NaNoWriMo?

Today is November 1st, the start of National Novel Writing Month (better known as NaNoWriMo). Basically you force yourself to write a novel in a month – completely ignoring quality as you push toward the prescribed word count.

Some people at Emerson put a group together to help each other finish, by hosting writing days and generally being as encouraging as possible, and I got invited. And while I didn’t decline, necessarily, I can’t see myself writing a novel anytime soon. I have a few problems:

• When I write I’m constantly reading over what I’ve previously written to be sure a. it doesn’t suck and b. my voice is consistent with itself. While this has worked well for short stories, this would be fatal in trying to write an entire novel in a month.
• I have no novel ideas. Haha. Seriously, though, it seems as if I’ve trained my brain to think in short-story mode; it’s a chore for me to write something above 8,000 words. I can’t even imagine writing a novella in the near future (although I LOVE reading them and wish there were more of them around to read).
• When I write fiction I usually listen to one song on repeat when I’m writing that particular story – for example: “Jumping Rooftops,” which will be at Necessary Fiction in December, is courtesy of Coldplay’s b-side “Murder.” And there is no way I’d be able to listen to a single song for the entire novel-writing process. I would probably go insane.

So I really don’t think I’ll be writing a novel anytime soon – especially not a good one. But one day (hopefully) I will. And maybe it will be big.

Halloween Story

The trick to writing a decent Halloween story, apparently, is to make it not about Halloween. See Carthage. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Lung 2

The second edition of Lung is now live. You should probably go see since, you know, I’m in it.

BP: The Poet

I don’t even have an explanation for this one. Only that it’s dated February 24th. Good luck:

The poet
rests her hands on
the podium. She
recites her life’s
collected work from
memory. Her book
rests on the table
opposite. She’s touch
it if not for fear
that her withered
hand would catch flame.

Writers on Facebook

I’m now friends with two online-writer-people on facebook: Tim Jones-Yelvington and Jac Jemc. I’ve read a lot of both their work and was thrilled when they let me into their semi-private facebook worlds.

But I have my concerns. Now I know what they look like. Now I know when their writing is giving them so much trouble that it’s worth a status update. And these privileges are not ones I’m used to having when it comes to the writers of the literature I choose to read. I mean, I never got to see the pictures Hemingway took on his last fishing trip. I wouldn’t want such things to interfere with how I read their work.

These are probably silly concerns, especially as I try to build a set of writerly credentials of my own. I suppose it can’t hurt to get closer to those who are further along the path than I am. It’s good to have idols, I’d think.

Getting Workshopped Is Funny

A staggering amount of my degree classes are workshops, and though I’m through most of them, I still can’t get used to having a group of twelve people discuss my writing on a detailed level. I would like to think, by now, I’d be able to judge how a story would go. Alas, no.

Earlier today I had my short story “Fortune Cookies” workshopped, my first fiction in about a year. I was terrified because it’s a complete linguistic shift from how I normally construct prose, heavier on metaphor. But the class’s comments were mostly positive, but I wonder if that’s because I followed a story where a dog bites off part of a guy’s ass. Some samples:

• This is a beautiful and fresh look at an old concept. It could use a tad more grounding, but is fine without it.
• Prose was beautiful. Very, very good writing. But there seems to be very little actual plot…what is this story really about?
• I loved how you portrayed space. The idea of it being so welcoming to a tormented girl – a quiet escape.
• Cool. Enjoyed it.

But of course you can’t please everyone:

• I don’t think this is your strong suit…it sounds like the script for a bad anime. I’m also not a fan of excessive flashbacks.
• Gee, let’s pile on some more stereotypes, shall we?
• If you’re going for romance then you’ve done a fine job of capturing that sort of sentimentality.

The professor liked it, though. Which, I think, is a good sign.

In general, I’ve definitely got to clear up some of the story’s timing issues and play around with a few plot points, but I think I have a solid start. We’ll see!

Double Takes, Kinda

Tim Jones-Yelvington (who’s quickly becoming one of my favorites) has two new stories available. They remind me that I like when writers address something from two radically different views, especially when they appear in different places and come out at approximately the same time. This needs to happen more often.

In this case, “Abner” of “Slime Me” really wants his friend to pour goo on him because “it wasn’t enough, would never be enough, if he knew when the slime was coming and where it would fall” and the narrator of “Advice for Locating the Whirl” shares his secret to making the ’she’ sticky. I’m 90% sure these are the same metaphor.

In other news, I need to start blogging about short stories more often. Maybe that’ll help me write better/more/things that people actually want to read/publish/be happy.