Our lives suddenly lessened — augered out, never to be quite filled in again. And yet this resonance of the departed.
Showing posts with label Samples of My Own Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Samples of My Own Work. Show all posts
October 23, 2013
March 28, 2009
Innovative Audio Contest Winner
NOTE: The gentlemen at Innovative Audio have fixed the errors I write about in this post. Nice of them to do so, though it leaves me with nothing to poke fun at myself about...at least for the moment. In all fairness, the grammar mistake in my story was my own damn fault; certainly not theirs.
No secret that I like vinyl and old record players. I was perusing Innovative Audio's website awhile back and noticed they had a contest for a 500 word short-story. The deadline was just around the corner, so I hammered out a quick memory of my father bringing home his mighty Aurex stereo when I was a kid. They dug it. $100 in my hand, a photo, and they posted the story on their site.
Here's the story.
I'm really posting this out of irony. Who gives a flying fart about somebody else winning $100 right? What truly makes this satisfying, as you will see when you click on the link, is:
a) they spelled my name incorrectly, and...
b) they posted the original draft I sent them, not the final edit where I corrected a few grammar errors.
Note the third paragraph, where the last word should be value not valuable. Too funny. Now that is worth posting. And yes, sadly, I am that short and peculiar-looking.
No secret that I like vinyl and old record players. I was perusing Innovative Audio's website awhile back and noticed they had a contest for a 500 word short-story. The deadline was just around the corner, so I hammered out a quick memory of my father bringing home his mighty Aurex stereo when I was a kid. They dug it. $100 in my hand, a photo, and they posted the story on their site.
Here's the story.
I'm really posting this out of irony. Who gives a flying fart about somebody else winning $100 right? What truly makes this satisfying, as you will see when you click on the link, is:
a) they spelled my name incorrectly, and...
b) they posted the original draft I sent them, not the final edit where I corrected a few grammar errors.
Note the third paragraph, where the last word should be value not valuable. Too funny. Now that is worth posting. And yes, sadly, I am that short and peculiar-looking.
March 7, 2009
Your Writing Isn't That Good, Moron.
Creative Writing classes breed a certain fallacy. A semester runs around four months, with various deadlines spread out over this period. The student feels the pressure of these deadlines and starts habituating their writing process to suit the time frame of the semester. Thus, a short story becomes nothing more than an overly-tweaked first draft. My prof pointed this out over the phone with me as she lambasted my latest submission.
I'll paste the opening scene of my latest story A Monument to the Divine:
Jack Hodgins likes to write the first draft, then stick it in a drawer where he never looks at it. Then he sits down and writes the entire story again. The first draft is for him, for the creative necessity of getting the story out. Once done, he can actually sit down and tell the story. It's a fairly heavy indictment on most students' processes, I think. The nature of semesters are to blame in some ways. Three stories in four months? Four months would be great to get a good solid start on one.
My friend Sam likes to harangue CanLit for its empty wordiness, its ability to spend reams of paper comparing one's inner turmoil to the mossy underside of a turtle's belly. Just tell the fucking story, if I may paraphrase him. He has a point. In my case, it's showing up in my early drafts, where I make the mistake of confusing language forms for plot. Just tell the story, Harry. For God's sake. Boot-clad feet...what the hell.
Sometimes I think I should just be a gardener.
I'll paste the opening scene of my latest story A Monument to the Divine:
Arjan Van Leur stands amongst a grove of Silver Birch trees, thirteen yards from the blackened ruins of his father’s house. Curls of paper-thin bark lie parched at his feet—the heat of the fire great enough to singe great distances. The air smells of resin and ash, the heavy wet of water-soaked charcoal that catches in his red beard like day-old cigar smoke. Next to his boot-clad feet, a canvas pack contains: spare underwear, socks, a scarf for cooler weather, a flannel jacket. He studies the messy yard and its abandoned farm equipment, the clover infested lawn, the neglected vegetable garden—a sure sign of his father’s departure, as the once-immaculate landscape now bows to encroaching death.A casual read and it seems okay--at least to me. But what is it actually depicting here? And why this use of language? Polished shit I like to call it. Boot clad feet? Why not boots? Thirteen yards? Are you sure? Not fourteen and three inches? Of course I didn't notice this at first. In fact, I handed it in thinking I'd just channeled Alistair MacLeod. Essentially, I wrote a first draft and spent maybe six hours editing over, but not through, serious flaws. I've been told it takes a minimum of forty drafts to really capture a story; a draft being a complete re-write of the piece. The most I've done is about eight--and not on this submission.
Jack Hodgins likes to write the first draft, then stick it in a drawer where he never looks at it. Then he sits down and writes the entire story again. The first draft is for him, for the creative necessity of getting the story out. Once done, he can actually sit down and tell the story. It's a fairly heavy indictment on most students' processes, I think. The nature of semesters are to blame in some ways. Three stories in four months? Four months would be great to get a good solid start on one.
My friend Sam likes to harangue CanLit for its empty wordiness, its ability to spend reams of paper comparing one's inner turmoil to the mossy underside of a turtle's belly. Just tell the fucking story, if I may paraphrase him. He has a point. In my case, it's showing up in my early drafts, where I make the mistake of confusing language forms for plot. Just tell the story, Harry. For God's sake. Boot-clad feet...what the hell.
Sometimes I think I should just be a gardener.
November 7, 2008
Rhubarb Publication
Months ago I sent a short-story to Rhubarb magazine for consideration. Got the rejection email to prove it--ha ha. However, the editor happened to stumble upon my other blog and asked to publish a few of the entries instead. Of course I agreed, being the whore for publication that I am. So, if you're out and about and happen to see this little magazine gracing a book shelf somewhere, pick it up and give it a read-through. Patrick Friesen, Elsie K. Neufeld, Robert Martens--all in there too. A far better reason to read it, if you ask me. I feel rather privileged to be paged alongside them.
If you're curious which blog posts of mine made it in there:
A Man Amongst Women
Music as Metaphor
Two samples of the five they chose.
If you're curious which blog posts of mine made it in there:
A Man Amongst Women
Music as Metaphor
Two samples of the five they chose.
July 15, 2008
An Excerpt...
Been working on a novel and finding it excruciating at times. Thought I'd post a benign enough excerpt for the two or three of you that actually come by and read this blog every once in awhile.
Untitled
Spartan leans against the American border like an unwanted immigrant. Two crossings on either side of town, two rivers that swell into each other and glide south. All things migrate. The largest mountain in the valley, Galena, a pock-faced chunk of rock rising a mile into the sky, is more American than Canadian. Locals cross into the States for shopping, gas, excursions to commit less-honorable deeds at Indian Reservations. The local pulp-mill trucks raw lumber across daily, stacked on the backs of groaning, dusty machines.
When the dry scrub under pine trees combusts from Summer's heat, both sides of the border eye their lines warily, waiting for the flames to find their way across the forty-ninth parallel, change ownership.
Spartan is disconnected from the big cities. It bleeds into America with its rivers. Draft-dodgers from the Vietnam War catch the evening breezes funneling up from a home country no longer their own, sitting at the windows of homes built on the easy slopes of Fife. Hunters and farmers come down from the mountains and drink at pubs with names like Longhorn or Prospector. Fights are brief, vicious. A mouth fish-hooked, an eye-socket caved in, the collision of knuckle on teeth.
Churches are full on Sunday mornings, transgressions suppressed behind neckties, confined under dresses. Words spread. Heads turn. A person avoids a certain grocery store for awhile, buys their prescriptions at an alternate pharmacy.
Old Doukhobors drink coffee at a local bistro, growl about sky-rocketing prices, the way nothing is ever as good as the day before. Kids ride bikes, shoot at small animals with pellet guns, collect bottles to exchange for Bazooka Joe gum and Willy Wonka's Wax Lips. The world is small, yet absurdly macroscopic. A landscape of tension felt by young and old alike but never articulated. Lovers hold hand as they walk to the tree-lined banks of the river in City Park. There, hands move to more intimate places, a girl cries out in pleasure and loss. Pleasure and loss and a lack. Spartan.
Untitled
Spartan leans against the American border like an unwanted immigrant. Two crossings on either side of town, two rivers that swell into each other and glide south. All things migrate. The largest mountain in the valley, Galena, a pock-faced chunk of rock rising a mile into the sky, is more American than Canadian. Locals cross into the States for shopping, gas, excursions to commit less-honorable deeds at Indian Reservations. The local pulp-mill trucks raw lumber across daily, stacked on the backs of groaning, dusty machines.
When the dry scrub under pine trees combusts from Summer's heat, both sides of the border eye their lines warily, waiting for the flames to find their way across the forty-ninth parallel, change ownership.
Spartan is disconnected from the big cities. It bleeds into America with its rivers. Draft-dodgers from the Vietnam War catch the evening breezes funneling up from a home country no longer their own, sitting at the windows of homes built on the easy slopes of Fife. Hunters and farmers come down from the mountains and drink at pubs with names like Longhorn or Prospector. Fights are brief, vicious. A mouth fish-hooked, an eye-socket caved in, the collision of knuckle on teeth.
Churches are full on Sunday mornings, transgressions suppressed behind neckties, confined under dresses. Words spread. Heads turn. A person avoids a certain grocery store for awhile, buys their prescriptions at an alternate pharmacy.
Old Doukhobors drink coffee at a local bistro, growl about sky-rocketing prices, the way nothing is ever as good as the day before. Kids ride bikes, shoot at small animals with pellet guns, collect bottles to exchange for Bazooka Joe gum and Willy Wonka's Wax Lips. The world is small, yet absurdly macroscopic. A landscape of tension felt by young and old alike but never articulated. Lovers hold hand as they walk to the tree-lined banks of the river in City Park. There, hands move to more intimate places, a girl cries out in pleasure and loss. Pleasure and loss and a lack. Spartan.
December 4, 2007
Remembrance Day
I don't usually post my own writing. Seems pretentious to do so. Perhaps today I am pretentious --I'm sure some of you think I am most days.
This is an excerpt of a piece The Sky is Falling, based on some past Remembrance Day ceremonies I've been to. In particular, the image of a frail, older veteran standing in the rain while the ceremony unfolds around him.
The Sky is Falling
by: Harry Tournemille
Nov. 11/ 2007
The body is old. Hunched shoulders drawn down in the rain. They'd be arched in the sunlight too, the graveness of gravity. At one time they were straight. Broad, strong anchors for the torso. But the body ages and is now old. The awareness of age does not help. In the rain, the man is rooted to the ground. A feeble apple tree, split and worried with years. His brow a permanent furrow, the earth of his face turned over with age. And wisdom. His jacket is buttoned, hat perched on the side of his head. Medals weigh down his breast. They hang from curled ribbons that mock the man's shape. He dislikes them, their gaudy brassiness. They do not remind him of another time, of smoke and fire and confusion. Their memory is born of fabrication, the allusion to a time that did not exist in the temporal. They remind him of nothing at all. On any other day he keeps them in a small, pine box at the back of his sock drawer. Today they weigh him down, pull his heart to the saturated earth. The place where they belong, where he belongs one day. The body is old. But not dead yet.
Atten-hut!
He snaps to attention. Autopilot. Chest out, chin down, eyes fierce for a moment before they retreat into thought. He feels the host of bodies around him dance the same. Unison, the great deceptive cadence.
Right Face!
The man pivots, graceful. His foot claps the asphalt, joining the percussion of all the others. A person he does not know stands next to him. Her dark rimmed glasses appear to squeeze her eyes closer together than what is natural. But the beauty of her youth is not lost on the man, her pixie mouth and high cheeks. She leans towards him and whispers.
They really should have those new fandangled gadgets for us to ride on.
How's that?
Seg-ways they're called. Two wheels and we could still turn to attention. My grandson has one.
It requires an inhuman amount of effort to suppress a smirk. And he after all is human. He shakes his head at her and she winks.
Well, I'd like one at least. I'm no spring chicken, y'know --but I used to be.
For-ward...March!
In unison they move, tired limbs swing, feet rise and fall. Less smooth than the last time. But no one notices. As the man marches he clenches and unclenches his left hand. He tries to relax his shoulders. The cenotaph at City Hall is only two blocks away and he wonders if he'll make it. Will his body fail in this postured line of duty?
He tells himself this is it. No more marching. Been saying that for years now. By Christ his hip hurts. Out of the corner of his eye he notices a homeless woman pushes a shopping cart, her mouth moving in phantom conversation. She stops as the veterans pass, raises a half-empty bottle of rice wine in salute. Her mouth pulls apart in unpracticed smile, exposes fragments of what few teeth she has left. Missing teeth. Who was it that lost his teeth that night? Louis? No --he was alright. Stoned out of his mind but alright. Louis Sutton had a nickname for everyone; called the man Frankie-boy. The marching has stopped. Stand at ease. The charcoal cenotaph points to the grey sky. A concrete, admonishing finger that God misinterprets. The ceremony begins. As a voice comes over the sound system, the man's thoughts drift back sixty odd years, to a beach in France at night...
This is an excerpt of a piece The Sky is Falling, based on some past Remembrance Day ceremonies I've been to. In particular, the image of a frail, older veteran standing in the rain while the ceremony unfolds around him.
The Sky is Falling
by: Harry Tournemille
Nov. 11/ 2007
The body is old. Hunched shoulders drawn down in the rain. They'd be arched in the sunlight too, the graveness of gravity. At one time they were straight. Broad, strong anchors for the torso. But the body ages and is now old. The awareness of age does not help. In the rain, the man is rooted to the ground. A feeble apple tree, split and worried with years. His brow a permanent furrow, the earth of his face turned over with age. And wisdom. His jacket is buttoned, hat perched on the side of his head. Medals weigh down his breast. They hang from curled ribbons that mock the man's shape. He dislikes them, their gaudy brassiness. They do not remind him of another time, of smoke and fire and confusion. Their memory is born of fabrication, the allusion to a time that did not exist in the temporal. They remind him of nothing at all. On any other day he keeps them in a small, pine box at the back of his sock drawer. Today they weigh him down, pull his heart to the saturated earth. The place where they belong, where he belongs one day. The body is old. But not dead yet.
Atten-hut!
He snaps to attention. Autopilot. Chest out, chin down, eyes fierce for a moment before they retreat into thought. He feels the host of bodies around him dance the same. Unison, the great deceptive cadence.
Right Face!
The man pivots, graceful. His foot claps the asphalt, joining the percussion of all the others. A person he does not know stands next to him. Her dark rimmed glasses appear to squeeze her eyes closer together than what is natural. But the beauty of her youth is not lost on the man, her pixie mouth and high cheeks. She leans towards him and whispers.
They really should have those new fandangled gadgets for us to ride on.
How's that?
Seg-ways they're called. Two wheels and we could still turn to attention. My grandson has one.
It requires an inhuman amount of effort to suppress a smirk. And he after all is human. He shakes his head at her and she winks.
Well, I'd like one at least. I'm no spring chicken, y'know --but I used to be.
For-ward...March!
In unison they move, tired limbs swing, feet rise and fall. Less smooth than the last time. But no one notices. As the man marches he clenches and unclenches his left hand. He tries to relax his shoulders. The cenotaph at City Hall is only two blocks away and he wonders if he'll make it. Will his body fail in this postured line of duty?
He tells himself this is it. No more marching. Been saying that for years now. By Christ his hip hurts. Out of the corner of his eye he notices a homeless woman pushes a shopping cart, her mouth moving in phantom conversation. She stops as the veterans pass, raises a half-empty bottle of rice wine in salute. Her mouth pulls apart in unpracticed smile, exposes fragments of what few teeth she has left. Missing teeth. Who was it that lost his teeth that night? Louis? No --he was alright. Stoned out of his mind but alright. Louis Sutton had a nickname for everyone; called the man Frankie-boy. The marching has stopped. Stand at ease. The charcoal cenotaph points to the grey sky. A concrete, admonishing finger that God misinterprets. The ceremony begins. As a voice comes over the sound system, the man's thoughts drift back sixty odd years, to a beach in France at night...
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