Arrest Me! New Agent On A Rampage & Eros Sleeping

It seems that some notable authors are willing to be arrested for a cause. Citizen involvment is alive and well, and who better to lead the charge than poets and writers?  There are more causes to stand up for these days than books to be read.

In other news, Ethan Vaughan, who did a reader's report for me some time ago and has recently been promoted from intern to agent at Kimberly Cameron and Associates has made himself available for private editing, a task for which he comes highly recommended. Check out his blog here to see testimonials and get further information.

This morning there is a warning here from Jessica Bell in regards to CreateSpace. It appears there is no end to the trouble we face. Can one never let their guard down?

I leave you with this image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There is something very moving and sensual about the sleeping Eros who has been out all day shooting arrows and now rests.

Happy Valentine's Day.

A Novel Should Break Your Heart

The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader’s heart. – Susan Sontag 1933-2004

I’ve often wondered if I could write such a story. I have a hate/love relationship with sad endings. Should I challenge myself to write one? Would it make a masterpiece out of a cheesy, happily-ever-after? Have you written a story that Sontag would approve of? One that breaks your heart?

 As writers, should we be purveyors of escape at the end of the day?  Dealing out lighthearted romps, whodonits with neat endings, and happily-ever-afters, floating comfortably above controversy and reality? Or should we be shining a light into the dark corners of human existence and misfortune? There is no harder profession than writing and no higher calling than to tell the truth as we see it. But what is truth and do people want to read it? I don't want or even expect a happy ending, but I want a satisfying one.

Atonement (remember that one?) broke my heart. (I hated it!) Cormac McCarthy breaks my heart every time, yet I return to his stories again and again. I’m a glutton for tragedy, so why can’t I write one?  I fear it’s a flaw, the sign of an immature writer. And while it’s true, that I hate novels with sad endings, those are the ones that stick with me, the ones I can’t forget. So I wonder…do I have it in me to write the only story that seems worth writing? I fear it would break my heart.

The Dance (Fri.Flash 55)

Daddy taught me how to dance

how to step and how to follow

how to twirl like a top,

knowing he would find me. 

I collect the scattered coin

from off the floor and search

for the hearing aid remote

that gets lost

like the cane and the thoughts

and the steps for the dance.

 

 

This is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55.

 

TGIF and may you always have someone to dance with.

Mud Angels

"I was twenty-nine years old when the Arno flooded its banks on Friday 4 November 1966." Thus begins the novel, "Sixteen Pleasures" by Robert Hellenga. It takes place in flood-ravaged Florence and sweeps you through frescoed chapels, museums, bookstores, and, finally, to the waterlogged library of a  Carmelite convent where the heroine discovers a priceless Renaissance volume of sixteen erotic poems and drawings, and we are immersed in the painstakingly delicate work of a book conservator.

They say that there are no new subjects to write about, only different ways to tell the story. Hellangra proves this to be untrue. At least I have never read anything like this before, a story that centers around the craft of book restoration while giving us a glimpse of the Renaissance and taking us on a delightful foray into the pleasure of erotica and human sexuality (our conservator is inspired to sample each of the sixteen) with an intriguing look at monastic life, all the while holding forth the recurring theme of home. "Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

I adored this novel and highly recommend it. It's one of those exquisite books that will stay with you long after you've closed the cover and turned off the light, satisfied.

One final thing: Robert Frost died fifty years ago yesterday. Master of the metaphor, he was admired then and now for his depictions of rural life. He was ambiguous in his writing and didn't answer the questions for you. "A poet lays out a metaphor and let you wrestle with it." That was Robert Frost.  He deserves his own post, but because of time constraints (I really am trying to ready my manuscript at long last for querying), I'll leave you with a few lines from my favorite Frost poem.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The First Time (Friday Flash 55)

She bent over him, and her breath was warm and sweet as summer. He bit down on the back of his hand to stifle a moan.

It was late when he left. The moon had set and the sky pulsed with stars. The Big Dipper lined the edge of the world and the world was still. 

 

This is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55.

Keep warm and TGIF!

The Mole - Magpie Tales

 

In training for the veil,

she nails the claustrophobia

but mourns the loss of her peripheral

vision, the dance classes and the wind

in her hair. She sips life through a straw

like one trapped under ice and practices

the art of being servile. They say she is lucky

to be one of but three to share his house.

She should have married Jesus

while she had the chance and slept alone.

She peers through her nose hole

and imagines life in a bell jar, contained.

 

 

 

Image comes to us from Tess at Magpie Tales, a blog to nourish the muse, one dedicated to the enjoyment of poets and writers, but I take responsibility for the rest. Tess's poem can be found here.

 

The Gun - (friday flash 55)

He rages against the government

and hits himself in the face

with his nervous tick.

He teaches a class for concealed weapons

and lobbies hard for open carry.

Broken capillary nose of an alcoholic

with the wide-set eyes of a madman,

he smacks himself in the face,

ogles the girls

and fears for his guns.

These days it seems the madmen are closing in. Thank goodness for an online community of writers that is healthy and diverse. Tell us a story in fifty-five words, and let the G-Man know, or just visit him for links to lots of little fifty-fivers by some very talented players.

In the meantime...

TGIF

Friday Flash 55 - The Knife Sharpening Man

was comin’ around,

so we hid in the closet

and shuttered the lights.

But he rapped-a-tat-tat

with his knives all-a-silver

and peered over the sill

with a smile like a sword.

It wasn’t a dream,

wasn’t a trance.

Next morning a trail

from the club foot he favored

dirtied the snow round windows and doors.

 

Let's start the New Year off right. Tell us a story in exactly 55  words and then let the G-Man know.  He also has your horoscope for 2013, so check it out. You can click here if you want a little history behind the Flash 55.

And now for a little history behind my flash 55. As stories go around these parts, along with the Watkins Man who delivered extracts and liniments there was a knife sharpening man who came around every few weeks in an old truck with a bell. He had a wheel in the back of his truck he pedaled with his foot, much like a sewing machine, and he would sharpen knives and scissors in a flash for a pittance.
 

As children are wont to do, my older sisters contrived stories around the knife sharpening man, all of them sinister and disturbing to the young child’s mind. Hence the seed for my Flash 55, much embellished, of course. I’m sure that the poor man was only delivering a much appreciated service and not peering in windows.

TGIF

Sexy Smoking (Magpie Tales)

                                                     Image by R.A.D. Stainforth
                                                       
They stand shoulder-to-shoulder
backs to the wind with collars up
and scarves swirling mare’s tails.
The controlled burn smolders between them
like the embers they flick at their feet.
The tinkle of laughter carries through the window glass
as they step off the porch to disappear,
taking the party with them.
I wipe out the ashtrays, an envious outsider.


You can check out more responses to the above picture at The Mag, a weekly online writing prompt provided by Tess Kincaid.

Although a non-smoker, I always feel like the juicy conversations are taking place out of earshot in smoking circles. Deals struck. Promises made. Secrets divulged. The conversations always lag when the smokers leave the party.

Happy New Year to one and all, and may you never run out of good conversation.

A Freebie and a Cure

To celebrate the end of 2012, Ploughshares is giving away one of their solos  Escape and Reverse . Solos are longer individual stories. You have until tomorrow, December 31st, to download it. If you don't own a Kindle, you can read the story on your computer or through a Kindle app on your smartphone.

There is also a new anthology out from Elephant's Bookshelf Press titled The Fall.

These are the same people who brought us Spring Fevers, which you can also now download for free. The Fall is a collection of tales from the apocalypse, but so much more than zombies. The cover alone draws you in, zombies or not. Review forthcoming from this blogger in 2013.

Do you have a favorite read from 2012? In the running for me is Sixteen Pleasures. A fascinating novel by Robert Hellenga.

I wanted to draw attention to all these and more as 2012 draws to a close, but time is short and we bloggers have short attention spans because we're doing other things, like feeling guilty because we haven't done enough.  So, just one final note and I'll let you go. I promised you three cures in 2012. One involved beets which I told you about three posts ago but still I've fallen short. Here is a second:

My grandpa used to smoke a pipe. He smoked it so much, he got cancer in his lower lip where the pipe would always rest. An aunt who lived in Detroit knew a doctor in Canada who made house calls, and Grandpa went to stay with her for three weeks. The doctor came to the house every few days and applied a poultice to his lip. Mother says it was extremely painful at the time. After three weeks, the cancerous tumor was drawn out, and they placed it in a jar. She remembers seeing that jar on the kitchen windowsill. After that, Grandpa took to smoking cigars. He never gave up the smoking habit, but he never had a reoccurrence of the cancer.

Happy New Year! May 2013 be prosperous and may we each find a poultice for what ails us.

FIG TREE DISPLACED FROM THE HOLY LAND

A fig tree displaced from the Holy Land.
A nativity scene blown into the ditch.
A missing arm and an ass.
The end, she says, is near.

So bequeath me a blanket,
the one you just took off your bed.
That's all I want. And the candle with no wick
in the bottom of the box of ornaments,
like a life well lived and now tucking itself in.

She says she wants to give them to a thrift shop.
That’s like pictures of other people’s ancestors
stacked in dusty corners.
Nobody wants that stuff.
Who are they without their frames?

The sun drops to a lower arc in the sky,
and the fig tree on my back porch is dying
without the heat of the Holy Land.
I throw a blanket over it at night
and take it back off in the morning,
thinking by some miracle it will survive.

But it’s out of place and this isn’t the Holy Land.
We pass freely between townships and counties.
We wear what we want and go to church if we want.
And holy is clean ground—
the No Toxic Spraying signs
we store in the milkhouse for winter.

I string lights on the dying fig
but miniature lights don’t conduct warmth,
they only give off light.
It isn’t enough.

A False Slogan..... Right-To-Work (FF-55)

The right to work they say is grand,
the right to work all night and all day
to bring home a meager bit of pay.
The right to work twelve days straight
for what you use to earn in eight.
The jackals smell a Republican
behind the guv’nors gate—
the right-to-exploit will sure taste great.
 

It’s a sad day in Michigan when the Republican legilature pushes through a right-to-work law in a lame duck session without any public debate. Right-to-work states have lower wages, fewer benefits, more workplace injuries, a poorer quality of life and lower standard of living. But they’re doing it for us. Merry Christmas.

If you have a story to share in 55 words post it today and let the G-Man know. He will visit you as will scores of others. TGIF

 

 

 

Anniversary and A Cure

It's my blog's anniverary month! We're four years old. I started this blog back in November, 2008, back when it was deemed essential for an emerging writer to have one, but I was afraid that nobody would want to read about my bulky manuscripts and fledgling attempts at publication, so I wrote my first post about beets.

Pretty funny, eh?  Let me explain. When I'm not writing, I'm gardening, and I know that everyone loves good food. (As George Bernard Shaw said,  "There is no love sincerer than the love of food.") So I thought I would begin by writing about something we can all agree on. My first post was about the tremendous beet harvest of 2008 with a recipe for Rosy Beet Risoto from my sister, Bett. And then I shared my mother's homemade spaghetti sauce recipe, memories of the season triggered by a November gale and gunshots on opening day as I carried a bowl of sauce down the road to her place.

Back when pheasants were plentiful, opening day of hunting season was a main event. We always made friedcakes, using my grandma's deep ol' fryer and an ancient recipe. It was an all-day process, at the end of which the counter would be full of warm friedcakes dripping glaze or coated in sugar and cinnamon. The hunters would report in at the back door, eat friedcakes, and discuss the hunt.

But back to blogging. I moved beyond food, and suddenly one day I had a follower and more than one comment. Who would've guessed? I didn't know there would be such a thing as followers and feedback. Did I say I knew anything about blogging? I knew nothing, but I got braver and posted an excerpt of my writing and a poem or two.  I met other writers and artists, editors and interns. I started to get more than a couple of comments on a post, I dared to offer advice, wrote about writer do's and don'ts, and posted a book review. I shared experience and fessed up to rejections. I received a few blog awards (remember when those things were all the rage?) and passed them on. I had fun. 

Of late, many have questioned bogging and wonder if the pheonomon has run it's course. But I think that as long as people hunger to share ideas, receive advice and get feedback, there will be a reason to blog and interesting people who will do it. Blogging opens lines of communication between people who would never have otherwise met. I love getting a comment from Australia or Europe or Asia, or from someone in the next county. Some months I may only get up 2-3 posts but that's OK.

I began by singing beet praises, so let me end this post with a story about beets. When my grandmother was a young woman (my father just a boy), she because very ill with what was then called Quincy. We now know it as acute tonsillitis. She became so sick, she could barely breathe. Grandfather sent for her sisters to come and help. The distance was great with nothing but a team of horses to ease their journey, but they made the trip and arrived on a blustery winter night and started chopping up beets. They made a beet poultice and wrapped it around her neck in a cheesecloth. They didn't cook the beets; they simply chopped them in a food grinder and wrapped them in cheesecloth. They changed the poultice several times during the night. In the morning she was better.

In closing, I'd like to thank all of you for reading what I write and thank you especially for all your encouraging words. Even if you only drop in ocassionally, that's all any writer could ask. I remember each and every one of you. I thank you for making blogging fun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday Flash 55

THE CESSPOOL OF SILENCE

The boys gathered around the hydrant as darkness fell. What’s your nationality? one asked her. Stillness descended like night on the wheat field, and she understood the question carried a weight she didn’t understand. You know, he prodded, where are your ancestors from? She wondered at their silence. She wasn't sure where she was from.
 

It's Friday, so time for a flash, fiction that is. If you write flash fiction, condense it into 55 words and then let the G-Man know. It's fun. It's Friday. Where're you from???

The Boy And His Car Seat

The boy stood beside his car seat, coat open,
small duffle bag at his feet,
like a hitchhiker,
left where he’d been dropped.
His mother talked on her cell phone,
voice carrying across the lot,
watching the cars drive by the gas station,
impatient to get on with her life.
Somebody is late.

 

Written for G-Man and his Friday Flash 55. He has a wonderful poem this week extolling the inner witch in us all. Click on his link to read the history behind the Hedgewitch.

TGIF

November Stew

Thoughts for November:

Is Sandy an anomaly (just a freak storm), or is Sandy our new reality? Does the fact that Greenland had no summer ice shield for the first time in recorded history have a bearing on the fact that the storm turned inland instead of out to sea, as is the norm?

We're off for the north country for a needed respite. Heading to Lake Superior to catch a sight of the gales of November off the "big  shining sea". But I expect we'll miss the whitecaps to the horizon reported yesterday.

While the devastation on the East Coast is heart wrenching, the new civility in the political campaign is as refreshing as a dip in aforementioned lake. I trust that New York and New Jersey will bounce back with their usual resilience, assisted by the coordinated help of a a fully funded FEMA and a strong Federal Government. At times like this, it sure is nice to have one.

We will be back in time to vote. I hope everyone does. They always talk about "likely" voters in the polling data. What about the 90 million unlikely voters? What would happen to all the polling data if a majority of them turned out?

Five days to the big election. Let's vote!

Oh, and of course I'm taking my diary and my kindle so I can write and write and write, keep in touch with the online world, and inbibe in some of Marquette's famous micro breweries (seeking the muse), all while enjoying the serenity of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Wish me a safe journey! I'll see you in Five.

HOT FOR PINK (friday flash 55)

The bees have diarrhea,
the honey pot's kaput.
Masses grow in lab rats
lodged in mammary.
Studies are debunked and mocked,
patents are enforced.
There's Roundup in your doughnut
and in your white corn syrup.
But we crave our fast food feedlots,
so GMO it all,
then wear pink for consolation
and embrace Monsanto's thrall.


It's Friday and time for the Flash Fiction 55 game. It's Halloween so give us your scary stuff.  I didn't entirely play by the rules, G-Man,  but it's a story (if not fiction), and 55 words on the nose!

If you can write a story in 55 words, please tell the G-Man and play along. Happy Halloween.

The Bath

A field of frost

white as your hair

covers the impatiens

and the grass and the steps

come morning. 

The migrating sparrows that blackened the sky

have sung their way home
and silent as the ground under snow

is the outdoors, yet you sing

in the bath you designed

come morning. 

You linger over your powders and ointments

and with ponderous steps walk the tile you laid

round the porcelain you set

and reach for the razor to stand and confront

the eye-level mirrors that are beveled and true

come morning.

There's A New Game In Town (Friday flash 55)

She wished only for the one she remembered
to pour her a draft and play her a song.

But the jukebox was gone,
and the shuffleboard they brushed elbows over

was replaced by the new game in town.
Keno and Poker sit atop the bar like gargoyles.

A stranger asks to know
Do you play?


On Fridays, the best game on the internet landscape is Friday Flash 55 hosted by the G-Man. Write a story in exactly 55 words then post it and let the man know. He particularly likes it when you have a main character, a plot and an ending.

On a cold night like this, I like sitting inside with my warm laptop under my fingers, making up stories. TGIF!!!!

Magpie Tales....What We Knew in 1665

 

It’s not my pulse

that’s out of sync,

nor a case of the vapors

for one come and gone-
he goes and he comes
but that they don't know.

A bleeding is in order,

he says.

We’ll see.

I know how to brew

pennyroyal tea

and I’ll be just fine

when all of you leave.

I know how to bleed.

Photo prompt courtesy of Tess at the one and only Magpie Tales hitting it hard on Sunday, week after week.