A while back (don’t ask how long, I don’ t remember, and if I did it would only serve to remind me of how old I’m getting) I wrote an article for Sybil’s Garage about the Hoboken attraction Sybil’s Cave.
As I continue to work on my updated website, I’ve added a PDF of this piece to my Writing page. Check it out. I’ve also uploaded several of the interviews I’ve done for past Sybil’s issues.
March 4th – 8th marked the third annual Altered Fluid Writer’s Retreat. After deviating last year and renting two houses in Gettysburg, PA, this year we returned to the Woodstock, NY region and ended up at a very nice house in Bearsville.
I can claim to have got a lot of writing done, but I’d be a freakin’ liar. I got some done, not nearly as much as I would have liked. There was no television to distract us this year, only what entertainment could be streamed via high speed internet to our laptops.
Photo above courtesy of Matt Kressel.
Sybil’s Garage will once again open for submissions, starting this Friday, the 15th of January. Rules, regulations, bribe requirements, are all located at the Senses Five Submissions page.
Send us your stuff!
This coming Saturday, January 16th, Altered Fluid will participate in our semiannual visit to Hour of the Wolf radio program. The show is broadcast live from 5-7 a.m. in New York on WBAI, 99.5 FM. If that’s a little early for you, you can check out the broadcast recording which will be posted later in the day on the 16th.
This time up we are critiquing a story by Paul Berger.
**UPDATE 1/18: the MP3 of the show is now available HERE***
I was once told that everyone should make a New Year’s Resolution, as it is the one time in life that you can tell an outright lie to yourself and everyone around you and no one will think anything of it. I tend to do them every year and one of them always has to do with writing.
I didn’t need further proof that this is common – go to a New Years party with a bunch of writers and you’ll see just how common it is – so when fellow Altered Fluidian Eugene Myers sent around a ‘The Washington Post” article last month by Ann Patchett, and her realizations of how making yourself write every day actually resulted in writing every day and having higher output, it wasn’t a new concept for me. (I have to admit, though, that the first time I read the article, all I could think was ‘wow, this woman knows Edgar Meyer!)
In the article a yogi is credited with saying that if one picks a task and does it with consistency for the first 32 days of the year, then that sets the tone for the year. I agree with that, but I don’t think you have to limit it to the first 32 days of the year. Doing something every day is simple programming of the human body and mind. You can teach yourself to write every day by simply sitting down and writing every day. You can teach yourself a musical instrument by practicing every day. Professional football, basketball and other sports players practice every day. And even if you’re not that good at first, and maybe you don’t care for the task, you can still program yourself to do it. For proof of the latter, read about Andre Agassi and how his father decided Andre would be the best tennis player in the world and it became so. Also look at how many people, if they really thought about it, would admit to despising their 9-5 job, but they’ve programmed themselves to do it through repetition of the task and the telling themselves it has to be.
So, while I don’t think New Year’s Resolutions are incantations that guarantee success or failure, I’ll still make a few:
So. There. Promises I make to myself that may or may not turn out to be lies for the New Year. But, no worries. If they don’t take hold on January 1st, then I can start again on February 1st, or March 7th, or ‘The Ides of March”, or whenever.
Have a great Twenty-Ten!
A few months ago I attended a writer’s conference in Manhattan. At said conference there was a panel, and upon this panel sat an agent who spoke of how he likes to work with authors, how new authors are his particular favorites, how he likes the unique voice. How he enjoys the personal connection with a writer. I spoke with him briefly after the panel, he asked me to send him a query letter, I agreed.
This week I received the rejection email from the agent. It began “Dear Mr. Fitzgerald…”
I re-read my query numerous times, thinking I’d made the mistake. But, no, my name was clearly stated in all of the materials, in the email return address, everywhere.
In addition to getting my name COMPLETELY incorrect, he also misspelled the title of my novel. I guess being an agent means you don’t have to pay attention to the details.
Next!
Saturday morning was Altered Fluid’s fifth outing on the Saturday morning radio show Hour of the Wolf. While the process of critiquing a story is fairly rote for us anymore, doing it live on the radio does provide quite a thrill. This time through we went at Rajan’s story “School Bus” and were as gentle with it and him as we thought necessary.
For those of you who didn’t feel like getting up at 5 a.m. to listen live, you can download an audio file of the broadcast from the Hour of the Wolf website, June 27th broadcast.
Senses Five Press has posted my interview with Paul Tremblay, from the new issue of Sybil’s Garage, on their website. Check it out here.
Sybil’s Garage #6 has hit the streets. A lot of great fiction in this issue, along with my interview with author extrodinaire Paul Tremblay.
Fellow Altered Fluidian Kris Dikeman has a story up for the story South Million Writers Award. Her story, “Nine Sundays in a Row” was published online by Strange Horizons. It’s honestly one of my favorite stories from the past two years from any market and any author. Truly a wonderful bit of storytelling.
Check out the story at Strange Horizons, and vote.