Short Stories

So, I'm about to start teaching a workshop on short fiction. (Tuesday, Sept 11th is the first session, by the way, if you find yourself interested in short stories).

What was I saying? Oh, short stories. I love short stories. To read, certainly, but especially to write.  No, nobody ever gets rich writing them, but there is an elegance to a peice that is under twenty pages, a control that most  of us never get in a novel. You can watch every word, make sure that they're all perfect. It's also a place to take chances. To paraphrase David Bowie, who was, I think paraphrasing Brian Eno, short stories are the place you can crash your plan and walk away from it. Take those chances, write the unwriteable story, talk about things that scare you, try on new styles, and perspectives. Go on. You've got twenty pages to work with.

The Game Kacey Made Me Play

Okay, so here's the thing.  My friend Kacey dragged me into this.  She tagged me in a game called "Look". Yep, so you search for the word Look in your wip and stick that and the surrounding paragraphs onto your blog. Okay, well, my paragraphs can be kinda short so here's a hunk of stuff. And yep, it's from Iron Moon, just for you Kacey. 



“James, c'mon.” Narin leaned his forehead against the glass. “You don't know me. You don't even know what I look like.”

James saw the glow of green eyes in Narin's reflection. He saw the twist of the black chain appear at the nape of his neck.

“I know what you look like exactly.” James joined him at the window. “I can see you right now. And you've seen me. What did you tell me when I tried to use that as an excuse to stop this?”

“It's not the same.” Narin insisted. 

“No.” James admitted. “No. I'm a monster. I'm just the wolf you need to protect you.”

Narin turned, eyes flashing. “Don't get in it's way when it comes. Promise me that.”

James kissed him again instead. Because it was better than lying.

Okay, there you go.  I am supposed to tag other people in the game, There are two things wrong with this. One: I don't know how to tag people, and also, I don't know many other people.  So...  um, Hey, Loren?

Writing Workshop!

Yes, it's really going to happen.  I'm going to teach a workshop on writing fiction this fall.  I will be concentrating on short stories, but I welcome people who have only worked with long fiction as well. Using short stories as a learning experience is certainly a way to increase the writing skills you have in your tool box. Charles DeLint talks about the short story as the perfect place for experimentation, or as Brian Eno once said of music "It's the only place you can crash your plane with out getting hurt." Or something like that.

Over the course of six Tuesdays beginning the second Tuesday of September, we will cover:
     The anatomy of a short story, how long, how short, etc.
     How to grow your idea into a story with a beginning, middle and an end,
     Plot, character, setting.
     Point of view
     Writing exercises to get your pen moving.
     A reading at the end for friends and family to hear your very best parts.  I'll even bring the  humus      and tea!

So there you have it. I will be holding all this at the Elms Gallery in Flushing (see the flier above, and be impressed that I actually got it onto the blog).  There are ten spots available as of now.

A little catch up

So far it's been a pretty busy summer. In May we went to Wiscon, which, after missing it for three years, was great. I learned so much and collected so many story ideas it's hard for me to concentrate on what i'm supposed to be working on! It was also great to get out of my life for five days. It was hot, the food was amazing, and the panels were non stop. 

This fall I will be doing a writing workshop at the Elms Gallery in Flushing.  www.theelmsgallery.com It will start on the second Tueseday of September and run for 6 weeks. I will post all the details as I have them, but I really looking forward to it!

Rhythm

I belong to a writer's group that has been in existence, in one for or another for more than seventy years. It's true. It started, as a group of women, meeting in living rooms. They read and critiqued, all aloud. 

In the eighties, when I joined, meetings were being held in a church. They were still reading to each other.  I thought all the stories were amazing, and I couldn't understand how they all found things to critique. Everything each member read sounded so perfect. Except when it came to reading my work. As a teenager everything I wrote was, well.. Teen aged. I loved every word of my Warriors meets Diamond Dogs meets Time Square influenced short stories. Stories that no grown up should have to suffer through.

They did, though. Suffered through all of the awkward adolence-ness of my beginning writing, and made them into lessons for me. They taught me how to set a scene up, taught me how to describe things. (you can't have him open a refrigerator before you tell me it's there). They showed me the importance of verb choice. And, most importantly, they let me develop a critical ear.

It took time, but eventually, I began to hear what they heard.  All those little burrs, and big ones, in the rough drafts we dealt with. I could pick them out of my work, as well as other's. Because the truth is, there's a rhythm to fiction, a rhythm that you can't see with the eye.

The ladies that welcomed me into the group are gone now. The group itself was in danger of completely dissolving. It was hard for me, because I've been spoiled. It doesn't do me any good to read to an empty room.  No, now, after twenty-odd years, I need to hear my words up against an audience. I need to feel the moment I lose them before I can fix it.

Then one day, another member of the group called me. She and I are the last of the old breed, really, the only ones that remember the "originals", or at least the ladies that were there when I started. She said she was writing, and that she wanted to get together again. I was eager to agree. I didn't know how much I missed it until she said, "I miss hearing the stories."

Me too.  Now we meet at Baker College. We are small, but steady. We are a handful of diehards, and some new members. I'm excited at the prospect of new stories, and new rhythms.

Look outside

It's finally really truly winter. I had very little hope for snow on New Years day--it was forty three degrees and rainy. In Michigan, that's wrong.  I'm not really a fan of the cold, but I do love snow.  There's a fierceness to the sunlight in January and February that you just don't find in warm places.  When there's snow on the ground it's not even dark at night. 

Last year the snow was heavy and plentiful.  There was so much snow that my back yard was nearly filled up to the top step of the porch. Last year was the first year since I moved out of my parent's house that my Mother didn't call me to tell me to "Look outside." I used to look forward that little tradition, even though the older you get, I'd discovered, the less you really like snow. 

The morning after that first snow, I waited, but she didn't call.  I watched the flakes cover my neighborhood all morning from my kitchen, but she didn't call.  Finally, I called her, and said, "Look outside."

"Oh," she said. "It's snowing.  Now everything will be harder."
I
In hindsight, I probably should have known what she meant by that. When I think of the last few months of my Mom's life, there are a million things that I probably should have known.  She passed on her love of winter to me, and of snow, but she'd forgotten it this last year.  She only thought about how much harder it would be to get around in the snow, and the cold. I tried to talk her out of it, because I didn't want to think things would change. "You love winter. Just look at the snow.  It's beautiful this morning."

So I took this picture, and some others for her, so she didn't have to go outside to see it. 

I miss my Mom, which I know is to be expected. I suspect she was ready to go when she did, but that didn't mean I was.  It didn't mean that this morning when woke up I didn't wait for her to call me.

Nanowrimo, re-written

It's November 2, and we all know what that means. I'm already behind. Every year, I come up with a strategy to make it through Nanowrimo. Fifty thousand words in thirty days. Okay, that doesn't sound so bad. Does it?

It took me a while to warm up to the idea. The way it's supposed to work, is you sit down on November first and start writing. You don't stop to read, you don't stop to re-write, you just move forward. That, I've found doesn't work for me. The thought of ending up with fifty thousand words at the end was great. But the thought of 50 thousand words of crap... Well, that terrified me.

It's taken me a couple of years to realize what I need from Nanowrimo. It's not really the word count, but the reason to push forward, and to push forward in directions I would not have normally. So, falling behind in the word count doesn't bother me, I know it's inevitable, I mean, seriously, I have to cook two full Thanksgivings and work Black Friday in three weeks. But still, I'm grateful for the time I get to spend with the story. I have time to begin to like what I'm writing, spend time with the characters again. That makes the 4AM writing time worth it.