Word After Word

Copycat

2008-04-01T21:23:00.001-04:00

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.

One Step Forward

2008-03-27T14:21:00.002-04:00

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 :

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.

I Don't Want to Write Your Story For You But....

2008-02-06T23:25:00.000-05:00

The Gotham Master class allows the writer to ask questions after two days in the booth:

Questions like:

Did everyone agree with Henry?
I meant to do this--you didn't see that?
No, I was correct; here are 17 links proving my point
Haven't you read {Famous Author}? {Famous Author} does that in her Booker Prize Winning Novel?

I exaggerate, because I am fond of hyperbole. It is the bestest of all the literary devices. And metaphor, is like, you know, hard.

Anyway, whatever format a workshop offers up, now that I've been in five? in a row, I must say I truly appreciate those critiquers who can totally get your story, appreciate the good, and absolutely nail what you need to fix. I've been lucky enough to have a few people who can do that reading my stuff, and I want to give them money or a kidney, or maybe return the favor (although I don't think I'm as good as the best readers I've had).

So, hope you like the video. Also check out the poem Workshop by Billy Collins (yes, I did link it in the last post, thanks for reading my blog). Alex also recently posted on the Workshop process.

AWP 2008

2008-02-04T00:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Daily Blah Blah Blah

2008-01-24T23:54:00.001-05:00

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!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

2008-01-24T01:00:00.000-05:00

I didn't write tonight; I'm pleading exhaustion, poor baby me (and I'm the only person who calls me baby, sniff sniff)....There will be missed days, can I make it not be two in a row?

But I did find just the scene idea I needed at The Daily Bedpost -- Mary Ann needs to drunk dial her non-boyfriend! Now you don't have to read the exercise in narcissism I'm calling a short story.

Finally, I've typed this post without my glasses so it's probably full of typos.

More tomorrow!

A Poem and a Promise

2008-01-22T23:27:00.000-05:00

I'm going to toss up the occasional poem, because I appreciate poetry much more now than I did when it was my job to understand it. This one stuns me every time I read it, with its beautiful, masterful language. I'm not going to analyze it because I need to spend my time on other kinds of writing, but SparkNotes has, if you're interested.

"The Windhover"
--Gerard Manley Hopkins
To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
___

In daily habit news, I signed up at the habitizer, setting writing every day as one of my goals. Today, I wrote for half an hour, which felt productive, because I got home late and had some packing to do. Ordinarily, I would have made an excuse. It does feel like the story is moving forward.

__

And Heath Ledger, what a tragedy. Live, gifted young artists, I say, Live. Even though the world offers you everything and still can't make you happy.

Happy 2008

2008-01-21T22:52:00.000-05:00

Since this is the first blog post of the new year for me (I'm always late, but at work, the students come back at the end of January, so that's when my resolutions always kick in), I want to thank the wonderful friends I've made this year. You've kept me company in boredom and despair and utter silliness. It's great to feel that I'm not in this alone, and that other people struggle with the same demons I'm fighting. Thanks for reading, for being around, for being great. I'm rooting for all of us.

In other news, I've finally lost that ten pounds Jed and I set out to lose in July, a fact that reminds me that slow progress is still progress. I wish it were more, but I'll take it. Also, I think that makes me the winner, unless Jed already lost ten pounds (I keep typing L's for pounds). So I get the big giant prize, right?

I wrote today, too. I set a timer and worked for a solid hour on my very first Gotham story, from last January. I'm surprised that the writing itself is weaker than I thought (yes, I am very arrogant; I think I write well and need to find something to say). The useful insight is that distance is very helpful. This story will go out sometime soon. I'm hoping to put a newer one in my Gotham booth, but I may not have time, with having to move and go to AWP in the beginning of February.

Oustanding post at Zen Habits on actually getting some writing done. We all know these things, but the post is still very helpful. (ps: if you comment, do you like links in new windows?)

As an accountability thing, I'm going to post a note on how much I wrote each day. Don't worry, I'm not going to keep talking about weight loss, but I would like to plug my new electronic scale. Not only does it give your weight to the tenth of a pound, it also provides body fat, bone mass, an IM talk client and photos from space. My bone mass is 5.7. I have no idea what that means.

Also, I've been working on a more serious post about women and rape and one of my favorite novels, Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Tale. I want to write some blog posts of essay quality, and I hope you guys will give me feedback.

With Your Heart Beating and Your Eyes Shining

2007-12-10T22:19:00.000-05:00

Bad news came, and I dealt in my usual manner--red wine and pizza and fudge, and then I heard this song, light and sweet and wistful, and felt a little better.

The sale on my condo fell through, and instead of being free to pursue dreams I will be coughing up $5k I don't have on a new furnace...but still, life goes on, and I was reminded of how happy it made me the first time I heard this song, courtesy of a Canadian radio station as I drove to work in my lime-green Honda Civic. I could fill the tank on that car for less than $10. One day, my boss asked us all what radio stations we listened to. He actually grimaced when I told him mine. Canadian radio? Was I freak? I didn't care what anyone thought of me, then, because my silly music made me happy.

I realize that my taste in music may in fact alienate both readers of this blog...but even my brother who scoffs at my library made me burn him a CD... Fleetwood Mac, not exactly the Pogues...

In any case, I hope every single reader has something silly and minor that cheers them up when they are down...

Liar, Liar

2007-11-30T23:45:00.000-05:00

"You can only talk to him," my mother explained to my nephew before letting him take the cell phone out of her hand to talk to Santa. "He can't talk to you."

"I love christmastime," my sister said, having initiated the santa calling a minute before, suggesting a cutback in presents for the three-year-old boy too busy to eat the $8 grilled cheese sandwich on his plate. He immediately took a big bite. He's been very busy for weeks, circling toys in catalogs.

My mother repeated her rule before my niece--almost seven now, missing two front teeth, perched on legs 12 miles long--took her turn. It surprised me that she fell for it without so much as a how come. Over the summer, a friend of hers--one of those smart alecky kindergarten types-- told her there was no santa, a vicious rumor long since forgotten. All doubt, even ordinary questions, are eclipsed by the bright light of the magic of christmas.

It's not just little children who believe what they want to believe. Adult reality is equally founded on little lies, self-delusions, and sometimes even willful decisions not to give in to facts and evidence. And I'm not just talking about romance. I read somewhere that the happiest people are slightly deluded; they have higher opinions of themselves than a completely objective analysis might bear out. They also tend to believe that things are going to work out for them, regardless of the odds.

It's interesting to think about how many people manage to bring about their imagined reality. Maybe it's the convincing performance, conducted by the convinced, influencing those around them, snowballing the effect. They become what they believe they are.

I've always been one of those unhappy reality-based people. A confident friend of mine states every fact as if issuing an imperial edict. Once she told me that rinsing dishes in cold water makes them shine. To be so certain and so wrong is one of my biggest fears. Yet I know from observing people that being self-assured is more important to success and to attracting people than being right. Thoughts about changing habits and negative attitudes have been dancing in my head since discovering Gretchen Rubin's wonderful blog, The Happiness Project . Of course, the question of whether one can write fiction properly without any snark, gossip, pettiness or other small habits in one's heart tangoes alongside.

Certainly, a writer has to be an honest and not a deluded observer of human nature. But many of these happiness habits, including self-discipline and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good may, give my writing a big boost. So too may the insights into why I fall back into so many bad habits over and over. I plan to work on procrastination--starting tomorrow (just kidding, I started yesterday). One of the best tips I've read so far was keep starting, if you stop. Don't worry about the fact that you didn't finish, just get back to work.

More later, once I've met my writing goals for the week.

Comfort Zone

2007-11-17T22:08:00.001-05:00

“I’d like to make a great film provided it doesn’t conflict with my dinner reservation."

The quote from the New York Times' review of Conversations with Woody Allen points to the hit-or-miss quality of Allen's recent films, suggesting that a comfortable work-a-day approach to art has its limitations. We all know the starving artist cliche, and we all know that cliches are cliches for a reason, right? The art is better when the artist is hungry, driven, maybe a bit desperate. And the artist needs to believe that the art will be worth the despair, the hard times.

I know I'm pretty comfortable in general. Not especially happy or successful or accomplished or well-off, but comfortable. My house is warm--I've been known to tell people I keep the heat up because I'm not living in a Dickens novel. Lord knows I'm well-fed, even on the Nicole Richie diet, by which I mean Weight Watchers--I've figured out how to budget my points for cookies and parties, and of course, meth. I stay up late, sometimes even working, but I don't start work until 8:30, and it takes me less than ten minutes to get there. I'm also free to sleep late on weekends--reminding me of Mrs. Hill in Alice Walker's Meridian, who never got over not being able to sleep until 9:00 on Saturday mornings after she had kids. That novel also makes me think of a friend's boyfriend in college--a white boy-- who asked, in earnest, whether he could kill for the revolution. He and my friend marched in the anti-apartheid protests on campus. I went to one with them, but it felt ridiculous. A group of maybe fifteen preppie college students weakly chanting "What do we want? Divestment? When do we want it? Now?" didn't have the energy of thousands shouting "Hey Hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today." Though terrible, Apartheid was a faraway injustice, and it's hard to get worked up over an investment portfolio. My apathetic classmates and I--the ones who went to frat parties and studied for exams instead of protesting--were the children of the flower children, represented by Alex P. Keaton rather than Abbie Hoffman.

Not that my parents were hippies. They experienced Woodstock on the TV news; the TV was the cornerstone of family life in our house. We ate our meals in the family room, plates balanced on our knees, watching whatever reruns might be on at dinner time. My mother got mad if I tried to read while eating. It was important that we were all paying attention to the same thing. At night, she raced to get the laundry put away so she could sit down and watch her shows. Three's Company in particular made me hell-bent to get out of the house as soon as I could. At that point in my life, I was driven. I didn't listen when people told me I couldn't afford to go away to college, much less to a big fancy private school where people would use a knife and fork to eat an orange and I would never fit in. I didn't listen, I didn't fear that I wasn't as good as other people. I believed I was smart enough and I did it. It was after college that the fear sunk in, and turned me into someone who thought she couldn't make it after all. All the hundreds of times I saw Mary Tyler Moore toss her beret in the air and catch it, and I couldn't internalize the lesson--what good did all that TV ever do me?

It's time for me to stop being so comfortable, and to start being driven again. I'm finally in a place where I have time to devote to writing. My job is secure, but not so demanding it soaks up all my energy. For better or worse, I don't have kids, and I'm single. It's time to stop feeling morose about that and to take advantage of it. While it's always seemed crazy to me to work 100 hours a week, to never take a day off, I need to be more of a workaholic. There has to be pain, struggle, maybe a little chill in the air, a little hunger, the dead silence of no TV...I'm betting that achievement will be worth a little discomfort. That's why I'm sticking out the NanoWriMo even though I'm behind and I honestly don't know if I'll ever do anything with it--yes, it is that bad...

Downtown

2007-11-09T00:10:00.000-05:00

When you're alone and life is making you lonely You can always go downtown ...

The Petula Clark song may be upbeat and hopeful enough to score a Visa commercial, but it's never worked for me. Driving downtown makes me feel not just alone, but lost and terrified.

There's the inadvertent trips through Buffalo's blighted East Side, only a turn or two away from the tall buildings that form our pretty skyline, a detour I've taken on my way to temp jobs, baseball games and jury duty. There's the traffic circles, including the one that interrupts Delaware, the street the courthouse was on the morning I had jury duty. The case was a big one, a nun murdered by a crack addict--he'd confessed and she'd predicted it years before, in her journal, and had asked for mercy for her killer. The trial was about the sentencing, I think. I smelled novel, which the assistant DA must have suspected, because she kept asking me questions for no particular reason during voir dire. They used a peremptory challenge on me, and I still feel ripped off, not to be chosen, after missing three days of work, going the wrong way on a one-way street, and driving home in a big blustery snowstorm. I felt guilty after leasing a new car, instead of buying a used one like I intended, salesman's wet dream that I am, but that night, the traction control may have honestly saved my life.

My mother didn't drive on the thruway until she was in her forties, and I always thought I was braver than she is. Now I'm not so sure. I don't let fear stop me, but my incompetence always seems to trump my independence. Tonight I was supposed to see Orhan Pamuk, downtown. Instead I got lost. And scraped my car on a concrete abutment after getting in a tight spot in a parking lot (I don't need to be downtown to do that). I drove up and down Delaware in the dark, not sure where I was going. Somehow, the Google map printout didn't have the full address--I was supposed to arrive approximately one minute after turning right. I didn't check--I was too busy picturing turns, musing on the names of streets: the Scajacuada Exressway, Nottingham Terrace. My mother never would have ventured out alone in the first place. She would have made someone come with her. I didn't want to drag anyone along. The tickets were $25, a lot for someone who isn't really into literature.

Last year, I didn't go to see George Saunders because it was winter and dark and Canisius College, where he was speaking, is not in a good neighborhood. But I bought the Just Buffalo series, and so have three more chances to make it downtown and hear an acclaimed author read. I plan to make it, even if I have to walk. Or get a ride from my Mom. When she really has to, she drives on the thruway now.

44,000 words to go....

2007-11-04T00:32:00.000-04:00

At a word count of 6032, three days into Nanowrimo, I'm a little ahead of the daily goal. So far, it hasn't been hard to churn out 2k words a day. I haven't had to resort to any of the tricks posted on the forums, like eliminating contractions, piling on the adverbs and foregoing pronouns. Even so, I'm strictly following the no editing rule and letting anything and everything pour out, including details in direct contradiction to something I wrote a few hundred words back. I'm also enjoying the vast expanse of real estate available in a novel--we'll call it the Montana of fiction forms, unlike my usual realm, the short story, which feels more like a New York City Studio apartment. I think the general idea of nanowrimo is true; there will be bits worth keeping in December, even though it will be a lot of work to revise.

This may change, but I'm setting the novel in the past, in the era of my own childhood, which has me plumbing random memories and finding strange bonding opportunities. My father and I discussed what might have happened to his Uncle Johnny's finger after it was chopped off by the machinery at the Chevy plant, a memory that probably came into my head after reading the wonderful scene from Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex set in the Ford plant in 20's Detroit:

Wierzbicki reams a bearing and Stephanides grinds a bearing and O'Malley attaches a bearing to a camshaft....

This phrase is repeated, more than once in the scene, creating a poetic effect and giving the reader a sense of the monotony and the pressure auto workers faced. My grandfather and his brother worked at Chevy, not Ford, a couple of Great Lakes to the east, and a couple of decades later, but I'm sure it was just like that for them. How sad, my father said, that they're gone, so many people are gone. I wish I'd gotten to know my grandfather and his brother as people. My grandfather was always teasing us, occasionally scolding us, but there was something superficial about our relationship. My grandmother talked more, and not just because my grandfather had a laryngectomy and couldn't talk much after that. He would cover his trach with his finger and squeak out a few words when he had to. We didn't see Uncle Johnny often; to me he was little more than a kindly old man with a stump finger that was both fascinating and disgusting at the same time. He used to pretend his missing finger got stuck in my brother's nose, like he was picking it, or maybe it was his own nose. If he did it to me, I don't remember.

I also don't remember my first day of high school, not even a flash. I remember odd things; South's confederate flag (we were North). There was an East, a modern (at the time) building comprised of classrooms without walls. I think they may have had sliding doors, but I've never been inside. OJ Simpson's house was around the corner from East High--that was before Rockingham. I do remember driving past it, in the car with my family. I also remember looking for Carl Sagan's house in college, walking around with friends on the suspension bridge. I could never tell which house it was, since it was always dark out when we did this. Carl Sagan is now gone too...I wish I'd gotten to know him better as well.

Learning about nature, another random memory. The boy next door caught a frog, or possibly a toad, and put it in a cool whip container with grass to eat. We all went swimming, and when we got out of the pool, the amphibian was dead, dried up. We laughed hysterically, without a hint of sympathy or remorse. The thing looked so rubbery, so flat and black. I'm sure you had to be there to get the joke, and you had to be there at the age ten or so (kids, don't try this at home). One of the moms on our street predicted that this boy would end up in jail (not because of the frog). With novelistic irony, he, a cop now in our suburb, got the call after she hung herself last year.

Here's hoping my novel is more interesting than my blog...I plan to plod--and plot, groan--on

The Tipping Point

2007-10-24T23:09:00.000-04:00

I've been accused of being consistently inconsistent, and my tipping habits are no exception. Now, when I was a waitress, my feelings on the subject were clearly defined: if you don't want to tip at least fifteen percent, if you just can't part with that much more money, then you should eat at Burger King where you belong. I still believe that, when it comes to waiters, who earn only two something an hour (this may have gone up, but waiters earn a measley wage, based solely on the idea that the customers will subsidize it.)

I can also live with the fact that there are cheap people in the world. Stingy narrow people who don't follow social conventions tend to live in small worlds, where miserly concerns eat up the land and much of the air and water. There's not much benefit in being one of those people.

So what's the problem? My coffee addiction and our wonderful campus coffee shop which sports the trendy name, Perks, and offers up freshly roasted and ground fair trade beans. I'm there every day, sometimes twice, forced to look at the tip jar on the counter, brimming, most of the time, with dollars put in by generously paid state employees, students who drive nicer cars than I do, and other kind people who want to do everything they can for poor working students.

The tip jar annoys me. Perks is pricey, and while I can't do the kind of mathematical gymnastics that would allow me to figure out what the percentage of a dollar tip on a dollar-fifty total is, I know it's way more than 20%. Not only that, but I often have to wait forever for the student worker to make complicated blender drinks for the people in front of me in line. All I want is a plain old cup of coffee with room for cream. At the bagel-and-wrap place next to Perks in the food court, the staff take a great deal of time and care getting the orders just right, down to how much cream cheese, what kind of lettuce, any pickles? But most of these food service workers are not students. They probably earn a dollar or two more than minimum wage, with no benefits. There is no tip jar on their counter.

So in fairness, I think it's okay not to tip, but I can't. Sometimes I don't bring my purse (we have dining cards), sometimes I give change only. But I know how much people hate cheap tippers, so more often than not, I stick a dollar in the jar.

He Said, She Said

2007-10-16T23:23:00.001-04:00

A typical phone call with my sister lasts about forty minutes. We talk about what her husband has done most recently to annoy her (maybe the tent in the backyard), how her kids are feeling and what they are doing, what happened at work, what's on sale, who she saw at the grocery store, what our mother has done most recently to annoy us (we don't know where she lives since she got married), what our father said to the mechanic (really? he said that? let's hope they didn't loosen something under the hood that makes the brakes work), what our grandmother has done to annoy our mother and possibly us (like not answer the phone to get attention), how I am, how the dog is (he was recently skunked), her in-laws, what's on TV, what's for dinner, what we had for lunch, have we lost any weight, some recipe on the internet for apple cinammon muffins and much much more.

Tonight my brother called to tell me to Tivo a really funny episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Then he hung up.

Best Laid Plans

2007-10-11T22:23:00.000-04:00

I thought of my aunt while washing my hands in the neighborhood hamburger-ice cream place. It was the type of place she would have liked. Good food, reasonable prices, clean. I like it too, and for the record, I had a chicken sandwich on a wheat roll and soup.

The restroom annoyed me. First, the faucet was on a spring loaded timer that lasted maybe 12 seconds. Enough time to rinse maybe two fingers, which meant I had to keep touching it while washing my hands. Now I am very neurotic for a slob, and hate to touch the faucet after washing my hands. I like to use a paper towel to shut off the water. Because you turn the water on with your dirty hands and so does everyone else. Only there were no paper towels, just one of those air dryers, the kind that take 15 minutes, while women stand outside the one and only restroom and jiggle the door knob, saying is anybody in there. They invariably have a five-year old in tow, who is crossing their legs and saying "Mommy, I have to go NOW." So I wiped my hands on my pants, which were a stretch blend and not very absorbent and thought of my aunt, who was cheap.

She was also tough. My parents used to threaten to send us over there when they didn't know what to do with us. I didn't get it as a kid, but when I visited my cousins, she sometimes made me vacuum. Because my mother didn't make me do anything. My mom liked things done perfect, and fast, so she could coffee klatch with her friends. Making her kids do chores was harder than doing them herself, and now I chuckle at the obvious tension between my mom and my aunt. Anyway, my aunt was famous for not allowing her four daughters to wash their hair in the shower. They were only allowed to do it every other day, in the kitchen sink. Also, if they wanted to invite a friend for dinner, they had to split their portion.

My aunt saved up what we spend-thrift debt-ridden relations considered a small fortune. She retired young after being widowed in her early sixties, made a "friend," and traveled. She walked three miles a day, watched what she ate, argued with her grown daughters and was always on my side. She was prepared to live as long as her mother, who is now 94. She even had long term care insurance, so whe wouldn't lose her assets if she had to go into a nursing home in her old age.

The insurance came in handy when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 64. She was dead in less than a year, and she took whatever made my grandmother my grandmother with her when she died. I still find this shocking, sad, unbelievable.

It blisters with irony, but I've decided to strive for insouciance instead. A lovely word, lovely in spirit, like Audrey Hepburn in sunglasses and heels, having a cocktail with the actor who played the straight hunky version of Truman Capote in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I want light and air and a little bit of fun. Because no matter how you plan, life is too long or too short, and hard and you need to have all the fun you can while you can, while you can still move your arms and form sentences and recognize the people you gave birth to...

With a Little Help From My Friends

2007-10-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

I love so many things about being a writer...

Chatting with my writer friends (where is everyone tonight? )
Emailing my writer friends
Critiquing stories written by my writer friends
Reading the blogs of my writer friends
Commenting on the blogs of my writer friends
Reading the comments left on my blog by my writer friends
Talking about books with my writer friends
Talking about music and movies with my writer friends
Talking about nonsense with my writer friends (Jed and I recently talked about how to become a witch...)
Great articles from my writer friends (Letter to an MFA--pdf), and thanks, Deonne, for this great piece detailing common mistakes, commonly made by me.
Hearing about great writer events like when Mitch saw Martin Amis at the New Yorker festival...

Funny how I never seem to get much writing done...I blame my job.

Note: It is possible that Jed and I had a conversation recently on this topic, but I can't remember any specifics...

What Watching Some Guy Drop a Football Taught Me About My Writing

2007-10-01T00:37:00.000-04:00

Today I went to visit my grandmother who is in a nursing home. At 94, she's been diagnosed with dementia and usually can't remember my name, where she is or what she's doing there. "Do you work here now?" she kept asking me. She also kissed my cellphone screen when I showed her pictures of my niece and nephew.

She was sitting in a lounge with several other elderly women, all in wheelchairs--the staff like to keep the residents in the lounge, for company, and so they don't fall while alone in their rooms. "I'm being punished," my grandmother whispered to me. Several times, I asked her why, what happened, did she think she did something wrong, did someone hurt her? As it goes these days, she couldn't explain, offer details, or remember what had happened earlier in the day. The Bills were on TV, the women mostly dozed like cats in the sun; it was a lovely day, weather-wise. When a wide receiver caught a pass and broke for some yardage, I got excited. Go, I thought, after a penalty sent them halfway to the goal, first down. The receiver was intercepted in the end zone. "I'm being punished," my grandmother told me again. "Because you're watching the Bills?" I asked.

The announcer explained that the Bills receiver just didn't fight hard enough for the ball while it was in the air; the defender wanted it more. I thought about this after taking my grandmother downstairs to watch a man with a guitar perform songs I haven't heard since third grade, when we sang them in chorus. Oh Susanna, Love and Marriage, The Yellow Rose of Texas. Any Emily Dickinson poem can be sung to the tune of the Yellow Rose of Texas. I ran "because I could not stop for death/it kindly stopped for me/ the carriage held but just ourselves/and immortality" through my head as my grandmother nodded off, holding my hand, and I thought about that receiver and the trouble I've been having with my writing lately.

Conclusion: I need to fight harder for my stories. I need to want them to work more than I don't want to try and try and try and try and still not be there. I need to give everything I have to pull the truth and the arc and the right moments out of the air so they work. Because life is both too short and too long all at the same time.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

2007-09-27T22:35:00.000-04:00

Faith. I've been viewing George Michael's version on YouTube, because I used it as a trope in story. In the song, Faith is about expecting better, thinking you deserve better, holding out for more.

Right this second, Jed and I having a contest. Can he, with his funny ways, cheer me up before I bring him down? I can see the dark side of everything. I tell people that I'm a little bit evil, like Donny's a little bit rock and roll. What, you weren't born when that show was on TV? Great, now I feel lots better.

I don't remember ever believing in God. The CCD teachers, my strongly religious father, my devout grandmother, all seemed superstitious and illogical in their beliefs. No meat on Friday during lent? Holy water? They could never answer a question like, was Mary a virgin her whole life or only until Jesus was born? I mean, come on, doesn't God love Joseph too?

I did like the pretty white first communion dress, though, with the veil. My aunt Ruth, who died in 1989, made it for me. She also made my favorite kindergarten dress, a purple and green pinafore that I looked very sweet in. I miss her. I'd love to believe she's up in heaven, with my two grandpas and Angel, Muffin, Skippy and Cleo, our family's lost pets. I don't though.

A friend believes the universe sets her up for things, wants her to take this job or that job, be with this guy or that guy. I personally don't think the universe cares much one way or another. It reminds me of the way my brother used to leave the room when the Bills were winning; he was a jinx, he said. Or the way people make little vows, if I don't swear all day long, the Sabres will make the playoffs.

I really hate "it was meant to be." What kind of a plan has my grandfather, a gentle man his entire life, die strapped in a hospital bed, because he had alzheimer's? What kind of plan mows down my Aunt Millie with a brain tumor a year after she retired. Was anyone helped because she lost the ability to walk and eat without assistance? Some things are tragedies, and all we can do is mourn them.

The thing is, I don't want to not see the dark side. I think writers need to see the dark side. In that same story, I also used a bit of a Smiths song, and was thrilled to find a lot of their stuff on YouTube, since I haven't been able to get it on iTunes. One thing that really surprised was how many comments there were expressing disbelief that Morrissey is gay. He has a girlfriend, they say. Yes, but she's in a coma. Or she's in the basement with him, alone, and he doesn't know what to do with her. Or, she's a fat girl saying if you'd like you can marry me and if you'd like you can buy the ring...from the song, William, it was really nothing (it was your life). I think these commenters were naive. Some people need happy endings, of the Meg Ryan-Kate Hudson variety. They don't want to be reminded of all the darkness in the world.

But, for me, there's no trick in that. The trick is finding something to believe in while the darkness has you pinned to the mat, because that is the only way you will ever get up. And for me the answer is other people. Especially the ones who come through when the worst happens, even if you don't deserve it. And the ones who root for you and, especially, the ones who make you laugh.

Jed won our little bet easily. Good for him.

Bigger than Barbie Footballs

2007-09-18T22:13:00.000-04:00

I told Jed my next post would be about the biggest grapes I'd ever seen. Really big grapes, about three or four times the size of regular grapes. I can't get the metaphor. Smaller than eggs, bigger than Barbie footballs.

Loni* my coworker had these grapes in a ziploc bag, and she was sharing them with the office. Radioactive, I said. Steroids, Uncle F. said.

There was laughter. They were pretty good, sweet green grapes.

Nothing makes Loni happier than putting something really big in her mouth, Molly said.
Molly is very funny. I have a file going with her lines.

Now, I can use this bit in a story I happen to be working on, although grapes won't work, since the piece is set in a bar. But I was wondering how others handle overheard dialogue, especially if it's good. Is it stealing? Do you ever use it verbatim? Do you save it until you have a story it will fit into? Or do you work it into whatever you're writing, so you don't lose it?

What about other little observations and details? Do you come up with them to serve your story, or do you see the actual thing first and then somehow work it in, give it to a character, build a scene or story around the real moment?

Sometimes I think part of my problem is that I do it backwards. I often start with details and have no idea what the main plot of my story is about...

I'm also wondering where Jed has been. I haven't heard from him since I typed, okay, you be the husband, in the IM window....

*all names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Writing Is a Sport, Like Everything Else

2007-09-17T21:36:00.000-04:00

The French Connection (Robert, Perrault and Martin), Football, and Figure Skating. Must be the alliteration, my love of sports that start with F.

Figure skating--maybe you think it's not a sport. Okay, but I want to see you spin around three times in the air and land on one foot...

Maybe you think Figure Skating is evil, a so-called women's sport in which girls do best, girls doing everything they can to keep their bodies adolescent, in order to pull off jumps that full-grown women with normal body fat percentages cannot complete. Better, you say, to watch Mia Hamm or Lisa Leslie, grown women who are strong, who are part of a team, who do not worry about what they are wearing.

True and Fine, but how is that like life or writing? The thing with figure skating is that it's random and unfair. Pretty is an advantage, as is having the right designer outfit, the right music, the right kind of rhinestone ponytail holder. It matters whether you smile and maintain your poise after you fall down. Plus, there's a Kiss and Cry, where you have to react, on live TV, to the judgement you receive.

Kind of like life, where things are random and unfair, and how you handle pressure matters. Now some of the most blatant abuses have gone away with the end of cold war politics. Our new global divisions are unlikely to impact skating again. Unless Vera Wang modifies the Burquini , our athletes won't have to contend with the Pakistani judge's ideological bias.

So what does this have to do with writing, you want to know? Besides the alliteration...

First, it's a package deal. Like a figure skating routine, a piece works or it doesn't. The elements come together, and your story catches an editor's eye, even if another story had more metaphors or faster similes. Also, there's no definitive measure, no hard and fast rules, just objective judgements--the Czech judge likes Kristi, the editor at the Atlantic Monthly is sick of coming-of-age pieces, and your competition at Ploughshares was in the same MFA program as the volunteer reader. All you can do out there on the ice is your best. If you mess up, smile, get up and start again. Maybe wink at the French judge a little more often... With your writing, all you can do is make your stuff as good as you can. When a publication only takes 1-2% of submissions, the only strategy is to smile in the face of rejection, and keep going.

Last winter, I skated for the first time in decades. After holding onto the boards for a good long time, I was able to skate around without holding onto the boards...call me Kwan. Hey, progress is progress. I hope I'm a better writer than skater, but my plan is to keep at it, do my best, and get up when I fall down.

Maybe I’ll ask Jed if he can help me think of more sports that start with F, so I don’t run out of things to blog about….

Stories

2007-09-15T21:44:00.001-04:00

The list of stories at right includes some lucky finds, some gifts from friends, many personal favorites and a few classics. It's in reverse alpha order, and while I'm generally not a huge fan of reverse alpha order--being forced to go first across the stage at my high school graduation made up my mind about that, the anti-alphabetical arrangement happened by accident and is time-consuming to fix, so it's staying as is.

I think all these stories are great reads, but here's a bit of an overview. Margaret Atwood is a favorite author, and "Happy Endings" shows her sharp wit, gives her usual dry take on the war between the sexes, gets to the essence of the human condition and offers insight into writing. Geoffrey Becker's "Black Elvis" and Marilyn Krysl's "The Thing Around Them" come from the 2000 Best American Short Stories, the best of the series IMO. "The Thing Around Them" has a heart-stopping opening line, "Because of the boy dragged behind the jeep...." How can you not have to read that story now. The other Krysl piece is a bonus, and a great example of meta-fiction. I'm fond of stories that observe the writing process. Amy Hempel's "The Harvest" is another example. Her "Today Will Be A Quiet Day," is a lovely slice of life, full of her typical spot-on perfect details, told in to-the-essence minimalist style. "Offertory," is a long piece for Hempel, and a sequel to her mini-novella, "Tumble Home" to boot.

"Offertory," like Mary Gaitskill's "The Secretary," and AM Homes "A Real Doll" is a bit raw and erotic; yet none of these stories titillate. Despite the raw sexual content, they veer towards sadness, underlining our human need for connection and our need to be valued.

Classics I ran across on the web include "The Swimmer," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," "Everything That Rises Must Converge," "The Dead," and "A&P." "181/2" features famous voices and a surprise twist; "The Things They Carried," gets me every time and "Memento Mori," is the short story the movie "Momento" came from. "The Best Girlfriend You Never Had," is another personal favorite. "Birds in Fall," is the opening chapter to Brad Kessler's novel. Interesting use of first person pov, plus it's beautifully written. And Lou Matthews blows me away with the variety of voices he fully inhabits, "the Garlic Eater," being one fine example.
Probably I will add more to this list from time to time, when inspiration or the need to procrastinate strike...

And I'm adding one more right now: Amy Bloom's "The Gates are Closing." The list will no longer be in reverse alpha order...

Jed Told Me to Write A Blog Post, So I Did

2007-09-09T22:02:00.000-04:00

Just when I thought I was changed into a dedicated and disciplined writer, I got a little busy and well, suddenly I'm roasting pork tenderloins and cutting up watermelon for a tiny little boy who likes to walk around with my iPod, headphones dragging on the floor, little green square clipped onto his pocket. Cute and fun, but no pages done…

One of the things I did this weekend was go to the Swiss Chalet with my dad. We reminisced about our family's Swiss Chalet past--we used to go every Saturday when I was young. We also marveled at the decor. In a hardware theme, vintage Singer sewing machines, saws and handheld washboards adorned the walls. No skis, no snow, no Alps. The pictures of Chalet windows with shutters and window boxes of flowers were still there, but the waitresses no longer wear polyester Swiss Miss uniforms. I feel old. And yet, the fries are still really good, especially when dipped in the barbecue sauce, which is no doubt a mixture of chicken grease, trans fat, high fructose corn syrup and whatever shade of red dye is rust-colored. It's the WNY-southern Ontario version of trailer trash cuisine, but I am no longer the snob I was when I was a teeneager and thought I would do better than my parents. I’ve done worse, actually.

Anyway, while sitting in a vinyl booth, crowded into a small section with all the other people in the restaurant, watching the waitresses sweep as we ate, I told my dad I was thinking of getting an MFA.

What's that going to do for you? he asked.

I tried to explain, immersion in writing, perhaps a teaching job, yadda yadda yadda yadda.

Did I try this before? Didn't I think a college degree from an expensive school would guarantee a bright future?

Sometimes I miss my young and arrogant self, who wasn't so easily defeated.

So, I'm thinking MFA, and still not sure. I guess I'll keep you posted

And I promise, tomorrow I will revise the story I plan to submit to Glimmer Train at the end of the month.

Commitment

2007-08-31T16:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I made a commitment: I will write 1.5 pages a day.

Kristin Gore inspired me. She writes 6 pages a day, but she doesn't have a job. My hope is that I will be able to push myself to meet my goal every day, and that on some days, it will be the start of page after page after page of beautiful prose that needs little editing...And then, JFK Jr. will reveal that he's been hiding from the paparrazzi all these years and wants to marry me.

Anyway, I met my goal yesterday. I'm not sure how to handle revising. Since I write short stories (for now), maybe I will write a draft, then revise it (same rate, during the revision phase?). My plan is to use this blog as a journal. Am I meeting my goal, and also as a record. Soon, I will start submitting, and then the rejections will come. That will be progress.

The next step is rejection…more on that when I get some…

So, 1.5 pages, every day...