pen ink river

In memoriam to Kurt Vonnegut who died on April 11, 2007 at the age of 84, I'm posting eight rules for writing short stories, from his book, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Posted by peninkriver at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, it seems yet another attempt made to get a writing critique group up and running here in Corvallis is dead on the vine. Last fall, I was willing to go along with a handful of women who said this is what they wanted, a regular time and place to share their writing work. After one meeting, it became clear (to me) that it was the usual congregation of too-busy, overcommitted folks who fancy themselves as writers but, really and truly, aren't in it for the hard work of having their words read and critiqued. After a few more fits and starts about when to meet during the busy days of early December, the back-and-forth e-mail chatter stopped. Truth to tell, I'm relieved.

It's time for me to move on. There isn't going to be a miracle for me, finding a group in this town. Either they all know each other and have their regular gaggles or they don't want new members or they aren't approaching their writing with the same gusto? zeal? foolish dedication? as I want and need to do.

Maybe in Portland I can see out the remnants of Carolyn's old crew. Or find new like-minded souls through something like the Attic Workshop. Meanwhile, to keep doing the work.

Posted by peninkriver at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Amen!

Posted by peninkriver at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Even though I'm not sure Jack Kerouac was all that brilliant of a writer-- above and beyond hitting the jackpot with On the Road -- what's below is very valuable advice for getting past the writing critic.

Belief and Techniques for Modern Prose: A List of Essentials

1. Scribbled secret notebook, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy.
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable vision of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust, be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In Praise of Character in the Black inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Posted by peninkriver at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

These words of wisdom from Bob Haynes, the teacher in our on-line course through Writers on the Net about how poetry works. "A student in a class from a few years ago kept wanting to know what she needed to write decent poetry. I kept telling her that she needed a clean, healthy mind, and that I recommend she steer clear of prurient topics like sex and violence. Well, she was even confused by my comments until she finally told me that what she meant by "decent" was publishable. It seemed to me that these were two distinctly different questions. Maybe in the beginning, publishing is an exciting event. But after you've had a few hundred poems published, the excitement turns to disma. The editor takes the poem you inserted as filler to the submission rather than the important work you wanted the editor to notice. Publishing is seldom a validation. Editorial choices are a lot different than artistic choices. I believe validation can't really come from outside the poem."

Posted by Nancy Flynn at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)