The Speedy Tortoise

Ever the joiner, I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. I’m a cheater though and instead of starting a new project I’m using the challenge to get a big bulk of my current project done. That, and a few short stories that need to get written (I say “need” like the world is waiting on them, that it will blow up or something if I don’t finish them… could happen).

Anyway, I’m not one for crowds so this is the perfect group activity for me — writing alone in the attic while however many other writers write alone in their attics (basements, bedrooms, coffee shops).

I’ve never officially participated in NaNo before. And to be honest, until recently, I’ve always dismissed the idea. In the tortoise versus hare world of writing I have long resigned myself to being a slow and steady tortoise type. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days? Why would anyone want to do that? But writing this novel over the last year has been an edifying experience for me. I’ve thrown off a lot of ideas I had about how I write and why I write the way I do.

Wouldn’t my many writing teachers and mentors be proud? I’m finally beginning to understand the logic behind the “shitty first draft” theory. They may have thought I grasped the concept right away, but I was only pretending to listen. I thought it was something that worked for other people but not me. But now look at me — NaNoWriMo — weekly word counts, goals and charts — that’s a lot of numbers for a literary type like me. Math, jesus.

Wish me luck.

Music as Muse

I’m still slogging away at the “big project”. The one I’m supposed to be keeping my mouth shut about — so I will. Besides, I’m trying to figure out a primo elevator pitch that will succinctly sum up the book in 100 words or less. I think that will make it easier not to talk about it — creating a blurb or short-short overview that says everything and nothing. It can’t be worse than what I do now, which is mumble and use a lot of “ums” and “uhs”.

Anyway, where was I? Music. I write to music. I like to put certain songs on repeat and write to them for hours at a time. Arcade Fire’s “Rococo” (above) is a new fave. It’s important that the music I write to be very familiar. I’m not interested in divining the lyrics, in fact I tune them out for the most part, except for snippets I find evocative of a certain mood. And it is important that the music I write to doesn’t play a part in my day-to-day life. I feel like it will lose it’s inspirational mojo if I listen to it on a run or in the car or where ever.  I even get a little tense if I see someone quoting the lyrics (the stuff I recognize) on their Facebook page or blog — it feels wrong and out of context.

It takes a while to burn out — the latest soundtrack has been good (with a few tweaks) for the last year — but when it goes, it’s gone, period. No going back. Accidentally tuning in to used up music is like listening to white noise — and my brain stops working.

I read somewhere (NYT, I think) that Jonathan Franzen, when writing The Corrections (not his latest) both blindfolded himself and used earplugs on occasion because he was so easily distracted. I think the repetitive music does the same thing (though not as extreme) for me — keeps me on track and working. As soon as I put my headphones on, I feel like it’s time to work. When the music starts, I’m no longer sitting at my desk, I’m in that other place, the world I’m creating in my head, at my desk, one sentence at a time.

So, how about you? Blindfold? Music? Silence? What gets you through and keeps you writing?

PS. You should know that I’m a bit tense now, just because of the teeny bit of non-writing listening involved as I searched out that Youtube video

Progress and keeping your mouth shut

Good girls keep their writing to themselves.

I know now why experts say you should never tell anyone you are writing a novel. It’s because the act of writing a novel never-ever ends. Or at least this is what it feels like. Last week I wrote every day. I wrote hard every day and came out with a lower word count than I started with. How is that even possible?

It is hard to keep your mouth shut about such an all-encompassing writing project though. I mean, it is pretty much all I am doing these days besides working and walking the dog. That’s no exaggeration. And everything that I do outside of the typing somehow gets mushed up in my brain as something to do with the writing. Radiolab podcasts (check out “Who Am I” from 2007 for some great stuff on self-hood and story, on narrative and existence), Mad Men episodes, Patricia Highsmith novels (“The American Friend”, which has quietly inspired a lot of my writing, is based on one of her Ripley novels. How did I not know that?) — everything contains snippets that relate, or can be made to relate, to the story I’m putting together.

All the well-meaning “how’s it going now?” questions from family and friends have been increasingly harder to answer. There is no new answer and the old one doesn’t cut it anymore.

And then there’s the expectations… I spoke with my parents this weekend, they had just read some Oprah-recommended book, a first novel that took the guy 10 years to write. My father whistled. He was a bit disappointed that a novel that took that long to write didn’t have a snappier ending. He thought there were too many descriptions and, really, when you thought about it, nothing really happened.

I can picture the day my parents finally finish reading my manuscript. Dad in his recliner, a little embarrassed. My mom, shrugging her shoulders and stifling a giggle. “Well, she’s no John Grisham, is she?”

No, she’s not. She’s just a writer who should have kept her mouth shut.

But, blogging about it — that doesn’t count, right?

SPOILER ALERT: This clip gives away most of the ending of “The American Friend”. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you might want to skip the clip.

Family Saga

After this week’s work, it seems that I’m either writing some kind of  generational family saga or I am just writing a hell of a lot of backstory that won’t end up a part of the book at all.  Fine with me.  It’s interesting how a story that was originally meant to span seven days, now has major scenes in the 1900s, and the  ’30s.   

A few family melodramas keeping coming to mind — inspiration – as I’m writing:  “Middlesex”, “East of Eden”, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”. 

I also keep coming back to Douglas Sirk’s “Written on the Wind” and “Imitation of Life” (colour version). Sirk was the king of melodrama and I love his films. They are so wickedly over the top but there’s also a lot of subtle stuff going on.

Here’s a snippet from Imitation of Life that always gets me … Annie’s death scene and her kick-ass funeral:

The more crap you believe

 

 

"The more crap you believe, the better off you are. -Charles Bukowski

 

There’s a fine line between believing in yourself and deluding yourself, I think. And we writers are no better at distinguishing the difference between those two states than anyone else.  The blurred edges are just something you have to live with.

If a lawyer thinks they are the best lawyer ever, yet they never win a case, his phone’s going to stop ringing eventually. If a surgeon graduated at the top of their class in medical school but all her patients die on the table — somebody is probably going to say something, right? Um, excuse me, surgeon-person, but maybe you want to try something else?

Nobody is going to die or go to jail if I can’t write a proper sentence. That’s good. But that means it’s less likely that I’m going to ever know (know in that higher power kind of knowing, you know) because no-one’s that heavily invested in whether I’m delusional or not.

The whole thing has that unknowable flavour attached to it. And there are other, more useful things, worth knowing.

I’ve always thought it might be useful to have access to a kind of ledger so you could really *know* what kind of person you are — something that would tally up, say, how much money you’ve borrowed and never paid back versus how much money is owed to you. Or, something that could tell you how many times people have politely listened to you drone on versus how often you “forgot” to call someone back.

It also might be handy to have access to knowing whatever happened to those books you loaned out and never got back.

So, what do you know for sure? And what are you, maybe, a bit delusional about?

Somehow I missed June entirely

Did you know that Richard Burton used to carry around a trunk full of books when on location? I'm sure he stashed a few bottles in there too.

Not just here but in real life as well. Don’t get me started about the weather. I had all manner of posts I was planning on, like:

1. I was born to do this – the arrogance that sometimes comes with success (which then led me to another idea about public personas and how important it is for introverts to cultivate an appropriate one — based on an interesting interview with David Mitchell in the NYT

2. Lather Rinse Repeat — the horror of making the same mistakes again and again and my inability to retain most “rules of writing”

3. Celebrity — A random post mentioning celebrities I like and including pictures. Because the last time I mentioned Sam Shepard a whole bunch of people came gawking. Not that it’s about the numbers. Shit no. If it was about the numbers I would have been washed up way before this. This is all about boredom and typing. Typing and boredom. The two staples of my life.

Early riser

I’ve decided to get up earlier.

No, not to write — to run, run, run! (!)

Yay me!

Getting up earlier means I am a more productive person.

It means I value the work I need to get done in a day more than the sleep my body needs.

It means I sacrifice 10 hours sleep and survive on 8 hours like a champ.

It means that the theory that the size of my ass increases in direct proportion with the amount of time I spend at my desk has been proven true. And the longer this novel takes to write the more fearful I become (try not to take that to it’s horrifying conclusion).

My clock is set 20 or 30 minutes fast, I can never remember which, and my alarm goes off at about 6am clock time, who knows what time that is in reality — somehow I can never do the math that early in the morning — never. It’s the best brain trick ever and has worked for years. You’d think I’d catch on, but no.

How do you balance writing and exercise? Or maybe the bigger question is how do you fit in LIFE around writing?

I’m lucky, I have no life so it’s just the exercise I have to worry about. And I’m constantly trying to organize my non-life in a way that leaves the most time open for writing. If I’m doing something else during writing time then I feel guilty. Especially if it’s vacuuming or doing the dishes or some other domestic duty — those kind of chores make me feel the most guilty — perhaps I should try cleaning at 6am instead of running? They both burn calories. Funny thing, watching crap television instead of writing is only mildly guilt-inducing)

So, I’ve decided to get up early. For the sake of scheduling and for the sake of my ass.

That Black Dog

When you stick your head under the green living room couch, your mother’s chihuahua, a black dog named Rosita, bites you there. There on your forehead.

The doctor says you will have a scar, and you do. You get a white feather that is whiter in the summertime and it makes you feel special. Different.

You lie under the green couch, breathe in spider webs and poke holes in the cheesecloth waiting for that little black dog to return.

You dream. Rosita, camoflaged in the night sky. She is only visible when she opens her mouth, when you can see pink tongue and sharp white teeth. Teeth made up of star clusters, tongue aurora borealis.

Rosita is Canus Rositais. Bigger even than Ursus Major. Brighter than Casseopia. A new constellation in the sky. You dream again and Canus Rositais is the only constellation left.

You wake. The feather on your forehead flutters in the mirror. Flutters. Dog is god. DoG. And you know what you must do.

Dogs follow you, they are helplessly drawn to you, and you allow them to get close. Scratch the fur between their ears. Watch happy dog mouths turn up as if they are smiling. When the dogs relax, when their jaws go slack from the petting and the rubbing and the tousling of fur, you poke them in the eyes. You pull their tails, step on their paws and feel your feather flutter.

When they bite, it is never as sweet as the first bite, as Rosita, but it makes you feel closer to her. Especially if it is a small dog, the small black dogs especially. You press your hand hard against their gums, force them to open their mouths, wrap their tongue around your fingers. First, licking, but you push further and force the bite. The forced bite is not the best kind but sometimes it is all you have. A choice between a forced bite and no bite is no choice at all.

In bed, you make a list of your weekly communions to help you fall asleep. A list of feathers, a plumage of scar tissue from the blood and body of DoG.

Poodle – left ankle

Akita – left wrist

Shepherd mix – right cheek

Lhasa Apso – right baby finger, complete

Dalmation – lower abdomen

And so on.

You sleep. Canus Rosita yawns in the sky. Her pink tongue lolls out the side of her mouth. She pants happily and watches over you. You dream of a little black dog and an old green couch and the first rapturous bite.


69 words

    The Dance

Step one: watch her move. She’s a lazy dancer. His fingers push into flesh. Fabric bunches below her waist.

Step two: close your eyes. Imagine her scent. She’ll be sweaty, the dampness of it will kiss your skin.

Step three: measure your breath. Laugh, but not too loud. Toast their anniversary.

Step four: kiss her on the cheek like you would kiss your mother.

Step five: feel nothing.

A Writer’s Notebook


I used to journal. Eventually it got too depressing, filling books with the same whinging complaints year after year. Ok, I wrote good things that happened too, but not enough. That’s not the thing that draws me to the page.

In 1970-something, my mother and I both took to our diaries for the first time. Mine was a five-year wonder with Holly Hobby on the cover and a tiny brass lock — I filled in five entries or so and then gave up, or lost the key. My mother chose a “Pigs in Space” notebook for her daily entries. I read it, of course. and even though it was mostly about the weather and what she was going to make for dinner, I was fascinated. I went back to it the way other kids go back to a favourite stuffed animal over the years. It made me feel closer to her and made her seem more human (are mothers ever really human?). Funny thing, I never felt I was invading her privacy by reading it. I felt it belonged more to me than to her.

In 1988 I bought something called “A Writers Notebook — insights from writers with space for notes”. I had ogled it in the bookstore for weeks. Imagining the wonderful words I would fill with it. Right. I still have it. It’s half empty. Wait, that’s being generous. There are a total of 34 entries. Horribly depressing entries about how I watch too much television (some things never change) or how I am going to start going to the gym, or stop drinking, or stop crying over some boy. I’m pretty sure my mom read it — we are cut from the same cloth, I think — but she was kind enough not to make reference to it in any conversations.

Nowadays I don’t keep a journal. Writing the blog feels like it sometimes but I try to keep most of that stuff out of it. If anything it’s becoming more of a nostalgia/memory diary — I hadn’t thought of that “Pigs in Space” notebook for years and now after writing this I can see my mother’s perfect handwriting and her uniform paragraph blocks with the date always in the margin. And I like thinking about that.

“Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words . . . By means of art we are sometimes sent — dimly, briefly — revelations unobtainable by reason.” –Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

(from “A Writer’s Notebook” besides which my 18-year old self has written “true, true”. I agree.)