Today, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review is set to run a sort of follow-up piece to the short story of mine they published a couple of weeks ago. It's an essay about the origins of "To-Do" and my thoughts on it, and you can find it here. (It does contain information separate from what's in this blog post.) I continue to wish I had more interesting things to say about this story; I could write hundreds or even thousands of words about some of my pieces, but "To-Do" was thunk up methodically and came out that way and that's kind of all there is to it. I had to massage out the 600 words you'll find there on Eckleburg today. Not that it's a bad essay, but...oh, never mind. Just have a look. If you want.
As always, if you arrived here from there, welcome! and thanks for visiting.
I've decided to take a break from blogging for the month of February. My statistics have been pretty flat for the last month, and I think the energy I'm using to write these posts and stress about them could be better used elsewhere for a few weeks. I've been blogging once or twice a week for over three years, so a) I think a break isn't going to kill anyone, and b) if you're new to this party, there's plenty of me to read until I return.
Last year I wrote a post about why I hate Valentine's Day, so if, in mid-February, you get curious about my take on the holiday, you can find out.
Two years ago, on the occasion of the Oscars, I wrote a post about Seth MacFarlane's appalling Seth MacFarlaneness. And no, anonymous commenter, I didn't use very precise screenwriting format, but you try doing so with Blogger.
Three years ago, I was reading Infinite Jest, marathoning Monty Python's Flying Circus, and writing the [non-]horror novel. That was a good February. Here's a sample of it.
See you in March, Adventurekateers.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Evidence
I hesitate to write this, but it's something I can't not talk about on a blog like this, which lays bare the creative process of a writer who has only small successes to call her own. A number of people reading are in a similar position, and I want to help. So here this is.
If you go to this page, you'll see that my work has been appearing online and in print for about eight years. I am actively unhappy with very little of the work you see linked there. A lot of it feels immature to me, and some of it was altered by the publication in ways of which I didn't approve, but by and large I wouldn't link to it unless I was pleased with the work and - critically - with the venue in which the work appeared.
Last spring, a new friend visited my website and then, the next time she saw me in person, she said "You've been published in quite a few places." I kind of went "Yeah," and cleared my throat and looked away. I don't feel that comfortable with the sense of myself as "published in quite a few places." Mostly the reason is the obscurity of the publications. I've never been in Harper's or The New Yorker. When people ask me if I've been published anywhere they might have heard of, I could confidently say "yes" about those places. Not so much about my actual publication record.
I'm not disparaging these publications by any means - in part because they were kind enough to print my work (and were usually staffed by very nice, very smart, very accommodating editors), and in part because I simply don't intend disparagement. I don't know if I can say that strongly enough, that I am perfectly happy and proud of the sites and magazines that have published me, and the last thing I want to do is dump on them. I'm talking about prominence, not quality. Just in factual terms, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction is a UK genre magazine with a small circulation. It isn't the New York Times Magazine. I love the Cocteau Twins, but I'm quite clear on the point that not everyone has heard of them. It doesn't diminish them.
In mid-January, just before "To-Do" appeared, I got an acceptance I can't tell you about yet, but it was equally legitimizing. I was actually dumbfounded when I got the email. It was the result of one last wild shot in the dark before I trunked the piece for good, after many many many rejections, and this fairly fancy litmag that I was certain would reject it accepted it instead. For the second time ever, I said hey, brain, STFU. This is the fruit of my work and I deserve it.
Ultimately, this attitude of my publication record being not a big deal, having all kinds of excuses made around it for why it doesn't really matter, is not an attitude I can maintain any longer after this spring's appearances. What do I do with the record as it stands now? How do I position myself toward my writing, when not just my faith but the evidence indicates that it doesn't suck?
If you go to this page, you'll see that my work has been appearing online and in print for about eight years. I am actively unhappy with very little of the work you see linked there. A lot of it feels immature to me, and some of it was altered by the publication in ways of which I didn't approve, but by and large I wouldn't link to it unless I was pleased with the work and - critically - with the venue in which the work appeared.
Last spring, a new friend visited my website and then, the next time she saw me in person, she said "You've been published in quite a few places." I kind of went "Yeah," and cleared my throat and looked away. I don't feel that comfortable with the sense of myself as "published in quite a few places." Mostly the reason is the obscurity of the publications. I've never been in Harper's or The New Yorker. When people ask me if I've been published anywhere they might have heard of, I could confidently say "yes" about those places. Not so much about my actual publication record.
I'm not disparaging these publications by any means - in part because they were kind enough to print my work (and were usually staffed by very nice, very smart, very accommodating editors), and in part because I simply don't intend disparagement. I don't know if I can say that strongly enough, that I am perfectly happy and proud of the sites and magazines that have published me, and the last thing I want to do is dump on them. I'm talking about prominence, not quality. Just in factual terms, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction is a UK genre magazine with a small circulation. It isn't the New York Times Magazine. I love the Cocteau Twins, but I'm quite clear on the point that not everyone has heard of them. It doesn't diminish them.
I mean, maybe you should have heard of them, but it's not for me to judge
So I retain the feeling that I haven't really published much. Consequently, I usually sometimes feel that my writing isn't worth all the trouble and heartache and expense and so on that I go through, because I've been at this for almost a decade and I have so little to show for it. "Successful" means something different for everyone, but I know what it looks like for me, and it isn't this. In the kindest interpretation of that publication page that my brain can achieve, I'm on the way to successful.
I'm coming toward the point, I swear. Up until this month, every one of those acceptances, every one of those "we love it and we want to put it in the next issue" emails that you see reflected on that page of publications, was accompanied in my head and heart with two intertwined reactions: "Yes! I'm awesome!" and "Well, yeah, but here are half a dozen reasons why it's not a real accomplishment." Every last one. My brain has invented interminable excuses and justifications about why all those publications, all those acceptances, are actually meaningless, and offer no evidence that I write well. Oh, it's not a big deal, it's not even an American publication. Oh, it doesn't really matter, it's just online. Oh, it's nothing, it's only got a readership of a few hundred people. Oh, it's meaningless, it only pays about $20.
This is what my brain does every damn time.
Which is why the acceptance I got for "To-Do" mattered so intensely when it came this fall. Not because the accepting publication is so well-known - it, too, is obscure as wider culture goes - but because there are no cracks around this accomplishment into which my brain can seep in order to tear it down. What I mean is, the publication in question is a long-established literary magazine, associated with one of the best universities in the country, a member of CLMP, with an alumni list that includes plenty of well-known writers and a lot of people with MFAs. The story didn't get in because of its gimmicks, because it's really short or has an unusual form of narration or whatever. It's just a short story, and it had to sink or float on its ordinary merits.
I'm coming toward the point, I swear. Up until this month, every one of those acceptances, every one of those "we love it and we want to put it in the next issue" emails that you see reflected on that page of publications, was accompanied in my head and heart with two intertwined reactions: "Yes! I'm awesome!" and "Well, yeah, but here are half a dozen reasons why it's not a real accomplishment." Every last one. My brain has invented interminable excuses and justifications about why all those publications, all those acceptances, are actually meaningless, and offer no evidence that I write well. Oh, it's not a big deal, it's not even an American publication. Oh, it doesn't really matter, it's just online. Oh, it's nothing, it's only got a readership of a few hundred people. Oh, it's meaningless, it only pays about $20.
This is what my brain does every damn time.
Which is why the acceptance I got for "To-Do" mattered so intensely when it came this fall. Not because the accepting publication is so well-known - it, too, is obscure as wider culture goes - but because there are no cracks around this accomplishment into which my brain can seep in order to tear it down. What I mean is, the publication in question is a long-established literary magazine, associated with one of the best universities in the country, a member of CLMP, with an alumni list that includes plenty of well-known writers and a lot of people with MFAs. The story didn't get in because of its gimmicks, because it's really short or has an unusual form of narration or whatever. It's just a short story, and it had to sink or float on its ordinary merits.
When I got the email, my brain scrambled for even more reasons why my work might have been accepted by this magazine, reasons that did not include writing ability: they needed a woman writer for statistical reasons that month; they needed to say they pulled a certain number of people from the slush; they needed a story of that length or some aspect of that subject matter, irrelevant of its quality; you get the picture. I was able to turn to my brain for no, I'm not kidding, the first time ever, and say Shut up, I got this because my story was good enough, and please fuck right off.
That was a pretty good feeling.
In mid-January, just before "To-Do" appeared, I got an acceptance I can't tell you about yet, but it was equally legitimizing. I was actually dumbfounded when I got the email. It was the result of one last wild shot in the dark before I trunked the piece for good, after many many many rejections, and this fairly fancy litmag that I was certain would reject it accepted it instead. For the second time ever, I said hey, brain, STFU. This is the fruit of my work and I deserve it.
Since then I've gotten four rejections for other work, so, you know, the writer's life.
Ultimately, this attitude of my publication record being not a big deal, having all kinds of excuses made around it for why it doesn't really matter, is not an attitude I can maintain any longer after this spring's appearances. What do I do with the record as it stands now? How do I position myself toward my writing, when not just my faith but the evidence indicates that it doesn't suck?
I think the answer to this question is that my position is no different at all. I'd believed that positive evidence would make a difference to the quality of my faith in my work, but it doesn't seem to. Every time I sit down to the notebook I'm pretty sure that what I'm doing is pointless, but could be good, and that I have something to say, even if I probably won't be able to say it right. I don't think that finally gunning down Mean Brain once or twice, no matter the backup I have with me, is going to change that.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Let's Justify Solipsistic Literature
A couple of weeks ago, I read an article on Flavorwire by Jonathon Sturgeon, "2014: The Death of the Postmodern Novel and the Rise of Autofiction," and it's been bothering me ever since. I was put off immediately by its first two sentences, which assert that postmodernism is over and no writers are interested in creating in the genre. It goes on to discuss a new, or at least newly named, genre called autofiction, in which writers turn to themselves as subjects, writing novels that aren't exactly novels about the topography of their lives. Not memoir, not exactly roman à clef, these books, like My Struggle, see the world as the writer sees them and they call it fiction.
At least that's what I gather from reading Sturgeon's article. Autofiction is news to me. What it sounds like, honestly, is just narcissism, the aggrandized importance of the self. It is not a trend I welcome.
It's pretty cute for me to criticize what I see as a narcissistic turn in contemporary literature here on my blog, subject: me. But I've been bothered for a while by novelists who put on airs (or have airs put on for them) about their genre-bending fictional tendencies when writing about their own barely disguised lives. I am definitely interested in the triangular tension between reality, truth, and fiction (in fact, it's one of my primary concerns as a writer), but from what I've read, these novels aren't standing at the same intersection I am. Really what they seem to be doing is an exercise in very accomplished navel-gazing. Is that so revolutionary? Is that so worthy of all this study and praise?
Sturgeon says that it's not just a conversation between fiction and reality, and that these novels "redistribut[e] the relation between the self and fiction." Mmkay. The central idea is that the self is made up of fictions, stories, that we tell ourselves about ourselves and others from birth to death. Well...yes. That's the nature of the brain, that it is not an indifferent camera. And it's also the twisted magic of the human experience, all the in-betweening and mitigation of reality. It's not magic that needs a mirror of self-importance to be witnessed.
It's possible I'm just stung by this assertion of the death of postmodernism. I think postmodernism is still worthy, and still has new directions in which to develop. Wallace's work is not finished; his endeavor - which I'd argue was welding a humanist approach to the random, teetering sculptures of Pynchonian postmodernism, trying to show that it is possible to live with heart and authenticity in a culture that is fractured and demanding and wholly simulacrafied - not fully laid to rest. So...fuck it? We just throw all that out and read thousands of pages about some Norwegian guy's completely ordinary life instead of trying to say something of worth about the internet?
No, no. I, lover of Proust, should not be so rude to My Struggle when I haven't read it. But I did not need a Flavorwire article to tell me that this culture is veering away from mutual connection and toward the mirror. I guess I just hoped that literature would not take the same path. I had hoped that post-postmodernism, or whatever you call DFW's work, could bleed sincerity through absurdity, could communicate a human core to our merry, tragic, impossibly splintered experience of postmillenial life. Yet, apparently, literature's solution is just to turn a camera on the author, and thence will come all wisdom.
Ugh.
Somewhat related is this review from The New Yorker, which doesn't quite argue but does present the idea that the possibilities of fiction are exhausted. Or at least that getting tired of putting together fictional plots and characters is something that happens to writers. I'm thirty-three, not fifty-three, and I've been writing seriously for only about seven years, not twenty. But I feel, as a knee-jerk reaction, that if you find it too tiresome to put something into fiction which you can sum up in a single conceptual word, something may be wrong with you, not with fiction itself.
Maybe I'm too bourgeois, or haven't spent enough time wearing black berets and smoking, but fiction seems limitless to me. The blandest realism can spawn worthy intellectual pursuit; look at Bovary. As you add elements beyond realism - fantasy, like García Márquez, or odd narrative strategies, like Faulkner, or odd textual strategies, like Joyce, or or or or - you get more moving parts, more to work with. How can all those various add-ons not be enough, in a career so infinitesimal as a human lifespan grants? If an intelligent, thoughtful novelist can find no way to create interesting work other than looking in the mirror, then I think our culture is in a lot more trouble than anyone suspects.
At least that's what I gather from reading Sturgeon's article. Autofiction is news to me. What it sounds like, honestly, is just narcissism, the aggrandized importance of the self. It is not a trend I welcome.
 |
| I like it when I see me |
It's pretty cute for me to criticize what I see as a narcissistic turn in contemporary literature here on my blog, subject: me. But I've been bothered for a while by novelists who put on airs (or have airs put on for them) about their genre-bending fictional tendencies when writing about their own barely disguised lives. I am definitely interested in the triangular tension between reality, truth, and fiction (in fact, it's one of my primary concerns as a writer), but from what I've read, these novels aren't standing at the same intersection I am. Really what they seem to be doing is an exercise in very accomplished navel-gazing. Is that so revolutionary? Is that so worthy of all this study and praise?
Sturgeon says that it's not just a conversation between fiction and reality, and that these novels "redistribut[e] the relation between the self and fiction." Mmkay. The central idea is that the self is made up of fictions, stories, that we tell ourselves about ourselves and others from birth to death. Well...yes. That's the nature of the brain, that it is not an indifferent camera. And it's also the twisted magic of the human experience, all the in-betweening and mitigation of reality. It's not magic that needs a mirror of self-importance to be witnessed.
It's possible I'm just stung by this assertion of the death of postmodernism. I think postmodernism is still worthy, and still has new directions in which to develop. Wallace's work is not finished; his endeavor - which I'd argue was welding a humanist approach to the random, teetering sculptures of Pynchonian postmodernism, trying to show that it is possible to live with heart and authenticity in a culture that is fractured and demanding and wholly simulacrafied - not fully laid to rest. So...fuck it? We just throw all that out and read thousands of pages about some Norwegian guy's completely ordinary life instead of trying to say something of worth about the internet?
Ugh.
Somewhat related is this review from The New Yorker, which doesn't quite argue but does present the idea that the possibilities of fiction are exhausted. Or at least that getting tired of putting together fictional plots and characters is something that happens to writers. I'm thirty-three, not fifty-three, and I've been writing seriously for only about seven years, not twenty. But I feel, as a knee-jerk reaction, that if you find it too tiresome to put something into fiction which you can sum up in a single conceptual word, something may be wrong with you, not with fiction itself.
Maybe I'm too bourgeois, or haven't spent enough time wearing black berets and smoking, but fiction seems limitless to me. The blandest realism can spawn worthy intellectual pursuit; look at Bovary. As you add elements beyond realism - fantasy, like García Márquez, or odd narrative strategies, like Faulkner, or odd textual strategies, like Joyce, or or or or - you get more moving parts, more to work with. How can all those various add-ons not be enough, in a career so infinitesimal as a human lifespan grants? If an intelligent, thoughtful novelist can find no way to create interesting work other than looking in the mirror, then I think our culture is in a lot more trouble than anyone suspects.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
We Interrupt This Self-Promotional Blog to Bring You a Navel-Gazing Post
On Friday, January 9, I had a really, really weird day, full of dizzying highs and dreadful lows. It contained lots of news about writing, this day, none of which I can share with you here, and it was impossible to get to sleep at a decent hour that night. Inside my head, seventy-six trombones led the big parade, and the quiet bedroom was so noisy that I had to get up and go to my computer.
I put in earbuds to block out the intermittent sound of an amorous pair with some manner of connecting wall to my living room, and then I set to work, because my head was just too loud to do anything else. I wrote a short humor piece that I'd been contemplating for about a week, and then I wrote a longer thing about Star Wars that was already visited upon you. It felt good to write; January has been quite lucky with regard to the other thing, the publishing thing, but the writing thing is the better thing. It seems like I have to forget this, over and over, in order to remember it, over and over.
Because despite my ambitions, I haven't written a word on the wikibook since the semester ended a month ago. I've read a bunch of stuff - DFW and Edith Wharton and Richard Todd and lovely Georgette Heyer and Antonia Crane - but I haven't written anything that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Not to be too plain, but December fucking sucked, and it's taken me these first two weeks of January just to exhale and get over it.
It hurts that I've failed to get started as I'd planned to, but if I've learned nothing else about the way I write, I've learned that all things come in their own time. I'm finished feeling shell-shocked and exhausted and have started feeling restless, so I hope to set a rhythm in the next month that includes several hours a week of writing. And I'm staring down nothing at all except the wikibook: no short stories, no genre fiction, no Highbinder sequel. Wikibook. Or bust.
I was considering taking the spring off from school in order to work at my job (in an office) and work at my job (at my notebook), but I felt so discouraged about that idea, pushing the start of graduate school off until 20damn16, that I took Matt's advice toward the Middle Way and I'm only taking one class. I'll take another one in the summer, and then I'll finally be eligible to enroll for the MA.
Now that I'm two years in and almost there, I confess to feeling some uncertainty about my choice. CSUN has so thoroughly exceeded my expectations that I'm not wavering about that aspect, but the idea that I should've tried for an MFA instead keeps nagging at me. In terms of school suitability, I can't avoid moving locations in order to do an MFA, and I can't see my way to that. Anyhow I don't work well in unstructured school environments, plus I'm not interested in being competitive with other writers, so I struck the idea of an MFA from my vision of Writer-Me.
But still. Would I have better opportunities? Would I learn better or more useful ways to write than I have in the past two years or will in the next two years? Would it look better on my mental resume? Am I going to wind up talking myself into an MFA anyway, or even a dreaded PhD, because I won't feel finished when this is all over? Will I wind up penniless and school-addicted, unable to adapt to life outside a classroom, unable to write without a workshop group, unable to read without class discussion? Should I quit now, now that I've reached a place of mild confidence as writer and reader (even though I know there's more to learn, as there infinitely is), and I'm not yet totally broke? Or is it too late? Am I already irrevocably lost to the ivory tower?
Rgh. Whatever.
On another note, I know there are a few folks reading who are DFW fans. If that's you, get Karen Green's book Bough Down. (NB: I looked for it in every indie bookstore I visited for about six months before I gave up and ordered it from Amazon.) She's his widow, and the book is more or less about her grief. It's also one of the most fascinating books I've read in the past five years. It's uninterested in whether you as reader/viewer get what she's trying to say; it's inward-looking, personal, in a way different from most everything I've ever read. Not obtuse, like so much literature, but personal; it's not that she's toying with whether or not you understand, but that it's completely clear to her what she means and if you can't understand, well, you're just not her. Like unexpurgated Anais Nin, but distilled, with a sharper wit behind it. It's also deeply, deeply sad, and unnerving, and finely wrought. Get it, and maybe get a magnifier for the collages in it at the same time.
Maybe my January hasn't been wasted after all. A good book is a salvation and a blessing, is it not?
I put in earbuds to block out the intermittent sound of an amorous pair with some manner of connecting wall to my living room, and then I set to work, because my head was just too loud to do anything else. I wrote a short humor piece that I'd been contemplating for about a week, and then I wrote a longer thing about Star Wars that was already visited upon you. It felt good to write; January has been quite lucky with regard to the other thing, the publishing thing, but the writing thing is the better thing. It seems like I have to forget this, over and over, in order to remember it, over and over.
Because despite my ambitions, I haven't written a word on the wikibook since the semester ended a month ago. I've read a bunch of stuff - DFW and Edith Wharton and Richard Todd and lovely Georgette Heyer and Antonia Crane - but I haven't written anything that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Not to be too plain, but December fucking sucked, and it's taken me these first two weeks of January just to exhale and get over it.
 |
| Pictured: Me (left) |
It hurts that I've failed to get started as I'd planned to, but if I've learned nothing else about the way I write, I've learned that all things come in their own time. I'm finished feeling shell-shocked and exhausted and have started feeling restless, so I hope to set a rhythm in the next month that includes several hours a week of writing. And I'm staring down nothing at all except the wikibook: no short stories, no genre fiction, no Highbinder sequel. Wikibook. Or bust.
I was considering taking the spring off from school in order to work at my job (in an office) and work at my job (at my notebook), but I felt so discouraged about that idea, pushing the start of graduate school off until 20damn16, that I took Matt's advice toward the Middle Way and I'm only taking one class. I'll take another one in the summer, and then I'll finally be eligible to enroll for the MA.
Now that I'm two years in and almost there, I confess to feeling some uncertainty about my choice. CSUN has so thoroughly exceeded my expectations that I'm not wavering about that aspect, but the idea that I should've tried for an MFA instead keeps nagging at me. In terms of school suitability, I can't avoid moving locations in order to do an MFA, and I can't see my way to that. Anyhow I don't work well in unstructured school environments, plus I'm not interested in being competitive with other writers, so I struck the idea of an MFA from my vision of Writer-Me.
But still. Would I have better opportunities? Would I learn better or more useful ways to write than I have in the past two years or will in the next two years? Would it look better on my mental resume? Am I going to wind up talking myself into an MFA anyway, or even a dreaded PhD, because I won't feel finished when this is all over? Will I wind up penniless and school-addicted, unable to adapt to life outside a classroom, unable to write without a workshop group, unable to read without class discussion? Should I quit now, now that I've reached a place of mild confidence as writer and reader (even though I know there's more to learn, as there infinitely is), and I'm not yet totally broke? Or is it too late? Am I already irrevocably lost to the ivory tower?
 |
| Pretty good card, actually |
Rgh. Whatever.
On another note, I know there are a few folks reading who are DFW fans. If that's you, get Karen Green's book Bough Down. (NB: I looked for it in every indie bookstore I visited for about six months before I gave up and ordered it from Amazon.) She's his widow, and the book is more or less about her grief. It's also one of the most fascinating books I've read in the past five years. It's uninterested in whether you as reader/viewer get what she's trying to say; it's inward-looking, personal, in a way different from most everything I've ever read. Not obtuse, like so much literature, but personal; it's not that she's toying with whether or not you understand, but that it's completely clear to her what she means and if you can't understand, well, you're just not her. Like unexpurgated Anais Nin, but distilled, with a sharper wit behind it. It's also deeply, deeply sad, and unnerving, and finely wrought. Get it, and maybe get a magnifier for the collages in it at the same time.
Maybe my January hasn't been wasted after all. A good book is a salvation and a blessing, is it not?
Monday, January 12, 2015
Links to Real Good Stuff!
Some good luck scattered across 2014 is coming to fruition in quick-time harch this month. Today, my short story "To-Do" goes live on The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, which is frankly a personal triumph for me and a pretty nice thing professionally as well. You can read it here for free. I hope you like it.
Also this week (!), Kzine, a Kindle-only genre magazine, publishes its 11th issue, which includes "On Conti Street with the Kintner Dame," by yours truly. This story has about as much in common with "To-Do" as two-toed sloths have with Picabo Street. It's a lot of fun, though, and it sits in good company in the magazine. The issue is available at Amazon here. I think it's a free read for Prime members who have a Kindle.
In case you're not convinced enough to click through, here's a little bit about each story. "To-Do," which I've called the grandma story once or twice on this blog, is, in brief, about a fairly awful woman biting off more than she can chew.
Writing about her was challenging and satisfying, as was writing about the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts many years after I lived in it. I tried to make the story slightly different than the norm visually, and to (maybe) trash some reader expectations for the rhythm of a 3,400-word piece. Other than that slight push toward experimentation, I haven't got a lot to say about this one. I worked hard on it, but writing it wasn't a mystical creative experience.
"Conti Street" came out of a dream I had about a band composed of zombies. When I wrote the dream down in my notebook, I thought of just doing a throwaway line in some story about how if zombies formed a shoegazing band, no one would even notice they were zombies. But then I had another dream about a strange silver coat with magic powers (which I as dreamer never quite sussed out). My determination to write a goddamn noir story already formed a chemical reaction with those ideas, and Jean-Jacques McHugh was born. I want to write another one with him, but I haven't written a lot of genre stuff lately and I'm kind of discouraged from the get-go. I loved writing "Conti Street," and nearly everyone to whom I gave it loved reading it, but I had a hard time placing it. Most noir magazines today, I discovered, want gritty-ass modern noir instead of old-fashioned Philip Marlowe stuff. Me, I love Chandler, but it's possible that I love parodies of Chandler just as much
, and I hope "Conti Street" walks the line between the two as lovingly as I intended.
If either of those stories has brought you here, welcome! Make yourself at home. Leave a comment. Have a drink. The bar's open and I can be pretty talkative.
Also this week (!), Kzine, a Kindle-only genre magazine, publishes its 11th issue, which includes "On Conti Street with the Kintner Dame," by yours truly. This story has about as much in common with "To-Do" as two-toed sloths have with Picabo Street. It's a lot of fun, though, and it sits in good company in the magazine. The issue is available at Amazon here. I think it's a free read for Prime members who have a Kindle.
In case you're not convinced enough to click through, here's a little bit about each story. "To-Do," which I've called the grandma story once or twice on this blog, is, in brief, about a fairly awful woman biting off more than she can chew.
 |
| You go, little turtle! (You're not endangering children, like Lily is.) |
Writing about her was challenging and satisfying, as was writing about the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts many years after I lived in it. I tried to make the story slightly different than the norm visually, and to (maybe) trash some reader expectations for the rhythm of a 3,400-word piece. Other than that slight push toward experimentation, I haven't got a lot to say about this one. I worked hard on it, but writing it wasn't a mystical creative experience.
"Conti Street" came out of a dream I had about a band composed of zombies. When I wrote the dream down in my notebook, I thought of just doing a throwaway line in some story about how if zombies formed a shoegazing band, no one would even notice they were zombies. But then I had another dream about a strange silver coat with magic powers (which I as dreamer never quite sussed out). My determination to write a goddamn noir story already formed a chemical reaction with those ideas, and Jean-Jacques McHugh was born. I want to write another one with him, but I haven't written a lot of genre stuff lately and I'm kind of discouraged from the get-go. I loved writing "Conti Street," and nearly everyone to whom I gave it loved reading it, but I had a hard time placing it. Most noir magazines today, I discovered, want gritty-ass modern noir instead of old-fashioned Philip Marlowe stuff. Me, I love Chandler, but it's possible that I love parodies of Chandler just as much
, and I hope "Conti Street" walks the line between the two as lovingly as I intended.
If either of those stories has brought you here, welcome! Make yourself at home. Leave a comment. Have a drink. The bar's open and I can be pretty talkative.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
The Long Redemption of Anakin Skywalker
Full-on Star Wars nerdery ahead. Really not relevant to anything else. Enjoy at will.
Like I said earlier this week, I watched the holy trilogy again in mid-December. Jedi has always been my favorite, which I used to hide and no longer care to hide. It's because Jabba fascinated me when I was a little girl, and because Luke's journey (and Hamill's deep grip on the character) has become electrifying, and because the space battle at the end is excellent chaos, and because I love redwood trees. (I don't love the Ewoks, but I'm not offended by them.) Lots of other reasons, too, but I'd essentially be summarizing the highlights of the movie if I went on. Empire is the better film, but I like Jedi best.
We got to the scene when Luke turns himself in to Vader down on Endor - when they have that pivotal conversation about Luke's father, about the Dark Side, about Anakin. I paused it, and I said that I thought this point in the trilogy is where Anakin's characterization in the prequels is at its most threadbare. A conversation followed that lasted half an hour or more, and that made me reverse my opinion altogether. I wish I'd had all my other SW friends in the room, but that's why I'm writing it up here.
Let's, just for the moment, take the position that everything in the prequels is deliberate and makes sense.
I'll give you a minute to get there.
Like I said earlier this week, I watched the holy trilogy again in mid-December. Jedi has always been my favorite, which I used to hide and no longer care to hide. It's because Jabba fascinated me when I was a little girl, and because Luke's journey (and Hamill's deep grip on the character) has become electrifying, and because the space battle at the end is excellent chaos, and because I love redwood trees. (I don't love the Ewoks, but I'm not offended by them.) Lots of other reasons, too, but I'd essentially be summarizing the highlights of the movie if I went on. Empire is the better film, but I like Jedi best.
We got to the scene when Luke turns himself in to Vader down on Endor - when they have that pivotal conversation about Luke's father, about the Dark Side, about Anakin. I paused it, and I said that I thought this point in the trilogy is where Anakin's characterization in the prequels is at its most threadbare. A conversation followed that lasted half an hour or more, and that made me reverse my opinion altogether. I wish I'd had all my other SW friends in the room, but that's why I'm writing it up here.
Let's, just for the moment, take the position that everything in the prequels is deliberate and makes sense.
I'll give you a minute to get there.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Half the Sons Are Actually Daughters
This may not be new information, but I've been marathoning The X-Files since the end of September. I have a lot to say about the show - I mean, of course I do, because I've spent over 100 hours on it in the last three months - and maybe there'll be a long and semi-ridiculous post about it to come. In the meantime, a three-parter I watched just before Christmas gave me some food for thought about storytelling.
The first two parts were balanced between Mulder and Scully pretty evenly, and were no nuttier than the show's usual fare, but the third part kinda lost me. It portrayed Mulder as a Christ figure. There are a lot of qualifying "not really" details for that comparison, but there's no denying that the comparison is there, and in my opinion its hubris is beyond the pale (especially since Duchovny co-wrote it for himself to act). One of the episode's most prominent motifs was that of fathers and sons. This theme has cropped up in the show from time to time, but never in a way that, er, alienated me so deftly.
There was so much weight on Mulder as son, Mulder as father - weight that I just didn't feel on my shoulders. A lifetime of training in the male gaze made me comprehend that this was going on, but none of it applied to me. I am neither a son nor a prospective father, and I never can be.
Maybe this fathers/sons thing was on my mind anyway because I watched the Star Wars trilogy again mid-December, as break and reward for finishing my horrible, horrible final paper for the Faulkner/Morrison class. One of the things that happens when you watch Star Wars is you think about fathers and sons; a decent amount of the emotional heft in Empire and Jedi depends upon the theme. Thankfully, there's enough broad-stroke hero's journey stuff and enough general entertainment going on in the films that you don't have to be male to let Star Wars sweep you up in its arms, but this time around I did really notice that some of that emotional heft was missing its target in me. What a father means to a son, what he signifies, is not very available to me.
One of the short stories I read last semester was "Boys", by Rick Moody, which I found of interest for quite a lot of reasons. Among its endeavors, the story suggests that a boy does not, metaphorically, become a man until his father dies. I'm not in a position to agree or disagree with this assessment, because it arises wholly outside of my experience, but it's certainly a common one. I could write a lot about the process of going from girl to woman, but pretty much none of it, in my view, has to do with how alive a daughter's parents are.
I have complicated relationships with both of my parents, and art that relies on daughter themes often speaks to me in the way that I think Star Wars and this arc on The X-Files are meant to speak to sons. But it bothers me that daughter themes are often in art that's directed more specifically at women, or at small audiences, while son themes are so often in art with much wider intended audiences. The two sets of issues are just so different from one another.
My quick free-association reports that son themes are about replacement, mortality, and legacy, and daughter themes are about purity, possession, and similarity-anxiety. (Of note: I rattled off three nouns for sons immediately, just thinking about father/son art, but it took much longer to come up with daughter nouns.) (Also of note: in assembling this post I found this series by a German photographer, Julia Fullerton-Batten, who has communicated many of the weird, free-floating feelings I have around daughterhood through surreal posed pictures. The direct link is SFW, but the artist's website is not.) There's more to it than three words apiece, duh, but no matter how vaguely they are summarized, the relationships are distinct. They cannot be swapped out for each other in a story and maintain resonance.
The point of all this is to note, politely, that father/son issues are not as universal as the writers of Star Wars and this arc of The X-Files and Paul Thomas Anderson and John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy and oh, my God, so many other writers and creators would apparently like to think. (In fact, I'd argue that they're approximately 49.2% as universal as those creators would apparently like to think.) And I would appreciate feeling a little more included in this kind of art, or at least a little less disconnected from its emotional texture.
I remember a big crop of mother/daughter books coming into print around 2012, and I was glad for it, but I think I'll be waiting a while before a Star Wars appears that's centered around Leia's journey to cope with her mother's absence. Those stories need writing. They need mainstreaming. So let's get on that, mmkay?
The first two parts were balanced between Mulder and Scully pretty evenly, and were no nuttier than the show's usual fare, but the third part kinda lost me. It portrayed Mulder as a Christ figure. There are a lot of qualifying "not really" details for that comparison, but there's no denying that the comparison is there, and in my opinion its hubris is beyond the pale (especially since Duchovny co-wrote it for himself to act). One of the episode's most prominent motifs was that of fathers and sons. This theme has cropped up in the show from time to time, but never in a way that, er, alienated me so deftly.
There was so much weight on Mulder as son, Mulder as father - weight that I just didn't feel on my shoulders. A lifetime of training in the male gaze made me comprehend that this was going on, but none of it applied to me. I am neither a son nor a prospective father, and I never can be.
Maybe this fathers/sons thing was on my mind anyway because I watched the Star Wars trilogy again mid-December, as break and reward for finishing my horrible, horrible final paper for the Faulkner/Morrison class. One of the things that happens when you watch Star Wars is you think about fathers and sons; a decent amount of the emotional heft in Empire and Jedi depends upon the theme. Thankfully, there's enough broad-stroke hero's journey stuff and enough general entertainment going on in the films that you don't have to be male to let Star Wars sweep you up in its arms, but this time around I did really notice that some of that emotional heft was missing its target in me. What a father means to a son, what he signifies, is not very available to me.
 |
| source: PaulNRoll on DeviantArt |
One of the short stories I read last semester was "Boys", by Rick Moody, which I found of interest for quite a lot of reasons. Among its endeavors, the story suggests that a boy does not, metaphorically, become a man until his father dies. I'm not in a position to agree or disagree with this assessment, because it arises wholly outside of my experience, but it's certainly a common one. I could write a lot about the process of going from girl to woman, but pretty much none of it, in my view, has to do with how alive a daughter's parents are.
I have complicated relationships with both of my parents, and art that relies on daughter themes often speaks to me in the way that I think Star Wars and this arc on The X-Files are meant to speak to sons. But it bothers me that daughter themes are often in art that's directed more specifically at women, or at small audiences, while son themes are so often in art with much wider intended audiences. The two sets of issues are just so different from one another.
My quick free-association reports that son themes are about replacement, mortality, and legacy, and daughter themes are about purity, possession, and similarity-anxiety. (Of note: I rattled off three nouns for sons immediately, just thinking about father/son art, but it took much longer to come up with daughter nouns.) (Also of note: in assembling this post I found this series by a German photographer, Julia Fullerton-Batten, who has communicated many of the weird, free-floating feelings I have around daughterhood through surreal posed pictures. The direct link is SFW, but the artist's website is not.) There's more to it than three words apiece, duh, but no matter how vaguely they are summarized, the relationships are distinct. They cannot be swapped out for each other in a story and maintain resonance.
 |
| I mean, does this happen with fathers and sons? And I want to talk about this. For hours. |
The point of all this is to note, politely, that father/son issues are not as universal as the writers of Star Wars and this arc of The X-Files and Paul Thomas Anderson and John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy and oh, my God, so many other writers and creators would apparently like to think. (In fact, I'd argue that they're approximately 49.2% as universal as those creators would apparently like to think.) And I would appreciate feeling a little more included in this kind of art, or at least a little less disconnected from its emotional texture.
I remember a big crop of mother/daughter books coming into print around 2012, and I was glad for it, but I think I'll be waiting a while before a Star Wars appears that's centered around Leia's journey to cope with her mother's absence. Those stories need writing. They need mainstreaming. So let's get on that, mmkay?
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Resolute, 2014 Edition
If you are a longtime reader of my blog, you know that this post always follows the same format, but this year I want to add a preface.
2005 was the worst year of my life. The. Worst. I would not wish my 2005 on anyone, not child molesters nor dogfight breeders nor E.L. James nor anyone else, ever. Simple math will tell you how many years have passed between then and now; 2015 has special significance to me, because it feels, finally, as if I have well and truly left 2005 behind. Its horribleness still informs how I live, because debt lasts a hell of a lot longer than you think it will and some wounds between people cannot be healed. But I hope a lot of today's informing has to do with wisdom, rather than bitterness or plain old suffering. Few of 2005's shockwaves are still rattling my life, and those noises are small. It is a year that still matters to me, but this year it's closer than ever to mattering in a good way.
So. Let's get down to business.
Every year, I post last year's New Year's resolutions with a short analysis of how well I think I succeeded at them, and then I post this year's. So, here are last year's (in greater detail here):
1. Remember how good accomplishment feels. Pretty significant fail. I still like eating goat cheese out of the wrapper on the couch in front of MST3K. I didn't remember this feeling very well at all. I'm in danger of disciplinary action, honestly.
2. Watch less MST3K. Oh my God, such a fail. I watched more than last year. Matt does not understand this resolution, because he cares less than anyone I've ever met whether his/our habits are "normal." I'm trying to come around, but I think I watch too much MST and that's all there is to it. Oh, well, maybe another year.
3. Fucking revise Highbinder already. Yay, success. But I don't think I really learned the lesson that was in this resolution, i.e. don't procrastinate something for a year just because you're unsure or frustrated. I hope to not do that in the future, but I suspect it'll be case-by-case.
4. Go on at least one adventure. Fail. :( The opportunity didn't present itself. Early in the year, I didn't know anyone I felt comfortable enough to ask to go on an adventure with me; later in the year, the timing never felt right; and money was a big problem this year. I hope I can go on an adventure in 2015, but now that I'm back to office work, outlook not so good.
5. Adjust expectations about writing projects. Success. I was blocked a lot this year, but I learned to avoid meltdowns, relax about being blocked, and know that the work would start again if I did the right things. I also learned to talk less about being blocked, because the more I agonized publicly, the less motivated I felt to get back to work.
6. Balance more toward writing than submitting. Success, I think. I don't have statistics, but it felt like I wrote a fuck of a lot this year and submitted only some.
7. Get better at setting boundaries. Success? I wasn't tested much on boundaries this year, and when I was, I think I did okay. A few times I had the opportunity to put into practice a resolution from 2013 about friendships. I phrased it as "roll with the punches better" and didn't go into much more detail, but in my mind it was about detaching from how people treat me, just being more chill about whether people are as committed to friendships with me as I am to them. It was about behavior (theirs) and disappointment (mine). Is this too vague? The point is, I had a LOT of uncertainty this year about whether other people gave a damn about me, per how they acted (or didn't), and I was able to let go of it pretty well. This issue seems like it's a cousin to boundaries, which is why I'm talking about it at all.
8. Re: school, slow and steady wins the race. Probably the most successful resolution on this list. I could have pushed things a lot harder this fall to get going on a graduate degree, and I didn't, and I'm so grateful I followed this guideline. I'm not sure how it's going to apply in the coming year, as there's a lot of frustration about this specific issue going into the spring semester, but for 2014, it worked out.
2015's resolutions came hard to me. I wanted to give myself a pass this year because of the 2005 thing, i.e. make the single resolution "Enjoy the fact that 2015 is not 2005" and let it go at that. But everyone can use a little improvement, and anyway my resolutions are generally things to think about rather than firm rules for change.
1. Your life is messy. Stop trying to neaten it for explanation or consumption. In general, I like to organize and be organized, but much about the way I live resists organization, so letting the proverbial papers scatter together instead of sitting in neat stacks may help me worry less about who I am and how I come across.
This blog is a great example of this problem. I try hard to make this blog as much about writing as I can, to keep it from sprawling all over like my anonymous blog did. Single-topic blogs get more readers than general-focus blogs unless the person is already famous, and I'm always hoping to add more readers. But the posts that are just about my life are no less popular than the ones specifically about writing (sometimes more so), and I think that means loosening the reins a bit will not hurt me. (My vision for this blog doesn't seem to be coming true, anyway, three years in.)
2. Cut back on complaint by 30%. In my early 20s, I got so sick of hearing myself complain that I stopped cold turkey. Just shut off my mouth when a complaint began to come out of it, even if it weirded people out that I stopped speaking midsentence. I discovered in quitting that constant complaint really is a tiresome way to go through life - I was far better off without it, not to mention more attractive to other humans - but over the past decade it's crept back in, and now I complain on a daily basis. I surround my complaints with apologies, but I still speak them, and I need to take them back a notch.
3. Make a serious start on the wikibook. 20,000 words at least. Preferably a decent draft of the first half, most preferably plotting and character sketches done on the second half.
4. Cook. For stretches of months at a time, since we moved to California, I've just bought pre-prepared meals from Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy instead of planning a menu and buying groceries. Then I'll stop and actually cook for six months, and then I'll get tired of it and go back to pre-prepared. This sucks. A lot. (Budget-wise, the two options are pretty much the same.) I like cooking, with occasional loving and hating of it, and if I plan well enough, it doesn't have to be a strain on my personal resources, even though it feels like it will be when I'm in a phase of not cooking.
5. Stop constantly reviewing yourself. I spend so much time reading my own blog posts, looking at my own Facebook page, rereading my own critiques on other people's work, etc. So much time. I honestly don't know what I'm hoping to accomplish, but I'm pretty sure it's not just narcissism. I think it has something to do with making sure I come off well, making sure I appear consistent (yeesh, see #1), checking that I didn't miss anything, or looking for stuff I previously said or did that can loop in to whatever I'm saying or doing now - so if I repeat myself, it's intentional. 90% of this is wasted time and effort.
6. Read more poetry. The library doesn't have as ready a selection of poetry as it does fiction, but that's no excuse.
7. Maybe throw a party. I haven't hosted a party...um, ever in my adult life? I think? And in high school I didn't have a single birthday party, because my friends were too scattered in different social groups for me to feel good about inviting them all to a single place. I don't give a damn about that anymore (people will talk to each other if you get them together, I find), and I have a passel of interesting friends in L.A., so I want to have a party, but practical concerns have kept me from having one. I hope that changes this year.
Happy New Year, all. Triumph is ahead, along with tragedy - inevitably - but I hope you have more of the former than the latter. Oh, and remember, this is the year Marty McFly travels into the future/past to save us from Biff Tannen's version of Hill Valley. My advice to Marty for 2015 is not to let greed influence his actions. But I don't think he'll listen.
2005 was the worst year of my life. The. Worst. I would not wish my 2005 on anyone, not child molesters nor dogfight breeders nor E.L. James nor anyone else, ever. Simple math will tell you how many years have passed between then and now; 2015 has special significance to me, because it feels, finally, as if I have well and truly left 2005 behind. Its horribleness still informs how I live, because debt lasts a hell of a lot longer than you think it will and some wounds between people cannot be healed. But I hope a lot of today's informing has to do with wisdom, rather than bitterness or plain old suffering. Few of 2005's shockwaves are still rattling my life, and those noises are small. It is a year that still matters to me, but this year it's closer than ever to mattering in a good way.
So. Let's get down to business.
Every year, I post last year's New Year's resolutions with a short analysis of how well I think I succeeded at them, and then I post this year's. So, here are last year's (in greater detail here):
1. Remember how good accomplishment feels. Pretty significant fail. I still like eating goat cheese out of the wrapper on the couch in front of MST3K. I didn't remember this feeling very well at all. I'm in danger of disciplinary action, honestly.
2. Watch less MST3K. Oh my God, such a fail. I watched more than last year. Matt does not understand this resolution, because he cares less than anyone I've ever met whether his/our habits are "normal." I'm trying to come around, but I think I watch too much MST and that's all there is to it. Oh, well, maybe another year.
3. Fucking revise Highbinder already. Yay, success. But I don't think I really learned the lesson that was in this resolution, i.e. don't procrastinate something for a year just because you're unsure or frustrated. I hope to not do that in the future, but I suspect it'll be case-by-case.
4. Go on at least one adventure. Fail. :( The opportunity didn't present itself. Early in the year, I didn't know anyone I felt comfortable enough to ask to go on an adventure with me; later in the year, the timing never felt right; and money was a big problem this year. I hope I can go on an adventure in 2015, but now that I'm back to office work, outlook not so good.
5. Adjust expectations about writing projects. Success. I was blocked a lot this year, but I learned to avoid meltdowns, relax about being blocked, and know that the work would start again if I did the right things. I also learned to talk less about being blocked, because the more I agonized publicly, the less motivated I felt to get back to work.
6. Balance more toward writing than submitting. Success, I think. I don't have statistics, but it felt like I wrote a fuck of a lot this year and submitted only some.
7. Get better at setting boundaries. Success? I wasn't tested much on boundaries this year, and when I was, I think I did okay. A few times I had the opportunity to put into practice a resolution from 2013 about friendships. I phrased it as "roll with the punches better" and didn't go into much more detail, but in my mind it was about detaching from how people treat me, just being more chill about whether people are as committed to friendships with me as I am to them. It was about behavior (theirs) and disappointment (mine). Is this too vague? The point is, I had a LOT of uncertainty this year about whether other people gave a damn about me, per how they acted (or didn't), and I was able to let go of it pretty well. This issue seems like it's a cousin to boundaries, which is why I'm talking about it at all.
8. Re: school, slow and steady wins the race. Probably the most successful resolution on this list. I could have pushed things a lot harder this fall to get going on a graduate degree, and I didn't, and I'm so grateful I followed this guideline. I'm not sure how it's going to apply in the coming year, as there's a lot of frustration about this specific issue going into the spring semester, but for 2014, it worked out.
2015's resolutions came hard to me. I wanted to give myself a pass this year because of the 2005 thing, i.e. make the single resolution "Enjoy the fact that 2015 is not 2005" and let it go at that. But everyone can use a little improvement, and anyway my resolutions are generally things to think about rather than firm rules for change.
1. Your life is messy. Stop trying to neaten it for explanation or consumption. In general, I like to organize and be organized, but much about the way I live resists organization, so letting the proverbial papers scatter together instead of sitting in neat stacks may help me worry less about who I am and how I come across.
This blog is a great example of this problem. I try hard to make this blog as much about writing as I can, to keep it from sprawling all over like my anonymous blog did. Single-topic blogs get more readers than general-focus blogs unless the person is already famous, and I'm always hoping to add more readers. But the posts that are just about my life are no less popular than the ones specifically about writing (sometimes more so), and I think that means loosening the reins a bit will not hurt me. (My vision for this blog doesn't seem to be coming true, anyway, three years in.)
2. Cut back on complaint by 30%. In my early 20s, I got so sick of hearing myself complain that I stopped cold turkey. Just shut off my mouth when a complaint began to come out of it, even if it weirded people out that I stopped speaking midsentence. I discovered in quitting that constant complaint really is a tiresome way to go through life - I was far better off without it, not to mention more attractive to other humans - but over the past decade it's crept back in, and now I complain on a daily basis. I surround my complaints with apologies, but I still speak them, and I need to take them back a notch.
3. Make a serious start on the wikibook. 20,000 words at least. Preferably a decent draft of the first half, most preferably plotting and character sketches done on the second half.
4. Cook. For stretches of months at a time, since we moved to California, I've just bought pre-prepared meals from Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy instead of planning a menu and buying groceries. Then I'll stop and actually cook for six months, and then I'll get tired of it and go back to pre-prepared. This sucks. A lot. (Budget-wise, the two options are pretty much the same.) I like cooking, with occasional loving and hating of it, and if I plan well enough, it doesn't have to be a strain on my personal resources, even though it feels like it will be when I'm in a phase of not cooking.
5. Stop constantly reviewing yourself. I spend so much time reading my own blog posts, looking at my own Facebook page, rereading my own critiques on other people's work, etc. So much time. I honestly don't know what I'm hoping to accomplish, but I'm pretty sure it's not just narcissism. I think it has something to do with making sure I come off well, making sure I appear consistent (yeesh, see #1), checking that I didn't miss anything, or looking for stuff I previously said or did that can loop in to whatever I'm saying or doing now - so if I repeat myself, it's intentional. 90% of this is wasted time and effort.
6. Read more poetry. The library doesn't have as ready a selection of poetry as it does fiction, but that's no excuse.
7. Maybe throw a party. I haven't hosted a party...um, ever in my adult life? I think? And in high school I didn't have a single birthday party, because my friends were too scattered in different social groups for me to feel good about inviting them all to a single place. I don't give a damn about that anymore (people will talk to each other if you get them together, I find), and I have a passel of interesting friends in L.A., so I want to have a party, but practical concerns have kept me from having one. I hope that changes this year.
Happy New Year, all. Triumph is ahead, along with tragedy - inevitably - but I hope you have more of the former than the latter. Oh, and remember, this is the year Marty McFly travels into the future/past to save us from Biff Tannen's version of Hill Valley. My advice to Marty for 2015 is not to let greed influence his actions. But I don't think he'll listen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)