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"For sale: baby shoes, never worn." -Ernest Hemingway

Personally, I find Hemingway's famous six-word story extremely inspiring, efficient, and full of pathos. It does what a good story must--connects to the reader's own sense of common humanity and relies upon that sensilbility to fill in the background of the story. There are few stories that can blossom from those six words that wouldn't touch us, move us--and that is, to my mind, an amazing feat.

Because of that, I try to hone my own craft by looking into what Hemingway did and learning from it, then shaping my own stories from that understanding, with the same six-word limitation. Here are a few of today's renderings:

"The puppy licked his unmoving hand."

"The wedding band chafed her finger."

"He shoved her forward, then died."

"Wedding invitations, unsent, brought fresh tears."

To be sure, these are lacking detail that could flesh out the story that I see in my mind's eye, but when I go back to it, so is Hemingway's. I like the last of these best, if only because it has the same sort of rug-pulled-out feel as what Hemingway wrote. Honestly, you could simply revise his story to read "For sale: Wedding dress, never worn." and it would be almost as good. Though there's a particular pathos about the unrealized baby that resonates, I think, more than the unrealized wedding.

So, gentle reader, have you ever worked on this particular challange? Or are there other exercises you really enjoy in the quest to improve your writing? Or just for fun?

This will, undoubtedly, come as a huge shock, but I'm really not using my LJ very much these days, having toddled off to Facebook where I happy wile. Thus, when my LJ informed me that it was about to take good money out of my bank account to maintain the "paid" status of my account, I gave it the thank-you-very-much-but-no and leapt bridge-diver style off the paid bracket.

Not sure what functionality I'll be losing--it was a year ago since I've had that setup, and to be honest, I'm too lazy to go check LJ's level descriptions to see. I doubt very much it'll impact y'all.

Here's my commentary:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Parse that.

For those of you who email me via the '@livejournal' connection, please know that I've just disabled it. I've gotten an enourmous amount of spam (in Russian) recently, and discovered just now that it is coming in through my livejournal account. At any rate, if you don't already have my email addy and need or want it, just drop a comment under this post and I'll get it to you.

As I noted in my last email, I went off the map for a while there near the end of December. I was getting fed up with myself for being unable, unwilling, or simply too damn lazy to get anything done. I didn't wait for 2009 to assemble a list of what I had to fix, but in keeping with the season, and given that we've just crossed the magical boundary of self-betterment, I thought I would take a moment and share my list.

Sean's Goals for 2009

__Eliminate Credit Card Debt
__Pay Off Student Loans
__Run a 5K race in less than 20 minutes
__Run a 10+ mile race
__Get in shape:
_____Weigh 135 lbs
_____Bench 150 lbs
_____Abs defined
_____Size 29 waist
__Finish and submit 6 short stories
__Finish Glimmerfolk (novel)
__Take Kat on at least one date every month


That's the list as it stands now. There are other goals I have, but once I saw this one piling up I thought I should try to limit myself to these. If it's April and most of this is done or close to it, then I'll revisit it--it's not just for 2009, obviously, though it's all stuff I want to have achieved within 2009.

I won't go into specifics on some things (how much I owe, what constitutes a date, etc.), but I thought I would make a note or two on a few of these. For instance, "Get in shape" is a perennial favorite, and not just mine. I knew I needed to specify what exactly constituted being "in shape", so I set some specific, measurable points that I can reach. Once all of those are met, I will consider the overarching goal achieved.

Staving of other questions: Yes, I used to run regularly, and I should damn well be able to reach sub-20 minutes for a 5K. Yes, my bone structure permits for a 29 inch waist--it's my eating and exercise habits that don't, so those have to change. Yes, those are six different short stories, not just one submitted to six venues.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns about my mental stability? Have at it!

What is up all my fine feathered flock o' friends?!

I'll tell ya what's up: my self-imposed banishment from the Intarwebs, and with it, my mood! I cranked out the rest of "Silvertongue" this morning, and tonight it goes to Wyrdsmiths. I is writer again! (Well, at least, I is writING again...)

Thanks to all of you who sent notes of hope and help over the last couple of weeks--it's truly apprecaited to know there are folks out there who would miss me if I fell off the side of the earth. Conveniently, the Earth is round again, or will be come January 20th, so falling off the side will require more momentum than a po' writer like me is likely to be able to muster with my meager resources and the government stranglehold on sufficiently strong booster fuels, but hey, I'll be happy with my lot in life as it stands.

Anyway, I'll save my goals for 2009 for another post, but for all who were hanging on by their bitten fingernails, go ahead and let the other shoe drop--I'm back, and this metaphor stew is damn tasty!

So, I have fallen into the Pit of Despair(tm) that is Facebook(also tm), and find that manymanymuchoalot of people I know, both now and from decades ago, are on there. In just one day I had something like thirty people connect with me, some that I haven't talked to in maybe... 13 years?

Also? It is like crack.

So I've got a short story idea that I'm going to work off of that. I'm very excited about it, but that means I have to hurry up and finish the other short story that I've been working on, because after just one more short story (this one that is purty-shiny-new), I have to get back to Glimmerfolk, the novel I've been hiding out from for a few months now.

Worried about the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt moratorium on buying new books? Don't be. Lagringa has chill pills.

Your result for The Ultimate TRUE IRISH Test...

Finn MacCool

You scored 91 Common Sense, 78 Irish Facts, and 94 Irish Soul!

Take The Ultimate TRUE IRISH Test at HelloQuizzy

Which is a long (and vaguely inappropriate) way of saying: I'm back!

The last three months have been a long and vigorous trip, but very enjoyable. The Coen brothers and their entire cast and crew were a pleasure to work with, and I will miss the energy and excitement. But I am happy to be done, and to return to normal life. And to return to writing.

I'm sure I've missed a ton of what's going on with all of you--thank you all for bearing with me as I disappeared and bobbed to the surface over the last few months. That said, what is going on with y'all? I want to hear whatever you want to tell.

It's invigorating working on the movie, but uffda with the tired. Onsite 5:30 am to 8:00 pm makes Sean sleep with purposeful intention. Not long enough, but oh so deep.

Yes, I did just make sleeping sound dirty. Whatcha gonna do about it?

I likes me the coffee this week, though, I tell ya! Speaking of which, reading back over this, it looks like I'm still a little punchy.

More coffee.


ETA: And I still managed to go vote this morning. I'll reiterate what's showing up all over your flists today--Go Vote.

Yeah, that would be large, there, then.

Wants.

In other news, the Coen's crewfolk are building the Biggest LightRack Evar in my synagogue's sanctuary for next week's shoot.

Oh, and it is awesome to be able to walk onto an active set in the middle of a shoot and walk up to the Coens and have them simply say, "Hi, Sean" as if it is perfectly normal that I am there. And this is not at my building, yet.

Yet.

Bwahahahaha!


P.S. Pictures of said lightrack will be forthcoming, I swearz.

I cannot recommend strongly enough that everyone go read this piece by Tim Wise on how White privilege is defining the tone of this election.

Today was a whole brand new kind of awesome.

Today was my first day on set as the Hebrew Coach for the Coen Brothers' new movie, A Serious Man. One of my first tasks was to review the scene as written and suggest revisions or rewrites. I did, and Ethan thought they all looked good and accepted them. Then, after about an hour of coaching the actor (who makes a great-looking teacher), it was film time. And there I am, perched right next to Joel and Ethan Coen behind the video monitor, giving them a thumbs up or down about the progress of the actor on the pronunciation of his lines. The guy was a saint--I mean, we changed 50% of his scene on him maybe an hour before bringing him in to run rehearsal on it. But he hammered away at it, exhausted as he was, and we got a few shots in the can before quitting time.

I've got another two days on set doing more of the same, and then it's back to the synagogue office for me--and back to prepping for the High Holidays! Rosh Hashanah is one week from tonight!

I went for coffee this morning at Brewberry's, one of our local indie coffee shops, wearing my Schrödinger's cat t-shirt--with an open jacket, so only the front was showing. (For anyone unfamiliar with Schrödinger's cat, you can read more here.)

There was the usual coffee-shop banter going on behind the counter. The young woman at the register (say mid-twenties?)--clearly new at the job, judging by her unfamiliarity with the register--and the the barista (also in her mid-twenties) were hen-pecking each other in that friendly jibe-and-take so normal to coffee-shop jive, so I didn't pay much attention.

As she handed me my mocha, though, Barista asked me, "What does your shirt say?"

Immediately, Register said "It says 'Schrödinger's Cat is Dead'."

Barista got a quizzical look, like she wanted to know what that meant. Halfway to explanatory, I offered, "That's only the front. There's the back, too." And I turned around and lowered my jacket so they could read the back: "'Schrödinger's Cat is Not Dead'."

Without missing a beat, Register said, "But how could we know that? It's hidden inside your jacket."

All I could do was grin.

When my life is boiled down, when all of the extraneous pieces are stripped away and I am left only with myself, what remains is my desire to write.

When I'm done simmering, I'll explain. Just know that I will keep writing, always.

Or, at least, one could read this article toward that interpretation. At any rate, it's awesome to see people developing futuretech that is truly designed to help others.

...at least, they always say that at my local cinema when they're trying to get you to muzzle the crying baby and obliterate the cell phone.

And I have to say, my silence here has been, in some ways, a lack--but it has been golden, too, because now I can share some news with you that I have been hording like a squirrel faced by an impending ice age.

The Coen brothers--and yes, by that I mean Ethan and Joel Coen, winners of this year's Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars--came by to see me. Don't believe me? Look:



Turns out, the synagogue where I'm the Executive Director is just the right location for a bunch of scenes in their next film, A Serious Man. Over the last month or so, we've been working out the details on their use of space, the timing of their visit, meeting the various members of the crew, etc.--the details that always come with this sort of rental. Today we signed the location agreement, so it's official. They are coming here to film.

Can somebody give me a HELL YA?!