Tag Archives: writing

236. The Psychology of a Sharpened Pencil

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She said, “You should write about this.”

“Huh?” I said. “I looked over from my seat at the kitchen table, where I had been scribbling away on my pad while drinking coffee.”

She held the pencil out to me, twirling it back and forth with its sharpened point, proud of her quick work with the battery-operated small plastic pencil sharpener she’d bought at the dollar store that day. In front of her on the table, sitting next to her mug of tea, was the folded pages of the newspaper open to the daily crossword puzzle.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“You’re always writing stories, right?”

“Right?”

“So why not the psychology of the sharpened pencil?”

“Ma, I still don’t get it.”

“What’s there not to get? And besides, has that ever stopped you before? I don’t get even half but maybe more honestly like 20 percent of what you write about anyway.”

“That’s a first,” I said.

“What about that piece with the mosquito?”

“What about it?”

“That’s what I’m saying. W-T-F?”

“W-T-F?”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, I know what it means, Ma, but what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you should write a story that has for its main protagonist a sharpened pencil. It makes as much sense as anything else you’ve ever written.”

“But what would happen?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “The pencil could be a smart pencil.”

“They already have those,” I said. “Pencils or pens with computer chips.”

“Whatever,” she said. “I mean a pencil with a brain. Or maybe the pencil is like the writer’s unconscious. And it could be trying to help the woman solve the necessary clues of her crossword before her son in another one of his so-called psychotic episodes approaches from behind her chair with a carving knife.” She paused to look down at the crossword. “Like this clue here,” she said. “What is the six-letter word that ends the story?”

I took this opportunity when she looked down to go over to the counter for a carving knife. ”MURDER,” I said from behind her chair.

“Gerald!” she gasped and simultaneously reached for her heart. “You startled me. What are you doing?”

I bent over to whisper into her ear, “Murder. That’s what you’re looking for.”

“What?! Sit back down. Don’t be childish!”

“M-U-R-D-E-R,” I spelled out for her, just to be clear, and tapped the knife against the crossword. “The six-letter word that ends the story.”

222. I WON MY FIRST BLOGGING AWARD!

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This morning I received an email from a certain “Effyoudie.” Effyoudie said that he was giving me the inaugural “Lover of Clichés and Much Overused, Unnecessary and Tired Adjectives for Blogging Bleh, and Really Your Gifts would be Better Served if You Cut Off Your Hands so as to Stop Torturing the World with Your Words that Show Nothing Else but How Very Very Stupid You Are Award.”

Needless to say, I am very excited. Feel free to meme me on this if you like, but I am a living testament to the fact that if you work really hard and set your eyes on the goal and continue no matter what to always shoot for the moon, you will, even if you miss, fall into the stars.

Today was a “star day” if there ever was one. Thank you “Effyoudie”! And a big thank you, too, to all of my stupendous readers out there who have helped make the dream a reality by continuing to support little bloggers like me with big ideas!

221. How I Bought of Book of Poetry

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How I bought a book of poetry by Gerald Stern

but for several years stayed away from poetry

in favor of the paragraph

and how the breakfast server at my goodbye breakfast

on my last day of work said:

“Have you been to Powell’s lately

and have you seen the roomfuls of books

and how could anyone think they could be a novelist?”

and how I laughed to myself then

and how I was still laughing a year or so later

after burning through an agent and all my money

in those golden months

and how I limped back to work a little wiser

a little tired a little angry a little sad

and how what is the question became the new question

and how my face went to screensaver

whenever my boss appeared in my cubicle space

and how everyone should try to cash in their cache

as I once tried to do

and how everyone should abhor the nights of virtual pubic hair

between the teeth

as I most certainly did

and how everyone should understand

that no matter how tight and true the filter

some SPAM still gets through

and how I should have said:

“How could anyone think they could be a breakfast server

in a town oversaturated with breakfast places?” —a line

that unfortunately came to me

only about two years after the fact

and how I found myself turning back to the poetry

as my great masterpiece in manuscript form

wept in my lap during my scheduled hour for lunch

and how if what I learned in the green chair

was my mother

then couldn’t I call Stern—

sweet ugly Stern (with all due respect)—my sad dad

or weeping father?

and how the feeling was like as if for the first time receiving

a blind carbon copy of the email thread

with the subject line Re: This is Your Life

and how I could see then—I am seeing

yet—that I might be birthed different than before

as different as different as my reply.

184. Dear Editor

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You thank me for thinking of your journal
or magazine. You thank me for submitting
my work. You thank me for entering
the contest. You tell me how many entries
there had been, and how, therefore,
competitive the pool, and most difficult
to judge. You thank me for continuing
to support small literary endeavors like
your own with its overworked staff in its
ongoing labor of love for no (or not much)
profit. But how do you expect me
to respond? You’re welcome? Herein lies
the problem. You give out thank you’s as if
you do not really mean them. You address
me as the Author. You say, “Dear Author,
I want to thank you.” And then you
proceed to rip out my guts. But I’m telling
you that you do not need to do that.
You do not need to apologize for yourself,
and you certainly do not need to
eviscerate me with kindness. You should
only thank me when I write the poem, silly
as it may sound, but nevertheless, yes,
like the Apostle Paul blinded by the divine
light on his way to Damascus, drops you
to your knees weeping for the blessing
of having even so much as had a fleeting
glance at my greatness. Otherwise, and
until then, please tell me to fuck off, as I
now, too, most sincerely say to you.

The Author