Just Been Here

Thursday was one of my bad days - tired and lethargic and with stomach problems. Not much energy. I got some writing done, but not enough.

 Friday:

I woke up about 1 am - stomach upset - and went to work on the latest story,  "The Women in His Life"
I quit around 5 AM. I do need to sleep some time. Anyway, down to the last 4 page of the typescript. I could be done tomorrow. 

This week's group session was just reporting and chatter. How is this to help me reintegrate into society?

Napped in the afternoon. 

Back to  "The Women in His Life" after that.  

I learned a little history when I was conscious:

 

Rejection from 9/19: 

Thank you for sending us "Problem Solving." As a student run journal, we do our best to keep up to date, and we apologize for the delay in responding to your submission. We appreciate the chance to read your work. Unfortunately, the piece is not right for LIT at this time. We wish you the best of luck in finding its home.



Kind regards,

LIT magazine

I catch myself my feeling like a day tripper. 

 Saturday.

This morning I finished with "The Women in His Life". Around 16 days, even with scanning. 61 one pages. 16,689 words. I am worn out. Taking a break from all of this for a while. 

 CC called all worried about me, wondering why I had not called since we went to see Nosferatu on Wednesday at Cornerstone. She needs a truck to get her stuff moved. We get together. I take her to the Farmer's Market, and she is like a kid in a candy store. A watermelon, roasting corn, a quesadilla, a brownie, a lemon shake-up. The only thing she did not like was the drink. The watermelon may have worn me. It weighed a lot. She and I estimate 30 pounds; my own opinion was more like 40. Carrying it may have dislocated my shoulder.

Then we got the truck. I went my own way - Dr. Tavel's to shop for new glass and get mine straightened, Best Buys and Staples to shop for a monitor. By the time, I got to Best Buys, the stomach was back at it.  I bought a few new old books at White Rabbit Books. Great place; check it out when you are in Muncie.

 Today's rejection for "Learning the Passion and Control Twist" (what was "No Ordinary Word"):

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work. Unfortunately, we don't feel it's a good fit for our journal.

Please keep in mind that opinions about writing are highly subjective, and just because a piece isn't right for us doesn’t mean it won’t be perfect for someone else.

Editorial Staff,  The Lascaux Review

I made more submissions.

More history:

Song for Saturday:
 

The difficulties of writing history comes out in the review The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom (History Today). In the back of my mind, I wondered how would a conspiracy theorist read such an open admission that there is a lack of decisive facts. Would they find a "they" keeping the facts obscure? It seems to me those who find conspiracies refuse to find human frailties where they can find intent. At what point do they find themselves barricaded against the world behind their beliefs that what is commonly accepted by history is trumped by their secret knowledge. (Albeit, how can it be so secret if known conspiracy theorists?)

Sunday: 

Another one of those days when I had no energy and my arms just cramped. No church, much to my embarrassment. Most of the day sleeping. I did go out to get the monitor I looked at yesterday. I have not been able to get it to work.

 Brilliant short story here combining fishing, ecology, and fatherhood with prose that enchanted me: Oncorhynchus by Joseph Jackson. It is the winner of The 2025 Traver Award Winners.

I put off reading Do We Even Need Literary Writing? (Beyond Craft). It's the energy thing, my arms and shoulders are again cramping and painful, but it also feels like I am mollycoddling myself. I started reading it, and, of course, I fell in with its thesis:

If I say a book is literary what does that mean to you?

There’s really no set definition for literary. Some people refer to it as a genre; others as a style. Could be you think of literary work as character-based instead of plot-based. Perhaps you think of literary writing as something of greater intellectual or emotional depth. Could be you think of literary writing as using a lot of multisyllabic words and long sentences with lots of clauses to say something that could have been said in just a few words. Maybe you think literary writing is pretentious and boring.

My personal choice is depth—the kind of writing that explores ideas, characters, and human psychology, and refuses to settle for their surface attributes. With characters especially, literary writing goes far deeper than the perceptions conveyed on first read. Just as in real life there is more behind the façade—motivations, contradictions, complexities. That depth enables us to have a greater understanding of people who seem different from ourselves, and seeks to find the commonalities among us. These days I believe we need that more than ever 

I am listening to a David Brooks interview while I read this essay, and I may be conservative according to his definitions (although, I still prefer Paine to Burke), but I find this paragraph sad, as a sign of a declining civilization:

Perhaps we are already on the way toward that. I have read some superb pieces of literary writing in my lifetime. Most of them were written decades or longer ago. Since then publishers, especially major publishers, have attempted to make books in general more accessible to the market, labeling work as “literary” some that employ simpler language and structure, and more easily comprehended themes. Readers no longer need to do as much work to understand these books. Or perhaps I should say they don’t need to have as complete a knowledge base that would allow them to parse the difficult levels of meaning. That may sound quite snobby, but I think there is some merit to it. 

Should we, the readers, let ourselves be talked down to, or shall we rise to the challenges of a literature that does not treat us as children?

This leaves me feeling even more disheartened about our civilization and its politics:

The New York Times recently ran an article titled, “Reading Skills of 12th Graders Hit a New Low.” It reported, “High school seniors had the worst reading scores since 1992 on a national test, a loss probably related to increases in screen time and the pandemic…The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, long regarded as the nation’s most reliable, gold-standard exam, showed that about a third of the 12th-graders who were tested last year did not have basic reading skills.” That’s “basic” reading skills, let alone being able to comprehend literary work. The National Literacy Institute reports that 54% of adult Americans have a literacy below sixth grade level. Without basic reading skills it is almost impossible for people to understand advanced ideas in any other subject. It’s little wonder major publishers and bestselling writers continue to simplify their work.

Do think about this:

Yeah, reading literary—true literary—work is not necessarily easy. It might be best to think of it in terms of Dostoevsky’s analysis of evil—literary writing as necessary evil…or just necessary. Without it how can we possibly know what is good? 

 More history:

Songs for the day:

 

 

I found some hope in our politics here:

 

A few more submissions made.

 Monday, 

and I slept in. I talked to CC last night, and she is having problems finding a storage facility, and may need the truck for another day. With no Matins, I slept in. One other post done - on politics. Wrapping up this post.

CC called just now. I need to call U-Haul. She still does not have a storage facility. She is thinking of moving in, and of finally going clean. Call me a bit skeptical of all that. She has a probation violation hearing tomorrow. The State of Indiana may decide to curtail her freedom.  

And I need to start packing.

I think I'd like to be a casual agent, too:

I have to get my teeth into something, before this move turns into a disaster.
 

 

sch