Category Archives: writing

So Bad It’s Good

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The winners have been posted for the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton contest.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm

This is explained by Poets & Writers:

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest announced, for the twenty-ninth year running, the worst sentence submitted to its annual race for the most wretched first line of an imaginary novel. The writer of this year’s worst opener is professor and admitted punster Sue Fondrie, who teaches in the curriculum and instruction program at University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh. She will receive as her prize "a pittance."

Gabrielle Gifford’s First Vote

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http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/08/01/debt.talks/index.html?iref=BN1&hpt=hp_t1

"One of those supporting the plan was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, who cast her first House vote since being shot in the head in an assassination attempt in January.

In an emotional moment, Giffords entered the chamber during the vote and received a prolonged standing ovation from her colleagues. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hugged Giffords as other House members mobbed her, and the commotion diverted attention from the ongoing vote total showing the measure would pass."

By God, that gives us all a reason to smile in the midst of an otherwise snarkworthy day.

What would the founders say?

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I’ve been working on taking a large part of my novel in process and rewriting it in the voice and point of view of my subject family’s patriarch. I mean the grandfather of the family. His point of view, the history of suffering and God-mandated hard work and the planting of trees so that others might benefit from shade, is the most interesting of the voices in my head lately.

I’ll give you a sample in a moment. First, to the subject line of this post. I don’t mean the founders of America. I mean the founders of our families. Our grandparents and parents; our tree of the knowledge of love and sacrifice.

An hour ago, I turned on The Daily Show and watched John Stewart begin his nightly diatribe on the topic of impending national doom. I saw the president speak in a way that could only serve to feed our unremitting anxiety. I turned it off. It was making me sad and sick at heart. And I thought to myself it is a merciful God who has given so many Americans full and productive lives of building a nation of dreams, but took them to Himself before they saw such a day of purblind governmental stupidity. It’s too bad that so many more – who’ve worked just as hard – are forced to see it now.

I believe my grandparents would be outraged and ashamed that Washington has driven us to this point. And that our leaders are willing to leap from behind the wheel and watch the whole thing just go rolling over a cliff. For nothing but asinine and petty politics. I believe they would feel their sacrifices – those of their generation including the dead and bereaved of many wars – have been entirely betrayed.

What the hell happened to Yes We Can? How did We The People so completely screw up the simple yet desperately difficult task of voting for responsible people that now we have no one in government with the sense God gave a block of wood? There is nobody in the capital city able to stand up and say We are going to make this right, do the next right thing, at the very least the job we were hired to do. Don’t worry, we are competent and the system works. Nope, every last one of them regardless of party are determined to prove the opposite, that they are worthless and unworthy, corrupt and incompetent.

I am reminded of a line from the series Deadwood, in which the character Wolcott says:

I am a sinner who does not expect forgiveness, but I am not a government official.

Anyway, here’s some Grandpa. From two different sections of text. He’s not my Grandpa or yours, but maybe we can find some truth in him.

I brought my family west in 1942. We dragged up and rolled out of Joplin following a trail of postcards sent by a cousin on my wife’s side, a witless unwashed little bastard who had come ahead in search of work. I tried to talk her out of it, said we had friends and kin and possibilities and the Lord seemed pleased to see us grow where we were planted, but she would not be diverted. Those postcards were full of promises and hope. California was a land of unlimited harvest, he said, where for practically nothing a man could claim a piece of land as wide and rich as his dreams, and have no one to argue with but the bees.

I remember how that long damn road across New Mexico went on and on like the devil himself had laid it with a taut line leading west out of Texas into hell. We had a pickup truck, a 1937 Chevrolet with no air in it and not much air outside either. We dragged a little two wheel trailer behind us for our possibles, making six wheels in all and between there and here every tire blew out or ran flat more than once.

…

When I came out of the bank they were waiting for me in the little park across the street and up the block. The sun had filled the day with shining. I had my old leather valise in my hand and the papers were in it. I put it against my chest and gave it a pat for good luck because it held the instrument of all our hopes. Standing on the corner, I could see them up the street, my family. They were waiting in the little plaza. John was hanging like a monkey on the muzzle of the antique Army gun, swinging like it was made to be a toy and not a relic of death from the Mexican war. Lillian was sitting on a bench watching him play, holding our baby. I saw how small they looked compared to the buildings, the trees and the California sky. But I felt pretty small myself, in relation to the contract I had signed. Small against the work we’d have to do to pay the note, to coax good fruit from serious and stoic trees. But the grass was green in the little park and the flag on the pole next to the canon was earnest, and the sky was very blue. The little town of Cortina – our new home – sat around us faintly humming with the engine of people in an early summer afternoon. We were strangers here entirely, but with many friends we just hadn’t met yet. And a loan had been made to me in good faith. So in my mind – to very young Jim Geister, far from home and his people – anything was probable and everything was good.

Ancient?

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The novelist and writing teacher John Gardner, who once taught writing at my alma mater, said:

“One must be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most ancient and shrewd parts of one’s being to take over the work from time to time.”

Now I certainly think he was right. And not just in the sense of a novel. Any literary fiction or poetry demands a willingness to let the exploring muse rummage around in the back bedroom closet of the soul. But there is a word in that quote that makes me confused.

How is it that there are ancient parts of my being, or anyone’s? Middle-aged is the term, I think. Ancient is like the epigraph to Eliot’s Wasteland.

He says he saw the Sybil hanging in a jar in the market in Cumea and he asked her what she wanted. She responded, “I want to die.” (The Sibyl of Cumae was the most famous of her kind. In Greek mythology, they were prophetic old women; witches or oracles. As a reward for guiding Aeneas through Hades in the Aeneid,  she was granted immortality by Apollo. But she forgot to ask for eternal youth too. So she withered away and got hung up in a bottle like bad taxidermy. I guess you can file that one under being careful what you wish for.)

Is that the sort of thing I’m supposed to picture as ancient in my being? No, I think Gardner is referring to something more like the collective unconscious. There is a history of humanity that runs through our kind irrespective of the individual. Something timeless, tribal, transcendent. This commonality of suffering and joy is what binds us together and makes writing worth reading.

William Faulkner was one of the great declaimers of creativity born in universal human experience; the grinding wagon wheels of generation. He bade us write about, “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed–love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”

That’s all I have that’s ancient, as far as you know. But I confess there are cabinets down in the garage that haven’t been purged of their primeval dasein for a while. Who can say who might be hanging around down there, beseeching Olympus for a merciful end.

Nonverbal Verbs

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Guess what I’m doing tonight. Don’t wanna guess? Aw, yer no fun. Smile

I’m writing a new poem. I think I’ll call it Toward Water and Home, which reminds me of Like Water for Chocolate. That was a good book.

towerI haven’t been writing as much poetry as I used to, my creative time having been claimed by short fiction and the novel. The latter hangs on like the metaphorical equivalent of a bad dictator. Maybe a snarly, misanthropic wizard who lives in a ruined tower on a hill.

Progress is like slogging through a bog, is my point.

I believe I like the new poem. I’ll let it jell-o for a couple of days, then post it here.

Here’s something I have been pondering for a long time:

How large a role can the unconscious mind play in creative writing which is not overtly symbolic?

We all recognize that nonverbal communication, such as painting or sculpture, are used to express the nonverbal world. But how close can verbal communication come to being part of our verbally inexpressible reality?

Stated differently, can words be used to express that which is inexpressible with words? I think so; it’s sort of what I do. Maybe you do too.

I propose that the unconscious mind is always on the job, and we are well served by allowing it equal time at the desk.

Time in a Blender

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Remember the Bass-o-Matic, Dan Aykroyd on SSN?

Bass-O-Matic76

Sometimes it sure seems like the days are being gobbled up, just that way. You drop one in the top about 7:30am, press Medium, and … there’s a horrible noise. Bones and scales. Nobody should have to watch this going on. And the result, when the late shows come on, isn’t nearly as nutritious as we’d like to pretend.

But I’ve over-blended the analogy, as usual.

I’m way behind on my blog reading. I’m behind on my blog writing. But while I’m waiting for consciousness to grind down to a nice, slow stir, here’s a little something to whet your appetite:

Finding your voice in your audience

I listened to an interview recently of the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. She was asked about the genesis of voice and said that it’s important to think about the person you’re writing to – ideally, an individual. She pointed to examples in her own work, and to whom each piece was addressed.

“A consciousness of who you’re speaking to and why is crucial. … Storytelling without an idea of who you’re telling your story to is a voice echoing in an empty room.”

Gilbert explained that this is true because we are different in the way we speak and act, depending on the company we’re in. And I think that’s true. I know it is. I can be very different with different people, if for no other reason than that each relationship imposes a disparate dynamic.

William Stafford said it all best, in his poem A Ritual To Read To Each Other.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider–
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

Yes, yes. But doesn’t this contradict what we’ve so often and emphatically been told by the teachers of creative writing, that we shouldn’t consider the audience at all? Don’t even imagine that there might one day be an audience, they say. Write for yourself. Because worrying about critical reception, misunderstanding, hurt feelings, etc., will kill all hope of creating art.

Well, then, so be it. So it goes. Let it be.
Doo bee doo bee doo.
And in case you’re wondering, it’s true.
I’m writing it all to you.

That Which

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Do you ever get confused about the difference between that and which, and the correct usage of these words? I do. Maybe not so much confused as distracted, forgetful. It’s one of those things we should have had down cold before matriculating to middle school, but which drifts from focus with time. So today, we focus thereupon it. Smile 

There are many such things in our language. I hear otherwise articulate people say things like, “Bob and me got up early and went fishing.” English ain’t easy.

A. Small dogs, which often bark, should get extra treats.

B. Small dogs that often bark should get extra treats.

C. Meetings, which occur on Wednesday, are held in Room #6.

D. Meetings that occur on Wednesday are held in Room #6.

See the difference? All four of these sentences are grammatically correct. But their meanings are different.

I guess reasonable people could arm wrestle over the comma usage, but not today.  

A & C add information about their subjects, small dogs and meetings. (You might not otherwise know that small dogs often bark or that meetings are on Wednesday, but you need to.) B & D limit the information.

In A, all small dogs often bark and should get extra treats. In B, only small dogs that often bark get extra treats; others don’t, and don’t get extras.

In C, all meetings are on Wednesday and always in Room #6. In D, Wednesday meetings are in Room #6; meetings on other days might be someplace else.

So the trick is to make note of sentences which add information, as opposed to those that don’t.

And who knew that Windows Live Writer had graphical smiley faces? Cool.

Something Cool

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happened on the Internet today. A formerly suicidal (literally) writer named Kiana wrote to a writer named Joe, about the impossibility of getting published in the traditional marketplace. She had taken his advice, she said, went digital, and turned everything around. Her book has been selling on Amazon.

Today she got an extra gift: When Joe shared (with permission) her message of appreciation and hope, her latest’s ebook’s rank on amazon.com shot up around 45,000%. Yeah, 45 thousand percent.

Way to go, guys.

Here’s the whole story.

And here’s a brief quote that stood out as useful for me:

“For the first time ever, writers have a choice.

Choices are empowering. Having the ability to control our futures, even with something as simple as self-publishing an ebook, means we aren’t helpless anymore.

That’s a very good thing.”

The upshot is that we are no longer dependent on a corporate publisher to get our work out there and get money for it. In fact, we can’t rely on that paradigm because it’s different. Some say dying, I say morphing.

Gone are the days when a name publishing house will take a change on a no-name writer. They won’t bring you into the business. With very rare exceptions, you have to do that for yourself. You have to build a platform, as they say. And once you’re established and successful, then maybe they’ll come courting.

When that happens, here’s what you need to remember. 

How I Double-Wasted A Couple of Hours

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Here’s the premise: we all know what it means to waste time. But if you’re doing 2 things at once, both of which are pretty useless, that’s double-wasting time, right?

I think I mentioned that I’ve been having PC troubles. My beautiful desktop machine started crashing – blue screen of death crashing, which is serious – about 8 days ago. Before that, its video functions had been funky. Once the crashing started and I’d ruled out things like virus, bad memory, dust in the tower, and registry fubar, I discovered that the graphics card was overheating. It was twice as hot as it was supposed to be (approx 215 F), but the fans are running.

I’ve been advised to replace the graphics card. I’m working on that. The PC is on injured reserve and I’m using my trusty but temperamental laptop. The desktop still works just fine, with a little fan blowing cold air into the case. But that’s like driving a car around with a bad water pump, and the back seat full of water jugs. Better to let it mostly rest until new parts are obtained and installed, than to be constantly worried and watching the gauges.  

In the mean time, of course everything is backed up as much as possible. All of my writing is saved onto a second PC, CDs, flash drives, and up yonder in The Cloud. But I said to myself, “Hey self, wouldn’t it be cool to have all those poems in one file, which could be updated at will, and saved easily to Dropbox for backup?”

So, since there’s just no arguing with myself when I get a brilliant idea like that, off I went through the short prime time hours of last night, building a Word file of poems by me in alphabetical order. And properly formatted for efficient mapping and retrieval, of course. And while doing that, I was – here’s the double-wasting part – watching TV.

Not writing or reading or winding the clocks or pondering the luminosity of the Waxing Gibbous moon. Shuffling stuff I’ve already written, and glowering at the tube.

Oh dear. But I learned that I have almost 140 completed poems, now all nice and neat. And there’s another folder of unfinished ones; drafts, loose pieces, false starts and insensate stuff. Probably many more in there. But I’ve come to my senses, for now. I’m not diving into that. Instead, I’m writing this. 

By the way, the last post, Cheesy Blogging, really was allowed to ferment for over 24 hours in my vat of drafts before posting. I’m not sure it it improved the flavor. Maybe it just made the stuff a little stale.

Speaking of which, for being such a good reader and sticking with me, here’s a treat for you. From deep in the crusty casks of the Unfinished Poems folder, a poem. It’s from way back in February of 1999.

 

OPEN WATER

I can see nothing.
I look out into limitless dark
that hours ago was the sea
and into which now
everything — boats, birds,
men and islands and all
the world I
knew in daylight —
has disappeared.

I wish I was home
in my old chair, but we
had our final good-byes to make.
I wish I was anywhere candles
burn with happiness
but the ocean called me out tonight.
Up and down on worrisome swells,
then the morning tide wakes and turns
and carries this wreckage
in first light for open water.

 

 

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Open Water by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a
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