Tag: Literature

Dixie fiction friction

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the Southern literary tradition was a linkage with Scotland, a love of Walter Scott and, unsaid, its Presbyterian literal Bible, clans becoming klans, some of the same intonations and expressions, a shared rebellious nature, plus the repulsion of Quakers in general.

Yet many of its young writers in the ‘50s devoured Jewish influences (Mailer, Malamud, Bellow) and then the Calvinist Congregationalists of New England (Updike, in particular) and then their own Thomas Wolfe and Faulkner. So I’ve read.

Their own writers had been presenting the Dixie heritage as all happy and macho, which did not fit what they observed. The Jews and Congregationalists, on the other hand, were presenting something hard and ugly about themselves.

From that, I’ve wondered: where and how my Midwestern heritage was being addressed or examined. I saw escape but no reality being addressed. Things that ought to be said but weren’t, at least in the mainstream view.

The best I’ve come up with is Jeffrey Eugenides, Greek-American of Detroit. And, my, how he delivers.

Advice from writers for writers goes way beyond the page

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Just consider:

  1. “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” ― Sidney Sheldon
  2. “One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing – writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.” ― Lawrence Block
  3. “Be willing to write really badly.” ― Jennifer Egan
  4. “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ― Octavia E. Butler
  5. “Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said.’ … To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.” ― Elmore Leonard
  6. “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” ― Ernest Hemingway
  7. “I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.” ― Tom Clancy
  8. “Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” ― Ray Bradbury
  9. “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.” ― James Baldwin
  10. “When your story is ready for a rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” ― Stephen King

 

Should you be interested in finding more …

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As the Red Barn delves into my earliest journals, I’ve mentioned that we’re skipping over many of the entries that have already been distilled into my previously published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction prose. I do hope you find what’s turning up to be brilliant and, uh, let’s back up, somehow engaging. It was a unique time and journey.

Still, I’m coming across material that seems more suitable for a different typographic and visual presentation apart from a straight Red Barn post, and that’s led me to create a Chronicles category at my Thistle Finch editions free digital editions “bookstore.” Offerings at that site allow me more flexibility in formatting, especially for you to download or print. Quite simply, it often feels more “literary,” with its own satisfactions.

Initial posts there as an outcome of my journals review are now available as free PDF downloads. Among them are New Novelists Back Then, notes from a lively contemporary fiction course, meaning cutting-edge novelists back in the ‘60s; Hitching, drawing on thumbing-on-the-road encounters in the hippie era; and The Past Still Speaks, three literary quotes that still resonate.

Another presentation there is a photo album, Mulberry Row, with images of a dormitory quad that prompted much of the action in my novel Daffodil Uprising. Collecting those images, which become this “lookbook” or “storyboard” was helpful in re-envisioning the narrative. Perhaps it will help readers, too, in internalizing the scene.

Welcome to another Rabbit Hole on the Internet.

 

As I’ve said, writers’ advice goes beyond the page

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here are some more examples.

  1. “Always carry a note-book. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.” – Will Self
  2. “[F]ocus on your own journey, and try not to worry about what’s going on in the lane next to you. I know it’s hard, because it feels natural to compare. And sometimes it’s important, to know what barriers exist and how they impact marginalized writers. But from a productivity standpoint, the comparisons tend to do more harm than good. Because everyone’s publishing journey is different.” – Akemi Dawn Bowman
  3. “Everyone has ups and downs at different moments, and paying too much attention to what other people are getting is only going to slow you down. Focus on the page, and the words, and do what you do best—write.” – Akemi Dawn Bowman
  4. “We’re all students of the craft and every book we read is another chance to learn. Read voraciously. And write exactly the kinds of books you like best.” – Mindy Mejia
  5. “Always stop while you are going good and don’t worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it, you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.” – Ernest Hemingway
  6. “Words have extraordinary power—their definitions and colloquial meanings, the way they evolve, and where they come from. Be deliberate and selective about the words you choose. Be voracious about collecting new words for your authorial toolkit. Always look up words you’ve never met before. And above all, wield your words for good, for creativity, and for the cultivation of knowledge.” – Jeff Zafarris
  7. “You’re most likely going to spend a long time writing a book, and then more time promoting it, so make it something you’re passionate about so that even when you collapse into bed exhausted at the end of the day (or fall asleep on your couch with your laptop open, as I’m prone to do), you’ll feel fulfilled.” – Haley Shapley
  8. “A successful career in writing typically takes too long to achieve to be writing something you’re not passionate about. Write from your heart, and write what gets you excited to sit at your computer every day. Most of all, make sure you have a life while doing it—exercise, teach, build, vote, explore, learn, grow, fellowship, and most of all, love. It will not only inform your writing but you’ll also be a healthier person for it, mentally and physically.” – Christopher J. Moore
  9. “Write often. I won’t go so far as to say you have to write every day, but I do think you need to make this a part of the texture of your life, something that you do on a regular basis, like a workout schedule.” – Leslie Lutz
  10. “Then, learn to let go. Let go of old drafts that aren’t going anywhere, or scenes that don’t work. Don’t spend months tweaking a fundamentally flawed project when you can move on to the wonderful new projects that are percolating in your head. The ‘you must start what you finish’ attitude—although admirable—can actually be a pitfall, because it prevents you from taking a necessary course correction when you need it.” – Leslie Lutz

Who are they besides their latest book?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Contributors’ notes at the back of a literary quarterly or toward the beginning of a glossy magazine can sometimes be among the most entertaining reading in the entire volume.

Or they can be among the most deadly, as I’ve been thinking while scanning those in the Paris Review, where they run along the line of so-and-so is the author of the new insert-title-here book of poetry or fiction. It’s so one-dimensional.

Don’t know about you, but I definitely want to know what makes a writer tick – unique details help. Hopefully, something more than where they’re also teaching.

Yes, I know as writers we’re all hustling our books, but ultimately, we’re the brand, like it or not. (God, it hurts to admit that, but it’s true.)

The celebrity Proust Questionnaire at the closing of Vanity Fair magazine issues is a great prompt.

So here I am, pushing a whole lineup of volumes while hoping at least one of them jumps out at you and makes you get it, free or at a price – yes, I’m shy about asking for money – but still!

This matter of self-identity came into play with my poetry collection Hamlet, a village of gargoyles, which built on exercises where I found it much easier to say who I’m not than who I am.

So here I am, with a few potential contributor notes I may have sent out:

  • As a youth, Jnana admired crystals grown from supersaturated solutions. Deep blue copper sulfate was his favorite.
  • Jnana has found landscapes evolving into an awareness of spirituality and space, as well as settlement and wildlife.
  • In addition to reading and writing, Jnana enjoys hiking and camping, birding, New England contradancing, classical music, opera, jazz, visual arts, genealogy and history, theology, Quaker practice, homebrewing, and a cappella part-singing. If there were only more time, he contemplates.
  • Jnana Hodson never expected a film literature course under Harry Geduld would influence his poetry as much as college writing class under poet Dick Allen. But it did: the clash of thesis and antithesis producing an unanticipated synthesis in reaction.
  • When Jnana first began reading contemporary poetry (for pleasure, independent of classroom assignment), he sensed that often the poem existed as a single line or two, with the rest of the work as window dressing. Now he reads the Psalms much the same way, for the poem within the poem, or at least the nugget he is to wrestle with on this occasion. Psalm 81, for instance, has both “voice in thunder” and “honey from rock.”
  • Elk move through Jnana’s mind, its memory, more as emblem and ideal than creature. He has not tasted elk flesh or stroked the fur. What he’s known has appeared only on the forest floor as track and scat – no ticks on the neck or patchy summer skin. That, and the winter encounters viewed from a distance.

While we’re at it, let’s ponder the faces on back dust jacket or cover.

How few seem like people I’d like to meet. How much anger, hatred, envy, darkness – brooding – comes through? How little serenity, how little joy? Multiplicity of personality. Just who am I? Who are you?  Empathy. Discomfort. All the rest.

Who are you in relation to all this?

As a stab at transplanting a sensibility

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Four Noble Plants [and a quest for American equivalents]

  • Bamboo, bends but never breaks in a storm = Oak, with its acorns
  • Plum blossom = Apple
  • Orchids = Sunflowers
  • Chrysanthemums = Dandelions
  • Now, to play with those starting with classic Japanese or even Chinese poems and substituting the equivalents. This could be weird.

Too bad those book collections are still in storage.

As for “noble,” in America? Even that needs an equivalent.

 

As my poetic voice took shape

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The odd syllable counts of my poetry lines: quite female! And quite flexible. Contrast to “maleness” of iambic pentameter or other club-feet.

The luxury of wasting a whole notebook, an entire sketchbook. [Oh? Did I pitch that out already?]

Good poetry takes leave of tight meaning … pointing to “lunatics” as “originals” … the way flames do.

 

Get ready for another turn here  

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here we are again, another new year, another new calendar to fill. As if that should be any problem? Let me guess that you, too, never seem to have enough time to do so much of what you’re hoping to accomplish, day, week, month, or more. Right?

No matter. This time of the year is typically a moment for reflection of what’s happened in the previous 12 months of our lives and also for planning for our next 12.

Blogging, and my writer’s life in general, are no exception.

Blogging was, I believe, envisioned as a place for “live” journaling, or logging, in a ship captain’s sense, though my flagship Red Barn and four affiliated sites over the past 14 years have always put twists on that by scheduling long in advance. Even with that, each year has somehow always taken on a fresh emphasis.

The Barn started out with a huge backlog of previously published poems and related pieces to share, giving the blog essentially a literary focus. To my surprise, digital photography, especially once I retired from the newsroom, came to the forefront, too. As the pace picked up, marriage, family life, and our “city farm” in Dover provided fresh waves of inspiration, and there were files of unpublished poems and essays to add to the mix. Excerpts from my widespread correspondence and my Quaker writings also came into play. On top of that, publication of my novels and their subsequent revisions widened the perspective, including outtakes, as did my history Quaking Dover and the spirituality investigation Light Seed Truth.

More recently, the focus shifted to Way Downeast Maine where I’ve resettled.

So far, that adds up to more than 6,000 posts.

~*~

In addition, we’ve had the emergence of my quartet of affiliated WordPress blogs, which have undergone their own evolution.

Much of my Quaker-related writing led to establishing As Light Is Sown.

The photography has joined the Talking Money and New England Spirit entries at Chicken Farmer I Still Love You.

Poetry in chapbook presentations, especially, now appear at Thistle Finch editions.

And Orphan George Chronicles make my research findings available to genealogy investigators who share some of my linage.

It’s a lot, but it’s not sitting in dusty files or some editor’s sludge piles.

~*~

In the year ahead here at the Barn, you’ll be seeing excerpts from my physical journals, which started nearly six decades ago. Last year, having wound up on this remote island in Maine, I finally hunkered down revisiting the earliest decade of the books and found much of merit that hadn’t been distilled into my novels or poetry, so we’ll give them a final airing here.

It has me thinking of a poet I’ve dearly loved and his remark that nobody since could pursue the life he did. That remark came after he saw recent real estate prices for marginal properties around the lands he and his cohorts had purchased dirt cheap decades earlier in the Sierra Nevada range of California and then built upon and then realizing they couldn’t afford to buy their places now.

I wish I could advise kids today setting forth some advice for moving ahead.

All I can say is I’m glad I’m not in their place.

Looking back, though, I’m seeing ours was often a difficult journey, too.

Here’s how things unfolded for me. It really was a merry-go-round, something of the continuing nature of this blog.

Much of what’s ahead promises to be more confidential, subjective, off-guard than what you’ve seen from me before.

As always, I do enjoy hearing your comments and sharing your company.

 

Some final shots for the year in my writing life

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes my own writing goes beyond anything I can explain. For instance:

  • My Kinisi here at the Barn? Prompts, yes, if you want.
  • But firing them into full blast?
  • Much less igniting a conflagration?
  • We do what we can, each one on the edge.
  • I keep shooting what I think are some good ones at you, hoping someone will take it the next step.

Meanwhile, over the years:

  • I’ve attempted to walk in the Light daily, though fallen far short.
  • Ridden the uprising Spirit.
  • Found silent meditation crucial to writing poetry.
  • Uncovered 12 generations of my Hodgson ancestors.
  • Returned unknowingly to the faith of those ancestors.
  • Survived a shrinking profession to reach retirement.
  • Sought an incandescent language.
  • Still need a champion.
  • Never taught creative writing.
  • Found literary writing can resemble prayer.
  • Am perhaps best known for my Mixmaster approach to poetry and fiction. Or maybe it was my radical history of Dover along with uncovering an alternative Christianity in the Quaker metaphors of Light and Seed
  • Prefer a religion that relies on questions more than answers
  • Think we’re confused enough, already.
  • Store bath towels in a basket.
  • Wear reading glasses, more and more.
  • Have become uncomfortable around smokers.
  • Had hoped to reclaim my social activist witness, after years of journalistic neutrality.

Remember, you can find my works in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain them.