I’m still on my campaign to read a book a week that isn’t required of me in some way. Although, this week’s book should be required reading for anyone who wants to write good fiction.  I’ve heard Michael Knight’s name many times, and met him a time or two briefly at some big author thing. But I hadn’t sat down and read his work until recently. I started his story collection Dogfight a few months ago, but was only a couple of stories in when the semester’s end/holiday frenzy began. I thought I’d finish it since the first couple of stories made such an impression on me.  Well, expect more than one of his books to be on my 2012 book-a-week list.  I was blown away by this collection.  I couldn’t ask for better.

Now that I’ve read the stories through and loved each one, I want to go back and study those stories, then go to my writing desk and see if I learned anything I can apply to some of my stories still waiting to be finished. This is why reading is so important. Reading Michael Knight, for instance, makes me want to go write. I don’t know if I’ll get to it by next week, but his novella The Typist is in the dugout waiting to go on deck.

Here’s what a couple of my favorite writers have said about Dogfight:

“Not for years has a writer excited me so much as Michael Knight. He’s dazzling. Dogfight is a wonderful book, there is not a misstep and I turned the pages in appreciation and awe and envy.”
       —Lewis Nordan, author of Music of the Swamp

“One of the best things possible happens with Michael Knight’s stories: the words are put together so that you forget you’re reading, you find that the stories are happening; you see, you listen, you hold your breath waiting for what will happen next. What a pleasure to find a writer who can make this happen. Such writers are few and far between.”
       —Clyde Edgerton, author of The Bible Salesman

Michael teaches at University of Tennessee at Knoxville. If you live nearby, go by Union Ave Books and buy his books. Here’s a link to his website: www.michaelknightfiction.com

Well, I’m asking that questions every day. And just like eating whole foods and reading what’s going to make my writing better, I  have to wake up with that goal firmly planted in my psyche, and I have to do my best to achieve it each day, even if some days I fail. Otherwise my muse will go find somebody else who doesn’t mind sitting at her keyboard typing or scribbling on her legal pad toward inspiration and eloquence.

Recently I’ve been listening to subliminal CD’s on things like making healthy choices and overcoming procrastination.  I love things like this, and it’s a great substitute for Ritalin. One of my favorite CD’s is Slim Forever—for Women. The sultry voice calls to me to feed the inner thinner me with what nurtures health and beauty.  And I respond, believe it or not, by choosing a clementine over a Milky Way or an Oreo.

Well, I’ve found a picture of the inner thinner me who I’ve covered up over the years, and I’m letting her not only choose fruit over candy, but I’m letting her read good books and write on  a daily basis.  You might say she’s coming out of hiding to  finish my novel, and probably revise some poems and short stories that are in  a holding pattern. Why? Because I’ve decided she doesn’t have issues like ADD, and she doesn’t get her priorities out of whack. and she’s not afraid of much of anything.  I really like her. I want to help her. And it’s easy to set aside the stuff that clutters our life to help someone else. But the truth is, she’s good at putting first things first. Did she write today? Oh yeah.

Here’s a picture of her watching me to make sure I let it happen. She looks pretty determined, don’t you think?

Maybe I’ve got a ways to go before you recognize her in me, but I know who she is, and what’s more important, she knows who I am.  Now I remember why I loved playing with Barbie when I was a little girl. And it’s the inner child in all of us who writes. It’s always the child who’s honest. And by the way, did you know that there’s a Rocket Scientist Barbie? Hell yes, there is.

Here’s a scene storm word list from another book I’ve read this month, Waking, the latest collection of poems by Ron Rash.  If you don’t know what a scene storm is, you can look back at older posts, or you can just think “writing prompt,” and you’ll do fine. Feel that lean muscle as your fingers type out something that surprises you.

sleeve

ticks

stalled

honey

planks

fistfuls

strung

register

yardstick

cure

January is often the month we draw the line in the sand. In years past it’s been about looking better in a bathing suit, but now, at 56, that line is more about avoiding diabetes, getting rid of high blood pressure and HBP meds, and sidestepping disability.  I want to feel good and keep on feeling good. Of course, I’d still like to look nice in pretty clothes, see my neck again, and go sleeveless, but that will be the metaphorical gravy.  Right now it’s about giving up gravy, getting off medicines, and showing my gratitude that I still get around pretty well,  still breath pretty well, still see pretty well with my glasses on, and hear well enough to participate in a conversation, although the TV volume is loud and sometimes my husband and I have two conversations at once. Of cousre we don’t know it’s two different converasations at the time.

I’m not going on a diet. I’m not going to make big pronouncements. I’m going to take each day as it comes, but I’m going to set a goal each day to eat whole foods, drink plenty of water, exercise, and take the time to be mindful and thankful for my blessings. To help me with that daily goal, I’m looking for tools and information that will keep me mindful of my purpose and guide me on the right paths. And I’ll share those tools and resources with you on Wednesdays. Dancing the Gorilla was originally a metaphor about getting the writing done and done well. It still is. But after years of wrestling (dancing) with my committment to be healthy, I’d say the Gorilla metaphor works here as well.

Here are two YouTube videos with Alton Brown where he talks about his success with similar goals.  His tool?  You guessed it: Good Eats!

Live and Let Diet I

Live and Let Diet II

I’ve let reading good literature (and bad literature with a good cover on it) fall to the wayside. Teaching writing classes means you read manuscripts. Lots of them.  Often too many of them for your own good as a writer.  Now, some of them are very fine, but many of them need a lot of editing. And you’re reading with editing in mind, even when they are good, and that’s not the same mindset that absorbs good storytelling in the most luscious way.

My ex once said he wouldn’t play tennis with me anymore because I was ruining his game. Don’t boo him. He was right. Have you seen my hand-eye coordination?

His point was that for him to improve, he needed to play with someone who played better than he did.  Writing is a lot like that. I’m not saying my students’ work is making me lose my game. Some of my students write better than I do! But, there’s a hazard if I’m only reading working manuscripts, no matter how good they are. That shouldn’t be my entire reading diet.

If you want to write better—and you should want that every day, no matter how good you are—you need to read work that inspires you to higher standards, to more innovative expression, richer language, stronger characterization, and so on. It’s like eating your fruits and vegetables. It helps you build lean language muscle and improve your writing metabolism.

When I was writing Sufficient Grace, I got up in the morning, wrote my morning pages (see The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron), and then read a short story or a chapter of a novel by one of my favorite writers or by a writer someone had recommended to me. I read these small tastes of fiction like someone eats one chocolate morsel at day from the  Whitman’s Sampler.  Often I picked up the book later in the day, but I made sure I had eaten at least that one bonbon of good writing before I went to my desk to write.  I read quite a few books that way. Later I made the suggestion to a young working mother with small children who had signed up for my extended novel workshop, and she eventually reported that she had read 14 books in a year following my suggestion.

My goal is to read a book a week, beyond what’s day-job related or required. Of course, I read a lot of good books related to work, but I’m talking about a book I’m craving. It’s on that list I never get to, either because I’m lazy or need sleep. Except  now, I’m going to get to it. Here’s what I’ve devoured so far this year, and I highly recommend both of these treats. They taste good enough to savor. I’ve loved Gabriel Garcia-Marquez since I was an undergraduate in college and read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Lately, I’ve taken to hunting down his novellas and reading them. Of Love and Other Demons packs a big taste in a small package.  I started reading Cary Holladay’s work only a few years ago, when I was her student in the MFA Program at University of Memphis.  If you haven’t read Cary’s work, you’re missing out. I suggest you start with The Quick Change Artist. Talk about bonbons!

Appalachian Refugee

Here’s a scene storm word list from “Appalachian Refugee.”

head

drive

ridges

reach

body

ground

voice

fog

refugee

sleep

Thank you to everyone who attended the festival this weekend and for making it such a success!

This summer I’m going to study the short story.  Even though I’m working on a novel, I believe the short story, like poetry, has a lot to teach the novelist about attention and compression as a formula for tension at the local level, the level of sentence and paragraph,the level of the very words you choose or don’t choose.

To explore this relationship of language and pressure, I’m going to reread and reread several story collections published not so very long ago and a couple that have been around a bit longer. I’ll read straight through some and dip down into others. The key is a regular diet of short intense stories I wish I’d written:

Burning Bright by Ron Rash. This collection won the Frank O’Connor Award.

Olive Kitteridge by  Elizabeth Strout. This novel in stories won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle. Jill McCorkle is a master of short fiction. This fourth story collection and ninth book of her fiction just proves that all over again.

The High Heart by Joseph Bathanti. This group of tightly knit stories about the same set of characters won the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Bathanti channels his poet’s sense of dense language and repetition to create a beautifully lyric novel in stories.

The Safety of Objects by A M Holmes. I read this collection years ago and her story “The Real Doll” has stayed with me all that time.

How Far She Went by Mary Hood. This group of stories won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.

Sugar Among the Freaks by Lewis Nordan. If you don’t read Lewis Nordan, I just want to know what’s wrong with you.

Facing the Music by Larry Brown. This was Brown’s first story collection. A good way to put your best foot forward.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver.  Need I say more?

One Time, One Place by Ernest Hemmingway. Ditto.

Here We Are In Paradise by Tony Early. Delicious.

There are other story collections just a powerful, just as beautiful. But these are the ones I’ll keep close this summer. Will I get all these stories reread? No. But I’ll take a drink from these collections regularly all summer. Will I learn something I need to know about writing? Absolutely. Will I learn something about the human condition? Will I be changed again and again? Most definitely. Will I be inspired? No question.

What are you planning to learn this summer?

Look for scene storm word lists all summer from these word-rich stories. Use them to find the tension in your own stories.

This week  the word list comes from The High Heart by Joseph Bathanti.

hod

fingertip

cocoon

fish sandwiches

mortarboard

scuffed linoleum

beads

scalp

dishtowel

sheers

Busy June 24-26? Come to the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN.

Davis Kidd, Nashville, Friday, September 17 at 3:00 PM.

Carpe Librum, Knoxville, Saturday, September 18 at 2:00 PM.

Time to get back into the swing of things for fall. And time to get back to Five and Ten. I’ll be teaching creative nonfiction at Lincoln Memorial University this coming spring. My good buddy Jim Minick, who teaches at Radford University, sent me a list of fine books on writing creative nonfiction. I’ll share with you.

Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach, Story Press, 1998.

Creating Nonfiction by Becky Bradway and Doug Hesse, Bedford/St. Martins, 2009.

In Fact: Best of Creative Nonfiction by Lee Gukinds, WW Norton & Co., 2004.

Writing True by Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz, Wadsworth Publishing, 2006.

Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Keep it Real: Everything You Need to Know about Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction, by Lee Gutkind, reprint edition, WW Norton & Co., 2009.

Best American Essays, edited by Robert Atwan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.

 Thanks, Jim. Don’t eat too much on book tour!!!

Hope to see you at Dancing with the Gorilla! Check out Tuesday’s first all time on DWTG guest blog by Jim Minick!

This is a terrific workshop because all the young people who attend want to write. We don’t have the make them write. They are writing on their own volition, and not just in class. They write in the their free time. They write in groups with someone offering a prompt. They gather in clusters of like-mindedness and share their work for critique. They are thick-skinned (sometimes after a rite of passage for first-year participants) and they understand that their goal is to become a better writer every day, every time they pick up the pen, and that becoming a better write may require them to lower their standards and write badly before the good stuff can come. These young writers understand what it means to write toward their stories, to feel around in the dark for the things they need, the objects and gestures and lines of dialogue and the surprises their characters give them. The elements they find in the dark illuminate the story they are searching for or illuminate how a story they already know can be best told.

What struck me early this week is that these young writers wrestle with the same issues all writers wrestle with. Growing up or growing older doesn’t cure you of insecurity, a vocabulary curve, an unhealthy obsession with adverbs. Writing well is always work on some level, and it is work writers should embrace will all the enthusiasm of this crowd of young writers. They can learn a lot from writers who have achieved some success. But we can also learn a lot from them.

Go be enthusiastic about writing. Don’t fall victim to that stereotype of the tortured writer. Accept the joy of your obsession and go take joy in it, even if it sometimes brings you to tears.

One of my favorite exercises is to ask students to list as many one syllable words beginning with a particular letter of the alphabet as they can. Each of us has an active vocabulary (words that come easily to us in speech and in writing) and a passive vocabulary (words we know the meaning of but don’t use readily). As a writer you need as many words at your disposal as you can muster. This exercise helps remind the writer of words he or she knows but might not think of when writing a first draft. And many one-syllable words are good solid specific nouns and verbs. They work like bricks to build a strong image or sentence.

The next part of the exercise is to write a story with only one syllable words. Only proper nouns can be multi-syllabic. Try it. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish with only one-syllable words.

This week’s Scene Storm Word List comes from the letter C and all are one-syllable words:

course

coast

carve

cool

crease

core

crisp

cord

cone

curl

The email forward:

Women and heart attacks (Myocardial infarction). Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic
symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack … you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor that we see in the movies. Here is the story of one woman’s  experience with a heart attack.

“‘I had a heart attack at about 10 :30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect  ight’ve brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an
interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.

“A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going
down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation—the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.

“After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR).                                 

This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. ‘AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening — we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI
happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God,I think I’m having a heart attack!

I lowered the footrest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else ..
but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in moment.

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics .. I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I
didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to unbolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.

I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when wearrived and saw that the Cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and artner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.

“Iknow it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the Paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St. Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already told to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on  estarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.

“Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand.”

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body not the usual men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act).  It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up … which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a ‘false alarm’
visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!

 2. Note that I said ‘Call the Paramedics.’ And if you can take an asprin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER – you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be
speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road.

Do NOT call your doctor — he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment
in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later.

3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by
high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.

I don’t know how to make a small pot of soup; my husband doesn’t know how to plant a small garden. While three 400-foot rows of beans means a lot of picking, and people are starting to run from us when they see us coming with sacks of yellow crooked-neck squash, all those beautiful vegetables will make for some good soup this winter.

What excess do you see in your life? What excesses do your characters have, either self-imposed or thrust upon them?

Assignment: Write a scene where a character’s excess comes into play.

Assignment: Write a poem about your excesses or the excess of someone you know.

Scene Storm Word List: Here are 10 verbs associated with gardening. Use the in a scene or poem that has absolutely nothing to do with gardening.

rake

dig

cut

pick

plow

weed

hoe

dust

shell

seed