So I shuffled through the first-person stories I've written in order to submit to a contest and come to the conclusion that first-person is a tough perspective to pull off. Though if I'd been sorting through my third person stories, I'd likely have thought the same thing about that point of view.

The trouble with first person is that the voice so often becomes a predominant concern in the story, preventing the story itself from achieving depth. It seems as though the character, in telling his or her own story, is unwilling to examine closely the reasons for telling the story, and would rather babble incessantly about whatever comes to mind. In short, my first-person narrators are solipsistic. They don't care a fig for what anyone else in their world thinks about their problems. In fact, they don't care what they think about things, either. As long as they can keep juggling enough witticisms to keep the projected reader interested, why would they want to examine the real conflict that brings their voice into existence in the first place? Although framing the problem like this is simply another way of saying that I can't seem to get the narrative under control and figure out how to maintain both a consistent and lively voice and at the same time lay the complexities of character open to the bone.

On a minor and completely unrelated note, I happen to be terrible a titling my stories. Either a name affixes itself to the piece for unknown reasons or I suffer with a work-in-progress title, but either way, the process of naming is a difficult one for me. Things ought to come with their names attached. For me, that is how the best of my writing has gone. As for the worst, well, I'll just say I've settled for a workable title on this submission and ignored all consideration of whether the writing is itself my best or worst. I'd be happy with passable, right now.

*Note: Add this contest to my list of rejections.

Handwritten Note

It could be worse, I suppose. It must have taken at least a few seconds to write this sentence. So, for that marginal period of time, my story was more than just a blip in their consciousness. It was a mid-sized blip.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

I have to say, Glass is spot-on here. He talks about the gap between what you want to create and what you actually do create as being normal in the early stages of artistic development. He also gives a way to push through and overcome that gap (don't expect shortcuts, though, the solution is pretty much what you'd expect). So here's to work, volumes of it.



This is actually part 3 of a 4 part series of short videos. Check out the others here.

Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

- Billy Collins

Isolation

Often, I think that isolation is the simplest choice.

Then I reconsider, and think perhaps I would like to be

surrounded by fields encrusted with snow

on a high peak of the Andes,

shielding my eyes against the glare to find

a rope bridge twining itself across the span

of the untried, holding out a familiar path of escape.