. Spinning .

I have a story up at 52/250 this week but I’ll place it here for easier reference:

How I Came to Live in The Palm of His Hand

I snuggle down between the deepest creases of it, between the heart line and the head line of his left palm. His fingers curl over in a blanket. I am safe and warm.

On windy days he puts me in his pocket. Though still I feel the turbulence of the flying sand against my back, I face the warm beat of his heart and fall asleep sometimes, I am so safe.

It is easier now–though one would never think so–to cook his meals and clean our little house. I fly through as light as a cottonseed on the wind. My feet never touch the floor. I peek into the pots of simmering soups, stand on the edge and stir aromas into the air with my arms. I sleep upon a pillow by his side and barely make a dent into its silken softness. He smiles at me more warmly now and kisses me sweetly as he holds me in the palm of his hand. His hand I need no longer fear. His hand that is caressing, warm and safe.

I feel loved and cared for. I feel his admiration. I am the perfect wife, the perfect woman, here in the palm of his hand.

When is subtle too subtle? The first few comments showed me that this story was taken as a lovely little fantasy tale. Of course, the stories in this weekly series often number 30 or so which means that the folks who have dedicated themselves to reading them all are reading quickly. Still, I’m wondering if my years of training towards close-reading has affected my writing to the point of being too vague with meaning. Or, I could still be adamant that people read my stories the way I think the story goes. I don’t think so, though. I’m pleased that it seemed light and airy a piece, but still, I wonder how much is lost by mismanaging the clues to give each reader the information needed to come to at least the same conclusion about the general facts of the story while still leaving the nuances up to the individual reader.

In this story, what sounds fairy tale-like is not even magical realism but really, a simple metaphor. The speaker is not physically small, but her identity, her self-awareness has shrunken to this wisp of near nothing in her mind. The strongest, most telling sentence in the piece is:

“His hand I need no longer fear.”

These seven words are in direct conflict with the rest of what the story has laid down. That should be the turning point, the climax of the story. What follows would be considered the denouement, the explanation or in this case, the resolution of the conflict by her decision to let go of herself as a person, to survive by acceptance, presence without mental involvement.

There’s a fine line between ambiguity and confusion. I’m not sure I’ve yet learned how to balance on that edge. It is presumptuous of a writer to assume the reader will read the story as the writer intended, but it is foolish of a writer to mislead by not granting the same information of which the writer is aware.

I’m honored and thrilled to have been named as the winner of the 8th Glass Woman Prize and am deeply grateful to Beate Sigriddaughter for offering this chance to women writers to give voice to women everywhere. I’m saddened by the inspiration for this story, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who is still facing the possibility of a horrid death under Iranian law. I hope my story, and the reputation of the Glass Woman Prize will bring attention to her plight and maybe help her in her fight for survival. http://www.sigriddaughter.com/GlassWomanPrize.htm

Glass Woman Prize

www.sigriddaughter.com

“The winning story for the Eighth Glass Woman Prize (US$500) is “Wanderer” by Susan Gibb. Congratulations, Susan, on a moving and important story. May it open eyes.”

…there was a time when I was posting an average of 4 posts a day for years. Reading books one after another and sharing my reactions, even dropping the book to grab the laptop for a special phrase that just got me. I haven’t read a book in months–started several, but none finished.

No excuses, it’s not like I haven’t been reading. Probably an average of 50 short stories a week on Fictionaut (though I haven’t had a chance to keep up the last several weeks) and 52/250, a weekly theme-based series where we all write a flash piece. (Check out this week’s issue–I have a story called Regardless, but the title art is something I worked up in Photoshop.)

I’ve been working on lots of projects, hypertext and traditional short story form, a textbook, and artwork. Rejections aren’t as devastating when acceptances roll in sometimes too. It’s been a tremendously successful (or what I consider successful!) year and I suppose that brings confidence to keep at it.

I’ve been learning new things to expand my writing and graphics into the new media field little by little. I know I’d learn a lot faster if I took classes but this picking folks’ brains and struggling through on my own does bring its own sense of accomplishment.

But yes, I do need to continue my pursuit of fine literature and will be adding some more posts here as I finally get back into gear.

I’m done of course with the 100 Days Project now, but I’ve been involved since June with the 52/250 Project which is a group of 30 plus or minus writers, each of whom are producing a flash fiction or poem under 250 words every week for a year (that’s the 52 part). Created by Michelle Elvy, John Wentworth Chapin, and Walter Bjorkman, the challenge has been running since May and will continue for 52 weeks with an average of 30 artists participating. There are no requirements to maintain or write every week, so many authors join in when the mood hits.

An anthology of selected pieces was put together at the quarter-mark, and THIRTEEN was produced.

Here’s the link to the site: 52/250 A Year of Flash

Here’s the link to my work in it:  52/250 Flash

It’s been a great experience to take part in this, among friends who I’ve met through Fictionaut and elsewhere, and who are very supportive and inspiring. It’s interesting to see what diverse concepts of story and poetry result from a simple idea that forms the prompt, usually just a couple of words. Truly a fun project, and some of the best work online.

Again with the apologies for the lack of literary comment, but I have been reading, and reading, and reading. Really, that’s not just homage to Cormac McCarthy’s repetition style.

It’s mostly flash fiction, short story, and poetry, and mostly in lit journals online and at Fictionaut, but it does help curb my writing to remain away from the traditional and plodding story that I’m all too capable of setting down.

The 52/250 challenge is particularly helpful: a story a week for a year from a prompt, must be less than 250 words. To see what at least a couple dozen other writers do when handed a few words as inspiration, is wonderful–though I make sure I don’t read anyone’s until mine is done. I’m afraid I’ll be influenced by their input. Did this for the 100 Days Project as well; first finished my story, then went around looking at what everyone else had produced.

So while I haven’t gotten back into reading the novels and classics and philosophy as yet (since last summer!), I AM reading up a storm. I love the edge in some of today’s writing. It took me five years to know what edge was, ten years to learn how to write it. Still, I slide back sometimes into overwriting–not just imagery, more of the explanatory, step by step following of the character. Like white space hadn’t been invented for that very reason.

And I’m reading more poetry than normal, which is great, because poetry helps prose tremendously both in precise imagery and concise storytelling. Some of the poetry is fantastic. Some of it–and now I can more easily recognize it as amateur in the same way I can see it within storywriting–is green, meaning it rings of me, me, me, and (xxx) usually, him, him, him. Rhyming is still considered dated, yet done well, it still works. It’s harder than ever to do it well, though, because we have a tough audience that’s up-to-date and fully trained to hate it.

Genres in story are still around, but they cross borders. Obviously vampire stories have always been romance as well as horror, but now it’s becoming a trend in itself. I am getting tired of the tendency to float a story on a bed still stinking of sex. That seems to be a popular thing, though to me it would scream amateur, as it did in any creative writing classes I took and any writing groups I’ve been involved in (Fictionaut not included; not really being your typical writing group, but more of a collection of dedicated and accomplished writers.).

Something I do spend some time on is hypertext because I like it. Because I want to share it, and there’s a need to break down doors of literary sites to show them what it is, how easily they can present it, how some–not all–of their readers would enjoy it once they tried it. Little by little, even as some of the old sites close down, new sites are out there that still hold that sense of adventure and are willing to expand into the new media arena.

So I’ve had some great successes in writing this year, but it was a long haul to this point. A serious effort for ten years; a lifelong desire. After the first couple of publishing credits, it took me a while to come out of the clouds. But the ground was no place for a creative soul, and so I do seek further publishing–but not for the credits. I get a great boost from someone remarking about reading one of my pieces. That’s what it’s all about for a writer: all we need is a reader who was moved or touched or entertained enough by our words to acknowledge it.

While I was writing a story each day for the project, I was also taking pictures and using Photoshop to mold what I interpreted from the video prompts. So it’s not just writing that’s stopping for a breather after over three months.

The project for me was an exercise in not only taking the time to write, but to develop insight and imagination to take something further, or into another direction in a chain of creative outbursts. In the writing I tried to stretch myself into areas I hadn’t really tried before, such as magical realism, humor, mystery. I liked the concept of trying out different points of view, of reflective versus social statement; looking outward instead of inward. Luckily, a few editors took the time to view some of the pieces here or elsewhere and so far, five pieces were slated for publication. Some of the others will be selected for editing and submitting in the next couple of months. (There’s a Tinderbox map of the organization of the stories at Hypercompendia.)

But another thing I was practicing was focusing with a camera to grab an image that would reflect what the story had become. Better still, I got into Photoshop and finally started learning some of the fantastic tools that are available within its powerful platform. I’ve used the program for many years but never really played around too much beyond the basics and relied heavily on the effects gallery. But 126 images in as many days demands a lot more than that. I started fooling around with merging photos and using the layers. I learned about opacity to create ghosts and multiple images. What I couldn’t figure out for myself (or find in simple language from one of my books) I found within a newly-ordered Photoshop for Dummies book. This series is really one of the best for quick answers in easily understood instruction when you’re wanting to accomplish something but your life and livelihood doesn’t depend on it.

Didn’t get any more feedback on my attempts on the images than on the stories except from the fabulous Dorothee Lang of the Blue Print Review who chose two of them for publication in the last issue. What I’ve learned though is to practice, play, explore.  Two of the participants in the 100 Days Projects, Fran Forman, and Steve Veilleux. did some phenomenal work and I studied their work to learn. I’m still very rough around the edges (literally!) but it’s something that I tried and will continue to develop as a result of this experience.

Today was the 100th day of the 100 Days 2010 Project and it’s truly amazing how many people hung in there till the end or caught up. Out of the 40 plus that started, over half of them crossed the finish line with a phenomenal effort of creative output.

Led by timely postings of video clips by the super-talented John Timmons who offered some revealing yet questioning and thought-provoking scenarios in 30 to 45 second bits, the participants had little trouble finding their own paths of production by picking up treads of concepts, obvious or metaphorical, and running with them to make it their own. The multi-talented Cathryn Esten followed John’s lead with many well-produced film clips of her own along with poems, stories, and photos.

Tremendous work by Carianne Mack Garside (who’s working on finishing up a 9-month-long project any day now) as well as her mom, Carol Mack, and her aunt Barbara Laucius to channel the family genes into some extraordinary pieces. Janette Maxey was involved this year, stretching into some new forms in her painting, and Mindy Bray surprised us with some amazing paintings as well–Mindy did photography last year.  Sam Haskell joined this year to create a fantastic gallery of portraits. Claudine Metrick produced an outstanding array of work, mainly landscapes, using unusual colors and textures to offer the world in a different way. Sabreen Aziz entered the challenge nearly halfway through and yet managed to catch up and complete an extremely skilled and creative group of typographic pieces.

Our writers also had some family ties that proved the theory of art within the generations. Steve Ersinghaus, now on his third year of the project–he and Carianne Mack Garside were the original two artists to undertake this effort in the summer of 2008–produced some wonderful and wonderfully interesting fiction this year. His wife, Susan Ersinghaus created some of the most reader-friendly and honest poetry I’ve ever read. Their daughter Kendra Bartell appears to have the mix of both styles, the down-to-earth and the scientific precision and wonderment. Poetry by Neha Bawa, also on her second year of participation has been honed to encompass her delightful imagery within the twitter restrictions of 140 characters.

We have the thrill of photography produced by Jessica Somers, who last year worked in tintypes and this year has focused on color images that have the expert eye for composition required by black and white. Newcomer to the project Steve Veilleux has produced some wonderfully deep images layered into story and true art. Another amazing artist with film is Fran Forman, whose work holds that mystical appeal that invites one to look beyond the initial image to seek the details.

Kelli Newton Costa had chosen to present an image each day that told story within character. Heather Lochtie (daughter of Maggie Ducharme) has not only managed to show us 100 different sides of herself, she also played a part in many of John Timmons’ films. Maggie Ducharme photographed her creations–each day’s meal presented to appeal both visually and to the sense of taste.  Colleen Richard photographed her creations as well–her garden as it bloomed throughout the summer.

More fascinating photography from Billie Williams, covering a wide array of subjects. Catherine Sanger’s photography brought us all over the world meeting exotic people.

There were a score of others who did some outstanding work, and for one reason or another found it difficult to continue–our loss. From poetry to coding organization to art, photography, and writing, we saw some great starts. Their work can also be seen on the main site for the project here. It’s an undertaking that requires dedication, but some planning as well. I hope to see them all available and ready to complete the project next summer. And hopefully, some new people, inspired by the amazing body of work that has been produced in just over three months, will choose to join in what’s becoming an international artistic undertaking.

My own participation of 100 short stories is linked to the right. A post on the organizational side of it, using Tinderbox, has been posted on Hypercompendia. Thanks particularly to John Timmons for his handling of the project besides his awesome video clips that have inspired so many.

It’s Day #87 of the 100 Days Project. Day #16 of 24/7. And, Week #16 I believe of the 52/250 Challenge. So I’ve been writing my fanny off this summer.

Meanwhile, I’m putting together an essay on Magical Realism using some stories by fellow Fictionaut writers. It’s been one of my favorite genres to read and with all the writing of flash fiction the past couple of months, I’ve dipped my own pen into the inkwell to practice this whole new world of story.

A few of the stories out of this effort have been selected for publication, and one just came out today at the Blue Print Review, Issue #25. My story is called “Descriptions” and it was one of my favorites that Dorothy Lang happened to read and snap up. I’m excited that one of the Pittsburgh images is up on the Author’s Notes page, and another will be included with one of the other stories by many talented writers in this issue.

Also focusing on going back over my years of postings and presentations on hypertext in Storyspace and Tinderbox to help clarify a writer’s position on using this fabulous form.

It’s been a busy, productive summer this year and it’ll likely be a busier fall.

So here we are at Day #75 of the 100 Days Project. I hate it when what I might consider a landmark day produces less than top quality output. I was thinking of waiting and marking off day #76, or #83, or whatever came up again as a good one but I’m just too rigid for that, so I’m stuck with what came to mind. More on this later…

The first image is of a main folder file called “100 Days 10″ meaning, the Summer 2010 project. It holds each story file along with an Image folder and the Tinderbox file that organizes the whole project for me (more on that at Hypercompendia).

This next shot is of the Tinderbox file itself, and the organization by relative theme, genre, word count, along with some terrifically helpful Agents that I’ve already used to sort stories by submission and publication.

I’ve committed myself to joining a weekly story project (for 52 weeks) and another for the first 24 days of August (with the final week for editing). All told, I believe I’ll be writing about 140 flash fictions between the last week of May and the last week of August. Just to keep them together I’ve double-posted at my 100 Days those extra 24 stories, keeping the theme of the day as offered by John Timmons’ videos. So there’s a #71 and #71B, etc. up through #95. And here I’ve sort of run into both good and bad as a writer.

On the one hand, practice truly does help the mind conceive ideas and plots more quickly, and with flash fic, learn to put it down concisely and make best use of every word. If possible. And here’s the down side: while I realize that some of these stories are the best writing I’ve ever done, some of them revert back to a traditional storytelling style that I just don’t like anymore. With these, the whole story probably sucks, and that’s why I didn’t work them harder–though I have thrown many away and started from scratch.

Once I had the format down of posting the daily stories on separate pages here, I started adding in images with each story just to break up the text a bit, even with ten stories to a page. I’ll note here that I also started Password Protecing the pages after a group was done because I noticed Google grabbing the images. I’ve always felt bad about an image I posted once of my Dad years ago, driving a new lawn tractor. There’s no way of keeping Google–and others–from making images part of their public collection. They cover their asses with “may be copyrighted” as if people pay any attention to that.

Anyway, what this got me doing is playing in Photoshop and today, when I was grabbing a file image to post here of the Image file, I discovered Mac’s “cover flow” view and love the way it came out:

Ain’t that neat?

And this:

And this:

It’s neat to be getting some photography in, though I roam the house to find something that will suit the story and even the cellar stairs have been photographed. I’m using my little Vivitar 3.5 megapixel digital that I got years ago and it’s doing the job. What I’m learning is to explore Photoshop’s capabilities. Layering, adding in images, pulling out sections of photos and dropping them against other backgrounds, playing with opacity in the layers.

So not all the stories are literary marvels and not all the images are expert manipulation. I’m learning. And I have twenty five days left to go.

Well it’s Day #71 on 100 Days, and tomorrow will be Day #72. It will also be Day#1 of the 24/7 Challenge.

Will I be able to keep up? What I’m going to try to do for the next three weeks is use the John Timmons’ video of the 100 Days Project to develop two different stories if I can. If only one comes through–so strongly that I can’t see another concept out of it–then I’ll fall back on some photo sites, perhaps Jessica Somers’ since I do love her work and an image can often spark a thousand words with no problem.

Oh, I forgot that I’ve been including an image with each of my stories for 100 Days. It’s been a lot of fun experimenting with Photoshop and not always depending on their Filter Gallery alone to make something from a photo I’ve taken. It’s been a learning experience and for today’s, when I needed a puddle I was able to make do with a glass tabletop and some fancy footwork in the program.

Oh yes, and I’m still keeping up with the 52/250 Challenge as well, which (thank God!) is a weekly submission.

I’m now very glad to be participating in this year’s 100 Days Project since I’m writing all different types of story. Today’s was magical realism and humor, and it’s not something that I normally would write. Though a couple have been picked for publishing and I intend to start sending out many of the others come September, most of the stories are not particularly great or special, but every one has given me a chance to grow in some new way.

On top of the stories I’ve been including an image. This was started just to dress up the page and separate out the stories more visibly on the pages the way I had them set up. It’s led to not only learning a bit more about my camera–a dopey little 4 megapixel digital that came free with a printer or vice versa, but playing with the images in Photoshop has given me the opportunity to learn a lot more about how to use that program. I’ve just barely scratched the surface but today’s (#65) gave me the opportunity to fiddle and mix together three separate images.

August will be the real show of what I’m made up of. I’ve registered for the 24/7 Challenge thrown out by Folded Word so that means TWO stories each day for the first three weeks of August (the 24/7 is run by writers who are clever enough to allow the final week for editing!). And of course, I’m doing the 52/250 which is a once a week story for a year.

Out of these, some good shall come. Though I’m not sure dinners will still be on the agenda…

Sometime last year something snapped in me and I started writing a lot. I mean, a real lot.

After last summer’s 100 Days hypertext stories, I thought it’d be a long time before I wrote quite so prolifically again. But then I joined fictionaut, and that spurred me on because I got excited about writing. It’s such a good group of serious writers, most of them published already, that I tested the waters and was met with such support and camaraderie like I’ve not found in any groups prior. The next best thing about fictionaut was that I could read the type of stories that were getting published and step up my own writing under the influence of contemporary style.

So now I’m doing this summer’s 100 Days, but with traditional text style flash fiction daily. Now on the downward side of the mountain, I’m already getting antsy about what will I do when it ends in August. With the spotlight held by Dorothee Lang of Blue Print Review and Daily s-Press, I’ve finally looked into the 52/250 site that offers a theme as a prompt to write a flash piece under 250 words every week for a year. Jumping in on the deadline of this week’s theme, I just sent them an entry.

I guess this means that I’m now committed for the next 41 weeks, since they started in May and that sounds just fine to me. Looking around the site at the contributing writers I can see I’m in among friends, and Michele Elvy is the editor putting the whole thing together. The only thing that makes me a bit antsy: I really, really feel that I must write the first 9 that I missed.

I haven’t been keeping up on the weblogs as I used to, but then, thank your lucky stars for Facebook and twitter so you don’t have to read my rants and feel the cosmic waves of my temper tantrums like you used to.The beauty of tweets and FB is that I can let off steam and go back–usually within a half an hour–and delete the stream.

Just noticed when I came on to post that it’s somewhere around 5,750 blog posts here, with 4001 comments! That doesn’t include Hypercompendia’s posts nor the blogs I’ve started and let die in the past seven years.

I’m not slowing down to a stop here though. The drop-off is mainly because I don’t post as much personal stuff anymore, haven’t read as much in the past year, and have been concentrating a lot on writing. Funny thing though, even though my goal was to get published, now that I have been, each story of mine that I see under a heading other than my own, while thrilling, doesn’t mean any more than just writing.

Yeah, the writing’s the big thrill.

I’m having great fun with the 100 Days Project, now up to Day #35. What I’m noticing are the patterns that emerge from a dedicated and sustained effort.

For example, in daily writing, even when given a starting point or impetus such as John Timmons’ video clips, the initial reaction determines whether it’s going to be an easy write or a labored one. I’m delighted when it leads me to an immediate opening sentence because that usually indicates an edgier piece, one that sings with magical realism or sarcasm in the guise of story.

The tougher ones are more traditionally structured. More woven by the elements of narrative arc, character, dialogue and setting at the forefront and often calling for the fun meter to be bypassed in favor of story. That’s when I’m glad I chose to include images in the works. Photoshop is extraordinary good fun, like recess or play time in school.

Today’s piece (#35 A Night at the Opera) had me hot on the trail using metaphors and a bit of the magic of the absurd in the writing, but just as with Jesus who’s impossible to photograph, I had to break down and draw something to suit story. That wasn’t so fun, but since I’ve had visual art published before, I overwhelmed my embarrassment with reminders of deadlines and went at it with pencil and paper then turned it over to Photoshop for a small effect addition that covered a lot of the flaws.

While some may have found the daily commitment too grueling when the summer sun beckons them away to foreign beaches and dreams, most of the participants have stuck with it and you’ll find some tremendous writing–Steve Ersinghaus can always kick me out of the normal world into an odd place where imagination can really tell story–including a terrific bunch of poets–Steve’s wife, Susan Ersinghaus, is producing some amazing work–and artists such as the baby-heavy and nature-inspired Carianne Mack Garside, who started this tradition off in 2008, Janette Maxey with some beautifully executed paintings, Jessica Somers who has an incredible eye for composition, and just too many others to name. It’s well worth checking out: 100 Days 2010.

Wow. Just learned something that maybe I knew but forgot or forgot that I knew: the importance of placement, of spacing, of a simple paragraph break.

Example:

“He said she just wanted a shoulder or money or something like that and that most likely she was pilled out or drunk. He said he’d take care of it and call her back.

Now he felt bad that he hadn’t.”

versus

“He said she just wanted a shoulder or money or something like that and that most likely she was pilled out or drunk. He said he’d take care of it and call her back. Now he felt bad that he hadn’t.”

This is the ending of today’s 100 Days story “Reaching Out a Hand” and while the paragraph is longer, I think these three sentences represent the point. In the first draft, there is an expectation of some monumental conclusion, drama, explanation based on the importance that a new paragraph instills in a reader. The simplicity here of the conclusion diffuses the impact of the ending. It doesn’t measure up to the build.

In the second case, what (so far) is the final version, It flows into the ending, does not require a pause for a punch line that falls flat. Before you know it, the story is done and that is the impact.