writing

Redecorating and National Floating Scribble Month (NaFloScribMo)

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The grades are in, my hair and nails are freshly done, the storms are on haitus, I scribbled at the coffee shop with my friend Steph, and a delightful colleague gave me a gloriously old typewriter. All is right with the world.

I’ve done a little blog redecorating as well, and the end result is that I’m just a little less HTML-stupid than I was before. I found scads of free XML blog templates out there and have had the best time learning how to tweak them. For those of you using Blogger, there are some great sites out there with lots of layout choices. Bloggerbuster, BlogU, Suckmylolly (it’s not a porn site, I promise), and Blogcrowds. there are literally hundreds more, but these are enough fun for now. None of this is too hard, really. Keep in mind that I’m a gal who’d rather use a manual typewriter than a computer, so this stuff had to be easy. Most of those sites tell you how to do it anyway. It’s best if you create a playing-around blog that’s hidden just to goof off with the templates. Big fun and a fabulous time waster that – unlike Ebay – doesn’t cost a cent.

I have a great deal of writing to do and finally the time I need to do it. This is the time of year they should have NaNoWriMo instead of in November. November is truly the cruelest month, especially for academics and students and such. I’ve decided to have my own Scribble Month, beginning today. Who gives a damn that it’s not May 1st – my Scribble Month, my rules. It’ll be kind of like a Guys and Dolls floating crap-came, only legal. And without Brando, dammit. I’ll change it every year. This year it starts on May 9th, and ends on June 9th at midnight – NaFloScribMo. If you’d like to play along, here are the rules:

1. Write something every day that’s complete. A story, a poem, a chapter, a memory, an anonymous letter, a scene, a rant, an essay, a manifesto – form doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it’s complete. That way there’s an ahhhhhhh sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.

2. Forgive yourself for Shitty First Drafts, because that’s what these will all be. I plan to have a Rewrite Month sometime later, so save your OCD perfectionist tendencies for another time.

That’s it. Just two rules. If you want to join and find yourself at a loss, try my prompt site or hang on until Sunday for the restart of the No Tellin’ Weekly Scribble Challenge, which has not been forgotten – just on a finals-induced break. I’ll come up with a trendy blog badge for anyone who wants to participate in NaFloScribMo, and you can all slap it on your blogs and such.

I have to go scribble now.

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UPDATE! NaFloScribMo now has a nifty blog badge. Join in and display this one proudly!

M.I.A., or Who is that Woman with the Ink Stains on her Blouse?

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It’s 5:30 in the morning and I’ve already been up and grading since 3:00. I’ve been doing this for days, and I’ll probably be doing it tomorrow. Don’t feel sorry for me – I like the smell of ink in the morning, it smells like victory. Besides, in the dark early hours there is silence and good coffee.
I’ve completely blown off the blog for over a week now. The four or five of you who actually read this may not even care, but I do. I miss the writing. The laptop is shoved toward the back of the desk and turned off, for the most part, to keep me out of time-eating trouble. The typewriter is back in its case because it was the most anguishing and visible sign that I Have Other Work To Do. All distractions gone, and the papers get full attention.
And there are a great many papers.
I don’t hate grading. Once I get my reading groove on it’s absolutely fascinating to read all the hard work, the insights, the epiphanies. Sometimes the papers are badly written, but for the most part students actually care about the topics they’ve chosen and the arguments are fairly sound. I love this part of teaching even though it’s the loneliest dark-of-the-morning part of it all.
Finals are next week and I’ll be at this again. If I get lucky, there will be time this weekend to tell you about the amazing literary magazine my undergraduate students just published and the awards they’ve earned. Stunning work.
There. I’ve given you the only fifteen minutes I’ll have for a bit. Back to the essays.

So much for the literary gatekeepers…

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Here’s how it used to work:

1. Struggling writer rakes up astronomical school loans to achieve BA, MFA, attend workshops, etc.

2. Struggling writer sends hundreds of submissions out to small presses and waits to hear back from them. For six months to a year. No simultaneous submissions.

3. After a couple of handfulls of the S.W.’s pieces are published for free in literary magazines, the writer goes shopping (begging) for an agent.

4. Agent finds a few paying gigs for the S.W., while the writer keeps writing. At this point, the S.W. may actually be able to quit one of his three full-time jobs.

5. More publishing, more money, time to upgrade to an agent with better connections (repeat begging from step 3).

6. The years fly past, and the S.W. is graying at the temples. Agent finally has a publisher who “shows interest” in the book.

7. Publisher picks up the book, offers advance, S.W. finally pays off school loans.

8. Struggling writer is now on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and such, where he makes the rounds signing books and hopes for university speaking gigs.

Here’s how it works now:

Weekly No Tellin’ Scribble Challenge, and last week’s winner

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Let me tell you a little story. A long time ago when my father was coaching track at Hendrix College and I was just a wee thing, there was a summer track and field program called the Cinder Kids. The name came from the red-dog cinder dust used on the track, back before there were painted lanes and such.

As the coach’s kid, I had to participate. At five, hopscotch was my event, and they mysteriously didn’t include it. I was a terrible runner. Really, really terrible. Daddy didn’t let that stop him from entering me in every single event that day. I ran. I perspired. I lost. Over and over and over. My knobby legs ached and I was covered to the waist in a thin film of red-dog cinder dust.

Because the officials gave out swanky medals to all first, second, and third place finishers in every event, there were a lot of kids out there swaggering around with highly decorated t-shirts. Everyone had at least one medal, but not me.

Then I heard my name over the PA system. “Monda Strange, please report to the officials’ tent immediately.” I dragged my dusty, losing self to the tent and there was Daddy, smiling like a crazy man.

“Hun, you go on over to the long jump pit. They’re just about to start. Hurry on, now.” And he winked.

I did what I was told, but I sure didn’t want to. I slogged my five year-old, no-medal, red-dog dusty self to a long jump pit made for grown people and got in line to lose. Somewhere out in the middle of the field I heard Daddy’s ear-piercing whistle, the kind coaches can do without even using their fingers because they’re all good like that. I saw him from far away point at me, then hold up three fingers. He whistled again.

It took me a minute, but I realized I was standing in the long jump line behind two other people. I was the third one entered. Shiny medals for first, second, and third place, and there were only three of us.

Needless to say, I took the bronze that day.

I’m telling this long-winded story to illustrate the nature of competition as it relates to the First Ever No Tellin‘ Scribble Challenge. One entry, one winner. In all probability, Cruelanimal scared off the competition with his stunning poem. It’s difficult to stand in the shadow of such fine literature.

Way to clear a room, Cruelanimal, and congratulations! Don’t forget to pick up your award by right clicking on the picture, and copy/pasting it onto your own blog as proof of your creative superiority! Add it to your vita!

You’d think that such a slim turnout on the first No Tellin‘ Scribble Challenge would deter me from continuing. Hell no. I’m a hopeful kind of gal and this is Spring Break. So sharpen your pencils and find some scratch paper.

This week’s scribble challenge is inspired by a favorite site of mine, The Spam Haiku Archive. Go ahead, click on the link. The next time you look up, you’ll have lost three hours reading Spamku. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s 19,000 haiku about potted meat.

Writing a haiku is simple – one five-syllable line, one seven-syllable line, and another five syllable line. Three rhymeless lines. With a nod to Spamku, I challenge you all to write a haiku about Viagra. I’m serious.

Write a Viagraku.

This week’s winner will, of course, earn the right to sport the No Tellin‘ Scribble Challenge badge on their blog. So enter often and don’t be too disgusting. The challenge ends Friday night, and I’ll announce the winner on Saturday.

Tally ho, poets!

Valentine’s Gifts for Writers, or Olivettis are a Girl’s Best Friend

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It’s almost V-Day, so get your plastic out and start buying. Since I waste a little bit of time each and every day on Ebay, I thought I’d share a few Valentine-specific goodies, like this Olivetti Valentine typewriter, circa 1969. If you don’t plan on spending at least $250 (that’s the bid right now), there’s another one coming up in a few days. These things have fast become groovy collector’s items, and it’s obvious why. If you sit behind this typewriter very, very quietly, you can almost hear “spill the wine, dig that girl” coming right out from under the hood.

Since both Olivettis will probably go for more than most of us want to spend, you can always feed the typewriter fetish with this vintage Royal Quiet Deluxe. I realize that “quiet” means something different to laptop users, but these are nifty little machines. This one has a little over a day left and is a tad over $40 right now. Theres a pricier one coming up later, so if you want to prove your love a little more cheaply, now is the time. I love the paper holding “ears”- kind of like the antennae on that portable television Mom used to put on a TV tray. You remember, back before cable.

Every writer needs another journal. It’s the pure intoxication of a virgin page, and no matter how many we already have it never hurts to have just one more. I’m a Moleskine and Chemistry Notebook gal myself, but some of the leather journals are just too delicious to pass up. This Fiorentina journal is crafted, not made. I sigh at such beauty, and I’m perfectly convinced I’d write better in one. Especially with a fountain pen.

I know better than that. As entrancing as those beautiful and expensive fountain pens are, I just can’t stand to write with one. I know there are rabid collectors out there who’ll tell me I just haven’t bought the right pen. Save your strength. Nothing writes like a $1.97 Uniball Signo 207. Nothing.

If you really want to impress on Valentine’s Day, you buy an obscenely large diamond. That’s easy. If you want to impress a writer, find a little ditty like this. It’s a writing box and every writer should have one. This folk art lap desk is more than just a writing surface – it’s a hidey-hole place to stash extra typing paper, Uniball 207s, and that Fiorentina journal. Keep in mind that if you don’t particularly like this one, Ebay has about fifty others for sale at any given moment. If you don’t buy it for the writer you love or who loves you, then for God’s sake send it to me.

The Alchemical Socialite

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There she is, ladies and gentlemen. How can I possibly describe the feeling of having my fingers on the keys of a real machine again, slamming out the clicketys of a pouncing metallic onto the permanent page? My 1967 Olympia Socialite: she advances, she dings seductively at the end of a line, she reminds me of the first writings I ever made sitting at my father’s desk in front of the old Corona Sterling – only more meticulous, less athletic, sexier.

I’d forgotten about the sweet bell and the zing of a finished line. It took me about ten minutes, but the exquisite rhythm came back. Forget all those aching, ridiculous typing classes I took in high school. Those had a secretarial aura that insisted the point of using the machines was to type up someone else’s words. Quickly. No wonder I dreaded those drilling hours. If Mrs. W had put a woman’s typewriter in front of me and told me to have at it, I might have actually done it without rolling my eyes.

It’s typewriter abracadabra. I know it sounds crazy, but the entire world slows down and attends when I’m at the keys. The computer is a ravenous time-eater and feeds my embarrasingly short attention span. I swat web pages like gnats. Not so on the Socialite. On her the words are heavy and sentences have a sound. I can actually hear myself think. And that pesky “rewrite while you write” problem? Forget it. Each keystroke is an unregetted decision. Even when I pause or find myself a little stuck, my nails rest on the home-keys and restlessly tap until the words come.

And the words do come.

The pearls what were her eyes

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Who doesn’t know the brevity of a sparkling thing?
The dustmotes at the window turn stained-glass cracklings
and we breathe them, unfiltered. No apologies.
Who has time to put the post-apocalyptical spin on fleeting prettiness?

Tattoo the Brazilian runway girls with their BMIs,
deny the sylphs access to the dream.
A woman is a thirsty opal glaring from an igneous fist,
an uncut stone, a fallow shard of sea-glass accidental lightning-skip,
a novelty.

The stubby cacti growing misplaced on Petit Jean Mountain are women.
There are warning signs:
Don’t pick native wildflowers.
Wear hard shoes against their low, unexpected prickle.

The mountain is a little woman and the story of a dying woman,
and a ledge women throw their hearts from.
Sometimes the rest follows.
Sometimes in the morning papers there are
stories of wildflower women illegally picked and
left like breadcrumbs on the Seven Hollows Trail for sleepy bears.

Don’t get lost.

(Still working on this one. I think I’m watching too much CNN.)

I whined, but I wrote

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The two suitors offering to light my cigarette are Frustration and Distraction. You know those boys, and they’re not gentlemen at all. It’s bad enough when one of them comes calling, but I’m being double-teamed.

My personal, sacred scribbling time suffers, and it makes me difficult. Frustration and Distraction are wild-eyed bad-boys and they’ve both simply got to shoo.

I used to have this delightful hour every day when I sat outside – rain, shine, or tornado – and did a little hand-scribbling in a chemistry notebook. I’m one of those fidgety extroverts who can’t write in a closed room alone, so I always wrote outside the student center or at the local coffee shop. Just enough solitude, just enough background murmur, and the perfection of a good notebook.

It wasn’t that I was stoically productive or especially brilliant at those times, that wasn’t really the point. It was a languid, trusted hour without rules and “no smoking within 25 feet of door” signs. It was my hand gripping a perfect pen and gliding over the page with so much to say, to cram into that little hour. It was bad coffee and too many Virginia Slims in places where I never had to create a character because they were sitting all around me. Makes me a little misty just thinking about it.

I’m going to whine now, so pay close attention.

The problem began with the outdoor smoking ban at the coffee shop and student center renovations that cordoned off my Very Perfect Place To Write. These two events happened concurrently, leaving me no choice but to write in my office or at home. Both places lack ever-changing crowds and weather. Both places have a computer, and I suspect the computer is killing me. I really do.

In the time it took to write this far I already checked Ebay, my office email, my personal email, my students’ group blog, the weather for tomorrow, and CNN for the latest on the Michigan primary. Hillary won a one-man (person) race and Huckabee finished third. I’m serious. You know I am because you do this, too.

Frustration and Distraction. There they are. It’s enough to age me beyond my 36 years (thanks for the suggestion, Tim).

I’ve decided that the computer also makes me rewrite as I’m creating – something that doesn’t happen when I’m handwriting. It also makes me all parenthetical and dashy – a terrible, computer-invoked symptom reflecting an inability to concentrate for more than, say, three running seconds. Multitasking is good if you’re trying to clean the house or get ahead at your factory job, but it’s literary murder for those of us who need to write for extended periods just to feel balance.

I ran across a blog the other day that blew me away – Strikethru. Typecasting or papercasting is so delightful that I won’t attempt explanation. I’ll just show you. And then I’ll check my mail and Ebay and go to bed. You really should stop by this site.

Miss Dolly

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I did not bring a casserole. Unable to concoct to exacting specification the ooze and string of cheese gluing warm egg noodles to bits of ham, bell pepper, I chose instead to come to her empty handed. Two days earlier, catching shallow life through a mask she told me about casseroles. Don’t ever make a good one, she steamed into the plastic, it will be the only thing they remember of you.

I took her walk. I stepped her route, wanting my feet to roll and plant precisely as hers did each afternoon. I memorized each uprooted sidewalk slab, noting the angle, the lift of the foot required to navigate, where to slow, to speed, noting fragment odors she used to find her way. She began and ended here where the ginkgo drops its slippery yellows and, later, the rocky seeds that smell like five-day garbage when crushed. Half blind, she ached for strong odors.

Who was it pinched the stray hairs tight into final finger waves? Would she have cared? So many times I saw her bent hard at the middle toward some too-thick patch of irises, pausing only to remove a paperclip from an apron pocket, stuffing clip and dirt and sweat into that hair. The object was not hair, but irises. She only wanted a clearer field of vision.

Dolly liked order, but only as neatly as she could control it in the yard and kitchen. She had an eye for symmetry, pruning her life and privet hedges closely. Personally, she was discreetly unkempt, as old women with faulty eyes become when they can no longer fasten their own pearls on Sunday morning. She did her best work outside, guarding always between those flattened breasts a rag, reached for delicately, used to wipe neck sweat– or child sweat, if a loose neighbor child wandered into the yard. The small and curious and were soon put to work, paid each time with one unsquandered nickel. Those empty breasts never suckled anything except one husband, Baptist, 36 years dead. He was a man who knew how to wear a hat, she said, but still a man.

The afternoon he was put to ground they said she gave away all his suits to the young music teacher who lived alone and sang unchristian arias like a woman. Afterwards Dolly ambled – then more briskly, steadily – the two miles to the Plymouth dealership. Still dressed in unchanged mourning, graveside dust settled into the woolen bend of her arm, she told the owner, Teach me how to drive. Two hours later she placed a roll of old bills in the man’s upturned hands and eased the black-finned Plymouth home, headlights off in the dark. The following morning she became a Methodist and never went to church again.

Dolly left an expanse of small things old women leave behind. Chipped china of irreplaceable pattern, forgotten blankets, a hundred clear Kerr jars lined up like armageddon on failing pantry shelves, a pale blue initialed vanity case, locked forever and certainly never used which bounced against my leg as I opened the gate from her backyard to mine.

Back home, I found a straw hat to guard against freckles. I slipped out behind the mourners to weed her dill and took note of the crabapples beginning to fall like rose-star bombs ready for the steam and smash of the jelly pot, stretched a newspaper rubber band from my wrist and knotted my hair behind me careless as Saturday morning. When I fell to my knees, it was for work.

(I’ve been pulling out old first-draft pieces to mess with, and this is one rough one. It’s all over the place. I’ll pull it to the forefront for a bit and see if I can’t make it do what I want it to do.)

At the river bridge

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This is not a ghost story because no one saw a ghost. It begins on Thursday after lunch sometime when a man who stops at the Citgo station for cigarettes is driving the upward curve of the river bridge at the lock and dam. See, there he is wrestling with the cellophane opening strip of his second pack of Marlboros. That’s why the adrenaline shot clean through the top of his head when he rounded the top of the bridge and saw the white Malibu stopped dead in front of him. There he goes, all twisted in a cigarette pack and swerving with a fast thumb, so it’s no surprise that on the narrowish bridge his truck slices the driver’s open door backward, where it swings like a limp fracture until it lets loose and spins across the double yellow lines.

He thinks he’s hit a woman. For the smallest second he thought he’d seen a swish of brown hair and that he’d look back after the brakes stopped screaming to see the blood and nasty of a terrible thing. In the oblong rearview mirror he realizes it is not a woman he hit but a car door, and that the long brown hair belongs to the head of a woman perched girl-like on the railing. It covers her face as she looks at him. She is real and not a ghost, but as soon as he slams out of his truck the woman and her long hair push off from the railing and into the boil of the waters below the dam. He stops right there in the scary middle of the bridge’s crest. He might be thinking she is a haunt or a misremembered story or the sun is too high and the water playing tricks. Hell, all he did was pull out of the Citgo.

When he reaches the railing there is nothing to see. The car is real, the key chain sways a little in the ignition and the car is still running. The Malibu’s shorn-off door is a hell of a mess and so is the passenger side of his truck. He looks down at his right hand, where the crushproof pack of Marlboros are now crushed, the cellophane easy-opening strip still dangling.