Sunday Rain

Today is the 22nd--the last day off before the end of ski week. I spent the week working on revising short stories, painting a set for my daughter's play next week, finding a costume for her. I have to say the set turned out fabulous: a surreal orange and yellow sun, a pink castle with silver glitter, and fields of pink, yellow, and white flowers. Thanks to my husband, it looks pretty professional. It's a fairy tale story.

Well, I'm reading a couple of books about writing right now: Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark and Creative Journal Writing by Stephanie Dowrick. Clark's book is in some ways an updated version of The Elements of Style; however, I'm finding all kinds of useful tidbits around writing that were unexpected when I picked the book up. I wish more newcomers to writing would read books about writing, but I remember when I first started writing--it was all about the act of writing and less about craft. Anyway, Clark looks at things from a journalistic stance, too, and I think that can only help my sense of organization. I found some surprising writing exercises in it. The Creative Journal Writing book is still on the back burner for me. I did like journaling about goals for a particular project--it helped me clarify a direction I'm taking with my collection of stories I seem to be working on now.

I was also thinking a lot this week about writing groups vs. classes vs. one-on-one mentoring. I've been shopping around for a writing group to join, but find many groups blocked to my entry. I think it's just that people get used to each other--hmm, what am I trying to say? I keep encouraging people in my classes to also think about finding someone whose opinion they really trust to help dig deeper into their stories. I have one or two people whose opinions really matter to me; I'd like to find one or two more. One thing I think that happens is a person needs help with just one small issue in a story, and an article or a craft book doesn't really address that. I read the flyer/newsletter from Glimmertrain called Writer's Ask? Is that what it's called. Anyway, I feel like they need to have the articles dig a little deeper on some of their topics--too superficially treated. I think helping students with a particular topic works in a one-on-one question/discussion format rather than in the workshop model. In a workshop class, students bring the writing to the table and are told the strengths of the piece and then some areas that need attention. Or the others ask questions. The writer is silent until the end, but I find that if I am allowed to talk about a story to a group, I'm able to come up with the answer I needed. By that, I don't mean that I justify the events or endings or whatever in a story. If it aint there, it aint there. I mean, say I don't like me ending, but I can talk about my ending, maybe I can figure out why I don't like it. If a group tells me the ending doesn't work for them and then suggests alternate endings, they've gone too far in trying to write it for me. I attended a group last week, and we sat around and ate chili and salad and laughed and talked about our stories and that helped free up my writing more than any prescribed group vs. writer type of setting. Journaling about a story helps, too. Still can't work in a vacuum. I'm not that writer. All right enough rambling. I've got stories to edit and I gotta go see a man about a mule.

Writing Fiction

It was nice to see a couple of people read my blog--Peter and Kevin. Kevin asked about my fiction class that I teach on Thursday nights at the Writing Salon. It usually runs as a nine week class. In each class, we address an issue of craft, such as developing characters or finding the arc of the story. I try to bring new articles and ideas surrounding craft for each class. That means if you've taken the class before, I still bring in new stories and new techniques for addressing craft. We have a short discussion around craft, read a story related to the issue, and discuss that. Then we try some writing within the class--something centered around the story we read or the craft issue. Maybe we'll try writing a story that has lots of dialogue with lots of subtext, something like that. Then we workshop 2-3 stories for the rest of the class. It's a jam-packed night. If you take the class, you get to workshop at least two stories within the timeframe of the class. It starts again in the summer. Sometimes I teach a flash fiction class on a weekend, but I've had more trouble drumming up a class for that. the website for any classes at the Writing Salon is writingsalons.com.

Kevin--thanks for the quote from Bukowski, but I think he was a pretty ambitious poet. He's not giving himself enough credit.

As for me, I had a great time at the Good Vibrations reading on Friday. It was very tastefully prepared and everyone seemed to have a good time. Laura Riggs made some beautiful cards with our poems/flash fiction/nonfiction on them, so I was especially pleased. (By the way, it was on Polk--oops)

I'm working on a story now that I got inspired to write by reading the book Ron Carlson Writes a Story. It's a book that follows how he wrote the story "The Governor's Ball." I liked it because it looked at how we writers write a story, instead of looking at story from the outside ie. craft. I was so inspired by it that I decided to include a period of time within my class at the Writing Salon where we don't just talk about craft, but also talk about where we get ideas, how we make decisions, how we get into and through the revision process, how we set a writing schedule that works for us--stuff like that.

Bummed. I went to Zack Rogow's reading today at Diesel Books in Oakland on College (His book: lovely, lovely, lovely--called The Number Before Ininity) and forgot my purse, so I didn't get to buy all the books I had picked up for myself and for loved ones' Valentines--I gotta get back over there. Well, it's time to read and write a little, spend some time half-watching a kid movie with my younger daughter and get some sleep. Be kind to yourself and say hi to me when you get a chance.

Wait let me just say one more thing about Zack's book. It's a collection of poems that are wonderfully written. The blurb on the back says each poem is a chapter in the story of two lovers united by passion but separated by previous commitments. I especially choked up over his poems involving children caught in the tug-of-war when two people move apart. The Number Before Inifinity

Poetry Reading

Hey, If you read this. Leave a comment. I need to know if anyone reads this in order for me to continue. All right--up on the agenda--I have a reading coming up on Feb. 6 at Good Vibrations in San Francisco. We are reading love poetry at that location and selling a little gift card with our poems in it. Cool. This is all arranged by Laurie Doyle from my Fiction class at the Writing Salon. More on this later. Come on over-it's at 7:00 on Valencia Street in the Mission.

Checking In

Well, it's been a while. My new Fiction Class at the Writing Salon starts next Thursday, the 29th of January. It runs from 7:00 to 9:30. I'm looking forward to it. We're planning to address issues of craft as usual, but I also want the class to talk about the process of creating a story ie. "Where" do they come up with stories? How do they find time to write? How do they stay with a story until it's finished?

I finished Mark Budman's novel and enjoyed it--nice voice. I also picked up a copy of the current 2009 Pushcart Prizes and was a little dismayed to read the editor's opening comments dissing on-line magazine submissions. I find it in poor taste to allow editors from on-line sources to submit stories for consideration and then to openly criticize on-line venues for the poor quality of the submissions. If the Pushcarts don't want on-line magazines to submit, then they shouldn't have opened the door to this. I'm not sure what's going on there. I've read some pretty amazing stories on-line in Narrative Magazine, Virginia Quarterly, Storyglossia, Western Humanities Review and some great flash at Smokelong Quarterly. I also enjoy reading the flash at Vestal Review. I'm not published in most of these magazines, so this isn't self-promotion. I just find it plain RUDE that print publications are being such dinosaurs about what they consider to be quality fiction. I see lots of award winning authors publishing on-line these days. Enough. I'll stop after I say one more thing--weren't the Pushcarts established in order to honor literature that doesn't get honored. Isn't that the spirit of this prize? I feel like the on-line venues should start their own Pushcart Prize. We do have the Million Writers Award, but this typically picks only one story. Dzanc Books publishes a Best of the Web book now, so I guess that's our Pushcart. It's daunting, though. I hear so many new writers say, Maybe I shouldn't try to get published on-line. I say, do your homework...read the magazines...see if you like the stories. Water seeks its own level. Okay I'll stop.

Writing? Yes, but for now, that's under wraps. I do have a short creative non-fiction piece coming out on the ON-LINE edition of 580 Split. I'm very proud of it and very proud to be included in 580's inaugural on-line edition of the magazine. It's out at the end of the month, called "In the Shed."

Anything else? Read Ron Carlson Writes a Story. It'll inspire you. I went to Instant City's reading for their new magazine issue. I feel like it's a small select crowd who all know each other that gets in the mag. Nice people, but Gravity Goldberg was joking about nepotism, and hmm. I'm not from SF, but being from another state and moving here, I feel like I'm a San Francisco-an. I'm from the East Bay. The story has to be about San Francisco--okay, I'm okay with that, but there's also this gritty realism thing, too. Is that all SF is? Drugs, violent scenes at poetry readings, confrontations on mass transit? I need a stronger point to some of the stories I like. I did like one story, though--"Eucalyptus" by Cynthia W. I forget the last name and I left my copy at work. Anyway, that story captured a generation for me. She did some nice work there.

Other on-line venues I like, of course, are VerbSap, Wheelhouse, Midway Journal. I'm published in these. I'm not looking to win awards with these stories, but I still love these stories. I submitted them on-line, not because I felt they weren't good enough to get into a print mag, but because they were shorter, had a trendier, more on-line feel to them. I can't say what that quality is that makes me say submit this on-line. A little shorter than average is one quality, though. Midway wanted experimentation--I liked their logo and I liked what I saw when I went there. I also liked that they were a Midwestern base. Don't be an elitist. Submit to both print and on-line. Encourage and support.

A New Year

What am I finished reading?
Iron Horse Review, The HolidayIssue; Cimarron Review, Summer 2008; Mississippi Review V36, N3; the Iowa Review 38/1.
What am I reading right now?
Mark Budman's novel, My Life at First Try. So far, I really like it. I love the short episodic nature of his chapters. I like it that he tried something different with narrative. I love the voice of it and the cultural details around living in Russia. I'll let you know how well I really like it, when I'm finished.
What did I dream last night?
I dreamt that my deck on my house started falling apart and that I was sleeping outside in this shed in front of my house. Then I was at the school where I teach and I was taking some weird sex class that I couldn't figure out how to pay for. Then I had to get home to my kids, but I had to take this strange kind of vehicle owned by one of the teachers. It had a weird gear shift, like a tractor. I was driving it crazy and fireworks were going off in the field nearby. Okay, that's strange. Shall we interpret that? Home, kids, sex, money, work. Yeah, I'm not hard to figure out.
What am I going to do today?
Write something new. Revise two stories that need work. Journal about my idea for a novel. Ieee. Exercise first so I can establish my priorities.

Iowa Short Fiction Awards

Well, it's bittersweet. Once again, a semifinalist for the Iowa Awards. I know you are saying, bitch, you should be happy. Ten years writing and writing once we hit '09 and still no book published. What do I have to do? I have to write 15 Stories that will knock your socks off. Or just get lucky, I guess. Maybe it's something to do with the times. Oh well, I think I'd rather get a semifinalist letter than no letter at all. That's in the top 20 out of almost 400 people, according to the editors...so quit y'bitching, Ms. Genna. That collection is still out there looking for a home. It's called Stories I Heard When I Went Home for My Grandmother's Funeral. The stories in it all have some reference to Iowa. I thought it was pretty lucky to get picked as a semifinalist for the Iowa Prize because they don't look for Iowa stories. I have been shopping for a press that does Midwest stories, but they are few and far between.

X-MAS OVER / NOW WHAT?

Thank God, X-mas is over. I still want to to go to church, just to sing all the old hymns, clear those rusty pipes out. But hey, it's time to look forward. Can someone point me to a bookstore? I'm finished reading all my lit mags that I have on my shelf: Cimarron Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and, oh wait, I still have to read River Oak. The Cimarron issue started off a little slow, but then it grew on me. I'd have to say I enjoyed the poetry the most--lots of narrative stuff that I could appreciate. Toni Graham is the fiction editor there; she used to teach at USF, so I thought I'd check it out. The stories in there--let's see, I really liked "Funny Looking People" by Gemini Wahhaj--a story I thought my students at Hercules would like. "Gazelle" ended a little abruptly for me, and I love an abrupt ending. Oh, and I finished Opium 7. I love the graphics in that magazine. What's weird is that my name's in it and I keep forgetting that. I'm going to show it to my students as a possible idea for imitating some of the different layouts. We produce a high school lit mag called The Dynamite Factory, which sounds like an old school 70's name, but is really based on the fact that all of Hercules used to be a powder works company. We should have our website up and running soon for that class, too.
Okay, so writing. I think the best thing is to read what you want to be writing. By that I mean, if you're gearing up to write a novel, read novelists you admire. Someone gave me a copy of Water for Elephants, and I can't get past chapter 2. I wanted to read it, just for the fact that it's about circus people, but I couldn't get past the convention of old fart telling his life story. I remember a really good novel called Geek Love that does this much better. Read some Richard Yates. I heard a review of the movie Revolutionary Road on NPR that said it was an okay version of the book, but don't do what I did with Atonement and watch the movie first. I can't get through that book now, and I felt the movie was anticlimactic. The lit mag Water~Stone Review is just beautiful, inside and out--try that one. I have a few more pages of that left to read. So my two faves in L.M. This year are still The Iowa Review and Opium. They fit my sensibility. Of course, there's always McSweeney's and Missouri Review. If you're a short story writer or a poet or a creative nonfiction writer, you should be reading lit mags, period.