The class is with Joshua Henkin. He directs the MFA program at Brooklyn College, and right before coming to the Wesleyan Writer’s Conference, I bought his book Matrimony. Glancing over the opening pages, it looks promising.
Home of the Wesleyan Writers Conference
The first sentence of the piece below isn’t mine. We were given eight first sentences (some of which Josh says he made up and some of which he took from stories) and we were told to evaluate them and then choose one of them and try an opening.
Here are the two paragraphs I wrote in response to the prompt:
My daughter Josie said she’d found God in New Mexico. Said she met Jesus after drinking some Ayahuasca. I looked the concoction up on the internet, and I’ll tell you this: I can’t see how my Josie met any God I ever believed in. As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing is just another excuse to get blown out of your gord on drugs, that’s what it is. She was supposed to be down in Santa Fe teaching drama to middle school students. She was supposed to be staying under her aunt’s supervision. What a crock.
My wife’s sister hasn’t got an ounce of work ethic or discipline on her little hippy body. From what I can tell, she mostly sits around listening to The Dead while she dabs paint on a canvas. Now Josie says she isn’t coming back up here to French Lick, but that’s where she’s wrong. She’s only nineteen and there’s no way my little girl is going to go down that path, not if there’s anything I can do about it. I’m going down there to get her, and I’m leaving first thing in the morning.
Note:
I think I usually resist writing exercises, but the possible conflict between the father and daughter could be interesting to explore via a story or novel.
It may or may not be obvious that stories can come from all sorts of places and get written for all sorts of reasons. Take for example “Suicide Hill.” It was the first story I ever mentally composed, (as opposed to writing it on paper or typing it on a computer) and I “wrote” it by saying it silently over and over again to myself as I proctored an end-of-course language arts test to middle school students in North Carolina. The story was partly written out of boredom (what else to do?) but also for a more practical reason: I had decided I wanted to earn a graduate degree in creative writing, and I needed a story to turn in as a writing sample.
My Mental Setting for Suicide Hill: Crown Hill Cemetery in Winamac, Indiana
Back then–this was around the year 2000–the only other text I had written was a messed-up manuscript that represented one year’s worth of writing where each morning before school I typed up 800 words of whatever I could remember about getting divorced. It was in fact the very manuscript that clued me in that I needed some help learning to write. I didn’t really even know what getting help might mean back then, (now it means I had to learn how to read like a writer) but I’d read John Irving somewhere saying something about how Kurt Vonnegut had saved him a lot of time. (Vonnegut, I proudly remind you, is a fellow native of Indiana.)
According to Irving, Vonnegut had been able to teach him something that sped up the process of learning to write. Perhaps even more importantly, I was beginning to believe that writing was something that could be learned sort of in the same way I’d learned to shoot a basketball: with some of the right fundamentals, a lot of desire, and an enormous amount of regular practice.
Can you learn to write in the same way you can learn to play ball? Here I am in my younger days.
Next came the question that pops up every year or so for me: what to write? Back when I’d earned an MA in English Education, I participated in something The National Writing Project calls the summer institute. Doing that, I’d prepared a teaching demonstration (think writing teachers writing together) that had emerged from my reading of Stephen King’s On Writing. I had potential writers survey their life for details looking for subject matter they could bring into a story. I applied that lesson to my own thinking and what I began to consider was that I was in a relationship that was teetering toward marriage, this even though I’d promised myself to never marry again. Back then, I was in a relationship great enough that it was challenging my old promise to myself to keep to myself. In writing “Suicide Hill,” I wanted to write a story that would tell me how to live my life. It worked, but not in the way that I expected it to.
My questions for Lori Hettler, author of The Next Big Book Blog:
I see you say you are interested all things, “retro.” What do you mean?
I am a product of my generation. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s… my fondest memories include Cabbage Patch Kid dolls (and those god-awful but so cool Garbage Pail Kids stickers!), slinkys, Pogo-balls, French cuffed Z-cavaricci’s , teased out hair, cassette tapes, the Fraggles, Sea Monkeys, and the Rubik’s Cube. Today’s music cannot touch the stuff that came out of the 80’s – I’m talking about bands like R.E.M., U2, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, and The Cure. Movies like The Goonies, Labyrinth, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, Stand By Me – they are untouchable, they stand the test of time.
Retro according to TNBBC: Stand by Me
I love books that steep themselves in retro-ness – books like High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Totally Killer by Greg Olear, Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis, Banned for Life by D.R. Haney. Reading books like the ones I’ve just named gives me that “home-coming” feeling, you know?
What does the word “indie” mean to you and why is it important?
In the traditional sense, I believe Indie was coined for independent publishers, small press, and the authors who sign with them. Some indie publishers, like Graywolf Press, are non-profit. Most, like Two Dollar Radio, were (and still are) small start-up operations that have created a niche for themselves. A growing number, like Tiny TOE Press, Artistically Declined, and Curbside Splendor, are being brought to life by the authors themselves – authors who, due to personal choice or lack of interest from already existing publishers, decided to stand behind their work and present it to the masses on their own terms. I think, because of this increase of author-turned-publisher, the lines between indie and self published have blurred. Many self published authors are now referring to themselves as indie authors. And in a certain light, I suppose they can be. They are independent of contracts, and restrictions. They own the rights to their work. They can tour and promote as they wish. But I would say that only applies if they created their own company by which to publish their work.
Indie Press: Cherokee McGhee, publisher of William Torgerson's "Love on the Big Screen"
Indie can also be looked at as a way of life. It’s staying true to yourself, and your writing. It’s hanging in for the long haul. It’s not selling out. Indie publishers and authors are extremely important to the literary community. Because they are not caught under the umbrella of larger corporations and conglomerates, they have full control over which books they publish. They push the limits, they challenge their readers, they can afford to take chances on experimental, edgy fiction. They can offer their authors one-on-one attention. They throw wild and crazy events, and they rely heavily on word of mouth – The indie publishers and authors I have worked with are extremely receptive and welcoming of the support the blogging community gives them. Some of the best novels I have ever read were written by indie authors and published by indie publishers.
Support Indie Bookstores and Publishers: Click here
What was the impulse to start The Next Best Book Club Blog?
I started The Next Best Book Club blog when I realized that my Goodreads group (of the same name) had gotten too large, and my voice within the group had become too small. I needed a larger space, a space of my own – one that I didn’t have to share – to discuss my love of independent literature. I wanted to be able to showcase and highlight not only the books I read, but also the people behind those books, the authors and publishers. I wanted to introduce the world to what they were missing, to the great stories I felt they were overlooking. The blog and Goodreads group overlap by design, but it’s nice to have something that is just me, just my voice, sometimes.
One of the dumber questions I’ve heard debated lately on sports-talk radio asks who “The Man” is on the Miami Heat basketball team. I seem to be most in agreement with Jalen Rose who argues that “The Man” is something the media likes to think about and the players and coaches think about much less. I’m taken back to my own high school coaching days when I used to constantly prep players on the fact that people who don’t know basketball will mostly ask players they meet about how many points they scored or are averaging for the season. In the locker rooms I used to inhabit, we knew that making shots was one part of a game with many important parts.
John Paxson: Superstar No; Clutch Shooter Yes (nba.com)
No doubt, LeBron has struggled in fourth quarters of late making shots. He may or may not be a nice person and that might be effecting the way he is reported upon. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo seems to hate him, so much so that my primary reason for clicking on something he writes is to see what creative new angle he’s found to be negative about. Something I do know: all players struggle.
There used to be a poster out when I was a kid that touted all of the shots Michael Jordan had taken and missed that caused his team to lose. Remember all of those brutal Bulls’ losses to the Pistons before they started winning titles? Remember when Phil Michelson couldn’t win the big one in golf? Don’t forget all the big shots hit by Jordan’s teammates, players such as John Paxson, Steve Kerr, and Craig Hodges. Was Jordan a coward for passing off? Silly question now that we can look back on what happened over the span of his career.
Jordan "Failure" Poster
As a high school assistant coach in North Carolina, I watched our team beat a team with Chis Paul on it on its way to winning the state title. Clearly Paul’s team had defined “The Man” for itself, but our team, with at least eight good basketball players on it of whom practically now one has ever heard of, our team won the game.
In tonight’s NBA finals, players will (with suggestions from their respective coaches) choose to help a teammate on defense or not. Playing the Mavericks, sometimes it’s better to stick close to the three point shooter, but if you do that, it gets very hard to contain dribble penetration. Will the Heat move LeBron off the top of the key and get him the ball in the middle or along the baseline? It’s something I think would help the Heat’s offensive attack, a way for LeBron to not be so easily accounted for by the defense. If the Mavs are forced to finish in the lane rather than have the freedom to kick out to open shooters, will they be able to succeed? Who will guard Jason Terry and J.J. Berea? Who is the man on the Heat? I don’t care. There will be a lot more interesting parts of the game to watch.
I never really connected to the whole blogging phenomena, not until I recently attended a Blogger Conference in conjunction with Book Expo America (BEA). Following a full day of hanging out with the bloggers at the Javits Convention Center in NYC, I left impressed with the community, impressed at their passion for books and need to talk about them. I found people who are actually more interested in promoting literacy than making money. What?!!!
Lori Hettler is one of the bloggers I met. She’s a fellow Say Anything obsessive who also likes Nick Hornby and talks of French-cuffed Z. Cavaricci’s. Remember those? I had a purple pair about the time I graduated from high school.
Lori Hettler, author of The Next Best Book Blog
It was Lori’s use of the words retro and indie that caught my attention and so I asked her if she’d be willing to talk to me about her little niche of the blogosphere. She agreed and I plan to share our conversation over several posts. First, I asked Lori to give an overview of the bookblogging world, to tell us what we might be missing out on if we don’t participate. Here’s what she said:
There are so many levels to book blogging. As a blogger, you can choose to participate at any or all levels. For starters, it’s your own personal space to dish about books in any way, shape, or form you wish. There are no rules, no parameters, no boundaries – only those that you set for yourself. It’s also a community. There are bloggers out there for every genre and niche you can imagine. They are welcoming and supportive. They share ideas and join forces. Nothing makes me happier than seeing bloggers come together to support a cause. Twitter hashtags, book tours, you name it, and they can and will do it!
As a blogger, you can also begin to build relationships with authors and publishers. You can host giveaways, develop features or meme’s, conduct interviews, gain access to ARC’s (advance reading copies) for reviews. It’s all out there, and it’s all what you make of it. I think, most importantly, book bloggers spread literacy. They get the world talking about books!
