Author: Cameron

Admit One

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

Let’s talk about movies.

Having just finished our 3-week screenwriting module with Julianna Baggott, my brain has properly become molded (or should I say ruined) to never watch a movie again without noting its structure, praising its “break into Act 2” scene, calculating its midpoint, and brooding over the slow and torturous ALL IS LOST/DARK SOUL OF THE NIGHT scenes in Act 3.

There are many celebrated and acclaimed ways to structure a film. A particular method, called the Three Act Structure, was the one we used in class to plot out familiar films, such as Hot Fuzz and On Golden Pond, as well as TV shows (Cheers, Friends From College, Ozark). Basically, there are formulas for successful storytelling and this is one of them. We as story consumers have been primed to expect certain kinds of actions to take place at certain points in the story’s arc. You can learn more about the beat-to-beat moments here: http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/10/plotting-with-save-cat-beat-sheet.html.

While we learned this structure in a “screenwriting” class, a story is a story, no matter the medium. Structure isn’t a topic usually hit on in fiction/novel writing courses, and yet, it is so important to ensuring that 1) your readers are following the plot and 2) you are engaging their emotions and moving them to the edge of their seat – or in book talk, your readers are still turning the pages.

In another one of my classes, we’ve been talking about our “touchstone” books to reach for whenever we’re in need of creative nourishment. In honor of the screenwriting class, I’ve thought about my “touchstone” films.

Here is a list of movies I go back to again and again whenever I need inspiration or when I need to deeply appreciate the art of storytelling:

Cloud Atlas: I first read the book and fell in love with the sheer brilliance of Mitchell’s mind. The movie is definitely a different creature than the book. But I’m rather fond of instances where the book and the film are two distinct pieces of art. After all, a book is not a film and a film is not a book. I worship the cinematographer of the film, or whoever was in charge of chopping up the scenes. The scenes were cut and woven together with such deftness that I believe the film can express the theme of the story (interconnectedness, past lives, history repeating itself, textual posterity) better than the limited technologies the book’s chaptered structure could offer. While David Mitchell is the masterful architect behind the story (see my post about David Mitchell’s visit to Ann Arbor here), I am 100% Team Movie. The china shop dream sequence especially makes my heart stop. Even though I have seen the film close to 10 times, I know there will be many more viewings in my future. I’m especially interested in hearing the director and co. talk about the film via commentary.

Amelie: Amelie is the queen of quirk. The film is an incredibly rare blend of both joy and melancholy. There’s fun and whimsy to be had, but there’s also real, honest emotion which is explored throughout the film. Amelie is a girl who celebrates life’s small pleasures (which my love for the movie makes total sense if you know my undying obsession with the British magazine The Simple Things). She loves the sound of a spoon breaking a creme brûlée crust; she plunges her hand in a sack of grain at the vegetable stand; she loves skipping stones on the canal. These moments make her seem real. These moments make me say, “I wish I could meet her and take her to a park so we can watch the clouds and turn them into animated objects.” The other reason I love the movie is that the landscape is familiar, yet fictive. It is a place of saturated colors, of eccentric characters, of talking paintings, of nostalgic accordion music. The film does not try to represent the “real Paris”—it grabs you by the hand and takes you into a dreamworld of its own kind.

Tarsem’s The Fall: See my love for this movie in my December 2017 post for the Michigan Quarterly Review. Otherwise, I could gush on and on.

Moonrise Kingdom: I absolutely adore the whimsy, the awkwardness, the simultaneous rigidity to order and the freedom of narrative structure, and the OCD mindset that is so prevalent in Wes Anderson’s films. This film happens to be the one I return to again and again. Anderson’s camera work also reminds me to use my zoom button when I write. How do I zoom way out? How do I zoom way in on this situation? What is the detail I want to draw my readers eye to in this scene?

Tell me: which movies inspire you? 

 

On Time Management

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

People often ask me how I get so much done. How do I possibly go to school and work as an editor and do freelance writing gigs and volunteer and read for fun and exercise and do those frazzling adult errands that must get done and socialize with friends? I’ve even been asked how much sleep I get each night, and when I answer 8 hours, people always look shocked.

I’ve always been a fan of hustling (not the illegal variety – I’m talking about working hard). Many of my artist mentors are also wizards at the art of the hustle, and I find myself looking at them the same way that others look at me. I think, “How in the world does [insert my dream writer or professor] have kids and a good marriage and a full-time job and write and eat and stay fit and thrive as a social being and…?”

I’ve thought and thought about it, and the answer always seems very counterintuitive. It seems that to get “more done,” one needs to be “more busy.” Think about it. The most wasted of days are the ones where  you have long languorous periods of time in a day with “nothing” to do and suddenly the moon is up and the time is 9 pm and you think, “Wow, where did the day go?”

An important note: I am a person who feels satisfied by crossing off items on my to-do list. That mark of achievement gives me great pleasure. It is important to know what it is that gives you pleasure. What are your goals for the long term and how are you going to get there?

Time management really comes down to knowing yourself: knowing when you feel most energetic, knowing what makes you feel fulfilled, what you find rewarding, and when to say yes or no to something else. It’s about setting aside time for the things that are important to you, and sometimes may involve making sacrifices – choosing one thing you love to do over another at any given moment. It’s about creating a ritual for yourself so you can get into your “zone” faster. Time management is just like a sport or a musical instrument. You have to work that muscle memory, so that you can snap your fingers and get into your “working flow.” It’s the closest thing we can do to stopping time, freezing the world around us.

Paradoxically, learning how to manage your time takes time! It’s a practice. You have to want to do it. You have to be dedicated to learning how your individual body needs to manage time. Don’t look at your neighbor. This is a very internal practice.

I’ve created a few exercises to help people reach their full time management potential:

  • Make a list of a perfect day from sun-up to sun-down. Once you have done that, really analyze it. Do you have “tasks” on your list? Do you have social engagements? Exercise? Do you make time to read? Or sleep?
  • How do you stay organized? How do you keep track of what you do or if people are counting on you to do something? What materials do you use? On a scale of yes, this works for me – I could try something better – or no, this doesn’t work at all, how is your method working for you?
  • What kind of environment do you need to be in to get work done? When are you most productive? Describe the setting (room temperature, what you are wearing, desk/bed/couch, noise level, lighting, alone or with others, time of day, what’s the view)?
  • What do you do before and after you are most productive? These will be non-“work” related activities. Do you eat? Exercise? Talk on the phone? Listen to music? Nap? (Remember, this may not be every time you work, but can also be your ideal activities).
  • What makes you happy? That seems like a silly question. But really, list specific things/actions that you do that make you happy. For example, in my note above, I feel happy when I can go to sleep knowing I have accomplished the PRIORITY items on my to-do list. I also feel happy when I have started the day with yoga (which is why I do it everyday first thing when I wake up) and when I have sufficiently exercised. I feel happy when I have read even a chapter or two of a book (not assigned reading – just pure fun reading).

Have fun with answering these questions, and please do let me know how it goes! I’m curious to see if this helps structure or organize anyone’s daily routine. Once you have your answers, the next step is to begin adding them slowly into your life. If you need to buy a planner, do that and use it. If you need to set a timer every day for a 20 minute nap at 4 pm, do that and don’t press snooze. Ask friends and family if they will help keep you accountable for your actions. Ask them if you can check in with them daily or weekly to let them know you’ve completed a certain task.

I recently read a Paris Review interview with Toni Morrison and was surprised to see that she said something very similar to my list of questions. She wrote: “I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?”

If Toni says it, it really must be true. Now go boil some tea and have a grand conversation with your most productive self. Interrogate it. Interview it. Squeeze all the citric vitamins that you can from it. And then go off and do great things!

Dispatch from the Unknown

~ Cameron ~ 1 Comment

At this point in 2018, without the structure of having class to attend every day, I’m wandering around my head as if I were in a Narnian wardrobe, which is to say in a bamboozled state of wonder and not particularly sure what to do with myself. I’ve been steadily creating writing projects, reading so many books, and watching and rewatching all the seasons of the British Bake Off. And yet, my studentia soul aches to get back into a familiar rhythm. It doesn’t help that the world outside my windows is a snow-icing landscape of white with creeping mists, hazy mountain silhouettes, and gnarly-fingered trees. So there’s that Vermont in Winter otherworldliness factor, too.

Luckily, the wait is short, because this coming Monday, I will dive right back in to my studies— this time with some new and old faces at the front of the classroom. My schedule for this semester is:

  • Modules with Julianna Baggott (Screenplay), Matthew Dickman (Poetry), Jericho Parms (Creative Nonfiction), Trinie Dalton (Fiction), and Sean Prentiss.(Thesis Development)
  • Workshop with Robin MacArthur
  • Publishing with Miciah Gault
  • Professional Development (with various Module instructors)
  • Internship (TBD)

Here’s a pic of the latest book haul (all school books):

More information on classes are sure to follow soon!

Today was a mix of the mundane and the historically significant. In between cleaning my studio and a bit of list-making/email housekeeping, I walked in the local Montpelier Women’s March anniversary event. Donning a hot pink scarf and a “I have more than enough courage” button, I joined the hundreds of others who gathered at the base of the Vermont State House. Even a T-Rex traveled through time and overcame extinction to make an appearance. What I find thrilling about this particular Vermont event is that it was a youth-led, youth-organized march and speak-out for youth of all ages and their allies. I think it is an incredible thing to give young people the stage and respect to be heard by their townspeople, many who are decades older than themselves. When we show up to events like these, we’re not just saying “Impeach Trump” and “We want change,” it’s showing (and therefore speaking volumes) that we believe that what children have to say and feel about this country’s future matters. They are our future. We are all in this together, literally, sharing this world and all of Earth’s resources. I know from my experiences as a preschool teacher that children produce some of the most intelligent and rawest ideas and feelings. Because they don’t always have the speech capacity to vocalize these thoughts efficiently, children are written off as dumb or naive. But I think this is far from the truth. Children hold some of the most fundamental qualities of life to be self-evident. For example, in the photo below, a child in the right bottom corner holds a sign that says: “Be nice and share.” How many adults do you know who struggle with this advice every day? Just some food for thought.

Portrait of Montpelier’s Women’s March with T-Rex

 

And now to something completely different…

I’ve been listening to a TON of Moby lately (my favorite tracks are the gospelly ones: “Honey“, “Natural Blues“, and “In This World“). Mostly, because I realized that I need very specific music to settle my brain down and tell itself that it’s time to write. Certain music, like Emancipator or Moby, creates a sort of cave for my brain to curl up inside and produce these sprigs of ideas which sprout outward from me like degravitized roots. Caves are the perfect environment because it’s dark in there and echoey and my brain can practice sounds, while also not feeling super calm. There’s always a slight dripping sense of unease in caves, which is what I like in a good story. Also, good writing music: the soundtrack to American Beauty. The last time I saw that movie, I think I almost bit through the pillow I was clutching during the last scene. The soundtrack though is worldly, disturbing and comforting all at once — again, quintessentially cavernous.

So right now, I’m standing in this snowy cave of Vermont looking at 2018 spread out in front of me, all full of possibility and exploration and nail-biting political nervousness, and I’m not sure where the year is going to take me, what it’s going to teach me, and who I’m going to become. But I have my boots, and I trust them to take me one step further and then another.  I’ll make sure to send dispatches back from the unknown.

 

The Sound of Water

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

I am home again—well, home in Vermont (I have many places I feel at home)—and I am starting to get the swing of 2018.

As I write this, it is a brisk, frosty, nose-hair-crystalizing temperature outside and there are snow-plowed mountains peaking high among the streets. As I write this, my feet are toasty in fuzzy oven-warm slippers and I am serenaded by the trickling sound of water as it twists through the metallic veins of ancient radiators.

I am realizing what a blessing it is to have a month-long break between school semesters. With two more weeks left, I am properly hibernating with tea and a mound of books. I am doing a bit of writing (revising short stories and beginning a new novel), but mostly reading. I want to voraciously learn everything I can from my predecessors and my contemporaries.

I just finished Donald Antrim’s The Hundred Brothers (at Porochista Khakpour’s recommendation) and am halfway through this beautiful Penguin Horror edition of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, as well as Stephen King’s On Writing. I have Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters and Tana French’s In the Woods to pick up when I’m finished. Plus I just ordered a box of more bookish goodies for later in the semester!

One of my favorite ways to read through my ever-growing book pile is by reading while walking on the treadmill, which is almost as satisfying as reading whilst hula hooping. It’s amazing how fast the time goes by and how after reading 50-60 pages, I’ve already walked 3-4 miles. I believe that when the body is active, the mind is also stimulated and therefore, it is easier to absorb and comprehend complex plots and details. Plus, the gym in the dorm is located in the basement, meaning that it is quiet enough for me to read out loud. (It has always been a dream of mine to one day become an audiobook reader, so I practice as much as I can.)

And now, we return to the symphony of the humming radiator and the back-breaking shovel digging out a snowbound car.

Old & New

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

The Dutch call New Year’s Day oud en nieuw — meaning Old and New. In one sparkly seam of time, the past and future collide and explode into fizzly fireworks. (Isn’t that what makes us human after all? A cocktail of dreams and memories, fears of the unknown and regrets of what’s past?) And last night, as I blew into a semi-obnoxious noisemaker with a slightly tipsy head, I couldn’t help but think about how my life has so vastly changed over this year.

It seems it was just New Year’s 2017 when my boyfriend and I sprinted ten blocks at 11:55pm to get to the Chicago River on time for the fireworks. (We made it just at the countdown of 3-2-1!) And here we are again together, in Austin, Texas, where he now works, spending the disappointingly chilly weekend bowling and watching The Princess Bride and fueling up on heartwarming Indian food.

Somewhere in the middle, I worked at a preschool and fell in love with the honesty, joy, imaginations, and most tender emotions that my eighteen four and five year old students had to offer. I wish them all the best as they go on with their kindergarten schooling and beyond and hope they will remember their dear Teacher Cammie as much as I’ll remember them.

I was a Teacher Assistant for one of the most important humanity classes taught at University of Michigan, about the Holocaust and the legacy of Anne Frank’s diary. I learned that I love office hours and talking with young students about their ideas and how they can develop them more. I love that so many of those students are going to go on to teach others about the importance of telling these histories, so we will never forget the horrors that so many have suffered, and so many have overcome.

There were travels. I did not get mauled by a bear in Alaska, met amazing writers in Martha’s Vineyard, and found my happy spot in Seattle.

I no longer live in Ann Arbor. I am a full-on fully immersed Montpelierian (Montpelierite?) in the green mountains of Vermont. I started a graduate program that has filled my heart, fired up the stone inside my stomach, challenged my brain coils, and has introduced me to lovely people who will produce such amazing pieces of literature in the next few years. So get ready world — and make room in your bookshelves.

My creative work was published five times this year (thank you so much to all of the editors of Across the Margin, Moonchild Magazine, Dream Pop Press, Orange Quarterly, and Emerging Writers Network) and I began writing blog content for the Michigan Quarterly Review. I’m still near the bottom of the mountain (just off the ground), but I have coffee and strength and am excited to find the next foothold to push me that much closer to the top.

2018–I can’t wait to see the stories that come out of you.

In terms of the annual media roundup, I read 66 books and harrowingly narrowed the list of “favorites” down to 25. 

An eclectic list of old and new (hand drawn by me in the style of My Ideal Bookshelf):

Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
Euphoria – Lily King
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
Her Body and Other Parties – Carmen Maria Machado
The Child Finder – Rene Denfeld
Gutshot – Amelia Gray
Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
Tales of Falling and Flying – Ben Loory
The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
And the Pursuit of Happiness – Maira Kalman
The Spoons in the Grass Are There to Dig a Moat – Amelia Martens
Grief is the Thing With Feathers – Max Porter
The Most of It – Mary Ruefle
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
History of Wolves – Emily Fridlund
The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain– David Eagleman
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
Case Histories – Kate Atkinson
The Girl Who Drank the Moon – Kelly Barnhill
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
How to Set a Fire and Why – Jesse Ball
A Woman is a Woman Until She is a Mother : Essays – Anna Prushinskaya

TV greats included Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which I think I could watch over and over and over for its music, style, wit, and its female protagonist extraordinaire.

I didn’t see too many movies this year, but I did really enjoy the quirkiness which is The Shape of Water. I also finally got around to seeing Arrival, which was excellent and non-linear in all the best ways.

My mood music for 2017 was hands-down Fleet Foxes (who I saw live in August) and Emancipator (who I’ll see live later this month!) It’s a tie between Fleet Foxes’ “The Shrine/The Argument” and Emancipator’s “Rattlesnakes” for which one was on repeat the most.

On this first day of 2018, the cards are in the hands of the stars. Anything can happen and I feel excited by that. No fear of the blank page. Let’s start writing the year now.

 

 

 

 

 

Wintertime

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

Snow, glorious snow! I’m back in Ann Arbor and there are cookies to deliver. It’s a Finch tradition to bag up homemade cookies and give them to the hard-working crews at the local Literati Bookstore and 826michigan Writing Center, to the homeless folk selling newspapers on street corners, to my most beloved UMich profs. What can I say — my favorite holiday book was Eloise at Christmastime when I was younger. I love to sklinkle my way around town to bring people goodies. ♩Oh trinkles oh trinkles sing fa la la lolly ting tingle bells there and here ♩

Today is Yule and we shall celebrate with pine-scented candles and solstice dancing and a screening of The Holiday, because Mr. Napkinhead.

Merry merry and a bucket of eggnog and rum to you all. With snow and peace (we need a whole lot of it after this year) and all those blinking fairy lights.

 

Portrait of an Artist as a Grateful Grad Student

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

First of all, it is incredible (and slightly mystifying) that I have completed my first semester of graduate school.

I have so much to be thankful for, but here are a few highlights of the semester:

  • Working with Julianna Baggott, Mary Ruefle, Trinie Dalton, Ruben Quesada, Jessica Hendry Nelson, Sean Prentiss, Porochista Khakpour, and Miciah Gault. It still sometimes floors me to read off that list of people who have taken such care of my future as a successful writer. Each professor possesses unique passions in different genres and fields, of course, but they all are some of the most enthusiastic academic teachers I have ever met. They want to see me and all of us in the program succeed. They believe in my work! They believe in me! They have so much love for language and storytelling, and I feel superbly lucky that they want to pass as much knowledge as they can to me. It makes me realize how teaching and learning is such a wonderful gift. Almost as wonderful as sharing a story with one another.
  • The friends I have made in such a short while have been an invaluable part to my success here at school. People always think that writers are isolated, unsocial beings, but if anything, we need people more. People are our readers, our characters, our customers, our audience, our gods. We bow down to serve people, to entertain them, and to provide opportunities for thoughtfulness. I can always count on my friends to make my belly hurt from laughing. I trust them with my undeveloped stories, my fears, my doubts, my longings. Most of all, they remind me to keep a childlike wonder about the world.
  • Workshop…workshop…workshop. Without these hours of serious dedication and attention from my professors and cohort, my stories would be stuck in mud, bathing in illogical stews, or would still be a locked trapdoor whose key floats within the belly of a dragon and I have to kill the dragon to find the key. (This analogy may still apply, because all stories have a trapdoor and its the author’s job to find that key and unlock it, because behind that door is another door, and so on.)
  • I have loved working on the Hunger Mountain literary journal as the managing editor, and am so glad that there is still half a year left in my position. P.S. Must find a way to make this a full-time career! I’m realizing that one of my passions in the literary world is championing other writers’ work and working with them to find success.
  • My internship at the letterpress May Day Studio has come to an end, but I hope to put my newfound skills to good use some day in the future. Here is an interview I did with Kelly McMahon, the owner of the studio. For now, I have a limited supply of cards I made for my final project. Would anyone be interested in purchasing these one-of-a-kind goodies? If so, write to me at cameroncfinch@gmail.com and we can chat about placing an order!

The poem is “Invitation”: my favorite piece in Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. The greeting cards are original “untranslatable word” prints and are influenced by Ella Frances Sanders’ book, Lost in Translation.

***

Now is the time to come up with a plan for the month-long break. I don’t really consider it a break – as I am a person who feels most fulfilled when constantly hustling. The question isn’t how to “relax”—for me, this break is all about finding ways to refill thy brain with creative input so I can produce fresh and quintessentially weird content in the next semester.

It was Julia Cameron who talks about “filling your creative well” on a regular basis; that you need to replenish your creativity by absorbing other creative things or going out in nature. She calls these moments of artistic absorption:  “Artist Dates.”

While I am an avid reader and often make more time to read than I do to write (is this something I should feel guilty about?), I do sometimes forget that I need to recharge my brain batteries and consume art rather than constantly work on my own. I’ve been so busy with getting together my final portfolio (which included an extended second draft of my novella—extended, because I think it wants to be a novel…maybe) over the last week or so, but perhaps haven’t been properly recharging.

This list here, inspired by Cameron’s Artist Dates, is one I shall bookmark whenever I need some guidance on where to fill my well.

I did recently watch Tarsem’s The Fall, which is my all-time favorite movie, for the sixth or seventh time. But this time, I watched it with the director’s commentary. I had always been a bit daunted to watch a movie with two hours of straight commentary as I thought it would draw away from the film itself. But when you’ve seen a film as much as I have seen The Fall—where you know all the scene changes and the exact timing of lines and you can anticipate where the camera will lead you next—it was so easy to release myself from the world of the film and float slightly above it, godlike, with the director. I think even on my hundredth viewing, I will still find something new. I will still be in utter awe of its splendor and brilliance. Oh my, has this film changed me, my brain chemistry, my heart, in a way that I wish I could put into words and send in a letter to the director. Maybe someday I will.

Note: Give all the love and tell people when you see them have that thing that grabs you and keeps you and excites you and leaves you awestruck and slightly breathless. It makes all the difference in this world to let them know. Don’t wait. Tell them how they’ve moved you. 

As much as my nerd heart wants to stay in school through this month, I’m excited to have time to revise stories, to binge on good books and movies and tea, to see my cat and the people back home that I love, and to continue to fill this cavernous, bottomless well of mine. I want to consume all the art.

 

Books for Winter Hibernation

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

We have only three more weeks until the end of the fall semester. After that, we have a month-long break, in which I plan to hunker in (sans homework) and create my own little hibernation retreat of writing, reading, and hula-hooping (natuurlijk). (Fun fact: When I was in third grade, my best friend, Connor, and I used to play this game on the playground called Hibernation, where we would burrow our winter-suited bodies down into the snow-covered hill and “hibernate” because we were bears. All of the other children playing on the hill were unknowingly part of the game. They were the villains: the poachers. Our goal was to “kill” (with our minds) the poachers before they “killed” (with their minds) us, but of course, they didn’t know they were playing in our game, and we were too shy and probably frozen to move out of our hibernating locations. Now that I think about it, this game was actually quite the complicated mental inception. Also, this is not the kind of hibernation I plan to have this winter. My fingers and toes were not made to withstand hours of cold.)

To fully prepare myself for the *real* winter hibernation, I have laid in a supply of reading material: a mix of genres, nothing terribly recent. I have a lot of books from the past few years to catch up on. Here are links and info since the internet makes it so easy to love even more books. The list is in no particular order.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I frequently spotted this book on the Staff Recommendation table at Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, but had never carved out a time to read it. When my boyfriend mentioned he had just listened to the audiobook (narrated by Wil Wheaton) and enjoyed it, I went straight to the Montpelier local library and checked it out. It’s labeled as YA, and while it does have a YA-coming-of-age-never-kissed-before feel, it definitely was written for adults who love all 80s pop culture, especially cult movies, rock music, classic video games, and fantasy novels. I meant to wait until winter break to read it, but the story sucked me in immediately and now I am done and can tell you all to read it!

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee. Okay, so this is cheating because this book was assigned to me for class, but nevertheless, I wanted to include it in this pile. Also, bonus points: Chee is visiting VCFA next week and giving a reading! I am super excited to meet him. His 500-something paged book looks daunting, but once you’re enthralled in Act 1, the plot moves and twists and you keep turning pages because oh my god, what’s going to happen to the soprano Lilliet Berne? I’m still reading, but I’d describe it as a cross between Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera. Makes me wonder what a Queen of the Night musical would look and sound like!

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. I found this book on a whim of the internet, and also checked it out of the library’s YA section. I have to say, I usually don’t go for Young Adult books, or at least am very cautious about which ones I pick up. This one, though, has me excited to start. Lanagan based her novel on Grimm fairytales and explores dark matters of sexual violence through fantastical settings, parallel worlds, and transforming bears. If anything, this review on The Guardian will convince you, too, to pick this book up!

The Nimrod Flipout by Etgar Keret. Very excited about this one. If the cover image doesn’t pull you in first with its pathetic cartoon man in a pink bunny suit, holding a rifle in a field surrounded by dead birds, I’m not sure you even have eyes. Haven’t started yet, but I imagine Keret’s short-short stories will be as brutally honest and weirdly fantastical as Ben Loory and Amelia Gray.

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman. Once in a while, I like to mix up my brain matter with a nonfiction book, usually about history or science. And to a writer, learning about the brain is like finding gold nuggets. After all, the psychology of people and how their minds work is our business. The back cover of this book presents a paragraph of questions: “Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead? Is there a true Mel Gibson? How is your brain like a conflicted democracy engaged in civil war? What do Odysseus and the subprime mortgage meltdown have in common? Why are people whose names begin with J more likely to marry other people whose names begin with J? Why is it so difficult to keep a secret?” I’m a question-asker myself, and so Eagleman, you had me at “Why can your foot…”

Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan.  I remember hearing about this book as a young girl and imagining it to be a biblical meditation on fish. And perhaps in some way, it is! Flanagan’s “novel in twelve fish” is an epic of 19th-century Australia and features a main character who happens to be a convict painter setting out to construct an Audubon-like book celebrating the wonder of fish. I’m looking now at the words on the praise page describing Flanagan’s novel: “phantasmagorical” “brilliant or crazed or both” “mesmerizing” “slippery and outrageous” “a baggy monster of a book that does literary cartwheels on a tightrope.” SOLD!

In the meantime, I am working hard on revisions for my final portfolio and delightfully devouring the terribly addictive and sensuously witty Netflix series, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries!” Excuse me while I don a flapper dress and Charleston my way through a small-town caper.

Make Time For Your Writing and Don’t Be Afraid to Say No

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

Last week my Forms professor, Julianna Baggott, told our class the exact information that my little ears needed to hear. The message of her self-described “fiery speech” was this:

  • You (the writing student) have essentially put your life on hold. You’ve halted whatever path you had before VCFA and have come to learn, to write, to make, to dig in fully. We’re here, so by all means, be here fully.
  • No one cares if you publish anything. No one cares if you write another word. Harsh, right? But it’s true. No one is breathing over you saying : Keep writing. Keep creating stories in your head and share them with the world. It’s all on you. You have to care about your own work because no one else will if you don’t put the time and energy and love into it.

I really took this to heart (I’ve taken pretty much everything Julianna has told me to heart. I can’t write down what she says in class fast enough sometimes.)

Because I haven’t been afraid to say no to trivia nights or going out for dinner with friends, I’ve been able to finish the first draft of a magical realism novelette. In total, it’s about 13,000 words.

I’m learning a lot about my writing style through the writing of this piece. I really found the narrator’s voice early on, which guided the piece’s experimental and fragmented form. The idea for the piece began with a strong image: “an oil spill contained within a mint tin.” To obtain this item quickly became the motivation and guiding desire for my main character. (Yes, I’ve always wanted to write a MacGuffin story). From there, I found ways to explore how I could use that item to get at different angles of characters, as well as explore the history of oil spills in Michigan.

The first half of the story just went through a workshop with the whole class. Oh my, is there work to be done. There are some holes that will need to be patched up in this next draft. One character especially, the mother, is severely underdeveloped. So she and I will have to spend a lot of time together this weekend, unpacking her backstory and how she came to be the person she is today.

Even though I am nervous going into next week’s workshop of my story’s second half, I feel somewhat comforted that the overall feedback from my classmates was that it was enjoyable to read. Other comments included that it was fast paced despite its length, and the unique and witty main character is someone readers want to root for.

I have to just keep in mind that part of the fun in writing first drafts is that so much of it is exploration. Writers are really just archaeologists scraping up the layers of story deep inside blank paper. Sometimes, we dig up pieces that don’t go with the story we’re presently telling. Sometimes, we find a lead, but we don’t dig deep enough. Or we simply pause for a break and in later drafts, pick up the relevant pieces we hadn’t found earlier.

So I go onward with my shovel and my dishrag. I am looking forward to uncovering more of my story from under the earth’s crust and polishing all of the pieces. Because I do care, Julianna, I do. Because I want to know what happens next in my characters’ lives. Because I want to work hard so other people can care, too.

New Poem and Interview up at Orange Quarterly

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

This post is proof that just because you enter a writing contest and the results are not in your favor does not mean you have zero chance at getting published! Back in April, a fellow writer shared a contest opportunity with me. It was put on by a small press in Northern Michigan called Green House Press. I entered a batch of poems, put up my slippers, and waited the whole summer, eagerly checking my email for the contest results.

Finally, in September, I received notice that I had not won the prize. However, the press was very enthusiastic about one of my poems and asked if it was still available to be published in Orange Quarterly, the journal associated with Green House Press.

This is one reason why I love the writing world. Rejection and acceptance can so often waltz together in the same breath. We live for these tender interactions, I think. It’s all part of the balancing act.

It is such a sweet treat to have my poem, #28, included in the revival issue of Orange Quarterly, along so many prestigious authors, like Keith Taylor. My very first literary interview can be read online there, too. For so long, I have always been the interviewer (which don’t get me wrong, interviewing authors is one of my favorites things to do) but how exciting it is to be on the other end this time!

Thank you so much to Allison Peters and staff at Orange Quarterly/Green House Press. I hope you enjoy the read!