This Chart is Saving My Life
September 4, 2008
It's pretty hard to say no to people. And I have needed a way to make sure that I can keep my projects in line. So, I decided to make a flow chart. At first I thought it was silly, but I like fiddling around in Illustrator, so I kept at it. I've now got people asking me for copies, and it's made me a lot clearer on my own priorities. Click on the image to see it big.
I'm going to print up copies and hand them out like tracts. Props to Merlin Mann of 43 Folders for his work with the Qualified Yes.
Posted by todd at 9:21 PM | Comments (0)
Like Wind Blowing Through Holes in My Brain
September 1, 2008
I just finished my fifth year Leave Rank and Tenure report, which is also my application for rank advancement. If I should pass this review, I'll be advanced from Assistant Professor to Associate professor.
I think this means that I will now be able to associate with the professors rather than just assist them. It also means a little bit more money (in reality, something like 1/8 of a run of the mill NBA bad sportsmanship fine).
But that doesn't matter. The document is finished. Holes punched. Arranged artfully in a 4" three-ring binder. Ready for submission (I'm laughing that it's always due the day after labor day — nothing like a performance review to spice up a barbecue!).
Now there is a lightness and freedom in my mind. It feels cool, like the wind blowing through holes in my mind. Perhaps I'll reward myself by going to see Tropic Thunder.
Posted by todd at 9:47 PM | Comments (1)
Captured Converstaion
August 4, 2008
My next door neighbor is hilarious, and I think he knows it. The other day we had my sister-in-law visting with us. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria and she gets over to our parts once a year or so. We were taking a walk and we introduced her to the neighbors, who were out in the front yard tending some irises.
ALISA: Hi, this is my sister, Josie.
NEIGHBOR: She looks like a sister. What brings you up here from Oklahoma?
JOSIE: Actually, I live in Nigeria. In Lagos.
NEIGHBOR: So, do we have you to thank for all the internet money schemes?
JOSIE: No, that was someone else.
Truth is stranger than fiction, and I love it.
Posted by todd at 9:08 AM | Comments (1)
Research Trip
July 4, 2008
Due to a combination of forces (my wife taking the kids to a family reunion in Missouri and Oklahoma, and my getting some faculty development money) I was able plan a research trip to get my next big fiction project going.
The novel is going to be called They Very Cowboy, and it's about two guys who are obsessed with different aspects of the American West. A Japanese guy named Kenji is hooked on cowboy culture, and a German named Reinhardt is immersed in Native American culture. They adventure on their own through the West until they meet at Four Corners and continue their journeys together.
Basically my plan is this: scout locations and do a little method acting, see what will happen. I'm going to head east to Green River, cut down through Moab and head over into Colorado, then through the east side of the Navajo reservation, hop on sections of Route 66, then pop over the mountains to Boulder City, head through Vegas, and climb home. I will be on the look out for strange things.
View Larger Map
It's going to be hot, man, 120ยบ in and around Nevada.
I'll be posting photographs over on my Flickr account and I'll be writing dispatches here as things come up.
Posted by todd at 6:04 PM | Comments (1)
Barbara Walters Playing Both Ends Against the Middle
June 22, 2008
The other day I was having the obligatory discussion about creative non-fiction in my Intro to Creative Writing class. It is always a strange conversation to start, especially with people who are new the the matters of writing and literature, and most students in an introductory course like this are not well-versed in these kinds of ideas. I have to say that I don't blame them, and I completely recognize that this is what they are taking college level English classes for.
The big question that creative non-fiction asks a person to think about is regarding truth. We get at it by dealing with the difference in what one is going to have to do to produce a short story versus what one is going to have to do to produce a personal essay, or memoir piece.
The technical definition of creative non-fiction (CNF) that you'll see all around the place is that CNF uses the conventions of fiction to tell a story in which the events are presented as having happened instead of presenting the events as invented. This gets immediately sticky because of what I teach about fiction and the fact that there is no creation ex nihilo. One creates by construction of new patterns from existing materials, which we gather through experience. So, in my view, even fiction is a form of non-fiction, but the source materials are a little more processed. The word I use for that in class is "granular."
Things aren't "falser" in fiction; the truth is not as immediately identifiable.
On the flip side, I point out that the notion of a true story is fraught with problems. My buddies over in the criminal justice department make it abundantly clear that eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable. Our senses do not constitute a security camera that records everything. The combination of our attention, the accuracy of our senses, and the faults of our memories create a dragnet of inaccuracies that we present as "our take" on what happened, with no more claim on the truth and anyone else's take.
Which invariably brings us to Mr. James Frey and his book A Million Little Pieces and that very, very tired controversy. In order to make this part of things a bit more interesting, I brought in this YouTube video of the very important response from the erudite pundits on the View.
I was so interested in the mob mentality here, and their complete lack of understanding of even the least shred of the most basic part of this argument from a literary perspective. What struck me was Barbara Walters perspective here. She is so quick to dismiss the memoir as a concept, then she packpaddles so quickly. The entire discussion makes the memoir seem like something Al-Qaeda whipped up to undermine Western civilization. But why was Walters so bold and why did she edit herself so quickly.
Well, take a look at the title of her new book. Will wonders never cease?
Posted by todd at 9:33 AM