Forum / In case I leave Fictionaut

Gloria Garfunkel
May 25, 06:11pm

You can always find me on my blog http://queruloussquirreldaily.blogspot.com/

The Querulous Squirrel Daily Microfiction Quarterly

Marcus Speh
May 25, 06:43pm

In case I ever leave Fictionaut, don't stop sending money.
Here is my Swiss account number: 405993-224-402-11.

Or if you don't like Swiss banks, buy my book http://amzn.to/15RZE2X

Gloria Garfunkel
May 25, 07:40pm

Yes, send me money too but mostly just find me and say hello. My blog is on Google. If you just say hello, the visit is free, unlike Marcus.

Ramon Collins
May 25, 07:52pm

Gloria: You are a fine writer and certainly contribute a lot to the ambiance of Fn. If you do decide to leave this site, Fn will surely grow weaker.

Gloria Garfunkel
May 25, 08:43pm

Thanks Ramon. My preference would be to stay as I really love it. You have been very supportive.

Marcus Speh
May 25, 09:29pm

Well, Gloria, don't leave (for good anyway). I've repeatedly had long periods of inactivity and I've always enjoyed coming back. You're a part of this now & I agree with Ramon.

Gloria Garfunkel
May 25, 10:02pm

I have been chastised for writing too many (20) mental illness advocacy comments on Roz Warren's mental health joke post. Note the most recent comment in my support. I don't know if I will be allowed to stay as a result. I've been "warned."

Ramon Collins
May 25, 11:00pm

When the late, great Nard Jones retired from 30 years of NY publishing house and magazine editing, he ended up as magazine editor on a Seattle newspaper I worked for. He asked me to art direct for him.

One day at coffee break I asked him, "Nard, why do writers go for each others' throats?"

He looked out of the window a minute, then replied, "It's the nature of the craft."

I believed him.

Letitia Coyne
May 25, 11:57pm

NK, I'd like to believe that's not true, but I fear it is. But probably true of all groups.

Humans seem to me to be a fractious lot. They will stand together in adversity, and then, as soon as the smoke clears, they divide along any line. Race, gender, age, religion, philosophy.

Put any group of 'same' together, and they will find a point of difference to dispute. And it is not enough to disagree - groups must be drawn together to defend one stance or another.

As my wise Papa would say - 'That is.'

Lxx

Ann Bogle
May 26, 03:03am

You're part of this now, as Marcus writes. To stay is better than to leave. I think Susan Tepper may still be gone. She more or less insisted that Fictionaut cannot serve as a workshop site. Without her insistence, I wonder if other writers feel as strongly that way. She seems happy enough away from the site, as I sometimes spot her at Fb. Remember her best stories. For me, it was the Irish one, quite a fine piece of writing. And other contributions she made, of course, the What I Wanted writing prompt and the stories we wrote after it. Maybe the daily post is too hard to stick to for too many days, weeks, months. Consider adjusting that. I blogged a month of days about "mental illness" topics, mostly short essay form, in a sad, lowly, lonely self-assigned stick-to-my resolution way. The blog entries are at Ana Verse, month of May 2009. Not a bad set of entries as it turned out, but so lonely to write them.

Darryl Price
May 26, 05:29pm

I say stay--what's the point of leaving? You don't have to. Offer what you offer.This site is good, it just cannot do the job for you. It gives you space. It let's your voice be heard. It allows you contact with other writers in many creative ways. Make a list. Let it go. It's alright.And Ann, writing is a lonely business no matter how you look at it. But it's also fun, frustrating, and can drive you a little (or a lot) crazy at times, but the meaning of it can still bring untold joy, many friendships and wild adventures.Or so I am told. Just kidding. Stay. We like having you around.

Gloria Garfunkel
May 26, 10:10pm

I'm going to stay away from my computer for awhile to think this through. I don't want to be booted out. If I leave, I want it to be my choice. I clearly have changes to make. Thanks so much for all your support.

Ann Bogle
May 31, 07:22pm

Susan Tepper writes at Fb that she did not in the past express at the forum at Fictionaut her view that Fn is not or should not be a workshop web site. Sorry if I have misrepresented her.

James Claffey
May 31, 08:03pm

nowhere to go. nothing to be said. nohow on. (as beckett might have said)

Gloria Garfunkel
Jun 01, 08:48pm

There is nowhere to go, is there?

Gloria Garfunkel
Jun 01, 11:05pm

Besides my lonely blog and longingly applying for publications with way more rejections than acceptances. It's depressing.

James Claffey
Jun 03, 04:17pm

the rejections always outnumber the acceptances by a LONG shot. we keep moving.

Roberto C. Garcia
Jun 04, 05:46am

I think where we (as writers) get mixed up is when we take liberties. Let us all admit right now that we are an opinionated lot. We are here, after all, for some form of opinion, be it praise or the other. We are in this writing together but alas, there is always a but, we are also a jealous lot and etcetera (this applies to us all).

What I'm trying to say is that if we just stick to the critique of our art form and keep it to that we'll be fine. It's all the other stuff that gets us in trouble.

Let's just write, write, write, write, write but first and foremost, read, read, read, read, read and read. If we do that there won't be time for that "other" stuff that gets us in trouble. If we commit to reading and commenting on everything we read on Fictionaut then we'll be doing just what its founders intended. And all this "other" stuff will go by the board.

Namaste-

Sam Rasnake
Jun 04, 11:23am

William Stafford's "Traveling through the Dark," surely one of the finest poems written in the 20th century, was rejected by a dozen magazines before it was accepted. Rejections are necessary. Without them, acceptances would be absolutely meaningless.

My approach is - write to write. Never write to an audience, and above all - never write to publish. Write to write, and the rest will take care of itself. This way isn't for everybody, but it's the only way for me.

Amanda Harris
Jun 04, 08:49pm

I'm finding more and more that that's the thing to do. When I first started writing seriously, I wrote with the publication in mind-and as a result, the quality not only suffered, but I had no real sense anymore of who I was as a writer. I don't really want to call it a voice--because that makes it sound like a fixed thing--but whatever it was, I lost it and it took many, many years--actually, until this one, to find "it" again.

One of the great things about writing, to me, is being able to zone into my own little world, away from everything and just say whatever it is that I need to. Junot Diaz spoke at my school a couple of months ago; his advice to us was to "get your family out of the room" when you write.

I would expand that-if it interferes with your work, give it the boot.

Tantra Bensko
Jun 04, 08:57pm

Hi, all,

Gloria asked me to tell you goodbye for her, as she didn't get a chance before being booted from Fictionaut for "not fitting in." She wants you to know she enjoyed working with most of you and and reiterates her blog address:
http://queruloussquirreldaily.blogspot.com/

Some of her work is in this chapbook anthology I put out recently, along with other Fictionauters. While it's in print, it's also a free e-book embedded into the site.

http://lucidplaypublishing.weebly.com/word-swell.html

Ann Bogle
Jun 04, 11:10pm

Tantra, thanks for serving as Gloria's liaison to Fictionaut in this instance, yet I find her departure to be confusing as you describe it. Her groups are still here and her stories as well, thank goodness.

Ann Bogle
Jun 04, 11:12pm

Sorry, I spoke too soon. Her groups exist, and her stories list in the groups, but the stories and her profile do not exist.

Jürgen Fauth
Jun 05, 11:53am

I'm sorry to say that I had to delete Gloria's account. She was deluging me, Carson, other members and any number of comment threads with inappropriate emails and comments. I suppose you might call that "not fitting in," but from where I sit I have to say that it bordered on harassment. I warned her repeatedly that her behavior would leave me no choice but to ban her from the site if it continued. Every time, she agreed that there was a problem and she promised to change, and every time, it went on.

Again, I'm not happy I had to delete Gloria's account, but the number of complaints and emails I received from and about her left me no choice.

Soon to be deleted
Jun 06, 04:29pm

I left and no really gave a fuck

Soon to be deleted
Jun 06, 04:29pm

*no one

Ann Bogle
Jun 07, 02:49am

I am always "no one" in that type of construction, where I subject myself in case of poets whining. The word "whine," though, leaves me cold after seeing it on a desk plaque in Richard Hansen, M-period-E-d-period's corner window office at Minnesota Work Force Center. The desk plaque said, "No Whining." He got my signature on medical release forms for two doctors, when I went to see about a ten-hour-a-week job. I could not find my feet to flee then but fled later by not returning. BAmo at New York Department of Labor, really a very longtime friend, promised he would ask his friend, Hillary Clinton, to do something about it, about Richard Hansen, M-period-E-d-period's what-BAmo-called perversion. Then BAmo dropped it after I took an ecstatic visit to his office in Watertown, NY, and joyful junket to Saratoga.

Soon to be deleted
Jun 07, 11:30am

No one here is "whining", as you put it. Merely a statement of fact. And do I know you? No. I don't.

Frankie Saxx
Jun 17, 09:16am

Thank you, Jürgen, for dealing with an awkward and uncomfortable situation.

J.A. Pak
Jun 22, 03:07am

This is all very sad. I like Gloria's writing but I understand the situation which makes it sadder still. :(
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