Listening

Greetings from Korea (insert postcard of neon crosses lighting up the Busan skyline here). I've been thinking, probably unsurprisingly, about communication. Maybe it's that I've been reading Joy Williams's The Quick and the Dead, with its fantastically strange dialogue (review pending), or maybe it's just the whole idea of two weddings, one Korean and one American, or maybe it's that I'm revising a story about cannibals that try to stop being cannibals after a little loving contact with a group of Europeans, I don't know. But communicaton seems all the rage these days.

It's a strange thing. We read so much fiction by authors who were ostracized in their youths and who write about ostracized characters, yet it seems especially true in stories that people need people to talk to. (Unless you like those stories with only one character--I generally don't.) This doesn't necessarily mean people really get to communicate, but it means they're trying. I re-read Carver's Cathedral recently, and what struck me about the collection is how much more grace seems offered to the characters than in his earlier stories, and how that grace comes through finding someone to communicate with. I don't mean to say these stories are better--I actually prefer the earlier ones--but stories like "Fever" and "A Small, Good Thing" allow characters to connect in a way that some of the earlier stories don't. This seems to give the book a more hopeful take on life.

So, since I'm in a hopeful mood, full of Christmas spirit and eggnog, I think I'll give my cannibals a chance to connect . . . just before they eat each other. I guess what I meant to talk about was how giving your protagonist someone who will listen to him can be a great thing for fiction, but oh well. Instead, I'll recommend some recent lit mag releases (shameless plugs and more!): Redivider, MAR, Black Warrior Review's sad animal issue. Read.

Holiday Gifts? Buy Women for Women

Here's a holiday gift suggestions for those of you who are still shopping -- check out Women for Women International's bazaar, which sells crafts made bywomen survivors of war.

For those of you who don't know, Women for Women is an award-winning nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lot of women in war-torn countries.

You can sponsor a woman, which entails a $27/month donation. $5 of this donation keeps the organization running, and the rest provides your sister with staples for her family, and pays for job and rights-awareness training. Depending on where and how educated your sister is, you may be able to correspond with her. At the end of one year, each woman "graduates".

The upshot is this -- the organization helps women in warn torn countries find each other, recover, start self-sustaining businesses, and apply for micro-credit. In my book that's a worthwhile goal.

So consider getting me a set of those cutting boards(are you listening, Santa?), or better yet, sign up to sponsor a woman.

The First Page

So these days reading slush for Ploughshares and Redivider, as well as working for Fringe, I'm reading a lot of pour-water-over-my-head-to-wake-myself-back-up, clamp-jumper-cables-to-my-nipples-to-wake-me-back-up, boring-as-rust first pages. Lizzie talked about cover letters a gazillion posts ago; I thought I'd do a sequel. Here's some thoughts on the first 300 words, because really, an editor can tell from page one whether the story is going to be good or not at least 90 percent of the time. So print this out, crumple it up, and eat it--that's supposed to work for memory. Three simple rules:

1. do something new.
2. start the story arc.
3. write a brilliant sentence.

Why? Because (1) editors are sleepy and they've probably already read 20 stories by the time they get to yours, (2) the most tiring thing in the world--more tiring than Thanksgiving--is waiting for a story to begin, and (3) the editor carefully reading your opening sentences should be given a reason to continue doing so. I think if I don't get two of these three things in the first page, the monster under my bed ends up finishing the story. He likes to eat paper too, but not for memory. He likes it because "it tastes like smart."

Lonely?

In the Prologue to Strange Pilgrims, Gabriel Garcia Marquez talks about a dream where he goes to his own funeral and sees all his friends there, but when he wants to leave with them, he's told he's the only one who can't go to the after-party. (That's right, in dreams there are always after-parties.) Well, Marquez relates this being-left-behind to expatriation and isolation. Sounds heady, I know, but as a minority and an adoptee, isolation is all up in my writing's business, so I thought I'd talk about it. I thought I'd talk about setting as well, so be prepared for the following mess.

So here's what I'm thinking. Sure, Marquez uses the unfamiliarity of the setting to isolate his characters. Why not? They're pilgrims, after all. But when they really feel isolated is when they run into things that should be familiar to them but aren't. Like when the Prez in the opening story runs into people from his home country who lie to him about their motives.

Marquez also uses the ole pathetic fallacy, where the Prez's thoughts are mirrored by the weather and place. This is okay if you're going for the magical realism thing. Yet what is it Charles Baxter says about the pathetic fallacy--that a setting can be stronger when it doesn't rely on the character? I think there's something damn good to say for that. The character should experience isolation in spite of what's around him. I'm just saying, it gets a little tiresome to see rain when someone's sad, sunshine when happy, no one around when the character feels lonely. Why not let your characters feel lonely when they probably shouldn't? It's more lonely when you're sitting next to someone and still feel alone.

Depressing and serious. I'll try for something more ridiculous in my next post, I promise. Let's just say my dreams are about dinosaurs and The Paris Review. Don't ask.

Flannery O'Connor and Heroes

So this is my first blog attempt and I'm assuming it's going to suck, but stick with me. Good intro, right? Now I'll talk about what kind of food got stuck in my teeth this morning (cinnamon apple sauce) and my favorite kind of toilet paper (whatever that commercial is with those red bears!).... I thought that was how blogs worked? You see, I did a little research. Dwight Schrute's blog is about a time capsule he sent to himself. No, really. I'm actually getting to something literary. Seems to me time's a pretty mysterious mofo. Heard about this study about how people like to see, in their movie trailers, everything that's going to happen in the movie? Not original. Flannery was doing that stuff ages ago. See "A Good Man is Hard to Find." You know damn well they're going to meet the misfit the moment the grandmother, and then the storeowner, mentions it. Or "A Circle in the Fire." Fire's in the title, even, and it's the protagonist's greatest fear. What she really pulled off is making us pant with anticipation (that's right, like a dog) until we get there. Why don't we see this in a lot of writing today (though, yes, there are exceptions like Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex--on our Best Books List)?

Actually, this isn't what I wanted to talk about at all. What I wanted to talk about was dialogue subtext. In "A Circle in the Fire" (really one of O'Connor's fastest moving stories) we've got this woman who's convincing herself the invading boys are only hungry and will soon leave vs. the boys who know exactly what they are doing but pretend to speak politely. The suspense is in waiting for the subtext to come to the surface, for the woman to realize (or let herself realize) what exactly is going on, in opposition to what is being said. That's a whole lot of suspense, a whole lot more than just wondering what physical action will play out. If you look back at pop culture, you'll see this at work in shows like Heroes, where characters will have whole conversations full of disparate subtexts, disparate levels of knowledge (though this is probably easier to do when your characters' identities/super powers are secret). Too heavy? My time capsule would include gay Albus Dumbledore, embryonic research, global warming in a tube, a copy of James Scott's OneStory, an issue of the latest Redivider, my upcoming issue of Mid-American Review, other shameless plugs, etc. And yours?

the Sampler

The latest Sampler arrived at my house the other day. For those of you who haven't seen one--and it is elusive--it's a monthly packet of small samples from indie crafters, zines, record labels, and makers of various stripes from around the country. All these little bits of stuff are collected and packaged up at Sampler Central, wrapped in tissue paper, stuffed into a Priority Mail envelope, and sent out to lucky people all over.

For about five months, I would go to the site and attempt to get a subscription, and every time I was too late. Even so, I loved the Sampler in theory. Finally, last fall, I hovered over my keyboard the minute subscriptions went on sale, and I got myself one. Every month for the past three months, a package of surprises--some great and some so-so--has arrived in my mailbox. Hooray! The good things have included: fabulous fabric swatches from Repro Depot; vintage button earrings from tomate d'epingles (I wear em all the time!); random new music. Not so hot: a preponderance of one-inch buttons. I mean, how many of those can one girl use (unless they're Fringe pins, of course!)? But overall, I love the Sampler.

The best way to get one, I think, is to barter. Get crafty and send them some samples (check their submission guidelines first!). It's like trading friendship bracelets in grade school, except the stuff you can make now is probably a lot hotter, and you get to trade with all kinds of folks. You get a one-month subscription when you send in a certain amount of stuff, and it's good incentive to pull out the sequins/ribbon/wood scraps/whatever.