The View From Here

The View from Here, a rockin’ online literary magazine debuted Friday, April 18, 2008. The main man setting up this magazine is Mike French, the UK author of The Dandelion Tree, a novel of love, faith, and reconciliation, which his site presents in lively excerpts and artwork. He’s also one of the ten international founders of the inspirational community blog, Go Smell the Flowers, which presents posts and offers threads for contemplation, inspiration, and journeys of all kinds.

In taking The View from Here live, Mike has signed up four writers, including himself; Paul Burman an Australian novelist whose The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore will be published by PaperBooks [UK] in 2008); Stella Carter, a U.S. fiction and screenplay writer whose blog offers fiction, book discussion, two haikus a week, and writing tips. And me.  Each of us has agreed to post once a week.

Since my few attempts blogging non-fiction have always embarrassed me, Mike has generously agreed to let me try my hand at short stand-alone fiction posts. As a driven serial storyteller, short stand-alone fiction looms like yet another daredevil experiment. Of course, that's all I do. Even when I burn and crash, I’m happier than when I must struggle with facts, which mutate into an unforeseen perspective before I can stop them.

As for author interviews? I don’t personally know any known authors, and have never attempted to interview a writer. Should that opportunity develop, I’d never turn it down, with the caveat that I tend to honor literary endeavors beyond reason and regard serious failures as noble acts.

My new, still unfamiliar, colleague, Paul Burman, wrote that despite his crushing writing obligations, he saw The View From Here as too good an opportunity to let pass. He referred to Alice in Wonderland with its many doors into adventure, risk, reward, and danger. When he stood upon the View’s threshold, he saw mostly adventure and reward--lucky for us. 

Paul has already posted his first essay on The View from Here about a recent, personal epiphany. Take a look. I promise it’s worth the minutes.

Comments

[Mike French]

And we at the magazine our thrilled to have you on board Kathleen - happy days ahead!

[Paul Burman]

Thanks for the kind words, Kathleen. My contributions might not arrive every week at first, but I'd like to gradually move towards that point. However, I have no doubt that I'll get caught up in the excitement of the magazine and will it find hard not to be spending more time there than I should be! Hmm, how to balance this stuff! I admire your courage in committing yourself to serial storytelling; this would be quite a challenge and quite daunting, but, as you note, an effective discipline in its own right. As a process it makes me wonder how the likes of Dickens must have also coped with the demands of deadlines when composing and writing in serial form. In how many ways would it change the whole process of writing? You'd have to develop a strong sense of an overall structure before you could begin, I imagine, but I might well be wrong about that.

[Kathleen]

That's where I think it's helped me, Paul. My sense of structure has never matched my inner music and emotional awareness. The blog forces me to follow the poet Robert Lowell's sound suggestion: "Why not say what happened?"
Unlike Dickens, of course, I don't get paid by the word. So I try for 600 words a post and won't exceed 900. Usually I end up smack near 750.
Watch me play a whole new game on The View. I've set a limit there, except for my introduction, at 500 words--with no: "to be continued..." option.

[Paul Burman]

I need to set myself a limit when I'm blogging. Almost every time I promise it'll be a short post, but then ... well, things happen.

I must try harder. I must try harder. I must try harder ...

[Mike French]

Snap out of it Paul - get a grip!

[Kathleen]

Mike has a point, Paul. Among the many other, often maddening, writing rules I've laid down (and the idea grounding these rules involved sometimes breaking them) is this: DON'T TRY TOO HARD!That probably isn't a good maxim for everyone, but for me, even when I was first committing to writing, an anxiety about working hard enough only hung me enough.

I always try too hard and easing up ordinarily feels as accessible as levitating. But when I hit a groove, everything else falls away: me, word count, effort, and--this is so sweet--all time, place, and ambition. The writing absorbs all else, and whether it's long or short, good or bad comes into play long after I've experienced a unique and fabulous freedom. Too bad the sustained thrill bears no relation to quality. But why should it? Asking for more would be ridiculous.