Strange Blog – or how I stopped worrying and learned to love blogging - Guest post from J.S. Watts

Strange Blog – or how I stopped worrying and learned to love blogging

By J.S.Watts

Blogging hasn’t come naturally to me. My website may be hosted by Blogger, but it’s first and foremost a static website, rather than a chatty blog. My posts tend to be brief news items and updates, not opinion pieces or diary entries. Until 9^th June last year I had never actually written a real blog post.

My first post, written for a writers’ online colony that I belong to, actually focussed on my blogging virginity and the losing of it. It was fun. I enjoyed writing it, but it didn’t exactly unleash a torrential flow of pent-up blogs.

It was a month until I managed another post. In fact, spurred on by an imminent trip to the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to read some of my poetry, I managed two posts in July and one in August. Then my usual blogging lethargy returned and I didn’t write another post until December.

Almost a year later and by the beginning of October 2012, I had written the grand total of just six blog posts. That’s less than one piece every two months. I clearly wasn’t at risk of writer’s cramp, or its modern equivalent, RSI, when it came to blogging. So what was the problem?

Obviously, it’s not that I don’t like writing. I’m a poet and author; it’s what I do. I love writing, but blogging somehow worried me. It seemed to require an opinion, something factual to comment on and I didn’t think I had that much to say that would interest readers in the Blogverse. Plus, with so many blogs already out there, why write even more?

I was happy writing book reviews for various literary and genre magazines. There were my poems, poetry books and short stories and a brand new novel. I wasn’t exactly short of things to write and publish. Blogging was a worry I didn’t need.

It was the novel that finally propelled me into the world of blogging: the novel and its publisher, Vagabondage Press. Thanks guys…

There I was, hard work done: novel written, edited and about to be published. I was looking forward to putting my feet up for a bit when Vagabondage effectively said, "Great book, J.S. We love A Darker Moon and want others to love it too. You’ll help getting the word out, won’t you?" What could I do, but say, "Yes". The next thing I knew, there was a growing pile of interview and guest blog-post requests and an enthusiastic publisher telling me how great it was that we’d got so much upfront interest.

The interviews were fine. All I’d got to do was answer the questions provided and chat about A Darker Moon. The blogs, however, were another matter. They were blank, structureless pages waiting to be filled with comment and opinion. Yes, I wanted to promote A Darker Moon and talk about its mythic literary fiction qualities. As a result there was bound to be some similarity between posts, but I couldn’t churn out the same thing. I needed to do original pieces, find original things to say, write from different angles and do it differently over and over again: I needed to become a regular blogger.

I hesitated, dithered and worried and then I realised something so obvious that I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. I am a writer. Writing, laying down and shaping words is what I do. Blogs are written pieces, collections of words laid down on the page and shaped. So where is the problem?

I picked up my pen (I always do first drafts in long-hand. I think better that way) and then I moved to the keyboard. I adored the stunning cover of A Darker Moon that the talented Art Director at Vagabondage had come up with. I loved the glowering, wide-eyed owl, the full moon and the black yet moonlit water because they are visually awesome and because they are brilliantly selected key motifs from the novel itself. I wrote about this and the importance of book covers in general. One blog post successfully completed.

The next piece looked at the significance of the novel’s London location (that’s London, England to anyone reading this in The States. I’m a British writer). Then came writing about myth and fantasy, followed by my personal take on the modern horror genre and another piece on the range of myth and legend I had drawn on to shape the dark psychological fantasy of A Darker Moon.

In a little over one month, and including this piece, I have written six full blog posts. That’s as many as I had previously written in sixteen long months. And I haven’t lost the urge to blog. Indeed, the more I write, the more I find I have to write about: the importance of fine art to A Darker Moon, the essence of memory, writers writing about writing (my anti-hero, Abe, is a compulsive writer), the psychology of religious delusion, the impact of family and the implications of writing both poetry and prose. Such is the joy of a multi-layered story: there’s always another topic to pontificate on. I’m seemingly on a roll and if any blogger out there is looking for someone to write them a guest post , I’m your woman! So thank you, Vagabondage, for releasing my inner blogger. I just hope the Blogverse is ready and braced.

　

J.S.Watts is a British writer. She was born in London, England and now lives and writes near Cambridge in East Anglia. In between, she read English at Somerville College, Oxford and spent many years working in the British education sector. She remains committed to the ideals of further and higher education despite UK governments of assorted political persuasions trying to demolish them.

Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia and the States including Acumen, Envoi, Mslexia and Fantastique Unfettered and have been broadcast on BBC and independent Radio. She has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Literary Magazine and, until its demise, Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales. Her debut poetry collection, Cats and Other Myths and a subsequent poetry pamphlet, Songs of Steelyard Sue are published by Lapwing Publications. Her novel, A Darker Moon, is published by Vagabondage Press Further details of her books can be found on her website:
www.jswatts.co.uk . You can also find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/J.S.Watts.page

The Importance of Being Ruthless - Guest Post from Corinna Weyreter

The Importance of Being Ruthless

Corinna Weyreter

The problem with entering stories into competitions, or submitting them to magazines, is that most editors lack either the time or the inclination to enlighten the unsuccessful writer as to where she’s going wrong. If the rejections keep rolling in there comes a point when, clearly, she needs to know.

When I found myself in this situation, a search of the web led me to YouWriteOn, a peer review site for writers. Members can upload a short story, or the opening chapters of a novel, and receive one critique in return for each they write, with assignments allocated by the system at random. It’s an excellent way to improve your writing, not only because people highlight the weak points in your work, but also because you learn from seeing the weak points in theirs, which can often be the same. To be a good writer you need to be an avid reader, but high quality novels are written by experienced authors and have been edited several times before publication. They make writing look easy. So it’s extremely useful to also read the work of aspiring authors, where problems with plot, pace, characterisation, clichés, similes, overused adjectives and adverbs abound, because if these things are sabotaging your own manuscript, you’ll be primed to root them out.

Inevitably some critiques are less valuable than others, usually because the writer is keener to receive a review than produce one, but by the time you’ve amassed ten or so, valid criticisms start to recur. In the case of my stories, these were of dialogue that didn’t sound realistic, and a lack of description that prevented the reader from being fully drawn into the story. I was told that one character was too much of a caricature, and that another behaved in a way that seemed inconsistent with his nature. There were also some positive reviews that made me feel good but ultimately left me no wiser, and others that simply disliked the plot, but what could I do about that except write a completely different story? No writer can please everyone. It was the hardest reviews to read that were usually the most useful, and once the dejection started to wear off, I could see that the criticisms were valid. In fact, not only were they valid, I’d actually been aware of them myself but had chosen to ignore them.

I realised that the main reason for this was I hadn’t always trusted my instincts when I was editing. A devilish voice had persuaded me to spare those clichés that caused a twinge in my gut the instant I reread them, insisting they really were sentences of poetic beauty. Not trusting my instincts prevented me from cutting out words that I’d spent hours writing, and from investing even more time knocking others into shape. It was only when reviewers confirmed my suspicions, and after I’d seen similar mistakes in others’ work, that I learnt to stop listening to that fiendish voice. Reading the stories aloud proved to be a great help in doing this. Any problems with the flow of the prose quickly became apparent, and unrealistic dialogue in particular was impossible to ignore.

It’s sometimes hard to see what’s going wrong with a story when you’re so involved in it. Only an outsider can tell you if it’s really working the way you want it to. Other writers helped me face up to aspects of my writing that I needed to work on; I wasn’t going to get away with not putting more effort into it. I began to examine my writing with a more critical eye, to be on the lookout for common mistakes, and to edit it more ruthlessly before being satisfied. Because it didn’t matter how much time I’d invested in it up until then, if I didn’t really believe it was perfect, why would anyone else?

Corinna Weyreter won the 1998 Bridport Prize and has had several short stories published. She worked in the oil business for fifteen years before resigning to sail around the world with her boyfriend. Her book about their trip, Far Out: Sailing into a Disappearing World, was published this year by Sunpenny Publishing. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/far-out-corinna-weyreter/dp/1907984097

Why I Write Sad Stories - Guest Post from Darci Schummer

Why I Write Sad Stories

Darci Schummer

On 1st Avenue and 28th Street in Minneapolis, a house catches fire.  Fire trucks arrive in a blur of lights and a wail of sirens as flames cut the early morning sky. In housecoats and slippers, the neighborhood watches from living room windows and front yards.  Sweat gathers on its lip.  Smoke fills its nostrils.  Its children, woken from their dreams, point at the flames and vibrate with terrible excitement.  A group of firefighters battles the flames from outside while another group walks into the fire to save those who can be saved.  They rescue one person from inside the house and then another.  Then, they rescue two more people from a second story window. 

But by the time they rescue Jenny, it's too late.

           

My stories have been called bleak, brutal, depressing. And I have been asked why I write such sad stories. 

I have a one-word answer:  Jenny.

           

I write sad stories because of ghosts, ghosts of the living and of the dead. I write sad stories to give voice to ghosts and to give voice to those who live with the ghosts of their dead, and the ghosts of their former lovers, estranged children, chances not taken, aborted opportunities. I write sad stories because they are the adhesive that binds people to ghosts.  I write sad stories because the stories themselves are my ghosts that, as Edna O'Brien writes, "are like dogs that bark intermittently in the night." 

Moreover, sad stories prepare us for futures we are too brittle to imagine or too ignorant to recognize as possible.  They allow us to experience death and loss and desperation with only a modicum of actual pain.  They are precursors to seasons not yet lived. 

           

I write sad stories because I want to live in the past, present, and future simultaneously.

                                           

On a perfect July morning, I am walking down 1st Avenue in Minneapolis.  In front of a burned out 2 and 1/2 story house near 28th street, an empty mailbox gapes like an open mouth, it's red flag 90 degrees in the air.  Mylar balloons tied to the front gate bob in the breeze. Affixed to the gate as well is a red sign that reads, “Hi Jenny, All students at Magic Beauty School miss you!”  On the front stairs at the foot of the gate, a plate of spring rolls sits untouched among bouquets of chrysanthemums.  An open bottle of water and an open can of juice wait among burning candles and incense.  And in the middle of these funereal offerings is a picture of Jenny, of beautiful olive-skinned, black-haired Jenny.   

The air still smells of fire.

I stoop down and leave a dandelion between two candles that will burn for her until their wicks are spent.  Then, I walk home on my strong, good legs, the breeze whipping all around me, a new ghost whispering in my ear.  

At home, I will work on another sad story—a story where there aren't neat explanations, a story where calculations and probabilities all prove incorrect. 

And Jenny, my beautiful olive-skinned, black-haired Jenny, this new story, a story where in the space of one night the whole world trembles into darkness, this is the story I am writing for you.

Darci Schummer lives, writes, and teaches in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Links to her work can be found here:  http://darcidawn.blogspot.com/. 

Re-Thinking Revision - Guest Post from Tina V. Cabrera

Re-Thinking Revision

Tina V. Cabrera

Some writers find revision the best part of writing. They say it’s that space just above comfort because you now have something concrete to work with, that you get to flex different muscles than when staring at a blank page. That may be so, but it can also fill up that space just below the highest level of anxiety because of the fact that you have no idea of what to do with it. Then too I’ve gone back to revise a story, only to see the final result as lacking the original power or imagination that I had first begun with – the life sucked out of it. Or I find myself completely confused as to which draft is the better out of the two or three or more. And now, here I am looking forward to stolen moments of revising time, and here’s why. After several attempts at catching a publisher’s eye with various draft of my latest novella, some kind of science fiction/literary fantasy hybrid, I’m working on what I hope to be the final version. This after hearing from a couple of editors specifically pointing out what works well and what not-so-much. The consensus seems to be that the complex cerebral world that I’ve created manages to hold reader interest, but takes too long in getting there. The voice is distancing, removing the reader from the immediacy of the world. At first, I resisted the idea of going back yet again to what I thought was a done deal. Then after months of having let it be, I read my latest draft over and saw what the editors had concluded. Now I’m happy to say I’m halfway through revision and actually enjoying the process. I’m discovering it’s not ‘finished’ after all, and beyond a cosmetic re-working, I’m even adding to scenes that I had thought for certain were forever concluded. So is revision the best part of writing? To each her own, but once you get going you may find it absolutely necessary.

For more of my writerly musings, visit my blog at: http://www.cannyuncanny.wordpress.com/.

Process? - Guest Post from April L. Ford

Process?
April L. Ford

As a creative writing teacher, I am a font of advice for my college students; I can talk about process until I turn purple.  As a practicing writer … what’s that about process, you asked?

I’ve been writing professionally since 2002, and unless I’m romanticizing my past, I had a more inspired and energetic strategy at the start of my career than I do now.  It consisted of coffee, chocolate bars, cigarettes, and compulsion.  I wrote my first successful short story that way—on a weekend binge, to be exact—and then two more later that year.  And I’m talking long short stories, almost novellas.  My practice was to write whenever the urge seized me, to put everything aside (including college homework) and sit at the computer until I had purged all the good stuff.  That worked fine when I was in my early-twenties and single; now that I’m in my mid-thirties, married, a full-time caregiver for a parent with dementia, and a college teacher, I have to be more methodical.

Last November I was flipping through an issue of Poets & Writers magazine and came across article about one author’s process.  She trumpeted a computer application called “Freedom,” which one can use to block Internet access while one writes.  You tell the application how long you plan to write sans the distraction of online shopping, and the only way you can access the net is to save your work and restart your computer—there’s no way to log out of Freedom.  Brilliant!  I downloaded the application for an easy—and worthwhile—ten bucks and was on my way.  I set it for two hours and set a goal of writing one thousand words.  Success!  I repeated this the next day and the next, and suddenly it was a month later and I had succeeded in writing more than a hundred pages of my first novel, Gentle.

Setting aside specific days and times also helped me.  As writing is not yet (and may never be) my primary source of income, I don’t have too many ideal time slots in the week from which to choose.  So for me, three weekday mornings (usually every other) for two hours (6:30 – 8:30 seems to work best) has proved to be my most successful writing schedule yet.  I wake up, eat breakfast, brew coffee, and then sit at my computer and activate Freedom right away—I don’t permit myself to read emails or the daily news.  After my two hours are up, the day is mine; knowing I don’t have to fret about my writing for the next 22 hours is a welcomed stress-reliever.  Think about how much time writers spend thinking about writing; it’s a necessary part of the process, but I dare say many of us spend more time fretting about our process than our writing.

I’ve taken an unplanned hiatus from Gentle since September; I’m but 15 000 words from the end, but my teaching load has gobbled up the weeks.  No excuse, I understand, but it’s my present reality.  And the longer I stay away from my novel, the harder it is to go back.  My characters, whom just a few months ago I knew better than my best friend, are starting to feel like distant in-laws, and the plot … wait, there are sub-plots, too?  Sometimes long breaks are inevitable.  We’ve all heard about great writers who spent years between novels being depressed, politically active, consumed by new religions.  I used to panic if I couldn’t write for a week, so you can imagine how I must be feeling about my current predicament—I’ve broken the generous “rules” of my process.  But a day hasn’t passed when I haven’t thought about Gentle, and I’m sure that after I spend an hour breezing through my manuscript, I’ll reconnect with my characters and the story, and the rest will happen swiftly.  A throwback to the days of binge-writing (minus cigarettes and chocolate bars).

So what am I suggesting, then?  To follow a schedule or to blow the wind?  A bit of both!  A writer needs to pay as much heed to the demands of her life as to those of her process; sometimes the two are incompatible, sometimes they are harmonious.  Most times, negotiations are necessary.  As for what I tell my Introduction to Creative Writing Students, it’s vague yet specific and seems to satisfy them more than a bullet list of instructions: Do whatever gets you to write.  It might be different every time, and that’s okay; eventually you’ll discover patterns.  As long as you write something every day—a post-it note, a grocery list, an email—you’ll eventually find your way to (or back to) your story.  Or, it will find its way to you.    


April L. Ford teaches creative writing at State University of New York at Oneonta.  She received her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, where she worked closely with Jonathan Dee, Fred G. Leebron, Naeem Murr, and Pinckney Benedict.  Her writing has appeared in Short Story magazine, r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journal, and The Battered Suitcase, among others, and she has an article forthcoming with Ploughshares magazine.  She recently completed a short story collection called The Poor Children and is ready to query publishers.  Her first novel, Gentle, will be up next.

https://aristotle.oneonta.edu/wordpress/aprillford/

Dealing with Rejections - Guest Post from Brigitte Goetze

Dealing with Rejections
Brigitte Goetze

Most of my poems are at first rejected before they are accepted. Some never make it out into the world for I made a (personal and quite arbitrary) rule to stop submitting a poem after it has been dismissed 15 times (or I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t good enough.) Here is my five step program on how to creatively respond to this part of the writer’s life.

1st Step: Acknowledge Feelings
Rejections hurt. At first. It is possible to take them in stride (eventually). In the meantime, disappointment, sadness, despondency, anger, or defiance are all grist for the mill.

2nd Step: Explore Believes
Voice teacher Claude Stein claims that feelings come from thoughts—at least in the case of stage fright. Here is a small sample of believes which are challenged or denied by the rejection:
a) It’s me. I’m no good.
b) I thought that my piece was good enough for publication.
c) I loved my piece and believed that others would love it, too.
d) I thought this journal was just the right venue for it.
e) I put so much work in it and that should be rewarded with publication.
f) I am a new poet (or I don’t have an MFA) that’s why my poem got rejected.
g) It is rude to not even get a rejection notice.

3rd Step: Reality Check
Widen the rejection experience by adding facts about the publication process to each belief.
a) Judgment about  a person’s character requires familiarity—which is non-existent in most submission scenarios.
b) Rejection isn’t necessarily an indicator of lacking quality. Journals often indicate in their Guide to Authors that they might get a thousand or more submissions, but publish only less than a hundred. Hence, even if every piece submitted were stellar, 900 would have to be rejected.
c) There are different styles/schools of poetry. Moreover, a book/poem lauded by one critic gets bashed by another.
d) Editors often try to create a cohesive whole from the submissions received. Pieces which don’t fit the overall design for a particular issue don’t make it.
e) Hard work means a lot has been learned in the process. Moreover, a writer’s life isn’t like elementary school where one gets credit for trying.
f) Education, an existing publication record, or even fame are no guarantee for acceptance. Sylvia Plath, May Sarton, Jane Kenyon, to name but a few, had poems rejected.
g) Many literal journals are labors of love run by volunteers. They may have only a small number (if at all) of paid staff. This means that there is neither time nor money to send out a thousand or so rejection notices.

4th Step: Constructive Response
Respond to each rejection by establishing a set of personal rules. For example:
 Take control of waiting periods. Check the Guide to Authors for average response time. If this information is not given, make a rule to resubmit the poem after, for example, six months of silence.
 Counter each rejection by sending out another set of poems to another journal the next day.
 Be selective in your choice of contests/journals which require a reading fee. Submit only those journals which offer one or two issues in return (to learn more about the journal’s preferences) or which you would like to support for other reasons.
 Network. Exchange publication histories with other poets. This gives insights into response times, editor preferences, markets, etc.

5th Step: Benefit from Rejection
Use rejection as an opportunity for re-evaluation.
 Some journals offer feedback. Take it. An attentive, experienced reader is a special gift.
 Revise. Time (and what has been read and written meanwhile) improves perception and sparks imagination.
 If the poem has been polished to a high shine and still did not make it, change your perception/experience of its rejection by adopting the concept that either time and/or place weren’t right for its publication.
 Redefine success by following Erica Jong’s advise and write only for joy.
 Write something new.


Brigitte Goetze, biologist, goat farmer, writer, lives near Oregon's Coast Range. Her essays, fiction, and poems were published by Oregon Humanities Magazine, Quiet Mountain Essays, Thresholds, Calyx, Women Artist's Datebook 2011, the anthology Love Notes and others. Her most recent poems can be found in Four and Twenty, Outwardlink, and Mused. A website is forthcoming for Fall 2012.

Dirty Words - Guest Post from Erin Ward

Dirty Words 

Erin Ward

It’s really about character, not sex. That’s the first thing I explain to people when I confide that I write erotica. In my opinion, that’s the difference between art and porn. Am I communicating an act or am I communicating the development of my characters? For me, it’s always about people. Characters drive the plot. The act is secondary really—it’s the follow up. Humanity is at the root any good story, even a story steeped in sex.

I find it nearly impossible to incorporate anything romantic or sexual in nature until I know my leading lady. I almost always write from the point of view of a woman, because that’s what I am and what I know. My writing is so cerebral and so emotional; I’m not sure my style would convey a convincing masculine voice. When I begin a story, I start by building my heroine. I usually begin building around something that ends up being very central to the plot—quite often her most private insecurity. Though sometimes that insecurity is very public, while her feelings on it are not. Such was the case with Tinseltown—Veronica’s albinism is hardly a secret, yet her heart is full of them. She owns her appearance in every way possible, because not to do so would mean succumbing to a despair that would devour her, even going as far as choosing a home that would embrace her—Los Angeles. In the end, her sexual quest is not a series of fetishized scenarios; it’s about watching her blossom as she learns to trust… being present as she embodies the sensual beauty of her otherness.

When I was writing for workshops, women tended to love my work. Men would often comment that nothing happens. Perhaps this is because women understand the chaos of the female mind, the cavern we carry of tumultuous emotion, the pandemonium of our inner selves…even in our head and heart we know it’s all happening! A story is empty without a strong sense of humanity, and I do my best to make sure my women are human. I show their peculiarities. I make them vulnerable. I allow them to be strong. I spill all their secrets. I try to do so in a way that every female reading can identify with the arduous task of hiding—sometimes it’s quiet and subtle, sometimes it’s a fucking mountain. We come from a culture, a history where women mask and make-up, learn to manipulate subtly and embody a certain mystery, so it’s always fascinating to see beneath those many layers.

That isn’t to say that men can’t enjoy my writing, or won’t. It is of my opinion that many men would relish the opportunity to explore the eccentricities of femininity and learn how that can permeate the written word. There is always a struggle, it is ripe with tension, and that speaks to everyone. When my protagonist is known, fleshed out whole-heartedly in my mind, then the story is boundless. When she becomes real, then I can go about writing my men in a way that feels authentic for me. It took me years to discover that women find men sexy in a variety of ways, sometimes in ways that we ourselves find surprising. Attraction is in the details and the contradictions bubbling up, always under the radar. That being said, when it finally comes to sex, there are no holds barred. Why should there be? My characters have earned it. At this point, it becomes their story. They write it. They live it for me to put down.

Tinseltown is a story of self-discovery; it’s a peek into the idiosyncrasies of the female mind. And through understanding Veronica, you’re better able to understand a place—and that’s Tinseltown. I am Erin Ward and you can find my book at the following locations:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tinseltown-ebook/dp/B007BWD66U

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tinseltown-erin-ward/1108949810

All Romance: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-tinseltown-727836-149.html

Feel free to check out my page: http://bookblogs.ning.com/profile/ErinWard

            

NeuroVont: A Study in Desperation - Guest Post from Gil A. Waters

NeuroVont: A Study in Desperation
Gil A. Waters


There was a time in my life when creativity was its own reward. As a child, I filled notebook after notebook with poorly written prose simply because writing was enjoyable to an introspective and socially dysfunctional boy like me. I harbored fantasies of being a famous SciFi writer, but these fantasies were fun. They weren’t like adult fantasies in which you dread the thought of not living up to your dreams and having to settle for a second-rate life.

Unfortunately, the first couple decades of my adult life were spent abusing drugs and studying the social sciences, so I didn’t have time for “creative” writing. It was strictly academic non-fiction. Even when I finished grad school, I didn’t return to writing beyond what was required of whatever job I was performing at the time. Again, it was only non-fiction at its most dull and dry.

Then, something happened. I entered my 40s. My body promptly began to decay and I saw myself hurtling toward the half-century mark never having tried to become what I had long wanted to be: a writer. I was terrified. Scared existentially shitless. I would lay in post-op after thyroid surgery or spinal surgery and wonder what my creative legacy would be were I to die on the table during my next operation.

So I picked up notebook and pen and began sketching out a story that would eventually become “NeuroVont, Incorporated.” It is a SciFi Action tale replete with sex, drugs, violence, and disease. It is purposely written, for the most part, in the sparse and spare style of a screenplay. I wrote and re-wrote the story several times, then I emailed it to the publishers of a few on-line magazines. The only one to accept it was Vagabondage Press, which published it in the March 2009 issue of the Battered Suitcase.

But I wasn’t satisfied. My short story failed to bring me either wealth or fame, and I was getting even closer to 50. There seemed to be only one logical course of action: turn NeuroVont into a book and get it published. It took four years and an enormous quantity of marijuana to write NeuroVont-the-novel. I wrote at the office and at home and on the subway. I thought about the book every waking second, working through dialogue and plot points in my head. When I was finally done (or so I thought), I sent the manuscript to many publishers, all of whom rejected it.

Just as I was about to lose all hope, just as I was thinking about sinking to the level of self-publishing, I stumbled upon Montag Press, the editorial staff of which inexplicably liked my book and agreed to publish it. But first came an editorial process as painful as dental surgery. I was informed from the outset that at least a third of the book “didn’t work” and would have to be jettisoned and replaced. Many were the occasions I would receive an email from my editor along the lines of “great work on the revisions, but I think you should cut chapter six.” At which point I would struggle not to vomit and hyperventilate at the same time, before dutifully cutting chapter six and trying to fill the hole that left in the book. Because I had to get published. I had to be a real writer before I got any older.

And, so, NeuroVont, Incorporated was published in May of 2012, as both a paperback and an e-book. Now I confront a different kind of literary dilemma: microscopic sales. I’ve published a book, and next to no one is buying the fucking thing. But I’m doing my best to increase sales. I have to. In only a few short years I’ll be 50, and then it will be too late.

If you’d like to download the Kindle version of NeuroVont for free via MediaFire, or buy the paperback from Amazon, visit my website at http://gilwaters.com/blog/2012/10/19/free-kindle-version-of-neurovont-incorporated/.

Writing A Meaningful Poem - Guest Post from Jessica Harman

Writing A Meaningful Poem
Jessica Harman

The most difficult thing about writing a poem is putting down the first word. Once you have the first word, you can riff off of it, finding things that relate tangentially to it in some way. So how do you get the first word? Sometimes it’s helpful to read a book before writing, and that will give me ideas when I think, “Why didn’t the writer write about this in this way?” In other words, in the way I would have written it.

Other times, to get my first word, I look around me. I often write in the morning. As a consequence, I have a lot of poems that originally began, “I have a cup of coffee on my desk….” But the beginnings get chopped off in the editing process. But that’s the easy part. That’s where the true creativity and polishing happen. We’re not talking about that now, though it is also a good topic.

What we’re talking about now is dredging up the raw material. The first draft. The first words of the first draft that set the tone and base of the first stanzas, and then the rest of the work. There is a theory I find useful, which poet Donald Hall outlines in his book on craft, “Breakfast Served Anytime, All Day,” and that is that all poems revolve around a room of silence. An empty room. There is something true that needs to go unsaid, in other words, and this unspoken thing—this unspeakability—is the empty room. The empty room has a deep truth to it. This truth need not even have words. It can be a feeling. A gravitational silence, a mood, a metaphysics that has yet to be discovered. When you write—when I write, too—I know it is really happening when I feel that center of silence, and my words turning around it. So how do you get that feeling while writing? It’s a question of picking up the vibration in the air, for me. A matter of being attuned to myself and the world. A sort of sixth sense. You want to tremble with ghosts, yours and History’s.

But once you have this magic silent center in place—which is difficult because it’s always shifting—you need stuff to write about, objects to place in your poem, concrete imagery (as they call it in creative writing programs). The problem with the silent room is that it is just that: silent, empty. But poems are made of words, sounds, breath. You need to have your crap, your mud, your coffee mug’s tactility in there. The kitchen sink’s gleam and ping as you throw silverware in might work well, too. You need stuff in your poem.

Getting “things” into your poems is easier than finding the magic center of the meaningful unspoken silence of the universe—and the good news is that it also helps to practice. Also, listening to music helps with the flow of thoughts, and words that make the thoughts, and you can always steal a word here and there from the random stream of lyrics being sung into your ear, if carefully chosen and woven into the fabric of your own work. It’s not plagiarism if it’s just a word—complete phrases need crediting. But the best source of finding concrete imagery for your own work is your own experience—your memories, your hopes, and simply looking at what’s around you.

I once had an exercise in an undergraduate workshop to write a poem using things in this room. That didn’t work out well for me except as practice, but it was good practice. There were cardboard boxes, perfume bottles, coffee mugs (again), chairs—and the trick was to get the emotion into them (on top of it all, this professor had banned the use of the word “heart,” “love,” and “soul,” saying we would automatically fail the course if we used any of them—they were overly used, so we should try to be original). I think my poem went something like this,

You are my cardboard box, my bubble pack
After midnight while the star’s light
Light years away still reaches the dirty window on Earth,
And illuminates the subtle ether of the things on my floor,
And then there you are, bubble pack
Left from unwrapping the coffee machine,
So delectable I want to pop every bubble of you.

The professor said, “Who is the ‘you’ in this poem? It is unclear.” She was right.

You want clarity in a poem. You want it to be unmistakable, what you mean.

All in all, writing poetry is difficult, but if you are writing it and you feel like you’re flying as you try to sense the music of the universe while also getting a good deal of tactile imagery in there, you’re off to a good start.

***
Jessica Harman is an author living in the Boston area. She has published poems in “Bellevue Literary Review,” “Spillway,” “Arion,” “Nimrod,” and “Stand.” Her full-length collection of poems, “Dream Catcher,” is forthcoming from Aldrich Press in April 2013.

Growing Up With a Story to Tell - Guest Post from Chris McKittrick

Growing Up With a Story to Tell

Chris McKittrick

With age comes a different perspective and, more importantly, a different relationship to fiction – especially with what you write.  I remember thinking The Great Gatsby was dull when I read it when I was in ninth grade.  Rereading it a few years later made me realize it was my favorite novel.  In my defense, I wasn’t ready for it yet, much like I wasn’t ready for Montauk when I began writing it.

Montauk, my short novel (the word "novella" sounds to me like I'm trying to find a grander label for my work) has been several years in the making, and it was started at a point in my life where I was moderately worried that I would end up living an unfulfilling life similar to the protagonist.  In its initial stages, I was more or less creating a roadmap for how I didn't want my life to go, as the main character was (at the time) a few years older than I was and (I think) more prone to making poor decisions.  But the story didn’t read true, because I was writing about situations that I wasn’t ready to write about yet.  Heck, despite the title and the setting, I hadn’t even been to Montauk (the furthest eastern point on Long Island) for years.

I put Montauk away and focused my energies on other projects, including several short stories (one of which, “The Coney Island Cowboy” brought me to a location that plays a key role in Montauk) and critical and analytical essays for scholarly publications.  I would take a look at Montauk every few months, writing a page here and there when an idea came to me.  Still, it wasn’t until I was older than the protagonist that I fully understood the essential theme I was trying to get at all along.  I was finally able to define the character by what he wants to accomplish and what he doesn’t know about himself because I understood myself better.  In other words, I discovered something that I had that my character did not.

Part of that also came with finding my own voice.  While in college I took a screenwriting course and many of my classmates were attempting to write mafia/crime screenplays that ended up sounding like unintentional parodies of Scorsese and Tarantino films.  For a while, that’s what I felt about Montauk: like I was aping some of my favorite “undefined search” novels like Catcher in the Rye and The Moviegoer, stories about characters who are searching for something but aren’t quite sure what that might be.  It wasn’t until I was older and had undergone similar experiences to the protagonist (or, alternately, witnessed friends undergo such experiences) that I began to understand how to polish and finish the story.  I also looked at the way young people carried themselves after growing up with much of their lives in the reality show/”everyone gets a trophy era,” and how that has affected the entitlement issues that I feel so many people under thirty have these days.  For added inspiration, I spent much of the time doing the finishing touches during visits to the beach.  It is, after all, a good beach read.

I’m still surprised by those who have read and enjoyed Montauk or its various bits and pieces because I was only writing the kind of story I enjoy reading.  With that I wrapped up a lot of the history of suburbia, something that has fascinated me considering that the suburban residential style is still in its relative infancy.  I don’t think we’ve quite figured out the suburbs yet, and I think Long Island (arguably the test zone for suburban living with developments like Levittown) is the best of example of that.  For a long time the American Dream was buying a house in the suburbs where you had a big enough yard for privacy and a safe enough street so that your kids could ride their bikes on it.  Now I’m not so sure.

I hope you will enjoy Montauk and that my short novel ends up having some meaning to you.  It’s aimed at exploring the emotions between being mildly annoyed with something and wanting to jump off a building.  Since I imagine we all feel somewhere between those extremes throughout the day (and most of us find alcohol a very helpful coping mechanism) Montauk is a story that you’ll probably find very agreeable with.  If you like it and ever run in to me, I’ll be happy to buy you a drink for your support – but don’t expect it will turn into a weekend bender on the East End.  Like I said, I’m pretty sure I am somewhat better at making decisions than my main characters.

(For more information about Chris and his writing, check out his Amazon author page at http://amazon.com/author/chrismckit .  Follow him on Twitter @ChrisMcKit)

My Only Sibling - Guest Post from Rodney Nelson

My Only Sibling
Rodney Nelson

She and her husband lived at one of our old homesteads for thirty-eight years. It was on the Red River prairie of North Dakota. He worked as an administrator in the schools of nearby Fargo and became well known as a potter. She was a master gardener and a weaver and played Scrabble at tournament level. She did higher math for fun.

In summer 2011 she drank herself to death. I do not mean “it was like” or “what it amounted to was” she drank herself to death. My sister did it knowingly and with calm deliberation. She told me. I told her that I respected her choice but did not like it.

In 2005 she had drunk herself close to it but came back with my overassertive help. Her recovery stunned the doctors. “You should be good for quite a few more years now,” they said, “but if you drink, you die.” Advanced cirrhosis.

By 2011 her husband of over four decades was in decline. She knew that her life on the farm would soon be over. The farm was everything. “I do not want to go where you can’t smoke and drink,” she said to me (or garden, she might have added). She chose to die.

I write a lot of poetry and knew I would not have to “sit down and figure out” how and what to write about her dying. It showed up in the new poems willy-nilly, as did the death and what came after. In not even four months, her husband died as well. Both were younger than I. The farm stood vacant.

My choice had been not to intervene this time. How could I have made her want to live? (I did try but not as I had done in 2005.) The pain of it was mine; also, I had written myself into a dilemma.

It would have been wrong not to write the poems. Would it be right to publish them? Would I violate the privacy of a very private woman in doing so? She and her husband were gone, true enough. But their memory endured in the minds of many.

They were not the only dead I had to consider. Our maternal great-grandparents Sigvart and Oline Gundersen (later Gunderson) had bought the farm from the original homesteader in the 1890s and sold it to our other maternal great-grandparents, Johannes and Sabina Jansson (later Johnson), who willed it to their daughter Signa (later Signe). Our grandparents Ole and Signe left it to Eva Nelson, our mother, who followed Grandma Signe’s wish in asking my sister and her husband to live there.

The farm was not only the setting of a recent quiet tragedy, it carried tradition. Others had lived and worked and died on it. This was what decided me to collect the poems and send them out. My book would be a memorial. It would not disgrace, even name, anyone. My sibling and I had spent childhood summers there, many, and the book would take me back to them, too—not that it would be a collection of reminiscences.

The accepting publisher and I agreed on the title In Wait, and it is coming out in late November 2012. Cover illustration and a drawing of the poet are by local artist Trygve Olson, who knew and knows everyone in the story. Readers interested in ordering can visit the publisher’s site: http://nightbombpress.com/

Literary Exertions - Guest Post from Gary Beck

Literary Exertions

Gary Beck

Although I was an accomplished dramatist, I found myself learning a new craft. Novel writing was reinventing the wheel, since I was the consumate loner, always working by myself. My work as a writer encompasses mulitple disciplines; poetry, drama, short fiction, essays and novels. Until recently, I had wide acceptance by publishers of everything but novels. I was also fortunate to build relations with some exceptional editors and fellow poets. Then, within a short time, two novels were accepted. My first novel, Acts of Defiance, set in the 1950s and 60s, is a tale of two very different boys, one rich, one poor, who become close friends. They go from mischievous youth to opposite sides on the Vietnam war, one an objector, the other a marine. Despite different beliefs they continue their friendship and get involved in social and political issues that lead them to confront authority. The story encompasses coming of age, sex, various adventures that result in their challenging the system. Much of this book reflects the extremes of the sixties and it was an anguish and delight as it unfolded.

My second novel sprang from my pen with almost rapturous flow. I wrote daily without monitoring the output and when I stopped one day to look at a massive pile of manuscript, it was 1400 pages. It took a while for stubborn me to accept that no one would publish it, then I turned it into a trilogy, revised and wrote transitions so they stood on their own. I ended up with three books, each over 150,000 words, that no one would touch. My next novel, “Extreme Change”, recently released as an ebook by Cogwheel Press, print to follow, is about a college couple at Southern Michigan State falling in love, marrying, moving to Detroit, where they have two children, then are driven out by urban blight. They come to New York City and at first they flourish, then a dispute with their landlord leads to an arsonist burning them out and they get trapped in the homeless system. They face a terrifying struggle to survive and preserve their family, and finally, with the help of new found friends, escape the system and get ready to rebuild their lives. The book is rich in the emotional lives of the characters as they face domestic and dangerous situations.

I am, by nature, a storyteller, at a time when serious literature is concerned with brilliant writing, rather than the emotional lives of characters, deeply immersed in the passions of their times. It is always my intention to enrich the reader, not impress them with my cleverness.

Extreme change at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0093GZZXE

http://GaryCBeck.com

Metaphysical Questions Are Sometimes Answered By Writing Poetry - Guest Post from Cooper Sy

Metaphysical Questions Are Sometimes Answered By Writing Poetry

Cooper Sy

The poem, “Coyote” began as a description of a dream and explanation of a

drawing sent via email to a friend.

               "The coyote passed through a doorway

in last night’s dream.  Tail and teeth

sharp with ragged edges. I knew by

comparison my skin was too soft,

legs too short, heart too weak

to fight the beast.”

“Strong,” my friend replied, “finish it.”

Encouraged, I worked about a month before deciding I had a satisfactory draft. A day or two later the completed version and all previous incarnations of the poem were lost in a bizarre and costly accident.

I packed my computer inside a briefcase strapping it with a bungee cord, as always, around the rear rack of my bike. Riding at a steady clip in early morning city traffic the bungee snapped and the briefcase slid almost silently to the ground. I jumped off the bike, stood in the middle of traffic and waved my arms like a mad woman trying to stop the inevitable.  The front, middle and back magnum wheels of a Los Angeles bus rolled over the briefcase crushing the computer’s metal casing and turning the chips of a motherboard and hard drive into particles of sand.

The only use for my three months old 13” MacBook Pro, may be as a curio for the technology archivists at the Smithsonian, or an Apple ad agency encouraging the world to save the contents of their hard drives to ‘Cloud' religiously.

The drawing of the coyote without the words of the poem, ironically, was saved on a flash drive and uploaded to the desk top of my new computer. No, I’m not rich. In order to get replacement funds from my renter’s insurance I tried reading and re-reading my policy as if I was the company’s claim’s adjuster. Passing the credibility check of this individual gave me two choices: to say the device was stolen, or to have my doctor write a letter stating that the accident caused a post traumatic stress reaction and any further interrogation beyond the original statement and physical evidence would seriously compromise my mental health. I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, to determine if I used any of these strategies to actually collect the funds needed to purchase a new 13” MacBook Pro.

I placed the drawing of the coyote into a separate folder, nevertheless the image triggered an onslaught of metaphysical questions placing in sharp relief what survived the accident and what was lost. I realized writing a new draft was the continuation of a battle still raging between the beast and myself.

The last two paragraphs of “Coyote” seem more personal and visceral; perhaps the result of having the time to recognize what was there for me in a dream.

Coyote

The coyote passed through a doorway in last night’s dream

tail and teeth razor sharp with ragged edges.  My skin too

soft, legs too short, heart too weak to fight the beast.

I woke up panting, joints aching, frantically looking for

an escape.

There’s no mercy in the eye of a hungry beast.

No gratitude for not pulling the trigger, no

second chance for letting a threat to life

and limb find a way into the dream of

its next victim.

From what world does stalking seek its prey?

Disguised with long claws burrowing into

sleep, while I am forced awake by cold,

shrill hawking penetrating private

spaces like an unsolicited, unsettling

embrace.

Current Projects and Publications

My current projects¾ completing a novel, “San Pedro Stories: the Novel” a documentary film, combining poetry and interviews, “Privileged Chicks,” now in post-production. A few clips from the film have recently been published.

I have also joined the Los Angeles based writer’s workshop, “Writers at Work” headed by poet and novelist, Terry Wolverton.

In August of 2012 I completed a screenplay I was hired to write, “Heaven and Back.”

Poetry and short stories have recently been accepted or recently published in: “Ray’s Railroad Review, “ Fall 2012, “Petrichor Review,“‪ Winter, 2012, “Steel Toe Review,” “Wilderness House Review,” and “Montreal Review,” Fall 2012, “Love Notes” (Anthology) February, 2012.

Websites and Blog

www.phoenixdocumentary.com

www.taketwothemovie.com

http://coopersycbblog.com

Don’t Be Afraid of the ‘W’ Word - Guest Post from Kate Lu

Don’t Be Afraid of the ‘W’ Word
Kate Lu

I’ve noticed there's an odd aversion in many young writers as to whether they should call themselves just that—writers. I've heard it time and time again, in almost every single creative writing workshop I've been a part of: "I write, but I'm not a writer. God forbid I should call myself a writer."

As far as I can tell, their thinking seems to go like this: I write, but I'm not a writer. I'm not good enough at this art form to be a writer; I don't want to sound pompous; I'm just starting out and I haven't achieved enough to call myself a writer.

I suspect there are also other undercurrents threaded through this discourse. Who doesn't know someone who's dabbled in poetry, who's attempted a novel? Does that mean that what you’re doing isn’t special? And who doesn’t recognize the stereotype of someone who calls him- or herself a writer but only dashes off haiku about beautiful souls and bleeding hearts between sips of fair-trade coffee from a country you've never even heard of—and believes those drafts to be works of genius, never to be sweated over or cried about during the revision process? Does calling yourself a writer now mean that you’re taking yourself too seriously? Does it somehow cheapen the art?

I’m inclined to take all these assumptions and anxieties, and throw them out the window. I used to be one of those people who hated to call herself a writer, but that’s because I didn’t know then what I know now. A writer is a person who is dedicated to the craft, to improving, to looking at the world and turning those observations into an artistic statement about the way we live. If you’re doing those things—or something similar to those things—odds are, you are, in fact, a writer.

The truth of it is this: if you’re not going to take yourself seriously, no one else is going to do it for you—and you do need to take yourself at least a little bit seriously if you want to dedicate yourself to anything, including art. No one else is going to validate what you do; you need to do that for yourself. You need to own what you do, and oftentimes that means, yes, giving yourself a label.

I might be only a fourth-year university student, but I’m learning how to call myself a writer because I know that this is an art form that is going to stick with me through graduate school and beyond. I want to show people that I’m serious not just about scribbling down a first draft, but into honing those words into some statement about what I’m thinking about now and what I’m seeing in my generation. I know that I’m by no means an expert craftsperson, or even a better artist than other people my own age, but I also know that to take myself seriously, I owe it to myself to call myself what I am.

So go ahead and call yourself a writer. And then get back to doing what you love: writing.



A native New Yorker, Kate Lu is currently a student at The George Washington University in Washington, DC, majoring in English with a concentration in fiction writing. Her short stories have most recently appeared in Ellipsis…Literature and Art (http://www.ellipsis-literature.com/), The Missing Slate (http://issuu.com/themissingslate/docs/issue_5_winter_2012), and, of course, The Battered Suitcase (http://www.vagabondagepress.com/10301/10301.html).

Platform First, Book Second - Guest Post from James H Duncan

Platform First, Book Second
James H Duncan

Whether you’re a poet, a short story writer, or a budding novelist, creating an effective platform is a vital aspect of turning your passion into something that might someday blossom into a career. You may think you’re the next J.D. Salinger or Charles Bukowski—holed away somewhere working on your masterwork—but the truth is that even Buk had to do readings, had to “blog” via free underground newspapers, had to network with other writers, publishers, and editors via the social network of the time—the post office. His volumes of published letters prove as much. So you may be a tough guy poet from the streets, but if you want your work to be read and, if luck is with you, purchased by readers and fans, you cannot afford to be so romantically hermetic in your habits.

And the key to building a platform is to do so before you release your chapbook or novel, not the same month you do, and most certainly not after. If you are on Facebook or another social medium, look at your page and ask, What would potential readers think of the way I present myself? If you want to share your writing with the world but maintain total privacy, you might be better off creating a specific “page” for your writing, although I do not suggest creating a page for a specific book. Some writers do that and it’s a classic example of PR overkill. People want to communicate with YOU, not just one aspect of your artistic arsenal.

Once you have a page or a profile at your favorite social media site, post often, at least a few times a week, even a couple of times a day, but not incessantly or you will annoy your friends and fans. Make sure your comments are diverse—literary news, your book’s progress, important life changes, and give shout-outs to other writers you enjoy and follow. It’s all about being part of a community.

It is also vital that you create a presence for yourself outside of social networking sites. Have a website and make sure it is easy to update from wherever you are. Have a blog aspect on the site so you can write about your writing. This should be your main means of communication with readers, and use Facebook to drive traffic to your page, not vice versa.

If you cannot afford a professional website, there are many slick-looking free blog websites out there that are designed to look just like regular websites, and many are easily customizable. Wordpress and Blogger are two, and these sites have become common amongst writers, poets, agents, small-press publishers, magazine editors, critics, etc. Everyone is blogging these days, and you should too. Again, keep your posts diverse. Offer updates about your book, share techniques and tips that work for you, maybe add a few book reviews you’ve written, anything to keep a fan interested in who you are and what you have to say.

You should begin creating your platform months and even years before you think about releasing a book, or else you will have no base audience for when your book hits the shelves. Other steps you may want to take include starting a Twitter account, regularly attending local readings and open mics, offering to do free chapbook reviews for online ‘zines that you like (with a bio/link to your website), or even starting an online radio show—all of these depend on how much you want to interact with readers. But remember to strike a balance. You don’t want to dedicate too much time to this, because after all, there is a novel or a collection of poems that needs your attention, right?

James H Duncan is a poet, writer, and the founding editor of Hobo Camp Review. He currently resides in New York City and is an editor at Writers Digest Books. His latest book, Dealing With the Devil in the Middle of the Road: New & Selected Poems, is now available at Amazon.com and his website, http://jameshduncan.blogspot.com.

Reflections on Necessary Roughness in Fiction - A Guest Post from William J. Jackson

Reflections on Necessary Roughness in Fiction  
William J. Jackson

The problem I’ve been wrestling with is this: there is a great divergence of audiences, with different standards. The spectrum runs from the prim and proper audience viewpoint, not too different from the mainstream ‘50s of Ozzie and Harriet, all the way to extreme movies and cable TV shows and novels with many four letter words and complex situations, like HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Sopranos.” Even CBS and NBC TV shows now regularly use more realistic spoken language, curse words, funny slang, street banter. There is a spectrum in audiences for short stories and novels too.

I've been a writer for 50 years now. I write both fiction and non-fiction.

I often think of my fiction writing as sort of rough-edged. I've spent 50
years acquiring an eye and ear for certain colorful rough-edged materials to include in my fiction compositions. (I do the same in my collages—I like to compose visual art with found objects.) This element of roughness includes rough-edged language, which people often use when speaking unselfconsciously in private conversations, and also quirky rough and rude actions, which are later repressed by forgetfulness or denial. Unpolite, informal, spontaneous, emotional off-the-cuff reality. Controversies. Textures of everyday life. Not the slick veneer of nice ordinariness, but vivid bits of life that are unforgettable. Fifty years later you’re still haunted by some phrases and gestures—now that’s what I call vivid.

For example, in my novel Diving for Carlos, toward the end there is a graveyard scene, in which a gang of teenagers are drunk and in a destructive mood. In the darkness they stumble among the tombstones and curse, fight among themselves, using the harshest language they can think of. I wanted that scene to stand out as one full of funny adolescent obscenities. I wanted that high school graduation night scene to be wild and memorable, the climax of a phase of the characters’ lives. I used strings of slang insults and curses, vile language liberated from everyday life and captured in art.

I have encountered some editors who seem determined to remove all rough edges from texts. They seem unsatisfied until everything they've never heard of, everything they disapprove of, and everything they are embarrassed by and disagree with, is deleted and the text is smooth, with no rough edges of real life left, a cartoon book of safe conventional words being all that remains. They assume that if a writer uses harsh language it is because he is not aware that polite society forbids it in conversation. They assume it was not a conscious choice made by the writer to give life to a scene, but a lack of knowledge about how to write a proper conventional scene.

They try to make the work conform to their sense of what's right and neat, to turn it into a consumable confection, standard inoffensive fare, the expected and acceptable. Meanwhile, using realistic slang is a conscious choice in my aesthetic. I deliberately composed it to be wild, jarring, outrageous, compelling, full of life’s rough and tumble dynamism. It is through the elements of the wild and grotesque, and the power of untrammelled spoken language, that I seek to give daring vitality to my work. In the aesthetic I like to work with there are spots of rough reality, cinema verite, with tell-it-like-it-is flare, irrepressible vitality breaking through the curtain of conventions. I think these elements help keep people honest, and prevent being lulled into bamboozlement.

I'm not talking about editing to make thoughts clearer, because that is always desirable, but about the removal of language and issues that are not polite, and risk being always politically correct. I like roughneck imagination--the rugged shocks of dream images, surrealism and grotesques--Swift, Rabelais, Charlie Chaplin, Marx Brothers,  Bob Dylan. The weirdness of brothers Grimm folktales. I like art weird as Rimbaud and Beckett, Kafka and Burroughs. The oddness of e.e. cummings’ lower case poetry, the weirdness of Finnegan’s Wake, where it’s all familiar but dreamily mixed up—the collective unconscious is like that, so roll with it. I like a page or two composed of lists, as in a novel by Gunter Grass, and the incredibly long sentence, as in some of Faulkner—all inspired and consciously constructed, deliberate, artfully woven, intriguingly weird. In my experience anything like this is what most editors have knee-jerk reactions to. They assume it’s an unconscious mistake, and they break it down to boring correct forms they know. I always wonder, when I see any experimentation, any fun exploration, such as Gertrude Stein’s repetitive cubist statements, or Padgett Powell’s works, how did they get this past the editor, the publisher, the owner, the censor, the grammarian, the reviewer, the conventional guardians of what prose should always look like?

Those who capture something of the vitality of reality, and then try to approach the marketplace often experience philistinism. Did you ever read what happened to The Catcher in the Rye at the places where it was first submitted? Salinger must have been frustrated, to have his novel rejected by conformist drones and cowards. How did Hieronymus Bosch do it? If you don’t go along with the authorities—the buyer, the agent, the editor, you lose your voice, because they don’t publish you. But in some places, like on HBO, and in recent months in The New Yorker it’s a different story. Mrs. Grundy retires, and a new crew loosens things up. So you adapt, get away with as much as you can, hoping to get more of your vision and nuance to an audience next time.

If an artist makes a representation of the collective unconscious, people not used to encountering that may project their fears and anxieties into it. They miss the point and take it personally. So it takes an advocate, an intermediary, to make the unofficial novelty part of the mainstream. Mary McCarthy stood up for William Burroughs—then he was able to be seen for what he was in a positive light. Richard Eberhart and Lawrence Lipton wrote about the Beat poets, gaining respectful recognition for them. Allen Ginsberg served as an agent for Kerouac’s On The Road. Every original writer with creative daring using vivid language and accessing the collective unconscious needs an advocate who has faith in him, I would say. The charismatic unknown artist needs a discoverer. As Elvis needed Col. Tom Parker, and Bob Dylan needed Albert Grossman, James Joyce had to be championed by Sylvia Beach, and James Baldwin needed supporters too.

See more at my Red Room blog. http://redroom.com/member/william-jackson/blog/researching-diving-for-carlos
Find Diving for Carlos on amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Diving-Carlos-Heroes-Welcome-Blues/dp/1466435674

The Psychological Suspense Novel - A Guest Post from Laury A. Egan

The Psychological Suspense Novel: Jenny Kidd 
Laury A. Egan

Many of my novels and short stories fall into the “psychological suspense” category, which was epitomized by Patricia Highsmith’s claustrophobic plots wherein the protagonist is unable to keep himself from falling into dangerous webs and we, as readers, watch with growing alarm at what happens next. To heighten this effect, I often create settings that are, or will become, tightly enclosed so that the action and characters are trapped in the manner of traditional “cozy” mysteries created by Agatha Christie and others. This containment intensifies the interactions between the characters, much as a half-size pool table would cause the balls to carom more often and violently against the sides. I also have spent a great deal of time studying human behavior and psychology, particularly the darker aspects, and analyzing how best to strike the cue ball so that the action drives forward to maximum effect.

In my novel, Jenny Kidd, a young American painter tries to escape the shadow of her manipulative parents and establish her independence as a woman and as an artist. She travels to Venice and is inspired by its beauty—the first web—and then is captivated by a mesmerizing noblewoman, Caterina Barbon—the second web. Creating plausible psychological reasons for her behavior was one of my major challenges; showing her growth as a character was another. Jenny could not be too naïve because the reader would become impatient and lose identification with her. She could be sophisticated but not emotionally sure of her attractiveness or self worth. Giving her an ambivalent sexuality was an additional way to illustrate this dichotomy, as was placing her in a city that is ephemeral: romantic and shimmering, then ominous and dark.

One of the primary differences between this kind of novel and a true suspense/thriller is the development of the characters, the time spent on crafting their uniqueness, their history, and the nuances of their personality. A thriller is a very complex construction containing myriad details, plot switches, and diverse characters—most superficially sketched, all moving at a dizzying speed through time and multiple locations. Although I enjoy reading these novels, my preferred goal as an author is to create a protagonist who feels deeply, is hurt, cries, and experiences joy, who pulls herself out of the web and survives as a stronger, more enlightened person.

A danger of centering a story on a semi-unformed narrator is that it can produce inner weakness in the book’s core, a kind of donut-hole vacuum. Despite this obstacle, I keep returning to this structure because it allows me to bombard the protagonist with thrusts and shocks, the pushes and pulls of more dominant secondary players, thus forcing a reaction, a movement when there was little or no initial dynamic activity when the book opens.

As in Highsmith’s plots, there usually is one moment when the reader cries, “Don’t do that!” But even so the character does, hopefully for reasons that make sense because of his or her personality. I’d love to hear from readers of Jenny Kidd about when they believe Jenny makes that critical decision and what they imagine Jenny will do after the conclusion of the book.

Laury A. Egan’s website: www.lauryaegan.com.

Jenny Kidd is published in paperback and eBook formats by Vagabondage Press http://www.vagabondagepress.com/bookpreviews/jennykidd.html#.UHL5ScUUbCY
Her collection, Fog and Other Stories, is available at StoneGarden.net Publishing http://stonegarden.net. Both books may be purchased through local bookstores and on-line retailers.

Writing and Mourning - Guest Post from Adriana Paramo

Writing and Mourning
Adriana Paramo


I tried to give birth to this book seven years ago but the darn thing refused to come out. I had had it in me way too long, it had run its due gestation course. It had reached full term. Yet, I couldn’t write the last chapter and the thing remained unborn for a long time. It wasn’t a simple case of writer’s block, or disinterest, or lack of time. I mean, I have been chasing an undocumented woman, with a compelling story of loss, up and down the Florida peninsula for almost two years. Along the way, I found other undocumented women, other equally compelling stories, who also lived extraordinary lives in the underbelly of the Sunshine state.  I thought, dreamed, breathed, read and wrote about nothing but women. Soon after finding Esperanza, my mother died and that was it. I hit a wall and my project became rapidly stale. I lost hope in having the book finished, let alone published; I lost confidence as a writer and purpose as an anthropologist. Continuing my research, focusing on other women seemed an act of betrayal, a disloyal negation of her death, an insult to the memory of the bravest woman I’d known: a single mother of six after my Dad walked out on us when I was seven. I would sit in front of my laptop, heaps of hand-written interviews on each side of it, cups of half-drunk Colombian coffee on my desk and window sills, our dogs lying somewhere at my feet. I waited for the nagging feeling to finish the project. Instead, I would get sucked into a cosmos of trivialities. I listened to the kitchen faucet; it had been leaking for weeks. I wrote down on a post-it: Plumber’s tape for kitchen. One of our dogs developed a rash on her tummy. She licked and scratched uncontrollably. Another post-it: Get Hot Spot for Honey. I turned the computer off. Saw my reflection in the black screen and noticed two forming folds on each side of my nose running down to the corners of my mouth. I turned the computer back on and Googled, Is Botox safe? One day, I opened the manuscript and searched for the word Esperanza. It appeared 263 times. I have never liked odd numbers. I went to the last line and wrote Esperanza, once more. There. That’s better. 264 times. I felt accomplished. I treated myself to a tall glass of Riesling. Went back to the laptop and I stayed with my fingers hovering above the keyboard until it was obvious that I would not write a single word. I turned the TV on, tuned in to the Cartoon Channel and watched two and a half hours of The Roadrunner. And I laughed. I did this for days which turned into weeks. I would not finish the project.

In the midst of this creativity stalemate, I started to write about Mom and growing up as the youngest in a household of women back in my homeland, Colombia: a country that in memory never changes, a country I can’t go back to because it exists only in a corner of my heart. It was only after “My Mother’s Funeral,” my manuscript about Mom, had been accepted for publication that I dared turn my attention again to the undocumented women. It would be fair to say that mourning’s rude edges were softened and humanized by the subtle grace of acceptance. I finished the manuscript, revised it, rewrote the whole thing and submitted it to the Social Justice and Equity Award in Creative Nonfiction organized by Benu Press, an indie publisher. And it won the contest, which meant, it was accepted for publication. “Looking for Esperanza,” is now available in print and as an ebook. It is a happy story with a humbling end.  Once I received my copies and held this stubborn baby in my arms, after I went around doing a celebratory dance and kissed my husband, once the high was over, I was left with the million dollar question: now what? How does a new writer sell copies of her books about suffering women?

Who wants to read stories of deprivation, loss and pyrrhic victories? For those who do, here is the press release: http://www2.dmpemail5.com/jenkins/dsc/collateral/Chappell_PR.pdf, the link to amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Looking-Esperanza-Story-Mother-Matter/dp/0984462988/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350313405&sr=1-1&keywords=looking+for+esperanza
Professional website: www.paramoadriana.com