Two Sentences Tuesday

The rain was blowing hard from the ocean, coyotes started hauling in the distance; leaning against a rock, with the cliff descending steeply towards the water, Kate wondered whether she'd get out of this place in one piece. Dragging her injured ankle, she tried crawling through uphill through the mud towards the trail, hoping to avoid the fate of her companion, who lay motionless at the shore. 

The Women of Mystery encourage blogging two sentences on Tuesdays. Those are my first two sentences. Maybe, the story leads to something? I cheated a little by using a semicolon.

On Poetry

Poetry is a strange animal.

Reading poetry for me needs a lot of attention, and I find it hard to read and enjoy it with my usual impatient mind.

The poetry I like has been set to music. What I don't like reading, I like singing, listening to.

The change of speed, and the added expression when poetry and music merge brings poetry to live.

 

Clarity of Night 2010 Writing Contest

In the Graveyard
(my entry to the contest, see details below)


Good, I made it before the gate closes. The graveyard is such a wonderful place at twilight. The view over the town and the Bay is exceptionally spectacular tonight. The fiery sunset behind the mountains is breathtaking, and reminds me of the unimportance of my own being and dramas. However, this place also confronts me with my deepest fears.

A large bird flies above me. Is he looking for prey, or is he like me just enjoying the quiet evening?

Am I the prey or the hunter? I thought I escaped you, but still you hunt me as if you were alive. Stay under your stone, and don’t bother me!

Why didn’t we stay friends, play in the fields, and dream together about a future of getting away and exploring the world? I loved you, and I trusted you.

Why did you turn against me, forcing me to kill you? You did this to yourself, you bitch! You didn’t let me love you as you promised me!

I taught you, now you know that you didn’t suffer enough. Don’t you worry, I’ll live.

Debra is just wonderful. Soon she’ll keep you company, and then you are not alone anymore.

What a wonderful evening, reconciling with my little girl. Time to go home.

“Are you leaving, we are closing!”

Thank you officer, have a great night, (and a gruesome morning)!

About the Clarity of Night contest

The Clarity of Night blog owner Jason Evans is sponsoring the Silhouette Short Fiction Contest for short fiction inspired by a picture that he provides. The picture depicts a bird (raven, craw, eagle, ?) flying at twilight through branches of wood.

I am not new to writing itself, but until now, I have mostly written scientific publications, which are completely different animals. With the exception of a number of weird poems in German, written in times of depression and despair a long time ago, my contribution (also pasted below) to the contest is my first serious effort on writing creatively.

Here are a few things that I learned from this exercise:

1. It is good to have a concept of a story before starting to write
2. Don't be surprised if the concept changes drastically as the writing goes on, because it develops on its own, and doesn't necessary go where it is supposed to go
3. Don't give in to the temptation to add cheap effects (I should have omitted the last few words).
4. This is fun!

I didn't make it to the top group, but it is a good start, and I learned from the comments and especially from Jason's criticism.

Gender of Mystery Writing

My last post raises the question on gender in fiction-writing. I for one tend to try an unknown female writer more easily than a male writer. This is on some level quite illogical, since my favorite writers include a lot of males, like Lion Feuchtwanger and Klaus Mann. 

However, for mystery writers, I always think I prefer female writers because they more often write from a female point of view, and frankly, not so many women die. However, there are a lot of male mystery writers, most of them Scandinavian, that I just love (e.g. Henning Mankell,Stig Larsson), and a lot of female writers that I got tired of (Anne Rice: too religious, Patricia Cornwell: too obsessed with serial killers).

Which brings me to the latest mystery I read: M.R. Hall's The Coroner. 

Great book, complex plot and background story, totally from a woman's point of view. Good thing the author decided to use his initials only. Otherwise, I'd probably not have picked it up. I am looking forward to reading the sequel. 

The Coroner's protagonist is, surprise, a coroner. Since she just starts out in this position, she teaches herself, and the reader, on the duties and rights of the coroner as needed, and as the investigations proceed, a point of view that I knew little about before I read this book. 

The combination of the crime story, and political issues like private prisons and the difference between punishment and rehabilitation, together with a background story of a woman struggling with mental issues, makes this book a wonderful read. 

The Gender of Writing

I just came across a blog post on copyblogger from
James Chartrand.
James is a successful freelance writer, making a good living from it. When his blog, that is essential for him to get writing jobs, made the top ten list of writer's blogs, and additionally somebody outed him, he decided to go public about his/her gender.

This writer has chosen a male name for economic reasons. With a male name, she could get more and higher paid jobs. With a male name she got more respect from clients. With a male name the clients were happier with her work. Working under a male name enabled her to provide for her children and become financially stable.

This in itself is a wonderful example on how much work there still is cut out for feminism. Additionally to the article from James, the comments and related blog posts are quite revealing.

Reading James' blog, and a blog post from Tiger Beatdown (http://tigerbeatdown.com/?p=671),  raises the question whether it is really just the name change that made James so successful. The blog design makes a distinctly male impression. James created a whole male persona by making references to his (either invented or modified) real life. Many posts include sexist remarks.

Since it is common for bloggers to write about their personal life, and the followers feel like they know the real person, be familiar with it/him/her, the creation of a persona would in my opinion help getting jobs and income. But does it have to be so blatantly male and sexist?

There are several things that come to my mind:

• James got a kick out of being perceived as an alpha male
• James rejects her femaleness secretly
• No matter what, this is in retrospect a great social experiment
• Will the writing and the perception of the blog change now?

I am looking forward to further writings from James.