March 19, 2009
COWS EAT GRASS WITHOUT PLANNING TO MAKE MILK
There is a lot to be said about writing slowly.
Everyday.
After everyone has gone to bed.
And I know I should too.
But what did I mean when I wrote all that stuff earlier today?
I wonder how anyone can write without disassociating from themselves and then afterwards have to have a conversation of the self that wrote with the self that is plain normal.
Posted by girija tropp at 12:15 AM | Permalink
May 13, 2008
For Your Reading Pleasure
From the Latest Issue of Diagram:
Posted by girija tropp at 12:48 PM | Permalink
May 05, 2008
MORE ON THE GRANTA SSA
I've been observing how my husband seems to be able to read a hell of a lot more books than I have and come to the conclusion that a writer's life is one that is so busy that the love of reading that prompted one to begin writing in the first place somehow gets perverted by the need to find time to write. Plus that awfully analytical thing that comes into play when I begin reading... and then I wish for the innocence of non-writers.
Anyway, I've been noticing my husband ploughing through the Granta Book of the Short Story edited by Richard Ford... Over Here and wishing... and then this morning I opened to his bookmark (my husband's) and read the short story by Kevin Canty, a wonderful piece of fiction titled 'Blue Boy'.
Posted by girija tropp at 01:18 PM | Permalink
April 20, 2008
PICKED UP A SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY TODAY
Plus I saw a movie at the Nova with a wonderful performance from Edward Norton in:
The Painted Veil, a period drama that was suprisingly engaging. I recalled how I used to love reading Somerset Maugham!
Posted by girija tropp at 11:55 AM | Permalink
March 29, 2008
LATEST AT SMOKELONG
My story MEDICINAL is up here in some great company:
Currently Reading: The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Currently Slaving Over: Demolishing and Rebuilding an old novel
Currently Finished: A piece of Microfiction (Yesterday)
Just done: Joined GoodReads -- Hope I don't regret this ie., Should I be adding anything extra to the things that occupy my day? The Bare Bones of my page there is HERE.
Posted by girija tropp at 12:27 PM | Permalink
February 27, 2008
A COUPLA COOL SITES
A preview of Kim Chinquee's Oh Baby is here at the Mississippi Review website. Such gorgeous morsels of microfiction to tempt you. I'm going to scrounge up some American dollars to send for my inscribed copy!
The second one is Booksketch, a really neat and unusual site--and the blogger's own description--"Booksketch is drawing from literature. In other words, illustrate what images pop up in your head as you read." And this time the entry is of Ron Currie's wonderful book God Is Dead. Check it out.
Pia Z. Ehrhardt recommended this one (link sent to her by Avital Gad Cykman)--the StumbleUpon Site--in her words--a crazy time-suck excercise.
Posted by girija tropp at 09:37 PM | Permalink
January 30, 2008
A STORY IN MERIDIAN
I have just received my copies of Meridian with my story Twilight Sky Things and I'm excited.
I've been tardy with letting everyone know that I'll not be able to attend the AWP this year (I was on a panel and I am hoping that I'll be forgiven for this bombshell--drama-at-home has made my attendance impossible). However if you are there do drop by the Meridian table and have a look! There's nothing so amazing as seeing all the wonderful journals and their editors all in the one place. I know registration is sold out but if you are there...
This story first appeared in Best Australian Short Stories 2005 after Frank Moorhouse rang and asked if he could have the story for the anthology. It had been runner-up at the Josephine Ulrick Awards that year (I won the following year with another story). I sent him the story but it was a revised version and he said -- Could he have the older version with which he'd fallen in love (What a buzz that compliment created).
So I was really stoked when Meridian wanted the piece which had gone through another few incarnations.
Posted by girija tropp at 02:00 PM | Permalink
January 23, 2008
MOST RECENTLY
A little more than recent I must confess. However better late and too late:
My story at SEGUE. In case the page moves -- it is the Fall 07 issue.
Another at QUICK FICTION:
This is only in print. Order the micro-book online at their website. Kim Chinquee has also got a story in here. A matter of two for the price of one, I think, or something like that.
Also, another pointer to a story of mine in QUARTER AFTER EIGHT. I tried to mark this page for the blog last year but had problems. So here it is afresh.
Posted by girija tropp at 06:45 PM | Permalink
January 10, 2008
NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS
I am planning to read buckets of novels this year. And to take as long as I want to on my own novel. Chilling out, in other words.
Meanwhile I have been reading:
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt -- Slow beginning. But this is a wonderful book with keenly drawn characters. Leavitt pulls off a recreation of the period--seen from the perspective of the mathematician G.H. Hardy and creates a finely woven drama when Hardy brings a self-taught mathematician, Ramanujan, to England. One might be tempted to think the cool tto almost cold ones of the prose might create a damper on reader attention but I was pulled in slowly into this world, mathematics equations notwithstanding!
On the opposite end ot the scale, there was TC Boyle's Talk Talk. A page turner. This is one author who knows how to plot. I raced through and when I finished, I had the same feeling I get when I've overindulged in sweet treats!
Posted by girija tropp at 06:10 PM | Permalink
November 01, 2007
THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT (To continue on from article in Victorian Writers Centre Magazine)
Start with an interview with Stephen King in The New York Times -- he was series editor of the last Best American Short Stories 2007. Some of this content is in his introduction to the series. Particularly funny is his account of searching for the literary magazine section in bookstores.
Roy Kesey's story Waiting is the first one I went to. I gave feedback on this story when he invented it. It was wonderful then and I was thinking to read the story I had already read and was blown away by edits which changed the story again, a whole new level of fabulous! A new ending and more that I could not detect. This must mean that a great story is never finished till it is.
And here is Jean Thomson's response to the King article. I finished reading her SSC Throw Like A Girl and found recommend it highly.
Moving on to interviews with favorite writers on the website of the National Book Foundation. Denis Johnson who published a well-received SSC some years ago has come out with a novel, Tree of Smoke, that is sitting on my reading table. From his interview:
BAJ: In a country such as ours, where reading is in such a state of crisis, what is the role of the fiction writer? Does being a finalist for such a prestigious award affect how you view yourself in that role?
DJ: Storytellers have enjoyed quite a wide audience over the last few centuries. Now it's dwindling, and if the world's leaders have their way they'll probably return us to an era when we tell tales around small fires in caves. But we'll always have stories to tell. It's nice to be doing it when folks still think it's something worth giving out awards for.
Then there is another finalist, of my favorite minimalist writers, Lydia Davis, whose SSC I read a few months ago. She says:
BAJ: What drew you to the stories?
LD: A few of the stories, especially the longer ones, were inspired by other texts and incorporate the language of other people, including non-writers (as, for instance, the study of the fourth-graders' get-well letters called "We Miss You"). I find the writing of non-writers, in particular, wonderfully fresh and surprising, and in some of the stories in this book I enjoyed taking it up and combining it with my own writing. More generally, what lies at the source of these stories is some strong emotion, whether that emotion is grief, anger, indignation, love, pity, or even delight in a piece of language.
Here is the main page of the National Book Foundation for further reading.
Over the years, FAVORITES:
Julie Orringer How to Breathe Under Water
Tobias Wolff The Night In Question
Anything written by Kawabata
TO BE CONTINUED...
Posted by girija tropp at 08:52 AM | Permalink
August 31, 2007
A MANNA OF SHORT STORIES AND MOVIES
I had just put away my collections of short stories - finished the Pushcart 2007 and almost-finished the O'Henry '07 - to begin reading a few novels, starting with Cormac McCarthy's The Road when:
My first issue of my Harper's subscription arrived and there it was - short fiction by David Bezmozgis' titled The Proposition. One of the books I brought back from my first trip, last year, to the US was his Natasha and Other Stories. He was also one of the workshop instructors I was fortunate to meet at last years Zoetrope All-Story camp in Belize. The story in Harpers is a wonderful one and it reminded me of a 2004 Argentinian movie I saw this week - Whisky.
The guy at Video Dogs in Carlton has promised me another in the same vein - Brazil - that I am looking forward to.
Posted by girija tropp at 07:01 PM | Permalink
August 19, 2007
MY COFFEE TABLE IS COVERED WITH SHORT STORIES
Yesterday, the cafe was short-staffed and my son agreed to work if I took him in and then onto his friend's place at the end of his shift so he could watch football. My husband asked if I could keep an eye on the counter as well in case they needed me to take orders.
I took a couple of books with me and managed to read about four pages in three hours because I was constantly aware of everything that was going on in the cafe. At some point, a woman called Donna (have I remembered right?) sat next to me and asked about the Granta upon which I had propped The 2007 Pushcart Prize XXXI BEST OF THE SMALL PRESSES. I had begun reading Richard Burgin's Vacation (the four pages) and I finished it this morning. I'd forgetten that I'd started it because of 'my coffee table that is covered with such a treasure trove of short story anthologies and collections'. I'd picked up Colm Toibin's Mothers and Sons and finished another story - Famous Blue Raincoat - and was thinking of the musical setting and how that was so much the Ireland I'd visited around the time the story took place.
I told Donna that she ought to, absolutely, read this collection by Colm Toibin. It is suberb. She told me that she liked his work anyway. I said that I did as well but this was beyond first rate.
I also recommended the 2007 Pushcart which I have been reading cover to cover - I love the arrangement of fiction, poetry and essay here in a 'Best Of' selection. Besides, it has Kim Chinquee's FORMATION, a wonder that originally appeared in the literary magazine Noon.
In reading Kim's story, I was reminded of reading Noon when I was in New York, cover to cover, and the story, The Caterpillar by Lydia Davis, that appears in her SSC from Farrar Straus and Giroux, Varieties of Disturbance. But more about this book in my next post.
Now I should be excused for a moment -- a friend of ours has become a grandmother, her twenty-old-daughter has just had twins, girls. WOW!
Back again - It is by accident that my coffee table is full of these marvellous SSCs. Mothers and Sons came via the library, but the others are from my last Amazon order. In my next post - a full list.
But more about the gems in the Pushcart 2007: Cool Things by Brian Doyle from Oregon Humanities. Check that journal out. The Medicine Man by Kevin Moffett. I wondered why the name was familiar until I realized that Kevin Moffett's SSC had won the Iowa Prize the year before Jim Tomlinson did, and that I'd fondled both books at the Atlanta AWP before buying Jim's (there is only so much one can carry across international waters). Poetry by Louise Gluck, fiction by Laura Kasischeke with the fabulous title: If A Stranger Approaches You About Carrying A Foreign Object With You Onto The Plane.
That's it for now. I am ready for my Lunch and more Reading!
Posted by girija tropp at 01:49 PM | Permalink
August 17, 2007
Zoetrope All-Story Workshop
I meant to tell the world to get to this workshop. But many things have interrupted my plans. Here is a LINK. Last year, the workshop happened in September. Much earlier this year. Tomorrow actually. I'll wake up thinking of everyone arriving at the airport, and the long ooh-aah ride, 2 hrs, up into Blancaneaux Lodge. The whole experience is like being inside a film, a movie of yourself as a writer.
The place, the people, the experience -- I went last year -- was totally luxurious. As a part paticipant awoved on their website, I'd go there every year if I could. Going last year was made possible for me when I won The Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize.
I met David Bezmozgis whose book Natasha and Other Stories is a wonderful read. He recommended the work of Leonard Michaels and The Collected Short Stories of Leonard Michaels has just been put out by Farrar Straus and Giroux.
Michael Ray is one of the instructors this year. A wonderful person and editor, he saved my ass when we went walking to the waterfall and I faltered. I was jetlagged. In my first attempt at travelling in twenty years, I flew to LA, then to New York, overnighted at JFK, took Delta to Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, Belize.
I met other writers who I kept in touch with: Angela Coombs who I stayed with in LA, showed me the ins-and-outs of Hollywood, and of screenplays. Nina Antoine who came to join us. Jim Darr (and his wife) who took me out to dinner when I turned up to do an Agni reading in Boston.
I rarely get a chance to do a workshop. Still don't. But I highly recommend this one. Look out for it next year!
Posted by girija tropp at 06:42 PM | Permalink
July 15, 2007
LOOKING FOR THE COUNTRY OF LOVE
This story was finalist in the Diagram Innovative Fiction Competition and is published in the June All-Fiction Issue. I wrote it last year and submitted it when I was travelling through LA--Angela was showing me the ins and outs of screenplays and I was helping her with story submissions and while she was submitting so was I.
So here is the story Looking For The Country Of Love.
Posted by girija tropp at 08:08 PM | Permalink
May 10, 2007
SURFING WITH WRITERS
OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS, I'VE BOOKMARKED SOME ONLINE READING
A awesome interview: My friend Pia Ehrhardt interviewing Ron Carlson
An article on the Art Of Criticism at Poets&Writers
Have you got your latest wet ink? I noticed that Borders and Readings in Carlton have it. I don't dare leave my copy at our cafe. Or maybe I will. It will be snatched by some desperate reader.
Here are some poetry reads--Bob Arter posted one of his favorites; then tiff holland posted hers, and Jeff Landon--that came out of our online office.
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Brautigan Scroll Down till you get the poem.
Keeping things whole by Mark Strand
What the Living Do by Marie Howe plus an article.
Cartoon Physics Pt 1 by Nick Flynn
Posted by girija tropp at 08:06 PM | Permalink
April 29, 2007
MUST READ - NEW SLEEPING FISH
From Derek White - an email - I can't wait to get my copy of this issue. What a fabulous cover!
There are some online features and samplings from the issue viewable at Sleeping Fish. You can get yourself a copy there for $14 or wait till it hits places like Powells.
From Derek's email: The new issue of Sleepingfish is packed with works of text and art by Irana Douer, Blake Butler, Matthew Simmons, Minju Pak, Girija Tropp, Deb Olin Unferth, Amira Hanafi, Annie Clarkson, Salvatore Difalco, Terese Svoboda, Noah Eli Gordon & Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Jesse Reno, Pedro Ponce, J. Asher Lynch, Tim Horvath, Andrew Richmond, Jackson Taylor, translations by Toshiya Kamei of Rogelio Ramos Signes and Julia Otxoa, Chris Lawson, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Rob Walsh, Samuel Ligon, Eva Talmadge, Joris Vanpoucke, Oliver Rohe translated by Laird Hunt, James Wagner, Peter Conners, Kevin Sampsell, Ron Klassnik, Jason Porter, Robert Darry, Labrini Yassine, Cal Freeman, Rosana Fernandez , Sara Veglahn, J'Lyn Chapman, Erik Anderson, David Alexander McFarland, Peter Markus, Adam Golaski, Forrest Roth, Debra Di Blasi, duncan barlow, Daniel Borzutzky, Elizabeth Albert, and a 5 cent interview w/ Gary Lutz.
To celebrate its release, there will be two launch events:
-- May 20 at 6 PM in Brooklyn at Magnetic Field
-- May 26 in Denver at a vintage furniture store called Fancy Tiger.
Posted by girija tropp at 11:23 AM | Permalink
April 19, 2007
SMART PDF - TERRIBLE SOFTWARE
I have been wanting to get some PDF to Word document converters for a while but I've been reluctant to spend the money. It is so so dissappointing to have downloaded this software last night so that I could change my novel PDF into Word for editing.
The PDF was created in InDesign 2 which has been 'buggy' for me with paragraph and character styles being inconsistent. Besides, when I edit, it was a pest to go back to the individual chapters that fed into the master document.
I've contacted the software company requesting my money back. I hope this works out. It will teach me to be patient - I had orginally been meaning to buy the latest ScanSoft from Amazon but been unwilling to wait for delivery of the CD.
Posted by girija tropp at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
April 13, 2007
VONNEGUT, MORE AND LESS
Sad news this. I've been meaning to post on my blog for some days. My personal geographical history has meant that he is not a writer of MY time--I've been introduced to his work--and learnt a lot from others.
Writers I know have been posting links.
Here's an Interview - Vonnegut and Heller
Excerpt: VONNEGUT: The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that killing doesn't seem to bother the conservatives at all. The liberals are chickenhearted about people dying. Conservatives thought that the massacre, the killing, of so many people in Panama was OK. I think they're really Darwinians. It's all right that people are starving to death on the streets because that's the nature of work.
Interview from The Paris Review Interviews: The Art of Fiction No. 64
Vonnegut's death - New York Times
Also you ought to know about Pia Eardhart's book Famous Fathers and check out her tour dates (check out April 11 entry)
And Pia recommended Miranda July's website.
Soon, I'll say more about being back home! Soon, I said.
Posted by girija tropp at 01:10 PM | Permalink
June 06, 2006
THE SKY POPPED AND MANNA STARTED FALLING
The Josephine Ulrick Prize for Literature 2006 is awarded for my story Advent. I receive the news last week. When I hear, I say something silly like: That story so deserves it.
Next week, I'm off to Queensland. An Awards dinner. My adrenals are still working overtime. I am shiny and new and excited.
The day before I find out:
I have gone to bed early, listening to the sound of the second shift in the backyard, the wind rattling tomato cans, the trolley wheels metal on concrete--the rubber is worn down. I don't know that tomorrow will be the day that manna will start to fall. I am thinking of Kim and her nomination for the Pushcart, about how the writers I've known for so long are returning home from their reading in New York.
My partner has been working all day turning the garage into a coolroom. He wants a rest before starting on second shift (cakes) but my son says no. The no is vehement and I feel the resentment, the vibes between the two of them. I don't write very well in rough waters. I think about strategy and how to help everything turn out harmoniously. If the stress does not get managed, it spills over into the next day and my next writing period. What I am really doing is protecting my writing space.
When the manna starts to fall:
Natasha is washing my hair. The water is going in my ears but I forgive her because she has been my hairdresser for years and she is now my friend. "Have you got a shampoo without all the bad stuff?" I am asking when the pocket of my doona jacket starts to make noises. It will be my partner. We are on the 3 network and we ring each other all the time for free (this is not an advertisement).
"Don't worry," I say to Natasha. The ringing stops. Then it starts again. And again. We don't worry. Natasha wrings my hair and wraps me in a towel. Her phone makes a text-coming-in sound. She tells me that my partner wants me to ring and that it is good news. So I call and say, "What?" He gives me the runaround, teasing. "Come on," I say. "Why would Griffith Uni ring you," he says, "it's a clue."
When Nigel at Griffiths University breaks the news to me, I start running around the salon with water dripping down my neck, swearing, apologizing, and promising to stop saying the f word when I recover.
Of course, I have to celebrate. Immediately. And it won't be much fun without my partner. So I check the waters without exerting undue pressure, or trying not to, because I don't want him to drive tired. He says, he is up to coming back into town (he went to bed at midnight and has been up since four, baking, delivering). I take the tram into Carlton (where we have decided to meet) andI proceed to buy books, guilt-free, for once.
I buy Martini by Frank Moorhouse. I had been meaning to get the book at an author signing, at the Sleepers Launch, but it hadn't worked out, and I am going to meet him. I marvel at the fact that he has picked my work blind two years in a row (I was runner-up last year). I look at Peter Carey's new novel Theft---reading the article in this article online, I realize that it is set in Bellingen--I've heard tales from my partner about a first experiment with living in a commune and I am curious about how Carey will use the setting in the novel.
We got to Tiamo 2 and Hal orders wine and pasta. I decide to stick to my vow to avoid alcohol while writing my second novel. I feel virtuous and holy in the aftermath of my win. I can see my life roll out in front of me like red carpet--who needs drink. But Hal tires easily. I am happy to drive home. There are all my Zoetrope friends to tell.
Week and a half later, I am aware of the precessional effect of winning this prize. Validation for the risks I take in my choice of writing style and structure. All of it will be important, I feel, in the crafting of this second novel where every paragraph seems to take as much out of me (today) as having a tooth pulled.
I decide to stay on a couple of weeks in Queensland, with a friend, and do a two week stint on my novel, uninterrupted. Testing out a theory that I am a lot more prolific when I am warm.
More at the end of next week... about the Awards and all the buzz.
Posted by girija tropp at 08:33 PM | Permalink
May 14, 2006
How this Novelist Overcame Inertia, Lay on the Train Tracks, and waited for Godot
Yesterday, I had one of those perfect writing days. No one in the house. No car available to perform any quotidien duties. I had spent the previous few days working on some short stories so there was the usual writer's blank page business where I moved words around for a while. However, the fact that it was a perfect writing day, plus my recent splurge on music CDs to listen to while writing, saved my bacon.
Here are my music choices:
Depth of Silence, Orchestral Music by Samei Satoh
Anouar Brahem, Le Voyage de Sahar
SMADJ - take it and drive
Totally different all of them. I am finding myself choosing dark and quiet music in some of my work days, like the Satoh.
And now for some great reads and clickables from the most talented writer friends:
Kim Chinquee's story Formation from NOON has been selected for inclusion in this years Pushcart. Yes!
Pia Ehrhardt is finally gettting her gorgeous writing out to a bookstore near you. From Publisher's Marketplace: 2005 Narrative Magazine Prize-winner Pia Z. Ehrhardt's debut short story collection FAMOUS FATHERS and novel SPEEDING IN THE DRIVEWAY, to Karan Mahajan at MacAdam/Cage, for two books, by PJ Mark at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency. Yes!
Also in New York: Peter Carey, Roy Kesey, Wesley Stace read at KGB Sun. May 14 @ 7 PM - Free!
Roy's debut novel, Nothing in the World, from Bullfight Media in June this year. Buy it and read!
My Escalate, Kim Chinquee's Skittles and Down the Road and Claudia Smith's Swallow and Liesl Jobson' Litter Bugs in snow*vigate.
And I'm not sure how it all works and where they are going to be... but a whole lot of my writer friends in the US are turning up in New York and will be reading from their work! I think they are at the KGB on Monday night; Sue Henderson, Lindsay Hunteer, Todd Zuniga, Grant Bailie, Jeff Landon, Darlin Neal, Kim Chinquee, Claudia Smith, Gail Siegel, Dave Fromm, Tiff Holland?, Pasha Malla, Pia Ehrdhart and Kevin Dolgin... have I left anyone out?
Roy Kesey's reading is going to be at the same place on Sunday (Hope I've got it right!)
KGB Sunday Night Fiction Reading Series
KGB Bar 85 East 4th. St. - 7 PM - Free!
More News: Darlin Neil's wonderful story in the Mississipi Review, XEROC 80, Juarez, Mexico.
In GAMBARA, Avital Gad Cykman's Drawing light, and Kim Chinquee's We Got Reservations and Pole.
More stuff discovered while surfing the net:
Matthew Clam's short fiction in the New Yorker. Interesting structure. Weird title. By the way, the link to the story only works for this week.
Other tidbits about the writing life of some novelists, in the news lately.
In an article in The Age, a snippet of Phillip Roths writing life as he talks about his recent novel, Everyman:
Quoted from the article:
I write the piece from beginning to end," he says, explaining how he works, in drafts, enlarging it from within, "which means I tend not to work by adding on. I have the story, and what I find I need to develop is stuff within the story that gives it the punch, that thickens the interest."When Roth reaches a point where he can do no more work, he takes the manuscript to three or four early readers, whom he does not name.
"And then I'll go and sit down with them for three or four hours, however long it takes, and listen to what they have to say. For much of it I don't say anything. Whatever they say is useful. Because what I'm getting is somebody else's language about my book. That's what's useful. What they do is break the book open, they shatter it, and I can go back in for one last attack."
Another interesting article in the same paper on John Banville, a bit political about the choice of The Sea for the Booker prize. This was brought to my attention by John Bartlett from my novel group.
After reading this, I am keen to have another attempt at reading The Sea which I had put aside some months ago. Banville says, again quoted from the article:
Writing fiction, Banville says, is like trying to write a dream."At least, that is the kind of fiction I write.
"You are saying to yourself, I am going to take this dream I have in my head and find the language for it, find how to put it into words. That is fiction; and the only analogy I can think of for it is the dream."
When we dream, says Banville, we dream the most fantastic, complex things. This is what he wants his fiction to be.
In another kind of news, here's an interesting article on Soft Skull Press where I read with interest that Delia Falconer's fabulous novel, The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers, is going make its way in the US. Also noted is the publisher's 'focus on breaking-out women authors'.
What an inspirational story of Serendipity and Persistence, Phillip Beard's road to publication at Viking, link provided by Mary Lynn Reed.
Posted by girija tropp at 11:59 AM | Permalink
March 18, 2006
Zoetrope Writers on Writing, Discussion prompt: Xujun Eberlein's notes from AWP
Robert Olen Butler threw a panel with three of his former students, Rita Mae Reese (a recent Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction), Christie Grimes (MFA student at Texas State U.), Brandy T.Wilson (Ph.D. student at Florida State U.). All of the three students are featured in Butler's recent book From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction.
The following discussion transpired out of Xujun's notes and the question she asked.
Butler says that most writing programs lean drastically toward craft techniques, rather than focusing on what means to be an artist. He quotes a Japanese film director: "Being an artist means never to avert your eyes." Many students write badly because they write from their heads. Art does not come from the mind; it comes from the dream, the unconsciousness. Nor do readers respond to an artwork from their minds. Workshops are not that helpful for one's writing because if you get too far into others' dreams, it is harder to get into your own.Students are usually fine with the first two things about fiction; that it is about human beings and about human emotion. But they always miss the third, that fiction is a temporal art form. It exists in time. Poetry can be exempted from time essentially (but fiction can't).
"Yearning" is Butler's favorite word. But "yearning", the dynamic of desire, is almost always absence in the first-year students' writing. You cannot exist for even three seconds of time without desiring something. You need to deeply engage in the character's emotions.
To do this the artist uses a trance state. The best time is early morning. Write as soon as you get up, before doing anything else, before even drinking your first cup of coffee. Certainly don't read anything before writing. It's the only time you are able to connect your creative mind with your dream, your unconsciousness. It is the most creative moment you would have. Just trust the trance. You should write at the same time everyday, and forget about it for the rest of the day. (In answer an audience question, Butler says he takes only one day break in every seven days. You should find your own rhythm, he advises the person who asked the question.)
(The three other panelists then talked about their own experiences of successfully applying the writing process taught by Butler.)
Xujun: Do you believe in such a method?
Ron Currie: Since it is already so obvious to me, with my limited experience, that everyone's 'process' is different, I can't help but be surprised. But then, maybe that confidence in one's own way of doing things is what makes Butler so good.
Jim Tomlinson: I took a week-long workshop from Robert Olen Butler at Indiana University Writers Conference 2003. Much of what he teaches I've used, although I'd say the dream-state, subconscious mind business seems to work best on first drafts, that a more critical and conscious effort is needed for revising, editing, making credible in the real world. That's my experience anyway.
I write primarily in the mornings, with coffee and oatmeal, after checking for urgent e-mails (and z-mails). But I don't turn on TV or read the morning newspaper until after I've done my morning's worth. I think Butler's right about that, about valuing the state of mind when you wake, and trying to write from that mindset.
Xujun: His book is out now. I'm going to find it to read. I might try his method, even though I'm not a believer.
Jim Ruland: What if you've got babies and bills and backaches and so on? Sometimes I need the morning, but only if I've written the night before and gone to bed with a problem unsolved or a question unanswered.
Sometimes, a walk on the beach gets me going, or exercise, or reading a book or two days after watching a movie. Everyone has different methods. From what I've gathered, there are things about the process (pens, postcards, a certain kind of desk -- does anyone else remember any of this from the time where Butler did the online experiment of writing a story live?) that he tends to fetishize. We all have our talismans and tricks, they're valuable to us only because we think they are. What would he say of Joyce writing sections of Ulysses in a crowded apartment using a suitcase in his lap for a table?
Another thing is: I'm suspicious of routines and methods because they become crutches. (I can't write because I'm out of coffee or the house is a mess or the battery on my laptop died.)
I think change can be more helpful than routine. Writing in a new space. Writing at night when you're used to writing in the morning or vice versa. Writing in a notebook when you're used to the computer or vice versa. Sometimes really strong coffee when you're used to tea can do the trick or a glass of wine when you're used to coffee can be really effective. I was able to work long sections of essay in my head during my commute one week simply by leaving the radio off and paying attention to the chatter in my head.
Claudia Smith: Good point Jim. I wish I could fall into that deep concentration, the kind I used to fall into, where someone could say my name three or four times and I wouldn't hear. But I write, honestly, during my son's naptime. Someday, maybe, I'll write when I wake up from my dreams.
It's interesting, what Butler had to say. I had a teacher I adored when I was in college. She made me believe I could graduate, and do lots of great things. She told me to get up and write every day at five in the morning. I wanted to impress her, so I lied and told her I did.
This may be a bit off subject, but one thing I miss from my childhood is the way I would become so immersed in a book, lost in it in an almost dreamlike state. I could lose sense of time, read and read until the sun went down and I would not notice. Then I went to school, learned to analyze, and now that feeling is rare. It comes over me more often when I write. I do fall into a kind of trance. But, I don't think I could if I hadn't studied it for such a long time.
Ron Currie: Do you think it has to do with learning to analyze in a formal setting, or is it just part and parcel of growing up? Because I feel the same way--that's one thing, anyway, that I miss about being a kid.
Claudia: maybe a bit of both?
Girija: I think it has to do with the process of analysis. Once you become an expert on 'reading' or any other thing, you lose your 'innocence', the ability to respond without a critical faculty operating. And whether the judgment is right or wrong is not even the issue. Recently, I started reading something straight after meditating and it was a much more enjoyable experience.
Xujun: But what if you've got babies...
You just need to get up before the babies wake :-)
To be fair, Butler did not say this method applies to everyone. And I agree with you it is not practical for many people. I'm probably one of those because I'm a night person. It's not like I could connect to the dream state before the dream.
Heinz Insu Fenkl: Butler is talking about the method attributed to Hemingway (writing early in the morning before the dream state entirely dissolves). You can do the same thing late at night or in a dark room with a small dose of melatonin (which is the natural brain chemical responsible for dream imagery) as it breaks down into DMT (which creates vivid visual and auditory hallucinations). It helps to keep the computer screen off if you touch-type, since you don't want to READ when you are WRITING.
Or, you can learn to induce the "trance" state at will with a little practice.
The problem is that what comes out in such a state needs a significant amount of editing (though sometimes this will only be necessary at a structural level). The "raw" material almost always has the quality of a 3rd or 4th iteration fractal, which means it contains a kind of organic/gestalt quality you wouldn't want to undo, but the material generally needs an organizing context, also. Sometimes even the context can come from the unconscious, but in my experience the unconscious is terrible at it, and this is where craft comes in.
Jill Stegman: Don't know if some of what you have written here is tongue-n-cheek, but I bought your brain chemistry analysis.
I think what you say is very perceptive. It is easy to let the trance state take over after you have, at least, a little knowledge of craft techniques. Then you are utilizing craft on a subconscious level as you write. The words just pour out into a coherent story. But if you don't have that experience behind you, you're in for some ferocious editing.
Yes. It definitely works. I actually get up very early, around four, to write. It sounded outrageous when I began two years ago, but the writing definitely flows better then. I never know what I'm going to write about. I can edit any time, but for the first draft, I really do best beginning at this early hour. There's just something magical about it for me.
Xujun: One thing I agree with Butler is that you need a certain mood, or engaging in certain emotions, for your writing. I don't write when I don't have that particular mood needed for a particular story.
I feel the first usable draft is always the most difficult work. Once I have it, editing is almost a pleasure.
Myfanwy Collins: Interesting. Thanks for this, Xujun. I've gotten up in the middle of the night and written before, but I can't do it first thing in the morning. Too addicted to my coffee and yogurt.
Xujun: I write whenever I have the mood. Or don't when I don't have the mood. One reason that I'm not very prolific. I also like to read before writing. It's interesting that Bill Roorback, my instructor in a nonfiction workshop, told us to read an hour every morning. He certainly has a different method from Butler's.
Kathy Fish: Interesting, but yeah, my "dream state" is pretty much shot to hell the second I open my eyes. A dog that needs to be let out, kids demanding pancakes, my own overwhelming need for coffee; if I could figure out a way to write while I'm actually still asleep!
Gail Siegel: Uh, ambient, maybe? Instead of sleep-driving and sleep-eating, maybe we can somehow get ourselves to sleep-write?
Jessica Lipnack: This is really fascinating. I do love the early morning writes, go for them whenever possible though they probably don't qualify, as I have a cup of coffee in hand. That said, I've had the experience any number of times of feeling as if I'm simply 'taking notes' as my fingers fly across the keyboard. No thinking involved. As an obsessive word counter, these occasions really pile them on (and as you say, Heinz, are desperately in search of the editor's scalpel).
Jim Ruland: When I'm really into a project and it's going pretty well, but it's getting late, and my body are shutting down, if I can leave the desk mid-scene, mid-problem, the part of my brain that composes the sentences will mingle with my dreams; not so much where I can control them but the composition process, fixating on certain words, playing with rhetoric and syntax, shuffling through tropes, becomes part of the dream. It's pretty cool. On those mornings I all but float over to the computer.
Claudia: long commutes are good. time for deep daydreaming.
Jim Tomlinson: I've missed my exit off the Interstate more than once, mental writing on my commute.
Jim Ruland: I've had some success writing with the monitor off. It's like tossing words into a cave in which some beast resides. When you turn on the monitor surprises abound and you're never quite ready for what you find.
My favorite writing instructor, Robert Kirsch (a past chief literary critic at the LA Times) said for the brevity of good prose: "write fast and write tired." I try to do that (the last part is easier than the first part) and, for me, it results in stories with minimal padding and/or coherence.
He taught several tricks for inducing creativity but the one I remember best is to eat dinner with your fingers. Salad works better than soup for this. You give attention to each leaf or segment, chewing until the item is liquified, swallowing. He claimed this allowed dreams to be remembered as the brain digested information in much the same way as the digestive process--although he stopped short of identifying resultant text as... I forget what made this sound logical at the time, but it does work.
Mark Hubbard: My eyes start glazing over when people mention dream states, trances, etc. I don't even know how much credence I give to the notion of a subconscious. For me, writing is as much an exercise of intellect as anything else, so it's a fully woken, fully straight, fully sober activity.
Posted by girija tropp at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
March 15, 2006
Surprises, More Surprises, And Aren't We Pleased with Ourselves!
I actually sat down this afternoon and wrote! And the result did not suck--otherwise, I wouldn't be blogging about it, I guess. It's been more of that sort of week and I was feeling tired and dispirited, feeling a little resentful that the business has had me running around--even though these are chores that I enjoy. Besides, it was the afternoon and I'm a morning person.
I seem to have caught a weird and interesting voice that I'd stumbled upon earlier this year in a story called Advent, a sort of Orwellian tale, even if I say so myself. And then I couldn't get hold of it again, except in a kind of imitation-of-myself kind of fashion. But when I get hold of the 'voice' again, I can usually pull the rest of the narrative back in line using a sort of mental 'squint'.
The downloading of the voice was accompanied by a trance-like state. Plus I was listening to Nirvana Lounge 3. There's a song on track 4 that would sound like Bad Bollywood Day if I wasn't so spaced out. The cover of this album is a virulent pink. There is no accounting for my tastes!
Finally, a whiff of news. Local author made big--Kate Grenville has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Here's a link to the article in The Age.
Posted by girija tropp at 08:34 PM | Permalink
March 03, 2006
What I'm reading now
Louise Erdrich's The Painted Drum. I started reading it on the train but did not get very far because I was tired and kept falling asleep into the aisle. I've been hanging out for her next book ever since Four Souls, which I think was absolutely wonderful. The first chapter is a version of a story in the New Yorker that I read a while ago and enjoyed so I'm curious to see what she does--there are two other chapters that appeared as short stories in the same magazine. I'm curious about the whole book. She does interesting things with structure and weaves different narrative strands skillfully.
The Life of Pi. Loved the intro to this, the writer's story of how the book came about. And I've got a few pages under the belt but my husband reports that he is not going to continue after getting about 80 pages in, and has been stranded in the zoo. We tend to like the same books but not always.
Posted by girija tropp at 09:56 AM | Permalink
February 25, 2006
And More Besides; Length and the Way of the List
The excercise using 10 lots of alternatives in a list gives me a longish micro and when I've been doing a few of these, I start seeing a theme emerge.
Midway through the previous week, I decided to do 30 lots. This was a stretch, but I noticed myself relax halfway through and start enjoying myself. I kept a book handy for those moments when my butt wanted to unstick from the chair. This time I had the Sleepers Almanac handy and I'd start to read a story and become alive inside someone else's fiction and suddenly I was ready to get back to my own. It's a version of doodling. The other thing you could do is have a shower--that's always good for lists except that the paper would get wet.
One of the things I've noticed of myself as a writer is the way I am getting so judgemental while I'm reading. So I'm stopping it. It does get in the way of having a good time with a book.
Early next week, I've got my list of 30 that I'm shaping for a story. I might add 2 of the short fictions that I already have, to see if I come up with a longer and even more complex story -- I have a nice letter come in the mail this week asking for a story so either I'll have to get one that's already in the bag or... But I'm always hanging out to create something new!
And tommorrow, I'm going to look at that cooking gadget again, the one that I mentioned before in another post. Tommorrow, I'm dragging my sceptical husband off to see what a miracle it is. I'm for anything that will save time so I can write more!
Posted by girija tropp at 11:34 PM | Permalink
February 24, 2006
The writing excercise, expanded and added onto etcetera
I have written about this before. Also, I have to acknowledge 3 AM Epiphany as the place where I started with the idea which grew and grew. I'll start off with the simple version:
Write twenty sentences, alternating as you go an idea/event/description/episode/oddball thought/desire from the past followed by the present. You could also try dream/present or something taken from old/new story. Once you are finished use the material to compose your story.
For myself, I am finding that I come up with rich textured narrative. Others in an online office with other writers at Zoetrope All-Story are finding that they are coming up with material that they don't know they can send out (too intimate) and others are hooked! Yay for being hooked!
So here's my theory: I think the left brain needs to be occupied while the right one is busy being creative ie, one is busy making lists and numbering while the other one is out to play, looking out the window and dreaming.
The beauty for me of this way of writing is that I can fit it into my life when I can't schedule a whole day to write. I can put down into my list as I go. Then I go back to find the pattern, the theme, and then the story!
More later....
Posted by girija tropp at 11:05 AM | Permalink
February 11, 2006
Dream writing
For some reason, I'm so tired today. Too long in front of the computer, I think. I generated a writing exercise based on dreams. Then Kim and Kathy and Jeff joined in and the flurry of activity was exciting and tiring as well, in a happy way. Plus it's been a busy week. Sleepers Launch night on Thursday. Fetching and carrying for my Year 12 son. Promising all sorts of things to various people, including a brochure design for my sister.
I've been reading this great book called 'Writing the Natural Way' by Gabrielle Ricco. A lot of it is what I use already and most of it I know. But I didn't know that I knew because I'd acquired my working habits in bits and pieces and not always from writing books; from design magazines, from observation Einstein-style. In the book, Ricco talks a lot about the Design mind and the Sign mind, like right brain and left brain, about clustering, and open loops.
I am building this theory about why fad-ing (the creation of a short microfiction, daily) works. She says, in the book, that clustering is a key to the design mind... and I think I do this automatically with the fad words and then use the Sign mind for logical structuring... I don't usually separate the process but I'm trying it out (adapting them t my purpose) as I read through this book.
My own Creative Experiment goes like this:
Write 10 sentences about something that happened in a dream and 10 set within events in the last week, alternating as you write. Use a list of 5 words at the top of the page and incorporate them at will. Once you've finished, look for patterns in what you've written and recreate the story.
I usually hit several walls: one at about the 6th item. Another when I'm finished because everything seems bitsy. But I loved the end result which I sent to the Butterflies of Vertigo anthology. Plus I loved reading everyone else's new work using this excercise.
Posted by girija tropp at 11:46 PM | Permalink
February 01, 2006
The Sleepers Launch next thursday, Sunday's Topic Alert, Bits and Pieces
Diary note for next Thursday Feb 9th for the Sleepers Launch. 6p.m. And all you OS writer friends of mine, email me to let me know if you want me to buy you a copy at the special price! Here's the blurb:
Put next Thursday in your diaries for the launch of Melbourne's very own Sleepers Almanac. It's our second one, and this time we're featuring the likes of Sean Condon, Paddy O'Reilly, Girija Tropp, Nina Cullen, Mihai Sora and Meg Mundell, as well as Frank Moorhouse, Kieran Carroll and Stephanie Alexander. And many more. There are 44 authors in all! It's bigger than the last one, and it contains a board game! So come for chocolates and a glass of champagne -- celebrate with us at: *** The Launch of the Sleepers Almanac 2006: The Nervous System *** Upstairs at Dantes, cnr Gertrude and Napier Streets, Fitzroy. Thursday the 9th of February 6pm Start Being launched by The Kitchen Sink, featuring members of the Drowsy Drivers (Keating! the Opera). There will also be performances by The Bedroom Philosopher, David Astle and Leanne Hall. And the Almanac will be at a special launch price. So make sure you blot out the evening for some literary shenanigans.
Also, keep an eye out for the story I'm going to post this Sunday. When Peter Byrne (listen to him reading my stories at the Mad Hatter's Review by clicking the audio link on the side of the picture) sent me an email inviting me to a special event, a screening of a French film he saw in the '60s, a black and white French film, Sundays and Cybele, he also told me a story which I will share with you. Look out for his amazing story and a delicious splash of local history.
And all you guys probably know that Gabriel Garcia Marquez has said he is finished writing. Right?
Plus, I'm still tired from watching the Spielberg movie Munich last night. I was so on guard about being sold on a point of view that I exhausted myself. Having said that, it was still pro-Jewish. Also, I dragged with me my husband who is Jewish and was concerned, with the election of Hammas, that these were volatile times for this film to air. I kept whispering 'Are you ok?' in his ear. But he was not moved by the movie and found it lacking in 'story'. I said that it seemed that the intention of the movie might not have been 'story' and we had a opinion exchange!
Posted by girija tropp at 10:47 AM | Permalink
January 10, 2006
Super consciousness and other effects in writing
The other day, my friend Avital said that she had a dream about me. It has a beautiful woman and pearls in it. This is her story, a most interesting one:
Girija came to Brazil to take a test for her writing dgree. she and a friend of her came to my place, which was a tiny apartment in Tel Aviv (but in Brazil, of course...) Her friend, a beautiful, mignon woman had pearl necklaces around her neck and chest. I told her it was dangerous to use pears on the street in Brazil. Girija said, Really? It doesn't matter. The pearls transformed into small snowy crystals on the floor, and the girl into a thin old man with white hair and dressed in a toga. "Transformation is easy," Girija said.
I do some weird things for my art. Like go to sleep before 11.00 pm. Eat my greens and avoid the second helping of ice-cream, mostly. The other thing I do is examine the relationship between me, the writing, and the great out-there.
Is there anything I could ask of myself that would make a difference and allow me speak of things that lie below the surface? To this end, I meditate. I practise Tai Chi Chi Kung. I go to the gym so my brain might have some blood flowing through. I read books like Eckhart Tolle's The New Earth (Note that amazon links move)
I've been doing walking meditations (Tolle calls it-living in the now) and paying attention to my dreams. A lot of my writing... edit that to, all my writing comes from some subconscious space. I've tried to work with 'real' life material but that is not fruitful. I admire writers who can fictionalize their life. And yes, my life does creep in but with such twists and turns that it is hardly my own. For example, I can have something incredible happen or I could be a witness or be handed the anecdote complete with relevant detail. Yet, when I sit down to write, it turns to garbage. I delete and delete and delete and then I find a story about some strange characters. And when it all comes together, what I have managed to pull out of the ether, is the emotion/feeling of importance to me. I had this theory the other day that perhaps my 'perceived' reality might be so emeshed in habitual patterns of trigger/response, cultural values, or a desire to preserve my ego that it hasn't got enough oomph for me to translate to the page.
I was thinking of Avital's dream this morning when I woke up at five am and could not get back to sleep. The alarm had gone off--my husband rolled over and took off to get the supplies for the day. My eighteen year old son is the production manager of Vegie Curry Man and also the person who draws the line for all our spending (Mum, what's this $450 item, he says). Anyway, I digress.
To get myself out of my usual habit of making lists. I did a lying-down meditation. Then it came to me. I hadn't sent a non-corporeal version of myself to Brazil to deliver a message. It was her message to me... that she left in her online office at Zoetrope All-Story. I then 'saw' a new possibility for interpreting the dream.
Girija, I said to myself, it is safe to be seen. I had only weeks before had some insight into my fear of revealing myself, based on a childhood event. 'Avital' was telling me that it was safe for me to deepen my writing. I make the connection because this was the question that has been on my mind over the last few months. Not only that. in the dream movie, Girija said, "Transformation is easy!" Ha. What a cosmic prank to tell me in this fashion.
Posted by girija tropp at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)