A few days ago I found a grocery list in the gutter outside our house. Here it is.

I love the little details on it. What does it say about a person that they needed a 3 lb bag of tilapia and Orowheat bread? Or Kroger Value Bacon for that matter? And what about the Bratwurst Beer? Do they mean sausage or is there an actual beer that tastes like Bratwurst? They also wanted to ‘check on cinnimon [sp] and struttle cake, which they wrote a second time as struddle cake.

And check out the picture on the other side– I wonder why the person didn’t write on the side with the lines? Maybe they didn’t want to write on the cute little puppies’ faces?

Maybe I should send the list to FOUND Magazine?

This got me thinking about ‘lists’ in literature. What writers have used a list or lists in their writing? Aaron Hamburger uses them effectively in his novel Faith For Beginners, in fact, he opens the book with a list of plants that grow of the Wailing Wall.

And when we first meet Alma, the fourteen year-old narrator (or one of two narrators) of the glorious The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, she gives us her life story in a list that she actually continues through most of the novel.

I have to admit, I’m a fan of these literary devices or gimmicks.

So who else? What other writers, and what books or stories or essays use lists?

I need to be busy again. Busy-ness makes me feel better. Having things to do, having places to be and responsibilities. I’d like to think it pushes me creatively, too. This summer was just a wash–too much time on my hands and not enough discipline. After the writing retreat in July which was both inspiring and stifling, I came back jazzed about my book but then  I lost the momentum. I need to get it back.

I’m going to sign up for a class at the writing school where I teach and where I do the programming. A really terrific (and prolific) writer named Tammy Greenwood, who also happens to be one of the sweetest most generous people, is teaching a 4 week workshop on prepping for Nanowrimo — National Novel Writing Month. I don’t know that I’ll officially participate in Nanowrimo, but we’ll see. The workshop is all about working on a personal strategy for actually getting it–your novel– done. I think it’s what I need. I’ve got nearly 100 pages of what I’m calling a draft which is so all over the place, fragmented, unstructured, that I need to really get into shape, not to mention I need to really just push forward and get the stuff out.

Of course, I did find some time to make things this summer. Again, trying out new types of postcard making. I made these two things (?), not sure what to call them, with the previously mentioned (in the previous blog) rubber stamps.

These are images taken from magazines that I then stamped with red paint (using the faux-wood-look rubber stamp). Can you guess who is in the first one (it’s from a recent Interview Magazine)? The second one is an ad from Photoplay Magazine from 1954.

Ok, i’m hoping to bring more people to my site, so the celebrity is: Justin Bieber! Bloody Justin Bieber! (no offense to JB, it’s just an artistic rendering; however, this will probably be the only time Mr. B will be on my website. Maybe).

So, first, Fishtrap. Got back from my 8-day writing retreat/gathering at Fishtrap in Northeast Oregon (Wallowa Lake, to be exact). Beautiful beautiful country — big blue Wallowa Lake, mountains with snow at the tips (still!), deer outside my window, writing on my laptop next to the river that rushed past my bedroom and back porch (talk about white-noise).

I had the most amazing writing workshop — not really a workshop, thankfully, but more a seminar — with Karen Fisher (I’m not worthy; I bow down to her), author of A Sudden Country. She was just incredible. Inspirational. There were no daily prompts. No sharing of work (except one-on-one with her). No BS. She talked about her process, about structure of the novel, notably “historical fiction.”  We talked about our own books, our own projects, asked how to get over our own specific hurdles. She talked about structure of scenes, momentum, pace. And most important (especially to me — or at least I really took it to heart) she emphasized COMPRESSION. Sometimes in this book i’m writing, because it’s historical fiction I want to put every bit of detail, fact, statistic, trivia, that I know into it. She told us, “Just because you love all those statistics and facts and lists doesn’t necessarily mean your reader will.” COMPRESSION. Pick what is really essential to the story, the characters. If what you know doesn’t fit into your story, it doesn’t belong. Don’t force it into your story. Get over the impulse to (over)inform! (That’s Karen in the red sweater in the middle.)

Can more be achieved in fewer pages?

Test every word or moment in your writing for the truth.

She talked about revision: Revision comes from the 1. head, 2. gut, 3. heart

The three truths to adhere to about Revision:

1. clarity

2. authenticity

3. the heart/credibility

Revision is increasing engagement with what you are doing. Increasing the reader’s engagement in your work.

She also suggests to create folders for each character — hard copy folders or electronic.

A week with Karen Fisher was worth the entire trip.

Other highlights included meeting Cosy Sheridan — folk-singer-story-teller-funny-bone-tickler-extraordinaire. She and I shared a rental car from the Boise airport through the 4.5 hour drive to Fishtrap. I don’t think we stopped talking once. She was funny, irreverent, political, compassionate, and we got along like wildfire. I just love her. And this was before I had even heard her sing (well, live anyway — I had heard her online). She is fricken awesome! A crystal voice and her songs are real stories. Her banter with an audience is nothing short of dazzling. She rocked the Fishtrap house!

Check out the video below of her singing “Do You Love the Life You Made?” last year.

And, meeting Jack Loeffler (with the beard) was a kick — he’s a much lauded aural historian who has spent countless hours taping Native Americans telling their stories and published many of them in a terrific book (that I bought) that comes with a great DVD called Healing the West.

Also, the four other fellows, Christine Colasurdo, (and, from left to right) Dave Jarecki, Chris Robertson, and Bill Wright — were lovely– super writers and fast good friends. Had many fun nights, slumber-party-style (a.k.a. long talks, red wine, chocolate, lots of laughs, impromptu poetry readings) with Dave and Chris and Bill, who were my cabin-mates. And what a cabin–huge!

Now… for the downside. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful to Fishtrap for bringing me out there. They paid for just about everything, including my travel. There were many nice people there. It was wonderful having the time away to think, write, learn. But truthfully, I felt there were kinks that needed to be worked out in their organization. First of all, there is a huge age gap, and very little effort is made to bridge that gap. The fellows were all mid thirties to mid-late forties, but the participants, for the most part, were 60s, 70s. No problem with that, but there seemed to be a big separation, a segregation, between ages. Where were the 20, 30, 40-somethings? Why haven’t they reached out to them? (There were a couple of women in their 20s who spent a week camping and then they came down the last few days.) And again, don’t get me wrong, all my life I’ve gotten along with people much older than me. When I was a kid I used to hang out in the living room with the grownups and my grandparents and their friends, emptying ashtrays, talking about movies and books, while the other kids were in the playroom. But at Fishtrap, there was a weird lack of young people. (However, there were very young kids there– a sort of writing camp for kids all week).

In addition, there were odd rules: no alcohol at dinner — or anywhere near the food (granted, maybe that was out of their control, the cabins and yurts–yes there were yurts!– were on a Methodist campground). We could not use ‘explicit language’ or ‘sex’ in our reading — and all of the fellows gave a reading — or if we did, we needed to give a disclaimer to the audience so they could leave, or take the kids out of the room. The fellows could only read for ten minutes and we were chastised, even harassed, for going slightly over. Seriously. I actually kept mine to about 8 minutes, but some of the other fellows, bless them, went over. Maybe 15 minutes total. They were pulled aside the next morning. And then at the reading the next night, we were all chastised in public. (“We are using a timer tonight because last night the readers couldn’t stick to the plan…” or something like that. And YES! they used a timer and even flashed a red light in people’s faces when they hit the time limit.) However, a couple days later, when a few of the instructors read — who were also told they had a specific time limit–most of them went way over — some even 35 minutes–without a word being said to them. It was all very strange and oppressive.

Finally, when I was introduced for my reading they made no mention of the book I edited with my husband, From Boys to Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up – which is the first thing on my bio — a best-selling and award-nominated anthology of, omigosh, GAY nonfiction. Only two of the fellows, myself and Christine, had books out, and they mentioned Christine’s (Return to Spirit Lake — an excellent memoir of Mt. St. Helens). Not a mention of my book. Not a mention of me being gay. In fact, though at the opening ceremony and subsequent events, there were talks about the Environment, Native American Issues, Political Activism, there was no acknowledgment of GLBT anywhere, despite the fact that several of the women participants were clearly out lesbians AND one of the employees is an out lesbian. There’s no outreach to GLBT writers or any plans for GLBT workshops, etc. Kind of a shame, considering they could really pull in some great folks from Portland: Tom Spanbauer, Mark Acito, Chuck Palahniuk, Judith Barrington, Sage Ricci. I don’t know if it’s that they were worried that anything too ‘adult’ would offend board members, or, as one person there on staff put it– Fishtrap is made up of the old ‘boys club,’ but they are missing out on a vital part of the writing population– and, we have money (i.e. donors… though of course not me and Ted, we’re poor!). But anyway, it seemed a little ridiculous when, in the opening address, with all of the talk about spirituality, nature, environmentalism, activism, Native American life, there was nothing about this being GAY PRIDE MONTH throughout the U.S.  and no welcome to our GLBT brothers and sisters.

Am I just being sensitive? Maybe. But the fellows and I talked about it in my cabin and when, at the end of the week, they gave everyone evaluations to fill out I said as much as I could in the tiny space they allowed for comments. I’ve decided, though, that I’m going to send a letter to the new Executive Director, who starts in September.

Because really, the place, the scenery, are all incredible and so conducive to writing, sharing, thinking, reading, inspiration, discussion, dialogue, friendship, learning. This place should be huge. Fishtrap, though it’s been around for, I think, over 20 years, seems to still be figuring itself out– and I’d like to see them really do it, really become something great, something inclusive and welcoming to everyone.

Today’s Word of the Day is:

It sounds like an archeological term; maybe it’s the word ‘dig’?

The explanation/history of the word always fascinates me.

I wonder what kind of person would use ‘infra dig’ in their vocabulary– which character that i’m writing about would use it? The young English teacher who recently graduated from the Utah State University;  the 16 year-old daughter of the Unit Director; the Unit Director himself– a man who started as a stuntman in films and dreams of directing of his own film; the wife of the Unit Director–who is a wardrobe mistress, assisting the costume designer; the ranch hand who becomes a cattle rustler on the film;the president of the high school drama club who becomes a stand-in for the actress…

(Buster Crabbe cowboy photo from Moviesandphotos.com)

I’m torn between really loving the book, and being a bit frustrated or confused distinguishing between the two main characters–father and son– and the time shifts. But I’m only almost halfway through the book. On a sentence level, however, the book is incredible.

Speaking of tinkering, last week Judy Reeves (oh, she of San Diego Writers, Ink and A Writers Book of Days, among other lovely accomplishments) and I went to a journal-making workshop at San Diego Art Department. I took a silver-ring making class there last year.

This was a four-hour workshop on crafting/collaging your own journal– though not on binding your own journal as I had thought it might be. But it was still fun. Four hours with a good friend, getting our hands all sticky with glue and watching each other create something meaningful (after all, who doesn’t love a journal, right?).

I also learned some really cool ideas for collaging– notably the use of paint in collage– as background, or sometimes applied on top of the collage. The instructor really encouraged a lot of color, but I’m a bit more minimalist than that. Still, they look pretty good I have to admit.

As much as I love to write, because it’s an act of creating, I feel that same euphoria at working with my hands to create something with paper and paint and glue and ephemera. It’s also meditative and, most of the time, I can finish a project in a few days or weeks (if only I could do the same for my novel…).

Here are some pictures of the experience. The journal with the word Grizz at the top is mine–I’m not sure what my theme is/was: there are bears, old Japanese women in cat glasses, an upside down Oscar, British Admirals– figure that one out.  (Judy Reeves, in case you don’t know her and her fabulousness, is in yellow, the instructor Carla Christensen is in Pink). Do any of you take art classes like this for fun?

Two weddings (in one night…) but no funerals thankfully.

We did get to meet up with some of our favorite people: Aaron Hamburger and Anthony (by the way, Aaron’s new cooking blog , Aaron’s Sweet Spot, is fantastic!), Lee Houk and Kip (Lee’s book comes out in August! Yee haw!), and Alex Chee and Dustin– it was a creative and literary round table not unlike Dorothy Parker and her crew (a little less vicious, though, and i’m not sure who would be Ms. Parker?). I miss these guys!

Other highlights:

Had dinner at Moustache (see picture above left–the best Pitzas ever).

Ted’s family and friends

Seeing David and Mark, Matthew, Liz and Jason, Michelle and Jake, Micheal F, Steve C, and Frank and Audrey (congrats!).

There’s some NYC pics on my Flickr in the right sidebar—–>

Ted and I sat at the W. Village Piers and read on a glorious Monday afternoon. Finished the book I was reading– A Sudden Country, by Karen Fisher (whom I’ll be working with at Fishtrap in July). Didn’t want it to end. Didn’t want to leave these characters and places. I found that Karen Fisher’s website has journal entries– a journal she kept while writing the novel and it gives such insight into the characters though even more important to me is insight into her writing and thinking process while working on the book. Wow.

Now I’m reading this year’s Pulitzer winner, Tinkers, by Paul Harding. It’s a quiet book, with lovely sentences and a dream-like quality and these really intricate, beautiful, intriguing bits about the interworkings/mechanics of clocks.

And speaking of New York– have you been catching up on your NewYorkers? I have.

Several months ago I was drooling over Marisa Silver’s new story “Temporary” (her collection has just come out and was reviewed in the NYTimes this past weekend). Lordy she captures the city of Los Angeles like no other current writer out there.

I also loved Ben Loory’s story The TV, from back in April. So much so that I facebook-stalked him and told him so. He was actually very gracious. The story is absolutely hypnotic and strange; I read it in the bathtub (TMI?). His story collection had just sold that week or somewhere near there– can’t wait to read it.

And just yesterday I read (while on the treadmill, in fact)  Jeffrey Eugenides’ new story, “Extreme Solitude,” from last week’s NYer. I’ll read anything by Jeffrey. Lordy, I love his humor:

Looking back, Madeleine realized that her college love life had fallen short of expectations. Her freshman roommate, Jennifer Boomgaard, had rushed off to Health Services the first week of school to be fitted for a diaphragm. Unaccustomed to sharing a room with anybody, much less a stranger, Madeleine felt that Jennifer was a little too quick with her intimacies. She didn’t want to be shown Jennifer’s diaphragm, which reminded her of an uncooked ravioli, and she certainly didn’t want to feel the spermicidal jelly that Jennifer offered to squirt into her palm. Madeleine was frankly shocked when Jennifer started going to parties with the diaphragm already in place, when she wore it to the Harvard-Brown game, and when she left it one morning on top of their miniature fridge. That winter, when the Reverend Desmond Tutu came to campus for an anti-apartheid rally, Madeleine asked Jennifer on their way to see the great cleric, “Did you put your diaphragm in?” They lived the next four months in a twenty-by-fifteen room without speaking to each other.

I’m inches away from being done with teaching for the semester. Final exams are next week and I have a table full of essays to grade but I’ll get through it. On the other side is a summer of writing, reading, and (unfortunately?) very little paid work/teaching. I’ll be running a once a week night Fiction Read & Critique at San Diego Writers, Ink starting in mid-June and I do the programming for the organization but that’s it as far as work. One of the worst summers I’ve ever had as far as finances but hopefully unemployment will not screw me over! I know I should also be happy for the time to write, too.

And, I’ve got my full fellowship at Summer Fishtrap Workshops and Gathering– in July. Cannot wait for this experience<–Look! I’m on their website! Look at the incredible other fellows! Look I’ll be working with Karen Fisher (I’m almost done with the masterful A Sudden Country) and meeting Gary Snyder!

So yes, lots of writing, but I’m also eager to do some reading this summer, some real reading.

On my list:

Tinkers, Paul Harding

Model Home, Eric Puchner

Falling to Heaven, Jeanne Peterson (she gave a reading at The Ink Spot– wonderful, wonderful)

Sunnyside, Glen David Gold

Oh, and did I mention I have two publications that have recently come out?

It All Changed in an Instant: More Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Oscure

I guess I’m one of the obscure writers; they didn’t even tell me I’d been accepted. I found out from someone else. Still, I’m happy they published mine–it’s a pretty good one (and if you know me you’ll understand why when you read it–it’s on pg. 91).

and

6S (Six Sentences), Vol. 3– Edited by Lydia Davis (LYDIA DAVIS!!!!)

This one I knew about–though I didn’t know Lydia Davis was a part of it. Very cool. My very-very short story (duh, it’s only Six Sentences) is called “July 24, 1985″ and is on pg 57.

And, speaking of writing… tomorrow is the Blazing Laptops Write-a-Thon, of which I am a participant. I’ll be writing for 9 hours–tapping away at my keyboard–to raise money for San Diego Writers, Ink–the nonprofit writing organization where I do the programming.

Anyone who pledges $10 or more (flat amount) gets a postcard handmade by yours truly.These will be brand new and each one uniquely made for each person who pledges.

You can pledge here: Rob’s Blazing Laptop Pledge Page

To see examples of my postcards check out my Flickr account to the right–>

Thanks for your support. Have a great week!

The film, “Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid,” starred William Powell and Ann Blyth and looks quite similar to the Ron Howard-directed “Splash.” The reviews aren’t very kind, Halliwell’s Film Guide calls it “a boneheaded quick cash-in…”

And IMDB states that one of the goofs includes: In the underwater fight scene, one shot shows that the fishtail costume had clearly separated from Lenore’s (the mermaid’s) back.

Nice.

Click to read the excerpt on the back cover.

“It was incredible but there it was: his catch, from the waist up, was a woman! Her little breasts were pointed and rosy tipped. On a small scale, she was maturely voluptuous!”

Hmm, rather, erm, titillating for 1945, eh?

There’s just no teaching. I applied for some part-time teaching at a couple of other schools but it looks pretty dismal.

Hopefully unemployment will kick in and they won’t screw me this time like they have in the past.

In other, happier news I went to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last Saturday–took a bus up with Judy Reeves and other wonderful folk as part of San Diego Writers, Ink– and had a great, if overwhelming time. Overwhelming because there’s so much to do, see, so many books, panels, booths.

I did get to see panels featuring:

Colson Whitehead–looking awesome, handsome as usual and when he said, “I’m obsessed with outlining. I like to know what happens”– I wanted to go up and shake his hand, or kiss him. Probably kiss him. (ok, I admit to a guy-crush on Colson Whitehead. If that makes me gay, so be it. Oh, wait. I am gay).

Paul Harding—the guy that just won the Pulitzer and a Guggenheim (I bought and he signed his PP winning book: Tinkers, which looks beautiful and the reviews are staggeringly positive. He was also very sweet and gracious).

Rafael Yglesias–whose book, A Happy Marriage (a fictionalization of meeting his wife and then losing her to cancer), sounds heartbreaking and glorious and I think I’ll need to put it on my list. He also said, “Reading poetry helps bring emotional power to your own writing. You can’t make books or stories vivid without doing something to the language.”

Antonya Nelson–she was dead on when, speaking of the importance of reading (as learning tools, as inspiration, as teacher), she said: “A lot of what I’m writing is a response to what I’ve read.”

Marisa Silver–Love, love, love her story collection: Babe in Paradise who said “the story has to be an exploration for you.”

Ron Carlson– “I’m only interested in surviving the draft.” Love that line. I took a Creative Writing class from him at Arizona State in the mid-late 90s.

I also attended the “History Through the Lens of Fiction” panel featuring Tom Curwen, Gabrielle Burton, Thaisa Frank, and Indu Sundaresan. All very accomplished writers of historical fiction. One interesting thought I came away with is: “Finding parallels in your work (the historical fiction you are writing) and the world of today.”

Oh, and I came away with a new subscription to Tin House, too!

More on writing… later.

“The tough poetry of Fisher’s novel buoys this chronicle of Oregon migation along on an incantatory wave. It’s 1847 and dour patriarch Israel Mitchell drags his reluctant wife , Lucy, and their chilren out to the Oregon Territory. Their paths cross with James McLaren, a bereaved Scot trapper whose children have all died from smallpox and whose Nez Perce wife has run off. Each day the murderous landscape spools mercilessly ahead of the emigrants, and Fisher’s depiction of a familiar seeming journey that is not adventurous, as myth would have it, but a daily exercise in folly and survival, is astonishing. A Sudden Country requires a patient reader, but the spell it casts is transformative and rare. The heartbreaking first chapter alone is worth any number of lesser novels.”

The review doesn’t lie. The first chapter left me breathless. When I finished the chapter I turned to Ted (we were both reading before bed) and said “Wow.” I didn’t have the words to describe how mesmerized and devastated I was by that first, extremely short chapter. This is what editors and agents mean when they say the first chapter (let alone the first page) must grab you and pull you in.

Happily, the rest of the book is proving just as beautifully written and intriguing and surprising. One particularly moving turn of phrase:

He remembered the dry grief cracking out.

Fisher is teaching a daily workshop called “Spirit and Matter in Historical Fiction” that I’ve signed up for. I can’t wait!

On a probably not-so-related note, or, well, speaking of the big country, the wild west, I watched “Calamity Jane“– the western musical starring Doris Day as the title character and Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok, her eventual love interest. The film and the Academy Award-winning song “Secret Love” is referenced in my book as is the hunky Howard Keel.  Though I think this photo on the left is from “Annie Get Your Gun” in which Keel also starred, this time playing opposite another brassy blonde: Betty Hutton.

“Calamity Jane” has its moments, but I was really just watching to see Keel (my main character has a crush on him; it’s easy to see why) and to hear the song. You can see/hear it here.