Algonkian Class

It's official - I've been accepted for an Algonkian online class starting in April. It's ten weeks of intensive instruction, geared toward the short story, with emphasis on getting published. I am hoping for the best.

They also have in-person intensive week-long seminars. This is an offshoot of webdelsol. It will be interesting to compare this to the Gotham workshop that I took a couple of years ago.

The plan is to work as hard as I can before and during this class - I have already started on the reading list. Keep your fingers crossed!

Short stories at fifteen

"Finished" another one this weekend, the best in a while, at least in my humble opinion. "Man of Steel" is about a man dealing with loss.

The Life of Pi - Yann Martel

An interesting book, well written and worth a read. I have some issues with it, of course. It's definitely a literary novel, more concerned with character than plot, although it's not so far down that curve as the novels I have read by Oates, for instance. My main issue is that he reveals the end of the plot almost as soon as the book begins. What is the purpose of that? It's almost as if, to be considered literary, he has to destroy his plot. He does it repeatedly for minor plot points as well, removing all suspense. We are robbed of the "what is going to happen," and left with only "how did it happen."

The first seventy pages are a chore. They are almost "preachy", pushing a certain religious take on life, and I found it hard to swallow. If the book hadn't been recommended, I would have quit somewhere in those seventy pages. I'm still glad that I read it though. I will never ruin my plot by removing all suspense.

updates on Short Stories page

I am up to 15 stories now. Cool. Check out the Short Stories link above.

3rd Degree by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

A fast paced thriller. I have to say this is the first thriller i have ever read. I can see why they are popular. Easy to read, compelling, up-to-date. Will I read more thrillers? I doubt it. There seems to be something missing, almost as if the book is an outline instead of a book. I kept wondering where the actual book was. But if you have never read a thriller, this is a good introduction to them. It's just not for me.

the five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom

An intriguing book. The usual description is "thought provoking." I could never write something like this. I have tried being preachy in some of my short stories and I can't pull it off very well. I either need more practice or I need to avoid that type of story totally. But this book is great. The premise is interesting and the characterization of the lead character is especially good. I highly recommend it.

An Author Speaks - Steve Berry

I attended a very interesting meeting of the Georgia Writer's Association this weekend where author Steve Berry ("The Amber Room", "The Romanov Prophecy", "The Third Secret") gave a talk on his approach to writing and the difficulty in getting published. His website is at www.steveberry.org/

His genre is the international thriller. He wrote nine unpublished novels over ten years before finally selling "The Amber Room" to a New York publishing house and getting a contract to write several more. Now he has sold hundreds of thousands of hardback and paperback books, and has been translated into 33 languages.

So it was a very interesting talk. What follows are my notes on the high points of his talk. Any errors are my own, of course:

• He works much harder at his writing than I do. He writes two hours of new material every morning, and revises for two hours in the evenings. During the day he works full-time as a lawyer.


• "Write what you love, not what you know." His first book was a legal thriller (he's a lawyer), and he never sold it. He states that you must love what you are writing since you live with it for years while rewriting and editing. He loves the suspense of international thrillers.


• "Writing is not fun." He stated this emphatically, but listening to him talk it was obvious he loved his writing and it brought him great joy to create his books. I think he was just trying to stress how much hard work it is.


• "Set a goal." His goal was to get a contract with a New York publisher and he didn't settle for self-publishing or a small press.


• "It's much harder to get an agent than a publisher."


• His seven rules of writing:

1. There are no rules. Do anything you want as long as it works.


2. Don't bore the reader.


3. Don't confuse the reader.


4. Don't get caught writing.


5. Don't lie to the reader (unreliable narrator).


6. Shorter is better.


7. Tell a good story.

• He impressed me with his total knowledge of his genre. He has read all the other thriller writers and knows many of them personally. He knows what books are coming out, how well the other authors are doing, and who his competition is.


• He was writing in the genre at a time when it wasn't popular. He predates Dan Brown ("The DaVinci Code") by several years. The genre had fallen out of fashion with readers and Dan Brown revived it. Berry was able to capitalize on that.


• You have to write a million(!) words before you begin to get good at your craft.

This was the best author talk I have ever attended. I'm not a thriller writer, but Berry's hard work and determination were an inspiration.

The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

A wonderful book. A Southern Gothic with a fresh, imaginative, twist. Every page has a surprising image or metaphor. My only complaint - and it's a small one - is that she didn;t quite go far enough. She went to the brink of grit-lit and backed away. I was sure when the young white girl and the black boy drove to town together bad things would happen - to the black boy. Bad things did happen, of course, but they are mild in comparison to what could have happened.

Also the father was treated very badly by the author. Understandable, since he had to be a bad father or there would have been no story. Every book can't be everything to everyone.

An excellent book for the aspiring writer to read. I highly recommend it.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

An excellent book. Another of those "must reads" that are on my list, and I am glad I finally got around to it. The writing is excellent, and for a change it is told from the omniscient viewpoint. The characters are the focus, not the plot. Even though it is "about" a hostage crisis, it is not a thriller.

That's the only criticism I have about it. Through much of the book there was no tension about the hostage crisis. There was very little tension between the characters. There was quite a lot of internal tension within each character. The author even predicted the ending before it happened, so there wasn't much suspense either.

The epilogue was a little surprising. I would not have predicted that at all, but it still rings true to me.

Place this one on your own "must read" list. I highly recommend it.

Submissions to Byline magazine

I submitted nine stories this morning to Byline magazine. Old fashioned printed submissions in envelopes. What a hassle.The magazine seems very interesting though, catering to new writers. Keep your fingers crossed.

Submission to Black October magazine

Submitted the strange story Mom's Book to the strange magazine Black October. They should be a good match for each other.