Not Enough
Earlier this week, my wife’s Aunt Paula brought over a recent Time magazine - the one with novelist Jonathan Franzen on the cover. She thought the article about him and the current crop of literary novelists would give me some insight, and I’d be a liar if I said that it didn’t. It was interesting to read that article while I’m simultaneously reading last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner - Paul Harding’s Tinkers - and last year’s National Book Review winner - Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin - is sitting on my nightstand, next in the queue.
But that’s not what this post is about.
Instead, it’s sort of about two other articles in that particular issue of Time, both op-ed pieces toward the back of the magazine that I read after I read the cover story Paula wanted me to read. The first was an analysis by James Poniewozik about the increasingly small regard we have in our society for facts. You know, those things that are pretty much documented and undeniable, but which somehow get denied when they go against what we WANT to believe. The second was Joel Stein’s take on our increasing insistence in America on mediocrity. You know, that false ideal which so many of us have: that we all should have an equal chance at something, when in fact, we all shouldn’t. Not unless we work for it, maybe have a talent for it, maybe get a little lucky. I will never have a good jump shot, so why would I deserve a shot at an NBA team? Or as Stein pointed out: I didn’t go to Yale or Harvard, so how could I ever expect a Supreme Court nomination? Stein’s main point is that, if you want something done, you want the best you can get to do it, right? You want your brain surgeon, your plumber, your babysitter, to be competent at the bare minimum, and at best highly skilled. So why are we settling for less than that so often in America?
The reason these two articles struck me was because they echoed trains of thought that I myself have had in the past several months. I’ve been frustrated watching people I regard as intelligent and well-read deny things that are blatantly true. And I’ve watched mediocre people function (poorly) in certain jobs while more skilled people languish in unemployment. And as I witnessed both circumstances, I began to ruminate and ruminate and ruminate over them.
Now, look at this page. Check out this blog. Flip through a few older posts. Did I WRITE ABOUT these things which I have been ruminating over? No. I left that to James Poniewozik and Joel Stein. But check this bit of irony: for the past several days, I’ve been flailing around in my head, trying to figure out what I was going to write about for my next post.
I didn’t want to follow on a novel podcast too closely. I didn’t think the details of my trip to Disney World would interest any of you. And while I may be obsessing about this whole P90X thing I’m doing, writing an entire blog post about it just seemed boring and redundant. Meanwhile, as I am considering THESE things for a potential post - and rejecting them - I’m THINKING ABOUT the same things as Poniewozik and Stein. The difference is, they’re writing about them and I’m not.
I’m just not. And I could be. I have this forum, and even though it isn’t Time magazine, it’ll do for putting down thoughts like Poniewozik’s, Stein’s, and mine. You know, for whomever wants to read them to read them.
So here I have another post, and really I have no point to it, other than to say: look at me, thinking big thoughts and spinning my wheels not putting them down for posterity.
Why am I doing (or rather, NOT doing) that?
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 29
This is it, folks. Something happens in the paragraphs below which will change the entire course of this story. This is the first time you’ve been invited into Sheriff Boyd’s head, and this is the last time you’ll be there. But it will be enough, I think.
A War Between States Part 29:
Interlude
Sheriff Robert Boyd sat in his patrol car and gazed out across the field of cotton next to him. He was parked on a dirt road that ran perpendicular to the Cauley Highway. A stand of thinning loblolly pines hid him from view, and he watched the road in front of him, waiting for the speeding teenager or teacher he knew would come flying down the paved road any minute. They always sped down this road on their way to the high school. They always got faster the later it got.
The morning light came in through the windshield and would have shined in his eyes, except for his mirrored shades. Thank God for mirrored shades.
As he sat and stared at the cotton, with its buds still closed against the late August heat — he thought about a few things. He thought about Soames’ encounter with the Granger woman. She was trying to open a bar right here on this highway, and although he agreed with Soames that such a thing was bad, he simply couldn’t agree with how Soames had gone about dealing with her. Still, what was done was done.
It was only a matter of time, though, before Soames’s enthusiasm got them both into hot water. Boyd was sure of it.
He thought again about his own encounter with Bill Wells back in July. Thinking about it, he didn’t approve of how he’d handled that situation. And the spite, the disgust, in Wells’s voice had bothered Boyd more than his slack, expressionless face had showed.
Thank God for mirrored shades.
It was a bit of a blow, listening to Wells’s rant. Especially after being so blatantly shut out of the GBI’s raid on Coach Williams’s Underground. He’d called the state police’s offices in Atlanta the next day. They’d stonewalled him.
That made him furious. But it also made him sad — sad that to them, he was only a podunk backwoods sheriff with droopy drawers who didn’t deserve to know about things that were happening in his own jurisdiction.
And now over a month had passed. Williams was out on bail, along with his little helpers. Boyd had seen Jamal Jenkins, Elgin Blalock, and the Green boy around town. No sign of Williams, though. But Boyd figured — he hoped — that the GBI sons of bitches knew where the man was.
The sheriff scowled at the fields of cotton and gripped the steering wheel tight. His wedding band glinted in the morning sun.
And then Terminius Green’s infamous white Mustang buzzed by him on the Cauley Highway. The top was down and two black men sat in the front seats.
Boyd checked the radar gun. It read 57 MPH.
“Dammit,” he muttered. Two miles over the speed limit wasn’t enough for him to pull anyone over - not even Terminius Green.
But then something compelled him to start his car and shift into gear. He felt suspicious for some reason. And his suspicion didn’t come from the oddity of those two being awake so early. It didn’t come from the oddity that the Green boy wasn’t speeding. It didn’t even come from knowing who it was driving down the road in the early morning light.
These things didn’t even occur to him. It did briefly occur to him that he might be following Green’s car because the drivers were black — but he shook his head and dismissed the thought. A backwoods sheriff, maybe, but he wasn’t Soames.
He just knew that it was important for him to follow Green. At a distance.
He followed them for ten miles, until they turned off a little side road just past the lot Tamara Granger had purchased. A sign at the intersection read County Maintained 51. He’d been to visit Tamara earlier that morning, had given her some paperwork that she demanded (and that might turn into the pot which boiled the hot water for Soames and him to get in). He noticed again how Tamara’s contractors had already cleared the most of the trees from her lot and had begun erecting a long, low building under the sparse shadows of the giant oak which she hadn’t had cut down. The building - the bar - would be finished soon.
There had been workers out earlier, but no one was out there at the moment - no one that he could see. And no one was coming down the highway in either direction. He was alone out here — the backwoods sheriff and two probable felons. Boyd thought about calling in, but decided to wait until he saw where Green was going.
A couple of miles down County Maintained 51, he saw that Green had pulled up to a white trailer parked up the hill from the access road. No one was in the Mustang anymore.
“Must be in the trailer,” Boyd said to the trees and the red dirt all around him.
He pulled to the side of the road and radioed in. “Boyd to Home Base One,” he said. “Sonny, you there?”
Sonny Doswell’s bright, tinny voice crackled back at Boyd. “Hey, Sheriff. I read ya’. How can I help you?” Sonny’s unbridled enthusiasm was unsettling.
God, but that boy needed to get laid, Boyd thought.
“Sonny, who owns the white trailer on County Maintained 51? It’s about two and a half miles from the Cauley turn-off.”
“Dunno, Sheriff. Lemme ask Jessie.”
Boyd nodded. If anybody knew, Jessie Hays, his office’s obsessive-compulsive records-keeper, would know.
“Sheriff?” Sonny’s voice cracked like a fourteen-year-old’s.
“Go ahead.”
“Uh. Eh. ‘Scuse me. If that trailer’s the same one Jess thinks it is, it belongs to Kay Williams.”
“Kay Williams? Coach Jeb Williams’ wife?”
“Ex-wife, Sheriff. But that’s the one.”
Boyd squinted at the building in front of him. Both it and the Mustang seemed to glow in the sunlight. Opalescent haloes surrounded them.
“Sonny, send Barry out this way, wouldja?” Boyd said.
“Sure, Sheriff. What’s going on? Should I call them GBI fellas?”
Boyd scowled again, and Sonny Doswell must have sensed the scowl through the radio.
“I gotcha, sheriff,” he said nervously. “I’m on it.”
Boyd nodded again and let the radio intercom drop from his hand onto the seat beside him. Then he put his car back in gear and began to creep toward the trailer.
He edged onto the upward sloping driveway. He could hear the crunch of rocks and clay under his tires. He debated about turning on his flashers, but decided against it — after all, this could only be a “friendly” visit. He had no proof that the people in the trailer were doing anything wrong.
For a moment the sun rippled across his windshield, blinding him, but then it moved out of his eyes and he could see, although his vision had little yellow sunspots playing across it.
Through the sunspots he could see that in the instant he had been blinded, someone had thrown open the door to the trailer. That someone, a dark figure against the darker interior of the building, stood in the doorway, pointing a rifle at him.
There was a sound, sharp and distinct in the morning air, and then Sheriff Robert Boyd watched his windshield crack. A spider web of shattered glass started at a point just in front of him and spread outward, its growing branches and strands glinting and shimmering in the morning sun.
He was caught at the center of that web. And even as he thought that very thought, he felt the spider’s sting on his neck.
The Cast
- Sheriff Boyd - Dennis Maguire
- Narrator/Sonny Doswell - Will Kenyon
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 28
Again: I’ve had this podcast prepped for a while - almost a month in fact. But as I’ve been traveling all summer to places where time and computer access have not been altogether nominal, it’s been easy to put it off and put it off. I’ve been able to post other stuff, but you gotta understand: posting a podcast takes more than a few minutes.
OK. Fuck that. That’s an excuse. The truth is that I’m almost out of material, and I’m so busy that creating MORE material for this podcast is becoming a problem. I’m gonna keep at it. But, well, there’s cause for some concern….
Anyway, here it is - the second half of Sarah and her friend Pammy’s encounter with a villain? Antagonist? Red herring? I think I know, but I’m not sure yet.
A War Between States Part 28:
Chapter 15: Skirmish: Sarah, Part Two
He turned in such a way that Sarah didn’t know whether to get scared or laugh – his movement was an obvious show. Beside her, Pammy sucked in her breath.
Still, when she saw his face, she knew she was in some level of trouble, laughable or not. Robocop was after her now and that would be her DOOM! She really wasn’t scared of fat boy Soames, but she knew Pammy was, and she was beginning to feel like she’d overstepped her bounds - and brought Pammy with her.
“Mrs. Dobson. It is not for you to inform me regarding the law. And what Miss Roberts did was run that stop sign back there.” He nodded, scowled, and continued to his car.
They watched him, and Pammy began muttering to herself again. Sarah heard what she was saying this time: “Did I stop? I’m sure I did. Should I say so when he gets back?”
By chance, Sarah glanced at her watch. It read 12:35. Then she peered over her shoulder, across the backseat, and through the rear window to see what Soames was doing. He had climbed into his car and was sitting at the steering wheel, his stern face gazing at something in his lap. At first Sarah thought he was probably writing on one of those ridiculously weighty pads that cops used.
Then, as timed passed and the afternoon wore on, she began to imagine that what he was concentrating on was his dick. Pulling people over and giving them arbitrary tickets and unnecessary anxiety probably turned the creep on - so much so that he had to take care of business right then and there.
Sarah stared hard through the rear view to see if his shoulder was moving a certain way, but the interior of his car was shadowy, and she couldn’t tell. She glanced at her watch again. 12:55. So much for getting to Bill’s on time. What was taking so long?
A few more minutes passed. “Crap. I’m almost out of gas,” Pammy said, randomly, as if she was afraid that she might really run out of gas less than a mile from a fill-up. She had already turned off the car and the air conditioner, and they had instantly begun to sweat - Pammy was a big woman, and it was hot outside.
Finally, Soames climbed out of his car and started toward them. Sarah looked at her watch: 12:59. A half hour wasted on this idiot. For her part, Pammy bit her lip and turned to greet him with a face Sarah was sure would satisfy Soames completely.
“Here you go,” he said, offering Pammy the big ticket pad. “Please sign here. This is to acknowledge that I’ve pulled you over and given you a ticket for failure to obey traffic control signage.”
“Barry,” Sarah said as Pammy reached for the pad. “Pam didn’t run the stop sign. She didn’t even do one of them rolling stops that ya’ll like to harass folks for. She came to a complete stop. I know it. And you do, too. So what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Soames looked like he was about to smile. If he would have gotten angry or been surprised, Sarah would have been comfortable with his reaction. But this look actually scared her.
Bill Wells always swore that Soames was a good man. “A little too serious, maybe,” he had said. “Maybe a little too into what he does. But okay by me.” All the same, Sarah had heard people talk about how Robocop tended to pick on black people and women, whether they’d done anything or not. Bill dismissed it as an excuse for people to claim they were innocent when they weren’t. But Bill was white, and male, and here Pammy was - female, and pulled over for no real reason at all.
“Well, Mrs. Dobson,” Soames said, “We can always go into the police station and discuss who’s right and who’s not in this scenario….”
“NO,” Pammy said, grasping the ticket pad with one hand, leaning its heavy metal frame against her car door for support. With her other hand she hastily - crazily - scribbled her signature.
Soames leaned in and took the pad away from her. “Your signature is not an admission of guilt, simply acknowledgement that you and I had our little talk here. You’ll have your say in court, if you want. You can come, too, Mrs. Dobson. If you want.”
Sarah stared at him, and he smiled now. It was a smile full of import and meaning, and it haunted Sarah as she and Pammy finally drove off in the direction of Bill’s.
The Cast
- Sarah Dobson - Jennie M.
- Pammy Roberts - Sylvia Krebs
- Narrator/Deputy Soames/Bill Flashback - Will Kenyon
Short Story: Galahad’s Message
Once upon a time, I went to NYU. While I was there I was involved in both the Washington Square literary scene and in the sci fi-fantasy scene. This story is one I submitted to the semester-ly publication of the NYU Science Fiction/Fantasy Club. I remember the woman who edited that magazine, although I can’t remember her name; I wonder what happened to her….
Anyway, this “counts” as one of the first few short stories I published. It’s pretty good actually, or at least I and that woman think so. And the magazine had deep pockets, as I recall, so this story actually had a circulation of somewhere around 5000 - higher than some subsequent magazines I’ve been published in.
Consider this the final tale of King Arthur. What happens here isn’t that well known, so it was never included among the other Arthurian legends….
The Message
White light, and the guards and mourners closed their eyes to sleep. One fell to the floor face-first, a crash of metal armor, his shield dented beneath his weight. The light increased. An ancient nun propped against a windowless wall began to snore wheezily, and the dirty, tattered slave child beside her twitched nervously as his dreams unfolded in his mind.
Slowly the light filling the richly appointed room darkened to red — the deep fiery red common to the cloaks of knights. Music sung by angelic choirs echoed in the tiny cubicle, unheard by anyone except the old man whose chamber this was.
The old man’s eyes opened fearfully as his mourners’ eyes closed. His lips moved weakly apart and a trail of his last blood seeped out between them, decorating his scraggly, ashy beard. His hands moved to his frail but armored chest and clutched at his heart while his tongue rolled about in his bloody mouth, reciting in terror the Lord’s Prayer.
The red light faded and his sea-blue eyes opened wider, transfixed.
“You!” the old man whispered, spattering blood on his silken bedcovers.
Before him stood a man dressed in stainless ivory-hued armor, cloaked in none else but scarlet trimmed with ermine, a shield strapped to his arm. The shield bore no crest common to the kingdom — only a red, lustrous cross on a white background. The knight, gorgeous beyond earthly comparison, smiled warmly and stepped to the old man’s bedside.
“Yes, your Majesty. It is me.”
The two stared at each other while the angels sang.
“Why?” questioned the old man. “Why do you come now, after all is over and done?”
“Because all is not over. I come from my Master to tell you of your reward in Heaven. You have stored up much wealth in the Streets of God, and your life is but beginning. I come only to assure you of your fate, and of the fate of my father and your Queen.”
The old man jerked and coughed. Blood flowed.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“They are apart and shall see neither each other nor you for several years. But the three of you shall be together again, after a time.”
Then the knight in white armor started to fade away, and the angels’ voices diminished.
“I must return now to Heaven, dear King. I shall see you there, soon.”
And then he was gone.
“Goodbye, Galahad,” the old wounded king said, listening in wonder to the last harmony of the angels’ song. His bleeding, failing heart beat slightly faster and his eyes glowed excitedly beneath his wispy brows. He smiled a bloody last smile and trailed off into sleep, content with this final encounter. His friend, his wife, and his own tired soul would find eventual peace, and there would be no more shadows of guilt.
The mourners had not yet awakened, but in the silence of his chamber, he suddenly heard voices.
“Here. Here lies Arthur.”
“Take the whole bed. Together we can lift him.”
In a daze, the old man rolled his head to one side and saw only the misty vision of a face he thought he recognized, a face belonging to the seductress called Morgan.
“N-no…” he stuttered.
“Yes,” said the face. “Arthur, we are taking you to Avalon. It is a long trip, and by God’s grace you will not die on the way. But Arthur. Oh, Arthur. If you go there with us, you will live forever. And never need fear the Gates of Hell — or Heaven. Ever.”
“No…”
He stretched his feeble arm out in protest and let it fall limp, dangling over the bedside, when his head began to spin.
“Don’t you want to live forever?” Morgan asked.
But all the old man could hear was a far too distant choir of angels, and all he could see was black as he fell unconscious riding to Avalon, helpless in the hands of eternity.
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 27
I’ve actually had this ready to go for a couple of weeks now, but my journey to Aspen, CO and the resulting posts seemed much more immediate and pertinent. But alas my travels are done for the week (at least until Friday), and I think there are some folks who are waiting to see what happens next. As it stands, several of our characters are heading to Bill Wells’s store to hear some bad news, and among them is Sarah Dobson, who’s still in the throws of running for city council. It is to her now that we turn….
A War Between States Part 27:
Chapter 15: Skirmish: Sarah
Pammy Roberts was skittish as a squirrel whenever she went to Dothan. All those cars going in all sorts of directions, people careening through the mall parking lot, all those stoplights put her into such a frantic tizzy that it sometimes looked like she was going to pull over to the curb, traffic be damned, and just sit there and cry. Sarah had known better than to go along when Pammy invited her, and now that they were back from their morning of shopping, Sarah found the wide, empty streets of Marionville a quiet blessing.
Still a little jittery, Pammy drove her beet red Mercury Cougar over the bridge which spanned the Chattahoochee and separated the state of Georgia from the state of Alabama. Sarah sat beside her, silently trying to send waves of calm across the car’s interior – which was faded to pink – at her friend. As soon as the thump thump thump of the bridge’s joints stopped and she saw the first few whitewashed houses of Marionville looming over the bluff, she breathed deeply and smiled. Pammy relaxed.
Now that their morning adventures were over, they were headed to Bill Wells’s convenience store for Bill’s big announcement. Sarah couldn’t imagine what Bill would be announcing that would gather folks together like he was, but when Pammy – who worked the counter and sort of managed Bill’s place – called her to tell her Bill wanted her to attend, she’d been flattered. Maybe it was the flattery which had so clouded her judgment that she had also agreed to go to Dothan with Pammy before the announcement.
Pammy’s Cougar cruised up the hill of Monument Street toward Bill’s store, and Pammy stopped at the stop sign there at the top of the hill. There were no stop lights in Marionville.
Thank God, Sarah thought with a sideways glance at her friend.
Then they rolled on, headed for Bill’s.
Suddenly, a siren whooped behind them, and blue lights flashed in the rearview.
“Wha-?” Pammy said, tensing again. Sarah herself was instantly filled with a strange and sudden animosity – a common reaction among people in the South when they see the lights from a police car in the rearview. When Southerners see police lights flash they often flush with rage and fear. Especially when, like Sarah and Pammy, they have no idea why they’re being pulled over.
Muttering to herself in a way that made Sarah nervous, Pammy tugged at the Cougar’s steering wheel and came up parallel to the curb. The police car – a brown sheriff’s sedan by the looks of it – fell in behind her. It stopped, its door opened, and Deputy Soames bustled out.
Barry Soames had a way of standing that made him always seem taller than his average height, with his shoulders thrown back and his feet planted flat and straight and exactly the same distance apart as his shoulders. Those shoulders were broad, which belied his considerable beer gut and made him seem more powerfully built than he probably was. His medium brown hair was cut with an old-fashioned part on the side, and he wore the tan and beige uniform of his office – including slick, black boots, a shiny badge, and a fully decked-out and heavy-looking utility belt, complete with a billy club and a pistol.
“Well, damn,” Pammy said, with a sour and dark expression on her face – a look not unlike the one Sarah imagined was probably on her face as well. No one that Sarah knew liked Barry Soames very much.
But by the time Soames was at Pammy’s window, she was all smiles and bright eyes. “Hey, Barry,” she said when her window was halfway down. As it slid the rest of the way down, she looked up at the deputy. Sarah squinted at the sun’s glare off of his badge. His face didn’t change when Pammy said his name – it stayed hard as stone and stern as a school marm’s.
“License and insurance, ma’am,” he said. His lips scarcely moved. Pammy hesitated under Soames’s gaze. She glanced back at Sarah and her smile was gone. She fumbled with the glove compartment to retrieve her insurance card, and then began to fumble in her purse for her wallet, not saying anything – unable to say anything.
So Sarah said something for her.
“What did we do?” She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand, unconsciously hoping to see something in his expression that would help explain why they were on the side of the road.
“You know what you did,” Soames admonished her. “Don’t play games, Mrs. Dobson.”
After Pammy gave the deputy the information he’d asked for, he took a step toward his vehicle. And for a passing instant, Sarah felt confounded enough just to let him. But then indignation swelled in her and she said to his back, loudly enough that he could hear it, “No. I don’t know what we did. And I think it’s the law that you tell us.”
Soames froze.
He turned in such a way that Sarah didn’t know whether to get scared or laugh – his movement was an obvious show. Beside her, Pammy sucked in her breath.
The Cast
- Sarah Dobson - Jennie M.
- Pammy Roberts - Sylvia Krebs
- Narrator/Deputy Soames - Will Kenyon
Final Word: Aspen Summer Words
OK. I know I’ve occupied a few posts here with my trip to Aspen last week. I promise - just in case you’re getting a little weary of it - that this will be the last one. But you have to understand: while the trip last week probably didn’t change my life in any significant way (at least not yet!), it reaffirmed for me that I’ve been leading my life the way I ought to. And given the doubts that sometimes creep in when you’re a surface narcissist with actual “closeted” insecurities, as I am…. Well, affirmation will keep me going for another couple of years. For now, I have a renewed enthusiasm for myself and my work.
Elizabeth McCracken, my white hot teacher for my white hot class, reminded me of something that I sometimes forget. It’s both egotistical (what artist does not have a formidable ego, no matter how much he or she tries to hide it?) and self-deprecating - it reflects the attitude all true artists should have. “We are all genuises with a lot to learn,” she said.
And it’s true. If you don’t think I am BOTH things, then you can kiss my ass.
Anyway - last post about Aspen. And I’ve already said a decent portion of what I mean to say in this post, about how Aspen Summer Words stoked a fire that has always burned inside me but is always in danger of dying out. Here, though, are a couple of other things that it taught (or re-taught) me.
1) That I am NOT past my prime. My friend Todd Wiley once asked me when I’d give up writing, when I’d decide that maybe I wasn’t going to go any further, when I’d admit that I’d hit the ceiling. I told him then that I’d never give up, that I’d always try to push things a little further. And I still believe that’s true. But sometimes, when I see a new gray hair or a wrinkle, or I count another birthday - either of my own, of my parents, or of my kids - I think, well, Will - you went another span of time and you didn’t make any forward motion. I’ll think maybe I’ve lost a little of my edge.
With limited exceptions (Emily Curtin-Philips, who is a mere 25 and Brittney Weber, who just passed 30), the people in my class were all roughly my age. And ALL OF US were still struggling with many of the same issues, the same limitations, the same barriers. As I got to know those people, got familiar with their genuises and their - for want of a better word - PROWESS, I realized that we are all capable, talented writers, that it is only luck and circumstance that hold many of us back, that with enough time (and we have time) and perseverance, we will always be able to move forward. We may never have a best-seller or win a national award. But we will not fail. We still have bright futures ahead of us.
2) That those ensconced in the old school system of publishing STILL resist the potentially new paradigms that threaten their way of doing things. Many of them still haven’t figured out what to do with the Internet, with social media, with the blogosphere, with new technology like Kindles and iPads. And so they actively discourage using these things to publish, promote, and sell literature. Now, this is NOT to say that ALL of them resist such innovations and discourage their use - far be it for me to make such a broad generalization. But either they were over-represented at Aspen Summer Words or an uncomfortable amount of them do. I’d actually be curious to know which agents and editors are actively trying to figure out a use for the new communications technologies as well as ways to apply them to their business models.
Still, for those who do resist, who can blame them? These things are becoming larger and larger threats to their well-being. They are the gate-keepers of what gets published - and though their system is flawed, subjective, and subject to manipulation and mistakes - it is a system that has more or less worked for many years. For them and for publishing.
That the gates might be rushed, the walls they’ve maintained might be pulled down: it’s scary. And who knows? Maybe they have a point. Because it’s possible that without them, we might have mob rule, and we all know that mob rule doesn’t work.
Still, I don’t think it’ll be mob rule. It’ll just be different. And they’ll have to adapt - we all will.
I am willing to; many of them are not.
Are you?
For the time being, as things either transform or they don’t, I’m prepared to work in both paradigms - I will try to get published over and over again “on paper”, and I’ll continue to work on this site and my social media outlets. Because of Aspen Summer Words, I’ve been refueled. Invigorated.
Watch me. I can do this for as long as it takes.
Aspen Pictorial
Alrighty then. I’m still kinda out of sorts from my whirlwind week in Aspen, and I haven’t quite gathered all my thoughts regarding what Aspen Summer Words meant to me. I’ll post that in a couple of days, after I’ve had a chance to ruminate. In the meantime, allow me to give you a glance at some of the visual impressions Aspen left me with. Remember, it’s summer there - not snow season. But that doesn’t mean the place isn’t simply spectacular anyway. Here goes - enjoy! (I did.)
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- The ski slopes of Aspen sans snow.
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- In the Denver Airport.
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- Bears are everywhere.
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- Aspen Heights Village, below Maroon Bells.
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- It's not what you think. Unfortunately.
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- Maroon Bells.
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- Small waterfall at Maroon Bells.
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- Maroon Bells from another angle.
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- Elizabeth McCracken reads....
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- Advanced Fiction I!!!
You can click on the image to get a slightly bigger version of it.
And in case you’re curious, please allow me to introduce you to my class, starting with Elizabeth McCracken, who is the woman in the black blouse on the far left, and proceding clockwise around the table. I apologize to the people in the back and to you: I guess my hands were shaking from DTs, so the people further away are a little blurry. OK. A lot blurry. Still, they are: Elizabeth, Brittney Weber, Eric Sasson, Emily Curtin-Phillips, Mitzi Rapkin, Jay Magidson, Tony Ansbro, Jeff Voccola, Allison Johnson, Jenny Itell, Andrea Dupree, and Elaine Ahmad. They are the best and brightest new writers in the United States. Watch for them.
Aspen Summer Words, Days 1 & 2
As per my previous post, I’m here. I’m in Aspen, CO, at the first writers’ conference I’ve wanted to attend in a while (and as it turns out, my getting selected was kind of a big deal). Since I arrived last night and I only have one full day under my belt so far, this first official post pretty much has to be about first impressions.
And it occurs to me that you actually might not give a fuck that I’m in Aspen at a writers’ conference. Alright. Then I guess I need to make my little tale as interesting as possible. I can do that.
First, I’ll tell you something about flying into Aspen - something I didn’t know; it never even occured to me. Apparently, even in summer the gusts coming off the mountains surrounding the city make flying in next to impossible. I learned this because, after circling the Aspen 20 times, trying to get below the wind shear, my pilot gave up and took us back to Denver to refuel.
Second time, we made it in, and it wouldn’t have been unpleasant - just interesting - except that all the turbulence frustrated me because I couldn’t get a surface steady enough to write. I like to write on planes.
Also, I have an “unperturbable” stomach when it comes to motion sickness: I can read on a train, I don’t get seasick, I digs me some roller coasters.
The guy beside me on the plane: not so much.
My impressions so far fall into three parts.
Aspen Itself
I’d probably just bore you to tears if I went on too long about how gorgeous this town is. So just look at the pictures and let’s leave it at that. You get it. Instead, let’s talk about how I’m adjusting to the higher altitude.
Well, the humidity here is lower, and there’s not as much stuff that I’m allergic to, so my sinuses are more open than I’m used to. But while I’m finding it easy to get air in through my nose, I have to work harder to fill my lungs with the thinner air. This afternoon I tried to do some exercise that I often do in Atlanta, and I thought I’d pass out.
I didn’t, but I still may. The week is young.
The Conference
My own personal workshop is coming up tomorrow, but I’m not especially nervous about that. It will be as it will be: helpful or maddening. What I’m really worried about, strangely, is how I’m gonna come across critiquing my fellow writers. So far today was easy - I loved the stories we reviewed today, so I didn’t have to “be mean”. I don’t like some of the stories coming up quite so well, and I just don’t want to be an asshole. At least not any more than I usually am. Honestly, too, even though my critiques were kind, I think I’m already stepping on some toes.
In General
This will sound strange and sad and pitiful, but I’m just a little lonely. I’ve gone to conferences like this before, but I’ve never felt this alone. I’ve hung out with my peers alot, actually, but there’s something about the years of constantly having kids underfoot, a wife coming home or being home or sleeping in the bed beside me, and having almost immediate contact via phone or computer with all my friends that has made the times when I’m NOT with my peers or engaged in a lecture a little more difficult. I’m in my hotel room alone tonight, and I’m feeling a little forlorn. I miss my family and my friends.
So come see me.
Where I’ll Be: Aspen Summer Words
Here’s something I’ve done before - on lots of occasions - which I haven’t done in a long, long time: attended a writers’ conference. I just got jaded about them a few years back, for a number of reasons. One was that most of the people attending were genuine wannabes - old farts clambering for guidance on their memoirs, stay-at-home moms who imagined they were the next Dorothy Sayers, and hacks like me who imagined they could approach John Irving and Ian McEwan’s power over words. (I say most because there were some truly talented people there, and I apologize profusely for lumping them in with the hacks and wannabes.)
Another reason was that all these people typically spent the off hours - the time NOT spent in workshops and lectures - jostling for the attention of the scant few editors, agents, and published writers who deigned to show up at the conferences. And those editors, agents, and writers mostly acted like they really didn’t want to be there, which made all the attention they were getting that much more insipid and… sad. It was like watching blind puppies scramble to get to their mother’s teat.
Finally, although I personally got my foot in the door with a couple of agents at these things - off the slush pile and onto the desk, so to speak - I still never quite connected all the way. (Shout outs to Miriam Goderich, Adam Chromy, and Alan Nevins for the near misses. I really did appreciate your attention.) So I decided to stop wasting my time and money and stop going to writers’ conferences. Besides, I had two kids, and my ability to throw away an entire weekend like that simply diminished.
Here’s something else I used to do but stopped doing: critiquing other people’s manuscripts. I used to meet with a couple of local groups, and we’d trade the things we were working on and give each other support and constructive criticism. But as time went by, it just became a slog, and I started to get the sneaky suspicion that every critique I received from my peers was eerily similar to the ones I’d had before. Either I wasn’t growing as a writer or they were stuck on something I refused to change. Either way, they weren’t helping me anymore, and I didn’t feel like I was giving them my best insights and advice either.
And now here I am, fours days out from once again doing those two things which I haven’t done in a while: I’m going to a writers’ conference, this one in Aspen, Colorado, and I’m working on 12 other people’s manuscripts. Why? Because a few months ago I applied for a juried workshop at Aspen Summer Words, and I got in.
Now, I don’t know how “prestigious” it was to be accepted - how many people applied and how many didn’t make the cut? Still, I figure this workshop/conference has to be different, because we DID have to apply. And among the dozen manuscripts I have on my desk right now, there are some works of utter genius.
This post is just a quick heads up about what I’m about to do. I’m starting to get excited, feeling things I haven’t felt since I stopped attending conferences and stopped critiquing. I’m excited, because I have no idea what these people will say about my manuscript, and it’s kinda fun to be approaching theirs with a fresh eye and an enthusiastic heart.
So keep an eye out next week for my posts. I’ll be launching them from Aspen, and you, faithful readers, will be able to follow along. We’ll see if the puppies at the teat metaphor rings true once again, and we’ll see if I can get off the damned slushpile again. Oh, and I’ve never been to Aspen. So there’s that.
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 25
Here we go. This novel’s coming fast to the place where I have not written a single dot or dash. I vaguely know where the story’s supposed to go, but after the next four chapters/scenes, I’m on as much of a ride as you are to find out what’s gonna happen. Should be interesting, eh? Anyway, here we return to Tamara Granger, who’s about to get introduced to yet another Marionville original….
A War Between States Part 25:
Chapter 14: Skirmish: Tamara
Two weeks passed after Tamara’s run-in with Deputy High Horse Racist Rat Bastard Barry Soames.
Tamara indulged herself each week by spending the night at the State Park Lodge. She even let Craig pay for the room one time, offering only enough resistance to be polite, and not enough to be coy.
Whenever she stayed, Craig didn’t pressure her to “hang out” or go to dinner, and Tamara found herself awash with conflicting feelings. Part of her expected Craig to feel a little entitled to her company, especially the time he paid. Part of her knew Craig was far too unassuming for that. Part of her was glad he didn’t make any advances - he always said good-bye to her at her door, and didn’t hover outside after she closed it (she always checked through a crack in the front window curtain to make sure). Part of her wished he would.
Typically, Tamara spent the nights at the Lodge drinking a six-pack of Diet Sprite and watching whatever Denzel Washington movie was showing on the various satellite channels. She always took a shower before she went to bed, and another when she woke up. And she made a point of waking up late.
Most days, though, Tamara stayed in her camper.
From there, she watched the workmen come and go, directed them when she needed to, asked questions when she thought she should.
She watched the first crew come and clear the lot, cutting down trees and ripping up stumps, then leveling the earth with Bobcats and a bulldozer. They left the oak - The King as it came to be called - and it towered over them and their work, its leaves beginning to change color here and there as the air cooled and summer faded into autumn.
The workmen had the foresight to bring coolers of Gatorade and water - even after a new crew came and installed a water line, then laid the bar’s foundation and plumbing. It took that long for the town of Marionville to get Tamara’s water access turned on. Tamara adjusted to days without a shower, and since everyone was as sweaty or sweatier than she, no one seemed to mind.
Actual construction on the building was underway a week before the water was turned on. The day Tamara knelt beside the one outside spigot and twisted it on, a cheer went up from the men, who crowded around her for the occasion, all of them knowing to some extent her difficulty with the city.
While the work was being done, Tamara placed a few calls to people she thought could help her get her liquor license. She hoped that someone - one of her friends from college, maybe Karen’s husband Phil or his friend Nate Wells - someone would know someone who could figure out a way to put pressure on Marionville’s city hall and sheriff’s office.
True to what she’d told Deputy Soames and Craig there in the city hall office, she filed a subpoena for the records Soames had claimed indicated she had a criminal record. The clerk at her lawyer’s office told her it would take a few weeks for the records to be released, maybe more if Soames waited until the last minute, which Tamara was sure he would. And even after she had the records, she wasn’t sure what she’d do with them. Sue? Confront Soames again?
And what if through some stroke of really shitty luck, the records actually did reflect that she had commited a felony? How did one go about clearing up something like that? How long would that take?
These were the things which occupied her mind, even as summer peaked and then slacked off, even as her bar took form, rising from the dry, packed earth and becoming first a skeleton of framework, then a shell of sheetrock and plywood, then finally something that resembled the building of her dreams.
Then one day, she was standing in the dark walk-in refrigerator, waiting for the electrician to finish installing the thermostat, when one of the roofers who was on break leaned in and said, “There’s a police car drove up.”
Tamara felt a flush of anger mixed with dread. Why were the cops here?
“I gotta see what they want, Daryl,” she said to the electrician, and he nodded, never taking his eyes off his work. When she stepped out of the building, she had to squint against the sun.
She saw the brown sedan - couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved to see its lights weren’t on - and watched as its door opened and lanky Sheriff Boyd clambered out.
His sunglasses didn’t seem all that silly in the sunshine - Tamara had seen the man wear his shades on overcast days, and Craig said he’d seen him once wearing them indoors. They’d laughed and made fun of Boyd, but now Tamara found herself, despite the often hilarious picture Boyd presented, scared of what he represented now, of what he could do. The sheriff scanned the lot quickly before stepping toward Tamara, who still stood in the entrance of her bar. He raised a sheaf of papers that he held in his hand. Waving them at her, he said, “Here’s those records you’re requesting.”
Tamara started to walk toward him - and noted how grim his gaunt face looked.
He held the papers out as if he was going to give them to her, but as she came close, he lowered the hand holding them and raised the other, one finger of the raised hand extended in a gesture of warning.
“Miss Granger,” he said in a way which indicated he was going to say more. But he didn’t.
“Yes?”
The sheriff still didn’t say anything, just stood there in front of her until she thought she might burst, or turn around and run away. Then, when she finally opened her mouth to say yes again, he took that moment to interrupt her and continue.
“Deputy Soames didn’t handle your situation properly,” he said….
The Cast
- Tamara Granger - Stephanie “Rain” Thornton
- Sheriff Boyd - Dennis “Needs A Beer” Maguire
- Narrator/Daryl - Will Kenyon