Prompts

#TMWW17

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If it’s June it must be time for Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop.

I got a memory on Facebook the other day about my first time here in 2012 and how I was terrified of what was going to happen during the critique. I had plotted how I could pack up and move out in the middle of the night.

Turns out it was the best writing experience I had in my life. And the best critique experience. That’s good and bad. Good because I’ve grown so much as a writer because of it; bad because I now expect them all to be that way.

I’ve been every year since 2012, and each time I’ve been validated as a writer, I’ve established a wonderful circle of writer friends, and, frankly, my novel wouldn’t have been published without TMWW.

Trying Something New

This year isn’t the typical submit 40 pages for review and critique. I’m with Dan Mueller, who last year taught a flash fiction workshop in the traditional manner. This year, he’s going to make this a true writing workshop. We’ll get prompts and other inspiration, and we’ll write on the spot.

A daunting task to be sure, but I’m looking forward to it.

They Really Like Me

For the past two years a group of TMWW alumna and I have contributed money for an Alumni Scholarship. This experience has been so meaningful to me, I can’t help but provide part of the means for someone else to be able to get the benefits.

That, along with the publication of my first novel, inspired the faculty to invite me to do an Alumni Reading this Thursday. I was surprised and shocked then honored and humbled. It’s my Sally Field second Oscar moment: “You like me! You really like me!”

I’ve settled into my 1950’s style dorm room and am greeting friends as they check in, listening to Leonard Cohen, and writing this.

It’s going to be a great week.

Get Ready for Some Poetry!

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Last week I started an eight-week poetry class at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, VA. I’ve always wanted to write poetry, but perfectionist that I am I rarely set pen to paper to give it a try. When I saw the poetry course offered, I figured it would be a good impetus. The instructor, Aime Whittemore, didn’t cut us any slack; we got homework the first class: Using the first line of another poem, write your own poem. And not only did we have to write a poem, but it got work-shopped today. Oy! We had a list of first lines to choose from, and I selected “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” from “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. His poem, written about World War I, is pretty stark, but I’d never read it until after I selected that line. However, the first line brought something else to mind.

Oh, and just be prepared. I’ll probably post my poems, good and bad, and your comments would be appreciated.

Family History
(Prompt: First Line of “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen)

by Phyllis “Maggie” Duncan

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Their burdens hunger and homelessness,
They fall dead by roadsides and in ditches,
Teeth and tongues the color of chewed grass:
Why I don’t smile at the wearing of the green.

My grandmother hoarded food and money;
A century later the memories were too fresh
With recollections of lost uncles and cousins,
Who left and no word ever came again,
Their empty place settings sacred at table.

Always spoken of in the present tense,
As if they would one day reappear,
Pockets full of coin and victuals to share,
To tell their stories of streets paved in gold
But never mention “No Irish Need Apply.”

To America, that was a choice.
To Australia, the price of passage
Was a loaf of bread taken in desperation
From a windowsill where it cooled
And reeked of survival.

Those memories ride in my blood,
Renew in my marrow.
My grandmother made no waves,
Asked no questions,
So she wouldn’t have to go back;

Fear of deportation stretched
Across decades to my mother,
Who dreaded applying for a passport.
In our house no talk of Auld Erin,
No parsnip or turnip eaten.

Bone and sinew bespeak my history,
And it’s undeniable in my skin
(Never tanned but freckled),
The shape of my cranium (round);
The color of my hair (red).

Barely a note sounds before my feet
Move to the music of bodhran and pipes.
I don’t set out bread and milk for the wee folk
Like the other Maggie, my grandmother,
But maybe I should.

Oh, The Horror!

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The NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge is on!

If you recall, this is a two-month challenge involving three rounds (if you’re lucky) where  contestants write short stories from prompts provided by the contest. The top three from each heat of the first round go on to the second, and the same for the third and final round. I signed up back in January to participate, and as the deadline for the first set of prompts (midnight February 7) neared, I went from anticipation to panic. What prompts would I get? Would I actually be able to come up with something? What if I flop?

I didn’t wait up until midnight to get my prompts. I got a good night’s sleep then planned on checking email first thing on Saturday morning. However, a writer friend of mine, who is also participating, messaged me first thing in the morning, terrified about her prompts. Gulp. I looked.

Genre: Horror. Okay, not so bad. I’d been terrified of getting YA or Romance, neither of which I have much experience in nor enjoy.

Subject: Genetically Modified Organism (GMO). Again, not bad. There’s been a debate locally about such products and whether they should be labelled as such, so I knew there was fodder here for a decent horror story.

Character: A prisoner. Hmmm. More possibilities.

However, I didn’t sit down to write right away. I had to travel to Charlottesville, VA, for a meeting of the Board of Governors of the Virginia Writers Club; however, the prompts kept tickling at me the whole drive over. I was a little early in arriving, so I pulled out the notebook I go nowhere without and jotted down this opening paragraph:

“I always figured it went down like this: one of those impersonal government buildings–you know the kind, all concrete, no glass–a conference room, a table occupied by faceless bureaucrats, a couple of guys in lab coats, maybe with names like Krishnamurtichatterjee or Schwartzenschikelgruber. They sat around the table reading a thick report, maybe watched a PowerPoint or a Prezi. The guys were from USDA, FDA, maybe Justice or U.S. Marshals, Bureau of Prisons, or some such.”

Yeah, promising, but where to go from there?

All throughout the meeting, as I knew it would, the prompts kept “talking” to me, and I jotted more notes at breaks and at lunch. By the time I left for home, I had a fully formed idea.

A really grotesque, fully formed idea. Even then I let it stew most of the day on Sunday; then, I sat down and started to write. It was all going smoothly until I got a text telling me I was late for my three-year-old granddaughter’s cake and ice cream birthday party. Oops! I hit save, dashed to the car, and took care of family business. I had to remind myself not to scarf down cake and ice cream and dash home, that Mamo had to be there for the Emster.

I got home, sat right down again, and resumed the story. When I next looked at the clock, it was almost 2300, and I had written 2,498 words. (The story can’t exceed 2,500 words.) I read it over, noted the spots needing work, and got to the end. I liked it. It needed work, but I liked it.

For the first round we have eight days to upload the story, and I’m grateful for the time. I’m letting the draft sit for Monday and Tuesday; then, I’ll pick it up again on Wednesday, with a goal of having it ready to upload on Friday. Yes, I’m grateful because if I make it to Round 2 I only have five days. Should I make it to Round 3, I only have twenty-four hours to upload a story. And you can’t pre-write because you don’t know what the prompts will be.

It’s certainly a challenge–so, aptly named, NYC Midnight–but each story gets feedback, and that’s what most interests me. Two of my writer friends from Tinker Mountain are also participating, so we’re supporting each other by listening to each other vent on Facebook Messenger. It would be the coolest of cool if all three of us made it to Round 3.