 ""Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" by Vincent Van Gogh |
This piece did not, intially, do what I wanted it to do. I deleted the entire flash several times. I thought I was writing about something and it turned into something else. We have an elderly neighbor whose dog shits regularly on our lawn. I am not a fan of canines that wear their teeth on the outside of the face. I began thinking of Dog as man's best friend and what this might mean to someone else, not me. I had trouble doing the separation because one is bound ever so tightly to one's own prejudices.
The idea of "meal ticket" keeps attracting my attention as I re-read this piece. Am I crazy to see that line at the center of the flash's meaning?
Rest assured, you are not crazy, but I might... NO... NO. But I think you are right in that I often write about survival and what people do in response to the need to survive, emotionally and physically.
Every word carries such weight. How did your style develop to the point it is now—when you achieve such compression and power in your writing?
First of all, thank you for the compliment. When I first started writing, I compressed to the point of mega-density. I learnt aeration and baking powder and the right amount of cooking time, or at least I hope I did.
You write both fiction and nonfiction. How do you decide when an incident is going to get the fiction or nonfiction treatment? What unique challenges does nonfiction present to you?
I rise most easily to fiction. When I try non-fiction and I feel my eyes glaze over and I start to slide off the chair, then I know it needs to change genres. For me, with non-fiction, it is difficult to get emotion across. If I do, it sounds melodramatic. I have a bit more success with it at my blog Straight On Juice. Every now and then, I'll fall into a private/public sort of reverie.
I am also informed by my stint at college studying visual design. My style in writing became obvious to me when I carried it over to artwork. For example, my husband is a wonderful photographer; and is often happy with the end result because he is always composing his shots before he presses the shutter. Me, I like to bring more in and manipulate until I am satisfied. There is a shot that I had of a long-necked bird on a beach. It was twilight time. We did not have a wide-angle lens and the shot of the bird against the beach was very blurry. I worked on it for days and days. The result is one of my favorite pieces.
Time for the first (and perhaps only) SLQ deserted island questionnaire. One CD. One novel. One flash piece. One movie. One very much alive famous person. One very much alive writer. One SLQ editor with the initials R.B.. Go!
CD: Satoh — Depth of Silence. Good for writing Dramatic Scenes in Novel
Novel: Kevin Brockmeir — A Brief History of the Dead. For a short while, I wasn't going to read this because I'd read the short story in Best American Short Stories, and I was afraid he'd written the novel I was about to write. Luckily, he didn't. It's a good read. Very suited to desert islands.
Flash Piece: "Passenger" by Kathy Fish in the recent elimae
Movie: Look both Ways — Australian film. Awesome.
One Alive Famous Person: We are talking about Nicole Kidman and her performance in Birth, aren't we?
One Alive Writer: We are talking about Ron Currie who is in this issue and how he's got a fabulous deal for his SSC, God is Dead!
R. B.: I wonder who that could be :)
Read Man and Dog.
