A New Year, A New Blog

I have moved. I needed more flexibility over the design and I really really wanted those tabs and extra pages. Please visit my new blog at www.kimhaasdesign.wordpress.com and when you have a chance please update your blogroll if needed.

Thanks so much and happy new year!

2008 TBR Book Challenge

I am signing up for this book challenge. Below are some of the books that have been on my bookshelf for at least six months (some six years!) and this is the year I will read at least twelve of them.

Here we go:

1. "Paint It Black" by Janet Fitch ( I have no idea why this is still sitting unread. I love her writing and I heard her give an amazing reading from the book. This will be numero uno.)
2. "Rabbit Punches" stories by Jason Ockert
3. "Wintering a novel of Sylvia Plath" by Kate Moses
4. "Embers" by Sandor Marai which I received during my writing group book exchange two years ago and we only give books we love so there must be a reason I have it.
5. "The Untelling" by Tayari Jones
6. "What You have Left" by Will Allison
7. "All This Heavenly Glory" by Elizabeth Crane
8. "Bear and His Daughters" stories by Robert Stone
9. "The Name of the World" by Denis Johnson
10. "Red Ant House" stories by Ann Cummins
11. "Mariette in Ecstasy" by Ron Hansen
12. "Palm Latitudes" by Kate Braverman

Alternates:
1. "Strange But True" by John Searles
2. "The Language of Elk" by Benjamin Percy
3. "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh my Darling" by Maura Stanton
4. "In my Sister's Country" by Lisa Haines
5. "The Center of Winter" by Marya Hornbacher
6. "Pastoralia" by George Saunders
7. "Girls in the Grass" by Melanie Rae Thon
8. "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" by Michael Chabon
9. "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathon Safran Foer
10. "How the Universe Got Its Spots" by Janna Levin and the only non-fiction in the bunch
11. "The Secret Goldfish" by David Means
12. "The Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon

I also plan on doing much much more writing this year so we'll see how this goes since the more I write my own stories, the less I read other's.

Yesterday

Yesterday I:

- meditated for five minutes (start small)
- wrote morning pages
- worked out for 50 minutes
- went to Barnes & Noble. Had a green tea soy latte and wrote about six pages including a new scene for chapter two of my novel.
- bought:
• 2 magazines (one writing a done yoga- I am a magazine junkie)
• 3 books
- "Triangle" a novel by Katherine Weber about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911
- "You're Not You" a novel by Michelle Wildgen, senior editor at Tin House
- "Rabbit, Run" and "Rabbit Redux" by, of course, John Updike. I have never read any of these books. I find that amazing. How have they never crossed my reading path? "Rabbit , Run" is the next in "Master Class in Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton. It studies description.
- "to-do list- From buying milk to Finding a soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us" by Sasha Cagen. I already finished this at about 12:18 last night. I love lists. I love reading other people's lists. It's so voyeuristic. An entire life can be revealed in lists. It gave me many ideas for lists of my own such as "Why I love Lists" but I guess I'll save that for another post.
- went to Target to use a gift card. Ended up buying a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned
- got groceries
- got a loaf of good whole grain bread from Panera (our third since Christmas Eve- the stuff is addicting.) Tonight I am roasting garlic in the oven and mixing it with some olive oil and cheese, spreading it on the yummy bread and toasting it to complement spaghetti and turkey meatballs.
- made a big pot of homemade vegetable soup which is perfect for lunch today and dinner tomorrow

All in all a lovely, productive, soothing kind of day.

The Day After...

The tree looks scrawny this morning. It's fake so it didn't lose its needles overnight or anything. Just all the anticipation. All the preparation. All the company. It's over and there is some relief in that but also this sense of being let down and now what? I'm used to this feeling though. It happens every year. I will spend the day cleaning and clearing. Making room for the new "stuff". Getting back into a semi-normal routine. Not hitting the stores today. I am so shopped out. Every year I think there must be another way to do this holiday.

Here's what's been happening this last month:

Good news- I lost nine pounds using www.sparkpeople.com since November and kept it off during the holidays. I worked out almost everyday which was the key I think.

Saw two great movies with my mom while she was here. "Juno" and "P.S. I love You". "Juno" was the better of the two. I will be buying that one when it comes out. It is just so well written.

I read "The Other Boleyn Girl" which is not my usual cup of tea but I got totally sucked into it. I'd been having trouble finding a good book to lose myself in. I started The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life by Robert Goolrick and was happily zipping along, fascinated by this quirky southern family and then it got dark. And darker. And I just didn't want to be in a dark place. So I put it down and picked up "The Other Boleyn Girl" and couldn't put it down. I became totally absorbed in this other world and time. It was a good lesson in plotting and throwing obstacles in the way over and over again and in what a character wants an how far she'll go to get it. And now I see it will be a movie soon. Excellent...

Just finished "A Student of Living Things." Another good lesson in plotting. Just a good story set in post 9-11 Washington DC where pockets of violence erupt sporadically and how a family, specifically a sister deals with an unexpected tragedy.

Now I am reading "The Principles of Uncertainty" which is a journal illustrating and writing one year in a life. It's giving me some great ideas for my own visual journals. Quite captivating.

I am also reading the Winter Fiction issue of "The New Yorker." I'm in the middle of the correspondence between Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish. Fascinating...

Coming up:
- creative revolutions instead of resolutions
- books to be read for a book challenge I found in the blog world

Five...uh, I Mean, Six Reasons I'm a Strong writer

I forgot I got tagged for this meme, so here goes:

5 Reasons I'm a Strong Writer:
1. I've taught myself without the benefit of a MFA or even a Bachelors. I discovered I wanted to write after I went to art school so I'm doing it the old fashioned way- lots of writing and lots of reading. I go to conferences, classes, and am in a writing group. I feel like I have to really want it and really work for it at this stage in my life without the luxury of three years of uninterrupted time to focus on the craft. Instead I've always had to fit it into my real life which is what all writers need to do eventually.

2. I work on my stories. It's not uncommon for me to revise a story ten times before submitting the "first" draft to my writing group. I've revised stories twenty to twenty-five times before submitting them to journals. I'll play with structure. Try new beginnings. Different POV. I'm not afraid to completely tear a story apart and put it back together.

3. I keep my options open with regards to projects. I have several going at any given time at various stages. When I need a break from one I can hop onto another.

4. I'm willing, even eager, to be surprised by my writing. I use writing practice to let my mind wander into the depths of the story or character. I'm willing to fill pages and pages with scenes that spill from me during a session but don't feel compelled to shoe horn them into the story just because I wrote it.

5. I love stories. I love reading stories and always have. I read for pleasure, I read to learn. I read in amazement and am thrilled when I come across a book or sentence that I feel is brilliant. I am not intimidated, instead I am inspired. I read with a pen in my head to mark sentences that move me. I read with a pen in hand to dissect a story to learn the craft of writing. I read to lose myself and on my ideal days I lose myself in my own writing.

6. And one more... I almost wrote I am not afraid of what I may discover about myself when I write. That's not true. I am afraid at times, but I do it anyway. I show up anyway and that's what courage is, showing up in spite of the fear.

And there you have thirty straight days of posts from me. I'm impressed...

A Few of My Favorite things

It seems like I hear this song a dozen times a day so I may as well use it to inspire a post here.

These are a few of my favorite things:
- reading in bed after I wake up in the morning
- clean, crisp sheets
- bare trees etched against a blue sky
- the smell of coffee (but I don't like the taste)
- A soy chai and pumpkin scone from Starbucks
- watching my cats play
- decorating the house for Christmas
- taking the decorations down
- unexpectedly finding new books that I want to read at the library
- sunflowers
- finding the perfect word, verb, phrase, metaphor in my writing
- a good glass of red wine
- discovering a new writer
- the smell of brownies or chocolate chip cookies
- staring at a campfire
- browsing an independent bookstore. this is still my favorite.

Amused by the Muses

Our icicle Christmas lights are lit and dangling from the eaves outside my window. They've been up for over a week but we didn't turn them on until tonight. I really need one holiday to be over before I start with the next one.

Here is a website I enjoy. Her book "The Nine Modern Day Muses" never fails to inspire me. Actually I love anything to do with the Muses whether it's a "Charmed" episode or the movie with Sharon Stone or fables, stories and collages. I bought nine small canvases at one point and started collecting Muse ephemera to create a series of collages devoted to them. I can put that on my project list for next year. Instead of resolutions that always sound so, well, resolute, maybe I'll make a list of creative endeavors for the coming year. That sounds fun. In fact, if it isn't fun it can't go on my list. Look for this list in an upcoming post.

My Own Personal Bookstore

I had a coupon for 40% off a book today so, of course, I had to use it. But as I browsed the shelves, for once I didn't feel an urgent need to buy a book. Not one for me anyway. I thought of all the books I have at home and it is seriously like browsing through a bookstore around here. Any book mood I may be in is more than likely covered: novel, short story, memoir, classic, essays, science/physics. All right here within the walls of my own home.

I ended up using the coupon to buy a Christmas present for my godson. I mean 40% off- you gotta use it one way or another.

Reading with Pen in Hand

Outside my window fat flakes of snow are falling. It looks like a snow globe out there.

I finished "The Best Place to Be" by Lesley Dormen. It is a novel-in-stories. I didn't realize it but I had read several of the stories already. I guess in literary journals or on-line perhaps. Anyway, the stories are strong, honest, funny, bitter. There were some lines that just made me gasp at the raw honesty exposed. It gave me some ideas about my own novel-in-stories. Mine spans a wider range of years and I've been writing it chronologically. But hers is not set up that way which is interesting and yet you still get the full arc of Grace's life. Each story kind of bleeds into the next. And each one echoes a previous story although not necessarily the one right before it. This is one I'll be reading again with a pen in hand this time.

A Gentle Meandering

I'm finding myself browsing through books I've read before on creativity. On writing. On inspiration. Motivation. Between the short days and early darkness and the holidays I find myself sinking into a kind of creative lethargy. It's okay for now. All cycles need waxing and waning. Ups and downs. Usually the ups and downs feel like a rollercoaster and I am just holding on for dear life. But it feels different now. Less frantic. More a gentle meandering through my creative process. I had planned on working on the collage for our Christmas cards this year but the day kind of slipped away from me with long phone calls with family and friends. Then some shopping. Then groceries. Then the girls and I settled in and watched a couple of sappy Christmas movies on ABC Family and that's okay. It's been a lovely day. For once I am not beating myself up over not doing what I had planned on doing. There's time. As much as these short days like us to think otherwise, there is time.

A Bit of Inspiration

Here are some of my favorite, inspiring quotes on writing and the creative process:

"The universe is made up of stories, not atoms." - Muriel Rukeyser

"Artistic growth is more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is." - Willa Cather

"I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something, and poems to find out what I felt about something." - May Sarton

"To express the emotions of life is to live. To express the life of emotions is to make art." - Jane Heap

"You don not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka

Observe Instead of Retreat

I am sitting in my office and it is 4:54. The light is quickly fading. Long inky clouds stretch across the horizon, halos of peach feathering at the edges. It feels like I can see the sun setting before me eyes. Why am I always surprised when the days get shorter and shorter and darker and darker? It's not like it's a new phenomenon. It happens every winter and yet I am still amazed when I am sitting in complete darkness at 5:30. The trick now is to use these dark, short days to fuel my creativity in a new direction instead of letting it hibernate for the winter.

I find myself restless in the evenings. I feel like I should be in bed when it is only 7:30 at night. Instead of retreating this seems like a great opportunity to just observe my process and how it relates to nature and the seasons and the light and the dark.

Nina Bagley reflects on how the seasons effect her creative process here.

And the Next Book Is...

So I settled on "The Best Place To Be" by Lesley Dormen. I think I first read her in "The Atlantic Monthly" and now she has this collection of linked stories out. It's about a woman at all the different stages of her life which is similar to the project I am working on that I recently put on hold. It will be good to read it while I am not actively working on my own novel-in-stories.

The Thanksgiving feast has been eaten, the dishes done, dessert still to come, the sun has set and there is a dusting of snow, just enough to make it all pretty but blades of grass still poke through. What's not to be thankful for?

Book After Book

I finished "The Kite Runner" today. It really was hard to put down. I loved getting a glimpse into a totally different culture, especially one that we are so at odds with. The story reveals the beauty and flaws that are inherent in being human, regardless of where we live, whom we pray to or don't. A couple of parts seemed a little convenient to the plot but mostly I got lost in the story, in the characters, the settings and in the sentences.

Now it's time to pick a new book to (hopefully) get lost in. I have a few in mind. I need to browse the first few pages and see which one grabs me.

Today I...

Read:
1. "The Kite Runner" - more than half way through. It's hard to put down.
2. The second chapter of my novel.

Wrote:
1. morning pages
2. a freewrite which may end up in my novel
3. in my writing process journal
4. a writing practice that will more than likely end up being a scene in my novel

Back in the Submitting Game

Now I remember why I stopped sending stories out. You know, besides staggering under the barrage of constant rejection. It is so time consuming. There are five 9" x 12" envelopes sitting on my desk, addressed to the editors of some very prestigious journals (may as well aim high). I've easily put in seven hours to get to this point and they aren't even mailed yet. But really, seven hours. Between researching which journals are accepting stories at this time and making sure I am within their word count and writing the cover letters and addressing envelopes and getting the stories copied. Well, yes, seven hours sounds about right. And I even had my daughter re-type my cover letters after they sat on my desk and their dates were almost a month earlier than the post date would be and we can't have these editors thinking that I am a procrastinator or anything and then I couldn't find the letters on the computer. I didn't save them? Seriously? So my daughter typed them in and I can imagine a time when I will happily surrender to the services of an assistant of some kind who will handle all this business side of the craft.

Where I Create

Where I write...


Where I design...

Where I collage...

A Change of Scenery

I've changed projects. The story I meant to have ready for workshop this Sunday just didn't come together. At all. In fact, I'm not even sure there is a story in there. At all. So I began digging through all the binders and folders in my closet and came across the novel I wrote in thirty days last September. I read the first chapter and I fell in love with the characters all over again. I felt that if I browsed that chapter on-line or in a bookstore I would want to buy the book. And isn't that the kind of book I should write? The kind I want to read?

I'm feeling some guilt over letting my other project go for a while. Especially since my writing goals for the year revolved around this novel-in-stories, revising each one month by month until I had a finished draft ready to submit to an agent by the end of the year. Well. It is almost the end of the year. I've made a lot of progress but it is not done. And I felt totally stuck. So I am giving myself some space. That's always a hard call. Is this the time I should dig in and just write it through no matter what? Am I just being lazy? Afraid? Or am I intuiting the need for some distance from this project? Distance that will hopefully provide some much needed perspective. I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt- for once- and go with the latter.

It's kind of like a clean break-up. We can still be friends. We still are friends. I just need to widen my circle a bit. For now.

Writing Sparks

If you're ever looking for something to spark your writing day or character or story you might want to check out these two websites:

www.postsecret.blogspot.com

www.foundmagazine.com

They are also available as books.

No Flinching Zone

The "no flinching zone"- that is where Miranda July creates. I finished her book of short stories last night and will need to read them again in the future. She has this way of looking at her characters in all their beautiful flaws and not judging them. She lets them run around her stories emotionally naked, these complex mixtures of memories and thoughts, flesh and bones. Some moments are disturbing and you read it like you're watching a train wreck, not quite able to look away. But she stays in that moment, and writes her way through it, without flinching.

Then this morning I watched the movie that she starred in, directed and wrote. Yes. She's amazing. The movie was just like her stories. These complex characters bumping into each other emotionally and physically. Some of the lines are laugh out loud funny. A guy just gave his neighbor the family discount on shoes. He says he's working on his karma. "You know what karma is don't you? It means she owes me now." Just as in the book, some moments were just so uncomfortable so I did the movie equivalent of skimming- I fast-forwarded through a couple of scenes.

Besides being a writer (of books and movies), director and actor she is also a performance artist. I am in awe of her creativity. It seems to spill out of her. And she just lets it spill, without ever flinching.

To Buy Books or Not to Buy Books

I really am making a conscious effort not to buy books. Well, not many books. Not as many as I usually do. Mostly I am not buying fiction. But I did buy some design and creativity books tonight:

1. "Design Basics" by Jim Krause
2. "Creative Sparks" by Jim Krause (whoa- I just realized they are both by the same guy.)
3. "Thinking Creatively- New Ways to Unlock your Visual Imagination" by Robin Landa

Upcoming Projects

Things to Create
1. First draft of story for Sunday
2. Collage for Christmas cards
3. A low stress, fun holiday
4. A mixed media piece on the old screen door I bought in Arizona
5. A series of mini collages of the nine Muses
6. More visual journaling in my journal
7. A deck of cards with visual and written prompts for creative writing
8. A box for the family to put in what we're thankful for, what we wish for and what our goals are for the coming year
9. A book of collage and stories I wrote that are like modern fairy tales for my daughters
10. A website

Learning the Craft

Here's a writing practice I did last year but it feels relevant even now.

Writing classes are a way to learn craft. At first I agreed with this. It seems obvious. You take a fiction class and learn the craft. But really it isn't the class that teaches you craft or even the teacher. It is through writing story after story that you learn craft. A class may set up the right parameters for you to produce these stories but you teach yourself craft through each finished story.

Ron Carlson says that your first twenty stories are your apprenticeship. I think he even added your first twenty stories that aren't written for a class. Stories that you write on your own because you need to, not because a teacher is expecting it from you. That is one of the hardest things to learn. Nobody really cares if I write another word ever again. Oh, maybe my best friend who dreams of going on a book tour with me as my manager. But really, nobody really cares. So I have to care. I have to care enough to write a story for myself. not for a teacher. Not for a class. Not for a grade but because I can't not write this story. Then I need to do it again. And again.

Classes are good for company. For companionship on this lonely road we've chosen. But you don't need them to teach you craft. I've often toyed with the idea of entering a low residency MFA program. But I need to use that money for my daughters' college, not for me. And I don't need a degree to write. I don't need a group of twenty somethings picking apart my work until it becomes a bland piece of tofu mfa workshopped story. That's harsh. Not all mfa programs do that. But that is the downside. That is the risk.

All I need to learn the craft of writing is to write and all of the teachers I need are on my bookshelves and the shelves of libraries and bookstores. Writing and reading. Reading and writing. That's the master class we all need. Even an mfa program ends eventually and then you are out there, all alone, once again nobody caring if you write another word and it's all up to you. You do it because you have to. I do it because I have to. I try to do it everyday. It's easier to keep a rocket up in space than it is to relaunch it over and over again. Too much wasted energy. And not only do I have to write but I have to finish what I write. Finish what I start. A bunch of half-assed, half- finished stories won't teach me much of anything. I need to see the completed arc of the story. Or see that there is no arc to my story. I need to write it through to the end to see what I have. To learn what I don't have. To learn what I need. To learn the craft.

Cleansing the (Book) Palate

I just finished reading "Love in the Time of Cholera", not because it is an Oprah pick since I have had the book on my shelf for many years, but because I want to read the book before I see the movie that comes out this week. I woke up at 9:30 this morning and did one of my favorite things- rolled over and grabbed my glasses, snuggled back under the covers and read for an hour.

Now the last book I read was "The Big Girls" by Susanna Moore. These two books could not be more opposite. THB is set in modern time at a woman's prison in Mew Jersey close to Manahattan and in Hollywood. It covers perhaps the span of a year or so. It is written without chapters, just space breaks. Each space break marks the beginning of new voice narrating his or her story. The prose is bare bones. Brittle but full of life.

LITTOC is set in the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. The book is broken into extremely long chapters and covers over fifty years. The language is lush and told from an omniscient narrator. It was interesting to see how he moved between characters and how he manipulated time. You had to read closely for fear of losing the thread of character and/or time. Even the covers couldn't be more different. TBG is black and white, mirror images of a photo of a key, sans serif type. LITTOC, on the copy I have, is a painting of a nude woman reclined on purple divan, flowers covering her in strategic places, lush foliage surrounding her, warm, bright colors, serif type.

"The Kite Runner" is next on my list but I find I can't rush into another novel. So I am reading "No One Belongs Here More than You" by Miranda July and will watch her movie this weekend. Again, the voice and tone is so opposite of LITTOC, it is like cleansing my palate between books.

Tuned In

So I woke up this morning after five hours of sleep (I'm a eight-nine hours a night gal) with the first sentence of this story in my head. This story that I have been stuck on. So I lay there thinking I've only had five hours of sleep. I need to go back to sleep. But once I got the first sentence then came the first paragraph. Well. I can't just ignore this little gift, can I? So I hauled myself out of bed, down to my computer and wrote for an hour. Yay me!

I'm not the kind of person who needs the ultimate perfect first sentence before I can proceed with a piece. But I do need a first sentence that propels me into the voice, character and story. I now have that. Before she was in a grocery store and had to get to the airport. Most of the current story takes place at the airport bar so I just plopped her right at the airport bar, right off the bat.

This creativity buzz I have going on must be a direct result of blogging everyday this month. Whatever you turn your attention to, increases. I have tuned into my creative process and it is rewarding me with this renewed energy and focus.

Oh, and I did crawl back into bed and sleep for another two hours this morning. Now I get to go watch my daughter shop with all her birthday money and gift cards.

Creative Homework

First things First
Happy Birthday to my daughter. She is fourteen today. As I type this ten girls are down in the basement singing "Breakaway" on the Play Station version of American Idol. She made a nine layer, three tier cake- all by herself, covered in fondant. It's a work of art. One of her friends commented that it looks like it belongs in a Dr. Seuss book- it's fun and whimsical, just like Katie.

And here's the card I made her...



Something in the Air
There's this creative energy pulsing all around me today. Everywhere I turn there's something I see or read that sparks something in me. I read the latest issue of "Somerset Studio." I love getting a peek into the creative process of all artists, not just writers. Sometimes especially not writers since it gives me a glimpse into a way of seeing that I don't normally get. The featured artist taught herself to draw the human figure by taking life drawing classes. She now draws on her own everyday from a pile of magazines, giving herself 6o seconds each to draw all the figures in each issue. I loved doing those kinds of gesture drawings in art school. I loved the looseness. How you weren't expected to create a photo image likeness- just the gesture of the pose. I think of writing practice like that. I choose a topic and write on it for three pages. No wrong way to do it. Just a way to see how my mind works. See the gesture of my mind in a particular moment.

I'm so impressed by her dedication. She is anxious to get to her studio. She tries to carve out two 12 hour days a week. She is in love with the process. I think I have lost that feeling lately. I've been so focused on showing up to my story and writing something, anything, just to keep the thread of it going but is merely showing up enough? I thought it was. Maybe it was enough at some point but not any longer. Now I am longing for something more intimate than just putting in my time. I need to find some practices that make me yearn to get to my studio or desk. I need to make it fun again.

I am reading to the latest issue of "O" and found this website by Miranda July (I also rented her movie tonight before I found this website- it must be a Miranda July weekend- I can read her book of stories that I bought earlier in the summer too). It's filled with creative assignments like draw Raymond Carver's cathedral or photograph a scar and write about it or spend time with a dying person. I love the idea of creative assignments. I once created a calendar that was filled with them based on different themes for each month. I need to make a list of creative homework again- not just for writing. That will be a post for this month. Stay tuned...

When I heard Janet Fitch read in Ann Arbor a couple of weeks ago she told us of a rejection she received that said something like "good enough story but what's unique about your sentences?" This sent her into a fierce study of poetry and of loving language. I went through a period of reading a poem a day out loud and I think that is something I need to get back to. Here is one by Mary Oliver:

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver

A Day

My Day
1. Car sputtered backing out of driveway. Check engine light came on.
2. It never went off.
3. Took husband in for a medical procedure.
4. Sat in waiting room, well, waiting for it to be over.
5. Incredibly grateful that it was just a routine procedure and he is fine.
6. Shopped for daughter's fourteenth birthday.
7. Preparing for sleepover tomorrow night hosting ten teenagers and two tweens.
8. Bought the latest issue of "Somerset Studio." Can't wait to get in my jammies and let all that creativity wash over me...while I watch Grey's Anatomy. (Unless it's pre-empted by the writer's strike. Go writers!!)
9. Remembered I had to blog today since I signed up to post everyday this month.
10. So here's my post.

Wa-a-a-ay too Tired to Blog

Who: Me as as overnight chaperon
Where: 5th grade camp
What: 3 hours of sleep at the most

Need I say more?

I will.

Tomorrow.

A Creative Jolt

I'm off to chaperon fifth grade camp overnight in a few hours so here's a quick post.

A few books that never fail to inspire me:

- Anything by Sark
- The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
- Spilling Open and anything else by Sabrina Ward Harrison
- If you Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
- The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor by Gail McMeekin
- Artist's Journals and Sketchbooks by Lynn Perella

No Wrong Way to Do It

Graphic Design
I didn't realize how much I missed doing graphic design until I got some freelance work again. I am having so much fun. I even splurged on a bunch of new software so that I can finally learn web design. I've been wanting to create a website for my writing, collage/mixed media and graphic design for a couple of years now. This blog was going to serve as a temporary base for all of that. Right now I'm visiting lots of websites to get an idea of what I like and what really annoys me as I navigate my way through all of them. It's all quite exciting.

Writing
I procrastinated with the best of them this morning but I finally managed to sit down and get 551 words written on the next story that I promised to have ready for workshop in two weeks.It will be the proverbial shitty first draft as Anne Lamott says but at least it's something. I can revise something. I can't revise a blank sheet of paper. This stage should be freeing. There's no wrong way to do it. I have half a notebook filled with bits and pieces of scenes and dialogue and description. Now it's time to pour it into some kind of structure. Just do it already.

Books and Movies, Movies and Books

I love books. Seriously. It might even bypass love and venture into stalker territory. I've always loved to read. All of my report cards state something to that effect- that I am always reading, always have my nose in a book.And now that I am a writer too, I read in an almost cannibal like way- digesting everything about a story that I like, everything that I am trying to learn.

I also love movies. I go to the movies during the day by myself. The first movie I went to alone was "Pretty in Pink" at a theater on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia that is now in ruins. I had been out late with friends and was walking to the train station to head back home but the thought of getting jostled on a smelly train made me nauseous so I ducked into the theater. It's such an easy escape. It's dark. No need to interact with anyone. When the kids were little and I had one of those stressful mommy days my husband would walk in the door, take one look at me and send me to the movies.

So it wouldn't seem that great a stretch for me to love movies that come from books. Well. That depends. I always read the book first. It's just one of those random rules that I hold myself to. Movies can often be much worse than the book but rarely better so I don't want my experience tainted by an adaptation. While I enjoy the movies adapted from books or stories the usual praise I dole out is that they didn't totally ruin it. The written word allows the reader to experience so many layers of a story, of a character. Movies are pretty one dimensional and too many voice overs gets annoying.

Recently viewed movies adapted from books:

"Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter- loved the book, hated the movie which I kind anticipated going into it.

"Away from Her" based on the Alice Munro short story "The Bear came over the Mountain"- Loved both. It was interesting to see what changes they made to make it work as a movie- and they did work. They didn't suck the life and layers out of the story.

"The Jane Austen Book Club"- I think I enjoyed the movie a bit more. I know I read the book but it doesn't stand out for me in any way.

There is a feast of movies-made-from-books coming out soon and I am on a reading rampage to finish them all:

"The Kite Runner"
"Love in the Time of Cholera"
"Reservation Road"- I read the entire book picturing Mark Ruffalo as Ethan and Joaquin Phoenix as Dwight and now I find out that it is the exact opposite. That will be a little disconcerting when I finally see the movie.
"Atonement"

So many books, so many movies, so little time...

Creative Cooking

I don't remember learning how to cook. Sure, I took home-ec- with the meanest teacher ever. I dissolved into tears during the entire sewing lesson. I don't know what it was but I became completely dyslexic when it came to threading that machine. It just never made sense. I like the idea of sewing. The idea of creating my own clothes is quite appealing. In fact I signed up for a sewing class as an adult. My goal was to make some curtains to replace the duck themed ones in the camper we had just bought. Simple enough, yes? Well. I found some excuse and ended up dropping it after one, maybe two classes. Me and sewing are just not meant to be. My dad ended up sewing most of my home ec project in seventh grade- a pillow. A rectangular pillow. Four perfectly straight edges. Even now my husband or daughter sew any buttons that have fallen off. I have many talents but apparently sewing is not one of them.

But cooking is. I love to cook. My secret is adding copped nuts or seeds to many dishes- it makes them seem more exotic than they are. My mom is amazed when she comes to visit at how I can whip things together the way I do. I sometimes try recipes from cookbooks but that doesn't last long. I prefer to make up my own. My new thing is letting the cupboards and freezer get down to the bare bones and still creating something appetizing for my family. I didn't make it to the grocery store today and I really needed to. Desperately. But, we are still eating well. It's a vegetarian appetizer night: vegetable gyoza, vegetarian chicken tenders, spinach florentine bites and carrot and celery sticks. All served with a glass of red wine and that is a perfectly acceptable dinner, considering it looks as though we have nothing. The fruit bin is empty. Ditto the veggie bin except for one carrot and three stalks of celery. There is just something so satisfying in creating something from apparently nothing. Not to mention the hundred bucks we saved by not going out to eat.

A Day Spent De-cluttering

Spent much of the day de-cluttering the house.I love that feeling. It's like making way for something new. Went through all the old coats, boots and other winter-wear. Went through my youngest daughter's closet and two dressers and all the little nooks and crannies where she had stashed bags inside of inside of bags filled with her treasures. Lots and lots of treasures.She even has a drawer that she forbade me from discarding any of the contents. And she means it. She wants her children to go through that drawer someday and be able to see the kind of things she was interested in when she was a kid herself. Her daddy has the same kind of drawer back at his mom's house.

Two days ago I went on this organizing-my-books rampage and if you know me at all that is not an easy or simple undertaking. Especially since I started it after dinner on a weeknight. I was done by 11:00-ish. I had stacks of books all over the house as I categorized them by books read and unread, fiction vs. non, and I even alphabetized them. That ended up being quite interesting as I noticed which writers I had many books by: Antonya Nelson, Ron Carlson, Carol Shields to name a few. There's a bookshelf in my office that is filled with writing books that I divided into categories such as: writers on writing, women writers, prompts and exercises, the craft of fiction, motivation, inspiration, creativity and fiction that I read over and over to learn to write like they do.

Now I gaze at my bookshelves all so neat and organized and I feel this immense satisfaction and this warmth of being surrounded by old friends. And also this: this creeping sense of guilt that I really, really (and I mean seriously) have no business buying anymore books until I read the over four hundred that now line my tidy little bookshelves unread.

NaBloPoMo

I've always done well with assignments.I remember asking for homework in third grade. Doing book reports for extra credit. Last year I did the NaNoWriMo challenge on my own in September. That's what started this blog. It became a place to hold myself accountable. I place where I announced that I intended to write 50,000 words in thirty days and therefore had to do it so as not to look foolish to myself or friends and family and whoever else might stumble across my blog. Which actually doesn't help with the whole trying not to care what everyone thinks of me thing but that's a whole other post on a whole other kind of blog. This blog is about the creative process. The ups and downs, ins and outs. The ways it eludes us, the ways we woo it. It's about what happens when we show up and what's happening when we don't. I imagine that I have a good ten days worth of topics to cover on creativity and my process but after that... who knows. That's when it will get fun. That's when I'll start looking for creativity in unusual places. When I'll look past my own writing, collage and graphic design processes. I will start posting more photos of...whatever... my artwork, moments from my days as I start mining them for material, the debris and ephemera that cross my path that suddenly become something worth documenting just because I am paying attention in a new way.

Here's an artist who finds art everywhere! www.kerismith.com

On Keeping Notebooks

Let's talk about notebooks. I love notebooks. I love back-to-school time because I can buy ten for a dollar. One of my favorite books as a kid was "Harriet the Spy." And now, as a writer, I keep many many notebooks.

I recently read Joan Didion's essay "On Keeping a Notebook." She says, "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss." I've kept diaries and journals since I was eight years old. Pages are filled with hearts with my name and some boy linked together as if I had access to secret powers to make those liaisons a reality. I still have pages scrawled from high school and art school and I cringe at the what I read sometimes, at who I used to be. But as Didion says, "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends." I will never not have a record of who I used to be- for better or worse.

Currently I keep close to a dozen on-going notebooks:

1. Writng Process: I've been keeping this since 1998. I track the process of my writing in general. Writing goals. What I accomplished on a particular day. What I hope to accomplish the next. Entries explaining months long gaps in the notebook. I see patterns in the ebb and flwo of the process so when I am ebbing I can look back and see that this to will pass. That it's all part of the process.

2. Writing Practice: I have close to 40 of these filled. They are based on the Natalie Goldberg method of freewriting on a topic for a set amount of time and just filling pages. Seeing how your mind works. This is what started me on the writing path so many years ago.

3. Story Notebooks: Now I keep a notebook for each story. I do writing practice aimed at the story or from a certain character's POV. I keep notes from workshop in there. Ideas for upcoming scenes. Questions I have about the story. What if questions that may take it in a new direction. I'll play with POV and monologues trying to get a handle on the characters. I'd like to start adding visual elements.

4. Morning pages: After Julia Cameron. These notebooks are the big blank artist sketchbooks from Borders. Blank pages. Some months I write in them religiously, three pages every morning then I wake up and am tired of my own voice. Tired of the whining. Now I'm looking for ways to add more visuals to the pages. Make it more messy. More layered. I am convinced that if I can let go in one art form it will inform the other.

5. Visual Journal: This is strictly art. I play with collage, try new techniques. It's for fun. I'd like to try a collage on one page and a free-write or found poem on the other then tie them together visually somehow.

6. Books to Read: A list of books to be read divided into categories: short stories, novels, memoir, writing craft, science, classics. It's never-ending.

7. New Words: A notebook of words new to me and their definitions. Words I just like the sounds of like tabernacle, obsidian, confetti, zigzag, throttle.

8. MFA Notebook: Currently I am working with 3 texts as part of my self-guided MFA program: "The Making of a Story" by Alice LaPlante, "Master Class in Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton and "Deepening Fiction" by Sarah Stone & Ron Nyren. I write out answers to the questions posed in each book, trying to deepen my understanding of the craft.

9. Observations: This is new. As a writing group we decided to write 2-3 observations a day in hopes of becoming "one of those people on whom nothing is lost" as Henry James said. I actually got the idea from a reading at the Kenyon conference this summer. A poet read some of her observations and they were beautiful little jewels. Small moments of being awake. It's a great habit to get into. I can already feel a difference. I am noticing and on the look out for small momets and then I am required to paint that moment in words.

There are several others that I have started and stopped such as one that was going to document my reading for a year. That would've been a full time project in itself. But the nine decribed above are notebooks that I work in on a fairly regular basis. They each help me to ""write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear," to once again quote Joan Didion.

Occupy a Writing Life

PROCESS
Sunday marked the two month anniversary of me writing on a story every single day. Even on weekends. Even on vacation. Even if I go to bed and have to drag myself back downstairs and open my notebook to write at least the next sentence in the story. This should be something to be celebrated. Something to be commended. Do I do either? Uh, no. Instead I hear this mean hateful little tyrant voice observing that some days it's only for five minutes or that I haven't actually written today yet. Somebody recently asked me if I have perfectionist tendancies. On the surface it doesn't seem true. But below the surface, where that mean little tyrant resides, well, yes, apparently she is a perfectionist since nothing I do is ever ever ever good enough. It's craziness. How do I get her to shut up? I write. It sounds counterintuitive to write and give her more ammuniton to use against me such as the characters are flat, the writing is filled with cliches, that I should be accomplishing so much more in terms of word count than I do since I do stay at home and it goes on and on and on. So I write and I observe. Just acknowledging that part of me is sometimes enough to shut her up. Afterall everyone wants to feel heard.

Last Thursday I finished the draft of my story and sent it out to my writing group then immediately opened up a brand new document and typed in the first paragraph of the next story. That's what I'm working on now. I'm in that stage of getting to know her voice. Lots of freewriting to see what is churned up. Pieces of scenes, dialogues, flashbacks. This is actually kind of fun, this part of my process. I don't quite know where it's all headed yet. Each sentence I write helps me to discover a bit more about the story and the characters. It's like I'm on this expedition. So this is what it feels like to occupy a writing life.

PRODUCT
Still haven't got back on the submission band wagon yet. It's been a while since I've submitted anything to any journal out there. Not sure why. I really hate the whole logistics of it: finding the appropriate venue, on-line or post? did I already submit there? which story? when? typing up the cover letter, including a line that might jog their memory of me if they have responded favorably to my work in the past. It's all a little tedious. But it's part of a writing life so I just need to do it. Just like the exercise thing which I now do daily and have done almost daily for two years now. So I can make myself do those things I despise.

READING
"Ron Carlson Writes a Story" is seriously the best book on writing that I have read. You are practically inside his head as he writes "The Governor's Ball" privy to every decision he makes and every choice he comes up against. You see the moments when he has no idea what comes next but he stays in the scene anyway to find out. It's amazing. A must-have for any writer or any reader curious about the whole writing process.

Currently reading:
1. "Lolita" as part of my writing group. We were all amazed to discover that none of us has read this yet.

2. "The Time it Takes to Fall" by Margaret Lazarus Dean- a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Challenger explosion. It intrigues me since I set my first novel (my under-the-bed novel) in the same time period and wrote a scene centered on that day.

3. "Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter which I have to read before I see the soon-to-be-released movie. Several books fall into this category: "Everything is Iluminated", "The Kite Runner". Luckily I already read "The Jane Austen Book Club".

QUOTE
"Solve all your problems through the physical world. That is, if you have a scene that's stalled or muddled, go back into it carefully and write the next thing that happens in real time. Don't think, but watch instead: occupy."
– "Ron Carlson Writes a Story" by Ron Carlson

Dreaming, Walking and Writing

I don't usually dream about writing, never about my characters which I think would be completely cool, sometimes about me actually writing and I try to read along and hope that I remember it when I wake up because I am convinced that it is brilliant. I never do and I am sure it never is. But last night I dreamt that someone showed me a photo of me sitting at this stone table writing and I look blissful. Behind me is this amazing vista of mesas and plateaus and tiny paths and streets leading everywhere and nowhere. Then I remember being there on vacation and as I look at the photo it rotates so that I can see beyond the edges of the photo. I ask for a copy and want to post it near my desk to remember how blissful writing can be.

It must be a reflection of my writing day yesterday. I put it off all morning. Ate three handfuls of chocolate chips before I finally dragged myself to my desk where I ended up staying and writing for three hours. The time flew by. I'd look up and another hour had gone by. I think part of me was riding the energy of finishing "Ron Carlson Writes a Story", which will have to a whole other post. Let me just say it is the best book on writing that I have read- and I've read alot!

During my walk this morning all sorts of pieces started falling into place for my story. I've noticed that my walks need to be at least 40 minutes long. The first twenty are taken up with all sorts of garbage but after that I seem to settle into a rhythm and the story kind of drifts across the screen in my mind and I see that Kevin is actually Sarah's older brother which I will need to say in an earlier story- easy fix. And that Marty peeks out of the window of Reed's room at the end of the story and sees her father with Abby and that makes sense and echoes back to something earlier in the story. I know that all my writing days will not be like this but I want to remember this feeling so that it will get me through the decidedly unblissful writing moments.

So I'm Not Actually Not Writing Into a Void

Sometimes I forget that I am not writing into a void here. That people beyond my small circle of friends and family can find me. Somebody found me once and asked to quote me on their website selling Ann Hood's new novel, "The Knitting Circle." Then today, I received a comment on an older post from one of my favorite writers, Renee Manfredi. This is almost as exciting as getting published! To save you the scrolling time here it is:

Hi there,
Came across your blog. For what's it worth, having written 2 novels and a collection of stories, and having worked all sorts of jobs and hour combination during the process, I can tell you this: whether you work banker's hours, or are at home all day, your writing demands the same effort from you. Think of it this way: a child goes through the same developmental stages, rate of growth, whether her mother stays at home with her or works all day at Microsoft. Personally, I simply don't believe someone who claims to write for 5-6 straight hours. You can certainly be in a revisional mode that long, but not a compositional one. The white heat of creativity is about 90 minutes-2 hrs. 3, maybe. MAYBE longer if you have 2 sessions per day. I don't know anyone whe stays in the chair the whole time they're writing. For heaven's sake! Everybody procrastinates. Everybody dilly-dallys. How ELSE would the house get clean, the dogs get walked, and the risotto get stirred? Or blog entries be posted? (I've already walked my dogs).
Hope this is helpful. And thanks for your kind words about my story "Bocci."

Renee Manfredi

Her words are reassuring. I'm not sure why I expect so much from myself. Maybe to justify the fact that I have the luxury of not having to work outside the home? But of course, there is a lot of work that goes on inside the home. Anway... Renee Manfredi took time to respond on my blog. How cool is that? I read her novel, "Above the Thunder" a few years ago and just fell in love with the story, the characters, everything. So, of course I went on-line to see what else she had written and bought her collection of stories "Where Love Leaves Us". It is now on my permanent bookshelf of books I turn to again and again to teach myself how to write stories that have so much depth to them. Her latest is a novel "Running Away with Franny" which I also devoured. Her characters are so rich and layered and memorable. She says of her characters in "Above the Thunder" "I never think about plot. I don't think about theme. I think about characters. And these characters became very real to me. I dreamed about them." Well, they seem very real to me too.

One of my best compliments ever came when I recommended "Above the Thunder" to a friend (to everyone really, even a lady standing in front of the new releases at the library). My friend then gave to it to another saying how much I had loved it and after reading it this friend said she could see why I loved it so much. That it reminded her of my writing. Sigh...

My, this has been a big day. Earlier I took my girls to a reading/signing with Judy Blume. The mothers were as excited to be there as the daughters. It's amazing what a significant impact she's made on at least two generations of girls and women. I just bought the collection of essays, "Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume". I'm sure we could all write such an essay.

It's a Messy, Messy Thing

PROCESS/PROGRESS
Are these the same? Not really but they are absolutely tied together. If I am not engaged in the process there will be no progress. I am still writing on my story everyday. Every single day since, what... July 23. This, my friends, is an accomplishment. Now that the girls are back in school, I expect to be more engaged in both the process and progress of my novel-in-stories.

Today was the first full day they were back in school. I kept a rough time line of my day, kind of the way dieters need to account for every morsel they put into their mouth. I won't bore you with the minute-by-minute dissection of my day. Let's just say that I managed to write/revise/mull over my story for a total of almost three hours. Plus I wrote morning pages and read "Sense & Sensibilty" as part of my self-designed MFA.

My process... well, it's messy. It's confusing. Frustrating. But it's my process and at least I have one. The story I am working on now is a huge revision of a story that my writing group has already workshopped. So I have a master copy with five sets of comments throughout. Then I have a notebook with all the scribbling I've done everyday in a barely legible handwriting, in scenes that shift from first person to third and between past and present tense. The notebook is essential. It's the most frustrating part. I often don't know what's happening next. It's hard to find a scene once I write it. I have magenta post-it notes flagging scenes that I think will be in the story. Once I read over all that I have gathered in my notebook I start to piece it together somehow with the original draft. This involves lots of "insert A here", "insert B there". But then I have A's and B's from other drafts and I forget what I meant to do. Then I can't find the scene that needs to go next so I have to "read" through al my scribbles again trying to find it. Once I have some semblance of another draft pieced together I type it all up. That's what I finished today then took to the bookstore, got my iced green soy latte and sat down with a pink pen and started all over again. More A's and B's and now notes of what I think needs to happen next.

It's messy but so satisfying when the pieces start to fall into place. I feel this quickening in my blood as I write, as I play out scenes behind my eyes as if they were a movie and know it's finally coming together. Out of this chaos emerges this little world. It's kind of amazing.

READING
So many new books coming out by some of my favorite authors. Ron Carlson's book on writing is headed my way from amazon. Came home today with Ann Packer's new novel "Songs Without Words." Ann Patchett and Alice Sebold both have new novels coming out.

I finished Antonya Nelson's collection of stories, "Some Fun". I literally read the last sentence of the novella and turned back to the beginning to start it again. Her narrators are like"having a great friend whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud, whose lines you always want to steal." (from page 49-50 of "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott) "Some Fun" goes on my permanent book shelf of books to re-read and learn from over and over again.

ART
I made two birthday cards for my sisters. Will post pix soon. I really want to figure out how to create an album in flicker then link that to my blog. I have three more books coming from amazon, all on collage and mixed media. One covers the use of collage in writing which is something I've been meaning to explore. Another is about artist's journals- always inspiring.

QUOTE
"No matter how badly we may want it to, revision just doesn't go in a straight line. It's not a process of improvement; it's a process of learning." - Heather Sellers, "Chapter After Chapter"

Reading and Writing, Writing and Reading

WRITING PROCESS
Still showing up daily to my story. Some days it is a sentence or two but still, it is me showing up and that's something in this crazy busy summer. A big something actually.

READING
"Beach Music" by Pat Conroy.
It came highly recommended by a member of my writing group which can always be awkward. What if I hate it? I once recommended one of my fave books at the time to a friend ("Anywhere But Here" by Mona Simpson- it still is one of my favorites of all time and shouldn't she have a new book coming out soon?) and she hated it. Anyway, not the case with "Beach Music". I can't imagine rereading it but it was an amazing story. A sweeping saga of a book which is perfect for summer. The dialogue is just perfect. And I must say that I fell in love with a paranoid schizophrenic- John Hardin. One thing I really admire is the way Conroy eventually has you feeling empathy for every single character even General Elliot, even Jack's father. The one thing that seemed a little forced was the first person POV when he had to relay all the characters' histories. It didn't feel natural the way it had to come through Jack. And the content of those stories involving wife and child abuse, poverty, the Holocaust- well... it just all became a little too much to bear at times. I found myself skimming certain sections trying to bypass the true horrors. But still, such a great summer book to sink into and lose yourself.

"Practically Perfect in Every Way- My Misadventures Through the World of Self-Help and Back" by Jennifer Niesslein
I so enjoyed this book and not just because she once wrote me a very encouraging rejection for her magazine "Brain, Child". Once I got past the fact that once again someone came up with yet another great format for a memoir (see list below for others) I flew through the book. The gist of it is that she embarks on a two year selp-help escapade in order to become a better, happier, thinner, richer, organized version of herself. She's funny, honest, vulnerable. I laughed out loud in spots and groaned with recognition in others since I was familiar with just about every self-help tome/guru she experimented with. My latest addition is an audio program that promises unconditional acceptance with the premise that if selp-improvement programs really worked there wouldn't be this proliferation of them clogging shelves in bookstores. I'll keep you posted.

More memoirs with unique structures that I love and wish I had thought of first:
"Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Laugh out loud funny.)

"Things to Bring, S#!T to Do- My Life in Lists" by Karen Rizzo (Who knew lists could be so revealing?)

"Give it Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less" by Mary Carlomagno (Each month for a year she gives up something from chocolate and alcohol to televison, taxis, and dining out. Such an interesting premise and I wish I had the willpower to attempt it myself without the carrot of a book contract dangling in front of me.)

"So Many books, So Little Time- A Year of Passionate Reading" by Sara Neslon (Need I say more- the title alone is the bumper sticker of my life.)

Ebb and flow

I'm back. Kind of. Sort of. It's been a weird long summer. I feel like I lived out of a suitcase more than not. And if you know me, well, I'm quite a homebody. My intention in starting this blog was to make myself accountable when I wrote my novel-in-a-month last September. I also thought that it would be a place to document and observe my creative process. Well. The first part went smoothly enough. I finished a draft of my novel. But the second part, the whole observing the process aspect- not so smoothly. It's been a little one-sided. I've noticed that I really only document the good parts. The light parts. The productive parts. I don't really delve into the darker aspects of my creativity. Mainly I just drop off the radar. Thus, the big black holes in my blog. But reading Nova's blog (distraction no. 99) has encouraged me to not shy away from the dark spots. It's all part of the same process. So I'm not sure if I'm in a funk because I haven't been writing as much as usual or if I'm not writing as much because I'm in a funk. Funk is my word for it. I know there are others but since the "D" word runs in my family I like to keep it at bay by not using it with me. It's easy for me to spin way way out there so I try to catch myself. I know I have to eat healthy, exercise and write. I've known this for years. It's my little triangle that keeps my energy moving. Keep me from getting and staying stuck. From getting mired in phsical, mental and psychic muck.

So I attended this amazing workshop at Kenyon, came home, wrote for the first four days then went on vacation and it all kind of slipped away from me. I was embarassed. And a little ashamed. I mean, there I had spent a good chunk of money and had very little carry over into my real life after the conference had ended. So. Now what? Thus began my descent into the funk. Instead of reaching for my steady traingle of tools I did the exact opposite: ice cream, wine, lots of really bad TV and no writing. There I went, slipping further away. Then I picked up two books by Heather Sellers- "Page after Page" and "Chapter After Chapter" - and I highly recommend both. The one thing that finally pierced through was that I had to write everyday- even on vacation. I kind of chuckled at that. Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen. I had two more trips coming up. One at my sister's on the other side of the state and one at Disney World. And guess, what? I wrote. Every day. And not just stream of consciousness morning pages. No. I worked on my story. Every day since July 24. I told myself even if it's just one line, it's something. I don't think I ever wrote just one line. Some days were light and I managed three or four sentneces but for the most part it was a half to two pages. The key moment came last night. I was in bed. Lights off and had just drifted to sleep when I remembered that I had not written that day at all. I lay there. In the dark. Snug in bed. So easy to just stay there. It was my Ron Carlson moment. He did the exact same thing at some point in his career. He hauled himself out of bed and went downstairs, turned on his computer and wrote at least one sentence. He said that was a turning point. That in that choice, he became a writer. So I hauled myself out of bed, downstairs, turned on a light, opened my notebook and wrote a one page scene.

In that moment I was a writer. Hopefully I'll have many more of those moments. But I know I'll also have darker moments when picking up a pen feels like lifting an anvil over my head- and letting it drop there. It's that whole ebb and flow, baby. Ebb and flow. It's just that when I'm ebbing there's very little of me to draw upon. I feel thin. Fragile. So I may not write while in the middle of ebbing but I won't ignore it either. That would be shortchanging the whole process.

MIA No Longer

Sorry sorry sorry. I've been MIA ever since I left for Kenyon. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I left. I ended up not coming straight home from the conference and instead went to my sister's house for four days since our kitchen wasn't done being remodeled yet. Came home for oh, about 36 hours to do laundry before packing up again and heading to Canada to visit my mom for a week. So I've been back for eight days in my own home, suitcases unpacked, new refigerator stocked with food again and trying to sort through all that I experienced at Kenyon. I'm sure I will be writing about it many more times in the coming months but let me start here.

First of all I worked my ass off. Five, six, seven hours a day of writing outside of the classroom in addition to attending readings, eating, sleeping and socializing. It was both exhilerating and draining. I slept for twelve solid hours my first night back. So much got churned up for me regarding my own writing process and it still has yet to settle. It feels like I have layers upon layers that I need to sift through and will continue to do for a long time. It's hard to pinpoint the one big thing I learned. It feels so intangible. It was just the experience of being immersed in my writing and having Ron Carlson be so incredibly generous in sharing his own process.

Below is an inventory of the work I did in a week:

Kenyon Review Fiction Workshop with Ron Carlson
Inventory of New Work

100 Word Chapter Novel
“Love is a Ripe Green Pepper” • 1200 words

ABC Story
“Barely There” • 495 words

6 Space Breaks
“Dead Deer Bingo” • 3697 words

Person, Place, Song
“What Sixteen Looks like” • 744 word

The Pet Store story
“Off Season” • 1191 words

The Ticking Clock
“Big Glove” • 1191 words

Fairy Tale Monologue
“The Giant’s Wife” • 994 words

Scenes
“Wrong number” • 450 words

“Dialogue on Park Bench in Rittenhouse Square” • 140 words

Five of these pieces I plan on revising. So one concrete thing I learned is that I will never run out of ideas. Each day new characters appeared in new settings with new stories. I didn't think I was afraid of that but maybe I was. I remember that Annie Dillard quote about shooting it all, spending it all every time you write and not hoarding it for another story and I think I did hoard tiny things but not anymore. Every piece I wrote at Kenyon was brand new.

I learned I can write at night. I've gotten into such a routine at home. I write in the morning and afternoon while the girls are in school. Night time is family time but often it's just spent watching TV. I think a different energy emerges at night too so it might be worth exploring.

I learned where I quit in a story. I get to that part where I don't know and I lose steam. Ron says the whole point is to write yourself out to that point in the ocean of your story where you can no longer touch bottom, the sky and water seem to merge and you don't know which way is up. You're out of breath and there's that slight panic building and all you want to do is grab a life preserver in the form of a cigarette, cup of coffee, donut or even cleaning the crud from the sides of the fridge but the writer is the person who stays out there a little longer, 20 minutes should do it and the story itself becomes the life preserver. In that 20 minutes you find that one small piece of inventory, that one detail you can grab onto and keep yourself afloat.

That's about all I can process for the moment.

QUOTE
"The writer is the person who stays in the room when she doesn't know what's going to happen." - Ron Calson

It's a Love/Hate Thing

I love summer vacation now as much as I did when I was a kid. I love having no schedule to follow, no homework to review, projects to oversee, papers to sign, no special time to get up. Then again part of me hates summer, mostly because there is no schedule to follow and with no schedule my writing gets sidelined quite a bit. Although I did manage to get a draft together for my group before I leave this morning. Yes, after months of writing and talking about it I finally leave for the Kenyon Review fiction worksop with Ron Carlson today. I spent last night printing out stories I want to work on and getting notebooks together and copying work onto a CD and selecting reading material ( always the most crucial aspect for a writer going on vacation). Here's what I'm taking:

2 library books that will be due a couple days after I return: "Be Mine" by Laura Kasischke and "The God of Animals: A Novel" by Aryn Kyle both of which are on my never-ending list of books to read

"Five Skies" by Ron Carlson

"The New Yorker" summer fiction issue

"Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen

"Glimmer Train" summer issue

"Now You Love Me" stories by Liesel Litenburger (which has aslo been on my list for quite a while)

I'm hoping that there will be much more writing going on that reading but I'm covered either way.

Not sure how much I will be generating new work versus revising existing drafts but I brought the current projects that are hot for me right now:

- "Learning Curve" a novel-in-stories

- 2 of my best stories so far that are part of a collection

- a draft of the novel I wrote in thirty days last November. Might be a good chance to sit down and just read it through and see what I've got.

The latest issue of "The Writer" has an interview with Ron Carlson in it and reading it just reaffirmed my decision to do this. I love everything he has to say about the writing process plus I love his own writing. His stories are in my permanent collection that I turn to again and again to show me how to write.

If I have time, I'll blog while I'm there, but if not you'll hear all about when I return.

A Conversation with my Story

WRITING PROCESS
Story: I’ve got it.

Me: Got what?

Story: Martha’s mother. Her name isn’t Helen. It’s Delia.

Me: Um… excuse me?

Story: Yeah yeah yeah… it’s Delia. Helen is her mother. Her and Toby’s.

Me: But the story is almost done and it’s Helen throughout two whole stories. It’s not just a matter of replacing the name, you know. Helen and Delia are two completely different kinds of people.

Story: I know. Isn’t it great?

Me: Great? No, it isn’t great. I’ve worked so hard on this.

Story: Yes and all that hard work is paying off.

Me: For you maybe.

Story: Well. Yeah. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? It’s all about the story that wants to be told not the story you want to tell.

Me: I suppose. But this is huge. You’re suddenly not what I thought what you were about.

Story: Exactly. And that’s when it gets exciting, for both of us.

Me: (Sigh) Where do I start?

Story: Well, start with the find and replace option. That’s a place to start. Just see her real name implanted there in the text in black and white and see what happens. Then do some freewriting in Delia’s voice, maybe on events that you’ve already written about as Helen. Play with it. This is fun.

Me: Yeah, fun. Whooppee…

Story: Trust me.

Me: Do I have a choice?

Story: Sure, you can ignore me, not write, get crabby, not write some more, get crankier, until you finally try it my way and wonder what you were waiting for all that time.

Me: (sigh again) Fine. You win.

Story: It’s not a contest. It’s win win.

Me: Whatever...

Think of Trees

WRITING PROCESS & PROGRESS
I may not be writing on this blog but I have been writing elsewhere: morning pages, writing practice and short stories. I just finished the second on efrom my novel-in-stories and sent it out to my writing group for Sunday. It's still not quite right. I'm not sure about the title which means I'm not quite sure what the story is about yet. I've found that the perfect titles emerges when the story has found its focus. Maybe listening to my group discuss the characters and plot might trigger something for me to work on in revision. I just pulled out the next story and re-read it, to refresh my memory. The good thing is that I was intrigued by it- wanted to keep reading to see what happens. The bad thing is that it needs some major rewriting.

One thing I've been hyper aware of lately in my writing is the "viewpoint intruder." I read an article about it in a magazine and now I notice it in my own stories. Martha notices, sees, watches, etc.... Once the POV character is established it's okay to just let the scene unfold without constant viewpoint intrusion.

As part of my writing process lately I've been reading a poem out loud every morning before I start my own writing. Currently I am reading "The Woman I Kept to Myself" by Julia Alvarez. I love getting that language in the air. Sometimes the poem sparks a prompt for me to use in my writing practice. Usually I just listen to the words, so lyrical, so lovely, almost breathing in the writer's own breath.

READING
I've been reading "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" and was hooked by it at first but now am kind of, I don' tknow, annoyed with it. The structure and style feel so self-conscious, always calling attention to the writer's cleverness. And there's this other annoying habit of using so many unusual verb to describe, say, the setting. I know strong verbs can be an amazing strength but in this case, once again, it just seems to call attention to itself. So I have put the book down for now. I am only a few chapters into "Sense and Sensiblity." Not far enough to have an opinion yet. I've been so focused on my own writing that I don't have the concentration needed to read that much. This happened when I took the class at OU and while I was and am currently incredibly productive I do miss my reading or the ability to get lost in another writer's world, perhap because I am so immersed in creating my own fictional world.

QUOTE
"When I think of my death, I think of trees
in the full of summer, a row of them
marking a border, still too far away
for me to name them, posted with rotted boards
everyone but the faint of heart ignores."
- from "Last Trees' by Julia Alvarez

Word by Word

WRITING PROCESS/PROGRESS
So I slogged my way through my story today, showing up although everything else clamored for my attention from the chocolate brownie fudge ice cream in the freezer to the blue skies and the 77º day outside. But I kept my butt in this chair and managed to make some headway. Some days it's just word by word. One trick I learned from Ron Carlson is the 20 minute rule. When you feel the need to get up and indulge in whatever has been clamoring for your attention, stay in your chair for just 20 more minutes. Stay in the room, he says, meaning the room where you write and the room or scene of the story. He promises that almost always it is worth the time. Today it was. A scene that had no focal point at all finally came into focus during that 20 minutes.

I know I sound like a broken record, but really, it's all about showing up. Really. It's the same lesson over and over.

READING
So I am now reading "Sense and Sensbility" as part of my self-designed MFA. It is the second story in "The Master Class in Fiction Writing" and focuses on characterization. I've read chapter 1 so far.

For enjoyment I pulled "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" from my bookshelf and I am hooked.

QUOTE
"In the arts, your weakness becomes your signature. The fact that your work is imperfect makes it interesting. A perfect face isn't interesting. A book's flaws make it less predictable."
- Janet Fitch

Short Story Immersion

READING
I have been immersed in short stories lately. I just finished "The Dead Fish Museum" by Charles d'Ambrosio last night. The stories are rough around the edges, in a good way. I remember enjoying almost every story as I read them but honestly not one paricular story stands out against the rest. To be fair that could be because of all the other stories I've read lately. Like the entire spring issue of "The Missouri Review." I rarely ever finish an entire issue of any literary journal much less read it cover to cover in two days. But that's what happened this time. I read every story, essay and poem word by word. And there's a great interview with David Sedaris. The theme for the issue is Love and Lonliness. Maybe that appeals to me. For whatever reason, I was immediateley drawn into each and every piece from the couples at the "lifestyle" resort to the father and son who both fall in love to the philosophy student who tries to put his relationship in some kind of context against the back drop of a marathon. I especially enjoyed the two essays so much that they make me want to try my hand at one myself.

I received the new Narrative on-line and read a great new story by Ron Carlson as well as an in-depth profile on Ann Beattie. While meandering blogs in between my own writing I found myself linked to 2 other short stories, both involving hands. One is by Benjamin Percy. You can find it at http://www.storyglossia.com/thirteen/bp_hand.html. Then there is this one by Elizabeth Graver at http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleID=4916. These also inspire me. Now I want to write a story that uses a hand in a surprising way. The there's this new story by Kate Walbert that all moms can relate to: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/03/26/070326fi_fiction_walbert.

I'm thinking I need a break from short stories now. Not sure what is next but I love this feeling of not knowing. I love being in this space in between books and browsing through my shelves at leisure until the next book I am meant to read falls into my lap.

WRITING
With all this reading you'd think writing has taken a backseat but that is so not the case. I finished yet another draft of "Japanese for Butterfly' and am letting it sit for a while as I work on the next story. I hauled out this five inch thick binder yesterday that has all the stories for this book so far. I grabbed the next 2 to get an idea of where I am and saw that much can and should be cut from both and that they are actually one story in different seasons- winter and summer. At one point I had over forty pages strewn across my living room floor as I made a list of all relevant scenes. I worked on it yesterday and the story and characters percolated all day no matter if I was cooking, doing the dishes or watching TV. I had to come back to my office and scribble down notes as new things came to me.

I wrote these stories a couple of yeas ago. The copies I have contain notes from people no longer in my writing group. It's been a humbling and interesting process. So much time has elapsed making it is easy to read with an objective eye. I noticed this embarassing habit I had of writing what I can only call purple prose. I read and crossed out passages with this vague sense anxiety. I knew there was a word for what I was reading but it wouldn't come to me. At some point the term "purple prose" came up in my reading and I googled it and found this: "Purple prose is sensuously evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response." Yep. That's what I did. God, it was excruciating to read. The good news is that I've obviously (uh, hopefully?) grown out of that particular writing pitfall. Oh, I'm sure I'll stumble across many more as I continue.

As part of my writing process, I am filling up pages with writing practice. Yesterday the topic was "Write about a cold snap." I started by writing that this topic does not inspire me at all, blah, blah, blah. But I stuck with it for three pages and the beignnings of a brand new short story with brand new characters emerged. I keep telling myself it's all about just showing up. Apparently that's true.

ART
Made a birthday card for a friend. Took a picture of it. And, yes, I still need to learn how to post photos. But first I need to learn how to get them off my camera.

QUOTE
"With good writing, I think, the most profound response is finally a sigh, or a gasp, or holy silence."
- Tim O'Brien

Editing My Dreams?

RANDOM MUSINGS
I must be a "real" writer if I'm editing my word choice in my dreams. Last night I dreamt that I interviewed Jack Nicholson. I notice how blue his eyes are and scribble that in my notes and try to come up with a word less cliché than piercing or penetrating. I mean Jack deserves better than a tired ciché, doesn't he?

I read two books from the library and they are due back today but I had to note this weird similarity between them. They both have characters with the same name. "Skylight Confessions" has a female protagonist named Arlyn. "The Ghost at the Table has a minor male character named Arlen. Do character names go through popularity cycles like baby names?

WRITING
I'm thrilled to say that I am back in some sort of writing groove. I worked steadily on a story everyday this week, even last night at the ice cream social at school. I am trying to cut it down to 7500 words from 8100 since that seems to be a pretty basic maximum for many journals and I am already trying to place a 10,000-word story.

Not only did I write on my story for several hours each day but I also did morning pages everyday and three pages of writing practice several times throughout the week. When I took a fiction class at OU one of the requirements was at least three 20-minute writing sessions each week in addition to having a new story or revision ready. I even did one now and it's Saturday.

READING
Finished "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose and I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that she has changed the way I read. As I revise my story "Japanese for Butterfly" I am reading the entire piece out loud for the third time and each time I find a word that isn't right or words I can cut. It's fun. Reading out loud illuminates where the prose is clunky but it also slows me down which is one of the main lessons I learned from F.P.

Still reading the "Dead Fish Museum" by Charles D'Ambrosio and just read the line that explains where the title comes from... perfect.

QUOTE
"Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
- Kurt Vonnegut

My 10 Favorite Short Stories

So I saw this out in the blogosphere and thought that it would be fun. Not sure if there are any parameters to follow but I decided to only list the short stories that I remember. No leafing through books to jog my memory. I can only check for titles and or spelling. So here goes... my favorite top ten stories in no particular order.

1. "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff
2. "Milk" by Ron Carlson
3. "The Potato Gun" by Ron Carlson
4. "Bocci" by Renée Manfredi
5. "Who Do You Love" by Jean Thompson
6. "In the Event" by Christopher Coake
7. "Howard Johnson's House" by Mary Clyde
8. "People Like That Are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore
9. "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
10. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Oates

These are all stories that have stuck with me, haunted me even. I am looking at the list to see if there is a particular theme or pattern that emerges. Several involve parents confronting the relative powerlessness we can feel in the face of our children's lives. Several star adolescents on the verge of discovery and danger. I don't know, but for these characters and their stories to stand out in spite of my voracious reading habit says something. And instead of being daunted, I actually am inspired to keep writing in hopes that I write a story so true and raw that it stands out for somebody, somewhere, sometime, someday.

Baby Steps

READING
I am about halfway through "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose. She is really helping me to slow down and savor the sentences and word choices in my reading and my writing. And she is adding to my ever growing list of books to read, some by writers I've never heard of. Henry Green, anyone?

I just finished "The Knitting Circle" by Ann Hood. I felt rather voyeuristic as I read this novel, knowing how closely it mirrors her own experience. Her five-year-old daugher, Grace, died unexpectedly from complications from strep a few years ago. In the book a young daughter also dies and it is told from the perspective of the mother who finds herself learning to knit. The author also learned to knit when the usual comfort she found in writing and reading and language in general had left her after the loss of her daughter. I am not the sort of person who cries easily while reading but this one did it. It's every mom's worst nightmare. I've attempted to write stories that deal with the loss of a child in hopes of some kind of writerly magic preventing it from happening in reality as Kate Braverman once said but it is just too huge to grapple with. It gives such a raw incite into the grieving process that I read it almost with one eye closed, unable to watch it full on.

"Moral Disorder" by Margaret Atwood is another stunning book by this author. It is a series of interconnected stories that reveal the life of Nell as a child and adolescent into young adulthood through a complex relationship with Tig. The stories are structured in this sweeping arc of time that envelopes their lives. Carefully rendered, closely observed- trademarks of this writer.

Currently reading "The Dead Fish Museum," a story collection by Charles D'Ambrosia.

POETRY
On the last day of National Poetry Month I took my youngest to a poetry reading at our library by Keith Taylor. One line that struck me was "dancing under the temporary stars." In the car my daughter asked me what my favorite poem had been. I was embarassed to realize that they had all kind of run together for me but she had a list of her favorites which once she began numerating then jogged my own memory.

ART
I went to make a card for a friend's 30th birthday the other day. Once I got into my art space I started finding objects that all went together and ended up creating a wall hanging as a present. I do have a photo and I really must learn to transfer it off my camera, onto my computer and onto my blog. Really, it's on my list of things to do. It was so much fun to create. I had no real expectations, or very low ones- just gonna make a little card. No big deal. I'm thinking that low or no expectations might serve me in many other areas of my life too.

WRITING
I'm in the middle of another huge rewrite of this story, "Japanese for Butterfly." I thought I was at the point of reading it out loud and fine tuning the prose but earlier today it came to me that I need another scene which happens to be one I wrote in the first story. So I am merging the old story and new story into an even better story I hope. My goal is to finish it this week so I can start on the next story so I can have it ready for my writing group by May 20. I also want to make a list of journals to submit 3 different stories to, one that is 10,000 words. I thought I'd make a list one day, write cover letters the next, print out stories the next, label, stuff and mail the next. Baby steps since I really hate this part of the process.

QUOTE
"You can't write seriously without reading the greats in that particular way that writers read, attentive to the particularities of the language, to the technical turns and twists of scenemaking and plot, soaking up narrative strategies and studying various approaches to that cave in the deep woods where the human heart hibernates."
- Alan Cheuse

...that cave in the deep woods where the human heart hibernates... I love this!

My Own Self-Guided MFA

WRITING
Well, it's a good thing I gave myself permission to not write one word while on vacation since that's basically what I did. Or what I didn't do. I admire the concept of writing everyday even at the beach or the ski slopes or wherever your vacation happens to take you. But in reality, sometimes I just need a break from it and am willing to suffer the consequences of that which is that I have to slog my way back into a piece of writing. Although sometimes I come back completely refreshed. Usually it's a combination of the two.

I find myself in this vicious cycle of having a really productive writing day then completely slacking off the next day. Not sure what that is about at all. I even leave myself a note on where to pick up the next day but still I avoid my desk for hours until I get so disgusted with myself that I finally pick up a pen or the mouse just to scribble something even if it's about how disgusted I am that I haven't written all day and lo and behold I am suddenly writing and back in the groove. It's a crazy crazy way to live which makes me believe in having to write and not just wanting to.

I did manage to finish a draft of a story for my group last weekend. It was supposed to be the second story in my collection but it is now the first and it just fits so perfectly there. This is easily the 14th or 15th revision of this particular story and I can tell that although it is very close to being done I probably have another 2 or 3 to go. But these are the fun revisions. It's the polishing of each paragraph and each sentence and validating each word choice. I am currently reading "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose and she has me totally enraptured with language again- both my own and in the writing of others. She opens reading up into this whole new dimension. Which brings me to my current project. This is something I've been meaning to do for a while. It's my own self-guided MFA.

This is the plan. But first a little background...

I came to writing long after I already had a degree in art and began working as a graphic designer. Just when I decided to go back to school to pursue an English degree I found out that I was finally pregnant after trying for two years. So, of course, school gets put on hold. I kept a very tenuous thread connected to writing while my children were little through various workshops and classes. My life line ended up being a workshop through the Writers Voice called "MothersWrite." We gathered each week for two hours to write, talk about writing and how to combine that with motherhood. And they provided childcare. It was a dream come true. Once my youngest had entered precshool I took myself to the Starbucks around the corner and wrote for those 2-3 hours, filling notebooks with tons of what Natalie Goldberg calls writing practice. Characters began to emerge along with possible stories but I wasn't concerned with that, just with showing up to the page.

My real commtitment came once the girls entered school full time. Suddenly there were these seven hours a day that I had to myself. Much of the stories I have finished happened since then. Ron Carlson says that the first 20 stories you write are your apprenticeship. I have 29 that I can recall. Periodically I consider going back to school but that just isn't feasible now that we have two daughters, one only five years away from graduating high school and going off to college herself. So I ask myself what would an MFA give me besides the degree and the connections. 1. Time to write. I've already established that I have that. It's just a matter of using it much more productively than I currently am. 2. Feedback on my work. Well, I have that too. I am part of a committed writing group who provide not only encouragment but incredibly insightful and thoughtful comments that make me want to make my work even better. 3. Reading lists that lead to provocative discussions of classic and contemporary writers. Now I have that too. At least the reading list part. I went online and printed out a couple of MFA Reading Lists then cross checked it against my own extensive collection and came up with a reading plan that should keep me busy for quite awhile.

The plan is to finish the Francine Prose book. (Oh, how I wish I had her leaning over my shoulder as I read, pointing out every nuance of every sentence and word choice.) My hope is that by reading her book it will help make me a more careful reader. The next book will be "Master Class in Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton. It's broken into elements of fiction accompanied by the story that helps illustrate that particular element of craft.

Story Structure: "Araby"
Characterization: "Sense and Sensibility"
Plot: "The Secret Sharer"
Description: "Rabbit, Run"
Dialogue: "A Severed Head"
POV I- Participant Narrators: "As I Lay Dying"
POV II- Exclusively Observant Narrators: "Beloved"
Style, Voice: "A Farewell to Arms"
The World of Story: "Lolita"

That should keep me busy for the next couple of years since I also plan on continuing with my own reading for pleasure. The main thing I am learning so far is to read much more slowly. To savor the sentences. When I was in art school I was great at the gesture drawings- sketches of live models that we did in one minute increments to warm up. I sturggled when it came time to develop those drawings, layer them with texture and details- very similar to writing. I've filled close to forty notebooks with writing practice which is a bunch of timed writings done- you guessed it- really fast. Now it's time to slow down in both my reading and my writing.