petals around the rose
Oh man, it took me a good five minutes to figure this out but finally I did: petals around the rose Make sure you check out the comment section (I LOVE how defensive some of the people are).
The Book of Laney
Category: Uncategorized
me without you
Watched Me Without You last night. Oh, did I love this movie! It captures perfectly what it can be to be in an intense female friendship–the love, the hate, the jealousy, the desire to absorb that person into yourself until you become the one person you believe yourselves to be. The problem is that these relationships can be so intense that they become toxic. … Read More me without you
take it or leave it
Since spring–well, actually since the spring before last–I’ve been planning on having a yard/garage/bunch-of-crap-that-we-don’t-want-anymore sale. The problem is that I never got past the planning stage. Why? This is what I asked myself. Why? As in:Why would I want my neighbors pawing over my crap and laughing at me afterwards?Why would I want a bunch of strangers milling about my driveway?Why would anyone want … Read More take it or leave it
She’s back!
If you’ve been missing Sue Henderson’s blog (as I have!) then you will be happy to note that she is back and has gorgeous new digs at litpark. Go on and visit her and bookmark the site.
open for business
The beloved SmokeLong Quarterly is back open for submissions–send them your best work.
read it
Joseph Young reviews Mary Miller’s Broken: “Broken,” then, is a shallow pool, all surfaces and light. It hasn’t the deep, probing psychology or humanistic revelation of emotion that have become de rigeur for the modern short story. Through her use of surface values–humor, quirkiness, even a bit of cruelty–Miller liberates her flash from these requirements. Meaning has been cut free from fiction.
geriatric?
Poor Darby got a tooth pulled yesterday. According to the vet it had a “fracture” (i.e. was cracked). He was anesthetized and catheterized and IV’d and then his teeth were cleaned and checked. The vet did a “geriatric” blood test to check his liver and kidney function prior to putting him under–apparently he is in excellent health. What troubles me is the label geriatric. … Read More geriatric?
"Listening is not describing."
Chapter ten, the final chapter, of Steering the Craft is about “Crowding and Leaping.” Crowding is defined by Le Guin: It’s what we mean when we exhort ourselves to avoid flabby language and cliches, never to use ten vauge words when two will do, always to seek the vivid phrase, the exact word. By crowding I mean also keeping the story full, always full … Read More "Listening is not describing."
Happy Birthday to…
my friend, Jordan Rosenfeld (who also has a brand new web site–click on her name and check it out).
"They use their characters as mouthpieces for what they want to say or hear."
Let’s skip ahead to chapter nine of Steering the Craft, which is chock full of rich and useful information. This chapter is on “Indirect Narration, or What Tells.” Here’s the bit that leapt out at me: If all people in the memoir say only what the author wanted to hear, all we hear is the author speaking–an interminable monologue. Some fiction writers do the … Read More "They use their characters as mouthpieces for what they want to say or hear."
I’ve been bloggasmed!
Check it out: interview with Myfanwy Collins.
"The only real present time is the reader’s"
Chapter six of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft on “Subject Pronoun and Verb” is one of my favorite chapters. I underlined or starred about 3/4 of the paragraphs. Here’s the bit that grabbed me the most, though: To discuss the use of tense, we have to realize that in fictional and nonfictional narrative, the “past tense” is not past and the “present … Read More "The only real present time is the reader’s"
myfanwy collins 