The New Normal

Readers, this writer is prone to thinking too much. I spend a lot of time analyzing the world, myself, other people (those I know, and those I don’t …in overheard snippets on the subway, in diners and at the airport…) and today my laser sights are focused on what is “normal” behavior and how does that affect creative output?

At some point in the past I realized I was normal in some ways, and in others very much not “the norm.” As a kid in junior high school, I hung out with a strange bunch of friends and we played Dungeons and Dragons. (D&D is a fantasy role playing game.) We used our imaginations to escape our regular lives to become magicians, knights in armor, theives and monks for a few hours each week as we pillaged and fought our way through imaginary towns and dungeons. We were often required to come up with innovative solutions for puzzles and problems we’d encounter in our “travels” and learned to work well as a group (or our characters would suffer the consequences!)

Once I got to college, I was out of the “norm” again as I joined a select group of kids who met in a basement in the student center once a week to put together a poetry magazine called The Anthologist. We too used our imaginations to debate and decide which poems would make it into our esteemed publication and which would not. (We often played “guess the rhyme” with the worst submissions, for our amusement.)

Out of the original group of D&D kids, there were a disproportionate number of us who were artists. Some of us liked to draw, others of us liked to write, some composed music, and now as adults we’re still doing that. Out of the Anthologist group, every single one of (the four) of us have published novels, poetry, short stories or academic works. Two of the four are university professors of English Literature, another is an English teacher at the high school level, and then there’s me… living in the corporate world but a weekend-warrior writer.

If I look across my lifetime of romantic relationships, it’s chock-a-block full of artists. My first boyfriend (one of the D&D kids) was a fantasy artist, something he makes a living at to this day. In college, my most important boyfriend was a writer, who now has published two novels (with more on the way). I’ve also had very significant relationships with painters, who are of a moody sort that I can’t seem to shake myself loose of… but none of these people were or are normal.

And these days I have too many friends to count that are writers, painters, photographers, musicians, dancers and others loosely or closely affiliated with creating artistic output as part of their daily lives.

I’m thankful for all these people who influenced (and keep influencing) me creatively and shared their out of the box thinking with me. Those that were the most “out of the norm” taught me the most about not conforming to standard ways of thinking or what society expects. Still others taught me about the philosophical underpinnings of creativity (and are still doing so.)

This, in turn, got me to thinking about how creative ideas manifest themselves. For those who are more constrained by “the normal” ways of living and thinking, does that mean they are hampered from coming up with the most innovative ideas for their fiction, paintings, or music? One of my good friends, an author, recently said to me that he thought I was too inhibited in my thinking and that it might prevent me from creating the most dramatic stories and situations. He may be right, maybe in that sense I’m still too normal?

In today’s shrill sensationalistic environment where people have the attention span of ten seconds perhaps being outside the norm is what it takes to attract attention to oneself and one’s art. I don’t know.

How about you, reader? Is your art outside the norm, and if it is, has that helped you? If it isn’t, do you think that is a disadvantage?

I’m going to continue to cultivate my abby-normal self in my creative life to push the boundaries of my stories, characters and imagination. I’m going to keep embracing the quirky, the odd and the unusual in friends and those close to me. Maybe, if I’m lucky, even more will rub off on me.

What is Compressed Fiction – at Journal of Compressed Creative Arts

Hi all,

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts wanted to post my statement on “What is Compressed Fiction?” on their blog.

If you want to read it, click here:

http://matterpress.com/blog/2013/02/12/compression-carol-deminski/#more-3056

As usual, I’ll put a permanent link to this in the published works area on my blog so you can find it easily.

Thanks and enjoy!

Carol

Learning something new about your characters

I recently had an interesting experience. I asked a friend of mine to read a piece I’ve been working on for three years, on and off. After countless revisions to the piece, workshopping it with a group, and many teeth gnashing attempts to re-write the ending I had to admit it: I was stuck.

The overall flow of the story was fine, and I thought the characters were in good shape, but I just couldn’t figure out why the story didn’t have a natural conclusion point to resolve (or not resolve) the dilemmas the characters face in the story.

After hanging onto the story for about a month, my friend sent me the piece back with extensive notes. One of the notes mentioned why the husband and wife were so different and how that was probably the key to the story and its conflicts.

When I read my friend’s comments, I was struck dumb. I couldn’t believe it – he broke the whole story open for me again in a way I hadn’t previously considered but which made perfect sense. Thankfully, he really liked the main character in the story and gave me encouraging comments about keeping her as ‘troublesome’ as I was portraying her to be.

As my regular readers know, I struggle mightily with longer form stories and this story is now about 2600 words, over 10 pages, which is absolutely the longest story I’ve written to date – and I’m nowhere near finished.

Readers are so important for critical feedback. I’m hesitant for anyone to see ugly drafts of my unfinished stories (my writerly perfectionist tendencies) but I’m glad I invited this person to read and give me the sober advice I needed to make some essential changes to tone and tension.

What’s so fascinating to me is that I feel like I’m writing a new story. After three years of working on this piece, it was extremely challenging to go back to it time and again knowing I’d be facing the same issues. Now things are flowing and falling into place with these characters. Their motivations and inter-relationships are becoming clearer to me.

I still don’t have the ending, but at least I’ve got many more options for an ending than I had before this reader gave me the insights I was lacking on my own characters.

What about you, fellow writers? Do you believe in getting feedback from trusted first readers?

A Comment on Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union

First I’ll start off by saying I have read the first hundred pages so far… so please, if you’ve read the book (which is a detective novel) do not post spoilers in the comments section!

As you frequent readers of this blog already know, if I’m going to read fiction it’s pretty likely to be a Pulitzer prize winning novel. (Sadly, this is really a comment on how infrequently I’m reading these days because I have not even gotten through the past 10 years worth of fiction winners yet.)

Also, you might imagine if I’m mentioning Michael Chabon and Pulitzer Prize… I’m mentioning the wrong title. His Pulitzer winning book was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It also just so happens that when the airport bookstore is out of pulitzer prize winning novels, and you’re staring down a 6 hour flight from one coast to another, you might decide to purchase an alternate title by an author in that “P” group. Well, you might not do that, but I did.

And now for an aside from my aside… how come nobody ever challenges me on why I’m sticking to Pulitzer prize winning novels and instead singing the praises of an amazing author who should have been nominated for a National Book Award, Pulitzer, or is just a genius with words? Come on peoples, tell me at least one of you has read a totally amazing novel this year where you were blown away by the story, the writing, the characters… something? (For the record, I’m very far behind on my contemporary literature reading. Even I know that reading a prize winning novel from a decade ago isn’t the cutting edge… but I’ve got to dig in somewhere.)

Okay, enough. Back to the topic at hand, Mr. Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union.

I’m in love with Chabon’s writing. Some of you out there, the writerly writer types, might hate his flowery, adjective filled long strung out sentences… but I whistle and moan in admiration with some of his descriptions.

Try this paragraph:

Litvak makes an impatient or petitioning gesture with his hand. He takes from his breast pocket a marbled black notepad and a fat fountain pen. He wears his beard neatly trimmed, as ever. A houndstooth blazer, tassled boat shoes, a display handkerchief, a scarf strung through his lapels. The man has not lost his sporting air. In the pleats of his throat is a shining scar, a whitish comma tinged with pink. As he writes in the pad with his big Waterman, Litvak’s breath comes through his great fleshy nose in patient gusts. The scratch of the nib is all that remains to him for a voice. He passes the pad to Landsman. His script is steady and clear.

Do I know you

Now, I don’t know about you, but how can you not swoon at phrases like “a scarf strung through his lapels” or “in the pleats of his throat” or even “the scratch of the nib is all that remains to him for a voice”?

This is one random paragraph, mind you. The book is a cornucopia of such phrases (okay, sorry, I can’t help myself…).

What’s especially interesting to me about this book is an interview Chabon did with the New York Times which is reprinted in the back. In it he says that he remade his writing style in order to take on a Chandler-esque detective novel because he shortened his sentences considerably to write this novel. And, oh yeah kids, he had written a 600 page manuscript as a first draft of this book, decided he didn’t like it and chucked the whole thing and re-wrote it from scratch.

I admire that about the guy.

Whether or not you decide to read this book is not the point of this particular post. For me, this post is about craft. Meticulous craft. And I’ve gotta hand it to Chabon in this novel, his loving care about his subject and his characters just oozes out of every page.

Did I mention I’m only 100 pages into this 411 page novel? Well, I am. As for the remaining 300 some-odd pages? I’m going to savor them, nice and slow.

P.S. We will return to your previously scheduled Hurrican Sandy installments in future posts.

Shrinkage

The world is shrinking.

Actually, it already shrunk. We live on a tiny planet and it’s getting smaller all the time.

In the 21st Century we’ve come to expect and demand:

• ubiquitous internet access
• free international telephone and video calls (thank you Skype)
• relatively inexpensive (although uncomfortable) flights to every major city on the planet – direct – with daily service
• GPS services to navigate with
• free  email, photo sharing, and blog posting services
• free entertainments like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etcetera
• the ability to shop 24 hours a day, internationally (many times with free shipping)
• the ability to pay for something online, quickly and seamlessly
• the ability to download any song, book, movie, or podcast we want within seconds
• and that thing we haven’t heard of yet that someone is cooking up in their garage with some buddies that will be something we can’t live without in another 2 years

We have a ridiculous amount of conveniences available to us that were not even a glimmer in someone’s eye one or two decades ago.

Maybe I’m more in tune with these things because I live in the New York City metro area. I’d concede it’s possible I wouldn’t feel the rapid shrinking of the globe if I lived on the north shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. But in big cities, like New York, you can’t go one foot without bumping into someone talking on a cell phone, texting, writing on a laptop, sending an email from their device of choice, taking a photo with a device of choice, all while being oblivious of the technology or its infrastructure.

Think about it, really- who cares – I need to send a text message to my friend, I type it, click send and expect him to get it within seconds because that’s how it works… OR I call my friend’s cell phone from my international Skype number while I am in Europe and he is in New York City and of course I expect the phone call quality to be great because that’s how it works. Nobody is thinking about Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology (that’s what allows phone calls to be made over the interwebs, if ya didn’t know…) or the ridiculous amount of super cool infrastructure in place to allow all this to happen in real time, super cheap, or even free.

As much as these technologies can become intrusive, with all the beeping, booping and chiming that our devices make as we check our incoming texts, emails, phone logs, tweets, etc. – I’m grateful to have all of this at the ready.

I just said goodbye to a friend of mine, who is moving back to Australia in a few weeks. He’s been in the United States for over a decade and now he’s “heading home” but he has a lot of friends (including me) who will miss him. As we were saying goodbye he said, “Well, when I get back we can Skype (yes, he used it as a verb which shows how ubiquitous it is already) so we can stay in touch.” I nodded because I knew exactly what he meant and I agreed, “Yes, Skype sounds good, we’ll set that up once you get settled,” I replied.

Or my best friend, who is spending the last of the summer with his family in Greece. He lamented that his internet connection at his parent’s house isn’t sufficient to watch YouTube videos to the extent he wanted while he is on vacation. “The connection here is so slow!” he complained in his email to me. He was surprised because why shouldn’t he have fantastic access and internet download quality because it is available everywhere. Meanwhile, our emails continue and although it is not like having him around the corner in NYC, we’re in direct contact sufficiently to stay in close touch while he is multiple time zones and thousands of miles away.

Then there are all of you, dear readers. Claire is in the French countryside, Doug is in Hawaii, Louise is in Australia, Wren on the West Coast in Oregon, and Otto Munchen in Norway, and on and on and on.

You do the same thing I do. You get on the internet, which you expect to be easy, fast and cheap and you post your thoughts on your blogs, or write emails, or make internet telephone calls, all with nary a blip on the mental radar about how we’ve never met in person but have connected intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and more… via the interwebs.

Tell me…

How has your life been improved by access to all this great technology? How are you best leveraging all this amazing access at your fingertips?

Creative Non-Fiction: The Car of Your Dreams

The Car of Your Dreams

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I’ve been carrying around traumatic events from my adolescence for decades. Now that I’ve reached my forties and my parents are gone, it’s time to start telling other people what happened. I don’t want to carry these rocks around forever; I’m ready to have others help me carry them.

 

I feel a strange urge to defend my well-meaning but harmful parents. I didn’t suffer from physical or substance abuse in my family, it was nothing that traumatic. Even the word abuse seems too strong. But there were events that have had long term effects on my psyche. Sometimes I have irrational insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. No matter how hard I work in life, it never seems hard enough. In other words, my parents gifted me the prerequisite conditions to be a writer, or more broadly, a driven person.

 

From the earliest age I can remember my parents told me I was going to college. This was not a discussion they had with me, it was an indisputable fact of my existence. As the oldest of two children in a middle-class Jewish family it was my obligation to meet my parents expectations. I wasn’t unique in this regard. In Jewish households across America, every day a kid is told they’re going to college. And they will.

 

My grades underwent regular scrutiny from kindergarten through middle school, and by the time I got to High School my father became a harsh critic. I dreaded showing him my report cards. If I got a B in Math my father would ask why I didn’t get an A. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it, but no reason would satisfy him. He said I wasn’t working hard enough. For him it was the only rational explanation for why I didn’t get an A. A simple formula was applied: anything less than perfection showed a lack of dedication. On the flip side, always getting an A in English and French was passed over without comment. A was the expected grade; it required no chastisement.

 

But neither of us understood getting into a great college was going to be impossible for me anyway. I was unaware of the odds against me and my parents were ignorant of the admissions process, which they incorrectly assumed was fair and balanced.

 

I was getting good grades, that wasn’t the issue. But I went to school in a blue collar town with an undistinguished middle-of-the-road academic program. Ivy League schools turned their institutional noses up at high schools like mine. No one told me and certainly no one told my parents. (Our valedictorian, a painfully shy blond-headed boy who I had the worst schoolgirl crush on for years, went to a two-year community college to study Forestry.)

 

Anyway, there I was, editing the school newspaper, playing cymbals in the marching band, joining the Honor Society and the French Honor Society, and serving as the President of the Principal’s student advisory team. I don’t remember what else I did to have enough extra-curricular credentials to impress college recruiters, but I did my best to show everyone I was a bonafide nerd and it was working.

 

As I rounded my last academic lap senior year, my father saw me doing everything possible to accomplish what he expected. He decided to give me extra incentive. He told me if I graduated in the Top Ten of my class, he would buy me a new car. Really? I remember asking him. Yes, he said. Graduate in the Top Ten – Get a New Car.

 

As a seventeen year old girl the dangling carrot of a new car was beyond enticing. I was thrilled at the possibility my academic suffering could create a real-world result manifested as four tires, a gas pedal and a steering wheel. I dreamed in shades of robin’s egg blue. Whatever academic ambitions I fostered were now ratcheted up to inhuman proportions. I took on extra-credit assignments and became maniacal about the Top Ten goal.

 

My father knew I was part of the Honors classes. In High School I was in an advanced studies track which put me in the same classes with the other nerds. (This is one reason why I developed such a long standing crush on the blonde-headed boy, I was in every single class with him for four years.) But what my father didn’t know was I had a secret weapon: Denise L.

 

Miss L was our senior year Biology teacher and a newcomer to the teaching profession. I recall we didn’t have an Honors track Biology class, I don’t remember now why we didn’t, but Biology was a mixed class with goons from the general population mixed in with the nerds from the Honors track. (Of course the blonde-headed boy was in Miss L’s class too, a sweet torture for me.)

 

Miss L, like many of the teachers at my middle-of-the-road school, wanted everyone to do well in her class. It occurs to me now this might have been a tactic on her part to stay in her job a second year, since she’d be able to cite good grades for students of all levels. At the time I saw her as a nice but naïve new teacher.

 

Miss L gave all of us the same unconditional offer: turn in every single homework assignment and she’d add 8 points onto our final average at the end of the year. Despite my poor math abilities, I realized this opened the door for a perfect 100 in Biology senior year if I could at least get an A. I enjoyed biology so it was just the extra gas in the tank I needed for the Top Ten convertible of my dreams.

 

Meanwhile, the long march to college proceeded. I applied to four schools. In my order of preference at the time: Princeton, Cornell, Douglass College which was part of Rutgers University, and Stockton State College. Stockton was my back-up school. I got in with ease but had no intention of going. I also got into Douglass, which was a very good school, even though it was all-girls. Cornell wait-listed me and told me if I could delay my start until the following academic year I could get in, but I didn’t want to do that.

 

And then there was Princeton.

 

My father came with me to the Princeton recruiting event in his best dress slacks, a polo shirt and a suit jacket. I also got dressed up but still felt awkwardly out of place.

 

The nice people at Princeton set up the interview room with cafeteria tables representing each high school, so you didn’t have to wait on line too long to speak to a recruiter. For Westfield, an affluent town fifteen minutes away from where I lived, there were three tables set up for the kids and their parents. I think Montclair had two tables for their school.

 

For my town, along with the next town over and Elizabeth – the third largest city in the state of New Jersey – there was one table. One. And guess what? There were very few kids from these three towns, so my father and I walked right up and spoke to the recruiter who wore a jacket emblazoned with a Princeton crest. I was suitably intimidated.

 

Later, when my application to Princeton was declined, my father said it was just as well since he couldn’t afford to send me to Princeton. From his perspective this simple financial logic applied to Cornell too. I don’t know why my parents never thought far enough ahead while they psychologically whipped me year after year to get the best grades possible if they didn’t have the means or intention of sending me to an Ivy League school? I guess it was too logical to equate forcing your kid into academic achievement and the parental obligations that should have proceeded from it.

 

If I sound resentful it’s not because I resent being over-educated or the only person in my nuclear family to go to college. It’s because of the trail of tears I had to march for twelve years in order to go to our excellent state university. I could have gotten in there minus a lot of drama.

 

Thankfully though, I had an important alternate incentive. The car dangled within reach if I made it into the Top Ten. It helped me temper my disappointment on college choices. I loved Douglass College and Rutgers as it turned out and their English Literature program was fantastic.

 

Meanwhile, as senior year drew to a close, we were told final grades would be announced just before graduation. There were about 275 kids in my class. If I made it to the top 27, I reasoned, I’d be in the top 10%. I thought that was pretty good. There were at least 30 kids in the Honors track classes, and although we were a minority in our school, we were representative of the kids we’d be meeting when we got to college. For me, making it into the top 10% would mean I was competitive with my Honors track peers. But I didn’t have to worry: Miss L came through. I got a perfect 100 in Biology.

 

I graduated 12^th in my class. I was so close to Top Ten! My father agreed that 12^th was great and he was proud of me. But I wasn’t getting a car. I begged and pleaded with him to reward me: a used car, a motorized scooter, something, anything, as acknowledgment of my achievement. No, he said, rules were rules. Besides, he added, he couldn’t afford to buy me a new car.

 

I still believe now, decades later, his decision was cruel. It undermined my ability to trust the good nature of human beings. How could I imagine a situation where I worked my ass off and got rewarded fairly? It didn’t happen in my house. Ever.

 

The American credo, especially for immigrant families, was hard work leads to success. Eight years, three advanced degrees and tens of thousands of dollars in student loans later, yes, my hard work lead to my success. My parent’s brainwashing took root deep in my psyche; I learned how to beat myself up without their assistance. It turned out I was an excellent student after all.

 

In the end, I guess I turned out okay. I’ve got a well paid corporate career and I make more each year than both of my parents did at any point in their lives. Some might say I’m compelled to do it. I’m still not sure that’s my definition of success, but it was theirs. One day though, I hope to fulfill my real promise and become a successful writer.

Maybe someday I will.

 

Re-reading Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet

I’ve been re-reading Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke, and his words resonate with me more than a hundred years after he wrote them.

And while I continue on with my own struggles about being an artist, here is a clear voice from the past with wisdom to share.

“…And if out of this turning inward, out of this absorption into your own world verses come, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses. Nor will you try to interest magazines in your poems: for you will see in them your fond natural possession, a fragment and a voice of your life. A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgement of it: there is no other. Therefore, my dear sir, I know no advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside.”

- Rilke, Paris, February 17, 1903

A fallow moment

Fallow, adj: Plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility

As you may (or may not) have noticed, my writing productivity has slowed this month on the blog. It’s not just the blog actually, it is also in my writing, and submitting activities too.

I’ve been rejuvenating myself physically, and psychologically.

The last several months have been challenging on a few levels. I haven’t talked about it on the blog, and I likely won’t, but I feel like I’m waiting to get through this tunnel…I can see the shafts of light streaming through the opening at the end, but I haven’t emerged into full sunlight yet.

Some positives help keep me going. I’ve been working hard on my physical being. This means, for me, walking 5-6 miles a day, eating mostly vegetables, taking vitamins and combatting my insomnia.

It’s strange, but I seem to have a nearly inhuman amount of energy from this new regimen. I’m so amped up with energy from the exercise and possibly the vitamins (?) it has dampened my appetite. I’m eating only once a day.

It’s bizarre to say this, but the less I eat, the higher my energy levels get. It’s completely counter-intuitive. And yet…I’ve lost 11 pounds thusfar. I feel good, with more to go.

Also gratifying to see is my blog traffic has miraculously maintained itself pretty well even though I’ve cut back on postings. Many thanks to all of you who continue to participate in and ponder the posts here. I love the idea that a global community of writers comes to my blog, and I love hearing from all of you.

As for the rest of my life…I’m putting my energies where they need to be: being around friends, drawing on the advice of work colleagues, experts and gurus, continuing to draw on an amazing support network of people I know and care about, and pushing forward.

Thanks for listening, and reading.

A sweet moment

I wanted to share this with you…

I was in New York City today running some errands. While I was walking back to the train to head home, I walked by a young Spanish woman on the phone, and she was holding her one and a half year old daughter’s hand. The little girl was so cute, I waved and said hi to her. She was adorable with pink bows in her hair, pink pants, baby-sized sneakers…

…and as I walked by, and waved, the little girl reached up and grabbed my finger. She didn’t let go. Her mom was on the phone, and I found myself laughing, walking alongside this girl holding my hand (by way of her teensy fingers wrapped around my finger) while her mom smiled at me.

As incredible as it sounds, we walked like this for several Manhattan blocks. The little girl was happy, and oblivious that anything unusual was happening. What made me smile was her absolute innocence, her willingness to grab the hand of a stranger and walk beside her, without a care in the world.

It made my day.

Potpourri Post: Metazen, Letters in the Mail, Zouch, The Artist and more

Today’s post is brought to you random topical inspiration.

…

My story Baby Crazy will be published by Metazen on March 6th. That’s only 2 days away – yay! I’ll post the link on Tuesday.

…

Do you subscribe to Stephen Elliot’s Letters in the Mail over at The Rumpus? I started getting them recently, and I like them. He sends one email a day and it has his personal observations about things going on in his literary circle, he talks about events he may have attended or promotional things he’s doing, and of course he talks about pieces on The Rumpus site. He uses a very casual style which is appropriate since the email is supposed to be like a personal letter. Anyway, if you haven’t checked out The Rumpus, you probably should.

…

Zouch Magazine recently followed me on Twitter, so I followed them back. Then I went to their site because I wanted to find out more about them. Turns out two artistically inclined Canadian guys who are into music and literature decided it was time to put up their own site and do their own thing. I notice the site is very visually inclined, so some stories are represented by a picture and you have to click on the picture to get to the content. Also, they are very actively looking for people to submit content so if you’re looking for a new market to check out, they’re a place to look.

…

A few days ago I got an email from an editor I’ve only submitted to twice (a third item had to be withdrawn when it was accepted elsewhere) but she was so nice, I want to share what she said to me:

I really enjoyed this story.  What did you send me last time? I know that I liked it as well.

I don’t think this is quite the story for [  ] either, but I have no doubt that one of your stories certainly will be.

I was like, what…me? You only read two stories and you liked them both? But what was funny is that she never told me that in the original rejection slips. Good lesson for me kids, behind those rejection slips people are forming opinions – even when they don’t share them.

And she was SO nice, she even offered to re-read the first piece and provide more detailed feedback. I need someone to love that story as much as I do, because I’ve been trying to get Family Picnic published for years. Nate Tower just accepted the only other story I had from that long ago, so The Paperboy found an adoptive dad, maybe if things go well Family Picnic will soon have an adoptive mom. Or at least, maybe it’ll have an adoptive aunt to provide feedback that leads me to the right editorial parent.

…

I’ve noticed something funny is going on now with my rejection slips – most of them are getting personal responses now, and in some cases they’re saying things like “this is well written” “I like the crisp language” or “this flows well” (all comments I’ve gotten recently, by the way) even though the pieces aren’t getting accepted. Believe me, this is a significant development for me…I feel like some invisible tide is turning.

When I consider how important it is to be published in places like PANK, Metazen, Foundling Review, Spilling Ink, Bartleby Snopes (twice), Dogzplot, Right Hand Pointing, etc. I think these brand name journals are helping me tremendously as I make forward headway. Then again, I don’t put all those names on my submission cover letters but let’s be real, I always put a few.

That takes me back to something Jacob Appel said in that Tips article I mentioned in my last post… he said a twenty-something MFA student slushpile reader might dismiss you out of hand if you have no recognizable pub credits but they’ll think two or three times if you’ve got heavy hitter names, maybe a Pushcart nom, or something. Ahh, back to their hierarchy of talent, right?

I don’t know.

I’d like to believe, and I do believe, that my writing has improved over the past two years too. I’ve had so many great editors give productive feedback and I’m listening – I swear I’m listening very closely to those snippets of feedback – and maybe my nose to the proverbial grindstone, plus my successful story placements, plus the ongoing goodwill of new editors equals the promise of further placement.

Hmm. This set of observations could be influenced by the sun shining and it’s Sunday and I can go out and enjoy the day too.

…

Finally, movies. Or, a movie. The Artist, in fact.

I recently made some very snide comments about how would it be possible for a French film to win over an American film for Best Picture. (By the way, j’adore Paris and Viva La France…) Then I went to see The Artist.

Yeah, it’s good. It deserved Best Picture over The Descendants.

Also, now I understand why Jean DuJardin (Mr. John Garden, for those of us who speaka de English) got selected for the lead role. He has a certain je ne c’est quoi about him that does strongly remind you of old Hollywood. He was able to use his face so wonderfully, and he must be dangeously charming in France, where he speaks the native language.

But… and there is a “but” here…

Movies just ain’t what they used to be, I lament to you, dear reader.

In two years from now, I’m not going to be talking about The Artist. I’ll still be talking about how phenomenal The Departed is, and it’s destined to be a classic. I’ll talk about the wonder of The Royal Tennenbaums, the razor-sharp and inspiring dialogue from David Mamet’s Heist (“Don’t you want to hear my last words?” “I just did.” BANG) and how far ahead of its time Close Encounters of the Third Kind was as a film, yes, these movies I will watch again and again along with my romantic favorites Good Will Hunting, The Piano and Groundhog Day.

But The Artist will, to me, be like Shakespeare in Love… it was a movie I saw, and liked, but I probably don’t need to see again and again and again.

Meet Short Film Maker Derin Kivaner

Derin Kivaner is very talented.

I don’t mean that casually as in, oh, she directs short films and she’s talented. I mean Derin is Turkish and speaks several foreign languages including English, writes English fluently, sings like a songbird, has her own band, and THEN she directs short films, and produces them, writes the scripts, does the lighting, puts together the soundtrack, and gathers all the actors for her works and does the casting.

Yeah. Talented like that.

Did I mention she’s 23?

Oh, I’ll throw that out here as if all of us could do half the things she does passionately at 23.

If you want to get a tiny glimpse of how talented she is, you will immediately CLICK HERE www.vimeo.com/derininvimeosu and watch some of her Vimeo clips of her short films. Some are charming and funny like I Love Me, and others are more serious and lovesick like Lighter. Her “show reel” is a great montage of many of her works in one sitting.

Derin and I have begun our adventure together by chatting yesterday via the internet. We worked over script concepts and how to adapt the settings in my short story to settings she has available in Istanbul. Of course it is fascinating to see pictures of neighborhoods in Istanbul that can “stand in” for the types of locations I was talking about in my story, set in NYC. Of course it won’t be a direct translation, but you know, I love the idea that my little story can be stretched and made universal to adapt to a different cultural context.

We discussed actors and who might be best for the parts. Of course, she knows oodles of talented actors, and has an impressively keen eye to know who will do well in particular roles.

It’s hard to describe how exciting it is to be working on this right now, but trust me, it is extremely satisfying.

More to come…

Au Revoir New Orleans: a love letter to my NoLa friends

It’s with a heavy heart that I write this last blog entry from New Orleans. The three weeks I’ve spent in the city have been amazing and inspiring.

Blue Dog - NOMA Sculpture Garden

I’m proud to say that I’ve been mistaken for a native New Orleanian by the locals. This is, for me, the highest compliment someone could pay me here. It happened again just this morning by my waitress at the Trolley Stop Cafe on St. Charles, and she is a local. I feel adopted by this city and its people. After I paid my bill today we hugged, and all the other waitresses wished me a happy new year. Such happy sadness walking out that door.

After all the stories I’ve told in the 14 NoLa Diary entries and other posts I’ve written, there are many more experiences that feel like they were uniquely New Orleans adventures.

There’s Brandon, my host with the most, a fun companion, room mate and wonderful guy. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to be a temporary roomie with, and the fact that we’re both addicted to Top Chef helps. I’m incredibly glad to have been a “temporary resident” of the Lower Garden District too, and being part of this neighborhood enhanced my NoLa experience tremendously.

I met Aria while waiting for the bus on Canal to go down Magazine Street towards ‘home’. Within 10 minutes I felt like I bumped into an old friend, within 20 minutes she invited me to a Christmas Eve celebration. She and Jason are lovely, and I had fun meeting Jay, Justin, Shannon, Lindsay, Keith, Aaron, Ann and everyone else at that party. Shannon had me laughing my butt off (you who know me, know I’m an easy target for a jokester.) I felt like I met someone I used to know and got reunited with, strange to say maybe, but true.

There’s Brian and his wife AND Bob (their mascot!) at the Lucky Ladle, dishing out delicious breakfasts on Magazine Street with plenty of friendship and laughs. (The Bob Special and blueberry pancakes don’t hurt either…)

I can’t forget Otis, the proprietor of the FAB bookstore on Frenchman Street who helped me find Rob Walker’s Letters From New Orleans, a book I didn’t know I needed until I found it in Otis’s shop. Later I got the David Sedaris book When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which led me to chat with Aria at the bus stop, and then I later gave to her for Christmas. One happy, tightly-knit NoLa circle.

I should thank the proprietress at Faulkner Bookstore in Pirate Alley who turned me onto Louisiana short story writer Tim Gatreaux. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.

I enjoyed meeting Stephen, the National Park Ranger at the NoLa National Jazz Park that told me about the free concerts at the U.S. Mint building, but then spent another half an hour telling me about the amazing history of New Orleans. He was so sweet, he commented to me “talking to you is easy.” (Thanks Stephen.) And I loved listening to the ragtime/jazz performances by Steve Pistorius and Jim Hessions.

Then there is George at the Tout-Suite on Algiers Point who gave me his personal card after we chatted for a half an hour and told me to “call him if I need anything, anytime.” I know he meant it, his kindness toward others was obvious. And the industrious young lady behind the counter, who left San Francisco to come back home to Algiers Point and run the Tout-Suite, who said “Bye Carol!” when I left at the end of my visit.

I met tourists Jeffrey and Jeremy on the streetcar, brothers separated by the continent of North America – one in L.A and the other in Brooklyn. We chatted about skateboarding, living all over the United States (and ”meeting in the middle” to get together for the holidays) until they hopped off the St. Charles streetcar and I proceeded on.

There was Joyce who let me into her decorating shop for a chat about her 60 amazing years running a business, and the Creole painter gentleman who met me at the bus stop and who couldn’t have been more charming. He said, as we got off the bus together, “give my best to the family for the holidays” although we had met no more than 20 minutes earlier.

And yes, even (harmless and well-meaning) “hobo Willy” at Down the Hatch. I’ll miss him too. Him and that other drunk guy on the corner of Frenchman who sells his paintings on the street who yelled out “Hey, you’re pretty!” (Thanks fellas.)

Yesterday I met a yoga instructor in Audobon Park, originally from Ohio but now in NoLa full time. We walked around the park together and chatted, keeping each other company for a bit. He quit his cafe job because he wants to dedicate himself to the service of others by teaching Yoga – in a circle of reciprocal energy, he says. Yes, that’s what New Orleans is about on its best days.

In three short weeks, all this happened and more. It’s my last day here and I think about these wonderful people and consider how these stories never would have manifested within a three week span anywhere else. There’s just something about New Orleans, something intangible, indescribable, and inspiring.

These people invited me to feel part of me is home in New Orleans. That, more than anything else about my NoLa travel adventure, means the world to me.