First Meeting Summary and Next Meeting

Hi everyone,

We had our first meeting last friday, yay! There were 7 of us there and we did two 30 minute chunks of writing plus had some discussion about how to structure future meetings.

Here's an update on what we discussed about logistics and on how to structure future meetings (those present, please feel free to correct me or add something that I may have forgotten to mention here):

1. Most people were comfortable with an evening time slot - looking at the schedules of everyone present we found that wednesdays from 4:30 to 7:00 would work for most people. People can, of course, stop by after 4:30 or leave early as per your convenience.

2. We thought it would be neat to have one short story from our anthology to read and critique as well and to may be sandwich it between two writing sessions. We randomly picked "The Management of Grief'" by Bharati Mukherji for August 20.

3. It would be convenient to move this to a yahoo group so everybody can post and its way easier to facilitate. Future meeting times and dates will be announced on the blog website as well for those that still check in there. I manage another yahoo group for work so can set one up for us so we can get that going soon.

And finally - we decided to meet twice a month on wednesdays - Dana Street Coffee co. in Mountain View seemd to work well for everyone so the next meeting is on:

August 20, Wednesday from 4:30 - 7:00 PM at Dana St. Coffee Co. in Mountain View.

It was great to see everyone - we actually ended up getting a good table and a good spot that day - hope that continues at Dana St. Coffee co...hope to see all of you at the next meeting!

-Humaira

First "Jumpstart 08" Peninsula/South Bay Coffeehouse Writing Group Meeting

Hi all,

So here's the date and time for the first meeting:

Date: August 08, 2008


Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM (people can leave early if they need to or come in later as well - it does help though to have some people show up on time even if people leave early afterwards).

Where: Dana Street Roasting Company
http://www.danastreetroasting.com/

744 W. Dana Street

Mountain View, CA
94041

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=744+W.+Dana+St.+Mountain+View+CA&sll=37.402619,-122.083941&sspn=0.03225,0.10231&ie=UTF8&om=0&ll=37.39263,-122.078598&spn=0.007876,0.020084&z=16

The expectation is that we'll do chunks of our own individual writing - with chat/snack breaks in between. So may be 30 to 45 minute writing times with 15 - 20 minute breaks. Also, right now we've got three hours scheduled but I dont expect that we'll use all of it efficiently - so please don't be intimidated by the three hour chunk - we can also, of course, finish early but I thought it would help to commit to a certain amount of time to begin with. We can tinker with that once we get this going and get somewhat regular with it.


Hope to see some of you there!

Monday July 14 on KQED's Forum: The Future of the Short Story

FYI:

Mon, Jul 14, 2008 -- 10:00 AM

email reminder

The Future of the Short Story
The short story is a powerful and beloved medium -- but there are very few mainstream outlets that publish short fiction. We discuss the future of the short story with a panel of writers and editors.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:

Molly Giles, short story writer and professor of fiction writing at the University of Arkansas

Pamela Feinsilber, literary and arts editor for San Francisco Magazine

Tobias Wolff, author and creative writing professor at Stanford University

Tom Jenks, co-editor of Narrative Magazine.com, a free online literature magazine

Collage

I liked this exercise.  My mind went places I wasn't expecting it to-though I wish I'd been more prolific...

The smell of sizing was making me nauseous.  The clothes were piled high, bright skirts, skinny jeans, dresses with too many hooks; my arms shook as I struggled to see the correct departments to dump them off.  Wasn't it break time? I was suddenly conscious of my under arms.  The sale was in full swing now, and the customers or "clients" depending on department, were scampering from rack to rack like rats in a cheese maze.  There was one top that I coveted-a soft orange blouse, low cut with small, knotted brushed gold buttons.  Last I checked there were two in my size, but employees weren't allowed to put anything on hold.  As I went by, searching for the object of my desire, I saw a swarm of women near the blouse rounder.  It had been picked clean.

She looked out the window, trying to focus on something that wasn't morphing like Gumby on acid.  She needed to be near a tree, or a fire hydrant-a mailbox, anything solid and static.  The complete opposite way she was feeling.  Joe offered his hand-it was too hot and clammy-which made it worse.  Monica thought of the fresh scent of Jasmine, of cool, pristine waters in the South Pacific, and of root beer popsicle.  She could eat close to five in a single sitting.  The car took a sudden right hand turn and knocked Monica into the hot window.  It seared her cheek like a piece of Ahi tuna.  Strands of brown hair stuck to her lip gloss.  Ahi tuna.  Rotting fish that beetles and worms slipped through and ate ravenously before voiding their little bug bowels.  That was the image she needed.  "I'm sorry," she squeaked and threw up all over Joe's lap and shoes.

"Ha!"  He says to himself.  "The finally caught the son of a bitch."  Chelsea would be relieved.  Not that he didn't like walking her to her dorm-that was the gentlemanly thing to do, but sometimes, after many beers and a couple of go's with Chelsea, her pink breasts bouncing wildly on the top bunk bed, he was pretty beat.  Randy turns up the TV.  The reporter says that not only did they catch the purse snatcher, but they actually found his stash.  Then the reporter, who is pretty hot, starts to snicker, her tight blue suit coat creeping up toward her small, perky breasts.  She says that this guy, Elmer Shrader, has particular taste in fashion.  He only stole purses of the highest quality, the trendiest colors, the best shapes, the finest leathers.  "Apparently Mr. Shrader likes to wear them," the reporter, Maria Valez says.  "He's matches them up with all his dresses and high heel shoes."  

Thank you, katharine and lovely classmates

Hi, I will have to leave class quite early tomorrow, so I just wanted to say thank you so much for this wonderful experience. Katharine, I'm so amazed by the quality of your teaching and feel very fortunate to have been a student in your class even for a short time. And what a fascinating group of people you all are, with such engaging and varied ways with language and so many wonderful stories to tell. 

Suzanne, I will try to find out when exactly Z.Z. Packer will be speaking on campus and let you and the rest of the class know.

All best,

Phaedra

I remember Simla

I remember the first visit to Simla, a city, in the Himalayan mountains. It was winter. I was four years old and my brother was three. In winter there was snow all around and the majestic peaks were snow capped. My mother said, “Do you know the word Himalaya is a Sanskrit word. Him means snow and Alaya means home. Those peaks we saw in the distance are covered with snow all year round.”
This dream trip to Simla from Delhi began when, at night, we boarded a fast train to Kalka called, naturally, Kalka mail. We went to sleep in the compartments on the train that were furnished with sleeping berths. Our servant spread our bedding that we carried with us. In winter it consisted of a cotton stuffed mattress and quilt that we brought from home all rolled into a khaki canvass hold-all that was tied together with leather straps and had thick leather handle to carry it with. when we woke up we arrived at Kalka, a city, in the foothills of Himalayas.
We then had to walk to the other side of the station over the foot bridge where the railcar waited for us. This was a cross between an old fashioned fifteen seat automobile and a train. It had a gasoline engine, but wheels that went over the narrow gauge train tracks. There was no room for any bags except carry-on and the first class passengers. This was one of the perks my father got as an Indian railway officer. Hence our baggage came separately on a passenger steam train with our servants and other staff that worked for my father.
The trip was spectacular as we steadily climbed from about five hundred feet to 7000 feet through some of the most spectacular country. In the higher mountains the farms were in the form of terraces in which villagers planted rice, wheat, and other grains. We loved to see apple, orange, and peach trees which were so different from the mango, tamrind, guava, and neem trees in the plains.
The temperature got steadily colder as we reached snow level, my mother would bring out our sweaters and coats. But for the life of me I cannot remember either the color or the texture of my coat. Although I am sure it was of pure wool as there were no synthetics available then. My mother had knitted us sweaters, woolen caps, and scarves that were called mufflers in British English. She had a black woolen coat on which she had embroidered beautiful red and gold mirror work on the pockets and around the neck and the front lapel. It had big black buttons on the front that went through the loop on the other side.
I remember so clearly there were 99 tunnels through which we went. My brother and I counted them with my mother while my father stayed busy with the paper work from his office. Half way to Simla we stopped at a rest house where we ate hot lunch and used the rest rooms.
The Simla station was a small one that curved around. The place we stayed was the railway guest house just above the station. My mother supervised the caretaker giving him money to go to the store and get provisions. There were no automobiles allowed in the city. We had to walk everywhere.
One day we went for a long walk. My mother had bought a wooden board with a curved bottom that she pulled as a sled on the snow. When we got tired she would let us ride on it. However as it was heavy and she had to be sure she didn’t slip on the ice underfoot, she only let us ride if she was convinced we couldn’t hack it. My brother, being younger, was luckier in this respect.

Layering Exercise

I found this to be a challenging exercise and am not even sure I did it correctly.  I took a scene from a story I'm writing which just had a dialogue b/w two men and find that it is much richer with the layering, so I'm fairly happy with the results:

After we'd been dating for a few months, one night Hector told me he was bored.  I was in the kitchen making chicken with mole sauce, one of his favorite dishes.  The garlic, onions and chocolate were sizzling in the pan and I turned on the fan so the smoke wouldn't set the alarm off.  I held a glass of chardonnay in one hand and a spatula in the other. 

Hector was on the futon in front of me watching the game, a beer in one hand and the remote in the other.  Any minute, I expected the neighbors to bang on the wall complaining about the noise.  Maybe they were out of town.

"I'm bored," Hector yelled over the TV.  The commercial with the frogs saying, "Bud Light" was on.

"Bored?" I asked, not quite sure if I heard him correctly.

"Yeah, bored!"  he repeated, but louder.  I noticed he didn't turn the volume down.  "I want to do something exciting."

I stopped mixing the mole sauce.  "We can go out if you want - there's this new place in the city that I've wanted to check out."  I suggested this even though I'd spent over an hour yesterday looking up recipes for chicken with mole sauce, had gone to three grocery stores for supplies and had even done a trial run last night with my sister. She had loved it and thought Hector would love it, too.

"Not that.  That's boring," he said.  He turned off the TV so now the only sound in the room was the fan and the sizzling pan, which now sounded louder than ever.  The chocolate sauce was starting to smell like it was burning, so I added a little water.  "I want to do something exciting."  He gave me this look like I should know what he was talking about.  But, I didn't.  Was he talking about bungee jumping?  Sky diving?  Going to Infineon and driving a race car?  Before I could answer the phone rang.  It was my sister.

"Soooo?"  This was her way of saying, "How's it going?"

Hector turned the TV back on at the same volume as before.  I had no choice but to leave the kitchen, dooming the mole sauce to the trash can, and put my finger in my ear in order to hear Maria.  Guess we would be going out after all.

"We haven't eaten yet and actually I don't think we will," I said.  "He says he's bored."

"What?  You think he wants to break up?"  My sister was my relationship counselor.  She's always been a sounding board for me.  I remember when I first questioned my sexuality.  I was a freshman in college and found myself attracted to my male lab partner.  She was also there for me when my parents threw me out.

"I don't know.  Maybe."

"You deserve better, Jorge."

"I don't want to lose him, Maria.  I think I'm in love."

"Hey Jorge!" Hector yelled from the living room.  "When's dinner going to be ready?"

To be continued...