I'm Not a Slob...I'm Just ADD

This afternoon isolated to clean up my desk area. I don't actually have some office. iWeb I moved into my house I intended to use one of the spare bedrooms, but my desk didn't fit through the door. It's a lovely piece of,furniture, an old fashioned roll top desk with a slide out shelf for placing papers. But the desk is also  monstrously large. So a corner of the living room serves as my home office , and that space is almost always cluttered with bad manuscripts of failed novels (my own. Sigh)  writing magazines, books, journals, and miscellaneous loose pages on which I have written stupendous ideas to use later. I also keep a paper bag for recycled paper nearby. This week I am on vacation so I am determined to clean this mess up.

I recycled two pieces of junk mail, then came across a photocopied article one of the Rock stars of Reference from our local,library gave me last week. I sat down and read through it. (Did I go back to cleaning? No. I started writing this blog post. I am hopeless.)

The article, from Book List, is a Will Manley column about graphic novels and their role  in developing young readers. Libraries are undergoing changes with lightning speed, and more of my school library colleagues have fallen into black holes, leaving behind ghost towns filled with lonely books and magazines. Some libraries have taken action to attract clientele by promoting graphic novels for kids who claim to hate reading in the hopes of leading them into more text based stories. Yet, as pointed out in  the Manley piece, "that's like saying you can get meth addicts into a rehab center by baiting them with [drugs] and expecting them to go clean."

If we want to develop a culture of readers, we need to read. And not just in Language Arts classes. The Common Core standards schools are adopting are not new. They are just a new name for teaching all subjects through narrative. (A new fangled name for ancient dialogues in Plato's time, and the Renaissance education.) It's the way I was taught in the late 60s and 70s, learning of the relationship of all things. As my former student Aaron miller once said during a eureka moment, "everything's connected !" 

I'm not sure this post has anything to do with any of the Scintilla prompts, but since everything's related, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Back to my stacks of papers....

Happy Writing.

Scintilla Day 3.5

This poem has a marginal connection to the “singing in the car while driving.” Prompt.  Meh. Not my best, but this time change has my brain addled.

Anyway, here goes.

Strange Days Have Found Us

We are five teenagers scouring

Vancouver streets

in the pink wet light of 2am.

Riders on the storm!

We sing-shout through open windows.

Into this life we’re born!

The bum on the street opens a stinkeye,

flips us a shaky bird,

a streetlight burns.

Into this world we’re thrown

On a runway pointing nowhere,

no flight plan.

The night on fire

Like a dog without a bone.

We are actors, all alone.

Laura Moe

Happy Writing.

A Lost Girl On the Road

Scintilla 3.14.13 prompt.

I chose the one where we describe an event as a set of instructions. I have written about much of what appears here in other forms, but as poet Jim Daniels said in a workshop last summer, “writers get obsessed and stay obsessed.”

A Lost Girl On the Road

1.      Have your first kiss on an abandoned runway of an airport never built because of a war. Make sure the night is moonless, yet contains stars.

2.      Let your lips linger over his. Taste the future.

3.      Feel the tectonic plates divide, swallow you whole.

4.      Lie across the front seat of his car. Run your fingers over his bare arms, breathe in the teenaged boy smell imprinted on his white T shirt.

5.      Take a snapshot of this moment. You will not be this happy again for a long time.

6.      Move away to the other side of the world shortly afterwards.

7.      Live in paradise, lost in a lonely ocean.

8.      Walk barefoot and watch men land on the moon

9.      Move to a rainy city in the Pacific Northwest and wear the wrong kind of clothes.

10.  Watch your mother die.

11.  Move to a college town in Ohio and lie to your new friends. Tell them your parents are divorced so you don’t have to say the words,“My mother is dead.”

12.  Read far too many books. Get drunk. Do drugs.

13.  Get a fake ID and go to college bars while still in high school. Date lots of young men who fail to fill the vast crater growing inside you.

14.  Eat. Never feel full. Stab yourself in the leg with a pen for no apparent reason. Leave a scar.

15.  Develop strange phobias: riding in cars, flying, driving.

16.  Move again.

17.  Start college. Drop out. Work a series of shitty jobs. Fall in love with shitty men.

18.  Restart college. Take it slow. Fourteen years. (While you work more shitty jobs.)

19.  Outgrow your phobias. Avoid shitty men. Get a cat. Get a real job.

20.  Forgive yourself.

Happy Writing.

Mad Dog 2020.

http://www.scintillaproject.com/

It's that time of year again where crazy people like me respond to a daily prompt. Follow the link above for more information on the project. Enjoy!
Scintilla. 3 13 13 

I was a junior in high school, back in the Pleistocene when guys wore their hair as long as girls. I went on a date with my brother’s friend Mark, a sophisticated senior: an OLDER guy, AND a guitar player in a band. Mark resembled Peter Frampton with a long wavy shag, and he wore a leather bomber jacket. How cool is that? Those twelve to sixteen more months of life provided  Mark with an enormity of experience I could only view with awe. We were planning to go to a party, and  he suggested we begin the evening with a bottle of wine. I was like, wow.  Wine! And he was SO experienced he even knew what KIND of wine to buy : Mad Dog 2020. Double Wow. The name was rad, and the bottle was so cool, square and stout, with MD 2020 blazed across the label. It looked more like a bottle of whiskey than wine ,and it didn't even need a corkscrew. The wine itself  was blood red, 20% alcohol.

We sat in the front seat of Mark’s station wagon on a frigid night in the parking lot outside of Kroger, taking gulps of wine like it was cough syrup. In fact it tasted like cough syrup. This was So cool. Until it wasn't..

Before the bottle was half empty I transformed from the bookish girl in glasses who read too many books into this giddy, silly girl who had trouble pronouncing words.

We never made itto the party because I started throwing up outside Mark’s car. He got worried and took me home. Mark had to escort me inside, where my brother screamed at him. “What the hell? You got my sister drunk?” My father heard the commotion, and came out of his room tying his bath robe, yelling, “what the hell is going on out here?”

I got grounded, Mark and Paul’s friendship was at odds, but I had a new badge of honor; I had tried (and survived) Mad Dog 2020.

"A Writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it." Samuel Johnson

Happy Writing.

Bad Query Contests Are Good for the Writer's Soul

Recently I participated in a Write a Bad Query Contest. http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/author/rachelkent/ Alas, I didn't win, but It was a pleasure to purposely write a bad query. It wasn't difficult; all I had to do was channel my litany of bad queries and poke fun at my own mistakes, or rather misteaks. The contest was a hoot, and I enjoyed reading the variety of submissions and comments. They all poked fun at the shared experience of crafting the dreaded yet necessary query letter.

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I despise the query process. It forces me to dress up and behave, but the fabric itches, the pantyhose bind my fat, and these shoes are killing me. I’m not good at faking it. When I tried acting in High School, the audience erupted in laughter with each of my lines. It wasn’t a comedy; I had portrayed Joan of Arc’s mother in The Lark. So I wonder if each time I submit a query with a sample, the agents and office staff roar with laughter.  If  they save the best of the worst to read aloud at the annual holiday party, I wonder if some of mine are in that batch.

Here is what I wish I could send:

:

Dear Agent. 
Here is my book. Hope you like it. Call me.

Unfortunately, the work cannot speak for itself..We have to sell the agent on the idea of even reading the manuscript. .

Sigh.

About a year ago I hired a consultant to help me with the whole wretched query process. http://literary-agents.com/. Part of the process forced me to analyze my writing history, the successes as well as the failures. Mark helped me recognize my weaknesses, which are many. (He has yet to help me cure them.) Even though I still languish in the dark, scum ridden pool of underrepresented authors, with Mark’s help, my rejections are now gold standard .http://laura-moe.blogspot.com/2012/09/mastering-levels-of-rejection.html

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Currently I am reading The Fire in Fiction: passion, purpose, and techniques to make your novel great by agent Donald Maass. I am hoping to gain insights into what agents look for in a manuscript. Maass presents several examples of what he deems great openings, and examples of passionate writing  While I do not find every example engaging as Maass, I agree with his statement, "passionate writing makes every word a shaft of light, every sentence a crack of thunder, every scene a tectonic shift." (I plan to print that up and tape it above my work area on my desk.) So far I have only read the first two chapters, but Maass has helped me rethink some thin gs about one of the novels I have been shopping. While I have a passion for the story and the two main characters  my secondary characters are beige. Also, my story starts in the wrong place. So in effect, every agent who has rejected me has done me a favor; my novel needs surgery. (Yes, I know it's not about me, it's about the story, yet it still stings. I care about my characters and it's a little like not everyone adoring your children.)

I’m not a gamer, but it seems like like  D& D or WOW, persistence is the key, and if I don’t give up on this writing gig, the keys to the kingdom are within my reach, even though by the time I make it to gate I will be bloodied, bruised, battered, and hairless, and I will need to hire someone else to pose for my author picture so I don't scare off readers. But it will be so worth it.

Right?
Happy writing (and querying.)

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One Scene Short of a Hoarders Episode

I’m one paragraph away from being a word hoarder. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but bibliophiles know what I mean; we love books it’s only with great regret that I give them up. At one point in my life I lived in a one bedroom apartment and I had so many books and so little shelf space I filled the kitchen cabinets with them. Barely scraping by working two jobs, if I had to choose between books or food, guess which won? After I started working in libraries, my tendency to squirrel away books abated somewhat; I was surrounded by books all day. I donated some of the books I had outgrown to the school library, since I could still see them and knew they had a good home.

I also hold onto writing magazines. ( Escribus Periodophilus?). I never know when a good exercise will jump out and inspire me. For example, as I was cleaning out a stack of magazines in my office, I found a copy of The Writer from January, 2009. Page 29 is loaded with “Tantalizing Warm-Ups,” which come from the book Naming the World, edited by Bret Anthony Johnston. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/176-3455912-6010411?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=naming%20the%20Woirld

Here are a few of my favorites:

Spend 5 minutes describing….speeding along the freeway in the trunk of a car, a strange experience in a restaurant (I’ve had several of these.

Spend 10 minutes describing:…your first crush, a terrible party, the last time you said something you instantly regretted, a secret from your childhood.

Spend 5 minutes listing….50 interesting settings for stories, everything that comes to mind when you think of stained glass, everything that comes to mind when you think of a park bench, everything that comes to mind when you think of what made you happiest as a child, adolescent or adult.

Spend 15 minutes finishing the paragraph that begins with:

“No one could blame her for trying. The ring was just sitting on the counter, begging to be stolen.”

Spend 20 minutes describing a scene where:

An adult tries to convince his/her 50 something patent not to adopt a baby, a computer disk, a motel key.

What is the common element here? They all involve scenes. Successful stories and novel, and creative nonfiction are scenes strung together. As Les Edgerton writes in his book Hooked. http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Write-Fiction-Grabs-Readers/dp/1582974578

 ‘ a scene is simply a unit of dramatic action…it means conflict, always conflict.”

Conflict can be internal, such as a character can’t decide between two pathways, or it can involve adventure, such as the protagonist is being chased by a mob of angry bees. In any case, conflict involves a quest, and the story imperils your protagonist out of his /her comfort zone.

As Edgerton says, “…a basic scene requires conflict, a protagonist and an antagonist…the protagonist enters a scene with a goal.”

To create enough detail for a good scene, think cinematic-ally. Your scene may open with a wide shot through the protagonist’s point of view. He sits on his white horse, surveying his ranch, when suddenly, the lens closes in on another man riding up on a black horse in the distance. The music changes timbre and tone, and the lens moves in on his ragged, sneering face. The cinematic details let the audience know this is the antagonist, and we have conflict.

Make a scene. Then another. And another. Eventually you will have a story, or a book.

 Happy Writing!

Found this on the Third Sunday Blog Carnival

http://danasitar.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/bucket-list-infographic1.jpg


Enjoy!

The Next American Author?

You’re at a reading: The final one of the season. The arena is packed, and a group of agents and editors comprise a panel of judges to choose the “Next American Author.” Ten finalists, of whom you are one, stand backstage, clutching dog-eared, marked up manuscripts. You survey your competition. Three poets, poring over their sheaves of poems.. Pah! Go stick your head in an oven, you think. The real writers write prose. You disguise your disdain by giving them a thin smile, hoping they trip up on their line breaks.

The Creative Nonfiction writers, or CNFers as they like to refer to themselves, share jaunty jokes and easy confidence, as if they know they have already won. Ironically, when they lose, the CNF crowd will later go out for a raucous time and swap stories of their immersion journalism and fly on the wall observations. Jerks. I’d like to CNFU, you think to yourself. Fiction is where all the real writing happens. But again, the toothpaste commercial smile appears on your lips.

Your stories are good and you know it. Via quirky characters who seduce readers with their charm and complicated plots, you have assembled a good collection of published work. (You even got a handwritten note from the New Yorker!)  Your syntax is elegant, not unlike Faulkner, as it winds its way through tunnels and alleys, picking up the detritus of humanity in all its glory and wretchedness, revealing the complexity of the human experience.

Your only true competition in this arena is that wiry guy standing alone in the corner: Lance Strongworde. His prose is edgy, and lean, containing powerful verbs and nouns. His work has heft, and he has not been in the bottom three since this competition’s inception. Granted, that guy can write. Prolific, almost like a machine, Strongworde can compose on demand. Give him a prompt, and he cranks out a tale of such power it makes audiences weep and laugh simultaneously. A regular Ray Carver. You hate that guy. Where does he find the words?

Strongworde stands alone, appears to be reciting to himself from memory, half in shadow, his lips moving. Then you notice a hand pass something to him. Lance grabs for it, a small plastic zip loc bag. He opens the bag and swallows its contents. Before Strongworde stashes the bag in his pocket you notice the lettering on the outside: power words.

Damn! He’s juicing, being fed words like candy. No wonder writing doesn't seem to rip out his soul like the rest of us; he has no soul. He’s all artificial verbs and nouns.

Here’s my chance, you think. You can win this thing; all you have to do is turn him in. But what will make the better story? Portraying a tattle tale who receives much deserved accolades and a book contract, or waiting this out?  Or later, in your blockbuster novel, where you reveal the truth about a character you call Ward Lanceatale, a man so bent on fame he chews up the last of his integrity for the sake of fame and money?

 Happy Writing.

Is Print Dead?

Available now 

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Shortly after Christmas I visited Barnes & Noble. I spent a lovely afternoon having a latte in the cafe and  browsing the shelves. I walked to the registers to pay for my purchases. As I stood in line, I perused the magazines racks near the counter, and was stunned by the banner across Newsweek: This is Our Last print issue. Something in me shifted; science fiction is no longer fiction.

 Those of you who subscribe to and read my blog regularly know of my ambivalence with emerging technologies, particularly in the book realm. I own several devices, and use them regularly. I composed The draft for this post on an iPad, so arguing against technology is moot. However, my argument is not to ban existing platforms, as is happening in this Texas library,  http://news.yahoo.com/library-without-books-bibliotech-open-193118588--abc-news-tech.html

Is this a trend? The library of the future?  Look at the accompanying illustration in the artcile. What do you notice about the people? There are none, only a series of screens and empty stools. The shadowy figure behind the desk is solitary. Does that mean libraries will not only do away with printed matter, but their staffs as well?

Libraries throughout the centuries have adapted to the needs of their clientele. Every few years the death of the library is predicted, yet libraries have demonstrated a perseverance and adaptability. Yet this latest shift could put a serious dent in library services.

(Bookstores, however, are experiencing a shakier fate. see

http://laura-moe.blogspot.com/2011/12/bookstore-is-wounded-not-dead.html

Probably a gazillion of us have some access to screen technology, be it a TV, computer, laptop, smart phone, e reader, or tablet. I use all of the above to some extent, yet there is an aesthetic to printed books not found with a digital version. Perhaps this reveals my age. I grew up in a time before reliance on cell phones dominated our lives, relatively un-tethered to friends and family if I ventured out alone. Now I can update my status 24-7 via Facebook, revealing what I ate for dinner , find the weather and upcoming TV listings on my phone, yet when I use my e reader, Big Brother knows what I am reading.

E readers are great for travel. When I take a trip more than three days long, I generally like to pack 3-4 books, which now that airlines charge us for every last speck of dust in our luggage, loading a variety of books on my Kindle makes sense. The device is about the size of a trade paperback, and weighs about the same as a hardback book.

My Kindle is the second generation, which does not have a backlit screen, yet,  there are some issues with reading from backlit technology, particularly at night, the blue spectrum light emitted by screens interrupts sleep patterns. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/249592.php

This is bad news for those of you who like to curl up with your iPad or Kindle Fire and read in bed.  

 I don't hate technology. It enables me to write and post this readers in a variety of places, twitter, Google plus, and Facebook. In the old days, before blogging, when all opinion pieces  were printed through edited means, my ideas would be limited to cocktail hour chats or perhaps a letter to the editor. Now I can have a global dialogue and Instant access to feedback.

Another ironic bonus to technology is instant books.  I live an hour's drive from a brick and mortar bookstore, so if I need or want a book right away, I download it. Recently a publication where one of my stories appears (Triskaidekan,) was delayed by the printer, (see photo at top.) but the publisher posted an e book version, and I gained instant access to the anthology, which I was able to promote via social networking. Yet I still plan to also order a printed copy.

Ironically, readership is on the rise, yet print media are declining. It's the chicken or the egg. (Is digital downloading of books on the rapid rise due to vanishing bookstores, or are book stories vanishing because of digitalization? But this post isn’t supposed to be about bookstores…)  According to the Pew Research  Center , “The popularity of electronic books is increasing in the United States, with nearly one-quarter of American bibliophiles reading e-books, according to a survey released on Thursday…The number of e-readers aged 16 years and older jumped from 16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year, while print readers fell from 72 to 67 percent in 2012.”

But technology has its limits. Things break down. The power goes out, security leaks, files corrupted, devices get lost, or stolen, (who steals books anymore?) screens break, or go wonky. There are also economic issues.  . I live in Appalachia, where 45% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunched.  Many of our students in my HS still do not have access to computers and the Internet outside of school. Checking out books is free.

Lets hope the death of printed matter becomes, like the predicted death of radio with the advent of television, a shift n emphasis, where books and gadgets forge an alliance rather than declare war.

Please visit your local Library. Ask for information. Check out a book or other printed media. 

The Disturbing Comedy of the Writing Life

 

 

Recently a close friend of mine launched her poetry page on Facebook. Several people, me included, wrote posts congratulating her.  Then THIS guy, who I will call Richard, shows up: typos, spelling and punctuation errors are from the actual transcript. I admit I don't fare well here, either. I have changed names to protect innocent and guilty parties except my own.

 

AJ:  Congrats, now [my daughter] Julie and I can post poems and her illustrations.

 

RICHARD: poetry....lame

 

RICHARD: why not REAL writing??? I would write a Poem demand anytime of the day....but a novel!!!! Wow.

 

RICHARD: so another bs journal of poems that no one will read....ppl hate poetry with all due respect .

 

RICHARD: poetry on FB!

 

DAVE:  Rick. :(

 

ME: People love poetry. Even on FB. Poetry unites souls of all stripes.

 

RICHARD I still KNOW that sooooooooooo few ppl read or understand real poetry.

 

RICHARD: Laura...good. Lets see ur real TOTally original really moving or real????

 

DAVE: I can hear my grandmother saying "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

 

RICHARD: no moon in June

 

RICHARD: so what

 

ME: Go away.

 

RICHARD: i SAY WHAT I SEE AND FEEL.....im honest!

 

RICHARD: u go away asshole

 

RICHARD: what have u ever done??.??

 

DAVE:  Yes, I detect some ego issues' or a hint of jealousy. If I could delete this post I would.

 

RICHARD: she told me to go away. I have the right to stay and simply asked her what she's done- I mean in literature???

 

ME: I have done nothing notable. I write out if live and need, not accolades.

 

RICHARD: I write out of live and need not accolades, even this is incorrectly written

 

DAVE: “When we judge or criticize another person, it says nothing about the person; it merely says something but our own need to be critical."

 

ME:. Typos. I write out of need.

 

CRAIG: Keep it down people, I'm trying to watch The Walking Dead

 

ME: LOL Craig

 

RICHARD: all bs

 

RICHARD: try and spend 30 years writing 8 novels to live off writing and living in shit rooms, etc. trying here and there. I made $50,000 on one book- and well- not good just now. Just published a piece in NDF journal...nothing but nice....as if.

 

RICHARD: The Walking Dead is for total idiots - zombies --! Man. Dumbing down man can't u see that!!!

 

AJ:  poems and novels are different beasts. They do different things. Sometimes I need the compressed language of a poem to tell me things I didn't realize I knew. Sometimes I need the expansion of a story to let me fall in love with a different life.

 

RICHARD: TV and espec commericals brainwash and dumb down the ppl as does the food for the kids and the allowance for terrible morals. All obese and stupid. A take over by a fascist government is eminent....based on the population weaknesses.

 

RICHARD: aj...unpublished novels? I mean with A REAL PUBLISHER? As standards have lowered with books...congrats to u

 

DAVE:: And we all walk away and ignore the guy in the classroom who thinks he's trying to teach everyone a lesson. Leaving him in his UTTER SILENCE. Goodbye.

 

RICHARD: WHY. Why why why why are ppl? So obsessed with zombies and vampires??? I have a theory but who cares..

 

RICHARD: DAVE LOL ur sooooooooo correct!

 

AJ: I didn't say I was published. I am talking about reading. But you're making me sad and tired and I have work to do and a (not obese or stupid) daughter to chat with.

 

RICHARD: OKKK ENJOY! Im not against ANYONE!

 

 

What disturbs me most about this dialogue is how easily writers can slip into a state of despair when our work is not validated. As crazy as Richard’s argument is, and he does all the wrong things by shouting at and insulting his audience, not backing up his( unclear) thesis, and drifting way off topic, he has a valid point about having spent his entire adult life committed to writing, with nothing but 50,000 and a few journal publications. I feel bad about telling him to go away; I had resorted to playground antics.

 

My friend AJ cyber stalked him afterwards and sent me some links. Richard has some street credit the writing realm, and turns out to be a good writer. Perhaps he was having a bad night.

Writing is a bad influence on a happy life. It requires monuments of time, gives back little to nothing, and betrays you by forgetting to lock the door at night. A career in writing is not for the faint hearted.

 

I empathize with Richard’s commitment of time and having little or nothing to show for it. I too have devoted nearly 30 years to this wobbly venture. Most of my publications have been for copies, or small stipends. (When I got $25.00 for a poem I felt I had won the lottery!) . Yet some ineffable force  propels me to keep tapping at the keyboard, producing reams of bird -cage-liner-worthy fiction and poetry. Occasionally a gem shines through, and someone who doesn't know and love me feels fit to publish it in their anthology or journal.

 

Why do we write? Humans need to share stories. We need poems and tales to reinforce what it means to be human. AJ said it well when she stated:

Sometimes I need the compressed language of a poem to tell me things I didn't realize I knew. Sometimes I need the expansion of a story to let me fall in love with a different life.

 

Writers, if you're looking for glory, money and accolades, play the lottery. Your odds of success are better.

 

Happy Writing.