“My Boyfriend Lives In The Tree In Front of My House”

On May 10, 2013November 23, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Flash fiction by Nancy Stohlman
And sometimes I bring him Cheetos or popsicles or trashy gossip mags and sometimes I crawl up there on the lower branches and we let our legs dangle, have a treebranch cocktail, make fun of the guy walking two Chihuahuas or the Vietnam vet on the corner with his platoon of American flags, and then I go back home, which is just a few steps away. We see each other on Friday evenings and every other Sunday, because life is complicated after all.

It started before he was my boyfriend, when he hid in the tree to “see the look on my face” when I opened the birthday present he’d left on my front porch. It was an admittedly lovely tree, and moving into the tree seemed the next logical step. Some nights he sleeps with me in my bed, and some nights we retire to our own spaces, me to my room and him to his branch, and apart we both masturbate to the thought of how mature we are. We’ve talked about building something more permanent, even a few 2 x 4s for him to properly sit on, but haven’t, yet. On the nights we’re Not Supposed To See Each Other, he’ll sometimes text me anyway and I’ll run out with smuggled tacos from dinner and we’ll meet on the grass and eat by the light of the antique-inspired lampposts that automatically turn on at 6 pm each night.

Most of the time I commend myself on how great we are about everything, taking space, not rushing in too fast—because lord knows we’ve both had our share, and we agree that love should be approached like a cobra. I congratulate us for staying calm and level headed and maintaining all those emotions we don’t how to control. This is better. It’s better like this.

But there is one thing that my boyfriend in a tree doesn’t know. Sometimes when I’m supposed to be in bed, I stand at the darkened front window and watch the tiny light from his keychain moving behind all the foliage, and in those quiet moments I secretly wish that he would just climb down and come inside.

Originally published in Metazen--read original here.

Ask A Flash Fiction Editor: Why Literary Bondage Is Good For Your Writing

On May 7, 2013May 7, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized1 Comment

The first thing Ellen Orleans said about her flash piece in progress, “How to Write The Name of God”, was: “It’s 1170 words—too long for flash?” The answer is technically yes (though I’ve seen flash defined as long as 1200 or even 1500, as a general rule it’s 1000).

Writers new to flash often find the constraint arbitrary and infuriating: Why such a stickler on the wordcount? So what if it’s a few words over? But having worked in this form for so long, I can say with confidence that the magic of flash fiction happens because of the constraints. Interesting things bulge against boundaries. From sonnets to writing prompts—even deadlines—many writers find they produce some of their best work when pushing against the wall of a constraint: you can only paint with the color green, you must finish a film in 48 hours, you have to write a story without using the letter E. The famous Oulipo movement in Paris in the 1960s was made up of writers and mathematicians who suggested that using constraints created a new kind of writing.

Embracing the constraint is the true gift of flash fiction.

Working with flash will make you a very different—and I would say better—writer no matter what you write. You will cultivate a sharper eye to what is truly necessary in your work. So if you find yourself battling against the constraint, trying to make your story fit into flash fiction…relax. You’re going about it all wrong. Because once you “see” your story through the lens of the constraint, it ceases to become a battle and instead becomes about “freeing” the flash story from the longer work. As Michelangelo said about his sculpture David, “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.”

So Ellen, let’s look at your story, “How to Write the Name of God” and make it fit the constraint.

First of all, I love this story. I love the sweetness of the character, how well I’m able to relate to her struggle, and how as children we all try so hard to make sense of a world that doesn’t always make sense. A child’s struggle is always a glimpse into ourselves, and I love your character’s honesty and transparency. Her dilemma is so pure.

There are two ways of shrinking a story: chipping or chopping. The trick to writing flash fiction is learning to chop rather than chip, looking at the story in sections rather than trying nitpick. When we are picking at the story, checking the word count every 10 seconds to see “if it’s under 1000” yet (yes, we are all guilty), the final result feels moth eaten and thin.

When chopping, it’s important to pay less attention to what is being eliminated and more on what is going to be left. You are trying to figure out how to remove the excess so that what is left becomes more prominent. My instinct on your story is to take a healthy swipe at the beginning, landing us inside the classroom as soon as possible. Imagine your story begins like this:

How to Write the Name of God

If you are an 11-year-old at Temple Beth Shalom Hebrew School, you write it G-d or G*d, or maybe just Gd, but never all the way, God.

With this chop you would now drop us right into your story and also tie your title to your first sentence (I also changed “spell” to “write”). You would suck us into the narrative and cut 241 words—enough to land you in flash territory in one swipe.

To clarify: does this mean I don’t like your current opening with all the names? Actually, I do, and I think you should put some of that into the story later, as the character is trying to figure out what to put into the box. And frankly if your story were only 500 words, you might just leave it.

But again the beauty of constraints is that they force us to look at our work with a more discerning and sometimes brutal eye—and for most of us that is actually a good thing. And something mysterious happens when we kill our darlings: Like a faint pencil mark that can’t be completely erased, those phantom darlings are still there, still delivering their messages in the spaces we’ve cleared away.

Thanks, Ellen, and Happy Writing!

~Nancy Stohlman

(Feel free to join in on this or any other conversation, and if you have a flash piece in progress please find me on Facebook or message me at nancystohlman@gmail.com)

How to Write the Name of God

By Ellen Orleans

God, we learn, has many names, including Elohim, Ha Shem, and Adonai. Elohim means Mighty Ones, which is no surprise except that it’s plural. (The Rabbi says this multiplies God’s power.) Adonai doesn’t have even an English translation. It just means God, my Hebrew School teacher says, tired of my questions. Ha Shem means The Name which is confusing but also kind of cool. His name is The Name. There’s also El Olam: “the world,” “the universe” or even infinity or eternity. “Very trippy,” as my sister would say.

Another name is El Echad which means The One. “One with a hundred names,” I think, “How ironic.” I am eleven and nothing is more clever than irony.

In English, God’s names are Almighty, Master, Highest, Father, Lord, Ruler, and King. Also, Most Powerful One. If God is so great, I think, why is he so insecure?

Years later, in a congregation led by a female rabbi, infused with liberals and sprinkled with queers like me, I will hear new names for God:Creator, Spirit, Beloved, Shekhina. But by then it will be too late—the white-haired, scowling judge man will be seared into my imagination.

Anyway Creator, Spirit, and Beloved are years off. Now it’s 1971 and the biggest question here in fifth grade is not who is God, what is God, or even “Can God create a rock so big that even he cannot push it?” but “How Do Spell God?”

If you are an 11-year-old at Temple Beth Shalom Hebrew School, you spell it G-d or G*d, or maybe just Gd, but never all the way, God. Because if you write down God, then that piece of paper, like all the prayer books with God printed out—all its letters, no dash, no asterisk, no missing “o”—that paper cannot not be thrown away. It is sacred.

Which is exactly the point when Baruch Benson, who’s Bobby Benson in real life at Burnet Hill Elementary school where he sits two rows behind me making armpit noises, whose Hebrew name means Blessed One even though that’s the last thing Bobby is, when Baruch Benson in the final minutes of Monday afternoon Hebrew School, writes GOD, all caps, all three letters, on a piece of notebook paper and shoves it into Kenny Graulich’s back pocket.

“Have to keep it forever,” he sing-songs as the bell clatters, our high-pitched punishment before freedom.

In the hall, Kenny yells “Glenn! You’re it!” and slaps the God-paper into Glenn’s hand, where it stays until Glenn passes it to Shimon, who’s always off in dreamland anyway until Cheryl, thinking it’s something else, grabs it, giggles, and pushes it off onto Debbie. By now we’re in the parking lot, waiting for, looking for, our carpools home. Before running into the sea of parents, station wagons and sedans, Debbie passes the damp folded-unfolded-refolded note to Lynn Becker, who rolls her eyes and gives it to Nurit, who’s new and from Israel and doesn’t get the game. That’s when I take it because, unlike Lynn, Debbie, Cheryl, Glenn and Kenny, I know want to do with the name of God.

You bury the name of God.

If I had liked Glenn or if he’d written God’s name in fancy calligraphy, I might have kept it, at least for a while. But GOD was just three awkward letters, smudged pencil on creased paper.

Still, it was God.

That night, in the back of my dresser, I found the white box that had held the velvet case that had held the gold Chai my grandmother gave me when she returned from Israel two years ago. The box, I decided, was good enough for God. I covered the bottom with Kleenex, neatly refolded the paper and put it inside. Tomorrow, I’d bury it in the back yard. Ashes to ashes. Dust to Dust. It was a good plan.

I turned off my bedside reading light.

It was a good plan…except.

Would God get lonely there in the dirt? I thought of the box, the tissue, The Name, underground for years and years, long after I grew up and moved away. And after that. And after that. Eternity for Eternity. All Alone for The One.

What could keep God company? What was mighty enough for The Mighty One, what could befriend The Universe? More to the point, what would fit in the box?

In bed, in the darkness, I considered the tiniest occupants of my room. The glass cat with the chipped glass ear. The dollhouse tea kettle. The miniature ceramic mouse, looking up, about to pounce. My Grandma Moses postage stamp, cancelled. My Apollo 8 postage stamp, uncancelled. Nothing seemed like the right match or maybe I didn’t want to give any of them up. Not even for God.

For the next three days, I scrutinized the world for the perfect thing to put in the box with God. A flower petal would shrivel up. An inch worm would die. Pine needles? Too much like a Christmas tree. A yarmulke wouldn’t fit and a loose thread from a Temple tallis, well, there weren’t any loose threads. I tugged at one and nothing came off. I could spill a drop wine on it, like my father spilled wine in the Passover Seder, a tradition from his father and grandfather, but that seemed more like a stain than a friend.

Half a Hanukkah candle? A clove from the spice box? Crumbs from last week’s challah? (Crumbs next to God? Definitely ironic.)

Ashes? Dust?

Walking home on Friday, thinking of God’s names, I remembered Elochim. Mighty Ones. Plural.

God needs God.

At home, on my best stationary with my best pen in my best handwriting I wrote

God God God

and folded it into fourths. I lay my Gods on top of Baruch’s God and taped the box shut.

As I walked behind our house—gardening trowel in one hand, the box in the other—I could smell our Friday night chicken baking. We would be lighting the Sabbath candles soon. I hurried past the swing set to the garden bed where early violets and lilies-of-the-valley shared the soil with mossy rocks. The soil was damp and easy.

There are Hebrew blessings to recite when you hear thunder, feel an earthquake, or see lighting or a comet or a rainbow. There’s a Hebrew blessing for when you see the ocean or lofty mountains or exceptionally beautiful people. There’s even a blessing for strange-looking animals.

But what do you say when you bury God’s name between violets and lilies? When you cover God with a blanket of dirt?

What you say, I realized, is Psalm 91, the Bedtime Prayer. Or at least, what you can remember of it. I knelt in the garden bed, wet earth seeping into the knees of my jeans.

With my wing, I cover you.

Under my wings take refuge.

For you yearn for me, I shall rescue you.

Fortify you, because you know my name.

A former columnist and essayist, Ellen Orleans is the author of five books of queer humor, including the Lambda Literary Award winner The Butches of Madison County. She co-edited Boulder Voices, an anthology published in response to Colorado’s Amendment 2, an anti-gay referendum later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her story “Outreach” won the 2007 Gertrude Press Chapbook Competition for Fiction. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies Primal Picnics, Milk and Honey, The Incredible Shrinking Story and, forthcoming, A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park. Excerpts of her book, Inside, the World is Orange have been published in The Denver Quarterly; Palimpsest; wigleaf; and Eccolingistics and performed as part of a Stories on Stage/Buntport Theater production. Other work has appeared in Trickhouse, Blithe House Quarterly, The Washington Post, Rain Taxi, and the Lambda Book Review. The former curator of Boulder’s Yellow Pine Reading Series, Ellen now leads story hours for toddlers and builds cigar box art in her garage in north Boulder.

Ask A Flash Fiction Editor: Is this Flash Fiction or a Prose Poem?

On April 28, 2013July 13, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized10 Comments

Alright Rosemary, with your piece “Flashback” (full text below) on the docket and your comment to me about “is this flash fiction?” you have now made it impossible for me to put this conversation off any longer!

My hesitation, of course, is that definitions can be slippery, and the minute you try to define something it quickly escapes its own definition (recently I had a similarly challenging conversation about defining “erotica”). And because flash fiction and the prose poem share many traits, and the boundaries are somewhat fluid, the best we can do is clarify the shades of gray and make the two more distinct from one another.

So here goes: Prose poems are poems crafted with the traditional sentences and devices of prose writing but still relying heavily on poetic devices such as heightened imagery and precision of language.

Flash fiction are stories crafted with the devices of storytelling such as story arc and tension but compressed into limited language, normally no more than 1000 words.

So obviously there is already much natural crossover, particularly around their use of deliberate and concentrated language. But what separates the two? Can’t flash fiction use imagery and emotional effects? Absolutely. Can’t poetry tell a story? Of course. I think the answer lies in the primal impulse or driving force of a piece: Prose poetry is driven by imagery and emotion whereas flash fiction is driven by narrative.

So Rosemary, let’s look specifically at your piece, “Flashback”, with these thoughts in mind. And rather than worrying about defining it, let’s instead push your story unequivocally into the realm of flash fiction.

First off, I have to admit that I am a big fan of the mini-mini, the extra short flash piece, so I love when a writer has the precision of both language and focus to craft a tiny little nugget, as you have done here. And right away your first sentence pulls me in with an action (story movement) a pointed finger (characterization), and an ownership: I surveyed that (tension). It suggests conflict and narrative brilliantly without any wasted words or time.

But the story starts to lose that initial tension and eventually feels more like a snapshot. Remember, one of the keys to flash fiction is a sense of urgency, of something unfolding—or having just unfolded. I think you can bend your story arc a bit more prominently to let your message be driven by the narrative rather than be implied. Currently the narrative becomes downplayed in favor of the message about land and ownership. In a poem you can deliver this message in many ways, but in a flash fiction piece you always have to get there through narrative.

One way you might do this is to craft the backstory leading up to this moment. Perhaps you do this in a series of escalating images that deliver us to this act of (subtle) defiance, so that even though we are entering the story at the end of the story arc, what comes before still feels prominently bent. Consider one of my favorite (tiny!) stories that does just that:

The Scarlatti Tilt—by Richard Brautigan

“It’s very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who’s learning to play the violin.” That’s what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.

OR you could make the action—her defiance/confrontation—happen more in the present moment. Right now your driving energy seems to be the message, but this message could be delivered more effectively by never actually saying it.

For example: Currently the man drives by at the beginning of the piece, points his finger, and then he’s gone (taking a lot of the tension with him). So the woman, our protagonist, is literally just standing in his dust. What if you were to let that moment—him driving by and her coming to the porch to meet his gaze…what if you were to let that moment build? He’s driving slowly, and she’s walking to the porch to stare him down—she’s not about to cower. In that moment when their eyes meet we feel the defiance, and then the dust rising between them becomes something much different. And you will have delivered your message obliquely through narrative rather than through a straight polemic.

And one last (minor) thing: Watch your sentence fragments. They seem to reflect possible previous line breaks, but an abundance of sentence fragments can become distracting unless they are directly supporting the content (for example, if you are talking about chopping up the land into parcels they might work well).

Rosemary, thanks again for letting us see your process on this piece, as I’m realizing that this is a conversation that many poets and flash fiction writers are currently having, and thanks for allowing me my two cents on the topic.

Please feel free to comment and continue the conversation. And if you would like me to consider your flash fiction piece in progress for the topic of a future conversation, please email me at nancystohlman@gmail.com or find me on Facebook.

Happy Writing!

~Nancy Stohlman

Flashback

By Rosemary Roysten

The man who surveyed the land drives by, points his finger: I surveyed that. The woman looks out, sees large brick homes with only a few feet between them. Empty wooden decks. Blinded windows. The man who surveyed your land does not live on it. He makes money from marking what you believe is rightfully yours. An imaginary boundary that appears very real – one that will hold up in court. A deed, a document you can find in the county courthouse. Plats. Plumb lines. But all this makes the woman laugh, because she neither believes in the calculation of time nor the ownership of land. How does one own what owns itself? Land Is. It exists with or without boundaries. Just look at a map. The Panhandle of Florida. Where does Alabama end and why? Because a man drew a sword and drew a map and then drew a claim. The land is the land. None of it is yours. All of it is.

Self Promotion is Not a Dirty Word: Six Tips For Writers

On April 23, 2013April 23, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized6 Comments

If I hear another writer tell me they are no good at self promotion, I will eat my computer. Let’s face it: We all want to be left alone with our writing and let someone else handle the promotion part. I mean, I’d love to have checks arrive effortlessly in the mail as well. But most of us realize that this is not a reality in today’s world, and that the fantasy of someone important happening to stumble upon us in our scotch-laden bunker and catapulting us to success with little effort is just the last dying breaths of the Oprah mythology.

So let’s get to work. Here are six basics to help every writer step confidently into their own advocacy.

Step One: Write a good bio. I emphasize good, here. We are writers, this one should be easy—so why does your bio put me to sleep? It’s because even writing a bio is often the first resistance that writers must face. If you find yourself saying, “I don’t like to praise myself” then I ask you this: If you can’t praise your work, how do you expect anyone else to? Find that balance between impressive and humble, between professional and still reflecting your writerly personality. Read lots of other bios and make note of the ones that stay with you. First impressions are important, and your bio is often the first contact a potential reader has with you.

Step Two: Take a real bio picture. You don’t have to spend money on this, but don’t just crop your face from the group New Years Eve shots. You must know someone who knows someone who is dabbling in photography—do a little bartering. Buy them lunch in exchange for giving them a subject to practice on. Take a walk and take a few dozen interesting pictures. My first author headshot, taken by Ivan Gomez, was shot while we were playing with his new camera and walking around my neighborhood, and I still use it today. Again, it’s all about first impressions: your potential reader will only take you as seriously as you take yourself.

Step Three: Have a website. Facebook doesn’t count. It’s important for people who are or will be looking you up on the internet to land on a real website: one concise place where they can find out about you, see your pic, read your publications, check out your upcoming events, and purchase your work. Again, you don’t have to spend money on this. My website (here) is hosted through wordpress.com, which is free, and there are plenty of other free sites. If later you want to upgrade to a particular domain (such as my nancystohlman.com above), you can always reroute your domain name to your blog for minimal fees—less than $20 a year.

Step Four: Publish stuff. This kind of goes without saying, but you would be surprised how many writers guard their work as if it can only be published in one holy glob—and it ultimately puts them in a position of trying to publish a novel with no other publishing credits. The best way to get people excited about your work is to let them read pieces of it. It’s impossible to be excited about your work if it is guarded away in your bunker. So publish stories or excerpts, offer to guest blog or write book reviews for your colleagues—but publish stuff. I personally aim to publish 12 pieces a year—which means I send out at least three times that many.

Step Five: Thou Shalt Not Promote By Internet Alone. Get out of the house! Again, the days of hiding in your bunker are over. If you want to gain readers you have to be part of the community and publicly promote your work by reading it at literary events in your town. Can’t find a literary event in your town? Then it looks like it’s time for you to start one. Some of my earliest public appearances were “salons” held in the generous living rooms of others. Invite some other writers, bring some wine, and you have just created a literary event that may grow legs and a become a vortex of community.

Step Six: Support other writers. It’s easy to get into a scarcity mindset—a fear that there is not enough money or readers for everyone, and that every other writer is a threat to your success. That is just not true—there is plenty for everyone, and the best way to get the flow coming back to you is to send it out to others. Openly support the work and promotional efforts of your colleagues. We are all in this together, and we all do better when we all do better.

Happy Writing!

~Nancy Stohlman

Questions? Email me at nancystohlman@gmail.com