Literary Blog Relay: A Stranger Comes to Town and Says, “I know your sister…” « distraction no. 99

Literary Blog Relay: A Stranger Comes to Town and Says, “I know your sister…” « distraction no. 99.

Nova Ren Suma’s magical ending to our literary blog relay is perfection. Enjoy it here!

Here’s the entire lineup. What a talented bunch of writers I got to “meet” on the internets. Thanks so very much to Christine Zilka for inviting me! It was wonderful fun and the jumpstart i needed to get back to work.

1. Wah-Ming Chang
http://wmcisnowhere.wordpress.com/

2. Jamey Hatley
http://jameyhatley.wordpress.com/

3. Stephanie Brown
http://scififanatic.livejournal.com/

4. Andrew Whitacre
http://fungibleconvictions.com/

5. Heather McDonald
http://heathersalphabet.wordpress.com/

6. Christine Lee Zilka
http://czilka.wordpress.com/

7. Jackson Bliss
http://bluemosaicme.blogspot.com/

8. Jennifer Derilo (to be posted on
http://czilka.wordpress.com/
)
9. Alexander Chee
http://koreanish.com/

10. Nova Ren Suma
http://novaren.wordpress.com/

You’re Not From Around Here « Koreanish

remember the stranger in this town literary relay i took part in? we’re approaching the finish line.  here is alexander chee’s amazing entry.

You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?

I didn’t answer right away. It was the sort of thing guys like him always said to me, always presuming I wasn’t from here. But I was from here, had always been from here, and always would be…(click link below to continue)

via You’re Not From Around Here « Koreanish.

fess up friday

the process edition (because it’s all process)

hello lovies. i have been chiseling away at my novel. i keep changing my mind as to whether i want to count hours or do something to keep track. page counts and word counts are pretty useless to me. i can write a huge number of words only to delete them the next day, so that accounting method is particularly demoralizing. yesterday was one of those days in the process that i hate. it usually occurs on the heels of a particularly good day. i leave the safe area of finishing up a scene, a scene that works, only to be thrust back into the depths of unedited or yet to be written muck. all of my confidence just wilts on the vine, and i wonder if i can move forward. so i fidget. i drink too much coffee. travel to the end of the internet and refresh my social networking sites a bazillion times. i read a bit of fiction until that makes me nervous. but i sit. and eventually i wait out the panic and begin again.

so enough stalling. i’m ready.

onward.

the river, he noted, had darkened.

i’m running a race! not really. anyone who knows me knows that i only run when chased. this, however is a literary relay.  the lovely Christine Zilka invited 10 bloggers to write 250 words (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction) on the theme “a stranger comes to town”. The first leg of the relay was gorgeously written by Wah-Ming Chang. Wah-Ming’s piece was so exquisite that i had a bit of page-fright. each person uses the last line of the previous writer as their first line. Here’s the link to Wah-Ming’s first leg:

Part One: Man and Ghost

i was endlessly inspired by my donated first line. i even have a soundtrack. i couldn’t get this song out of my head when i started writing. here’s my entry:

The river, he noted, had darkened. Or was it his imagination? It was hard to say in the tricky light of the full moon’s shadows. He felt like a fool. He had work, a fiancé and a life to return to in Brooklyn. He told easy, slippery lies about his extended stay in Mississippi after the funeral. He was desperate to leave, but desperate to stay–obsessed with a wild-haired woman named for the county he could not abandon. Alzada. Alzada. Alzada. From the moment he arrived, she was everywhere he was. Her spirit twined to his like smoke. After three weeks a local cousin sent him to a rootworker.

He followed the directives precisely. Wrote her name nine times in red ink on a torn paper, used a silver teaspoon from her kitchen to gather her footprint, mixed it up with hot foot powder and folded it into a packet that was to be his emancipation. The loud country silence swelled around him. Had the packet actually hit the water? He thought he heard his name and glanced back towards the gurgling river.  The old woman had been clear.  Walk away and do not look back. He had made it all the way to the crossroads of his freedom. Was this defeat or triumph? His heart did not care as he stumbled towards his lover’s house. His hand poised to knock, he saw her illuminated in the doorway, her face drenched with tears. I didn’t think you’d come.

next up is Stephanie Brown.

here is the entire relay team in order of appearance:

1. Wah-Ming Chang
http://wmcisnowhere.wordpress.com/

2. Jamey Hatley
http://jameyhatley.wordpress.com/

3. Stephanie Brown
http://scififanatic.livejournal.com/

4. Andrew Whitacre
http://fungibleconvictions.com/

5. Heather McDonald
http://heathersalphabet.wordpress.com/

6. Christine Lee Zilka
http://czilka.wordpress.com/

7. Jackson Bliss
http://bluemosaicme.blogspot.com/

8. Jennifer Derilo (to be posted on
http://czilka.wordpress.com/
)
9. Alexander Chee
http://koreanish.com/

10. Nova Ren Suma
http://novaren.wordpress.com/

secrets

I think books should have secrets, like people do. I think they
should be there as a bonus for the sensitive reader or there as a
kind of subliminal quavering.  ~John Updike from a Paris Review Interview

you can read the full interview here.

revision blues

taryari jones talks about how revision is a hell of a drug over on her blog. over on twitter i replied, “and right now i’m sooooo high!” little did i know how true that statement was. up until yesterday i had worked on my book every day this year. yesterday was day 45/32. even though i was exhausted, i dragged myself to the writing table each day, happy to put another day on my tally. a few days ago i got a scratchy throat. i usually do a pretty good job of listening to my body. i knew that i was getting rundown, that it was time for a break, but my ego was in charge. being in the thick of a revision can leave you with a feeling like being buzzed. i wanted to push, to get another day in. the perfectionist in me wouldn’t cut me any slack. i didn’t think i deserved a day off until i finished the section i was working on. never mind that i had been working for six weeks straight. that i worked through the superbowl and mardigras. it wasn’t enough. so devolved into a revision/perfectionist induced mess. yesterday i hit a wall. i always caution my friends, “if you don’t have sense enough to rest, you’ll just get sick so you can get some rest.”  so right on cue, i’m sniffly, sneezy and achy. finally, i’m going to take a nap.

fess up friday

43/32 the once again, you have everything you need edition

To be an artist means never to avert your eyes. ~Akira Kurosawa

she keeps writing and writing and writing. as i keep racking up days on my writing challenge, it is hard for me not to see the increasing numerator as a failure instead of an accomplishment. i’ve been revising on this chapter every day this year.  on day 32 i thought i was thisclose to finishing this section. 11 days later and there is still so much work to do! i have been antsy for the past few days and instead of being completely present in the work i found myself judging my speed, my process, my progress. just generally distracted. on twitter, my fellow writer randa jarrar (our fiction appeared in the oxford american’s race issue together) hipped me to macfreedom, a utility program that disables the internet for a prescribed amount of time. as my patience and focus dwindled i decided to give it a try. using macfreedom for the past two days showed me how i had been using the internet to “avert my eyes”.  what i needed to do is remain focused. then (and only then) the work would speak. when i can remain focused, push down the fear, the voices that tell me that i’m not good enough, the work isn’t good enough or that i’m just plain wrong, i am rewarded beyond my imagination. what i keep forgetting is that the frustration is part of the process. and just on the other side of a breakdown is a breakthrough.

quotables

greetings from day 40/32. i’m still writing, y’all. today, while the rest of new orleans was at the parade celebrating our boys, i was at the writing table, exactly where i wanted to be. lately, these quotes pretty much sum up how i’m feeling:

No more talk about the death of the novel; the novel will be at your funeral. ~Richard Price

I’m not a workaholic. I’m an artist with a body of work needing to get done. RT @gapingvoid

I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write.~P. G. Wodehouse

onward!

Books: Barnes & Noble Discover Awards: Best Debuts , Undiscovered Writers – Barnes & Noble

Books: Barnes & Noble Discover Awards: Best Debuts , Undiscovered Writers – Barnes & Noble.

i’m doing the happy dance because my fellow rocket girl and partner in wine barb johnson’s book is a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for her debut collection of short stories More of this World or Maybe Another!

A writing career becomes harder to scale – latimes.com

A writing career becomes harder to scale – latimes.com.

writer dani shapiro gives us the goods on what a writing life looks like these days.

Call it stubbornness, stamina, a take-no-prisoners determination, but a writer at work reminds me of nothing so much as a terrier with a bone: gnawing, biting, chewing, until finally there is nothing left to do but fall away.