Thursday, July 31, 2008

Don't let August be your slump month

Have you written and submitted your work yet this summer? June and July have blown away, leaving only the dusty days of August. When the sun glares through your windows, and steam rises from your tomato plants, don't glare back in exhaustion. Park yourself in a cool spot and write so darn fast you'll generate a breeze.

In the July/August 2008 issue of Poets & Writers, Joshua Bodwell writes on The Art of Reading Andre Dubus. The essay refers to senior, the father of Andre Dubus III, who is most known for House of Sand and Fog. The son is quoted as having said this about his father's story entitled "Waiting."

The story, "... about the hollow ache experienced by a woman widowed by the Korean war, took fourteen months to write and was more than one hundred pages in early manuscript form. But when the story was published in the Paris Review, it spanned a mere seven pages."

Supports my theory of overwriting: Just keep producing. So go sit in the shade and write til August ends.

1 comment:

Lori said...

July was my slump month. Had I known going in, I'd have scheduled my vacation for that time. August is picking up madly here toward the end. It's as though everyone and his brother thinks Labor Day is the ultimate deadline.