Category: Literary Matters

Restarting the Writing Habit

John Winkelman

Over the past two months my reading and writing habit has dwindled away to almost nothing. What free time I have, I tend to spend paying SimCity on my phone, instead of improving my craft. I have no specific reason for this change in behavior and routine, other than that, with my COVID shots, a certain tension released, and I think all of the stress and burnout which I had kept bottled up came to the surface and began to dissipate.

And that was exhausting.

But now we are in the beginning-to-middle of June and I have many things I wish to accomplish this year, writing-wise. I want to complete the first draft of the novel I started last year and abandoned in November. I want to start sending out poems for publication again. I want to polish up some short stories and send them out into the wild.

All of these goals take time, focus, and mental energy. And while I don’t have a lot of extra time in my days/weeks/months, I do have enough to do a fair amount of writing if I put my mind to it. I just have to put my mind to it.

There are also external factors. There always are. We are not perfectly spherical writers of uniform density in a vacuum. We are fragile and fallible. We are social animals, and those slings and arrows didn’t magically manifest out of nowhere. No matter how much we try to isolate ourselves from the world, the world still exists.

Behavior changes from higher energy expenditure to lower energy expenditure are a lot easier than going from low to high. But such changes follow the same framework. First get out of the habit of doing the old thing, then get into the habit of doing the new thing. This applies to any deliberate (-ish) change. Not doing a thing is not the same as doing something else.

So for me, in this circumstance, I am slowly getting out of the habit of not writing, and getting back into the habit of writing. To encourage this behavior I am transcribing the three dozen poems I wrote during National Poetry Month in April. I also plan to start actively taking notes on the books I am reading, as I am reading them, with the eventual goal of either posting the notes, or writing book reviews, or both. While these tasks are not the creative practice I wish to eventually return to, they are part of the craft of writing and use the same muscles.

Two months is not a lot of time as the crow lives, but it is enough time for atrophy and entropy to take their toll on unused neurons. I am 52, and almost certainly have more life behind me than I do ahead of me (although at least one close relative has lived to 99 years old…). While objective time is not moving any faster today than it did yesterday, I feel a subtle yet growing sense that time is a resource which is not to be squandered, and the sense of urgency I feel to get to work on things ironically saps my mental energy and makes it more difficult for me to get to work on things.

Thus the importance of habit and routine in this practice. I don’t need to be perfect, I just need to improve, or at least not backslide.

All of this takes work and attention.

Getting back into a habit is more work than maintaining the habit.

It’s Beginning to Look a Little Like Summer

John Winkelman

Books acquired in the week of May 30, 2020

The week off from work recharged my batteries somewhat, and I am back at my desk, writing and debugging code with a fresh sense of ennui. Seriously. The big take-away from my week off was the realization that I need more time off. Not that I have Things To Do (although I do), but I realize I am now fully in the emotional hangover stage of the last year (pandemic) and the last four years (Daddy-issues Donnie the mobbed-up white supremacist sexual predator in the White House). Because of the damage done, the world is still on a downward trajectory, but the angle for the moment is more gentle and may in the next few years level off at something which approaches stability, with a possibility of improving for whoever survives to 2030.

This was a good week for acquisitions for the Library at Winkelman Abbey.

First up is a pair of “best-of” anthologies I ordered from Coffin Bell right after they accepted my short story “Occupied Space.”  These books have been buried in the vaults of the USPS for months, and have finally made it to my doorstep. And they are beautiful! The editors at Coffin Bell produces some quality work, and I’m not just saying that because they published one of my stories.

On the right is the latest issue of The Paris Review. I really need to start reading these, or cancel my subscription.

In reading news, I am about 40 pages into The Cybernetic Hypothesis and already it is filling me with a subtle sense of dread. First published in France in September of 2001, the text feel prescient in the way in which it describes the ubiquity and inevitability of systems of control in all of the living spaces of the world. And as with everything else in the world, it is inevitable that such systems will be monetized. And twenty years later, these systems are so embedded in our cultures and societies that talking about them feels akin to talking about the weather.

I am a little over 100 pages in to The Ten Thousand Doors of January, and I absolutely love it. I will post more thoughts when I finish, probably around the middle of the month.

In writing news, I don’t have much to report. I jotted down a couple of story ideas, looking for ways I can write high-magic, secondary-world stories which deal with surveillance capitalism, cognitive capitalism, carceral capitalism, and the like. In other words, yeah, I probably need to narrow my focus a little.

The day is beautiful, slowly transitioning to scorching, and we have plans to cap my birthday weekend with oysters and Bloody Marys. Thank-you to everyone who posted birthday wishes on the various social media platforms. I have had a wonderful weekend.

IWSG, June 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?

This is a complicated question to answer. A quick look through my archive shows that I have well over a hundred poems, three dozen short stories, partial or complete drafts of five novels, and a score or more of creative nonfiction pieces, essays, and research projects, all awaiting my attention. These works range in age from a couple of days to over three decades.

How long I shelve a draft depends entirely on the time I have available to revisit previous work and the level of energy I have when I have the time. Time and emotional energy do not often coincide, so a first draft which I complete at a furious pace may sit on my drive untouched and gathering virtual dust for years.

To date, I have published one short story and three poems. I completed the final draft of the short story three years after I wrote the first draft. The poems were about two years old when I sent them out into the wild. I sent each piece out to at least half a dozen magazines before they were accepted, and in some cases I subjected the piece to another round of edits after a rejection.

I don’t think writing experience plays into the amount of time a piece stays on the shelf. I have been writing off and on for thirty years, and I therefore have some pieces which have been gathering dust for thirty years. And I am not the same person I was when I wrote some of those older pieces. And the world is not the same as it was when I wrote stories and poems in response to specific events and ripples in the zeitgeist. A politically charged poem which was objectively good but very of-the-moment may never see the light of day again, unless events repeat themselves, or at least rhyme closely enough that the poem is meaningful again.

Currently I am editing a short story which started its life as a chapter from a literary fiction book I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2018. Three or four other chapters in that book could work as standalone short stories. And I still intend to complete and revise the book, so the work I do on the short stories derived therefrom will in turn benefit the completed text somewhere down the road.

I consider a backlog of shelved work to be a sign of a healthy writing habit. If an old piece is not worth revisiting, it can be considered a storehouse of ideas and memories which can be pulled out and remixed to create something new. But it is important to reread your old work from time to time. Doing so can put you mind in a place similar to where it was when you first created the work. It can remind you of what was going on in your life when you wrote the piece. And when you reread you can see how much you have progressed as a writer from the day you first put those words on paper. You can be your own inspiration.

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A Week Off

John Winkelman

Books acquired in the week of May 23, 2021

I was on vacation for the past week which, thanks to COVID, meant I did largely what I do while working, except without the working part. I did take a good long walk on Monday, from my house near downtown Grand Rapids, all the way around Reed’s Lake and back home, with stops at Argos Book Shop and Common Ground Coffee House.

It was a good week for reading material here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey.

First on the list is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, which is soothing balm on the brain after a hard day of writing code.

Next is Robert Kelly’s A Strange Market, published by Black Sparrow Press, which I picked up at Argos at the end of my long walk. I love the old Black Sparrow books, back when they were an independent publisher rather than an imprint. The rough covers are part of the appeal and the aesthetic.

Next is Obits. by Tess Liem, which I also picked up at Argos. I had never heard of Liem, but a quick and random read of a couple of the poems herein convinced me that this would be a good impulse purchase.

Next is Maze by J.M. McDermott, from my subscription to the catalog of Apex Book Company.

Next is Mohamed Kheir’s Slipping, translated by Robin Moger, from my subscription to Two Lines Press.

And finally volumes 1 and 2 of The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism. I picked up volume 3 when Zyra and I visited City Lights Books back in summer 2018 and, since I can’t abide incomplete sets, completing the collection seemed like a good birthday present for myself.

In reading news, I finished Arkady Martines’s A Memory Called Empire and it was wonderful! I don’t remember the last book I read which had such deep and subtle political intrigue. I appreciated Martine’s use of the narrow lens of the single viewpoint character (albeit with some branches due to a very specific technology central to the plot). This kept the sense that the machinations and machinery of empire are vast and a single person can only see a small fraction or a single facet of the whole. I will need to reconsider some of my own writing in light of the experience I gained in reading this books.

I also finished Darran Anderson’s absolutely magnificent creative nonfiction book Imaginary Cities. Anderson explores ideas and the mythology of cities, and how they live in our stories, dreams and imagination, rather than the hard numeric facts. This means that Neil Gaiman will be cited next to Le Corbusier, and the stories related by Marco Polo and Samuel Taylor Coleridge will be given equal weight to the news feeds of current and historical events. Every page of this book contains passages good for multiple writing prompts, and as with Martine’s book above, but for quite different reasons, I feel I need to revisit some of my own writing based on the influences herein.

With those two books complete, I am now reading The Cybernetic Hypothesis, written by the collective Tiqqun and published by Semiotext(e). And for fiction I just started The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. I am not far enough into either to form an opinion, but I have read enough to be intrigued and to keep going.

In writing news, not much is happening. I am slowly transcribing the thirty poems I wrote in April, and much to my surprise some of them have promise. I will probably be working on this task for the next few week as I return to work and summer distracts me with the option of being outside and away from a computer. I also started editing a literary fiction short story I wrote a couple of years ago, as part of NaNoWriMo. I think I will have it in shape to send out before the end of summer, assuming my energy level and attention span return to what they were before I received my COVID vaccinations.

One day, having the time and mental capacity to write regularly will be such a regular part of my life that it will not be worth mentioning. But today is not that day.

Down Time

John Winkelman

Books for the week of May 16, 2021

After almost six months without a meaningful break, I am taking a week off of work. My vacation will run from Monday May 24 through Memorial Day. Ten days off. I haven’t had time off like this since, um, this past July. Sure, I had time off during the winter holidays, but that isn’t really down time as such.

Two books arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey this week.

On the left is the Situationist International Anthology, edited and translated by Ken Knabb of the Bureau of Public Secrets. I first became aware of this book back when I worked at the bookstore, in the early nineties. I’m pretty sure one of the clerks ordered it, and I think it stayed in the break room for a long time, eventually ending up on the remainder shelves and possibly “liberated” by someone some years later. Recently I was reading something online, as one does, and the Situationist International was mentioned, and that brought back the memories of the Anthology.

On the right is Worlds of Light and Darkness, an anthology of the best of Dreamforge and Space & Time magazines. A combined anthology is an interesting concept, and seems a good way to introduce readers of the one magazine to the writers in the other. Perhaps other small journals could take note of this book and produce their own collaborative collections.

In reading news, I am still slowly making my way through Imaginary Cities and A Memory Called Empire. I am enjoying both immensely, but life stresses this past month have taken the energy right out of me, and there are days where I can’t read more than a page or two without either falling asleep or losing my focus. I am in dire need of a reset, and I hope that the upcoming week off, in which I plan to walk a lot, visit the woods and dunes and beaches of West Michigan, and spend quality time with my girlfriend, will give me the space I need to recover.

In writing news, it is much the same as for reading. No mental energy to apply to anything except getting through the day. Again, I have high hopes but no plans for the next ten days. I could set goals, but if I didn’t meet those goals I would only feel, on my first day back to work, that I had wasted my vacation.

So I will write as I feel inspired to write, and not force myself to meet arbitrary goals and deadlines. I do that enough at work.

I’m In With the In(oculated) Crowd

John Winkelman

Books for the week of May 9, 2021

As of two days ago, I am two weeks past my second COVID shot, which means, according to the CDC, that I am fully inoculated, or at least as inoculated as one can get against things which continually evolve in response to our interactions with the world. We are well into the Anthropocene, and the scene is getting dangerous, what with the continual and inevitable responses to our actions upon the parts of the planet that are not us.

This was a good week for acquisitions here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey, thanks in large part to the arrival of rewards from a couple of recent Kickstarter campaigns.

First is the Spring 2021 issue of Peninsula Poets, the journal of the Poetry Society of Michigan, to which I had accidentally let my subscription lapse. Things are back in good order now, and just in time to serve as writing inspiration going into the summer.

Next is another Kickstarter reward, Whether Change: The Revolution Will Be Weird and Cooties Shot Required, both edited by Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski of Broken Eye Books, who publish very well-made anthologies full of good-to-great writing on a variety of topics.

On bottom left is the latest issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, which is consistently just a damn good read.

On the bottom right is Fantastic Lairs: Boss Battles and Climactic Encounters, from a recent Kickstarter. I have put money toward several games on Kickstarter in recent years. Though I haven’t played in a long time, the ideas in the rule books, the world building, tactics, and strategies therein make for good study and good writing prompts.

In reading news, I am just over a hundred pages into Arkady Martine‘s A Memory Called Empire. I haven’t completed enough of the book to form a solid opinion, but I am really enjoying it so far. For nonfiction I am slowly working through Darran Anderson’s Imaginary Cities. Though well over a hundred pages in, I am tempted to go back and start again, this time with a notebook nearby. I have not read anything like this book. It is a survey, a history, a meditation, a treatise, and it reads like poetry. At less that 20% through this book, I think it will be one of my favorite reads of the year. Highly recommended.

In writing news, not much has changed from last week. I still feel kind of brain-dead from the effects of the second vaccination shot as well as *gestures at the world*, though the effects of the shot have mostly worn off. The world, not so much. But warmer days means mornings on the porch will soon be viable, and when that happens I hope to hit the ground running with several hundred thousand words of prose by the end of the year.

Or maybe a couple of poems.

Or somewhere in the middle.

The Lefty Books of May

John Winkelman

Book acquisitions for week of May 2, 2021

After an extremely quiet April, the Library of Winkelman Abbey has hit the ground running with a fine collection of books and journals for this, the first week of the new month.

On the top left is Jericho Brown’s most recent book of poetry, The Tradition, published by Copper Canyon Press. This was an impulse buy when I visited my favorite local indie bookstore, Books and Mortar, this past Sunday. I first heard of Brown only a couple of weeks ago, when one of his poems arrived in my in-box via one of the several poem-a-day lists to which I subscribe.

The book in the top middle is The Essential June Jordan, published by Copper Canyon Press, which coincidentally  includes an afterward by Jericho Brown.

On the top right is the latest issue of Jacobin, which one of these days I will get around to reading, when my brain can handle political/economic deep thinking. So maybe in June.

On the bottom left is the new issue of Salvage, which I will read when my brain can handle really depressing political/economic deep thinking, which is probably a redundant phrase.

Bottom center is an inscribed copy of Hummingbird Salamander, Jeff VanderMeer’s new book, fresh from The Midtown Reader in Tallahassee, Florida.

And on the bottom right is James Attlee’s Under the Rainbow, a collection of writing and photography from the first year of the pandemic (and isn’t that a hell of thing to write – the first year of the pandemic), published by And Other Stories.

In reading news, I just finished Evan Winter’s excellent The Rage of Dragons, which was exactly the escapist literature I needed to let my brain cool down after the past month of dense prose.

I am still working on Darran Anderson’s Imaginary Cities, which is gorgeous, but my mental capacity is currently nearly nonexistent so I can only read a couple of pages a day. Still, I hope to complete this book by the end of the month.

In writing news, still not a lot going on. Too much of the mundane world pressing on that part of my brain. I have some vacation time scheduled for the end of the month, so with luck that down time will help reset my circuits.

With luck…

IWSG, May 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

Has any of your readers ever responded to your writing in a way that you didn’t expect? If so, did it surprise you?

That is a good question! I haven’t published much – a few poems, a couple of short stories – and the readers have not responded one way or another. In fact, I have been published so seldom that when it does happen – and this assumes that there was a reader somewhere in the process – the fact that I got a response at all is a surprise.

Insecure Writer's Support Group BadgeThe Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

One Third of the Year, Gone So Soon

John Winkelman

Ivy flower

On Friday, the last day of April, I received my second COVID-19 vaccine shot (Pfizer). I felt fine until Saturday afternoon after kung fu class, at which time my energy level crashed and I developed a fever and I crawled into bed and slept for several hours. As of now things appear to be back to normal.

This was another week in which no new books arrived. April in general was an extremely slow month for the Library at Winkelman Abbey, with only five new volumes added to the shelves. It isn’t often that my reading outpaces my acquisitions.

In reading news, for the last week of April I finished Anders Dunkers’ collection of interviews Rediscovering Earth, which I must revisit soon with pen in hand so I can highlight all of the wonderful ideas and copy down all of the books cited therein.

I also finished  David Meltzer’s No Eyes: Lester Young, a book-length jazz poem or collection of jazz poems in tribute to saxophonist Lester Young. This was published by Black Sparrow Press, back when Black Sparrow was independent, rather than an imprint of a larger publisher, and when their books were immediately recognizable by their rough covers and muted color palettes.

In writing news, I finished out April having written a poem a day, every day for the entire month. It felt really, really good to have my head in that space again. I will try to keep up the pace, while also balancing the writing with editing, transcribing, and writing some new prose as well. The calls for submission never stop, and the deadlines approach.

And with that, I will leave you with the groovy tunes of Lester Young and Buddy Rich.

Brighter Days in Many Ways

John Winkelman

Books for the Week of April 18, 2021

As of this week the quality of life in my neighborhood has improved immensely. A terrible neighbor, who had made it his mission to deliberately be as obnoxious as possible to the people around him, has finally moved away. While, like Rush Limbaugh, the tragedy is not his absence but rather his existence, I do have to thank him for giving me an immense number of writing prompts over the past eight years. I used to have a running joke that I could never write literary fiction because around 3,000 words in, Cthulhu would show up. In this case, when writing about this odious jackass, he was so awful that the Great Old One never appeared. One day I will publish these stories, which are more transcriptions of events, and other than slightly changing some names I won’t need to alter any of the events in order to make them an entertaining read.

All of which is to say, I am looking forward to the next several months of peace and quiet with cautious optimism.

Three new volumes arrived this week. On the left is Red Nation Rising, from a Kickstarter campaign run by PM Press. The writers describe it as the first book to explore the dynamics of violence of bordertowns, which they define as the encroachment of white/European settlers into indigenous lands. This is a definition of a border/town which I have never seen before, and it rings true. What settlers call a border, the indigenous populations would call an encroaching wave of apocalypse.

In the middle is the Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction issue of Uncanny Magazine, originally published in 2018. Uncanny has published a manifesto wherein they describe their rationale for the naming of this and the other volumes in the _____ Destroy series. It is quite a good read, and eye-opening for anyone who is not familiar with the changing world of genre fiction. And it is a nice poke in the eye for anyone who doesn’t like the fact that the world of genre fiction is becoming more open and exclusive.

On the right is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, which is a beautiful way to round out the last full week of National Poetry Month.

In reading news I am still working through a big pile of poetry books and journals, and it is wonderful! I will post the list on May 1. I am also still working through Rediscovering Earth, and quite liking it, though I have not had much free time to read this past week.

In writing news I am still keeping up the pace of at least a poem a day for the month of April. It feels good. Poetry is a muscle which grows stronger with regular exercise.

On Friday I will receive my second COVID shot. I look forward to being able to interact with other humans again. A little.