Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I could disappear and he would never know, she thinks.
Part of me has disappeared already.



Monday, February 27, 2006

Oh, dear Lord

What, really, can I say about this?





(link via That Girl Who Writes Stuff)

Three words on a Post-It note.
This was how she told him.
When I'm not writing stories, I also write some pretty atrocious poems. This is one of them.


The division of things
is a division of self
Yours mine no longer ours
All the parts of the whole
measured in books, furniture, plates
The sum of a life
reduced to piles, boxes
It is nothing to say goodbye
to these things
forgotten as if they never were
And the memory of that self
gone with them.


Conversations About Blogging

A one-act play featuring only two characters, Me and Myself.

Myself: Hey, what's that you're looking at?

Me: It's a blog. You know, a personal weblog.

Myself: What's that?

Me: Blogs are personal websites where people can post their thoughts or opinions on just about anything they want. Popular blogs get thousands of hits a day, and some have been recognized as legitimate news sources in their own right. It's the next wave of mass media.

Myself: Oh yeah? What's this one you're looking at?

Me: Uhhh.....this one has pictures of puppies on it.

Myself: I see. Don't you have a deadline coming up?

Fin.
At night, he lies on the floor, listening to the voices of his neighbors. Their words are like a swarm of bees, slowly working their way into his brain.

Sunday, February 26, 2006


On her lunch break, Cherylanne fantasizes about making her escape. She'll pack up her car and drive until the shadow of her former self fades into the pavement.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

A small victory.

I finally figured out how to display the navbar on my template. Sweet.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

The fallout continues


James Frey, who has become the equivalent of literary poison, was dropped by his publisher today. His two-book deal with Riverhead is gone, and deservedly so. I don't agree with what he did but what I don't understand is this. Despite the fact "he" doesn't really exist, JT LeRoy is now listed as a contributing editor at Blackbook. Right next to Chuck Palahniuk, who is, in fact, a real person.

I guess it's okay to lie, as long as it's not to Oprah.

Striking a blow for women's rights everywhere

First this, from South Dakota.

Then there's this guy.

Maybe after he's served his jail time, he can run for senate in South Dakota or something.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

More links

Soul Food Cafe - tons of exercises and links to promote creativity, for artists and writers alike.

Get Writing - from the BBC of all places. Again, writing prompts, exercises, quizzes, and
mini-workshops to get you writing.
"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein." ~ H. Jackson Brown

Hmmm.....

I got a letter from Kenyon College today. I was accepted into one of their summer writing workshops. Man, they must have either lowered their standards or else they really need my $2000.
How It Will Happen When

by Dorianne Laux

There you are, exhausted from another night of crying,
curled up on the couch, the floor, at the foot of the bed,
anywhere you fall you fall down crying, half amazed
at what the body is capable of, not believing you can cry
anymore. And there they are: his socks, his shirt, your
underwear, and your winter gloves, all in a loose pile
next to the bathroom door, and you fall down again.S
omeday, years from now, things will be different:
the house clean for once, everything in its place, windows
shining, sun coming in easily now, skimming across
the thin glaze of wax on the wood floor.

Want to read more? Click here

Monday, February 20, 2006

For your linking pleasure

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Authors bloglist

This is a list of authors' blogs I found at Winning Writers. Worth a look if you're trying to find a specific type of writing blog.
"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation."

~Graham Greene

Writer's blues

Sitting in front of the computer, staring at the keys, waiting for the words to come. Thoughts, phrases, descriptions, seem to steal upon me at odd moments, darting across my brain like fish in a stream. When I sit down and try to focus, try to make the words come, there is nothing but silence. Of all the things I’ve tried to do in life, writing comes the least easily, takes the most effort, and sometimes offers the least reward. It seems such an odd way to spend one’s life, waiting for something as thin and flimsy as a dream.

It has occurred to me lately that my struggles with writing may not be due to a lack of talent or deep-seated fear. Rather, my problem may lie in the fact that I simply have nothing to say. I have lived for twenty-seven years and in that time, I have experienced many life-changing events. Births, deaths, the beautiful beginnings of love and the occasional ugly endings. The only problem is, most of these things happened to other people; I only write about them. This is my secret: In order to have an interesting life, I have to make it up.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Is it Monday yet?

I always dread the weekends. I know most people spend their weekends doing the things they don't get to do during the week but it's the exact opposite for me. I usually work 20-30 hours between Friday and Sunday, which leaves me too drained to do anything else, particularly write. In fact, I should be writing right now but I'm putting it off, something I've gotten altogether too skilled at doing. Right now, I have four short stories in progress, a stack of poems I want to submit to a chapbook contest, an application to an MFA program, and THE NOVEL, whose completion I'm beginning to have nightmares about. Sometimes, I wish I could just turn my head off and put my body on autopilot. There are just too many words and not enough time to write them all.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

"What Do Women Want?"

by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.


Want to read more? Click here.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

For short story writers

I found an interesting article on the seven basic plot outlines for short stories at Catch & Release. Check it out here.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Stop the insanity

Here we go again. In keeping with the current trend, yet another author has been unmaked as a fraud. This time, it's JT LeRoy and it's not the work that's at issue, it's the author him, or should I say her, self. Apparently, the twenty-five year old male prostitute-turned-author is actually a forty-year-old woman who lied about her identity in order to get her work noticed. The best part is, this has been going on for years and no one questioned it until her partner went public. (By the way, he's signed a movie deal to tell his side of the story.)

I just don't understand how people get away with this, especially not when there are writers out there who are doing legitimate work and can't get published. And why aren't the publishers doing their research? Hopefully, this will get publishers to take more an interest in the work they put out beyond what's at stake financially. It's people like this who ruin the book world for the rest of us, both as readers and writers.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Almost time...

The deadline for submission is fast approaching. I changed direction with the piece I was working on and I'm afraid I won't be able to finish. The idea is there, I'm just waiting for the words to fall into place. I have no doubt that they will; I'm just not sure if it will happen in the time I have left. Cross your fingers....

Friday, February 03, 2006

Picking up the thread....

Right now, I should be working on a short story that's due in a couple of days but instead, I'm doing everything I can to avoid it. The file is open, the story is there, but I haven't been able to turn to it, not yet. I'm afraid if I go back to it, I will have lost the thread, that the words won't come as easily. I envy those writers who make it seem so effortless and I wonder if they struggled in their early days as I struggle now. There's only one thing for it, I suppose, and that's to just close my eyes and jump in and hope I reach the ground in one piece.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Short story publishing

Poets & Writers has a great podcast on their website about short-story publishing. Listen to it here.

Progress

The past couple of days, I've spent working on my manuscript. I wrote out a few key scenes that I've been putting off and it's starting to actually become something. This whole novel-writing thing is a bit like connect the dots for me. I start out trying to write in a smooth, flowing narrative, where the scenes are all naturally linked. Naturally, this does not work for me. Instead, I end up writing out the major scenes, in no particular order, and then try to connect them all together. This doesn't seem like a very effective way to write a novel, but then again, I can't just call up Irving or Updike and say "Hey, how do you do this." So, I do it my way. And I keep my fingers crossed that I can make something out of the madness.

100 Words

What can you really say in one hundred words? How about this?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its..."

What can you do with just 100 Words?