Books books the musical fruit.

Done with story #2. I'm not completely comfortable posting the whole thing here, considering I just wrapped it up last night (and then drank the remnants of a tequila bottle in celebration - whoo hoo alcoholic writers' syndrome!). In addition, according to Stephen King's On Writing, I have to let it sit for 6 weeks, then revise it twice before showing it to anyone. But when you've just given birth, do you want to wait until your baby's a month and a half before parading her around as the next Madeleine Albright/Madeleine L'Engle/Madeleine Peyroux? I didn't - I ran out the hospital with guts and placenta dripping off of her and wondered where all the reporters were. So, I'm telling myself I must resist the urge to show off my placenta-dripping story.

Yesterday I received a mysterious package in the mail. Not that mysterious, actually, considering there was a return address label, and the sender had just asked me a couple days earlier for my address. But I pretended it was mysterious for the effect. However, despite my theatrics, Quinn really didn't care, and Jim, when realizing it was an internet friend, was suddenly much more interested in the coupon mailer that was tucked in with the rest of the junk. Wow! Discount checks decorated with Bald Eagles carrying American flags in their talons! Jim feigns anti-curiosity with respect to blogging. It's charming, really. But so the package - it was a copy of a new arts journal, unboundpress. So far the cover and the first two pages are real page turners! Mamalujo, thank you. It was very thoughtful, and now that Story #2 is done I'm going to spend a week Read Read Reading, and this is first on my list. (It's also inspiration for submitting. It used to be that whenever I thought about publishing my sphincter lost all control, but I'm slowly warming to the idea. So thanks for that too.)

Which brings me to the Me!Me!, as I was tagged by Mamalujo. This one isn't so me-centric, therefore palatable. It's this:
1. Grab the nearest book to you
2. Open to page 123, look down to the 5th sentence
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog
4. Include the title and the author's name
5. Tag 3 people.

You know it's a good book, when...


It's the Stephen King book. I've never read one of his books prior to this, but I kept seeing references to his genius writing analogy: the art of using tools to uncover a skeleton. It's less intimidating to think that a story is already there, intact, and it's just a matter of carefully unearthing it. To approach a fiction project, be it a novel or a short-short, with the entire plot in mind produces a clunky, forced story. I like my stories, both ones I read and write, to be character driven, and I sit down to write with some interesting people in mind, and just watch what the do with/to each other. Anyway, here's the sentences from On Writing:

You can tell without even reading if the book you've chosen is apt to be easy or hard, right? Easy books contain lots of short paragraphs - including dialogue paragraphs which may only be a word or two long - and lots of white space. They're as airy as Dairy Queen ice cream cones.

I'd like to invite you all to participate in this meme, in the comments. That means you, mom, Damon, Carson (little brother just got engaged! Shout out, yo!), Janet, Laura, Madeleine and any other lurkers out there. All y'all. Let's hear what you all are reading these days.