Writings of Stefon Mears

With so much going on, find my own writing time is tricky right now.  Some of it I can cull from my workshop time, since I have to have material to submit periodically.  That’s not the same, though, as sitting down and working on my own stories for their own sakes.  I guess it’s just one more juggling ball to keep in the air.  Who knows?  It may make me more efficient.

Anyway, having less time for my own writing has also given me a new appreciation of short short stories, also called flash fiction.  Though I may not have as much time to spend on my novel-in-process or some of my short story ideas, I can usually find time to play with a smaller idea.

Sometimes these ideas are the stories themselves, but other times they are games with the craft of writing.  Here’s an example: I looked around online to find out more about the 369, a short short story form invented by my craft instructor, Bruce Holland Rogers.  The idea is to write three, related sixty-nine-word short pieces, tied together by individual titles and an overall title.  Once I understood how it works, I wanted to play with it.  The trick in writing something that short is making every word do double or triple duty to pack in as much expression as possible.

First a bit of background about the subject, then the experiment itself:  twice each year my wife and I spend three-day weekends at local RPG conventions, DunDraCon and Pacificon (or whatever the latter is calling itself these days).  At these conventions we mostly play Live Action Roleplaying Games (LARPs).  Once upon I time I played exclusively tabletop RPGs, but over the last few years I’ve found the average level of roleplaying, and my enjoyment of the games, significantly higher at the LARPs.

Some of the friends we’ve developed in the LARP community we only see at these conventions, and several of them are good enough to put in the time and effort into creating the games we play.  I wrote this for them.

Twice a Year

by Stefon Mears

Writer’s Block

The blank page loomed before him, taunting him with its concealed glories: characters, plots, sub-plots.  Among the treats lay a story he would stage and others would enact.  A sip of sweet nectar and the ideas began to coalesce, dancing somewhere between the stories he had designed and those he would someday concoct.  Amigos would revise his work, scouring the details, but first he must defeat the blank page.

The Loophole

Plots, plans and sticking points had been checked and re-checked.  He and his amigos had prepared well, and he faced the room full of friends ready for any eventuality.  Well, almost.

“She did what?”

His amigo shrugged, handed him a beer, and told him again.  He took a long drink of Bonita’s Finest and shook his head.  “You know what?  Fuck it.  It’s a creative solution.  Let her roll.”

Tuesday Morning

Paperwork menaced from his desk.  Messages pressured for replies.  Meetings stalked his precious time, intending to devour it whole.  Bureaucracy surrounded him, threatening to murder his spirit and leave him a corporate shell.  He raised a shield formed of the weekend’s memories: games, friends, stories and good times.  He drew forth the sword of his anticipation; another such gathering glistened on the horizon.  He smiled and his enemies trembled.

I came back from the residency excited, inspired, happy, and completely unready to return to my regular nine-to-five job. We were given the week off from assignments, and that helped a lot in giving me time with my wife and cats. Going back to my desk job, though, almost felt like some sort of punishment: “He has seen the Bright Light of the Divine! Chain him to . . . the Desk!”

For better or worse, reality quickly reasserted itself. All was not lost though; like any mystical experience I returned from the moment of enlightenment a changed man. I saw improvement already in my writing, and also the directions it could grow and evolve.

It could be argued that I still sometimes overwrite my prose. Whether this is deliberate or accidental in my blog posts is left as an exercise for the reader.

Among the points of inspiration was the realization that I should not be waiting to begin submitting stories for publication. In fact, Flash Fiction Online has already turned down one of my pieces (which is fine, since it may suit Glimmer Train’s style better anyway).

It was one of the speakers in the Profession of Writing class at the residency, a title=Kelli Russell Agodon href=http://www.agodon.com/Kelli Russell Agodon/a I think, who said, “When someone rejects one of your stories, all it means is that you’ve eliminated them from the list of publishers you were considering.” I’m pretty sure that’s paraphrased, not a direct quote, but I like the sentiment: all a rejection letter means is that someone else gets to publish the story.

Oh, and submit something else!

During the dinner break on Day Three, I was asked to introduce David Wagoner during that night’s faculty readings.  Having a lifelong habit of shyness I wanted to beg off, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t hold myself back in this program.  I said yes.  Of course, I had no idea what was involved in this kind of introduction and I knew nothing about this man who turns out to be one of the great American poets.  I asked him if there was anything he particularly wanted me to mention.  He said, “No, whatever you want to say will be fine.”

Uh huh.  So all I have to go on is what’s in the residency bio.  As my father would say, “Easy this game.”

I couldn’t tell you how many readers preceded him that night, or who they were or whether or not I enjoyed their work.  I was too busy nervously stressing over what to say.  I felt blank, like I was sure I would get up there and just spew forth whatever gibberish happened to come out of my mouth.  “Tonka trucks!  Wrist bands!  Ampersand!  David Wagoner!”  I’m sure that would have gone over well.

There is, however, one great advantage to being raised by attorneys: when cornered my mouth will frequently know what to say before I do.  Just before I went up, I remembered my first image of David, an unknown older man coming to dinner late with books under his arm.  I took it as my lead and improvised.

“I first met David Wagoner, oh, almost seventy-two hours ago.”  The entire room laughed and I immediately relaxed.  “I wondered who this man was, walking through the dining hall carrying a stack of books.”  Murmurs, proving that I was right – this was a common image of him.  “I began to notice that every time I saw him, he had a stack of poetry books with him, and each time it was a different stack.  So if you find yourself wondering what it takes to publish ten novels (etc., more bio information), it is this level of devotion to your craft.  Ladies and gentlemen, David Wagoner.”  Applause, and compliments for me on a job well done.

Back to my chair to collapse and try to pay attention to the readings.

By the way, I wasn’t lying.  I really had noticed those things, I just hadn’t put it together in my head until I was talking.

When I decided the time had come to pursue an MFA I had no idea how many programs there were out there.  There are hundreds, and it seems that more are starting up every day.  To call it daunting would be an understatement.

I quickly cut the field in half, maybe more, with a single stroke:  my wife was in nursing school.  This meant that I either had to go someplace local or try my luck with a low residency program.  The local programs in the San Francisco Bay Area looked good, but commuting twenty miles to work, then  twenty more to night school, all while trying to do my homework, continue with my martial art, and still sleep and spend time with my wife?

Wouldn’t leave much of an opportunity to get to know my classmates, would it?  Low residency it is then.

This brings up what I think is the most important consideration when looking into an MFA program:  figure out what your needs are first.  There are no real ratings systems for this.  Each program is going to have its good points and bad points, so decide up front what’s important to you.

For me, what I wanted came down to these points (not in any special order):
It had to be low residency so I could keep my job and continue training and teaching Capoeira.
It had to be affordable (prices are all over the place).
It had to allow for cross-genre study.  I want to explore creative nonfiction at least.
A teaching option beyond giving a single lecture would be a plus.

Once I had these squared away it got easier.  I’ll spare you the tedium of my research process.  I brought it down to five programs I thought might fit me, one of which was the favorite.  I applied to all five, got into two (and waitlisted on a third) and . . . went with the favorite: Whidbey.

Why was Whidbey the favorite?  I liked the structure and feel of the program.  I liked the rate at which alumni were publishing.  I liked that “The Profession of Writing” is part of the curriculum and a required course.  I liked what I could find out about the faculty.  Plus I had a great conversation with the program director when I called for more information.

Thus, as confident as I could be about a major life choice, I signed my letter of acceptance.