Andrew Roe

…is how an essay of mine, recently republished by Thumbnail Magazine, begins.

It’s about writing very short fiction, flash, whatever you want to call it.

More random quotes from my five-year-old son Ethan:

“I’m the best rememberer in the world.”

“The ocean is exploding and so is part of America.”

“I’m the king of pizza.”

“When I grow up I want to be the Pope.”

“The key to me is privacy.”

“You look like a toilet when you put your glasses on.”

“Can you videotape me and put me online?”

“Too bad they don’t have TVs in parks.”

“Your skin is in charge of you. You’re not allowed to do what you want. Your skin is.”

“I am wiped out.”

I’m on the bill for an upcoming San Diego reading sponsored by So Say We All.

There’s a theme to the evening. The theme is: Love is for suckers.

The date/time/place is: Thursday, February 24, 8:30 p.m., the Whistle Stop.

I’ll be reading my story “The Riot and Rage That Love Brings,” which is currently in search of a home.

More details here.

Yesterday I took the train from Oceanside (where I live) to downtown San Diego (where I attended an Edward Tufte seminar on presenting data and information).

For part of the trip the train skirts along the Pacific, and there are some stunning views of the ocean and the shore and the horizon.

At one point I looked out the window, took in everything (the water was calm, flat) and thought: “A blue blanket of ocean.”

No great shakes language-wise, sure; but that’s the phrase/description that immediately came to me. That’s how my mind works. That’s how I see the world. And that, in part, is why I write: this need to describe, document, elevate.

I wrote “a blue blanket of ocean” in my notebook. Maybe I’ll use it later in a story/novel. Maybe not. But I’d captured something. As a writer, I’d done my job.

Early in Just Kids, here’s how Patti Smith describes a life-changing trip to an art museum:

“I’m certain, as we filed down the great staircase, that I appeared the same as ever, a moping twelve-year-old, all arms and legs. But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.”