What Else Am I Going To Do With My Time?

Irritating...I mean, Interesting article on NYTimes.com. I'm probably a little too bitter this afternoon to write much on this, but this article profiles published writers who haven't quit their day jobs working at the bookstore. Along with the usual banter..."What am I going to write about if I don't have a job" etc., it just reminds me how sad it is that most writers work other jobs to provide health insurance etc. for their families. It would be like Martin Scorsese working at Blockbuster.

Building Your Brand

You think selling a book is hard, wait until you have to start building your own brand. :) Interesting article on NYTimes.com about self-promotion.

Idlewild

I just posted a story called Idlewild on my other blog--check it out here--and I thought I should at least jot down a few things about the process. While there is no doubt that much of my work springs from some memory of something that happened to me or something I read in the newspaper or something someone told me etc., this story was written as a sort of tribute to my grandfather.

Leroy Quitman Miller--known as Quittie by everyone who knew him--bears many of the same characteristics of the "Quittie" in this story. While he died of natural causes and never killed anyone (to my knowledge) or took in an orphan (to my knowledge), he did own a convenience store, was married to a woman named Jean (my grandmother), drank his coffee so black and bitter it could have probably fueled his old blue Ford truck, and had a heart as big as Texas.

I miss him.

Students Bash Author's Work Until He Cries Like A Little Baby

While the title of this post is slightly exaggerated, my students read my short story "Stick Figures," and we had a class discussion on its merits. Coming from students that would rather lose their favorite texting thumb as opposed to reading one of my short stories, the response was rather flattering. What do you expect, right? Of course, they're going to say they liked it...you wrote it...you're their instructor. If that's what you're thinking, you don't know my students very well.

They're not short on opinions and they don't give a rat's @ss if I feel flattered or not. What they did manage to do was dig deep and deconstruct the story in a way that was refreshing and left me feeling optimistic for their future. Now if I can only get them to read one of my novels.

To Teach is to Learn

The Introduction of  A Course in Miracles says that "the role of teaching and learning is actually reversed in the thinking of the world...seems as if the teacher and the learner are separated, the teacher giving something to the learner rather than to himself." The Course goes on to say that "to teach is to learn...that teacher and learner are the same."

While I consider A Course in Miracles a sacred text, this thought is applicable on the natural plane...and never more so than in writing. I believe that in teaching others about writing (whether in the classroom) or on this blog--through sharing my experience etc.--I learn more about writing than I have ever learned as a student.

If, as a writer, you are having trouble recognizing that writing is just as natural as breathing... start teaching. And I'm not asking that you get a job at the local high school...what I'm asking you to do is start talking to others about the craft, find someone you can mentor, find a writing community and get involved. If you haven't convinced yourself that creating is your life's calling, teach what you need to learn...

The Gatekeepers Are Shrinking: a Rant on the State of Publishing

William Styron was interviewed in the 1954 Spring edition of the Paris Review, and his response to a question about the value of creative writing courses reminded me of one of the reasons why publishing is in a state of disrepair.

Here's the question: What value has the creative writing course for young writers?

And here's the annotated version of his answer:

"It gives them a start, I suppose. But it can be an awful waste of time. Look at those people who go back year after year to summer writers’ conferences, you get so you can pick them out a mile away. A writing course can only give you a start, and help a little. It can’t teach writing. The professor should weed out the good from the bad, cull them like a farmer, and not encourage the ones who haven’t got something."

Writing in the Margins

Part of the joy of reading a good book is being able to take it with you to the the beach. Or reading on the train. Or in the bathtub. And writing in the margins. Check out this great article--from NYTimes.com--on marginalia and whether reading in the electronic age will ever be the same. Check it out here.

Why Do Writers Abandon Novels?

Why do writers abandon unfinished novels? Check out this very interesting article on NYTimes.com.

Random & Entirely Coincidental

I just posted an excerpt--the first three chapters--of my second novel, "Random & Entirely Coincidental," on my other blog. Check it out here. While I don't apologize for the mature subject matter of my work, "Random & Entirely Coincidental" takes it to a whole new level.

I've had an agent for the past five years--and I was working on "Random" when Scribe Agency took me on as a client--so I guess it's been a little over three years since I dotted the final i and crossed the final t. "Random" was an intentional departure from my first novel. While "The Anguish of Angus Bluefeet" approached some mature subject matter, I felt like I had held back on some of the most powerful scenes...particularly those as they relate to a man's penchant for sexual obsession.

The Anguish of Angus Bluefeet

I just posted an excerpt--the first three chapters--of my first novel, "The Anguish of Angus Bluefeet," to my other blog. Check it out here. I submitted it to my agent a little over five years ago, and we still haven't sold it. There are probably some things that I would change (now that I think about it) but I don't want to spend the time that it would require. I've already finished the second novel...and am working on the third...so going back to the first one doesn't make sense. It took over five years to write "The Anguish of Angus Bluefeet," and it was a great learning experience. It would be really nice to see it on the shelves of my favorite bookstore!

Stick Figures

Just posted a story on my other blog. Check it out here. I wrote Stick Figures  nine or ten years ago. Although I had dated a few women with children, I didn't have any children of my own. Very interesting to read a story I wrote about a young girl--who in certain ways reminds me of my own daughter--long before Bella was born.

A Canine Appetite for Reading

The New York Times reports that a "trove of books that were among the last ones that Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s most bibliophilic president, collected and read in the decade before he died" has been discovered.

Jefferson's taste in books--in his own words, he had a canine appetite for reading--should give scholars further evidence of where he got his ideas and what influenced him. As the article so eloquently states, "the physical collection is not as critical as what it represents intellectually."

I suppose that collecting the video games and dvds of the next generation may provide evidence of where they got their ideas and what influenced them, but sadly...a "canine appetite for gaming," doesn't have as sweet of a ring to it.

Reading the Infallible Word

While I try to link to books I've actually read--rather than read about--this book review on Salon.com is worth commenting on even though I have yet to read "The Rise and Fall of the Bible" by Timothy Beal. The book, written by a Christian, is an argument against reading the Bible as the "infallible" Word of God, but encourages us instead to read it as a "work of art--that is, as a text permitting multiple interpretations and as a spur to further thought and self-examination rather than as the last word on all of life's enigmas."

You Can't Handle the Truth: Fact vs. Fiction and the Fuzziness of Truth in Literature

In one of my weekly strolls through the New York Times, I stumbled across several articles that grabbed my attention.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against President Jimmy Carter and Simon & Schuster--who published Carter's "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid" in 2006--alleging that the book was "falsely marketed as an accurate account of peace negotiations in the Middle East." David Schoen--the attorney who filed the suit--remarked that "You cannot market it as the absolute truth on something when it's not."

Kathryn Stockett--the author of the best-selling novel, "The Help," is being sued by Ablene Cooper--a 60-year-old woman--who alleges that "one of the book's principal characters, Aibileen Clark, is an unauthorized appropriation of her name and image, which she finds emotionally distressing."

Finding God

I just posted my one-act play, Finding God, on my other blog and a few things came to mind. I was enrolled in a playwriting workshop at the University of Montana - Western when I wrote this play over the course of that class. We had a reading in the campus coffee shop--The Cup--and later staged it in the One Act Play Festival on campus. Besides my embarrassing attempt at portraying the play's protagonist, it went rather well. On re-reading it before posting it to my blog--despite having written it over twelve years ago--I still enjoyed it.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

While I'm just as sad as the next book lover that Borders has filed bankruptcy--and as a result, is closing many of its stores--I am not surprised. The publishing industry has been on the decline for some time now...and had plenty of time to stop it. I imagine I'm not the only one who has grown weary of walking into a bookstore (Barnes & Noble, Borders etc.) and seeing the same titles and authors shoved in my face--with the best shelf space reserved for the houses with the deepest pockets--telling me what's hot and what's not...and rarely giving me the time to find out for myself. Frankly, I enjoy a trip to Half Price Books just as much because I never know what gem I'm going to find (even though I'm a little annoyed that they won't give me jack for the books I sell) but who knows how long even they'll stay in business.

From Your Valentine (for Christie, with love)

Spent a good part of the afternoon writing Christie a Valentine. Nothing better than posting it on your public blog before you even let her see it. ;) 

The Learning Curve

My students are reading "The Learning Curve" by David Sedaris. An essay from his hilarious book Me Talk Pretty One Day, "The Learning Curve" follows his misadventures as a teacher of a writing workshop. "Like branding steers or embalming the dead, teaching was a profession I had never seriously considered. I was clearly unqualified, yet I accepted the job without hesitation, as it would allow me to wear a tie and go by the name of Mr. Sedaris. My father went by the same name, and though he lived a thousand miles away, I liked to imagine someone getting the two of us confused." Love it!

Manners of Dying

I just finished a remarkable short story by Yann Martel--author of Life of Pi--called Manners of Dying. A story broken up into nine sections, Manners of Dying is an epistolary tale featuring letters from the Warden of Cantos Correctional Institution to the mother of a recently executed prisoner. Each section is a different version of the events of the last day of her son. One word: remarkable.

Poetry of Protest

According to The Daily Beast, "protesters throughout the Middle East are using famous poetry as subversive chants against the government." Check it out.