. Spinning .

For National Poetry Day (UK) a quickie hypertext poem complete with pictures of today’s lovely day:  The Wise Leaf

Last class, and close to the last posting (gotta leave myself open to possibilities) last night, on a lasting love of the literary.

Full workshopping with four pieces of diverse story and a bit of brainstorming on a project. The first story was a piece worked in the hypertext medium of Hypertextopia and I was amazed at Kristina’s ability to link her story more in a Storyspace manner of variety of paths.  Though this was basically non-fiction, the hypertext format of text boxes either suited the writing style perfectly, or the writer was led into that style by the format.  I suspect the latter, particularly in that we had another piece to workshop by Kristina that was written in linear traditional form as comparison. It upheld my belief that by writing into small spaces, the writing becomes more concise and impactful with short statements that appear self-contained within their space.  The form does not require the transitioning words between sentences as does a contiguous flow of words; the connections seem to understand the separation of thought, just as chapters do in book form story.  The writing here was crisp and lyrical with little excess and verbiage.  I particularly liked the placement of four spaces at the end that endlessly linked back to each other that suited the topic of cancer overcome.

Kristina’s typed story was also of overcoming adversity, in this case, a trait of difference that was seen as a defect or flaw and I loved the metaphor of wings as the ironic abnormality.  As first person pov, there was much telling that could be eliminated, and some questions of character credibility but the concept and story line were strong. 

Jackie’s observations in a laundromat led to a wonderful exercise in indepth description of setting and character.  The writing was precise and produced some great imagery and an easy flowing and welcoming narrative voice.  It would be fairly easy to convert this to a piece of fiction, and as in Kristina’s story, cutting out the last words of explanation produces a far more powerful story.

Brendan turned a brief personal encounter into a  much larger story, playing with the concept of mind and memory that allowed a subtle change in character while changing time and maintaining place–or, a resemblance of place.  The writing brought the reader into an old man’s life present and past with some nice foreshadowing and transitioning.  Once again, the professor proved his point by suggesting the lopping off of the last scene in the story and for once, most of us had suggested this before it was brought up by him.

Katie’s project for an artbook course was fielded for ideas of presentation.  In theory looking much like a physical hypertext, thought was given to both story and the need to keep the individual twenty parts of story as self-contained and fulfilling as possible.  Once again, hypertext as a concentrated storyteller serves as the perfect vehicle.

Though I may be posting here again before I wipe out this weblog, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the great group of writers in this particular class, and of course, be thankful for the knowledge, experience and guidance shared by Professor Ersinghaus who has the ability to inspire his students to do their very best.

Good workshopping last night.  Within the three stories we covered tense, humor, dialogue pacing, imagery, setting, types of conflict and various methods of resolution, building tension, importance of event, character building, and detail.

For me personally, after having already taken two prior creative writing classes, I would have to say that this is one of the best groups as a whole–albeit a small class.  Each individual seems to grasp the elements of writing and the importance each aspect makes to the whole as a story, and each appears to have a genuine interest in writing story rather than having taken the course for less dedicated reasons.  It is great to see the learning process in action as changes to story are made after workshopping sessions.  Each writer considers all commentary and seems to know what to apply. There is a wide diversity of genre interest, from sci fi and fantasy to traditional, literary and contemporary.  Perhaps even the distribution of age range varies the experience that makes for a more interesting cauldron of narrative, and offers input based on a greater degree of perspective. 

Will be sorry to see this semester end.

Good workshopping session.  Great rewrite by Jackie on her story, third draft in, and changed dramatically.  It’s always amazed me  how someone can edit so  much  that characters, scenes, events, and meaning are turned inside out and upside-down and only ten percent of the previous draft is left intact.  Chris Coonce-Ewing did that with his Hummingbird God story and I’ve never forgotten what a difference it made.

Some nice ideas on Bryan’s story too.  The concept of a dying man and his last hours is naturally intriguing and his visitors in this case were quite an interesting crew.  Some technical work and clarification on story arc were suggested and I hope to see a revision on this one soon.

Nice feedback on my own submission, and between last night and early morning, much of the rewriting has already been done.  Awkward phrasing, a letdown ending, and many technical glitches have been repaired though I’ll likely work on it a few more days.

Someone made a comment about wanting the class to go on beyond it’s two-week ending.  It may be possible.  Something’s been brewing and I’ll run it by the professor and crew maybe at the next class meeting.

With an eye to the future when this weblog will be just so much undecipherable dust, I’ve reassigned the stories I’ve written herein or hereout–in Hypertextopia–to a new "STORIES" category.  Much of the false starts or in using them simply as writing or editing examples have remained in the "WRITING" category.

Lord only knows if there will be any way to save any of this anyway.  He also knows why the hell I’m even worrying about it.

Good workshopping session, covering anthropomorphism  in Jim’s story of Vinny the vulture, and the question of verisimilitude of storyworld in the transition.  Does a vulture read? Well, as first person pov, we’ve found he’s written this story. Do we dig deeper into the ethical issues Vinny faces or is the story to be taken for its entertainment value and a humorous look at the daily life of a vulture.  How much more of a technical arc do we require, even in this form? 

In my own story, we have a switch in time requiring the use of white space, we saw the need for character building to represent motive, and we have subtlety versus the need for more obvious confirmation of action and in fact, if more action must necessarily be shown. 

It brings up questions to me once again about writing for audience.  And again, the answer is the most obvious: write for the readers only if you want to reach a certain audience through publication.  While a writer may not actively pursue the literary production, I think that if he is geared in that direction in his writing and reading, then likely his work will be influenced.  If one likes a particular genre such as detective, romance, or sci fi, there is still the choice of the author to fulfill the ‘traditional’ means of story and yet it can still hold the literary qualities vaguely defined as anything from character-based to boring navel gazing.

Breakthrough moment for me personally: hearing all the possibilities of the ‘missing’ segment of time that changes the character (Molly’s intuitive statement was terrific, regarding character’s only requiring one quirk in personality, one item a bit off, to allow the possibility of a major break).  For me, this was confirmation that less is more, that had I found it necessary to provide even one of those scenarios, then it would have negated those imagined by the other readers.  Loved handing the story over to the reader to fill in the blanks.

Rather a dismal opening to the class last night with confessions that will hopefully turn into good news for all eventually.  It seems the smaller the group, the more intimate and the more willing we are to relate, admit, open ourselves to others.

Working over Raymond Carver’s phenomenal Cathedral and learned so much more than even all my close reading dug out of it.  Focused on the intricacies of Carver’s skill with first person pov, a much more difficult story to pull off than the third person.  Carver is a master at not saying what he says, at showing through language the more accurate thoughts of his narrator than what he’s recounting. 

One of the important points is the necessity of all story being in past tense–related to us after it has happened.  The change in voice and character relating an experience after the experience has happened.

Carver’s story is clearly character-based and the techniques he uses to explore those characters force the reader to form an opinion based on how the story is told rather than what is being said.  Need to practice this–particularly with my own tendency to overexplain.

Some pre-class notes first:  Sat down with Jim Murphy and we exchanged critiques.  I was in ninja costume so my notes to him were mostly of the cut and slash style.  I love Jim’s narrative voice.  It’s like settling down to storyhour.  Unfortunately, a lot of the intricate details he provides do tend to slow down the reading just when it should be getting towards the climax and this is where I did a lot of commenting (thanks to iPages!).  Jim’s imagery is terrific so I of course left that alone.  His dialogue as well is just real and in character and here is where he does a lot of pacing of narrative so beautifully. 

Jim went through the hypertext A Bottle of Beer again in its sleek new version and he caught some rough points that I either didn’t realize, or that I was too lazy to fix.  He was more than complimentary and I gave full permission to steal a couple of instances of imagery–though with Jim’s creative output, he sure won’t need them.  I do love getting Jim’s critique notes–he puts in some comments that just make me laugh out loud–and that’s his intent.  One thing that he brought up that was very interesting to me was his own opinion of who the runner represented–past lovers moving through her life.  This would make sense as it parallels her own reflections of the hour.  I still think it’s the devil though…

In class we did an exercise on writing a scenario with a main character and some action, then pulling out specific words or themes that are relative to the character.  How one would describe himself or his tendencies using specific words, then defining those words.

I won’t bother putting down here what I’d written in class–the character really didn’t help me by developing at all and it’s likely the worst trash I’ve ever written.  I do admire the other students who to a  one  delivered  well  rounded characters in the first few paragraphs of story.  It was proven helpful to go over the words they had chosen as defining the viewpoint of their character and to establish from there the most likely path the character would take through his adventure.

The last portion of class was devoted to Porcellino’s Perfect Example, and we learned how to apply the "word selection and definition" to this character.  ‘Size’ is an excellent word, as it implies how the character sees himself in comparison to his world.  ‘Invisibility’ is another choice that would give us an idea of how he relates to the world, and how he feels within it.  ‘Intimacy’ represents his reluctance or lack of ability to form a closeness with others–which seems to fit in well with the previous two word selections. 

We were reminded to read Raymond Carver’s Cathedral for next week.

Featuring John Porcellino’s graphic memoir "Perfect Example," we had a good discussion on both story and form and covered the first section to decipher how story arc and characters are developed with the enhancement of images.  Basically the story is one of teenage angst, the wanting to fit into a world that is sometimes one way, sometimes another. 

Maybe we all drove home thinking about high school and how and if we fit in, who we related to, what groups or individuals had an impact on us or that we might have had some influence upon.  How we survived the transitioning into adulthood–perhaps some of us had an extended youth via campus life, some went into the work atmosphere.  Some, I remember, were already starting families…

Well we workshopped my hypertext piece, A Bottle of Beer, and I’m grateful for the input on story.  Many of the suggestions have already been integrated into all rewriting accomplished today.  Though I hate to put this aside until it’s really "orderly and polished," I’ve come to a point where I’m not too sure what else can be eliminated through even more brutal editing.  There are two or more lexias I’m considering pulling completely, and I still have to find some character symbols on the web for proper Spanish spelling and oh yeah, a better slang word en español for penis.

It was great to see a few of the students really into the hypertext experience and anxious to try it themselves.  Thankfully Hypertextopia allows this opportunity and if anyone reads this weblog, you can certainly e-mail me for help on the technical end of you need it. 

The professor then went into the Storyspace environment and together a story was started into the software to illustrate the ease of writing and the capability the format offers.  Hypertext is a very different way of reading and writing and to some it will be a joy while others will not see its appeal.  It can be confusing, disorienting and yet if one is open to the process, it is in many ways more fulfilling and stimulating in its layers of story. 

Nice way to enter the spring break.

Workshopping of Molly’s story, focusing particularly on edge and changing point of view.  Also discussed from FFF, The Great Open Mouth Anti-Sadness and Things You Should Know.  Particular emphasis on voice in these stories, and on turning point.

Took a field trip down to the main hall of the building and after studying it, returned to class to write down simmered into two sentences a description of what we saw there. 

Mine:
The great hall yawned in an echo of arching space bordered by blocks of soft colors of the Southwest.  Lit from thousands of sources of all shapes and sizes that harmonize into a corridor of silence. 

Or something like that–I don’t have my notes with me here. Point made as to describing without using abstract words,  i.e., large, big, tall, wide, narrow, and project via image, simile, metaphor, sensation that pricks memory to imagine.

Mid-term portfolio due next week (‘cept me) before spring break and the large rabbit commeth.

Some good workshopping last night; excellent group that covered just about every point of critique on each of the four stories.  This proves my theory about having a small but knowledgeable writing group as the optimum setup, and will consider this in the Thomaston grouping, though there’ll be much more than workshopping involved there.

All the supposedly close reading I’ve d0ne all these many years on a very consistent daily basis, yet I  rewrote a fellow student’s story so that a cracked head that’s bled out to the point of a panther licking the brain was a survivable injury.  Okay, so I’m not used to fantasy but this wasn’t a case of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.  Need to give it all the time and attention it deserves and will set aside quiet time to read instead of reading on the fly.

Good point made by the Professor: What are the consequences of the either/or decision made by the protagonist in the story?  Are they important enough to make the reader care what he/she does?

Back to work on hypertexting tonight. Might be able to use what I do on Hypertextopia to illustrate the medium serving double duty in a workshop submission, since it is easily accessible versus the closed circuitry of Storyspace.

Apologies to those I’ve penciled up on workshop stories; I’ve spent more time copyediting the work of others than writing anything of my own so please forgive the seemingly overanxious overcritical maze of markings and be thankful I don’t use colored pencils.

Good stuff.  Nice to see the story arcs, to recognize the narrative structure, exposition, conflict points of plot and resolution.  No, not resolution really since these were chapter parts rather than complete stories so resolution becomes a mini-fix in each while building towards the bigger picture.  Nice language use and technical errors are only found by someone else reading your work.  We tend to read right over our own the-the’s.

Nice metaphor by Brendan of archaeological explication.  This would apply, I’d think, to both sides of a story, the reading and the writing.

Nice example given by Jackie of the 90-60-30-15-5 (or something like that) second skit and cutting down all but the necessary.  Poetry forces this.  Last CW class did this as well–300 words down to a 100.  Good exercise in learning brevity of the soul.

More on class notes soon.

Just realized that the majority of my posting on notes taken during this class didn’t get posted!  Was using MarsEdit and did repost to update as I took them but they did get lost in the process.

Dang it all.  Probably the most important instruction and information that would’ve seen me to publication some day too.

Observer of the world; author is not the protagonist in the story.

My Date with Neanderthal Woman by David Galef: Should we look for meaning, look deeply, analyze the story? Discover theme, what the author wanted us to see. Ultimately, we come to it for the experience.