THE MAKING OF REALITY with RACHEL YODER

As a writer, I’m particularly enamored with Werner Herzog’s notion of ecstatic truth which he talks about in this clip.  “I’ve been after something like…justice within pictures,” he says in his German accent before letting out a faint moan of frustration and moving his hands in gestures similar to those portrayed in antiquated Italian paintings of Christ’s apostles. “It’s very strange to explain it,” he says, looking at the floor.

I’ve felt this need for balance, for a certain justice, most acutely when writing short stories. Every word has to be tuned or the whole narrative falls apart. I’m looking for a certain tone, a pitch that remains just so for the entire piece. This pitch is just above my abilities of hearing. This is to say that when I am doing my best writing, my truest writing, I am operating right there at the edge of my capabilities. I am trying to hear something impossible for my eardrum to pick up. This is why this artistic truth is essentially ecstatic. It’s extrasensory. It’s beyond the flesh.

When I write short stories, the fundamental problem for me does not seem to be one of form—and this is especially true when writing realistic, linear narratives—but one of this elusive pitch. I’m not disoriented by what I’m doing. Of course I’m writing a story. I don’t know exactly how to tell it, but I already understand the concept of story and can, at the very least, decipher a direction in which to head.

Yet when I work in an essayistic mode, form opens up for me. I do not think linear nor narrative and the words of course leave me and instead I wonder how and what and where am I and begin to imagine boxes and spirals and one time a beautiful clay vase glazed in rich azure. These are the shapes or forms to hold what I have to say.

For me, this is what makes the essay such an exciting endeavor. If we are operating with Herzog’s notion that “…there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization…” then the essay, first and foremost, isn’t an act of fact or reportage. It is an act of art without any predefined outlines. Today I will write an azure vase.  Tomorrow I will write my father’s boot.

The essay as art. That’s what I’m interested in when I talk about an “ecstatic essay.” We are used to our stories being artistic but those among us used to, as Herzog puts it, “the truth of accountants” in the traditional “factual” essays may become uncomfortable with an alleged essay that babbles, that lies, that features an obviously concocted narrator, an essay that’s broken apart into shards or that could double as a prayer or spell. Yet how are we to tell the truth without absolutely every tool and trick at our disposal, without the ability to warp time and space and “reality” so as to make it more, well, real?

Intrigued? Want to learn more and craft your own ecstatic essay? Then make sure to attend Rachel’s “The Ecstatic Essay” workshop June 26-28^th at the David R. CollinsWriter’s Conference at McCarthy Hall on the St. Ambrose University campus in Davenport, Iowa. 

Rachel Yoder is a founding editor of draft: the journal of process which publishes first and final drafts of short stories, essays, and poetry along with author interviews about the creative process (draftjournal.com). She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Arizona and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review Online, The Kenyon Review Online, and The Sun Magazine in addition to many other print and online publications. She was awarded the 2013 Editors' Prize in Fiction from The Missouri Review and has also received notable distinction in Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her work has most recently been anthologized in Writing That Risks: New Work from Beyond the Mainstream (Red Bridge Press) and YOU: An Anthology of Essays Devoted to the Second Person (Welcome Table Press). She's taught creative writing at the University of Arizona, Prescott College, the University of Iowa, the Lifetime Enrichment Adult Program at the University of Iowa, and currently teaches writing classes in the Iowa City community. More info at racheljyoder.com.

The conference also features other three day workshops on memoir, poetry, flash fiction, and novel. Critiques, pitches, and free evening events open to the public are also planned. Mention this blog post and receive the early bird discount even though it’s after June 15^th. Click here for moredetails. The conference is made possible by our generous sponsors: Modern Woodman of America, St. Ambrose University English Department, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and Genesis Health Systems.

FLASH FICTION: A LIMINAL GENRE with CHAD SIMPSON

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” It might be said that these six words indicate merely something for sale; it might be said that they manage to convey an entire novel’s worth of loss. Very short stories, or flash fictions, have been around for a very long time. In the recent past, Richard Bausch has said that “when a story is compressed so much, the matter of it tends to require more size: that is, in order to make it work in so small a space, its true subject must be proportionately larger.”

As writers, we are always navigating how to get our story onto the page. What should we show? What should we tell? Writing flash fictions presents us with an even greater challenge because we have only so many words with which to convey so much world. The successful flash fiction, then, not only presents to us a world but lets us know what all is going on there, and why it matters.

Intrigued? Want to learn more, including how to craft your own flash fiction? Then make sure to attend Chad’s workshop June 26-28th at the David R. Collins Writer’s Conference at McCarthy Hall on the St. Ambrose University campus in Davenport, Iowa.  Attendees will read flash fictions and attempt to ascertain which elements of story the pieces contain to begin to answer questions of what makes a story a story or a flash a flash. They will also be given prompts to write their own flash fictions.

Chad Simpson is the author of Tell Everyone I Said Hi, which won the 2012 John Simmons Short Fiction Award and was published by the University of Iowa Press. His work has appeared in many print and online publications, including McSweeney's Quarterly, Esquire, American Short Fiction, and The Sun, and he has received awards from the Illinois Arts Council, the Atlantic Monthly, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He lives in Monmouth, Illinois, and is an Associate Professor of English at Knox College.

The conference also features other three day workshops on memoir, poetry, essay, and novel. Critiques, pitches, and free evening events open to the public are also planned. Discounts are offered for MWC member and early bird (before June 15th) registrants. Click here for more details. The conference is made possible by our generous sponsors: Modern Woodman of America, St. Ambrose University English Department, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and Genesis Health Systems.

Where and how to write when you can't be ‘The Madwoman in the Attic’

Writer and professor Ellen Tsagaris is the author of "Writer as Researcher" in the MWC Creative Writing

Dr. Ellen Tsagaris

Primer (MWC Press, 2012). She is also a blogger, doll curator and a lifelong poet. She has written over sixty articles and two study guides/texts. Sappho, I should have listened is a chapbook of her poetry, and she is also the author of The Subversion of Romance in the Novels of Barbara Pym (1998, Popular Press) and A Bibliography of Doll and Toy Sources (American dollmuseum.org, 2011). Last year, she served as editor for The Legend of Tug Fest and other LeClaire Ghost Stories (918studio, 2012).   @DrEsDollMuseum

It was about six years ago, and I was trying to enter a writing contest, and a very scholarly one at that.  It had to do with Virginia Woolf's A Room of Ones' Own, a piece I knew like the back of my hand.  The contest called for lesson plans based on Room; easy!  Right!  Wrong!  Though I had taught, read, studied, written about, viewed, and reviewed Room dozens of times, my mind went blank.  I couldn't come up with anything, and got cold and hot at the same time just thinking about it. This wasn't just a case of writers block; it was mind block.  I had forgotten everything.  THE ROUTINE as I called the daily grind for me had eaten up my writing capabilities.  Why?  I thought I was washed up, done, before I'd even started.  My unfinished manuscripts called to me; I couldn't answer.  I looked around at the "writing stations" I had tried to carve out for myself, the bedroom desk piled with reference books, the living room computer station, my trusty lap desks, the writing board I used at my parents, even my old 386 computer.  Nothing called to me.  It was a challenge  trying to get the correct writing atmosphere.  Then it hit me; I needed just to write.  Anywhere.  On anything.  There was no magic room, or pen.  Like many writers, I dreamed of being The Madwoman in the Attic, with my own vintage roll top desk, and a laptop, and file cabinets for all my carefully sorted manuscripts.  My pencils would always be sharp, but the sharpener would never be far behind.  I would have inspirational  words written all over the attic, the way Anne Rice wrote words on her study walls in the house on First Street.  I would have writing costumes, my first editions and signed books nearby, my reference books and dissertation research all handy.  And, if this fantasy really took hold of me, I would never write because I’d never have the necessary space and props.

I took Woolf's title too much to heart; she didn't literally mean a "room.”  She meant finding time to write and the courage to seize the moment.

So I took a page from Barbara Pym's book, and like her, I started to carry around little notebooks for ideas.  I wrote words I liked, ideas, character sketches.  Sometimes I taped in things I cut out.  I started stories and novels.  I keep these little books and go back to them.   They keep me from losing good thoughts and ideas.  If I really don't have a little book handy, I jot notes in calendars, on margins, on scraps I tear off of envelopes and napkins, and on Post Its.  I tend to keep my Post Its, usually in pretty tins.  I've put them together like puzzles to create entire essays, sort of a literary Mah Jong. 

The little notes helped. So did getting my Netbook, pink and cute as it is.  Now, I could write anywhere, and I do.  I make my inspiration and materials portable.  I like to write outside on my patio on quiet days, when it is cool enough to be comfortable but sunny enough to see.  I write on a wooden TV tray in my living room, surrounded by all my books, collections, family photos and things I love.  Sometimes, when it is very hot, I go downstairs to the carpeted hallway of my basement, and set up said TV tray and my favorite green camp chair.  It  is a good place to edit, and to find solitude.  I write in cafes and coffee houses; usually I work on longer projects there, and maybe bookmark Internet research.  Libraries are OK; but I'm usually there to do research, or to browse their salesrooms.  It seems harder to concentrate in libraries for me.  I could only study productively in my law school library. To this day, I couldn't say why.

I  work on several projects at once; I read for one, edit one, research for one, write a draft, write a chapter.  This keeps me fresh, and sometimes one project informs another, or reminds me of what I need to do an another.  Because my mind is occupied with new and various things, I don't get stuck or bored.

I also blog.  Some writers warn us away from blogging; they say it is a way to waste time, when we should be turning out a manuscript.  For me, it is a warm up exercise.  My ideas are born in blogs; some are tried out as excerpts on my blogs.  I also like to read blogs to get ideas;  sources may need to be checked, but the writing is fresh, honest, written by someone who cares.  Blogs give me confidence.  I can see who is reading them, and as the number of viewers grows, so does my sense of accomplishment.

So, I write everywhere.  When I can.  On a lot of things.  The world is now my "room."  That dreamy space in the attic?  If I ever get it, I'll use it for sleeping.

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MWC Creative Writing Primer Kindle Giveaway June 27-29! #collinsconference

The "O" Word: Outline

Sally John

Sally John writes contemporary women's fiction and the author of "Herospeak" in the MWC Creative Writing Primer (MWC Press, 2012). Her eighteen novels, all duly outlined, include the popular series Safe Harbors and The Beach House. Her latest release, Heart Echoes, is a finalist for the 2012 San Diego Book Award. http://lifeinthefictionlane.blogspot.com/  

Writing an outline is a don’t-even-think-about-skipping step in the creation of a novel.

            Ew. Seriously?

            The first time I heard this appalling concept, I flinched. Nah. Let’s just trip the light fantastic with a gaggle of intriguing characters and see what happens.

            But the woman who spoke this thing about outlines was a successful, published author. I wasn’t. She said she could write scenes until the cows came home, or something to that effect. I could too! And yet, she added, she could not string them together to create a readable story. Me too! Ouch.

I sat up and paid attention. Many books later, I am grateful for her teaching.

            Bestselling author Lisa Scottoline said in a recent interview that she does not engage in the practice. She can’t be the only one. I get the point: an outline can kill any organic dance you’ve got going with your characters.

But, on the other hand, an outline gives me something to aim for. It develops purpose and characters. It reboots my imagination on those days when I forget why I ever thought this idea would make for a good story.

The funny thing is, by the time the novel is completed, the original outline is ancient history. It got shouted out of existence by that gaggle of characters who showed up in full armor, knocking down any preconceived notions I had about their story.

Still, The Outline works. Two or three work even better.

 

Outline One ~

I always begin with Davis Bunn’s broad outline, which he snagged from someone else whose name did not make it into my notes. It consists of four fill-in-the-blanks:

            I intend to write a novel about ____

            My strong belief toward that is ____

            I want to prove ____ (This is the theme, such as “love wins,” “don’t judge a book by its cover”)

            The MDQ is ____ (Aristotle’s Major Dramatic Question with which the story opens and will be answered in the climax with a simple yes or no.)

Outline Two ~
I plug stuff into my version of Christopher Vogler’s version of Joseph Campbell’s take on the hero Odysseus’ journey:

The Hero is called from his Ordinary World to an Adventure that takes him into a Special World in which he enters the Dark Cave (confronts his deepest fear) and emerges with a healing Elixir that he takes with him back to his ordinary world and shares with those who did not get to go on the adventure. 

Outline Three ~
I recently added my own outline, created from a desperate need to keep track of story details. Life had interrupted my project because somebody forgot to schedule my grandson’s birth for after the book was completed. All the pre- and post-hoopla surrounded that most wondrous event annihilated my plot threads.

            Skimming for those threads made my head spin. Does that character know this yet? What shade of green does she call his eyes? What exactly was the inciting incident? Post-It notes were not going to get it. And so, my Emergency Chapter-by-Chapter Outline was born along with the little guy.

            The concept is similar to what an editor uses for my books. In my version, each chapter gets its own page and four fill-in the blanks:

            1. Chapter number. Timing (day/date/time passage since previous scene). POV of ____.

            2. What happens? Where does it happen?

            This is straightforward information only. Examples: So-and-so breaks a leg tripping over a duck while jogging Ben Butterworth Parkway. So-and-so and so-and-so plot a murder while eating tacos at Rudy's. So-and-so breaks up with so-and-so while feeding the elephant at Niabi.

            3. What's revealed?

            This is a list of details pertinent to story or to character development. For example, the revelation of a backstory or someone's quirks. Also, "smoking gun" incidents, those threads that will need to be addressed.

            4. What moves the story forward? This may be a step backwards.

            What conflict does the hero encounter? How did he step toward or away from his Dark Cave? Does he find a clue about the Elixir? Is he on his way home?

            I used this outline after a memory-obliterating interruption. Once the project was underway again, I added to it only now and then, mainly in the fourth category.

            Outlines are tools to be treasured, tweaked, and trashed. I like them.

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MWC Creative Writing Primer Kindle Giveaway June 27-29! #collinsconference

Facing the fear of starting a novel

Julia Coleman is the author of "The Writing Environment" in the MWC Creative Writing Primer (MWC Press, 2012) and teaches creative writing basics online for MWC. @JMCsocial 

Julia Coleman

 

I am afraid. 

Not teen slasher movie afraid where the starlet leaves the safety of the cabin, running through the woods (in flipflops no less - what?) only to clumsily trip on a root and meet her ear-splitting, blood-curdling demise.

No.  Unlike that cliché, my fear is subtler.

 Like the sinking feeling from noticing the fuel light is on in the car (how did I miss that?) and wondering if it just came on or if it has actually been on for the past two days. 

Like the awakening acceptance (oh carbohydrates, why must you sabotage me?) that I have to buy a size larger in my favorite jeans.  Again.

Or the unsettling sentiment stirred when I glimpse a dumpy old woman staring at me from inside a retail store only to realize it is my own reflection.  Sigh.  Sigh again.  This realization deserves two sighs.

I am afraid to write a novel. 

But I desperately want to write a novel and I have for some time now.  Just as the writers and dreamers that prededed me I believe that I have a fabulously engaging story to tell that millions will want to read, share and discuss.  Yet, here I am two years later, still perched on the rim of the volcano staring into the caldera.

Procrastination is not the root cause.  I file my federal tax returns in early February.  I pay my bills the day I receive them.  I am accustomed to and unfazed by deadlines.  So that is not an explanation.

No, this is fear.  It is my innate paralytic inability to even start, much less finish, said novel.  The mental indigestion associated with this simmers and belches as more time passes between announcing my intent and not even beginning the task; so much so that the blank pages marking this ill-fated notion loom like the boa contractor quietly sharing a cage with the unknowing mouse that will eventually become dinner.  It is not a question of “if” but a question of “when” will I be consumed by my fear.

Woe is me.

What an embarrassingly whiney thing to say.  After all, it’s not like the fate of the free world depends on this.  It really is just about my own personal pride and sense of fulfillment.

Why am I so afraid?  Is it fear of failure or fear of success?  Is it fear of rejection? I certainly have had lots of practice with that.  Is it the fear that time is running out or that I have all the time in the world?  Whatever it is, I have allowed the phantom to take the wheel. 

OK, I have acknowledged it. I have owned up to it.  I accept responsibility for it.  So now what happens?

Tick, tick, tick. 

I love sports so this is where I insert a sports metaphor.  If this were baseball, I would step up to the plate and get at least three swings.  If this were basketball, I would get two free throws even if I miss the first one, and if this were football, I would have three downs to get 10 yards and extend my opportunity to score. Perhaps it is time to give it the old college try.

Clearly I need to write. Just write something – anything really.  Commit to the task and give it a shot. 

Write without expecting huge commercial success.  Write knowing that I will be competing with the 15,000,000+/- books to be published in 2013.  Write because it is my first love.  Write because it is my Everest.

So maybe I just need to “put on my big girl panties” as they say and get after it.  But as you might have already guessed, I bought the big girl panties at the same time I bought the aforementioned larger sized jeans.  So does that count as a first step?

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MWC Creative Writing Primer Kindle Giveaway June 27-29! #collinsconference

HOW DO I START AND WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

So you have a great idea for a story or a novel. You have a character and a basic idea of how you want your story to get to that “happily ever after”. But how do you take the story from “once upon a time” and sustain it for dozens of pages to get to the “happily ever after”? One way to help may be to invest some time in some advance story planning and outlining. Outlining provides the framing for your story, a basic structure through which to weave the substance of your story. The key to successful outlining is not to screw your frame down too tight; keep those screws loose enough you can move a beam here or there, put in a window where you first thought you wanted a door, or change the pitch line of your roof. Keep in mind it is a BASIC frame and not the final draft. Don’t be afraid to change your blueprint if your story takes you in a different direction.

Once you have your completed novel manuscript in hand, revised it once or twice or a dozen times, dotted your “I”s and crossed your “T”s, what can you do to try to get it onto a bookstore’s shelf? Nowadays, publishing can take many forms from print-on-demand, to subsidized publishing, to e-publishing to traditional New York house publishing. Getting accepted into the traditional publishing world requires playing the submission game. Generally it requires finding agents and/or publishers; sending them query letters with various synopsis, sample chapters, resumes, etc.; waiting; waiting; waiting; and more waiting; collecting rejection letters and maybe, just maybe getting someone to say, “YES!”

If you want to learn more about the “Before & After” of novel/fiction writing, plan to attend the identically titled session of MidwestWriting Center’s March 24, 2012 Pen In Hand Mini Writing Conference from 3:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. in downtown Davenport, Iowa.

Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty, both prolific published fiction authors, will teach this workshop session. Mark is the author of 20-plus books, with more forthcoming, and more than 1,000 published stories and articles, in addition to his career as a marketing & PR professional. His books include MONSTER BEHIND THE WHEEL (with Michael McCarty), PARTNERS IN SLIME (with Michael McCarty), RAISING DEMONS FOR FUN & PROFIT, and MOTIVATIONAL SHRIEKER, among others. Mike's short stories and interviews have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. He is the author of three books of interviews; a nonfiction collection; five fiction collections including All Things Dark and Hideous which was co-written with Bram Stoker Award-winner, Mark McLaughlin; a paperback poetry collection; novels and a novella. McCarty was the former staff writer for “Science Fiction Weekly” (the website of the Sci-Fi Channel)

Discounts for this and the three other Pen In Hand sessions are offered for early registrants, members and bulk buyers. Click here or call 563/324-1410 for more information and learn how to register.

by Jodie Toohey, www.jodiet.com
Follow Jodie as she blogs about all things MWC