Tag: #Writers

  • Solving the Small Problem First

    It is cold today. Not just the normal cold, but actually 20 degrees. I know things get cold here, but it has been awhile since it has been this cold. I decided that it was too cold for the grocery shopping which I had planned down at the 93rd Trader Joe’s. It’s a just a “stay in” kind of day.

    And as such, I have a free day – sort of – at least, one I wasn’t planning on. I am doing what I normally do, which is starting off with the blog. Next, I will put in some journal time. The last thing for the day will be working on a story.

    This has been my pattern of writing since September when the kid went back to school. I have to say that the results have been mixed. Not bad, but I was expecting that I would have completed more work, and would be in a better position for submitting work. (In four days, One Story Magazine starts taking submissions again, and I plan on sending them something.) I still feel that I need more material in the bank, but I think that is a cop out on my part. Like, I’m already looking for reasons why things haven’t been going my way, thus not my fault.

    I keep saying things haven’t been going my way, because I still take myself out of the game. I’m continuing to have the 2am self-doubt moments. Last night’s was pretty bad, as I started telling myself that I just don’t have the passion to do this. That all my friends who are doing well in their careers are passionate about what they do, and are willing to work hard, and that is way they are successful. While me… I’m too lazy and insecure to even get started, and if I did get started, it would suck, and I would fail.

    It took me a bit to calm myself down. Just to breath, and remind myself that I’m okay. Everything is okay. Everything will be okay. I don’t know how, but it will be. Gotta have faith.

    One of the things I reminded myself of was what I learned in therapy long ago; You can only solve one problem at a time. Instead of trying to solve the biggest one, maybe I should try a small one – a problem that I can have control over. THEN, I should try to solve a problem that’s a little bigger. And so on, and so on until maybe that big problem is a little more manageable.

    One problem at a time.

  • Taking and Keeping Notes

    I had this great idea for a story this morning. I was in the kitchen, making the kid’s lunch for school, and it just hit me like lightening. I remember thinking that it was a great idea that I should work on today, but I should finish making the kid’s lunch, and then I’ll jot down some notes. By the time I finished making the lunch, the idea left my body… and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

    Nothing

    I tried retracing my steps, doing what I was doing when the idea hit me, but nothing has worked. The idea is lost to the universe…

    Now as I sit here blogging, I wonder, is this just the normal forgetfulness of life, or am I getting older?

    Most likely, a little of both.

    More importantly, I have never had a good system for taking notes. Even in school, like in junior high, I was taught a note taking system, which it’s really just bullet points. I still use to this day, and it sucks. It’s not real coherent, or logical, but I keep using it – never improving on it. The other weekend, we were cleaning out the office, and I found a couple of legal pads that had meeting notes from the second to last job I had, and my notes aren’t really helpful, as I can’t really understand what I was taking the notes for. That could also be a sign that the job wasn’t very good.

    Some people are great at taking notes, and cataloging things. I was rather impressed with several friends for listing all the books and movies they watched in the past year. Not only did they have an impressive count, but I thought it was equally impressive that they had the wherewithal to just follow through on collecting that information. That is, if they were telling the truth. People do lie on the internet.

    As this is a new year, and I seem to lack the ability to remember things, I will need to step up my note game, or outlining, or just keeping track of shit. I am getting older.

  • Short Story Review: “The Hollow” by Greg Jackson

    (The shot story, “The Hollow” by Greg Jackson appeared in the November 29th, 2021 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Okay, no cutesy introduction here, I didn’t get this story, and I’m not sure whose fault it is. Greg Jackson? The New Yorker’s fiction editor? Is it me?

    Here’s the story: Jonah Valente is a college football player who quits the team and wants to become a painter. Jonah is so earnest about his new vocation, it takes on a level of ridicule from other classmates… Like Jack. Though Jack doesn’t think of Jonah often. Fast-forward several years, and Jack is married to Sophie, and they buy a home off in the county away from the city where they had been living. But then Jack loses his job, and Sophie leaves him. Alone in this old farm house, a college friend of Jack’s, Daniel, tells Jack that Jonah lives in the next county over. Jack reaches out to Jonah, and the two begin to hangout. Jonah lives with his mother, coaches a girl’s rugby team at a local high school, is still pursuing painting, and peppers all his conversations with stories about Van Gogh and Picasso. One of the days hanging out Jonah points out to Jack that his home has a hollow space in the middle of the house, which could be a hidden or sealed up room. On another evening, as Jonah tells another story about Picasso, and in a fit of frustration, Jack tells Jonah he will never make it as a painter. Jonah storms off, and then the two lose touch. Later, a letter shows up from Jonah telling Jack that after their fight, he got drunk and fell off a water tower he was trying to paint, and the reason he tells all those stories of Van Gogh and Picasso is because it makes him feel better. Jump some more years, and Jack and Sophie are back together, living in the farm house with a kid now. At a local fair, Jack runs into Jonah sitting at a booth with some awful paintings in it. Jonah claims the paintings aren’t his, and he is helping out a friend by watching his booth. Jack and Jonah share a laugh and never see each other again, and seriously, what the hell is this?

    First, 100% respect for Greg Jackson on getting a story in The New Yorker, because that is a goal of a great number of writers, and the majority, myself included, never attain it.

    But…

    I had so many issues with this story that all seem like very basic questions an editor should have asked. Such as; were Jack and Jonah friends in college? If yes, what was their relationship back then like? If not, then how does Jonah know who Jack is? The story starts off implying that Jonah was a person people at college knew of, but weren’t actually friends with, but when Jack contact Jonah, Jonah’s reaction is as if he knows who Jack is. Well… which one is it? Also, it feels like Jonah is the character that is imparting some sort of wisdom toward Jack, but the tone of the story, and Jack’s attitude, seem to make Jonah the butt of a joke. And if Jonah is not the protagonist of this story, then what is Jack’s heroic act? Then, why does Sophie come back? Did Jack change? Then there is the whole hollow thing. Is the metaphor really just the hidden part of ourselves that no one can access? Really? Following the Chekhov Rule, if it’s in the story, it has to have a purpose, so what was the purpose of the hollow? Being that the story drips a realistic tone, then I don’t believe that there is a modernist/surliest twist going on here. It has to have a meaning.

    As I began to puzzle these questions over and over again, I started to wonder, is the problem with me? Is this story executing some new theory when it comes to what a short story is? What if Jackson presented a story that feigned logic, when it was in fact disassembling what a story’s internal logic could be, thus making the reader question what was really necessary to tell a story.

    No. That’s not what was happening in this story.

    Sadly, it felt like the basic, but essential, work of laying the structure of the story’s internal logic was not fully formed, and thus left the central relationship between Jack and Jonah feeling incomplete, and half-baked. And I don’t think that was the, attempted, point of the story.

    If I’m wrong, then please, someone explain this story to me.

  • What’s Next for This Blog?

    I have been writing a post every week day for over a year now, and I enjoy doing it, which was one of the points. Also, in that year, I have quadrupled in followers, views, visitors and likes. Mind you, that means I have gone from one person to four people per post, but still… I intend to continue posting each weekday for another year. That’s the plan.

    The nuts and bolts of this thing is that I am using the Wrodpress.com free blogging tool, and I am aware that this site was really created for people who are starting out building a business website, and not really for people like me; personal bloggers. I know that is why most of my followers are business, and not individuals. (And some might even be BOTS!!!) Either way, I am right now beholden to the “free” perimeters laid down by WordPress.com.

    As I look at my blog page, it is pretty basic and simple, and that was intentional. I didn’t want to spend too much time on it, as I was more concerned with posting. One thought I am having is to pay for the upgrade, get my own URL, and then put up ads, and all those other bells and whistles. On my site, I could have other pages, and lists, and a new theme.

    And that all sounds cool…

    But I’m still not sure if I should do it. I keep coming back to asking myself, why? I can write anything I want right now. So, why do I want to change it up?

    The answer is that I still am not sure what is my goal is.

    I can say that one of my goals is to write, which I am doing. Is it also to publish? Is it to be paid as well? Is it to write fiction professionally? Is it to reach out to more people?

    What I am reminded of is something that my dad says; it’s all talk until you spend money on it. It’s the same thing as saying you have to get skin in the game if you want to win. In this situation, if I want to grow, no matter what direction that is, I’m going to need to make an investment of time and a little money.

    Something to think about.

    Which is good, and I’m talking to the four of you who read this, as I am taking the next week off for a vacation. I’ll be back, not with an upgrade, but a decision. Either way…

    Happy Summer, One and All!

  • Personal Review: “Foster” by Bryan Washington

    (The short story “Foster,” by Bryan Washington, was featured in the June 14th, 2021 issue of The New Yorker.)

    I am always amazed by writers who use so few words to explain something, like the setting, and instantly I know specifically where they’re talking about. It’s like a magician making a large object emerge from a very small space; how did they pack all of that in there? Bryan Washington did that with his short story “Foster.” Washington dropped the word, “Montrose” in the second section of the story, and half way through the first page, I knew I was in Houston; along with the urban sprawl, sticky humidity, and vibrations of that city. This writer has skills in his word use.  

    “Foster” is a story about two estranged brother, one who leaves a cat with the other. The brother who takes the cat, lives alone in his apartment though his boyfriend, Owen, asks about moving in together. The story is told in short sections, which keeps the story moving at a fast clip. A co-worker at a university is introduced, the cat gets sick, and reflections on the past are brought up. There are thoughts about life with the estranged brother, and a slight mystery resolved about where the cat’s name comes from – All leading to a satisfying, though predictable, conclusion.

    I enjoyed this story. I liked the narrator, and wanted to learn more about him, especially his relationship with Owen, and their creation of a, I want to say, unit, as family isn’t quite right. The way Bryan Washington brought in these pieces, to make a mosaic of the narrator’s life, showing how connections sometimes happen and are thrust on the narrator, but still have value and meaning to him, was engrossing. As I thought about all of these pieces, I began to see the underling structure of the story, A+B=C. That’s not a knock against the writer, but to me shows someone knows how to craft a story.

    Like a good magician, Washington’s “Foster” is a story with a lot of sleight of hand happening. You’ll enjoy the trick while also knowing how it was done.