Friday, November 29, 2013

Entry # 189 - "About Gratitude"


A Moon Shot Photo by Alex Ketley - Sausalito, CA -
This year I look back on the past year and feel fortunate that I continue to receive the gift of writing time. As I think about what I treasure, so much delights me. My heart fills with gratitude for my dear family and wonderful friends.  This year has brought both sorrow and joys, but it helps to notice that the joys outweigh the sorrows. This has been a particularly joyful year as I finally married my dearest friend after more than 33 years together. And life is good. Books, my home, my writing class, and my garden give me tangible joy. But among the intangible treasures that I especially value are moments of awareness  - of the gift of time for reflection - and time for writing. 

I appreciate the time I have been given to nurture my writing talents and to grow in understanding the complexities of life and the writing process. I am filled with wonder at the opportunity to examine challenges and reflect upon my soul’s progress. And I am so happy to share what I can with others. 

I’m reminded of Sophy Burnham’s wise reflections on gratitude in the writer’s life - in her book, For Writers Only.  She writes, “In the privacy of their most secret hearts, most writers, artists, actors, and musicians believe that their talent is a gift that comes from beyond the self, crashing over them unexpectedly--with joy.  It is received, therefore, with awe and humility.”

Burnham goes on to say,  “Occasionally one will speak out unembarrassed by the thought of grace, except she knows that the blessing, this talent, must be treasured and nurtured, worked at, sought out...if only she knows how.  And therefore it is not to be taken lightly, not cast before pig’s feet or held aloft to the derision of people who don’t understand.  That is why many artists speak of it only amongst themselves, secretly, one on one, in quiet voices, fearful of losing it, grateful and awed.” 
And today - once again - I give thanks! And I wish that good things will come to pass, as we continue to hope for a better, kinder, more peaceful, compassionate world for all. May we find ways to share the joy.  
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About Jan Bowman
Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers.

Thanks for the photo Maxine & Elaine - November 2013
A recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.   She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com




Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Entry # 188 - "On the Hunt"

Photo Credit - Jan Bowman - April 2013 Hawaii
After another round of editing this past week, I feel like a big game hunter. With a yellow highlighter in hand, I stalked "adverbs" and way-ward "adjectives" and "gerunds" in my manuscript and bagged quite a few. I also caught some "as" phrases too, although some seemed essential, as I was forced to spend a while assessing what to keep and which ones to let go. 
Speaking of adverb, adjective, and gerund excesses in text brings back traumatic memories of the grammar police from our school days, doesn't it? Okay - I see people rolling their eyes and scanning rapidly now as they decide whether to abandon this entry. But don't go just yet, as I promise not to teach a grammar lesson on the eight basic parts of English speech and their country cousins.

But here is what I do know. Finding herds of gerunds running and cavorting in your text suggests a need for greater immediacy in the writing. For example the phrase "finding herds of gerunds running and cavorting" sounds colorful and kind of cool, but this is an example of gerunds running amuck. A little bit of this goes a long way in text.  

And don't get me started on adjectives and adverbs. I am a Southerner and I grew up under the steady embrace of fine, bright, competent adjectives, even as sturdy adverbs, wearing sensible shoes, walked purposefully and willfully over most of my passive little verbs.
Photo by Jan Bowman - St. Michaels, MD

All of this is to say, when you revise and rewrite a manuscript with an eye toward its possible final publication, part of the process is hunting and tracking clutter. It is difficult to toss out words, phrases and sentences that worked, at least for a while. But as writers, we must more and more be our own editors.

In William Zinsser's book On Writing Well, the chapter on "Clutter" is a useful one because it describes the need to simplify and de-clutter. Zinsser urges writers to - "Prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything that you can throw away..."   
Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories by Jan Bowman
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About Jan Bowman 

Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers.


A recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.   She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com




 

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Entry # 187 - "Love Songs for the Quarantined" - K. L. Cook's Stories


Photo courtesy Deborah Ford
Jan Bowman's review of K. L. Cook's 2010 award-winning story collection, Love Songs For The Quarantined, was published online by Trajectory Journal: Writing That Illuminates - March-April 2013.

     K. L. Cook’s story collection, Love Songs For The Quarantined, winner of the 2010 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, realistically probes the pain of lost dreams. These 16 stories sing of promises we make, not only to significant people in our lives (spouses, children, siblings, parents, and friends), but also to ourselves. The collection of stories examines the woven strands between people, as they negotiate those promises, betray them, and keep them, even when keeping them has the probable outcome of destroying aspirations. 

     From the opening story, “Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard” (previously published in Glimmer Train) to the final story “Relative Peace,” Cook’s stories explore the power of longing for family love that eludes, and the long-term shame these narrators live with, as a result of all the subtle betrayals of those they love and those they should love. While the first story seems to be out of time with the other 15 stories, a careful rereading suggests that unity of theme, the ambiguity of strained relationships, is the glue that holds the collection together throughout. Whether the strain comes from a sick or dying child, an unspoken lie, or animosity between brothers, fine, thread-like strands, filaments, connect family as surely as muscle, bone and DNA.

     For example, that theme of strained relationships, tenuously bound with toxic ties, drives the powerful story, “Filament” in which a sliver of metal in Blue Simpson’s eye drives his downward spiral. The first paragraph of this masterfully crafted story tells the reader everything, except the how and then what, in a way that resonates with readers long after the book is closed.

     Filament, a term used in biology to describe linked protein structures, provides form and substance to tissue. It is also used to denote part of the male part of a flower, the stamen. These stories ring with the masculine voice, even when masterfully using full-blown omniscience or second person voices. The ‘masculine’ voice here sings of the body in second person stories like “What They Didn’t Tell You About A Vasectomy,” giving this story and others, a view of the inner world of the modern family-oriented male. In this story the narrator, who has agreed with his wife’s decision to have no more children, betrays her trust by withholding information about his elevated sperm count. 

     “You hover above your wife. A glistening thread connects you to her, and you watch for a second as it stretches between you both, an ordinary miracle. You imagine, in that split-second, the contents of the luminous thread under a microscope, millions of tadpoles swimming in thin milk, their tails wriggling frantically. Alive.
     Go, you think. Go!”

     The story “Orchestration” sings of the joys, and the heartbreaking, mind-numbing chaos of family life with small children. The male voice sings of family with the aching thrum of a blues singer. It’s an amazing two page, one-sentence song that first appeared in Harvard Review. Such is the power of these complex links that structure a family.

     Long chains of thread-like protein connect end-to-end in these stories, like those found in hair and muscle. And in these Love Songs for the Quarantined, fine shimmering threads connect families in love and betrayal, and to the subsequent joy, grief and guilt that is inherent in families.

K. L. Cook is the author of two books of fiction: Last Call, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize; and The Girl from Charnelle, winner of the Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction and an Editor’s Choice selection of the Historical Novel Society. He teaches at Prescott College and Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA in Writing Program and the University of Iowa. 

Trajectory Journal: Writing That Illuminates - Spring 2013, Issue 6 - published Jan Bowman's Interview with K. L. Cook. And it has been also published online at the website for Willow Springs Editions. The complete interview can be read: 
Willow Springs Editions - under events section.  Or go to Jan's Facebook site.
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About Jan Bowman

Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers.
A recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.
She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:  www.janbowmanwriter.com or        visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com
 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Entry # 186 - "Good Things from NANO"

Photo - Jim Wilson - Oct. 2013
November is National Novel Writing Month and all across the known world, people are engaged in writing, as quickly as possible, the first draft of their great novel.  Referred to as NANOWRIMO, or as one friend affectionately calls it,  "MY NANO" the adventure requires writers to sign up and make a commitment to themselves, and the world, that they will dedicate daily time for the entire month  of November to producing as many words as possible on a single novel. 



The NANO website supports writers and encourages them. Writers set up charts to track daily progress and the site provides a means for online pep talks, answers questions, as well as offers links for writers to meet fellow writers online and in person, to set up writer support groups.

NOVELS - many of which most people have never read.

It is a brave thing to do. Most writers are capable of producing "buckets-of-words," and while most enjoy producing lots of words, they realize that someday they'll need to revise. They won't need every word they've written.
But right now, the rush is on to write like a demon. And that is a good thing.


Truth be told, writers know that no one wants to read all of those words in their unrefined wildness. Nevertheless, (I've wanted to use that word somewhere all day) the process gives many writers the "kick in the pants" they need to complete a book. And that is a good thing.


A couple of my writer friends are focused on getting words on the page. Their conversations begin with numbers. Went for a walk Tuesday and saw one of my neighbors. "I got 6000 done over the weekend and I'm averaging 2000 each morning. The words just pour out," she says. "It is a thrill to get lots of words on the page."  Indeed most writers feel great about producing quantity. The process frees up the writer within to experiment with new ideas.  Later they'll worry about the quality. And revising those 50,000 or more words will take more than a month. This is a large and small good thing.
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Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories - by Jan Bowman
About Jan Bowman

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, with a working title of Mermaids & Other Stories. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or

Friday, November 8, 2013

Entry # 185 - "Nature Hedges Her Bets"

Red Maple - after the wind storm - by Jan Bowman -

I have spent most of September and October revising a manuscript at my desk while watching the seasonal changes in an amazing red maple behind my house. And while writing is hard, revising can be even more daunting. After the rush from seeing new work on the page, comes the sober reality of revisions. Many revisions. Words will come and go during revision until the text matches the vision. In fact, the word revision means to re-vision - to see again - what is possible.
Red Maple - just before it rained. -  by Jan Bowman

And I have been thinking that while nature is generous, and even extravagant, nature hedges her bets in all things. Nature produces an abundance of possibilities, more than the world could ever use. That maple tree behind my house puts out thousands of tiny winged seeds that sail into my garden. A few sprout every season, often in unlucky and unlikely places, like the cracks between the boards of the deck. I pull them up without much thought because they are in the wrong place, like some of the words in my original version of something I've written. I am confident that the tree will make more. But this year, I selected two seedlings and I have transplanted them into a large pot where I’ll let them grow stronger. Maybe next year, or the year after that, I’ll find a good safe spot that will likely need a maple tree someday.

That is what I have done with words, and even characters in my manuscript. I could not bear to discard some in my revision process, so I have put them into a file until such time as I find a suitable place to grow them. I might need them someday.
Red Sky & Red Maple - later that same day. by Jan Bowman

We are products of the natural world, not unlike trees that have a season of bountiful seeds and leaves, only to be followed by a season of bare branches. But nature hedges her bets with abundance and that is a small good thing to notice.

In his classic writing guide, On Writing Well, William Zinsser says,
"Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as a consolation in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do."
Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories by Jan Bowman
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About Jan Bowman

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or





Friday, November 1, 2013

Entry # 184 - "Planned Procrastination"


Previously (see Entry # 179), I wrote about caterpillars (larvae) in my garden that grow up to become (chrysalis or pupa) and then Monarch Butterflies. Here in Maryland, September and October marks the last chance for a fourth generation of caterpillars to form pupa for a couple of weeks, before they turn into fully formed Monarch Butterflies, stretch their wings, eat a snack, and fly off to Mexico ahead of the heavy frosts. Caterpillars and butterflies that fail to complete the cycle and escape to more welcoming climates will die.


During October, I watched five caterpillars as they evolved in my backyard herb garden. All moved on except for this little guy. Sadly, he or she is the only one to remain. It is a procrastinator. While the others have gone on their way, this one seems content to munch on juicy parsley. It seems quite relaxed – at least as much as I can tell – and he or she will die without ever going through the complete cycle. No trip to sunny Mexico for this one. "He" is a serious procrastinator, and doesn't want to fly. 
Flight does have risks, but remaining earthbound too long also brings a limited future for this caterpillar. And - I have been thinking about nature in this context – and of how writers tend to procrastinate. But I wonder. "Can planned procrastination be useful?"

In Roy Peter Clark’s book, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Clark notes that almost all writers procrastinate, and while we tend to think that it is a vice, rather than a virtue, he raises the possibility that writers might do well to explore ways to turn delays into something constructive, rather than destructive. Clark says, “What if we found a new name for procrastination? What if we called it rehearsal?”   
If we did, we would need to seriously engage in mindful thought. 
Clark suggests that good writing and effective revision requires a process of mental preparation. Through a series of rehearsals, the mind tries out ideas, it explores and discards (often reluctantly) the excess that will never find its way to a final destination – as a finished novel, story, or essay. 
Perhaps, it is as Clark says. "There is a Zen-like quality to the wisdom of periods of inaction." And shaping work into form requires a time of mental rehearsal. "The writer must not write in order to write. To write quickly, you must write slowly. To write with your hands, you must write in your head."    (Unless you are a caterpillar...)
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Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories - by Jan Bowman
About Jan Bowman

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or