First of all, I’m immensely amused at the fact that my last entry was on “discipline,” and it’s taken me days to get my bum in gear to write another post!
Yeesh…the week got busy on me as I try to wrap things up before heading back to the States (FYI, I’m a Chicago gal currently living in London) for a visit with family and friends, a time during which I expect to be out of commission for writing/working overall. In any case, the reason I am OMG-ing relates to a previous post in which I expressed my excitement over getting one of my letters published in a book collection. That, in turn, inspired me to enter a short story contest that so happened to extend its deadline, so I could still give it a go. The general theme to address was “The Wedding.” So, folks, the results are already in, and….*drumroll*…I won first place! Adrenaline surged through my veins, and I thought my heart would leap out of my chest…I’m just gobsmacked and so appreciative of those darling judges who have humored an amateur writer and will be making a dream come true in publishing my work. It’s my very first time being published for my fiction, and I’m going to continue working hard to ensure it won’t be my last. I already feel so grateful for this blog, as these little exercises that I might spend 5-10 minutes on here and there have been enough to get my ideas flowing and discipline me to write creatively on a more consistent basis. This week’s performance, however, not being a stellar example…
In my defense, I’ve had a lot of reading and note-taking to conduct in preparation for a weekend writing conference that I’m departing for tonight. I honestly learned of it by accident because of this blog–because I follow Bonni Goldberg’s writing prompts in her book Room to Write, I had Googled the title to grab a link for one of my earlier posts weeks ago, and in doing so stumbled upon a UK organization of same namethat holds bi-annual conferences at a country estate-turned-hotel up in Northern England. This just looks way too up my alley, so I signed on and am getting giddy to hop on that train out of the city. In any case, this March workshop addresses reading as writers–I think we all know that the more we read, the better we can write by virtue of interacting with examples of good writing or evaluating what we don’t like about what we read. We were assigned to read three novels of rather disparate styles (The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman, and Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin) and take note of three things we learned about writing from each, so I’m looking forward to this sort of book club taken to the next level in analyzing these texts in relation to our own writing projects. Hoping to obtain some very solid advice on how I might approach concluding the last quarter of my work-in-progress…I will most definitely report back here on any pearls of wisdom shared.
In any case, hopefully it will not be another 20+ years before I enter another writing contest–no, seriously! I had just talked about my last one (in grade school, mind you) in my blog post, “The Impact of Words.” Imagine my relief that the outcome this time round was the same 🙂
In closing, I’m going to indulge my relative anonymity here with what I consider to be the first professional review of my written work, taken as an excerpt from the Fact, Fiction, and Folly blog. Why? Because I think I still just can’t believe it and am utterly humbled by the kind words shared, and need to remember them to keep my self-expectations high:
The writing is well done, the story keeps you reading and turning pages (on the screen, ha!). It pulled me right in, with super fast pacing, so there’s never one single moment of ‘boring’ or ‘description’ that isn’t necessary. No word is wasted, no emotion spared. We get to shift POVs in an expert way from several different players in the scene of one wedding – and being ‘inside’ their heads, sort of the way a voice-over on television would be while all the guests are watching the wedding. It felt conspiratorial. It felt like we were eavesdropping on their private moments. It was simply fantastic.
The story title is “Four Somethings and a Sixpence,” and will appear in Accentuate Services’ Elements of Love anthology due for release this November. They have already published two previous anthologies, Elements of the Soul and Elements of Time, and coming out soon are Elements of Dimension and Rendezvous. All right, then, cheers for now—I’ve got a train to catch!
I’m on a roll with other writing today, but so as not to entirely neglect the blog this weekend, I thought I’d post a wee little short-short story that I found in my computer files. It’s a true story, actually, that I wrote about my brother for his birthday, and it chronicles one crazy night we and our other two brothers had in the Windy City.
Context: ‘Keo Dog’ is a nickname his buddies gave him back in high school, and the setting is none other than the legendary Wiener Circle.
KEO DOG, with relish and a side of cheese fries
It was a brisk April day, an overcast day, a Windy City, too-cold-to-even-really-want-to-speak-at-the-Cubs-game day. But who really needs to speak at a Cubs game anyway, other than to heckle the home team? One man, at least, did speak. This was a man who was never at a loss for words. And he spoke of wondrous things indeed. He spoke of a remote dwelling that burned fiery reds and yellows into the monochromatic greyness of our arctic environment. He spoke of the abundance of culinary delights to be found there, and of the distinctive language the indigenous peoples uttered there by night. Our frozen eyes teared up at the thought of this urban oasis; it can’t be real, we thought. Believe, he told us.
In fact, throughout the entire duration of the day, he continued to speak of this local legend, how it was no legend, for he had been there, he had seen it, and, most significantly, he had heard it. When the time is right, he promised us, I will show you. Our southbound pilgrimage brought us progressively deeper into the realm of inebriation, dulling our senses and warming our extremities; but his focus remained keen, and his belly burned for one thing only. For a moment my confidence in him faltered as he slipped into a margarita-induced coma TWICE while engaged in conversation with me, but I realize now that, as he nodded off into oblivion, slumping ever so slowly forward toward the tabletop, he was only reawakening within himself the vision of the dream to come but a few more blocks southward. It’s the greatest, he said, You’ve got to experience it yourself, he said.
His demeanor became all the more energized and self-assured as he continually described the surreal and foul obscenities that flew in the wind of the wee hours there…Everyone does it, he said, Even the venue elder and those in his employ; in fact, you may not even obtain what you seek there unless you join in the custom. While there was one innocent doubter among the group and another who appeared more preoccupied with parking-meter hurtles and leaving assorted personal possessions strewn about the city, this man stayed his course, and, oh yes, his goal would reach fruition. As the warm light blanketed our faces and beckoned us inside, we heard the filthy vulgarities abound, and the man’s eyes glowed like smoldering coals as he cackled with wicked delight at the offensive display.
This was it—the threshold of hell, and far too late to turn back to the refuge of Clark Street. With a confident stride, he stepped to the counter, paused a moment to consider the luminescent options of temptation hovering before him, and, as we huddled in eager, almost nervous anticipation of what crude, ritualistic phrases would spew forth from his throat in the tongue of the after-hours natives…his lips parted…and…in a meek, gentle voice, he sweetly articulated:
On page 10 of Room to Write, Bonni Goldberg informs us that, whether we’re intending to explicitly address it or not, our views on “destiny” inevitably come through in our writing. I suppose on now considering this, it does seem avoiding it would be nearly impossible, as such a perspective would be firmly rooted in our worldview and how we approach setting our life goals. Whether our belief in destiny is definitive or something we’re exploring, our characters will ultimately portray that belief or exploration themselves, even if to the contrary as our little Devil’s Advocates. As a matter of fact, in one of the more recent chapters I’ve written, my protagonist does outright discuss her views on destiny with another character, so perhaps I was destined to get this writing prompt so soon thereafter, to help me revisit and develop that concept further.
The Prompt:
As for what today’s prompt does indeed ask us to do, we have two choices:
1) Write about “destiny” for two pages; or,
2) Write a dialogue between characters from one or more of our pieces discussing their respective beliefs in destiny.
I’m opting for numero deux. However, my spin on it is going to be as such–in homage to the recent passing of JD Salinger, my character will be speaking to none other than Catcher in the Rye‘sown Holden Caulfield. I’m also going to conceal my character’s actual name for demented reasons known only to me. Let’s call her, “Margaret” for now.
Response:
Seated on parallel wooden benches in the echoing open hall of a grand urban train station, Margaret is no longer able to ignore the penetrating glare narrowly skimming her shoulder, fired from a bench directly in front of her. Normally, she would retreat into the safe cavern of her shyness around strangers or move seats altogether, but she senses something troubled in this young man’s gaze akin to her own melancholy. He doesn’t appear threatening; he is quite clean-cut and looking smart in a well-tailored overcoat. It is only the red hunting hat that he dons that signals a mild alarm that something about him might be off.
Overwhelmed in fearful curiosity as to what his attention may be directed to at her side, Margaret summons the confidence to speak.
“Are you all right?”
Perhaps the ear flaps of his hunting cap muffle the sound from reaching his notice.
“Are you okay?”
The young man’s eyes dart up with a start as he recognizes he’s being addressed.
“Sorry?”
“Sorry, I know I’m being random, but I was just wondering if there’s something near me that’s bothering you. Hopefully, it’s not me.”
“How’d you be bothering me just sitting there?” he notes, trying to affect a blank expression, though unable to conceal an innocent bewilderment.
“I don’t know.” Margaret reddens, feeling silly that she brought this all upon herself. “I guess I might remind of you someone you don’t like.” That sounds logical enough, she thinks.
Becoming conscious of his hat, Holden takes his turn to flush, and as he slides it back genteelly off his short, unexpectedly graying hair with his left hand, he extends his right over the back-rest to invite Margaret to shake it.
“Holden. Nice to meet you.”
He’s a gentleman; and soft skin. “Margaret.”
“Sorry if I creeped you out and all. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m not a madman or anything, I was only looking at the graffiti.” He gestures to a word carved in the wood a mere couple inches from her right arm. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
Margaret interprets this repetition as a polite way of telling her to butt out. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Picking up on her embarrassment, Holden replies, “No, don’t worry, I don’t think you’re being nosy or anything. I shouldn’ta been looking like I was staring at you and all. I mean, I don’t mean to be rude.”
Seeking to get past this mutual awkwardness, Margaret rotates her head and leans forward to better read the carving. “Destino,” she reads aloud. Huh.
“Means ‘destiny,’ I guess.” When Margaret doesn’t speak, Holden nervously rambles on. “You know, I hate graffiti. I hate messing up stuff that’s supposed to look nice. Just the idea that some phony would sit there and have a goddam knife to pull out and slice into this nice varnished wood that’s here for everybody else too depresses the hell outta me.” On observing her furrowing brow: “Pardon me, ma’am. Excuse my language.”
Conscious of her expression, Margaret tries to shake it off flippantly. “Oh! No, no. Not at all. Takes a lot to offend me, trust me. I was just thinking about what you said. I totally understand.”
Encouraged, Holden continues. “It’s just that I see this stuff everywhere, and it depresses me, if you want to know the truth. I saw a goddam ‘F*** you’ written on a wall in my little sister’s school, for Chrissake. I hate that. It’s lousy to write something like that in a kid’s school.”
Margaret grins inwardly at Holden’s critical cursing about cursing, and she finds her interest piqued by this complex youth approximately half her age. It seems he might be game for waxing philosophical for a brief while, at least to kill time.
“Well, I’m not a fan of graffiti either, but you have to admit this is a nicer form of it. I mean, maybe the person wasn’t ‘phony’ at all, but seriously contemplating what that word means. Maybe they were celebrating that their destiny had just been fulfilled, or praying so.”
“Believing in destiny is phony. There isn’t any such thing, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a goddam phony bastard himself.”
“You’re quite cynical for your age! I take it you see yourself as the master of your own fate, then?”
“I don’t think I’m the master of anything. We’re all stuck falling through this phony world, laughing at jokes we don’t even think are funny and taking an exam or doing work that we’re brainwashed to believe is important and stuff, and for what? Money? Reputation? Pay a dime to dance with a pretty girl? None of it adds up to a pile of beans when all’s said and done. We work ourselves to the bone to end up dead, and then what? We can’t take it with us. No, I’m no master of anything.” Just then, Holden looks off into a realm of thought invisible to Margaret and quiets to almost a whisper. “I’d like to be. I think I could be. If I could just catch those crazy kids when they came falling. I could be the master of that. I really think I could.”
Trying her best at interpretation without being too invasive, Margaret asks, “You’d like to help those that can’t help themselves. The ones that Destiny hasn’t been kind to?”
“I know it sounds crazy, like I’m some sort of madman and maybe I am, but I can’t stop thinking about those kids.” He raises his red hat back to his head as though unconsciously and pulls it over his ears snugly. “Goddam graffiti.”
Though she has no clue what kids he’s talking about nor where they’re falling from or why, empathetic soul that she is, Margaret attempts to soothe Holden by relating the best way she can. “I feel that way, too, sometimes. That life can be random, and we just have to keeping rolling with the current with our heads above water as best we can. But overall I think that flow might still be taking us somewhere, with or without our consent. Or not. I feel for others’ disillusionment, too, and would like to think someone would be there to catch me if I fell.”
She doesn’t expect it when Holden looks her directly in the eye just then.
“Too late,” he shakes his head. “But don’t worry, because it’s too late for me too.”
Margaret is perplexed at the seeming sage quality in this kid. “How so?”
“We’ve grown up. We can’t ride the carousel anymore.”
Margaret lowers her eyes. “I don’t think we should give up on ourselves just yet. I’m not giving up on me, anyways. I think Fate has something in store for me yet.”
“So you think you can still do anything about it?”
“Yeah. Well, I’d like to think so. I mean, I dobelieve in free will. More than just tossing my hands up to the skies and saying, ‘Ah well. So be it.'”
“You’d sounded more like you believed in destiny before.” Holden is looking at her skeptically now, sizing up her capacity for phoniness.
“I do. I guess I’ve just always figured we still operate ‘freely’ within that larger structure already put in place—by God, or whatever you might or apparently might not believe in. What I’m trying to say is that I personally think we have an ultimate destiny, even if the paths we take to get there and the experiences along the way are for the most part controlled by us. There might be those ‘little events’ planted here and there for a purpose, then, like occasional guideposts or guardrails to keep us on track.”
Peering at her stoically from beneath his cap, Holden does not look convinced.
Margaret presses on with the proverbial college-try. “I remember reading somewhere, in someone’s blog, that that was their theory on deja-vu, that what we see that feels so familiar are actually signs that we’re on target…like on some level we’ve already lived out our destiny, and what we see as deja-vu is the playback, in brief clips, to show us that what we’re doing, at that exact point in time, is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing and where.”
“I don’t know what a ‘blog’ is, but that’s an interesting thought. It really is, no kidding. I get those sometimes, too, those deja-vus, but I don’t tell anybody about them or anything because those Pencey crooks’d think I was a damn sissy and knock my lights out. They really would. But still, I get them. The deja-vus, I mean. I figure they only mean that I’m crazy and all. Like my brain is on the fritz.”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever really know what they are, but I think it’s safe to say they’re not a sign of insanity. Whatever those ‘Pencey crooks’ say, it happens to everyone, even them, whoever they are.”
“They don’t matter anymore. Never did, really. You’ll probably think I’m crazy for saying this and all, but it’s my kid sister that’s got everything figured out, if you really want to know the truth.” Holden instantly appears to glow from within at the mention. “That kid kills me, she really does. You would like her. I mean, it’s not like she’s perfect or anything, but she’s really likable. Old Phoebe’s the real deal.”
Margaret smiles kindly at the sibling sentimentality. “So, do you think Phoebe would believe in anything like Destiny? Does she not need you to catch her?”
The corners of his mouth turn down a perceptible degree. “No. She doesn’t need me for anything at all. All I do is let her down, but I don’t know what I’d do without her, though, that’s for sure. That kid’s pretty much got it figured out, she really does. She’s not going to need to rely on Destiny or anything because she’ll make her own. She’ll grab the goddam reins of that carousel horse and get it to race around the other way. I really think she could do it, too. If she wanted to and all.”
“Holden, if you can believe that of anyone, you can’t be a total fatalist. Surely you can believe it of yourself, then.”
Holden eyes Margaret up and down, only just then noticing that she’s an attractive woman. He always did like them older, but this time he isn’t feeling sexy about it. He isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling, except that it’s the same sensation that dissipates through him when he is hanging out with his sister.
“Old Phoebe,” he says, pretending to ignore Margaret’s insight. “She kills me. She really does. If I could stuff it all and put it behind a pane of glass, I’d do it. I would. That’s the problem with Destiny, you know. She moves life forward, closer to being older and supposedly wiser and all that crap. No, we’re all just tumbling through space, even Old Phoebe. Some’ll get a softer landing than others, is all.”
Holden does not so much as jolt a fraction of a millimeter when the loud speaker unexpectedly blares its announcement of a train ready to depart its platform. Margaret, conversely, is thrown from the jumbling and intersecting thoughts coursing through her mind in the wake of Holden’s words, the speaker’s static-y proclamation slicing through her reflection with familiarity.
“Oh my God.” She leaps to standing. “My train. Holden, I have to go.”
Margaret knows she needs to flee with hyper-speed to make her train, yet the morose energy surrounding Holden is compelling.
Holden, young gentleman that he is, likewise rises onto his feet and removes his hat with a modest bow. “Ma’am.”
“Margaret.”
“Margaret. Meeting you just now has been sort of like–“
“Destiny. I know. Holden?”
He extends his right hand out for her to shake. She makes a motion to meet it when the loud speaker bombards them again. Distracted from thought, she operates on instinct and embraces him firmly. On reluctantly disconnecting, she sways back and, on pivoting on her heel toward the direction of her platform, she rewinds the movement only to seize the red hat out of Holden’s hand. Reshaping it with her fist, she finds solace in the body heat it has retained. She briefly brings it to her lips to offer a fond peck–closing her eyes to inhale its fibers simultaneously–before affixing it back on Holden’s head.
On resuming her pivot, she turns her head counter to the spin to ask again, “Holden?”
“Yeah.”
“Catch me. If you can.”
Holden, the warmth of his hunting hat trickling down to consume his entire being, sucks at his lower lip for a second.
“I’ll try. I really will.”
He offers Margaret a quasi-salute behind her back as he watches her meld into the masses that carry her like a current toward her next destination.
Reflection:
* sigh *
Rest in peace, Mr. Salinger.
Find peace in unrest, Holden. (And you, too, “Margaret”)
*jabbing fists up into sky repeatedly in excitement* Yeehaw, kids, today we get to have some silly, gross fun. You may have noticed that I skipped over page 5 of Room to Write–I did so intentionally not because I discount the value in that exercise, but, rather, because it is one best undertaken on one’s own on an actual sheet of paper. You see, my dear friends, page 5 was about writing an entire page of “junk”–utter feces that you know is bad and write because you know it’s bad. In this way, you can reflect on how much knowledge you do indeed have on good writing, as you have to know what’s good in order to know what’s bad. Make sense? The cathartic moment of that drill is to then rip out that sheet of paper, crumple it, and toss it in the rubbish bin. Ah, we’ll all have to try that one…sounds orgasmic.
The Prompt:
All right, so to finally get around to today’s exercise, then: SNOT. Yup. Write a full page about snot is what Goldberg profoundly asks us to do. When finished, reflect on how you felt before, during, and after writing. Consider if there’s anything worthy that could be included in one of your writing projects and/or brainstorm other possibly offensive topics that you could tackle. This is like sweet karma for my dual-mucus reference in our first freewriting activity 🙂
Response:
SNOT. Pick it, lick it, flick it at someone you hate, or store it under the table top. Yeah, you go ahead and pretend that your fingertip never happens to wander to your nostril, hesitating at the threshold in trepidation of the darkness within, then penetrates through only to delight in the tickling of the hairs lining the nasal cavity as the fingernail goes spelunking in search of gummy treasure. It whistles as it works, and, when it hits paydirt, shovels up a hearty scoop, greedily trying to carry back to the light more than it can muster. It attempts to go back and pick up what falls behind, only to lose another sizable clump of slippery sponge, and as it feverishly attempts to recover that latest bit, it sheds even more. Time out. The fingertip calls it. It exits momentarily to give its epidermis breath and reassess the situation. Cupped within the nail is a miniscule glob of goo with a nose hair projecting out of it–that’s worth something, at least. Wiping the semi-precious cargo onto the quilted square of two-ply toilet paper, the search party ventures back in, regretting that there’s not enough room in that cave to bring reinforcements. The fingernail drills deeper and deeper, its strategy being to plow the remnants of what it previously left behind further up the passage until they congeal into one super gob that it can hopefully hook itself under and up and scrape back along the upper lining in dragging it back to the open air. The risk it runs is severely high, however: it is possible, just possible, that the nail will in fact shove too far and, not having the grip it thought it did, end up tossing the booger into the narrower recesses of the sinus, where not finger nor fingernail can ever pass. Beads form upon the fingernail as it contemplates this scenario, shortly before it curses itself in having the thought, as now it needs to fear self-fulfilling prophecy, and as it thinks very hard with whatever equivalent of grey matter a fingernail might have to think with in trying not to think pessimistically, it comes to and…doh! The Super Gob is gone. Tucked into the nether reaches of the nasal passage as unwillingly anticipated. Defeated, and not a little sullen, the fingernail allows itself to be dragged out by one pissy finger for a royal berating back at camp. Meanwhile, the gob nests where it thinks it’s safe for the time being. It causes discomfort to the nose and giggles at its being the source of a high-pitched whistling every time its human host tries to breath. It sits there contentedly, feeling victorious and stronger than ever in its new super-fun super-size, until….being without a nose, it cannot distinguish in particular that the stinging it feels also smells of mint, eucalyptus, a dash of clove, perhaps? It only knows that it BURNS, and its super-fun super-size doesn’t seem so formidable any longer. Indeed, it’s losing its goo to a mucus-slide, as its sides go from gelatinous to slippery liquid oozing back down towards the light. It tingles and elongates and slides down through the shining, tickling hairs, amassing in a puddle inside the soft, powdery fibers of a tissue. Coughing and hacking as if it had a throat with mucus inside to cough and hack up, the liquefied snot reconvenes with the rest of its original self (spotting others it recognizes fallen into the same paper wad—“Grandma? Uncle? Is this Heaven?” it asks). Before yielding to a final defeat as it tears away at a piece of the white tissue to wave in surrender, its eyes, if it had eyes, fall on the key to its demise. Shaking a fist as though to curse the gods (and as though it had a fist), “Olbas!” it cries…”Olbas!”
Reflection:
Yowzah. Okay. Um, to reflect on that, then. Well, before writing, I was very excited about the topic, as it gave a chance to make up a lot of nonsense while still being able to be descriptive of something real that I have quite a bit of experience with (oh come on, like you don’t, too). After the series of reflections that the previous prompts asked for, this was the first delving into fiction.
While writing this, I found it coming to me almost unsettlingly easily, making me think along the entire way, “Wait, I think I know exactly what that would look/feel like,” and then question, “Why in the hell do I know that?!” As I saw the bodily components become “characters” in their own rights, the debate was then how realistic to maintain the “tale”…are the nail and the finger a single unit, or separate entities? If those or the nose and the snot themselves are, in fact, characters, then to what extent do I anthropomorhize them, for being body parts in and of themselves, can they have body parts of their own to enable them to see, feel, smell, etc? How to maintain consistency, and to what extent must consistency be maintained when it is approached as fictitious?
After writing, I felt rather relieved because it was a challenge trying to come up with different descriptors for something so disgusting, and I had been feeling embarrassed about how gross I was getting while at the same time reveling in the freedom of it. I felt satisfied with the closure I gave, as Olbas Oil has been a true beacon unto this sinus-sufferer this winter season. It felt like sweet redemption.
So, if I had to contemplate other social taboos that may be worth exploration in my writing, the first things that come to mind are: poo, sweat, dandruff, eye crust, ear wax, pubic hair, semen, yeast infections, menstruation, belly button lint, toe jam, scabs, drool, belching, farting, and diarrhea. Have at it, if you dare…
The Fallen Monkey 