Failure

I took a break from my WIP today, and spent the morning working on a short story.   I'd already written fifteen pages or so about this character (a secondary character from a previous, still unfinished WIP), mostly backstory.

Today I made this character return to his hometown for a funeral of a woman he was close to in his youth, to see what would happen.  But after a morning of writing and thinking, I'm no closer to the story; I haven't even gotten to the funeral yet.

A smart writer would say to give the story more time and thought.  Yes, but I wish I could write more efficiently and productively.   So many writers seem to crank out stories quickly, but maybe that's an illusion -- when I read a story in a literary mag, I have no way of knowing whether the story took three weeks, nine months, or six years to write.   Or maybe some people are fast learners and fast writers, and others, like me, are just slow.

So to Speak journal

My short story "Flight" has won first place in So to Speak's fiction contest.  It will run in the fall 2011 issue.  I'm glad this story finally has a home, and just as glad that I can stop revising it.

And still the snow falls...

April 4: more snow.  This photo is from about a week ago, when the new snow looked pretty with the maples turning pink at the top and the hills turning green.  Now it's snowing again, and it's just messy out there.

Another snow day in New Hampshire

I should be writing on this snowy day, but instead I'm daydreaming about summer and gardening. This photo is from late last spring, mid-June, before everything gets out of control.

But today the snow continues to fall -- 6, 10, or 12 inches total, the weather reports say.  Ah, April in New Hampshire.

Novelist Stewart O'Nan

Novelist Stewart O'Nan will read at Gibson's Bookstore in Concord this Sunday.

Here's Ron Charles' recent review of O'Nan's new novel Emily Alone.  And here's a link to O'Nan's amusing, telegraphic timeline ("How I became a writer when I used to be an engineer").