I've been staying busy with the work(s) in progress....
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I feel good when I get close to what is probably the end of a long project—especially the project I’ve been working on for the last year, a sequel to Professed. I can see it the end—I think. It’s there. Might take a couple of more weeks to get there—or maybe three—or maybe a couple of months—or, who knows? Willpower is not the source of productivity. Life gets in the way of art, sometimes. But—the end is there, and it’s closer than it was at the beginning…. Follow along if you want: I’m documenting my daily progress on twitter @lowellmickwhite #amwriting Of course, once I write THE END! in my notebook, it’ll just be the end of the first draft. There’ll still be a lot more work to do…. But I’ll think about that later. In the meantime, work is also progressing on the long-awaited story collection. It will be out soon!  I'm busy! Tropes Themes Things Stuff  A pile of stories At the end of Fall Semester 2015 I was reading student creative writing portfolios when I noticed a surge—a spate—of stories about young people getting engaged. The stories were all pretty much the same—girl and guy out for dinner, then they take a walk around the neighborhood, and then the guy suddenly drops to his knees and offers the girl a ring, and the girl cries. The end. There were six of them out of one class. I realized I had noticed similar spates of stories over the years, and so I was inspired to start keeping track of what I was reading. Just a simple list of whatever the writer appears to think is important to their story. And—I love it. All of it—all of the stuff my students write about, good or bad or whatever. Some of what I notice is thematic (boring engagment stories), and some of it is just stuff—things—that gets repeated in multiple stories. I’m aware that it’s a highly subjective list, that a different reader might well notice different things, or classify the things differently. Yet I just find the list fascinating and wonderful. I wish I had been keeping records like this for the past 15 years or so….. Anyway—here is the list, based on approximately 251 stories my students have written this last year…. (Listed as (ranking): (thing) | (number of examples)) 1: real place | 88 2: student | 56 3: love/misc | 52 4: drugs/drinking | 49 5: violence/misc | 44 6: cell phone | 35 7: meet cute | 32 8: job | 31 9: driving | 30 10: eating | 29 11: sex/lust | 28 12: kid focal | 27 13: texting | 27 14: depression | 26 15: weather |25 16: waking up | 24 17: non-pet critters | 24 18: car wreck | 22 19: kids | 22 20: waking up/beginning | 22 21: memory | 18 22: grief | 16 23: pet | 14 24: social media |14 25: breakup | 14 26: death/parent | 12 27: dream | 12 28: music | 12 29: friendship | 11 30: murder | 11 31: death/misc | 11 32: death/self | 10 33: ghost | 10 34: religion | 10 35: war/military 10 36: gltbq | 10 37: light out for territories | 10 38: nature | 10 39: cancer/illness/injury | 9 40: sexual assault | 9 41: sports | 9 42: start with dialogue | 9 43: knocked on head/Pippen | 8 44: death/spouse-fiancé | 8 45: divorce | 8 46: death/child | 7 47: magic realism | 7 48: psycho | 7 49: stalker |7 50: aging | 7 51: games | 6 52: kidnapping | 6 53: mental illness | 6 54: death/friend | 5 55: death/grandparent | 5 56: getting engaged | 5
57: reading | 5 58: tv | 5 59: theft/robbery | 5 60: computer | 4 61: death/sibling | 4 62: death/suicide | 4 63: fantasy | 4 64: vomit | 4 65: farming/ranching | 4 66: amnesia | 3 67: jail | 3 68: infidelity | 3 69: motherhood | 3 70: cadaver | 2 71: jewel thieves | 2 72: politics | 2 73: pregnancy | 2 74: race/ethnicity | 2 75: shopping | 2 76: western | 2 77: travel | 2 78: writing | 2 79: visual art | 1 80: birth | 1 81: coma | 1 82: drowning | 1 83: dystopia | 1 84: fairy tale | 1 85: funeral | 1 86: psychic | 1 87: reincarnation | 1 88: torture | 1 89: trains | 1 90: homelessness |1 91: generations | 1  In 1988 my mother was very ill and I took a leave from my job and moved back to West Virginia for a few months. I rented this apartment (an old tool shed converted into an apartment) in Glenville, just down the hill from the courthouse. I liked that place! The desk itself is the desk I still use: two filing cabinets with a door laid across. Here on the desk you see a computer, a PC's Limited--the precursor company to Dell--with a 20meg hard drive. (My mother, who was early into computers, said, "Good lord! What will you use 20 megs for?") That's an amber monitor for the computer. On that massive hard drive: WordStar, Lotus, a few games. Also on the desk: two clipboards (I am a big clipboard fan) pens, a desk calendar, two lamps, a matchbook, a check stub, mail, a 5 1/2 inch floppy. On the walls, a map of the Antietam battlefield (I visited Antietam that fall), a map of Gilmer County, and a map of Glenville. Also I can make out a sheet of paper with writing quotes by Vance Bourjaily and Leo Tolstoy:
Bourjaily: "There's a story you could tell to pass the time...." Tolstoy: "If I were told that I could write a novel in which I could indisputably establish as true my point of view on all social questions, I would not dedicate two hours to such a work; but if I were told that what I wrote would be read twenty years fro, now by those who are children today, and that they would weep and laugh over it and fall in love with the life in it, then I would dedicate all my existence and all my powers to it."  There's a tree full of cicadas right outside my window--nice. The sounds of summer. It's been 52 days since I turned in my spring grades and sat down to do some serious writing, and I'll brag and say that I've been incredibly productive. But now I'm clearing off my writing desk and getting ready to do some educating in the Summer II Session--two classes, "Elements of Creative Writing" and "The American Novel, 1900-Present." It's going to be a busy and fun six weeks.... Here's an excerpt from “Bluer Even than the Sky Above,” a story in Long Time Ago Good. A little context: I’ve never performed this story, never read it aloud. Don’t know why—it’s not terrible…. There was water in the bottom of the pit—clear deep blue, reflecting the sky but bluer than the sky, surrounded by cattails and willows. It looked clean, so different from the dirty green catfish ponds. A big sycamore was growing at one end of the pond, and there were a number of scrubby trees growing on the interior slopes of the pit—junipers, mostly. Shannon stumbled down the slope to the edge of the water, ducking under low branches. She sat in the shade of a willow and watched the water. For the first time in a long time there was no one telling her to sit up straight or act ladylike, no one putting her down about schoolwork, no one asking her about boys. No Margie, no Dad, and even though she sort of liked Chrissy and Cathy—felt sorry for them—she was glad to be away from them, too. There were just too many people in her life, too many people trying to mess with her. She threw a rock into the water and watched the ripples flow to the bank. “Hey—you a-scarin my fish, there.” Shannon jerked around in the direction of the voice and scooted back towards the base of the tree. “Don’t you be scared.” Shannon squinted at the cattails. Something seemed to be moving back behind them. “You all alone—right?” A man stepped out of the cattails, a very short man, shorter than Shannon, almost a dwarf, with strange short stubby arms. He had dirty blond hair that was matted and muddy, and a stubble of beard on his chin. His tiny eyes were flat, and pale—they reminded Shannon of the fetal pigs in biology class, of something that was dead and pickled. “Don’t you be scared,” he said again, and smiled. No teeth. Shannon got slowly to her feet and crossed her arms over her chest. She gripped the hot, unopened can of Diet Dr Pepper and watched the little man. “What do you want?” “I want you to stop a-scarin my fish,” he said. His face was all red and blistered; Shannon couldn’t tell if he was sunburned or sick. “They my friends.” A little bit of post-context: the long-awaited new edition of Long Time Ago Good will be out...soon!
 I was house-sitting in a beautiful compound on Long Island Sound just up the coast from New Haven. House-sitting and working on a novel. The typewriter belonged to the house. Note beer can. Note backstage passes from the Clash and Squeeze. Note notebooks, folders, paper. Note photo of cast members from All My Children, a show I loved and found inspiring.
 New Edition of Long Time Ago Good coming Spring 2016! This week: out of context with Long Time Ago Good....
...an old fat man in a gray jumpsuit came out of the store. He leaned on his cane, looking at me in the cab, then walked over to the Cadillac parked next to me and opened the door. He looked at me again. No one else was in the parking lot—it was as if the streets had emptied and everyone had gone home. No cars, no people, no nothing except the fat old man who was staring at me. I stared back at him. Finally he walked around his car—slowly, slowly—and came over to the cab. I rolled down the window. “You know, you’re parked in a handicap parking space,” he said. He had a big bald head and round glasses. “Yeah?” I asked. “And you don’t have handicap plates, or a sticker.” “No,” I said. “I guess I don’t.” He planted his cane carefully and leaned over, smiling. He had a huge round head. “Well, you know, I’m kind of an activist for handicap parking rights—my friends call me the Ralph Nader of handicap parking rights.” He chuckled and looked at me—proud, I guess, of being the Ralph Nader of handicap parking rights—but I didn’t say anything. After a moment, he said, “So, I guess I’ll have to ask you to move.” “I’m just waiting for a customer,” I said. I looked away at the store. “It’ll only be a minute or so.” “Well, then, I’m afraid I’ll have to call the police. I’m going to have you arrested.” He slowly started to turn away, pivoting on his cane. “Wha-aaat?” I couldn’t believe it. I drive some maniac albino around for an hour, and then I get threatened by an old bald man. “You’re parked in a handicap zone! And you don’t have authorization!” The old man took a step back toward me. He wasn’t chuckling now—his face was turning red with anger, or madness, and spit flew out of his mouth when he said the word authorization. “I worked for years for handicap rights in this city and I’m not going to have my rights taken away by some damn—cab driver!” “Hey, pal,” I said, and stopped. When did I start calling people ‘pal?’ Miller. Jesus, you drive riff-raff around all day, you become riff-raff—and it doesn’t take very long, either. I said, “I’m just waiting for my customer, okay?” “I don’t give a damn about your customer. I’m not going to have my rights taken away by some sleazy cab driver!” I remembered another driver once telling me that cabs could park in handicap spaces if they were waiting for a customer. So I said, “Ah, fuck you, call the cops.” “What did you say?” “Call the cops.” The old man’s bald head was turning redder and redder. “No,” he said, “before that.” “Fuck you, I said, call the fucking cops.” The old man staggered backwards with a shocked look on his face. I hit the window button and the glass rose quickly, and I looked hopefully toward the door, willing Miller to appear. That’s how bad my day had turned—I was praying for some goddamn weirdo to get in my cab! As for the old man, let him call the cops. The worst that would happen would be that the cops would write me a ticket that I would stick in the glove box and forget about. But then there was a bang on the rear of the car—and another. I looked around and the old man was beating on my left rear fender with his damn cane. Bang! Bang! I pulled my big, black flashlight from beneath the seat and got out of the car.  I'm very pleased to have a story in the new edition of Still: The Journal. It stands alone here but is also the first chapter of my West Virginia book....
Go read it now! "July 17, 1978" |
Lowell Mick White
Author of the novels Normal School and Burnt House and Professed and That Demon Life and the story collections Long Time Ago Good and The Messes We Make of Our Lives. Categories
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