John Woodington The official site for the author.

How Good Are You at Google Searching?Posted by John Woodington on December 16th, 2009

Narrative is really letting me down with their recent Puzzler competitions.  This week’s Puzzler is yet again a series of questions for you to answer, basically a how-good-are-you-at-Google-searching-in-disguise-as-a-literary-quiz Puzzler.  These are a real waste of time, in my opinion.  The Puzzlers where you actually had to write something were so much more intriguing.  I don’t believe I’ll participate again until there is something to write, rather than somethings to answer.

In my own writing news, I’m working on a short story currently titled “Reunion,” about a guy who meets up with a high school sweetheart by chance through their respective infant children, and whose presence sends his life in a direction he would not have thought possible.  I’m also trying to figure out what changes I need to make to my short story “Lawnmower Boy” before I consider it ready to send out for publication.  And I’m also tinkering with a short story titled “Airport Town in Autumn,” about a vacation town that goes a little crazy when all the tourists leave for the season.

On top of all that, I’m gearing up to begin editing the novel I drafted this past winter and spring, titled AlieNation.  And by gearing up I mean sitting and avoiding working on it by telling myself that I need to work on short stories first.

And still yet on top of that, it is wicked cold up here in Minnesota.  So cold that when I take my dogs outside for a bathroom break, I have to breathe through my mouth, because breathing through my nose freezes all of my nose hairs.  A little gross?  Sure.  But seriously.  Wicked cold.

Published and Hard to FindPosted by John Woodington on December 7th, 2009

Eye Contact, the literary journal at Seton Hill University, has published my short story “Visitation Hour.” It’s out now, though finding a copy of that journal seems to be a little more difficult than just going to their website and clicking on an order button. When I figure out an easy way to get a copy, I’ll post it here.  I received two copies of the journal in the mail on Saturday, and it looks really nice.  Thanks again to Seton Hill for publishing my piece.

In other news, I’m in the home stretch of reading War and Peace.  About 50 pages to go.

There’s an interesting article in The Guardian about eBooks and ePublishing and eReading and eWriting and Don DeLillo.  In my quest to figure out if I agree with the ePublishing trend of things, this article makes an attempt to steer me away from it, and while it makes some good points about reading and writing the great works of social consciousness, it also seems like it’s clinging to the past in a way that makes the future seem hopeless, which I don’t agree with.

And finally, reviews are coming in for my short story “Lawnmower Boy,” and so far they are positive.  Which I’m not sure is a good thing.  I like it when people give me some unknown-to-me-until-then insight into a story, and it pushes me to redraft a stronger story in the end.  When people say, “this is great!” and “I loved reading this!” that doesn’t help me a whole lot.  Maybe I should just be grateful for the praise.

Narrative Puzzler Week Off MethinksPosted by John Woodington on November 11th, 2009

So the competition for the Narrative Puzzler of the Pied poem (in which you take a poem or piece of a poem and use all the words to make a new poem) has concluded, and since I did not win the competition, I thought I’d post my entry here, along with the poem from which I derived my own.

The original:
From Jon Loomis’ “The Pleasure Principle”

It’s early, cold out. These bodies
are nothing, wear them once
and throw them away–

but they’re good nothing. Your warm neck,
small snore. Roomful of salmon light.
Night unzipping its sequined gown.

And my Pied Poem derived from it:

Salmon are unzipping early, roomful of its warm,
sequined bodies. Your cold small neck–
wear them away. Good night, light snore.
Once it’s nothing, throw these out and gown them,
but they’re nothing.

I really liked this competition, and I think the people who did win did a great job.  I do not think, however, that I will be participating in the Puzzler competition for this week, entitled “Six Great Plays,” as it consists not of writing anything, but instead of answering six literature-related questions.  This seems kind of dumb to me, since you could probably Google the answers and cheat your way to victory.  Where’s the creativity in that?  Maybe I’m missing the point of this one, but in any case, I’m going to sit this week out and work on writing other things, like my draft of “The Tourist” which is now over twenty pages long and takes the main character from Minneapolis to (so far) Texas.

I am also getting my short story “Lawnmower Boy” out to more reviewers soon, and I look forward to hearing their thoughts on it.

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…

The Horrible RealizationPosted by John Woodington on October 5th, 2009

I’m beginning the initial edits on my new short story, “Lawnmower Boy,” and so far so good.  I’ve done a read-through, and realized the story is about Making a Fool of Yourself, Owning Up to Consequences, and The Horrible Realization that Your Parents Might Still be Having Sex.

Can you guess which one is the most difficult to deal with?

After I get a good mental grasp of the story, I’ll try to trim it down, and then get it into the hands of my trusty reviewers.  Hopefully they can give me some added insights that will bring this story to publication.

One final thing.  Now that Banned Books Week is over, we can truly focus on what is important these days, and that is Halloween decorations, and Halloween candy, and Halloween costumes.  Here is a scary picture of a cluster of ghosts talking about the upcoming Packers/Vikings football game, or some other Minnesotan thing.  The only thing that would make those ghosts more Minnesotan is if they were each holding a Michelob Golden Light in their ephemeral hands.

First Draft CompletedPosted by John Woodington on September 29th, 2009

I just finished the first draft of “Lawnmower Boy”, which ended up being a little longer than I’d hoped it would, but editing can fix that.  It’s a little over 5600 words, and I was hoping for it to end up closer to the 4000 word range, so I’ll see what I can trim.  I’ll give it a good polishing, and then give it to my trusted first reader (my wife) for a very honest critique.  After that, it’ll be another revision, and then either more reviews from different readers, or I’ll call it good and begin submitting it to publications.

For a short taste, here’s the (tentative) first line of the story:

There was only one reason Riley Krech volunteered to mow the Kendry High School football and soccer fields each week, and that was to watch Mona Briand practice with the dance team out on the south lawn.

EndingsPosted by John Woodington on September 24th, 2009

Still working on an initial draft of  “Lawnmower Boy”, but I do have an idea of what the ending will be, which is strange for me, as I tend to struggle with endings.  I want the ending to flow from the general buildup of the narrative, but I also want some sort of unpredictability around the ending as well, and so I often have to put more effort into the ending than I do the beginning and the middle.

Every once in a while, though, the ending comes easily.  One resource that has helped me a lot is the book Elements of Writing Fiction – Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress.  In fact, the entire series of the Elements of Writing Fiction has proven to be extremely valuable to me.  The books range in topics and substance, and are all written by different authors, which seems to give them a nice variety in style and substance.  Check ‘em out!