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tanaiseJust back from lunch with Tim, Serena, and Karen, as well as a lot of us. It was unplanned, at least the getting them to come with us part--we ran into them as we were leaving, and coaxed them to come with us to the coffee shop, being as the food here is so appaling. And it was a blast. Tim (Hi Tim!) had read my live journal, and we were talking about Declare and some other of his books for a bit on the walk out, and about places around here--they've taught here a number of times, and about ducks, and why worms don't drown.
And we had a nice noisy lunch with lots of author type talk. One of the boys had his story critted today, and I was reminded by some of the comments of the discussion we'd had with Geoff about the idea that the job of prose is to disappear, the job of poetry is to stick around. When we discussed this in class, no one seemed to get the fact that it's nearly impossible to remember exact words from a novel. I've read Last Call way too much--Tim was talking about driving from LA to Las Vegas, and I not only knew that was Last Call, but also that the car he drove was the car in the story. :)--but I don't remember paragraphs from it. I probably can't quote anything from it. But I can remember large chunks of poetry from all over the place. off the top of my head. And I want that to be the way people remember my stories. I don't remember character names, I don't expect others to, but I love just sort of running over and over scenes in my head. The fat man's fear of the desert, for example, was playing over and over in my head.
There can be poetry in prose, but in the end, it's got to still be prose, or we lose the story, or the idea that there is a story, and we end up with words on a handful of paper. But I think I've already dwelt on that before. So I'm going to go try and put some more freaking detail in my current story, so people will stop yelling at me for that and have to give in and tell me it's absolutely perfect. The word for my critique will be 'luminosity." Okay? everyone use it when they critique, and I'll be so happy.
And we had a nice noisy lunch with lots of author type talk. One of the boys had his story critted today, and I was reminded by some of the comments of the discussion we'd had with Geoff about the idea that the job of prose is to disappear, the job of poetry is to stick around. When we discussed this in class, no one seemed to get the fact that it's nearly impossible to remember exact words from a novel. I've read Last Call way too much--Tim was talking about driving from LA to Las Vegas, and I not only knew that was Last Call, but also that the car he drove was the car in the story. :)--but I don't remember paragraphs from it. I probably can't quote anything from it. But I can remember large chunks of poetry from all over the place. off the top of my head. And I want that to be the way people remember my stories. I don't remember character names, I don't expect others to, but I love just sort of running over and over scenes in my head. The fat man's fear of the desert, for example, was playing over and over in my head.
There can be poetry in prose, but in the end, it's got to still be prose, or we lose the story, or the idea that there is a story, and we end up with words on a handful of paper. But I think I've already dwelt on that before. So I'm going to go try and put some more freaking detail in my current story, so people will stop yelling at me for that and have to give in and tell me it's absolutely perfect. The word for my critique will be 'luminosity." Okay? everyone use it when they critique, and I'll be so happy.
