Susan Ludvigson...

When I was an undergraduate in English and Creative Writing at Winthrop University, I was lucky enough to have several classes with the poet Susan Ludvigson.  I think about her often and try to read everything she's written several times every year.  This is a poem that I read this afternoon, again, for about the millionth time, and I decided to borrow some ideas from it for a short story that I've been working on.  It is called, "Love at Cooter's Carpet, Fort Lawn, S.C.," from the collection A New Geography of Poets:

"Daily I go to the carpet warehouse.  

The men think I can't make up my mind.  

But the truth is, I have fallen in love 

with the young ex-football player 

who lights the dingy room with his hair.  

Even machines can't help him add,

so we spend hours figuring and refiguring 

costs--pad and labor, stairs and tax,

his patient golden head bent over the numbers,

the muscles in his arms reflecting shadows 

like water under summer clouds.

each time he starts the motor on the forklift,

slowly pushing that long steel rod

into the center of a roll, then

lifting it out for me to see.  Oh--

it's as if an inner sky were opening,

and all his hazy calculations

fall like stars into my heart."

Keeping informed (also, quit dilly-dallying!)

At AWP last year I came across this flier for a free group that promotes writing contests, job opportunities, calls for submissions, etc.  They send out emails often, to the point where I had to choose the digest format because it drove me nuts getting so many emails so often about some contests and things that I didn't really care about because they didn't apply to me (like poetry contests).

But this is a great resource, and if some writer happens to stumble upon this blog, I hope that they check this group out.  It's free to join and there are some great, obscure and not obscure opportunities listed.

In other news, some writing friends and I are talking about each making a fiction chapbook.  I need to do more research on it, but I'm so pumped about it.  I would like to write two fresh stories for it.  Must brainstorm....

I've been really wanting to try to write a suspense story (I tried a couple times before but apparently they weren't suspenseful enough to carry the story).  I ordered several books from Powells recently (and can't WAIT for them to come in!) and one of them is Patricia Highsmith's Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction.  I'm really looking forward to the arrival of my order, and especially this book.  Not only do I want to try it out in a story, but I want to try it out in the screenplay that has been brewing in my mind.

I've been trying to write five pages a day but that hasn't really been working out so far since I write full-time for a living, even if it is training materials and the like.  So I've pared it down to 1000 words a day which is less daunting, and I told myself that writing blogs, journal entries, and even typed letters on my typewriter do NOT count.  I'm working on a new story and it's taking some unusual and unexpected twists, and now I think I will totally have to change one character (Margaret) but I think it will be for the better.  She is too good, too Chrisitan-y, and a little boring.  While I've been writing more of her introduction story I've been rehashing some painful memories from my own life and it's been theraputic but difficult too...one day while I was writing about a terrible paint-by-number painting of a horse I started to cry and then felt so depressed for the rest of the day I could hardly get anything done.  I didn't even vacuum, and now there are tufts of gray cat hair floating all around my (still unvacuumed) house.

Other books I ordered from Powells include:

• Elbow Room, James Alan Mcpherson
• On Teaching and Writing Fiction,Wallace Stegner and Lynn Stegner
• Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee
• Off for the Sweet Hereafter, T R Pearson
•  A Place to Come to : A Novel, Robert Penn Warren

Now, to get to work.

I lost you all.

What would writing be without the pain and disappointment?  I don't necessarily mean the pain the writing can and does evoke...I mean, where would I be without all these shitty feelings of loss?  If I had nothing to mourn maybe I would have nothing to say.
But sometimes I wonder if I have anything to say in the first place.
Blah.
I need to get to writing or get to drinking.  Or maybe both.

A good writing weekend - finally!

I made a writing plan this weekend and I accomplished some of it.  I printed off all the stories for the collection so that I could begin an intensive editing process, and I realized only then that I have a lot more done that I originally thought.  After going through everything, I realized that I only have one more story to write before the collection is complete.  That's right - just one!  I have to do a lot of rewriting on several of the stories, including a complete overhaul on one story that I had totally forgotten about, but the point is that almost everything is done.  Soon I will send the collection to Craig for a total review, and then I will be able to start on something new and different!  I can't wait for that.
So it looks like things are getting better on the writing front.  It looks like I will finally be able to present my thesis and actually get that MFA that I've been putting off for nearly a year now (in June it really will be a year - eek!).  After the thesis gig I will try to find an agent or publisher or something.  I have some ideas for some publishing houses if it's impossible to find an agent with a collection of short stories (at least, that what everyone says, that short stories are basically impossible to sell).
I didn't submit a story to the conference this weekend because I was caught up in the reading and editing process.  That's a lot of pages to intensely go through and make sure that everything works together and ties into one another.  I will read more about the conference today and choose which story segment to submit.
I didn't submit to those journals, either, but I will.  I will this week.  It's just choosing what to submit and fixing it up.  One of the problems I'm concerned about is the fact that because these are linking short stories, there are a lot of characters, perhaps too many for a story to stand on its own without being confusing to a person that has never read anything from the collection.  But I will figure something out. 
I also did not finish McMurtry's memoir because I was writing and working on writing.  I will finish it by this upcoming weekend though.  Plus I learn so much from his book that I keep stopping my reading to look up the people and books that he writes about.
Looks like I have another busy week ahead!

As for the Morning Pages and the Artist Date: The morning pages are great.  It seems to be helping, I mean, I really did a lot of work this weekend.  So, off to a good start.  The artist date: I took myself to the Levine Museum of the New South.  It was really great.  I loved it!  I want to go back.  Only next time I will take the bus or ride my bike there - I paid $6 to get into to the museum but $8 for parking!  That is just ridiculous and made me upset.  Those bastards, ripping people off.  The next artist date I take myself on will be to Charlotte's oldest graveyard.  I need to do some research.

In all, I'm pretty pumped about this week coming up because I'm anxious to keep working on everything and finally get it done.  For the first time in a long time, I don't have a case of the Mondays!  Here's to accomplishment.

Getting unblocked.

Here is a great article about simple ways to unblock creativity.  I loved it so much that I sent it to all my writer/artist friends and I'm going to try it out myself. 

This weekend I have several things planned. 

1. Re-write the short story that Alex/Sandra reviewed.
2. Finish editing "Jimmy Gorski."
3. Choose a story (just 10 pages, that will be tough....) to use in the application process for De Paul University's July writing conference.
4. Submit to two literary journals: Sonora Review and River Oak Review because they read year-round while most journals suspend their reding period during the summer.  I am also considering River Teeth- they will accept manuscripts until June.
5. Finish McMurtry's second memoir.

That's a lot of this plate of mine, but it can be done as long as I don't spend a night this weekend binge drinking and paying for it the entire next day.  Here's to productivity!

Nerding out.

The more I write the more I learn about the English language and writing in general.  I write professionally and because of that I've learned more in the past six months about my own errors and grammar misconceptions than I did during two years in a graduate writing program.
One blog that I recently discovered is Dailywritingtips.com - and, at the risk of sounding totally nerdy, I love it!  There are so many basic things that get confused all the time.  For instance, I recently realized that I had used "peaked" instead of "piqued" in several course I'd written.  And then I confused my team about period placement when using quotations.  Simple stuff like that - how could that slip past my attention??!
But writing is learning as you go.  It's a slow process for some, and by some I mean me.
I received story comments in the mail yesterday from Alex and an email with story comments from Sandra yesterday.  I am so happy to have writers critiquing my work again.  As always I felt the slight sting from their comments where scenes didn't necessarily work or the there was no transition between scenes but that is also something that I'm working on - taking criticism in a way that will help me and help the story, and not taking it so personally.  That's what I teach the sales agents in my some of my courses, but putting that into practice is a lot harder than it might seem.
Last night I dreamed that I gave up on writing.  Just threw in the towel.  It was a lot like that scene from Tobias Wolff's memoir This Boy's Life where he meets up with the woman that wrote the story so long ago, that he eventually stole, and she says that writing was child's play.
Is this child's play?  Am I just fooling myself?
Not if I can help it.

Larry McMurtry's memoir about writing.

Yesterday I read about a third of McMurtry's memoir.  I really should have started with reading the first memoir in the series, but I got so excited after I heard the interview on NPR with him that I ordered this book without giving a thought to sequence.
I'm not exactly a fan of McMurtry's....I never even read any of his books.  I have seen some of the movies that were adapted from his books, including Lonesome Dove, but what interested me the most is a man that never really had any intention or aspirations of being a writer actually becoming a writer, a successful, incredibly prolific writer.
Reading about writing helps me to write; it gives me courage and inspiration while also helping to put things, writing, writing relationships, publishing, goals, into perspective.  I wish that I had been more productive this weekend with writing and editing, but I went to a cookout on Friday night that was a little too enjoyable and Saturday I volunteered for the public radio and then spent the rest of the day and evening laying on the couch trying to recover from too little sleep and too many beers.  But Sunday was amazingly productive in a tiny stretch of time.  I did some intense editing for a short story, one that I actually just got reviewed by my lovely writing friends Alex and Sandra, and I came up with a couple more ideas for some short stories.
I'm excited about these ideas for shorts even though they don't fit into the collection and I see this as a reoccuring problem - the excitement of starting something new and different and the abandonment of a project or goal.
But I'm working on it, and those ideas are just that for now, until I wrap this current collection up.
I'm adding a few books to my always expanding reading list:

• Now Let Us Priase Famous Men  - James Agee, Walker Evans
• Sometimes a Great Notion -  Ken Kesey
•  Sailor Song - Ken Kesey

Everyone starts somewhere.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of coming across(after probably a decade of absence) a man that truly changed my life for the better.  I even told him that he probably saved my life, and I really mean that.  I was so depressed, so unhappy as a teenager.  I didn't have a great home life and I contemplated suicide and death a lot.  More than anyone should.  I was crying out for help and it seemed like no one heard me, or, as I thought at the time, really cared.  But then a teacher of mine, Mr. Ives, reached out.  He got me reading books that I had never read, and most importantly, he got me writing.  Not just journal writing, even though there was a lot of that that really took off after a Creative Writing class with him, but real writing, poetry, fiction.  I credit him with where I am now, and I've known for a long while now that I owe him.  Big time.
I told him yesterday in a brief letter (via Facebook, I know, how lame, right?) anyway, I told him yesterday that the thing that really saved me what his belief in me.  He believed in me, he told me I could do it.  He told me it would be a long road and that it would be hard, but if I worked for it I could get it.  Of course I'm talking about writing but it felt like everything to me.  It felt like LIFE and that is probably what kept me around.  I'm not being dramatic.  I'm not overstating anything.
I think that seeing him again, even if it's just online, and remembering all of that, the way I felt, the dreams I had, the shitty times, and the good, amazing times, gives me the boost that I really need.  It's like he's saying, "Remember, Amber?  Now do it."
And I am.

I didn't end up buying Deemer's book yet because I knew that I'd get carried away and start a screenplay and abandon my collection of shorts and that's definitely NOT what I need to be doing.  I thought of an idea for a novel last night as I was trying to sleep and I thought of something pretty interesting, or interesting at the moment at least, but I can't remember a damn thing about it now!  I really should write down these night time idears.

I bought one of Larry McMurtry's memoirs a while ago and have yet to read it.  It's on the list for this weekend.  It's called Literary Life.

Also on the list for this weekend is to finishing editing and re-writing "The Dragon Lady" and send it out to a few journals.  Which journals?  I haven't decided.

It feels good.

I finished a story tonight.  I think that it's pretty good.  I will work on editing tomorrow and this weekend, and I believe that I'm going to send it out. 

It feels good to make a plan and actually stick to it.  Self high five!

Small steps?

I can't seem to get it together.  I don't know what the problem is, really.  I've had a killer headache the last two days - day one a migraine, day two the migraine's horrible clutches, and now, day three, feeling better but slightly headachey.  I really don't understand why my immune system hates me so much.
But I've set aside tonight.  Today, tonight, all right, all right. 
I'll get some writing done, just you see.
I've been toying with the idea of writing a screenplay, even though I know how bad I am about getting excited and starting a bunch of projects at the same time and finishing nothing.  So I will just read up about screenplays and jot down my notes, because I don't have a complete idea yet, and I will finish with these goddamn plaguing stories!  How can something you love so much feel so much like a burden?

I'm ordering Charles Deemer's book on practical screenwriting this second (the internet is the best multi-tasker tool on the planet.  Did I also mention that I am working?  At the same time?  You can tell what's really getting my full attention.).

I found this great articale, too, about Concious Storytelling.

A bad start.

I didn't edit last night.  I didn't get up early this morning and write.  God, I suck.

The things that keep me from writing.

I'm trying to write more on a schedule.  So, I made a schedule for myself and set it up in google calendars, even set it up where google would send my phone my schedule each morning.  Pretty nifty, right?  Yeah.  Right.  Have I written since I made said writing schedule?  Once. 
I set aside time this weekend to write.  But this weekend was so nice, the weather so amazing, and my mother stopped by for a visit.  I had just been paid and there was shopping that needed to be done.  Tebow needed a dog tag, I needed to pick up some cheese, then some cat litter, and on and on.  I am the absolute worst at making excuses, even to myself.
Yesterday I decided that today I would write.  I would write for at least two hours, I would finish the new story I'm working on about Jenny.  But guess what my excuse was this time?  A Law & Order: SVU marathon.
Now it is almost 10:30 at night and soon I will tuck myself in bed.  It is too late to write, my mind and heart are not in it.  So I will edit some copies of my stories I've printed.  Maybe this day can be slightly salvaged.
For this week coming up, I need to stick to my new schedule.  I don't have anything planned out for this week - and it shouldn't be too crazy work-wise.  See, I'm already thinking of excuses.  I need a coach, but until then, I will have to coach myself.
So I will try this.  I like checking in on the blog.  So this week after I write or edit I will write about how that goes.  I will create some sort of accountability for myself.

I'll try out this schedule:
Monday: write 7 - 9 PM
Tuesday: edit 830 - 9 AM
Wednesday: write 7 - 9 PM
Thursday: write 7 - 9 PM
Friday: edit 830 - 9 AM
Saturday - write/edit afternoon
Sunday - write/edit anytime

Go, Amber!