Still Not Getting There

 Trying to get my tabs closed for possible submissions. 

L=Y=R=A is brand new and still it leaves me thinking it is too advanced for me.

Checking out BigCityLit, so I read Threesome by Patrick Dawson; on the Hemingway end of style, emotional containment, and a story to knock off your socks. I skimmed Saint of the Lepers by Geri Lipschultz, which stirkes me as grim as what I have to offer while not so grimly written. I am pushing "Problem Solving" right now, which has more in common with László Krasznahorkai than Hemingway. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Next was Moot Point. KH would love this one - an editorial staff of female MFAs. Thing is, they cut off at 3,000 words. This eliminates "Problem Solving." I will send them, "Colonel Tom."

Read over Fellowships, Scholarships, and Funding Opportunties this November 2022. Too bad I do not write children's books. Now that would give my PO heart failure.

From the CLMP's Calls for Submissions, I submitted "Problem Solving" to the following:

1. Devastation Baby: a new magazine;
2. The Southeast Review: which has a special submission for persons who are currently or formerly incarcerated; contest fees are also waived. 
3. Meetinghouse Magazine. (Dartmouth College)
   
4. Tampa Review
5. The Georgia Review 

I sent the same story to BigCityLit

"Colonel Tom" went to Nixes Mate and Moot Point. Highly unlikely, probably the wrong places, but I went ahead and did it anyway. What has my life been but going into the wrong places, disregarding the wisdom of such goings? I even paid $4 to the latter for the privilege of a rejection, with my only excuse being I found their site charming. "Colonel Tom" also went to Meetinghouse Magazine, as they allow for two submissions at a time, and are free.

While checking out The Georgia Review, I read First Aid by T. Cooper, and thought it amazing. A Covid story, a family story with such very good prose - worth your taking the time to read it. My own may not be up to snuff, but, again, nothing ventured etc.

I finished reading Will John Irving’s The Last Chairlift Stand the Test of Time? by Dimitri Nasrallah and published by The Walrus. I had one shock (Irving is 80 years old), and some things to chew on:

Irving has built a storied career writing about those marginalized for their sexual orientation and has long described these lives with complexity. While he was once praised for addressing LGBTQ+ issues in the 1980s and 1990s—especially unlikely for an author whose books were in every airport and on every bedside table—he’s now writing in a world where such subjects are neither surprising nor radical. And, increasingly, they are within the purview of the communities who identify with them. The Last Chairlift has many similarities with Irving’s classic novels, but times change, as do contexts. It raises the question whether audiences will still come to Irving to hear these stories or to see themselves reflected in his work.

###

The literary world is now blooming with voices once considered “outsiders.” As John Self wrote in his essay “The Rise and Fall of Sad White Men” earlier this year in The Critic, “In a world where fiction is as likely to be marketed on its author’s story as its characters’, we want to hear from other people. And maybe it’s not just readers, but literature itself, which has become exhausted by the same stories.”

The self-representation of such voices has found readers precisely because they are able to offer new linguistic and stylistic approaches to present their identities. Will a Dickensian novel like The Last Chairlift, still rooted in the dusking privileges of the “Great American Novelists,” appeal to those flocking to more authentic representations, or does it risk merely co-opting struggles in the name of advancing its author’s social outlook? Here in Canada—where Irving has lived in part for more than three decades—recent years have seen lauded works by Canada Reads winner Joshua Whitehead, Amazon First Novel Award winner Casey Plett, and the 2022 Prix des libraires winner Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, to name a few.

And the conclusion from Canada is:

By contrast, The Last Chairlift rarely feels fun in its attempts at being progressive. Irving still relies on the kind of slapstick that defined the leads of his more youthful novels, and Adam goes through familiar motions as he searches for meaning while being surrounded by a carousel of larger-than-life personalities. But the results, after four decades of weathering social changes, are decidedly more contemplative and long winded.

In an interview for his previous novel, 2015’s Avenue of Mysteries, which features another aging writer grappling with memories from his boyhood, Irving described recurring manifestations from his autobiography as a catalyst for taking risks in his fiction. “I’ve always written about what I fear. Maybe the most autobiographical element in my novels is that they’re not at all about what has happened to me, they’re much more about what I’m afraid of, much more about what I hope never happens to me or to anyone I love.”

Readers today may wonder if this inclination toward reuse hasn’t grown, well, a tad predictable. Where exactly is the risk in this fiction? The Last Chairlift is a wandering book held together by Irving’s steadfast insistence on microdetailing every scene to the point of suffocation. For long stretches, its only discernible plot is how Adam navigated Irving’s personal boyhood mythology to become a successful writer, which is about as navel gazing as it sounds. We are meant to spot the contrasts between life and art and make the most of those results, even as we feel we’ve already heard the answers. Instead of seizing this moment, both Adam and Irving appear to yearn for a time that was simpler in some ways and more complicated in others. 

Hmm. I went through all the John Irving books I could at prison. John Hulse  gave me The Water Method Man about 40 years ago (a book lost post-arrest). I think he wanted me to keep on writing. I did not. However, I did find in The World to Garp a book that did revitalize my interest in being a writer, and one I recommended to anyone wanting to be a writer. Taking all that into account, he has tropes and an attitude that can be wearying if taken in too large of a dose.

It is 4:29 pm. We have about an inch of snow. Having had lunch, I am going to take a short break. All the submissions on deck this morning are done. 

I read 5 Tips for Crafting the Perfect Short Story. I read it with "Colonel Tom" in mind. Other than being read as a downer, or as not the product of an MFA program, I have to think the problem is plot. There is not much of one, the protagonist is dying and waiting to fight death. There is not much in the way of exposition as in explaining things, I added a little dialog for clarification, the description is very sparse, and everything is geared toward characterization. I am close to giving up on the story. Unless the page limits will not allow "Problem Solving," I am not submitting "Colonel Tom."

I read LAGBOT-45. by Oyedotun Damilola Muee from Omenana Magazine. There was a typo that put me off at first, but when I started reading, the story's voice won me over. While interesting to see what a Nigerian would see as the future, the story itself holds up as an AI story. Besides, who doesn't like a story of justice done and an underdog vindicated? Anyone reading this post who enjoys speculative fiction, please give it a look.

Over time, I have written several times about how I wanted to be a writer, gave up, and only returned to fiction after I nuked my life, and it was suggested by friends that I try writing.  I now have a bee in my bonnet, have permanent residence on the soapbox, about keeping others from going down the path I went. Writing has kept my depression in check, it feels more like the right thing to do than practicing law. I suspect many of us have injured ourselves by bottling up our creative instincts because we do not think we can make a living, because nobody around here does that sort of thing, because we're never going to good enough to even try. None of those things matter. Doing the work matters. Trying to our best matters.

All that brings me to Malinda Lo's On Self-Rejection and Writing From a Marginalized Perspective. She says about the same thing as I do, albeit with better prose. She speaks from experience. 

Something I appreciated on the #dontselfreject hashtag was a shared sense of disbelief and relief: disbelief that so many of us marginalized writers have done this, and relief that we are not alone. That’s why I think it’s so important to talk about these things in public, to share our experiences and be open about the struggles we’ve faced and are facing. You are not alone, and I am not alone. This is a struggle we can go through together. #dontselfreject

Unlike me, she has written bestsellers. She is not just some crazy old Hoosier howling over lost time. 

And I would read a lesbian Cinderella. My curiosity is not all dead from the loving embrace of the federal government.

I went on to reading more of Ms. Lo's blog posts. The following comes from Building a Real World:

World-building is about establishing a believable cultural structure for the story you’re telling. The world informs the way your characters lives their lives, sometimes bluntly, sometimes subconsciously. The world is the context for your characters’ actions.

Not just for fantasy writers, as she writes several times in the post. And lessons I thought I had in my mind until I got to "Rituals". These I had not thought of, and particularly striking was this:

...The trick is to see that reality is constructed, and in a story we’re constructing the reality directly. It’s also useful to consider whether your point-of-view character understands these dynamics. Their consciousness or lack of it will color their behavior.

The point is not that every social situation should be depicted ritually, but that the concept of rituals can help you see a situation from a more dynamic and deliberate angle. Every scene involves power and tension. Viewing a scene through the lens of a ritual helps to reveal who has the power and where the tensions might lie. All of that helps to strengthen the culture and the world you’re depicting.

I have "Chasing Ashes" in my mind with this, but it does apply to about everything else. Well, research is why I came to Muncie, and I will need to keep this one in mind.

I cleaned out all but one tab. That one is for submitting plays. It is 6:47. I am going to work on the pretrial detention journal for a few, then more submissions.

9:12: 3 posts out of my pretrial detention journal. I spoke briefly with my sister. We still have snow on the ground, and it is 31 degrees outside. The Dems have the Senate: Democrats Clinch Nevada, the Senate, and a Chance to Be Free From Joe Manchin. Everyone wonders if the Dems will keep the House, but no one asks if what will happen if they tie. For myself, I am not sure if it would be a bad thing for the Republicans having to govern, the public might get a foretaste of what will happen if the Dems lose in 2024. Listening to WXPN's blues show.

Submissions for another hour, and then sleep.

Some things never go away, our past is never really past, but we can cover things up. A little bit harder to do that with YouTube. Ladies and gentlemen, not just Bob Seger, but another time, another culture, when we were all scruffier and sophistication for other people, in other places, ah, the rebellion of Detroit rock:

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