Torment

I find the creative process to be that. As I sit here, having been up all night in my own filth....hey wait a minute. I could use that....

I Know It's Crap, Just Tell Me...

I have begun writing again, after a bit of a hiatus, with a story titled "The Red Light". A couple of nights before class this vision appeared in my dreams and as is the case with each of my stories, I needed to jot down the details. The dream has come to me in parts each night and the story is beginning to fill out now.I haven't written for days, but the everything is becoming clearer in my mind. As I look back on that forst draft I shared with my class, I can tell you that first draft was utter crap. At the 3 am this morning I gutted that draftwhile key elements remain; the characters are different and the language and pace are not recognizable. We all need to have the courage to revise our ideas and feelings in the face of measured thought.

Exhibitionist? You Bet....

It was brought up to me last night in rather dismaying and disappointing fashion that I seem to be overly excited about publishing works. The context of this statement was made by a student in my writing class I was putting emphasis on this aspect as part of the course and for discussing, in the first place, with new writers. First, this is the stated goal of the course as found in the Course Catalog. Second, isn't this the underlying goal of why we write? Don't we want to share? We bear our souls outward on paper or on a screen for what purpose...? ---To lock our sentiments in a drawer only to be thrown away when we pass from this earth? Then why take a creative writing class? We are writers, we are performers at readings and on podcasts and on trailers; we blog and facebook and have websites for the whole world wide web to see and beg people to read and buy our intellectual property. Am I, a short, overweight, aging, Italian American male an exhibitionist by saying here I am and here is my stuff please read? Does that make me an exhibitionist for my dreams, nightmares and odd mental musings? ----You bet you __________ I am. And if you write, whether you have published or not --- you are too. And this is nothing to be ashamed of.

So We Went It Alone and I forgot my pants.....

Peaked vs. peeked vs. piqued----how they Heck do I know I'm a writer not a grammerticition or a dictionarian. Are those real words? No but what the Heck. Language is a wonderful thing and as writers we try to stretch meanings and images. We try to push the envelope. We try to invent words. We try because we write and we write because we are afraid of our own mortality; and being the narcissists we are, we think our words and thoughts will live on forever. Yeah, that and being an immediate attention whore helps. Anyway, sometimes we get bull headed and do not think with our right head; we get all caught up in being masters of language when we should just use a bloody dictionary. I used the wrong term in a column. My wife, today, was the only person to point it out to me. It is a good thing she is around to ground me now and then.

The Great Thing About Being Rejected....

When I first began this journey, not understanding the business end, I took rejection hard. I threw things, I swore, I pledged vengeance on the idiot who attempt to destroy my dream etc. But in time rejection led to better things. I am re-working a twice rejected short story now and am actually excited in the tale discovering the vitality it never had. In my blind mind I thought the original was brilliant; how could anyone not want to grace their pages with this burst of beauty, action and terror? Upon further review---this story sucked. Not now and not in the streamlined direction it is headed now. But editors are not always a good barometer. Two of my pieces heavily panned by editors in long emails were reflexsively turned around to anthologies where they were praised and published. Four others fared well to rave reviews in other journals; and one did extremely well in a contest. Editors are like shoes; the fit not the look should matter.

The Experiment Is Over I Have Pulled The Plug

Okay I tried the Efiction workshop for horror. If you remember we were told a story of mine titled JUST ANOTHER GHOST STORY was ready, or just about ready, for publication but it had to go through 'the workshop'. We submitted the story eight days ago and there were no comments. In fact there was little activity in any of the workshops; some over a month. I know things are slowing down; but my ADHDMOUSE and type AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA personality just wants to move my stories to publication. In short not a good fit and I pulled the plug. I just pray Efiction isn't just short of pulling the plug for lack of activity. We wish them well.

Cheap Milestones

Hey this our 200th post! Please wait while the balloons and confetti lightly fall to the earth and the sounds of the kazoos fade into the background of time. Wait. Wait. Wait. Not yet. Wait for it. OKAY. I could end the post here and make sort of a Euro-hipster-psuedo-intellectual statement about milestones but I won't. I am a fat, loud mouthed American and I have to say something. Okay. A number of writers have taken Ray Bradbury's formula to enth degree and I fear that as writers we are losing the trees in the woods. Some of the things Ray always said, and I paraphrase; if you get rejected send it back out; get a submission out every couple of days to achieve a publication a week, etc. Well life interferes. The last couple of months I have done a lot less writing because of busy work at work; family emergencies; a hurricane; a nor'easter, etc. And life should interfere. A writer told me recently that she was beside herself because she was 8.2 stories down this month and on Halloween she was pulling an allnighter to get back to level. Wow. Really. It's great to be published and its great to have stories out there to be published--- and leave finances out of this ---but can we all just look at our quality rather than our quantity? Are we really happy with the piece we just sent out because it is well written or a fine experimental piece that brings up satisfaction or are we just filling some arbitrary milestone, some statistic, some quota. Sure a well written piece of literature is the same as a well written piece of music and a proper mathmatical formula. Each possesses a symmetry and a cadence and a flow; there is a tightness and aire of correctness and certitude. Can we all strive for that rather than hack a chunk of our intellect off? Ray Bradbury could play in the ballpark of numbers--he had that talent--most o us don't and need to approach our game with more care.

Time For An Experiment

I am now being told, as publishers die off, that the future is in writing labs or workshops as precursor befor publishing. This is sort of a focus group approach to publishing thus taking the editor off the hook for decisions that might be too controversial or questionable. Here a writer will submit a work to the 'collective' of other writers in the shop will review the piece and offer suggestions to the writer as to how to shape the work for publication. Once the story has been workshopped the editor will review the piece and comments and the revised piece and make a final decision. I understand the commercial use of this but am concerned about how a writer makes a name for him/herself by writing a daring tome. Well, I have decided to approach this process with one of my new stories and here we will report the results. More to come.

PANSTERS UNITE!!!!!!!

A wonderful article on writing and the creative process can be found at ElizabethAWhite.com written by one of our favorites Anonymous-9. What is heartening to me is that I now know that I am not the only one ignored by family and vilified by some for the content of my stories AND that my method of writing is the same as A-9s and we are part of a larger group called 'pansters'. Let's start there. A 'panster' is a writer who works without an outline, whose inspriration hits and that writer may right the end or the middle first. These, or I should say, we are writers who work in the truest sense of having a muse whisper in our ears and in our dreams. I am honored to be in a club with A-9 on that. As for the first car in my train of thought; several writers have chimed in that at times we have lost friends and family because of the content of our stories. For some reason, some people take what we do too literally and seriously while we try our best to be creative and entertaining. Please stop by the website and read the article it is marvelous insight into the creative process and the mechanics of literature. Also check it out for marvelous book reviews as well.