How to write a short story (according to Kurt Vonnegut)

Kurt Vonnegut - Eight Tips on How to Write a Good Short Story!

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Sept. 11

Why can’t we live

            forever in the ethereal

shadow of juvenile disbelief?

Lofted upon clouds of hope,

innocently unknowing

what lives in the shadows.

But:

Are we ever unaccountable of our own sin?

When does our innocence turn to ignorance?

An awakening; fruitions of a new world:

Oklahoma City. Kaczynski.

Columbine. Waco.

African Embassies.

Dahmer. Desert Storm.

O.J. Rodney King. L.A. Riots.

Twin Towers Part One.

Hale Bopp & Heavens Gate.

Cobain.

But, look not to deicide or inaction.

Share. Respect. Educate. The battle

over ignorance is merely in the

depth and extent of your reach.

-------------

Childhoods are full of memories like capturing fireflies on a summer evening, the first snow that cancels school, or the first girl (or guy) that struck your fancy.  But there is also a moment of memory when something happened, a chord that changes how the world resonates around you. 

Thoughts on explaining epic trauma to students always evokes personal memories of your own experience, that: where was I when this happened, feeling.  But also cognition of even earlier awakenings of first evil. 

Somewhat inspired by this CNN story: Teaching my child...

Untitled (Jim & Joshua)

Untitled (Jim & Joshua)

They told me I’d get a country-fried steak

If I just sat still beside him.  Pancake

Sliced, tenderized, battered and fried,

Smothered in gravy.  So good I’ll need

The cigarette before I said to Ma. But

The Rooster came from uncle’s flock.

Jim (the rooster), Joshua (me), two

Polygamous kings of the roost,

Stealing a stare, perched atop the world.

Where is Yakutat?

Where is Yakutat?

Tucked into the forelands, nestled between Sitka Spruce,

Raven and Eagle share with Glacier Bear and Black-tailed Deer.

Without fog, eighteen thousand vertical feet of relief is revealed

On the eve of sunrise, cast in pink, purple, and fiery red-orange

Begets the Coho in the last days of life upon the pebbles

Of the Sitak and the Ahrnklin Rivers, fighting currents.

I ask him What is there to do for fun in Yakutat? Drink, he

Casually admits, and I remember, that’s the same thing we do

For fun in every other hamlet called home, as we’re all left

Alone strumming the chords of our own panoramic hinterland.

Dendrometric Transect

Dendrometric Transect

9 point 2. 3 point 7. 6 point 9.

The graduated metallic tape

Calibrated to 3 point 1 4 is

Held with thumb and index finger,

Using both hands, slipped behind

The girth of her trunk measuring

Diameter at breast height—

As if you’re taking her bra off.

From her rings you know

She’s only 19, but through

The fog, with no fire, you leave

Her and reach for another.

Photo by Amanda Byrd, UAF ACEP, as seen on FaceBook.

Your Resources

Your Resources

Hemlock and Sitka Spruce stand

dozens of board feet upward,

pointing to the heavens,

pointing to raven and eagle,

where the clouds forget your name,

darkening Disenchantment Bay.

Published in O-Dark-Thirty:Summer Edition 2013

The Review is out, a seasonal literary journal from the Veterans Writing Project called O-Dark-Thirty.  I have a poem published in the summer edition.