The CSU Writing Conference [Expounded]
The Writer’s Conference was located across the campus in a sector called: Trinity Commons and it was the conference portion of a church, which made me feel uneasy simply because I say the word “fuck” a lot. I decided to take the train into Cleveland and then walk from E. 4 to E. 24, because I wasn’t going to get a jog in so I decided that twenty city blocks would be a nice way to start the morning. And maybe it might have been, if I didn’t have to dodge 8 homeless guys a day. So when the conference had started—I had had my fill of homeless. A woman walked into a conference room of 70 people and asked for 3 dollars, and my first reaction was to say something “off color about the situation,” and then about 25 people looked at me as an asshole. But I didn’t care—I had been dodging homeless people all day. They were telling me about their stories and their problems, and I felt like a horse with blinders on—it was the only way for me to survive the day. I can’t feel guilty for every wandering soul that passes me by, no one can—your heart just can’t take dishing out that much pity per day, and all I could do was watch these people watching me and thinking, most of you drove in and this is the first homeless person you saw. You have that privilege of pitying that one person. Then I understood the main difference between myself and most [not all] other writers at this conference—I’m acute and most were pathetically sensitive.
From the start—I had my reservations.
Karen Fowler, who had written a number of books and the latest one is called the Jane Austen Book Club, had a one on one conference with me, and she said that it was bold of me to handle 10, but technically 12, characters in 9 pages and she said she had no problems with my work when it came to following the characters and she was very helpful. She said it was a draft away from being completed and that I was one of the strongest writers at this conference. It was nice going into the workshop knowing the questions that people were going to pose, and when the workshop actually started—it was great. The group was very diverse. One woman had multiple degrees and loved saying, “waning her children away from my bosom.” Another woman was in business, and she had did time at the Iowa Workshop. Her story was about seeing Mary in her bathroom mirror. There were two school teachers, and one guy who decided that 18 months ago he was going to write a book. Two other guys were in the CSU MFA program, and one was quiet but very sly about his wit. I didn’t think I was going to like him but he actually has a great eye about life, and the other guy was also a teacher and he was writing his memoirs on high school and sports literature. And then there was a girl who I call “Arlie-Esque,” well read, incredible insight, soulful, mentally strong, all the things that make a writer beautiful—but most importantly, she had a strong threshold for my attitude.
The workshop went well, everybody received great feedback. But mine drew some interesting commentary—the class overall supported my work [they actually workshopped my work without me the day before, privately, it was the first Tran Book Club]. But on my day, my instructor attacked it. She questioned a line or comparison used to Charles Bukowski, because she actually knew the man—her brother and “Charlie” were friends. She spent 12 minutes talking about the oriental table and how she hated how I talked about it, and argued the entire point about it being large and round. She said she saw and didn't see the room. She went paragraph by paragraph and said, “Let’s look at the flaws.” We spent 40 minutes on page two of a nine page story. Then with a half hour left of an hour and half workshop, I asked her if the ending worked and she said that I replicated the formula well. She called my work salvageable. I remember back to when my friend Marc’s work was called trite, and I imagined this must have been what his anger felt like—nerves popping like sores from your head to your nose, and all you can do is stand and feel the pain oozing. I walked off—wondering, “Do I just fucking suck and I’m too egotistical to see?” But the girl that was “Arlie-Esque” had said, “I know it feels bad, but she took a toothbrush to your story, she really believes in it even though she doesn’t sound like she does. Look what she did and not so much into what she actually said.” Then she told me how she read her poems and laughed hard for 5 long minutes. Of all the people there, she was the one that understood. This was my life from 8 to 9 on most days from Tuesday to Sunday. Lectures, readings, and then workshop, and then followed by some bohemian activities. It was a good experience, tiring, exhausting on all my parts, but memorable—but I’ll share a little bit of what I wrote. This is what I read for my public reading [that had to be 3 minutes long]:
Dear James,
Five days ago, I killed a man. When he fell, his body hit the ground stiff and fast. Practice targets never fell like that, they can stand up to multiple clips of gunfire. He only took two bullets to the chest. When I saw him up close, he had dust on his face, his arms were at his side, palms up, and he looked older than my father.
We had positioned ourselves just outside of the capital, moving a couple of miles a day. Usually, it was Lawrence Simons that called the point, but since our platoon was coming so close to civilian territory, he thought Bob McNamara could handle the job for the night. “The experience will be good for him,” he said. But more importantly, Simons wanted to talk to his wife; she was in labor that night.
The platoon advanced and set up camp just edging the man’s yard. That night, he started yelling at us [long after the fact, I found out it was because two of our men were stealing his chickens], then McNamara yelled out rifle and I fired on the man. It just took two bullets to the chest. Children [probably his grandchildren] were screaming from inside the house. And then two women came out and smothered the man with their bodies and tears.
And what Bob McNamara said he thought was a rifle, was actually a broom. He says, “Who the fuck sweeps their house at 10.30 PM?” Once the women composed themselves—they began to curse us. Later that night, I apologized relentlessly and tried to give them two hundred dollars out of my own pocket. They threw the money back at me and spit in my face, and then they continued to cry. When the sun came up, I stayed in the tank’s shade. The sun here makes you feel like you’re always wearing a second layer of skin. I stayed and listened to them cry for two days, stopping only to eat, pray, and sleep.
Simons checked in on me once and while, he told me he had a boy. And that these people tend to do their house cleaning at night, because it’s too hot during the day. “Just keep that mind for the future,” he said. After they buried him, they kept crying. Simons said it’s customary for the family to cry for the dead for 2 weeks. I smoked and read to their wailing, listening as if they were Johnny Mathis.
Louise Santiago is a guy we call Spanish Rice, because he’s part Cuban and Korean. He quit the seminary to join the Army and works as a minister’s assistant. He baptized me at a strip club before we left. I talk to him about God a lot. After I shot the guy, I asked Spanish if God was going to forgive me.
He said that when you confess to God, He grants forgiveness. Just like that, He gives you a clean slate and loves you all over again. I told him that the government forgave me and my mom forgave me. I hope his family will one day forgive me. James, I hope you can forgive me too, but I still don’t forgive myself. I asked Spanish, “What’s the use of believing in God if he can’t help you out now?”
He said, “God understands things get bad, and there are days He wishes He could do more, but all He can really do is offer you a cracker, some wine, and a good ear, and say—tomorrow man, it will be better. It’s not much, but it’s more than a person can offer you these days.”
From the start—I had my reservations.
Karen Fowler, who had written a number of books and the latest one is called the Jane Austen Book Club, had a one on one conference with me, and she said that it was bold of me to handle 10, but technically 12, characters in 9 pages and she said she had no problems with my work when it came to following the characters and she was very helpful. She said it was a draft away from being completed and that I was one of the strongest writers at this conference. It was nice going into the workshop knowing the questions that people were going to pose, and when the workshop actually started—it was great. The group was very diverse. One woman had multiple degrees and loved saying, “waning her children away from my bosom.” Another woman was in business, and she had did time at the Iowa Workshop. Her story was about seeing Mary in her bathroom mirror. There were two school teachers, and one guy who decided that 18 months ago he was going to write a book. Two other guys were in the CSU MFA program, and one was quiet but very sly about his wit. I didn’t think I was going to like him but he actually has a great eye about life, and the other guy was also a teacher and he was writing his memoirs on high school and sports literature. And then there was a girl who I call “Arlie-Esque,” well read, incredible insight, soulful, mentally strong, all the things that make a writer beautiful—but most importantly, she had a strong threshold for my attitude.
The workshop went well, everybody received great feedback. But mine drew some interesting commentary—the class overall supported my work [they actually workshopped my work without me the day before, privately, it was the first Tran Book Club]. But on my day, my instructor attacked it. She questioned a line or comparison used to Charles Bukowski, because she actually knew the man—her brother and “Charlie” were friends. She spent 12 minutes talking about the oriental table and how she hated how I talked about it, and argued the entire point about it being large and round. She said she saw and didn't see the room. She went paragraph by paragraph and said, “Let’s look at the flaws.” We spent 40 minutes on page two of a nine page story. Then with a half hour left of an hour and half workshop, I asked her if the ending worked and she said that I replicated the formula well. She called my work salvageable. I remember back to when my friend Marc’s work was called trite, and I imagined this must have been what his anger felt like—nerves popping like sores from your head to your nose, and all you can do is stand and feel the pain oozing. I walked off—wondering, “Do I just fucking suck and I’m too egotistical to see?” But the girl that was “Arlie-Esque” had said, “I know it feels bad, but she took a toothbrush to your story, she really believes in it even though she doesn’t sound like she does. Look what she did and not so much into what she actually said.” Then she told me how she read her poems and laughed hard for 5 long minutes. Of all the people there, she was the one that understood. This was my life from 8 to 9 on most days from Tuesday to Sunday. Lectures, readings, and then workshop, and then followed by some bohemian activities. It was a good experience, tiring, exhausting on all my parts, but memorable—but I’ll share a little bit of what I wrote. This is what I read for my public reading [that had to be 3 minutes long]:
Dear James,
Five days ago, I killed a man. When he fell, his body hit the ground stiff and fast. Practice targets never fell like that, they can stand up to multiple clips of gunfire. He only took two bullets to the chest. When I saw him up close, he had dust on his face, his arms were at his side, palms up, and he looked older than my father.
We had positioned ourselves just outside of the capital, moving a couple of miles a day. Usually, it was Lawrence Simons that called the point, but since our platoon was coming so close to civilian territory, he thought Bob McNamara could handle the job for the night. “The experience will be good for him,” he said. But more importantly, Simons wanted to talk to his wife; she was in labor that night.
The platoon advanced and set up camp just edging the man’s yard. That night, he started yelling at us [long after the fact, I found out it was because two of our men were stealing his chickens], then McNamara yelled out rifle and I fired on the man. It just took two bullets to the chest. Children [probably his grandchildren] were screaming from inside the house. And then two women came out and smothered the man with their bodies and tears.
And what Bob McNamara said he thought was a rifle, was actually a broom. He says, “Who the fuck sweeps their house at 10.30 PM?” Once the women composed themselves—they began to curse us. Later that night, I apologized relentlessly and tried to give them two hundred dollars out of my own pocket. They threw the money back at me and spit in my face, and then they continued to cry. When the sun came up, I stayed in the tank’s shade. The sun here makes you feel like you’re always wearing a second layer of skin. I stayed and listened to them cry for two days, stopping only to eat, pray, and sleep.
Simons checked in on me once and while, he told me he had a boy. And that these people tend to do their house cleaning at night, because it’s too hot during the day. “Just keep that mind for the future,” he said. After they buried him, they kept crying. Simons said it’s customary for the family to cry for the dead for 2 weeks. I smoked and read to their wailing, listening as if they were Johnny Mathis.
Louise Santiago is a guy we call Spanish Rice, because he’s part Cuban and Korean. He quit the seminary to join the Army and works as a minister’s assistant. He baptized me at a strip club before we left. I talk to him about God a lot. After I shot the guy, I asked Spanish if God was going to forgive me.
He said that when you confess to God, He grants forgiveness. Just like that, He gives you a clean slate and loves you all over again. I told him that the government forgave me and my mom forgave me. I hope his family will one day forgive me. James, I hope you can forgive me too, but I still don’t forgive myself. I asked Spanish, “What’s the use of believing in God if he can’t help you out now?”
He said, “God understands things get bad, and there are days He wishes He could do more, but all He can really do is offer you a cracker, some wine, and a good ear, and say—tomorrow man, it will be better. It’s not much, but it’s more than a person can offer you these days.”
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7:28 AMSonofabitch! You were this close! I guess I need to catch up with you, being that I work where you were conferancing (spelling?) and could have met you for a drink. Anyway, wanted to drop a note and make some blog grafitti to say hi.
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