Author: shawnproctor

Shawn Proctor is a fiction writer living in the greater Philadelphia area. He graduated from the MFA Program at Rosemont College and the Professional Writing Program at Kutztown University. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in the Our Haunted World Anthology, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Storyglossia, Mississippi Crow, The Circle, The StoryTeller, and BlazeInk, and was a finalist in The Delaware Beach Life Writing Contest. He is currently working on his first novel. His journalism has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Main Line Today, Ale Street News, and Victory Brewing Company's Web site, and he published a roleplaying module with Chaosium, Inc.

Become an Overnight Success (in Fifteen Years)

On By shawnproctorIn The Writing LifeLeave a comment

Shirley Jackson wrote her best-known story “The Lottery” in one draft after a long walk. It was featured in the New Yorker and anthologized countless times.

Stephanie Meyer says the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream and took just three months to write, according to a blog by Literary Agent Nathan Bransford. An editor read the draft on an airplane and as soon as it touched down she frantically called Meyer’s agent to buy the manuscript before someone else could. Meyer had never written before attempting Twilight.

Photo of Lightning
(Courtesy of National Geographic.)

“It’s tempting to think all it takes is

an idea and a wisp of effort. Very tempting indeed,” Bransford writes. “The truth is a lot more banal: It takes a lot of work.”

More often the path to any real success comes only after late nights and early mornings, failed stories and novels, and fizzled attempts to connect with readers. Good writing, likewise, just seems effortless. Most writers refine their scenes moment by moment, like needlework, to capture the story exactly.

I’m not at all surprised that Sara Gruen, someone I had assumed was an overnight success, is not one at all.

She was a laid off technical writer when she turned to writing fiction. Water for Elephants, her breakthrough novel, was her third and her previous publisher rejected it. I’m sure there were nights when she thought about giving up writing, moments of frustration that interviewers usually don’t ask about.

When I read …Elephants, I assumed it was just a lucky break. I should have known the old cliche is still true: luck is just hard work meeting opportunity.

Anything worth doing isn’t easy. If you want to be a writer or any kind of artist, take the time to hone your craft in a class or in a group. Work on your own. Meet people and learn how others have become successful. Most of all, practice to discover what your vision will add and what will make you distinctive.

I leave you with Branson’s final thought:

Each journey is our own, and we’re all the better for it. Rather than wishing for lightning to strike quickly, it’s better to enjoy seeing it flash in the distance and know that our time will come.

Live Blogging This Weekend at The Philly Folk Fest

On By shawnproctorIn Guest Blogging, StoriesLeave a comment

Check back all this weekend for my live updates from The Philadelphia Folk Festival on CultureMob.

Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy at Folk Fest 2010.

Also, I will be hosting a spoken word programat the festival at 5 p.m. on Friday at the

Lobby Stage. Remember that time you saw the tents fly over the trees? What about the haunted house camp site? Stop by to hear true stories of festivals of years past and share your own at this all-ages program. The best storyteller will receive a special surprise.

Two Short Stories Forthcoming

On By shawnproctorIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Picture of ghost girl
Upcoming: Dark fantasy

I have two short stories coming out in the next few months:

Lastly, I just published a review on CultureMob of Ken Denmead’s book Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun. 

New Story: “Dessert Animals”

On By shawnproctorIn StoriesLeave a comment
Picture of Choclate ScorpionI visited my cousin in Phoenix because he promised we would check out the “dessert animals” together. In the plane I dreamed of rare delights: sucking down a Jell-O sidewinder shooter; nibbling a chocolate scorpion. “So when should we go to the zoo?” he asked at the airport, heat shimmering off the sand. When he dropped my luggage in his car’s backseat a set of brand new silverware clanked. I thought, damn you, typos. Damn you.

(Entered in Painted Bride Quarterly‘s Sidecar #5 Contest)

Sarah Rose Etter: The Language of Consumption

On By shawnproctorIn Writer InterviewsLeave a comment
A photo of Sarah Rose Etter
Sarah Rose Etter: author of "Tongue Party"

I interviewed Sarah Rose Etter, whose chapbook Tongue Party (Cake Train Press), recently sold out its first printing. Her writing has been described as beautiful, bizarre, and jarring. It is, however, never boring.

I was eager to get more insight on her approach to writing after reading her excellent story “Koala Tide.”

Shawn Proctor: In a recent article, The Atlantic delved into different artists’ process, from first draft to completion. Can you take us through your creative process?

Sarah Rose Etter: I have a hard time talking about process. Many writers have these things they say – and some of them are quite helpful – but they don’t really work for me. I do try to write frequently, I’ve been working hard at that, but it doesn’t really come out the same way as when an idea comes and I chew on it for a while.

When I get an idea, I turned it over in my head and try to look at all sides. Then a first line will come and I stew on that for even longer. And then when the first draft comes out, much of the story has already been shaped in my head. Obviously, there is revising and editing after that, but that’s basically my process.

SP: What element of fiction do you think is your greatest strength?

SRE: I guess tension – building up to something. Or else playing on the physical – sensations, tastes, that kind of thing.

I have a hard time stepping back and finding a strength or saying, “Oh, that really works for me.” You know? I tend to just write what comes and let that exist.

SP: How has attending fiction workshops and graduate creative writing education benefited your work?

SRE: It’s always good to learn the rules before you break them, and grad school was wonderful for that. It’s good to get feedback from people who aren’t familiar with your style, it’s good to be exposed to new things to read and write. It’s good to have people critique your work. All of those things help a writer get better, stronger.

What’s more, I left grad school with a fantastic friendship with Nate Green, who I still share and edit work with. So that was great.

SP: Do you find your work has an overarching theme or artistic goal that connects the stories? If so, how would you describe it?

SRE: I just want what I write to be new and not boring. I want people to be engaged, whether they’re repulsed or horrified or creeped out – I just want them to care about what they’re reading. I’d like my stories to be alive.

As far as theme, I know I was dealing a lot with hunger and language and consumption when I wrote Tongue Party. I wasn’t paying attention to it at the time, but stepping back and looking at the collection, it’s there.

SP: What’s your next project?

SRE: Tongue Party just came out as a Kindle eBook with two bonus stories, so I was spending a lot of time shaping those and fitting them into the collection. Otherwise, I’ve been working on a longer version of the chapbook that hopefully will become some sort of surreal novel. Plus some pieces on Ben Franklin.

SP: Now down to sentence-level issues. What word do you love? What word do you hate?

SRE: I love the word syphilis. That’s one of the softest words in the English language and if you strip the meaning off of it, it’s pretty beautiful.

I hate the word pickle. Probably because I genuinely and deeply despise pickles. God, just typing that word twice pissed me off. Look what you’ve done, Shawn!

The electronic version of Tongue Party is available at Amazon.

Countdown to Blobfest 2011: A Very Blobby Proposal

On By shawnproctorIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

It all started off so normally. Everyone had already run out of the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, and we were about to head home. But then I saw a man talking to his girlfriend and noticed that he was trying to kneel. She kept laughing and pulling him up.

After filming the run out, I still had my camera in hand and started recording just on the off chance that I might be capturing a true wedding proposal. There’s not much in terms of sound; however, their body language speaks volumes.

I let them know that I had recorded it and hoped they would contact me. This was two years ago. Hopefully they’re busy being happily married somewhere out there.

Guest Blogging: Canal Day and Philly Folk Fest on Culture Mob

On By shawnproctorIn Guest BloggingLeave a comment

In case you missed it, I have posted two more stories on CultureMob.

Colin Arlo at the 2010 Folk Festival.

The preview of the Philadelphia Folk Festival bears special mention, because this year is kind of the completion of a circle. My son, born in 2001, was named in honor of Arlo Guthrie and went to his first festival that year. He and Arlo return this year, ten years later on the fifth fiftieth anniversary of the festival. It just feels right somehow.

Have a great Independence Day!

Countdown to Blobfest 2011: The Friday Night Run-Out

On By shawnproctorIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s creepy, it’s crawly…It’s Blobfest 2011! This year’s event will be held July 8-10, in downtown Phoenixville, Pa., and promises to be another kitschy, wonderful time.

To get you jazzed for this ’50s gem, here’s the first of my Blobfest videos, filmed in 2009. The Friday Night Run-Out is a spectacle worth venturing down to this cool little town. Hundreds of people, on command, flee the theatre and, if you watch closely, you’ll notice that almost every person had his or her own way of escaping the blob.

Compare that to this scene from the 1959 classic:

Good times, huh? Look for another video soon!

 

I Finished My Novel! (Which is Only the Beginning of the Story…)

On By shawnproctorIn The Writing Life2 Comments

“You don’t learn to be a good carpenter by building several bad houses – you learn by building a good one.”
–Sara J. Henry

I just finished a draft of my novel-in-progress for the third time. I’ll repeat that last part for emphasis: the third time.

To make a long story about a long story shorter, I started working on the novel in a workshop back in 2006. Since then it has made almost every shift possible, including points-of-view, tense, and focus. It surged forward on optimism and spun out of control more times than I can count. The process both revealed my weaknesses as a writer and challenged me to discover ways to overcome them.

Most writers are told the first novel is junk and should be put away in a drawer. The second one is your first real book, since you’ll have cleared out all of the bad habits and unoriginal ideas in the initial attempt. Yet I didn’t put this away.

Every time I read the story, I felt like I had hit on something, and though there wasn’t a glut of this kind of literary fiction on the market the concept had possibilities. Trying to puzzle out this story resulted in about twenty fragments of short fiction, almost like B-sides from a band or Batman’s untold adventures.

This last attempt truly feels like a last attempt. I worked from an outline and better defined the premise, tossing out more than 100 pages of material that just didn’t fit. Through the process, characters were combined, cut, story lines shifted, and the idea better defined. Like the quote that opened this explained, I kept working and reworking, taking paths more and less traveled, all in an attempt to build a better book.

Now I’m going back to revise, edit, and polish the work. I feel like the craft of writing has largely been completed, and this is where the artistry begins.

If you are working on a project, please comment and let me know how it is going. Have you learned about yourself as an artist along the way? What were your challenges and how did you overcome them?