Jim Tomlinson's Online Writing Journal

Jim Tomlinson

a writer's journal

Saturday, May 3, 2003

A slower week of writing in terms of page-count. Today I wrote for four hours and ended up with less than a page. Most of the time/effort went into a paragraph introducing Lovie, getting her onstage in just the right way. Despite the low page count, I'm calling it a productive week. Ahead is the manuscript's first pivotal scene. It's stacking up to be a major challenge.

An Ernest Hemingway quote, picked up from KY poet Charlie Hughes: "When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea." It reminds me of the old TV ad--if you want someone's attention, whisper. Maybe that's where the ad agency got it from, Hemingway. In any case, it seems like sound writing advice-- turn down the flame and let the big ideas explode.

Sunday, May 11, 2003

Sometimes things just feel wrong in the writing. The sentences work and the paragraphs, and the pages pile up. But it feels like the story is amounting to less than it should, engaging the reader less than it should. I'm at that point with the current novel, and I think the problem goes back to something Dick Jackson once told me--about the story actions feeling imposed from outside the characters, not arising naturally from who they are. And right now, that feels especially true of Dex Chalk. He lacks a strong motor. And the reason I've hesitated strengthening him is because what drives him are those same characteristics that make him less than likeable to readers. So Dex needs reshaping--strengthening, really, so the aspects that drive him are the ones that attract readers. This is not to say he won't be flawed, but the flaws won't be part of his 'story motor.'

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Okay, that wasn't so hard, although it did take longer than I'd hoped. Dex is rehabilitated. Most of chapter 9 is unchanged. What did change was that I cut a few instances where Dex's thoughts and actions were less than his best. And I showed him striving more for laudable things, trying to be his very best self. The reader should feel more comfortable in his skin. Now to round off that chapter, a squabble with Lovie. Then comes the first major 'set piece' scene, the one that will send the main storylines spinning off in interesting directions.

Sunday, May 25, 2003

I've felt sick for several days and haven't touched the novel. I've been reading They Whisper by Robert Olen Butler. The book is a complete change from his Pulitzer winning story collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and from his novel Wabash. The narrative voice is highly sensual, erotic, the story almost completely internal. The writing is exquisite, although I'm still not sure about the characters and story, about how they'll stand up at the end.

The review of Seven Days in December that Steve Flairty wrote for "Kentucky Monthly" hit the newsstands yesterday, and almost immediately I received a phone call from the director of the Kentucky Book Fair asking to see a copy. So I may be signing there this November. On the strength of that review, the new Kentucky Artisan Center here in Berea is looking at it, considering whether they'll buy some copies to sell when the center opens in late July. And Berea College Book Store will stock a few copies, too.

Sunday, June 1, 2003

Confirmation came through that I'll be in Robert Olen Butler's workshop and that I'll be receiving a partial scholarship for the IU Writers Conference later this month. Less than three weeks now. I'm getting psyched.

I combined the nine novel chapters into a single file and was surprised to see it totals 85 pages. I printed them out and read through them. It reads slower than I'd expected, and there are probably too many curlicues, side trips, and such. The trouble is, I don't know enough at this point to start pruning it back, because the themes and directions the story will take are still forming. So I'll wait until it's much further along before trying to whittle the excess away, mainly because I can't tell, right now, what is excess and what's essential to the thing.

Sunday, June 8, 2003

At the beginning of Chapter 10 LeAnn, Lonnie and the kids are at the airport, waiting for LeAnn's brother's delayed flight to arrive, sitting just beyond the metal-detectors at Bluegrass airport, waiting for John. And it took a while for him to come strolling down the concourse, because I didn't know anything about him, other than name, gender, and age. He arrived after what seemed weeks while I was mowing the back lawn. I sketched enough of him onto a note card that he couldn't blow away while I finished the lawn. Now John can finally come through Bluegrass Airport's double glass doors.

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Father's Day, a joint card from Grace and Jack decorates the office this morning, brightening it considerably.

I'd been thinking about "Things Kept," the short story that has become the opening chapters of the novel-in-progress, thinking that it might be time to see if it can find a home in print somewhere. I've always been impressed with "Zoetrope Magazine" and their willingness to read and publish new writers, so I'm starting there. Their editors read some of the manuscripts that go through the short story workshop at Zoetrope Virtual Studios, an online writers collaboration site slanted toward film. They suggest that route as a good way to be read and considered for the print magazine. So I sent Things Kept there on Friday. I guess that makes it my first short story magazine submission, albeit somewhat indirect.

And, with the IUWC only a week away, I clicked onto their website, found that they've recently posted a detailed schedule for the week. Turns out there is a two-hour period set aside on Monday for readings by the scholarship winners. I'm glad I checked! I'd have arrive completely unprepared, otherwise. Okay, now, do I read from "TK" or do I read from Seven Days? Hmmm….

Saturday, June 21, 2003

The comments and reviews thus far on "Things Kept" from Zoetrope readers has been varied and generally positive. What is most interesting is how readers are bringing their own slants to it and putting personal interpretations on the story and 'what it's about.' I think that's a good thing, that it allows the reader to enter and interpret as they will. In fact, I have my own idea of where the theme lies, but it is never stated or implied because, even though the point-of-view is third person, the pov character is unaware. So the narration appears free-standing, and readers enter and interpret. And when they do, each seems to overlay something personal onto to it, to interpret through a prism all their own.

Reading back a couple months in this journal, I can see that page output on the novel has fallen behind my expectations of April. While I wish the pages were piling up faster, I'm satisfied that my downtime is not wasted time, that the researching, ruminating, and contemplating all play a part in fuelling the tanks for another forward burst of progress. Or so we hope.

Now I must get packed for the Indiana University Writers Conference and Workshop, which begins tomorrow. If all goes well, I'll be journaling a day-by-day account on a new journal page.

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Last updated 04/22/2010

Jim Tomlinson has been awarded an Al Smith Fellowship in recognition of artistic excellence for professional artists in Kentucky through the Kentucky Arts council, a state agency in the Commerce Cabinet, supported by state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

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