Exploring travel, identity, and community through writing
Why yes me. I loved it. That combination of drums and band with the beat of my words and it worked and it gave me an idea and a desire to create more to collaborate to combine sounds and images and words and movement and I don’t know who or when or how but it’s there, I’ll do it.
In the meantime, listen here to a rough recording of the first of many more to come:
I don’t notice my dog growing old,
the way his eyes are cloudy
or how his hips stiffen up and how
hard it can be to stand up.
I don’t notice how he falls
down the stairs in the
dark or how he stumbles
when he leaps across a
small creek or how he struggles
to jump up into the truck.
I don’t notice when he doesn’t
join me in bed during the night
prefering to stay on the
couch alone with an old bone.
I don’t notice when he’s still
there in the early morning
and I put the kettle on, trying not
to panic, watching him for a
tail wag or an open
eye or something
anything.
Please breathe
Please wag
For me
For us
I’m not ready
And he opens his eyes and I notice how he lights up seeing me next to him on the couch with my mug of coffee starting the day together like any other.
Flash Fiction:
Can I go twenty one days? It seems like an awfully long time. I thought about three weeks and what it means, not as Mr Gerard Faulkner wanted me to consider it (as a time to respond the changes in the condo association ordinances number 201:45B and 201:45C) but as a dry time. I sat there at the new neighborhood monthly maintenance meeting at the up and coming golf club restaurant with a pint in hand, listening and throwing in my two cents worth, that is – not much–but I was speaking up every so often so my neighbors thought I cared as much as they do but I don’t. I don’t. I have to show up or I’ll have them screech to a halt on their way home down the cul-de-sac past the gatekeeper’s original home which is now my home and I’m no gatekeeper by any sense. I can’t be bothered and so I’m not bothered except I am but I don’t say anything because like I told you I don’t want them to stop and yell as me as I sit in my front yard sniffing my family heirloom roses as if the new development hadn’t magically appeared after Mom and Dad died. I’d sold the farm for a good price not thinking I’d miss the fields or the view of the Lindon Hills over past Mrs. Jarrod Hunkers place half a mile a way but I do miss them, Mom and Dad, and the farm and the fields, and the view and even Mrs. Jarrod Hunhkers who’s never forgiven me and neither have I and so I drink to keep it all in and I drink to shut up and I drink to be social and what would happen if I stopped?
Her eyes lit up. Blue. Pale. Her skin was dirty, skin weathered, chin sunburnt, and a huge genuine smile that broke you open again. Again. Linda, you’d chatted a few times on Main Street over the months. Her and the backpack, talking of camping in the park out of sight. “I’ll be alright, won’t I?” she’d asked and you’d said yes. You think she was.
You waved at her this morning. She was walking slowly up State, the farmers’ market out in force. She stopped at your voice. She lit up seeing you. You chatted, glad she was okay. Then she asked you for money for a supposed ticket. Instinct kicked in and you said “no, I can’t help.”
But you gave her $3.25 in quarters from your front pocket.
“I’m going home to my mom. I need to catch the bus today, that’s what she said. She worries about me for some reason.”
“They do that,” you joked.
You talked about how much the bus ticket was – $35, how much she needed – $8 total, and perhaps she could ask at the market? Feeling shy today, she muttered.
She again asked for your help. You lied. You fucking lied to her.
In your back pocket was $25 in cash. You never have cash. You’d just bought and eaten a fresh ham and cheese croissant for $4.50. She’d only asked for another $5 for a ticket home to her mom and you’d lied? For fuck’s sake, Sleam. You chatted a bit more, crossed the road together and then she walked to the bus stop anyway.
You walked away.
The sun beat down.
Hot day ahead.
Your cool apartment.
Fans blurring the edges.
Fridge full.
Cash in pocket.
Croissant crumbs on your tee shirt.
And
You’d lied to Linda.
You walked around Bear Pond Bookstore, tempted by another collection of essays that you don’t need. You walked out. Linda sat on a concrete bench in the shade of an Ash tree, stretching out one leg, pack at her feet. You called her name and gave her a fiver.
Her face lit up. You chatted together. Again.
You walked away, crying. You? You… No, me, but you knew that, right? Yes.
I had lied to Linda.
Wishing her a safe trip home, I turned home and began to cry again because I’m so fucking angry at the world and life and me me me and for fuck’s sake, someone asked for help and you didn’t want-that is, I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone and I couldn’t shut down and so my heart broke again and I cried. I am now. I’ve been there: Broke. Homeless. Reaching out. And helped by strangers for their own reasons.
Linda gets to see her mom.
I wish I could see mine one more time.
Your Downstairs Neighbour doesn’t like you. Why? Can you hear the stereo? Mine? No, because I can hear your bloody Gameboy. Games, boy. Over and over that damn theme song, it’s not really song is it though? A loop of bass and rhythm but without any rhythm eh? Do you want to be an american idiot? Caught up in the daily routine of work to pay rent to play your games at night? And get pizza delivered? Every fucking night? So when you die, or about to die because you’re unhappy and unhealthy and yes, I’m judging you and I’m okay with that, but when you’re up there with that god of yours are you going to say, man I reached level five, can you believe it, I mean, oh god, it was great the lights blinked twice and then that was it, you got me, was that it? I’d wanted to get to the next level and the pizza, the big one with pepperoni was on its way and who’s going to pay for it? What a waste, oh god, what a waste. And god says, yes, it was. And then me, that neighbour downstairs who listens to your creaking chair and the repeated theme track for that bloody Gameboy will eat your pizza even though I don’t like pepperoni but the dogs do and this music on my stereo breaks my heart so maybe it’s a good thing to get pissed off with you and your bloody Gameboy, games, boy. It breaks my heart.
(An excerpt from the collection of prose, poems, and portraits, Clean up on Aisle 23.)
Is this what you meant?
When you said dogspeed, did you mean big dogs or little? Remember Freddy, the old chi-mix I took in from the shelter? With the grey face, bad arthritis, and his red winter coat? He was slow, feisty but as slow as you are in the mornings. And Harold, my sweet Harry, bless him, he’s not as fast as he once was. It’s his hips – isn’t that true for all of us? But Rosie, she doesn’t bloody stop, does she? Putting her on a leash to walk around the block is like asking a marathon runner to skip to the traffic lights and back. Oh. You said godspeed? I don’t know what that means. Sorry.
On Fiction: Knowing your characters is key to a writing an insightful novel or short story.
It’s true, the more we know the protagonist, the side characters, everyone mentioned, the fuller the sense of story we take the reader into. We’re less like to have pawns, stereotypes, and more likely to have believable people reacting to the world we’ve stuck them into.
Alexander Chee came to VCFA in 2017 and talked to us in the MFA program about developing his own characters and how much research he would invest in each one. He inspired much of this list, some are his ideas and others are mine that came from the inspiration of listening to him talk.
The list is in no specific order. It’s a collection of random questions and suggestions that help me when I’m writing fiction. It helps me in revision too, I can go back to each character once the story is finished in my case, and look more carefully into their backgrounds and make sure it rings true or if more information is needed for the reader to understand their actions and reactions.
It helps me. I hope it helps some of you too.
If you have more ideas, then add to the comments below and we can share the info. Thanks again. Be well. Be creative.
