Writer's Workshop

It's a warm spring day in Tucson, Arizona, and a line at the local community college stretches from the front of the theater to the parking lot. Only one college student staffs the check-in table, and he moves slowly, sifting through the piles of folders in front of him and encouraging each person to fill out a stick-on nametag. Most of those in the line are gray-haired, and many know each other. I feel out of place.

There are a few younger folks, most younger than myself. In their twenties, maybe. I am impatient, I don't want to miss any part of the workshop. My backpack, stuffed with a netbook, two notebooks, a water bottle and some luna bars, hangs heavy on my shoulders, and I need to sit down, take it off, give my neck a rest. I have knots in my neck and back from the last two weeks of work, knots that are like cement and make sleeping and sitting a painful chore.

I do, finally, make it inside, where an arctic blast of air conditioning freezes my blood. I thought I prepared for this--cargo pants, sneakers, a sweater--but even with the hood on my heavy-duty sweater up over my head and tied under my chin, I am shivering. The first speaker drones on and on in academic terms about how a story needs to go somewhere and has to be interesting to the audience. Duh, I think, and I leave early, shivering my way out of the auditorium into the bright, warm sunlight.

The next session is much better. The presenter speaks in simple prose, and his workshop is on--no surprise here!--simple prose. How to write a story in three sentences. Simple sentences. Noun, verb, object. He makes us write a character study first, walking us through, step-by-step. I like steps. This makes the anal part of me very happy. Then we get to pad our sentences, making them bigger and longer and more elaborate. This is fun. Except for when some folks volunteer to read theirs, and other yell at them--in angry, disrespectful tones--to speak up. (The presenter would have chided me for that last sentence, the way I dropped a clause in the middle of it. That's not simple. Sorry. I have an inner Faulkner that tends to come out, unless I keep a short lease on him. Tough to do. And sometimes--I'm sorry--I just don't want to.)

I am on edge, the caffeine from my morning coffee having nowhere to go. I don't normally just sit, absorbing information. I go, and go, and go some more. I see a few former classmates, and we walk to lunch, where we talk about writing and the last semester and share stories. This, I like. This connection with people who understand.

The next session is back in Antarctica again. I don't want to go, but I'm bored sitting outside, so I brave the cold. The author is funny. She talks about her experiences as a Chicana growing up in California, the roundabout way she became a writer. She says something offhand about her last two books--YA books, "Gossip Girl for Latinas"--and how, when writing them, she had a whole team behind her. Focus groups and everything. Really? That's how best-selling YA novels are made? With focus groups to ensure that what's written will sell?

Unsettled and unsure, I made my way to the next session. Oh, good. It's an author who set his book in Tucson, and I've seen this book a few places recently, including Poets & Writers magazine. I'm excited to hear him talk about character development. But he uses a scene from his novel as his study for the class, a scene that includes a child and is disturbing to me. I leave the room. It's the second time today I've left a session early.

I head to the bookstore and find a couple books on writing that interest me. I have a hard time buying these books; I don't have much money, and it always feels sort of strange to be buying books with titles like, "You Can Write a Novel!" and "Finding Time to Write!" (A Seven-Step Guide to Writing a Best-Selling Novel!), but the authors have some interesting things to say, more interesting than I've heard in the workshop today, and I think maybe they'll inspire me.

I head to a local coffee shop, intent on using my remaining time on learning something, anything, writing-related. I dive into a book, and find a lot of food for thought. This, I like. This time and space to think about and absorb ways to bring regularly scheduled writing into my already-overfilled life.

In musing over the day, I realize this seems to be my general experience at workshops or book fairs or even lunches put on by local professional genre writing groups. An author speaks, usually about the same thing--character, plot, motivation, story arc--and it's becoming a drone to me. Like the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons. I worry this is a bad thing. Shouldn't I be open? Isn't that how one learns? By listening and being humble? If I think I keep hearing the same thing and it's nothing new to me, am I closing myself off from something important? Am I thinking I'm better than I am?

Okay, maybe I did learn something today (from the book I perused in the coffeeshop). The author suggested going back through journal entries to see if you can glean a theme from them. See what seems to be most important to you. (Then write about it; use your stories as a way to explore that theme.) I realized the majority of my journal entries are about doubt. I'm unhappy; am I making the right decision? What do I do about it? Should I stay where I am? Or leave? And I look back at that last paragraph in this blog post, and realize I'm doing it again: doubting myself. And then I wonder: is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that okay? Should I continue trying these workshops? Or should I leave?

Bad News & Good News

Earlier tonight, I wrote a post about getting some bad news. I was going to post it tomorrow. But then, good news came, and I had to post tonight :)

BAD NEWS (But really, good news, because every rejection is another step closer to publication, right?):
I received a rejection letter for an incredibly short piece I submitted to matchbook for their ad stories. Great idea: short stories told through Google ads. Total of 70 characters, including title & byline.

Exhausted at Midnight

Lovers fell asleep, intertwined.

They didn't even brush their teeth.

By: Angie Brown

Now, for the GOOD NEWS:
"Fireworks", a piece that I started last spring and made major, major revisions to over the winter and this spring (exhausting myself in the process!) was accepted for publication in the 15th volume of the Off the Rocks Anthology, which is a print publication by the NewTown Writers of Chicago. Oh my goodness, I'm so excited!! It's my first fiction piece to be published in print (a micro-fiction piece will be published online in August).

WOO HOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Bad Books: Pushing Through

It used to be, I'd pick up a book--usually mainstream romantic comedy or some sort of historical adventure--and check it out. If the back was interesting and not too cliched, and the first sentence or paragraph hooked me, I'd give it a shot. If, within the first chapter, the author bored me to tears or lost my interest or jumped on the cliche bandwagon, I'd stop reading and immediately chuck it on the table next to the door to join the rest of the "return to library" stack.

Not anymore. At some point in the last couple months, I heard or read the idea that even bad books can help you write better. Plus, I was getting more and more disgusted with the mainstream books that used to be my sustenance. And so, I began my slog through too many bad books.

Some were eye-rolling bad. Some I wanted to like, but I found I kept getting distracted by something--anything--else ("Squirrel!"). Some made me mad.

But the most interesting bad book I read (which incited all of the above emotions, sometimes all at once) was Pulitzer-prize winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay".

Now, don't jump down my throat for disliking this book. I know, I know--a bunch of folks thought it was, well, amazing. In general, I'm not a big fan of "literary" novels. They are usually depressing and/or deal with topics I simply won't read about (child abuse, for example). I want my novels to be entertaining--mind candy, you know? (At least, I used to. My tastes are changing, but that's a whole 'nother post.)

All right, so.

This book came highly recommended by a bunch of folks I know. Basic premise: two Jewish cousins in NYC (one recently escaped from Poland) begin writing comic books just as WWII is beginning. The first few chapters were fascinating, totally sucked me in. The next few chapters, not so much--but I wasn't ready to put it down yet. It still held some sense of interest. But I could tell my interest was waning. More often than not, the book was facedown on the side table, rather than in my hand. I kept wanting to pick up a different book. Instead, I found myself surfing the 'net. I'd push myself to go back and read some more. But it just became incredibly bogged down by the sheer detail of the whole comic-book thing. I kept getting so bored.

Once the characters go see "Citizen Kane" and think about new ways to frame their stories, I realized part of the issue I had with the book was that it was written from strange angles, and, at that point, I became delighted with the idea that the author was using the structure of the story to support the comic book theme of the story. Scenes would be written from a point of view that seemed off, until I realized he was trying to focus on a particular, comic-like way to portray something.

Okay, that is so not eloquent. But I can't put it into words. Argh. But I've really been into structure supporting theme lately, so that was cool.

Anyway, that discovery was not nearly enough to sustain me through the rest of the story, which kept getting more and more melodramatic and unbelievable (I guess more of that comic-book theme seeping in?). In the last bit of the book, a new character--a child--is introduced, and the kid was so well-written, I thought maybe the story would finally get somewhere.

Instead, we get an ending that seems as arbitrary as any other point in the book when the author could have ended it. To make matters worse, the kid ends up getting abandoned by the guy he thought for eleven years was his father--he (the dad) leaves in the middle of the night to pursue his lifelong dream of living in CA and writing for the movies. Sure, it makes his "dad" happy and, sure, the kid realizes the other guy, the one he gets along with better, is his real dad. But that doesn't mean the sensitive kid isn't going to be hurt by this choice!

I was mad. I threw the book on the floor. I invested how many hours of my life on this?

And then I couldn't get the book out of my mind for the next three weeks. And now I'm writing a blog post on it. And that made me think: isn't that sort of a measure of a good book? One you can't get out of your mind?

Negotiation

After a couple weeks off, due to end-of-semester stress, I was able to participate in this week's F3 challenge.

Prompt: Write a story of a negotiation and have your characters use at least two tactics
Genre: Any
Word Count: 1000 words
Deadline: Thursday, May 19th, 2011, 4:30 pm EST

Negotiation

"Aw, but Mom--" my eight-year-old son's voice trailed off into the kind of high-pitched whine only a dog could hear.

"Doesn't matter. Not gonna happen." I put the dozen (non-cracked, I checked) eggs in the shopping cart and pushed forward. Onward. Must not cave.

His shoulders slumped and his feet dragged. He deliberately flapped his camo flip-flops in an annoying shuffle while his lower lip extended out and down. His blue-and-white striped shirt and clashing purple shorts dripped with misery and his tangled blonde hair--in desperate need of a haircut--covered his eyes. A good thing, in my opinion. I didn't need to see his pleading blue eyes almost fill with tears.

I turned the cart into the cereal aisle, bracing for the next wave of beggary. He saw the sugar-coated treats in neon boxes and perked up, skipping with tall shoulders and bright eyes.

"Mom!" He stopped, starting at the Cocoa Puffs.

"No."

"But, what if--"

"No."

"I'll be good. I'll have a good attitude for the rest of the day. I'll even help you with dishes." He turned his eager face to me, holding the giant box aloft like a triumphant soldier returning from war.

Oh, negotiating, are we? Two can play this game.

"I don't know about that. You know I don't like sugar cereal." I paused.

"I know." He hung his head in mock discouragement, but his eyes peered up at me.

"You know, I like the idea of help with dishes. And the garbage needs to be taken out. The recycling, too." I leaned against the cart.

"I can do that, Mom. All of it." He put on his serious face.

"Your room is a mess, too."

"I'll clean it. And your room, too."

I laughed. "I don't know about that."

"Seriously, Mom, your room is a mess. You need to clean it." He wagged his finger at me. I wondered where he got it from. I shook my head.

"I'll get to it," I told him. "I'm too busy cleaning the cat litter box and your bathroom."

"Okay, I'll clean my bathroom, too."

Ooh, an offer to clean his bathroom. Gold!

"Okay. But not Cocoa Puffs. You can get a box of LIFE cereal." I pointed to the better choice.

"Two boxes." He put his dirty hands on his little hips and tilted his head. "One box of Cocoa Puffs is worth at least two boxes of LIFE."

I sighed. "Okay. Deal."

He stuck his hand out and I took it, shaking once. He skipped down the aisle, thinking he got a good deal.

I knew better.

What-if Wednesdays: No What-If is Useless

What if...

...the sun exploded?
...the moon disappeared?
...every star was a portal to another dimension?

Memoir: Overdone?

Part of the reason I wanted to pursue studies in fiction (besides the fact that I get glowing reviews for my non-fiction and not-so-glowing reviews for my fiction, indicating a need for betterment), is the idea that the memoir, which (in my limited experience) seems to be the thrust of most creative non-fiction classes--wait, where was I? Too many tangents and parentheticals.

Where's my wine? Oh. Right next to me. Okay.

Um. Memoir. Oh--totally overdone. Completely, totally, overwhelmingly overdone. I was browsing at at a bookstore the other day (nothing more fun than swimming through stacks of new books, drenching yourself in the singular smell of ink and paper and ideas) and every other book was "Random Expressive Noun: A Memoir". C'mon, really?

So when I saw Brevity's post about a memoir-within-a-memoir, I had to read the full NY Times review. The author really summed up my feelings about the memoir. Go read it. It's good.

I'm going to return to my (much-needed) wine now. Ahh, time and space to finish reading a book tonight. Can't wait.

Another submission

I submitted my second-ever non-fiction piece for publication. That's always such a fun feeling; it's somewhat addictive. Where else can I send my piece?!

Of course, my first-ever non-fiction piece was immediately selected for publication. But it was an ultrarunning magazine with low circulation, and the piece was a (humorous) race report. (Which I know wish I could go back and re-write!)

Fingers crossed on this one. It's a 620-word story told through a phone call. I've been focusing on telling an entire story, not just a vignette, in my short-shorts, and I feel pretty good about it.

Oh, wait, that reminds me. This is my third non-fiction piece submitted. I submitted a non-fiction piece to my local community college's publication, and it was rejected (boo!). I felt pretty good about that one, too. I suppose I shouldn't take my feelings about a piece into consideration, ha!

Semester: (almost) complete

Final lit paper: check.
Final lit discussion posts: check.
Final fiction submittal: check (see previous post re: PDR).
Final nonfiction class/potluck: check.

All that's left is a final individual conference with my non-fic instructor on Thursday evening. This will be followed by joining my co-workers at a company-sponsored suite at the Padres game. Time to cel-a-brate!

I get two weeks of peace before All. Hell. Breaks. Loose. with my summer semester.

At least I'm beginning to incorporate running into my weekly routine again. Sort of. Well, if you can call walking with a few jog strides thrown in "running," which I do. It's the idea of going out at sunset, when the clouds are yellow and orange and blue and purple and pale with delight, and the breeze carries the scent of creosote and rocks, and spending anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes with only myself as my company, steadily moving through the desert or downtown or my neighborhood, is a stress-relaxer and meditation-inducer.

Sigh. Here's hoping my hamstring will begin to behave and I can really run again.

Coming Home

As a single mom and full-time employee, the idea of undertaking the pursuit of a college degree can be daunting. Add the idea of Honors College on top of it, and it take the idea of overwhelming to a whole 'nother level.

But...as a total Type A personality, it's hard to pass up on the idea of Honors College.

So, today, with some trepidation, I met with an Honors College adviser. Who was awesome. And welcoming. And funny. And a fellow Creative Writer who also happened to be a mom.

It was like coming home. Totally opposite of meeting with my English Department adviser ("You're transferring? With all your Gen Eds? Okay, we're done." *Thwack* goes the stamp and on to the next student...). The Honors adviser listened as I said I'm a non-traditional student and wary of taking on more than I can handle. She reassured me that Honors work is not extra work, but rather an opportunity to meet with like-minded folks who are interested in taking a subject to the next level (what? You mean, no slackers?! *gasp* Community college, while beneficial and I am truly grateful for, certainly had it's fair share of non-caring students). Then she called the Honors Dean in (who used to be in the English Dean) and they sat there filling me in on the various English professors--their quirks, their foibles, who was good for someone with my personality--and who wasn't. 

I now know that the classes I'm enrolled in for the fall semester (including one Honors course) will be right up my alley, and the professors are the type I love ("Here's exactly what I want from you to give you an A"). I felt like I wasn't just a number--I was an important person, with important needs, and they wanted to meet those needs and make me happy.

And happy I am.

Yay!

Earnest Fiction

Recently I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my fiction. I finally settled on the idea that it's too damn earnest. So when I heard a new journal called Printer's Devil Review was seeking submissions of "thoughtful, earnest fiction" that focused on "the inner lives of characters: their intimate challenges and relationships" from non-published or emerging writers, I got excited. Sounds like a good fit, especially for a particular story I've polished in the last couple months. As part of my fiction class this semester, we had to submit a story (in class, in front of our peers, so they see us do it). Tonight, I submitted "Fireworks" to PDR. Yay!

*Fingers crossed!*

PS They aren't affiliated with any organization and are running it solely on volunteer efforts & their own cash. Check out how you can help!

What-if Wednesdays: No What-If is Useless

What if...

...your toddler was a genius?
...your spouse was a genius?
...you were a genius?