I got a critique today on my latest story, and the very sharp fellow-writer mentioned Lorrie Moore's "You're Ugly Too."
I read that story for the first time last year, long after beginning two of my stories, both of which have been around for years. I've workshopped them locally and at Gotham, before I read "You're Ugly Too."
One story, the one that was critiqued, has a plot similar to "You're Ugly Too." Single woman deals with a life that's just not what she wanted. Zoe, the protagonist of Moore's story, has a scan that looks like the moon.
The opening line of my other story is about a an infertile couple, and it references a scan that looks like the moon. It's one of my favorite things I've written, and I won't give it up.
I felt like a thief after reading Moore's piece--derivative, even though I'd never read that particular story before writing my own. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a Margaret Atwood line turned up whole in one of my pieces. In fact, I cut a line from the infertility story that sounded like a line from the Handmaid's Tale--when Offred is in the bathtub and doesn't want to look at "something that defines me so completely." Meaning her body.
I wonder if any of my fellow writers have come across something like what they've written in another writer's work after writing it.
Also, I started a long post last night about my cat. I thought she had a cut on her paw, but it's a fibrosarcoma--cancer. It's weird because this trip to the vet felt like a short story unfolding. There was this giant dog there--his owner was telling the people sitting next to her about how the dog had broken her ankle jumping on her, and also how she would get glasses from the sink and they would break in her mouth.
The vet had just told me he the cat could have a tumor, and they might have to amputate her paw or even her leg. This giant dog was barking extremely loudly and straining against his leash and I just wanted to get away. Then this poor old man came in, yelled at the receptionist, and it turned out he was upset because his dog needs pain meds and he can't afford them
It was just so sad, and it seemed to be echoing other things much on my mind.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
One Step Forward
My new life is full of metaphors, which are really the same metaphor over and over again, which is also a metaphor for my life.
For instance, the stairs at my dad's house are too small for my feet. My giant ugly stepsister feet. Maybe they're not that big, but they are bigger than the steps, built by my grandfather, a dainty Italian man, who was not effeminate, just small. My daily climb reminds me of all the ways I have never quite fit in with my family, and also, the ugly stepsister thing. There are also the shoe metaphors--I'm fond of heels, CFMPs, which make it more treacherous to climb the stairs, and which, truth be told, I am a little wobbly in...
There's also the key, which is hard to operate, and the door that sticks. Things that are easy for most people are often difficult for me. My fierce independence does daily battle with my quasi-incompetence. I plan to use both of these metaphors in an upcoming piece.
I'm glad to be out of the condo, where I really did get stuck for way too long (it depreciated over $20k almost as soon as I bought it; then came the two-year battle with the ASSOCIATION over the water seeping up from my floors, and causing mold to grow up my walls). Sometimes I wonder if I should have just let it foreclose...
Anyway, it's comfortable and safe at my dad's. Comfort is my quicksand. Sometimes I just want to come home from work and watch a movie or read a book and do nothing to improve my life (like WRITE). And now I have Scrabulous... My dad cooks a lot, he even brushed off my car one morning, which just made my day. He's there to help if I need a ride, or if the shower leaks or if I don't have any bagels and have to have one now. In fact, his freezer is stocked for Armageddon, and he also has a generator.
But comfort isn't enough. I have to move forward. My job is not what Parker Palmer so eloquently describes in Let Your Life Speak :
For instance, the stairs at my dad's house are too small for my feet. My giant ugly stepsister feet. Maybe they're not that big, but they are bigger than the steps, built by my grandfather, a dainty Italian man, who was not effeminate, just small. My daily climb reminds me of all the ways I have never quite fit in with my family, and also, the ugly stepsister thing. There are also the shoe metaphors--I'm fond of heels, CFMPs, which make it more treacherous to climb the stairs, and which, truth be told, I am a little wobbly in...
There's also the key, which is hard to operate, and the door that sticks. Things that are easy for most people are often difficult for me. My fierce independence does daily battle with my quasi-incompetence. I plan to use both of these metaphors in an upcoming piece.
I'm glad to be out of the condo, where I really did get stuck for way too long (it depreciated over $20k almost as soon as I bought it; then came the two-year battle with the ASSOCIATION over the water seeping up from my floors, and causing mold to grow up my walls). Sometimes I wonder if I should have just let it foreclose...
Anyway, it's comfortable and safe at my dad's. Comfort is my quicksand. Sometimes I just want to come home from work and watch a movie or read a book and do nothing to improve my life (like WRITE). And now I have Scrabulous... My dad cooks a lot, he even brushed off my car one morning, which just made my day. He's there to help if I need a ride, or if the shower leaks or if I don't have any bagels and have to have one now. In fact, his freezer is stocked for Armageddon, and he also has a generator.
But comfort isn't enough. I have to move forward. My job is not what Parker Palmer so eloquently describes in Let Your Life Speak :
Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.
So, I'm trying to keep going on my writing. I committed to posting a new draft on April 15, and I also plan to send something to Glimmer Train, even though it's a ridiculously long shot. My first rejection will be from someplace great, and I will be over the moon if I get a note.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
AWP 2008
2008 AWP was a blast of energy. We were part of a wave. 7,500 writers attended, including two Gotham friends, Deonne Kahler and Lori Reisenbichler. Joyce Carol Oates and John Irving gave advice: start small and you’ll make fewer mistakes, and start from the end and write your way towards. I missed Russell Banks, who encouraged a community of writers.
Marilyn Krysl (the thing around them) has taken on the world. Shatter your mirrors, she said, before reading from her heart-shattering collection, Dinner with Osama. Her sweet strong voice carried pain and suffering and compassion, tales from the Sudan war she learned about while volunteering there. I can’t imagine learning that kind of pain, processing it, balancing it, humanizing it. Her work is amazing, she is amazing.
Amy Hempel (the Harvest) gives us emotional pain, personal pain, beautiful rendered, as in cooking, boiled down to essence, with only the tasty parts remaining. The last of three stories she read felt like a poem. Take up space, an older woman told another, in a different story. How amazing to watch her face and hear her voice as she reads her work to a rapt audience.
Peter Cameron read with Hempel. Like hers, his work is personal and funny. Plus, he told an anecdote about being on a watch list at the hotel years ago, which made the fire alarm that went off in the middle of his reading seem funny. We were all angry to have him interrupted.
Billy Collins rocks. You have to read Workshop if you’ve ever been in a writing workshop. His poems were belly laugh funny and so much more. The Lanyard, Flock, January in Paris and Tension were among my favorites.
The panel discussions were mixed, and I didn’t do that many. The one on sex in fiction was entertaining, but the moral of the story, be true to your characters, was pretty much common sense. Like everything else, sex scenes have to be chosen carefully and used to convey emotion to the reader. A panel discussion on the differing expectations of publishers/agents and academic workshops was interesting, but I learned more from Deonne’s friend Summer Wood who was selling her newest novel and has a new agent. Bottom line: you need an agent who’s really into you, or at least your stuff, and if you’re querying cold, find one who’s writing is like yours.
There weren’t a lot of editors or agents at the conference, just small literary magazines. If I’d had stuff ready, it would have been more productive.
Deonne and I glimpsed a page of Martin Amis’ notebook. We were having breakfast at the hotel (2 bagels and 2 coffees--$25; would have been over 50 if we’d had eggs). Anyway, Amis was sitting near us in the dining room and was out of his chair when we were leaving. While we could see the notes very clearly, neither one of us could make out his handwriting.
I also saw David Morse on the street.
And, what a proud moment when a very intelligent and observant woman asked me: are you from here? as I was walking up 6th Avenue. Never mind that she was probably from the smallest town in the United States or possibly Canada or that I was carrying my conference bag.
What else? We had a lot of fun, Deonne, Lori, Julie ( a friend of Lori’s from Spalding) and I. And if you get a chance to see Autumn: Osage County, do. It’s amazing.
Marilyn Krysl (the thing around them) has taken on the world. Shatter your mirrors, she said, before reading from her heart-shattering collection, Dinner with Osama. Her sweet strong voice carried pain and suffering and compassion, tales from the Sudan war she learned about while volunteering there. I can’t imagine learning that kind of pain, processing it, balancing it, humanizing it. Her work is amazing, she is amazing.
Amy Hempel (the Harvest) gives us emotional pain, personal pain, beautiful rendered, as in cooking, boiled down to essence, with only the tasty parts remaining. The last of three stories she read felt like a poem. Take up space, an older woman told another, in a different story. How amazing to watch her face and hear her voice as she reads her work to a rapt audience.
Peter Cameron read with Hempel. Like hers, his work is personal and funny. Plus, he told an anecdote about being on a watch list at the hotel years ago, which made the fire alarm that went off in the middle of his reading seem funny. We were all angry to have him interrupted.
Billy Collins rocks. You have to read Workshop if you’ve ever been in a writing workshop. His poems were belly laugh funny and so much more. The Lanyard, Flock, January in Paris and Tension were among my favorites.
The panel discussions were mixed, and I didn’t do that many. The one on sex in fiction was entertaining, but the moral of the story, be true to your characters, was pretty much common sense. Like everything else, sex scenes have to be chosen carefully and used to convey emotion to the reader. A panel discussion on the differing expectations of publishers/agents and academic workshops was interesting, but I learned more from Deonne’s friend Summer Wood who was selling her newest novel and has a new agent. Bottom line: you need an agent who’s really into you, or at least your stuff, and if you’re querying cold, find one who’s writing is like yours.
There weren’t a lot of editors or agents at the conference, just small literary magazines. If I’d had stuff ready, it would have been more productive.
Deonne and I glimpsed a page of Martin Amis’ notebook. We were having breakfast at the hotel (2 bagels and 2 coffees--$25; would have been over 50 if we’d had eggs). Anyway, Amis was sitting near us in the dining room and was out of his chair when we were leaving. While we could see the notes very clearly, neither one of us could make out his handwriting.
I also saw David Morse on the street.
And, what a proud moment when a very intelligent and observant woman asked me: are you from here? as I was walking up 6th Avenue. Never mind that she was probably from the smallest town in the United States or possibly Canada or that I was carrying my conference bag.
What else? We had a lot of fun, Deonne, Lori, Julie ( a friend of Lori’s from Spalding) and I. And if you get a chance to see Autumn: Osage County, do. It’s amazing.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Daily Blah Blah Blah
Thursdays are hard, and I think I'm getting a cold. I managed to get an outline of my story's plot and scenes down on paper--a small victory for me, as this is a real weakness. I also got some lines I like to travel out of my brain and through my fingers into the google doc. My Gotham deadline is 1/31--during AWP.
A long time ago, Mitch gave me the DaVinci quote: art isn't finished, it's abandoned, and this, my first Gotham story, one I began in my grad school foray back in 1997, will be put in the mail after I get booth comments. I'm pretty sick of it.
I posted a link to this new blog at the Yahoo Group: http://writetodone.com/
It's the Zen habits take on writing. I have a writing tip. Stop reading writing tips and get to work. I'm talking to myself, so don't be mad.
I'm down to one Scrabble game. The site on facebook went down for a couple hours this afternoon and the world nearly screeched to a halt. Even though I need to cut back on playing, I would hate to lose my 113-game history and rating of nearly 1700. And no, I do not cheat.
All right, I have to go put some zinc up my nose...about as much fun as it sounds!
A long time ago, Mitch gave me the DaVinci quote: art isn't finished, it's abandoned, and this, my first Gotham story, one I began in my grad school foray back in 1997, will be put in the mail after I get booth comments. I'm pretty sick of it.
I posted a link to this new blog at the Yahoo Group: http://writetodone.com/
It's the Zen habits take on writing. I have a writing tip. Stop reading writing tips and get to work. I'm talking to myself, so don't be mad.
I'm down to one Scrabble game. The site on facebook went down for a couple hours this afternoon and the world nearly screeched to a halt. Even though I need to cut back on playing, I would hate to lose my 113-game history and rating of nearly 1700. And no, I do not cheat.
All right, I have to go put some zinc up my nose...about as much fun as it sounds!
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