But Call Me Betsy

I want to write a short story where the title is "She Got Fat." Start with that title and the first few sentences, something like, "Somewhere along the way, Marjorie had gotten fat. It hadn't happened all at once, but slowly, over the course of several years and two babies and however many Boston Cremes from Dunkin Donuts." Or maybe it's not about Marjorie, but it's about that phenomenon that occurs almost exclusively on Facebook now where you connect with friends from high school or college or wherever and you haven't seen them in ten or fifteen years, and the first thing you think is, Oh, my God, she got fat .  And also, Oh, my God, she got old . And "she got fat" and "she got old" can't be happening to me, because even though others might be balloon up around the face and getting this crusty middle age look, I can't possibly be among them because I'm still about seventeen years old. RIGHT? In the olden days befo...

I know that she's been around forever, but I seldom read poetry. I don't even read it in The New Yorker . I don't understand poetry. It seems too hard. I feel dumb when I read it. But then I listened to some of This American Life's holiday podcasts and they had Sharon Olds on to read some of her work. There is a reason she's able to make a living as a poet. Here are some of them for you: "Take the I Out" "I Go Back to May 1937" "My Son the Man" This is the one she read on This American Life that I loved so much. It's called "The Race." I forgot to mention that Lisa Marie and I went to see an open mike night last week. It was set up so that anyone could sign up to tell a story, though it had to be on the subject of holiday spirit, and to stay within a 5 minute time period. Each speaker was then judged by a point system. I wanted to see what it's like in case I ever want to do something like that. We saw five of th...

That's a joke Jodie and I used to have about a title for a story I was trying to write, or maybe it was my thesis. "Disorderly" would be a double play on words like the guy's job was as an orderly in a hospital, but he was bad at it and his life was in shambles, but it was also a reference to an accidental comment J once made to like the only black guy in the PhD program. She said, "Gee, Verne, your shoes sho is shiny!" I don't think he even noticed, but she felt like dying as soon as the words were out of her mouth. So the title of the story would also be racist as if someone were saying "dis orderly, not dat one." I only thought of that conversation with Jodie because I was recently trying to figure out why I watch so much Law and Order: SVU ( I have to qualify b/c of the many versions. Not a big fan of Criminal Intent or the other one, uh, Law and Order: Judgement Day or whatever it is ) . I must like it, right? Even though it follows the sa...

Though my own writing impulse is lost in some psychic abyss, I still find it quite easy to identify the things I don't like in writing or the mistakes you can make in a story. Here's a short list: 1. Having a first person narrator who turns out to be dead at the end. Like, the last line is: "And then he shot me dead..." Or, "And that's how I died that day." Because, really, how are you telling the story then? 2. Cramming 15 characters into a ten page story like this: "Tommy opened the door. 'Hi, Timmy,' he said. Tony was in the kitchen, blending the drinks with Rich. 'Come on in,' called Joe from the living room where he was playing cards with Jack, Jim, Todd, and Dan. 'Sam called,' announced the man with the blue suit from the top of the stairs. The dog, Jeff, barked. 'We're in for it now,' said a familiar voice." 3. Anything that's too directly derivative, like the fake writing exercise I did the othe...