not a writer, friday

not a reader:

These links aren’t exactly new or anything. I think I’ve had this post in my drafts for two weeks.

A good story, in The New Yorker – not a new story, I clicked through to read one by Lorrie Moore, but ended up reading this older one instead: “Brother on Sunday,” by A.M. Homes. Love her! Just revel in this line for a moment. Has anyone ever written a better line than this?

“My brother is coming, after all,” he says. His brother, Roger, visits the beach once a year, like a tropical storm that changes everything.

Have to buy this issue of Tin House! (Issue #40) Charles Baxter! Amy Hempel! Joshua Ferris! Stuart Dybek! And poetry by Stephen King? OMG, get me one of these right now!!! Seriously, I might even brave taking Dylan to a bookstore to get one of these! (Dylan gets traumatic in bookstores for some reason – toy stores, fine; bookstores, meltdown!)

not a writer:

My novel isn’t dead, but in hibernation, still. It is not technically dead, no one checked their watch and said, “Time of death, 10:53 a.m.” Is it on life support, maybe? Or in cryogenics, to be revived at a later date, when its medical condition might be helped by future breakthroughs we have not discovered yet?

I started working on new a short story, actually. I never thought I would write one again, but I suppose “never again” is a pretty big statement to stand by. The penultimate short story I wrote was one that turned into the first version of my attempted novel. Then my last short story was the one that turned into my current version of my novel, which isn’t technically dead, yet. I totally need to stop doing that! This short story, I’m pretty sure, has no chance of turning into a novel. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.

But I started that story last week, and have not actually written anything “valid” this week. No, not a word. Did you ever have those kind of weeks where it ends up being Friday, and you’re like, wasn’t it just Monday a minute ago, and what have I actually done with these last five days of my existence? I’ve been writing the usual things, as well as some rants, some snark, some comments on facebook.

But “valid” fiction (“valid” = stories that might be sold and/or published to further my professional writing career), no, not really. Not this week. Maybe next.