Monday, September 27, 2010

Happy Anniversary to Me and a Way Cool Announcement

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of The Raisin Chronicles, and what better way to celebrate than by sharing that a major obstacle to one of my life-long dreams has just been removed?

I've wanted to study writing in a structured way for...well, for most of my life, really, but there were three barriers:

1) Money
2) Getting into a program (they're really competitive, especially for a degree that confers not one ounce more ability to earn a living on the recipient).
3) Time

I recently learned that my employer, an institution of higher education whose mission statement begins "We help individuals turn dreams into achievable goals..." (and who, by the way, won praise from the New York Times for its focus on helping people prepare for good careers) will assist in paying for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

So now I'm ready to tackle the second barrier. I've been looking at low-residency programs (that is, programs where you do most of the work via the internet, attending on-campus workshops a couple of times a year for around 10 days each), and I've compiled a short list of favorites:

1) Bennington College in Vermont
2) Antioch Los Angeles in California
3) Hamline University in Minnesota
4) Seton Hill in Pennsylvania

Bennington sums up their program in six words: Read one hundred books. Write one. Can you imagine how much you'd know about writing after reading and analyzing a book a week for two years?

Antioch is considered one of the best low-residency programs in the country if you're interested in topics of social justice, like say, gay marriage.

Hamline offers a specialization in writing for young adults and seems like a perfect fit for my first novel, about a young woman coming of age in Minnesota in 1894--the year a massive forest fire wiped out the town of Hinckley, MN.

Seton Hill offers the only degree in the country tailored to writing popular (as opposed to literary) fiction. With what I could learn there, maybe I'd be able to finally finish my suspense thriller about the woman on the run from her porno director hubby who uses his skills to concoct a video that has everyone in the country looking for her.

My top choice has varied over time, based on what kind of story I was working on. In the end, I suspect the choice will be driven by which one (if any) will let me in. (Did I mention that it's really competitive?)

So, this fall, I will be applying to each of these programs, with the intention of starting next fall/winter. (I hope.)

I'll let you know how it goes....

Monday, September 20, 2010

Icarus Falling



If you're not familiar with it, the painting is Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by Pieter Brueghel. I just discovered it recently and it really captured my imagination.

If you click on it, you'll be able to see the detail.

Go ahead. Click it. I'll wait.

Did you notice the legs in the lower right hand corner? Sticking up out of the water?

Those legs are Icarus, plunging to his death. You remember Icarus? He and his father, Daedalus, needed to escape from the island of Crete, so Daedalus built wings from wax and feathers, so they could fly away. But despite warning from his father, headstrong young Icarus flew too close to the sun, and his wings melted.

Now look at the rest of the painting. Everyone is going about his daily life, unaware of the boy's destruction.

The shepherd is looking up, like maybe he heard something, but it's clear Icarus will disappear beneath the surface without the shepherd ever seeing him.

Sometimes I think this blindness to surrounding tragedy is all that makes life bearable.

Monday, September 13, 2010

On Procrastination

I once attended a class at church called, "Cooperating with God for a Change." During the class, the teacher said, "How many of you think procrastination is a bad thing?" Everyone raised their hand. "Not at all," he said. "Procrastination is the thing that lets us delay starting things until the right time. Without procrastination, if you woke up at 2 a.m. and realized your grass needed cutting, you'd have to get up right then and mow it." Which pretty much describes my life. You see, I was born without a procrastination gene. Many of you will reading that will say, "How lucky! Think of all she must get done!" But it's more like, "Think of all the things she gets started!" Finishing stuff requires discipline, which is a whole separate chromosomal sequence. Old Dog, on the other hand, was born with two procrastination genes. In fact, the only thing that gets him started on a project is when I initiate one and then abandon it. So, all in all, it works out.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Fiction Friday: Homage to Ray Bradbury



Note: If the "f" word, or, for that matter, nubile young schoolgirls lusting after really old men, offends you, don't watch this.

On the other hand, if your perspective is a little wider, watch it and laugh your ass off.

I did.

Monday, September 6, 2010

5 New Rules

1) If you're a vegetarian and, in addition to the dietary restrictions that imposes, there is a long list of foods you don't eat because you don't like the way they taste, or the way they smell, or their texture, or whatever, you're no longer a vegetarian, you're just a picky-ass eater. 2) If your child has come out of diapers within the last 72 hours, you may not refer to her as "potty-trained." At that point, she is merely peeing through panties rather than into a diaper. 3) If you want to attract new readers to your blog, don't visit their blog and leave comments like, "Great Blog!!!!" in response to their post on the untimely death of a loved one. 4) If you own one of those yappy-ass little hairballs that passes for a dog in some circles, when you take it to the park and you pass the nice lady with two large, actual dogs on a tandem leash, do NOT let your little rat-bait lunge at the big dogs. Even though you've spoiled "Baby" to believe he's alpha dog of the universe, he only owns that role inside your four walls. Out in the real world, although my dogs are pretty laid-back when it comes to uppitiness from dustmops-on-paws, I can't promise one of those actual dogs won't snap its silly neck. 5) People's interest in/judgment of the sex lives of others is inversely proportional to their satisfaction with their own. Whenever I see someone condeming gays, or actors, or whoever, I think to myself, "There is someone who is not having a good time in the sack." Or being one.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Fiction Friday: Wildfire Run Now on Sale


A few years back, at a writing conference in Columbus, I met a woman from Cincinnati named Dee Garretson. We were both working on romance novels and eager to learn more about the craft, and to hang out with other writers. (Who could understand our obsession.)

Unlike many novice writers, we continued to write, working on our books, honing our craft and getting nowhere, publishing-wise.

Then, a couple of summers ago, Dee dashed off a middle-grades novel, gearing it toward her 5th grade son. The novel centered around the son of the President (who happened to be the same age as Dee's son) and a couple of his friends and what would happen if these youngsters got caught inside the Camp David compound in the middle of a forest fire after all the adults had been evacuated.

I read an early draft and loved it. She soon found an agent who felt the same way.

So did HarperCollins.

It hit the bookstores on August 31st, and if you know a kid in this age range, I heartily recommend it.

(If you're interested, here's the Amazon link.)

I plan to buy several.

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