John Woodington The official site for the author.

Goodreads is GreatPosted by John Woodington on October 30th, 2009

I’ve recently been working on fleshing out a profile on Goodreads.com, which is a cool site that allows you to review books you’ve read, socialize with other readers and friends, and give and get recommendations on other things to read, as well as to track what you are currently reading, and what you’d like to read in the future, you know, in case you forget that Anna Karenina has been sitting unopened on your top shelf since 1997.  You can link to my Goodreads profile in the left-hand column of this site, under the Links heading.  Check it out, register your own profile (it’s free) and we can talk about books to our hearts’ content.

It also allowes you to add little widgets of what you are reading to your own blog, like this:

Books John is Currently Reading

John Woodington’s favorite books »

New Puzzler, ‘Nother LossPosted by John Woodington on October 28th, 2009

For the second week in a row I have not won the Narrative Literary Puzzler competition.  I know, I can’t believe it either.  The competition was for a Cyclical, which consisted of a paragraph of four sentences.  The trick was that you should be able to start at any sentence in that paragraph, and read it as the first line of the paragraph with the other sentences following in order.  Congrats to the writers who did win, though I thought the winning entry sounded pretty bland, like it had been cut from a paragraph in a trashy romance novel.

I submitted two Cyclicals to the competition.  Here they are for your reading pleasure:

Cyclical #1
Wind howls through open windows in low moans that reminds the old woman of her loneliness. Vines cover this farmhouse like long fingers trying to pull the frame into the soil. The gravel road leads to the leaning farm where the old woman grows her garden. The old woman hunches over her garden, waiting for the earth while the earth waits for her.

Cyclical #2
A pumpkin rolls away from the stand, tumbling down the long road, breaking apart as it goes. The children mouth huge bites from caramel apples, and their gloves become sticky. Beside the roadside stand, an old man reads from a book and remembers the first time he read it, as a child. In this fading light, the only things visible are the smiles of the customers, the grins of the jack-o’-lanterns.

Of course, there is now a new Narrative Literary Puzzler competition, and the form chosen is that of a Lipogram, “an Oulipian writing constraint in which a single letter of the alphabet is excluded from use in creating a work but all the remaining twenty-five letters are used.”  They give the example of the novel Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright, which was 50,000 words long, and did not contain the letter E.  At all.  That sounds like a much more significant challenge than a single sentence, which is all that is required for the Puzzler competition.

Again, I will submit an entry, and again, if I do not win, I’ll post it here.

In the MeantimePosted by John Woodington on October 26th, 2009

While “Lawnmower Boy” is under review (or when any story is in the review process) I’ll take the time to work on something else.  I find it gives me a chance to step away from the story I have been working on, and come to it with fresh perspective when the reviewers give me their feedback.  During this review cycle, I’ve been working on my submission for the narrative puzzler competition, as well as tinkering away at another short story that I started over a year ago, and stopped after about five pages.  I think it has a very long way to go, but could end up being something really good.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

The tentative title of the story is “Airport Town in Autumn.”

In the Meantime, I’m having a lot of fun in chronicling my past readings on my new profile at Goodreads.  Check it out!

Snowball and New PuzzlerPosted by John Woodington on October 22nd, 2009

About a week ago, I mentioned a literary competition through Narrative for a snowball poem, a poem in which “each line consists of a single word, and each successive line is a word exactly one letter longer than the word above it.”

My snowball poem did not win this competition–here are the ones that did–so I’ve decided to post it here for your viewing pleasure.

w
is
the
time
spent
wasted
askance
arrested
wintering
sufferable
whimsically
surmountable
wonderworking
wholeheartedly

I can admit it’s not the best poem in the world, but I’ve written worse, believe me.  I really liked the competition, mostly because it got me to write something I never would’ve attempted, and also taught me about a new form of literature in the snowball poem.

Now there is a new competition from the Narrative Puzzler, and I just submitted two entries for it.  Maybe I’ll have a better chance this time, since the puzzle involves actual sentences.  Again, if I don’t win, I’ll post my entries here for you to see.

NaNoWriMo ApproachesPosted by John Woodington on October 21st, 2009

November will be here soon, and it is marked annually (since 1999) by National Novel Writing Month, also know by one of the worst abbreviations (acronyms?) ever – NaNoWriMo.  If you go to the official site, you can see what the deal is, so I won’t spell it out here.

I’m not sure what I think of NaNoWriMo.  One half of me thinks that it is great, that it is a rewarding challenge that gets people to put their rears in their chairs and churn out a large chunk of writing.  Maybe it inspires them to write that book they’ve always wanted to write, but never have taken the time to do.  Maybe it helps dissipate the mist of writer’s block.  In general, if it makes people write, then wonderful.  I approve.

The other half of me, however, is completely fixated on the numbers.  Since its inception in 1999, a total of 72,120 novels have been written as a part of the challenge (according to the website).  Of those 72,120 completed novels, a total of 40 have actually made it to publication (also according to the website).

Forty, aka .05%, aka 1 out of every 1800.

How this compares with other figures for novels written to novels published, I’m not sure.  I’ve heard the odds of a novel being published are 1 in 200, which seems to say that the novels coming out of NaNoWriMo are 9 times less likely to be published.

Does that mean you (or I) should not participate in NaNoWriMo?  Not at all.  One of my thoughts for why novels coming from NaNoWriMo are publishing as easily is that it could be the fault of the writers themselves.  How could it not be?  My guess is that after someone finishes writing that novel in one month, they are pretty burned out on it, and don’t put in the time necessary to edit it into something readable.  Or maybe the writers aren’t writing these novels in a month in order to create a publishable work, but rather to write something that has been inside of them forever, and to put that something on paper, for themselves and not for anyone else.  It could be that these novels aren’t even being submitted for publication, which to me says that NaNoWriMo is getting people to write for the purest reason that one could write anything.  To create something that you enjoy and are proud of, regardless of whether or not anyone else reads it.

That makes me feel much better about NaNoWriMo.  Despite the horrible abbreviation/acronym.

3993 Words…finallyPosted by John Woodington on October 19th, 2009

“Lawnmower Boy” is now down to 3993 words, which is 7 entire words beneath my goal of 4000 words for the story.  Now comes the real test, where I give it to my first reviewer, my lovely wife, and she will read it and tell me what is good and bad about it.  After that, I’ll make changes per her suggestions (or not, depending on what those suggestions are) and then I’ll get it out to some other reviewers before I consider it ready to start submitting for publication.

Some of you might wonder why I give stories to my wife to read first, and I will tell you the honest truth.  My wife is a reader of popular fiction, and has a great eye for details that are inconsistent, and detract from the authenticity of the story.  She also has a great eye for plotting, which is very helpful for me, as I tend to be so entrenched in the literary qualities of a given story, that I often overlook the basics, such as a driving narrative, or vivid details.  My wife helps me with those, and so I give stories to her first.

After her, I have a small slew of other reviewers who have their own valuable perspectives, and I take all those into consideration before finalizing the final final final draft.

Can’t wait to see what the reviewers say!

Snowball in FallPosted by John Woodington on October 15th, 2009

While the title of this post could potentially refer to the amounts of snow we’ve recently received here in Minnesota (I did, in fact, make snowballs and throw them at one of my dogs, who decided that he enjoyed trying to eat them mid-flight) it is actually in reference to a cool new Literary Puzzler competition at Narrative Magazine, which is going on right now.  A snowball poem is “a poem in which each line consists of a single word, and each successive line is a word exactly one letter longer than the word above it.”

Here’s a link to the website for the competition, which is four weeks long, and consists of four weekly mini-competitions.

I wrote a little snowball poem and submitted it, and if it does not win, I’ll post it here so y’all can see it.

In other, related news, “Lawnmower Boy” is getting dangerously close to its goal of 4000 words.  About 300 more to trim before I’m there.

And in reading news, War and Peace is a very long book.  I can confirm this.

2nd Draft DraftedPosted by John Woodington on October 12th, 2009

I’ve completed a 2nd draft of my short story “Lawnmower Boy,” and it is now down to 5028 words.  Which means I’ve carved a little over 600 words off of the initial first draft, but still have a thousand or so to go before I hit my goal of 4000 total words for the finished story.  I’m also shifting things around in order to better build narrative tension.  It won’t be long before a readable copy goes out to my trusted first reviewer, my wife, and then it’ll be smooth sailing from there, as she always gives me the critique I need to get the story in tip top shape.

Thank you, in advance, to my wife.

Halfway ThroughPosted by John Woodington on October 9th, 2009

I’m about halfway through reading War and Peace, and it’s got my attention.  It’s no page-turning thriller, but it gives such a vibrant sense of the characters and their situations and dilemmas, that I find myself going back to it daily for more.  Plus, it has Napoleon in it, which is cool.

Coincidentally, I’m also about halfway through the second draft of my new short story “Lawnmower Boy,” and I think the edits are going pretty well.  I’m trimming out as much as I can, all in an attempt to reach my goal of 4000 words for the final draft.

So far it’s at 5353 words.

In Halloween news, I’m currently planning to dress up as the fashionable Don Draper from AMC’s Mad Men.  I just need to find a hat…

Poe Funeral and a Crazy WordPosted by John Woodington on October 6th, 2009

I guess you could call this story relatively Halloween-ish.  Apparently, for the anniversary of his death, some folks out in Baltimore will re-bury Edgar Allen Poe in a major production that will last an entire weekend.  Sounds like fun, right?

Also, halfway through the story, there appears a word I have never seen before: “splashiest”.  Apparently, however, this is a real word.