I've been pretty busy this semester. My activities had ranged from volunteerism, my usual golf schedule, reading and writing poetry, and research on my memoir and brainstorming for a collection of essays. So here it is in summary form:

Volunteerism

I finished up my work as a reader for The Firecracker Award and it helped me gain new perspective on the quality, range of style, coherence, and organization of contemporary prize winning poetry books.

I'm working as a reader at River Teeth Magazine which is teaching me some good lessons about essay writing. What I have like is well-polished essays--if sentence clarity lacks, or the focus is weak, or the essay incomplete, I find them less appealing. The writing styles have varied as has topics. It makes essay writing an interesting aspect of writing.

I continue on with work with the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association for the tenth or twelfth or something like that year in a row. One of the benefits of PNWA membership is the Author Magazine, which recently offered up an interview with Science Fiction writer, Nancy Kress, which I found very interesting and finally encouraged me to buy one of her books, although I have read some of her short stories. 

This is one of the two main craters at Volcan Masaya, see project work description below:

With my concentration on poetry and memoir, it leaves me very little time to read in my primary area of novel writing. But since this concentration builds areas of personal weakness, I find it a useful thing to do.

I continue my participation with Zooniverse, which is a site that allows volunteers to help process scientific data. Typically, volunteers view photos and click on objects inside the photo and identify them. So far this quarter, I've helped identify animals in the Serengeti, wind flow patterns on Mars, egg-laying behavior of worms, and potential supernova's. I'm up to almost 2000 identifications of various types.

My husband and I took my niece to Nicaragua this spring to help out on an Earthwatch Project Exploring a Volcano in the town of Masaya. My niece is a pre-medical undergraduate with a BS in Biology who hopes to become a doctor. We took her as a graduation present to help encourage her into exploration of the world, the needs of people, and the various ways science impacts our understanding. The project took us inside various craters at Volcan Masaya taking microgravity readings, collecting GPS data and witnessing a project to collect comparative level data (from data 20 years previous). 

and sulfur emissions to help scientists understand the impact of volcanic emissions on the surrounding community. We also climbed into a lava tube, spotted bats, and got to see three dimensional renderings of photographs taken during measurement work. I got a bad dose of the flu so I wasn't very inclined to go hopping over rocks in the darkness but I thought the work fascinating.

In line with my usual practice of learning about a country before I go, I collected and started reading some of the literary works from Nicaragua.

I still continue on as a 5th Grade Catholic Religious PREP school teacher, the classes meet every other week and teach children about the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith--Baptism, Eucharist, Penance, Confirmation, Marriage, Priesthood, Healing, while explaining the Catholic calendar (special seasons) and about what it means to be a Catholic.

Poetry Reading and Writing

So far I've completed three packets of material that I have sent in to my mentor, Ruth L. Schwartz, along with an emulation poem for each of the books of poetry we've read so far (see the poetry page, I've started putting out some of my essays about the books) and written an essay about what we can learn in terms of poetry book construction, types of poetry and styles and basic techniques. I've also read several essay books where the author also writes poetry and contrasted the work in the two books. 

Essay Writing

One of the things I mentioned in my application to Ashland University's MFA program is that I hoped to move my writing of book reviews to a higher level by writing essays about reading material I'm using to help build my list of memoir read during the program (50 memoirs suggested) and for my own purposes (50 poetry books). So I've been reading a lot, and doing the same with my nonfiction resources, taking quotes, or poems and sorting them against a proposed essay book outline. I'm hoping to produce a mixed format, poetry and prose book on completion. I find it is very tedious work to collect source material.

Memoir Writing

For my memoir, I've focused on taking the "situational" material (from Vivian Gornick's The "Situation and the Story" where I portray how a family event over the course of thirty years helps explain our family's experience with drug and alcohol addiction and its impact, and sorted these out into chapters. Within the chapters, I'm sorting my research data; basically taking quotes that I can use from source material I'm reading and placing them in context. I'm also brainstorming about how my overall concept of what was going on has changed as well as how historical events in those years affected us. This raw data helps me build the "frame" or context for the memoir. I'm hoping that I can connect some of the improvements in science, knowledge, medicine, and social organizations are affecting those who are impacted by addiction as a resource for others who may share these problems.

After I use the basic texts about different problem areas where our family came into contact with various organizations, I plan to look for recent publications, and entered into ResearchGate as a tool for finding source material.

Social Media and Participation and Submissions

I'm trying to maintain my presence on Facebook, Empire Avenue, Quora, PoetrySoup, and other social media but have slowed down. I tend to socialize online when I am very tired and not able to think about my writing projects. I've started participation on some quorums in LinkedIn, and on a new site called The Prose where a community offers challenges to writers. I've also have been working on Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, and Archives.com to find out about my family history. 

When you finally complete your thesis project, attending all the courses and pass them, pass your critical paper, you still need to have your thesis approved.

The thesis defenses are open or closed to the public depending on the student's wishes. If open, they present to an audience in one of the lecture halls. The audience is expected to be quiet and not ask questions. After the candidate finishes their twenty minute review of what they learned and how it changed or enriched their thesis, the three advisors each ask one or more questions that the candidate is expected to answer. Not all of the questions had easy answers. Some included, where do you think you will go now, after your degree is finished. Sometimes, the question meant, I really have more work to do. This often seemed to be a good answer because it meant the student intended to continue writing.

What I learned about the thesis defense sessions included:

• the thesis defense sessions aren't threatening
• the questions tended to dig into how the student might continue their work
• the questions sometimes tended to highlight a student's work, i.e. being asked to read a sample
• the questions showed how much organization is needed
• the questions often showed what we (new and continuing) students were likely to have to face in terms of revision, rethinking, clarifying our project, finding what connected the essays, finding what we really wanted to say.
• I expect I will learn a lot more

I have had to think through many of the above when writing my first novels. My first nonfiction book was more straightforward. My memoir will likely have the same need to have different mental frames, time spans, verb tense, and phase of learning in terms of my personal life.

On our way home from the Ashland Residency, my husband and I took a week to visit my sister and explore some of the East coast of the United States. I grew up on the West Coast and much of the East Coast is unfamiliar to me, so that translates as time for travel adventure. We also had the fun of running into old friends moving to the South on our trip, it was fun to have the chance to sit, discuss Boeing, old times and new times.

Even though I travel, I have learned to make use of the long empty interstate stretches and evenings to catch up on my reading for the MFA Program. Following the residency, I had a bunch of new poetry and memoir selections from guest speakers to read and a set of assigned readings for the upcoming semester. We're reading:

• The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick
• The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew by Sue William Silverman
• The Empathy Exams Essays by Leslie Jamison
• Full Body Burden : Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen
• Prairie Silence: A Memoir by Melanie Hoffert
• I selected Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writer's of/on Creative Nonfiction by Robert L. Root Jr. and Michael Steinberg as my optional book because I felt I wanted a better understanding of essay as opposed to memoir (we were told the percentage of narrative played a large part in the definition) as well as a look at some of the variations along the way.

I've completed a first reading of the above books except for the last. I like to reread along with the class curriculum because I find it makes me pay more careful attention and allows me to find the needed references to class discussion questions because I already have a familiarity with the book outline and don't have to rush to finish at the expense of the work.

Besides the reading and cleaning my house so that I now have my reading separated into genre piles and shelves, I have also taken on two new volunteer duties in addition to my upcoming aid to an Earthwatch.org project to help with a global warming study, one as a reader for a contest, the other as a teacher for my church catechism. 

I also have a good idea about how I am going to frame my memoir. Framing, I learned in the residency, is what they call the story line as it varies in time and perspective despite having a single narrator. Although the narration will be by me, the story alters during the twenty year time of events as I age, but also as a result of this project and as a result of lessons learned. Some of what alters when selecting a frame, is verb tense, maturity of voice, time, as well as what is driving the project.

I was given a bit of critique flak because of one scene written as a six-year-old, and one as a twenty year old without any framing. At six-years-old, I often just repeated what I had been told without understanding how it might be viewed, especially in modern times. Our family changed many things down the road of life including how my parents disciplined children, roles and responsibilities and diet.

Bonnie Rough very helpfully provided an introductory set of questions to be answered.

Before my idea about how to frame the memoir, I had developed a list of "situations" or "scenes" that I felt were important to cover in the overall story line. I've worked at drafting the situations and at writing attempts at the frames. I heard loudly what readers liked and disliked. I do stubbornly maintain my view of the style of memoir, one with a future look upon it which I have seen used in writing, and my need to have my perspective for the project grounded in research, although the style is something I am going to have to experiment with along the way. In the residency, I did my book report on Da Chen's "Colors of the Mountain" and just doing that based on my earlier reading assignments I found that I hadn't grounded the book in our family. I didn't really want to write about my family so much as the situation we were all involved in, but I can see that without doing a gossip columnist shark attack on all members of my family (I think this has to be the nightmare all writer's face when considering writing memoir), I could still introduce them in such a way that people could see the complexity of their personae and the dynamics within a family, all which had effects on the outcome of the situation.

I especially liked the rich style of essay/memory Steven Harvey used in one of his pieces we read about his mother. I am not quite certain I am up to that level of writing, but maybe. I do have a slightly different tangent because I very much want to write something helpful, useful, upbeat, even if the topic is quite sad and downbeat. I don't want a chirpy voice that says I've got rose-colored glasses.

I had already started many of my situations as essays and when I discussed it with Bonnie Rough and Kate Hopper, they both indicated that "situations" could be within short essays and reframed into our final project/memoir.

So that brings me back to the need to submit my work. I quit submitting until I was firmly into a writing program that I felt comfortable with, and now that I have done much of the spit and polish sort of requirements I should have the next two weeks for writing, editing and submitting. Wish me luck.

Taking Advantage of the Writer’s Residence

By Sheri Fresonke Harper

Trinity College, Dublin founded in1592 and where noted satirist Jonathan Swift received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1868 and pursued a Master’s degree, is a suitably inspiring place for writers in the Carlow MFA Creative Writing program meet up for ten days of intense immersion in culture, literary readings, lectures and workshops on writing craft. For one thing, writers get to experience their own mini-Hogwarts complete with missing staircases in the suitably labyrinthine entrances to the Atrium; sometimes I found doors locked, sometimes they were open and other routes locked, sometimes I twist and turn down the one-person wide alley and enter, and sometimes I could enter past the kitchens. This is not a complaint, I found the experience rather enthralling especially with images of students running about in woolen robes circa medieval times entering my head (athough they were probably more stylish than that).

Of course, during my first days of confusion, I suffered from jet lag, the aftereffects of a sleeping pill taken on route, and a late night welcome dinner complete with program mentor readings. Surprisingly, many of these learned and published writers were as nervous, their hands shaking, their faces flushing, as students who read later on in the packed seven in the morning until seven at night agenda. Exposing mu inner thoughts, heart and soul can be an emotional and frightening experience.

Lost at one time, I asked a man in a suit if he knew how to get to the Atrium conference room only to be told, “There is no such place, only offices. Do you work there?”

I replied, no. 

He eventually sent me on the proverbial wild goose chase to accommodations and who didn’t know. Accommodations sent me off to information. Information could only point me back to the building from where I came originally. Luckily, the workers preparing the wood-lined ballroom decked with white curtains for a function and who’d closed off one entrance, unlocked the door, and I could make my way inside, magic wand fate having saved me from total disgrace at the first year student meeting.

No days were the same.

A late evening dinner at Trocadero’s introduced us to a well-known haunt of writers, an afternoon reading to the Irish Writer’s Centre. Other dinners, visits to the theatre, bus rides provide opportunity to sit with a mentor and discuss whether one should call oneself a poet or just claim to write poetry. Or to exchange tips about social media and favorite sources of reading and how one shouldn’t strangle their water bottle during a reading or the best place to vacation in Florida. I get my own turn to offer up J. Glenn Evans and Poetwest as a person and group of readings held in Seattle where visiting writings can easily get on the schedule as a Featured Reader. 

Over time, it become easier to ask questions and set aside the desire to be “one of twenty-five Mona Lisas” seen by presenters that Ellie Wymard, our program director warns us against. Question can bring out the truth, that a poet sometimes just sits and thinks or that not doing feeds life.  

A walk home at night from the tourist district had us stumbling over cobblestones past pubs lined with outdoor tables, music piping a mad jig or two, and afterwards finding the fountains outside the main gate alight and inside Trinity College’s plaza a tower blazed light. Passing on toward our rooms in Botany Bay, the thock, thock of a tennis ball sounded out a battle between late night athletes.

Early on Sunday mornings, Dublin is quiet until one by one, buskers set up on a corner and begin to play, some even finding an acoustically good alley in which to attract shoppers. Bloomsday, historically the day used in James Joyce’s book Ulysses or June 16th, was no different. Outside of Bewley’s Oriental Café, the haunt of James Joyce and a featured locale in Ulysses, diners who resist the temptation of cupcakes, may still find themselves pulled toward the door by a musician setting up his music and singing while accompanied on guitar.

What is the message of Bloomsday? It’s the message that a city will love an author that loves their city. It’s the message that comes out of Mary Costello’s story, China Factory, where the reader is immersed in concrete details, so much so, they can imagine themselves cleaning china, smelling body odor of a man who has moved sacks of clay all day. When I write my tale of China, I need to smell food cooking, have the clothing worn in China right, I need the wrinkles of faces, the odd phrasing of words, to let the voice be right.

Up Grafton street to St. Stephen’s Green, passing by the men’s clothing salesman dressed in top hat, gloves and formal suite, following part of the route of the story. In the park,  statues of literary figures abound, including Yeats (who we missed) and Robert Emmet, Commander of the 1798 Rebellion who was tried and executed for treason, but whose words in the “Speech from the Dock” were to not have an epitaph carved until his country could take a place among the nations of the earth.  Exiting the garden, one gate holds a statue of and Theobald Wolfe Tone, deemed the founder of Irish Republicanism and larger than life and the monument to the Great Famine of 1845-52, when 1 million died and 1 million emigrated, according to Dr. Ciaran O’Neill. 

The sculpture with emaciated figures walking off toward death or an unknown future or emigrating to a far off land are stark against a cement fence suggesting perhaps rigid oversight without regard for human value. For many Irish citizens, the Great Famine became a leading cause for resistance to the English rule over Ireland. When the British government had inadequate support to keep people from starving, Ireland took offense and after 1860, the Famine became increasingly politicized and seen as potent evidence of the failure of foreign rule to deal with the needs of the people of Ireland.

China’s famines are equally appalling to the Chinese, arousing resistance to the government.  In China, no one famine was alike except the people forced the government to fail. 

Between 1876-1879, one of the most lethal drought-famine struck Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Zhili, and Shaanxi provinces with no rain in 1877. An estimated 9-13 million out of 108 million died. The starving lay in roads, ate the dead, turned to killing the living for food, all bark and leaves gone, they sold children, and commited suicide [2]. 

Severe droughts and lack of government assistance in 1919-1921 brought famine again to Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi provinces, most with a population density 1230 per square mile. This famine killed 500,000+, out of 48.8 million, 19.8 million were destitute, children sold, girls became prostitutes or second wives, 60 out of 100 had no food and were forced to eat straw and leaves. Typhus and other diseases killed more[1,309].

In Chongqing and Yan’an, 1936 droughts caused loss of most winter food crops. Women and children ate the bark of downtown Chongqing ornamental trees. In 1937 4000 people were buried, then a special crematoria built to speed the process. Riots occurred in many Sichuan cities due to the spread of hungry people immigrating to the cities. Opium dens suppressed under Nationalists, 1300 opium dens in Chongqing alone. Kunming, a town of 147,000 received 60,000 refugees in 1937-8 [1,457].

In Hunan 1944, with famine stricken victims starving, many attacked and disarmed the Guomindang forces fleeing the Japanese. They were angry already for conscripting forces and who reinstituting taxation in the midst of famine, were many were starving, and stricken with beri-beri. Of 1.67 million conscripts, 44% deserted or died on way to units [1,477-8]. 

The result of Guomingdang actions led Communists to dig in and when they freed the people from Japanese rule, they led the people to force the existing government to flee to Taiwan.

After the Great Leap Forward of 1958, 20 to 45 million died between 1959-1962, with the median age of dying down from 17.6 years old to 9.7 after the forecast of  375 million tons harvested actually came in at 210 million tons. The cause was partly due to having workers pulled off on irrigation, terracing and construction projects. The average grain available per person at 205 kilos in 1957, fell to 201 in 1958, 183 in 1959, 156 in 1960 and 154 in 1961 with exports of grain to Soviet Union increased to pay for heavy machinery [1, 580-83].

Who waved the magic wand to get me from Ireland backward in time to China?  Me. I’m in search of how to shape my novel. I know my basic story. Compared to two students in my workshop, I’m already well ahead with 20,000 words written while they’re still wondering which piece of writing to turn into their final project, but unlike them, I’m on route to a 150,000 word manuscript possibly split into three volumes with the first as my final project while they will settle for 50,000 words. My workshop mentor says, set your time to write, do it every day. Writer Mary O’Donnell told us she wrote scraps of pieces in her spare time, then later pulled them together. Enough scraps, a writer can complete a novel. 

How exactly does history fit within my tale? I’m getting images, facts, and imagining the horror and noise. It’s helping me organize my thoughts about the national character of the Chinese people emerging out of the past 100 years, a time when three separate governments failed, more if you count changes in Communist governance. Behind the mass sterilizations, abortions, and stern family planning maxims lies the fear of the collapse of civilization, and fear of starving and having enough food. Fear of too many people cramped together, with police cameras watching so they know when to react. Even now, when China is emerging as a great power, the reduction of farmland requires the Chinese to import food.

Water quality, availability and management is also of top concern to China. Use of water for generation of electricity meant widespread building of dams, often without infrastructure to support irrigation or other agriculture use, and often without support for river species. The large projects to divert water north toward industrial use from the Yangtze river will deplete water for those areas downstream that are traditionally subject to drought. Additional water retention capabilities have not been addressed well. What will happen when famine arises again?

Another piece of the puzzle relates to foreign advisors. In 1898, the government embraced the practice of ti-yong—continue with Chinese education system, find foreign practical knowledge useful. This practice became embrace science under Chairman Deng.

Most of China’s advisors came from Russia after Communism due to shared ideology. China distrusts Russian advice many times in history. China embraced German technology, but under Hitler, they found their needs went unmet. The English lost Chinese respect during World War II when they allowed the Japanese to close the Burma Trail for three months, greatly diminishing their supplies and adding to their burdens. The Japanese, now an ally of the US, attacked China in 1937 and property of islands is still under dispute. Activities by the English and India along the Tibet border led the Chinese to invade. During World War II, with Americans providing aid within China to help them combat Japan, arms went to the Guomindang but not to the Communist forces. 

Because of these failures, China distrusts foreign governments, especially when they invade another people’s country. Their stance on no separatist activity comes from the Civil War fought after all the famine, all the forced commerce, after the political intervention, after the war with Japan. This was a very painful time for China, they want to remain a United China.

How does this apply to me? Here in Ireland, during my Carlow University MFA Program Residency, I am finding lots of mentorship and advice; every day two to four new speakers. Advisors offer examples during their readings; Mark Roper, for instance, shows that writing about something as common as a pet dog, can be unusual and touch the heart even when he says goodbye to an old but trusted friend in his book A Gather of Shadows. 

Do we trust advisors that enter into our stories or like true Nationalists, prefer they visit, get a glimpse then depart? Reviewers insights can offer the view that writers don’t want to hear like “this is boring” or “you aren’t being specific enough”. I think that when I go too deeply to try to understand, I find I’m talking about something that doesn’t apply at all and also the reverse from other writers, but the exercise of doing so builds understanding of characters and stories and techniques. The mixed up interpretation may not be helpful but in the background, I often take note when someone says “this is a problem” even if the diagnosis is off the mark. For me, any comments at all is a real help.

Other writers working on the same topic, I learn, need not threaten writers. Evelyn Conlon has written a novel about prisoners on Death Row who are innocent, called “Skin of Dreams has impressed me because of her methods of research. Other writer’s echo that topic of prison life including Sinead Morrissey in her poem “State of the Prisons”, and Carlo Gebler in one of his short stories told by a man who works in a prison.  

With the political novel, I learn, writers can’t fear telling the truth.

Advisors offer applications of techniques in exercises; David Butler provides a dozen story openings without identifying the book and we apply some of his questions about what’s in the opening to decide what makes the story opening more powerful. And presenter Chris Arthur reads from an essay “Chestnuts” found in his book, “On the Shoreline of Knowledge”, sharing how he loves poetry, but also loves the chance to explore unusual and unconscious connections in his essays. I learn there are more types of essays than just literary criticism and I’m interesting in trying my hand at them. I get permission from my mentor Evelyn Conlon to write essays rather than book reviews, opening a world of richer writing experience. 

Memoirists offer up many different ways to take a slice out of their life and offer it up for all of us. Edna O’Brien forgets her notes, but is able to speak about what we do when we write, telling us we have a compelling drive to find the inner self, to find what she calls analogues for ourselves.

While she speaks so quietly the room is pin-drop silent, my mind races, falling in and out of poetry and listening. I write a brief sketch:



When the spider weaves their web

It always begins and ends

with a single strand

all else between

is crossing one’s direction

rising and falling

action.


Why is memoir so important? Beginning writer’s often don’t know enough about writing to understand how story mechanics work, so get stopped by them. With writing memoir, author Ross Skelton tells us he just sat down and began writing and the words gushed out. He reads from his memoir about his childhood, “Eden Halt”. Soon into reading, we are back at politics. His father is a veteran of World War II, suffering a variety of complaints that are now days called post-traumatic syndrome. His father wishes to heal himself and buys two huge volumes from Carl Jung, “Psychogenesis of Disease”.

Brian Leydon lets us see a film clip from his upcoming movie “Black Ice” set to premier in Dublin. He’s moved from writing a memoir about his mother and her twin sister who gets cancer. He gives us some hints about the complexity of writing screenplay and the making of movies for download. He tells us that 60% of most downloads are science fiction, fantasy, and crime, with eastern users primarily using downloads on tablets they take with them everywhere.

I finished my first novel at the onset of the electronic media up swell; many well-known writers did well with the move, beginners not so well. With a more stable market in which more of the known publishers playing a role, and more content, I feel I can step out into it. Brian Leydon, too, uses structure to his novel, telling of a history when birth control is smuggled into the country by family members carrying gifts.

Edna O’Brien calls our attention to the suffering of an Indian woman who entered the hospital miscarrying her baby, but the doctors keep finding a heartbeat for the baby. She gets septicemia and begs them to terminate, they cannot and she dies. A huge outcry from women demand changes to the laws that protect mother’s lives, too; laws that say doctor’s whose conscience won’t allow them to abort the baby can step aside for doctors who accept the need.

Writer Mary O’Donnell tells us she never wanted to be a feminist writer because it seemed so circumscribing, like it nailed her into a box, a view I always shared. But after publishing several collections of poems and finding that the collections of poems mostly feature male poets, she recognizes that women writer’s don’t get a fair shake, that there should be more female only collections.

Program director Ellie Wymard takes us on a walk down American memory lane, starting with Anne Bradstreet. One selection tells how Anne Bradstreet had to justify her writing by claiming getting up before everyone else hurt no one. Another passage tells of a woman who became crazy and ended up in an asylum because she spent all her days reading and writing. Over and over, writers in America have to do like Huckleberry Finn and say “I’ll right then, I’ll go to hell”. 

As I leave Dublin on my last day, sharing hugs with other writers about to depart on long flights, I take with me some major building blocks along my pathway to reaching my goals. I’ve met close to forty new people, many that like me care about reading, writing and the state of literature and many that fostered my admiration for Irish community writing. I’ve tried to build large sweeping stories, but in the foreward to the Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry, I’ve learned that the Irish have deliberately sought to embrace provincialism and let it deepen their writing about place. I motivated to deepen my settings. 

Some of those I met will disappear and I’ll never hear from them again. Others will grow into friends. Meanwhile, I have the memory of Bloomsday events to urge me into tighter connection with my story hometowns. I’ve found three calendars that aid writers on their way to spreading their writing to a larger community—the weekend of the Dalkey Book Fair, the Bloomsday events, and events at the Irish Writer’s Center. Someday it may be me up there talking or reading.

Since my primary goal is to improve my writing, I’ve got examples and recommendations galore. I have no less than three lists of recommended books. Many of the lecturers provide me with favorite authors to read from around the world. My mentor Evelyn Conlon, also supplies a list of books. Jointly we’ve selected four books I’ll use in writing my next semester’s assignments, one of which has me read more from women writer’s about how their writing has affected their lives. A final list, I compile from the readers, lecturers, presenters and mentors.

Attached to my primary goal is one where I complete a fiction manuscript. I complete two scenes, and get feedback on a third. Afterwards, as I write this essay, I realize Irish history has provided a framework for understanding China and for providing alternate ways of organizing the story and for creating my futuristic world, one rich in a Bloomsday style city. Soon, I’ll be free to set my new visions based on Chinese history into story.

A final goal is one where I improve my overall qualifications as a writer—here, several readings helped me find potential exercises, namely a series of essays and /or articles with a larger amount of research and style. I’ve learned that selecting and timing a piece for a reading requires crisp language that catches the attention of a reader and pacing that allows, as Evelyn says, me to slow down.

I realize as I set aside over fifty pages of notes that the Ireland that I visited was much the same the second time around, but that I found hidden alleys and burial cairns where my unconscious found hidden connections. I may have felt like I was delving down labyrinthine corridors, but I was actually making sense of over hundred pounds of writing about China. Where I used to urge writing friends to portray a correctly ethnically mixed set of characters in their stories and scripts, now I want to say, hey, the eastern world is stepping up to be friends, allies, competitors and they share the other part of the world—shouldn’t we say hello.

[1] Jonathan D. Spence, “The Search for Modern China”. 

[2] Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, James Legge translation, “Pictures to Tears from Iron The North China Famine of 1876-1879”, MIT.Edu

I've made many of the suggested revision but I didn't bring my notes on it with me so I don't know if I got them all. I received feedback from Ellie Wymard that it was insufficient work for the program. I have to admit that it was pretty impossible for me to write a different essay given the short time I had with the suggested materials and the wide variety of information encountered during the residency. I wanted to try the style used by Chris Archer in his book of essays, so it doesn't have the usual essay structure of I learned this, here's how, and a summary of what I learned again. 

What I wanted to do with this essay was show the experience of being there. I wanted to show how you could arrive clueless about what to expect and what you would learn. One of the messages that came from many of the writer's was one of "you will make hidden connections in unexpected places". I wanted to illustrate how what I was thinking about with regard to my writing was bumped into place by discussions of politics and Irish history by mentors and how it clicked in on Bloomsday that Irish and Chinese history bear a connection. So I thought my finding that I had people who I could connect with via their writing and mentorship and that I had a tool set of techniques I could investigate and improve during my program was suitable progress.

Notes from the lectures and books recommended by the program will follow in my next postings.

Art Jonak had an Empire Avenue mission today, to tweet a quote. I also had an enquiry about doing some freelance work that I responded to with some reservations. I like the quote and then started worrying, am I being focused enough? Are my mentors worried that I'm not paying enough attention to my novel I've outlined? Here's the quote:

I have to admit, that I usually work one item through until completion, depending on what I think has the highest pay off. In this case, I've worked on my golf book to near completion and so when I have a break, where I can feel in the proper happy, kooky golfer attitude the book demands, I go back and work to finish it.

My illustrator provided me a first sample illustration that made me more motivated to complete it. I spent yesterday, putting all the chapter in one document, and formatting it to submission standard. I also cleaned up some of my other stories and I'm working on cleaning up an essay I wrote in my memoir class to be more consistent overall and to meet up with two potential markets.

I guess I am putting off until tomorrow what I could be doing today, related to my novel. But writing is really a moody business. You need to go with the flow of how you feel. This is one reason that I keep lists of scenes I plan to write, because to be able to write every day, you need to have enough emotional variety to match your mood of the day. 

Many people think that because I have my husband help me edit, that I don't edit my work, not so. I miss things because I don't tend to be a detail-oriented person, which is why a second pair of eyes is essential. Editing tasks I'm working on with the golf book include:

1. checking for a consistent set of features that I use in all the illustrations
2. examining paging so that I don't have two sentences on one page before a page break
3. checking for consistent POV--I've written half the chapters in present tense and half in past tense
4. checking that my check list of content has been included in the text
5. matching my plan to the content (chapter names, character names, locales)
6. spell check and grammar check
7. making sure the reader knows who is speaking
8. keeping track of pages and trying to keep chapters fairly consistent
9. putting in a table of contents
10. starting to outline what I think belongs in an index. 

Just one comment I have about Kindle books--I detest Kindle books without an index or table of contents. I'm reading one with a set of chapters and a set of subchapters and the latter were not marked and anytime I flip off page accidently, I have to page through many, many pages to get back to where I was which is very, very annoying. 

The teary days are best saved for those scenes where your character is hurting for some day, for instance.

Writer's are also supposed to push themselves to send poems, articles, and short stories out on a regular schedule. I feel pretty pushed because I am challenging myself to write longer, more researched essays and it is taking up more of my time that I could be putting into five article a day or three poems a day or something like that. I think that if I persist with the essay orientation that in the long term it will pay off for a more mature market for my writing. And every time a writer takes on a new writing study to boost their skills, they are slower than normal at first until it becomes easier and easier to do.

I wouldn't be working on these for a few days if I wasn't sure that I could pull together a packet for my mentor, Evelyn Conlon next week.

So I worry about what others may be worried about. But I have worked large, complex projects now for thirty years. I still underestimate my time but I have fourteen pages of a possible twenty ready to go. 

Writers that are unable to multitask will have a difficult time if they can't write the next novel while editing previous novels per publisher demands, etc.

This week I worked on writing an essay for my Carlow University MFA program about voice in contemporary Chinese literature. So, I have 500+ words of my essays in fairly good shape for the next package to go into the university. I'm working on several since I'm finding lots of content and because I won't be at home with as many of my resources for awhile. So I will use some of my notes from my residency as posts while I'm away.

Meanwhile, I've read through fifteen books on writing looking for various meanings of how voice is presented in literature. I've also looked for footnotes in One Thousand Years of Good Prayer by Yiyun Li. I've collected five other books on China related to voice, and a similar set on the emigrant experience.
I wanted a good comparison between voice in memoir and voice in fiction and so read Brian Leydon's Home Place since I remembered his readings containing tales of the experience of having family members who emigrated to the US. 

I also realized I didn't have any resources about plant life in China, ordered those books along with more Chinese fiction to read to have a fuller view about what authors are writing about China at home and in China.

Meanwhile, we've made our arrangements to go north to Canada, furthering my research about geology that will be used in the next book down the line and exploring more golf and escaping the anger of those around me that has me stressed out to the max. People don't realize how empathetic I am to the slightest signal.

Some are less slight, such as the Home Owner's Association showing up and wanting gravel previously given the okay to be stored on the side moved which leaves me having to do a lot of gardening.

Via A Broader View Volunteering program, I saw that I can work in China, but I would like to take my niece with me as a way of introducing her to travel outside the country. I'd like her to have some other opportunities where I can send her on her own, but there is so little time before she's off to college I might not get the chance to do so if I don't take her with me. I would go this year in November or December, but it seems like such a far way to travel for just two weeks of time. Bob and I are debating next years schedule of away from town and I hope maybe I will get to spend time in China then. 

I've also started putting together my packet of first scenes to send in to my mentor, finishing four scenes and revising an earlier scene to match up with the more defined outline. I've still one more scene to write and quite a few to edit. 

The edits add more scenery from China, alter names, foods, and other lifestyle issues in the book. I also had various ages for the main character and I'm altering those references so that the scenes fit together without conflict. I've also worked on expanding my villian's role into a side plot.

These scenes are still present time, I haven't decided on how much in the future I will change them to be. I've also worked on a new short story and one sonnet. I guess if it works out, I'll work on calls for submissions tomorrow and maybe the next day.

I guess if people were to ask me why I was taking an MFA program, it would be to quiet all the outrage about me writing books. I'm paying to write and learn, not to volunteer, not to play jump to my whip. I can does those without paying for an MFA degree. And no, the money would not go to someone else to write, I would use it to write and I have rights as a citizen and needs just like any other person.

So with my main assignment for my Carlow University MFA program residency complete, all I had to do is write, right? Sure thing, clear sailing, but then this little bitty niggly worry thingie kept plaguing me. Stare at the ceiling. Stare at the garden. Stare at the floor. Stare at the piles of books. What was I missing?

Eventually, I get it. I'm missing a plan. I know I have another essay due on the 7th along with 20 pages, but what pages?

Why am I uneasy? Is it because I haven't submitted anything recently? Yes, that, too, but what should I submit and where?

What if they all get accepted? Am I ready?

So I did accomplish something. I did figure out I needed to send the rewritten beginning, still in modern time rather than future. I always build from the existing because we may forgive and forget but we always have our roots. I collected data, invented a subplot, wrote 3000 words. I did pick out various stops along the main character's route and found pictures and background data about some of the cities, and some points along the plot line enhanced by history. I discovered I could go to Shandong Province in China with A Broader View Volunteers, too, which sounds fun but probably not possible until next year--this year is pretty booked up. A lot of my brainstorming comes out of longer range parts of the story where I need to backfill to the first part of the novel.

So then I had to wonder, am I ready for such a trip to China? So I bought MacGraw-Hill's Chinese Dictionary & Guide by Quanyu Huang--it focuses on teaching written Chinese via the marks and mark count. I bought the Tuttle Mini Chinese Dictionary by the Tuttle Editors because it has a word oriented way to find words and meanings. Finally I bought Side by Side Chinese and English Grammar by C. Frederick Farrell, Feng-hsi Lui, Xiaozhou Wu, and Rongrong Liao. I've wanted to check my names so that I don't inadvertently call something using a Chinese-English homonym that might embarrass me. Also the equivalent names in the languages especially sounds might create a sense of common knowledge. I also found a Pinyin Pronunciation Guide from the Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language in order to understand how the different tones were sounded as marked by accents in various directions.

My reading consisted of my book that I'm reading for this month--One Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li--I'll have a review, soon. I also came up with some ideas of what to look for in writing the essay. 

I also read, Chinese Intelligence Operations by Nicholas Eftimiades since I may have a thriller plot, I don't quite know how it will affect the story yet. I already know I have one character whose purpose is hidden maybe even sinister and I know that I need my villain(s)--how political is that? Sometimes character's don't even know their purpose so they act without knowing and only understand at the very end.

I also couldn't help peeking into Laurie Moore's Birds of America: Stories which I found quite charming, more eventually on that topic.

Note: Some of what I cover in this overall blog, especially reading materials, will be covered in some of the other blog sections where I talk specifically about stories, poems, etc.

Then I built a list of item I had close to ready for submission and matched them against a potential list of calls for submission. I worked on a letter for an agent but ended up not liking it.

I took a look at my marketing plan--matching up my blogs and other online activities against those products I had created and found some holes--these will come about eventually.

I made an error in my essay when I said I needed to write 600,000 words, like many who find connections I combined word count and page number so I really meant 150,000 words and 600 pages, divided into three volumes.

Good news--I received notice that Loconeal Publishing is interested in my short story "Death and the Fishbowl Pontoon" for their Pirate Anthology, more about that in later reports.

And I think I may be near agreement on the illustrations for my golf book.

The Carlow University MFA Program Integrative Essay was much easier and much more difficult for me to write than I expected. Part of the reason why was I wanted to get a first read of most of the writer's I met before sending it in. That was quite the cram session and budget expense. After it's graded I hope to publish it on this site.

My mind, I find, isn't as flexible as it used to be. Once I had the goal of completing the essay finished, I set down to write my novel, result: brain dead. It's actually quite like being on a roller coaster or time machine, you start thinking and look up and say, where am I? China? Ireland? Florida? Back in history?

My first step has been to isolate some of the specific places used in the story and collect specific place data. Some of the data affects only one scene, a few, two or more. I finished a new first scene, it's a bit more blunt and maybe a turn off, than I wish it to be. 

So where do I get my information about how people dress, what is modern, and what current events are trending in China?

This photographs shows a number of things about China:

• here is a family on vacation, probably Chinese rather than foreign, taking pictures of something their child liked. It's not the best photograph, but the clothing, the interests, the mobility, etc. of locals in China is well portrayed.

This second photograph from my visit to China in 2008, shows a range of fashion worn by locals. It shows how couples behave together. It shows local interest in photography.  

I also use a variety of resources starting with a tour book that is usually good for maps, city names, road and rail and boat routes and general local information. 

Following from there, I can do a search on a specific area, for plants, businesses, news, photographs, products, anything I might find useful for the scene I have in mind.

I've started reading "The Real Story of Ah-Q and other Tales: Complete Fiction of Lu Xun". The foreword of the collection of short stories explains the role that Lu Xun played during the transformation of China from the Qing Dynasty through to the era where Mao Zedong took over. He, too, wanted to change Chinese society, using fiction as a motivator to encourage leaders to take China away from superstitious behavior, into educating people about science and technology. He wanted to be a doctor, but he decided that it is impossible to heal people if they are first suffering from a lack of knowledge about the world. This theme is still carried on in China, the US, and around the world.

I've also read a few stories from Grace Paley's "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute", "Judas Kiss" by David Butler, and a few stories from Mary Costello's "China Factory", In poetry I've read "A Gather of Shadows" by Mark Roper and "State of the Prisons" by Sinead Morrissey. 

I'm beginning to get all of my notes consolidated and organized into a rough essay for my integrative essay in my MFA degree due very soon, already 6 pages long. The notes are 32 pages so far and I have several more to type up. I'm annoyed that I was discouraged from using my PC in class, it saves so much time. I get too bored trying to figure out my bad handwriting.

Still, I have some main ideas. I'm working on several supporting essays, too, ones that I might submit elsewhere as essays or articles, especially my China articles. I find footnoting materials extremely painful, especially when your sources of information span dozens of books, many of them 1000 pages or more. With poetry books or even short story collections, its far easier to do.

Meanwhile, I've completed reading Michael Coadi's "Going By Water" which is a collection of poems about a fisherman, a fishing village, important people, and the passages of life. I found his poetry went from the ordinary, day to day, into the eternal. Some of the poems were just heartbreaking.

I've also finished Pearl S. Buck's East Wind / West Wind and am eager to read more of her books. I found her story simple, but rich with detail and insight, very useful to read on my PC Kindle reader. 

Also started "China's Democratic Future" By Bruce Gilley, it seems highly speculative and tracked information through "The Search for Modern China" by Jonathan D. Spence.

Part of my problem with doing this essay is I want it to be very well written and use lots of references, both from the class and to the work that I'm doing on the novel. It's spawned useful information for scenes that take place in the novel, useful characters to include in the subplots and some good ideas about how to shape the future view of the world and setting, many of these undefined until now. 

Yesterday I delved through space vehicles, thinking about how much of this I will include and the exact type of science fiction to target: the alternate universe, etc.

Meanwhile, I've already heard of several writers glomping onto my planned work so I guess I need to keep the overall story extremely flexible until the very end. Its not that I think they'll write the same story, its just that readers of science fiction look for a new spin all the time, something to whet the appetite. That's the way I always read science fiction.

We've got an appointment to visit the lawyer next week about the contract for the illustrator and the drawings. I checked out the US Copyright webpage and the US Patent and Trademark page just so I know how to deal with the drawings and get a good grips on how copyrights, trademarks and patents are handled.