near wild heaven

This is now, this is here, this is me, this is what I wanted you to see.

Oh, dear readers. I'm sorry that I haven't written sooner. I'm at camp; right now there are no fewer than ten young charges under my supervision here in the Oberlin library. In one corner, two ninth grade boys vie foir the affections of a 9th grade girl--while still trying to remain friends. Yeah, we'll see how that's going in a week. In the other coener, awkward 7th graders! In still another, the elementary boy who walks in circles!

Plus, at dinner, the coup de grace: Asperger's boy.

My, my. These gifted children.

Somebody write with news from the adult world.  

posted by: zithereen at June 29, 2005 15:04 | link | comments (4) |

About a year ago, I was submitting my MFA thesis to such writerly luminaries as Geoffrey Wolff, Mark Richard and (even though you may not have heard of her) Michelle Latiolais. It was a decent enough document, I suppose. It was workmanlike in the respect that it reflected the kind of work I had done in MFA-land. There was a cornerstone of a short story collection in there, and there were lots of stories where I was trying to learn how to do something, or just trying something new, and these attempts were clumsy at best. But I was pleased to have written them. I think you have to be willing to write like that, especially if you want to grow. 

Tonight, I printed off a much more polished short story collection. It is not finished--damn, is it ever finished?--but, really, it's getting very much to that point. I was shooting for an 85-90% completion by about this time, and by God, I think I've done that. I have questions, but they're not gaping ones (I think), and every story belongs. Current title: For Tonight by your Zithereen. Tomorrow copies go out to Latiolais (see above), and Winthrop, my colleague who has her first novel arriving courtesy of Knopf in January. That's right, you in the know: KNOPF.  

So, we're coming along. Today I'm pleased. Tomorrow I have to get ready for camp.

posted by: zithereen at June 22, 2005 01:51 | link | comments (2) |

Still reading Bronte. It's slow going, partially beacuse I've been reading contemporary stuff, and going back to the 1840s has been an adjustment. Plus sometimes it takes me awhile to warm up to a particular writing style. Sometimes I never do: Welty's The Optimist's Daughter and Maupassant's Pierre and Jean are examples.

Now that I'm going to Squaw Vlley, I find that I'm a little anxious. I need this to not affect me in these final few days, as I try to put together a decent, mostly finished draft to send along to my readers. I need focus now more than ever.

And a week from now, I'll probably be asleep in a dormitory at Oberlin College, after a day of training and an evening of dinner and drinks with old and new friends. I've always enjoyed working for camp.

I'm going undercover the next few days. I've got a bit more work to do before I leave. I'll be back before I go.  

posted by: zithereen at June 18, 2005 00:07 | link | comments (1) |

Currently reading: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

A story. Many years ago, when Zitheeen was a high school senior in Ohio, he was assigned to read Wuthering Heights. Aside from a little at the beginning and a little at the end, however, I didn't. Why? I was lazy. There's no other answer, although I wish there was. I wish I coiuld say that my pet goldfish died that summer, or I was injured in a landscaping accident. What really ahppened is...I don't know. Whatever I did with my time instead has fallen into shadow, into that dark region of forgotten time. Fortunately, I as able to snag the Cliff Notes, so that, when the time came for me to write a paper on this book (I should mention here that I wanted very much to impress my AP English teacher at the time, a wonderful woman named Carol), I was able to put together not only a coherent paper, but an A+ paper: 25 out of 25. Kudos, Zithereen!

Now, nearly twelve years later, I'm finally reading it. It's on Michelle's list of great first novels, after all. And again I am making up ground I should have trod upon years back. I was supposed to have read Moby-Dick nearly nine years ago, and didn't. Ditto for Housekeeping. And for The Woman Warrior (supposed to have been read in 2001; next on my list). I'm still making up for time lost, but at least I'm not losing it any longer.

Finished Conroy. Read it, you people!

Next time I'll try to incluide something not involving books.

posted by: zithereen at June 12, 2005 01:16 | link | comments (1) |

I'm a big fat lazy pig. All day I sit in airconditioning, thinking: I should write something. I should go for a run. But here it is, 12:30, I'm sitting in my boxers drinking Bud in a can, making the exact same promises to myself as I did yesterday at this time. It's rare that I slip so effectively these days; it reminds me that I am still the boy who never did his homework, paid attention in class, or sat still.

Rejection from New Yorker today, more standard than the last one, which had a starched compliment. This keeps me balanced, after the gladness of yesterday's Squaw Valley news. Then again, I do feel like I'm in line for a success or two. Just a couple published stories, perhaps? Too give me more firepower heading to Squaw? For what it's worth, I shot the New Yorker another story within the hour--the joy of online submitting. And the one they rejected is going to Missouri Review, as soon as a half hour from now. More online submitting.

With days like today, I'll never even finish this book. But I'm near the end, I know it. Very soon this book will be about as good as I can make it, which I personally don't think is half bad. But still, speculation and hope meets the world, and we'll see what happens then. I think this is why I'm putting it off, finishing it. That and I fear the novel I'm going to write next. I think it can be very good, the novel--I see its potential--but it will take so much effort and many tears.  

Plus, I'm sad this book will be done. I wrote the first story for it in Ames, early 2001. I remember the snowy Saturday morning when I woke up--9 am, early for me--and put down the first words. I've written a lot of mediocre and crappy stories since then, and ten stories that I like. So the collection emerged as I learned how to write. Which gives it a special place.

But I'm eager, eager to see it done. And it will be, in less than two weeks.

posted by: zithereen at June 11, 2005 00:35 | link | comments (1) |

I've had a strange day. I got up early, for me--7:30, to see off my girlfriend, who is by now deep in the countryside of northwestern Illinois. I made the mistake of drinking coffee, which turned me into a zombie--awake, but not really alive.  I had a brief, heart-pounding nap at noon, took a dazed walk, got hungry, went to fucking Burger King, came back, had another brief nap. I've been subsisting all day, having just enough energy to read (nearly finished with Conroy), realized that I am 100% broke so far as *real* money goes--I have a few virtual sources of income--with five weeks until camp pays me for the job I haven't even done yet. Couldn't focus on my fiction today, so this would feel like a wasted day if I hadn't been reading so much.

But the real news today is that I found out that I'm going back to Squaw Valley in August. I got another UC Irvine fiction fellowship, which covers everything. This is good news I wasn't certain I'd receive.  After all, the fellowships are for people who are actually in the program, or just recently graduated (I could have gone last August with no problem), so I had to wait in line behind them, so to speak. But I'm ecstatic to be going. First of all, this will help me do a little business, the main reason I wanted to go. I'll have a manuscript by then, wrapped up about as good as I can make it, and even the beginnings of (and outline for) my second book--a novel. There will be big-time agents there, and I know one reason they go is to see about findig some prospects. And big-time editors, too. So this could be big. If nothing else it will be very good. Also, I will see some old Irvine friends--although, outside Michelle, I'm not yet exactly sure who will be there. And there is beautiful Squaw Valley itself, with the offensive name and the encroaching development.  Very exciting news, good news. This is exactly what I hoped would happen.

Now I just have to get myself there, somehow.

posted by: zithereen at June 09, 2005 20:52 | link | comments (3) |

Currently reading: Stop-Time by Frank Conroy

I couldn't slough through the Maupassant novel, which was trite in many ways. Still, I feel at fault when I can't bring myself to finish a book, especially when it's only 130 pp.! I'm a serial reader--one at a time. Well, actually two. I'm still making my way through Moby-Dick, but that's bedtime stuff and so doesn't "count." Conroy is good, very good, it's a great memoir, and I recommend it to anybody who had an isolated childhood--or even to those of you who enjoy good literature. Learn about the man who made the vaunted Iowa Writer's Workshop such a machine of self-promotion and -congratulation!

Did that sound cynical or mean? Because I hate it when I sound that way. But really, reading Conroy is a joy and he is what reading is all about for me--each passing page brings disappointment that I am that much closer to finshing, and exiting this world--it can never be experienced again for the first time. I'll read it again, but I'll be a more polished analyst by then, and the sadness of literature--from its composition to its consumption--will be a degree removed.

A half hour ago I stood under a tree in front of the apartment house where I live. It was raining, a fine, warm, steady rain that could not quite penetrate this one perfect canopy under which I stood. I kept my eyes to the dark sky. When the lightning struck, and webbed itself across some unbelievably long stretch of sky, a distance for which the naked eye permits no concept, the sky brightened--it became slate, with a flashlight shone on it from close. And the soaked green treetops, bright against this distant, swirling rock leaking all around me.

Well, I'm no poet, kids.  

posted by: zithereen at June 08, 2005 02:21 | link | comments (2) |