writing

Impoverishment

Blog, meta, writing

I’ve applied for a few Stegner Fellowships in my time, and inevitably found myself looking at the biographies for the current Stegner Fellows. Supposedly the fellowship takes people from all walks of life, with different educational backgrounds. The website for the Stegner Fellowship states that a degree is not a prerequisite for the program. And yet, fellow after fellow had matriculated in an MFA program, and published in all the “right” prestigious literary magazines, and was neither terrifically young, nor that old — probably most in their thirties. Most were white or white-passing. I would also bet that the vast majority were straight and cisgender, and hadn’t dealt with PTSD or mental illness.

I wish it wasn’t so, but most creative writing graduate programs suffer from the same lack of diversity the Stegner Fellowship does. It’s no wonder the fellowship is populated with the same people.

This is a problem which has been commented on a great deal, so I won’t bore you with the standard “but we must have more diversity and it begins with changing our gatekeeping practices” shtick. We know that. Of greater concern to me (and to the literary community of the U.S.) is the impoverishment of literature under these conditions.

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The Pleasures of Discipline

Blog, meta, writing

In my time as a writer, one persistent myth I’ve noticed, which clings to even seasoned writers, is that one should wait for inspiration. One doesn’t need to force words out with something as tedious and dull as discipline. Just let the words come naturally, as if by magic which came from rainbows farted out of a unicorn’s asshole.

Just like rainbows farted out of a unicorn’s asshole, the idea that most writers can get anywhere without discipline is false.

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Wolf and I

Blog, micropost, novella: the weight, writing

I was tagged on Facebook to list five things about my work in progress. I am on vacation from my novella and working instead on rewriting a short story. So here goes with facts about the short story:

1. The protagonist is a feral child (though, he’s not really a child), literally raised by wolves.
2. I have mentally cast Oscar Isaac in the role of the secondary protagonist, who develops a relationship with the protagonist. Isaac would be perfect for the role, you can’t convince me otherwise.
3. I think of “Wolves” by Selena Gomez as the current theme song for the project.
4. The secondary protagonist plays folk music on a guitar as a hobby. He loves Cat Stevens especially.
5. My protagonist likes to play with tin cans. They are shiny.

Mood

Blog, meta, novella: the weight, writing

The project I’ve spent the last six months on, The Weight of the Impossible, deals with a fifteen year old protagonist, Zach, who is a junior level competitive figure skater. As all teens do, he has a very particular lexicon. I found a graphic (on Twitter, I believe) which lists Generation Z terminology and jokingly posted it to my Facebook, saying: “Lo, the language of my protagonist. Though he says ‘fuck’ a lot more.” I decided to go through that graphic and write the Zach version. For the lolz, as Millennials might say.

zach lingo

 

alone with the stars in the sky

Blog, real life, writing

While I have been neglectful of updating my site or submitting my fiction to magazines, it’s been a long damn year:

  • I broke my ankle in three places last June, in an attempt to learn how to ice skate. I was still recovering well into December of last year.
  • I totaled my car in a moment of carelessness. (That’s what you get for becoming too wrapped up in an audio book, kids.)
  • I fell into a deep depression last December, and it lasted nearly six months. During this time, I wrote very little.
  • I broke my wrist in the spring.
  • Relationship woes in the summer, which I will not detail except to say there were woes.

So it’s been one hell of a year. I am feeling better, stronger, and more positive in my outlook. But the result of all of the above meant I didn’t submit to short story markets, and I didn’t do much in terms of writing except for the second half of the year. Hence the radio silence over here.

I will write more about what I’ve been working on. But later. I have to go make dinner. 🙂

Hello, I love you

Blog, excerpt, writing

Lately, I’ve become dissatisfied with sex scenes in fiction. More specifically, the types featured in romance novels and fanfiction. I have to say there is nothing wrong with the sex scenes in these stories. They have a purpose and fulfill that particular purpose. I have just found the sex scenes in some of these stories to be so graphic and over the top they turned me off. One scene in particular was so graphic that it was gross to me.

I write a lot of sex scenes myself. One of my novellas is very explicit because it details a man’s particular sexual journey. I write sex scenes because it is very much a part of the characters and the story. But along the way, I’ve found myself being overly graphic. I think it’s easy to fall into that trap. I’m going to work on improving my approach to sex scenes and be more impressionistic, rather than overly realist and graphic and writing in every last detail.

To that end, I rewrote a sex scene in my current novella to be a little less graphic. In the process, I found myself writing more about the characters, which, I think, lends a nice human touch which further keeps this from being gross or overly graphic.

I have a long way to go to be where I want to be with this particular aspect of my writing, but it’s a start.

I’ve decided to share the drafts of both scenes so you can compare and contrast the original and the rewritten scene. Below the cut, you can find both of those.

Some context: this story is about a May-December romance. Ren is nineteen and Paul is forty-two. In this segment, Ren has told Paul he loves him. Paul is very ambivalent about this. He doesn’t think Ren is old enough/mature enough to really understand what that means.

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