November already

I can see that FACEbook has taken over the blogging territory. Does anybody blog anymore? I see blogs attached to lit mags. The one on New Pages is pretty good. Storyglossia's editor used to have more entries, but fewer now, so I think everyone's over to Facebook format. My concern is that someone will post something inappropriate on my facebook account. Writing world for me is non-existent right now. Too much to do--grade essays, grade, grade, grade. I can see where teaching interferes with my creative process. I'm curious how people who are teachers deal with losing the impetus to write when they are all the time working on lessons, evaluating, and don't forget--going home and taking care of kids and pets. McSweeney's and the new FlatmanCrooked are having a shindig in San Francisco tonight. Look it up on the web and think about going. I'm going to try to make it over there. I did write some experimental type lyric essays, but need the time to sit down and edit them. I don't think it's about being blocked--I think it's about being overextended.

This Blog

I am doing the following: dealing with pets, grading Scarlet Letter short answers (not bad), feeling woeful over not being asked to read at Litquake by Tim Foley for the magazine Farallon Review. Long story, but do not feel like going into it. Suffice it to say, he has according to him--"not done anything wrong." A version which I strongly disagree with. According to Litquake people--they leave it in the hands of the cocurators to invite who they want. They encouraged me to get to know other editors in the area and submit. Therefore, I am moving past it. On a personal note, I am loving my creative writing class. Ken Rodgers came by and taught a lesson on imagery and the kids, as always, loved it. Yeah, Ken. Thanks for the respect and commitment. You're a friendly face at a time when I needed to see one. As for writing--I gave myself permission not to write until my back feels better. I'm going to see a specialist at the end of the month--it's beyond Tylenol's help. Not doing too bad today, though. Hi, Jean Womack. I got your comments--your paintings of Yosemite are dynamite. I want to buy one. Are they expensive?

Sign up for my fiction class if you are a new time writer or experienced or even if you have taken the class before. I'll be mixing in new stuff with the old, so it won't be tired. This class is about working on your fiction. I do have novelists that take the class and work on chapters. That's okay with me. I am primarily a short story writer, but study the novel and teach it.

We had a lot of fun the last time I taught the Flash Fiction class, so join in and see what creative ideas you can come up with. The short short is an art form that deserves a second look.

More later.

Online Journal

I have a few minutes and then it will be time to lie down with Jackey on her bed--read a little of The Longest Winter to her and then go to sleep. I didn't have time to read Period 1's essays about a turning point in their lives, although they are easy and enjoyable to read. I just need a moment to cleanse the palate of my mind. Today, I did not read a book. The students didn't read--it was picture day, which took almost all period. We did discuss the use of the hyphen, a rule I think will stand them in good stead. I could be reading one essay right now. My plate is too full, though. I need a break. Tomorrow night is my creativity class, so that'll be a refreshing break from American Literature. We are going to generate stories and a mind map. Hmmm. Stealing this idea from someone. In October, my friend Lewis Buzbee's book Steinbeck's Ghost is coming out. He's reading in the city somewhere...Oct. 9th I think at a bookstore. I'm looking forward to this book. All right all. Goodnight.

To sleep or not to sleep

Ayee, too much work. Reading the study guides for The Scarlet Letter that I thought I did not assign this summer. In class I forgot where the story takes place and got all owly with students when they called me on it. Boston or Salem? Oy. Boston, but Hawthorne lived in Salem--what a stupid trivia question. This absent-mindedness I am attributing to 1) my dad's side of the family--his undiagnosed dyslexia--I've got it when it comes to remembering people's names, street numbers, and numbers, period. Oh, you're saying, everyone has that. No!!! Not like me. I could forgot the name of a former best friend. It is like a huge hollow space in my head and then suddenly, three days later it pops into my mind. I could memorize a scene from Macbeth and then suddenly four whole sentences will be gone. I reverse order of words all the time. It's embarrassing to run into your former babysitter with the unusual name that you know starts with a V and not be able to remember that his name is V---I can't remember now--Ventura! I got it. It gets worse when I haven't had enough sleep. I don't get enough sleep when my back is acting up, which it did this weekend. MISERAble. I'm trying not to complain out loud, though. So I'll just do it in writing. What does this mean for my writing, though? I have to clear the air, get rid of the frustration with pain, find a quiet and pain-free space and a line that keeps repeating itself inside my mind--a line that wants to be a story or a poem. A sentence that someone uttered, a moment that sticks. What is it? I can remember those. I remember standing outside the French doors of our newly remodeled basement and not speaking to my husband. I remember seconds and flashes of moments, but not names. You could tell me the name and the number of the street and two, no one, second later, I will say where? This isn't Alzheimers, it's for life. Ahh, the brain. I hear exercise is good for it, so maybe I'll go work out, or else go lie down.

Writers

So, I was thinking and thinking about writing this morning. I wondered how to make this blog useful to both myself and others. I think maybe clients might read it; teachers from my school; a few old friends here and there; some family members might read it (that'd be rare, but they are sure to talk about it to each other rather than to me!). I think writing in seclusion can be frustrating, yet if you don't do the alone time, nothing gets done. I like to go for a walk, then write. I like to get on a schedule. I like to teach. I like to hang out with my kids and / or my husband. BALANCE is essential. The other day my nine year old went somewhere with a friend and I was at a loss for what to do when I didn't have to squeeze writing in. That was a signal to me--I could get that empty nest syndrome when she's gone, even though I have plenty to keep me busy. What I need to do, however, is write. So that's what I'm going to do: make a list of stories that need work, pick one, and revise. I was looking at a story this morning that I thought was finished, but that I wasn't quite happy with. I'd been sending it out, getting rejections, but still that feeling--I don't like it as much as other stories I've written. Having left it alone for a long time, rereading it, I realized the language was a little listy, a little clunky. I wanted to throw it away, but Ilove the ending of it (I'm not saying which story). So I realized that I need to go at it with a pen and my vocal chords. Read it out loud. I had read it aloud when I wrote it, but now with time and distance, I can hear it better. So I'm going to go into my new writing studio and read it out loud. CU LTR

CANT

Places you can't find my work: the fifth corner of the Monopoly board game, the Missouri Review, the New Yorker, on the side of a bus, tatooed on my tooth, the Kenyon Review, inside the dynamite factory, Alaska Quarterly Review, written on a roll of duct tape, oh stop. You get the point.

Which is not say I haven't tried. Well, I haven't tried the New Yorker, and I haven't sent anything to the Kenyon Review for a long time. But the only way to find out if someone will or won't publish your work is to send it to them.

On talking to people who've never been published. It ain't that easy. Send to smaller magazines first. Go on-line, read magazines on-line that have received notoriety and success in the on-line market: Storyglossia, Wheelhouse, Story South, Pindeldyboz...(Stop putting these websites down; we're talking short story writers here, not novelists, although lots of novelists have been published on-line). There's many many others. Read that stuff! It's great. A few good writers you can read on-line: Laurie Seidler, Neil Crabtree, Stephanie Dickinson, Steve Almond, Tobias Wolff. Those are not in any particular order. See the writers.

Back to Work

I'm taking the RIAP conference on teaching reading and writing and am overwhelmed with work, so the blog is off the map right now.

Just want to mention my Creativity Jolt! class at the writing salon. It runs five weeks and is starting August 20th. Sign up! You'll love it. It's just the thing you need if you want a place to write without judgment.

To all friends who are waiting for me to read their work--sorry, but I'll get to it. You know I'm good for it.

I'll be back this weekend.