January 22: "Creative Writing," Grant, John Green

Billy Collins teaches . . . 

Creative Writing

by:  Billy Collins

When I told a student

not to use single quotation marks

around lines of dialogue,

he told me that all our words

are already inside the quotation marks

that God placed around Creation.

I don't often get to teach creative writing at the university.  The administration saves "fun" classes like that for tenured faculty and grad students.  (Yes, you read that right:  grad students.)  So, I don't get to have interesting conversations like this one.  (By the way, the student in the poem is sort of correct, because, in Genesis, God speaks everything into being:  "Let there be . . . "  So, if you're a literalist, we're all just living words straight out of God's mouth.)

Today, for me, God said, "Let there be an NEA grant."  And, because I always follow God's commandments, that's what I did--worked on a grant.  All . . . day . . . long . . .

My mind and body are a little exhausted tonight.  I made a lot of headway on the grant, though, but it's not done yet.  As I worked on it, I kept thinking to myself, This is a waste of time.  You're not going to get this grant.  

When I first started working for the library, I naively agreed to write a $20,000 NEA Big Read grant.  It was so much work, and, when I finally submitted it, I thought that I had wasted 60 days of my life.  Four months later, I received an email from Arts Midwest with the following word in its memo line:  "Congratulations."  

A year later, I submitted another NEA Big Read grant.  This time, however, I actually believed I was a shoe-in for a two-peat.  Four months later, I received an email with the words "Case Number:  00031617" in its memo line.  Translation:  "Sorry, Charlie."

So, I'm batting 500 when it comes to grant writing, and the whole process has become an exercise in self torture.  By around 4 p.m. today, I was feeling more than a little defeated.  So, I went for a walk around the library to clear my head.  And that's when it happened.

As I was standing in the Circulation Department, my friend, Melissa, introduced me to a friend of hers, and I lost my mind.  It was John Green.  THE John Green.  John Green of Turtles All the Way Down and Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines.  Oh, also the John Green of The Fault In Our Stars.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I went a little fanboy all over him.  It was a pretty amazing moment.  For people who think that working in a library is not exciting, let me list a few other people whom I've met as part of my job:  Les Standiford, Natasha Trethewey, Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, and Alex Gino.  That's two U. S. Poets Laureate, the author of The Man Who Invented Christmas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and a bestselling YA writer.  

And now John Green.

I've been riding that wave since this afternoon, and I'll probably be riding it for the rest of the week.  Long enough to get me through the submission of the NEA grant.

Saint Marty has had a pretty good day after a pretty crappy weekend.

June 7: Case of Injustice, Weeping Teenage Girls, New Cartoon

"I see no difference," replied Fern, still hanging on to the ax.  "This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of."

Fern is near hysterics at the beginning of Charlotte's Web.  She's sobbing, yelling, basically doing anything she can to save Wilbur from the ax.  And, because Mr. Arable is moved by his daughter's emotional pleas (White writes that "[h]e seemed almost ready to cry himself"), Fern wins the responsibility of raising the little pig.

Last night, my wife and I went to see the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars.  It was the first date we had been on in a long time.  The movie was really well done, and the popcorn was fantastic.  The only thing that was slightly annoying was the theater crammed with crying teenage girls.  Not just sniffling teenage girls.  I'm talking full-on sobbing.  Chest-heaving, snotty-nose sobbing.  I barely heard the last half hour of the movie.  Then, when it was over, the girls congregated in the lobby, hugging each other, weeping as though they were all at a middle school dance.

That was my evening.  Movie.  Popcorn.  Hormonal crying.  Oh, and the sobbing girls.  Welcome to my life.

I've been thinking a lot about dreams recently.  Dreams are based on hopes, and hopes foster expectations.  In the past year or so, I've allowed myself to have expectations, and it hasn't worked out well for me.  I wish I could go through my life without expectations or hopes or dreams.  I wish I could just be satisfied with my life.  Unfortunately, I can't.  To be completely satisfied with my life, I would need to have no worries, and I'm a worrier.

I worry, so therefore I have expectations.  I have expectations, so therefore I have hopes.  I have hopes, so therefore I have dreams.

So, Saint Marty will continue to dream the impossible dream.

Confessions of Saint Marty

May 22: A Small Bug, Pizza and Chicken, Stars and Faults

And so, talking to herself, the spider worked at her difficult task.  When it was completed, she felt hungry.  She ate a small bug that she had been saving.  Then she slept.

Work is work.  Making a web for Charlotte is a difficult task.  It takes her an entire night to spin one of her miracles.  When she's done with her task, she's exhausted and hungry.  She eats a snack and then takes a nap.

That's pretty much the way I felt tonight when I got home.  Another long day at my new job.  It's getting slowly better.  I don't have to ask half as many questions, but I still have to ask.  Some things are simply not sinking in.  Again, I feel more like a hindrance than a help.

Of course, the reason I was so good at my last job was because I did it for close to 17 years.  That's right.  Almost two decades.  I need to cut myself some slack with this new position.  There is going to be no overnight miracle for me.  I need to keep trying and trying until I catch on or I'm booted out.

This evening, my book club met at my house to discuss The Fault in Our Stars.  There were no small bugs served at our potluck, but there was plenty of pizza and chicken and wings.  Oh, yeah, we also talked about the book, which everybody loved.  I finished it about 20 minutes before everybody showed up, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to process the ending.

I will say that I was very pleasantly surprised.  I liked it.  A lot.  The characters were sharply drawn, and the prose managed to be profound and witty at the same time.  I would recommend it to anybody.

Saint Marty would give it four stars and no faults.

No small bugs at our table

May 21: Gotta Read

Sorry, disciples.  Nothing deep or Web related tonight.  I have to finish reading The Fault in Our Stars for my book club meeting tomorrow night.

It's been quite a day.  Actually, it feels like it's been about two or three days crammed into eight or ten hours.  I am beat.  I promise something more inspired tomorrow night.

Saint Marty's thinking some nude selfies.  It seems to be working for Miley Cyrus.

I just don't get it.

May 20: Nothing Exciting

I have nothing exciting to say tonight.  No jokes.  No stories.  I'm too tired to come up with anything close to wisdom.

What I have tonight is Dancing With the Stars.  And The Fault in Our Stars.  Lots of stars, I guess.  Maybe I'll eat some Starbursts, too.  I think I hear starlings outside my window.  I don't like Starkist tuna.

Saint Marty's just wishing on a star.

I wish for a better day tomorrow

May 15: Loyal and True, My Book Bag, "The Fault in Our Stars"

Wilbur was merely suffering the doubts and fears that often go with finding a new friend.  In good time he was to discover that he was mistaken about Charlotte.  Underneath her rather bold and cruel exterior, she had a kind heart, and she was to prove loyal and true to the very end.

Wilbur is not alone in his feelings.  I find that I often suffer doubts and fears when encountering someone or something "new."  Today, I started a new job.  I met about 5,451 new people.  I remember about three of their names.  In my book bag right now is a new book, one that I've been avoiding for quite some time.  It's too popular.  Trendy. 

The book is John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.  I've been avoiding it because too many people have told me I have to read it.  Out of principle, I try to avoid books that have a following that resembles the Manson family in devotion.  Fears and doubts.  However, I've started reading Green's novel.

And I'm loving every word of it.  Hazel Grace Lancaster, the narrator, reminds me of Holden Caulfield in her utter disdain for normal pretense.  She's smart, dark, intelligent.  And funny as hell.  Her opening salvo hooked me immediately:

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

I love this girl.  She's the antidote for all the stupid, vapid heroines of most young adult novels.  You know, the ones who don't know they're beautiful and eventually fall in love with tortured boys who suffer from some sort of undead personality disorder.  Hazel's story is honest.  She knows that death is inevitable and forever is a fairy tale.

That's what I'm really appreciating about The Fault in Our Stars.  Of course, I haven't finished it yet.  But I don't think John Green is going to disappoint me.  Hazel surely won't disappoint me.

Saint Marty highly recommends this book.  Okay?  Okay.

Read the book.  You'll understand.

May 1: In My Book Bag, John Green, "The Fault in Our Stars"

OK, let me lament a little bit more at the beginning of this post.

I just spent almost an hour boxing up the belongings in my university office in preparation for my move to another office in a brand new building.  I have to say that I'm kind of tired of putting my life in boxes.  I did it all morning yesterday, and now I've done it again this evening.

So much of my life seems to be changing, and not for the better.  At least, I don't see any light at the end of this tunnel yet.  This weekend, I'm venturing into the lower peninsula of Michigan for another dance competition with my daughter.  And when I get back, it's my last week of work at the medical office.  It's going to be a rough few days.

In my book bag tonight, I'm carrying John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.  I have not begun reading it.  It's my trip book.  I have avoided this book for a while, despite glowing recommendations from people whose opinion I usually respect.  I don't know why I've been balking at reading this novel.  I guess I don't like being told I "have" to read anything.  That's why I never finished Moby Dick.

Anyway, my next post will be coming from bustling Howell, Michigan, which is very close to Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan.  It's going to be a long day of driving tomorrow, and my son is a little impatient as a passenger.

Pray for Saint Marty.

This is your life, Saint Marty