Tag Archives: writing

The Awful Things List

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I am starting a list of awful things. This will be a list of things that disturb me, terrify me and unsettle my soul. I’m talking about gut fear. I’m talking about existential dread.

Relax. I’m not going to let you actually read this list. This is the kind of list archvillians use to neutralize their adversaries, rendering them useless to the world. This list is my kryptonite, my darkest closet, my worst bad dreams.

You won’t get to see the list itself. I hope you get to see what comes from it.

Fear is rich mulch for creative work. Fear and dread, when dealt with honestly, are the loam from which great stories arise.

I am keeping this list as an act of faith. I will keep this list as a way to make these fears manifest. It is a kind of conjuration. And then, I will write my way through the center of these fears. I will follow the stories through the center of my gut. I will press myself all the way to the back of the closet and beyond into the darkness that reaches out with no arms.

You will know when I have written one of these stories. It will tumble inside you like a upended chair. It will rise in your gut like an unstiffled scream. It will capture you where you stand and look at you with eyes very much like your own. This kind of story will recognize you and you will recognize it. And you will read but the words will be like glass. And the pages will have disappeared. And I will be standing inside your head. And you will be standing inside mine. And we will be holding each other bravely, giving each other courage and honoring the magic that comes when brutal honesty meets fear.

Flash Fiction: Parcel

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I like to play around with words sometimes. Just put on a song and improvise a quick story to capture the sense of the music. It is a lot of fun to write this way. I can’t promise what it will be like to read. It is what it is.

Tonight’s song: Ear Parcel by Lamb.

******

Prompt: Ear Parcel by Lamb

He turned the paper over in his hands, his mind grasping for the unknowable numbers on the lost fragment. He had found the paper under the front seat of his girlfriend’s car. Torn, the paper only showed four numerals written in pencil. Four numbers. Three more numbers on the missing piece made it a phone number. Of course, nine made it an ISBN. One made it a zip code.

He wanted a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked in months but right now he wanted to smoke an entire pack. He wanted to light up and feel each disappear into the hot, bright light of his anger.

He wanted to burn the note. If it was a note. Maybe it was just a random scribble. Maybe it meant nothing. He should throw it away. Or put it back under the front seat of her car where he found it. Neither option worked for him.

So he stood outside her car, waiting. Any minute now she would walk out the front door of the office building with a dozen other people. She would see him waiting for her. She would smile. Then she would recognize that impatient, hurt look on his face. She would see the piece of paper in his hand and her smile would slip. In that moment, he would know everything. If he watched her carefully, in that one unguarded moment, he would know.

People were leaving the office building now. Tired faced men and women chatting as they fanned out into the parking lot to gather their cars and drive off to rejoin the parts of their lives they leave waiting for them while they are working.

And that was the worst part of it all, for him. There were parts of her life which he knew nothing about. There were entire stretches of her day which did not include him. There wasn’t even a boyfriend-shaped hole in that space for her. When she was working, he had might as well not even exist. When he tried to call, she was always in a meeting. When he sent a text, the message went unanswered or, worse, the curt reply: can’t talk now.

People were leaving the building. Some of them were smiling. Some were serious and sad-faced. They all knew his girlfriend, all of them. Knew her in a way he could never know her. She was a colleague. A coworker. A manager.

The way these people knew her. The lightness with which they carried that knowledge with them. The smug air they had.

A dark haired man in a nice suit smiled as he went past. Nodded. “Nice day,” he said in a way that made it impossible to tell if he meant it as an observation or an invocation. Either way, the man broke eye contact quickly and shuffled off to his car.

Guilty. That man had looked guilty. The smile was covering his guilt but the boyfriend could see through it. Suddenly, the boyfriend knew with absolute surety that the man had put his hands all over his girlfriend, had rubbed and smoothed and fondled her. Maybe only just moments ago. Maybe she was still inside, smoothing her dress, straightening her jacket, tucking in her blouse.

Maybe, if he could grab the man’s phone and see the last four numbers he would find that they matched the four numbers in his hand. That would seal it. He would know and she would be caught. There would be no escape. There would be no denial.

Except the man was already gone, leaving the parking lot in his sporty gray BMW. The boyfriend felt angry to be standing beside his girlfriend’s navy blue Camry. This was not the life she wanted. This was not the car she wanted to be driving. He was not the man she wanted to be taking home.

He crumpled the paper and held it in his fist. Somedays it was hard not to want to hit something. Everything was so unfair.

He opened his hand, smoothed the note out on his leg. She needed to see the note. He needed her to see the note in his hand.

The doors opened. There she was, leaving alone, smiling. Content with herself for a day’s work well done. Then she saw him and smiled wider. She actually skipped a step or two as she came to meet him. And then she was standing before him, the note unseen. She kissed his cheek.

“Thanks for picking me up,” she said, still smiling and went to the other side of the car.

“Sure,” the boyfriend said, unsure how this was supposed to go next.

“What’s for dinner?” she asked as he opened his door. “I was hoping for Thai carryout. There’s a new place we need to try. I’ve got the number written somewhere in this car.”

All at once, the air in the car was lighter. He felt his fists relaxed. He remembered the face of each person who had left the building and then, one by one, forgot them. They were strangers. They were inconsequential.

“Sure. Thai carryout sounds great.”

Writing, Running, Meditation and the Inescapability of Time

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Being on vacation this week with no specific plans or agenda has given me the chance to reconnect with three activities that always help rebuild my sanity and restore my soul: running, writing and meditation. All three are habitual acts which, when practice, help me crawl out of my head and back into my body. While running this afternoon I was struck by the common thread between them. The practice of each puts me into a direct, inescapable experience of time.

When running, there are no short cuts. You set a goal (either time or distance), you start running and, whether you reach the goal or shop short, the entire time you are running there is nothing else happening. There are no distractions. There is no escape from the fact of what you are doing. When you are running, your body is doing only that. Your mind may be thinking thoughts. You may not be thinking about running but some part of your mind is always aware that you are running. There is an autonomy that takes over the body when you are running. Running does not require careful thought or specific planning beyond the simple, consistent mantra to keep going. The thing I like about running is that direct contact with time. Twenty minutes is not an abstract thing. When running, you feel every part of twenty minutes. There is a focus that comes from no where else. When running, you are doing those twenty minutes and those twenty minutes are doing you.

Writing is the same way. The only way to get words on a screen is to put them there. You cannot simply wait for them to appear. You have to put them there. There is always a first word. Then a second. Then a third. Usually, the words quickly group themselves into sentences. When you are writing well, you aren’t concious of reaching for specific words. You build the page by sentences – one after one, like laying bricks side by side on a wall. In writing, there is no escape. You can”t cheat. You have to hold the seat and do the time and stack the sentences together until they make something that did not exist before. Again, like running, writing requires its own focus. You cannot write while thinking of anything else. You can’t write and do the dishes. You can’t write and pay the bills. When you are writing there is an order and a logic to your life. You are writing and you are only writing and when you are finished writing you are doing something else.

Running puts me into the mindset for writing. When running, I always get the next idea or the next sentence or some other clear, specific gift to help the words get on the screen.

Mediation is much harder. If you really want to be placed in direct experience of time, you should sit on a cushion and do nothing but sit. You realize quickly that the mind is a wild creature, an untamed monkey, constantly trying to escape the present moment and rush forward to some unseen moment that does not yet exist. It is a painful thing. It is unpleasant and frightening. It feels maddening and you are always a bit relieved when it is over. And yet, when you  practice meditation and cultivate the habit of sitting with no gaining idea, you find you are able to settle down into the moment. In those few seconds, your body and mind are the same. They share the same purpose. They are relaxed and calm. They belong with you, and you belong with them. This is called mindfullness.

And then moment is gone and your mind is rushing ahead again, careening away from your seat with manic speed and abandon. Why is your mind so desperate to escape? What is it that has your mind so frightened? And even as your mind rushes away and you feel the loss of those few perfect moments, you recognize the distinction between how it felt when you were sitting and mindful and when you are were sitting and grasping, desperate for the ending bell to ring. And that recognition, while tinged with frustration and loss, is also a realization that we are delusional most of our waking lives. That we live and breathe and move inside of time but constantly struggle to place ourselves outside of time. We are always wasting these few fragile moments that belong with us to reach for things that do not yet exist. We are psychotic and time-sick and vow never to sit in meditation again because the experience is so disturbing and unsettling. But then we stand and are grateful because we have once again learned to see how moments connect – how the present becomes the past and also becomes the future. And how neither the past nor future have ever really existed. Only the present. Only this place. Only the place where I am now and the place where you are and so on.

I am writing about three kinds of transcendence. Often difficult. Often uncomfortable, yet somehow, each brings me back into myself. I have a tendency to climb up into my head and stay there like a cat caught in a tree. It is good to know I can always find my way down if I am willing to be uncomfortable and feel the passing of time. The experience of discomfort is always worth it. It always places me safely back on solid ground.

How Twitter Connects Writers with Readers

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Two months ago, I posted a review of Barbara Abercrombie’s Year of Writing Dangerously. It is the kind of thing readers do spontaneously when they enjoy a book. They want to share that book. Readers who blog share by writing reviews.

Yesterday, the author of that book, Barbara Abercrombie, tweeted a link to my review. It was kind of her because it gave my review new readers. It felt really good to have an author I enjoyed read and acknowledge my own work in some small way. It was a nice gesture.

Here’s the thing: her random share was helpful to both of us. I have felt stuck for weeks and got myself unstuck last night because I recalled the things that originally inspired me in her book, I felt a small sense of acknowledgment from someone further along the writing path and I reread my post with fresh eyes and liked what I saw. I wrote again last night, and it was fun.

The share was helpful to her because it connected her readers with a favorable, honest reader review of her work. Reviews in vetted publications still matter very much to writers. There is still no substitute for a positive review in NY Times, Kirkus, Library Journal or Publishers Weekly. Those publications help book buyers know what to buy and what to avoid. As a reader, I need something more than just a critical evaluation of a book’s content and technical execution. I want to know if readers like me connect with the book. If professional reviewers rave about a book, but no readers are blogging about it, I don’t feel as enthusiastic about picking it up.

Writers seeking their audience should consider the small, simple connections made possible by Twitter. Writing isn’t supposed to be one directional. Writing is supposed to be a conversation. Twitter is a tool that helps make that possible.

Flash Fiction: Let me Go Easy

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Prompt: Let Me Go Easy (Indigo Girls)

He was counting breaths again, watching the slow rise and fall of her withered chest, trying to focus every thought on the slow, steady movement of her breath and not the ragged wheeze that came with each rise and fall. Yesterday he had counted ten thousand before he had to look away. Today he made it to six thousand before pins and needles settled into his own chest and he realized he was holding his breath.

Emily was dying. She had been dying for years. “We are all dying,” she reminded him whenever he let himself get carried off with grief. She would smile her kind, gentle smile whenever she said it. And it was a true thing to say. Emily had always been brave and generous with truth. That bravery, that generosity was the reason Marcus counted breaths. He couldn’t allow himself to be without her.

It was all so precarious – the life left inside of her, the humor in her smile, the recognition shining in her eyes. Her life was a fragile thing. It would slip and fracture, Marcus knew, if he stepped away or let his vigil relax for even a moment.

Emily had been dying for years, slowly devoured by the blind, insatiable, humid mouths of cancer. They ate at her from the inside, slowly reshaping her lovely face, twisting her arms and legs and shoulders into dry, brittle sticks. Marcus kept the curtains drawn and covered her with heavy blankets to press against the constant chill in her blood. She was already ghost. If he raised the covers or creased the curtains, she would vanish completely, like a wisp of candle smoke.

“We are all dying,” she had told him and it was true enough. There was no argument to be had. No counterlogic he could apply to refute the cold meal of the situation.

“Yes. I know.” It was the only thing he could say. Much better to say nothing, just sit silently beside her, counting breaths, quietly hoping he could reach ten thousand today and then beyond. He owed her that much. He owed her much more than that. She deserved his patience, his vigilance, the respectful suspension of his own life.

Marcus had never been a religious person. It was a point of pride for him that, even in this most extreme moment of his life, he had not yet turned to a faith in God he did not genuinely feel. And yet, in these same moments, keeping Emily company, counting her breaths, Marcus understood the meaning of prayer.

Prayer in those moments was an impossible, implausible hope written as a sentence in a language no one had ever spoken then sealed in an envelope with adequate postage but no mailing address or recipient name.

He was almost to seven thousand when Emily spoke. “I’m tired,” she said. Her voice so faint, so small, Marcus felt he might have imagined it.

He had imagined many different conversations between them over the past few weeks. His mind had a way of filling the silence. It was a hard thing to counter. The mind wandered like a dog tied to leash. First this way, then that. Restless. Disobedient. Impatient but fully habituated to the confines of that tether.

That tether. The thing that held them together, that held her to him. That thing was love. That thing was attention.

Marcus noticed his mind wandering, chastised himself and brought his attention back to the reality of the moment. His heart hammering with panic. If he let this attention lapse, she might slip free of that tether and slide away.

6786.

6787.

Emily stirred. She spoke but her mouth hung open, empty as a cave. A few words tumbled out, shattered syllables.

6788.

6789.

She tried again, her eyes clenched with effort.

“Don’t,” he told her, pressing his hand to her forehead.

6790.

6791.

She drew a breath. Marcus felt all the air in the room drawn inside her in one enormous breath. They sat together suspended in the airless room.

“Let me go,” she said, releasing the air back into the room. Her eyes were open, alert and watching him closely.

6792.

6793.

6794.

6795.

“I can’t,” he told her finally. “I don’t know how.”

6796.

6797.

Her eyes shone with that hard, familiar gleam. “Just stop,” she told him. “Stop counting.”

6798.

6799.

“I can’t,” he admitted. “I don’t know how.”

She smiled. It was a crippled version of her best smile, that sweet, indulgent, almost mocking smile that had been the greatest gift in his life.

“You can. You have to.”

6800.

6801.

6802.

“I can’t and I won’t.”

6803.

6804.

6805.

“Please,” she asked again.

6806.

6807.

6808.

6809.

“I can’t,” Marcus said again at last. “I don’t want to.”

6810.

6811.

6812.

Emily smiled. It was a faint, shallow smile that barely seemed to touch her face. And then she relaxed back into the bed, sinking into the sheets and shadows.

6813.

6814.

She was in the room with him. They were in the room together.

And then, she was the room itself and Marcus felt the smallness of himself sitting at the center of her, bathed in the warm breath of her love, reaching out to him and around him and through him. It pierced him like a hundred arrows. Pressed him like a hand. Cradled him with a comforting, steady assurance.

6815.

6816.

And then she was gone and he was alone. And all the shadows grew darker as they seemed to gather around him. And in the darkness Marcus realized he could not keep himself from counting.

6817.

6818.

6819.

The numbers continued.

6820.

6821.

6822.

The numbers rolled from him. The numbers were all he had.

6823.

6824.

Marcus could not stop.

6825.

6826.

6827.

And then something opened up inside and the dread filled him.

6828.

6829.

6830.

The numbers came and came and came and he could not stop them from coming.

6831.

6832.

And Marcus suddenly knew with sick twist of horror that the numbers would never stop coming.

He had not been counting her breaths all those months. He had been counting his own.

And now the breaths stretched out before him, an endless litany stretching through the minutes, hours, days, months and years.

He would never stop counting. He did not know how.

Pimp This Poem: Spring Bloom

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Here’s a poem I wrote three or four years ago. I have been tinkering with it off and on ever since. The poem is about a moment years ago when I was taking out the trash and was surprised by the promiscuous beauty of my neighbor’s pear tree illuminated from behind by a street light. The light poured through the soft, white flowers. She seemed very much like an angel, alive and glorious, glowing from within with a pure but sensuous light.

I am explaining too much. I am thinking I may submit this to a local literary arts magazine. I am interested in comments, feedback, semi-rotten tomatoes.

In other words, please pimp this poem.

***

Spring Bloom

The girl next door stands ready at the gate.
Her long, lithe limbs linger. She beckons me
with burgeoning blooms, her open invitation hands.
She is bathed in streetlight – radiant, clean, gleaming
from the inside with a promise. No one is awake.
The night protects us, our anonymous secret.
I have an idea, I tell her.
I know you do, she says. She always knows
exactly what to say.

Term Papers Kill Readers

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I am a librarian at a community college in east Tennessee. This week is finals week. Today is Sunday. Right now, dozens (possibly hundreds) of students are pouring their twenty-first cup of coffee to recapture the energy of last night’s all-nighter. They are writing term papers, hopefully revising them. They are casting words onto a screen much like a gambler casts dice, hoping some of the words turn up lucky and reveal a pattern in an otherwise meaningless spray.

As teachers, this is not what we hope they are doing. We hope they are deeply engaged in the creative digestion of everything they have learned with us this term and are making a careful synthesis of something new, brilliant and insightful that comes directly from that secret, genius-place in their brains.

Unfortunately, that will not happen. We won’t read those papers because we don’t ask for those papers. What if we did? What would that assignment look like? Possibly something like Kurt Vonnegut’s end of term assignment.

How would we grade it? Don’t know. Don’t care. If I could allow a student to be passionate and then force them to share that passion with others, my semester would have been a complete success.

Brick Wall

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Sometimes the words hide behind a brick wall. You are standing at the wall, staring, trying to knock it over with your mind. You are pushing at the bricks with your thoughts, trying to break the mortar and send them tumbling backward. This is foolish. Thoughts cannot push down a wall.

Then you take a deep breath and you assail the wall with aspirations. You sit at the wall, pretending at patience. You are sitting in the gathering stew of expectation, letting the feeling of wanting to write swell until it is a physical thing that might swallow you and the space you are sitting in and the wall itself. As if the wall itself might be digested in your patient, honest intention. The words stack up. The wall does not move.

And then you are cursing the wall, hurtling insults, outlandish, brutal and impolite. You batter the wall with words of your own, but these are not the helpful kind of words. These words diminish you and make the wall loom larger.  You bash yourself against the brick with impatience, spreading bruises and injury. You are hurting now, self-inflicted, but your pain is no kind of key that can pass through this wall.

Be still. Gather your wits. Consider the situation. There are words. There is a wall. The words are piled up like treasure against the other side of the wall. And there is you, standing on the wordless side, thinking, wishing, cursing and pressing. It is not working.

You cannot push over a wall with your mind. You can’t break mortar with aspiration. You may curse, cajole and plead with the wall, but the wall is not moved.

Try something different. Grab a hammer. Pick up the pin. Write.

Why I Write

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I have been in a bit of a fallow period word-wise lately. I tell myself it is because work is so busy and my head is full of the ten thousand things that need to be done. Life is hectic, but I can’t lay my unplanned hiatus at the feet of my day job.

Energy can also be a problem. Some days after being a librarian and a dad and a husband, my battery wanes and I crash at the end of the day. My family and my work are important to me. The energy is properly placed but energy is a finite resource and easily depleted. Also true, but not the core issue.

I had the chance to spend some time with my friend Daryl yesterday. He and I talked about our writing. He is having some good success with two self-published novels and a recently published short story. His work is getting finished and into the world.

My work is not getting finished. We talked about why. He asked why I write. Is it the story, the characters or the ideas that draw you?

“It’s the language”, I said immediately, without giving any thought. “It is the words.”

One day later, I realize that isn’t the truth. It isn’t the words exactly, or, at least, it isn’t only the words.

I write for the surprise of the words. I write to understand what I know and believe. I am a person who thinks out loud. I don’t always understand my own thoughts unless I can hear them out loud. Writing is that way. Writing carries thoughts, ideas and impressions out of my head and onto a screen so I can see clearly and compare how the idea fits.

I also write for the surprise of story. There are people living their own lives, having their own situations, that rise up from me when I sit at the keys. These people rise and walk quite independent from me, yet they are from me and they are me. It is strange and exhilarating to discover fully formed lives, situations and ideas that do not appear to be me but somehow become more me than my own breath.

And as I meet these people, I am meeting myself. Which brings me to the main answer to the question. Why do I write? I write to meet myself. This kind of writing gets messy. This kind of writing becomes contradictory. I write to embrace the extraordinarily generous gift Walt Whitman gave to us in saying, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then. I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”

This, then, is the best way I can answer my own question. Why do I write? I write to make visible the contradiction inside myself. I write to celebrate that contradiction. I write because I am large. I write because I contain multitudes.

Writing is Dangerous

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A few days ago I recommended Barbara Abercrombie’s Year of Writing Dangerously as a source of inspiration for aspiring and/or struggle writers. Just realized I never got to the “writing is dangerous” part.

Writing can be exhilarating, challenging, and terrifying but dangerous? Yes.

Writing is dangerous work because it always requires us to work with the pleasantness and unpleasantness of our lives. When we write memoir, we are writing about our lives. When we write non-fiction, we are writing about our lives. When we write fiction, we are writing about our lives.

Writing is dangerous work because it is done in isolation. Writing always requires a kind of seclusion. Willful seclusion makes us weird. This is not normal behavior.

Writing is dangerous because we borrow stories from the lives of people who love and trust us. Family and friends be warned. Story always comes first. Your names may be changed but your stories belong to us.

Writing is dangerous because it makes us neurotic and insecure. Okay, technically we start out neurotic and the writing just makes those insecurities manifest. Different paths, same result.

Writing is dangerous because it requires time and concentration. There is no shortcut. You cannot skip through or cheat. You have to spend the time in the seat or you are not writing. There is no escape.

Writing is dangerous because it introduces us to ourselves. We think we know who we are, what we believe. Then we write and realize we are liars and hypocrites.

Actually, looking back, I’m not sure how much of this is Abercrombie and how much is my projection onto Abercrombie. Your results may vary.

What do you think? Is writing dangerous? If so, how?