Sneak Peeks by Louise Yeiser McAlpin

Moving Right Along

Published again!  I haven't the slightest idea why Newspaper Boy from my last entry intimidated me so.  I must have been ripe for a meltdown anyway, and simply read his comments at exactly the wrong moment.

I'm zooming about in hot pursuit of admission materials for Carlow University's MFA low-residency Creative Writing program.  If I am accepted, I will get to spend eleven blissful days writing and receiving instruction at Carlow's sister school in Carlow, Ireland, a golden and wonderful opportunity.  I'm hurrying the process along as fast as I can and have already submitted two essays to mentors at Pitt for their comments before my final rewrites.  A lick of a 41¢ stamp (or two, depending on the thickness of the packet) and then off I will go into the cold, snow and ice, to the post office's outdoor, drive-by mailbox with the slot that my car's side mirror always wants to bump.  Once I readjust my mirror, my next step will be to gather together and tweak twenty five pages of work, which I consider daunting, despite the strong encouragement and soothing reassurances from my current professor.  "Don't worry, be happy," he suggests, right?  Of course, right.

So off I go!  See you next week.

From Louise

M is for Meltdown

It began in my car, not far from the Starbucks on the corner.  It continued past the bank and down my street, and into my driveway, and during my wait for the garage door.  It continued after I was cocooned within the cement-block walls, the door closed behind me.  As long as I hid in my car, in the garage, no one in the whole world knew where I was.  I wasn’t really at home, nor was I really out.  Temporarily tucked into a safe place nowhere.

What was I thinking?  I had stripped myself naked, put the image on computer pages, edited and rewrote, edited and rewrote, edited and rewrote, and submitted the 4,000 words to the class's online bulletin board within the allotted assignment time.  It had been sitting there for a week, inviting peer review.  Peer, being the pivotal word.  I’m talking about a bunch of 20-year olds here.

I described my first real-life free-fall with no safety net.  A violent crime committed against me in my own home in the middle of the night.  Unsympathetic police, and friends who expected me to correct them.  A face that stayed marred and bruised for weeks.  A family who had no idea how to respond.  Panic attacks that struck without warning and sent me fleeing home to a fetal position in a bathrobe.  A life that seemed meaningless and foreboding, once the dust cleared.  I scratched and clawed my way back to normalcy.  The piece should have made a reader cry.  “If I can have these experiences and survive, you can,” I paint into each word.  “If I can find my way back, you can.  These things happen to normal people.  We are together.  We must have compassion for one another.  Compassion, no matter what.”

“You need to figure out which parts of your piece make for a good story,” was the comment that set me off.  “I want to hear more about how you slept with a revolver under your pillow and popped xanax in the bathtub.”  Clearly, he missed my point, which reflects on my ability as a writer.  I gave descriptions of horror against hope, never leaving the reader long to linger in the shadow places, but giving relief as soon as I could.  The juxtaposition was meant to be startling.  The story was in the evoking.  I wanted to bring the reader into the feelings with me.  But this 20-year old journalist who thinks he’s a creative nonfiction writer will never figure me out and he’ll never figure out my writing.  His youth and arrogance and lack of emotional involvement prevent it.  "Shakespeare's writing is alright, I guess," I heard him say once.  The meltdown happened anyway.

So back to my original question: what was I thinking?  I don’t know.  I was just doing what I do.  Writing.  To celebrate and mourn the human experience from my vantage point, and share it with a reader, with readers, with whomever will read it, to the best of my ability.  So how important is this one critique?  Not so very.  As soon as I figure this out, I’m back on my feet and on my way.  Experiencing yet another episode that will pass.

Monday Cheer

Six Sentences continues to dazzle.  40 finalists for the last 6S contest, topic Mixed Drinks, can be found here.  Great writing, clever and witty.  Feel free to read it straight up or on the rocks.

On a more personal note, one of my pieces has been accepted for the spring publication of Flashquake.  I am taking this warm glow and applying it to my day's writing, which will not be posted here, but instead will be handed into class  tomorrow.

So forget about the Monday blahs.  Read and savor!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Valentine's Day is happenin' at 6Sentences.

Check it out:

creepy

cool

hot

ironic

Still waiting, in a heartfelt, valentiny sort of way, for my Muse; although I admit that today I am feeling much better, so I know he/she/it's around here somewhere.  While I search, why don't you have a happy Valentine's Day!

From Louise

Uno Schmuno

I skipped my New York trip this year in an effort to get a rather hefty credit card debt under control, I am sick in bed and I'm feeling quite sorry for myself.  No muse in sight.  So I wondered what I had written about Westminster in previous years and figured out a way to show you, right here.

The 2008 Westminster mastiffs competed yesterday afternoon.  To get an idea of the power, beauty and regal bearing of this breed, I can't recommend this video highly enough.  Breeders Nancy Walker and Mary Alexander, who must be in seventh heaven right about now, swept Best of Breed and Best Opposite Sex with two littermates.  Congratulations to them and all the winners!

Now.  Back to bed to get rid of this flu . . . .

A Two-Pointer

Point 01: The Mess That Mustn't

What happens when a busy writer goes into a writer's groove that lasts for days and days, where she can miraculously type 120 words a minute, has whole volumes of synonyms and action verbs and luscious adjectives doing the electric slide in her head, and she doesn't want to leave her computer, can't eat, can't sleep, won't train her mastiffs, won't answer the phone, doesn't do her laundry, can't pay her bills, etc, etc, etc.  The picture on the left pretty much says it all, tells it like it is, sings it, sister.  As of this writing, The Mess has mounted so high, has accumulated so many under-layers, has swallowed up so many bills and pieces of papers and notes to myself and has become so menacing, I feel that the only way to approach it is with a sledge hammer, a Bobcat or a wrecking ball.  Or perhaps a .45, a shotgun or a small nuclear bomb.  Don't know.  Still in the assessment and planning stage.  Next week or next month, when the demolition and reconstruction have been completed to my satisfaction, I might show you the "After" picture.  Of course, then again, I might not.

Point 02: The Little Panthers That Could

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, the University of Pittsburgh Panther basketball team was mantra-ing on and off the boards and in and out of the locker rooms Thursday night before and during the big Backyard Brawl against arch rivals, WVU Mountaineers.  I was on my way home and eagerly turned on the radio, assuming the game was over and I'd catch the score.  I heard the announcer bemoan all the Panthers' lost chances to put WVU out of the game, tie up the loose ends and go home a winner, but no such luck.  Things looked bleak.  I stopped the car in the driveway to catch the last few seconds, hoping that Pitt could tie the game and win in overtime.  It was 52-54, Mountaineers winning.  We had the ball.  After a timeout, with barely a fraction of a second left on the clock, Ronald Ramon threw a 3-pointer that went in as the buzzer rang, 55-54, Panthers.  The crowd went so completely insane, I couldn't hear the announcer.  I listened for a while, grinning like a maniac, before remembering that I had a car full of groceries that needed to be unloaded, so I pulled myself together, regained my senses and went about my evening.  I love games like that, games with those explosive, dramatic last few seconds that take a person's breath away with the sheer courage and gut-wrenching wonder of it all.  It was definitely the finest moment I have ever spent in suspended animation in my car in the driveway―a most excellent moment to be a Pittsburgher.  As an extra bonus, the Penns won too.

I hope you enjoy an uncluttered, most excellent weekend.

From Louise

P.S.  Has anyone seen my cell phone?

Perfection: The Problem

Here’s the thing about being perfect.  As the Patriots so painfully and poignantly illustrated last night against the Giants, there’s only one way to go: down.  And down they went.  Remember when I wrote that I didn’t know who I would be rooting for on Super Bowl Sunday?  I thought I was irresistibly pulled toward the prospect of a perfect season, with its record-breaking, earth-shattering, momentous statistical relevance occurring in my lifetime, on my watch.  Wow.  Heady stuff.  But then I turned the game on.  And there it was, on my screen, in my own family room, up close and personal. Why, I kept asking myself, am I rooting for the Giants?  As previously reported, I love underdogs, especially triumphant ones.  Apparently I have a thing for Mannings too.  They’re cute as a button and they look exactly alike and not only are they both football players, they’re both quarterbacks, and not only quarterbacks, but back-to-back Super Bowl quarterbacks, and not only back-to-back Super Bowl quarterbacks, but also back-to-back Superbowl quarterback MVPs.  So, to my surprise, I rooted for New York.  And like most other people watching, I thought that the two last drives resulting in the final two touchdowns of the game were some of the greatest football I’ve ever seen.  A true fight to the finish, with guns blasting and flags flying, each play executed with heart and gusto.  It was incredible.  It was awe-inspiring and you simply have to see it, if you didn't catch it last night.  So here is Tom Brady's stunningly perfect touchdown pass in the final 2+ minutes of the game (go to TOM BRADY HIGHLIGHTS, fast forward to 4th quarter, 2 minutes and 45 seconds, Patriots 10, Giants 7--perfectly executed, the Giant defense missed it completely) that had me convinced the Patriots were going to win it, and there also is Eli Manning's miracle play which convinced me otherwise (clicking on the previous link automatically takes you to the Eli Manning miracle play).  And the Patriots reminded me, as people often do, that my annual New Year’s resolution to strive for imperfection is a worthy one.  There is infinitely more potential for positive outcomes in imperfection, any way you look at it.  Unlike in perfection, in imperfection, it is possible to change toward success.

The Brevity Man Speaketh

The average twenty-year old, by no fault of his own, doesn’t want the hard truth.  He still wants to be reassured.  He wants to believe that the answer is simple: if we act well, things turn out well; if we act badly, we are punished.  It is only when we get older—most of us, that is—that we’re able to understand with any depth just how arbitrary, unfair, mysterious, odd, and slanted is that thing we call reality.

--Dinty W. Moore, posted on Inside Higher Ed, 11.30.07