no whining

so the detour with my West Virginia novel did not pan out--the interested party is no longer interested. I'm disappointed and not feeling motivated to continue with the proposed revision right now, even though I think the plan is a good one.

I really want to find the end of the Louisiana book, which has a stronger concept and voice. It's certainly funnier.

But it has only been 12 hours since the rejection. This time tomorrow, I could take up karaoke. the karaoke people are happy people.

Free online writing course

Dialogue Tutorial #2

"Pastor?"

"Yeah."

"I need a new monkey."

Too Fun: Hint Fiction Contest

Robert Swartwood makes Garson look extravagant. Write a story of 25 words or less and post it here

Free online writing course

Dialogue Tutorial # 1

"Why don't you shut the fuck up already?"
"Why don't you shut the fuck up already?"

a week of not existing

I've been down with a head cold since the conference last week, unable to think, read, write, etc. Plus I broke my glasses. It's feast or famine (yo Dave Bragg, where ever you are!).

Got a flash accepted for the June issue of decomP, which is totally unexpected. I send to decomP for the swift and human rejection--my way of checking in with the universe. Now what?

Read Art Taylor in Fiction Weekly. Read Erin Fitzgerald in Wigleaf and elimae. Read the whole damned issue of FRiGG, but then you're already doing so, right?

Conversations and Connections Part 3

I paneled at the flash session, and I think that went well. Room was packed and we kept people laughing. Erin Fitzgerald and I then went to the Digital Literary Landscape session, which was genuinely introductory, pitched for the trad lit crowd and not for us filthy flash hippies.Highlight: snide comments about Dana Gioia. Also went to the agent session, which was very well run and loaded with good information for beginners. Highlight: Folio lit agent comparing the current publishing moment, as dire as it seems, to the advent of Gutenberg--change is cool. One thing we noticed was that the agents seemed really weird: as if they'd been trans-beamed to the session without notice.

Conversations and Connections Part 2

Can you name these indie lit giants?

Conversations & Connections Part 1

The Board at the Flash panel
(marker work by Joseph Young).
Room was PACKED, people sitting on floor.

Sold out! Conversations and Connections

So while I am doing my darndest to try to sell out by turning my west virginia novel into a potboiler, I find myself one day away from paneling at a writer's conference that has sold out. Conversations and Connections sold out last year as well. It's a one day, to the freaking point, affordable event. Wow, what a concept. I'll take pics if I can.

I'm the least flashy writer on a flash panel moderated by Molly Gaudry, so I'm pretty sure my job is to reiterate my "theme" of the last 8+ months: flash is the flagship form of indie/online publishing, and as a result short fiction is evolving again.

The Archer

The postcards featuring the cover art for Gravity Dancers: Even More Fiction by Washington Women just showed up in the mail today. The image is "The Archer," by Sheep Jones. Gorgeous.

Wine and Cereal: Rad Poetry

Here's "A Giant Realm," poem, written and read by Jack Christian, FOR ME, because I donated to the NOO Journal RAD Poetry drive. You should too. I don't think Jack and I have met, but this poem is about lots of things I'm into, including dogs and wire. Way cooler than a PBS tote bag, and far less useful.

I also learned that the galleys for Gravity Dancers: Even More Fiction by Washington Area Women are forthcoming as are postcards with the cover art by the amazing Sheep Jones. Can't wait to see!

There will be a promotional event at Politics and Prose when the volume comes out, probably June or July.

grown up week

We filed for the deed, so the land is pretty much ours.

I re-wrote the first 50+ pages of the West Virginia novel to seriously up the suspense.

Am working on the summary, and I feel I have another really hard day to go on that. I can't remember being this stupid.

Have totally neglected my students, family, friends, etc. I don't remember what I do for a living.

Land Acquisition is Dramatic

The deadline for redemption has passed. Or is this better? The period of redemption has expired.

Now we must prepare the deed.

the quest

Tomorrow we learn whether we have successfully acquired the land next to our cabin in WV, which would give us a total of about 4.5+ acres. So that's one thing.

The other thing is that someone has expressed enough interest in my WV novel that I have definitely mounted a re-write to increase the suspense. But harder than that is writing the full length summary. I don't know how this effort will pan out in terms of representation and publication, but I do know my new draft will be the lean, dark animal I always intended it to be. Wish me luck.

I've shared the details of the process with a few people, and I'm grateful for all the offers of help. I'll need readers soon, but right now I'm getting help from Jeanette Winterson's The Passion and three or four powerful Lucinda Williams' tracks.

oh, and

my novel board was posted at Paul Toth's super neat Hit and Run Magazine yesterday. timing's a little sad, as I have set the project aside to do a re-write of Unattended, my West Virgina novel.

You knew it would come to this

Just when we were getting along--

The NEA just came out with one of their doom and gloom reports about reading habits, only this time they assert that poetry readership is on the decline while fiction readership is on the rise. NEA reports are like the DOW—too narrow to be meaningful, but we still respond to them anyway.

So this is a good time for me to skim the report. Research, research, research. Going to Molly’s facebook, ah! there it is. Oh thank god, not the report itself, but a journalist’s summary. Skim, skim, skim—holy crap! Dan Gioia acknowledged online readership as a factor in fiction’s increased popularity?

Okay, so here’s my thing. Poetry has lost my readership because it stopped doing things that no other form could do—it let go of word tension and retreated into sense, which is the equivalent of “selling out” in fiction. In the mean time, new fiction reclaimed the narcissistic moment (otherwise known as ‘lyric’) and did something a lot more satisfying with it. I’m not sure what, but I think it has something to do with humility and fearless sloppiness.

139 words kicked my ass today

. . . more about that if things develop. sorry to be cryptic, but it looks like I may suspend work on the Louisiana book to mount a re-write of the West Virginia book. that's if things go well. I'm not afraid of re-writes; I take editorial direction very well, and I work quickly under those circumstances.

so. marriage. in your partnership, do you have a permanently designated broken glass picker-upper? or are you like us, where the glass breaker stands in shock (usually barefoot) over the glass they've just broken, while the person who did not break the glass rushes in to take care of the mess?

Listen, speak

My friend reports that his 14 month old daughter is “recovering her words.” She did a little word-work at 8 months, but then stopped. There’s a neat video of her mimicking the yowling of their deaf cat (not mine to share). I have no idea what this all means, but the information forms a set.

Noo Journal, edited by Mike Young and Ryan Call, are doing an irresistible fund drive. I liked the vid poem Mike did for Barry Graham so much that I donated (surprise Dean!). There’s a line in the Barry poem about a broken shot glass in the kitchen sink, which really hits me—I let a shot glass slip into the sink where it got stuck, invisibly, until I tried to get rid of some greasy water via the disposer. So then the shot glass was invisible and greasy. We tried tongs and a Leatherman before smashing the glass with a hammer and screwdriver and picking out the pieces by hand. You use the right shot glasses, the shards are thick and easy to manage, the way you imagine Fred Flinstone’s shot glasses must be.

Think I'll try to friend Mike. I gave him money.

Get over the new facebook design, check this out

Storysouth, all shiny and new. I'm glad to see this. They seemed to be fading away there for a while . . .

Good luck to the new team!

no problem

From the classifieds of the March/April 2009 AWP Chronicle: "Great Western Fiction is seeking submissions of Western fiction set in the American Old West before 1914. . . No language. No Sex."

Not everyone misses Al Swearengen.

The ad is more complete than this, with a promise of fuller guidelines at the website, but it looks like this venture has already folded. They offered $50 for short stories, $500 for novels.