Ladislaw Said the Right Thing to Dorothea

Before my blog became ground zero for a host of issues, I would come here from time to time and say something about my writing and reading.

Therefore:

My story "Among Those Numbers" was rejected by Narrative Magazine. Or maybe it was by StoryQuarterly. If anyone can explain to me the relationship between these two journals, and whether StoryQuarterly has simply ceased to exist, please speak up. In any case, I'm not sending that story out again just now. I want to look at it again, and I know doing so will lead to a rewrite. My head and hands are busy with the novel, so the short story has to wait. (Concerned with a young couple who talk quite a bit about having a child but never get around to having one, "Among Those Numbers," once titled "The Future," is told backwards, with the climax occurring chronologically earlier. I like it, but it hasn't sold yet. So it goes.)

And to start catching up on posting my comments on things I've read:

I did not finish David Mitchell's Black Swan Green (it's named for where the main character lives). I would have liked a short story or two in the voice of this character, but a whole novel was wearing me out. It’s smartly written, this voice of a 13-year-old, but so constantly clever and laden with references that it’s wearying. In addition, after the first chapter, the narrative seemed to stall, with all of the forward motion halting after building up quite nicely. After that first chapter, the book took on an episodic shape, with each scene aimed at some other aspect of the character’s coming-of-age (he’s somehow both clever and terribly naive). I’m impressed by the writing as writing, but I felt too mired to continue as I neared the hundredth page.

Hopper, Mark Strand
A fine example--but not an outstanding example--of a non-expert (at least, Strand seems to be a non-expert) recording thoughtful reactions to an artform in which he doesn’t work. Poet Strand comments briefly, one or two pages per piece, on a host of Hopper paintings (all copied in black and white; fortunately, I have a Hopper book with most of the paintings). The reflections and ideas are modest; Strand doesn’t follow his ideas away from the paintings themselves but stays focused on each piece. Since his stated mission is to address the paintings from a purely aesthetic standpoint and not comment on their possible wider purposes in American cultural and artistic history, this leaves him with a somewhat narrow range of things to say. He comments often on perspective, geometric relations, the placement of characters, the shape light takes, the haunting presence of trees. Oddly, he comments only rarely on the titles of paintings. As he’s a poet, he should know how titles often add another layer, and on several occasions he fails to note what strikes me as a rereading of a painting based on its title. And while he often points to the way trees--typically blurred--present nature’s dark depths in contrast to the sharp, bright building surfaces, I feel he misses the way--as with Flannery O’Connor’s short fiction--trees are used to suggest the limits of the human, crowding and encircling the microcosm of the subject. The treeline might as well be the edge of the universe or the end of a life: past this point, we cannot see, and what we can see--humans and their structures and the uncertain relationships among them--possess a particular silence we struggle to penetrate.

I'm working, in my fits-and-starts little-at-a-time way, on the novel, The Drowned Book. It's come quite a distance from its conception; in fact, it looks almost nothing like the original idea. Even as I proceed with it now, it reshapes itself, plotwise (which I'm glad to say is largely sorted out, though the end is open to seismic changes), in terms of voice and tone (which do seem to have settled into something I like a lot), and in its structure. The challenge is in living up to the aims I have for the work--or perhaps I should say the aims the work has for me.

I have eight stories out right now. I know exactly when I'll hear about one of them, since it's at a contest that will announce its results on August 31 (yeah, of this year, wiseacre). As for the rest, who knows? By summer's end, I hope to have heard about most of them. My stories, in order of how long ago I sent them out, are at:

A Public Space
McSweeney's
Massachusetts Review
Story Quarterly
Vestal Review
crazyhorse
Stone Canoe
Glimmer Train (contest)

I did finish among the finalists in a Glimmer Train contest for very short fiction several years ago (whereas, near as I can tell, I've never come close to being published there).

Please note: Since the inappropriately posted rejection letter was removed by the person who posted it, I also removed all related commentary. Sorry if that's a problem for anyone, but I think people have probably said their piece, if not here then elsewhere.

Having been tagged, I now present, from the book nearest at hand (which is not the book I had at the doctor's office just now, but is the book I was reading from last night), page 123, sentence number five:

"The famous toy palace, with its more than six hundred rooms, its dungeons and secret passageways, its gardens and courtyards and orchards, rose to the height of a man's chest and occupied its own chamber, across from the King's library."
--from the first page of Steven Millhauser's short story "In the Reign of Harad IV," from his collection Dangerous Laughter.

I'm so glad I had put that book atop Saramago's Blindness, which often has only one or two sentences per page (in which case I would have had to give up or retype a page-long quotation).

Off at last from teaching and the last meetings of the year.

I just finished the first draft of "You Have No Idea What I've Forgotten," a little tale about race and age and putting stuff out on the curb. It will certainly require several revisions, but I think the elements of the story are all there. I haven't even read it through once.

Next, though several other short pieces await, I think I'll get back to the novel, The Drowned Book. As it's languished, physically speaking, it has actually expanded and deepened in my mind. It never seemed simple to me, but now I see how rich it has the potential to be. Very exciting. One of those things where I wish only for the power to pull it off.

I gave a reading of "A Crisis for Mr. Lion" yesterday at Syracuse's The Redhouse, a small theatrical venue. Certainly it wasn't the best day to have people show up for any kind of indoor event: the middle of a long weekend, and a beautiful day to boot. There were 30 or so people there. First came three staged readings of short plays, all quite good and very different from each other. I read well, and people laughed at all the right places (and even at places I don't think of as funny, but that would certainly strike a first-time reader as they see how far the story's conceit will go). Afterwards, the applause was sustained, and people were curious about the story and gave me plenty of compliments that made me appreciate anew what an enjoyable piece it is. People paid for this, so I given an honorarium, which I hadn't realized I'd be getting. I left somewhat exhausted--I was reading, on my feet, for half an hour straight--but feeling good about my abilities and recharged to return to the task of writing.

I am writing. I make occasional notes for the novel, The Drowned Book, which I'll get back to this summer. More work has gone into a Twilight Zone-ish short story, presently named "Then Show Yourself."

My story "A Crisis for Mr. Lion" has been named a notable story of 2007 by storySouth, making it eligible for the Million Writers award. I'm looking forward to reading other stories posted at the storysouth.com website.

I'll also be reading that story as part of an event on May 25 at the Redhouse in Syracuse. There'll be some short plays by local writers in addition to my reading. Should be fun, and I think they get good crowds.

Rejections have come from various places. No huge surprises there. Back out most things have gone.

I am at work on an actual science fiction story, "Design," and have done some writing, but mostly outline and note work, on a novel, The Drowned Book.

More rapid turnarounds:

Meridian rejected "What My Father . . . ," so I've sent it to A Public Space. (Meridian didn't inform me; evidently, one is to keep checking their submissions log until the fate of the manuscript is determined; this strikes me as lame.)

"The Last Revelation . . . " came back from Crazyhorse (sans comment) and I'm mailing it to The Threepenny Review.

My newest piece, flash fiction, is "What to Say and How to Say It," which I'll check over once more, then send to The Pedestal.

Note that both A Public Space and The Pedestal use online submission procedures. Duotrope has been enormously helpful in this regard, as you can search specifically for journals allowing (or requiring) online submissions.

A story sent to F&SF came back yesterday with an "alas" note from Gordon. I immediately shipped it off elsewhere. I understand his take on it, but a different editor would, I think, respond very differently.

Onward.

"Unseen" remains unsent. A reader pointed out some potential problems, and I'd better work on those.

"Are You Looking At" came back from AGNI quickly, but with a positive response (my second one from them in as many submissions). It's nice to know I'm on some list of "writers whose stories should be checked out," even if I haven't landed anything there yet. I'm hoping one of the two stories currently in progress will be to their liking.

I'm working to nail exactly the right tone and voice and style for "The Sudden Transformation of a Base Metal into Something Precious." It's a bit of a labor. The story's an old one of mine (very old), but is being updated and, of course, somewhat reconceived, though much about the story arc and character remains the same.

Yesterday I spat out (yes, "spat," thank you) a piece of flash fiction, "What to Say and How to Say It." I didn't have an ending until I was having a snack right before bed, and I jotted down a few lines on a sheet of phone-note paper. It needs another going over or two, but I think it may be ready to send out in a day or so. How about that?

Things sent out, things sent back. (Michigan Quarterly Review sent something back so fast, I think it bounced off their post office box!)

Here's where my stories currently await judgment:

"The Last Revelation, I Swear" Crazyhorse (I e-mailed them after their four-month inquiry interim, but they sent back a form letter saying, in essence, that it could take two more months. Rather than simul-subbing it elsewhere, at this point, I'll wait; if it comes back, I'd like to send it to Threepenny Review, an old favorite.

"My Story of Us Looking for My Comic Strip, by Franklin James Nemeth" Ploughshares (probably waiting until April) and One Story (I only sent it there mid-February)

"Are You Looking At" AGNI and Mid-American Review

"What My Father Doesn't Know About Driving at Night" Meridian

"The Scent of Air from a Different Day" (it's had some other titles, including "Shaggy Dog Story" and "The Me You're Talking to Right Now," and was given a complete overhaul; now it's a good story) Fantasy & Science Fiction

"Among Those Numbers" (formerly "The Future") TriQuarterly

"Unseen" (also completely overhauled; very few sentences remain intact) Glimmertrain (I'll send it tomorrow; think they're sick of me yet?)

In the intervening months since last we spoke, you and I, I've had nothing accepted for publication. I've racked up a few rejections: Paris Review, AGNI (that was a personal rejection from Sven Birkerts, saying that the story would get accepted somewhere, he felt sure--so that was nice), Electric Velocipede (made the second round anyway), Glimmertrain . . . I'm sure there have been others. Stories at Sonora are in a nebulous position, at the moment. I'm trying to figure it out.

A new story, "Are You Looking At," is at Zoetrope: All-Story. "Words in a Forgotten Tongue" is, following its latest rejection, being radically revised. I'd given up on the thing, but a friend pointed out the problem everyone else has pointed out, and this time, instead of me saying, "I know, it's intentional," I actually had an idea about how to make it better. This idea affects pretty much every second sentence in the story, and requires tossing out some things completely, I now realize, so I'm at a slash and burn stage for the thing, which is now retitled "The Me You're Talking to Right Now."

"Unseen," which had been rejected a few times last year, is also being retooled radically. I rewrote the thing line by line and have marked it up for further revision. I'll get back to it after the work on the story I just mentioned.

Some other old things are on the list for reworking following those.

I know I'm getting better at this. Now if something that's out there right now could actually get published . . .

Most of what's new is in the rejection vein. "The Future" was rejected by The Iowa Review. (They don't know what they're missing, let's face it.) I immediately sent the story to the journal that has previously solicited me for a new story. (They already have "What My Father Doesn't Know About Driving at Night," but I figured they'd prefer a full-length, more involved story rather than the "very short" piece I sent them a few weeks back.) I'll hear back about that in a few weeks, once the editors are back from university break.

"The Last Revelation, I Swear" was rejected by The Cincinnati Review, but it remains at two other journals to which it was simultaneously submitted.

"My Story of Us Looking for the Comic Strip, by Franklin James Nemeth" was, last week, sent to Glimmertrain; they're now taking simul subs, and the story is already at slow responders Ploughshares and Paris Review. Somebody needs to pick up that story.

"Words in a Forgotten Tongue" is at Electric Velocipede.

I'm in the revision stage for "Are You Looking At?" It needs two more run-throughs before I can show it to readers.

The latest story is specfic; "Green Tree, Dry Tree" is clicking along (though not this week; papers to grade). A full draft does not yet exist.

Jim Shepard's latest short story collection needs to be read start to finish. While the stories have no characters in common, leaping across time and space to present us a female cosmonaut, a boy at a summer camp, a Roman soldier, and a French executioner (to list only a few), they are bound together by theme and structure. As is suggested in the collection's title, we are presented with characters who are, by birth and circumstance, nothing like us, yet by the end of each story, we understand the protagonist's particular predicament. In addition to the external conflicts presented by a character's circumstances, tensions within families drive the narratives inward, with both types of conflicts themselves interacting. The tales end in similar ways, the character having made whatever decision he or she will make and now facing the inevitable outcome, whether imagined or actual. The similarities in structure and tone actually make progress through the book more compelling. Shepard has done an enormous amount of research (he acknowledges his extensive resources at the book's opening), so we get caught up in the details of these lives; each story, no matter how similar to another, is its own fascinating ride toward the precipice that follows every act of decision, or indecision, by the main characters. An outstanding book, the rare short fiction collection to be short-listed for the National Book Award.

I made the mistake of reading some real crap online this morning. Then, when I went to do some editing on my own work, nothing sounded right--even the good sentences. My ear was out of whack. The cure: Jim Shepard followed by Flannery O'Connor. Maybe I can look at my own story this evening.

Let this be a warning to you kids out there: You are what you read. Only read the best stuff, or you'll ruin your ear.

In standard non-helpful fashion, The New Yorker rejected a story of mine. Within a few hours, I e-mailed it to another venue. This other venue is a journal that contacted me to solicit a story a few months ago. I sent them something at the time, but they took a pass. They're still interested, so maybe they'll prefer "What My Father Doesn't Know About Driving at Night." Since I've never seen a copy of the journal (and they don't post sample content online), I can't ascertain their predilections. (My, that sounded dicey.) I should hear back in a few days about that.

In the meantime, this weekend should be a good time to keep revising "Are You Looking At?" ... Should be, but may not be, due to weariness and business. However, if the promised storm hits on Sunday, dumping one or two feet of snow on us, that'll be a day for no outside venturing, and so perhaps a good day for writing. I suppose it's possible the schools would be out on Monday, but we recover fast around here.

Four stories of mine are currently out and about, just begging to be rejected. (Okay, maybe that's not what they do when I'm not looking.)

"The Future", a relationship story told in reverse (for good reason, not just as a stunt), is at the Missouri Review.

"What My Father Doesn't Know About Driving at Night" remains, oddly, at the New Yorker. In the past, they've been very good about rejecting things in a month. They've had this for two months. Either it got bumped up the editorial ladder, or they're backed up. It's a first-person piece of short-short fiction about a girl who wants to take the car to a rural destination. An earlier version was a finalist in one of Glimmertrain's contests.

"The Last Revelation, I Swear" is at four journals. This story marked the first time I've gone the multiple-submission route. I didn't like the idea at first, but the journals say to go ahead, and it does seem a reasonable way to go. I have no idea when I'll begin to hear back about it. Another month or two? It's also very short, in the voice of a prophet delivering his last address and running into some technical difficulties.

"My Story of Us Looking for My Comic Strip, by Franklin James Nemeth" (yeah, what's with these long titles?) is at two places, and I just sent it this past week. It'll be quite a few months. So long. Farewell. It's told by two narrators, a mentally handicapped man, whose favorite comic strip abruptly vanishes from the newspaper, and his live-in aide, who tries to get to the bottom of the puzzle.

I'm currently working on "Are You Looking At," a lovely tale of a guy who likes to watch women run past his house. I'm mentally revising "Design," an sf tale about the search for an Earth-like world.

My story "A Crisis for Mr. Lion" is still up at the Zoetrope: All-Story site, but will, I assume, be given the heave-ho at some point. See it here:

http://all-story.com/issues.cgi?action=show_story&story_id=349

If I haven't mentioned it, my first published story, "You Will Go to the Moon" (Asimov's, July 2006), received honorable mention listing in the latest edition of Gardner Dozois's annual Year's Best Science Fiction.

Thanks for visiting.

Not a good book. A Roman historian in the first century recounts an ancient, fragmentary history about how Clefts--females--first gave birth to Monsters (later, Squirts)--males--thus setting in motion the difficult dynamic that would govern their interactions. This is interspersed with bits from the historian’s own life, though rather too little to play well as a parallel narrative. Really, there’s little narrative at all. The historian doesn’t exactly quote from the histories, but is constantly paraphrasing them and asking questions about them, which inhibits any narrative momentum. Too, there’s little in the way of a standard story arc. Lessing says much the same thing time and again, raising the same questions (as if the book weren’t carefully edited), and dragging out the few scenes that could have had some interest or tension--partly because she seems unable to generate tension, partly because the conceit of someone rather hesitantly paraphrasing other texts doesn’t lend itself to great storytelling. The story stops after it makes a final point, one that’s already been made, I think, and peters out as if the writer had decided to quit. With not a single interesting sentence or riveting scene, the book is marked by redundancy and a paucity of characters. The Roman historian’s family is potentially more interesting, but we don’t see them much. I read this because Lessing won the Nobel, and I recalled being less than impressed by her novel A Man and Two Women when I was in college. I gave her her second chance. It's a book with an agenda (not a radical one nor even compelling one...just an agenda of exploring certain ideas) but without a good story.

This afternoon and this evening, I wrote 2400 words of a 6300 word story. My o my. The tale is "The Story of How We Brought Back the Comic Strip, by Franklin James Nemeth." I like it a lot and, while it's only a first draft, I feel quite confident about it. The story has existed in other forms before, with an anonymous (third-person) narrator, some different events, and an utterly different subtext and conclusion. In fact, the story is so re-shaped, I'll have to go back and clear away the subtextual elements that were hanging on from previous versions.

It's nice to feel productive, isn't it?

Two stories are out: "What My Father Doesn't Know About Driving at Night" is with The New Yorker; "The Future" is with The Missouri Review. I have "The Last Revelation, I Swear" ready to go out to four places that take simultaneous submissions (the first time I've tried that route).

Some other pieces are in various stages of progress.

Greetings to anyone who visits.

I'm not sure I should have started down the novel road. Certainly, I won't know for quite some time, as I didn't get very far along that path this summer.

I began with Outside Frank, then, after pausing to work on some short fiction, started Only Child. Then short fiction drew me back again. I don't feel that I must produce a novel in order to be fulfilled as a writer. In some ways, it seems more like a pragmatic thing: one can earn money in that way. That's simply not enough of a motivator for me. There are more than enough novels out there. I want to make sure I've written something truly worth reading.

I've made no short fiction sales this summer. "The Future" was rejected, in a timely manner, by The Missouri Review. I'd love to have some sense of why it was rejected. I remain satisfied with the story, and will send it to The Iowa Review in a few days.

"Words in a Forgotten Tongue," a radical rewrite of "Shaggy Dog Story," was rejected by Asimov's. The editor said the writing was "lovely" but the story was "thin." I don't disagree, but I like the story as it is. I'll set it aside and perhaps something will strike me, but I don't believe needs something else to work. Another venue may find it just right.

"What My Father Doesn't Know About Driving at Night" has vanished at Tin House. A few weeks after the end of their supposed response time, I sent an e-mail query. I was told that the story would be looked for after Labor Day, when the staff returned. A week after Labor Day, I sent a note to the same person, reminding Tin House to look for the story. I haven't heard back, so I'm assuming it's lost or rejected. Yesterday, I e-mailed it to The New Yorker, operating in good faith that Tin House won't be getting back to me, as it's now been five months that the story's been there rather than three.

I have another short story in the works, an idea that's been kicking around for probably two years. I like what I have, though it's very drafty. Already, it's much more satisfying than the novel work. There's something about the compression that occurs in short fiction; it's also easier to sustain a verbal punch throughout, and this one's developed an interesting sound.

Someone sent me a kind e-mail about "A Crisis for Mr. Lion." Every comment I've had has been full of superlatives. I feel fortunate to have written it and appreciate knowing that it's connected with some people. It's still posted at Zoetrope: All-Story.

Hello to anyone who checks in.

The novel continues to develop. One odd thing has been that the dominant metaphor for the procedure itself has shifted as I've progressed.

Initially, as I wrote down, in no order whatsoever and with no eye toward anything larger, scenes and fragments from my childhood, I imagined a process like a stack of 3" x 5" cards. Once done, I thought I might arrange them and discover what held them together. I attempted to write some wholly imaginative material, but it didn't work.

After a time, I grew anxious about whether I in fact had a plot. Now I came in with an ideal novel template (conflict! rising action! false resolution! and so forth!) and attempted to overlay that on the material and generate, externally, what I wasn't finding in the material itself.

Then I printed out what I had so far and noted various themes and ideas, and I saw how certain scenes fit together or led one to the other. I also had several attempts at an opening. As I looked at the opening, and assembled it into a cobbled-together chapter, I came to realize what the novel should be called, Only Child, and saw the process as one in which I let this phrase play out. I was able to write with some eye, then, toward a plot that developed in response to events in the second chapter.

Around this time, I played--for probably two days--with the idea that a first-person narrator was maybe not the way to go, at least not for the entire book. Some chapters, yes, but the notion that the first-person narrator remembered everything in detail bothered me (though it's a conceit many novels simply accept), and I wanted to expand the possibilities available to me in terms of tone, possibilities I thought I could only explore through third-person narration. However, a little experimentation with this dissatisfied me, and I returned to first-person narration, but with more belief in its validity.

As I continued to write, I finally began to add events that were wholly made up. As a structure for the larger piece emerged, it became possible to backfill using invented material. The voice began to become itself and left off being simply me recounting childhood events.

I thought maybe I could think of this currrent process--in which the story is spreading backwards and forwards and taking on flesh and consequence--as kudzu. Not ivy, mind you, which I take as unidirectional. Kudzu spreads everywhere, right? But that's not an adequate description. The image that occurs to me now is crystal formation, that process in which crystals--of ice or mineral--spread tendrils outward while we also see new ones materializing, until an entire surface is blanketed. Having recently thrown away some bread possessing spots of mold, I saw that mold, too, was a good metaphor. But mold devours. No, this story is taking place on a glass surface. It has its own life. It is expanding to fill the space.

Looks like I can't stop it.