Barr Bielinski

My Fiction 2 Class: A Body Count

A few weeks into my writing class, I started keeping a body count of the characters who perished in the making of our fiction and the published stories we read. I thought it would be funny to email the list to the class at the end of the term. Here's how it started:

• grandmother killed in hit-and-run
• jealous husband fallen from tree
• girl fallen from tree house on Thanksgiving
• critical case DOA on med flight from Iraq
• pregnant woman drowned

At the heart of my list-keeping is my belief that death figures too prominently in our writing. And death isn't my only peeve. If anthropologists had nothing but a pile of litmags to go by, they'd think we were codependent, substance abusing incest survivors, unfaithful to our violent mates, and, oh yes, that every one of us had lost a child. And a dog.

So in my righteousness, I kept my list.

But then it came time for me to begin a new story. I self-consciously avoided the urge to kill. To bruise. To hand someone a drink. To let them take their pants off. I got writer's block. No, I got righteous block.

So I stopped keeping my list. I wrote my story.

Are death, violence, addiction, and illicit sex a crutch for lesser writers? Or are they the stuff of great fiction? Or both? What would life be like if you had to live in the world of the last story you read? So why are you going to read the next one? Why are you going to write it?  

 

Measure twice. Cut once.

How long is my draft? 7' 3". Not sure what I'm supposed to be getting out of this exercise.

Width = 6 1/2 ". Hmm.

Oh, I get it. The depth is pretty much zero. Now I see where some rewriting could help.

Thank you, Jeffuckrey.

I lust after a phone. It sends my emails, texts. It's a browser. Gets me directions. Basically an extra-smart smart phone. Only all I have to do is talk to it and listen when it talks to me. No buttons. I can ignore the screen completely. Think of me fondling it while it learns to recognize my face. My voice. It will be mine. We will be as one.

Well, such was my fantasy and the phone is finally available. But wait.

Neva told me about an order she received at her website. It was placed by one Jeffuckrey. Everything about the order appeared above board, but Neva did a double-take on the name. She just had to talk to the man himself. The man named Jeffuckrey.

So she called. He didn't answer. Neva left a message: “Hello, This message is for Jeffuckrey ...”

Then she sent an email: “Hi Jeffuckrey, I'm contacting you regarding your recent order ...”

Well, Neva got a reply. Yes, the man had placed the order. But his name was not Jeffuckrey. It was Jeffrey. He had no idea how Neva got Jeffuckrey. Neither did she. Neither did I …

… Until I thought again of my dream phone.

So now picture me with that phone again. I'm filling out an online form. Submitting a story, say, and in the same room is my husband, a charming man of few words. And say he blurts one of those words while I'm saying my name.

Months later, my story appears. I hope you'll read it. I don't know the title because I haven't written it yet. But the author … Yes. It's me: Barr Bieshitlinski.

Thank you, Jeffuckrey. I'm reconsidering the phone.

 

Richard Russo vs. Mannerism Cliché Bingo

This morning I read Richard Russo’s “The Whore’s Child,” the 2011 Boston Book Festival selection for One City One Story. Russo’s voice is masterful! Read. Ponder the relationship between fiction and reality. There’s special appeal for writers who’ve workshopped their own stories. And it’s entertaining. But that’s not why I mention Russo’s story.

Last Spring I blogged a card for playing Mannerism Cliché Bingo. The idea was to mark squares for the clichés you encounter as you read through your latest draft. Imagine my consternation this morning when I realized that Richard Russo’s story is a winner. Meaning that he has enough clichés for a “BINGO!” Which means Richard Russo loses.

Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t have any of the stinkers: flaring nostrils, eyes that dance or pop, a tendril of hair always out of place. His clichés are more tasteful: Her eyes were brimming with tears and My own heart was in my throat. But either Mannerism Cliché Bingo is not the last word in literary taste or Richard Russo is coming up short.

So, is there a place for clichés in your writing?

Say you’re writing a scene where you’ve dialed up the tension and the story is moving fast. Do you want a fresh, engaging image of the woman who is on the verge of tears? No. You’d lose momentum if you focused the reader’s attention on her face. Likewise you don’t want to linger in the GI tract of the narrator who feels a sudden wave of stress. The clichés convey exactly what’s happening without distracting. BINGO!

See what strikes you when you read “The Whore’s Child.” And look for Richard Russo at the Boston Book Festival October 15^th.  

And now, for your sleeping pleasure ...

 

A woman at work took pity on the new moms. She taught us how to stop our minds racing so we could get a good night’s sleep. I’ve passed her tip along many times— most recently to my own mother and my brother-in-law. If you are kept awake by thoughts that chase through your brain, if you’re sleepless and frustrated, try this.

The idea is to focus many parts of your mind at once and make them unavailable for the thoughts that trouble you. You’re going to count from 100 to 115 and back again, but do it this way.

               Picture the number with your mind’s eye.

               Whisper it aloud.

               Blow out a breath.

               Move on to the next number.

Note that other than blowing out after each number, you should breathe normally.

Don’t worry that the activities of whispering and blowing will make you more awake. Once your mind is quiet, you’ll be lulled off to sleep with no trouble. Maybe before you reach 115. Almost certainly before you get back to 100.

Good luck. We all have difficult stretches in our lives. I will be so happy if I’ve helped you get back to sleeping well.

If you know where this technique came from originally, please let me know. I’d like to attribute it correctly and express my gratitude to the person who thought it up and passed it along.

                                    ~  ~  ~  ~  ~      

      Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,

      The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,

      The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,

      Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;

      With shield of proof shield me from out the press

      Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw!

      O make in me those civil wars to cease!—

      I will good tribute pay if thou do so.

      Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,

      A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light,

      A rosy garland, and a weary head;

      And if these things, as being thine in right,

      Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,

      Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

                                        Sir Phillip Sidney (1554 – 1586)

 

 

Solitude - a time to think without distractions

"Thomas Mann said that a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The best writers write much more slowly than everyone else, and the better they are, the slower they write. James Joyce wrote Ulysses, the greatest novel of the 20th century, at the rate of about a hundred words a day ... for seven years. T. S. Eliot, one of the greatest poets our country has ever produced, wrote about 150 pages of poetry over the course of his entire 25-year career. That’s half a page a month."

from "Solitude and Leadership" by William Deresiewicz http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

This is an excerpt from a lecture Deresiewicz gave at West Point last fall. Non-leaders (like me) might be especially interested in the second half of the lecture. That's where Deresiewicz talks about solitude. The passage above is from there and much more that is of interest to writers.

Nappapan, there are some people I'd like you to meet.

I have drafts of a good dozen stories that, in spite of multiple rewrites, workshops, fresh looks, etc., just don't have IT. So, today I had planned to think about them – not the nuts and bolts of specific ones, but to take a look at them en masse. It's not pretty.

So, rather than a day of anguish, I have a new plan and here it is: From the stories, pick ten characters who ARE working. See what they have that the others don't. Learn a little something. Then, see if maybe a few of them could play off each other in a story of their own.

Do you have any insight that might help? Have you ever taken this look at what's not working for you? Have you sprung characters from failed stories and seen them thrive elsewhere? Other than characters, what else might be helpful to look at across stories?

 

If Hitler wrote Catcher in the Rye would you read it?

Does what you know about an author temper the pleasure you take in reading? Will believing that Kerouac was a pig and Hemingway, a bastard, cause you to read between the lines of On the Road or The Sun Also Rises?

For myself, I worry it will. I decided against reading The Paris Wife because I prefer to enjoy my annual Hemingway novel with my head in the sand. All I want to know about Hemingway is what he said about himself in A Moveable Feast.

May be too late for that now.

Is there a more mature attitude toward art? Or hey, Jim says Longfellow was a very decent human being. Care to join me in reading The Song of Hiawatha? 

 

This is the last post I'm bringing over from my old blog and here are the comments:

Frank Marcopolos: I tend to care much more about the story itself rather than its creator. I'm not really interested in a writer's persona.

me: Well, I tried to bait you by choosing a Salinger novel for Hitler to write. Now I wish I'd stuck with The Odyssey or Gone with the Wind. Congratulations on being unbaitable.

Frank Marcopolos: Yes, it's one of my more charming qualities. ;)

 

via email I received an offer to read The Song of Hiawatha with a dear friend.

Also via email, this re: Hemingway: As I recall, Johnson has fulsome praise for Hemingway as an artist and most certainly as an influence on other writers--mostly for the good, I think. (Raymond Carver, comes to mind.) And yes, bad men can make good art. They remain bad men.  Orwell talks in Homage to Catalonia about some innocent men killed because of the Communists trying to take over.  In Intellectuals Johnson makes the case that H. got a few killed, too. Good writing may or may not be important, but it ain't THAT important.

 

Why is Captain Ahab an icon and Jake Barnes not so much?

Put that way, why bother asking? But here’s the thing. I’ve been following the All-Time American Writer Tournament at American Pop Lit. Hemingway, Melville, Twain, and Fitzgerald are among the top seeds. It's a secret, but when the time comes, I plan to cheat to make sure Hemingway wins. The ONLY thing that can get in my way is the fact that these other three gave us iconic characters and Hemingway did not. I’m willing to side line Twain and Fitzgerald for now because their icons are required reading. But people who've never read Melville are at home with references to Captain Ahab and Bartleby. What are Fred Henry, Jake Barnes, and Robert Jordan missing?

 

 

This post is from my old blog and here are your comments (and mine):

 

Frank Marcopolos: Well, there's always Nick Adams, but he's in the short stories, which are what I'm into for my site, so my familiarity with that character is not a reliable gauge.

 

me: Frank, I don't know Nick Adams well enough. I was starting to speculate that the other Hem heroes are too admirable. In their situations I'd aspire to live up to their standards. What about Nick Adams?

 

Jim Ventola: Melville and Fitzgerald are moral writers. H. is amoral. Most Americans prefer the former. Besides, his style is artificial and mannered. Who talks like that, really? There is only so much you can do with reaction-formation, paranoia, and depression. Now obsession....THAT is an American virtue.

 

me: So, Jim, no help from you with my amoral obsession to see Hemingway named All-Time American Writer. I take it Melville and Fitzgerald are too moral for you. So, who do you like?

 

Jim Ventola: Actually I admire them all for different reasons. But H. was an SOB for sure. "A Moveable Feast" is great fun, but what a job he does there on poor Scotty, who was dead and could not defend himself. The French go for Poe (and Jerry Lewis). Now Longfellow has been much neglected of late even though he was the first American poet to be really popular. (And if one wanted a very decent human being to be the All-American writer, he would most certainly do.)

 

Frank Marcopolos: Well, Nick Adams is a kid, and the Nick Adams stories are generally about his being initiated into manhood by his father, for the most part. "Indian Camp" is great example of that.

As to style, Hemingway's short story "My Old Man" is a nice example of how he could create a story using a style he was not generally known for, and one where the influence of Ring Lardner is apparent.

I'm not too sure about the moral/amoral argument. For example, in "Indian Camp," Hemingway wrote a story about a boy's harsh cross-over into manhood. Is this moral or amoral? I think neither; it's just a great, instructive story, in my opinion.

 

me: I listened to Frank read Hemingway and Poe (click over to his website and enjoy!). My ear chooses Poe, but haven't yet heard "My Old Man."

As a character, Nick is upstaged by his father in "Indian Camp." Dubious manhood his father is trying to indoctrinate him into. Is Nick kind of an "everyman" (everyboy) coming to the adult world with innocence and reacting to what he finds?

 

Frank Marcopolos: Yes, I think he is, and Hemingway is giving us a look at the harsh adult faces of birth, death, sex, and cuckoldry all in one tight little story. Not to be overlooked is the role of the uncle in the story. In actuality, Nick is the star of the story--that is, the story is ABOUT him--because he is the one who changes from the beginning to the end of the story. The textual evidence for this is in how he handles the boat on the way to the camp, and then on the return. (Also - water, in this story and just about every story ever, is symbolic of a kind of birth, or re-birth.)

 

me: Frank, you've got me thinking about stories where the character with the most presence is not the main character: Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, Wizard of Oz. I'm thinking "Indian Camp" belongs on this list. And I was thinking the father was the upstager, but, now that you've pointed it out, the uncle will probably lurk the longest.

 

Frank Marcopolos: Well, "presence" can be a tricky thing. But the story is always about the person or people who change in some way during the course of the story.

 

Anonymous (I got this comment via email, so I'm not saying from whom, not that I think you'd mind. Feel free to claim it.): Here's another theory in answer to your question.  H's characters are not iconic because HE was iconic.  Papa was everywhere in the fifties--at the bullfights, in the nightclubs, shooting big game, fishing big fish... You could not miss his handsome face. He remains the iconic American ex-pat writer. And it is delicious that mr. macho man turned out (according to his posthumous book) to have been suitably feminine under the veneer.

 

Workshopping the Royal Wedding

My post on Invisiblog is lost forever. As I recall it was brilliant. Your comments are brillianter.

( I sure hope Melanie Wold doesn't see this. )

 

 

Frank Marcopolos: There was a royal wedding this week? Who got hitched? Prince and Queen Latifah?

 

me: LOL. That's a wedding worth watching.

 

Michael Shaw: The Royal Wedding has elements of great literature as long as the you realize that Will and Kate aren't the main characters, Queen Elizabeth is the star of this novel. I am not that much of Royal Watcher, but it seems to pretty obvious to me that that frumpy old lady has a will of steel and is the puppet master pulling the strings behind this fairy tale romance and wedding.

There was a serious drop in popularity in England in all things royal after the Diana fiasco and the Royal Old Broad seems to me determined to make sure this wedding hits all the right notes in the public eye. The whole show struck me as very beautiful and very contrived.

That someone who is so shrewd and controlling as the Queen should have so little fashion sense is the type of ironic detail that makes for great literature.

 

me: Maybe it's more an epic than a novel - queen's story drawing to a close. Plenty of ground work laid for Will and Kate's. Skip over Charles since he's every bit as much of a frumpy old lady as Mum.

I like your point about the fashion sense - on the one hand she's taking a dog breeder's role re: her great grandchildren and, on the other, she's showing up at the wedding dressed like a Peep in an Easter basket.

Re: Diana. Pretty girl marries man twice her age. She knows he loves someone else, but naively hopes. When hopes are dashed, she, now pregnant, throws herself down the stairs. Ultimately makes a separate life for herself. Then gets in a car with a drunk driving....