Tag: amwriting

It’s Not Made by Great Men

Yet that’s how I wrote it.

Yesterday, I went to the Greenfield First Sunday Word open mike. I read my blog post A 500-Word History of a Lost Civilization That Stood for Over a Thousand Years. As I was going through the piece, I realized that what I was reading was a high school history report. Which is fine, I suppose. Paul and others joked that there would be an exam. Hah. The original post was a writing assignment I set myself to see if I could do it. The challenge was the title. All in all, I give myself a B for that post (to continue the joke.)

Readers of this blog will note that last week I posted about seeing Gang of Four up in Maine the previous weekend. Before I got up and read, I thought about referencing the band before I read the piece, but ultimately decided not to. I’m not one to avoid a mixed message generally, but in this case, it didn’t seem like the right thing to do to put what would ultimately be seen as a disclaimer in front of my own work. I try not to do that.

But here’s the disclaimer I didn’t perform at the open mike. I agree with the sentiment in that song. And the piece I read (as you will see if you go back and look) is all about a few of the Great Men of the Eastern Roman Empire. I’m currently working on a novel that is a fantasy set in some factually erroneous version of the world of the Romans. One of my rules for the book was that it would not be about the nobility or rulers of the Empire. I wanted it to be about individuals walking around on the ground, not the folk in Blachernae Palace. There’ve been so many “court intrigue” novels. I have no desire to write another.

Perhaps, at some point, I’ll write another history post and try to give the flavor of the life of an ordinary Roman, and maybe something about how that changed over time. What would it be like, I wonder, to live in a stable, long-established place in the Empire? Probably not so different from any other place in the main, but very different in certain details.

One detail I can share is about how a middle-class house in the Empire was set up. There was always a great central room where day-to-day living, entertaining, and even worship would typically happen. It wouldn’t include the kitchen, although dining would likely take place there. Kitchens were always off to one side and out of sight.

Stay tuned. This interests me. I’ll see what I can do.

I’ve noticed
When some celeb dies
I first think,
“Another
“One who’s managed to escape
“These terrible times.”

–7/24/25

Here are Some New Seven-Word Stories

Imagine Israel and Palestine, a single state.

I am listening to the first Genesis.

I am enjoying a glass of Meletti.

I need to write about this album.

*å#@#å*

We’re painting our house red next week.

The US has a corrupt neoliberal government.

Update About My Incessant Scribbling

I guess this is a thing now.

I recently got published in Meat For Tea: The Valley Review with a piece called The Casserole Tree. I read at their issue release party at Gateway Arts Center in Holyoke. I didn’t read the published piece, I had already read that one out, and there was something else I preferred to share. I liked that event. It’s in a bar, there was music and visual art and poetry and rock music. I’m looking forward to the next one.

As far as the piece I read at Gateway Arts, I plan to read that one again at Paul Richmond’s Third Tuesday Word this week.

Work on the summary of The Story is proceeding. It’s taken me months to even summarize this thing, and all I can think as I go through it is how much work it needs. I am sure it’s going to grow from the current 120K draft, but who knows by how much? All will be revealed in time, I suppose, but this thing is not going to get shorter, and there is so much work to do. It really is going to take years.

I want to read an exerpt from the thing in front of people, but open mike slots are 5 minutes as a rule and I want to read for at least 10. I haven’t found a 5 minute chunk that’s worth excerpting!

In other news, I still have the Socialist Ghost Story sitting out, waiting to be returned to. I was struggling with that one a bit, but I theorize that the reason I was struggling is Too Many Irons In the Fire. Once I can devote my whole brain to it, it will come into sharper focus. I am afraid it might be a while before I do get back to it. Maybe I should drawer it, but I definitely want to go back and finish it.

My “Career”: A Report From the Wilderness

Back in September of 2015, I was accepted into Lesley University’s low-res MFA program. I had applied in two genres: fiction and nonfiction.

I was more interested in fiction at the time, but I sent along the second application, figuring that if I couldn’t get into my first choice, I had another opportunity to advance myself via this other stream of writing that I had begun pursuing.

I got the call notifying me of my acceptance a full week before the deadline for applications, but was told that I’d been accepted into the nonfiction genre, not the fiction genre that I had hoped for. Still, I was pleased to have been accepted into the program. On reflection, I felt that the selectors had been correct, as the nonfiction writing sample I had given them was the stronger of the two I’d sent, and I had applied in nonfiction, so it was entirely legitimate for the school to offer me a slot in that program.

In fact, I was the only nonfiction student in my semester, though beginning in my second semester, another student who had taken a semester off joined me, and kept pace with me until the end.

Still, I was left with some reservations that I had to work through in order to find my way to enthusiastically embracing the idea of being a nonfiction writer. Was it really what I wanted to do? Could I embrace it as a course of study leading me to my beloved genre fiction while bypassing some of the conventions of mainstream fiction? If I were to be a nonfiction writer, what exactly would I write about? I’d been accepted into the program on the strength of a memoir piece: was memoir all I had to offer as a nonfiction writer?

Without a clear answer to these questions, I dove in and began producing new work, absorbing what I could from the seminars, workshops, and one-on-one mentor/mentee work that would be the bulk of the means of imparting my training as a writer. In the end, what I hoped for happened: I left the program a much more confident writer, with a deeper understanding of my craft.

At the other end of that process, I find that I am unclear on my direction forward. I have harbored the notion that my training in nonfiction would stand me in good stead as a fantasy fiction author, and there are stories I mean to write that are of that sort.

But I also have a few essays that I’ve written, a couple I’ve placed in tiny markets here, another there, a couple that I would like to find a home for somewhere, but haven’t yet. I am also about halfway through a book of memoir essays. I think I have some good stuff, but I need that much more to get to something that actually *would* be a full-length memoir.

My few brief encounters with agents through the auspices of my MFA program leave me with doubts as to the salability of that work, though the consensus is that the quality of my work is good. What’s lacking, then, is a sense of mission. My idea of what I want my career as a writer to look like — what I want my work to mean — is less than completely formed.

I don’t know that I should know what my body of work will ultimately look like at this point. But I should have goals, and some sense of how to proceed towards them. I am working in a vacuum. I have described myself as being in that post-MFA wilderness. I haven’t found my way to connect what I do to an audience. I am walking through this desert somewhat aimlessly.

But I am walking, and I am looking for trails and signs that will lead me towards civilization — towards what I want from my writing, which is to be a part of the cultural conversation. My ideas, my metaphors, my stories: I want them to matter in the world.