The Blackbird and the Strawberry

Observe the girl eating a strawberry. Observe the cattle observing her. They line the electric fence bordering the patch and watch with unblinking eyes. Some become bored with her repetition and chomp on grass, others chew their cuds as the calves scamper to and fro. They follow her progress along the 300-foot row and jostle each other for a view. Their fence runs out. Her row continues. She leaves them behind. 

Her fingers seek the silver dollar-sized berries hidden under the leaves in the center of the plant, heavy with ripeness and replete with moisture, nestled out of sight of the most keen-sighted blackbird. She holds them by the stem and drops them in the box.

The strawberry plant is the perfect camouflage, the perfect fruit. It needs no fungicides or chemicals. It needs no genetic tinkering. She regrets her father's position.

The odor from the animals wafts on the whip of their tails, earthy and fungal, not unpleasant, but memory-laden. The cattle, the grass, fresh cut hay in the air and holding hands in the night. A memory.

The Cocoon

I've been gone so long I can scarce find my way back. I've missed coming around and reading your blogs and participating in Friday Flash Fiction and Magpie Sunday Tales. In case my blog should disappear from lack of interest, I click on it ocassionally to look at the water. But all too quickly, I'm called away to my lettuces and radishes, radicchio and kale, picking asparagus and tending finicky peppers that need this and that and tomatoes that must soon be staked. And then there are the weeds.

I fall into bed at night, earlier and earlier, like the most boring person on earth. In the wee hours of morning I look at my manuscript, portions stacked here and there (cause I'm a hands-on-paper kind of writer), and wonder how long I can persevere in my search for the perfect agent who will love its strengths more than they dislike its problems.

Spring and summer are always like this, no time to write, guilt-ridden at nightfall, but too tired to do anything about it. Achy legs find surcease between the sheets and achy heart burrows into the soft cocoon of blankets and dreams of water, an orderly garden, and a writing life.

But wait....have you ever had Canada geese fly overhead so low you could hear the whoosh whoosh of their wings? I was standing on my front porch admiring the idyllic scene of cattle on grass, when I heard the familiar honking of a resident pair. They flew in just over the power lines with their necks outstretched. I was surprised at the intensity of sound, much like the flapping of a dozen sheets on a clothesline. Geese fly slow and methodical, and the air displaced by their wing span left a tremor in the air. I watched as they disappeared over the tree line, wondering at their destination, wondering what they see from up there.

What They Show For "Show And Tell".

Please see Frances Garrood's post sharing a letter from Texas death row. I don't care what someone has done, nobody deserves to be treated like this.

Pictures only scratch the surface. The sad truth is in the letter.

Where is the outcry? The shame? The sanctimonious are content as our prisons become storage units for the mentally ill and the addicted and the veteran.

We have our own gulag. Lets own up to it. This is how we treat the least of our citizens. We reap what we sow and the granary is full. Prison construction is robust while schools are dilapidated and underfunded.

Yeah, I'm a bleeding heart.

On The Threshold Of Fame

As a writer, you aren’t anybody until you become somebody. -James Salter

Is there a classic you feel is overrated? Novelist, James Salter, says “The Great Gatsby” is. I never did understand the acclaim Gatsby received, but now another movie is coming out with Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy, the iconic object of desire. It promises to be a lavish production, and with the central theme being the quest for money and power, it should have a popular run.

But back to Salter, the true subject of this post. There was an interesting article about him in the  April 15th issue of The New Yorker, and I've been wanting to write about him ever since. I have a couple of minutes this morning before I take off for the exploding asparagus bed and all the other demands of spring. 

Salter is not famous but he is renowned for his sentence building (he labors over his paragraphs) and depictions of sex and valor. While he has not been a prolific writer, according to friends he is always working on something, scribbling on matchbooks and hotel stationery, taking notes on the people around him, writing away under the table. Nick Paumgarten, the author of the article, surmises that his best books might be too dirty, or too adult, to become fixtures on college syllabi. Too dirty? That got my attention. Like when a book is banned, I immediately want to read it.   

Salter wrote “Light Years”, which many readers and writers consider a masterpiece and “A Sport and a Pastime” a tale about a Yale dropout and a French girl who travel around provincial France in a convertible and make love in hotel rooms. The novel was initially rejected by publishers as being too repetitive with unlikeable characters (this rang a gong with me). Though Salter says he figured it was the sex that put them off. Happily there are editors out there who are not put off by sex. Now he has a new novel, his first in more than thirty years. It’s called “All That Is.”  It is about a World War II veteran who becomes a book editor and seeks love, the universal human preoccupation and subject of much angst in novel writing.

Says Salter, “I like to write about certain things that if they are not written about are not going to exist.”  What things might you write about that if you didn’t, they wouldn’t exist? Things that nobody has a memory of except you? I have a memory of a girl on the threshold of knowing, on the hunt with her dog  in an open field under a night sky with the sense of a universe within reach, an undercurrent of expectation underfoot. The dog has his nose to the ground but the girl can't put her finger on the source of contentment she unconsciouly knows is fleeting. Can the snapshot of a memory be enough to base a novel on? A memory nobody else has?

Friday Flash 55 - Faith Or Reason

She saw a falling star and made a wish. But it was probably only a piece of space junk and the wish negated. Tons of junk were in orbit and sometimes stray pieces drifted too close to the boundary between turbulence and calm, falling to Earth if they survived the inferno. All the time falling.



If it's Friday it's time for flash fiction in 55. Visit the G-Man, the maestro of Flash, to read more.

TGIF. May the rains stop and the water recede.

No More Hurting People

Martin Richard was with his family at the Boston Marathon to watch his father cross the finish line. Martin was killed in the blast and his mother and sister were grievously wounded. For them and for all who were killed and injured, we must run faster, stronger, harder and more beautifully.

 

 

Peace, Martin. You are beautiful.

Wage Theft At Sea (a friday flash 55)

Snake climbed the ratline and glassed the ocean. He wouldn't be free until his bond was paid, but asylum in Cuba awaited if he could escape the capitalists and their dangerous shortcuts. He cut the anchor rope and waited. The island’s bluff rose from out of the sea, and he silently slipped into the ocean.


The above flash fiction is 55 words for the G-Man.

TGIF and hello, Havana!

The Me In Me

This week's poetry prompt from Willow Manor is Degas' "Woman With A Towel".

Woman With A Towel, 1898, Edgar Degas

This morning she discovered herself in the mirror
and lost her religion.
She looked at me in the beveled glass of her hand mirror
with the mother-of-pearl inlay
and it was good.

Have a clean heart, said the church billboard.
Take care of yourself and love me, I say.
The preacher preached from the pulpit
with arms asunder.
The Lord said a woman shall not
take a scissors to her hair!
So she looked it up.
The tool was manufactured in 1760.

The woman in me is not a dupe.
Her vulva is a pearl and her heart is sound.
It beat under the ultrasound
like a trooper in heat.

She cut off the bracelets, but she won’t stop there.
She cut off a hank because they told her she couldn't.
She cut off the rest and readied the bath.


You can go here to find more links to the prompt. Thank you for coming here. Degas is a personal favorite. Happy Poetry Month!

The Rental (Fri.Flash 55 )

They took the house before they saw
the stones hanging from the trees,

the fire pit and the stick formations

and the window that wouldn’t open

and the one that wouldn’t shut

and the frogs that came in

and the path in the woods that led on

and on.

And the woods.

And the woods.

Just a little story for the G-Man. TGIF!

The Owl and the Compass (Flash 55)

With bloodied hands and twilight gathering, he lost himself on a road without name. Gnarled roots of ancient hemlock clogged the ditch like Gretel’s wood, and the dashboard compass spun like a weather vane. A shadow separated itself from the spinning dial and buried itself in his neck.  An owl watched from above and blinked.


The above is flash fiction in fifty-five words for the G-Man. Visit his site for more Flash 55's, and if you write one, let him know.

TGIF and Good Friday to you all.

Happy Easter.

Dust It Off and Send It In

There's a feature in Poets and Writers called "Ask An Agent" wherein they pose questions to some of the best literary agents in the business. I've seen a lot of my questions answered in this forum, especially in regards to the all-important query letter.

Do you write short stories? There's a great contest at Narrative you might want to check out, but you only have until the end of the month. Ploughshares is also taking submissions for their Emerging Writer's Contest until April 1st. Write in the winter, submit in the spring, eavesdrop in the summer (and take notes), and travel in the fall. (The kids are back in school and the tourists are gone.)

Wouldn't it be nice to stick to that routine? Well, if you have a short story you never quite finished, dust it off, wrap it up, and send it in. Listen in on the world around you and write it down.

Seems March is going out in these parts the same way she came in-like Old Man Winter with a toothache, a bad attitude, and an ingrown toenail.

The Demon Query

When you begin to query agents, it’s much like starting your own seedlings.  Some seeds sprout quickly, like kale (four days!) and some are slow and can take two weeks or more, like onions and parsley. Some are finicky and require perfect conditions, like peppers. 

I worry about my seeds almost as much as I worry about my query letter. I check them daily. There's so much to worry about. Did I use the right medium? It there enough light? Heat? Water? There are mistakes, like dropping a flat of newly planted basil seeds upside down on the floor. Will they ever recover and find their way up to the light?  When the fragile shoots first break the surface, you feel a joyous delirium. Your time and effort has been rewarded. To see the spindly stalks grow and develop their first set of true leaves is like developing your manuscript to a publishable level.

You don’t think you’re every ready to query. You wonder if you’ve done enough agent research. Does your hook hook? Will they like the premise or hate it?  Is your protagonist unlikeable? Your finger hovers over the send button.You pull it back and breathe. How could anyone not like him? Your finger finds the send button. You do it.

Then there is the glaring error you discover after you’ve sent out your first round of queries. You played with your first essential five pages, because you can't leave them alone. You fooled around with the first page and changed a phrase. Then changed it back because it was really, really stupid. But you forgot to save the correction. You sent the really, really stupid first page. You go to bed, happy, not knowing how stupid you are.

You awake and drink coffee and go to your other job, knowing you'll soon be a full time writer. You come home and open your documents, check email and drink something. You open up your sent folder and browse your amazing query and your agent-grabbing first pages and you see what you’ve done. The all-time most stupid phrase is right there on page one. You lean over your screen like a surgeon over the operating table. You can't believe what you see. Now what? Should you send a quick apology and explanation to the dream agent? Should you leave it alone and think they won’t notice the all-time most stupid phrase on a first page ever? 

You send the follow-up email. You kick yourself and go to bed. In the morning you soak parsley seeds in warm water. You turn on the computer and you wait.

The Campfire People (A Fri. Flash 55)

The buzz of the chainsaw
interrupts her bird watching.
They cut down the woods
so they’d have a meadow.
They build fires at night and
move trees by day,
plopped here and there so prettily.
Buildings she never wanted to see
emerge through the trees.
They invite her to their campfire.
They built a meadow.


The above is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday excercise.  If you write one you should let him know so we can all read it. The sun is shining, the snow is melting off the sunny side of the porch, my basil on the windowsill has germinated, and the puppy is eating my socks and chewing on my electric cords.  Life is full.

TGIF!!

Next Big Thing

Tricia O'Brien, who blogs at Talespinning has tagged me for the Next Big Thing blog hop. Tricia is currently working on a dark fairy tale, PRINCESS CHARMING: A DIFFERENT KNIGHT’S TALE and shares a snippet of the story in her interview. I was delighted she asked me to share some details of what I’m currently working on, so without further ado,  here are my answers to the Next Big Thing.

What is your working title of your next novel? BLACK RIVER

Where did the idea come from for this novel? I can’t answer that question, because I’m not sure. I was sitting on the couch one night with my laptop and started writing about this guy who sets out across a wintering field to see what the vultures circling overhead are after. And then...things started happening. I think it came to fruition partly because of a secret desire I had to write a loose sequel to my first novel.

What genre does it fall under? I see it as a crossover between literary, commercial and contemporary NA.

Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? I hate to hitch up the horse when I don’t have a cart to sit in, but that said….my female protagonist should be played by a gutsy Girl-With-The-Dragon-Tattoo type, (minus the tattoos and the piercings) and the male protagonist would best be portrayed by Ben Affleck with Argo hair or someone like that guy who led his gang safely back to Coney Island in The Warriors.  

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your novel? The comfortable life of the son of a landed fourth-generation farmer collides with that of the daughter of an itinerant migrant worker with a troubled past.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I hope to be represented but I have not yet queried. This has actually been a good exercise for me in preparing to do so.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? The first draft took me five months to write.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? That’s hard since this novel is a crossover. I’ve been told by some that my writing reminds them of Jodi Picoult. Personally (don’t think me pretentious), I see this novel as a blend of Picoult, Scott Spencer, and Andre DuBus with a bit of the grit in All The Pretty Horses, and I hope it appeals to those readers who like those books.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? The earth under my feet, the world around me, and the climate change that threatens to overtake us and bury us.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? The characters wrestle with some of the most contentious social issues of our day while dealing with a small matter of murder, cover-up, and police malfeasance and then there is the forbidden love that the main character treks through the Canadian woods across thin ice in a warming world to claim.

And since Tricia shared a snippet, here’s one from BLACK RIVER: He’d never been cut with a knife before, and he wondered why his father hadn’t warned him about the aftermath of that, the crushing humiliation of having one’s mortality laid open for all to see.

As per the rules of being tagged, I hereby tag the following authors to share their next big thing.  J.B. Chicoine, Anne Gallagher, Deborah Lawrenson,  Stina Lindenblatt, and Liza Salerno.  Deborah has already done this here  but has agreed to post an update.

I can’t wait to see what these talented writers are currently working on.

A Bad Girl

Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936, Salvador Dali

At the age of twelve
I was instructed to wash my hands
when I got up in case
I'd touched myself in my sleep.

Curious at what I should be doing
but wasn't doing
I touched myself
here, here, and here.

Nobody else knows what they did
with my arms
but I can't touch myself
anymore.



The writing prompt comes to us from Magpie Tales,

A blog dedicated to writers and poets for the purpose of honing their craft. I hope you enjoyed my Magpie Tale. The Venus de Milo has always mystified me.

Better Than Jumping Off A Bridge (FF55)

Her albums are arranged
in alphabetical order facing left.
The silver is polished
with serrated edges pointing right.
Bottles in the rack are arranged
with the labels facing up.
Her life is a pattern pinned to the fabric
so as not to waste an inch,
edges cut with a pinking shears
so they won’t unravel.


It's fictional Friday and time to tell a story in 55 words. Check out the G-Man for links to more of the same, or better yet... post one of your own and let Mr. Knowitall alias G-Man know.

TGIF

Magpie Dreams

Wind of History by Jacek Yerka

My recurring dream of water
sloshing in the wheel wells
on a drive along the crumbling beach
forested wtih trees which would never be
to swim without a suit like a hedonist
in waves crashing over the breakwater
 
gave way to a fork in the road
and a house of many rooms
waiting to be refurbished,
like an antique in need of buffing,
a loving hand to awaken the patina of wood
harvested from the property
and you under the covers in a room with a dormer.

If dreams are to be minded,
I will die of drowning and you and I
will never lie under the covers in the bedroom
on the property of a dream.

The image comes to us from Magpie Tales.  Follow the link to join the Mag Creative Writing Group and read other poems and vignettes using the Wind Of History for inspiration.
 

How To Make Mary Stay

Mary will stay
for days and days

if we pour boiling water
on her head

and strip her naked
like a dead thing with no privacy
in the cemetery of the living.

Mary comes but never stays

breezes in and bakes brie soufflé,
polishes the floor then off she goes

because Mary can never stay.

This is fifty-five words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55. He prefers it be fiction, but it doesn't have to be, but he will rap your knuckles if you don't have exactly fifty-five. If you have a story you can tell in such a succinct fashion, you'd best let the big guy know. Enter his fold; he won't let you go.

TGIF!!

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.