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The Return from Seton HillPosted by John Woodington on June 28th, 2010

I’ve returned from the Seton Hill writer’s conference, and must say that I’ve had a wonderful time.  Seton Hill is beautiful, the people were wonderful, and the experiences were invaluable.  Basically what happens is you go to this place that looks like Hogwarts castle, write for hours, nerd out with other writers from all across North America, pitch to some really great agents, and then party the night away with everyone and their brother.

Highlights:

1. Receiving humorous daily death threats from Donna Munro, who is one crazy writer and a super nice person.

2. Me telling Jim McCarthy that I toyed with the idea of scaring him by trying to pitch a short story collection to him.

3. Writer Melanie Card telling Jim McCarthy that his pitch schedule included a 30-minute “potty break”, and then never letting her hear the end of it.

4. Me reading my query letter to Janet Reid (aka the Query Shark) and her responding with, “For the Win!”

5. All of the guest speakers telling all of the writers never to self-publish anything ever ever ever, and if you did, never tell anyone, not even your conscious self.

6. Filling this guy (who I call “Therapist”) with too much Scotch and then watching him try judo moves on people:

Which was pretty much awesome.  As you might’ve guessed.

Now all I’ve got to do is send off query letters and some pages to a few people, and then start saving money to go back next year.

Close Encounters in PennsylvaniaPosted by John Woodington on June 21st, 2010

I’m gearing up for my first writing retreat.  Exciting.  The one I’m going to is at Seton Hill University, and it is a retreat for writers of popular fiction.  I would say that I sometimes write popular fiction, though I tend to have more of a literary slant in my work.  The reason this sort of retreat appeals to me is that I would like some of the financial success of a popular fiction writer, without having to write the shallow, plot-heavy stories.  I’m hoping this retreat will help me out a little in that regard.  It’s way out in Pennsylvania, and I’m flying there Thursday.  And I have to get up at 3:30 am to make the flight.  Yuckity yuck yuck.

Also, my former agent works out of Pennsylvania, so maybe I will have a close encounter of the formerly-my-agent kind.  That would be cool.  I never met her in person, and she seemed very nice, though I don’t think were a good match as far as what I was writing and what she was selling.  There will be agents at the retreat, and I’m hoping to work on my pitch to them while I’m there.  My novel Alien Nation would be the most likely candidate with which to practice, so I’ll bring the first chunk of that along with me.

Kobe Penetrates the Lane…Posted by John Woodington on June 18th, 2010

Seriously, who doesn’t love Fridays?  I certainly do.  I liken them to the end of a long race, when you can see the balloon-covered archway and the time clock and all the people cheering you on to finish strong, because they’re all watching, and you don’t want to wimp out at the end.  Or something like that.

I started reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham, mostly because I’m a Virginia Woolf fan, loved Mrs. Dalloway both times I read it, and I figured I might as well go right from one Pulitzer-winner (The Road) to another.  So far it’s very well-written, if a little self-indulgent, and I’m enjoying it.  It always interests me when a male writer takes on the challenge of writing from a female perspective, which is something I find very difficult to do.  For Cunningham to take on three female perspectives in the same book–one of them Virginia Woolf herself, no less–is an undertaking that I cannot help but applaud.  For me, the female mind is still 100% impenetrable, and so far I still enjoy it that way.  Keeps things interesting.

Side note ’cause it’s Friday: I used the word “impenetrable” in the line above.  My mother-in-law hates any word or phrase that uses a form of the word “penetrate,” which I find extremely funny.  It’s also sad, because it prevents her from watching football (too much defensive penetration to the quarterback) or basketball (Kobe penetrated the lane all night last night).

Finally, congrats to Kobe and the Lakers on winning the NBA Finals last night.  If I were forced to choose, I’d say Kobe is my second favorite basketball player of all time, and I’m glad to see him win it again.  Well deserved.

Of course, my favorite basketball player of all time is the one and only Tom Gugliotta.  I don’t think anyone can debate that one right there.

Bob Vila War CryPosted by John Woodington on June 15th, 2010

It’s 5:56 am and I’m awake.  So I’ll let you know what I’m working on currently.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been polishing up a few short stories to get them submission-ready.  I am planning to put another large chunk of time into editing my novel Alien Nation, and whenever I do that, I like to have a couple of stories that I can submit for publication in the background.  It gives me the feeling that, even though I’m holed up for months on a single project, I still have my short stories out there doing work for me.  The stories I’m working on currently are:

• “Memorial” – The one I’ve revised a bunch of times that I resubmitted after the last revision.
• “Reunion” – A story I’ve just finished about a married guy who reunites with his only other long-term relationship, which leads him down a path of personal corruption and self-examination.
• “Love Story from Scatterbrain’s Journal” – A flash fiction piece about a guy who can’t keep his thoughts in order, but who is positive that he is in love with a woman from his work.

I’ve got a couple other stories that need a lot more work on them, so I may just stick with these 3 for now, and see if they can get me a publication or two while I work on the novel.

In more physically fulfilling news, I think I may be a master plumber.  This past weekend I changed out my bathtub drain, which broke apart inside the piping that connects to the tub.  It took about a total of four hours of twisting, chipping, prying, cutting (with a hacksaw and a dremmel tool) and finally I got that beast out of there and put in a fancy shmancy new one.  When I finally finished, I stood up in my bathroom and raised my fists in the air and shouted “I am Bob Vila!”  Then I had a beer.

Side note because it just came to me: Speaking of drains, I wrote a novel about a girl who I called a “Drain”.  Whenever she touched someone, she drained the life out of them.  It was pretty good, though nothing worth showing the world.  In the filing cabinet it shall stay.

Review of The RoadPosted by John Woodington on June 9th, 2010

So far I haven’t heard anything else from the other two literary journals about submitting an updated version of my short story “Memorial,” but these things take time, especially in the summer, when most universities and their lit journals are off doing crazy summer vacation things.  Like teaching summer classes and preparing for fall classes and taking classes to learn how to teach classes better.

In the meantime, I’d like to mention that I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I still can’t get over how good this book is.  The writing is on a level that I didn’t know existed.  McCarthy breaks every rule of writing and does it so well that to read by-the-book writing afterward feels dull and uninspired.  Finding a book that reads quickly but contains great depth is really difficult, but McCarthy does it with ease here.  Or at least it reads like it was easy for him.  I’m actually hoping it was wicked difficult and took him endless months to get the narrative to read as well as it does, otherwise I’m going to lose a little hope in myself.  I read a book by Hemmingway about writing where he talked about trying to beat other writers of his day in order to become the best writer in America.  I really don’t think you beat The Road.  “Beatable” is not an adjective I’d use around this book.

I’m currently working on finishing up two short stories, and then getting back into revising and polishing my novel Alien Nation.  I head off to a writers retreat in Pennsylvania at the end of the month, and I’d like to have a few things to show the editors there.  Pretty sure they won’t thing Alien Nation is the next The Road, but here’s hoping.