Writing at the Powell's Café

I'm at Powell's right now, sitting in the café and looking through the window across Burnside.  This is a view (dream) I've enjoyed many times in my life, especially the three years I lived in Portland, back when my only dreams concerning my writing, was publishing my short stories in great literary journals and someday getting into a legit MFA program.  Eleven years since I was here last, I can't help but take a personal inventory of my life, noting the achievements I've fulfilled and those that I'm still trying to achieve.  Among other things, I realize that:

1.  Contrary to what I assumed in 2003, when I took my first fiction workshop at the age of 28 at Portland State, publishing a short story in an excellent journal, even publishing a bunch of short stories in many respected journals, doesn't mean you've "made it" at all as a literary fiction writer.  Or maybe it did once, but then you begin moving the goal posts with each tiny success

2.  Getting accepted into a legit MFA program doesn't mean you've "made it" either

3.  Ditto with a legit PhD program

4.  Ditto studying with famous authors (all of who have tried, each in their own way, to get their agents to pick me up as a client)

5.  One of my biggest fears since the day I realized I wanted to be a literary fiction writer, was not publishing my novel, short story, and memoir manuscripts.  My second greatest fear was being one of those professors who teaches writing, but who hasn't published his books.  Right now, these two fears resonate with me, not because I think I'll never publish my manuscripts (actually, I think I'm incredibly close right now because I have many agents reading my first and second novels and just as many indie presses reading similar and different manuscripts), but because before you're a published author in the book sense of the word, you're nothing.  Or at best, you're simply a published author in the literary journal sense of the word, which isn't the same thing.

6.  As I was talking to my good friend Leigh, two nights ago, at this vegan trattoria, it hit me that as a fiction writer trying to make a career publishing his novels in hard copy, I'm essentially fighting for a lost world.  A world that doesn't even exist anymore to anyone except literary fiction writers

7.  I need to find an illustrator and a coder and then finish my electronic novella, Dukkha, My Love, as soon as possible because I can still leave my mark in that medium, regardless of how long it takes me to publish my other work

8.  On the flip side, at the cost of sounding smug, I'm happy with life right now.  I'm in love, I'm married, we have a bomb loft apartment in DTLA and two small dogs that we absolutely adore.  I have an awesome gig teaching hybrid class of lit, creative writing, rhetoric, and comp, at a great school (UC Irvine).  Besides that, I'm healthy.  I get to travel with my boo at least once every year.  And with the exception of this annoying reoccurring red patch on my cheek (that is either eczema, seborrheic dermatitis, or rosacea--and makes me feel like an angry lush clown), I think I look pretty good for my age.

9.  I think I'm at a very major threshold here.  I'm hopeful, shamefully, possibly even unjustifiably hopeful about my future.  My hope is that in a few years, I get to come back here to Powell's not as a customer, but as an author.  Until then, I keep fighting, keep submitting, keep improving my manuscripts

Riffing with TC Boyle

Every time I meet up with Tom, it invariably becomes this dope riff session on writing, culture, and music.  We end up talking about our favorite writers, our MFA days, our different views on craft, SoCal cultural mythology, East Coast/Midwest nostalgia, famous writers we've worked with who changed our life, a short bitch session on literary agents, random Rock'n'Roll references, followed by a short Q and A where I ask him questions about reading for the New Yorker Festival and going on tour in Europe and his revision process.  Today, more than ever, I felt like we were two friends in two very different stages of our literary career, just kicking it for a half an hour.  Some of the highlights of this convo included:

1.  Tom gave me some love for "The Invisible Dress," a chapter from my debut novel, The Amnesia of Junebugs, that he read as part of the Writer-in-Residence deal at USC.  He said it was one of the best things he's read of mine in a while, but then he stopped himself and said, "but you've written a lot of great stuff, so . . . "  I laughed when he said that

2.  After he said that sometimes he likes to "rewrite" classic short stories like The Overcoat, we began crooning about the Russian masters like Gogol, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky, all of whom I read voraciously in college.  Diary of a Madmen, The Nose, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, Notes from Underground, The Idiot, War and Peace, The Kreutzer Sonata, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, were some of my most treasured novels back then.  And for Tom too, a connection I didn't even know we had

3.  Tom told about his experience being an editor for the Best American Stories 2015, which honestly, sounds totally fucking exhausting.  It was especially interesting to hear him talk about how he picked thetwenty stories for the collection

4.  Tom talked about switching from Viking to Ecco, his sadness about leaving one editor and his happiness about working with another

5.  Tom said he thought this was gonna be my year.  I told him I hope he's right.

6.  Tom asked me how things were going at UCI (very good).  Then, he asked me if I was applying to tenure track jobs this year, which I am.  I explained that I'm applying to every decent, great, and awesome, tenure track job out there located in or near a major metropolitan area, even jobs out of my league, because you've got to.  Someone will get those jobs, why not me?  He replied, "Now, you just need a book contract and everything else will fall in line for you with your PhD."  In his own sweet but indirect way, Tom implied that he's waiting to write a blurb for me and honestly, I can't wait for that.  In fact, sending him, Aimee, Percival, Valerie Sayers, Frances Sherwood, and Steve Tomasula emails for blurbs will be one of the sweetest parts of finally getting a contract because I'll get to thank them for all of their support, advice, and insight over the years

7.  Tom talked about his days as the fiction editor at the Iowa Review where he basically picked the stories he liked the most, and then sent his recommendations to Robert Coover who picked from Tom's shortlist all the way from London

8.  Tom talked about how fucking slow McSweeney's is, even with marquee writers like him.  They bought one of his stories a million years ago and still hadn't published it yet, which eventually made his agent, Georges Borchardt, badger them a little bit.  "I really don't care," Tom explained, "because they already bought the story."  Must be nice to have such an illustrious publishing career that you actually don't give a shit when McSweeney's gets around to publishing your short story.

9.  Tom and I agree that Tobias Wolf's Bullet in the Brain is one of the gold standards by which other short stories should be judged

10.  I feel like now, more than ever, Tom is waiting for me to make it big.  I feel like my time is coming.  He feels like my time is coming.  I know he believes in me as a writer with talent and stubborness to burn, which is an amazing source of confidence and support for me, but now I have to go out and slay this dragon myself.  I'm the only one who can do it.  I know he'll be cheering me from the sidelines, which I feel blessed about

Why the VIDA Count is only Part of the Solution

The VIDA Count is a powerful and necessary project that analyzes the data of gender of inequality in literary journals.  And while the yearly results are sobering, horrifying, and eye-opening, and while they confirm what many of us have known all along about the publication industry, at the same time, I believe the VIDA Count project also has its own methodological issues and blind spots.  These issues outlined below do not in any way detract from the value, the validity, and the crucial importance of the project, but I do think they can expand the discourse.

1.  As Rob Spillman (the editor of Tin House) explained in Flavorwire, despite the clear importance of literary journals striving for, and actualizing, gender equality on the page, there are reasons why gender inequality can happen in even the most feminist-minded literary journal.  For one thing, female and male writers respond differently to rejections and solicitations.  According to Spillman, male writers submit a 100% of the time when solicited, women, only 50%.  And male writers are four times more likely to resubmit after a good rejection than female writers.  Equally problematic, female agents are more likely to submit the work of male authors than female ones.  Additionally, both female and male fiction/CNF writers are more likely to submit work with male protagonists.  Much of this is obviously acculturation, which can be changed when more and more journals include the work of women, and when female writers are encouraged and even expected to become writers as male ones already are.  Hopefully someday the VIDA Count will render itself obsolete.   But until then, we have to keep fighting.

2.  Just as importantly, male stubbornness and male privilege are obviously connected to the skewed publication statistics.  Many teachers consciously and unconsciously encourage male communication in the classroom (which is incredibly hard to quantify) by allowing them to dominate classroom discussion, interrupt female students, repeat earlier comments, and write unfocused essays that often show less polish and control of language.  Some teachers also have failed to create adequate safe space--for less vocal students, introverts, and students with different communication styles, for example--to explore new ideas out loud, process information in their own way, and communicate differently than in classroom sound bytes.  And some teachers and parents (un)consciously reinforce patriarchal codes of cultural male centering by (un)consciously encouraging male students to be "leaders" in the classroom by greenlighting their communication and (un)consciously dismissing, limiting, controlling, and/or confining female student communication.  Pedagogy connects to the publication industry in a very specific way here:  when many male writers (myself included) get rejected, we think the fiction readers or fiction editors that rejected us are (probably) idiots, world-weary wannabes, and captious assholes.  We tend to assume they're wrong, not us.  By and large, many male writers do not doubt themselves or their writing ability because they've been encouraged and celebrated from an early age (I'm probably the only male fiction writer I know who was openly discouraged in college from writing fiction).  But many female fiction/CNF writers respond very differently to rejections I think, which is how they can sometimes take themselves out of the slush pile, which is bad for the industry.

3.  One of the most important aspects of the VIDA Count is also one of its primary weaknesses:  it focuses almost exclusively on literary journals.  And while literary journals are a necessary part of the arts subculture in America, they're also very limited to a certain extent in terms of cultural impact.  Novels published by both indie and major publishing houses are the major players here for the simple reason that in addition to good PR, excellent editors, and a media-savvy business manager, publishing houses can also give writers minor fame, an advance in the absurd range of $150-$2 million, and a fast track to tenure track positions at prestigious universities all across America.  For exactly these literary, financial, professional, and cultural benefits of publishing novels through respected publishing houses, I think the VIDA Count is a crucial but incomplete project that could really affect positive change in the publishing market by focusing its number crunching on books, which can radically change writers lives in a way that literary journals simply cannot.  No one can live off an essay published in The Georgia Review, but many commercial fiction writers, and a select elite list of literary novelists, could live off their writing, their art, and their talent, if they wanted to, which means there's a lot more at stake in book publishing in terms of representation, quality of life, and professional equity.  More importantly, while many readers who aren't writers read novels, they don't generally read literary journals.  The biggest demographic of literary journals is . . . ourselves.  But a published novel can be a demographic magic bullet that cuts across class, racial, and even educational lines in a way that literary journals can't.  For these reasons, I think the VIDA Count can do much more with its collective statistical analysis. 

4.  In the other direction, the numbers for the publication of APIA novels shows a surprisingly strong counter-current to the overrepresentation of male authors, which I think is both good and bad.  For example, based on fairly thorough (but definitely incomplete) research conducted for my dissertation appendix, I discovered the following things concerning Asian American novelists, which shocked me:

One, there were over twice (approximately 2.36 times) as many published Female Asian American novelists as male Asian American novelists between 1992-2012.  Two, female Asian American novelists published over three times as many novels as their male counterparts between 1992-2012.  Three, 77.7% of all female Asian American novels were published in major publishing houses.  Four, 56.2% of all male Asian American novels were published in major publishing houses.  Five, in direct comparison, female Asian American writers published 4.25 times as many novels in major publishing houses as male Asian American writers and 1.55 times as many novels in academic or independent presses as male Asian American writers.  Six, only 22.2% of all female Asian American novels were published in independent or academic presses.  Seven, conversely, 43.7% of all male Asian American novels were published in independent or academic presses. Eighth, there has only been one male Japanese American literary novelist published in the past twenty years.

Now obviously, there were a number of deliberate constraints in my research that had to due with connecting this data to the central argument of my dissertation.  But as a hapa fiction writer, this is in fact my reality.  For one thing, my data only dealt with APIA novelists, intentionally excluding short story writers, CNF writers, poets, and essayists, to name a few.  For another thing, I included reprints in the same time-frame (1992-2012) because for many readers, those novels might as well be new works.  For still another, I deliberately relied on novels that were locatable because I was partially focusing on how the constructions of APIA masculinity and the orientalization of APIA fiction in general affect the cultural imagination.  So while an APIA scholar might very well locate several unknown APIA novels in that 20-year range, very few non-scholars would.  In any case, if this data holds up (and only more research and new time-frame ranges will tell), the VIDA count could expose the gender inequalities not only within the market of literary journals, but also the gender, racial, and cultural inequalities between genres, sectors of the publishing industry, publishing houses, and even within certain racial and cultural frameworks like APIA publishing.  Furthermore, further statistical analysis could very either contest or reinforce my own research which shows a strong cultural tendency to gender the APIA novel in a way that seems very orientalist.

5.  The majority of editors and agents in the New York publishing industry seem to be white college-educated women.  I'm not sure if that's still statistically true anymore, and even if it were, I'm not sure how it would be proven, but if true, and if the vast majority of literary journals continue to have white male editors (two big ifs for sure), this parallelism suggests a potential gender correlation between the dominant gender of the editorial staff and the dominant gender of published authors (i'm not sure how the numbers work for non-APIA authors).  And the obvious conclusion of that potential correlation would be that both literary journals and publishing houses need to show greater equality in their publication list, both in production and aspiration.  Sometimes, though, this equality must move in opposite direction.

Aragi Agency Asks for Full Manuscript of Amnesia

At this point, it's just a request for a full manuscript.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Still, it's hard not being a tiny bit giddy when Frances Coady, one of the two stellar agents at Nicole Aragi's top-shelf agency, asks for an exclusive of your debut novel (which I couldn't give her exclusively since I already have three other agents reading full manuscripts).  I know that Frances Coady is a widely respected, admired, even feared former publisher at Picador and Vintage.  I know she is a hands-on editor who works with authors line by line if necessary to strengthen not dilute a book's force.  I know she values and understands the importance of the graphic elements of a novel (e.g., the cover design, the format, possibly even the font).  I know that in the publishing world she is an absolute giant, both equal to but also complementary with, Nicole Aragi.  I know all of these things and honestly, it makes my head spin.  But I don't know the most important thing, namely, whether she'll like my novel.  That's the only thing that matters.  The only thing I care about right now.  I'll do my best not to freak out, but that's pretty much impossible . . .

Three Agents Read Full Manuscript of Amnesia of Junebugs

Well, if there's one thing I'm completely sure of right now, it's my ability to write a decent query letter.  I now have three (plus) agents reading full manuscripts of my debut novel, The Amnesia of Junebugs, which is pretty damn exciting.  I'm not surprised that AMNESIA is getting lots of interest from agents considering it's a transnational, multicultural, multiracial, urban, character-based, literary novel.  Right now, multicultural novels (and multicultural narratives in general) are in with America's changing demographic.  Linked short stories are in again too and AMNESIA straddles the space between a novel and a collection of linked stories (that come together at the end).  I'm cautiously optimistic (as I always am) because I think this novel is finally ready for prime time, but only time will tell.  Stay tuned!

What I Learned from Friday Night Lights (The TV Show)

Yo, college football starts this week, which means, it's time to watch every damn season of Friday Night Lights on Netflix and gorge myself on top 25 games every Saturday until I get hungover and burnt out (which also happens every year).  FNL might seem like a strange place to find inspiration for anything besides cocky running backs and bone-crunching tackles, but actually this series is an excellent case study in characterization, world building, and plot structure, among other things.  Somehow, this show gets you to care about the characters and to see them three-dimensionally, something that sports series rarely do (cf. Ballers).  In fact, the character development isn't just fantastic in this show, but the series itself raises a bunch of important questions about class, race, gender, poverty, institutional racism, religion, bigotry, violence and greed, while making football seem both magnificent and destructive.  Beyond that, FNL had a small but loyal group of followers that gave it a cult status.  Even more remarkable, most of these loyal fans aren't even football aficionados either.  When my books come out in the next couple of years (inshallah), I hope my readers will be exactly like the viewers of Friday Night Lights.  You can't ask for anything more as a producer or a (non)fiction writer in my opinion.

Next Summer, I Will Do Nothing Except Watch Romance Anime and Munch on Senbē Crackers

This post is written from a place of privilege to a certain degree.  While my lecturer position isn't as good as a tenure track job, my workload, bennies, and pay at UC Irvine, are a hundred times better than that of my friends adjuncting their hearts out, hoping and praying (just as I am) that one day they'll get the ideal academic gig.  So, I write this post with a tiny amount of guilt, understanding that things could be so much worse.  That said, I was lucky enough to have my first paid summer off as an academic and It's honestly shocking how busy I was in like a good way.  Yes, I wrote the fuck out of this summer, completely restructuring and rewriting my first and second novels multiple times.  Yes, I sent out query letters for AMNESIA to a few agents that I thought might be good matches.  Yes, I sent out several different manuscripts to several stellar indie presses, including my experimental memoir.  Yes, I read more than a few novels and several graphic novels too.  Yes, LB and I traveled to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Tallinn, which was honestly, one of the most amazing vacations I've ever had (I'm completely broke right now and I don't give a shit because it was completely worth it!).  Yes, I got to see both our families, which was amazing (not to mention insanely draining).  And yes, I played the shit out of my PS4 because I finally could after teaching for 9 months straight.  For the record, I was especially captivated by The Last of Us, Final Fantasy X, Infamous Second Son, and The Walking Dead.  In so many ways, I had one of the best summers of my life and I don't say that lightly.

But that said, this summer was also completely exhausting.  Time flew by in a way I haven't seen since high school and often I felt like I was barely in control of my life.  I wouldn't have done it differently and I have only gratitude for this summer, but next summer, I think I'm gonna make as little plans as possible.  At the very least, I plan on living like a minimalist.  I hope to do nothing except eat nori senbē crackers, drink ocha, and watch romance anime.  Maybe I'll cry a little, nibble on chocolate, and then go back to revising NINJAS.  That sounds like a perfect summer (for at least one week).  Of course, part of being an emerging novelist and professor means conceding much of your power to other people who control your destiny (e.g., the department chair, the dean of your school, the program coordinator, the literary agent, the acquisitions editor, the fiction reader), and that's probably the hardest part of this gig:  working your ass off for something that ultimately isn't in your hands after a certain stage.  So, thank you universe for this exhilarating summer.  But next summer, please be much more chill in the GenX sense of the word.

The Best Way to Submit A Query Letter

LB and I are about to go on vacation in Scandinavia, so I'll be incommunicado for the next couple weeks.  But since six months to an author feels like six weeks to a literary agent, I thought it was a good move to send out some laser-targeted query letters and manuscripts to a few indie presses and agents.  This way, instead of sitting around and wondering what's going on, I'll be walking the streets of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki looking for the next perfect Instagram shot instead of worrying about marketability and plot lines.  Everyone wins!

Mean What You Say

My big wish for this upcoming month is that literary agents who state they want literary fiction in their agent profiles actually want literary fiction and not commercial fiction with a few literary flourishes.  I say this because having looked at some of the good rejections I've received the past couple of years, I've noticed most of these rejections were by literary agents who said they wanted literary fiction on their website but still rejected my manuscripts for being, well, literary and stuff.  It's complete speculation on my part, but here are some possible reasons for that:

1.  The agent prides her/himself on representing literary fiction but most of her/his client list is actually (or has become) commercial fiction, so including the category of "literary fiction" in their list of desired genres is more about how they see themselves as an agent and less about the kinds of manuscripts they actually sell to editors these days

2.  The literary agent has a divergent definition of literary fiction (that more and more resembles uptown fiction or top-tier commercial fiction), which is why s/he gets snarly when you declare foolishly that "literary fiction doesn't sell"

3.  The agent doesn't want to feel like a complete and absolute sellout because who does?

4.  S/he is keeping her/his options open, but literary fiction has become more aspirational than vocational.

5.  The term literary, as all other genres, just doesn't have stable genre conventions and doesn't mean shit anymore, so it's almost impossible to define and just as impossible to exclude other overlapping genre conventions

6.  All literature, in one amorphous sense, is literary (right?)

7.  If an agent could know ahead of time that a manuscript would sell for one million dollars, they'd probably accept it regardless of its genre, so literary fiction isn't out of the question technically

8.  The agent used to look for and sell literary fiction actively, but as the market has contracted and as Amazon has taken over the world, s/he has become much more conservative in the kinds of authors s/he represents, and commercial fiction has always had a better payout.  So, finding the next Pulitzer prize winner has become much less important than paying the mortgage

9.  The agent, once a brave and fearless bellwether in the publishing industry (whose "experimental" authors once violated rules of form, structure, and content gleefully) has dug his/her heels in and now rejects more and more literary fiction and accepts more cookbooks and dystopian YA knock-offs because there's already a pre-manufactured audience.  Yes, s/he has literary authors, but s/he's had them for thirty years and they're remnants of the golden age of literary fiction

10.  Why the hell not?

Ideas for the Future

I may rage against the machine when a particular rejection stings, but I'm the kind of dude that gets back up (literally) the next day and tries another way to make it work.  Writing, after all, is the one thing I'm great at.  Resilience is another.  And Ima figure out how to get my novels in the hands of my future readers because that's who I am.

In the next month, I'll be sending AMNESIA to several indie presses that I think might be receptive (among others, FC2 and Curbside Splendor) as well to a few laser-targeted literary agents who represent multicultural literary fiction.  One of them will be Zadie Smith's agent, because of the obvious similarities between The Amnesia of Junebugs and White Teeth. 

With a clean break from Kaya, I have the power to (re)consider all my options, not just the obvious ones.  I have the possibility of finding an even larger audience and a much more supportive editorial department.  I have the right to try again and find the right press for my manuscripts as a hapa writer of fiction. 

I may be bruised, but I'm still standing.  I'm still going to make this work.

1st Story Accepted in 2015

Yesterday, I got the good news that my short story "My 12-Step Program for Yuki Hiramoto," which is part of my debut collection Atlas of Tiny Desires, was accepted by the Santa Monica Review.  Of course, this is fucking awesome, not only because I've been sending the SMR submissions since oh, 2005, when I started my MFA program, but also because it's one of the best journals out there.  Certainly, one of the top west coast journals.  And, while I know the publishing landscape has changed a shitload since then, I happen to know that my friend and mentor, Aimee Bender, found her agent (Henry Dunnow) after she'd published her own story in the Santa Monica Review, so there's always hope when you're getting your shit out there for the world to see.

Going All Out

After a concentrated two weeks where LB and I saw both our families back to back, I'm finally getting back in the groove with my writing, revising, and submissions.  And today I've realized that I'm going all out.

Recently, a bunch of my friends have been getting agents, then two-book contracts, thereby fundamentally changing their literary careers in the span of literally one year.  A boy can only dream . . . Of course, because I'm human, I've been waiting by the phone too for the same phone call, waiting for the same miracle to magically transform my writing career into a solid object, but so far, I've been mostly stood up by publishing industry (literary journals have been much kinder to me).  Agents are happy to tell me how talented I am, but their rejections are always about the fit.  Truthfully, it's hard not to feel bad about yourself, especially when you stroll through the local bookstore and you see straight up shit on the coop.  But I'm an eternal optimist, obviously delusional, and also very stubborn, so I'm not giving up.  Not when I'm so close.

This leads me to the whole point I was making before I digressed earlier.  Now that I'm back in action, I'm going all out, man.  I'm submitting queries for NINJAS to a bunch of new agents soon (I'm still waiting to hear from three agents who are reading full manuscripts, but the longer time passes, the less hopeful I get).  If Kaya rejects AMNESIA (they're taking their sweetass time, by the way), I'll send a query for it to fifty agents the next week.  I just sent out several novella manuscripts to Plougshares and the Massachusetts Review.  I'm also sending one of my best (and fave) short stories to several literary journals.  Lastly, I'm sending my memoir to a few indie presses that I think would be a good fit aesthetically, conceptually, and structurally.  Instead of staggering my submissions as I was forced to do during the school year, I'm now going full force.  And that's not even including a screenplay I'll start revising/continuing this weekend about two bike messengers in DTLA.

And it don't stop . . .

 

 

Kicking it with Ron Carlson because UCI

I met up and chatted with Ron Carlson today (the author of Five Skies, The Signal, and Plan B for the Middle Class,among other works) and I have to say, I thought he was pretty cool:  smart, funny, interesting, observant, slightly offbeat.  Aimee had introduced me to him being a UCI MFA grad and everything.  Anyway, here are some of the highlights of our convo:

1.  Unlike some compulsive fiction writers (à la TC Boyle and Joyce Carol Oates), he told me that sometimes he doesn't write for days and he really enjoys that perspective, the simple act of living, which gives him a good counterbalance to his writing life

2.  He said he never wants to hate (his own) writing, which is why he never pushes himself to write when he doesn't want to write

3.  He said that you can't force your writing.  You can't rush your writing.  And you can't quantify the quality of the work itself as if your writing operates on some point system.  If you write one awesome page, that's better than say 50 meh pages

4.  After I told him that I've had a bunch of agents asking for full manuscripts of Ninjas in the past year, and how Coffee House Press was still considering Atlas of Tiny Desires, my collection of short stories and how Kaya Press was about to give me their verdict on Amnesia very soon, he said:  —You're busy.  Then he said:  —I hope you don't mind me giving you some advice (which I didn't), but don't get burned out, Jackson. 

I told him I knew what he meant, but also that I tried to use one manuscript as artistic respite from another manuscript.  So, for example, if I got sick of revising Amnesia again, I'd work on Dream Pop Origami, my experimental memoir.  When I could no longer evaluate that manuscript effectively, I'd switch to Ninjas.  It's my way to keep writing without hating the act of writing itself.  So far, it's been working out pretty well.

5.  I also told him that if he needs any more lecturers in creative writing in the future (it can't hurt to ask), he should hit me up.  He gave me a knowing smile and then said he's got my email now, which was his way of saying "Nice way you snuck in your pitch like that but as you know since you teach here, our department is being ravaged by a Dean who just gave a bunch of lecturer positions to TA's from other departments."

6.  I told him how much I'd learned from Aimee, one of his protégées, how she taught me to actually sit with my characters instead of whizzing by to the next scene and he seemed to appreciate that advice.  He said that often the biggest mistakes fiction writers make aren't the obvious ones that workshops focus on, but the things they passed on up, the missed opportunities in their own fiction to let a character, a place, a moment, bloom for just a few moments.

Ultimately, there was a lot more I wanted to talk about with him, but our conversation came to a comfortable and organic lull after forty-five minutes and I was happy to leave it there.

Just as important to me, I know now that when I spot him in the bright hallways of UC Irvine in the next year, we'll recognize each other, which can only be a good thing for me in the writing universe.

So Three Literary Agents Walked into a Bar . . .

Yesterday, I got a request for a full manuscript from a junior and senior agent at Writers House, putting me in a unique and odd place:  for the first time in my life, three (four?) different literary agents are reading full manuscripts of NINJAS at the same time.  Usually, this happens in a staggered fashion:  one agent this week, two agents next week, one agent the next month, etc., etc.  Anyway, this recent synchronicity doesn't really mean anything except that I write a good query letter (and maybe that I have a dope second novel that's ripe for the market).  Other than that, who really knows? 

Still, it feels fucking good whenever I know an agent is seriously considering my work. What's not to love about that?