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?

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.....

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!

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.

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.