A Survivor of Sins of the Past

The past being the past week in Las Vegas, of course. But the survivor I'm referring to isn't me.

Although the pain of paying $14.99 for 24 hours of an internet connection with the lightning-fast speed of a 300 baud acoustic modem kept me from posting more than once from Sin City, I took a lot of character and story notes throughout the trip, enough to gestate many pages of Vegas stories, I hope.

One of those character notes was a man I spent over an hour talking to in a bar, a man we'll call Ron.

Ron is twenty-six years old, although he looks more like a wiry thirty-five, his face seamed with wrinkles and small scars, his crew-cut black hair sprinkled with grey.

Before the latest Iraq war, Ron worked training DJs for the Deja Vu chain of strip clubs, teaching new DJs how to cue up dancers and music alike, how to read a crowd, when to shift from classic rock to rap to country, what to do when the featured dancer is late.

During the war, instead of crowds and dancers Ron read prisoners of war as a member of an Army Interrogation unit. Small flame tattoos run up and down both his arms. Interspersed among the claws and legs of two protective dragons, and above and below the tattooed unit mottos, each flame signifies a set of 10 interrogations.

I didn't ask Ron if he was at Abu Ghraib, but from the way he spoke about the professionalism of his unit and his work in the Army, I don't think so.

There is a swirling mist tattooed by a special, particularly painful, process surrounding the larger dragon. Spikes in the mist commemorate the dead, people whom Ron was close to who have died.

I counted at least 12 spikes.

In Tikrit, Ron's vehicle was destroyed by a roadside IED, and weeks later he woke up alone in a VA hospital stateside, crazy with fear because he didn't have any idea where he was. He has scars on both sides of both arms from entry and exit shrapnel wounds, and his lower jaw is reconstructed on a plastic plate. When, months later, he left the hospital and returned to his home in Colorado with his wife and his two-year old daughter, it was only a few weeks before their home, car, and most of their other possessions, were destroyed in a tornado. He considers himself blessed because none of the family was injured, but he regrets that one of the urns of ashes that he promised to take home for a fellow soldier was destroyed.

Ron and his family now live in a rented home on Lake Mead near Las Vegas. He commutes over two hours, each way, by bus, to his current job, daytime DJ for the Deja Vu Showgirls club in Las Vegas.

He's optimistic about the future, although his downtime reading matter includes a survivalist manual. I guess that's appropriate. Ron is a survivor.

There was lots more; the plan to pull a van full of strippers, strong-man competition style, for a block in order to raise money for charity, the Alaskan fishing job, the wilderness training parachute drop when he broke an ankle. An awful lot of living, some of it awful, most of it just living, for someone in their twenties. A lot of material

Ron himself, off course, is too much of a character for fiction -- I'll have to use him in small doses, spread him out over a number of characters. If someone made Ron up, I know I wouldn't believe them. Until I met him.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

Bonus Ron quote: "I'll always have a job. I'm good at what I do, and everyone likes boobies."

Greetings from Sin City

I am writing this blog from high above the Las Vegas strip, at the Paris Casino and Resort.

Las Vegas, a city that is a beacon of hope to immigrants around the world (ask any of the Ethiopian cab drivers), the fin de siecle of capitalism, a hive of scum and villany to rival Mos Eisley spaceport, an environmental disaster, a marvel of high technology, a place to win, or more likely, lose a fortune gambling, and a place to try out shooting a machine gun at The Gun Store, all at the same time.

People are either invigorated by Vegas, or, well, it saps their souls. Often both, come to think of it, so make that 'or' an 'and/or' (try saying that three times after your fourth Corona of the afternoon).

I always find inspiration for writing when I visit Las Vegas, whether it's imagining the story of the two joggers I saw wave as they passed each other (one overly-muscled and designer-draped heading away from the strip, the other overweight and shambling in a dirty tee shirt and jeans heading towards the strip), thinking about what goes on in the Club Platinum "Gentleman's Club" (Video Poker. Full Bar.), a concrete shack that sits a half block away from the towering, luxurious-looking Platinum Hotel and Spa, or after learning about the Atomic Viewing Parties Las Vegas residents threw in the '50s during nuclear tests at the Atomic Testing Museum. (And did you know that the Nevada Test Site is also home to a conventional weapons testing facility know as BEEF - for the Big Explosive Experiment Facility?)

The Russian woman at the blackjack table paying for an at-table back massage with $25 chips after 110 minutes of therapy, at $2 / minute. The couple from Canada in imminent danger of missing their plane home because they're on a hot streak. The South American couple, young and obviously in love, handing out the "Girls to Your Room" cards and flyers to unaccompanied men on the street.

Not to mention anyone who would pay $30 to put on a parka and have one drink at a bar chilled to minus five degrees Fahrenheit. They're all grist for the mill.

Time to stock up some more.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

Ouch, really Dorneman? We're only blogging once a month now?

'Tis the Season of excuses, but rather than prattle on with mine, just fill in the blanks as you see fit:

I haven't blogged lately because my _________ had a _________, I came down with _________, my _________ schedule has been completely crazy, my _________ was _________ by a _________, and on top of it all, we ended up buying a new _________.

I'm sure your imagination will be much more interesting than my reality.

I do have a trip coming up that should involve some interesting writer research, however, and I plan on blogging during it. I'm shooting for a new blog post at least every other day.

You see, by next week at this time I'll be in Las Vegas. Some of you might know that I try and make my way to Sin City at least once a year, to join in a few Texas Hold 'em poker tournaments, catch some live comedy, and otherwise make my contribution to the Casino Shareholders' Widows and Orphans Fund. This year I'm also going to visit some of the odder Vegas attractions and, *shudder* talk to more of the locals than I normally would, taking notes along the way. I'm working on a loosely linked series of short stories set in Las Vegas, and looking to this research to amp-up the weirdness.

Hey, I wonder if there's some grant I could get for doing this...

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

Nothing Lasts Forever, Even Cold November Rain

...or November novel writing. Not that I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, mind you, but I heartily encourage and support all of you writers out there who are cranking out the words.

Me, I just finished a 640 word short-short for Tuesday's 10 Weeks, 10 Stories class where the point-of-view character is a Universal Gym. Really.

More blogging soon, but I wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about you.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

October Already, and a Rejection with Benefits

Uh oh, it's October already, which means I haven't done no bloggin' for the past 30 days. Tempus fugit, as the old dead white dudes used to say. But it's not like I haven't been writing, or avoiding writing by doing writerly things such as hearing William Gibson read from his new book, Zero History, at the Coolidge Corner Theater (a rather boring reading from a randomly selected chapter, but great Q&A after).

And I forget to mention last post that the end of August I took a one-night Grub Street seminar with Lisa Borders, Creating Complex Characters, that helped me flesh out a character I've been struggling with for literally years now. Lisa is a great instructor if you get the chance to take a class with her, even for those of us who really don't care who's saying what about Jonathan Franzen.

Now, I'm taking 10 Weeks, 10 Stories. Again.

I'll admit that what I'm doing here is, in large part, paying Grub Street to create externally-imposed deadlines to get me to write, which I'm sure says something way too pathetic about myself to think too long about. But I am also taking the class in order to get feedback from a new group of writers, and for the experience of working with a new (to me) instructor, Adrian Van Young. Kudos, so far, to Adrian, although I have to say that many of my fellow students do not seem as... engaged... in the writing or the critiquing to the extent that I've found in other Grub offerings.

And then, there are the rejections, some with benefits, one of note in particular, coming in from August's orgy of submissions (Orgy of Submissions, now there's a title you might have seen from Beeline Books in their heyday. Not to mention Rejections With Benefits).

What's a rejection with benefits you ask? Why, any rejection that comes with a personal note. That is, of course, assuming the personal note isn't something like "NEVER, EVER submit here EVER again. We burned your manuscript and buried the ashes."

I'm talking about rejections like this one, from the Barcelona Review:

"I'm afraid the story didn't quite hit the mark with our reader though she did offer a comment, which I'll pass on for what it's worth: 'This story was going along nicely. I think the author has a gift for dialogue which kept me dialed in. But then the story takes a massive swing and a gun is whipped out and the protagonist is robbed by a girl he picked up on the subway. It's as if the author was going for a big gasping twist, and this twist left me a non-believer.' I wish you the best of luck elsewhere with this one, and welcome you to submit with us again in the future, any time.”

Damn. Thanks for the props on the dialogue, but... but...

Calm down Stephen. Look back at the beginning, and see what you can do to make the robbery 'surprisingly inevitable.' Use the feedback, they took the time and effort to provide it for you.

Thanks, Barcelona Review.

After all, they could have sent a form rejection like this: "Thank you for submitting to The Los Angeles Review. While we have read your work with interest, it does not meet our editorial needs at this time. We appreciate your efforts, and wish you all the best in placing this work elsewhere. We hope you will consider subscribing to our journal. This will help us stay afloat and enable you to more accurately gauge the type of work we publish."

Is it me, or does that last sentence sound both a little begging, and a little condescending, at the same time?

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen

Submission Accepted !!! (or, a Twinge of Writer's Remorse)

First the good news: my short story "Multiple Lacerations" has found a home, accepted by Rebecca Anne Renner at Barrier Islands Review! (Cue the Snoopy dance music, glitter confetti drop, and the popping of champagne corks.)

I'm particularly happy because I'd just about given up on this story. It's long for a piece of flash fiction, 974 words, with at least 300 of those words given over to describing a moment of violence as a moment of beauty, in graphic detail. It's been rejected by at least half a dozen journals after going through two major rewrites. And now it's been accepted. Thank you, Barrier Islands Review!

But now comes the writer's remorse, a twinge of which I feel as I'm about to write three emails of Withdrawl to the other journals where the story is currently waiting judgement. What if one of "those" publications would also have wanted "Multiple Lacerations"? Would I have been better off not submitting to Barrier Islands at all?

After all, Barrier Islands Review isn't one of the "Top Tier" literary journals, by any means. It's not a publication credit that many other editors would recognize (yet). In fact, it's a online (PDF) journal that started publishing only this year, and includes encouraging new writers among its stated objectives.

Well, guess what. I AM encouraged, and I'm happy to be a part of this new publication. Long may she live.

Thank you, Rebecca Anne Renner, and may the establishment journals be damned. Cue the Snoopy music.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

Checking In

Checking the Submissions Log (I use an Excel spreadsheet, although I also recommend Duotrope's free submission tracker for registered users), I count exactly 29 submissions of five different stories sent out so far in August, with four rejections received already. Three of those were form rejections while one, from Necessary Fiction, came with short, but positive and helpful, comments. Soon I can sit back and wait for the rest of the rejections to come home. No, I'm not being negative, just realistic. Not to mention setting myself up to be oh-so-pleasantly surprised.

I also started a new story this evening. I'm looking forward to taking some new writing to my writer's group, as we start up again after a summer hiatus. Yes, I dare say it, brand spankin' new writing. Well, at least a new paragraph. That's what I've so far.

Still, me like.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The submission mission continues apace, and I now have five different pieces out to twenty journals since August first. So how's it going with the new writing? Well, I'd have to honestly say it's not going. At all. I mean, I understand you actually have to start before you can go anywhere.

Thankfully, it's almost September. Fall is my favorite time of the year, and the back-to-school vibes always recharge my creative batteries. Not to mention that my writing group, the Bay State Scribblers, will be back to meeting more frequently, William Gibson is going to be at the Coolidge Corner Theater September 22, and I've signed up for three more Grub Street workshops.

Those courses include one full semester course, 10 Weeks, 10 Stories (yet again), this time with an instructor I haven't had before, Adrian Van Young, and two one-nighters, Writing as Performance with Amanda Keil and Creating Complex Characters with Lisa Borders.

One whiff of New England fall air, or one more Staples Back to School ad, and I'll be ready to go. I hope.

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen

Dominance of Submissions

The one-or-more submissions a day for the month of August experiment continues, with 15 new submissions, minus two rejections, out there. (In addition to a one-day turnaround from Catalonia Review, I've also heard from the twice-as-slow to respond, i.e. two-day turnaround, elimae.)

Most journals that have an electronic submission manager, particularly ones associated with university writing programs, seem to have acquired the exact same software, probably something open source (i.e. free). Note to self -- idea for a conspiracy / sci-fi / metafiction story. Hackers take down the entire literary journal publishing industry by infilitrating the submission manager software and instituting closed reading periods. The lives of the great majority of citizens are unaffected.

The problem now is that my writing has languished. Other than the fine-tuning edits of the three pieces I'm actively submitting I haven't created much, if anything, new this month. Apparently it's a different part of my brain that's engaged when I evaluate potential markets, fill out forms and write cover letters, and make new entries in my submission log, than the part that actually creates material to send out.

Hmmm. Or maybe I'm using the submission process as yet another excuse, albeit a nobler one, not to write. Damn, my internal censor is sneaky.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

Submitting Through the Blog, I Mean Dog, Days of Summer

August -- the dog days of summer are upon us as Sirius once again approaches the sun. Siriusly. Those days when a frozen mudslide or a tall glass of sangria on the back porch sounds like a better option for many a writer than pounding your head against the keyboard for an hour or two. Well, if you don't feel like sweating out something completely new, consider this: many journals closed for 'the summer' actually open their reading periods in August, and might be looking for something cool and refreshing in their own in-boxes.

This month I'm going to try and fill my rejection-depleted submission log back up with plenty of active, pending, possibly even (oh, to hope), accepted submissions.

I started with three stories that had recently been rejected, and gave them a critical once-over. Two survived relatively unscathed (there's always a word, or a sentence, or a paragraph or two, that can be improved), and those are now both out to a couple of journals each, with more simultaneous submissions of them to go out as the month progresses. The third needs significant work on the beginning, but I hope will be going out later in the month as well.

At least one submission a day is my goal; 31 new outstanding entries in the log for the month. Hmm, that last bit means that for at least one day in August I'm going to have to send out at least two stories. You see, Catalonia Review rejected my story in one (count it, that's o-n-e, one) day, with the ever-helpful polite rejection note ("Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for letting us consider this work, but we will pass this time.") Not a record -- I've had a piece rejected on the same day that I sent it out -- but still pretty damn quick.

I'll survive. In the heat of summer I thrive.

Now how are we fixed for stamps?

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

The Crazy Train of Distraction

Distraction. High on the writer's Enemies List, this force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded, in the words of Obi-Wan. I guess those weren't the droids I was looking for.

Case in point:

You've started writing a new story about a teenager whose father believes that winning is everything in life, and if the son isn't winning, then the father is losing. The story opens with the teenager practicing for the seventh-grade talent show where he'll be playing electric guitar, a piece his father recommended he learn. So you ask yourself, what song is he going to play?

And so begins the hour-long distraction, powered by the internet. Top 100 Guitar Solos, videos, what was published when, oooo listen to this one, first came out in the early 80s, that's it... and before you know it, your writing time is up. With only 50 words to show for it. When you (and by you, I mean I) could have continued with the story, and saved the music details for another time.

Tomorrow night I'm going to use the laptop, and turn off the wireless router.

Tonight -- well, maybe just a little more quality time with Ozzy.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen.

P.S. That review I mentioned in the last post is up now, at The Review Review. Check it out.

Everybody's a Critic - And You Can Be One Too!

My writing production this weekend primarily consisted of one literary magazine review for Becky Tuch's excellent website, The Review Review. In this review, and in previous reviews like this one, I dare to declaim to established authors about their publications (publications in magazines, let me say, that I would kidnap the editor's small children to be published in) things such as "... ultimately lacking in lasting meaning" and "...it could have been so much more." (I said some nice things, too, but nice doesn't make the headlines.)

What, other than my usual self-destructive impulses, gives me the right to say such things?

Well, because I read those writers' stories and thought about them. And then I thought about why I thought about them the way I did.

We don't all enjoy all of the stories that are published every year. This was brought home particularly well to me in the salon Ron MacLean hosted at Grub Street about the Best American Short Stories: 2009 anthology. Before each week's discussion we individually rated the night's stories as "Loved It, Hated It, or Indifferent." I don't recall a single story that didn't have at least one check mark in both the Loved It and Hated It categories. Then we spent the rest of each salon having the participants articulate Why or Why Not they felt the way they did, and reacting to each other's opinions.

The best gift you can give a fellow writer, in a workshop or in a review, is constructive criticism. But do realize that no matter how insightful you are, it's only your one opinion, and other readers may beg to differ. Note the importance of the word "constructive" there -- what I find most helpful is the explication of what is, and what isn't, working, in the story. Don't just say, "that's great" -- what was great about it? Give an example. Worse, don't say "it didn't work for me." (A.K.A. "I thought it sucked.") Tell them specifically what didn't work for you, and why, and how that element could have worked for you.

Otherwise you're just being a dick.

Which means if I really only said the story was "... ultimately lacking in lasting meaning," I'd just be being a dick.

What I actually said was: "The wandering point of view of this story gives the reader a fascinating and believable long-lens view of the gym, but makes it difficult to focus on what is happening on the floor and in the locker rooms beyond the external events – events rich in aberrant behavior, but ultimately lacking in lasting meaning." I hope that helps explain why the story in question didn't one hundred percent work for me.

It's easier to do this with someone else's work than your own, but once you get in the habit, it helps you to bring it home when you need it.

So go forth and be a critic -- but only to help.

My Story Sucks, and Here's Why

Today I gave up on "Goth Lolita." For now, at least, I'm done with it -- another false start added to the compost heap, hopefully one day to fertilize something better. After coming to that conclusion, I spent the rest of tonight's writing revising a short-short that started as a class exercise. That's the story I'll be taking to my writing group this weekend.

If I wasn't blogging about my writing - both successes and, more frequently, failures - I'd probably say to myself something like, "that sucks," or the slightly more explanatory "when the story bores the author, it's time to move on to something else" and, well, move on to something else. But for the audience at home, let's take a closer look, shall we?

Here's a list of questions that might shine a light into the darkness of your own suckage, and how I answered them about my story.

Does the opening sentence suck?

"Trent Delver was playing blackjack to kill time between shows when a dark-haired older woman in an elaborately old-fashioned black velvet and lace outfit, and a younger, similarly dressed woman with lipstick-red hair sat down at the table."

Not the suckiest first line I've written, but not great either. Awkward construction, passive voice, a noteable lack of emotion or tension, okay, it sucks. At least it introduces all the main characters, gives us a place, and hints at Trent's job.

What actually happens in the story (story fragment, in this case)?

Trent Delver, the POV character, meets Mimi/Amelia and her mother, Jennifer, at a blackjack table in Vegas. All wear bizarre clothes, described extensively - Trent because he's a piano player / singer between sets, the women because Mimi has a J-pop band and they like Japanese Loligoth fashion. Trent invites them to his performance, they invite him to their video shoot. At the performance Mimi warns Trent that her mother will try and seduce him in order to help Mimi's career. At the video shoot in the Valley of Fire, its hot and weird and Jennifer directs. That night Mimi is the one who tries to seduce Trent. (To Be Continued - Not.)

What do you see on the surface story that sucks here?

Trent's name (I know it's actually just his stage name, but it still sucks - it's a bad porn star's name). Jennifer's name (boring). Too much time spent on clothes, no explanation for the facination with Japan of these American women. Sounds like a bad male fantasy (oooo, they're both trying to seduce him!).

Should the story start where it starts?

Eh, probably not. The blackjack table is a red herring; gambling isn't important to this story. Better to start at Trent's show.

What does the POV character want, and what is opposing him?

This question stopped me cold. Trent doesn't want anything in the story. Mimi and Jennifer both want something from him but he's not opposing either one of them. That SO sucks. Which leads me to...

Is this the right POV character?

Probably not. Either Mimi or her mother would be better choices. They both want something in the worst way, and both are opposed by someone (each other).

Man, this story... sucks. I better stop while I'm behind.

Note to self: Write Less Sucky.

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen

Pressure Cooking Your Characters

Hmmm. "Goth Lolita" keeps getting longer, and I've got some witty dialogue and motivation and physical action, but in all this movement the main POV character seems like he's only along for the ride. (Both figuratively, and literally as well. He's about to be picked up in a van. Do I really need a van scene?). Sure, the other characters want something from him (oh look, motivation!), but I'm only getting a sense of detached amusement from him in return. I have no idea what he wants for himself, and what he's like at the core.

"Detached amusement" may indeed be the state in which I spend much of my day, but then, I wouldn't make a very interesting character in this story either.

Time to push this character and see what's under that detachment. He's a smooth guy, and things have been going smoothly so far. But smooth surfaces don't cut.

A wise woman once told me if your main character's not breaking a sweat, it's time to turn up the heat. Bring on the trouble, then make that trouble worse. Put them under pressure, ask them to choose between two bad alternatives. If you love your characters (and we all do), yes, it's going to be hard to see them hurt. But have no mercy. Kick them while they're down.

Time to turn up the heat, and tighten the lid on the pressure cooker.

Building Momentum, One Page at a Time

After quadrupling yesterday's meager production, today the new draft is up to 541 words and is about to move to a second scene to start the third page. I still have no idea what the story is 'about', although there are hints starting to appear. (Sex. An overbearing mother. Music.)

I used to ALWAYS know what my stories were about, plot and characters and meaning and all. I had to know those things, in fact, before I could start writing. And sadly enough, most of those stories turned out to be predictable to the reader as well, which usually meant they were pretty bad. It's only been in the last half a dozen years or so that I've stopped imposing structure on my work from the get-go. Nowadays I end up producing a lot more false starts, but when a story finally does take off I find not knowing where it's going keeps at least my own interest up (and hopefully the eventual reader's), and definitely gets me to more interesting destinations than did the trips where I followed my highlighted guidebook.

Here's to hoping "Goth Lolita" (and already I'm thinking that title may change) ends up... well, somewhere. I'm definitely still in the discovery phase.

To Be Continued.

103 Words More Than Yesterday

Total writing production this evening - 103 words of fiction.

Don't laugh. That's 103 words more than I've written in a while, and it took me an hour to get them out. But in those 103 words I've introduced three main characters, brought them together at a blackjack table (hey, when things are going slow, write what you know), and left myself with a lot of questions to answer. That's a good thing.

Oh, and I've got a title. "Gothic Lolita."

It's a start. Of what, I don't know yet. But it's a start.

To Be Continued.

"So, did you give up on the Blog, or what?"

I checked into my Blogger Dashboard (to edit the blogs I'm subscribed to) today and happened to notice this line:

19 Posts, last published on Apr 18, 2010

Gee, and it seems like only yesterday I was at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace Conference (that would have been in early May), where a member of my writing group asked me, "So, did you give up on the Blog, or what?" Now it's July.

Time flies when you're writing regularly. Time flies even faster when you're NOT writing regularly.

For the past two weeks I've been in a writer's ditch, a writer's drought, a slump, a block, a... well, a whatever you want to call it. That is, I haven't been writing. In fact, I've been finding excuses not to write, to be precise.

(By the way, the only good thing about actively avoiding writing is that if one of your favorite not-writing excuses is 'I'll just go the gym and clear my head first' you end up getting some cardio out of your angst.)

But now I'm sore (from the gym) and tired (of my own avoidance behavior). I have a review that's overdue, a writer's group meeting coming up, and almost no submissions in circulation. Rather than dwell on the many character flaws that brought me here, I'm going to do something about them. Re-opening this Blog editor window and typing the words you're reading is the first step.

A three-day weekend starts tomorrow. If I don't have some new writing by the end of it, you'll hear it from me here. Feel free to boo and hiss if that happens, or send encouraging words to prevent it from happening.

New writing from me coming up. And Blogging Doesn't Count.

Happy Independence Day, Everyone.

Two weeks since my last post

and this post's going to be a short one, too.

Ten of those 14 days I've been fighting off a nasty cold or the flu, and I haven't been writing, reading, or even thinking any more than necessary to get through the days. Of course, during that time foolish me started a new Grub Street class (10 Weeks, 10 Stories with Chip Creek) with two assignments due already, and I promised delivery to various folk of a flash fiction piece and a lit-mag review.

I was barely able to crank out a new piece to my writer's group that I revised and ended up reading at a fantastical literary salon last night, although now I want to revise that piece again and send it out for possible publication.

So why am I even bothering to blog?

Beats me. Warm-up exercise, avoidance behavior, guilt, I'm sure they all play a part. Oh, and a desire to plug Cathy Elick's Run for Grub fund-raising efforts. Help support a worthy cause.

The good news here, maybe the only news, is that I'm feeling well enough to think again, and therefore well enough to write regularly. Hope you're all feeling at least that good.

Everything That Doesn't Look Like an Elephant

Editing my flash fiction, stories under 500 words, reminds me of the old joke: How do you carve a statue of an elephant? Start with a block of marble, and remove everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

Except that you don't only carve away -- with words, unlike marble, you can also choose to replace the offending piece. This makes the writer's job easier than the sculptor's in some way (infinite supply of material), and worse in others (infinite supply of material). After chipping off a misshapen 'trunk', for example, you'll typically want to find a new word to take its place. (portmanteau, suitcase, or coffer might do).

I wrote the first draft of a new flash yesterday, revised it then and there for overall shape (yep, sorta looks like an elephant), and today I've been doing serial, iterative, revisions, first sentence by sentence and now word by word. Lots of them. Halfway through the day, I wondered what the piece would look like if I'd turned on "Track Changes" in Word, but I'm probably better off not knowing.

End of the day, it definitely looks like an elephant to me. Tomorrow I'll be reading it out loud, to see if it sounds like one.

Slowly Getting Back on the Horse

You take a week off from the gym (or a month, or a year), and that first trip back hurts. I'm told it's the same with bronco busting. And I know it's the same thing with writing.

If it weren't for deadlines, or for Carrie Heim's blog contest, I'd likely still be looking up at that big scary Arabian stallion of a blank page and wondering what the hell am I doing -- because I know this is gonna hurt.

I squeezed out five hundred words tonight. I doubt if they're any good, but there they are.

I wonder how much pain I'll be in when I look at them tomorrow.

The World Doesn't Stop?

What do you mean, the world doesn't stop when your wife's in the hospital and you're either there yourself or worrying because you're not there? Who made these rules?

She's home now, doing fine. My world can start again.

15 Actual Reasons, but All Poor Excuses, as to Why I'm Not Writing Fiction Right Now

  1. I'm working on this blog.
  2. Mentally exhausted after a hectic week at work.
  3. I'm "in-between projects" and looking for inspiration.
  4. My fingers hurt when I type.
  5. We have yesterday's Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and Project Runway on the DVR.
  6. I already mixed myself a mudslide.
  7. Because I suck.
  8. Because I suck so much I'm getting writer's block after seven reasons already.
  9. Wait, here's one: because I haven't read the updates to all the other writers' blogs that I follow.
10. I'm wondering if those other writers were working on their blogs because they were stuck, too.
11. I have to take Ellie out for her walk soon, and I can't start something because it'll be interrupted.
12. I wonder what the dog thinks we do at the computer that's so fascinating?
13. I can't even make a simple list without my mind wandering, is this what early-onset dementia feels like?
14. How many reasons did I put in the title? Twenty five?!? Well, there's an easy edit.
15. And finally, because it's past my bedtime. Well, at least now it is. 25, I mean 15, reasons later.

Reading in Public

and other unsavory habits.

Last night I had the privilege and honor to read one of my published stories (The Deal, from McGill University's Scrivener Creative Review) at Art2Art7, a wonderful gathering of authors, singers, sculptors and other artists and their fans. The reading went surprisingly well, considering the extensive collection of exotic butterflies pinned between my esophagus and my duodenum. Apparently my bad haircut acquired the day before the event distracted the crowd's attention from my shaking legs, or else everyone was too kind to say anything.

Public reading is like any other form of public speaking, however, and here my arbitrarily-many years of middle management stood me in good stead. Even without PowerPoint running on a projector, the same rules apply, so here's my version of Public Speaking Tips for Authors (no dummies here):

Know your material. Don't expect to read something you wrote two years ago without reviewing it first, or you're going to miss the dramatic pause points and trip over your own fancy turns of phrase. Go through the whole piece, out loud, and find the places where you might need to change or eliminate a word or two to smooth the verbal flow. (This is good advice at any point in the editing process, by the way.) This reading at home is the place to find out if you're over (or, less likely, under) your alloted time. You may want to change your margins or line breaks in order to insure that you're not flipping over a page in the middle of a climactic sentence, breaking the spell.

Slow Down. Everyone reads too fast to begin with, and when you're nervous you read even faster. Force yourself to slow down. Put a big black mark every so often on your manuscript to remind yourself to take pauses. (Don't type the word PAUSE, though. You'll end up reading it. Trust me on this one.)

And finally, Look at the Audience. Sure, unless you've memorized your piece you'll be reading from a sheet of paper, but that doesn't mean you ALWAYS have to be staring down at your hands or the podium. At dramatic pauses, look up and out at someone -- anyone -- make eye contact. Scan the crowd briefly while you're turning pages. Smile when the crowd is laughing, even when they're laughing at the wrong places. You're there to make a connection, and your voice is only one of the tools at your disposal. They want you to have a great reading, and seeing that in your audience will make you a better reader.

Reading. For all the definitions of the word, it's why we write.

Regina Spektor and Me

"You don't have no doctor Robert
You don't have no uncle Albert
You don't even have good credit
You can write but you can't edit
Edit, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit... " - Regina Spektor, "Edit"

Actually, in my case it depends on the day. Sometimes I think I'm a better re-writer than a writer, happily able to pull apart and reassemble previous work, but not able to come up with an original paragraph given a blank screen. Other days, maybe after pulling out my copy of Monica Wood's The Pocket Muse, I can start lots of stories. Even end a few, too. Of course, the stories are filled with tired phrases, nonsensical characters, flat descriptions, and unnatural dialogue all badly in need of editing, but hey, at least it's new unnatural dialogue and flat descriptions.

The problem is, in this biz you have to be able to do both.

The solution is, you don't have to do them both at the same time.

Banging your head against the wall staring at a blank piece of paper? Your freewriting document look this?

I'm freewriting now, i'm writing whatever comes to my mind, i'm wondering how much time is left on the timer and if the Super-G is on television, and I don't even know what the Super G is but it's got to be better than sitting here typing this.

Well then, it's time to give up. No, not give up on writing altogether (and don't tell me you haven't thought of it). Give up on the new stuff, call up the last manuscript you've workshopped but haven't revised, and have at it.

You may find that re-working is working today. And when you can't edit, and you aren't looking forward to revising the same seven pages for the seventieth time, maybe it's time to try something brand new. Write a six-sentence story. Write about the creepy guy who was staring at you in the gym. Even, shudder, write a poem. Anything new.

Of course, you may have a specific deliverable that's butting up against a deadline, and only editing or new production will do. But that's a question for another day, and at least it's one that means you've got a writing assignment.

I've been editing like a demon this week (an ink-stained, dictionary-thumbing demon), but even though I now have a couple of recent pieces just about ready to send out, I was getting tired of revisions today. So you're reading something new that I wrote.

Today, I can write. But I can't edit. Edit, edit, edit, edit, edit...

Writing Experiment #1, (dis)continued

"When do you write?" I've been asked, sometimes by other writers looking for validation of their own quirky habits, sometimes by the curious unintiated who can't imagine spending any time at all doing such a thing.

I'd like to be able to reply with something witty or profound, preferably both ("Why, I'm writing even as we speak").

I'd like to be able to say, whenever I can snatch a moment alone with my notebook or computer.

But if I'm being truthful, I have to say, "Only in the evening."

And by that I mean, only in the evening between 8 and 9, because before that I'm eating dinner and watching something on the DVR (say, Project Runway or the Colbert Report) with Penny, and after that I'm likely to be enjoying a cocktail or a glass of wine before bed.

I've tried. In fact, this past week I tried not once, not twice, but thrice, to write in the morning, either before leaving for work or at Lincoln Street Coffee in Newton Highlands where I normally get my reading time in over a large cup o' Joe. Trying to create new writing habits this year, after all.

FAIL. I produced nothing from the blank pages other than one paragraph of freewriting that devolved into a To Do list, and a couple of elaborate geometric doodles.

Apparently I'm a receiver, not a sender, in the morning. I listen to my MP3 player, read, and eavesdrop on my fellow commuters as I start to make sense out of another day in the life.

After the sun sets is when I process it all, and make my home-made mental sausage.

And on that note, back to the grinder. It's not quite nine o'clock.

Writing Experiment #1

"Try writing at a time of day when you don't usually write. If you're a morning person, stay up late and open your journal. Night owls, try putting pen to paper before that first cup of coffee."

Writing Experiment #1.

FAIL.

I'll write more about it tonight. Because that's when I write.

Tsk, tsk. Loser.

No writing, no blogging. Falling down on the resolution already and January isn't over yet.

Sure, I'm taking a six-week Grub Street class (Monsters & Mayhem, team-taught by KL Pereira and Sue Williams) and it's inspiring and all that, but... but...

I'm tired this week. Get out the tiny violins, but it's true. I'm tired and my brain hurts from my day job. So I haven't done any writing since Monday.

How does the Three Doors Down song go?

You're getting closer
To pushing me off of life's little edge
'Cause I'm a loser
And sooner or later you know I'll be dead

Hmmm, that's pretty depressing.

And J.D.Salinger died today.

Hey, I'm blogging now, at least. That was the deal, that counts. And the weekend's coming up, with plenty of writing time available. My writing life can still be redeemed.

Assuming I'm still alive, tomorrow is another day.

Rough Day at Work?

I know I've had one.

And I'll admit, I was just about to bag the New Year's resolution for today and not write, do any kind of writing-related activity, go out for the evening, or even update this blog because I was, and am, tired. Tired from a mentally, although certainly not physically, exhausting day.

Then I remembered some other working stiffs, who've likely had their share of rough days, too.

Vyvyane Loh, who I heard speak at last year's Muse and the Marketplace conference, wrote her first novel Breaking the Tongue while in med school (and working, and getting an MFA, but med school is enough by itself, don't you think)?

Katrina Firlik, who wrote Another Day in the Frontal Lobe about her work as a freakin' brain surgeon.

And it's not just the doctors. Anthony Bourdain, pounding out his satirical thriller A Bone in the Throat while slinging hash. Roberth Grisham, working lawyer. And pretty much everybody else who didn't write their first book or story while in college or on unemployment, come to think of it.

You work because you don't get paid to do this stuff, at least not the first time around.

It's only 9:20. I still should be able to get at least half an hour in tonight.

Time to get to work.

Submitting to the Higher Powers

...said powers being, of course, editors.

This evening I did a little clean-up writing, but most of my working time today was spent on the 'business' side of writing, which primarily means getting previously-completed pieces out the door and then updating my submissions log. (I use Excel, although I've also used and have been quite happy with the submissions tracker provided free on Duotrope's Digest.)

My advice for those starting out on the submissions route? Well, first off, congratulations for getting this far and looking for places to submit. Too many good writers I've met in workshops never take that first step to actually being published, which will always involve the writer putting that envelope in the mail, or perhaps emailing or uploading a.doc to a journal's Submission Manager. Nobody's going to come to your door and ask to see your work -- assuming you haven't been making violent threats to national politicians (not recommended).

Before doing that, however, read the journal's submission guidelines. Really. Read the guidelines, top to bottom. NOW FOLLOW THEM. If they're not accepting stories from March to August, don't submit in July thinking you're going to get a jump on the competition. If they don't accept stories over 9,000 words, don't send them your 9,357 word story, no matter how great a fit you think it is for them. (Try editing it down to 8,500 words or so, instead.) Not following the guidelines gives the first reader a great excuse to not read your story at all; and with hundreds of submissions clogging up their in-box, that's going to be all the excuse they need.

And while you're checking out the guidelines, if you don't already read the journal you're looking to be published in, read any fiction they happen to have up on their website. Happy fluffy bunny stories aren't going to hop onto the page at Chiaroscuro, and a quick perusal of what's published there would tell you that. (Unless your fluffy bunnies are very, very scary.)

Then, write a cover letter / email and send it with your piece. Address it to the fiction editor's name. Keep it short. Don't tell them the meaning of your story; the work should speak for itself. Do tell them about any relevant publications you have, if any, and let them know that you'd be honored to appear in their publication.

And you know, you will be, when it finally happens.

But always be prepared for rejection. Rejections, plural. Lots of them. Rejections after months, possibly a year or more, of not hearing anything at all. It's going to happen. Get used to it.

You're not going to hit a home run every at bat, and more often than not you're going to strike out. Don't let one pitch take you out of the lineup. For every rejection you get, send out two more submissions.

And keep writing new stuff.

Writing in Fits, and Starts that Don't Fit

It was back to the blank sheet yesterday for yet another false start -- a clichéd bad start, in fact, a story that began with the main character waking up. (Which I didn't even recognize as a classic example of how NOT to start a story until I'd wasted half an hour on it.)

Today, I resumed a previous story that I began some six months or so ago and abandoned for some forgotten reason. Laziness, most likely. This one, at least, starts not with a waking whimper but with a bang -- a deadly bus crash, in fact. And dialogue. And a theft.

Promises, promises.

During my Junior High School career, back at the dawn of the computer age, teachers were able to add comments alongside the student's printed-out grades, but they had to choose them from a pre-programmed list. The comment I hated the most (and, of course, therefore received most frequently) was the damning "DOES NOT WORK UP TO POTENTIAL."

Re-reading and now adding to this current piece, I'm impressed with the potential of the story. (Who wrote this? He must be a genius.). Now it's time that I do, or do not, hold up the WORK end of the stick.

Later, that is.

What Happens After the First Draft?

...you ask the bartender for a second. Sorry, old joke.

A couple of days ago I finished the first draft-and-a-half of the current story, and I've been into the revision process since then.

The second draft / first rewrite, when you're still flush with excitement from actually finishing something, might be my favorite part of the writing process. In the second draft I usually spend a lot of time reworking the beginning, particularly the first two or three pages of the piece. In part this is because the beginning isn't as fresh in my mind as the second half at this point, so I can be a little more dispassionate about it. But more importantly, it's because after finishing the first draft I'm supposed to understand what the story is about, and knowing how and why the story ends as it does means some of the bits and pieces from the beginning have to change or even be jettisoned in order to tie the whole piece together tighter.

This particular story, I knew much earlier than usual what it was going to be 'about' -- and although the ending did end up surprising me, this time the beginning didn't require much in the way of surgery. More spackle and grout than demolition, to mix metaphors.

So the second draft for me is all about making sure the revealed story is now present throughout the piece. The third draft, what I mentally call the first edit, is much more painful. That's when I focus in on individual sentences and words, looking for repetition, flaccid language, weak imagery -- and doing something about it.

The fourth draft? Hasn't occurred yet. That's something that will happen after I put the piece away for a while to get some mental distance, or after my writing group has had a go at critiquing it, and often both. Our group's next meeting is Friday, so I've emailed the latest version off to my comrades-in-ink.

This means that for tomorrow’s writing session, I’ll be back to a blank canvas. Shudder. Maybe instead I'll go back and rewrite this blog posting. Or submit something. Talk about barking at my shadow...

Sex and the Married Writer

Still going strong with the current piece, now into the home stretch on the first draft. (Well, draft and a half. Although I'm trying to break myself of the habit, I do some rewriting every time I open up the doc.)  I think I know how it ends, although I still could surprise myself. It looks like its going to be a rather short (2,000 - 3,000 words) short story, but definitely longer than a flash fiction piece. Not the best length for submission purposes, but it is, as the kids say, what it is.

It also includes a sex scene, and, oh yeah, another sex scene. In fact it's pretty much all about sex. And drugs. And alcohol. But mostly it's about death. I guess I can pretty much forget about being anthologized in the next 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' collection.

Thank goodness I attended Steve Almond's session on writing about sex at last year's Muse and the Marketplace. A couple of things he said -- and I'm paraphrasing here, sorry about that Steve -- stuck with me: 1) writing sex should be all about what's going on in the character's head, not what's going on in their bodies, unless you happen to be writing porn, and 2) if you're doing a good job writing about sex, you're probably going to be embarassed about doing it.

I guess I'm doing it right.

Writing After Hours

Back to work, and by that I mean paying work (i.e. not writing), for the first time this year. Even though I was working from home today, I was indeed working, and that meant that today's writing time came out of evening family and relaxation time (as does this blogging, now that I think about it).

I'm still going, though. Another forty-five minutes, another page down, and I've moved the characters into what is likely to be the location of the story's end (although I'm not at the final scene -- at least one, maybe more, flashbacks are begging to be written first). Writing in short bursts is working for me.

Although like every working writer I daydream about being able to do nothing but write all day, realistically I think that a full-time writing life would be more exhausting than any job that doesn't require you to be on your feet swinging a twenty pound sledghammer for eight hours.

Sue Williams, I don't know how you do it. I'm off to family / relaxation time.

Writing Under the Influence

...Under the influence of ideas, that is. An idea caught spark yesterday, and this afternoon I was able to burn through the first two pages of what looks to be a relatively long story with plenty of momentum left for tomorrow. This evening, however, I am enjoying a glass of Shiraz and, not coincidentally, thinking about the 'writer's curse,' a.k.a alcoholism.

I've not seen any hard facts that writers suffer more from alcoholism or other addictions than the general public, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did. Prone to other obsessive behaviors? Check. Desiring to break down their inhibitions? Check. Curious about altered states of consciousness? Check.

Unusually early for me, I already know the major theme of my current story. It happens to be addiction. This knowledge might not be a good thing. A 'theme' that surfaces too early can sink the story before its written, if you start bending the narrative to fit. I'll have to try and be on the lookout for that.

Time for a refill, and a little more reflection on the subject before going to bed.