The Literary Lab

World Book Night: April 23, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:02:00 +0000

World Book Night looks like a really cool idea. I could be enthusiastic about The Poisonwood Bible (because it's a great book) and Mighty Reader heartily recommends The Namesake (because Jhumpa Lahiri is a great writer). What about you?

Authorial Intention, Success, and Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:21:00 +0000

I agree that an author's intention during the writing of a story can have little or no impact on what a reader gets out of that same story. And I think a reader's interpretation of a story is perfectly valid whether or not it jives with an author's intent. The published story, the physical work that makes its way out into the world, becomes an independent, untethered puppy that is meant to fend for itself.

Still, I think author intention is important, and I think it's important because the ability of an author to convey his or her intent is a mark of success and, I think, will ultimately lead to that great thing all of us is searching for whether we know it or not: happiness.

Ah, happiness, that vaporous cloud of a goal that seems to dissipate as soon as you think you have it! Happiness, I contend, will come from a writer's internal satisfaction with herself or himself. More on that later...if I remember.

All throughout high school, I wanted to become a painter. But for whatever reason I didn't take a single art class. I ended up taking marching band. I played the clarinet. I wore a uniform with a big red A on it, which stood for Arcadia. A-R-C! A-D-I-A! A-R-C-A-D-I-A, Arcadia! Hooray!*

So, I went to college up in northern California, and I finally got to take art classes. I took a lot of them. Several were taught by this teacher who went by the name of David Hollowell.

David Hollowell was about 8 feet tall and one could see, if one looked deeply enough into his eyes, that he had the potential to kill people and bury them in his backyard. Being the person I am, I was intrigued by him. I took about four classes with him, each class meeting 2-3 times a week for 3 hours at a time and lasting for ten weeks. And, I swear to you, David Hollowell gave the exact same lecture every single day I went to see him. He would say something like, "I can tell you what I think about your piece, but you shouldn't care what I think about your piece, because what I think about your piece doesn't matter unless you're trying to do what I'm trying to do, which you probably aren't."

At first, his words sounded like adult-speak in the Peanuts cartoons.

Over time I started to actually recognize the words, even though the meaning behind the words were still lost on me.

It wasn't until my senior year, my last class with him, that I started to understand what he was saying. He was dealing directly with the idea of author intention (or at least artist intention).

He was basically saying that every artist should take the time to clarify her or his intention. Once that intention is clear, then the artist has a clear direction for how she or he should proceed to convey that intention. If a viewer or a reader is able to pick up on that intention, then the artist can consider himself or herself successful.

Now, there are a lot of intentions out there. A writer might intend to write a convincing murder scene, a murder scene that makes a reader think that it must be real, that the writer must have killed to be able to write something so convincing. On the other hand, a writer might have the intention of making a reader laugh or cry or donate money to needy causes. ON THE OTHER HAND, a writer might also have the intention of producing a piece of writing that is open for interpretation. In that case, the successful conveyance of that intention may be multiple interpretations. That's valid, as long as it's the writer's intention.

I said earlier that misinterpretation of a writer's intention is perfectly valid, and I still think that's true, from a READER's point of view. But I argue that a WRITER will be happiest when he or she is able to guide the reader to the intended interpretation. I argue that if I try to write a deep love story and the reader understands the story as a deep love story, I will feel better than if the reader interpreted the story to be a metaphor for unlawful taxation. For me, it's satisfying when a reader somehow follows the emotional path I attempted to lay out and arrives at the same place I did. My guess is that when a writer is able to "teach" readers how to read things his or her way, then that writer will feel a certain sense of satisfaction that will bring them internal happiness.

During my art classes, we had a guest speaker come in to talk about her sculptures. She showed us slides of these big things that weighed a ton. One I remember involved a huge cube with a huge spring on top and a chair bouncing up and down on top of the spring. I thought it was a cool piece, but I was dismayed when the sculptor said she displayed it in a park where anyone could climb on top of it if they wanted to. That was her intention.

I imagined people getting shoe marks on the beautiful surface of the cube. I imagined people pulling the chair down so far that it ruined the spring. "And...couldn't someone die if they tried to sit on the chair?" I asked.

"Probably," the artist said. (Or at least she said something along those lines.) "But I designed the cube to be big enough so that people can't really make it to the top."

For me, that communicated the idea of successful artist intention. The artist felt safe in putting her piece out into the world without any velvet ropes because she had thought hard enough about the proportions so as to have safeguarded human interactions with it. Her puppy could fend for itself.

When I write, I think about that, and I ask myself if I've done all I can to try and direct the reader along the path I have intended. I ask myself if I'm okay with the places that can be interpreted multiple ways. That's important to me, and, like I said, I'm happy when a reader comes to the same conclusions I tried to convey. It doesn't happen every time, and I view that as room for me to grow as a writer. Is it a problem for readers if they read a totally different interpretation than what I intended? No, not at all. But I'll feel happier if it doesn't play out that way.

*I have to give a little shout out to my alma mater because the director of 38 years is retiring after a great career. This video is a look at this years group, and they're pretty amazing!

And, as if this post wasn't long enough, I want to send out a big thank you to my brother! Being the supportive guy that he is, he tracked down yesterday my high school English teacher who inspired me to become a writer, and who I acknowledged in Wild Grass for giving me permission to tell the truth. I have been looking for her for a few years, but never could get a lead. I now have her phone number and address, and I'm so excited to get to thank her in person!

Who is the Ultimate Authority of a Piece of Fiction?

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Davidson Argyle) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Who is the ultimate authority of a piece of fiction? The author? The reader? That professor at the prestigious university? Or nobody? Which interpretation of a piece of fiction is correct? If a reader thinks the book means one thing, but the author meant another, who is correct? Or, more importantly, perhaps - does it even matter?

Scott talked about this subject yesterday, but I'd like to look at it a little from the writer's point-of-view today.

First-Hand Experience!
I hope you'll bear with me as I share my own experience. In 2010, I self-published a little novella titled Cinders. The reception for that story was interesting, to say the least. Most readers seemed lukewarm toward it. Some adored it. It was when I sat down with a reading group (no writers present) that some important ideas began to sink in for me. I had been warned in advance that half the group hated the book. I decided to show up anyway. What's the worst that could happen? I would drive home in tears? Sadly, that's what did happen. My ego was wounded that day. The readers who disliked Cinders (hate is a strong word, isn't it?) seemed to dislike it because their expectations were not met. That's what it boiled down to. Some quite literally expected pumpkins and talking mice. Some expected the story to end with a traditional happily-ever-after despite the clear warning on the front, which says: "Happily-ever-after isn't as long as you though." Some were upset that my main character, Christina, was unlikable, weak, and a poor example for empowering women.

I'll admit during this time, I believed there were right answers for my novel and that those readers who disliked it WERE WRONG. I believed it so strongly that I later added an author's note at the beginning of the novel in hopes of altering reader expectations. I remember as I as was driving home, thinking, "I'll show them what the book really means." A bit stupid on my part, I'll admit, because as far as I can remember, those readers didn't seem to care about what the book "really meant." They cared about what it meant to them. Even when I attended another reader group for a different novel, the readers took turns answering questions from the reader guide. Nobody had the same answers. Some of the answers knocked me off my feet. They were interpretations I never intended, and they were as far from incorrect as you can possibly get. To me, the author, they brought new meaning and depth of the book. I realized, then, that I am not the authority of my books.

Giving the World a Story
I will always keep learning and altering my views, but for today I am certain that Truman Capote's quote about finishing a novel (which I interpret to mean publishing it and giving it to the world) is akin to taking your child out back and shooting it. Seem a little dramatic? Perhaps. But the point I want to make here is that when an author decides to give the world their story, they are doing just that - giving the world their story. The child is shot. The story is up for grabs, up for interpretation, even if that means misinterpretation according to the author. And what is the author going to do about that? Publish a "right-answer" guide to go along with the story? I think the magic of stories lies in reader interpretation. Take that away and you lose something essential.

I do not mean to imply, of course, that the author's intention doesn't matter at all. I think it does, but I also know writing a novel is such an involved process that it's impossible for even the author to have all the answers for what they've written. Subconscious comes into play. Other readers giving feedback. Editors. Publishers. The publishing process itself can add elements to the text the author never intended. So, in the end, I believe the author has her own version of the answers, and if that version is more important to a specific reader than anybody else's version, so be it.

I have so much I could keep rambling about on this subject, but let's open it up to you! Who do you think is the ultimate authority of a piece of fiction? And do you think it matters?

Who Cares What You Thought You Meant When You Wrote It?

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Musical notation—the notes on the paper that a musician reads to learn and perform a piece—is a sort of shorthand. It’s a set of instructions telling the performer which notes to play in what order and for how long each and how to phrase and inflect those notes and melodies. No matter how detailed the composer’s instructions, notation remains a shorthand and there is never enough information on the page to answer every performance question a player might have. Also, two competent musicians (or groups of musicians) can play the same piece of music from the same printed music, and the performances can differ drastically but both performances will be “correct” because, as I say, the printed music (the “score”) is a shorthand and there’s a lot of interpretation necessary on the part of the musician(s) to bring the piece to life. Different interpretations of individual works are entirely valid. This explains why I have multiple versions of Bartok’s string quartets and Bach’s solo violin music on my CD shelf at home; every group or performer interprets the instructions of Bartok or Bach in a unique way.

I’m going to claim that reading a book or a story is a lot like performing a piece of music from a printed score. Not because the written word is a shorthand (though some semioticians will say that it is, and they might be right), but because each reader interprets the written word in a unique way. Each of us brings our own culture, our own reading history, our own social awareness, our own prejudices, etc with us when we sit down to read. We make value judgments and critical decisions about art based as much on who we are as individuals as we do based on the work of art itself. The process of reading a book is more than just allowing some stranger to tell us a story; the process also includes us actively applying our personalities, beliefs and knowledge to the text as we go along. Sometimes the text will change our personalities, beliefs and knowledge. Sometimes, too, our personalities, beliefs and knowledge will make the text into something that the author wouldn’t recognize.

I’m going to claim that this transformation of the text by the reader during the act of reading is very common and is entirely valid. I’m going to further claim that a reader who dislikes a text because he misunderstands what the author meant is reading correctly. I’m going to also claim that a reader who likes a text through a misunderstanding of what the author meant is also reading correctly.

Those last two claims might be objectionable, but I’m willing to bet that we’ve all done those things and not known it. I’m willing to bet that most of us misunderstand what an author meant in at least one important passage of every book we read. Usually, I think, we know when we don’t get what they’re getting at and just move along but sometimes we don’t know that we don’t know and so we create a unique interpretation of the text. That’s neither good nor bad; it’s just the way it is.

The thing is, when you are alone with a text, you are alone with the text. The author is not there. The text is not the author. You cannot, I don’t think, reconstruct the author or his intent from the text. There’s no way of knowing what the author was thinking, what the author had read and is alluding to or reacting against, what was just on the author’s mind when he sat down to write. I’m reading the letters of Flannery O’Connor and also the letters of Anton Chekhov, and I’m constantly amused by their complaints that readers are misinterpreting their stories. Because readers aren’t misinterpreting, they’re merely interpreting. Readers are free to disagree or to invent their own meanings for a novel or a story because reading is—or should be—a creative act.

In general, then, the author and what he had in mind when he wrote are not the least bit important to the reader. The reader has the text and nothing more. This is what I by-and-large believe. I think. Four of my friends and I went to see Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus” a few weeks ago. I was unfamiliar with the play and after we watched it my friends and I went to a bar to drink and argue about the possible meanings of the work. Was Shakespeare for or against populist movements? Was Shakespeare in favor of the nobility forming the ruling class, or wasn’t he? Did Shakespeare see Coriolanus as a hero, a villain, or something else? There is no real way to tell simply from the text. I admit that I have since cheated, and have read up a bit on what was going on in England when Shakespeare was writing this play, but even with that contextual information, it remains unclear what old Billy S was thinking. Eventually I have to admit that what Billy Shakes had in mind is unknowable, and I have to make up my own mind about the play, based on who I am and what I bring to the play when I see/read it. So we authors, then, once we’ve written a story and handed it to the reader, are politely invited to leave the room and stay out of it. No matter how loud we shout at them, the reader can’t hear us anyway; the noise the book itself makes will drown us out. Besides, they don’t want our opinions about the book. They just want the book.

Failure, communication, and failure in communication

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:36:00 +0000

Happy Monday, everyone!

I stumbled upon this article over the weekend. It has plenty of filler, in my opinion, but it has some good sections too. Among the good:

"Robert Epstein, a former editor of Psychology Today and founder of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, likens the process to being stuck in a locked room. The doorknob isn't responding. You turn it, you jiggle it, you lift it. Nothing.

'When you're ineffective and you can't turn that knob, lots and lots of different behaviors and thoughts and ideas all pop up simultaneously, more or less -- and that's the stuff of creativity,' he says. 'That's where the inner connections occur.'

The wonderful thing about such creative sparks is they'll feed off one another. The terrible thing is that emotions might take over and reduce you to mush. Epstein observes that the person in the locked room eventually starts banging on the door and, if left long enough, cries for his or her mother."

and:

"Giving up can also be part of the creative process, says Dean Keith Simonton, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis, and a creativity expert.

'Sooner or later, creators have to learn when an idea is going nowhere,' he says.

But, he cautions, that point is hard to identify.

'The error is more often in the opposite direction: Not giving a new idea a sufficient chance for development. It is not easy to tell in advance which is going to pan out and which not,' he says."

and:

"[Jennifer] Egan agrees assessing progress isn't easy.

'A lot of it is trying to understand what kind of dead end it is, because they aren't all the same,' she says. 'With "The Keep," I was essentially at a dead end for the first many months of working on it, because I couldn't find a voice for it. And if you don't have a voice, you've got nothin'. You can try every bell and whistle and good idea in the world, but if the book doesn't have a voice, you don't have a book.

'But for some reason I kept hammering away at it, which certainly in retrospect could have been a terrible waste of time if I hadn't found a way,' she said."

ALSO: If you'd rather just have a laugh, check out the creative e-mail exchange between "Shannon Walkley" and "David Thorne." Thorne reminds me of Mr. G.F. Bailey...if he hated cats.

Does a Signed Copy Change Your Reading Experience?

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Davidson Argyle) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:14:00 +0000

Tonight I'll be visiting a book group to talk about my novel, Monarch. Since I've visited a book group before, this shouldn't be entirely crazy-new for me, but it kind of feels that way. The last book group I visited was for Cinders, and about half the group didn't like the book. That was interesting, to say the least, especially since I was very green at being published. In many ways, I still am. This all makes me wonder about why readers want to meet with authors. What makes a signed copy of a book special? And does talking with the author of a book you've read change the way you view that book forever?

I have a few signed books on my shelves, but I'm not sure I value those books any more than others. I ask myself why this is, and I'm thinking it's because if I had autographed copies of my favorite books, I might feel differently. For instance, if I had a signed copy of The Awakening by Kate Chopin, I'd keep that thing in a fire-proof box. Faulkner, yes. Um, F. Scoot Fitzgerald, anyone? Of course, these authors are all dead, and of course those signed copies are extremely valuable. Buy why? A bookstore cannot return a signed copy to a publisher, making that copy a necessary sell for the bookstore, but is it sentimental value that makes a signed copy important to the owner? Is it because the signed copy is rare if the author is dead and only so many copies might exist?

I recently attended Marissa Meyer's book signing for her debut novel, Cinder, and my friend and I tried to purchase copies at our local Barnes & Noble before stopping by the signing (you know, support your bookstore kind of thing...maybe we should have visited an indie store...), but no, all the copies at the bookstore were already signed with lovely little "autographed by the author" stickers on the front. Um, no. I would like to watch the author sign it, thank you. And she did after I bought a copy at the signing. And it has my name in it. And I wonder if that will affect how I read it? I'm really not so sure. Will having attended her signing, meeting her and talking to her, hearing her publishing story first-hand, affect my reading and feelings for the novel?

Who can say.

I think in many ways, a lot of readers look up to authors like celebrities, and that might make these things I'm talking about more special to a reader. If you've published a book, that means you finished a book, and those are two things many people only dream of doing or are in the midst of accomplishing.

And just for fun, here's a YouTube video from the movie, Young Adult. It's a scene concerning signed books and a dried-up author.

What about you? Does meeting or knowing an author change your reading experience? Do you value signed books more than unsigned books? Why?

Miss Havisham and Metaphorical Lives

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

I'm reading Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations right now. It's fun and funny. I don't know why I haven't read more Dickens.*

Great Expectations contains a very interesting character named Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham was jilted at the altar once upon a time and on that day her life stopped, for all intents and purposes. She left the wedding decorations up in her house, left the banquet table set, left the wedding cake on the table to be eaten at by mice and covered over the years with spider webs. Miss Havisham still wears her wedding dress, which is now yellowed and tattered. She has not moved on from the catastrophe of her ruined wedding. She is still there, all these years later. When her relatives visit, Miss Havisham points to the banquet table and declares that upon her death, she will be laid on that table and her relatives will feed on her corpse. Hyperbole, yes. Of course they won't. But she means that metaphorically, while she literally lives out the metaphor of her life stopping on her wedding day.

A character like this could not exist in real life, but she's a wonderful invention in the novel. I'm wondering if there are other examples of literary characters who are living out metaphors. In Beckett's play Endgame, the protagonist's parents are living in trash cans. The set of the play is a version of the literal inside of the protagonist's head. Kobe Abe's novel The Woman in the Dunes is about a man imprisoned in a sand pit with a widow to live a sort of Sisyphean life in captivity, but the metaphor isn't quite so literal.

I've never really done anything like this. In my novel Killing Hamlet, I have characters staying in a ruined castle, but the castle is a metaphor in the traditional sense. Had I been making a metaphor literal, I'd have had the castle fall into decay around the characters' heads but not have them notice. I'd also have had the lord of the castle gradually decay and become a ghost, with nobody noticing, including him. Maybe next time.

What I mean by a living metaphor, or a literal metaphor, would be for example instead of saying "the forest was alive" you would make the forest quite literally be a sentient being. "He was beside himself with anger" would instead be a character who actually split in two when he was angry. Things like that.

Anyway, can you think of more examples of this Miss Havisham-style character, who lives out a metaphor? Have you ever written a character like Miss Havisham?

* I do know that I loathed Hard Times, the first Dickens I ever read, and I avoided him for years upon years until I gave A Tale of Two Cities a try a few years ago. It's flawed but mostly pretty great.

A Day of Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:57:00 +0000

Happy Monday, everyone. It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and MLK is someone I admire very much. I'm spending the first half of my day writing (and playing with my dog), and then I'm spending the second half of my day working (and playing with my dog). I'll check in here throughout the day to say hello, so what's everyone working on?

As for me, I'm hoping to finish the first draft of Cyberlama, possibly today! I've also been thinking about the importance of pacing. Basically, I currently don't have many pace changes in my book right now, so I'm trying to figure out where to change the pace and how to do it. Going from calm to exciting in one way, but I'm also toying around with zooming in and out, slowing the pace by looking at things more microscopically.

Friday Filler! The Sookie Stackhouse Edition!

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:53:00 +0000

I ride the bus to and from work most days, and one of my amusements is to try and see what my fellow passengers are reading during the commute. Usually there are at least half a dozen readers visible (not counting people nodding over their iPhones and iPads and knookles). This morning, though, I saw nobody reading except for one woman, a few seats away from me, who was finishing up a Sookie Stackhouse book. She was reading it in hard cover. Possibly it was a library edition; I'm not sure.

Like I say, nobody else on the bus seemed to be reading anything. Not even me (I have a copy of Great Expectations with me), though I kept telling myself that I was going to pull out my book and read. The thing is, it's a cold day in the Pacific Northwest. The guy on the radio said it was 33° when I was leaving the house, and the whole city was covered in frost. The buses are barely warmer than the outside world (thanks, Metro!) and so it was just too darned cold to read this morning.

Except for that one woman with her Sookie Stackhouse novel. So apparently (and yes, I know it's poor science to draw a conclusion from a single case), if you're cold, you should read a book by Charlaine Harris.

Or stay off the Seattle public transit system.

Also, this will be a glorious three-day weekend for many Americans as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Martin Luther King on Monday. I work at a major university and every year a few days are given over to recognize the transformative power St Martin had on civil rights. There is a marble plinth about four feet high (that's a good bit over a metre, you metric folks) with a bronze bust of MLK atop it. You can look right into his eye if you're my height. This bust on a plinth is brought out every year into the lobby for the Feast of Saint Martin Luther King and for a few days the bronze head watches the comings and goings of all who pass. And then, after the official holiday ends, he's carted back to wherever he spends the majority of the year. So I must ask: where does bronze MLK live all year? In a coat closet in the Dean's office? In a specially built crate like an Egyptian sarcophagus? I have no idea and I never wondered until this morning when I crossed through the lobby on my way to the espresso cart downstairs. But I'll find out, I will.

If you have a three-day weekend, I hope you do something fun and cool with it. If you don't have a three-day weekend, I hope you still have fun and are cool, though not so cold that you can't read whatever it is you'd prefer to read. Unless, of course, what you prefer to read is Sookie.

My Misconception of Mary Shelley

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I had an incident of misconception yesterday. In the morning while I was riding the bus to work and reading Frankenstein, I happened to glance at the back cover of the book to discover that Shelley was apparently 18 years old when she wrote the book.

I hate to admit it, but as soon as I read this, I started to like Frankenstein less. I thought to myself, "Well, it is an excellent premise, but is the writing really that good? It's just the idea that's brilliant." And I continued to read a few more pages pointing out to myself where the writing wasn't that good. It couldn't be good, because, after all, Shelley was only 18 when she wrote it!

You know what, though? I couldn't really convince myself. The more I read the more I saw how wonderfully written it was. I enjoyed the language, the pacing, the emotions, the set up, the fear. Really, it's a good book!

The lesson reminded me that I constantly have to fight the problem of judging the writing based on the writer. If I know that someone has been writing for 20 years, I tend to go in to a story expecting it to be good. On the other hand, if I read someone's first book or first story, I'm more judgmental. Really, it's bad of me. It's a bias I wish I didn't have. Often, I'm reading something, and I actually pretend it's written by someone else just to see if it makes me feel differently about the writing. Sometimes, unfortunately, it does. (Which is why, incidentally, I really have to judge our contest entries without knowing who wrote what.)

Why I Haven't Put Zombies From Space in My Books

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Davidson Argyle) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:55:00 +0000

"More and more I buy into the importance of pursuing one's own unique vision."

Ah, Davin, you are wise. Those are his words from his post on Monday, and yesterday Scott decided to share his own journey with following his unique vision. I appreciated Scott's honest words yesterday, and Davin's honest words on Monday, and I appreciate even more that they have both stuck by their unique visions - even what that meant losing two literary agents for Scott, and facing rejection from publishers for Davin. Ouch.

The truth is, I've never put zombies from space in my books, and I never will. What I mean, of course, by "zombies from space" is changing my work in order for it to become more popular with readers, more accepted by the publishing industry, or more importantly, PUBLISHED. The bare-bones truth is that when you write to your own unique vision, you might be sacrificing a lot of other things along the way.

I'm not sure how interesting my journey is to anyone, but I can briefly share where I've been. It's pretty simple. I started writing when I was a child. I went to college, intent on getting an English degree to better help me write novels for the rest of my life. What happened in college is the most interesting part of all of this, perhaps. About a year in, I got the idea that I wanted to be an editor instead of writer. I think I was intimidated, mostly. A few more years in, I decided to start writing short stories. I was inspired by Annie Dillard's writing, and wrote my short story, "Clover". It was definitely my own unique vision, and straight from my heart. I let two of my professors read it, and before I knew what was happening, they cornered me and asked my why the hell I was pursuing a degree in editing. They said I had to pursue creative writing or I'd be wasting a lot of talent.

So I changed my major, and I've never looked back.

What followed was a journey of figuring out what worked for me as a writer, and what I truly wanted to write. When I figured that out, my life changed, and I've been following that unique vision ever since. When my novel, Monarch, gained literary agent interest, I was so excited. I thought, "This is it!" Little did I know what would happen. I did not have an experience like Scott, but I did get feedback from a certain agent about what should change in the book. Did I change stuff? Yes. To this day, I'm not sure I should have at that point, but I do remember considering very carefully if what this agent wanted to change was in line with my vision for the work. I thought it was, so I revised. In fact, I pretty much rewrote the entire book, even after rewriting it earlier.

Did I get said agent? No, of course not. I probably remained much too close to my own unique vision, because the agent said the book was not what he thought it would be. Oh, well. I then received more agent interest, but it was the same reaction - too off-the-mark. I think all of my work is that way.

But!

I did not let this stop me. I kind of gave up on the publishing industry at that point. I shut down my blog for awhile and wrote Cinders. It was completely 100% what I wanted. I didn't care how people would react to it. I simply did not care. This was freeing. In fact, I wanted so much for the book to be exactly what I wanted that I decided to self-publish it. I didn't care what people thought at that point, either. Something inside of me changed, then, and I'll never be the same. This is when Tinkers, a novella published by a small press, won a Pulitzer. I was floored, honestly. My understanding and vision of what "small press" means, changed completely. That's when I decided a small press might be what I want, and I opened the door to a new possibility.

The rest is history, I guess. I submitted Monarch to Rhemalda Publishing, and when they offered me a contract, I took it because they didn't want to change anything huge on the book. A miracle! I had found a publisher who liked my unique vision. Quite honestly, I got lucky. I could still be searching for an agent or still submitting to publishers, but I got lucky. Luck, however, doesn't happen out of nowhere. I think it was me opening my vision to the possibility of a small press that allowed me to find Rhemalda at the time I did.

We are all on our own paths. Some of us want to put zombies from space in our books - and not just to get published. Some of us really want to write about them. Some of us don't. It's my hope that we can all pursue our own unique vision. Heaven knows Stephanie Meyer followed her own unique vision. Anything can happen, but at the end of the day, I am a much happier person when I haven't compromised my unique vision for something fleeting.

What's your story?

Zombies From Space

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Yesterday Davin was talking about a reader not connecting with one of his stories. One thing Davin said about this was "On the one hand, I have [received] some very valid criticism. On the other hand, I have my own personal interests."

Davin concluded his post with this:

"More and more I buy into the importance of pursuing one's own unique vision."

Today I'd like to follow Davin with more about pursuing one's own unique vision. So I will tell you a story.

In 2007 I was reading Shakespeare's "Hamlet" for the twelfth or twentieth time (I have no idea; I've read it many times). In the play, Hamlet repeatedly refers to the Horatio character as trustworthy, and sees in Horatio a noble soul who happens to agree with him that Uncle Claudius is guilty of murdering Hamlet's father. What I noticed during that particular reading was that there is nothing in the text of the play to support these claims made by Hamlet. Horatio never actually says he agrees with any of Hamlet's beliefs. Horatio also, in one scene, acts as an agent of the king. Just because Hamlet trusts Horatio, I realized, that doesn't make Horatio trustworthy. At one time Hamlet trusted Ophelia, and his mother, and even his Uncle Claudius. What if, I wondered, Hamlet was wrong about Horatio, too? What if Horatio was a sort of Iago character, maneuvering in the background to bring about the downfall of the Danish royal family? "I could write a book about that," I thought. And so I did. I made Hamlet a nice guy but naive and I made Horatio sort of slick and shifty and duplicitous and had him in league with Gertrude, and I made Uncle Claudius innocent of the murder, a good solid guy but sort of a dupe of the Queen. It was fun stuff.

I bundled all this up and wrote my novel and in early 2009 got the interest of a literary agent. We met in person and he told me that he loved my writing but he didn't like where I'd taken the book. He wanted Horatio to be a hero, not a villain. Could I do that?

Of course I can, I told him. Give me a couple of months. And for the next year and a half I rewrote the story over and over again, giving Horatio a backstory, a wife and kids and a dilemma in which he is forced to sell Hamlet and Hamlet's family out in order to save his own family. The usual stuff. I produced six more versions, all fairly different, in the hopes that one of these versions would satisfy the literary agent. Over time I liked the novel less and less. It became something that had nothing at all to do with my original conception, with the impulse that got me to write the damned thing in the first place. After a year and a half I finally threw up my hands and admitted that I couldn't do it. I could not write a version of my novel that would make my agent happy, that he was comfortable submitting to publishers.

I began to work on a different novel, about a dysfunctional love triangle among criminals in Colonial America. The agent in question had already told me he had strong doubts about, that there was no market for it. I wrote it anyway and I was very pleased with it. But during the writing of that second book, I had an idea for my Hamlet project. What if, I thought, I took the characters from Shakespeare's play but told a different story with them? What if Hamlet's father hadn't been murdered? What if there was a plot to murder him? The famed Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe died in 1601 (the year Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet"); there is real-world evidence to support that Brahe was murdered; there is some real-world evidence pointing to the king of Denmark being behind that murder. What if Hamlet's father was assassinated in revenge for the death of Tycho Brahe? That's good stuff, I thought. I could write that. So I did. Horatio is the main character, court astrologer, secret assassin and friend of Prince Hamlet. It was not the book I'd had in mind in 2007, but it was pretty cool anyway. So I wrote it. Agent hated it. End of relationship with agent.

A new agent submitted both the new Hamlet book and my Colonial American criminals book to publishers. Nobody made an offer. The books are both tragedies, and publishers don't want tragedies right now. I wrote another book, an odd little mystery set in 1935 featuring an odd little detective. My agent told me she didn't know how to sell it. End of relationship with second agent.

Currently I'm writing a new book, with themes of self-doubt and self-image and the search for significance, with two alternating storylines (one about a middle-aged university employee whose efforts to maintain his machismo have comic results, the other about a 20-something year-old woman whose missionary work in Africa fails to fill the spiritual holes in her life). I have no idea if anyone but me will like this book, but I am writing it anyway because it seems important that I write it and, honestly, it's the loudest voice calling me right now and I always write whichever book calls loudest.

I don't know if I will be able to find an agent to represent the mystery novel. I don't know if I will be able to find an agent to represent the WIP. I tell myself that the WIP is The Book, the one that will break out, but there is no reason at all for me to tell myself that.

Where's all this going? Here: the most miserable I've been in my life was when I was revising that fucking "Hamlet" novel over and over again, just to make it fit into the narrow confines of what some guy I didn't really know considered "marketable." I really hated being a writer then and I ended up with seven different versions of a book I no longer even liked. It was a good exercise in revising, but it was not a pleasant time. What I do now is to write the books I want to write. I have no idea if I'll get a publishing deal. For a few months the idea that I might never get a book out was devastating, but now I see that in the end, publishing doesn't matter. The writing is what matters. I know that I'll be a happier person if I write what I want to write, thinking about the things I enjoy thinking about, solving the problems I enjoy setting for myself.

Way back in 2008, when I was getting the Hamlet novel ready to submit to agents, I told Mighty Reader that I'd put zombies from space into my books if that would help them sell. I thought I meant it, I really did. Turns out I was wrong. And I'm happier being wrong about that.

Tomorrow, I hope, Michelle will post about how she's followed her own muse but managed at the same time to hook up with a small publisher, all without putting zombies from space into her books.

Bringing back the dead

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0000

Happy Monday, everyone!

Back in 2008, I had a writing professor critique my first completed novel, Rooster. The review was one of the most helpful I've ever gotten, and he was able to sum up the problem--at least how he saw it--with one sentence: You can't bring back the dead.

This man's argument was that my main character was at such a low point in the beginning of the novel that there wasn't enough time or pages to build him up to a point where he could reach a happy ending. He was so far down that there was no bringing him back up.

This concept has resurfaced because I recently got a review (read: rejection) from a small press editor who argued that the main character of my novella, Bread, was too numb to the world. She suggested I make him more emotional, thereby enabling the reader to feel more emotion in the story.

I've been writing for a good twelve or thirteen years now, and one thing that has become obvious is that I consistently become fascinated by the same type of character. This character is usually pretty repressed, to the point where any strong emotions that she or he may feel have been buried by layers of defense mechanisms and denials, etc. They are often numb and dead to the world. These are the people I am trying to explore for various personal reasons.

So, what exactly is a writer to do? On the one hand, I have some very valid criticism. On the other hand, I have my own personal interests.

What I come to realize again and again, and what I have to remind myself about again and again, is that the solution will not come from me changing my characters. I don't want the murderer of Bread to be full of emotions that surface easily. That's not what I'm interested in. Instead, my challenge is to figure out a way to communicate the story of my dead and numb character in a way that is interesting to the reader. What needs to change, I think, is my telling of the story, not the story itself.

To be clear, I'm not discouraged. Really, the rejection I got did not make me feel bad at all. (Others have, but this one did not.) The editor obviously invested a lot of time and energy into trying to connect with the story, and she offered a lot of feedback. So, I'm not asking to be consoled. But what I'm reminded of is that the job of figuring out how to pitch my product probably hasn't been accomplished yet. That poses an exciting challenge for me.

More and more I buy into the importance of pursuing one's own unique vision. The challenge is to present that vision in a way that captures the hearts and imaginations of readers. When that happens, instead of changing your world to fit the view of someone else, you change the view of that someone else to be able to see your world.

Friday Filler! Strong Opinions!

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:17:00 +0000

I had an idea this morning about writing essays, or blog posts, or other nonfiction pieces. I read a lot, and I've noticed that while a lot of the nonfiction reading I do is simply to pick up facts to use in fiction, I still do a lot of reading about fiction. Nonfiction essays (including literary criticism and plain old book reviews) about fiction.

In a purely factual piece, like an encylopedia article for example, I don't so much want the opinion of the writer to come through (though of course it's still there in the organization of the article and the weight given to subjects and supporting arguments and all of that). Mostly, I'm just looking for neutral information I can use for my own evil purposes.

In a piece where someone is talking about art, however, I think that what should be driving the writing is a strong opinion about the art or the artist. I think that, for example, most book reviews should be persuasive writing, not enclyopedia entries. And a lot of writing on the interwebs that's about fiction really lacks this sort of driving opinion.

For example, I think that if I were to write about Samuel Beckett's play Waiting For Godot, I could say that it's a comedy about the futility of searching for a higher meaning in life. Or I could say that it's basically two vagabonds in a wood who encounter various curious characters and speak in colorful nonsense. I could stretch those ideas out to 1000 words and it would all be true and informative, but it might not be interesting to anyone who's actually seen/read the play. It doesn't really spark a discussion. [Oh! More on that in a bit!]

What might be more interesting, at least to me, is if someone expressed an opinion about Waiting For Godot and said why they have that opinion. For example, when I read the play I laughed out loud, but every time I've actually seen it performed, it's struck me as pretty annoying for long stretches in the middle and I've been tempted to stand up and tell Vladimir and Estragon to stop their damned whining because, in general, this play is over acted by folks who want to chew up all the scenery. It's one of the best worst-acted plays of all time.* If anyone wanted to talk about why that is, or why I am mistaken, that would be cool.

Which is the thing, I think. A lot of writing, especially on the web, doesn't lend itself to discussions, and I think that's a shame. I would much rather have a conversation about a book or an author than just read a description of a book or a few facts about an author. What I enjoy most here on the Literary Lab, for example, are those days when people have differences of opinion and everyone's minds get expanded by exposure to opposing points of view.

So that's it, then: in my opinion, we should all be more opinionated, and should all be more upfront with our opinions. It would be interesting, I think. Also, it allows me an excuse to write the footnote that comes at the end of this blog post. Happy Friday, everyone!

* Though immediately Keanu Reeves' performance in Ken Branagh's film "Much Ado About Nothing" leaps to mind; Reeves seemed to have learned all his lines phonetically, having no idea what the words actually meant. That was some awful acting.

See for yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:18:00 +0000

Okay team, so I feel like I did the superb Alice Munro a bit of an injustice on Monday. Really, I was trying to say how good she was, rather than make her sound merely confusing. So, I present to you I link to her short story "Floating Bridge." Check out the first two sections and decide for yourself. If you like it, read the whole thing, because it's beautiful with interesting characters, complex emotions, and some ooh la la!

Why It's Easier to Love Straightforward Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Davidson Argyle) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Since we seem to be on a roll this week with the topic of disorienting fiction, I thought I'd carry on the torch and talk today about why I think many of us prefer to stay in a specific realm when it comes to the stories we read and write.

For the most part, we all live in a structure with four walls and a floor and a roof. We sleep in a bed. We eat three meals a day. We do something every day to earn money. Our lives are pretty straightforward (with a ton of complication beneath, of course), and I think most of the reading population out there prefers straightforward fiction. We like our plots linear, our characters flawed and working toward fixing those flaws, our prose structured in the traditional manor with paragraphs and forward-moving thoughts. Sideways? Distracting? Choppy? No, thanks, right? We like to see things connecting. We like to see layers. And most of all, we like a satisfying ending.

As I was growing up, I stuck with straightforward fiction. I didn't know any different. Then I went to college and jumped into a pool completely foreign to me. It was disorienting, to say the least. I had never read authors like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce who threw a lot of things I was used to out the window. I was uncomfortable reading sentences which followed no set structure, but ran and on, going nowhere if I didn't pay close enough attention. Gertrude Stein made me want to gnaw my way through a piece of wood. I didn't understand a lot of what I read for a long time. Students surrounding me kept acting like this deeply literary fiction was something truly special and amazing, and I seriously didn't get it.

Why read something that makes no sense?

Then I discovered poetry and a whole new world opened up to me. I learned how to look past the surface layer of confusion, and slowly, I grew used to the idea of loving something different and crazy. My brain evolved, I guess. I saw the treasures inside classical fiction - if I was willing to work for them.

That's the thing. I think most of us prefer fiction as an escape. Most of us want to pick up a book and be entertained in the most traditional manner. Tell me a story. Let my mind turn off a bit while I absorb it. Then at the end, make me smile. I'll admit I read a lot of fiction like this because I enjoy it. Even most of the classic literary fiction on my shelves is straightforward. I don't have a lot of the disorienting stuff, but I love what I do have. I'd like to discover more, and as Scott and Davin have talked about disorienting fiction this week, I can add Nadine Gordimer and Alice Munro to my list.

Once I had read enough disorienting fiction, I noticed that it began slipping into my own short fiction. I wanted to experiment and see where that took me. Some of these pieces have become favorites of mine. A few of them are in my short story collection, True Colors. Some readers have already told me they didn't like those stories. I expected that, but I'm not going to let it stop me from doing more and more original things in my fiction. Things that fall right into that disorienting category, because I think when we really get into a piece of fiction that makes us feel like we're in some sort of strange land where we're not entirely comfortable, we're allowed to let our thoughts and experience go to places they wouldn't have gone before. For instance, Woolf inspires me on a level no other author can even touch. It makes me sad that a lot of readers won't even crack open one of her books. She is, however, one of the most disorienting authors I've read. Some authors who do disorienting things in their fiction are still very accessible. I'm thinking Alice Munro is one of those authors.

So, tell me, why do you love straightforward fiction? Have you tried to delve into any disorienting fiction? If so, who?

Alice Munro Disorients Me

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Happy Monday and Happy New Year, everyone! (2012...2012...2012--I have to practice typing that.) I've spent much of the last week trying to get my dog used to his new home. He gets a 45 minute walk/run every morning, which is really getting me into shape!

I've also been reading some Alice Munro stories--and I'm finally figuring out some of her techniques!

One thing Munro does often is leave the reader disoriented for several paragraphs here and there throughout the story. She often jumps back and forth in time and leaves out information so that we don't know exactly what happened. It can be very unclear.

To give you an example, here are some descriptions of different sections of her beautiful short story "Floating Bridge" from her collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Slight spoiler alert.

The story begins by giving the reader a brief description of a marriage relationship using the pronouns "she" and "he." We don't get the main character's name until the third paragraph.

In the second section, we are with the main character in an oncologist's office, where the doctor says something cryptic and doesn't let us know if the diagnosis is good or bad.

In the third section, we follow the main character out of "the air-conditioned building," where she's picked up by her husband, who is talking about some young woman. We don't really get a sense of who this girl is until the fifth paragraph of that section.

End spoiler alert.

Philosophically, I would have assumed that I would be annoyed by this technique. I usually don't like it when the author leaves these things--especially the oncologist's diagnosis--vague. It feels too manipulative to me.

But somehow I like it when Munro does it. I actually take delight in using what little clues she provides to make a best guess at what's happening. And, as I reach the end of her stories, I like reflecting on how the different pieces come together.

I think, and of course this is just a guess, that the reason Munro does it is to pull the reader deeper into the story. To understand any of it, one has to be hyper-aware of all the details and constantly work to piece them all together. We become detectives thrown into new situations again and again and again.

At the same time, there's a certain casualness to it. The non-linear timeline makes her stories feel whimsical. Munro--for me--hits that perfect tone of being a brilliant writer without having a big ego.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who entered our Variations on a Theme contest! I finished my own story on Dec. 31 in the afternoon, so now I'm ready to read all the entries. I'm excited!

P.P.S. The fantastic Donna Hole interviewed me here today, and Fictionaut interviewed me here. And, hey, get my book!

Friday Filler! Plans for 2012!

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Michelle and I have sort of been talking about our to-be-read lists, which aren't lists so much as stacks of books (physical books and ebooks) we have at home. I was thinking about what books I want to make sure I read in 2012, and what I'd read if I had the chance because I never am able to read as many books as I want. Anyway, here's my current list of books I really want to read in 2012, in no order at all:

The Narrative of Arthur Gorden Pym by Edgar Allen Poe
The Maias by Jose Maria del Eca de Queros
The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner
Complete Stories by Anton Chekhov (volumes 5-13)
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Visit From The Goon Squad by Janet Egan

Plus: More Henry James! More Nabokov! More Hemingway! Shirley Jackson! Nate Hawthorne! Lovecraft! Ovid! Balzac! Aeschylus! New books by new authors I haven't even heard of yet!

Maybe I'll add some science fiction to that list. It's been a long time and I am curious about China Meiville lately. I figure I'll read a lot more books than I have listed, but I would like to make sure I read those above.

And you? Anything you hope to read? Anything coming out soon that you're chomping at the bit to have?

Also, this post wasn't supposed to go up until tomorrow, but whatevers, bloggerdotcom. Whatevers. Anyway, Happy New Years in case I don't speak to you all weekend, Mighty Writers!

The final days to enter

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:22:00 +0000

I hope everyone is enjoying the final days of the year. Don't forget there's still time to enter our Variations on a Theme contest. I've been spending the last few days working on my editor's contribution to the anthology, and I'm pretty happy with how things are progressing so far. I hope you are too! I'm looking forward to being impressed by everyone's entries!

Friday Filler! Happy Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:28:00 +0000

I know that not everyone worships Santa* but it don't confront me none** when someone wishes me a Happy Hanukkah or a Joyous Kwanzaa or Merry Solstice or when I read about 19th-century St. Petersburg residents crying out "Christ is Risen!" and kissing each other on Easter. So Happy Christmas, is what I'm saying.

* Yes, that's a BTVS reference.
** Yes, that's a John Lee Hooker reference.

Why I Write These Days

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:38:00 +0000

In November, my literary agent and I parted company. She was the second agent I've worked with since 2009. Two of my novels have gone out on submission and neither of them managed to find a home. Granted, it's a tough market for literary fiction and God only knows what editors are buying these days. But I now find myself without an agent and without a book on submission. I have a new manuscript for a philosophical detective story that I'm querying with agents, but I query in a pokey, half-interested sort of way. I wrote that book mostly to amuse Mighty Reader and a few close friends. I think it's a good book, but I'm not really a mystery writer so I'm hesitant to really push forward in an attempt to get it published. What if a publisher wants more detective novels from me? I'm not writing detective novels now, and I didn't write detective novels before that one.

It used to be that I'd read publishing industry blogs voraciously. Every Monday I'd check Publishers Weekly to see who had a shiny new book deal. I could celebrate friends or people I vaguely know via the interweb, or also roll around in bitter troughs of envy if it was that sort of day. The last time I looked at Publishers Weekly I had the feeling that I was peeking into a madhouse, that the frenzy and stress of the industry was totally unnecessary and not something I want in my life, at least right now. "What the fuck?" is actually what I said.

My first real novel, which was the second novel I ever wrote, the novel that got me interest from the first agent, ended up being rewritten about ten times, once completely from scratch, in order to fit into that first agent's idea of a salable manuscript. I think the final version of the book is pretty good, but I spent years on revisions that had, in the end, not much to do with my original conception of the book. When I told that agent about my plans for my next novel, his opinion was that it wasn't marketable at all and I should only write it if I had to get it out of my system; I shouldn't count on anyone buying it. I wrote it anyway. It's a good book, a beautiful book, a great tragic story but possibly too dark for the current marketplace because my second agent couldn't find a home for it. I'm submitting it on my own now to a couple of very small publishers, just to see what will happen, but I really have little hope of it colliding with an editor who will fall in love with it enough to convince her boss to publish it. And I've got the philosophical detective story as well, but I don't quite know what to do with that.

But the thing is, I realize as I start making plans for a wider range of increasingly strange future projects, I am no longer writing with any eye to what might be publishable. I'm back to the mindset I had when I was writing the first draft of my first real novel. I'm in no hurry and for the first time I find myself working on more than one project at a time. I've got the novel I'm writing now (Go Home, Miss America), I'm planning the next novel (Nowhere But North), I'm working on a story for the "Variations on a Theme" anthology (and oh, what larks it's being and it's nothing like anything I've written before), and yesterday I started what might be a novella-length piece based roughly on Moby-Dick. So I'm having a lot of fun writing, and I no longer think about agents or publishing, and I think I'm doing the best work I've ever done. I think I'm writing more bravely than ever. Here, for example, is the opening paragraph of the Moby-Dick piece I might write:

Damn the whale, the whale, the devil white whale. Whale hail hale hole whole hell. Damn him and his accursed jaws, his hated maw, his despised gullet down which he swallowed mine leg and me, your humble servant, very near after. Damn him, damn him to hell, consign him to the deeps never to sound nor surface nor swim nor blow again. Nothing lives in the whale, nay, nothing at all. He is a bleached sack of emptiness, a pale pit of despair, a white wurm in the surf devouring all that is good in thine holy eyes, lord. Make me thine instrument and I shall sink him forever, keeping neither bone nor flesh nor baleen nor oil nor ambergris for mine own profit, the beast's death to thine glory only, oh lord. Make me thine instrument of divine retribution, a cleansing hand, a burning brand, a scourge, a fire, a plague upon the pharoah of the fishes, I shall lead thy people unto the promised land, oh lord. Make me thine holy instrument. Damn the whale.

That's fun stuff. And that's really the point now. I know a lot of you are writing books and you're keeping in mind all the things you read on agent blogs, and all the things you've read in Donald Maass's books, and all the things you hear at conferences and conventions. That's all fine, and good luck. But I realize that three years ago I figured that because I can write pretty well, it was inevitable that I'd be published if an agent got my books in front of editors. Now I've had two books in front of editors and I don't have a book deal, and while I must admit that it was devastating for a while and I was miserable when my last agent took me off her client list, I also have to say that the idea that now I'm just writing to write, for the discovery of finding the piece out, for the joy of language, for the amusement of Mighty Reader and me and for no other reason, I feel a freedom I haven't felt in years. I feel very hopeful about the whole thing now, with faith that I'll really do some interesting things with my fiction. I have no idea if this feeling will go away when I finish the new novel and start querying agents who rep literary fiction. I am hoping that my lack of awe for the publishing industry will be a permanent thing. We'll see.

I don't have to whine anymore

noreply@blogger.com (Domey Malasarn) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:09:00 +0000

I asked Michelle and Scott if I could reserve today for a blog post. I was hoping the timing would work out, because I wanted to make a little announcement.

And...the timing worked out.

My humble home has a new tenant.

His name is Peanut.

Peanut seems to be a Jack Russell / Labrador mix. He's about one year old, and I've been watching him in the shelter for over 4 weeks. Now he's home with me. He has to wear a cone because the shelter fixed him before releasing him. The only other thing I know about him so far is that he can jump over my couch, and he seems to prefer that to simply running around the couch. And I don't think he can read, but I'm working on that.

Happy Monday! Happy Celebrating!

noreply@blogger.com (Michelle Davidson Argyle) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:50:00 +0000

You know, one of the best things about the holidays (whether you celebrate them or not) is the feeling that something is different all around us. People's attitudes shift. I think the best thing about that is the mood to celebrate something, whether that be the change in season, a specific holiday and its meaning, giving a gift to someone, etc. And one of the best things about celebrating is that it's HAPPY!

I've been thinking a lot lately about a term Davin always uses, and that's to "celebrate other writing." This is exactly what we try to do here on the Literary Lab with our anthologies we publish each year. They are all a chance for us to celebrate other writing. We love writing, and we love those who want to celebrate it with us. We hope we get enough entries this year to make our anthologies worth doing in future years, and so I ask myself why I like them so much. Why do I want to to celebrate writing? The answer is simple, and it's because I adore the creative process. Even when I read a piece of fiction that I feel is mediocre (and oftentimes, it's my own stuff, hah!), published or not, I still want to celebrate the fact that it was created. I may not like certain types of writing. I might think something is not as good as it could be, but it doesn't matter. The base emotion I always want when it comes to reading is appreciation for what is before me.

So I urge everyone this season to gather within yourself a celebratory attitude for writing in general. You don't have to hate certain fiction, and if you read something that doesn't agree with you, remember in your feedback (if you give any, and especially if it's public), that respect for the medium should always be the root of your feedback. I think when that happens, it's easier to celebrate writing, even if some of it isn't our cup of tea. In fact, this past year as I've taken on this more celebratory attitude, thanks to Davin, I've learned to like more kinds of fiction than I used to. It has expanded my mind and my writing, as well.

So, happy celebrating! And get to writing. We want to see an entry from you so we can celebrate what you've done!

Friday! Filler! An Excerpt!

noreply@blogger.com (scott g.f.bailey) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Is everyone working on their story for our contest? I am! To prove it, I offer the following snippet, which will give you a feel for the prose style, but not much else. Which is fine, I think. Anyway, all the usual caveats about this being a rough draft:

The air at M-- was soothing, clean and soft like washed linen. Antosha imagined the pure, clear atmosphere circulating through his chest, bathing his bronchial passages. He could smell the white blossoms of the chestnut trees along the stream over to his left. He could almost taste the powdery purple lilac scent and the tang of graygreen catkins that swayed beneath the twisting black limbs of an old willow at the crest of the hill behind him. Antosha visualized these perfect fragrances as medicinal compounds, cleaning any imperfections from his lungs. A mile or so ahead of him, Antosha knew, was a field of knee-high grass mixed with chamomile, the ubiquitous chamomile that grows everywhere in Russia. If he kept on in the same direction he'd push through a wall of silver birches and there he'd see an acre of dark yellow cones above thin white petals, like ten thousand boiled egg yolks perched atop porcelain saucers, trembling in the breeze. Chamomile had been used in folk remedies for centuries. Doctor Chekhonte often prescribed tea with chamomile to his own patients, in cases of insomnia or nervous blood.

I'm having fun with this story, and I think it will be something worth reading when I'm done. Even if it's not a great story, I got to use the word "catkins," which you have to agree is a cool word.