Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

Hi everyone,

This blog ends here, but have no fear.

Maria Alexander's Bloggalicious Snarkfest lives on!

A total site redesign is in the works, complete with tales of booze, unicorns and whirling, razor-studded pasties.

Thanks,

The Management

The Big-Ass Bus Adventure

After much delay due to one mysterious bus thing or another (including an incident where the bus driver waded into the bus waving a card, asking us if we saw anything), we finally took off in earnest. Then, a red-headed woman got on board, screaming at the top of her lungs at the driver. She stomped down the aisle and sat across from me, huffing and puffing and blowing down everyone's houses. "Get your leg away from me!" she screamed, shoving the poor guy next to her, then kicking him with her foot. "JUST GET AWAY. DON'T TOUCH ME."

The bus doors closed and we took off. Trapping us.

Risking the attention of Crazypants McGee, I made a dash for the back of the bus as she continued to jostle and yell. I safely secured a seat well away as she transferred her ferocity to a cell phone, threatening everyone's job at Metro Transit Customer Service. Finally, a strapping young man barked, "Hey! Settle down already! You're on the bus!"

This seemed to cow her. She eventually pulled out an iPad and focused on something touchy-slidy on the screen.

The Beasts

I could then focus on my Kindle again as I read 's Beasts of New York, which I'm enjoying immensely. Think Watership Down dipped in a vile, viscous fluid, tarry and terrifying. It's about a squirrel named Patch whose tribe is embroiled in an all-out war in the Central Kingdom -- that is, Central Park in New York City. His wandering spirit reminded me much of himself, who is now newly married. I don't know if that's Patch's destiny at the end of the book -- finding a mate -- but the similarity warmed my heart nonetheless.

I'm also alternately reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes. In fact, I just finished A Study in Scarlet, which made me fall in love again with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just started reading Holmes last year for the first time and I'm a complete fan.

Bushido

I've also just started Kaiso Obata's brand new book, Modern Bushido. There are many books on the market that bring the samurai teachings to the modern age. I've not read a word of them. But this one is very well-written -- in part because Kaiso enlisted the editorial help of his best student, who also happens to have a Ph.D. in English lit. This makes a huge difference. Plus, Kaiso is from a samurai family line. These personal teachings come from his upbringing, which fascinates me.

It also makes me want to hit my katana-slinging class. (But I can't because I'm on the bus.)

Last night, I sent out another volley of agent queries. I worry that the very thing that makes me highly marketable for my day job -- my writing versatility -- makes me unmarketable to agents, who prefer that you write one kind of thing. Many an elegant article has been written about writing the book you want to read. But, like a lot of readers, I like a variety of things. Hence, I write a variety of things. My imagination is equally ignited by urban fantasy, historical fiction, thrillers, mysteries, comedy and, most of all, social satire. Oh, and non-fiction: true crime, memoir, humor books (I have multiple proposals), etc. My family history often invokes people's riveted attention when I talk about it. I want to write the equivalent of On Golden Mountain but for my Scottish and Native American family history, complete with white slavery, insanity and chilling felonies.

I also want to write about a 1984 triple homicide in my home town that included a girl I knew in high school. The D.A. eventually shot himself and the witnesses recanted, claiming the murders were part of a Satanic, baby-noshing ritual.

Awesome does not begin to describe this.

Maybe Kaiso has something to say about my problems. I need some bushido in my books.

I am Maria's query-writing obsession.

How I've done this to myself, I have no idea. I'm marketing TWO books. A comedy thriller and the memoir. (For the record, I hate the word "memoir." It sounds so snooty patooty. My mem-waaaah. Yech.) I promise you that my mem-waaah is not only sensational enough to stop your granny in her tracks as she pushes a cart through Target, it's crazy enough to set fandom aflame. I've shared it with people over the years only on a need-to-know basis, and even then, 1) only once they knew me well enough to realize I'm a reliable narrator and 2) I also knew they were trustworthy (although I occasionally made mistakes).

It's that kind of story.

This could make finding an agent tricky -- as if that weren't challenging enough. While I've always known that someday this story would make its way into the world, I've never been sure exactly how. It would have to be carried by someone who believed in it as much as they believed in me. And they'd really kind of have to know me, I think. But maybe not.

My previous agent was wonderful, but she was more interested in my nutty childhood religious upbringing. If you've read, "Dogma, Darth Vader and My Sexual Awakening," then you've got the gist of how that went. I've had great fun telling those stories over the years, about my family starting Greek Orthodox and then converting to Judaism, Mormonism and much more. But it's not the story I want to tell because it stops at me becoming "born again" at age 16 -- which is, you know, hella depressing. And if it continued to The Story I Really Want to Tell, it would be way too long. Besides, the nutty religiousness is just part of the much bigger story. It's only one type of dust layered in the meteor.

And, man, does that meteor leave a motherfucking crater.

As read the original, much shorter version of The Story, he sat on the living couch as I waited in the bedroom reading. When he reached that ending -- that mind-blowing, knuckle-punch-to-the-soul ending -- I heard him gasp. That one sharp intake of air pierced my gut. It reminded me of miracles and madness and how I have to tell what happened, as it happened, whatever that may mean.

But first that means finding an agent.

That will be a special person indeed.

Never tell someone you're writing a memoir.

Tell them you're writing Twilight fan fiction, a collection of poetry about your cat's bowel movements,  a history of the color puce, or...pretty much anything except "memoir."

Because if you say, "I'm writing a memoir," what people hear is "I am the Mostest Interesting Person in the World and Hello! You Are Not! LOL!"

Of course, that's probably not what you're saying at all. You're probably really saying, "Something crazy/harrowing/hilarious happened at some point in my life and I can't take it anymore OMGPONIES!!!!1!! I have to tell all teh kittehs!"

Most people don't get it. And I get that they don't get it. That part's okay, even if it's annoying.

What REALLY bugs me is when someone thinks it's the easy way to make a buck. Easy to write. Easy, easy, easy, boy are YOU a sellout, buddy.

Well, it's NOT. NOT NOT NOT NOT 9 THOUSAND MILLION FUCKING NOTS.

Think about what it takes to write a novel and multiply it times 110. You're not slapping down anecdotes like the one about the time you found Aunt Minnie's vibrator in the closet and chased your little brother with it around the backyard. You're writing a novel.

One of the hardest things about writing a book like this is that you're taking memories and translating them into bookness, which is the exact opposite of relaying a childhood anecdote. When you repeat your lame-ass, life-inspired anecdote to your friends, details are almost nonexistent. Don't believe me? Go ahead. Turn to your significant other, friend, coworker, anyone who will sit still for a moment and tell them about something funny that happened when you were a kid. Or even something that happened last year. It'll take maybe a few seconds. Why? Because you're not painting the full picture that you need to paint for a literary memoir. You are so conditioned to tell your life stories a certain way that it's nearly impossible to dredge up the necessary details to make it into "novel" material.

"But I don't remember all those details," you lament. Of course you don't. You have to reach back and dab your brush in the probability that bleeds from what you do recall. Remembering what happened can be an ordeal in and of itself -- not because the events were necessarily painful, but because your brain isn't used to dredging up details. It helps tremendously if you kept a diary of some sort at the time, but it's still an exercise in patience. If this were a piece of fiction and you were a writer, you'd just supply the details -- details that, in a memoir, don't come about readily.

Yes, I'm gonna come out and say it: It's hella easier to write a novel than a memoir.

So, let's say your vibrator bit is part of the story, but what is that story, anyway? We have so many threads running through our lives, how do we know which bits get woven together to tell a particular story? That's the other bitch about memoirs: life can be really crap at plotting. You are stuck with what happened and it's never simple. You can control the pacing by focusing on certain parts more than others, or just skipping some stuff altogether, but you don't get to change the ending just because it doesn't measure up or you don't like it. If it doesn't, you need to ask yourself why the hell you're putting yourself through this whole exercise. It might be better as fiction. If so, DO IT. Don't screw around with recanting real life. Remember that you can hurt relationships, piss off potentially litigious people (even if they don't have a leg to stand on in a California court), and annoy your friends. Just save yourself the headache and improve whatever needs to be better.

But in some cases you have no choice. I have no choice. I have to write it as a fact. Because it is -- in its facts -- breathtaking that what happened actually happened. To portray it otherwise would be the biggest cheat, the greatest failure, ever.

So, if something breathakingly amazing, impossible, bizarre and beautiful happened to you, wouldn't you tell it as it was? As it really and truly was?

I thought you might.

There are challenges that race far beyond what I've mentioned. And at every turn, I'm finding a solution that breaks memoir barriers, bringing all my talents to the fore. Because I have to tell it like it was.

And you'll be incredibly glad that I did.

Last weekend, I went to Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego to sign the anthology Mutation Nation with editor Kelly Dunn and other authors. It has my story about a poor, misshape and misunderstood monster named Nickelback Ned.

While there, Lord Arux bought me this totally hysterical book called Bigfoot: I Not Dead.

This memoir of the misunderstood forest creature on the run from celebrity, cannibalism, and celebrity cannibalism had me laughing until I cried at the comic genius that is Graham Roumieu.

Then today, I got this in the mail...



Yeti? In Santa Ana, huh? Um, okay. I know someone in that general area. Maybe it's a "Hey, why the hell haven't you called me lately?" letter. Not that she would ever write that kind of letter. I'm not even sure she's a letter writer. Anyway, I sliced open the wee envelope and slipped out a wee card...



I said to the cats, "Oh, cool! I wonder who sent me a Bigfoot card?" And I opened it...



OH MY EFFING GEE! BIGFOOT SENT ME A BIGFOOT CARD! AAAHHHHHH!!!!

Hey Los Angeles! Come check out my panels and stuff at LosCon, the annual science fiction, fantasy and horror convention held at the Marriott LAX. I'll be selling and signing copies of At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded. No cash? No problem! I have a nifty device that lets me sell you things with your credit card. :)

Friday, November 25
"Getting Your Short Story or Poetry Published"
Me and Neda Ansari
1:30 PM
Marquis 1


Sunday, November 27
"Keeping Your Day Job: Is It Possible to Make a Living as a Writer?"
Me and Dani Kollin
10:00 AM
Chicago

"Breaking into the Game Business: What You Need to Know"
Sharan Volin, James Corner, Anne Toole, Matthew Hunt
1:00 PM
Dallas

Autographing
2:30 PM
Autographs

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of balancing audience participation and storytelling. I've mostly been on the side that audiences can't get a satisfying story out of such an experience if they get too much input on the story arc.

A few years ago, I came up with the concept of a play that involves in Act I a series of characters each completing a dating profile on their computer. Then, the audience would vote on which two characters they think should go on a coffee date. During intermission, the director and writer gather and read the input, which might include notes as to why they want the two characters to meet. In Act II, the two actors of the chosen characters would then improvise the date itself.

It's not a huge amount of interactivity, but it's enough to drive the story and drastically alter the ending. Also, it's "replayable" -- the audience can go to multiple viewings and make different choices. You never know which two characters will wind up on the date, nor do you even know if they will be together. I love the idea that it's not just the audience that participates in the interactive portion, but actors as well.

When I was living in France, I spoke to a French director who was wild about the idea. I don't know if it would have the same reception here. In fact, I don't know how it would go over here at all.

Anyway, it's something I'd love to write but I don't have the time. Maybe something like this exists already?