unpublished writers

Is Lisa Kogan Dead or Something?: And Other News of the Day


Over the past three days I have had an incredible amount of traffic on an old post inspired by a Lisa Kogan column from O Magazine of a year ago. 

In the article, Kogan ponders the possibilities of losing one’s mate. Not literally. She just wonders, as many of the more morbid among us do at some point, what it would be like to be widowed. 

She was trying to be funny and I didn’t find her subject or style too amusing. Not because I don’t have a gallows humor gene – I do. Once, when my late husband was lamenting how much being dead without me was going to suck (he had dementia, remember), I reminded him that time probably flew by much more quickly in the ever-after and that he would eventually have my second husband to keep him company anyway.

He didn’t laugh. Neither did my co-workers when I related the story to them. Probably you aren’t laughing either. 

I suck at the humor thing as much as Lisa Kogan.

But getting back to the sudden surge of her presence in my search terms, I decided to google her to see if anything was up. Maybe she died? Or perhaps she wrote a book and is making the rounds of the talk shows and morning “news” programs. Doug and Annie Brown, the couple who had sex for 101 straight days and then wrote a book about it, (and why I didn’t think of doing that I will never know) show up in the search terms whenever a news article or review about the book turns up. Lisa, however, doesn’t appear to have done anything of late aside from her latest column in O. Which wasn’t that good. In fact, I found it annoying and thought that The Bloggess could have done a better job with the topic.

But I digress – often, yes, I know – there just seem to be an awful lot of people interested in Lisa Kogan. And so far as I could ascertain, she hasn’t died. Which would definitely explain people searching for her. People who read O anyway. But she didn’t. As far as I know.

And why am I writing about search terms?

Because I am still working on Kumari!

Yeah, I know I said it was done. It is, but the revising continues because it’s not quite right. So I signed up for an online writer’s workshop for sci-fi, fantasy and horror writers (I think horror but I can’t remember exactly), and posted it for review. Only one review as yet and it confirmed my opinion that the story is still light and far too staccato as far as flow goes.

Revising is one of those things that either takes off like a brush fire or feels like mental constipation. There is no middle ground. 

I can almost feel the direction I need to go but can’t squeeze the right words out. Once I find the chink in the wall, I know the meat of the story will pour out, but I am not quite there yet. 

Hence this post. Which is my alternative to cleaning or baking or blanching veggies for the freezer. I could have attempted to tempt my husband into a nooner when he was home for lunch instead but we are into day three of a “cleanse” and things are getting fragrantly ugly. No constipation there. Anyway, we just had a nooner, and a nooner habit could become an impediment to say – employment – and we don’t want that. 

What I need to do is re-order a few sentences and paragraphs for flow and tone down the royal “we” of the story’s language and flesh out the character’s parents and the priests a bit. I also need to play up the global warming theme of the setting. I don’t think that is coming out although I don’t want to “go there” in terms of explaining what is happening specifically to the climate/geography. I am not a techie when it comes to sci-fi. More like a Bradbury.

Off to stare at my draft some more. Perhaps it’s like meditation? If I let my mind focus and then drift, it will come to me.

Writing Short Fiction


I finally finished my Kumari revision and my loving husband patiently read and re-read with his red pen in hand. He loves the red pen part. There is irony in being the red pen wielding beta reader of a former English teacher.

The short is still short. I doubt I added more than 100 words, but it has reached that stage where any more revision will likely ruin it. I need to find somewhere to submit it. I had thought Apex. Am still kinda toying with them but I don’t think the story is dark enough. I have mentioned that they like story dark? Dark to the point of sick. According to my writing group, the main character of Kumari is reprehensible and unlikable but still manages to garner understanding if not sympathy. And of course, I didn’t “go there” in terms of sex or gore. Could have I guess, but just didn’t feel it with this piece. 

I actually have another story that I started writing on the drive back from the States in July. There is nothing like listening to POTUS candidates on the 4th of July to bring on visions of a dark, foreboding future of Stephen King proportions. I outlined my idea aloud to Rob who wondered how I could find such sick images in my mind. 

Yes, he wondered this out loud.

So, Kumari needs to go somewhere else. To a small magazine, I think.

I googled “Canadian sci fi magazines” and found nothing really. Just the magazine that asked for the second look at 2.0, and since they don’t take multiple submissions, I have to wait until I hear back from them on the current story under consideration.

No multiple submissions. NO simultaneous submissions.

The whole “getting published” game is stacked decidedly in the favor of publishers and publications. Not very free market if you ask me.

In the meantime, aside from the novel that is begging for my attention, I have started three more short stories on top of the three that need finishing and the memoir outline that is tapping on my skull.

Oh, and I need to totally rework my three month “plan” because I have changed direction.

But Kumari is done and that is something.

A Request to Imagine is the Monday Meme


I was reading a review of a book written by a book critic on the art of writing.* The reviewer pulled a sentence from the book where the critic, James Woods, takes to task the idea that many writers apparently hold quite dear in that realistic fiction is too conventional. He says,

“Fiction does not ask us to believe things (in the philosophical sense) but to imagine them (in the artistic sense).”

I love that last part about asking the reader to imagine. Such a simple and yet daunting task.

There is so little imagination in day to day living.

How can we combat this? Comment or link back, s’il vous plait.

*That’s mainly what I do with highbrow “how to write” books. I read the reviews. When I buy them, they sit on the self. When I check them out of the library, I return them skimmed at best. Perhaps I need to pencil in a few weeks of reading about the art of writing? But I am booked through January with writing projects already.