Remembering Ralph Vicinanza

I learned today that literary agent Ralph Vicinanza died this past Sunday. Ralph represented some of the biggest names in sci-fi, fantasy and horror. He was also a truly great guy.

I worked for Ralph for a stint in 1999 and, although life carried me elsewhere pretty quickly, I was at the agency long enough to gain great respect for the man. He was incredibly busy – as you might expect – but when you sat down with him, his entire attention was on you. This was both intimidating and wonderful; and it was a kind of intensity I’ve rarely encountered again.

There were times I heard Ralph yell, sometimes at very powerful people, sometimes in language masterfully profane. And he ran a tight ship: there was no permissible tardiness for us assistants, no extended lunch breaks, no minor error that went without reprimand. Just reading him his messages over the phone could make me tremble in fear of doing something outside the bounds of his structures. He kept order. And that order kept that agency running smoother than anyplace else I’ve ever worked.

But here’s the thing: despite the demands Ralph placed on me and the three other assistants in the office at that time, I really liked him. I was twenty-four and clueless and one of hundreds (thousands?) of kids who’d come to New York to work in publishing. He could have very easily been one of those types who use assistants up and then move on to the next bushy-tailed kid. But he didn’t do that. He cared about me and my life; I felt that compassion every time we sat in his office and chatted. When I gave notice because I’d decided to move back to Texas, he worried that he’d somehow failed me, that my position with him hadn’t lived up to whatever expectations he thought I had.

I left New York for a lot of reasons. None of them had anything to do with Ralph.

We’ve lost a good one this week. Rest in peace, Ralph.

The Boy of Threes

Thanks to Amber Sparks for letting me be a part of her Ancient City project over at Necessary Fiction.

My story, "The Boy of Threes," went live today. It's a post-apocalyptic piece. I seem to have an affinity for those.

Lily Ponds

Ever feel like you're writing the same story over and over?

Even if it's not really the same story.

It still kinda is.

But that's o.k., right? I mean, if you've got a good subject, not even hundreds of renderings will ever capture all the possible subtleties.

Learning to Read

During my MFA coursework, we were often told that we need to learn how to read. Of course, they meant we need to learn how to take apart a plot, a scene, a sentence, a metaphor. But, for my son, learning to read literally means learning to read.

And, man, you don’t realize how messed-up the English language is until you start helping your kid learn to read.

They teach the concept of a “bossy e” which is a silent e at the end of the word that turns a vowel long. You know. Five. Drive. And, um, give. Explain that to a literal-minded six year-old.

But wait, there’s more. GH is an f in words like tough and rough but silent in though and bough (with the ou pronounced differently in each of those, of course). And, really, what the hell is that gh doing in light and fought and drought (and again, the ou isn’t pronounced the same for any reason other than it’s not pronounced the same).

There’s a bizarre b at the end of bomb and tomb and comb but it modifies that o in three different ways. And if tomb is “toom” why isn’t loom “lomb?” (And, for that matter, shouldn’t comb be come ... except, of course, come is already its own irregular).

And let’s not even get started on when c sounds like an s and a ph is an f and an x is a z. Anything more complicated than “See Spot Run” requires the explanation of rules that sometimes true and sometimes not. (oo makes the long u sound ... except when you look for a book in a nook).

My son will get it ... I suppose we all do. And what we don’t get is corrected by spell check. But I wonder what the sometimes lawless construction of our words does to our minds. Semiotics and all that. Does it promote neuroses? Creativity? Does it make our written word more inaccessible? Does it make our written word more beautiful in the way nature is beautiful in all its organic jumble?

In this world of binary code (and binary politics for that matter), there’s something wonderful about the fact that words like bough and cough exist. They’re messy; they speak to the archaic and the anarchic. They make learning to read a challenge. But I love the way those odd words taste.

A Good Rant is a Wonderful Thing

Amber Sparks unleashes.

She's writing about the frustrations of the submission process. Namely the long response times that too often end in form rejections.

One thing Amber doesn't really get into: if you allow simultaneous submissions, how in the world are you finding the best stuff if it takes nine or more months to reply? Every story I've published has been accepted within four months of submission (with the exception of one unique circumstance). By taking so long to reply, aren't you asking for the best stories to be withdrawn before you get to them? I mean, if I've never withdrawn the story and you reject me after a year, you can be pretty sure the story has either been shoved into a drawer out of disgust with its quality or it's been seriously revised.

I totally understand the difficulty of reading huge numbers of submissions for no or nearly no pay. But Amber's post expresses the frustrations most of us feel at some point or another. Good stuff.

No More Fantasy

Football season is starting soon. Until last year, this meant I was preparing for multiple fantasy football drafts. I was actually pretty good at the game – probably because I can be, um, obsessive. A year ago, I tried to calculate the amount of time I was spending studying stats and ready FF articles and trying to make trades and all that mess. The answer was: an f’n lot.

You only get so many hobbies. I think us writers get even fewer. Fewer because most of us are already spending a fair about of time on other pursuits that earn us a living, but fewer also because writing is a consuming craft. I haven’t met a good writer yet who honestly claims to be able to knock off a brilliant short story between trips to the gym.

Good writing takes time – time in the room and time conceiving, learning, observing. I’m not going to say fantasy football never taught me anything about life, but I will say that what it taught me was minor compared to what it cost me. I was unable to play the game casually. I was wasting too much intensity on which tight end to start on a given week or which running back was about to have a breakout game. Time drained. So I gave the game up.

I’m entering my second fantasy football-free NFL season and I actually feel wonderfully unburdened. There’s something to be said for winnowing away distractions.

Is it Wrong That I Liked Inception?

I finally saw Inception. It was the first adult movie I felt compelled to see in the theater since Christopher Nolan’s last outing with that little Batman/Joker flick. It’s not that I don’t love movies. It’s that I have kids.

Anyway, I enjoyed the film. There were plot holes and a general lack of emotional complexity, but the premise was cool and the action engaging. It’s not Chinatown, but it’s certainly worth the time. I’d see it again. If possible, I’d trade in the minutes I spent watching Cats & Dogs just to see part of Inception.

But, really, what interests me is not so much the intricacies of the plot (dream or not dream and all of that), but the reaction it’s created in some quarters. And by reaction I mean negative reaction. Some people hate this movie – and not just this movie but Nolan in general (and specific). In fact, some people hate it so much that they are willing to spend untold minutes of their lives explaining in detail why the rest of us should hate it, too.

This strikes me as odd. I understand not liking the movie. I don’t understand the need to beat your chest and proclaim yourself a superior film viewer whose tastes are more refined (I don’t mean to pick on Mr. Jameson, here – he clearly knows his shit and his piece convinced me of Nolan’s failings -- but he’ll be the only link here because I’m lazy and this one was easy enough to steal from HTMLGiant).

I kinda think the vituperative approach comes from a tendency among some intellectuals to be reactionary to popular taste. In this way of thinking, it’s given that the common man/woman is an idiot. Therefore, anything commonly liked must primarily appeal to idiots. I’m not so much defending Inception as I am defending those who enjoyed Inception.

A movie doesn’t have to be a work of pure art to be worth the effort. In fact, I’ll argue that the fact there is so much discussion of this movie (and not of, say, Cats & Dogs) is proof of the film’s cultural worth. A movie that strives for classic and falls short is as fascinating a movie as one that succeeds in its artful attempts.

Unfortunately, instead of praising what the movie did well and criticizing what the movie did wrong, plenty of people feel compelled to label Inception an abject failure, a travesty of moviemaking, a sign of all that’s wrong with art. Okay, I’m the one being hyperbolic now. But the point is: Inception wasn’t awful.

I guess I just don’t get the need to so vigorously hate on those things in culture that are popular but not exactly art. God knows (and my wife knows) I’ve been less than generous towards Stephanie Meyer. I’m not above some, or even a lot, of intellectual/artistic superiority. But what’s really the point? To tell people they’re idiots for liking something you don’t like? Debate is one thing. Ripping something apart in service to a greater agenda just seems a few steps too far.

The People of Paper

I was in Austin today and stopped by Book People and saw on their recommended table The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia and I thought to myself: I don’t push that book hard enough on my friends and acquaintances.

The novel is brilliant. It’s experimental and deeply moving and lyrical and brain twisting and it does about fifty things I normally dislike in fiction and yet I can’t forget the book. It arrives in my head quite often and makes a mess of things.

You should read it.

Creative is the Power

I was watching Mad Men the other night and having a nice bit of joy at the power Don Draper wields as a creative director. In my life as a creative (adjective become noun) in advertising, the account team has always held the power. My contributions are respected but, when it comes to a break point, I lose.

I'm freelance, so my power is limited. But it's really not the freelance vs. staff member dichotomy. It's the profit vs. idea/creativity/art dichotomy. The point of any ad agency is to make money. And, like it or not, satisfying a client is how an agency makes money. Sometimes it's just not worth it to the account team to force a creative idea at a client who would rather have a standard idea.

In the world of Mad Men, Don Draper shits on clients who want a standard idea. Maybe that's a 1960s thing; most likely it's a fiction thing. In today's world, safe ideas often sell better than creative ideas.

And the thing is ... I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with the idea that what I do for money is not always art or even creative. I'm okay that I sometimes am asked to push work that is less than my best work. It's not that I'm just in it for the check (I'm not; I always love a truly original campaign), it's that commerce is commerce and profit is profit and you either accept that or you make yourself miserable

In my fiction, I can do whatever I want. I can be as wildly creative as my brain is capable of being. But in copy writing, I'm a tool of a greater system. Creativity is only valuable in its ability to appeal to clients and, ultimately, sell product.

What I don't know is whether making my money this way is a bad thing or a neutral thing. I lean to neutral but some days I wonder. Some days I just want to be creative and not, for a moment, worry about the earning possibilities behind my work.

"A People's History of Martin Zansamere" in MAR

So, if you haven't heard, the new Mid-American Review is out. This would excite me no matter what. But it's extra-double exciting because my story "A People's History of Martin Zansamere" appears in the issue.

I love all my stories. But this one holds a special place in my writing life. I wrote it a little over a year ago at a time when I was really struggling with what kind of stories I wanted to write. I had been trying very hard to replicate voices like Alice Munro and Raymond Carver and Amy Hempel and Edward P. Jones -- all wonderful writers, for sure, but my immitations were falling flat. Instead of writing what came up from within me, I was writing what came down from outside of me. If that makes sense.

I was only sort-of aware of this problem. And when I wrote "Zansamere," I didn't have any kind of ah-ha moment about my writing. In fact, I worried that the story was too far removed from what I should be writing. Then a mentor at Antioch was kind enough to read 15-20 of my stories all at once. "Zansamere" was his favorite. It was very different from everything else I showed him and his appreciation of the story got me to thinking: other than "Zansamere" being non-realist, what the hell had I done differently?

The answer, I realized, was stupidly simple: I'd written "Zansamere" because it was fun to write. The idea for the story had struck me while folding socks (yeah, socks play a part in this story). I wrote the story in a week or so without care for anything other than making it the kind of story I'd like to read.

That realization changed my writing life. Almost everything I've published was written after I wrote "Zansamere." Sure, I've written reams of crap since then, too, but I haven't written any more blatantly imitative stories. In fact, I don't write anything that I don't enjoy writing. And that, as they say, has made all the difference.

I have no idea why it took me so long to figure out such a simple truth, but there it is. And I wanted to share. Because, you know, this is a weblog and all.

Gradumicated

Last Sunday I officially finished my MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. Since Antioch is low-res, the week leading up to graduation was a beautiful mess of lectures, readings, drinking, talking, tears and toasts as my fellow cohort members and I (the Cobalts) rushed through our final residency.

I could make this post snarky. Be all ironic and detached and throw out nothing but shrugs and grunts. But that wouldn’t be what I really want to say. Here’s the inside of it:

Thank you, Antioch, for changing my life, for giving me the direction and confidence and wherewithal to turn a passion into something tangible, something I can see carrying me through the rest of my life. Thank you to all the mentors and workshop leaders and fellow students who made these last two years two of the most transformative years of my life. And thank you to my family who not just tolerated but supported me ceaselessly through this degree.

I leave Antioch a vastly better writer. I leave with friends I know I’ll have for a lifetime. And I leave with writing habits that I know can sustain a career. There’s that pejorative use of “MFA story” that I hear bandied about. I know what people mean when they say that. I’ve written stories like that. But Antioch pushed me to write away from that, to find my own voice, to write what is true to me rather than reaching for the simple, the artificial. And they taught me how to do that as not just a hobbyist, but as a professional.

I wouldn’t be where I am now in my writing career if not for Antioch.

That’s truth.

Splinter Reading This Thursday

If you're in L.A. and want something fun to do this coming Thursday, June 24th, come on out for the Splinter Generation reading.

20 Under 40

So, apparently, I didn’t make the New Yorker’s much-talked about list of 20 Under 40 fiction writers worth watching. Such a shame. They only do these things once a decade or so and I’ll be 40 in a little more than 4 years.

There is, of course, a lot of criticism of this list. I’m not going to link to it because it’s easier to summarize (and I’m lazy): The list is predictable. It’s boring. It’s boringly predictable. It represents nothing more than New Yorker’s staid aesthetic. It’s too concerned with token diversity. It’s too full of writers with big agents and a knack for self-promotion. It doesn’t include _______ or ________ or __________ who are clearly superior to the collection of two-bit hacks actually chosen.

I think people are mostly jealous. Not just of the list itself but of what often seems like the random way certain writers break through while others do not. And, yeah, that part sucks. It sucks to think someone of lesser talent and lesser work ethic and even lesser savvy might hit it big while you pluck along unnoticed forever. But then again, a lot of things suck and we can either dwell on the general shittiness of the world or we can try to shovel some of it out of our way.

I didn’t mean for this to collapse into a “chin up, bucko,” diatribe. I just prefer to channel my own jealousies into motivation instead attacking those who make me jealous. I suppose not being jealous at all would be a better choice, but, yeah, there’s only a select few people of whom I’ll never be jealous. When it comes to the greater game, I want to play, too, and I envy those who already have a seat. That’s just how I’m wired.

Again, this post is going all tangential. Sorry.

What I meant to say is how damn lucky I feel to be working in a profession where being in your thirties is considered being early in your career. A 35 year old writer is “one to watch.” A 35 year old NFL player is on the brink of retirement.

I didn’t write much in my 20s. And what I did write was really bad. In fact, it wasn’t until just a couple of years ago that I really committed myself to writing. I often think that means I squandered more than a decade. Maybe I did. But the good news is, assuming good fortune, I have many more decades left to write. Regardless of who is and isn’t on The New Yorker list, all of us under 40 should note that, by choosing that auspicious year, The New Yorker is acknowledging that most writers don’t bloom until later in life. They picked writers they think have already shown signs of become exceptional. But imagine how many they missed.

Weird

I wrote a story about Japanese porn and masturbation. It's here at Thirst For Fire and it's not really about Japanese porn and masturbation. Although, it is.

Good issue. Weird. I like weird. In fact, I'd say that weird is the number one thing I look for in fiction. When I'm in a workshop and I read something strange, I circle it and get all excited with my red pen in the margin. Give me alternate worlds. Zombies. Magical realism. Perversities. Desperate people with unstoppable urges. Take me by the neck.

I'm overstating it. Or stating it poorly. It doesn't all have to be tattoos on the face (and probably shouldn't ever be tattoos on the face). It can be lizards in the gut. Quiet little lizards.

Coming Out of a Fog

Been absent for awhile as I've been working towards my MFA. But I just finished my last packet today and now it's just about doing a reading and teaching a lecture at the June residency and I'll be a proud recipient of an MFA.

"An MBA? That's great!"

"No, an MFA."

"Oh. What do you do with that?"

"Um. Buy a nice frame."

But, really, the MFA program at Antioch L.A. has been a life changer for me. It's taught me the big difference between WANTING to be a writer and actually BEING a writer. I feel like I'm leaving the program as someone who has a chance to make a career at this. Not just because I'm a far better writer than when I went in (which I am) but because I'm a far more disciplined writer as well.

Plus -- or maybe "most importantly" -- I come out of this with some amazing friends who I know will support me for the rest of my writing life.

Two years have gone fast. But I can't imagine spending them in any better way.

Oh, and in my silence, two stories have gone live.

"Incubus" over at Dogzplot and
"That Kid" over at Staccato

Thanks to Barry Graham for working with and publishing the former. And thanks to David Erlewine for working with me on the latter and the guys at Staccato for publishing it.

One last thing: Storyscape has an anthology out. You can get it here. I have a story in it about the Dust Bowl.