Circles, Silos, Niches

Creative writing for the likeminded — and ONLY the likeminded

I sometimes take the opportunity to rant. This is a rant.

It appears that the entire intent of ‘literature’ and ‘poetry’ is to create and define niches. Because the world — read: virtual world — is so vast, everyone is trying to cut a little piece of the landscape and call it ‘home.’ But, there are only certain guests that can and will be invited into these ‘homes.’

Open call for writers from ___ with experience in ___ and a ___ background.

The creative writing world is laser-focusing on the micro-niche. Only certain writers and certain readers will interact in shared, manufactured spaces. People will read what they write and write what they read, creating a tight, closed, exclusive little circle.

Poetry contest.
Submit to our ___ theme.
Only $25 and every entry gets a “free” one-year subscription.

The likeminded buy their way into likeminded publications that create a reader-base on a specific call. I understand the need for reading fees and the likes in a world where funding is dwindling; this said, the original need becomes a foundation for niche-building. Each publication becomes a silo that contains only the “type” of writing seeded in calls, inflating circulation numbers to readers who bought a subscription. That year wasn’t free.
Exclusive content only $___ per month.

$3 here, $5 there, $15 hither, $25 yon… all to buy into a place that feels like ‘home.’ But all the people there, the likeminded, they also bought in, for the same reasons, sparked by the same call, the same ‘experience,’ the same ‘background.’ The home is peopled with writers that sound the same, think the same, read the same…

…creating a tight, closed, exclusive little circle.

I miss the days of pulp mags, of mags that published a variety of conflicted, conflicting, interesting stuff. Now many — and I should note that it’s not ALL — journals or mags or publications just put out pages of I’ve-seen-this-before-and I-can-pretty-much-guess-what’s-coming-next.

Break the circle – Write outside the silo – Make the world your niche

A fairy tale beginning

Don’t go into the woods

To vagary

something drones 
far back
behind the trees 
beyond the fluttering

somewhere in the nondescript
a movement
in the sound
in the landscape undulating...

to miss and misinterpret


R L Raymond
From Half Myths & Quarter Legends

Don’t go in the dark

Photo shot from a hotel room years ago on this day. So many possible stories linked to this one. Maybe it could be a writing prompt.

A lightening

droplets of condensation 
down the cheap tin
of the cheap can
residual handprint bleeding water

the vacant chair
threadbare from years of lounging 
a scratchy radio in the background 
ancient songs
antique sounds

She still nags, chicken-pecking in the kitchen, about this, that, the other thing, almost drowning out the broken music. What she doesn’t realize is that

he’s gone
after all these years
up and left
beer still cold
chair still warm
no longer there to listen 
no longer there to care 
or
not 
care

he walks down the driveway 
smoking a Camel
his other hand twitching
the straw that broke the camel’s back

From Weakdays, Corrupt Press

Turn the Dark on its Head & Shake

After eighteen months of antisocial isolation, masked interactions, and all-round negativity, I found myself always looking for the dark, eschewing the light. This vicious circle isn’t good in any possible way. Personal relationships become strained, micro and macro outlooks tainted, and not of least import, writing suffers. Yes I contributed to a COVID Anthology (poem was successful); yes I was lucky enough to have a few darker pieces published (not that I am overly ‘light’ at the best of times); but I started feeling some dark repetitions creeping in everywhere. This darkness veiled how I looked at everything. So, this morning, I decided to try some positivity exercise. Immediately I noticed that this activity played directly into my writing.

A pickup truck was tailgating me (tailgating should be a cardinal sin), eventually passed on the wrong side, drifted back into my lane without a signal. Easy to get upset, but I tried to look at the scene from the ‘light’ side instead of the dark. Here’s how that went:

He is in a hurry.
Maybe he is a doctor, called for an emergency.
He can’t use his signal.
Maybe he is left-handed and resting his hand after a close call.
I wonder what kind of close call. Maybe it was…

And a story started blooming right then and there. So instead of brooding in the usual anger, I turned the situation on its head, shook it, and — lo and behold — little bits of story fell out. Not bad…

Will I be able to do this all the time? Highly doubtful. But, once in a while, I can a) keep the blood pressure down, and b) get a few ideas or images I can eventually use. Win / Win.

Beautiful boundaries

Explore the very edge of boundaries, those liminal places between safety and danger, smile and tear, cradle and coffin. Therein lie the stories.

There is inspiration everywhere

No matter where you look, always be thinking of things (ideas) you can be squirrelling away for future use. Bring a bag and a notebook and a camera.

Man finding cans in Quebec © R L Raymond

Where the walls change

If you look carefully at the intersections, the corners, the changes in texture, you will find demons.

Traceable Genesis

Wherever your ideas comes from, be it image, fact, lie, it is interesting to have some type of documentation surrounding those ideas. Maybe there is a biographical link, a creative link, an environmental link, a detail that someone, somewhere, sometime will pick up about your piece. Because the original ideas are oftentimes NOT the core of a story or poem, they can add a certain depth for the serious reader. Having the ability to “uncover” these gems can be very rewarding to the parsers. To others, this type of backstory doesn’t matter. That’s great. Writing should be for different audiences. But giving the hardcore fans, the historical sleuths, the biographers of the future something to discover can be satisfying.

Writing can be a jigsaw puzzle. Although the endgame is a complete image/narrative, the process, the construction, the genesis is mostly lost to readers. Just imaging the exhilaration of finding a little piece of the puzzler inside the puzzle — a tidbit, a factoid, a revelation. This can elevate the serious reader to another level.

Biographical content is not necessarily the key. “Write what you know” can be the worst advice a writer could attempt to follow. This said, if there is a cool detail that lead to your piece, a detail that you can jot down somewhere in a journal, kept safe for future discovery, that is a priceless nugget. Even if it is totally unnecessary for the final fiction, that nugget can add so much to someone who had taken the time to discover it.

With practice, and by following your personal voice, style, aesthetic, these nuggets will start to manifest in the overarch of your oeuvre: links, parallels, juxtapositions that alone mean nothing; bits that taken together, maybe with the addition of extra-textual notes, become beacons of meaning.

That’s why it is important to save your notebooks, to have someone who knows about them, someone who will, eventually, help the world decipher the hidden stories within your stories.

Tag: poetry