Last Day in San Marcos

It looks like it's not going to rain for the move tomorrow, which is great, though hopefully the truck bed won't be too damp from the rains happening tonight.

Today I'm going to get one last haircut from Monty at Calcutta's. I'm going to try to sell some shoes to the angry woman at Retro Vintage, then I'll drive out to the Goodwill with the good book selection and drop off another load of donations. Tonight's the last night we can see Grindhouse at the $1.50 theater, and I'm willing to go see it again if my life is in boxes by then. If anyone wants a half-filled Zooka's card, or a half-filled Mochas & Javas card, or Monty's phone number, or a mosquito coil, or some tokens for a laundromat you can use for free if you break in through the screen window, let me know. These treasures become worthless at the city limits.

I've promised free Home Slice to my happy helpers tomorrow, and anyone who wants to come by for post-move pizza and beer should e-mail me for my new address.

My flash project continues. It's daunting to change style twice a day, and my last few attempts have settled into a "Woody Allen circa Without Feathers" kind of tone. Gotta pull out of that one. Here's 5/23 AM, by request:

There's no rule saying you have to be a child to compete in the Westbrook Elementary School Science Fair! I read the Rules and Regulations very closely! I spent approximately twenty-two hours on my volcano, which I have named Nancy! I put her chemicals in bottles I labeled with my calligraphy pen! When I arrived, holding Nancy aloft, the women at the check-in desk admired my work aloud and asked me who I was bringing this project in for and I said I am entering this category for myself, please! My name is Donald and this is Nancy! And they did laugh and one of the women made a clicking noise with her fingernails on the table because she wouldn't recognize ambition if it slapped her in the face!

lame post

does anyone have experience or good info on companies to use for consolidating loans?

You Spin Me Right Round . . .

Rebecca has informed me that TONIGHT, our attendance is needed at Elysium on 705 RED RIVER for drinking and dancing festivities. It is 80s dance night. People, I know it is raining, but what can be better than strapping on your fishnets or black vinyl bra and gettin' on the dance floor? Ok, maybe thats just me, but BE THERE.

Philip Roth, Baby!

So I'm currently reading Roth's The Counterlife. I kind of love it. What other Roth is worth reading? (yeah, I already know about American Pastoral. I'm hoping for testimonials of the less mainstream ones.)

Bye Austin-bound-Amelia. Bye Everyone. Next week, actually a week from today, I'm moving back to Arkansas. My wedding is July 28th at 1:00 p.m. at Old Reyno Free Will Baptist Church in Reyno, Arkansas. Everyone should come and have some pastel mints. Love.

Project

I spent the last three months working on a story that is now pretty much unsalvageable. I wanted to try the six-month plan for a story, really give it time to mature and blossom into something nice, but instead it feels uneven, and some really great lines are overshadowed by paragraphs and paragraphs of stilted pap. It's like trying to bake a cake in a pan with uneven heat spots, and finding spots of the cake are still raw while others are overdone.

So I scrapped it, for the time being at least, and started a project where I write two flash stories a day, one in the morning and one at night. I have nothing too good to show for it, but it's nice to have a small project.

I also scrapped Gary Lutz--he's great but he gives me a very strange feeling when I can't sleep at three in the morning. I think the feeling is that Gary Lutz is out there, somewhere. Next I'll try Gilead, though I've been warned that I won't like it.

I'm moving to Austin next week. Let me know if you have extra moving boxes I can borrow or take forever.

Be a PENtor

This is the story of how I became a mentor:
Once upon a time, Michael and I were sitting in my sun room and I told him that one day I wanted to teach creative writing in a prison. I had gotten the idea from a budhist nun, who came to my mom's house for Thanksgiving. I was reading The Things They Carried and thinking about how stories can heal. And here was this nun telling me about how much she loved teaching poetry to prisoners. ("Best, most appreciative, most talented class I've ever taught," she said. "They are literaly a captive audience.") A few years later, I rent What I Want my Words to Do to You with Eve Ensler (of Vagina Monologues fame) and I was sold. Then I meet Michael and you wonderful people. Michael tells me about the PEN Prison Writing Program. I contact them, they send me a story and a name (I'll call my guy Donnie because he was my favorite New Kid). So I give Donnie feedback and he gives me more stories. I get to feel humbled. He gets feedback from a twerp. We both feel pretty good about it, I think.

The thing is, they only have 17 mentors right now and they have scores of prisoners who write award winning stories. So if you are interested in learning a little something about the program go here. You can read several award winning stories (one of which is written by my mentee). If you want the nitty gritty on mentoring go here.

If you like the idea send an email to Liesel Tarquini at prisonwriting@pen.org.

i finished my route work early, so i now have about three hours to sit in front of my computer. i thought, when i started doing the window work, that i would be able to think about stories and fix them in my head while i mopped, squeegeed, and wiped. but as it turns out, i'm instead fixating on everclear lyrics like this:


i think the white men in the black suits
they are the machine.
yes i think that they diminish you
and they diminish me
i think they are the machine.
i can still hear all those people say
la la la la

for hours at a time. that everclear guy, he was angry. but that's about all he had going for him. i'm thinking of investing in an mp3 player of some sort, because spending my days alone with this guy is tedious.

in response to abby's request, here's what i'm reading:
- stuff for ireland
- an awesome anthology called "This Is My Best" (writers pick their own favorite works and introduce them).
- Joyce Carol Oates' "Views and Reviews," in which she rips lucy grealy a new asshole (i wish. not really, but she writes candidly about a lot of contemporary folks).

here's what i've bought:
- beasts of no nation by Uzodinma Iweala
- an ancient Tin House from last summer
- a black shirt with a golden rooster emblazoned upon it

A few things I don't know

1.
Tracy's e-mail.
Anybody know it?

2.
How to post links. (But if I could I'd send you all to:

www.golakes.co.uk/wordsworthrap/

This would make my 1320s groan)

3.
What to read next. What are you reading?

All you have to do is write your novel this year

Walter Mosley has some encouraging words about beginning a novel. Anyone else thought about giving the novel a good honest effort after three years of stories?

More Belly Laughs Than Saunders

So, if you're like me and are depressed--anxiety ridden--about the immediate future, you may need to laugh. It makes me feel better. Lately I've been finding such amusement in Jack Pendarvis. The book I have is called The Mysterious Secret Of The Valuable Treasure. Also, check out his novel excerpt in the current issue of American Short Fiction. It's from his forthcoming novel Awesome--the title alone is, well, awesome. He's a regular contrib to Oxford American, McSweeneys, Believer--all of those fancy pants journals/mags. I first heard of him from Tom Franklin in that interview he did in Front Porch.

Lets Stay Together

I don't care about the title. I don't care about the layout.

But I don't want to lose you people. Ever. So before we all go make some history--lets make a blog.

When you get published, when you get agents and awards, when you read a phenominal book or story, when you get jobs or babies or therapists or whatever we are supposted to get now that we are masters--I want to be one of the first to know. I want always to know what state you live in and what town in that state.

I also think we all maybe need a little extra support right now. It being a time of transition.

And it might be kind of useful to have a place to post questions like--I'm working on a humorous death scene--anybody read any good short stories with funny deaths in it? Or why does the attached dialogue from the first chapter of my novel seem stilted?

And I took a ton of pictures this weekend so once I figure out how, It would be fun to share them here.

I thought it would be nice to make us--2007 graduates (Amelia, Bearden, Carmen, Jack, Michael, Sarah, Rebecca, Tracy and me) all modirators, add the others who started in 2004 with us when they graduate, and keep it focused on fiction writers and craft. We can and should encourage the poet-graduates to post and to start their own blog we can link to.

So will you be a co-moderator if I (with the help of my trusty computer savy masters JackandWolfe) can figure out how to do this?