I played pickup yesterday and did quite well, thank you. Scored a half-dozen goals and had the best outing this side of thirty I’ve ever had.

I also had a revelation as to a possible reason why this happened, and it has a lot to do with who I was playing with. I’ve mostly been playing with either Thai or African guys but yesterday I played with predominantly European guys. Germany, Bosnia, Scotland, and a couple Americans thrown in. The game was more spread out allowing for long passing, which is one of my strengths. The Thais and Africans I play with tend to play a game that relies heavily on beating guys on the dribble, which is not my strong suit. Hence, I’m usually an average player and have very off-and-on moments. I also notice that these guys don’t make the runs I’m expecting which means I have little option except trying to beat the defender, which again is not my strength.

This isn’t placing a value judgment on which strategy—long passing or quick dribbling—is better; that’s why we have World Cups. But yesterday I reflected, once again, on how one-dimensionally I was brought up as a youth player. Perhaps interesting to no one but me, but since a good part of my professional life has been working in soccer it makes me wonder how much things have changed for the kids today.

My suspicion is not much.

Briefly, the start of this English season brings a lot of promise. Chelski do not look invincible, having already lost to Boro and today drew with Villa at home. Man Ure has not looked much better after a tepid display against Reading (but man, does American Bobby Convey look at home in the Premier League) and the Arse are, for my money, the weakest of these three teams vying for the title. I suspect Liverpool will get better as the season progresses but I don’t think they have the luxury of losing so many points in the early goings.

I hate Bolton. Hate them. Hate Fat Sam Allardyce. Long-ball merchants who are more than happy to mug their opponents and bundle the ball into the net. Disgusting to watch and worse to listen to in the post-match interviews. No one loves Fat Sam quite as much as he does.

Tomorrow is a make-or-break day for Spurs. They’ve simply got to beat Pompey in order to turn the season around. It’s going to be hard as Spurs aren’t exactly scoring at will and Portsmouth has let in just one goal.

I got to watch the second half of the US Open Cup final between Chicago and Los Angeles, which the Fire won 2-1. I love the US Open Cup (it was probably my #1 job duty at US Soccer) and I love to see the Fire win it. The team’s won it four times now in nine years.

Badgers are currently up on Indiana 42-0 in the third quarter. Remarkably, even ESPN2 has lost interest and switched over to MSU vs. Illinois.

I hate to end on a sad note, but I’m deeply troubled by some local events. First, there was the news that some teens had plotted to blow up East High in Green Bay (I went to GB Southwest) and on the heels of that story, yesterday another Wisconsin student shot and killed his principal in Cazenovia, which is about 60 miles NW of Madison.

When I went to high school in the early nineties, the most you had to worry about was a punch in the nose. Now people are getting shot. What is there to say?

/ /
One of the classes I’m taking is subtitled “The Researched Story” and one of the things we’ve discussed—but haven’t definitively answered—is the question of writing about historical personages and how to handle them. In short, the author must decide how to balance fact from fiction.

That was last week. Just yesterday, I read Lois Tilton’s review in the Internet Review of Science fiction of Geoff Ryman’s story “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy).” Lois writes:

Several times during the course of the narrative, Ryman reminds us that this is not a true story. Of course it is a fantasy, in a fantasy magazine. There are ghosts. What bothers me is the truth that Pol Pot did have a daughter named Sitha, but she was born six years before the Sith of Ryman’s story, and does not seem to have lived the sort of self-indulgent, moneyed life he describes. Perhaps I am being too literal-minded, but I do have to wonder what the real Sitha would think of this tale, which makes such unauthorized use of her life in a story that is not true to it.

I believe the stock answer to this is (and the reason why fiction writers aren’t sued) is, “It’s just fiction.” But I have a feeling that this answer wouldn’t satisfy Lois, it doesn’t really satisfy me, and I doubt it would satisfy young Sitha.

For the record, I like what Ryman did in this story. Little of my own writing takes place in the 21st century (I lean heavily to setting stories between 1850 and 1950) and I like the fact that Ryman tackles a contemporary big issue. And, in the end, I side with the writer. If Sitha reads the story (which is doubtful but an interesting prospect) let her come forward and challenge it.

This position is in no way influenced by the fact that I’m working on a story that portrays a real-life female Soviet sniper in WWII as a wanton sexpot who uses her body to get men to do her bidding, even though historical accounts portray her as a sober, staid widow who saw her husband and children killed by the Nazis.

I’m 2/3rds done with Catch-22 and it’s still terrific. The exchange between Yossarian and the psychiatrist in Chapter 27 was laugh-out-loud funny for about five minutes.

Current Mood: Needing Rest |

/ /
I’m about a grand deep in words for my final project for my researched story class, tentatively (and blandly) titled “Miss Pavlichenko.” The target is 5-6K words. The good news is that the professor really liked my research prospectus and hinted that the core idea I’m wrestling with—attractive woman becomes sniper in WWII in the Soviet Union—is probably novel-length one. Novels, short stories, what’s the difference?

I was also surprised at the reactions of some of my classmates to the final project. It needs to be a researched story on virtually anything, as long as there’s a strong element of research, and it needs to be about 20 pages—i.e. 5-6K words. To me, none of this is alarming or even notable. But I was surprised how many people were struggling for ideas and were daunted by the length. Granted, some of them are not writers and they’re just taking the class for the exposure or to fill a requirement. 6K words is nothing and I have ideas to burn…

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last two years looking at various stories and various markets, trying to figure out what works and why, and I limited myself entirely to the spec fic world. Now I’m ready for that horizon to broaden a bit and find other cool stuff to read and take a crack at writing. In fact, I set up a meeting with the professor to talk about literary markets I might like. One of the best parts of Clarion was learning the hierarchy of which markets were the heavyweights, the middleweights, and the lightweights. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that the big time mainstreamers are the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s, but I’m wondering what are some the best literary markets I’ve never heard of? That’s what I need to find out.

On another note, there is a down side of being in a grad program that requires me to be thinking about reading and writing non-stop: the down side is that I’m thinking of reading and writing non-stop. To the exclusion of things like eating. Missing exits on the highway. Packing a nice lunch and promptly forgetting it in the fridge. Forgetting to give the dog her Kong on the way out the door.

As far as problems go, it beats the hell of worrying about putting the new cover sheet on the TPS reports.

Current Mood: Suddenly Tired |
Currently Listening To - Grateful Dead - “Workingman’s Dead”

I’m taking a long, hard gander at that Audible subscription plan. Again, it’s $150 for 12 audiobook downloads or $230 for 24. One needs to work within their catalog but, surprisingly, some of their really, really long selections only count as one download. It’s not based on length but title, even thought that doesn’t really make sense to me. But it works to my advantage.

An initial stab at my top 12 picks lean heavily towards long-winded Russians. Observe:

Les Miserables, Vic Hugo (66:11)
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (65:24)
Brothers Karamozov, Ted Dostoyevsky (37:06)
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (33:06)
Decameron, Boccacio (30:00)
The Histories, Herodotus (28:00)
Crime and Punishment, Ted Dostoyevsky (25:41)
Moby Dick, Herm Melville (23:31)
Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (22:15)
The Idiot, Ted Dostoyevsky (21:55)
The Deerslayer, J.F. Cooper (20:15)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harry Stowe (18:22)

That list of 12 represents almost 400 hours of listening for $150. Not bad. With my current commute, I probably log about 10 hours of driving a week so that would keep me occupied for awhile. The second set of 12? Heavy on long-winded Englishmen (well, Englishman to be precise) but since you asked:

David Copperfield, Chuck Dickens (36:13, but counts as two choices(?))
Oilver Twist, Chuck Dickens (18:14)
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernie Hemingway (16:23)
Last of the Mohicans, J.F. Cooper (15:20)
Babbit, Sin Lewis (15:16)
Lord Jim, Joe Conrad (15:00)
Tale of Two Cities, Chuck Dickens (14:45)
In Cold Blood, Tru Capote (14:27)
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen(13:00)
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (12:47)
Lolita, Vlad Nabakov (11:30)
On the Road, Jack Kerouac (10:18)

This list is much more problematic. It’s a mere 189 hours in comparison (feh!) and many of these books are easily readable in length. There’s also the issue of preferring to read some of them. I’m generally curious about the Dickens but not all that enthusiastic about him. There are a bunch of books from the American Lit canon that I’m more interested in but the books are a mere 6-9 hours long and therefore readable. And I’m sorry, I’m not going to blow three downloads for James Joyce’s Ulysses. First off, I don’t like James and I’m only interested in i because feel like I owe it to the Western Literary canon to read this book. Secondly, why does it count as three downloads, Audible? So that’s a no-go. And after that I rapidly start running out of titles. Either I’ve already read the books or the audio versions are under 10 hours, which means I might be better off just reading it.

More questions for Audible: No Grapes of Wrath? No East of Eden? C’mon. And I realize I don’t represent the tastes of the average Audible customer, but unabridged versions of L’Mort d’Arthur and Plutarch’s Lives would have been nice, and I would have loved any version of the Mabinogion or Nibelungenlied. Believe it or not, the massive 65 hour version of the Old Testament is strangely appealing to me…

There’s also the possibility of using non-fiction but a lot of these choices are abridged as well. I want bang for my buck, damnit! There’s also the possibility of using a text-to-speech software program to raid Project Gutenberg and their 19,000 completely free e-books. This might be the best long-term solution, actually.

Current Mood: Sunday |
Currently Listening To - Blind Willie McTell - “The Definitive Blind Willie McTell “

FYI, I just checked the schedule for the Wisconsin Book Festival and noticed this talk scheduled for Sunday, Oct 22:

4:00 - 5:30 PM, Orpheum Theatre
Genre Fiction and the New Wave Fabulists
A discussion with Neil Gaiman*, Peter Straub, and Gary K. Wolfe

Panelists will discuss their work in the broader context of genre writing. They will examine the current state of horror and fantasy writing, the “New Fabulists” movement, and why Wisconsin has inspired such notable horror–both real and fiction. A moderated discussion with questions from the audience will follow short introductions.

Some guy named Michael Chabon is also speaking that Thursday night.

/
Well, I just submitted my research prospectus for the story I need to write for my creative writing class. I said before that I was finally going to tackle “The Wendigo Killers,” which has been kicking my ass for over two years and just refuses to budge. I lied.

Allow me to digress for a moment before continuing. I’m hooked—again—on folk music. I’ve been listening to little else since I started school. There’s that age-old, tired question that writers hate: where do you get your ideas? While it’s never a single thing, I get a lot of my ideas from folk music. In fact, my two most recent sales (”Black Jack Davy” and “Working Out Our Salvation”) stemmed directly from folk songs.

Many, many folk songs aren’t very nice. In fact, there’s a lot of violence and murder behind those lulling tunes. Consider the lyrics of “The Butcher’s Boy,” “Banks of the Ohio,” or “Ommie Wise.” Creepy, chilling stuff. A shocking amount of violence directed towards women too.

Woody Guthrie wasn’t shy about violence either. His did his part to glorify killing during WWII. Which brings me back to the research prospectus I wrote, which sprung directly from Guthrie’s song “Miss Pavlichenko.”

In short, Ms. Pavlichenko was a Soviet sniper in WWII and picked off no fewer than 309 Germans in about ten months of combat. Fascinating stuff surrounding her rise to prominence and slide back into relative obscurity during the Cold War. Not a lot of personal information out there about her, which is sort of a dream come true for a fiction writer. Artistic license and all that.

The audiobook du jour is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and, unsurprisingly, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I can see how it could frustrate some readers because of the inherent (and intentional) contradictions riddling the story, but Heller drops in grim reminders of the reality of the war, which stand in stark contrast to the absurdity surrounding it. Jaw-dropping in places. Masterfully done.

I’m already a third done. Candide by Voltaire is on deck. That Audible subscription is looking more attractive all the time.

Current Mood: Fine |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Time Out of Mind”

First things first. The shake up at Elmo FC has yielded terrific benefits. One striker scored, one midfielder scored, two defenders kept clean sheets, and the keeper posted a shut-out giving me a total of 88 points and helped drag me back into contention—only 19 points separates me from 2nd place (currently 5th out of 6 teams.) Sister-in-law P.W. is rocking the house with a comfortable lead. She’s got both Didier Drogba and Andy Johnson up front, which is good work if you can get it.

As an undergrad, I did not get along with many English majors. They tended to either be slackers who lacked any original thoughts or the beret-wearing crowd who occasionally had something insightful to say but were never as impressive as their attitude suggested. I did well in English classes, generally getting one of only a handful of A’s the professors gave out. However, I’ve always felt a bit leery about literary studies as a professional pursuit because there’s an attitude that seems to accompany it that I just don’t like. Clarion homie John mentioned this awhile back and it resonated with a lot of people. Literary criticism for its own sake is an ugly thing.

From my limited experience, my creative writing seminars are quite relaxed. We joke. We laugh. People say interesting things and everyone listens. I have yet to see any sort of one-up-manship in these creative writing classes. The creative writers in the department have what appears to be a collective, cooperative spirit. For the first time in my life, I’ve met honest-to-God poets who are warm and not the least bit snooty. I fit in well with these people as they have no pretense. Let’s just say some other environments are a bit more competitive, a little less open, a bit less friendly… perhaps ostentatious is the right word.

As my professor said tonight in a self-effacing moment as we discussed the novel we’ve been reading, “I wouldn’t want to try to tell you what this book means. I don’t consider myself a scholar, as most of my colleagues here are scholars. Sometimes I guess I play the part of the critic and sometimes I do passably well. But what I am is a poet, and I read books as a poet, I read books as a fellow writer.”

Read books as a fellow writer. Sounds like a plan.

I finished listening to Titus Groan the other afternoon and I swear there was a breeze in the kitchen as all the oxygen flooded out of the house. I stood looking at my iPod and, after several seconds of silence, said “Wow.”

Peake’s book is better than it has a right to be. It’s too long for what actually happens, the plot takes a backseat to the prose, there are lots of diversions and details that don’t matter, and there’s really no protagonist here. We think it’s Steerpike or maybe, at a stretch, Fuchsia, but neither are really likeable or trustworthy enough. In fact, who in the book is truly likeable? Everyone is so incredibly idiosyncratic and either arrogant or foolish. Yet fascinating, either alone or as the cast of characters.

Besides the unbelievable lushness of the prose (too many sentences to quote) and sheer imagination of the whole thing (too many examples to list) I think Peake’s greatest coup is his characterization of Steerpike. At first, like Fuchsia, we’re attracted to his determination, confidence, and his role as an agent of change in a stagnant environment. But Steerpike is single-minded and ruthless—Machiavellian, they say in the Wikipedia entry, and that’s as good of a one-word summary as any.

In short, the audacity of Titus Groan blew me away. This isn’t a book I’d try to emulate because it’s so beyond me, but it is a book I could enjoy several times over.

Another book that pleasantly surprised me was J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello. I would only recommend it with extreme caution because it’s very modernist, or perhaps post-modernist, or however you want to label it, but it’s not for the impatient or those who want a novel with rising/falling action. There is no action here except for the movement between your ears.

I needed to write a three-page paper on the book on any topic, and I entitled mine “Elizabeth Costello and the Death of Reason” as she rails against a reason a number of times in the text. As I wrote the paper and dug up quotes, I realized how much mining there was to do—way more than for a 1K word essay, and the digging begat all sorts of other questions. I found myself rereading long passages and I knew that this was another book that could withstand a half-dozen readings and each time I’d learn something new.

No time for extracurricular writing yet but I believe it’s coming. This was a heavy week due to my first paper being done and I’m still settling into a routine. I think I can carve out “protected” time for non-school writing but if there’s one thing that’s struck me so far about being a grad student, it’s how structured your life has to become in order to stay on top of things. Blogging can be squeezed in between classes in 20 minutes of “dead” time and even that may have to go, but I need to be more disciplined than ever to keep working on my own stuff outside class.

The creative writing assignments we’ve been working on have been interesting but they don’t result in anything you could submit for publication because they’re intentionally experimental—specifically, we’re rewriting parts of stories with one minor change. The first assignment was to incorporate the historical figure of Jeremiah Curtin, who had nothing to do with the story at hand. The second assignment was to rewrite a scene in the first person from any character’s perspective. Fun, interesting, challenging, but it doesn’t result in something I could try to sell. I guess I’ve become one-dimensional that way.

Gotta go. Class…

Current Mood: Busy |
Currently Listening To - Various Artists - “Anthology of American Folk Music - Disc 3A”

For school I just finished Elizabeth Costello and liked it way more than I thought I would. On the flip side, for the same class I read about half of Beckett’s Mercier and Camier and really can’t stand it. I enjoyed Waiting for Godot but this one’s leaving me cold.

I’ve almost finished the audio version of Titus Groan which means I need to line up some more books for the commute. On deck is Catch-22. The library system at UW and UW-M doesn’t let you search for audiobooks, if you can believe it, so hunting down “free” books through this system is hard. The public library here is much better so I have yet to give them a try, and for $150 I can get 12 audiobooks, or for $230 I can get 24.

Audible has some interesting gaps in their catalog. Here’s what I came up, if I would join Audible:

Tale of Two Cities
Oilver Twist
David Copperfield
Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina
War and Peace
The Stranger
Les Miserables
Ulysses
Lolita
The Sound and the Fury
On the Road
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Moby Dick
Picture of Dorian Grey
Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Current Mood: Blah |

I dropped a gently edited version of “Castleneff” in the mail yesterday, bringing my total number of stories submitted since January 1 to 29. That was my total for last year and 2006 still has a few months to go.

I’m more selective in where I send stuff now and more selective in what I send. I’ve got a few older stories that I’ve never sent out that I’m thinking of dusting off and submitting out there just for kicks as some of my other ones that have been circulating for awhile are inching towards the trunk. I was starting to lose faith in “Working Out Our Salvation” before it sold to Weird Tales, so sometimes you have to stick with it.

Officially, I’m disappointed in the decision to move Clarion to San Diego. This echoes a lot of what’s been circulating on the blogosphere, there’s nothing sacred about East Lansing but I don’t think the west coast should have both North American Clarions. Can people still get there? Sure. Our workshop pulled heavily from the midwest and east and I can’t help but thinking that being within driving distance is the difference between attending and not attending for many applicants. There’s also the issue of culture-shift between the midwest and southern Cal, but that’s something else entirely.

Current Mood: Okay |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 - No Direction Home (Disc 1)”