Tag: Writing

  • Where I’m At

    I got rejected from another lit magazine yesterday. I submitted to five at the end of January/beginning of February. That would be three rejections in the past two weeks. I am expecting to be rejected by the final two magazines, and then we will start this whole process over again.

    I am reminding myself that everyone I know who has a successful career in the arts had to put in about ten years of ground work first. The other thing that comes to mind is what my dad told me about achieving a goal; you get 100 no’s before the first yes, so get the no’s out of the way. So, 97 more no’s to go.

    Now that I have the self-affirmation shit out of the way, I think I’m going to subscribe to “The Drift” today. It’s a quarterly lit mag, written by people who are younger than me. I mean, not that much younger, but still, I have a few years on them. Anyway, I feel the need to discover some new ideas.

    I have been able to get back to reading regularly, and I am making headway through “The Stories of John Cheever.” I still have “60 Stories” by Donald Barthelme that I seem to have been working on for five years, but I am feeling like 2022 is the year it will be finished. Furthermore, I feel like I will be making a trip down to The Strand soon, and see what I can find.

    Yeah. That’s where I’m at.

  • Why is My Eye Twitching?

    My right eye won’t stop twitching. Usually, this is a sign that I am under a great deal of stress. But, I can’t seem to place the epicenter of my stress. I cannot deny the physical occurrence that is continuing to happen to my right eye. I can look in the mirror and see it happen. I know myself well enough that this malady will only appear in times when stress becomes overwhelming. Thus, I must conclude, that I am under a boulder of stress.

    Again, where is it coming from?

    My first reaction is to always look at myself. What have I changed? If anything, I have added more healthy habits who all should have the wonderful side effect of eliminating, if not lessening stress. I am working out four times a week. We, as a family, have started eating healthier, including two vegetarian meals a week. And, my alcohol consumption is only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

    Then the next question would be; has anything changed recently in my home?

    Yes, the kid has started going to an afterschool program, which was something that we all wanted. She is spending more time with kids. Our home is calmer, with the child being gone for the working hours of the day, which helps the wife focus and work. For me, I am now getting three to four hours a day to work on writing, which makes me feel better about myself, because I am getting to do something I love, and also, makes me feel that I have a purpose outside of my family.

    So, what is it? What is causing this stress?

    Is the stress external? Is it still a result of Covid, and the changes that it brought? The war in Ukraine, and the feeling that everything is teetering on disaster? Global warming?

    Possible, though I have never had stress caused by that before. But, that does make a little sense, such as life at home is good, but outside of the house, it’s all a dumpster fire.

  • 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.

  • Process: Talking About a Story

    I fully admit that I am a superstitious/neurotic writer, and it’s annoying to everybody, especially me. I follow silly rules that have no logical basis with the belief that somehow adhering to these guidelines will guarantee success.

    Such as; I can’t reuse a character’s first name, I can’t work on fiction until I journal first, and the big one, don’t talk about details of a story until it’s finished, because if I were, then the story will never get finished. The last rule has been tricky when it comes to this blog, which leaves some of my posts so vague that they are incomprehensible.

    Last night, I broke the no talking rule with my wife. (Yes, I don’t even tell my wife about my work until it’s done.) And it needed to happen.

    The context here is that I have been working, on and off, for about a year, on a story based upon a person I used to work with, and who my wife also knows. I have told no one about this story, obviously, and this co-worker came up in conversation last night. As in, “Whatever happened to what’s their name?” We talked about the possible fate of this person, and why they were such a challenge to work with.

    And that’s when I was like, I should share this idea, and why I am curious to attempt to write a story about them. Also, I wanted feedback if it was a good idea.

    The jury is still out, as the wife pointed out everything that I knew was problematic about the story… so it needs still more work if it is ever to see the light of day.

    The bigger point here is that I still have several self imposed barriers that I need to break through. The “talking” rule is bullshit as what really does is try to protect me from any criticism. If I never share, then I can never be wrong.

    I still got a long way to go, but working on it.

  • Rewriting is a Skill

    I fully believe that rewriting is a skill. A skill that I do not possess.

    I am trying to make a better effort this time around at rewriting. Really putting my mind to it. Making notes on the first draft, formulating an outline, crafting the words to build the story. And I just about hate all of it.

    As I get older, I begin to see patterns in my life. One pattern I see is my attraction to acts of immediacy in the arts. I love Jack Kerouac, Jackson Pollock, and Jazz. The theatre I have been the most successful at has been puppetry, which has been like pick up the puppet and go perform.

    It has been an artistic life and philosophy of, “First thought, best thought.”

    Yet, when it comes to my writing, my first thought is not the best thought. I have to work at a best thought.

    I remember a theatre professor back in college who told us that we had to learn to appreciate all the steps in the process of being an actor. Not love all the steps, just appreciate. You can’t be an actor if you hate auditioning, as the hatred of that step will come through when you try to get a job. But if you respect that step, then you will hone the needed skills that will help you audition, which helps you get to the next step.

    That’s where I feel like I am coming to. I don’t like rewriting, but I have first drafts that need reworking, and this is the next step in the process.