Help ME!!!

I'm in a writing group. Last week, I turned in 3 short stories, one of them was finished, and the others were not. The two other people in the group liked the one story I don't like at all, one that isn't finished. I think there are a lot of problems with this story. First, there is a tendency for new writers to fall into a Raymond Carveresque style of writing, one with a bare bones type of prose and very few, uh, stylized words. They (we) do this because they are afraid to lend too much for critiquing. By eliminating all but the absolutely necessary parts for your story, it is hard to criticize. Anyway, that is what this story does. And this is why I hate it.

But, they suggested I finish the story. And I need help. Should I finish the story? I'm not too attached to it, so in what way should I continue?

Help me decide where this story goes. Read the story and then answer the poll on the right.

Here is the question:
How do you want my story to end?
-Depressing fashion
-Happy fashion
-Surprising fashion
-Dude, the story sucks, give it up
-I refuse to read this story

Here is the story:




“Would you do it over?”

“Do what over?”

“This,” said Steve, sweeping his palm around his head like he was holding a lasso. “This.”

“You mean the job? Would I take this job again? Well man, it was either this job or sit at Can…”

“No, not just the job,” Steve interrupted. “Everything; this.” Steve stuck out his arm and carefully pretended to scan John from a distance, waiting for some sort of extraordinary, telling light to stream from his hand.

“You know, your life, this, everything.”

“Everything?” questioned John.

Steve finished scanning and his eyes slowly moved from John to the office, searching for items or mementos, snippets representing John’s life. Steve’s eyes widened and he quickly pointed to a framed picture of John’s daughters that hung on the wall.

“That,” said Steve. “Or,” moving to a picture of John’s wife, “That”.

John said nothing, only watched. Steve carefully searched the room and came to John’s desk. He recklessly picked up a stack of papers and files. “These,” he said and carelessly dropped the pile back into place, some papers slipping out to the floor.

“Everything,” Steve said again.

Tiring of his explanation quickly, Steve carefully moved his hand to his chest. His mouth curled in a mischievous, dumb grin.

“Or maybe, even this,” Steve said coyly. Satisfied with his finale, he leaned back in his desk chair and sipped his bourbon with a loud slurp.

John laughed.

“Well,” said John. “There are some things,” he flicked his hand towards Steve, “I certainly wouldn’t miss.”

Steve smiled warmly. They sat in silence for a moment, examining the office, letting the smell of bourbon sink into the room. Rain pattered against the office window.

“But seriously,” Steve started again, “if you had the chance to do it all over, everything over, would you?”

John didn’t respond. He wanted to recline and lift his feet up to his desk in the ultimate position of corporate relaxation and superiority, but he knew his shoes were too filthy.

“Imagine,” said Steve, leaning close to John’s desk with excitement, “if you knew you could have a re-do. Start fresh from the beginning. New job, house, car, wife, all that shit. The kids. Not a semblance of similarity with your current life. You start different from the beginning. You fail grade school this time, or, better yet, you go to Harvard.”

“No job in sales?” asked John with mock concern. Steve didn’t hear him.

“You become a world class physicist,” said Steve, his eyes lost in a manner that suggested he was talking about himself, not John. “You travel the world giving lectures. You spend years discovering some complex equation and are renowned all over the world. You’re written up in books and scholarly journals.” Steve cradled his bourbon in both hands. “You don’t marry because you don’t have the time. Intellectual discussions and writing books. The occasional dinner, but that’s it.”

“Ha. Do you think you’re stupid, Steve?” asked John.

“No, nothing like that. I just think maybe I missed the boat with this sales stuff. I’m a smart guy and maybe I’m wasting my l … uh, talent, but that is neither here nor there.”

John’s eyes once again wandered around the room. This is a great office, he thought. I keep a decanter full of liquor in my bottom desk drawer and no one can tell me otherwise. Steve’s question was boring him. It was too mundane, too everyday. Who the fuck cared if he could do everything over again? It’s a pointless hypothetical question and the opportunity for doing things over will never occur, so why dwell on the subject?

Steve saw John was loosing interest. He tried to change topics.

“You taking the girls to the lake this weekend?” asked Steve.

Tom rolled his chair close to his desk and grabbed the decanter of bourbon.

The Bitch is Back

Sorry I have posted anything in awhile. Between working, interning, and writing short stories, my blog has slipped into the backseat. And I'm not talking about that sought after backseat, where my blog gets a metephorical rub down from some college co-ed with knockers, I'm talking about the backseat where it goes untouched and unnoticed. But, since we are in the throws of summer (although you would hardly know it around here, with all the rain), I would like to start posting again.

Not much has changed since the last time we spoke. I still live in NYC, where I have acquired a bizarre liking to the city.

Today, I was walking down the Columbus on my way to work and was comforted by the smell of garbage. Somehow, the scent of expired milk soothed my pre-work nerves. I stopped to wallow in the stench for some time before realizing the insanity in taking pleasure from the smell of trash, squinched my face at my own absurdity, and kept on. This leads me to ask, why do I like things that smell like shit? A part of my brain wants to agree with a Dostoyevsky quote from The Possessed, saying how human being's minds are so screwed that we actually find pleasure in pain and suffering; but no, that is too simple. There are only two reasons why I could possibly like the smell of garbage: It reminds me of the joy I feel living in a city filled with garbage, or it brings up childhood memories of running the garbage can down the end of the driveway for it to be picked up for the next day's trash service. Either of these associations with garbage is acceptable.

I do miss the outdoors, though. I haven't stepped foot in a wooded area that hasn't had the minimum amount of handicapped accessible routes in order for the city of New York to label it a 'park' in quite some time. The lure and romanticism found in large wooded areas with lakes and animals just isn't available in NYC. Since it is summer, I also want to swim, and there is something about the water near Coney Island that doesn’t lend itself to wonderful swimming daydreams. I want Greenlake, or better yet, The River.

In terms of my daydreams of becoming the next Walter Cronkite/Richard Yates, this quote from Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of Radical Price, sums my life up nicely (stolen from New Yorker):

“Out of the (current) bloodbath will come a new role for professional
journalists. There may be more of them, not fewer, as the ability to participate
in journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of traditional media. But
they may be paid far less, and for many it won’t be a full time job at all.
Journalism as a profession will share the stage with journalism as an avocation.
Meanwhile, others may use their skills to teach and organize amateurs to do a
better job covering their own communities, becoming more editor/coach than
writer. If so, leveraging the Free—paying people to get other people to write
for non-monetary rewards—may not be the enemy of professional journalists.
Instead, it may be their salvation."

So If I ever do write or make anything worthwhile, the best I can hope for is a non-monetary reward. That's OK, I guess, it's all for the betterment of oneself. And I kinda get paid to write right now. I just sit at my work computer, look upset, write what I please, and get lost in the bureaucracy of a big-office type job.

My internship is going well, they were thinking about sending me to Canada. Money be damned, my own half cocked and stumbling brand of intellectual ideas is entertaining enough for me.

Enough for today, I will have to save some of this energy for when blogging gets boring again in about 3 hours.

Story Time

I know I haven't posted much lately, but here is some brief news.

1. Eric N. and I started a writing group.

2. I'm still working at the union hall.

3. Uhhhh... I got some new shoes.

I'm up to a lot, as you can see.

The real purpose of this post is to implore you to check this link. It's audio of Richard Yates reading aloud his story, Best of Everything, to an audience in the late 1970's. I read this story almost a year ago, when my dad first handed me his short story collection. One of the best writers of the 20th century, Yates's simple narrative can't be beat. He constantly hints, ever so close, to complex themes and social issues that manifest themselves in relatable characters. Please, please, please, give this a listen.

http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/blogs/phlog/Podcast/RichardYates_BestOfEverything.mp3