It's nearly the end of 2009. I started this blog to write about the year I've taken off from practicing law to write. So, now that the year is over it seems like it's time to stop this particular blog. It's true I have no immediate plans to return to work, but I think I've said pretty much everything I've had to say on this topic. But I kind of like this blogging thing. So I'm starting a blog about the books I read and what I think of them. Visit me there at http://klistbooks.wordpress.com (already active).
I feel it is only right to report in on what I have actually accomplished vs. what I hoped to do:
1. "Standing Room" memoir -- completed and sitting in an enormous binder on my bookshelf. I've been sending out queries to agents since September and no bites yet, but there are several I haven't heard from and I'm deciding whether to gear up for another round in the new year. Still have mixed feelings about how important it is to me to have it published. I really wanted to see if I had what it takes to finish it and the courage to send it out and let strangers read and evaluate it. So, on the major thing I set out to do this year -- I have succeeded!
2. Read less -- a complete failure. I thought it would be important to spend less time reading in order to devote more time to writing. I experimented with trying to focus on non-fiction so that I wouldn't be influenced by the fiction style of others while I was trying to write my own. No go. I've read 149 books this year. And there is still a day and a half to go.
3. Attend writing conferences -- another success. I went to the UCLA Writer's Studio in February, the Stanford Write Retreat in May and the Napa Valley Writers Conference in July. All wonderful. I am skipping UCLA this year (in deference to a birthday trip to New York) but I hope to go to the other two again this year -- career permitting.
4. Keep a blog -- a surprise success. My sons doubted I had what it takes to keep blog content fresh. Don't know about that but it was a goal to post two to three times a week when I wasn't traveling.
5. See whether I would write when I no longer had any excuses -- another success, even though it comes as a bit of a burden. I write almost every day and I can't imagine not doing that in the future. I have come to see that I am one of those modestly talented people who can't leave the thing they love to one side and move on. It is my pleasure and my burden to get to spend time inside my head everyday, to the detriment of exercise, professional development, home-cooked meals, going to movies with friends. This is what I do for better and worse. And most days it feels like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Don't know why. Don't know if I ever will know why. But there it is.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Satisfaction Index
I am a list maker, a checker-offer of items on to do lists. Part of it comes from being a litigation attorney for so long but it's also just my nature.
This past year I've struggled to come up with a way to try to measure whether I'm writing enough and how to balance that with other things I want to do, like exercise or cook or just goof around.
A month or so ago I came up with something I called the "Satisfaction Index" to help me track this. It's such a niggling, bean-counting approach I am almost embarrassed to share it. But it seems to work for me so I'll put myself on the line. Here's how it works: I need to accomplish 800 points a week.
So how do I "earn" a point? A point is a word written, a page edited, a minute exercised, a minute playing the piano. There are some refinements that I've had to make to have the balance work. For example, a word written is actually only worth a tenth of a point. And since walking for exercise is so much less strenuous than anything else I do a minute of walking is only worth half a point. In rough terms it comes down to what I've been trying to do all year -- write 1,000 words five days a week and exercise an hour a day five days a week. See 5,000 words computes to 500 points and 60 minutes of exercise five days a week is 300 points, thus equalling the magic 800. I added in playing the piano just to encourage me to do that more.
Maybe an illustration of this week so far will work best:
Saturday - piano 45 minutes (45)
write 2910 words (291)
Sunday -- piano 25 minutes (25)
Monday -- write 1040 words (104)
Tuesday (so far) -- gym 95 minutes (95)
Thus, a total of 560 so far.
I know, I know. It's kind of creepy. But it seems to help me keep in balance, so I'll stick to it for a while.
This past year I've struggled to come up with a way to try to measure whether I'm writing enough and how to balance that with other things I want to do, like exercise or cook or just goof around.
A month or so ago I came up with something I called the "Satisfaction Index" to help me track this. It's such a niggling, bean-counting approach I am almost embarrassed to share it. But it seems to work for me so I'll put myself on the line. Here's how it works: I need to accomplish 800 points a week.
So how do I "earn" a point? A point is a word written, a page edited, a minute exercised, a minute playing the piano. There are some refinements that I've had to make to have the balance work. For example, a word written is actually only worth a tenth of a point. And since walking for exercise is so much less strenuous than anything else I do a minute of walking is only worth half a point. In rough terms it comes down to what I've been trying to do all year -- write 1,000 words five days a week and exercise an hour a day five days a week. See 5,000 words computes to 500 points and 60 minutes of exercise five days a week is 300 points, thus equalling the magic 800. I added in playing the piano just to encourage me to do that more.
Maybe an illustration of this week so far will work best:
Saturday - piano 45 minutes (45)
write 2910 words (291)
Sunday -- piano 25 minutes (25)
Monday -- write 1040 words (104)
Tuesday (so far) -- gym 95 minutes (95)
Thus, a total of 560 so far.
I know, I know. It's kind of creepy. But it seems to help me keep in balance, so I'll stick to it for a while.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
My Favorite Books of 2009
These are not in any order other than the order in which I read them. You will find a lot of memoir and short story collections this year.
Rowing Without Oars by Ulla-Carin Lindquist – Lindquist was a well-known TV journalist in Sweden who was stricken by a debilitating, progressive disease. This memoir is about her family and her life through the end of her life. While the subject matter is sad, the manner in which she writes about what she is going through and its effects on her family is moving and up-lifting.
Irina by Irina Baronova – this isn’t for everyone but I was captivated. Baronova was one of Balanchine’s “baby ballerinas” who came to prominence in post-revolutionary Paris during the Golden Age of ballet. She recently died and I learned she had written a memoir, which I just had to have.
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick – a high-charged, startling memoir about growing up in New York with an emotionally challenging mother. It almost felt like I had held my stomach in from tension the whole time I was reading it.
Female Trouble by Antonya Nelson – I gave this short story collection to so many people this year! It’s amazing. I had the great luck to spend a week in Nelson’s workshop at the Napa Valley Writers Conference this summer and listening to her made me appreciate her work all the more (and set me off on a rush of reading lots of short story collections).
The Street by Ann Petry – this is a Harlem Renaissance novel about a single-mother trying to raise her child. Gritty and grabbing. Couldn’t put it down.
Firebird by Mark Doty – an extraordinary memoir about growing up. If I describe it any further it will sound much less powerful than it is.
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas – Abigail Thomas is a big discovery for me this year. I read her two memoirs (this and “A Three Dog Life”) as well as her book on writing memoir. All are wonderful but I made myself list just one. I chose “Safekeeping” because of its startling use of narrative. I find it inspiring and whenever I am stuck in my own writing I think of this book and sometimes pull it out and read a few pages.
The Best Day The Worst Day by Donald Hall – this memoir is about poet Hall’s relationship with his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, as she dies of cancer. Heart-wrenching and sad and such a wonderful view of a couple in love.
The Last Summer of the World by Emily Mitchell – a World War I novel about the photographer Edward Steichen, who was tasked with photographing battle fields. A big, fun subplot about Auguste Rodin too.
Grant and Twain by Mark Perry – a great book about the friendship between Ulysses Grant and Mark Twain and the story behind the writing and publication of Grant’s memoir. A fun and informative read.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer – don’t know how I missed this when it came out.
Where Did You Sleep Last Night? by Danzy Senna – a memoir about the author’s parents idealistic and short-lived bi-racial marriage in the 60’s and her search to learn more about her father’s family. I saw the author read aloud from her book and then read her novel “Symptomatic” which is also wonderful.
Runaway by Alice Munro – one of the current masters of the short story form.
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin – don’t know how I missed this collection of short stories. I pieced them out so that the book would last longer.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett – enjoyed every moment of this. Wonderful as an audiobook.
After Rain by William Trevor – Trevor is such a master. This is a set of short stories. His depiction of the narrow-minded claustrophobia of Irish life is almost too painful to read at times.
Southern Cross by Skip Horack – wonderful short story collection and his first book. I got to hear him speak at the Napa Valley Writers Conference.
For Grace Received by Valeria Parrella – this is a set of short stories by a contemporary Neapolitan writer. Very interesting view of Naples.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – it was one of my objectives to fill in the Nabokov gap in my reading. I did this as an audiobook, read by Jeremy Irons. Completely chilling.
Gifts of War by Mackenzie Ford – another World War I novel about a man working in intelligence. The book is written under a nom de plume by a well-known historian. A wonderful story and very well-crafted.
Rowing Without Oars by Ulla-Carin Lindquist – Lindquist was a well-known TV journalist in Sweden who was stricken by a debilitating, progressive disease. This memoir is about her family and her life through the end of her life. While the subject matter is sad, the manner in which she writes about what she is going through and its effects on her family is moving and up-lifting.
Irina by Irina Baronova – this isn’t for everyone but I was captivated. Baronova was one of Balanchine’s “baby ballerinas” who came to prominence in post-revolutionary Paris during the Golden Age of ballet. She recently died and I learned she had written a memoir, which I just had to have.
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick – a high-charged, startling memoir about growing up in New York with an emotionally challenging mother. It almost felt like I had held my stomach in from tension the whole time I was reading it.
Female Trouble by Antonya Nelson – I gave this short story collection to so many people this year! It’s amazing. I had the great luck to spend a week in Nelson’s workshop at the Napa Valley Writers Conference this summer and listening to her made me appreciate her work all the more (and set me off on a rush of reading lots of short story collections).
The Street by Ann Petry – this is a Harlem Renaissance novel about a single-mother trying to raise her child. Gritty and grabbing. Couldn’t put it down.
Firebird by Mark Doty – an extraordinary memoir about growing up. If I describe it any further it will sound much less powerful than it is.
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas – Abigail Thomas is a big discovery for me this year. I read her two memoirs (this and “A Three Dog Life”) as well as her book on writing memoir. All are wonderful but I made myself list just one. I chose “Safekeeping” because of its startling use of narrative. I find it inspiring and whenever I am stuck in my own writing I think of this book and sometimes pull it out and read a few pages.
The Best Day The Worst Day by Donald Hall – this memoir is about poet Hall’s relationship with his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, as she dies of cancer. Heart-wrenching and sad and such a wonderful view of a couple in love.
The Last Summer of the World by Emily Mitchell – a World War I novel about the photographer Edward Steichen, who was tasked with photographing battle fields. A big, fun subplot about Auguste Rodin too.
Grant and Twain by Mark Perry – a great book about the friendship between Ulysses Grant and Mark Twain and the story behind the writing and publication of Grant’s memoir. A fun and informative read.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer – don’t know how I missed this when it came out.
Where Did You Sleep Last Night? by Danzy Senna – a memoir about the author’s parents idealistic and short-lived bi-racial marriage in the 60’s and her search to learn more about her father’s family. I saw the author read aloud from her book and then read her novel “Symptomatic” which is also wonderful.
Runaway by Alice Munro – one of the current masters of the short story form.
Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin – don’t know how I missed this collection of short stories. I pieced them out so that the book would last longer.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett – enjoyed every moment of this. Wonderful as an audiobook.
After Rain by William Trevor – Trevor is such a master. This is a set of short stories. His depiction of the narrow-minded claustrophobia of Irish life is almost too painful to read at times.
Southern Cross by Skip Horack – wonderful short story collection and his first book. I got to hear him speak at the Napa Valley Writers Conference.
For Grace Received by Valeria Parrella – this is a set of short stories by a contemporary Neapolitan writer. Very interesting view of Naples.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – it was one of my objectives to fill in the Nabokov gap in my reading. I did this as an audiobook, read by Jeremy Irons. Completely chilling.
Gifts of War by Mackenzie Ford – another World War I novel about a man working in intelligence. The book is written under a nom de plume by a well-known historian. A wonderful story and very well-crafted.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Chicken Soup = Finished Short Story
A day when I get organized to make chicken stock is always going to be a good day. I love making stock but I can't always get my energy up to go to the store and then spend most of the day checking what's going on at the stove. But I LOVE having my own stock to use when I make risotto or soup or something - rich, full flavor and only as much sodium as I have personally added.
I made stock on Wednesday -- the day my son came home from college for his Christmas break. I pulled out the enormous blue enamel stockpot and happily rough chopped leeks and carrots and celery. The house was wreathed in the smell of vegetables and chicken all day.
I didn't make the actual soup until yesterday. Late in the afternoon, when the soup was pretty much finished and just needed to have some noodles, I went to my desk to write. I had an idea for the final scene of a short story I've been working on but wasn't sure how to wrap everything up. I sat down and started and about an hour later, I was finished! Done! Ending to story!
Now, it may be a little pat. I'm not sure. But I'm going to set it aside for a few weeks and take a closer look then.
But for now my early Christmas present to myself is the belief that any day on which I make soup with my own stock is a day on which I will accomplish something significant with my writing.
I made stock on Wednesday -- the day my son came home from college for his Christmas break. I pulled out the enormous blue enamel stockpot and happily rough chopped leeks and carrots and celery. The house was wreathed in the smell of vegetables and chicken all day.
I didn't make the actual soup until yesterday. Late in the afternoon, when the soup was pretty much finished and just needed to have some noodles, I went to my desk to write. I had an idea for the final scene of a short story I've been working on but wasn't sure how to wrap everything up. I sat down and started and about an hour later, I was finished! Done! Ending to story!
Now, it may be a little pat. I'm not sure. But I'm going to set it aside for a few weeks and take a closer look then.
But for now my early Christmas present to myself is the belief that any day on which I make soup with my own stock is a day on which I will accomplish something significant with my writing.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Fierce Protector
This is my protector muse. I don't remember her name. She is fierce and proud and her spear is double-sided and very pokey. She stands on top of the bookshelf in my office and she guards me against distractions.
I am not at all a comic book/fantasy/science fiction person. If left to their own devices my stories are full of such subtle motivations and actions that people sometimes beg me to please TELL them some more instead of so incessantly SHOWING -- i.e., "when he moved his napkin ring for the second time, are you trying to say he's going to stay with her after all?"
A few years ago I was asked to help a leading comic book artist to form his own company and to wrest his characters from an arguably unclear contractual arrangement so that he could go and publish new works featuring them. We were successful and a few months later he was free to do what he wanted with these fantastically drawn women.
My protector muse is a thank you gift from that client. When I was still practicing law she stood on the bookshelf in my office, inviting not a few questions and comments from more conservative clients who were just looking for help with some dispute over the sale of a business. A partner of mine had a feng shui consultant come in one day and she had a very bad reaction to where I had placed my fierce warrior. She was facing the door into my office and thus, apparently, repelling people and energy within my own firm. Not a good idea, I guess. The feng shui woman suggested that I place the warrior facing the outer window. I can't say my professional luck improved (although I have managed to be able to swing this year off for writing so I can't complain), but when I brought the warrior to my home office I knew exactly where she needed to be placed. And it's pretty much the only place in the house where the cats don't prowl and crawl. So she has successfully protected herself from that.
When I look at her I do feel like I have another person on my team, looking out for me.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Rasumovsky
Listening to Beethoven's "Rasumovsky" string quartet. The adagio is maybe the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard. My iPod was on shuffle when it came up, but the moment it started I felt rooted to my spot, unable to move for the entire 21 minutes.
Why am I in a period of experiencing great art and wondering why I am even trying? First "Lolita" (which I finished this morning) and now this. Oh, and the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the other night. Oh, and listening to a radio interview with Twyla Tharp about her new book. Sometimes I wish I were a little more open to mainstream pop culture and could just bury myself in some reality TV for the rest of the day.
I know I am doing this for the pleasure of doing it, but I'm at a weird plot point in the short story I'm writing and I feel like I can't do anything else until I figure out what Danny is going to do. I'm not sure that he knows himself yet. So this doesn't feel very pleasurable at the moment.
My brightspot -- I have my "Write Time" group tomorrow. I've grown so fond of this group. Just in the last two months we have hit our stride. We meet two Thursdays a month and just sit at a big square table and we each write on our own projects. We started working for an hour and now we are doing two hours. There is less and less chitchat everytime (even though I like the chitchat -- it's like we have a group seriousness that is overtaking everything). It is so wonderful. I know the time will fly by and that I'll get more than a thousand words done and maybe I will even discover what Danny has in mind.
And then I need to go to LA Mill. Danny and his friends to go have coffee at LA Mill and I can't quite remember what the menu and the equipment on the counter looks like. Last night it seemed absolutely essential that I tighten up these little details. The fact that I can get the best cup of coffee in Los Angeles is just a side benefit.
Why am I in a period of experiencing great art and wondering why I am even trying? First "Lolita" (which I finished this morning) and now this. Oh, and the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the other night. Oh, and listening to a radio interview with Twyla Tharp about her new book. Sometimes I wish I were a little more open to mainstream pop culture and could just bury myself in some reality TV for the rest of the day.
I know I am doing this for the pleasure of doing it, but I'm at a weird plot point in the short story I'm writing and I feel like I can't do anything else until I figure out what Danny is going to do. I'm not sure that he knows himself yet. So this doesn't feel very pleasurable at the moment.
My brightspot -- I have my "Write Time" group tomorrow. I've grown so fond of this group. Just in the last two months we have hit our stride. We meet two Thursdays a month and just sit at a big square table and we each write on our own projects. We started working for an hour and now we are doing two hours. There is less and less chitchat everytime (even though I like the chitchat -- it's like we have a group seriousness that is overtaking everything). It is so wonderful. I know the time will fly by and that I'll get more than a thousand words done and maybe I will even discover what Danny has in mind.
And then I need to go to LA Mill. Danny and his friends to go have coffee at LA Mill and I can't quite remember what the menu and the equipment on the counter looks like. Last night it seemed absolutely essential that I tighten up these little details. The fact that I can get the best cup of coffee in Los Angeles is just a side benefit.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Artist Date
I went to the Botero exhibition at the Bowers Museum yesterday. Wow. I didn't know much about him but went at the suggestion of a friend. We were lucky enough to join up with a docent and I'm so glad I did. It was thought-provoking, fun, challenging and a feast of color and perspective.
I found myself wondering why I haven't gone to see more art in this year that I haven't been working a traditional job. Yes, I've been to Paris and have done my share of gallery-hopping here at home, but I have this overwhelming feeling of a lost opportunity. What if I'd been in London or New York or Florence this last year and instead of all those hours walking or biking at the beach watching the silvery water I was studying paintings?
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Reading Lolita in Orange County
I'm on a Nabokov kick. He's someone who fell through the cracks for me and it was on my list of things to do this year to fix that. I read "Laughter In The Dark" a few weeks ago and liked it a lot.
I've tried to read "Lolita" before but in two attempts could not get beyond the introductory section. Talk about a book that you've heard too much about to give it a fair shake.
But now, at long last, my turn at the Books on Tape version of "Lolita" has come up at the library. Jeremy Irons reads. It's amazing. It's creepy and delightful and the writing is almost beyond description. And English was what -- Nabokov's third language?
So, what's the point of pushing on with my own writing?
I'm up early but I'm not sure. It's a little misty so I don't want to exercise yet. I think I will go eat hazelnut pancakes and decide in an hour or two. I'll bring my notebook and my most recent short story and decide once I've had some carbohydrates.
I've tried to read "Lolita" before but in two attempts could not get beyond the introductory section. Talk about a book that you've heard too much about to give it a fair shake.
But now, at long last, my turn at the Books on Tape version of "Lolita" has come up at the library. Jeremy Irons reads. It's amazing. It's creepy and delightful and the writing is almost beyond description. And English was what -- Nabokov's third language?
So, what's the point of pushing on with my own writing?
I'm up early but I'm not sure. It's a little misty so I don't want to exercise yet. I think I will go eat hazelnut pancakes and decide in an hour or two. I'll bring my notebook and my most recent short story and decide once I've had some carbohydrates.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Scouting Locations
I spent some time yesterday driving around Hollywood and Los Feliz looking for houses and apartment buildings for some of my characters to live in. I have an idea for a short story burbling deep in the recesses of my mind and I just absolutely had to find the street where these people live. I think I did. They live in the building shown in the first photo. I wonder what's going to happen now?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Scattered
I'm still a little bit at sea. I'm writing just about the amount I want -- but I'm all over the board. I'm finishing up a short story, which is turning out to be much longer than a short story should be but I'll worry about that part later. I'm also working on a set of essays about growing up that I'm considering trying to finish in order to give to my brother and sister as Christmas gifts.
But on some days I get the feeling that I want to spend time with people from novel ideas I've come up with. I spent a day last week describing how a piano smelled to a young girl who imagines she is being visited by the ghost of Chopin. Intriguing, yes, fun, yes, but nothing to do with what I'm actually working on.
I'm trying to decide whether to just let myself bob along in this fashion. Sooner or later I figure I will settle on something that will keep my interest for more than a day. But in the meantime at least I'm getting shitty first drafts of something. Right?
But on some days I get the feeling that I want to spend time with people from novel ideas I've come up with. I spent a day last week describing how a piano smelled to a young girl who imagines she is being visited by the ghost of Chopin. Intriguing, yes, fun, yes, but nothing to do with what I'm actually working on.
I'm trying to decide whether to just let myself bob along in this fashion. Sooner or later I figure I will settle on something that will keep my interest for more than a day. But in the meantime at least I'm getting shitty first drafts of something. Right?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Scoured
Just back from an hour and a half on the bike path in and around Huntington Beach. It's Veteran's Day so there were a lot of people there for a weekday in November -- entire families surfing, lots of older cycling couples, etc. It was 76 degrees and just a little hazy and there was a lovely breeze coming off the ocean.
I remember the first ten miles -- the northward part of the loop -- very well. But I don't remember ANYTHING about the ride back to my car. I guess I should be lucky that I didn't crash into any of the multiple tiny little kids who kept dashing across the bike path, but I arrived safe and sound and as I was putting my bike back on my rack on my car, I realized that I had solved all of my problems on the last half of that ride -- not just writing problems (i.e., what should my next step be with that plotted novel that won't let me rest) but also things like what I should get for my kids for Christmas, what nutritious legume I should make for dinner, how I should extricate myself from a difficult situation I'm facing. I was scoured -- inside and out -- pleasantly tired and feeling like my emotions and thoughts were all cleaned up and ready to go.
I get this feeling other times in exercise -- always after about 45 minutes of work, once I have numbed myself past some line -- and it is that which gets me to do cardio exercise at all. But what I experienced today was quite special. I'm already eyeing my calendar to try to figure out when I can go out again and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping, that as much as I love the rain, it will hold off a little this year -- or just rain at night for a few weeks.
I remember the first ten miles -- the northward part of the loop -- very well. But I don't remember ANYTHING about the ride back to my car. I guess I should be lucky that I didn't crash into any of the multiple tiny little kids who kept dashing across the bike path, but I arrived safe and sound and as I was putting my bike back on my rack on my car, I realized that I had solved all of my problems on the last half of that ride -- not just writing problems (i.e., what should my next step be with that plotted novel that won't let me rest) but also things like what I should get for my kids for Christmas, what nutritious legume I should make for dinner, how I should extricate myself from a difficult situation I'm facing. I was scoured -- inside and out -- pleasantly tired and feeling like my emotions and thoughts were all cleaned up and ready to go.
I get this feeling other times in exercise -- always after about 45 minutes of work, once I have numbed myself past some line -- and it is that which gets me to do cardio exercise at all. But what I experienced today was quite special. I'm already eyeing my calendar to try to figure out when I can go out again and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping, that as much as I love the rain, it will hold off a little this year -- or just rain at night for a few weeks.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The End Notes
I just got back from a four day writing retreat with "The End Notes." This is a group of five women, including me, who met at the Stanford Write Retreat at Fallen Leaf Lake. I've gone to this retreat three times and at the last one, in May, a group of us decided we liked the energy and working time at the retreat so much that we would try to organize a retreat on our own six months off. Unbelievably, it happened!
We rented a house on the beach in Oceanwide, where we got to stare at the waves and the surfers all day long. We were walking distance to the pier, cafes, etc., but as a group we stayed in the house and wrote for the long weekend. We assigned meals to prepare in advances and brought books to exchange.
We sat in our own little spots in the big open area in front of the kitchen, shared advice on query letters, read portions of each other's work, chuckled to ourselves, and got a lot done.
I brought about four binders of works in progress and spread them on the bench in my room and stared at them. I read the beginning of my over-plotted novel to the group and got some highly valuable feedback. Then I took a hard look at all of the things I have in process, organized them more rationally on my computer, and got excited about all of the things I have to do! On Saturday afternoon I started work on finishing up a series of essays about growing up, that is about two thirds done and set a goal for myself of finishing them by Christmas -- and maybe giving them as gifts to my siblings and a few cousins. Half-finished novel put back on the shelf for now.....
We rented a house on the beach in Oceanwide, where we got to stare at the waves and the surfers all day long. We were walking distance to the pier, cafes, etc., but as a group we stayed in the house and wrote for the long weekend. We assigned meals to prepare in advances and brought books to exchange.
We sat in our own little spots in the big open area in front of the kitchen, shared advice on query letters, read portions of each other's work, chuckled to ourselves, and got a lot done.
I brought about four binders of works in progress and spread them on the bench in my room and stared at them. I read the beginning of my over-plotted novel to the group and got some highly valuable feedback. Then I took a hard look at all of the things I have in process, organized them more rationally on my computer, and got excited about all of the things I have to do! On Saturday afternoon I started work on finishing up a series of essays about growing up, that is about two thirds done and set a goal for myself of finishing them by Christmas -- and maybe giving them as gifts to my siblings and a few cousins. Half-finished novel put back on the shelf for now.....
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Ecrivain? Belletrist?
I'm taking a French class. I'm not sure why. There is no reason I need to speak French, other than a desire to travel more in France and to one day feel comfortable being on my own there as a tourist. But I'm in a junior college class that meets during the day and it feels incredibly time-consuming and inefficient. And whenever I feel put on the spot I start speaking Spanish. But I feel compelled to keep at it and go on to French 2 next semester if California's budget woes allow enough sections for all of us.
We are currently working on describing our professions. I had the courage to say,"Je suis ecrivain" instead of "je suis avocate" when asked the question in conversation. (Yes, yes, I know that there is an accent aigu over the "e" but I refuse to try to put in accents when I'm not in class.) Why not?
I've decided I love the way "ecrivain" sounds - it's crisp and sharp and if it were a wine I would say it has a touch of citrus. It sounds like a page turning. It sounds like you actually DO something. So much better than "writer" with its wimpy "w" start, or the even worse "author" with that awful, old-fashioned diphthong beginning (I always think of Louis May Alcott when I hear the word "author" for some reason.)
Then I thought of the other languages I have studied: "escritor" and "escribir" in Spanish -- sounds languid and mysterious, with the crispness of the "cri" that is common to the French word but softened by the preceding "s"; "schriftstellerin" and "schreiben" in German -- predictably sturdy and requiring all of that forward pushing of the lips to get started. But www.wordreference.com tells me that there is a special word for fiction writer in German -- "belletrist" -- I'm not familiar with that word but I love it! It sounds like we dance with words or somehow conjure things! I'm sticking with that!
Ich bin eine belletrist!
We are currently working on describing our professions. I had the courage to say,"Je suis ecrivain" instead of "je suis avocate" when asked the question in conversation. (Yes, yes, I know that there is an accent aigu over the "e" but I refuse to try to put in accents when I'm not in class.) Why not?
I've decided I love the way "ecrivain" sounds - it's crisp and sharp and if it were a wine I would say it has a touch of citrus. It sounds like a page turning. It sounds like you actually DO something. So much better than "writer" with its wimpy "w" start, or the even worse "author" with that awful, old-fashioned diphthong beginning (I always think of Louis May Alcott when I hear the word "author" for some reason.)
Then I thought of the other languages I have studied: "escritor" and "escribir" in Spanish -- sounds languid and mysterious, with the crispness of the "cri" that is common to the French word but softened by the preceding "s"; "schriftstellerin" and "schreiben" in German -- predictably sturdy and requiring all of that forward pushing of the lips to get started. But www.wordreference.com tells me that there is a special word for fiction writer in German -- "belletrist" -- I'm not familiar with that word but I love it! It sounds like we dance with words or somehow conjure things! I'm sticking with that!
Ich bin eine belletrist!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Did Claude Debussy Smoke? Did He Ever
I'm writing a story and all of a sudden I just HAD to know if Claude Debussy smoked. If I had had to guess I would have said yes -- a turn of last century Frenchman? But, as distractions sometimes make us do, I flipped over to Google and searched "Debussy smoke". The first few hits had to do with fires that happened at concerts where Debussy pieces were performed (I've never thought of the concert hall as a dangerous place!).
But there it was -- a few more entries down -- a link to a June 17, 1910 interview with Debussy from the New York Times. The article not only describes how his garden smells and what his study looked like, but describes the jar in which his many, many cigarettes are stored.
I love the New York Times.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Turn Of The Weather
I like having a black cat. Louie is silky and slim and waits at the door to check out every trick or treater. With his yellow eyes he also looks like he could be a mascot for the Livestrong organization.
Every year, even here in Southern California, it always seems that the weather, at least in the evening, is cool and fall-like by Halloween. This year was no exception -- warm and sunny during the day and then crisp last night. And the lovely gift of another hour to sleep last night. It's enough to get me to sit at my desk, to look forward to the writing I'm going to do, to have the energy to make healthy, vegetable-laden foods.
And here I am - up and at my computer a bit early for a Sunday morning, ready to get going. Because of course I was up before six because there is no way to tell the cats they will be fed an hour later.
And here I am - up and at my computer a bit early for a Sunday morning, ready to get going. Because of course I was up before six because there is no way to tell the cats they will be fed an hour later.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Whose Clothes Are Those?
There were two days last week when the temperature dipped into the 60's, so I decided it was time to rearrange things in my closet. I brought out some sweaters, counted how many pairs of boots I own, etc. Then I turned to look at the long line of black, navy and taupe clothing that constitutes my collection of lawyer clothes. A lot of them were dusty, because they've just been hanging there for almost a year now.
I took a closer look. Did I really wear those clothes every day? They looked so uncomfortable, so unforgiving. And a lot of them looked worn out. I started pulling them out and making a discard pile. Fifteen minutes later the pile was enormous.
I've kept my favorites. After all, I expect to be working as a lawyer again within a few months. But if I need to handle a one week federal court trial next month I would need to go shopping first.
So what did I put in the big gap in my closet? I hung up all of my cycling clothes. So now every time I open the closet I think about whether today is a good day to go out on the bike path. That's probably good, no?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Being Surprised (Pleasantly)
I have been listening to an interview with Lorrie Moore on "Writers on Writing," which is Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's weekly writing radio program on KUCI. She was talking about how she goes about writing her stories and novels and she said, "The author has to be a little bit surprised." It felt like she was talking to me -- throw out all those outlines!
I didn't throw my outline and Excel spreadsheet of chapters out, but I packed them back on the shelf.
Over the weekend I pulled out another half-written novel and brought it with me when I went to eat hazelnut pancakes. (I used to go to this particular restaurant for brunch on weekends with my son who is now in college. Just because he's not here doesn't mean I need to give up my weekly treat, right?) I was so happy with what I found. It's not half bad. I like the main character (yea!) and I felt myself filling up with hope and energy again.
I'm in the process of going through what I have done already, which is about 150 pages, and figuring out what else needs to be done. I have an idea of where there are gaps in the narrative but I'm trying to just remember it all rather than right it down. That doesn't seem to be a good artistic endeavor for me.
I'm happy again!
I didn't throw my outline and Excel spreadsheet of chapters out, but I packed them back on the shelf.
Over the weekend I pulled out another half-written novel and brought it with me when I went to eat hazelnut pancakes. (I used to go to this particular restaurant for brunch on weekends with my son who is now in college. Just because he's not here doesn't mean I need to give up my weekly treat, right?) I was so happy with what I found. It's not half bad. I like the main character (yea!) and I felt myself filling up with hope and energy again.
I'm in the process of going through what I have done already, which is about 150 pages, and figuring out what else needs to be done. I have an idea of where there are gaps in the narrative but I'm trying to just remember it all rather than right it down. That doesn't seem to be a good artistic endeavor for me.
I'm happy again!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Haunted By Irishmen
I'm being haunted by four Irishmen -- I thought they were all dead but I just went on Wikipedia and found out that one of them (the one I've never met) is still alive. My ghosts are not the typical ghosts of Irish writers -- no James Joyce or William Butler Yeats for me. No, I am haunted by my father, John, my uncle Jess, my high school English teacher Frank McCourt, and Liam Clancy.
As I've reported, I'm having a tough week. Can't get going on a writing project, pretty sure I hate the protagonist of the novel I've plotted and thought I was excited about, wondering why I'm trying to do any of this.
For the last few days whenever I've sat down to do something that is amusing but clearly a time waster (watching French soap operas on TV, reorganizing the closet in the garage where cleaning products are stored, looking for new people to friend on Facebook), I get this weird feeling in my shoulders and I can almost see the four of them sitting on the sofa behind me, all in jaunty tweed jackets, their heads tilted a bit to the side, just watching me. Finally one of them will say to me: "So, what are you waiting for? You think you have something to say, so say it."
I don't know that much about Liam Clancy, but the other three were certainly not the sort to sit around waiting for perfect circumstances to get on with the thing they thought they wanted to do. My father spent his best hours playing and teaching music while working an office job to feed and clothe his family, my uncle Jess was an amateur historian who filled his house with volumes on English legal history which he read after he retired from the New York fire department. And we all know the story of Frank McCourt, who apparently was struggling to find a way to express himself during the very years he was showing me and my fellow students the beauty and joy of simply reading our language out loud.
One of my favorite memoirs is Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life." Hamill grew up in Brooklyn and is quite a bit older than me, but his description of growing up in an Irish neighborhood where the accepted path to nirvana was a government job with a pension and a dependable tavern at the end of the street rang very true to me. But there is a passage at the beginning of Chapter 6 that I listen to over and over again. Hamill describes his decision to turn down an apprencticeship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he was in high school, wanting to pursue his dream of becoming a cartoonist and bohemian. Hamill wonders if what he is hearing from his priest and others around him is true -- is it arrogant and a sin of pride to conceive of a life beyond the neighborhood? He expresses this point of view in a simple way: "Who did I think I was? Who the f--k did I think I was?"
I think it's a phrase that runs through the mind of not only thousands of children of Irish immigrants, but probably just as many aspiring writers, musicians, painters, etc. as well. I see now that I am among the fortunate. While my mother did subscribe to and espouse that view of the world, many other important influences in my early life didn't. So, as I sit here wondering who the f--k I think I am, there are four other people filling my brain with the message that I need to just get on with it.
As I've reported, I'm having a tough week. Can't get going on a writing project, pretty sure I hate the protagonist of the novel I've plotted and thought I was excited about, wondering why I'm trying to do any of this.
For the last few days whenever I've sat down to do something that is amusing but clearly a time waster (watching French soap operas on TV, reorganizing the closet in the garage where cleaning products are stored, looking for new people to friend on Facebook), I get this weird feeling in my shoulders and I can almost see the four of them sitting on the sofa behind me, all in jaunty tweed jackets, their heads tilted a bit to the side, just watching me. Finally one of them will say to me: "So, what are you waiting for? You think you have something to say, so say it."
I don't know that much about Liam Clancy, but the other three were certainly not the sort to sit around waiting for perfect circumstances to get on with the thing they thought they wanted to do. My father spent his best hours playing and teaching music while working an office job to feed and clothe his family, my uncle Jess was an amateur historian who filled his house with volumes on English legal history which he read after he retired from the New York fire department. And we all know the story of Frank McCourt, who apparently was struggling to find a way to express himself during the very years he was showing me and my fellow students the beauty and joy of simply reading our language out loud.
One of my favorite memoirs is Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life." Hamill grew up in Brooklyn and is quite a bit older than me, but his description of growing up in an Irish neighborhood where the accepted path to nirvana was a government job with a pension and a dependable tavern at the end of the street rang very true to me. But there is a passage at the beginning of Chapter 6 that I listen to over and over again. Hamill describes his decision to turn down an apprencticeship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he was in high school, wanting to pursue his dream of becoming a cartoonist and bohemian. Hamill wonders if what he is hearing from his priest and others around him is true -- is it arrogant and a sin of pride to conceive of a life beyond the neighborhood? He expresses this point of view in a simple way: "Who did I think I was? Who the f--k did I think I was?"
I think it's a phrase that runs through the mind of not only thousands of children of Irish immigrants, but probably just as many aspiring writers, musicians, painters, etc. as well. I see now that I am among the fortunate. While my mother did subscribe to and espouse that view of the world, many other important influences in my early life didn't. So, as I sit here wondering who the f--k I think I am, there are four other people filling my brain with the message that I need to just get on with it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Maybe a Caffe Mocha?
This is one of those days when I don't want to do anything. I made myself go to my French class, got myself to go to the gym afterwards (in the rain) on the promise that I could get a lovely cup of coffee later. I went home and have spent an hour paying bills, catching up on email, etc. Now I need to go to the post office to mail yet more queries. And then I should stop by the library. Then, finally, I will get my caffe mocha. But the BIG question -- if I sit there and sip it, will the words come?
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Farmer's Market
On Thursday nights I am taking a class at UCLA -- not a writing class, believe it or not. I have decided to turn Thursdays into my dreaming days -- as long as this class lasts. This week I went to the Farmer's Market and set myself up for the afternoon at the Coffee Corner (apparently in business since 1946). It was a warm afternoon, but I got a table in the shade. I had a wonderful time goofing around with my writing notebook and people watching. I found myself very curious about what had brought some of these groups of people to the Farmer's Market. I didn't actually get any writing done. I outlined some, took some notes, and contemplated whether I like the protagonist of my novel enough to spend the next several months inside her head. I'm still not sure. But I did get excited about the lists of other stories I have bobbing around in my head.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Cocoa Berry, Armani #6 and Annie
In the last few days I realized I have one additional writing ritual that I haven't been very aware of.
If I'm home, especially if I'm by myself, before I sit down to a writing session I put on fresh lipstick and sometimes eye liner. I know that this can be explained away by saying that I think of writing as equivalent to a job, etc. etc. etc. But that's not it. I don't put on the neutral, same-color-as-my-lips shades that I would wear to go to court or a bar dinner or the well-sharpened espresso eye pencil that just makes my eyelashes look a bit more sure of themselves. No -- I put on strong, dark red lipsticks -- the colors you would find in film noir classics, the ones that leave weird, unappealing stains on coffee cups, the ones that make me look a little too old, that make the lines around my mouth a little too prominent. Why do I own so many of these colors? I can't blame over-active salespeople because I really do like the lipsticks, I am just too chicken to wear them most of the time. And I wear dark, thick eyeliner -- sometimes even the liquid gel kind that requires a VERY steady hand, trying to look like an Italian movie star circa 1962.
I think I'm putting on my "writer gal" persona when I do this. I remember the passage in Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" when she described putting on a perky skirt suit to go visit her editor in New York early in her career, when she was astounded to find that they wouldn't spend the day sitting by elbow to elbow figuring out how to make her book perfect. I'm not prepared to put on special clothes these days -- I spent enough years in law firms writing briefs while wearing a full-on suit and high heels. I know I can write in those circumstances but I also know that the restrictive clothing does not necessarily improve my output.
Now I'm comfortable with just a little exterior touch-up to be ready to do my work. I do this if I'm in black pants and a cashmere sweater (as dressed up as I get these days) or in yoga clothes (put on in the morning to assure that I will actually go to class in the afternoon); if I'm sitting down for ten minutes or for the whole day. Just another quirky thing to (hopefully) help the process move forward a few more inches.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Sending Ships Out of The Harbor
Several years ago I started a business book club. I invited other lawyers, stock brokers, PR professionals, even a librarian. We met at my office and discussed a book we had all agreed on. It was fun and was a good way to get to know people I met at networking events. Unfortunately, it died of its own weight after only about six months. People were too busy to read the book, to attend, etc.
But I remember some of the books we read and the discussions we had. One of the books was "The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction" by Chellie Campbell. I only remember one thing about the book - the author's theory that you need to think about things you do to further yourself as little ships that you send out of the harbor. We don't know which ones will come home laden with goods, which ones will sink, which ones will never be heard from again, and we don't know when any of this will happen. I guess the only thing we know is that nothing good will happen if we keep all of the ships tied up at the dock.
I think about this all the time with my writing -- not just when I send out a query letter or submit a short story to a magazine, but every time I say "yes" when someone asks if I want to sit in on a writing group or if I meet a writer who is interested in exchanging pages. It's scary and each individual thing is unlikely to lead to a big "aha" moment, but you can never tell. Someday something wonderful will come chugging around the breakwater.
In the time I've been serious about my writing -- about five years now -- I've kept plugging away at it, going to seminars, workshops, trying writing groups, reading writing books, talking, talking, talking about process and mostly just trying to get myself to sit down in the chair and do it. I guess I don't have much to show for it if you look at it in a business-like sense. But when I look at my shelf full of binders of things I've written, look at my file folders of research and ideas, and look at my calendar and see weeks filled with things to do and people to meet that are directly related to my writing, I do get a feeling of accomplishment.
And I don't even know how many ships are out there out of radio contact. I just know there are a lot of them and I will keep sending more.
But I remember some of the books we read and the discussions we had. One of the books was "The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction" by Chellie Campbell. I only remember one thing about the book - the author's theory that you need to think about things you do to further yourself as little ships that you send out of the harbor. We don't know which ones will come home laden with goods, which ones will sink, which ones will never be heard from again, and we don't know when any of this will happen. I guess the only thing we know is that nothing good will happen if we keep all of the ships tied up at the dock.
I think about this all the time with my writing -- not just when I send out a query letter or submit a short story to a magazine, but every time I say "yes" when someone asks if I want to sit in on a writing group or if I meet a writer who is interested in exchanging pages. It's scary and each individual thing is unlikely to lead to a big "aha" moment, but you can never tell. Someday something wonderful will come chugging around the breakwater.
In the time I've been serious about my writing -- about five years now -- I've kept plugging away at it, going to seminars, workshops, trying writing groups, reading writing books, talking, talking, talking about process and mostly just trying to get myself to sit down in the chair and do it. I guess I don't have much to show for it if you look at it in a business-like sense. But when I look at my shelf full of binders of things I've written, look at my file folders of research and ideas, and look at my calendar and see weeks filled with things to do and people to meet that are directly related to my writing, I do get a feeling of accomplishment.
And I don't even know how many ships are out there out of radio contact. I just know there are a lot of them and I will keep sending more.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Me and My Note Cards; My Note Cards and Me
I'm plotting my novel. Sat down with a stack of note cards and wrote down a scene/chapter on each one -- the ones I've written already, the ones I plan to write, the little wisps of scenes I've done just a little dialogue for. There is was -- my "darlings" spread out on the carpet around me. You will notice that they are not arranged in a line. They are clumped together, overlaid on top of each other, and there are some orphans along the left that don't know where they belong.
After I while I realized I needed a better way to approach this (I rejected just shuffling the cards and seeing what happens). I got out some pens and put a red stripe across the top of any card that represented a plot point or piece of action. Then I marked with pink the cards that were character development or deeper discussion. Then I used yellow for back story and flashbacks. Once I did that I saw that it was the pink and yellow cards that were orphans -- I was having trouble figuring out where certain things need to be told in the narrative. I also found that seeing the mix of red, pink and yellow on the floor in front of me told me when my story was going to bog down in too much back story. I didn't think I was that visual but it really helped me see the gaps I need to think about. Now I want to see if I can find a little clothesline or something and string my note cards over my head at my desk like Tibetan prayer flags. But I don't think that cards that say things like "Tricia has a fight with Matt" are so very inspirational to the other members of my family. In the meantime they are bound together with a clip and I am carrying them everywhere I go. I shuffle the order sometimes and think about whether that will work.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Los Angeles Writers Conference
I went to the Los Angeles Writers Conference on Friday and Saturday. I've considered going to this in the past and decided to take the plunge this year. I found the website hard to figure out and didn't really have a good idea of what the classes would be, so I showed up on Friday afternoon thinking I might end up ditching most of the weekend. To my surprise, I stumbled into something called "Novel Cram," led by Drusilla Campbell and I found it very worthwhile.
We spent a day and a half learning about some of the essential elements of planning a novel and an overview of how to plot a novel. The emphasis of the class was definitely on writing a book that can be sold. Campbell was very good at listening to the ideas for novels of people in the class and making on the fly suggestions for ways to think about gaps in plotting, etc. The people in the class were generous and interesting and it was fun to hear what people are cooking up. And not a vampire plot in the group.
On the first afternoon I got a number of ideas of how to address some of the gaps in the novel I am working on and felt very energized. It was interesting to think of my novel in a structured way and take a little step back. But as the second day wore on and we got into some more technical discussions of plot points, when they should come in the book, how the resolution needed to work, it began to feel more and more formulaic to me. I could come up with ways to accomplish these things within the story I have in mind, but it felt like a party trick rather than putting together a story I am interested in writing. As the day went on I kept thinking of books I've enjoyed reading and realizing that most of them broke the rules I was learning about.
I've attended other classes on the novel and I've left with the same feeling. Is it just me?
After I left I listened to an interview with E.L. Doctorow, talking about his new book "Homer & Langley." He talked about writing it and how he didn't know how it was going to end as he wrote, etc. Of course, I was already familiar with his famous quotation about writing: “It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I've always loved that quotation and find great daily comfort in it. It's the opposite of what I spent the weekend learning about.
I realized something as I drove home. I'm not interested in writing a book in order to sell it. I want to write a good book. I'll take all the input I can and write what I think is right. And if it sells, that would be great. But I think I'm more of a night driver than a plotter.
We spent a day and a half learning about some of the essential elements of planning a novel and an overview of how to plot a novel. The emphasis of the class was definitely on writing a book that can be sold. Campbell was very good at listening to the ideas for novels of people in the class and making on the fly suggestions for ways to think about gaps in plotting, etc. The people in the class were generous and interesting and it was fun to hear what people are cooking up. And not a vampire plot in the group.
On the first afternoon I got a number of ideas of how to address some of the gaps in the novel I am working on and felt very energized. It was interesting to think of my novel in a structured way and take a little step back. But as the second day wore on and we got into some more technical discussions of plot points, when they should come in the book, how the resolution needed to work, it began to feel more and more formulaic to me. I could come up with ways to accomplish these things within the story I have in mind, but it felt like a party trick rather than putting together a story I am interested in writing. As the day went on I kept thinking of books I've enjoyed reading and realizing that most of them broke the rules I was learning about.
I've attended other classes on the novel and I've left with the same feeling. Is it just me?
After I left I listened to an interview with E.L. Doctorow, talking about his new book "Homer & Langley." He talked about writing it and how he didn't know how it was going to end as he wrote, etc. Of course, I was already familiar with his famous quotation about writing: “It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I've always loved that quotation and find great daily comfort in it. It's the opposite of what I spent the weekend learning about.
I realized something as I drove home. I'm not interested in writing a book in order to sell it. I want to write a good book. I'll take all the input I can and write what I think is right. And if it sells, that would be great. But I think I'm more of a night driver than a plotter.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Turning My Back on Reading Novels
I've decided -- the project for the rest of the year is my novel. I had a breakthrough idea on a key character yesterday and this afternoon I'm going to sit down with a stack of index cards and see what happens with putting some scenes in order. This is a new approach for me. So far, I'm the kind of writer who sits down each day and picks a part of the story to work on, whether or not it's the next thing in order. For this novel, I have 30 sequential beginning pages and then bits and pieces of about ten other scenes, some almost stream of consciousness and in the wrong person and others at least in the right tense and everything but unfinished. So I have some work to do. But it will be fun.
But I've also decided to give up reading fiction while I am working in earnest on this book. Or at least to try to. I've heard of writers who are very firm about not reading the genre of work they are working on, but it hasn't bothered me so far. But maybe that was because the big thing I was working on was a memoir and I didn't need to be so worried about having someone else's story and voice infect me. I can see the point more now that I am trying to put together a longer work.
I went through the stack on my bedside table and removed all of the fiction. I placed the pile in another room. The remaining pile is an odd collection of memoir and history. I think I am most looking forward to the biography of the woman who made Veuve Clicquot what it is today. And maybe now I will get to those biographies of George Gershwin and Jerome Robbins that have always looked a little too thick to be intriguing.
I wonder if I can really get to the end of the year without reading fiction.
My one exception -- I just got "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin off the reserve list at the library and I am going to finish it.
But I've also decided to give up reading fiction while I am working in earnest on this book. Or at least to try to. I've heard of writers who are very firm about not reading the genre of work they are working on, but it hasn't bothered me so far. But maybe that was because the big thing I was working on was a memoir and I didn't need to be so worried about having someone else's story and voice infect me. I can see the point more now that I am trying to put together a longer work.
I went through the stack on my bedside table and removed all of the fiction. I placed the pile in another room. The remaining pile is an odd collection of memoir and history. I think I am most looking forward to the biography of the woman who made Veuve Clicquot what it is today. And maybe now I will get to those biographies of George Gershwin and Jerome Robbins that have always looked a little too thick to be intriguing.
I wonder if I can really get to the end of the year without reading fiction.
My one exception -- I just got "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin off the reserve list at the library and I am going to finish it.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Writing Groups
I am always on the lookout for a writing group. It's as if I'm on the trail of a mythical creature -- I've heard they exist, I was in a good one for a while, and I'm eager to hear lore of how they work. The one that makes me drool is the one ZZ Packer is in, which was profiled in "O" (Oprah) Magazine. The participants fly up and down the west coast for meetings and they all sounded totally committed to the group and to each other's work. Very inspirational.
I was in a group that worked well for a year and a half. There were three of us, all working on memoirs. We met every other Thursday night and we paid a writing teacher to facilitate our work. No one was flaky and we took the commitment seriously. We got a lot done but then we each felt like we needed a break and never reconstituted.
After that I tried to start a group after I took a class at UCI but it was too much work to get it going. I watched someone else try the same thing, unsuccessfully, after a UCLA seminar. I don't know why it's so hard. In some ways it seems worse than dating.
I am in one group now whcih is very different from any writing group I've ever heard of. We meet every other Thursday morning at one person's house. We sit around her square dining room table and we each work silently on whatever we want for an house. Then, in the next hour each person recounts to the group how their writing is going -- their accomplishments, their obstacles, their goals. We have even started writing down something we will accomplish before the next meeting on an index card and giving it to the leader. Scary! Then we end with a short writing exercise.
It's so much fun and so energizing. No pressure about having something to read -- I just have to show up and work. We are all working on very different projects -- an entire spectrum of non-fiction from family narrative to almost academic self-help, with me being the only one working on fiction. We are at different points in our projects and our commitment. I'm finding myself looking forward to each meeting. I know I will have a good writing afternoon after I leave and that my momemtum might carry me through a good part of the weekend.
I was in a group that worked well for a year and a half. There were three of us, all working on memoirs. We met every other Thursday night and we paid a writing teacher to facilitate our work. No one was flaky and we took the commitment seriously. We got a lot done but then we each felt like we needed a break and never reconstituted.
After that I tried to start a group after I took a class at UCI but it was too much work to get it going. I watched someone else try the same thing, unsuccessfully, after a UCLA seminar. I don't know why it's so hard. In some ways it seems worse than dating.
I am in one group now whcih is very different from any writing group I've ever heard of. We meet every other Thursday morning at one person's house. We sit around her square dining room table and we each work silently on whatever we want for an house. Then, in the next hour each person recounts to the group how their writing is going -- their accomplishments, their obstacles, their goals. We have even started writing down something we will accomplish before the next meeting on an index card and giving it to the leader. Scary! Then we end with a short writing exercise.
It's so much fun and so energizing. No pressure about having something to read -- I just have to show up and work. We are all working on very different projects -- an entire spectrum of non-fiction from family narrative to almost academic self-help, with me being the only one working on fiction. We are at different points in our projects and our commitment. I'm finding myself looking forward to each meeting. I know I will have a good writing afternoon after I leave and that my momemtum might carry me through a good part of the weekend.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Back to School
Back at my desk after a one week trip. My sons are firmly in school -- the oldest just went away to college and the other is head down in APs already. So our household can return to a routine.
I have three and a half months of my year-long experiment. The days on the calendar spread out before me like jewels of opportunity. I am eager to decide on a project to fill these last months. So far I am having trouble settling on the project I want to become buried in.
I think I will give myself the rest of this week to decide.
I have three and a half months of my year-long experiment. The days on the calendar spread out before me like jewels of opportunity. I am eager to decide on a project to fill these last months. So far I am having trouble settling on the project I want to become buried in.
I think I will give myself the rest of this week to decide.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Regimen - 1,000 Words
A lazy Labor Day, even for those of us who no longer have office jobs to be away from. In the afternoon I went to Peet's with my little orange notebook to face the rigor of my daily one thousand words. Now that I'm done with the big edit of my memoir I need to get back to fresh work.
I've read countless interviews with well-known writers in which they talk about the importance of writing a thousand words a day. I heard Lisa See talk about this last week -- she says she starts her books at the beginning and marches through to the end, one thousand words at a time. Sometimes that a short amount of time at the desk each day and sometimes it's endless. I have more trouble with the idea of going through a book in the order in which it will appear at the end than I do with the wisdom of a thousand words a day.
So I got my cappuccino and a nice table in the shade outside. I opened my book and thought about where I could pick up. I have three things in progress -- a short story featuring an old Russian woman who was a ballet dancer in her youth, a novel about a middle-aged woman contemplating whether to take up again with her boyfriend from college, and a novel about the "guitar woman" (for lack of a better label). All are sitting ready for my attention.
So what happens? A young woman named Sophie appears under my pen, who is sitting at a cafe in a small town in Italy waiting to meet the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with until he unceremoniously threw her out of his apartment three months before. Why? I have no idea. But maybe I will find out tomorrow.
I've read countless interviews with well-known writers in which they talk about the importance of writing a thousand words a day. I heard Lisa See talk about this last week -- she says she starts her books at the beginning and marches through to the end, one thousand words at a time. Sometimes that a short amount of time at the desk each day and sometimes it's endless. I have more trouble with the idea of going through a book in the order in which it will appear at the end than I do with the wisdom of a thousand words a day.
So I got my cappuccino and a nice table in the shade outside. I opened my book and thought about where I could pick up. I have three things in progress -- a short story featuring an old Russian woman who was a ballet dancer in her youth, a novel about a middle-aged woman contemplating whether to take up again with her boyfriend from college, and a novel about the "guitar woman" (for lack of a better label). All are sitting ready for my attention.
So what happens? A young woman named Sophie appears under my pen, who is sitting at a cafe in a small town in Italy waiting to meet the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with until he unceremoniously threw her out of his apartment three months before. Why? I have no idea. But maybe I will find out tomorrow.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Hallelujah! I Get To Make Things Up Again
I'm finalizing my book proposal for my memoir today. It is so weird to be writing something that brags about how great my book is and how many people will want to read it, when of course, I have my doubts about every part of this project. I found myself using my best litigation skills -- acting like I was writing a brief for a shy client who has something compelling to say. Very odd feeling.
But now! I get to go back to fiction! The protagonist of a short story I started earlier in the summer is nagging at me today -- she went on my early morning walk, just a few steps behind me, trodding on my heels from time to time. And I'm so glad to get to spend time with her again. I can make things up! What liberation!
As much as I enjoyed the research part of my memoir, I am ready to be free of the factual aspect of it. When people have read different portions of the manuscript and given me feedback along the lines of, "Why don't you have your father come into the kitchen in Chapter 3?" -- it's hard to know how to react. Yes, that would make it a more compelling story, but that didn't happen.
So now I'm ready to run into the arms of make believe. And I'm ready to not listen to any ballet music for a while.
But now! I get to go back to fiction! The protagonist of a short story I started earlier in the summer is nagging at me today -- she went on my early morning walk, just a few steps behind me, trodding on my heels from time to time. And I'm so glad to get to spend time with her again. I can make things up! What liberation!
As much as I enjoyed the research part of my memoir, I am ready to be free of the factual aspect of it. When people have read different portions of the manuscript and given me feedback along the lines of, "Why don't you have your father come into the kitchen in Chapter 3?" -- it's hard to know how to react. Yes, that would make it a more compelling story, but that didn't happen.
So now I'm ready to run into the arms of make believe. And I'm ready to not listen to any ballet music for a while.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Head Down, Pink Pen In Hand
I'm on page 154 of 307. I put my memoir aside for most of the summer and now I am going through it one more time, hoping that a few months of distance will make it easier to find false notes and weird word choices.
I'm surprised at how quickly it's going and also at how relatively.... well, fun, it is to do this review work. I'm reading aloud, which is the only way I can find particularly bad sentences. It's been over 90 degrees for the last week and I sit in a room with the shades down, where there is no computer, no phone, as little to keep me from my task as possible. I'm doing about 50 pages a day. If I push to go for any more than that I get even more tired of being with myself than I normally am.
Of course, my constant companions are thoughts about why I decided to do this in the first place, who on earth would want to read any of this, whether it's possible to include even more cliched phrases to describe what I was feeling....
I'm told many people feel like this at this stage of a project so I'll just keep on going. I don't know what else to do.
I'm surprised at how quickly it's going and also at how relatively.... well, fun, it is to do this review work. I'm reading aloud, which is the only way I can find particularly bad sentences. It's been over 90 degrees for the last week and I sit in a room with the shades down, where there is no computer, no phone, as little to keep me from my task as possible. I'm doing about 50 pages a day. If I push to go for any more than that I get even more tired of being with myself than I normally am.
Of course, my constant companions are thoughts about why I decided to do this in the first place, who on earth would want to read any of this, whether it's possible to include even more cliched phrases to describe what I was feeling....
I'm told many people feel like this at this stage of a project so I'll just keep on going. I don't know what else to do.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Channeling My Father's Youth
I'm busily at work revising my memoir and I'm pleased with how things are going so far. I'm ready to take a stern look at some things I assumed needed to be a certain way from the very beginning and yesterday I completely rearranged the first chapter. A liberating feeling.
Then I needed a break. So I created a playlist.
Today I will be editing my description of my father's childhood and early music career. My father was born in 1912 and in his teens, in the roaring twenties, he was a guitarist in New York and earned extra money by selling silk stockings to Broadway chorus girls (I'm sure his mother was thrilled). I grew us listening to music from this period and thinking nothing of having Louis Armstrong playing all the time.
I spent a half hour combing through my music and now I have a 14 hour playlist of 1920's jazz. In addition to Louis Armstrong, I have George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman, Fletcher Henderson, and Count Basie. It's such fun to listen to this stuff.
And I have eliminated today's excuse to step away from my chair. Or at least I think so.
Then I needed a break. So I created a playlist.
Today I will be editing my description of my father's childhood and early music career. My father was born in 1912 and in his teens, in the roaring twenties, he was a guitarist in New York and earned extra money by selling silk stockings to Broadway chorus girls (I'm sure his mother was thrilled). I grew us listening to music from this period and thinking nothing of having Louis Armstrong playing all the time.
I spent a half hour combing through my music and now I have a 14 hour playlist of 1920's jazz. In addition to Louis Armstrong, I have George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman, Fletcher Henderson, and Count Basie. It's such fun to listen to this stuff.
And I have eliminated today's excuse to step away from my chair. Or at least I think so.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Coffee Karma
The others in my family eschew coins. They shed change into a little wicker basket next to my computer as if they can’t wait to have it leave their pockets. One of my sons hoards quarters and then gladly exchanges them for a twenty dollar bill.
I treasure every coin. I pull out some quarters to leave in an envelope in my glove compartment for parking meters. But I always carry a lot of coins in my purse. This is my tea money. $1.95 – the cost of a grande tea at Starbucks with two Awake tea bags – a standard order for me. At Peets it’s $1.75 for Assam Tips – better yet. I derive deep and inexplicable satisfaction if I can buy my cup of tea with coins.
But when it comes to my single favorite beverage to have out of the house (as you know) – a double cappuccino for here (emphasis placed in hopes of getting a ceramic cup instead of paper) – I must pay with paper money and I must, must, must leave a tip.
I think it’s bad luck to take change at a coffee place. You must leave what’s handed back to you in the little plastic square that is meant for tips.
It’s best if the drink’s price ends in “.50” – then the 50 cents in change is perfect. If the price is a little higher, leaving an awkward 40 or even 20 cents in change, it’s hard to know what to do. 40 cents might be OK to leave but 25 cents or less is bad – inviting bad energy to follow me the rest of the day. I need to fish out a dollar bill to leave if I’m left with an insufficient handful of coins.
And then I can linger over my coffee and face the rest of my day unafraid.
I treasure every coin. I pull out some quarters to leave in an envelope in my glove compartment for parking meters. But I always carry a lot of coins in my purse. This is my tea money. $1.95 – the cost of a grande tea at Starbucks with two Awake tea bags – a standard order for me. At Peets it’s $1.75 for Assam Tips – better yet. I derive deep and inexplicable satisfaction if I can buy my cup of tea with coins.
But when it comes to my single favorite beverage to have out of the house (as you know) – a double cappuccino for here (emphasis placed in hopes of getting a ceramic cup instead of paper) – I must pay with paper money and I must, must, must leave a tip.
I think it’s bad luck to take change at a coffee place. You must leave what’s handed back to you in the little plastic square that is meant for tips.
It’s best if the drink’s price ends in “.50” – then the 50 cents in change is perfect. If the price is a little higher, leaving an awkward 40 or even 20 cents in change, it’s hard to know what to do. 40 cents might be OK to leave but 25 cents or less is bad – inviting bad energy to follow me the rest of the day. I need to fish out a dollar bill to leave if I’m left with an insufficient handful of coins.
And then I can linger over my coffee and face the rest of my day unafraid.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Kinko's
I just picked up my 308 page manuscript from FedEx Kinko's. I love their print on demand service. I sent an email with the file to my local store at 6 last night and it was ready to pick up before closing time last night. It's like I still work in an enormous law firm where there is someone in a room full of big, white machines whose job it is to make my work product look good. And cheaper than putting such unreasonable demand on my little home HP printer. Those print cartridges are more than $100 a piece and I feel angry everytime I need to buy one.
My manuscript looks so real when it is nestled inside the brown cardboard box with my name on top.
I also reviewed my computer back up procedures last night. I met a woman in Napa Valley who had lost a manuscript of a novel despite what sounded like fairly rigorous back-up habits. So I not only copied the draft onto a removable drive, I emailed it to my own Google account, and I split it into a few chunks and saved them all as Google documents. Everyone in my family knows that in the event of a fire, they should please, please, please, put my laptop in the car right after they put the cats in their carriers (good luck!). But I get comfort in knowing there are copies of my big drafts of projects that exist somewhere on a server in Mountain View that I can hopefully get access to no matter what electronic or actual disaster comes my way.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Getting Down to Business
August 15. Exact middle of the month.
So we know what that means. Time to sit down with "Standing Room," gather all of the comments and suggestions I've received over the last few months and do another big edit. And then see what's next.
I pulled out my big spreadsheet of agents that I put together in May. I went to Office Depot and bought a package of big envelopes and mailing labels (and some of those little neon bright Post-It flags that are my new favorite writing-oriented office supply).
I'm trying to figure out how to do this. I know myself well enough to know I can make this yet another time table project. I will divide my 300 pages by the number of days I have available and march through it -- eliminating misspelled and poorly chosen words. I will become an expert of agents' submission guidelines.
But how can I be sure I will try to see into the soul of my project? To see what really is missing and what needs to be fixed? I don't know. I feel I have some emotional distance, which I think is good. I think all I can do is hope for the best and clear off the dining room table to spread my papers everywhere.
So we know what that means. Time to sit down with "Standing Room," gather all of the comments and suggestions I've received over the last few months and do another big edit. And then see what's next.
I pulled out my big spreadsheet of agents that I put together in May. I went to Office Depot and bought a package of big envelopes and mailing labels (and some of those little neon bright Post-It flags that are my new favorite writing-oriented office supply).
I'm trying to figure out how to do this. I know myself well enough to know I can make this yet another time table project. I will divide my 300 pages by the number of days I have available and march through it -- eliminating misspelled and poorly chosen words. I will become an expert of agents' submission guidelines.
But how can I be sure I will try to see into the soul of my project? To see what really is missing and what needs to be fixed? I don't know. I feel I have some emotional distance, which I think is good. I think all I can do is hope for the best and clear off the dining room table to spread my papers everywhere.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Faith in the Future
I just finished reading submissions to a writing contest for high school students. I am on the panel of judges and we met to go over our choices and comments today. It was so exciting to read the stories. Overall, the writing was inventive, lively and with a strong sense of narrative -- so much better than anything I was writing at that age.
It was also great fun to discuss the submissions with the group of judges. Everyone had read the works quite closely and we had a lengthy and involved discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of various stories. I think we were all relieved to see such a good level of writing from teenagers. I'm tired of reading articles about the death of the book and of our attention span. Let's give our youth (and J.K. Rowling) the credit they deserve.
It was also great fun to discuss the submissions with the group of judges. Everyone had read the works quite closely and we had a lengthy and involved discussion about the relative strengths and weaknesses of various stories. I think we were all relieved to see such a good level of writing from teenagers. I'm tired of reading articles about the death of the book and of our attention span. Let's give our youth (and J.K. Rowling) the credit they deserve.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
More Finds at Newport Beach Library
It's the big "buck a bag" sale at the Newport Beach Public Library again. I walked away with three bulging bags. As last time, I found some nice little treasures. It seems that these sales are particularly good for hard cover biographies of people in the arts -- I have memoirs or biographies of Bob Fosse, Anne Sexton, Katherine Mansfield, John Mortimer, and Beethoven and a lovely little volume of "Famous French Stories" published in 1945.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Relieved
This is the best re-entry I've had to normal life after a vacation or writing retreat. I arrived home last Saturday and by Wednesday I was back in my chair with enthusiasm. In the middle of the workshop last week I remembered a short story idea I'd played around with in the spring and didn't know what to do with. All of a sudden I had an incredible hunger to get in there and play with the characters. I felt great energy to see what they would get up to if I gave them some air. And better yet, the subject matter gave me an excuse to play around on YouTube yesterday in the name of research.
Of course, I went to the workshop in order to get inspired to keep going on a novel I've been playing around with for over a year. I didn't anticipate coming home burning to write a short story.
But if the muse (sounds grandiose, I know) is sitting staring you in the face, it's foolish to turn away.
Of course, I went to the workshop in order to get inspired to keep going on a novel I've been playing around with for over a year. I didn't anticipate coming home burning to write a short story.
But if the muse (sounds grandiose, I know) is sitting staring you in the face, it's foolish to turn away.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Back From Napa Valley
I returned home from the Napa Valley Writers Conference a few days ago. Six days of wallowing in words and wine in St. Helena. What a treat.
The conference is held at the tiny "north" satellite campus of Napa Valley College. There are about 100 participants, divided between poetry and fiction. There are eight workshops, each with 12 participants. I was in Antonya Nelson's group.
One of the reasons I was so excited to attend this conference was because I had read and admired the work of three of the fiction faculty before I'd even thought of applying. Nelson's short story collections are among my favorites and this spring I gave several friends copies of her most recent collection, "Nothing Right." A few years ago I stayed up most of one night to finish ZZ Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere." And last year I greated enjoyed Peter Ho Davies' "The Welsh Girl."
On arrival at the conference on Sunday afternoon we had an orientation, then split into our groups to get organized for the week. We each had submitted up to 25 pages about a month in advance and had received the pages of our fellow workshop participants about two weeks before arrival. It was fun to finally meet the people whose work I'd been digesting over the past weeks.
The daily schedule was:
8:00 a.m. -- breakfast (wonderful healthy food for all meals provided)
9:00 a.m. -- poetry lecture
10:15 -- workshop (we did 2 - 3 pieces a day)
12:30 -- lunch
1:30 -- fiction lecture
7:30 -- wine reception (at different locations -- the school, the Rubicon Estate, the Napa Opera House, the Mondavi vineyard)
8:00 -- faculty readings
I learned so much. Antonya Nelson is so smart and insightful and in the little time she'd had to look at our work, she was able to give each of us directed analysis, finding themes, asking tough questions, and giving us a much better sense of how you go from a decent first draft to something you want to show the world. I have a much better sense of the work I need to do now and how to better structure my time. This was the perfect next step for me, moving from straightforward discussions of setting and voice to much more rigorous analysis of craft issues, more reminiscent of a college lecture hall. It was invigorating and terrifying at the same time.
The people in my workshop dug in and showed serious and deep familiarity with the work of their classmates. There were many people who have been at the conference before and I can see how it can become addictive. The man who owned the B&B where I stayed told me he would try to get me a room with a balcony next year so I can get a better view!
The conference is held at the tiny "north" satellite campus of Napa Valley College. There are about 100 participants, divided between poetry and fiction. There are eight workshops, each with 12 participants. I was in Antonya Nelson's group.
One of the reasons I was so excited to attend this conference was because I had read and admired the work of three of the fiction faculty before I'd even thought of applying. Nelson's short story collections are among my favorites and this spring I gave several friends copies of her most recent collection, "Nothing Right." A few years ago I stayed up most of one night to finish ZZ Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere." And last year I greated enjoyed Peter Ho Davies' "The Welsh Girl."
On arrival at the conference on Sunday afternoon we had an orientation, then split into our groups to get organized for the week. We each had submitted up to 25 pages about a month in advance and had received the pages of our fellow workshop participants about two weeks before arrival. It was fun to finally meet the people whose work I'd been digesting over the past weeks.
The daily schedule was:
8:00 a.m. -- breakfast (wonderful healthy food for all meals provided)
9:00 a.m. -- poetry lecture
10:15 -- workshop (we did 2 - 3 pieces a day)
12:30 -- lunch
1:30 -- fiction lecture
7:30 -- wine reception (at different locations -- the school, the Rubicon Estate, the Napa Opera House, the Mondavi vineyard)
8:00 -- faculty readings
I learned so much. Antonya Nelson is so smart and insightful and in the little time she'd had to look at our work, she was able to give each of us directed analysis, finding themes, asking tough questions, and giving us a much better sense of how you go from a decent first draft to something you want to show the world. I have a much better sense of the work I need to do now and how to better structure my time. This was the perfect next step for me, moving from straightforward discussions of setting and voice to much more rigorous analysis of craft issues, more reminiscent of a college lecture hall. It was invigorating and terrifying at the same time.
The people in my workshop dug in and showed serious and deep familiarity with the work of their classmates. There were many people who have been at the conference before and I can see how it can become addictive. The man who owned the B&B where I stayed told me he would try to get me a room with a balcony next year so I can get a better view!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
I Know I Should Like Philip Roth
I'm on page 182 of "The Counterlife" and I can't wait to be done. 324 pages total. If I read just 50 pages a day, I can be done by Saturday. And since I've started skimming some of the longer dialogue exchanges, that should be very doable.
And then I won't have to read another Philip Roth novel for another year. That's my deal with myself.
I somehow avoided Roth until recently. When the New York Times published its list of "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years" a few years ago and Roth's books were so prominently featured I decided I needed to fill in this gap. I got "American Pastoral" and found myself losing interest after just 20 to 30 pages. OK, so I read that this is part of a long series involving a character named Zuckerman. So I decided I should work up to this book. The idea of seven or eight books in a series didn't scare me off.
But I took a break first. Reread "Beloved" and the first two of Updike's Rabbit books to prove to myself I wasn't completely unable to enjoy and appreciate what the late 20th century had to offer.
Then I read "The Ghost Writer." Liked it. I grew up across the Kill Van Kull from Newark so felt a certain kinship with the subject matter, even if the Newark Roth depicts was long gone by the time I came along. But it felt like work. However, by the end of the book I'd warmed to him and raved to my husband that it was true that Roth has been gypped of the Nobel Prize, that there's no one who can deliver period dialogue like him, etc. etc.
Then I jumpted right into "Zuckerman Unbound" and "The Anatomy Lesson." I plowed right through. I wallowed. I OD'd. I waited a long time to turn to "The Prague Orgy."
The next two -- "The Counterlife" and "American Pastoral" -- sat unblinking and accusatory on my bedside for almost two years. I don't know what made me take up Roth again now but it is torture. And yet I can't allow myself to stop.
It doesn't make sense. I've given in before. Gave up on Salman Rushdie nearly as soon as I started, could barely hold "The Alchemist" in my hand, and ended up gritting my teeth through the second half of Pamuk's "Snow" (even though I went on to greatly enjoy others of his books).
I usually have great staying power with books and series. I pretended to have (or gave myself a psychosomatic case of?) the flu to finish "Crime and Punishment" a few years ago. I cheerfully whistled my way through a course in Victorian literature in which I digested a Dickens or Eliot orAusten novel every week. I will press a copy of "Absalom! Absalom!" in the hands of any unsuspecting teenager who expresses even a mild interest in southern writers.
Several years ago I went to a dinner party where one of the guests was a soon-t0-be-famous medium. My father had died a few years before and I corralled my cynicism long enough to talk to the medium. He first described to me a teal blue tailored coat I had as a child that my father had particularly liked. Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Your father wants you to know -- all the books are where he is. You don't need to rush through them."
There was nothing more convincing I could have heard. But of course I couldn't show that.
"Great," I quipped. "I can wait for eternity to read Proust."
And I've kept to that. I've read Zola and Flaubert but I've not experienced the float of memories from the taste of the madeleine myself. I'm waiting.
But I don't think I want to share eternity with Philip Roth. In fact, I want to finish with him before I'm 50.
And then I won't have to read another Philip Roth novel for another year. That's my deal with myself.
I somehow avoided Roth until recently. When the New York Times published its list of "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years" a few years ago and Roth's books were so prominently featured I decided I needed to fill in this gap. I got "American Pastoral" and found myself losing interest after just 20 to 30 pages. OK, so I read that this is part of a long series involving a character named Zuckerman. So I decided I should work up to this book. The idea of seven or eight books in a series didn't scare me off.
But I took a break first. Reread "Beloved" and the first two of Updike's Rabbit books to prove to myself I wasn't completely unable to enjoy and appreciate what the late 20th century had to offer.
Then I read "The Ghost Writer." Liked it. I grew up across the Kill Van Kull from Newark so felt a certain kinship with the subject matter, even if the Newark Roth depicts was long gone by the time I came along. But it felt like work. However, by the end of the book I'd warmed to him and raved to my husband that it was true that Roth has been gypped of the Nobel Prize, that there's no one who can deliver period dialogue like him, etc. etc.
Then I jumpted right into "Zuckerman Unbound" and "The Anatomy Lesson." I plowed right through. I wallowed. I OD'd. I waited a long time to turn to "The Prague Orgy."
The next two -- "The Counterlife" and "American Pastoral" -- sat unblinking and accusatory on my bedside for almost two years. I don't know what made me take up Roth again now but it is torture. And yet I can't allow myself to stop.
It doesn't make sense. I've given in before. Gave up on Salman Rushdie nearly as soon as I started, could barely hold "The Alchemist" in my hand, and ended up gritting my teeth through the second half of Pamuk's "Snow" (even though I went on to greatly enjoy others of his books).
I usually have great staying power with books and series. I pretended to have (or gave myself a psychosomatic case of?) the flu to finish "Crime and Punishment" a few years ago. I cheerfully whistled my way through a course in Victorian literature in which I digested a Dickens or Eliot orAusten novel every week. I will press a copy of "Absalom! Absalom!" in the hands of any unsuspecting teenager who expresses even a mild interest in southern writers.
Several years ago I went to a dinner party where one of the guests was a soon-t0-be-famous medium. My father had died a few years before and I corralled my cynicism long enough to talk to the medium. He first described to me a teal blue tailored coat I had as a child that my father had particularly liked. Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Your father wants you to know -- all the books are where he is. You don't need to rush through them."
There was nothing more convincing I could have heard. But of course I couldn't show that.
"Great," I quipped. "I can wait for eternity to read Proust."
And I've kept to that. I've read Zola and Flaubert but I've not experienced the float of memories from the taste of the madeleine myself. I'm waiting.
But I don't think I want to share eternity with Philip Roth. In fact, I want to finish with him before I'm 50.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Morning Buns
My doctor says it's time to pay attention to my creeping cholesterol count and those extra ten pounds. OK, I'm game. I know that. So what do we do?
We completely turn on end what I've been eating. I've eliminated breads, white rice, pasta before, cut down sugar, etc. so I was up for that. But this time, on day two of the regimen, it finally dawned no me -- my cappuccino and croissant mornings are a thing of the past. Granted, after France I still don't have much of a desire for the stuff and it's been so hot it hasn't seemed appealing. But what if I discover that foamed milk and sugar are the fuel of my writing? That the whole thing comes to a crashing halt when faced with the prospect of an unremitting diet of peppermint tea and a third of a whole grain roll?
I've been dutiful and even enthusiastic for eight days now. I truly feel good too. I planned for my drive to Napa like I was the provisioning officer for a company of Marines -- an ounce of mozzarella cheese and two black velvet pluots on the seat beside me and the confidence that I would pass at least a dozen Carl's Jr.'s where I could get a chicken sandwich and eat just the inside.
But now I'm at my conference in Napa. I went to Bouchon Bakery yesterday afternoon -- just to look -- and I couldn't leave that pistachio brioche all alone in its case, unclaimed as evening drew in. And this morning I went to the Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company in St. Helena. Even though I have TWO breakfasts provided for me everyday -- one at the B&B where I'm staying and one at the conference -- I require more serious caffeine than that which a pot of communal coffee can provide. Especially to fuel the exciting and exhausting work ahead of me of thinking about voice and narrative arc all day. I need a hissing, steaming, metallic machine that looks like it could pull a line of train cars up to Promontory Point. I need a double espresso.
And my plan survived until I got to the end of the short line at the counter. Then I pointed a querulous finger at the little trio of pastries balanced at the top of the display.
"What's that?" I asked, trying to sound casual and knowing that Dr. Getz is hundreds of miles away.
"A morning bun," the young woman said.
I suspected as much. I could not resist. A yeasty fistful with a firm, crunchy exterior and just a dusting of sugar.
"I'll have one of those," I said.
Now I can do my work.
We completely turn on end what I've been eating. I've eliminated breads, white rice, pasta before, cut down sugar, etc. so I was up for that. But this time, on day two of the regimen, it finally dawned no me -- my cappuccino and croissant mornings are a thing of the past. Granted, after France I still don't have much of a desire for the stuff and it's been so hot it hasn't seemed appealing. But what if I discover that foamed milk and sugar are the fuel of my writing? That the whole thing comes to a crashing halt when faced with the prospect of an unremitting diet of peppermint tea and a third of a whole grain roll?
I've been dutiful and even enthusiastic for eight days now. I truly feel good too. I planned for my drive to Napa like I was the provisioning officer for a company of Marines -- an ounce of mozzarella cheese and two black velvet pluots on the seat beside me and the confidence that I would pass at least a dozen Carl's Jr.'s where I could get a chicken sandwich and eat just the inside.
But now I'm at my conference in Napa. I went to Bouchon Bakery yesterday afternoon -- just to look -- and I couldn't leave that pistachio brioche all alone in its case, unclaimed as evening drew in. And this morning I went to the Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company in St. Helena. Even though I have TWO breakfasts provided for me everyday -- one at the B&B where I'm staying and one at the conference -- I require more serious caffeine than that which a pot of communal coffee can provide. Especially to fuel the exciting and exhausting work ahead of me of thinking about voice and narrative arc all day. I need a hissing, steaming, metallic machine that looks like it could pull a line of train cars up to Promontory Point. I need a double espresso.
And my plan survived until I got to the end of the short line at the counter. Then I pointed a querulous finger at the little trio of pastries balanced at the top of the display.
"What's that?" I asked, trying to sound casual and knowing that Dr. Getz is hundreds of miles away.
"A morning bun," the young woman said.
I suspected as much. I could not resist. A yeasty fistful with a firm, crunchy exterior and just a dusting of sugar.
"I'll have one of those," I said.
Now I can do my work.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Research?
The Tour de France is drawing to a close. There are three more stages. I've watched pretty much every minute of the coverage -- albeit fast forwarding through some of the stretches when not much was going on. I exercise a strict news blackout during the day until I can sit down and watch the coverage with my husband at night. I have a print out of the teams sitting on the coffee table and by now I can identify many riders by their number. I can even tell the difference between the Schleck brothers based just on their profiles (Andy's face is thinner).
On Sunday morning I must get up very early and drive to Napa for my writing conference. It's the last stage of the tour -- the ride into Paris and along the Champs Elysee. Usually not much happens but it's fun to see and this year who knows what might happen. I'm considering getting up even an hour earlier than I need to and watch an hour before I get in the car.
Why am I doing this? I can't explain why I have become so taken with the sport. It really started last year (yes, I'm the only American who started following cycling in earnest AFTER Armstrong retired). I feel that odd and comforting feeling of characters and scenes roiling around in my mind. Surely there is some fiction to be crafted from this drama. People who push themselves beyond physical endurance and who accept pain as a daily part of their lives, people who see food as a tool and don't have enough hours in the day to take in the nutrition they need, people who are away from their families for most of the year for a sport that many people scoff at and where your career is largely over by age 35. Boy -- it sounds an awful lot like professional dancers. Hmmm, I wonder why I find it interesting......
But this week I know that I'm also trying to distract myself from the fact that I am going to a writing conference next week. I've read all the submissions from the other people in my workshop and I'm excited to meet them and talk about their work. But I have underlying anxiety about the whole thing.
On Sunday morning I must get up very early and drive to Napa for my writing conference. It's the last stage of the tour -- the ride into Paris and along the Champs Elysee. Usually not much happens but it's fun to see and this year who knows what might happen. I'm considering getting up even an hour earlier than I need to and watch an hour before I get in the car.
Why am I doing this? I can't explain why I have become so taken with the sport. It really started last year (yes, I'm the only American who started following cycling in earnest AFTER Armstrong retired). I feel that odd and comforting feeling of characters and scenes roiling around in my mind. Surely there is some fiction to be crafted from this drama. People who push themselves beyond physical endurance and who accept pain as a daily part of their lives, people who see food as a tool and don't have enough hours in the day to take in the nutrition they need, people who are away from their families for most of the year for a sport that many people scoff at and where your career is largely over by age 35. Boy -- it sounds an awful lot like professional dancers. Hmmm, I wonder why I find it interesting......
But this week I know that I'm also trying to distract myself from the fact that I am going to a writing conference next week. I've read all the submissions from the other people in my workshop and I'm excited to meet them and talk about their work. But I have underlying anxiety about the whole thing.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sad, Sad News
I just read that Frank McCourt is gravely ill and is not expected to live. Apparently he recently had melanoma but survived that and now has meningitis.
Mr. McCourt was my first creative writing teacher. I was lucky enough to have him for two years at Stuyvesant High School and he fostered my irreverant, impractible love of words that still is a major part of my life.
All week I've had a burning desire to just sit in my chair and read. I keep creating piles of things to read. John Dos Passos, Fitzgerald, Philip Roth. My eyes scan my bookshelves looking for things to dive into. My practical self tells me I should be feverishly working on my novel to prepare for the Napa Valley conference. But I can only make myself revel in the work of others right now.
Perhaps a fitting thank you to a life-changing teacher and writer.
Mr. McCourt was my first creative writing teacher. I was lucky enough to have him for two years at Stuyvesant High School and he fostered my irreverant, impractible love of words that still is a major part of my life.
All week I've had a burning desire to just sit in my chair and read. I keep creating piles of things to read. John Dos Passos, Fitzgerald, Philip Roth. My eyes scan my bookshelves looking for things to dive into. My practical self tells me I should be feverishly working on my novel to prepare for the Napa Valley conference. But I can only make myself revel in the work of others right now.
Perhaps a fitting thank you to a life-changing teacher and writer.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Psyching Myself Out
In two weeks I will be at the Napa Valley Writer's Conference in a fiction workshop led by Antonya Nelson. I loved Nelson's short stories even before I found out she would be teaching at the conference.
This is the first competitive admittance conference I've gotten into. Today I received access to the manuscripts of the other participants in my workshop to read and critique. I am having a problem with Adobe on my computer so I haven't been able to open any of them yet, let alone read them, but I already feel my confidence draining away.
I knew this would happen, but I hoped it would just happen on the drive up to Napa, not now, when I have so much time on my hands to ask myself why I am trying to write anyway.
It's a hot day, even here at the beach. The air conditioning at the place I go to yoga is not working, so I will be skipping class this afternoon. A walk along the beach is unappealing. Maybe I will just stay in my cool bedroom and finish reading "Pictures At An Exhibition," watch a Netflix movie or two (so that I can send them back tonight and get the next season of "MI-5" by Wednesday) and put considerable energy into not comparing myself to others and reminding myself that this is supposed to satisfying and fun.
This is the first competitive admittance conference I've gotten into. Today I received access to the manuscripts of the other participants in my workshop to read and critique. I am having a problem with Adobe on my computer so I haven't been able to open any of them yet, let alone read them, but I already feel my confidence draining away.
I knew this would happen, but I hoped it would just happen on the drive up to Napa, not now, when I have so much time on my hands to ask myself why I am trying to write anyway.
It's a hot day, even here at the beach. The air conditioning at the place I go to yoga is not working, so I will be skipping class this afternoon. A walk along the beach is unappealing. Maybe I will just stay in my cool bedroom and finish reading "Pictures At An Exhibition," watch a Netflix movie or two (so that I can send them back tonight and get the next season of "MI-5" by Wednesday) and put considerable energy into not comparing myself to others and reminding myself that this is supposed to satisfying and fun.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Candle Crazy
Candles are synonymous with writing to me.
When I was a little girl my mother inexplicably allowed me to keep a lit candle on my desk as I read in the winter afternoons. I stuck normal dinner tapers in the top of an old wine bottle and treasured the colored patterns the dripping wax created on the sides of the green bottle. I read all of the Little House books, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Noel Streatfield and Daniel Defoe watching the wax drip down the sides of those bottles.
When I started writing in earnest a few years ago, I started lighting scented candles when I wrote. At first I thought it would act as a warning beacon to my sons to communicate that I was engaged in a serious creative pursuit and should not be disturbed. Then I started insisting on having candles lit at dinner, on the dining room table as I sat with my tea and book in the grey dawn before anyone gets up, and in my room as I get dressed. I even have little travel candle tins that I impermissibly use in hotel rooms when I am at writing retreats.
It's not quite an obsession but more of a marker, a reminder, that I am open for the business of writing or thinking about writing, whether my own or someone's else's. When I walk into my office, I get a whiff of hyacinth left over from the day before and it makes me do a mental check on when I will get to sit down and write that day, already anticipating the sound of the match flaring into light. I'm not unaware of the Christian service overtones. I serve as a subdeacon at my Episcopal church and I am cognizant of the power of candles being lit or extinguished and what they communicate to the congregation.
It makes it very easy to buy gifts for me. I am thrilled when people give me candle paraphenalia. I recently received a blue glass votive holder, inspired by Alvar Aalto, the famous Finnish designer. It already has a permanent spot on the dining room table.
There's also a promise involved in lighting a candle. The big poured jar candles claim that they last 60 hours. I don't know if that's true, but when I buy a new candle it's like an insurance policy or vow to myself that I will make good use of it and see it through to the end. The idea of leaving a candle only half-used is beyond comprehension
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Grant and Twain
I've been fascinated by Ulysses Grant for a long time. I can spend a long time looking at those photographs of him during the Civil War, trying to figure out what he was thinking about. I feel like I know him -- that he could be my brother. It doesn't make any sense.
So I was delighted to find a book called "Grant and Twain" by Mark Perry, which tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Grant and Mark Twain. It was Twain who convinced Grant to write his memoirs and to work on them while he was dying of mouth cancer at age 62. It was Twain who helped him negotiate to get a better publishing deal so that his wife would have something to live on after his death. It was Twain who would come to his house in the evening and read his pages, while he was anxiously waiting to see if he could see sufficient subscriptions to make it worthwhile to go ahead and publish "Huckleberry Finn."
But it was Grant, uncertain of his writing abilities and unsure of the market for his book, who sat, in great pain and with a scarf tied around his neck even in summer, and pounded out descriptions of the great battles of the Civil War, day after day, racing against the clock of his own death. Some days he wrote ten thousand words. In his last summer he waived off the narcotics offered by his doctor so that he could finish the book.
The book met with great success and according to Perry is the beginning of the great American tradition of well-written non-fiction.
It makes me sit up straighter and feel ashamed of every day I've looked at my computer and then just shrugged and decided I didn't feel like writing that day.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Failing At My Resolution
At the beginning of the year I stated that one of my resolutions was to read less than I did last year. Well, here we are halfway through the year and I hereby publicly admit a complete failure to keep to that resolution. In fact, I'm slightly ahead of last year's tally. As of yesterday, June 30, I've read 77 books so far this year.
My current read looks like it will be fascinating. It's called "Grant and Twain" and is the story of the friendship between Mark Twain and Ulysses Grant at the end of Grant's life. I didn't know they were friends and I didn't know that Twain played a big role in convincing Grant that he should write his memoirs. I guess Grant's memoirs will be next on my reading list.
My current read looks like it will be fascinating. It's called "Grant and Twain" and is the story of the friendship between Mark Twain and Ulysses Grant at the end of Grant's life. I didn't know they were friends and I didn't know that Twain played a big role in convincing Grant that he should write his memoirs. I guess Grant's memoirs will be next on my reading list.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Proscrastination? Fear?
All my clothing is laundered, the cat has been given his medicine, and the house is stocked with paper towels, flats of water, tissues and fresh vegetables. The house is quiet and it is a cool, slightly foggy day -- my favorite kind.
It is now six months into my grand experiment and I have done one of the big things I set out to do. I have a good draft of my memoir and a plan for what I need to do with it.
So now what? I have a ton of ideas for new projects and one that has stepped forward from the others during my vacation as the thing I want to work on next. I have a few chapters that I started last year so it's not like I'm starting from scratch. But it feels like that anyway. The second part of my grand experiment now begins -- to see what happens when it's just me and my imagination in the room day after day; to see what happens when you get to do something you've said you always wanted to do.
I can't leave my office until I write a thousand words. No trips to the kitchen for tea, no checking of email. I can fiddle with my iPod and use the bathroom but that's it.
I'm so glad I needed to do a blog post before I could start.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Brain Swirl
I arrived home from a two-week trip to France last night. My mind is spinning not just from jetlag but from everything I saw. For my writing project, a highlight was my tour of the Paris Opera (the old one where the Paris Opera Ballet performs) and a trip to the Repetto ballet shoe store around the corner. And even though I satisfied my desire for pastry for (I hope) the next year or so, I popped my head into every fancy patisserie just to give my eyes a treat.
I took about a thousand pictures, more than I have taken on any other trip. I found myself fascinated by how the corners of rooftops met. I now have dozens of photos of grey slate roofs. I also continued my practice of taking pictures of stone walls and pavement. Not much to look at after the fact but great fun in the moment of spotting a possible shot.
I know from past trips that I need to be patient and not expect much of myself with writing for a week or so. It's a good opportunity to reorganize my desk and decide what creative project is next.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Mourning My Playlists
I am officially an iPod slayer. I got my seventh one on Thursday. I've only paid for three -- the first a Mini about four years ago. The battery on that one failed in the first year and Apple replaced it. Then I upgraded to a "regular" iPod and that one in turn failed also. This is now my third 60G iPod -- its brethren both victims of some sort of hard disk failure that led to clicking and skipping during songs.
I thought I had prepared before I went to the Apple store -- I made lists of the songs in my On The Go playlists so I could recreate them, knowing that the rest of my playlists were on my computer and would synch into the new iPod. But when I got home and opened up iTunes (with a recent new version installed) my library was empty. Completely empty. I had to copy all of my music back into iTunes from elsewhere on the computer and in the process all of my playlists disappeared.
I'm still in shock.
I create a playlist for each significant piece of writing I undertake. I spent quite a bit of time on these and build them over the course of weeks. Once I have a decent playlist it is the soundtrack for my work on that piece of writing. I have hours of ballet music that got me through my big dance project; I had a playlist with songs I listened to during college for a potential novel; I had a playlist which was a combination of Sousa marches and mid-career Stevie Wonder for a short story about when I was forced to join a marching band when I was in high school. But now they are all gone.
Tomorrow I leave for a two week vacation to Germany and France. I've been running errands for days, making sure we have enough cat food on hand for the person who is taking care of the cats, printing out driving directions, scanning copies of passports. But what I really want to do is recreate some of my old playlists and make some new ones. I'm not sure I can face a ten hour flight without them.
I thought I had prepared before I went to the Apple store -- I made lists of the songs in my On The Go playlists so I could recreate them, knowing that the rest of my playlists were on my computer and would synch into the new iPod. But when I got home and opened up iTunes (with a recent new version installed) my library was empty. Completely empty. I had to copy all of my music back into iTunes from elsewhere on the computer and in the process all of my playlists disappeared.
I'm still in shock.
I create a playlist for each significant piece of writing I undertake. I spent quite a bit of time on these and build them over the course of weeks. Once I have a decent playlist it is the soundtrack for my work on that piece of writing. I have hours of ballet music that got me through my big dance project; I had a playlist with songs I listened to during college for a potential novel; I had a playlist which was a combination of Sousa marches and mid-career Stevie Wonder for a short story about when I was forced to join a marching band when I was in high school. But now they are all gone.
Tomorrow I leave for a two week vacation to Germany and France. I've been running errands for days, making sure we have enough cat food on hand for the person who is taking care of the cats, printing out driving directions, scanning copies of passports. But what I really want to do is recreate some of my old playlists and make some new ones. I'm not sure I can face a ten hour flight without them.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Preparing for France
In a week I leave for a trip to Europe with my family. I have already started to think about the books I will bring on the plane (first in the pile is "Grant and Twain" by Mark Perry which is about Mark Twain encouraging Ulysses Grant to write his memoirs), but I have mostly daydreamed about the kinds of paper and stationery stores I will find.
I brought back a Moleskine notebook from Paris six years ago, well before they were available on every street corner. I also discovered a store called Marie Papier on Rue Vavin. It was amazing -- smooth creamy papers and leather covered books. All very expensive so I only bought one thing. But I've thought about it for the last six years.
A few years ago my son went on a school trip to France and brought me back a simple, spiral bound graph paper notebook that couldn't have cost more than $5. I was thrilled.
Also, someone has told me that French schoolchildren are required to learn to write using fountain pens and that there are cheap disposable fountain pens available many places. Can't wait to take a look at those.
I brought back a Moleskine notebook from Paris six years ago, well before they were available on every street corner. I also discovered a store called Marie Papier on Rue Vavin. It was amazing -- smooth creamy papers and leather covered books. All very expensive so I only bought one thing. But I've thought about it for the last six years.
A few years ago my son went on a school trip to France and brought me back a simple, spiral bound graph paper notebook that couldn't have cost more than $5. I was thrilled.
Also, someone has told me that French schoolchildren are required to learn to write using fountain pens and that there are cheap disposable fountain pens available many places. Can't wait to take a look at those.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Trusted Readers
I’ve been accused of making my writing available to my family the way the Bush White House would – announcing that I have a piece to read if anyone is interested around dinnertime on Sunday when everyone is busily involved in getting ready for the week ahead and no one much cares about the creative pursuits of other family members.
My first writing teacher (and many more since) have emphasized what a bad idea it is to let those most close to you read your stuff, especially a spouse. I’ve pretty much followed this rule. But once a piece of writing has gone through a workshop or two, been reviewed by people I know from other writing classes or groups, and doesn’t touch on any deep, dark secrets, what’s the harm in letting my sons and my husband read it?
My husband has also taken writing classes and he’s heard the advice about not letting your spouse read your stuff. So he knows that I don’t mean anything by not sharing work with him. He’s probably relieved. He hears enough about how things are going without then having to also read an early draft. I’ve told him we can have a deal that he can read my work anytime he wants and just tell me it’s great, whether or not that’s what he really thinks. He hasn’t taken me up on that yet.
I’ve only read two pieces to my husband – one an essay on what I felt like listening to our son playing the piano and another which described how my father taught me to read music. I read both of these to him not because I wanted him to hear my writing but because I’d finally been able to put into words things I’ve been trying to express to him for years. It was a communication tool, not open mike night.
I asked my teenage son to read two chapters of something to give me an opinion on whether the pace was appropriate to a young adult work. He read the chapters and gave me the same kind, attentive feedback that I give to him when I review his essays for school. His conclusion – well written but a little slow to appeal to his peers.
I put together a binder of short pieces – essays and short stories – that I’m comfortable letting my family members read. It sits on the shelf next to my desk.
So it’s a perfect situation – I have made things available but left it to them to read when and if they want to. Maybe they already have and just haven’t told me?
My first writing teacher (and many more since) have emphasized what a bad idea it is to let those most close to you read your stuff, especially a spouse. I’ve pretty much followed this rule. But once a piece of writing has gone through a workshop or two, been reviewed by people I know from other writing classes or groups, and doesn’t touch on any deep, dark secrets, what’s the harm in letting my sons and my husband read it?
My husband has also taken writing classes and he’s heard the advice about not letting your spouse read your stuff. So he knows that I don’t mean anything by not sharing work with him. He’s probably relieved. He hears enough about how things are going without then having to also read an early draft. I’ve told him we can have a deal that he can read my work anytime he wants and just tell me it’s great, whether or not that’s what he really thinks. He hasn’t taken me up on that yet.
I’ve only read two pieces to my husband – one an essay on what I felt like listening to our son playing the piano and another which described how my father taught me to read music. I read both of these to him not because I wanted him to hear my writing but because I’d finally been able to put into words things I’ve been trying to express to him for years. It was a communication tool, not open mike night.
I asked my teenage son to read two chapters of something to give me an opinion on whether the pace was appropriate to a young adult work. He read the chapters and gave me the same kind, attentive feedback that I give to him when I review his essays for school. His conclusion – well written but a little slow to appeal to his peers.
I put together a binder of short pieces – essays and short stories – that I’m comfortable letting my family members read. It sits on the shelf next to my desk.
So it’s a perfect situation – I have made things available but left it to them to read when and if they want to. Maybe they already have and just haven’t told me?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Yesterday was the last session of Barbara Abercrombie's Advanced Memoir class at UCLA. It was an intense (four hours at a time), upbeat class with only a dozen people. Because of the small size and length of the class I got an idea of what everyone was working on and I could look forward to hearing a new installment each week.
As part of yesterday's work we made a schedule of what we will accomplish writing wise in the next six weeks. I'll be gone two weeks on vacation and next week is my son's high school graduation, so we'll have visitors and parties and other reasons why I won't get to my desk. So I didn't have much to write down. More or less just a promise to myself to be observant while we are away and to maybe break away a little from my usual journal-writing when I am on a trip, which is too limited to names of towns and lists of food.
Last night I had trouble sleeping. I kept waking up thinking about a project I first toyed with a few weeks ago. At that point it was an excuse to break out a new notebook to play with and a way to while away a morning. It didn't seem to have more legs than that. But now it's back, keeping me from getting my rest.
I knew it's come from reading Abigail Thomas's "Safekeeping." Barbara Abercrombie is a fan of Thomas's style of memoir and in the past month I've read "A Three Dog Life" and "On Memoir", both of which I've liked so much that I ordered multiple copies on Amazon to have something to give friends when the conversation turns to what I've been reading lately. But "Safekeeping" is an even more amazing thing to read. Short chapters, sometimes just a paragraph, some in the first person, some in the third, some cover a lifetime of narrative, others focus on a small moment in someone's life. It's given me an idea for an entirely new approach to the project I've been thinking about. And maybe something that will keep that part of my brain occupied during two long plane rides and too many croissants.
As part of yesterday's work we made a schedule of what we will accomplish writing wise in the next six weeks. I'll be gone two weeks on vacation and next week is my son's high school graduation, so we'll have visitors and parties and other reasons why I won't get to my desk. So I didn't have much to write down. More or less just a promise to myself to be observant while we are away and to maybe break away a little from my usual journal-writing when I am on a trip, which is too limited to names of towns and lists of food.
Last night I had trouble sleeping. I kept waking up thinking about a project I first toyed with a few weeks ago. At that point it was an excuse to break out a new notebook to play with and a way to while away a morning. It didn't seem to have more legs than that. But now it's back, keeping me from getting my rest.
I knew it's come from reading Abigail Thomas's "Safekeeping." Barbara Abercrombie is a fan of Thomas's style of memoir and in the past month I've read "A Three Dog Life" and "On Memoir", both of which I've liked so much that I ordered multiple copies on Amazon to have something to give friends when the conversation turns to what I've been reading lately. But "Safekeeping" is an even more amazing thing to read. Short chapters, sometimes just a paragraph, some in the first person, some in the third, some cover a lifetime of narrative, others focus on a small moment in someone's life. It's given me an idea for an entirely new approach to the project I've been thinking about. And maybe something that will keep that part of my brain occupied during two long plane rides and too many croissants.
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