. What’s the worst that can happen?

It’s also great for networking with other writers. Everything you put out there on the web, even if it’s only an entry in the comments section of a blog, can alert people to the existence your own personal platform blog. If other writers are anything like me, they’re thrilled to find another fun, interesting blog by a writer who’s willing to engage the community. Beyond that, when you enter a blog contest, you’re supporting other writers, telling them that you’re paying attention, that you value their efforts to put themselves out there. I know I’d be kind of depressed if I ran a contest on my blog and got 3 entries, so I’m happy to do my part to support other writers, who’re usually just trying to have a little fun when they run contests.

Finally, for me, I like having a challenge and a deadline. The last contest I entered, over at Suzy’s blog, gave the first and last line of a story, and we had to fill in the rest (see the repost of my winning entry here). Many other blog contests have a theme, or a challenge, or a prompt, from which, if we’re lucky, we can produce a fun and interesting story.

Now you may notice that I didn’t mention prizes. That’s because I don’t care about them. Sure, a $10 or $20 gift card here and there might be nice, or a signed copy of a book, or something like that, but I’ve found that the stories are their own reward. If I can create something beautiful, or at least worthwhile, as a contest entry, then that’s payback enough. I didn’t win Nate Bransford’s contest, but even if I had, what would I have done with a query critique? I don’t have a novel yet, let alone a query. I’d rather the prize go to someone who needs it. The publicity was reward enough.

All that said, below is a list of a few of the contests I’m planning on entering in the nest couple of weeks. If you’re interested too, by all means, hop over, check them out, and get an entry in. You’ll be supporting other writers. I’m pretty sure if you do that, they’ll support you back when you need it.

 

The Literary Lab blog is running the Genre Wars contest (click on the image for the link to the announcement). There are some nice prizes, including a $50 grand prize, and 20-30 of the top entries will be published in a print-on-demand anthology, the profits from which will go to charity. Seriously, people, support these guys. Michelle, Davin, and Scott are great folk, and have some fascinating things to say. Plus, charity. What else do you need?

I just found Shannon’s blog recently, through another blog I read (or maybe through Twitter… where’s my memory these days?), and she’s celebrating her 100th blog follower by giving away a signed copy of this book. All you have to do is write a short piece using words from the word cloud (follow the link behind the book, people). It’s a fun idea, but the deadline’s tomorrow at midnight, so get on it!

I have no image for this one, but over at the Editor Unleashed site there’s a contest for the best essay (750 words or less) on “Why I Write.” The hardest part about that is probably staying within the word count! May I recommend not reading any of the other entries before you post yours (I haven’t, and won’t). I say this because it’s easy to get disheartened by other people’s words, and your own might seem a bit pale to you. Forget that. Write about what you love and don’t worry about other people. Plus, the prize is $500, so it’s gotta be worth a shot, right?

So that’s some of what’ll be keeping me busy for the next little while. In addition, of course, to editing my short stories and submitting them to journals, plotting my first novel, and maintaining my blog and Twitter habits. (It’s like crack, people!) But in all seriousness, go. Get out there and find fun and interesting people to read. Enter their contests and let them know they’re reaching people. Give back to the community, and I’m quite sure it’ll give back to you. In spades.

On Alcoholic Cats

  I finished a short story the other day, and it has to sit for a while before I edit it. That means that I’m free to work on other projects for a while. I have one story I have to make final edits on, but I’m not inspired to do that right now, so last night I was goofing around on Twitter and asked (semi-facetiously) what my next story should be about. Well, as the good book says, “Ask and ye shall receive.” I received all right.

A few of the suggestions could never work for me. I like Gerard Butler as much as the next guy who saw 300, but I can’t do slash fic folks, sorry. (And how do peanut butter and amaretto sours mix in that equation? The mind boggles… :) But someone mentioned alcoholic cats, and that was that. The moral of the story? Twitter’s almost as good as a random story generator, if you’re stuck for ideas (and have a strange enough group of followers…)

Now, drunken felines isn’t the kind of thing I can make a full story out of, but flash fic is certainly doable. So I spent a half-hour last night throwing together the following story. I’m posting it here ‘cause I don’t think I could possibly sell it anywhere.  I’m calling it an experiment in voice (because that sounds kind of literary—much nicer than “goofy story I hacked out based on a Twitter dare”).

Do feel free to dissect or mock in the comments section.

* * * * *

I could have sworn my cat was dying last night. Turns out he was just drunk.
Okay, before all you animal rights activists jump down my throat, I didn’t get him drunk deliberately. Hell, if I had alcohol to spare, you think I’d give it to my cat? The furry bastard drinks water. Milk if he’s lucky and it’s just about off. All that happened was I spilled vodka on the table and didn’t mop it up. The damn cat did the rest.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t clean it up first thing. I must have been in that in-between state where I’m buzzed enough to spill a drink, but sober enough not to immediately try to hoover it off the table with my lips. Either way, there was a puddle of sauce lying around, and my cat got into it. Next thing I know, he’s meowing and weaving across the living room floor. I swear to God I thought he had a stroke, but then I picked him up and looked at his face, and his eyes were kinda bugged and his breath smelled of cat food and booze.

‘Course I laughed my ass off. Even offered him another drink, but he wasn’t interested. He staggered off to the bedroom and sacked out on the pillow like he usually does (and I’m telling you, it’s something to watch something with four legs stagger). I had a few more drinks, finished a couple more games of Madden, and went to bed myself.

The cat was pissed the next morning, I gotta tell ya. Like around 3 a.m. he gets up off the pillow and starts yowling in my ear. I’m still kinda blitzed, so I knock him off the bed, and he yowls some more and hisses at me. Then there was this scratching noise, but at least he wasn’t yowling any more so I passed out again. Except this morning I got up and he’d shredded the curtains—seriously shredded ‘em. Cat’s a mean drunk, no joke.

This’d all be much funnier if he hadn’t done it again tonight. I left my nightcap on the counter for a minute while I went to grab my phone, and when I get back, he’s got his furry face in my glass, lapping at my vodka-tonic. When I shouted at him, goddamn if he didn’t look at me, lick his whiskers, and go right back to the drink. Now that’s just not funny.

I’m putting an ad in the paper tomorrow.

Back to the grind…

Flights of emotion are much easier on a Thursday or Friday. Today’s Monday, however, so it’s back to the grind of the workweek. I suppose—if I may make a strained analogy—I could say that the weekend (or pre-weekend) represents the frenzied thrill of creation, whereas Monday represents the more sober, analytical work of editing and revising. With that in mind, I think I might be able to squeeze a blog post out of revising some of the things I posted last week.

I’ll look at Uncle George first, because I already edited a bit before I reposted it on my blog. The one bit I didn’t catch was in the next to last paragraph:

Dad knelt and tossed in the package they’d given him at the morgue. It burst at the seams when it landed, and the old tailcoat sprawled across the coffin like a blanket. The top hat skittered across the polished wood and came to rest against the dirt wall at the head of the casket.

I like the images here, and when I reposted I changed the word skidded to skittered, as it has a more active connotation. But after reading through the graf again, I noticed that the word across appeared twice in two paragraphs (mainly because, once the blog was posted and formatted for the screen, the across’s were right next to each other). It’s kind of a no-no in flash fiction to repeat words unnecessarily—you only have so much space with which to work, so lexicographic variety is pretty essential. The easy fix is to change the first across to an over:

It burst at the seams when it landed, and the old tailcoat sprawled over the coffin like a blanket.

I like this better, actually, so this is a case in which a redundancy-reducing edit gets me closer to what I initially meant to say.

My Friday post is a different animal.  It was structured stream of consciousness, and I deliberately avoided commas to represent a kind of run-on thought process, but maintained a repeating motif where the first word of every sentence in each paragraph was the same. Stream of consciousness writing, though, does not absolve me of the need to edit for clarity and conciseness.

In the first paragraph, the last sentence exhibits the same error as I noted in the Uncle George graf above:

Sometimes there’s something in my veins that makes everything more heightens every sensation until even the flow of water over my fingers in the sink is clear-flowing gold and the light from the fluorescents in the kitchen crisps the outlines of everything.

In this case, we have something, everything, and another everything in the same sentence, and I’d rather avoid that if I could. I might simply change the last word as follows:

Sometimes there’s something in my veins that makes everything more heightens every sensation until even the flow of water over my fingers in the sink is clear-flowing gold and the light from the fluorescents in the kitchen crisps the outlines of things.

This is a bit starker, and was really an easy change to make.

Down in the 3rd paragraph, I really meant to say languid cavalcades instead of hurried cavalcades (mainly because I love the word languid, but also because it contrasts slightly with the inherent hurriedness of the wind-blown leaves on asphalt). A linked edit would be noticing that I used the word swirls in both the 3rd and 4th grafs. I could edit the second use so that the phrase reads:

Some nights I understand Van Gogh and Schumann and Hemingway because the beauty of it scalds and stings…

To be clear, though, my feeling of understanding those great artists in no way implies that I shall ever emulate them in their eventual life choices. Just sayin’.

I should probably stop here, because honestly,  this is a bit of a dry subject. Revision isn’t nearly as much fun as having your fingers fly over the keys (or the pen across the page), whole worlds streaming from your brain onto the screen (or paper). It’s a bit of a grind, sometimes, but it’s an essential one. That’s why I have to let things sit for a few days before coming back to any given piece of writing—it adds some emotional distance, and thus makes the murder of darlings that much easier.

I’ll desist now, but will leave you with these questions: Do you self edit? Is there someone else that helps edit you? If so, how do you come to agreement on what really does need changed and what’s essential for your artistic vision?

Some nights are like this

Some nights are like this when I’m listening to songs I’ve never heard before and the lyrics are moving me the music catching me by the throat and pulling me in when I didn’t expect it. Some days I finish a book that’s so gruelling so painful and yet expected that it sends me spinning and everything no matter how small can pierce me and bring me nearly to my knees. Sometimes there’s something in my veins that makes everything more heightens every sensation until even the flow of water over my fingers in the sink is clear-flowing gold and the light from the fluorescents in the kitchen crisps the outlines of everything.

Some nights there’s a surge inside where music intersects words intersects image and the totality of my experience crashes like surf against the walls of my chest. Some days the words fly from my fingertips and Rachmaninov’s 3rd bursts in my brain and I understand really understand what Beethoven might have felt when he penned the 9th what Shakespeare felt when he watched Juliet watch Romeo die. Sometimes it seems as though the vast dark of the cosmos pales next to the brightness of a single human life and God there must be a God because how else is this kind of feeling possible?

Some nights my daughter smiles and my son rests his head on my arm while I read stories and my colossal self-absorbtion makes me pass over the moment thinking it’ll come again tomorrow but there are only so many tomorrows. Some days the leaves fall from the trees in hurried cavalcades and the wind swirls them across asphalted lots and the bright air breezes my skin with the feeling that these are the moments I should remember but won’t. Sometimes a single gesture captures an entire life and the people that pass with that expression or this look go deep in the crevices of my mind and wait for that single instant when they can collide with a blank page and create something that might outlive them and me.

Some nights I understand Van Gogh and Schumann and Hemingway because the beauty of it scalds and swirls and the blooms of light around stars the exquisite delicacy of a single chord change the short happy life of the sun also rising are almost more than a single mind can compass. Some days there’s nothing but the work that stultifies and the words that refuse to obey and the story that’s stillborn on my lips. Sometimes there’s nothing and everything all at once and the impact eviscerates.

Some nights are like this. Some days promise everything. Sometimes there are just nights and days. It’s enough.

* * * * *

I’ve been spouting about honesty for the past couple of days. In that vein, here’s my attempt to honestly encapsulate how I was feeling tonight (last night, by the time this hits). It was one of those nights for which I have no explanation other than too many beautiful things colliding at once.

On Standing Out

 

I read a blog post this morning commenting that everyone and their mother (or daughter, or sister, etc.) seems to have a blog. It’s true. Really. Starting out in the blogosphere seems like a pointless endeavor sometimes. What, I wondered when I started, could I say that hasn’t already been said (and better than I could manage) a million times before? It felt like there was always going to be someone who’s wittier, more interesting, and more eloquent than me. If I’d listened to that inner naysayer, I’d never have bothered with the whole thing.

It’s a falsity, of course. Yes, there are plenty of people funnier than me. There are plenty of people more interesting. And there are plenty of people who are more eloquent. But as far as I know, there’s only one of me. That’s the point, I think.

I started this blog because I’d heard the whole “platform” thing was important if one aspired to publication. I didn’t know really what I’d talk about, but since revision is a crucial part of my own (and every writer’s) work, I figured that’d be a nice tag for the blog. Then I started writing, putting my thoughts out there, and lo and behold, I haven’t talked about revision nearly as much as I thought I would. That’s a good thing, too, ‘cause I think it’d get boring.

The “revision” hook was what I thought would help me stand out. There’re a lot of blogs about writing, the writing life, the writing process, etc., but I hadn’t stumbled across any focusing on revision. But as I blogged along, trying (and occasionally failing) to post every weekday, I realized that I couldn’t rely on an artificial hook to sustain my posts. I had to talk about contests I’d entered (yah, still milking that link—though here’s another one too), awards I’d received (kinda), and self-revelatory insights I’d arrived at. That’s what could keep the blog going: me, in all my weird, erratic, contradictoriness (is that a word?).

So, by extension, this should work for everyone, right? We don’t have to stand out on the internet; there’s a billion-and-one people trying to do that already. I think (and this is just my own opinion) that all we have to do is be ourselves—talk about what we enjoy or find interesting; communicate honestly with the people we run across; build our platform one step at a time, one potential reader at a time. Sure, it might take a while, but that’s fine. I need that while to write my first novel.

Hopefully my readers’ll stick with me until then. I think the journey could be fun.

Of Contests and Uncle George

It’s awfully hard for me to pass up a challenge. (A writing challenge that is. I certainly wouldn’t be up for the beer-shot hour-of-power challenge nowadays, let alone the Century Club challenge—and if you have to ask, don’t even worry about it.) The idea for my current short story, which is in real danger of becoming a lot more than just a short story, came from my friend Laurel, who challenged me to write a story based on a housing want ad she found. Then, last Tuesday, Suzyhayze (find her here and here) posted a writing challenge on her blog. I thought, in the vernacular, ‘Oh, no you di-int!’ and started to consider what kind of story I could write within the given constraints.

The challenge was this: write a flash fiction with a given first line and a given last line. They were:

Uncle George was crazy as a shit house rat.
We packed and went to Far Rockaway beach for one last ride on the coaster.

Hm. I had no idea what to do with that, so I let it sit until the very last day. Then, waiting in a doctor’s office (routine stuff—I’m fine, really), I started to tap out a story, with absolutely no idea where it was going. As happens so often with us writers, I discovered the story as I wrote. I’m sharing it here because I really liked Uncle George by the time I finished. Also, since I won Suzy’s contest, I thought it’s be nice to send some of my readers back her way. She’s really nice, folks.

So,  without further ado, I give you “Uncle George.”

****

Uncle George was crazy as a shit house rat. He worked at FunLand in Rockaway running the roller coaster, which is why we never rode the roller coaster there. He had a very thin neck and a very large head, with wispy hair floating every which way under the battered top hat he wore. People would laugh at his corny jokes and figure his appearance was all part of the show, but it wasn’t, because he wore the top hat at home too. He would mow the lawn in dressing gown, slippers, and top hat, and cars driving through the neighborhood would slow down as they passed to gawk at the old man dancing along behind the mower, singing Hello, Ma Baby at the top of his lungs.

We loved Uncle George because he always had candies in the pockets of his tailcoat. If we came to visit he would shut the roller coaster down, hang an Out To Lunch sign on the control booth, and drag us from amusement to amusement, sweet-talking the operators until they let us cut in line and ride for free, whether we were This Tall or not. When we got older, though, we began to notice the peeling paint and rusted ride supports, and we didn’t go to FunLand so much. Uncle George became a bit of a joke, but we still took his hard candies and the free rides now and then.

By the time we stopped going to amusement parks altogether, Uncle George had lost his job. We heard he stopped the roller coaster halfway through a ride, hung his sign on the control booth, and disappeared. The people trapped on the ride must have screamed bloody murder. One of the park managers had to bring the coaster down again. They didn’t find Uncle George until closing time, stretched out behind the scenery in the haunted house, snoring like a baby.

Once he lost his job, we didn’t see Uncle George very much. Dad would comment on his escapades at the dinner table, and we would shake our heads and chuckle indulgently. He still mowed the lawn in his dressing gown and top hat, but other than driving to Walmart in his decrepit Ford Pinto and flirting with the cashiers, he didn’t seem to do much of anything. Some days, Dad said, he would go out to FunLand again and stand by the rollercoaster, smiling and joking with the people in line.

The first summer home from college, I heard that FunLand was closing for good at the end of the season. The next time I saw Uncle George, at the Fourth of July barbecue, he looked stranger than usual. He wore the top hat and tails, and an ancient pair of plaid pants held up with bright yellow suspenders. His hair was wispier than ever, but instead of the wink and nudge and off-color joke that were his usual greeting, he offered only the barest of smiles. His eyes had this strange, unfocused look to them, and I could only mumble a few pleasantries before I excused myself. Most of the evening he stood by the fence and rocked back and forth, nibbling at a plate of hot dogs and beans at a pace of about one bite an hour. When the fireworks in town started, our view across the back field was marred by his scarecrow figure, the top hat silhouetted against the exploding pinwheels and starbursts.

They found him in his car in the parking lot of Funland that August. Everyone must have thought he was sleeping, because it took a couple of days before someone called the police on account of the smell. At the viewing, he didn’t look like himself, dressed in a neat blue suit with his hair combed flat against his head—crazy Uncle George transformed into just another old man, dressed for his funeral in his Sunday best. Before they began to fill in the grave, Dad knelt and tossed in the package they’d given him at the morgue. It burst at the seams when it landed, and the old tailcoat sprawled across the coffin like a blanket. The top hat skittered across the polished wood and came to rest against the dirt wall at the head of the casket.

On Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, we met in the kitchen and ate in silence. The coffee maker popped and bubbled on the counter, sounding like the popcorn carts at FunLand in midsummer. When we were finished breakfast, we packed up and went to Far Rockaway beach for one last ride on the coaster.

****

Comments are welcome, of course. And Suzy told me to keep it to myself, but I’m not good at that, so… Suzy said in the award announcement that she thought I’d done a ton of research on Far Rockaway beach. Um, no. She put a postcard image of the place in the contest announcement, and I never clicked through. I only found out where Rockaway beach was yesterday. I made FunLand up, and I still don’t really know where the story takes place. (Sorry, Suzy!)

On Being a Pretentious Prat

I have to confess that sometimes I’m a bit of a pretentious prat. I suppose everyone’s that way, from time to time, but I don’t particularly like when that tendency of mine pops up. Case in point, my first ever blog post. While I wanted to talk about beginnings, and how important they are, I feel in retrospect that I tried way too hard to sound literary and erudite. Now, I didn’t choose those passages because they’re from respected works of literature. Honestly! I really do love those opening lines, and think they’re masterful examples of how to begin a book well. But just starting my blog by discussing high literature (Pulitzer, Nobel, etc.) smacks of pretention to me.


I did it again when I opened my Twitter account. My first tweet was “Hemingway hits you once with a hammer, very hard; Faulkner wraps the hammer in felt and hits you again and again.” (I think that was it. I may be paraphrasing.) That’s all very nice, and I stand by that comment as a rough comparison of the two styles, but beginning my Twitter experience attempting—again—to sound all literary and intelligent and stuff is just trying too hard.

Ditto for my liking classical music and the solo piano repertoire: nice, but not something I need to mention to people in order to make myself look smart. Ditto for liking foreign and independent film. All those things are true, but using them in an attempt to impress other people is kind of like being the guy at the party who’s constantly name dropping or harping on his intellectual accomplishments out of a false sense of superiority (or more likely raging insecurity).

People online don’t generally want to hear about my elitist aesthetic tendencies; they just want me to say something interesting, preferably in an entertaining way. People online don’t want me to talk about myself all the time; they want me to interact pleasantly with them, and maybe validate their own efforts to be heard and stand out among the faceless multitudes of the internet. People don’t want snobbery; they want support. (And they probably want a few less semicolons in my sentences—sheesh!)

All this is to say, I hereby resolve to try to be less of self-conscious tool online. After all, in our multi-connected, cynicism-rich online world, people can smell a phony a mile away. I’ll try not to be that guy. I’ll just be myself. It’ll work for some, and not for others, and that’s okay. And for the times I fail and come across like a pretentious prat again, I’ll apologize in advance. Just stick with me. I’ll be back to my normal, self-deprecating self again soon enough.

I don’t hate Twilight…

… and I wonder whether I should admit it, being a man and all that. The first time I saw it, I was visiting with my brother out in Colorado. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps the way my brother brings out the sarcastic bastard in me, but I thought the movie was godawful. My bro got salty at me for the running commentary on the mockable moments I found. Then last night, I brought Twilight home to watch with my wife, thinking it would be good for a laugh. Now granted, I wasn’t giving it my full attention (the kids are still coughing in their sleep…. gah!), but I found myself mocking it less, and enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Apparently something’s changed, and it wasn’t the film.

I went to see my brother back in late March or early April, before I began my fiction writing class, so I hadn’t yet started rediscovering writing. But I’ve spent the past 7 months or so wrestling with stories—how to write them, how to critique them, how to appreciate them—and it seems I’ve developed more respect for the storyteller’s craft.

Let’s just be clear, though: I don’t think Twilight’s a great film. Far from it. I think that vampires sparkling in the sunlight is silly. I think Bella is entirely too passive, the romance too contrived, and Edward’s stalking too creepy. I can’t understand why vampires would bother going to school at all, let alone enough times to assemble a wall of graduation caps. (And those are just a few of my criticisms.)  That said, there is still something compelling about it. So what is it?

First off, the noble vampire struggling against his (or her) savage nature is an intriguing twist. ‘S not an original twist, mind you; Anne Rice did that with Louis back in Interview with the Vampire. Still, I like the way it played out in Twilight, and I think I might (gasp!) check out the books to see how Meyer approached that in prose. Second, I like how the conflict is set up with the non-vegetarian vampires (or whatever you want to call ‘em). Now that’s creating difficulties for your characters! James using home movies from Bella’s childhood to lure her into a trap was a particularly clever device, too.

Twilight, then: it’s a mannered, angsty, teen flick with moments of abject silliness, but it’s not all bad. I mean, it’s made, like, $650 million dollars so far! It’s touching a collective nerve, folks, no doubt. And isn’t that what we’re all striving for as writers? We want to reach people, to have them pull one of our books from the shelf and stay up until 4 a.m. reading because they can’t put it down. We want an audience waiting breathlessly for the next book in our series to come out. We want hordes of screaming women mobbing our stretch limousine when we pull up to the premiere of the film based on our book (wait… maybe that’s just me).

I think my point is that I’m through poking fun at best-selling writers. Even if I think their prose is bland and clumsy, something they do keeps people reading, and I can learn from them. Even if I think their plots are ludicrous or stupid or ludicrously stupid (or stupidly ludicrous), they’re selling novels, so I can learn from them. The most successful authors (Rowling, Brown, Meyer, etc.) aren’t just mailing it in, fellow writers. They have to do the same thing as us: open a document and get words on a page. They are not so different.

Every writer starts with an idea—character, situation, place, something. Every writer has to find a way to make that idea into a story. Every writer writes one word at a time. I will respect that process. I will respect those who write bestsellers, and will not denigrate their work out of misguided snobbery or elitism. I will strive to emulate the best in their writing while staying true to my own voice. Above all, I will keep writing. Because that’s what they do. It’s worked pretty well for them.

Other Kreativ People

So in yesterday’s post, I celebrated getting a little award for my blogging kreativity. One of the conditions of that award was that I pass it on to seven other bloggers. Well, since I’m not much of a joiner (excepting Facebook, Twitter, the blogging community, two writers’ groups, Zoetrope, and AAA), I decided to skip the requirement to give other folk the Kreativ Blogger award. Instead, I thought I’d take the opportunity to highlight and express my appreciation for a couple of people I know in RL and some I’ve stumbled across in cyberspace. Here goes:

First up is Laurel. I’ve linked to her before, I know, but I’ll do it again, because I really appreciate her insights, and being in a critique group with her is like having free access to a professional editor. Really, she’s that good. (Maybe ‘cause she is a professional editor.) She blogs only occasionally—possibly because she’s not quite as obsessive as I am—but what she has to say when she does post is quite worthwhile. She’s working on revisions of her first YA novel right now, and is gentle enough to put up with my (occasionally) ham-fisted critiques of her work.

Second is K. If I’m going to link to his/her blog, I have to be awfully coy about it, ‘cause he/she blogs (and tweets) anonymously. This is mainly because he/she (can I just choose a gender? No? Sorry, K., I’m doomed to awkwardness) works for a dictionary, and would prefer that his/her blogging activity didn’t cause friction in the workplace. I’ll just say that you’ve never read a funnier lexicographer. K.’s also in my critique group, and the car pools on the way there and back result in some damn funny conversations.

Those are people I’ve actually met. Now on to the folk I’ve stumbled across on the web.

First off, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Nate Bransford. I mean, he did select me as a finalist in his First Paragraph Contest, so I have to give the man some props for having great taste, right? But beyond that, his posts are goldmines for the aspiring author. Writing advice, query advice, it’s all there.

Speaking of advice on all aspects of publishing—and I mean serious, in-depth advice—you’d be hard pressed to go wrong with the Author! Author! blog. Anne’s posts are conversational in tone, but she leaves absolutely no stone unturned in her explanations. For crying out loud, she’s got, like, eight posts that talk about SASEs! I don’t read everything she writes, but I know she’ll be a tremendous resource when it comes time to finally send off my queries and partials.

I don’t write YA, but I’ve been awfully impressed by Beth Revis’s writing it out blog. She posted a series recently about what is and is not YA fiction that was exceedingly cogent and insightful. Those of you who write for that age group could do much worse than checking her out.

I could go on for a while, but I’ll stop after I mention one last blog. The Literary Lab is run by three writers, each of whom brings a different aesthetic to the mix. They offer lots of good writing advice, leavened with humor and wit, and—apropos of the name—run the occasional writing experiment. It’s a pretty cool site.

And there you have it. This is really only scratching the surface of the blogs I follow (46 in all, and the number grows weekly), but I had to pick only a few to highlight. I hope you like ‘em!

For Discussion: What are your favorite blog recommendations? I’m always looking for fun and interesting people to follow, so point me to a few, wouldja?

I'm Kreativ?

I’m in a quandary. A nice lady gave me an award on Tuesday, and I’m having trouble deciding what to do about it. Now, I’m normally not the kind of guy who looks a gift from a nice lady in the mouth, but this gift comes with conditions. Not that they’re onerous conditions or anything, but they do require me to make a choice, and my choice is this: I shall accept this award, then pick and choose how I fulfill the conditions. Because I’m like that.

First off, though (well, really second off, since my first paragraph was explaining the quandary and stuff), let me link back (again) to the effusive and enthusiastic gal who gave me the award: Carolina Valdez Miller. She’s very nice, apparently very smart, and, like me, a slightly obsessive aspiring novelist (the “slightly” may or may not be ironic—your choice, really).

Can I say that I’m kind of flattered? ‘Cause I am. I started this blog because I hear that “platform” thing is kind of important, so I thought I’d platformify myself with a Twitter account and this here blog. I was thinking long-term, since I haven’t even started a novel yet—I’m still writing short stories and flash fiction while I ruminate on precisely which idea is worth spending a year of my life on. But in the meantime, I’m tweeting and blogging and seeing how things turn out. And it turns out that it’s really nice to have people enjoy your writing, whether it be published fiction, a blog, or just the occasional tweet. So an award (of sorts) is kind of icing on the cake!

But back to the rules. I’m s’posed to:

1. Copy and paste the picture into your blog. [Done. But really, did it have to be pink and purple with a light blue gingham background? I’m a man, dammit, even if I know and can use the word “gingham” in a sentence.]

2. Thank the person who gave the award and link them. [Done. A couple of times.]

3. Write 7 things about yourself we don’t know. [How hard is that, though? I’ve been blogging for a month and a half, and every post has been about writing. I could tell you I have a bunion, and it would count (I don’t). Either way, see below for the 7 things.]

4. Choose 7 other bloggers to award. [I’m changing this rule. Tomorrow, I’ll choose 7 blogs to highlight and discuss. Hey, rules were made to be broken, right? (I think there’s a logical flaw in that argument, but we’ll let it slide.)]

5. Link to those 7 other bloggers. [See tomorrow’s post.]

6. Notify your 7 bloggers. [I may, depending on whom I select. But if I decide on Nathan Bransford, say, I may not e-mail him with this award.]

7. Do a little dance because you just won the KREATIV BLOGGER award! [Does a chair dance count? ‘Cause I just seriously wiggled in my recliner. My laptop almost hit the deck.]

And now, since you asked, here’s the 7 things about me you didn’t know:

1. I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was 5 years old. My parents must have thought it was cute and precocious, but had no idea it would turn into a lifelong fantasy/sci-fi literature habit (though of late it’s more a guilty pleasure than a habit).

2. I won the English prize as a graduating senior in high school, and bought a paperback edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works with the gift certificate. I say this not to brag, but to highlight the fact that I was a complete geek in high school. Things haven’t changed much.

3. I went through three schools and a whole bunch of years to get my B.S. in Civil Engineering (motivation issues, etc.). I should have gone with my gut and pursued a Creative Writing degree in the first place.
4. The only professional sport I really care about is cycling (though I’ll jump on the bandwagon when the Philly teams are doing well). The Tour de France is an Event That Shall Not Be Missed in my household.

5. I’ve broken both big toes multiple times. It’s no fun.

6. My drinks of choice are, in descending order: Vodka Martini, extra-dry, no twist; single malt scotch (preferably an Islay malt, or Talisker, or Brora); wicked-hoppy IPAs; Guinness. If it’s summertime, I may allow light lagers into the mix (Corona, etc.). I’ll drink water and coffee too, if I absolutely have to…

7. I make a pretty mean risotto. Haven’t made one in a while, though, as standing at the stove stirring a bubbling pan of arborio rice, white wine, and chicken stock is much easier when when you don’t have two children careening around the kitchen and a third vociferously informing you that she needs her diaper changed, thank you very much.

So there you go. Seven things you never knew about me. I’ve fulfilled at least part of my obligation now. Tomorrow I’ll fulfill the rest of it, and let y’all know about some of my favorite folk to stalk follow online.

For Discussion: Anyone else gotten one of these bloggie-type awards? If so, did you do what you were supposed to with it?

What Internal Editor?

Last night I wrote what I thought was some godawful prose. That’s not to say I don’t ever do that, but last night was an exercise in just throwing words onto the page to see what stuck, courtesy of Write or Die. For those of you who don’t know what that is, I encourage you to bounce over there (once you’re done reading this, of course), for what will be—if you’re anything like me—amusement first, intrigue second, and finally excitement. I don’t know who posted the link I followed over there, but man, am I grateful to them.

See, my normal way of writing is slow and hesitant. I labor over the words almost obsessively, writing a sentence, going back and editing a word here, a word there, rereading the paragraph for flow, possibly rereading the paragraph before to see if I’ve repeated a word unnecessarily. It’s worked for me so far, but it’s damn slow, and I’ve found myself marveling at those intrepid souls who can commit to 50,000 words in a month for NaNoWriMo. That’d be a full time job for me.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I fired up Write or Die in my browser, and said, “What the hell,”—(sorry, Robert Langdon moment)—“I’ll give it a shot.” And a shot I gave it. I figured the first time I’d shoot for 500 words in half an hour, thinking it’d be a stretch. But 20 minutes later (not counting the one time I had to pause the timer to go get a coughing child up for a drink of water), I had exactly 500 words! What? Me? 500 words in 20 minutes?

I hyperventilated for a minute or two, steadfastly refusing to read over what I’d written, pretty sure it was merde of the first order. Then I thought to myself, ‘Self, why not give it another go? See if you can do another 500 words?’ After all, there was an #amwritingparty going on over on Twitter. Why not join it? (Thanks, incidentally, to Carolina for bringing that to my attention.) So off I went.

And 18-1/2 minutes later, I had my next 500 words. Whoa.

I felt at the time that I was writing some first rate dreck. I was settling on word choices I didn’t like, slapping sentences down with no thought of rhythm, redundancy, alliteration, or anything else for that matter. But you know what? I looked briefly at what I wrote again this morning, and it’s not unsalvageable. Whoa again (sorry, Keanu Reeves moment). This, my friends, is progress. Serious progress.

The other day, Rachelle Gardner posted about writing a first draft, repeating the oft-said advice that the internal editor must die the first time through. I chuckled, at the time. “Rachelle,” I said to the computer screen, “you poor, misguided, successful literary agent. Don’t you know my internal editor is a 600 lb alcoholic gorilla with a smoking habit and dyspepsia (in other words: cranky, and awfully hard to budge)? I couldn’t possibly silence him!” The computer screen didn’t respond, but I was only mildly offended at that.

But then Write or Die popped up on my screen, and that gorilla decided a long stretch in rehab would be just the thing. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Well, I did. I wrote 1,000 words in 40 minutes. And wrote a blog about it.

Write or Die: my new favorite writing tool.

For Discussion: Anyone else tried it? Interested in trying it? What say you, folks, does it sound like something that might work for you?

The Autobiographical Error

I love my writers’ group, because I always come home with ideas for revising my work and at least one blog post. Last night’s meeting was pretty small, just a quorum, really, but that meant we could spend more time on each other’s work, really dig in to the critiques. Plus, there’s more alcohol per person when a few people don’t show up, so the benefits are myriad.

Because I was stalled on my current short story, I dug out an older one I hadn’t shown the group yet and submitted it for critique. I had written it for my fiction writing class back in May, and hadn’t looked at it since. It’s about time I started submitting it to journals, so I thought I’d have the group give it a once over.

The piece was semi-autobiographical. As is my way, I was working out some issues of mine through fiction, and this particular issue was related to a co-worker’s struggle with cancer. It’s a touchy topic, one which I’d never discuss in depth with my co-worker, but the beauty of fiction is that I get to explore my thoughts and feelings about it in a relatively harmless way. So the story followed my (fictionalized) co-worker through her treatment, remission, and recurrence, in a fairly linear manner—basically the way I experienced the actual events.

This, it turns out, is a Problem. You see, the way I experienced the events don’t necessarily make for the best story. Sure, it makes sense to me, ‘cause that’s the way it happened. The only thing is, the fiction suffered because of my adherence to the “actual facts.” One of my critique partners said she didn’t really feel the voice crystallize until about halfway through the story. The other reader supported that assertion. They both thought it finished strong, which was nice, but each of them had problems with the beginning.

See, this is one of the best reasons to be involved in a critique group. I had no distance from the material, having gone through (an analogue of) the events myself. My friends did me the wonderful service of reminding me that fiction trumps reality, every time. I knew that, of course—I’ve even said it to other people whose work I’ve critiqued. I just needed a reminder, an example from my own work to bring it home.

I’ll be diving back into that story over the coming weeks, trying to find the place where it really takes off. I’ll trim the beginning heavily, try to focus the narrative on the crisis, instead of indulging in backstory, and hopefully end up with something that’s clearer, crisper, and a more fitting tribute to my co-worker (who’s still fighting the cancer, by the way). If I can get it published somewhere, and if the story resonates with just one person—makes life a little more bearable in the struggle to deal with a friend’s illness—then I’ll feel I’ve done my job. And my critique partners will have done theirs. For that, I offer them my thanks in advance.

On Building Code Writing

Let’s talk about building codes for a minute. Okay, fine, let’s not. They’re boring as hell, and  no one reads them unless they absolutely have to. How about this instead: let’s talk about how to write building codes, and how this relates to writing fiction. On board? All right, let’s do it.

You may be wondering why I chose to blog about this topic. Well, the reason I wasn’t blogging (or tweeting, or commenting on other people’s blogs, etc.) at the beginning of the week was that I was attending a code committee meeting for the NFPA standard that governs my industry. (No, not writing, but an odd branch of specialty construction. Go ahead, guess which specialty. You’'ll be wrong.) I attend these committee meetings because they’re a phenomenal networking opportunity. But beyond that, I have an opportunity to make significant contributions to the ANSI standard that governs my industry, and that’s something no one of my generation is doing right now.

My point, however (yes, I’ll get to it), isn’t anything to do with my day job career, but has a lot to do with saying exactly what you mean in your sentences. I’ll illustrate with an example based on a discussion we had on Wednesday afternoon at the committee. Details have, of course, been changed to protect… well, no one, really, ‘cause no one in my industry reads my blog. Whatever. But just in case the NFPA takes issue with my broadcasting the content of their meetings, I’ll fudge a little.

Say someone proposes to the code panel something like the following:

ITEM X shall be installed at the ridge of a sloped roof only if the eave height of the building is greater than 50 ft. and less than 150 ft.

No, you don’t really need to understand what this is talking about, but let’s look at what it says. The intent of the person who submitted this to the committee was to excuse the requirement for installing ITEM X at the eave, which folk in the industry found difficult and inconvenient. That, however, isn’t what’s said above. ITEM X is required at the ridge of a sloped roof in all cases, but that sentence could be read that they’re required only if the eave height is 50 ft., etc. This could be read to mean that on buildings with eave heights of 40 ft., say, ITEM X is not required at the ridge. Putting this in the building standard would severely muddy the waters on this issue. (I’m boiling a complicated discussion down to essentials here, so feel free to poke me for clarification if you need it.)

The committee edited the statement, and one of the intermediate edits was this:

ITEM X shall be installed only at the ridge if the eave height of the building is greater than 50 ft. and less than 150 ft.

This is better, but still not clear. In reality, we need ITEM X to be installed in many locations on a sloped roof, and not the ridge only, regardless of height. We don’t want their installation to be limited to only the ridge. More edits occurred. The final language came out something like the following, which I wasn’t perfectly happy with, but was willing to accept for the sake of consensus:

For a sloped roof with eave height between 50 ft. and 150 ft., it shall be permitted to omit ITEM X at the eave line.

Now this is more like what the submitter originally intended. We still allow ITEM X everywhere it needs to be, but the requirement at the eaves is relaxed for this specific situation.

All right, that was rather a boring discussion, but I think it has an analogue in fiction writing. We should, as authors, be aware at all times of how our words can be interpreted. The grammar and syntax we use should be clear, unless we have a good and deliberate reason for ambiguity. Even when we do want ambiguity, it should be of meaning, not of grammar, as I said last Thursday.

In the first sentence of that paragraph I critiqued, I noted that the word “light” was used at first in terms of a glow, or electromagnetic phenomenon, and then was referred to as a fixture that the maid could turn down. This is precisely the kind of blurriness that I try to avoid in my writing. If I were to rewrite that sentence for clarity, it’d go something like this:

It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the light from the hanging lamp, which the maid had turned low.

This could be prettied up a bit with a description of the lamp (that could dovetail nicely with the “rich and picturesque” descriptive), but you can see that now there’s no confusion over the word “light.”

I could belabor the point, but I won’t, since I think I made it about three paragraphs ago. Still, there’s something to be said for writing as clearly as possible. And, just to be clear, I promise never to mention building codes in my blog again. You’re welcome.