. Spinning .

Well, another year down and another 100 stories written–though they’re only a portion of the 365 I’m committed to write this year.

The summer 100 Days Projects started in 2008 with Carianne Mack painting daily and a poem inspired by it by Steve Ersinghaus. This collaboration resulted in a beautiful book of the complete works. I started the 100 Days Project in 2009, writing a hypertext story every day for 100 days in conjunction with about a dozen others who dedicated their days to art, poems, stories, films, audio, etc. In the summer of 2010, I participated with 100 flash fiction pieces and a matching image which served to practice my Photoshopping and Photography skills.

There were about sixty participants starting out this year, with a good forty-plus finishing. Some of the most fantastic artwork, poetry, photography was produced by some extremely talented artists and writers. What was neat for me this year was that a few of my friends from Fictionaut were coerced into joining up and so there was a better sense of camaraderie and support. While we can say we create for ourselves, we really do appreciate an audience for our efforts and there were a precious few folk (bless ‘em!) who read or viewed almost all the work of their fellow artists and were encouraging by their comments and retweets or Facebook notices. Believe me, that was most appreciated.

But I’m not nearly done; I’ve got an end date of December 31st, 2011. While I may have written 240 stories this year, I’ve still got 125 to go. Then editing, reworking, and sorting into some semblance of order for either individual or an anthology submission

While I’m taking part in another summer’s 100 Days Project, I’ve really been writing a story a day since January 1st and have passed the halfway mark a few days ago. Everything that started here was transferred to the Talespinning site at the end of May.

Several changes have occurred in the process. Starting out, I wrote a story as influenced by Carianne Mack Garside’s artwork. Her own commitment to produce a piece daily was affected by her baby’s growth and curiosity and resulting need for extra attention so I continued on my own. Inspiration came out of thin air. When the 100 Days Project came up at the end of May, I decided to once more hook up with the group, and so it goes. Even with this project, we’ll be hitting another halfway mark of 50 days of daily work this weekend.

It’s amazing how many ideas and storylines a writer can find, either spurred by the creativity of others or just by life itself. Someone made a comment on one of my stories to the effect that he found it surprising that I could develop some many different characters, a new one each day. I laughed and responded that perhaps it is the writer’s version of multiple personality disorder.

Meanwhile, because I have been reading the other participant’s work, as well as those of fellow writers on Fictionaut and new literary publications as they come out, I haven’t kept up on my novel reading, nor my hypertext and new media learnings (last posting at Hypercompendia was on the Morpheus software!) so these two weblogs have been sort of stagnant for a while except when something interesting (at least to me!) happens and I’ll post to the Reality category.

Gardening, framing, reading, and writing; this will be my summer.

With the amount of short story reading and writing I’ve done over the past couple years, I think I’ve detected some patterns in the new trends of what’s relative in contemporary writing.

There are audiences of all types, we all like different genres, styles, eras, etc. But as a writer wanting to be published in the current short story/flash market, it’s always necessary to keep up with the current trends. You can buck them, decide that nowhere among the many groups of literary journals does your work fit, or you can try to adapt your style by learning what’s currently “in.”

One thing I’ve noticed is that the market is more youth-oriented, and this is likely because many of the established print and online lit journals are affiliated with the MFA programs or at least the English Departments of universities. Then there is a whole group of students who graduated or are in the process thereof, who have found out how relatively easy and cheap it is to run a magazine online. Easy, that is, because most will command a group of volunteer readers. Cheap, because even a free blog can serve as an official venue.

What I’ve seen in many of the “younger” style of writing, the early twenty to twenty-eight or so group, is that there is still a lot of narcissism, or leftover angst. Stories are typically in the first person POV and about inner conflicts or sex. Lotsa sex, only it’s called fucking because that’s what you couldn’t write in high school.

There are still plenty of journals devoted to more story-oriented, more experienced writing styles that are geared toward the reader whose world includes a much broader spectrum of love, relationships, sex, friendship, troubles, jobs, world security, etc.

I suppose what I’m saying is that now, more than ever, it is imperative to READ any literary publications to which you plan to submit. Luckily, this doesn’t mean a yearly subscription to a thousand magazines. The online publications are pretty much free to the public to read. The print journals, for the most part, include a few sample stories that can be read online. This, I think, is all good news for the writer.

Today marks the one hundred fiftieth story I’ve written as part of my commitment to write daily since January 1st of this year. It also coincides with Day 10 of the 100 Day Project for this summer of 2011.

I’ll be taking down the pages here that mark the first 140 days of the 365/365, since all have been transferred into monthly posts at Talespinning to accommodate the 100 Days setup.

It’s quite a learning process, to find a story to write every day, to change narrative voice and writing style, to investigate techniques and language and genres. Some of these pieces have already been picked up and published elsewhere; most will never move beyond the pages of my weblog. There are those I feel really good having written, and those that even with the famous editorial eye, just aren’t pleasing even to their own “mother.”

Check out the 100 Days Project–there are so many fine artists and writers and crafters and photographers there that you’re sure to find something each day to make the summer special.

This morning I finally finished up the story to submit for non-fiction. It was one I had written as part of my last year’s participation in a fiction project. In the final editing for this submission, I tweaked language, fleshed it out, and changed the tense.

Yes, that’s about all I had to do to turn fiction into an honest non-fiction.

With the ruckus caused by James Frey’s A Million Tiny Pieces being passed off as reality, I find this amusing. The thing is, Frey knew the difference between right and wrong, real and made-up, since he’d done the opposite of what I’ve just done. He claimed his novel was his personal experience, and only switched it to non-fiction, memoir, when he couldn’t shop it successfully. In the Oprah interview on yesterday (and continuing today, I believe) he claims he wasn’t thinking at all about genre, was inspired to just sit down and write something totally different, and didn’t have the writing class experience behind him to guide his decisions. I call him a big fat liar.

But was I just as guilty when calling true events fiction? I don’t think so. It’s not a mortal sin anyway; perhaps venial and ten Hail Marys will clear the air.

The thing is, ALL fiction is truth. All must have some basis in fact, all must be born from an egg before it flies away on its own. You can’t write about aliens coming in from Mars on their spaceships and landing on Earth if you don’t know about planets, space travel, and flight. Then you’re freed from the constrictions of knowledge to color them green.

UPDATE: A link to an article on the truth of personal experience in flash fiction at Flash Fiction Chronicles by Thomas Kearnes.

About a month ago I was asked to submit a non-fiction piece by a great editor who kindly had published my work in the first issue of his magazine last year. I don’t write a lot of non-fiction. On the other hand, all fiction comes from experience of reality.

I don’t know if it’s the privacy factor, but I know that the things in my life that are most interesting are the ones that I’m not of the mind to own up to. Some of these events have been crayoned and restructured and found their way into any number of short stories I’ve written. I just can’t seem to open up quite that much knowing that people I know are reading it as truth if it’s labeled non-fiction. So I’ve been stuck here all month with ideas and no story.

Then it dawned on me that it didn’t have to be about me at all. I don’t even need to be in the story. With a deep sigh, I opened Pages and set up the font, typed my name and “Word Count:” on top and settled in to write.

Who and what would I write about? Again, the “non-fiction” designation prevents anything from being written that is without the knowledge or permission of the characters we’re dealing with in the story. Even without naming names, it’s a bit awkward to again find those stories that are different, fresh, new, and told honestly but sensitively.

Now that would be easier to do than to sift through my lifetime and people I’ve known to come up with the story that will be both real and entertaining in some way. Something moving, something to which others can relate, something funny or tragic, big or small. And still, I find my emotions creeping in and closing the door.

The third quarterly issue of the fabulous 52/250 project has just been released and it’s another winner.

thirtynine is a selection of the best stories and poetry produced during thirteen weeks of work by an average weekly  group of between thirty to forty writers. The 52/250 Project was based on a different prompt each week that offers the winds of creative thoughts and stories to fly, unlimited by anything other than a 250-word restriction.

My own story Unspeakable is included in this anthology and I thank the excellent work of the editors, Michelle Elvy, Walter Bjorkman, and John Wentworth Chapin for once again producing an amazing collection.

Was so humbled and yet prouder than ever this morning when I noticed on Facebook that the long list notables was published for the 2010 storySouth Million Writers award and I was plopped in there among some of the most popular and finest short story writers I know. The story, Where We Come From, Where We Go was published in the Istanbul Literary Review last year.

Congratulations to all, and particularly Fictionaut friends Marcus Speh, James Valvis, Tara Laskowski, Rachel Swirsky, Amber Sparks, Roxane Gay, Frank Hinton, and Bonnie ZoBell.

Big thanks to the folks at storySouth, and special thanks to Dorothee Lang, Susan Tepper, and Gloria Mindock, three wonderful writers, editors, and friends.

(This post originally appeared in January, 2011 at Nothing to Flawnt in my gastarbeiter appearance on that weblog, with thanks to Marcus Speh.)

Yes, thank you, yes, yes!

The writer’s dream come true. Gra­ciously accept­ing con­grat­u­la­tory com­ments from his peers on his lat­est pub­lished piece. But what did it take out of him to get here?

Like a new mother for­get­ting the agony of child­birth when she holds the new babe against her breast, the writer doesn’t look back at the years of rejec­tion slips, the mis­car­riages of writing.

We found your work not quite a fit/not suit­able for our journal/REJECTED.

Most writ­ers really started back in grade school. Pat­ted on the head and encour­aged by teach­ers and of course, a mother who loves every word. Some­times there are years in between bouts with the muse but at some point we decide to take it seri­ously. Put some effort into it. Sub­mit. And that’s where real­ity hits fic­tion and the pain of rejec­tion adds lay­ers to character.

Many years ago–at that par­tic­u­lar moment when light­ning struck which I mis­took for that “time to get seri­ous” sign–I did some research. Armed with a hand­ful of short sto­ries and many, many poems, I hit the track. Of course, back then it was all print­ing out, cover let­ters, envelopes (two–one the dreaded SASE) and postage. I went through Duotrope and selected what I thought were among the “upper ech­e­lon” of lit­er­ary jour­nals, those found in the cam­pus library: Glim­mer­train, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, the col­lege reviews. Twenty of the best. Those that reg­u­larly pub­lished the lat­est Joyce Carol Oates. Back then, I strictly obeyed the “no simul­ta­ne­ous sub­mis­sions” warning.

And waited. And waited. And waited for some kind of response.

These days, with online sub­mis­sions the norm, it is so much eas­ier to sub­mit. Cheaper, too. In truth, I feel for the edi­tors who must dread in some ways just know­ing each morn­ing that though there may be a pearl in the onslaught of words, there is indeed that onslaught that the ease of sub­mis­sion has opened up.

Over the years I’ve learned a bit more about the sys­tem of sub­mit­ting and the one thing that was always stressed, the same thing that out of ego but more, out of impos­si­bil­ity due to lack of funds we tended to ignore, was to sub­scribe to a mag­a­zine in order to find out exactly what it sought by way of writ­ing. Well, you can only afford so many mag­a­zines and you can talk your­self into think­ing you fit.

One of the best moves I’ve made was join­ing the won­der­ful com­mu­nity of writ­ers at Fic­tio­naut. It did, of course, open some doors and make some amaz­ing friends that are so sup­port­ive of each other that a writer need no longer feel alone and small. Bet­ter yet, it revealed the dif­fer­ent styles of con­tem­po­rary fic­tion and poetry writ­ing and what was being sought by the jour­nal edi­tors. Not only do the links make the mag­a­zines eas­ily acces­si­ble online, it offered sam­ples of the editor’s writ­ing! What bet­ter way to see exactly the tone, style, voice, topic, etc. that an edi­tor looks for in select­ing, than to see what type of writ­ing he/she presents? That in itself was invalu­able and ben­e­fi­cial to both sides; less head bang­ing and less read­ing of incred­i­bly mis­matched submissions.

Another thing that such a com­mu­nity of good writ­ers can offer (besides some cri­tique if requested) is the oppor­tu­nity to learn by read­ing and writ­ing. I know that per­son­ally, the work of my friends has had a direct impact on my own style of writ­ing. I find it easy now to write a story in rela­tion to either a theme or a word count. A word count! Some­thing I just couldn’t com­pre­hend as rel­a­tive to story at all!

While I’ve gone off into dif­fer­ent direc­tions in my own writ­ing and have wan­dered into hyper­text, flash, and code, I see these same explo­rations into new media brought about by the inter­net and the com­puter by the mag­a­zines and by the writ­ers and artists. Mar­cus Speh has dab­bled in hyper­text nar­ra­tive. As have Dorothee Lang (edi­tor, Blue Print Review) who has taken it fur­ther into com­bin­ing story with visu­als. Meg Pokrass has found a niche in tak­ing advan­tage of Xtra­nor­mal, a free ani­ma­tion pro­gram on the web and has com­bined story with audio/visuals with exper­tise and her inim­itable flair. There are more and more venues will­ing to accept the new media form of writ­ing that an online pres­ence can offer that tra­di­tional print form never could.

So yes, life for the writer has changed. The nar­ra­tive, the meth­ods, the writer him­self, as always, adjusts and expands to ful­fill both the read­ing audi­ence and that inner need to be read. There is indeed life after rejec­tion; all I needed to do was grow into it.

It won’t be more than mere practice, no eloquence finely honed and polished to perfection, but a flash piece each day to match–no not match, but inspired by–Carianne Mack Garside’s beautiful art.

So here will be my offerings, starting with Day 1, Potent. Note that each month’s work here has a separate page (links on the right sidebar).

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.

…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.

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.