Talent--it's breathes all around us. People can be so extraordinary. Watching the latest episode of SYTYCD last night I was yet again gobsmacked by art—the gifts of our bodies and brains. Not just dance, either, but in as many media as one can imagine. Each day I read the stories written by people I know, or from people I don’t know and must “judge,” and marvel at the creative impulse, the genius that must be ubiquitous—so much abounds. Feeling uninspired? Drab? Walk Off the Earth’s clever little cover song, performed with such acumen and wit, surely makes you feel a smidge better about the human stain? We are sublime.

Still, we focus and aggrandize production and consumption in our lives; our admiration doled out most often to those that accumulate money and power and things of “status” that ultimately mean nothing. We call him "Mr. Trump," for nothing more than his self-proclaimed status.The venture to become top dog is privileged, protected and exalted, and our singular impulse to art is diminished, mocked, and too often wholly unsupported.

Today Tin House linked over to Open Culture for a list of 8 suggestions for constructing a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. They are concise and helpful for every writer to bear in mind, or at least to try to only break one or two at at time:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them–in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

While each has strong merit, I'm paying particular attention to #8, since I chopped such a beginning from a recent CNF that has been getting rejections. Maybe I'll add the old beginning back and try another few places before I give up on it entirely. I am also going to have #4 tattooed to the inside of my wrist--happily my most recently completed story passed this test. Finally, we all pretty much know that I'm already committed to #6.

In other news, what does this image have to do with anything?

Here in The Paper Garden I like to wear the cloak of “writer” with a modicum of pride. Someday sooner rather than later, I’d like to add the hat of a published “author” and strut around for an instant before my work dissipates into likely obscurity.

The pinnacle of success for an author is the Pulitzer Prize, the Oscar of literature. Last week the Pulitzer Prize winners for 2012 were announced, and for the first time since 1977 there was no Pulitzer prize awarded for fiction.
 

Recently I took a spring sojourn to Palm Springs with my husband, my brother and his wife. It was an extraordinary week of uncharacteristically cool weather, snow-capped mountains surrounding the valley, delicious food and events from their annual modernism week. Touring houses such as Frank Sinatra’s Twin Palms—as well as less successful interpretations of the style such as the pseudo “Regency-style” houses we saw within a planned community--had me considering the sometimes fine line between appealing or failed design.

Aesthetics is surely subjective, and we all have our style biases. Still, art and design experts have suggested “golden ratio” guidelines that can help our products--whether they are represented by a brochure, a website, a business card or our office space--appear more professional, pleasing, and successful.