April 2010 Blog Update:

 

Happy End-of-April everyone. Thank You to all of you who’ve referred people to The Lab and to my 1-on-1 services for writers. Everyone knows the overall state of Arts Education these days, and I’ve been blessed to have work. I couldn’t do it without you!

It’s such a great time of year to be a teacher. Especially one at SF State. We have two Pulitzer Prize winners this year, which is almost as great as hearing from current/former students are busy preparing to take off to various places: one to New York after getting hired by Teach for America, others to grad school: one to University of Hawaii at Manoa on a full teaching scholarship, another to The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and another to San Diego State. I’m going to miss this year’s graduates very much. There is no place on earth where a more interesting mix of people exists than in an undergraduate creative writing class at SFSU. Congratulations to all of the undergrad graduates and to all of the folks on their amazing achievements.

And the grad students? How proud could I possibly be of the Fourteen Hills editors and staff? This Spring alone, they’ve produced a fundraiser and a big fiction reading all while sifting through hundreds and hundreds of literary and art submissions to make a magazine. These are students who, despite endless-seeming funding cutbacks and tuition increases in the State of California, know how to make their own education. 82 people have RSVP’d for our next event, The 16.2 Release Party, happening on May 21st at The San Francisco Motorcycle Club. (You should join us. It’s so much fun, it’s really not to be missed). By the way, Fourteen Hills is easy to follow. They're everywhere. On a blog, on Facebook, on Twitter. Sign up! 

People have been asking about the manuscript I recently got off to my agent. Why isn’t the hardest part of writing a novel writing a novel? This is my second time finishing that task, and it seems relatively easy when compared to the waiting to see if an editor and publishing house will pick it up. My agent is confident, as are the people who’ve read it, but meanwhile, it’s nerve wracking, to say the least. About a month ago, I was having a conversation with a former SFSU student who has become a good friend. She asked me if I were writing. We were both surprised by my answer, I said, “Honestly I don’t know if I have what it takes to write another novel unless I get a book deal on this one.”

Both my novels took five years to write. In retrospect, I’m glad my first one never sold. It came close a couple times. Two editors wrote letters saying they brought it to the table at their publishing house to fight for it. Both times it lost when it came to discussions on marketing/audience. This feedback was more painful to me than feedback like, “It’s not ready. Get back to work.” I like “It’s not ready. Get back to work.” I’m a writer. I’m a worker. I like writing. I like working.

But marketing? Is that an excuse? Do they mean it? Does that really matter? Can’t the right person market anything? It’s impossible to tell. Some say it’s a polite blow off. Others say that people don’t have time to write extensive letters (one was two pages, single-spaced, by and editor at Crown) unless they believe in your skill.

Somehow, my actions are defying my statement. Suddenly I find myself exploring a new character in the few moments when I’m not teaching or at Trader Joe’s replenishing my food supply. He’s starting to hang out with me more, whisper in my ear, and share his opinions. I’m filling up a handwritten notebook, which is in the pocket of my motorcycle jacket. I find myself pulling it out when I shouldn’t, which is always a good sign.

Michelle Carter, one of the best creative writing teachers on earth, has a yet-to-be-published book on fiction writing. It’s unlike anything else out there. One of the things she asks her readers to consider at the beginning of the book is writing a list of things they’re afraid to write about for fear of getting “wrong.”

Number one on my list is the particular complexity it is for me to have siblings. I’m the middle of three male children. We split up when my older brother was 17 years old and my younger 10, and none of us have lived in the same state since. They’re both fathers, and married to women. 

There’s nothing more charged or complicated to me—how I feel about them, the dynamics of being one of three boys. How it is to be the gay one, the unmarried one, the one who is not a father.

To complicate it, there are aspects of our pasts, years gone by with little-to-no-contact, gaps that cannot be bridged. We didn’t live together through adolescence, didn’t spend a moment together in high school, never played on the same sports team. There are so many experiences we each celebrated and endured alone, separately, even though the other two were out there in the world somewhere doing something like same thing. Why? Why did we not stay in better touch? Why are those bonds so strong that we can’t just stay out of each other’s business? Why does it feel so good to be together, even when it doesn’t? Why do their struggles or sadness make me feel so helpless in ways that my own struggles and sadness do not? What is it about the intensity and trust that they once held their tiny babies out to me, wanting me to hold them?

All of my fictional characters have been only children.

In relatively recent years, my family has become the most important thing in my life. I relish the time I get with my parents and brothers, their children, their wives. I’m fascinated by our similarities, our defenses, the ways our parents succeeded in passing down the vices and predilections of generations of Clarks and Davisons and the nuanced and glaring differences in how they manifest.

Perhaps it will not be a novel. I haven’t written a short story in over a decade and I want to spend the summer working on the short stories I wrote and started in grad school. Lots of them got published and I think I could put together a collection.

So apparently I can write while waiting to hear about another novel. I got caught in a moment of fear. I froze because my ambition and desire to be a part of the kinds of conversations one gets to when one has a book--my ambition and desire to take my teaching to the levels one can when one has a book--are sometimes overwhelming.

More good news?  Apparently I can, while riding the waves of desire and ambition, even start writing about the thing I fear the most I’ll get wrong.

All of this is subject to change, but James, my new character, is a middle child. One of three brothers. He’s unmarried and childless. His brothers are not. So far that’s an exhausted list of the ways James and I are similar. Still, it's charged as if much more personal. The other day I wrote at Café Flore for a couple hours and the whole time my heartbeat felt a bit too fast for a person sitting still. I kept looking up, afraid the person next to me might see.

Who knows what, if anything, will come of it, but I'm so glad to have the teachers and students in my life who keep me pushing forward. People who've always emphasized the artist process over the product without being afraid to pursuit the product. People who have not made success bad or wrong just because of its challenges and elusiveness.

Thanks for reading my update. 

March 2010 Update

*Sign up for The Douglass Street Lab's next session starting 1/19/10.

Ahhh....Spring. 

I'm not one who has a favorite season. Each one offers its delights and literary opportunities. And each one its challenges (tax preparation, for example). But on a singular practical note, as a motorcyclist, Spring rules! Still chilly enough so you're not suffering in thick leather. Warm enough so you're not screaming IT'S SO COLD in your helmet. 

Spring is also time for MA & MFA application results. Each year the number of letters-of-recommendation I write increases. Partly because I teach more students now than I used to. But another part is that so many undergrads just begin to grasp the concepts of the craft of fiction, and the possibilities they offer, and then they graduate. They want more! 

Each year I see talented writers and students get their rejection and acceptance letters. It's always bittersweet. And with all things subjective, it's always surprising. I've already heard reports from disappointed students, with whom I've had my 3-year-plan talk. So many think it's so crucial to continue their study RIGHT NOW and IN COLLEGE. I try to remind them that being a student of writing is about being awake. Noticing the world. Paying attention. READING. Questioning your assumptions about people. Being a writer, I tell them from experience, isn't about a degree or a book deal. I tell them that if what they really want is to go to an MFA program, they should plan on working on their prose as full-time as life will permit. Then reapply. In the meantime, make the world the classroom. 

That said, I can't help but be thrilled when I hear back from former students (both at State and in The Lab) who report that they've gained acceptance into the various programs. Several of my former students will be MA/MFA students at SFSU. Others have been invited to attend Columbia University, NYU, Brooklyn College, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Syracuse. These programs are so highly competitive it's practically staggering. So congratulations to them all.  

Moving Forward: 

Speaking of book deals... It's easy for me to hide behind process. Especially because I love teaching, and, unlike many other writers who teach SO they can write, I'm as happy with the word "teacher" as I am "writer" when people describe me. If I'm not careful, I can allow myself to think being a writer is solely about a way of seeing the world. I also got into a lot of trouble back when I'd just finished my MFA when I thought being a writer was solely about getting published. 

In 2000, the year I turned 30 and finished my MFA, I got a story accepted to The Atlantic Monthly. From then on practically every short story I sent out got taken immediately. I had short piece up on the now-defunct EVO (Emerging Voices Online), the once-online version of The Mississippi Review. A New York agent contacted me after reading that story and asked if I had a novel. I did. It was, at the time, a controversial story about a young gay runaway who contracted HIV. Arguably on purpose. It was what I worked on the entire time I was in school. Both undergraduate and graduate. He read it. Loved it. Commented on it. I revised it. He signed me.  

Looking back I can also see how my last year of grad school set me up to believe things that weren't true. Before my last year, I'd entered absolutely every contest available while in grad school. Both at SFSU and the wider local, State, and National. I received nothing but rejections for two years. Then, suddenly, in 2000, the floodgates opened. I won contests and grants. I had also been hired to teach from a highly-competitive pool of my peers. Nothing had changed except my luck. The only thing I could brag about was my persistence. 

That combination of events really set me up to expect that my first novel would find a publisher. My agent was certain he could sell it. He had a plan. Then September 11th 2001 happened and things changed. The Atlantic delayed the publication of my story. My agent left. I got a new agent, but no one wanted my book. 

At the time, I was living in Italy and trying to work on a second novel. I had nothing to send out because I hadn't written a short story in since college. My first novel took five years to write. The second project (which attempted to be a novel), I'd come to find out, was overly ambitious. Especially since I was trying to negotiate a new life in a new culture where I hadn't yet learned to speak the language. That project required the skill of Garcia Marquez or Toni Morrison in order to pull off what it was attempting. And frankly, I hadn't lived long enough in order to earn it! (I plan on going back to that material again on my 60th birthday). 

I tried for a while to send out excerpts to keep my publications going—but since I hadn't found the central conflict in the "novel"—I couldn't find it in the scenes either—and none of them stood alone. 

That phase of my life was not easy. But now I'm really glad I went through it. I see young (and old) writers who seem happy when they're publishing and miserable and competitive when they're not. 

I do not want to live my life that way. 

It took a long time for me to get over the disappointments. I had to swallow my pride. For two years after I moved back to the U.S. and had started teaching at State again, I supplemented my income by waiting on tables. Sometimes my students would end up in my restaurant. It was humbling, to say the least, to recite the fish specials to the students who had been in my classrooms at a University. 

There, I discovered what was important to me. I wanted to concentrate my energies on regaining a practice. On seeing how i might bring rigor and excellence into the classroom. I sought out opportunities to be of service to the communities that had been so good to me. I started working for Performing Arts Workshop. First as the Artist-in-Residence at LYRIC, then as an Artist Mentor. Once again, I was humbled by these people whose lives weren't defined by the outward successes of their own careers (which they were having all the time), but by what they were contributing to their communities. I'm lucky because I work with folks both at SF State and at Performing Arts Workshop who're so active as voices for their communities. Reading at fund raisers. Offering their time. Their names. Their endorsements. They're incredible educators. They bring artistry to teaching. And I really get why they're contented with their lives. 

I tried the best I could to take their lead. To reconnect to how I was raised (both of my parents have always been very active volunteers and community participants). Then, finally, a new idea for a novel came to me. And now it's time to finish it. I received a grant for the manuscript when the work was in its early stages. Because of the huge generosity of a good friend (who happens to be my cousin) and his partner, I have a place to go and write in the summer, away from what could distract me here. 

Now its time to finish. 

The manuscript will require, as all manuscripts do, revision. But still, I have so little left to do (comparatively speaking) to get the story to my agent and couple of trusted readers. 

Those in my field who I admire, the ones I was describing before, do not contribute to their communities or bring passion and rigor to their classrooms INSTEAD OF moving forward in their art forms. They do it in part BECAUSE they're always moving forward and finding new ways to express themselves. 

DOUGLASS STREET LAB UPDATE: 

The January Lab was one of the best yet. Highlights were a visit from Nona Caspers (above) who read from her book A Little Book of Days and discussed with The Lab participants how to look for the extraordinary which emerges from the ordinary. We were lucky to be the first stop on her tour! 

Another highlight was the public reading we held:

Above, Labber Zach Grear reads to a roomful of word lovers as the fog moved east across the city as the sun set in the windows all around us. 

There's another shot. A whole album of pictures exists if you'd like to become a "fan" of "The Lab" on FACEBOOK. 

Speaking of The Lab, I still have 3 slots for the next 8-week session which starts April 8th. Scroll down to see how to sign up. 

Thanks for reading and, as always, all my best with your reading and writing. 

I had such a great summer. Not just the 5-week writing stint in New York, but I also enjoyed a visit from my momma (who is the world's best motorcycle passenger. She practices reiki on me while we drive). My younger brother Paul, and his wife and daughter, Terese and Amara, also trekked from Colorado Springs to the Bay Area, and were surprised by the chilly late-July-weather.

Sometimes work feels like work. And sometimes it feels like this:

This is a photo of one of the locations where I've been absolutely blessed to be able to write this summer, thanks to the kindness and generosity of Greg and Michael. They've both worked incredibly hard, for years, and are now able to share their good fortune with their family and friends.  

Happy New Year.

Look at the San Francisco Sky on the last day of 2007:



I was staring at the ceiling of my gym yesterday after an hour of jump rope and yoga. I took even took a picture of the ceiling from where I was lying on my back:

My gym is at the old Alhambra movie theater, which opened in 1926. It used to look like this: