Category: Writing

  • ODDS and ENDS: Hair, Dogs, and My Website

    (My dog’s breath smells like shrimp…)

    I am a balding man. My brothers are balding men, and my father is a balding man as well. His father was bald, as was his father. As far as I can tell, men in my family have been bald. It’s just who we are, and I am fine with it. My uncle, who was my dad’s brother, told me to get a wife before I lose all my hair. I followed that advice, and my wife is good with a balding husband. And as my hair leaves the top of my head, I have started sprouting hair in my ears and nose. It is enough of an issue that I now have a trimmer specifically for those spots. Yet, I find myself wondering as I shave my ears and nose; why does my body grow new hair in my ears and nose? When I hit puberty, I started growing hair all over, EXCEPT for my ears and nose. So, what happened at 45 that caused my body to say, “Yeah, we need more hair at the nose and ears!” But what about keeping my brain warm? “I said EARS AND NOSE!”

    Is it odd that it costs more to board my dog for a week than it would for me to buy the dog her own airline ticket? I know that where we are going, there is no place for the dog to stay, but I feel like the dog boarding industry is pushing me to take the dog on the trip. Or they know that I’m in a situation and will pay whatever as long as my pet is taken care of.

    I’m thinking about updating my website. I am aware that this question might back fire on me, but anyone have any suggestion of how I should update/improve this site?

  • Personal Review: Arcadia by Lauren Groff

    (Spoilers, I think. I’m writing this now, but it might change.)

    I got Arcadia as a Christmas gift back in 2015, and then never read it. I want to believe that I am normal in that regard; that I receive books as gifts, and then never get around to reading them… for like a decade. In my effort to catch up on my reading, I made the time for Laruen Groff’s book. As I am a fan of her short stories, I was looking forward to reading one of her novels.

    Arcadia is about a guy named Bit, and the novel follows him through his life; childhood, adolescents, and adulthood. Bit’s real name is Ridley, but when he is born to his hippie parents, he is a very small baby, and is nicknamed “Bit” because he is “Little Bit of a Hippie.” His parents are part of a hippie commune on a sprawling, but neglected, upstate New York estate, Arcadia, which the commune is in the process of repairing and repurposing. This is the first section of the book, and it establishes the dynamic between the community, leadership, and family life for Bit, and the community as a whole. The next section of the book deals with the Arcadia, and the second wave of people who want to join the commune. Here we find Bit in his adolescence, experiencing love and sex, and the pressures from his parents to behave and act in support of their desires and goals. Inevitable, all of this leads to the breakup of the commune, and Bit’s family escapes to New York City. And though there are several sections, the book moves into the third part, which is Bit’s adulthood, and the creation of his own family.

    I will say this, the first section does go on. It is laying the groundwork for this novel, and it does pay off in the end, but getting through it did feel taxing at times. What we are getting in this section is seeing this world through Bit’s eyes, and his not fully understanding what is happening. We see the dynamic between his parents, Abe and Hannah. We see Hannah’s bouts of depression, and her inability for a time to get out of bed. We also learn about Bit’s empathetic nature, his desire to care for others as he is taken in by the women who handle the childbirth in the commune. Arcadia is a magical world to Bit, yet Bit also thinks the whole world is like Arcadia. It’s an innocence that we know is doomed to conflict with reality eventually. This point is made with the end of the section as Abe falls off the roof of Arcadia house, breaking his back, and leaving him in a wheelchair. I respect the point that Groff was trying to make, but I didn’t like the way it was executed. Abe’s accident is treated like a button to end the section, like a dramatic trick to get the reader hooked to move on to the next section. It felt odd against the flow of the prose and the telling of the story.

    With this ground work completed, and Bit entering adolescence, he begins to view Arcadia differently. He starts to notice the divisions between adults, the hypocrisy of the commune, and even his parents lack of commitment to the commune’s ideals. This is when the novel starts to pick up. A plot is laid out, actions are taken, and Bit starts to develop into a rounded character. We are also given Helle, the daughter of the commune’s leader, and the girl that Bit is in love with. She is a troubled girl, and more than just a free spirit, she wants to run as close to the razor’s edge as possible. She is destructive, and Bit’s attraction to her is understandable; he thinks he can save her. The commune is now being inundated with new arrivals, runaways and burnouts, who aren’t interested in the communal living so much as being away from society. As I said before, this all culminates with the commune breaking apart, but what I found very interesting was how the nearby Amish community stops by. In a sense, the Amish are an older version of Arcadia, but on the opposite end of the spectrum – ridged, disciplined, and closed off. The Amish hang on the edges, as if saying there is a way to make this work, but it is work, and not sex/drugs fun. The world does come crashing in, and when that happens, this book tells us the only people you can count on is your family, ideals be damned.

    And we jump to 2018, which was the “future” when this book was published. Bit is now an adult, having been living in New York City since the fall of Arcadia. He is a photography professor at a NYC college, and father to a daughter, Grete, whose mother is Helle. It is explained that Bit and Helle reconnected later in life, and though she tried, Helle cannot change who she is, and continues her destructive ways; she up and leaves Bit and Grete, and is never seen again. I want to give credit to Lauren Groff here. I think every other writer on the planet would have had Helle come back at the end of this book, to have some sort of reconnection or closure. I loved that this book has shit happen to people, it doesn’t make sense, and they have to deal with it. Bit and Grete have to be hurt, and learn from it, and move on, but that doesn’t mean the hurt goes away, or doesn’t stop affecting them years later. It was an honesty that I wasn’t expecting in this story, but was so grateful that it was there.

    I say this because the climax of the novel is Hannah’s slow death. It is handled with a brutal honesty and also with a poetic melancholy, which mixed together in an authenticity that was wonderful and difficult to read. Watching the person you loved first in life, slowly waste away, and become the shadow of themselves is one of the cruelest acts in life. The pain is immeasurable, deep, and crushing, and all of that is shown here. It made me have flashbacks to my mother in her final days in hospice; it was so painful, but I wanted to be there for her, so she wouldn’t be alone in her final moments. I sympathized with Bit, and I saw how all the events and experiences he had been through had prepared him for that moment with Hannah. It wasn’t surprising that Bit crawled into bed and didn’t get out after Hannah passed away. And it also wasn’t surprising that Bit pulled himself out of that bed after a week. After everything he had been through, I knew he could handle this. He was hurt and wounded, but his family did prepare him for this world.

    But, the real reason why I loved this book, was Groff’s prose. I have been trying to find a way to describe it, but the world I keep falling back on is poetic. Every word feels deliberate, contemplated, and purposeful. Maybe the plot/narrative had a few minor issues, but the prose, the language, was impeccable. It captured a feeling of the commune, but also of an idealism and connection to nature, and between the characters, which was so vital to the emotional development of Bit. Yet, the language also evolved with Bit as he grew, never staying stagnant. It is an impressive accomplishment in writing.

    I’m embarrassed that I waited so long to read this book. I’m also embarrassed at how impatient I am with novels. I want stories to get going NOW! I have forgotten that a good novel needs time, which might be one of the most obviously naïve things that I have said in a while. Clearly I needed to be reminded. This story took it’s time to create the journey it’s characters needed to take; one that allowed them to grow, become better versions of themselves. And the ideal society we need is the one we create with our family, and the friends we keep. Who we let in, and who we choose to love.

  • Research and Submission Day

    I am limited on what I can do today. Between chores, and school obligations, and watching the kid, and having to go to bed early, as I have an early morning tomorrow, I don’t have a large resource of time to work with. That is why I am looking up online journals, and submitting stories to them.

    I mean, I also want to get a blog in, clearly.

    But I do like the rabbit-hole game you can play online with writers, and discovering magazines they have written for. I have subscribed to several online lit journals, which means I get a couple emails a day for new works that have been published. I discover new writers this way, and in their bio’s, usually, is a list of other places they have been published. I select a publication I haven’t heard of before, read a story on their site, which will lead me to that author’s bio. And the game starts all over again. It can eat up a good chunk of your day if you are not careful. I set a time limit for myself.

    I will digress for a second, as I would like to say a word about writer’s bio’s. As a theatre guy who has written thousands of bio’s for myself, it was drilled into me that this was the one shot you have to sell yourself to the audience and, potentially, your next job. It is very difficult to sum up your career in 50 to 100 words, but those of you who use this space to share your sense of humor; you are my heroes. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

    Outside of someone publishing me, the thought that I subscribe to is that I need to get 100 no’s before I get my first yes. Right now, I am at “no” #36 for the year. I got some work ahead of me.

  • Things Have Changed

    I submitted a flash fiction story to a bunch of magazines on Friday. I do this from time to time. I get impatient with actually crafting something, and get it into my head that I should send something out to as many publications as possible. And then wait.

    I do like emailing out my work. I think it is easier for all parties. Quicker responses, easier to read, no piles of paper. I never liked the old system.

    Back in college, I mailed out so many manila envelopes with self-addressed stamped envelopes included. The people at the local post office got to know me pretty well, and I would need to get the query packages weighted to be mailed each time. I stood in a lot of lines. And then the waiting, and checking the mail. I really hated that. Not only did it cost me money, but there were some submissions that I never got a response from.

    At least now, I always get a response.

  • Personal Review: CRUNCH and CLASH by Kayla Miller

    (I will SPOIL these two books!!! You have been warned!!!)

    I’m trying to be a good parent to my daughter. Besides teaching her to love the Chicago Cubs, and to despise the Philadelphia Eagles, I also want to instill in her the love of books and reading. I at least know enough not to force her to read, which would make it feel like a chore. What I do is suggest we read together, or I take her to the library on rainy days, and I try to set the example of reading books around the home. About two months ago, thanks in large part to our local library’s librarians (Support your local libraries, folks!) the kid found a series of tween graphic novels by the author Kayla Miller, that she has become a huge fan of. So much so, that for the kid’s birthday, we got her to complete series of Miller’s books.

    Full disclosure; I am not a tween graphic novel aficionado, nor do I have a deep wealth of knowledge of this genre, as Kayla Miller’s books are the first tween graphic novels I have read. Well, my daughter read them to me, but I was present and active in the storytelling. I want to speak of two of the novels in particular; CRUNCH and CLASH. (I am aware that these were read out of order. That was not my decision, it was the kid’s, and hopefully, we will finish the other books in the series.) For a broad outline here, the books revolve around Olive, a sixth grader who lives in a suburb with her mom and younger brother. CRUNCH has to do with Olive wanting to try as many new things as possible, guitar lessons, joining a scouting group, student council, and wanting to make a movie. CLASH is about Olive trying to be friends with a new girl in school, and no matter how hard Olive tries, they don’t seem to get along, which is complicated by the fact that Olive and the new girl are friends with the same people.

    My daughter and I started reading CRUNCH, and it became very clear why my kid loved these books; it reinforces her world view. Olive goes to school in a place that is filled with a wide range of diversity, which is just like the school my daughter attends. Also, though a little Pollyanna, all the kids in CRUNCH get along, or if there is a conflict, after a period of introspection or discussion, the kids are able to talk it out and come and solve the problem. What I really liked about CRUNCH, which my kid completely got, was that the “bad guy” in the story was Olive, who over stretched herself with too many commitments. It wasn’t until Olive learned to say no, politely, to one friend, and ask for help from others, that her life returned to a sense of balance.

    When we read CLASH next, this was the book made me impressed with Kayla Miller’s talent. As I said before, this book is about Olive trying to be friends with someone, a girl named Nat, who doesn’t want to be friends with her. Olive tries several different ways to be friendly to Nat, which is rebuffed every time, and often met with passive-aggressive backhanded compliments. These interaction sap Olive’s confidence, and challenge her worldview which is that everyone can be friends. There is a wonderful bit of complication as Olive’s mother and aunt, two very strong role models for Olive, disagree on how to handle the situation. The book concludes with making two very important points; First, we learn that Nat’s home life is not been the easiest, which reminds us that sometimes we don’t know the pressure and stress others are under; Second, Nat and Olive don’t become best friends, as they come to an understanding to be respectful to each other. What I felt when we started reading this book was that the ending was going to be about hand holding, and how we worked out our problems, and we are bestfriends like Tango and Cash, or Falcon and the Winter Soldier. No, what Miller gave us fit completely, and is true and honest to this world that she created – Nat and Olive don’t like each other and they won’t be bestfriends, but since they move in the same friend circles they had to find a way to co-exist. (Now, that’s a lesson a whole bunch of people need to learn.) What made that even better, is that my daughter related to that, as we talked about the same situation in her school. We had a long conversation about how you might not be friends with someone, but you have to respect who they are.

    These books are great, and I love reading them with my kid. Miller does very unique job of creating a place for her stories where the outside world is present and on the edges of the story, but never gets bogged down by adult perspectives, keeping the focus on these six graders, and their problems. Sure, puberty, and the wonderful/awful life of teenagers is just around the corner for all of these characters, but that corner is still a little ways off. In this place, these tweens are thoughtful, honest, and doing their best to solve their own issues, but never out of the sight of a parent. These are delightful books, and Kayla Miller has a very deft hand at storytelling, which has made all of us look forward to her next graphic novel.