Welcome to the Sacred Cheese of Life podcast.
You may know this term from the short story “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane. That’s a link to it. It’s bothering me that a short story title is underlined, though. That’s how you know I grade student work way too much.
What on earth did his narrator mean by this? Well, that’s open to interpretation. Maybe it’s about that thing we’re all striving for. Maybe it’s about happiness or our dreams and goals. Maybe it’s about a big lie we’re all sold, the cheese in the trap that snaps shut and kills us once we reach it. I hope it’s not really that last one, but we all get to decide for ourselves.
I write novels about people who are stuck in their lives and need to get unstuck.
I teach literature to college students who often aren’t sure where they’re going or why.
In Sacred Cheese of Life, I study a text a week and then try to apply what I’ve learned to whatever I’m writing. Want me to read or watch something? Send it my way.
I’m always chasing the sacred cheese of life in one way or another. I think we all are. And when we forget to do that, very bad things ensue.
Sometimes I imagine it as a red waxed Babybel Gouda floating in the sky with a nimbus around it. Angels are singing in the background. Ahhhhhh!
Sometimes, on the less good days, I’m right back there in “The Open Boat” with the correspondent, the cook, the captain, and the oiler, rowing and bailing and struggling and starving, always able to see the shoreline but never getting any closer to it. Surely this can’t be all there is, says the correspondent. I agree!
Literature of all kinds (including film and television and graphic novels and songs) is one of the best routes I know to the sacred cheese of life. The more I read and watch and listen, the better life gets. And when I can get there in my own writing? Absolute heaven.
Come on along.
Sacred cheese of life!
Episode Three
In the third episode, I examine unlikable characters in Flannery O’Connor’s amazing short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Every character in this story is extremely unlikable in various ways, but when things turn to horror, we are forced to examine our judgments about them and think about how all of humanity deserves grace despite all our flaws.
I’m working on some unlikable characters in Summerlands and thinking about how O’Connor does it here to help me figure it out. I also think I and many others can be sort of militant and cancel-happy in an effort to try to avoid bad treatment in life, but that’s a very dangerous road, especially if you have mental mirrors. Thinking through some big things here. That’s the point! Hey!
Also Tallulah dog makes all sorts of appearances as she was not having this recording and chewed on the table leg, the tabletop itself, and the knobs holding the mic stand on, as well as clicking around the room, though I think I edited out most of the major barking episodes.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to be worthwhile. A moral fable for our time. There we go.
Sacred cheese of life!
Episode Two
In the second episode, I dig into the modern Gothic genre by tackling Joan Aiken’s marvelous novel, A Cluster of Separate Sparks, aka The Butterfly Picnic.
The Gothic also means getting into what tropes this genre requires and how I can fulfill them in this overwhelming page one rewrite. My head is exploding. I love Joan Aiken’s novel so much. It’s probably my favorite book. And I like my idea so much. But I have many drafts of it and none of them work.
Let’s consider them prep work for the wonderful book to come, how’s that? Good, good.
I also like that you can hear me get cold about half an hour in, sitting in a freezing house with wet hair. Next time, wear a sweater. Got it! For you, anything.
Sacred cheese of life!
Episode One
The goal of the pod is to study a given text and use it to improve my writing, your writing, everyone’s writing.
In this episode, we look at Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat,” which you can find online here as it’s public domain. You don’t have to read it first, but you’ll get a lot more out of this if you do. Also it’s extremely good.
This week I dig into a stalled novel draft that’s been driving me crazy. It doesn’t even have a good title, that’s how much of a problem it’s been for me.
Previous/potential title: Forty Days and Forty Nights, because it’s about the first six weeks of college and how much hell that is for this particular character, a former foster kid with major trust issues. Maybe I’ll stick with it. It’s kind of too Biblical though. I’m conflicted in so many ways about this draft.
I also get into the methods I learned for how to tackle a messy first draft of a novel and rewrite it before you even get to the editing and proofreading process. Big picture!
Sacred cheese of life!