My latest published flash fiction, "Rings," is available at the Origami Journal.
I have nothing to write about. I have some story ideas, but the truth is, I really don’t want to write them. They aren’t bad ideas, but somehow, at this point, I can’t get going with them. I started one a few days ago. It was something that has floated around in my head for a while. I gave it a quick write touching on the highlights, something I usually do, and looked it over. My reaction was, “I don’t want to write this.” Now, I don’t even remember what it was about. I have several of those. False starts saved on my computer waiting there for me to return some day and say, “Oh yeah. I can do something with that. But for now, they just hang there like a dog abandoned at the internet gas station hoping that every car will be the master returning for the rescue. And occasionally I do open the folder, and the story begins to look expectantly. I open the file and the story begins to pant with expectation. Then, I close it all down again and the story stands wide eyed, abandoned, and confused as to why I don’t love it anymore.
Why write? Really. Why write? Especially fiction. Once at an Ozarks Writing Project session a writer commented that she didn't write fiction because she wanted to get paid for her work. Writing fiction pays less than writing blogs. OK, about the same. So why do it? Why am I sitting here plugging away at this instead of outside cleaning up my garden and getting it ready for spring?
I guess at this point I should be giving an answer. I tell my composition students to not ask questions that won't be answered. OK. I write because I have no voice. Sure, I have a physical voice. It is nasal with an Ozarks accent. My students all know it. My wife knows it. Even my three legged cat recognizes it. But it takes more than noise to have a voice. It takes more than words. To plagiarize and paraphrase Willie Nelson, you can't write a story if you ain't got nothing to say. I write because I got all this stuff inside that just won't come out at the family gathering. For example on the "about me" of this site. I start off with I am a Christian. Why is it important for me to say that? Because, it is the basis of who I am. My whole world view is wrapped up in that. Yet, for me to put it in words makes me realize that a lot of people who see this will not know quite how to take it because their understanding of what that means and mine may not be the same. So I write from my worldview. Not in a Christian religious sense. My first published piece is a historical fiction about a Buddhist, and I wrote it with respect for the characters. I write from my worldview in sense of the brokenness of mankind. As my friend Brian once said, "We are all just broken people trying to act normal." It is within that framework of brokenness that we find ourselves traveling through our day by day existence. It is from that framework of brokenness that we seek an inner peace. A reason to fit. Christianity helps to deliver that for me. And by declaring my worldview others may be given the courage to declare their worldviews, even if they are not the same as mine. And my worldview is all about the brokenness of the human race. There are no words to put this sense of brokenness into an essay or a research paper without separating it from human nature and making it into some sort of sterile analysis of psychological behaviors. With fiction I can write about our brokenness without trying to fix it. It can be explored for what it is, the core essence of humanity. Writing about our brokenness helps me to have a voice, and maybe somebody somewhere will read something I have written and say, "Yes. I can relate to that." With fiction, we can stare our humanity in the face and, if just for a moment, see ourselves and know who we are, and that we are not alone in our broken natures. Sometimes the payoff is greater than cash. Yesterday, at Missouri State, I saw a guy wearing a kilt coming out of the AG building. The gentleman wearing the kilt probably doesn't realize it, but he is a character type that appears on campus regularly. When I left corporate America in 1998 to attend MSU (then SMS) there was a kilt wearer. He was probably an English major because he spent so much time in Pummel Hall. It seems that every semester since then, there has been a kilt wearer.
Of course, kilts are not the only character types on campus. There are what I call the circus acts. A unicycle rider. People walking a low wire connected between trees. Jugglers. People in this group seem to hang together. And there is my favorite group, the hippies, smelling like patchouli oil, wearing dreadlocks. Of course there are many groups on campus. OTC has its game players. And many of the groups are sanctioned clubs. But these are communities made up of like minded people who have joined together for a common, usually fun, cause. The kilt wearers are lone wolves. There is no clan of the kilt wearers. They don't appear in mass at any parades, and I have never seen one of these guys standing on the commons, playing a bagpipe as the sun rose over Carrington Hall. . Unlike yesterday's kilt wearer, the one back in 98 wore the full regalia complete with Ghille Shirt, belt, kilt with a flap, and knee high socks. The guy yesterday was wearing what amounted to a plaid skirt with no flap and none of the rest of the outfit. I wanted to stop and ask him if he knew his outfit was incomplete, but decided it really wasn't any of my business. Grading 101 research papers. Got short stories coming in from three classes that needs grading. 040 is working on an essay. Working on a short story for a WD contest. I probably don't have time for doing this, but I am here anyway.
Mary is subbing for 30 days, then she subs a maternity leave. She will be working everyday the rest of the semester. I will have to step up and help her more cleaning the churches. At this point, I feel as if I should be launching into some deep heartfelt monologue that stirs souls and moves mountains, but all I have to say is I can type faster than the blog's text editor can and that is frustrating. Maybe I should try cut and paste. Any way, this stuff I've been putting out isn't going to get me a following, but I don't know that I need one. I think I just need to write and this is a good excuse to do so. Got to grade. Pax. I have written a short short story to submit to a Writer's Digest contest. The prompt was (I'm going by memory) I knew I had made a mistake when it was over. I decided to take a different twist on this and use over as a pronoun. Ran into a mentor today, Dr. Franklin. It was good to see her. She asked if I had seen Larry, and I had to tell her that he was dead. It was troubling. She said we might do some Writing Project stuff at OTC. I hope so.
Not much today. I'm grading freshman comp research papers. This keeps me really busy. Pax. One of the short stories I submitted recently got rejected. It is just as well. I would like to change the ending, but I haven't come up with an alternate. Maybe I will work on that. Maybe I won't.
My Eng 215 at MSU is busy peer reviewing the member's short stories. Listening to my students discuss each others' work is inspiring. People walk past and look in because there is all this noise coming from the classroom, and it isn't the instructor droning on about esoteric theories concerning the placement of an epiphany in relation to the climax. I don't discuss those theories anyway. My classes are focused on production. I want to read the student's work, and I want to hear them discussing their work. One question that comes up is why are they going to workshop a story after I have given it a grade. The answer is this is an opportunity to have a real world review by people who understand what they are doing, are familiar with the short story form, and their only vested interest is in helping one another. This gives the author an opportunity to have the work reviewed without it being weighed in the scales of my rubric. Pax I have submitted three short stories in the past week or two. It seems that every time I submit one, I begin to think, "No. That wasn't ready." The character should have done this. This scene needed more inner conflict. What was I thinking? How could I have submitted that? And, unfortunately, most of the time I am right.
I am not sure where this comes from. I recall Dr. Moser, a lit instructor at Missouri State, saying that all writing is living. She claimed that nothing is ever completed and that all writing could be altered, if the author has the chance. Some of the material that appears in this site has been altered from the published version. Tweaked. Made a little better (in my eyes). The thing is that once it is out there, it is out there, and we don't get to take it back, unless we get a rejection letter. And none of us hopes for that. Well OK, once I did. Yet, instead of getting a rejection letter, I got the story, Execution of Responsibility, back with suggested changes, all ones that I knew needed to be made. Why did they do that? It was a blessing. I made the changes, and Moon City Review graciously published the piece. How often does that happen? Practically never. So, out of the three stories that I submitted, how many will get published? I have no idea. Maybe none, but then again, maybe God will grace me with getting one or more accepted. I do the writing. The editors do the reading, But, in my world view, it is God that does the directing. We will see how it all goes down. |