Jamie Freeman's Blog, page 4

I've been thinking about this poem by William Wordsworth:

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this keyShakespeare unlocked his heart; the melodyOf this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leafAmid the cypress with which Dante crownedHis visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-landTo struggle through dark ways; and, when a dampFell round the path of Milton, in his handThe Thing became a trumpet; whence he blewsoul-animating strains--alas, too few!
I've always loved a good sonnet.  Though I am a really poor poet, I think there is a connection between sonnets and flash fiction.  My mind keeps tugging me back to this form.

The Marriage of True Minds was a fantastical fictional riff on a famous Shakespearean sonnet.  I think it worked well for the casual reader or the esoteric poetry reader, but I want to explore the sonnet form as well as the content.  Stay tuned.  I'll let you know how it's going. 

Here's the new (final) cover for Hot Daddies (Cleis, 2011).  It's available for pre-order in paperback.

Bye Bye, Jane. I will miss you.
Jane Russell, 1921-2011

Just got the covers for these 2011 releases.  Gotta love them.

My last post raised a few eyebrows (and maybe other things), but today I'm posting something for the romantics.  If you're snuggled up next to the fireplace looking for a sweet, romantic holiday read, try The White Stag, available in a variety of ebook formats from the incomparable Dreamspinner Press.

The fantastic cover art is by Paul Richmond.  If you love it as much as I do, you can purchase a giclee or Christmas cards at Paul's online store.


Here's what it's about:   In the aftermath of September 11, a grief-stricken Joshua finds comfort and solace in the arms of a mysterious man who also lost someone that fateful day. Jude Balder, the son of a U.S. Senator and a well-known artist in his own right, is everything Joshua has ever wanted, except for the whole "religion thing." Joshua is a Christian, and Jude... well, Jude is something else entirely, something abstract and scary and indefinable, something that is definitely not Christian. When Joshua receives an invitation to a Solstice/Christmas party thrown by Jude and his Senator mother a couple of years later, he's faced with a quandary: Should he worry about the dangerous allure of the unknown, or will he dare take the chance to bask in Jude's undeniable perfection?
It's a sexy, romantic story with a touch of holiday magic.  I hope you enjoy it.

Now available from STARbooks press, this anthology includes my story "Nicholas North."  This one is guaranteed to roast your chestnuts.  Available in paperback or kindle format.

I've been playing with flash fiction lately.  It's been an interesting exercise for me.  As a writer I tend to inject a lot of detail into my storytelling and when you are working with a form that allows you 500 words to tell the whole story, it makes you more linguistically frugal.
I like the idea of limitations in writing.  
Here's an unvarnished truth for you:  I am a terrible poet.  
But I enjoy poetry.  I like to read it and I like to write it.  I'm just not very good at writing it.  I can't really stand unstructured, moody free verse poetry.  My free verse quickly evolves into paragraphs and characters, and a story emerges.  But I do like poetic forms; sonnets and sestinas are particular favorites of mine.  They're like Sudoku or song lyrics, so defined that the words become critical.  Make a misstep in a long, free verse poem and the other words swirl around to mask the glaring problem, but add an extra syllable to a sonnet and it's no longer a sonnet.
I write sonnets by writing down fourteen lines of story and then playing with the words to make them fit the form.  Matching words to meter and rhyme without sounding stilted or pretentious is a challenge to which I can seldom do anything more than aspire.  As I said, I am a terrible poet. 
For the last few years I've written fiction in the same way, by throwing something down on the page and then working it over and over until I feel like I've managed to eke out all the excess.
But it hasn't always been that way.  I used to spend evenings sitting in front of a blank screen cursing my lack of creativity.  I tried to channel Natalie Goldberg (in Writing Down the Bones , she urges writers to "Write through the dross.") but in my heart of hearts I categorized her as a journal writer, not a fiction writer and, while I loved her and tried to do what she said, I could not really believe the process was relevant to fiction.
And then one night in 2001 or 2002 I was watching a marathon interview with Toni Morrison on C-SPAN and she said that was her process.  She would just sit down and write something--anything--and then go back and work the lines, aerating the roots and straightening the rows, coaxing the blooms to life, tangling or untangling the vines.   And I thought, "Well hell, maybe I need to try that."  And suddenly my fiction output increased exponentially.

So my first drafts ramble and wander, carrying trunks full of excess wording, unclear phrases, and misplaced emphasis.  By working with the material, editing and moving and shortening, I eventually arrive at the moment when it seems complete enough to submit.  To tell the truth, recognizing that moment is sometimes as hard as the actual writing and editing.  
Sometimes I wish there were someone else to read my work, someone to say, "Okay, we're done with this one.  Write some more about that gardener or maybe work on the one about the hospital."
So flash fiction seems like a good way to hone my skills, to polish my craft.  I mostly write the flash for myself, but on occasion I find someone who's interested in a piece of it.  Pill Hill Press contracted a zombie flash story called "Z-Day" for their anthology Daily Bites of Flesh, 2011 , and another zombie story for Daily Frights 2012.  I've got a couple of other pieces out there floating around looking for homes, so maybe I'll have more flash fiction publication announcements soon.

I saw Six Degrees of Separation first on Broadway and then later as a movie (dozens of times).  It's one my favorite works dealing with the big questions about how and why we translate experience into memory or art or stories.  There is a scene in the movie where Flan Kittredge, a middle-aged art dealer, is talking about the process of painting and he has this to say:

I remembered asking my kids' second-grade teacher: 'Why are all your students geniuses? Look at the first grade - blotches of green and black. The third grade - camouflage. But your grade, the second grade, Matisses, every one. You've made my child a Matisse. Let me study with you. Let me into the second grade. What is your secret?' 'I don't have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them.'

-Flan Kittredge, Six Degrees of Separation

Remember & Support.
In the early 1990s I bought this ornament as a fundraiser for AIDS research and services.  It's been a part of my Christmas decorating ritual every year since then. It's a beautiful glass globe--to which my photo fails to do justice--but it would be nice to be able to retire this particular ornament.
If you're looking for a way to express your feelings of hope this holiday season, consider giving to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation to support education, advocacy and services around the world.

"You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like myself and the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort, poor devils. And you're not bad-looking; you're really quite a pleasure to look at sometimes. Not now, of course, when you've been crying, you look like the very devil; but when you're all right, and quite yourself, you're what I would call... attractive." 
-Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady