a person who lies a lot

SWC: 11

2008-07-26T02:50:00.003-04:00

Things happened. But I am tired.

I want to talk about the following at some point:

Grove/Atlantic and Knopf editor panel

Margot Livesey's lecture about 'fiction' and 'extrafiction'

My latest workshop experience with John and Christine

The Scholars Reading and being really nervous when reading my work and people laughing - it went well this morning

'Elitism' at conferences like this

Blogging

Being mean to people.

I am bored of blogging about the conference for now, but here are other people who are not: Cliff Garstang, Sandrea Beasly (here and here), Donna Trussell, and Leslie Harrison.

Today I felt sad.

More soon.

SWC: 10

2008-07-25T04:38:00.001-04:00

I am tired and it's time for bed - I have things to say, but...

SWC: 9B

2008-07-24T03:49:00.001-04:00

The rest of the day was not very exciting. I spent the afternoon reading workshop stories and then Dave, Jim, and I went over each other's stories one final time. After this, we drove down to dinner at the local bar and had a cheeseburger. It was big. I ate it and felt sick.

The rest of the night was just drinking, pingpong, and talking. Not very exciting, but relaxing in a nice way. Hooray. I have one more story to read for tomorrow.

SWC: 9A

2008-07-23T15:17:00.003-04:00

Today I slept through breakfast and then woke up in time to hear agent Gale Hochman talk about the 'publishing world.' I am trying to think of what she said. I remember she talked about how publishers send 95% of a print run to the major booksellers (Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc). She talked about how they send 30,000 copies to those places, expecting to get 50%, 60%, or 70% back. This is what they have to do to sell 15,000 copies of a book.

Then she talked about Amazon's new electronic reader and she 'crunched' some numbers. She compared the hardcover price of a printed book to the price of an electronic book. There was some math in there, but I zoned out a little. Her point was that with the Kindle - something. I got really confused, actually. Oh, right, she was talking about how the readership has changed over the past few decades, how everyone is 'plugged in' or whatever, and how she's not sure what this means for selling books, whether electronically or in print.

Then she went on to discuss agents, how to contact them, how busy they are, what to expect, etc. She said that she reads manuscripts from 9am until 10pm on the weekends, unless she's out to dinner or something. That is a lot of reading, I think. A part of my brain, though, said, 'really?' when she said that thing about the weekends. I was a little skeptical.

She talked about other things too, but I forgot some of them. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that she seemed so 'doom and gloom' or whatever. She didn't mention anything about small press/independent publishing (understandable, I think, since she doesn't seem to be involved in that), but it would have been nice to hear the alternative to publishing at the bigger houses.

I had other thoughts about this during the presentation, but I forgot to write them down.

After Gale spoke, Jill McCorkle gave a lecture on Self-Censorship/Freedom. It was a good lecture. She talked about how censorship occurs externally and internally, how one affects the other, etc. It seemed like the trick was learning how to turn that censoring instinct into a creative impulse? Like, to fight against that censor, to do the opposite of what it suggests, and to learn how to tell the difference between censoring your writing and editing your writing.

Then I went to lunch, mailed some things at the post office, and printed off some things. There is a Scholars reading in the morning tomorrow and on Friday for those of us who do not have books coming out. I am reading sometime on Friday. Hooray. Now I am happy but scared and nervous.

Now to do some reading.

SWC: 8B

2008-07-23T02:18:00.003-04:00

So things happened today, but not until I woke up from my long sleep. I have been feeling very tired since the beginning of the conference; I have been staying up late and waking up early since I got here, so today I decided to sleep in past lunch. It was the best decision I have made since I got here. Only problem: things woke me up all morning: the towel people, the bedsheets people, the man with the walkie-talkie, the television in the social room beneath my room. I slept in past lunch, but felt harried.

What I missed during my sleepfest: another fellows reading and a craft lecture by Wyatt Prunty.

I skipped lunch also.

Schutt and Casey sort of changed up the workshop today, for which I was somewhat thankful. Until today, we had been following Casey's workshop structure: go around the table and tell what you think about the story and then let the workshop leaders tell what they think about the story. This has led to quite a lot of various comments but no real good discussion of what is most important for the story. Today, Schutt led the class with a lecture on stories' first lines and how that language should create 'story.' She used this as a way into the first workshop story, which we did not discuss. I think this is okay. I think that Schutt's lecture was more important for the author to hear than our lame discussion of what we thought her story was about (it was about nothing that I could tell, but the langauge was wonderful).

Schutt said: The first line of a story often establishes setting/point of view/characters/conflict/ and the language of the story. This first line often functions to orient the reader in the story. When writing first drafts, the author might consider looking at what he's written so far, selecting the sentence that contains the most elements of the above list and use that as a temporary first line. Secondly, authors might avoid adding additional elements to a story (more elements than first mention in the opening paragraph) and instead try to subtract from what they have so far. Look at what you've got, see the dents, the trends, what's being said, and figure out how you can turn away from that so as to create more tension. Schutt likes this idea of looking at the sentence you've just written and discovering a way to turn slightly away from what you've just written. So that eventually all of those turns will lead to a conclusion to the story in the same sort of area as the opening line. Thirdly, she talked about Ozicks' The Shawl and how the shawl was a sort of object in that story, but its meaning/function shifted with each character. She said that minimizing the amount of objects/characters in a story will allow you the most opportunities to expand upon those things. I like all of these ideas. I don't know if I follow them in my own writing, but I think they are similar to what I've seen in the work of Gary Lutz, Gordon Lish, Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Diane Williams, etc. I think this kind of writing, the turning away from the sentence, or, as Lutz says in that New York Tyrant interview, the placing between two words other words, is most attractive to me because it allows for extreme sorts of surprises to rise up in the langauge.

After workshop, Jim and I went to the Sewanee library to print of shit, and then we went to the gym to lift. This is the same gym in which I ran a record breaking 960m race in highschool - I miscounted laps around the 160m track during the 800m race, and when everyone finished, I accidentally ran a 6th lap; everyone laughed at me.

It rained also.

Then Tony Earley read from new work. Hooray.

Then drinks, then drinks at the French House. Then sleep.

Oh, thank you Mike for doing a bit of my laundry. Hooray.

Also, last night, I had a dream that I was in Tao Lin's apartment and he was making me a smoothie. I drank the smoothie and Kendra Grant Malone said something to me about lime yogurt. Blake Butler was there and he said something to me, but I don't know what. Maybe about spaceships? Tao Lin had put on a lot of weight in his face and did not look healthy. I tried to act cool, but I kept knocking over chairs, so Tao Lin kicked me out of his apartment. Sorry Tao Lin for doing that in my dream.

SWC: 8A

2008-07-22T08:25:00.000-04:00

I need to do some laundry.

SWC: 7

2008-07-22T03:35:00.002-04:00

Today was pretty lazy. I did not go to the readings, the editors' panel, the Mark Strand lecture. Instead, we ran 4 again before it got too hot and spent the morning reading stories for workshop, writing comments on them, etc. After lunch, Jim, Dave, and I visited the rope-swing-lake again and came back in time to hear Tim O'Brien read the final story ("The Lives of the Dead") in The Things They Carried. I did not expect him to read this story. I was surprised that he read this story. I expected one of the funnier stories, or one of the war stories, I guess. I did not expect him to select such a 'heavy' story? I heard many people in the room sniffling. I felt very sad as he read the story. It was sad.

Then we went to the Vice Chancellor's house. It was big.

Dinner.

Nap time.

Then we listened to a few of the scholars who have books forthcoming read their work. I enjoyed these readings. I liked listening to what the other scholars were 'doing.' Josh Weil read from his collection of novellas, some other people read (mostly poets, I have not looked up their names, I am sorry), and Frank Giampietro read from his book of poetry. His poems were really funny.

I think it would be both fun and unnerving to read here. I would get very nervous.

French House for drinks. Then another swim at the lake.

I have an ear infection.

SWC: 6

2008-07-21T02:44:00.005-04:00

Slept in today. Slept through the alarm clock, so didn't run until after breakfast. It was hot.

Listened to a lecture by John Casey on mentorship and writers, what mentors are, what does that mean, etc. He used a little doll to explain his points?

Lunch.

Went to the bookstore to buy a few books. It rained a bit.

Listened to the Fellows reading - Margo Rabb read from her latest. Later she came swimming with us.

Bausch read a new story for the second reading. Later on that night, he sang songs on the porch of the French House and played guitar and everyone had fun.

Then we had a 'book-signing' party in the bookstore. John Casey signed a copy of Spartina for me and Christine Schutt signed a copy of Nightwork for me. I also bought her second story collection. I talked to Jason Ockert about his book Rabbit Punches. I want to buy it. I think I will buy it tomorrow.

Then dinner.

Then I chatted with my dad on the phone; today was his birthday.

Then we went and played lots of pingpong and I defeated everyone.

Josh Weil wanted to go swimming in the swimming lake at night, so we went to the French House for a drink and then went swimming at night. We went swimming in a tiny little swimming lake on campus. It was shallow and warm. Frogs made frog sounds nearby. Then we came back and sat around then we went to bed.

Today was a slow day. I felt relaxed today. I felt good about things. After dinner I went back to my room by myself and just sat in my room and felt a little sad and alone. I then felt more relaxed, and I think I just needed to stop doing things for like thirty minutes, stop doing conference things to take a break from all this activity. I felt a little overwhelmed and then decided to do some proofreading and after that I decided to interact with people again after I had had a little break.

Also, here is a picture of my room. I have been really messy this trip.

SWC: 5

2008-07-20T04:24:00.002-04:00

Things happened today. I will type them very quickly, because I am very tired. This will be the laziest, least helpful post of ever.

Talked with Laura in the morning, say, about 9:30? Then Jim and I went for a 4mile run about.

Lunch. I ate two plates of chicken something for lunch? Also, I ate some chick peas on my salad. I was really hungry.

During workshop, we discussed three stories. Things that came up for discussion (in no particular order): genre fiction versus literary fiction, especially w/r/t stories of international espionage; cliches and how even in genre fiction, weak writing is weak writing; narratives that span many years in a character's life; distance from the narrative; language as a tool for showing the reader that distance, etc; multiple climaxes (thank you John Casey for that, um, bit of terminology); narrative/plot structure in a story; characters that do bad because they think they're doing good; etc.

Christine Schutt said this during workshop and I felt really happy that she said it: "It seems very dangerous to tell a story when you know where your going with it or already know the story because then you seem to rush to the end...I get really frustrated when it seems that people haven't labored over the language enough." This is not an exact quotation, but it is very close to what she said. She said that she often writes very slowly and has to reread the sentences that she just wrote in order to start the next sentence.

Then we went to the lake again for more swimming: me, Jim, Dave Madden, Dave Mullin (i need to check that spelling, but i am feeling lazy and tired right now). I met a man who just recently started a local press called Plateau Press. I cannot find a website, but it is a small press interested in nonfiction. I chatted with this man about writing, etc, and then went swimming. I jumped off the rope swing. I did the 'run-and-jump' and did not hurt myself really, until the time I did not let go of the rope and came crashing back into the udnerbrush, scratghin up my legs. Jim did the 'run-and-jump' and got a sideways bellyflop that left a red bruise on his side for a while. Jim also lost his key in the lake by the dock, and after diving for maybe three minutes, found it again. We celebrated.

Dinner was BBQ.

Claudia Emerson read some really sad poems about past relationships, some funny, 'wicked' poems about an all girls school, and some new stuff as well that made me laugh as I listened.

Then the dance. Awkward, etc. I did not repeat my Tin House conference activities, which was smart of me. Instead, other people danced.

Now bed.

SWC:4

2008-07-19T05:16:00.002-04:00

I am again going to type things without revising/thinking, and try to just state facts, though we'll see:

This morning Kathy Pories and Jane Rosenman gave quick talks about the 'publishing business' and then took questions from the audience. Pories is an editor at Algonquin. Rosenman is an editor at a big New York house (I cannot remember which one). The talk was standard. I did not hear anything new. This was not good or bad. I do not remember much of it.

Jim and I went for a run. Probably about 4 miles. We went to two different overlooks. Look at this poet's blog for pictures of the overlook. This poet is also 'blogging' Sewanee. Just like Cliff.

After the run I met with Christine for lunch. She is very nice. We went over the rest of my MS. She read to me parts she liked, and then, for all but one of the stories, went line by line with suggested cuts. Her suggestions were very good; the cuts are very smart. I want to try to describe the cuts. In my head, I was thinking how the cuts she suggested involve sections in the story in which I lapse into some attempt at a basic judgment or overaching concern of the story: basically, places of too much explanation. I think these sections are like little notes to myself about the story. They are probably not necessary. Christine then gave me a few suggestions for submitting. It was a good meeting.

Then Jim and I took reading stuff out to a lake here on the mountain. The lake has a swimming hole, and a rope ladder, and a dock to sit on. I felt like I was twelve. I have not used a rope swing to jump into a lake for a long time. Also, I was reminded of how bad at swimming I really am. When we first got to the lake, there were a bunch of high schoolers there. They were talking about their favorite animals. One girl said hers was the polar bear. Another girl said she liked squirrels. Later, a mother showed up with her two sons. The youngest son asked his older brother, "How's the water?" and the older brother said, "Wet." I laughed at that. Also overheard from the youngest son: "I'm going to stick an almond between my toes and see what happens."

I have no idea.

Greg Williamson read poetry afterwards. He was really funny. He read this thing he said was 'creative nonpoetry' and it was really funny. My back hurt from laughing. It is forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review.

I met Michelle Brower, an agent, today and talked with her about submitting story collections, etc, how that works. She seemed to suggest that backing up the collection with part of a novel in progress was a good idea. She was very nice. I need to figure out how to write a novel.

Dinner.

For the evening reading, we listened to Margot Livesey read from her new book.

Today I officially met someone from my workshop - Thomas Young - who coincidentally flew C-130s in the MD Air Gaurd at Martin State Airbase at the same time my dad flew A-10s at the same airbase. Young is still in the Gaurd, still flying, and he is also writing. He has a great personal narrative in Operation Homecoming, an anthology of writing by soldiers and their families. Go here for a few excerpts from the book, and buy it if you'd like to read his essay. I listened to him read the essay during the open-mic tonight.

Drinks again at the French House. Much talking. Chatter. Etc. Then some pingpong, etc.

Etc. Up too late, etc.

Today I felt less skeptical of people and my feelings of meanness went away a little and I felt a little guilty today. Today I felt relaxed and really hungry. Today I felt ecstatic and antsy. I also felt tired of talking to people, but I also felt happy to keep talking to people. I tried to calm myself down a lot today at certain points by thinking that I should just stop thinking too many things and stop saying stupid things to people.

People I know here now know I am 'blogging' about Sewanee. Dear people I know: I won't say anything personal. You are cool people. I will only say stupid things about me.

Also, last post I said that the other stories from that particular day's workshop were 'ok.' I do not mean that in a offensive way, though it is a vague word, I suppose. The stories were written well, I think. They seemed crafted well. I think my saying 'ok' there was more to describe how my taste affected my reading of them.

SWC: 3

2008-07-18T03:38:00.002-04:00

Today I woke up at 7am and chatted with Laura on the phone. Afterwards, I went for a run (about two miles). The Achilles felt fine, no soreness, no nothing, so I am feeling optimistic.

Afterwards, we had breakfast then the staff reading. Carrie Jerrell, Caki Wilkinson, Kevin Wilson read their work. All very good readers. I was impressed with Jerrell. She had memorized two of her poems. Caki read some hilarious poems with a very sing song sarcastic voice, which I liked. Kevin Wilson read two stories, one of which told the story of a man who gets smacked in the head by a robber prostitute. He is funny in a deadpan sort of way. We published him in our latest issue of Phoebe, so it was very cool to hear him read finally.

Then came some free time, during which I finished reading the stories for my workshop today.

Lunch.

After lunch, I started to get really nervous. Jim and I walked to workshop and then we sat there in the workshop. Christine Schutt sat there too and everyone else sat there. Christine was very calm and quiet. John Casey came in and was very loud. He demanded that everyone tell him their name. Then he posted his rules for workshop. Whenever he talked, Christine seemed stunned, but happy. Relieved. I dont' know. I am adding worthless things. We talked about my story first. Christine opened up the discussion and asked what people thought. During the workshop, I could not stop shaking. I wanted to throwup. I felt very nervous. People said that they liked the story. People said really awesome and nice things. Then people brought up some questions/concerns. I felt like I wanted to stop sweating, but couldn't. Christine picked several parts in the story to read aloud. One part she read aloud and said 'damn, that's good.' I felt happy. I felt happy with what she said about my story. I felt like I learned things. Several people in workshop said really smart things that I wanted to talk about more. We talked about these comments later. They were still smart later. I cannot believe I went first. I feel happy and sad. I felt really nervous. Afterwards, Christine said she was happy that I was working with her; I meet with her tomorrow to talk about the rest of the MS. That should be very good.

The rest of the workshop went well, I think, although I did worry about our inability to discuss the deeper issues. Because we were such a big class, and because John sort of took over with his tangents and his going around the classroom questions, it took us quite a while to cover the other stories. The other stories were okay, I think. I dunno. We talked about them for a while, and then we left for the reading.

Schutt read from her new novel. She read awesome stuff. I could not believe how awesome it was. I was really happy with her reading. She read from the sadder parts of her novel and from some happy, funny parts. I liked this.

Dinner (pasta - I got seconds, hooray)

We skipped the poetry reading tonight and instead drank outside for a bit, played pingpong, then went to the French House. Much talking with others ensued. After that, we went back to the dorm. More drunk pingpong happened. Then sitting around happened. Then sleep.

Goodnight. Tomorrow I meet with Christine to talk about my MS.

More soon.

mike scalise in Post Road

2008-07-17T12:44:00.004-04:00

Mike Rosovsky just handed me the newest issue of Post Road. The issue is nice looking - Mark Mothersbaugh did the cover. My friend Mike Scalise has an essay in this issue about someone peeing in a kitchen sink and other craziness. There is more to the essay than that, obviously, but yeah. Buy the journal.

Okay, back to reading before lunch/workshop.

SWC: 2

2008-07-17T01:57:00.004-04:00

I am going to type without thinking/revising:

1) Today started a little late. I slept in, woke up around 10ish and finished my review. Then Jim Scott and I went to the Tim O'Brien lecture. He talked about verisimilitude versus imagination. I think this had to do with 'believability' for me. O'Brien said that when a reader complains in workshop about 'not believing in a character' or some such nonsense, that reader is just avoiding the bigger problem: the story lacks imagination. I don't think discussions of a story's 'believability' are helpful (to return to a point I have made before), so I agree with O'Brien. Discussions of believability often replace tougher discussions: it's easier to tell someone that you don't believe something, that you want to smell, taste, touch, see a stinkbug/banana/fur coat/old lady, than it is to tell someone that the story they have written lacks imagination. Discussions of believability arise because a workshop group has trouble figuring out how best to discuss imagination. Imagination is not something you can workshop. You cannot revise imagination. Imagination just happens. An unbelievable story is a poorly imagined story. I do not want to read believable stories. I want to read stories that fuck me up. If I want to read something I can believe, I will read a newspaper article (maybe) or a grocery list. I can believe in a grocery list. I know that I must get milk and tortillas and peanut butter. I believe that.

2) This is a chat I had with Blake Butler earlier today. I was trying to explain what I thought about Jill McCorkle's reading last night:

me: ah
i mean it was a sad story
but i couldnt tell if i felt sentimental sad
or existential sad?
Blake: right
me: i have no idea what i am talking about
like
i felt sad
because i felt sad about my parents
or 'family'
which struck me as irrational to think that
like i was 'relating' to the story
in that way
Blake: hm
i do that too i think
sometiems
me: like
it is this trick
of putting you in the character's shoes
it doesnt seem to be true sympathy?
or whatever
but like
makebelieve
i dunno
i am still worrying about it
shoes
anyhow
Blake: example
?
me: i dunno
i am still thinking about it
like
i feel different when i read a schutt story versus a nell freudenberger story
like
like, ok, i might worry about a nell character or think how i would feel if thatsituation happened to me
but
it is not a suprise or new feeling
it is not odd and fucked up and languaged
it is feeling the same old feelings that iw ould feel anyhow
Blake: situational empathy
me: but in a schutt story
right
Blake: vs 'epiphianic' by texture
me: yes
i think that is what im thinking of
in a schutt story
i feel more at a loss
in a good way
Blake: yes
me: like i feel like i can read the language and puzzle over it
Blake: i was talking about this with my girlfriend
me: and still feel totally fucked by the story
Blake: a story that i read and think 'i could not have written this' is more likely to hit me and make me think than a story i identify with but could understand how it was written
sharper bullets
me: yes

I think I have 'figured things out' today. I feel good about today and about writing and about drinking. There has been much drinking at this conference.

3) After the O'Brien lecture, we went to lunch. Lunch was good. I zoned out. People at my table talked a lot and I did not want to talk to anyone, so I did not talk to anyone. I felt happy and very calm to sit there and eat my lunch and not have to talk to someone and ask them where they were from or talk about writing or whatever. I just listened to people. Many people here know much more than I do, can name names and talk about things better than I can, so I just sit and listen and learn things. That has been very good to learn things. After lunch, we had a bit of free time this afternoon. Jim and I walked into Sewanee. Sewanee has two stoplights. They are 'fake' stoplights. They don't really do anything but flash yellow and red, sooooo, yeah. Stoplights.

4) Romulus Linney read a play during the afternoon reading. I enjoyed the play. In it, a man describes the sensation of getting a blowjob from a dog. Soooooo.

5) Dave Madden is in my workshop. He is awesome. He is co-editor of this new journalish type thing, The Cupboard. He needs subscribers. They have one subscriber right now, Blake Butler, so they need more. The first issue features short short texts by Jesse Ball. Buy it. Support it. It looks very cool.

6) Dinner then Mary Jo Salter reading.

7) (namedrop alert?) Me, Jim, Josh Weil, Mike Rosovsky, and Margot Rabb walked down to Shenanigans, the local bar here, afterwards. We got pitchers and interacted with local people. We interacted with some Sewanee students, recent grads, who were attending the conference on scholarship. They said good things about the school and one guy said we should buy Wild Turkey and go hiking at night to drink at some swimming hole? Okay? The bar seems structurally unstable; the building noticeably leans to the right as you face it. Weird.

8) French House for more drinks. Had to pay up $30 dollars to be able to get drinks for the rest of the time here. Didn't stay too long. Nothing else, I guess, or at least that I can remember. Boring literary shit on the porch. Really boring actually. Discussion of somehow getting exciting things going: sex on lawn?

I feel mean right now. I feel skeptical. I told myself before going here to be skeptical of people, but instead it has made me think some mean thoughts. There are some crazy people here.

There are also really cool people here.

I am nervous. Apparently, I am now going to be workshopped tomorrow. John Casey and Christine Schutt and my class will be discussing my work. I will probably feel less mean tomorrow, more meek, etc. Maybe defeated. We'll see. Hard asses are all over the place here.

SWC: 1

2008-07-16T01:16:00.004-04:00

So I am at Sewanee. After staying up late last night, I woke up at 6:30am to drive the 10hrs down to TN and check in with the conference people. The drive went well. I watched some joker get pulled over by a state trooper in VA. That was exciting.

I haven't been back to Sewanee since my senior year of college, since I ran in an XC meet at the golf course. The campus is how I remember it: nice and woody.

Once I got here, I moved all of my shit into my room, met my suitemate Jim Scott, and then worked on that review for Scott. After that, I took a quick walk around campus to see how my Achilles felt (much better, though it is still a little sore), and then a group of us wandered off to dinner. So far I have met cool people, for example Mike Rosovsky and John Rubins and many others, and they have been cool to me, so I am happy.

After dinner, we went to a reading: Jill McCorkle (sp?). She read a new story. I cannot remember the title. It was long. I fidgeted a little with my hands.

I am having trouble getting cell reception, which makes it hard to call my wife. This makes me a little sad.

After the reading, I met more people face to face, including Cliff, with whom I chatted about the conference, the drive down here, Christine Schutt's book Florida, and other things. It has been nice to meet people with whom I am vaguely familiar online, but have never met in person. I have enjoyed this part of the conference so far.

There is a place called the French House for Scholars and Fellows and their guests and faculty. We went there tonight and had drinks. That was fun. I met more people.

My workshop isn't until the day after tomorrow, so I've got some free time to do things: read, work on the book review, go to craft lectures, workout, etc. We'll see what happens.

This is a slow post. Maybe faster posts in the future?

cabin, reviewing, my achilles, and off to sewanee

2008-07-15T03:04:00.005-04:00

I just returned from spending the weekend with a few friends up at my grandparents' cabin north of Gettysburg. I finished revising two stories up there, read the first few sections of my sister's novel and suggested edits, avoided the internet for a few days, and freaked myself out (the cabin is kind of remote and the woods seemed teeming with murderers). I think my friends also got things done, so congrats all around.

I'm scrambling to finish a review of this book. I am having trouble writing this review. I read most of the book this weekend, liked it, was confused in a good way, and struggled to reread it today and write the review. I am halfway done with the review, but am late on it. I will have to email Scott to tell him the situation. I am enjoying writing the review though, even though I am having trouble, so that is good.

I have not run since Friday. I am having trouble with my left Achilles tendon. I messed up my calf on Wednesday as I walked down some stairs in the morning, then I ran on it that evening, and on Thursday the pain had descended below my calf. I stupidly ran on it Thursday evening. I am annoyed at myself and at my Achilles. I am icing 2-3 times a day, stretching, and taking ibuprofen. It still hurts today, so my training schedule is messed up for now. This is annoying because I was supposed to hit 40 miles last week and 46 this week.

I am leaving tomorrow morning (today, I guess) at, like, 7am, to drive to Sewanee for the conference there. I am all packed, except for a few things. The drive is 10 hours, I think. I am going to be tired.

2008-07-03T16:08:00.010-04:00

Since this post over at the Guardian blog first appeared, people have had a few things to say about the subject it addresses: indie publishing. I have read many of these posts and liked what was said:

Blake Butler

Scott Esposito

Matt Bell

Josh Maday

Shane Jones (I) and (II)

Adam Robinson
(also read what Joe Young wrote in the comments section of Adam's post)

Have I missed any?

Somewhat related to this - check out the latest issue(pdf) of the Mississippi Review. It's a special issue that focuses on the 'literary magazine' after 100 years. What I've read so far has been interesting: they have a section of quotations by various literary people who have been involved with literary magazines over the years; an interview with Robert Fogarty of the Antioch Review; a discussion among various editors about the future of literary magazines. I haven't read everything (yet), and I also believe most of the articles/interviews have been shortened for the online version - the print issue will have more stuff.

Here is a quotation from 'The Future is a Magazine: A Roundtable...':

"The one thing that makes me unhappy about literary magazines is that I don’t know thatthey’re really trying to find an audience, to really be unique, and to live in a world where things are so brand-oriented and people are so busy. In the modern era I think we really have to sort of compete with [these] other things, and I think literary magazines tend towards just hanging low. I think that’s a very high risk position. I still love what’s happening in literary magazines, but I also grew up on them, so I’m curious what’s going to happen. I want them to change and evolve, and I’m not certain that they are evolving."
~Todd Zuniga

I like that Todd said this, I think. It makes sense, sort of? Hold up any print issue of Opium and compare it against, say, another standard print journal and it's not hard to guess which magazine is 'evolving' easily and which is still trying to figure stuff out. This is not to say that many of the standards haven't initiated some sort of interactive features (podcasts, featured print content, exclusive web content, whatever), but that these additions don't feel as strongly integrated as they could be. Later in that roundtable, Aaron Burch talks a little bit about how web content at Hobart both supplements some of the print issues (the 'travel issue' is a good example of this) and also goes in its own direction (the yearly online baseball issue).

I meant to add more things here, but I forgot what I was going to say.

london eye

2008-07-03T03:38:00.005-04:00

So in London, they have this huge extravagant ferris wheel kind of thing that Laura and I took a ride on (they called it a 'flight'). Anyhow, it was really tall and scary. I felt scared in it a little. It had good views, but I also felt scared. I could look down at the people below me, and they were tiny. There were kids in our 'flight' and that made me feel scared too because they were talking loudly. And a man put his hand on the door, right near where a big sign says DO NOT LEAN AGAINST DOORS or something, and that scared me too.

But it was fun.

Also, it rained.

Nothing exciting happens in this video:

For those interested, I have updated this with more links and have commented on this conversation.

i reviewed an anthology and linked to some old online stories

2008-07-01T00:19:00.014-04:00

So I recently finished writing my review of Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2008, an anthology of the best online writing from 2007 (as judged by Steve Gillis, Dan Wickett, Nathan Leslie, and Steve Almond). I liked the anthology. I wrote a 'clean,' favorable review. The review should be up at Newpages.com tomorrow.

*See the reviews here*

Writing this review made me remember several things from back when I first started reading online lit journals three years ago. So, these are things I read online that I think nice thoughts about every now and then and am attached to for irrational reasons. Many of them are from only a few places; my knowledge of online journals was very limited.

I feel nostalgic about these pieces. I don't know why I like them. I just remember them being things I enjoyed reading at the time I read them.

Also linked are more recent online things that I think about in good ways as well every now and then. So that is good.

I feel like all of this is obvious, everyone will know these anyhow, and that I am only cluttering up the internet.

I could probably link to many more, I guess, but I need to do something else besides this, so I won't. I will stop thinking of more.

*Okay, I just copied and pasted everyone's suggestions from the comments right here in an unorganized manner*:

'October' by Tao Lin at Hobart

'February' by Tao Lin at Juked

'Zombie Sharks With Metal Teeth' by Stephen Graham Jones at Juked

'The Present' by Matt Bell at Juked

'Diary of the Living Dead or: Are You There God? It's Me. And a Bunch of Zombies' by Jake Swearingen at Pindeldyboz

'the MFA in hamsters' by Tao Lin at elimae

'Birds' by Gene Morgan at McSweeney's Internet Tendency

'Richie' by Tao Lin at Bear Parade

'Small Pale Humans' by Daniel Spinks at Bear Parade

'Redefining All-You-Can-Eat' by Blake Butler at Hobart

'This Is a Song About Google, Not Nikolai Gogol' by Ryan Downey at Lamination Colony

'A Blind Dog Named Killer and a Colony of Bees' by Mary Miller at Smokelong Quarterly

'1993-94' by Curtis Sittenfeld at Mississippi Review

'Driver' by Frederick Barthelme at Barcelona Review

'So, This is Drink' by Sean Lovelace at DIAGRAM

'only bastard in town who prefers brunettes' by Elizabeth Ellen at Juked

'Pipes' by Etgar Keret at KGB BarLit

'Cremains' by Sam Lipsyte at Open City

'Trick or Treat' by Stephen Schottenfeld at Mississippi Review

'A Crisis for Mr. Lion' by William Preston at Zoetrope: All Story

'Your Narrator and the Mermaid' by Darby Larson at Pindeldyboz

Also, I tried, but could not find the Darby Larson that Gene suggested...

So yeah.

'tone ghosting'

2008-06-29T22:37:00.006-04:00

So a few days ago, I wrote up something lazy about the Cheryl's Gone reading series I attended/read at. Anyhow, in that post I said that I was disappointed at having not witnessed Jeff's 'Tone Ghosting.' I assumed that because he didn't physically use a hack saw and old records during the set, then he must have been doing some of his 'normal' experimental music.

Anyhow, Jeff wrote me an email a few minutes ago to sort of explain his set (and I'm glad he did):

"Hey Ryan--Thanks for the mention in your blog. I just wanted to let you know that you did actually experience Tone Ghosting. These days, all the noises from scraping vinyl LPs with hacksaws are contained on loops that I manipulate during my set. Lately, I've been making the drum machine rhythms more regular, too. It's all improvised, so I'm always changing it around. Lots of people want to see the record sawing, it seems. I may have to give the people what they want! They may be sorry!"

So yeah, there it is: Tone Ghosting.

Thanks, Jeff, for the email and for the clarification.

His stuff can be purchased here, for those still curious. Read more at Noiseweek.

google analytics

2008-06-26T02:01:00.002-04:00

To the person who found my blog because you typed into your search engine the phrase "my hermit crab fell off a far ledge is that bad":

That is probably bad, and I hope the hermit crab is okay.

'believability'

2008-06-25T02:23:00.003-04:00

I just finished reading this book called The Sleeping Father. Matthew Sharpe wrote this book. Soft Skull Press published it in 2003. It is 291 pages long. I read half of the book in one afternoon. Then I took some time to do other things. Then I finished the book one evening a few days later. I read it quickly. I also laughed at certain points while I read it. It is very 'ironic,' the book is. Characters say the opposite of what they mean. Characters do the opposite of what they want to do. All of the characters are very clever, except for the father, who had a stroke, which made him less clever than he was before. Before he had the stroke, he was really clever.

This book made me think of writing workshops. I have complained about writing workshops to several people recently. I am going to type out what this book made me think about writing workshops.

There are several things that happen in the book that I can see someone thinking, 'this is not believable.' I can see that person writing down that statement on the back of a stapled copy of this novel so they will have something to say in workshop the next day. I probably at one point have done something like this, said, 'this is not believable' about some story in a workshop. Example: at one point, the kid in this novel sneaks his dad out of the hospital room for a Thanksgiving dinner. The father just woke up from a coma a few days before, or something like that, and the kid dresses him up and sneaks him out. This is a seventeen year old kid. What could possibly be not believable about this: how does no one see this happen? how does the one guy that sees it happen let it continue to happen until the boy and his father are out of the hospital? Someone would have stopped this from happening in real life. But Sharpe does not write that into the scene, so it doesn't happen in the novel

I think when someone says that something is 'not believable' in a story, it can mean at least three things: 1) the writer has not written the thing well enough to make the language make it be believable or 2) the reader is lazy or 3) some combination of both. There are probably other things as well, but I am focusing on these things, because I have worried most about these things before. What matters least is the believability of the thing in the story, I think. I am assuming that this thing is what is best for the story, that it is the best choice out of the many choices the writer has to make in writing the story. So let's assume that for now?

So in the case of 2), the reader usually says, 'this is unbelievable because my friend is depressed, and when you are depressed you don't think this way.' The reader here is not enjoying the story, but is worrying about her friend's depression. The reality that she has lived directly affects her reading of the book so much so that it gets in the way.

In the case of 1), the writer maybe should try to write in such a way as to convince the reader that his version is the most believable, that she should not worry so much about her depressed friend and instead try to worry about the story. If a writer can do this, then he somehow connects the reality of his book to whatever his reader has experienced in her reality.

Does this make sense?

I feel like I am talking too clinically about writing right now. I don't think I said this how I wanted to say this.

Okay.

I read this post by Erika Dreifus. Her post made me think about this a little bit and then The Sleeping Father made me think about it more.

fuzzy hats

2008-06-21T00:44:00.002-04:00

From the trip to London.

i read things and other people read things and then there was electronic music

2008-06-20T01:49:00.003-04:00

So I just got back from reading at Cheryl's Gone. I have already talked about the before. So this, I guess, is a simple report on how everything went.

So Big Bear Cafe is very nice to let us read there. It is a small cafe sort of shop thing with cafe sort of chairs and all of that. Wade set up the little area with seats and tables facing a podium sort of thing and a mic/PA system. Jeff Bagato set up his sound equipment behind that.

A lot of people showed up? I was surprised. I did not expect that many people to show up for some reason.

The reading was very fun. I was very nervous and could not pick a story to read. I had three newish stories that I wrote a few months ago and have been revising sort of off and on. They all were pretty short, maybe a little over 3,000 words, but I could not decide, so my wife picked one for me to read. That was a relief. The story did not take long to read, I do not think, even though I felt like I was up there for a long time. People laughed during the story, which made me both happy and more nervous; they seemed to like the story, but they also laughed sometimes at places in the story that I did not expect them to laugh, I guess?

Mel Nichols read some flarf poetry from a few journals (I think?) and then read from her chapbook Bicycle Day. She may have read from her other chapbook, but I don't know. Sometimes I did not understand what she was saying between poems; the PA speaker thing distorted quieter voices. But, I laughed a lot during her poetry. It was fun to hear the different combinations of words come together. Also, she read poems about Benjamin Franklin's man boobs.

Jeff Bagato's music was crazy, but in a calmer way than I expected. I mean, it was loud, but it was also calm. He played an electronic drum pad with his right hand, so most of the sounds he made were over of a pretty steady beat. He made sounds with his voice into a mic that was connected to what looked like a series of effects boards, which he messed with. I cannot describe the sounds. Sorry. I was a little disappointed though. I was hoping he would do his 'tone ghosting' stuff. This did not appear to be 'tone ghosting' as there was no saw and vinyl.

DJ Renegade read his poetry off of a little handheld PC thingy. He is also tall. I enjoyed listening to him. His voice is a nice poetry voice, I think.

After the reading, several nice people that I did not know came up and said that they liked my story. One man in a suit said that he was learning to be a 'stylist' and that he wanted to talk to me about my syntax. I think this is what he said. He repeated a quotation by some author about vowells and consonants, but I cannot remember what author he was quoting. Then I said something about how the study of grammar had shifted from the Latin-based understanding (ie, parts of speech) to a more structural/transformational approach due to linguistic research in the early 20th century. I have no idea what he was talking about, to be honest, and I actually have no idea what I was talking about either. Nor do I know why I said what I said. We did not seem to communicate well and I had trouble hearing him.

I met a girl coming into the program at Mason, so we talked a little bit about the program.

I met two writers from the program at Arizona who had recently moved to DC. They had worked on Sonora Review last year, the year before Astrid started editing the fiction, so that was nice to talk about that.

Another person asked me if I had a book. I said no. He said he hoped I would have one soon. He asked if I said I had a website. I said no, I have a blog. He said okay.

I drank two Miller High Life beers.

Thank you, friends who are reading this, for coming. Sorry that Adam and Joe couldn't make it due to traffic issues from the O's game letting out (O's beat Houston 7-5, it looks like).

Thank you, Wade, for setting this up and inviting me to read.

"run faster"

2008-06-14T23:02:00.004-04:00

I am having trouble with my internet. I have not blogged recently because of this trouble. When I do have access to the internet, I am usually at the writing center doing writing center stuff or at home checking my email. And by the time I want to blog, the internet stops working for some reason. I have not been able to get onto the internet to blog because many times the person from whom I'm stealing the internet stays on the internet all the time, so it weakens the signal and makes it hard for my computer to connect. I am assuming this, anyhow. At least they haven't yet figured out how to password protect their internet. I usually can only use the internet late late at night or during the morning. Even then, it is sporadic. I do not know why. My wife said that she wishes we could call to complain about our internet. But we cannot.

This post is about running. I am at the stage in my running where I think I am in shape enough to start running workouts each week. I have been running for nearly two months now. I have slowly added mileage to not get injured. This week I ran 23 miles. Next week, I hope to run 30 miles and run a steady state and run some strides. We'll see. Eventually, I would like to run a race, maybe an endofsummer 5k. Again, we'll see.

I think that if I post this information and link to my running calender, then it will force me to continue running so I don't look like a fool.

So here is my running calender - I am trying to figure out how to make it better and smarter sounding. I have not yet figured out how to post future workouts to be worked out. That would be easier than looking at this piece of paper that I'm using now.

Also, I am tired of teenaged hecklers.

Teenaged hecklers, it is not helpful to tell me to "run faster" when I run by you on the street.

Avery #3

2008-06-08T23:45:00.008-04:00

Okay, so I will say this quickly - if you go and buy a copy of Avery #3, the editors of Avery will email me your mailing address so that I can send you a free copy of the newest Phoebe. This is a limited time offer. This special deal will end on the last day of July. This once in a lifetime opportunity will exist for two months.

Send $ to Avery. I will send you a Phoebe.

So, I just finished reading Avery #3. I read it quickly, all in one sitting. It is 55 pages long (the shortest of the 3 issues Avery House Press, Inc. has released so far) and consists of 5 stories by Sherrill Alesiak, Malcolm Dixon, Tom Whalen, Rob Roensch, and Blake Butler. The cover is really really good. Doug Mack did a good job with the cover. I am jealous of the cover, actually. The little yellow leaves, the crisscrossing wires, the mail truck are very nice to look at.

This issue of Avery is disorienting. I mean this in a good way. This also may have been due to my laziness as a reader, but maybe not. When I read Alesiak's story, "Birds of Paradise/Birds of Prey," I did not understand at all what was going on until the third page. Perhaps my inexperience with leper colonies added to my confusion? Well, I feel a little more knowledgeable about leper colonies now.

And Malcolm Dixon's story, the language of it, disoriented me with its odd rhythms, the odd meanings of each word, how the characters spoke to one another. I could have read that story for another ten pages. Thank you, Dixon.

I resisted most Tom Whalen's story, "Faculty Meeting." I felt mean towards the story. I wanted to beat up the story. I felt as though I did not want the narrator to survive the faculty meeting. I cannot explain my urges here. I apologize.

Rob Roensch's story has dogs in it. I liked it. There is some vague, sad matter that happened in the spring before the dogs appear in the story. But the story only mentions the dogs. All kinds of dogs.

Blake Butler's story is ________.

Also, changes are happening over at Avery. Andrew Palmer and Doug Mack are leaving. Emma Straub and Mike Fusco are taking their places.

Emma Straub was Stephin Merritt's assistant? That sounds fun.

I am tired. I'm sorry. This was a lazy post.