Part 2 of Ray Bradbury's Inadvertent Writing Prompt

February, 2012

Here's the Raymond Chandler quote again, in case you missed it from the earlier post:

“You have to write the way you see things. I tell people, Make a list of ten things you hate and tear them down in a short story or poem. Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them. When I wrote Fahrenheit 451 I hated book burners and I loved libraries. So there you are.” 

Ray Bradbury 

You sent me some great hate lists, and now it's time to list ten things you love. I think what comes after that is something that you create from both lists. In fact, let's have a contest. Send me what you "tear down" from your ten hates and what you "celebrate" what your ten loves -- a short story, a play, poetry, a prose poem --and I'll read it. Hell, if you can write a novel really quickly with this prompt, do that and send it to me! I'll pick out the one I like best, post it here and send you a copy of my friend Brittany's new novel Angel Food. I've been meaning to review her raucous book, unlike anything I've ever read with an almost old-fashioned sense of story and plot and characters, yet so twisted in sensibility that your head spins in the best way, making you feel at once invigorated and breathless with anticipation. Oh, and the characters become as real as anyone you've ever met but are at once completely surreal, both terrifying and irresistible. How's that for a mini-review? If you're not going to win the contest, you need to click on over to Amazon and buy it and read it for yourself. You'll thank me for telling you to do so.

Here are ten things I love:

1. the moon
2. the word and the color cerulean
3. fat and tedious novels written about characters in the nineteenth century
4. those three children in that old photo up there
5. pizza, pasta and yellow cake with dark chocolate frosting
6. California and its temperate weather with no humidity
7.  men with wicked senses of humor
8. Van Morrison's voice, especially when he sings "Astral Weeks"
9. Yosemite Park
10. a stack of books not yet read with a few slim books of favorite old poetry mixed in

Your turn --

Vesuvius in YOUR Home

I've told ya'll about the new e-book publisher, SheBooks, right? They'll be publishing a bit of my writing in the next few months, but right now, right this instant, they've published my dear friend and writer extraordinaire Brittany Tuttle's (of Vesuvius at Home fame) novella. It's called Stone and Spring, and I have already downloaded it on my Kindle and read about half of it last night before finally having to go to sleep Like everything Brittany writes, it's gorgeous, tight -- lyrical and intense. And like nothing she's ever written (that I've read) or that's been written, maybe, by anyone, it's at once deeply feminine, childlike and just this shy of brutal. I felt, reading the first half or so, like I was unwinding a spool of film -- black and white -- the images transparent and haunting, an undercurrent of violence. But, hey, I'm not even finished with the book. I can't wait for tonight when I'll climb into bed and finish it, come up for air.

Go over to Shebooks.net and order yourself a copy.








P.S. That film analogy was a careful one -- I can imagine some unwitting person reading it lightly and then realizing that they're holding the next great independent film.