I'm thrilled to announce that I met my November writing goal today, completing the second draft of my current work-in-progress. I must say, the experience taught me a lot, since I've never revised a novel before. In case it proves helpful to others struggling with revising an unwieldy first draft, here are the key lessons I learned:
Know thyself. I am a terrible procrastinator, I'll admit it right now. (Or maybe later.) I set myself a deadline to complete this revision during the month of November. I got through a little more than half the novel and hit a big fat brick wall. The wall didn't move for a good two weeks or more. On Black Friday, after stuffing myself with leftover pumpkin pie, it occurred to me that I had three days left in the month and few other demands on my time. I figured out that if I averaged seven chapters a day, I could still meet the goal; this seemed entirely feasible. I got re-energized (why else do we procrastinate, except that we love the mad dash towards the finish line?) and made it happen.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses as writers. If you're honest with yourself about what they are, you can leverage the former against the latter to avoid your own pitfalls.
Don't give up. Churchill said it best - doesn't he always? "If you are going through hell, keep going." I think he was probably referring to WWII, or possibly the Boer War, but regardless, the adage works here too. While it's not quite as traumatic as war, revising your writing tends to be hellish more often than not. Difficult choices present themselves. I want the work to be phenomenal, but am I going the right way to get there? This is the question.
That big fat brick wall I hit? In the first draft, I'd written some chapters in first person and some in third person. I had to make a narrative choice and stick with it. Guess who deeply questioned that choice just over halfway through the second draft? I agonized for a good two weeks before deciding, "What the hell," and telling myself to just get on with it. If the end result sucked, well, I'd just proved to myself I could take massive amounts of writing and make titchy subject & verb tense changes throughout it. I could always do it again, but I wanted to finish this draft first, maybe to see how it went, maybe just because I'm stubborn, maybe a little of both. By the end of the revision, I felt like I'd made the right choice after all, and even developed cogent-sounding arguments as to why my narrative choice better supported the story. (At least, I'd like to think they sound cogent.)
It's rough, no doubt. When you care this much about something, a bad roadblock can make you question the entire project, and it's tempting to walk away and start anew. I think the key is to not give up midway through your decision; carry it through to the end before you determine if it's unworthy. It's dangerous to try and judge only part of the picture.
Identify the issues before you start fixing things. Granted, things will pop up along the way, and you should address some of those too. But you already know what huge, glaring plot holes you blithely skipped over on that first go-round, or that you were going to have to do some serious web-surfing to write accurately about raising goats in Greece, or what have you. Hopefully, you had at least two or three readers provide you with feedback, and you've read it through yourself (resisting the urge to launch into revision right then, which is so hard, isn't it?). I actually made a list of the issues I wanted to fix and the questions I had to face, so I could approach them more effectively. I'm definitely more of a pantser when it comes to the first draft, but I think the more structured & organized approach to the second draft is what got me through it.
Plan on a next draft. We tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we write. (Go ahead, call me Captain Obvious.) You don't have to make it perfect right now, just better. Knowing this helped me a lot. I confess I took refuge in focusing on the technicalities for much of this draft, except for changing and dropping a couple parts of the plot that just didn't feel right - and that I felt capable of fixing there and then. If I ran into something that was still too overwhelming to tackle, I left it for the third draft without even a twinge of guilt. I stayed plenty busy fixing other massive problems, the ones I'd planned on dealing with. Like my mom says, "Eat the elephant one bite at a time."
30 November 2009
08 November 2009
somewhere between a sigh and a growl
I'm not sure what that noise would sound like, but it's what I'm making right now. Or rather, I keep alternating between sighing and growling, because like I said, I don't quite know how to combine the two. Suggestions?
There are several reasons for my frustration and crankiness, most of which I won't go into here, but one thing that's been bugging the hell out of me is my internal struggle over 1st vs. 3rd person POV in my current WIP.
When I wrote the first draft, I was just focused on getting the words on paper (or the computer screen, whatever) and I wrote some chapters in first person, some in third, as the mood struck me. There was not a lot of thought involved; I just wrote instinctively.
So one of the questions that's preoccupied me for the last year, since I wrote the first draft, is which POV to use. I felt like the story needed a consistent narrative approach. I ended up going with first person, largely because the protagonist undergoes such an emotional/mental journey as she goes through the plot conflicts. She transitions from anti-hero to hero, and during her journey, she makes some choices that most people would probably respond to with a well-deserved "WTF?" So I felt like the first person would heighten the reader's sympathy with her while supporting the tension between her (at times admittedly unreliable) perspective and the rest of the world.
Then, yesterday, I reached the halfway point in my first round of revision. I finished 25 of the 50 chapters (yay!), and felt great about how the story was going. I decided to take a little break, do some stuff around the house, and then read a bunch of articles about writing/revising/character/plot/POV.
That last bit was, I realize now, perhaps a mistake. Okay, definitely a mistake. I read some articles discussing 1st & 3rd-person narration, and the debate I thought I'd settled for myself just raged right up again. Except at this point, I'm halfway through making the novel a consistent POV, and nearly 30,000 words in is really not when one wants to be questioning one's narrative choice.
So, y'know. Little irritated. Part of my frustration is that it seems a lot of writers consider first person to be an "immature" choice of narration, which made me question myself and get all insecure about my writing abilities. But as Nathan Bransford says (not in the linked post, but often), if it works, it works, and I think as long as I'm aware of the possible pitfalls of 1st-person narration - and, even better, avoiding them - it may still be the right choice for this story.
So I'm going to press on with the 1st-person narration, finish the revision, and then go back and reread it carefully and critically. Hell, if I really feel the need, I can always go back and revise the entire book with 3rd-person instead (and won't that be a treat). It could be a useful exercise, and really, it's not like I'm on a particular deadline. I just hoped to get the novel in query-worthy shape sooner rather than later.
But ultimately, the important thing is that the story's told right, and told as well as possible. So if it takes an extra draft, I'm sure the extra work would only improve it. (Sigh. Do I sound constructive? I feel... tired. But I'm trying to convince myself to think positive anyway.) I was already planning to put it through at least two more rounds of revision, so an extra, massively long exercise in POV might not be too much of a detour. We shall see.
In the meantime, once more unto the breach, dear friends. Time to tackle the second half. If you have any thoughts on the pros & cons of 1st or 3rd person, I'd love to hear them!
There are several reasons for my frustration and crankiness, most of which I won't go into here, but one thing that's been bugging the hell out of me is my internal struggle over 1st vs. 3rd person POV in my current WIP.
When I wrote the first draft, I was just focused on getting the words on paper (or the computer screen, whatever) and I wrote some chapters in first person, some in third, as the mood struck me. There was not a lot of thought involved; I just wrote instinctively.
So one of the questions that's preoccupied me for the last year, since I wrote the first draft, is which POV to use. I felt like the story needed a consistent narrative approach. I ended up going with first person, largely because the protagonist undergoes such an emotional/mental journey as she goes through the plot conflicts. She transitions from anti-hero to hero, and during her journey, she makes some choices that most people would probably respond to with a well-deserved "WTF?" So I felt like the first person would heighten the reader's sympathy with her while supporting the tension between her (at times admittedly unreliable) perspective and the rest of the world.
Then, yesterday, I reached the halfway point in my first round of revision. I finished 25 of the 50 chapters (yay!), and felt great about how the story was going. I decided to take a little break, do some stuff around the house, and then read a bunch of articles about writing/revising/character/plot/POV.
That last bit was, I realize now, perhaps a mistake. Okay, definitely a mistake. I read some articles discussing 1st & 3rd-person narration, and the debate I thought I'd settled for myself just raged right up again. Except at this point, I'm halfway through making the novel a consistent POV, and nearly 30,000 words in is really not when one wants to be questioning one's narrative choice.
So, y'know. Little irritated. Part of my frustration is that it seems a lot of writers consider first person to be an "immature" choice of narration, which made me question myself and get all insecure about my writing abilities. But as Nathan Bransford says (not in the linked post, but often), if it works, it works, and I think as long as I'm aware of the possible pitfalls of 1st-person narration - and, even better, avoiding them - it may still be the right choice for this story.
So I'm going to press on with the 1st-person narration, finish the revision, and then go back and reread it carefully and critically. Hell, if I really feel the need, I can always go back and revise the entire book with 3rd-person instead (and won't that be a treat). It could be a useful exercise, and really, it's not like I'm on a particular deadline. I just hoped to get the novel in query-worthy shape sooner rather than later.
But ultimately, the important thing is that the story's told right, and told as well as possible. So if it takes an extra draft, I'm sure the extra work would only improve it. (Sigh. Do I sound constructive? I feel... tired. But I'm trying to convince myself to think positive anyway.) I was already planning to put it through at least two more rounds of revision, so an extra, massively long exercise in POV might not be too much of a detour. We shall see.
In the meantime, once more unto the breach, dear friends. Time to tackle the second half. If you have any thoughts on the pros & cons of 1st or 3rd person, I'd love to hear them!
02 November 2009
Revision's still, deep waters
In the last two days, I've revised eleven chapters of the novel I wrote during last year's NaNoWriMo. Technically speaking, that puts me more than 20 percent of the way through Round 2, which is a lot better than, say, zero percent of the way, or even ten percent. It's important to celebrate these milestones.
I'm starting to get a little nervous, though, because I know the real work is up ahead. It sort of feels like digging around in the yard and not quite knowing where the water line is, just that it's there. One of these days soon, I'm going to reach a certain point in the story and all this force is going to be unleashed.
So far, the revisions mostly involve making all the verb tenses consistent, tightening up sloppy or redundant writing, and smacking the occasional passive voice into action. A lot of it has centered around changing the chapters I wrote from a third-person POV into first-person. (I'm sort of glad I have no idea whether I wrote more chapters in first or third person in Round 1.)
But I worry that I'm taking refuge in technicalities. When I revise my poetry, I tend to get in there with both hands and tear it apart, move words and lines around, pull lines out and write 10-line exercises based on them to get at what I really meant, reassemble the lines and stanzas in different orders - in short, I rip my heart out, play hacky-sack with it for a while, and then put it back in place better-than-new.
Since I've spent a lot more of my life on writing and revising poetry than I have on fiction, I feel a lot safer during the poetry process than I do right now. Don't get me wrong; I go through plenty dark nights of the soul when I'm revising my poems, but y'know, they're just so much shorter than a novel. There's that stage of revision, right before it all comes together, when the entire thing turns into a royal, absolute mess. Then, like pulling the right thread in a cats-cradle, somehow it all magically ties together in a neat, ordered, beautiful way.
When we're talking about a 62,000-word rough draft, though, that absolute mess starts sounding a whole lot messier. In my imagination, it takes on downright scary, Titanic proportions. I know there are plot holes lurking like icebergs, just waiting for me to run into them. I also know I'm going to have to add some word count at some point, for this to be the length of a proper novel, and so far all I'm doing is tightening up the words.
Of course, one of the keys to good writing is for every word to matter, so I don't stress as much about adding to the story. If it's there, it'll come out; if not, it'll just be a short book. Better to be short than to have a lot of useless blather. My hope is that filling in those gaping plot holes will add to the length, too.
I keep telling myself I can make this entire first round of revision about the technicalities, if I want to, and then go through and read it more for the storyline. I can just keep segmenting down the necessary aspects of revision until they're in more manageable pieces - poem-sized, if you will.
But I've never labored for too long under the delusion that I really have control over my writing. Isn't that why we write? The words demand we write them, and we serve as their channel as best we can. Here's hoping I lose some of this control soon, and the story takes over.
I'm starting to get a little nervous, though, because I know the real work is up ahead. It sort of feels like digging around in the yard and not quite knowing where the water line is, just that it's there. One of these days soon, I'm going to reach a certain point in the story and all this force is going to be unleashed.
So far, the revisions mostly involve making all the verb tenses consistent, tightening up sloppy or redundant writing, and smacking the occasional passive voice into action. A lot of it has centered around changing the chapters I wrote from a third-person POV into first-person. (I'm sort of glad I have no idea whether I wrote more chapters in first or third person in Round 1.)
But I worry that I'm taking refuge in technicalities. When I revise my poetry, I tend to get in there with both hands and tear it apart, move words and lines around, pull lines out and write 10-line exercises based on them to get at what I really meant, reassemble the lines and stanzas in different orders - in short, I rip my heart out, play hacky-sack with it for a while, and then put it back in place better-than-new.
Since I've spent a lot more of my life on writing and revising poetry than I have on fiction, I feel a lot safer during the poetry process than I do right now. Don't get me wrong; I go through plenty dark nights of the soul when I'm revising my poems, but y'know, they're just so much shorter than a novel. There's that stage of revision, right before it all comes together, when the entire thing turns into a royal, absolute mess. Then, like pulling the right thread in a cats-cradle, somehow it all magically ties together in a neat, ordered, beautiful way.
When we're talking about a 62,000-word rough draft, though, that absolute mess starts sounding a whole lot messier. In my imagination, it takes on downright scary, Titanic proportions. I know there are plot holes lurking like icebergs, just waiting for me to run into them. I also know I'm going to have to add some word count at some point, for this to be the length of a proper novel, and so far all I'm doing is tightening up the words.
Of course, one of the keys to good writing is for every word to matter, so I don't stress as much about adding to the story. If it's there, it'll come out; if not, it'll just be a short book. Better to be short than to have a lot of useless blather. My hope is that filling in those gaping plot holes will add to the length, too.
I keep telling myself I can make this entire first round of revision about the technicalities, if I want to, and then go through and read it more for the storyline. I can just keep segmenting down the necessary aspects of revision until they're in more manageable pieces - poem-sized, if you will.
But I've never labored for too long under the delusion that I really have control over my writing. Isn't that why we write? The words demand we write them, and we serve as their channel as best we can. Here's hoping I lose some of this control soon, and the story takes over.
01 November 2009
of miscellaneous mind
I've got an amalgam of thoughts jostling each other for space right now.
First, as I delve further into the writing Twitterverse, I keep coming across articles on common topics. One is what-you-should-be-Tweeting or how-to-be-a-successful-Twitter-writer or whatever. Here's my opinion:
Just be yourself.
It's a lot like writing; it's important to speak with your authentic voice. There seems to be a lot of advice to advance your personal brand and be professional and useful and whatever else people want you to be. Apparently people don't want to know what I'm making for dinner or that I'm entertained by my cat snoring. Those people would be well advised not to follow me.
Granted, I do think you should learn from the things that annoy you in others, and not do them yourself. Learn from the things you admire in others, and adapt them to your own strengths.
I like to know both the professional and personal side of people I follow on Twitter; it's much like enjoying a well-developed character in a book. If you're only showing your professional side, you come across as pretty flat. Be a real person. There's only one of you. Tell me who you are.
Granted, I think a key to this is to try and have a sense of humor about it. Whether on Twitter or in real life, genuinely self-absorbed people are just boring. But random glimpses of others' quirks remind me of the notes struck by a really good poem, when I'm grateful to realize just how universal my individual perspective really is.
So, that's my little rant about "how to act on Twitter". In other news, while the rest of the writing world is launching into NaNoWriMo with all the frenzy that writing a novel in a month deserves, I'm throwing myself into NaNoEdMo rather like a dive into an icy pond. In other words, I'm editing the novel I wrote during last year's NaNo. I attempted the same project in May, and got through five chapters in two weeks. This morning, I got through those five chapters again, and yes, through chapter 6 as well. (Hooray! Progress!) Here's hoping that being unemployed will keep me swimming through the murky waters of revision.
Since I'm working on this project, a lot of the links posted by my tweeps are serving as helpful reminders on the craft of writing. I hope they help you too. The agent/publishing/marketing-related links will come later.
My sincere thanks for links and/or writing the actual articles: @inkyelbows, @megancrewe, @motjustes, @ElizabethSCraig, @Quotes4Writers, @AdviceToWriters, @benwhiting, @mystorywriter, @david_hewson, @WritersDigest, @brianklems, @jessicastrawser, @MFAConfidential, Jon Morrow and Stephanie Perkins.
Tips from a master of writing. From @MFAConfidential: Flannery O'Connor's take on the tenets of craft. http://ow.ly/15YolZ
From psych major and YA author @megancrewe: What makes a good story? http://j.mp/3gOhzY
From Elizabeth S. Craig's excellent blog: Different characters have different perceptions. http://short.to/v7hu
From crime writer Andrew Taylor: Getting the Plot Right. http://bit.ly/10vwGX
From Jon Morrow: No one but you is an authority on your writing. http://bit.ly/r3nK3
To become a better writer: Intense, focused practice. http://bit.ly/1NpapO
He's absolutely right about the Facebook/Twitter trap. From @david_hewson: Keeping your writing alive - even when you're not writing. http://ow.ly/x71i
From @brianklems: 4 Tips for Choosing the Right Word. http://ow.ly/xmw7
I'm not quite sure how I ended up on the following blog, but I enjoy the irony of her digressions as she talks about how important it is to stay focused on your plot. Irony aside, good tips on self-editing:
http://naturalartificial.blogspot.com/2009/10/scarf-weather-answers-part-eleven.html
First, as I delve further into the writing Twitterverse, I keep coming across articles on common topics. One is what-you-should-be-Tweeting or how-to-be-a-successful-Twitter-writer or whatever. Here's my opinion:
Just be yourself.
It's a lot like writing; it's important to speak with your authentic voice. There seems to be a lot of advice to advance your personal brand and be professional and useful and whatever else people want you to be. Apparently people don't want to know what I'm making for dinner or that I'm entertained by my cat snoring. Those people would be well advised not to follow me.
Granted, I do think you should learn from the things that annoy you in others, and not do them yourself. Learn from the things you admire in others, and adapt them to your own strengths.
I like to know both the professional and personal side of people I follow on Twitter; it's much like enjoying a well-developed character in a book. If you're only showing your professional side, you come across as pretty flat. Be a real person. There's only one of you. Tell me who you are.
Granted, I think a key to this is to try and have a sense of humor about it. Whether on Twitter or in real life, genuinely self-absorbed people are just boring. But random glimpses of others' quirks remind me of the notes struck by a really good poem, when I'm grateful to realize just how universal my individual perspective really is.
So, that's my little rant about "how to act on Twitter". In other news, while the rest of the writing world is launching into NaNoWriMo with all the frenzy that writing a novel in a month deserves, I'm throwing myself into NaNoEdMo rather like a dive into an icy pond. In other words, I'm editing the novel I wrote during last year's NaNo. I attempted the same project in May, and got through five chapters in two weeks. This morning, I got through those five chapters again, and yes, through chapter 6 as well. (Hooray! Progress!) Here's hoping that being unemployed will keep me swimming through the murky waters of revision.
Since I'm working on this project, a lot of the links posted by my tweeps are serving as helpful reminders on the craft of writing. I hope they help you too. The agent/publishing/marketing-related links will come later.
My sincere thanks for links and/or writing the actual articles: @inkyelbows, @megancrewe, @motjustes, @ElizabethSCraig, @Quotes4Writers, @AdviceToWriters, @benwhiting, @mystorywriter, @david_hewson, @WritersDigest, @brianklems, @jessicastrawser, @MFAConfidential, Jon Morrow and Stephanie Perkins.
Tips from a master of writing. From @MFAConfidential: Flannery O'Connor's take on the tenets of craft. http://ow.ly/15YolZ
From psych major and YA author @megancrewe: What makes a good story? http://j.mp/3gOhzY
From Elizabeth S. Craig's excellent blog: Different characters have different perceptions. http://short.to/v7hu
From crime writer Andrew Taylor: Getting the Plot Right. http://bit.ly/10vwGX
From Jon Morrow: No one but you is an authority on your writing. http://bit.ly/r3nK3
To become a better writer: Intense, focused practice. http://bit.ly/1NpapO
He's absolutely right about the Facebook/Twitter trap. From @david_hewson: Keeping your writing alive - even when you're not writing. http://ow.ly/x71i
From @brianklems: 4 Tips for Choosing the Right Word. http://ow.ly/xmw7
I'm not quite sure how I ended up on the following blog, but I enjoy the irony of her digressions as she talks about how important it is to stay focused on your plot. Irony aside, good tips on self-editing:
http://naturalartificial.blogspot.com/2009/10/scarf-weather-answers-part-eleven.html
28 October 2009
learning.
This whole large-amounts-of-free-time thing is a new and strange experience for me. The good news is that I'm learning a hell of a lot. One thing I'm learning is that posting writing links gleaned on Twitter "once or twice a week", as I so naively posted yesterday, would either be totally insufficient or completely overwhelming. There are just too many good articles out there. I must've read at least 35 or 40 yesterday, and since waking less than two hours ago, I've read 5 or 10 more. Um... wow.
I feel a bit silly for not cluing in to this wealth of information before. I take some comfort in the fact that I was working more than 40 hours a week, and any time I made for writing took the form of cocooning myself in my own creative efforts. But what a remarkable new world to enter; it's almost like a DIY grad degree.
Still, however inspiring and useful the articles are, a too-long list of links could turn into a death-by-chocolate scenario, in which one's attempting to finish an ecstatically yummy cake, but can't quite manage the last couple bites for fear of brain explosion.
Really, it's a lot to keep up with, and a lot to take in. Frankly, my brain's kinda tired. So I'm going to tell the perfectionist side of me to feck off, keep up with the articles as best I can, and post a round-up on here when I have 10-15 links or so. Which, dear reader, would be now, among other times.
A few current trends are apparent: NaNoWriMo fever, for one; for another, massive changes are afoot in the publishing world, but the traditional process is by no means obsolete (yet); and an interesting number of articles calling writer's block is a sissy's excuse neglecting your craft. I didn't post any of that last category here, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that a quick google search on it will give you plenty of reading.
A couple other things are also obvious: if you're a writer on Twitter, and you're not following @inkyelbows, @motjustes, and @thecreativepenn, you're seriously missing out. These folks have led me to at least 85 percent of the articles I'm posting here, and they are invaluable resources. Rock on, y'all, and thanks.
Other literary tweeps providing links or writing these excellent articles: @bhurley, @FictionMatters, @Nathan Bransford, @BookEndsJessica, @joannayoung, @Kid_Lit, @JonMorrow, @FictionCity, @ftoolan, @fastcompany, @jessicastrawser and @WritersDigest. My heartfelt thanks.
If I've left anyone out, I apologize - let me know in the comments and I'll update with appropriate credit.
On writers and the craft of writing:
@bhurley: The craft vs. the art of writing http://bit.ly/Geck2
Why good writers make bad conversationalists http://short.to/v4u5
@NathanBransford: Mainstream literary fiction is increasingly found at the intersection of quality and accessibility. http://bit.ly/4uzPbW
@BookendsJessica: Present vs past tense: which is best? http://bit.ly/1SSaRP
I really liked this article. Character and landscape http://bit.ly/1iaKwY
Another great article. @joannayoung: Confident writing tips (stop apologizing!) http://bit.ly/2r8VgO
"Good writing is rewriting." The Secret of Pixar Storytelling http://bit.ly/30PjLJ
Great roundtable discussion. Starting a new novel: http://short.to/v4uz
10 top social networks for artists & writers http://tinyurl.com/yzl5ree
On publishing:
@Kid_Lit: If you’re getting intimidated by a query letter, you’re probably overthinking it. http://j.mp/cU50V
20 Tips for Query Letters http://bit.ly/1IY0T5
@FictionCity: Finding Consistency in Query Letter Advice http://bit.ly/1bMSQ1
Mind-boggling. @ftoolan: The Day Publishing All Changed http://short.to/uwyd
@fastcompany: Forget Everything You've Heard About Book Publishing http://is.gd/4zXUt
27 October 2009
tweedle-dee
So, being newly unemployed and having ample time on my hands to pursue and peruse said articles & essays, I've decided to these are just too good to not share with the rest of the non-tweeting world. Once or twice a week, I'm going to post a round-up of links to awesome writing articles or resources I've found on Twitter.
And so it begins. If you're on Twitter, check out my feed @annthewriter. Many thanks for the links (or writing the pieces themselves) to @ElizabethSCraig, @inkyelbows, @motjustes, @ColleenLindsay, @VictoriaMixon, @AlexanderChee, @justinemusk, @thecreativepenn, @rileymagnus and @ByLeavesWeLive.
On writers & the craft of writing:
LOVED this: @alexanderchee on Annie Dillard's writing class: http://bit.ly/24rvRa
Nice interview with Seamus Heaney by Alan Taylor in the Herald: http://ow.ly/wNjb
"Reading is the inhale. Writing is the exhale." @justinemusk's reader's manifesto http://bit.ly/qORT4
Booker winner Hilary Mantel on historical fiction http://j.mp/2QapdS
10 ways to write every day: http://short.to/uqnx
On publishing & marketing your work:
Making sure your cover letters don't have sleazy pick-up lines in them: http://tinyurl.com/yzblrmk
Booklife: Strategies & Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer - A different kind of guide http://bit.ly/28IC9c
Market Research for Authors http://short.to/uw23
(Incidentally, Twitter's a great resource for any craft or hobby you pursue - my feeds are largely comprised of those similarly obsessed with writing, reading, and/or craft beer. If you're into good beer, there are a hell of a lot of good breweries & cool homebrewers just tweeting away out there...)
24 October 2009
a little more
Warning! The following post is of an unusually maudlin & navel-gazing sort, rather outside my normal MO. I'm not apologizing for it, I'm just giving fair warning. My life has taken some twists and turns lately that have left me speculating on the human condition, the vagaries of fate, and other such nebulous topics.
"So may we leave in the world a little more truth, a little more justice, a little more beauty than would have been there had we not loved the world enough to quarrel with it for what it is not, but still could be." - Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening, by Studs Terkel
I fall into the trap, sometimes, of thinking the question of the human condition is the province of writers, musicians, artists alone. Leave it to Studs to awaken me to the infinite possibility of the question, and its relevance to every human in humanity's history. What is it in us that makes us yearn for beauty, for justice, for immortal truth? And do we really care as much about immortal truth as we do about its immediate experience in our lives, right now?
I have to wonder at the struggles we go through every day. We deplore injustice, we sorrow at ugliness, we outrage over a lie. But as long as they stay out of our immediate lives, we don't often do much about them. Maybe we find ourselves ignoring them so often because they're just too big to cope with while driving on the morning commute or lunching on a PB&J; maybe we ignore them because they'd keep us up at night. And yet when they touch our lives, when someone is unjust or ugly to us, how massive the question then, how we lose our appetite, how restless we lie in our beds.
But surely it's not only writers - or artists of any type - who hear this question whispered day in & day out by our stirring souls. My life has taken place entirely in the nuclear age; there's always been an underlying sense that the world's going to end somehow, someday, maybe in ten years, maybe in a thousand or ten thousand years. It's either going to end entirely, or humans will, and all our art, all our beauty and truth and justice will be - not meaningless, because they have intrinsic meaning - but without an audience.
And really, what use are truth and justice and beauty without someone to appreciate them? Is it enough for them to exist for their own sake? I'm not sure it is. And I confuse myself, honestly, somewhere between the intrinsic meaning of these crucial elements of life, and the fullness of existence that an audience gives them.
For example: let's say there's a ridiculously scrumptious organic strawberry dipped in dark chocolate. (Just for example. Not that I could totally scarf about a dozen of those right now.) This is going to have an inherent element of deliciousness to it (just pretend no one's allergic to strawberries, for the sake of argument). But if nobody eats it, does it matter? What value would it have? The truth and beauty of its deliciousness is wasted, unappreciable, without consumption.
But I don't think this is what Studs and Rev. Coffin, Jr were discussing on this occasion. (I get sidetracked easily by chocolate-covered strawberries.) I think their point bears more on the perhaps ultimately futile and yet necessary struggle to heighten the human condition, despite the fact that the world will end someday.
The question is not so much about art but about justice. Whether the world will end one day or not is almost irrelevant to the human condition (almost, but not quite). What matters is here and now, how we treat each other this moment, how we treat the world today, how much beauty we see, how much truth we speak, how just we are to one another. The fate of the future matters, but we're living right now, and all we can do is make now worth living.
"So may we leave in the world a little more truth, a little more justice, a little more beauty than would have been there had we not loved the world enough to quarrel with it for what it is not, but still could be." - Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from P.S.: Further Thoughts from a Lifetime of Listening, by Studs Terkel
I fall into the trap, sometimes, of thinking the question of the human condition is the province of writers, musicians, artists alone. Leave it to Studs to awaken me to the infinite possibility of the question, and its relevance to every human in humanity's history. What is it in us that makes us yearn for beauty, for justice, for immortal truth? And do we really care as much about immortal truth as we do about its immediate experience in our lives, right now?I have to wonder at the struggles we go through every day. We deplore injustice, we sorrow at ugliness, we outrage over a lie. But as long as they stay out of our immediate lives, we don't often do much about them. Maybe we find ourselves ignoring them so often because they're just too big to cope with while driving on the morning commute or lunching on a PB&J; maybe we ignore them because they'd keep us up at night. And yet when they touch our lives, when someone is unjust or ugly to us, how massive the question then, how we lose our appetite, how restless we lie in our beds.
But surely it's not only writers - or artists of any type - who hear this question whispered day in & day out by our stirring souls. My life has taken place entirely in the nuclear age; there's always been an underlying sense that the world's going to end somehow, someday, maybe in ten years, maybe in a thousand or ten thousand years. It's either going to end entirely, or humans will, and all our art, all our beauty and truth and justice will be - not meaningless, because they have intrinsic meaning - but without an audience.
And really, what use are truth and justice and beauty without someone to appreciate them? Is it enough for them to exist for their own sake? I'm not sure it is. And I confuse myself, honestly, somewhere between the intrinsic meaning of these crucial elements of life, and the fullness of existence that an audience gives them.
For example: let's say there's a ridiculously scrumptious organic strawberry dipped in dark chocolate. (Just for example. Not that I could totally scarf about a dozen of those right now.) This is going to have an inherent element of deliciousness to it (just pretend no one's allergic to strawberries, for the sake of argument). But if nobody eats it, does it matter? What value would it have? The truth and beauty of its deliciousness is wasted, unappreciable, without consumption.But I don't think this is what Studs and Rev. Coffin, Jr were discussing on this occasion. (I get sidetracked easily by chocolate-covered strawberries.) I think their point bears more on the perhaps ultimately futile and yet necessary struggle to heighten the human condition, despite the fact that the world will end someday.
The question is not so much about art but about justice. Whether the world will end one day or not is almost irrelevant to the human condition (almost, but not quite). What matters is here and now, how we treat each other this moment, how we treat the world today, how much beauty we see, how much truth we speak, how just we are to one another. The fate of the future matters, but we're living right now, and all we can do is make now worth living.
23 October 2009
silent night
New poem. At least insomnia's good for something. Will need revision, of course, but at least at 6:22 a.m. I've already done some creative writing for the day... I wish I could control the column width so the lines wouldn't wrap like they are, dropping the last word down. But then, there are a lot of things I wish.
silent night
the world lies silent and still, watchful with winter insomnia,
except the dog snoring at the foot of the bed, content in dreams.
silent watches of the night are never true, something always intrudes:
drip of faucet, wind stirring late autumn’s crisp husks of leaves
and the sound of my thoughts, trampling over and again through
my all-too-busy brain. what if, what if, what if, what if.
the world waits full of cruel possibilities, watchful of my careless steps,
waiting to drop the other shoe. the silent night
does not let me rest, the faucet echoes my relentless worry
over things I cannot control. keep the wind from rustling the leaves,
call the plumber I cannot afford, silence the mind from its fret and fears,
tell the people who think ill of me they are wrong. stop the sun, it rises soon.
silent night
the world lies silent and still, watchful with winter insomnia,
except the dog snoring at the foot of the bed, content in dreams.
silent watches of the night are never true, something always intrudes:
drip of faucet, wind stirring late autumn’s crisp husks of leaves
and the sound of my thoughts, trampling over and again through
my all-too-busy brain. what if, what if, what if, what if.
the world waits full of cruel possibilities, watchful of my careless steps,
waiting to drop the other shoe. the silent night
does not let me rest, the faucet echoes my relentless worry
over things I cannot control. keep the wind from rustling the leaves,
call the plumber I cannot afford, silence the mind from its fret and fears,
tell the people who think ill of me they are wrong. stop the sun, it rises soon.
22 October 2009
Can't talk. Reading.
I got 18 books for my birthday. Talk about happy happy, joy joy! It's hog heaven for a bibliophile like me. I got several Studs Terkel books, several P.G. Wodehouse collections, Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' (I know, I can't believe I didn't have it yet either), Ben Franklin's autobiography, three awesome vegetarian cookbooks, some Martha Grimes mysteries, and a really interesting-sounding book called 'The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary' by Simon Winchester... as well as a few other titles I'm sure I'm forgetting.So it's really been quite a delightful few weeks. I started off with the P.G. Wodehouse, because I was stressed out with work and volunteer duties, and if there's any better literary stress relief than Wodehouse, I'd love to know what it is. If you've never heard of him, he's an absolutely hilarious writer of short stories and novels generally set among the English upper class during the early 1900s or so. His work is laugh-out-loud funny, like to the point that my husband would get annoyed with me for laughing so much while he was trying to watch TV or do work. Wodehouse (pronounced Woodhouse) was truly a brilliant comedic writer, and if you haven't yet fallen in love with him, you're in luck because the man was also quite prolific.
Studs Terkel, who I've raved about before (a couple of times, actually), is another of my favorite writers, although decidedly of a different tone than dear old Wodehouse. Where Wodehouse lets you take refuge in a totally foreign world of butlers and valets and earls and such, Studs brings you to the city and opens your eyes to the perspective of people from all walks of life. If you've never heard of him, he's an oral historian (he died last year, and I still can't think of him in past tense, it just hurts too much) who interviewed thousands of people on every subject imaginable over his lengthy career - but mostly just had them talk about themselves. To me, Studs brings to light the commonalities of humanity, breaking down social, racial and cultural divides. While he frequently interviews the common man (and woman), he's also done a lot of amazing interviews with writers, musicians, etc; in fact, one of my favorites of his books is called 'And They All Sang'. It's a compilation of his interviews with musicians from opera singers to Bob Dylan to Earl 'Fatha' Hines over 40 or so years, and it is incredible. You might also call Studs a folk historian, as he's collected the memories of so many people on topics such as the Great Depression (see his book "Hard Times") and WWII ("'The Good War'").
Then, of course, if you're like me and need to change up your intense sociological reading with some brain candy, we turn to Martha Grimes. The one thing that bugs me about Martha Grimes is her apparently lackadaisical copy editor, or whoever's responsible for the relatively frequent typos in her books. I mean, really. Come on. The publishing house has to be making a pretty penny off sales of her Richard Jury series, and they can't catch these? Spell check is not an acceptable substitute. In fact, why not hire ME to read all the books and fix the typos for you? I'd be just fine with that. Anyway, I think Grimes does a great job developing her characters and plots, and her mysteries are always an enjoyable read, typos aside.
I actually haven't started in on the rest of the books yet, but I'm getting there. Wading through a huge stack of books is definitely one of my favorite "chores". Cheers!
11 September 2009
what is left to us
what is left to usin memoriam, September 11, 2001 - from wire reports
I wish you could hear me from underneath that rubble,
as I stand atop a broken heap
to proclaim your death
valid, my words falling thin across this jagged gash of landscape
barely ruffling the thick quilt of dust.
I wish you could.
I wish you could hear me
when I tell you I love you,
I miss you, your eyes, your lips, how they’d curl
over breakfast at a sly joke.
that I never knew you
but how I sobbed, how I fell
to my knees for you, your eyes
your lips gaping in fear
and that is why I am angry.
because you died afraid
innocent
as I would have died.
and what would you say,
what if you were on vacation
or thought your day ruined
because you missed your plane?
only to drop your glass later
choke out "there but for the grace of god – "
would you wait till you were alone to cry?
The Taliban’s last stronghold
was once a school for girls,
you’d say, eyes calm and clear, laughing a little.
on the grounds of fecund learning
walled in, they gripped the last
few feet of Kabul
from its womb.
its sterile, beaten, exhausted womb.
when the Persian New Year came
Khatol Mohammad Zai
a female air force colonel
jumped from an airplane
floated to the earth of Kabul
Zai said
“as a representative of women
I have shown we can jump from helicopters
women can do something as good as men
even something that is so difficult”
the floating down is easy
it’s ramming an airplane
into a skyscraper
at 500 miles an hour
that’ll make you grit your teeth.
floating
from the 88th floor
did you ask yourself,
who said they could play god,
they have no right,
did you say,
it’s not their choice
whether I live or die
or were you too busy
with your own
final prayer?
the girls’ school reopened
girls peeking out of tents
on packed earth soldier-trod
the girls wait
for their gutted school
to be rebuilt.
they will have to go year-round
but just for the first few years.
just till they’re caught up.
would you say, I didn’t want to die.
yes. would you say
I’m sorry I left angry
or I wish for one last kiss –
do you watch me cry
alone in our apartment
the kitchen counter choked with memories
of cutting boards seeped with garlic
and tomatoes staining, waiting for the pan?
and I am supposed to let you go for this?
I haven’t even gotten to bury you yet.
they still can’t find you.
I got to sort through
a few hundred men’s wristwatches.
I couldn’t decide between two of them.
I just left them both there.
and how I wish you could hear me
27 August 2009
what dreams may come (and how to stop procrastinating on your daily writing exercise)
Do I get a prize for the longest post title ever? The satisfaction of it, huh? Man, that's lame.So thanks to a Twitter tip from @motjustes, I came across this fabulous tool for procrastinating writers. It's called Write Everyday, and alls you have to do is click this link and enter the minimum time you want to write. It gives you a prompt and a timer. Away you go! Amazing.
I realize that someone who's considered herself a writer for a quarter-century should possibly be a little more self-disciplined. But there is not a whole lot of self-discipline about me, and it's better to know yourself (and find ways to successfully trick yourself into being a better person) than to hold yourself to impossible standards and berate yourself for falling short thereof. And so on. So that's my take on that.
Anyway, using this tool (which I learned of yesterday) I have actually written for two whole days in a row. How 'bout it?! And no, it's not great literature, but it is writing with ye olde creative bente, and just now I turned out more than 500 words before even starting this blog post. Ooh, ouch, I think I just pulled a muscle patting myself on the back. Still, it's a decent accomplishment, and one that far outstrips not freewriting 500-plus words today.
Sooo, in case you haven't gotten enough of my brain ramblings for today, you can read what I wrote from the prompt below. The prompt was, "When I wake up in the morning, the first thing to cross my mind is..." It's not the world's greatest prompt, but it still did the trick. The prompt I used yesterday was better, but being a bear of very little brain, I can no longer remember it. I may, however, go eat some honey now. Enjoy the further ramblings.
When I wake up in the morning, the first thing to cross my mind is usually the fleeting footfalls of my dream hieing itself back into my subconscious. Sometimes it takes me a minute or two to realize that I'm actually awake, so engrossed is my mind in continuing the train of thought in the dream.
In pregnancy I dream vividly. As someone who loves to interpret dreams, and has what you might call a well thumbed dream dictionary (if you wanted to be unkind, you might call it a tattered, falling apart dream dictionary), the pregnancy dreams are none too difficult to interpret. Occasionally a more obscure symbol will surface (what does my fat orange tabby cat mean to me, really, and why was I taking her to the amusement park with my husband and apparently already-born baby?) but for the most part, it's pretty straightforward.
There's no question that my brain considers dreaming heavy therapy, and discusses a lot of my issues with itself on the flickering screen of my mind. I suspect most of my dreams are about my fears, at least, of the dreams that I can remember. Some are about my joys, and a few are about my hopes. Perhaps my subconscious considers my waking brain to spend more than its fair share of time on my joys and hopes, and wants to even the score. Occasionally I'll have a dream that's more like living in an alternate reality than a dream, or one that predicts the future, if only I could realize that when I wake up instead of when the shit actually goes down in the future and I think, "Oh, right, I dreamed about this."
Perhaps two of my favorite dreams involved me beating the shit out of someone I hated - both times featured the same girl, who as you can imagine, I really, really, really did not like. (Bear in mind that I have never in my waking life beat anybody up. I do kill spiders, though.) It was disturbing, naturally, but what was perhaps even more disturbing was the fact that it was oh, so satisfying. I'd like to think that much of the satisfaction came from the fact that I would never really beat someone up, but it also could have come from the fact that I was beating the shit out of this godawful, horrible, evil person. In fact, I even hated her less after the dreams, perhaps because I'd worked out my anger so very thoroughly in my mind. Who knows?
Anyway, it's been lo, these many years since I had a violent dream like that (nine or ten, to be precise, and oh, dear god, I just realized my ten-year college reunion is coming up next summer - talk about nightmares). Nowadays they're much more realistic, except for the cat at the amusement park thing. Oh, and the recent journey through a cave and up the magical holy mountain with a good friend. Okay, maybe they're not really that realistic nowadays either. But really, what are dreams for?
08 August 2009
songs for abigail
Today is the year anniversary of my daughter's stillbirth.
I don't have a lot to say about it, at least right now. I've written about it a lot in past weeks, and talked about it with very close friends, but right now I just find myself sort of wordless and grieving.
Still, I would like to share these poems I wrote in the days after her stillbirth. I wrote many, many poems in those days, but these are my two favorites, in order of favoritism.
Songs for Abigail
VI
Still the bells and muffle the drums;
with solemn step the parents come.
With weeping hearts and lowered eyes
they curse the day that Abigail died.
Let the trees shed their leaves in the summer field
Let the autumn harvest refuse to yield
Let the birds fold their wings and forsake the sky
The world must be broken, that Abigail could die.
Tell the mourners in a somber throng
To quiet their cries and swallow their song
Let the silence beg the question why,
of all that is possible, Abigail should die.
Stop the waves on the ocean’s shore
Stop the seasons’ changes evermore
Stop the sun in its eternal sky
Let the world mourn that Abigail has died.
III
It’s rained every day since you died.
As if the world weeps with us
and the clouds could swaddle our grief.
A hollow place in the world
echoes with your absence
the space where you should be, and aren’t.
I can almost feel on my pinky finger
where your grip should curl, and surprise me
with its strength. But your hand lies motionless.
It is hard to believe our hearts can keep beating
when yours is silent forever.
That was not the miracle I expected from your birth.
I don't have a lot to say about it, at least right now. I've written about it a lot in past weeks, and talked about it with very close friends, but right now I just find myself sort of wordless and grieving.
Still, I would like to share these poems I wrote in the days after her stillbirth. I wrote many, many poems in those days, but these are my two favorites, in order of favoritism.
Songs for Abigail
VI
Still the bells and muffle the drums;
with solemn step the parents come.
With weeping hearts and lowered eyes
they curse the day that Abigail died.
Let the trees shed their leaves in the summer field
Let the autumn harvest refuse to yield
Let the birds fold their wings and forsake the sky
The world must be broken, that Abigail could die.
Tell the mourners in a somber throng
To quiet their cries and swallow their song
Let the silence beg the question why,
of all that is possible, Abigail should die.
Stop the waves on the ocean’s shore
Stop the seasons’ changes evermore
Stop the sun in its eternal sky
Let the world mourn that Abigail has died.
III
It’s rained every day since you died.
As if the world weeps with us
and the clouds could swaddle our grief.
A hollow place in the world
echoes with your absence
the space where you should be, and aren’t.
I can almost feel on my pinky finger
where your grip should curl, and surprise me
with its strength. But your hand lies motionless.
It is hard to believe our hearts can keep beating
when yours is silent forever.
That was not the miracle I expected from your birth.
21 July 2009
Like pulling taffy from my brain...
One of my tweeps caught me at just the right time with a 500-word challenge, so here we go.
I've been trying to figure out why I haven't blogged for a month and a half. I was doing so well for so long! It felt great to write with something resembling self-discipline and make my craft a part of my daily life. And yet, suddenly, I just dropped it.
Ultimately, it's my own damn fault. I made the mistake of telling my dad and stepmom that I was writing every day and posting much of my work on my blog. For whatever reason - entirely not their fault, for they are as supportive as one could ever hope - whenever I tell my parents about my writing endeavors, I completely lose all motivation to complete said endeavors. Weird, huh? It's one of those things I've always thought might be worth a good hypnosis session to root out, if I ever had the money to blow on a hypnosis session. (Not at the top of my priority list.)
Anyway, I should probably learn either to stop telling them about my writing projects, or to get over this weird self-defeating behavior, sans hypnosis.
Really, there's so much to write. I've got this novel that's still a work-in-progress, I've got poems rattling around my subconscious, I've got random topics to rant and rave about.
I did start going to an improv writing group recently, which pretty much kicks ass. It was fun to flex my creative muscles again. The exercises we did in that group, and my willing response to my friend's word challenge just now, make me realize that I need to rely more on formal exercises during these periods of dormancy. Maybe instead of the more intimidating and nebulous 'work on novel revisions every day', I need to set myself less ambitious goals, like 'write 500 words every day'. Now there's a novel concept (pun only slightly intended).
Because, really, I always go through these dormant periods. I don't stress about them too much, since I always come out the other side and write regularly again, but I'm starting to get to the point in my life where I feel like I need to pursue writing seriously if I want to take myself seriously as a writer. And I definitely believe in myself as a writer. But instead of treating it like a hobby, if I ever want it to be my full-time career, I should probably start adopting a more professional approach. ...Not to suck all the fun and passion out of it. But there comes a point when 'letting it flow naturally' turns into 'letting oneself be lazy'.
Maybe I'm finally starting to learn how to make passion and self-discipline co-exist. Stranger things have happened. Hell, I even finished a novel during NaNoWriMo last year, in what seems a lot like the merging of passion and self-discipline, in retrospect. Granted, there was a lot more passion than self-discipline involved, but there's no reason I can't make it work with the proportions reversed.
It's times like this that I just need to make my good old instinctive Irish stubborness work for me. Reverse psychology can be such a pain in the ass sometimes, I swear - if someone would try to argue me out of writing, I'll bet you dollars to donuts I'd have another novel written in another month. O foolish mind!
Whew! Made it. That was tough, but I definitely needed it.
I've been trying to figure out why I haven't blogged for a month and a half. I was doing so well for so long! It felt great to write with something resembling self-discipline and make my craft a part of my daily life. And yet, suddenly, I just dropped it.
Ultimately, it's my own damn fault. I made the mistake of telling my dad and stepmom that I was writing every day and posting much of my work on my blog. For whatever reason - entirely not their fault, for they are as supportive as one could ever hope - whenever I tell my parents about my writing endeavors, I completely lose all motivation to complete said endeavors. Weird, huh? It's one of those things I've always thought might be worth a good hypnosis session to root out, if I ever had the money to blow on a hypnosis session. (Not at the top of my priority list.)
Anyway, I should probably learn either to stop telling them about my writing projects, or to get over this weird self-defeating behavior, sans hypnosis.
Really, there's so much to write. I've got this novel that's still a work-in-progress, I've got poems rattling around my subconscious, I've got random topics to rant and rave about.
I did start going to an improv writing group recently, which pretty much kicks ass. It was fun to flex my creative muscles again. The exercises we did in that group, and my willing response to my friend's word challenge just now, make me realize that I need to rely more on formal exercises during these periods of dormancy. Maybe instead of the more intimidating and nebulous 'work on novel revisions every day', I need to set myself less ambitious goals, like 'write 500 words every day'. Now there's a novel concept (pun only slightly intended).
Because, really, I always go through these dormant periods. I don't stress about them too much, since I always come out the other side and write regularly again, but I'm starting to get to the point in my life where I feel like I need to pursue writing seriously if I want to take myself seriously as a writer. And I definitely believe in myself as a writer. But instead of treating it like a hobby, if I ever want it to be my full-time career, I should probably start adopting a more professional approach. ...Not to suck all the fun and passion out of it. But there comes a point when 'letting it flow naturally' turns into 'letting oneself be lazy'.
Maybe I'm finally starting to learn how to make passion and self-discipline co-exist. Stranger things have happened. Hell, I even finished a novel during NaNoWriMo last year, in what seems a lot like the merging of passion and self-discipline, in retrospect. Granted, there was a lot more passion than self-discipline involved, but there's no reason I can't make it work with the proportions reversed.
It's times like this that I just need to make my good old instinctive Irish stubborness work for me. Reverse psychology can be such a pain in the ass sometimes, I swear - if someone would try to argue me out of writing, I'll bet you dollars to donuts I'd have another novel written in another month. O foolish mind!
Whew! Made it. That was tough, but I definitely needed it.
04 June 2009
Another take on Vonnegut's Seventh Rule
I was thrilled to be asked to guest post on www.fictionmatters.com:
I'm intrigued by the concept of Vonnegut’s Seventh Rule, which essentially is to write for one person rather than the whole world. I’ve never really considered writing for the whole world; instead, I find myself writing for my main character. After all, if I don’t tell his story, no one else will. And if I can tell the story to his satisfaction, I’m certain to end up happy with it as well.
(Side note: I’m rather enjoying the fact that Vonnegut would’ve hated that semicolon in the preceding paragraph.)
I think one’s instinctive audience is deeply intertwined with one’s creative process. Every (good) story I’ve written has started because a protagonist popped into my mind, in a sort of reverse-Athena-birthing, whispering urgently that they must tell me about this thing. Or I’ll get a sudden image of this person - who’s never occurred to me before - in the middle of an intriguing action, and realize I must know what happened next. Or maybe I do know what happened next, and before too, and realize that for his sake and mine, I must tell his story, now now now.
There are some great advantages to this approach, in my opinion. My protagonists become close friends of mine, because I take their stories seriously, and they know I’m listening. Writing for them helps me with characterization quite a lot, because they’re driving the story so much that all I have to do is pay attention, and a thousand tiny details come forth with relatively little effort.
It also helps me with developing other characters. Since the secondary characters are all there because they’re a part of the protagonist’s life, I tend to see them from the protag’s point of view. How they respond to the main character, and how he responds to them, helps me understand both people better. The drawback, not surprisingly, is that this can make my secondary characters a bit flat at times. But hey, that’s why we have revision, right? I’m a big believer in getting the first draft down on paper and worrying about making it great on the next go-round or twenty.
Another thing I love about this approach is that the inspiration is all wrapped up with it. Whatever inner emotion makes this character so urgent, so insistent that I tell their story, tends to be one of the main themes. Even better, since that passion is innately contained within their personality, I typically don’t have to put a lot of conscious thought into the character’s motivation. It seems natural that the protagonist’s motivation and the story’s overall themes are linked in a necessary - indeed, inextricable - way. Granted, I may not fully understand that motivation or the themes until I’m knee-deep in the story, but I just keep trusting my main character and in time, all is revealed.
Focusing on telling this specific character’s story to his satisfaction helps me to hone in on the plot, too, even if I can’t see all the way to the end when I first start jotting down the scenes and images that occur to me. If I start to get lost, or bogged down, I can turn to the protagonist and say, “Sorry, what were we talking about? I got a little distracted.” In a very real sense, the protagonist is like a guide leading me along an unfamiliar trail through the forest. It doesn’t feel like I’m making up his story; I’m listening to it, asking questions, and writing as fast as I can.
I'm intrigued by the concept of Vonnegut’s Seventh Rule, which essentially is to write for one person rather than the whole world. I’ve never really considered writing for the whole world; instead, I find myself writing for my main character. After all, if I don’t tell his story, no one else will. And if I can tell the story to his satisfaction, I’m certain to end up happy with it as well.
(Side note: I’m rather enjoying the fact that Vonnegut would’ve hated that semicolon in the preceding paragraph.)
I think one’s instinctive audience is deeply intertwined with one’s creative process. Every (good) story I’ve written has started because a protagonist popped into my mind, in a sort of reverse-Athena-birthing, whispering urgently that they must tell me about this thing. Or I’ll get a sudden image of this person - who’s never occurred to me before - in the middle of an intriguing action, and realize I must know what happened next. Or maybe I do know what happened next, and before too, and realize that for his sake and mine, I must tell his story, now now now.
There are some great advantages to this approach, in my opinion. My protagonists become close friends of mine, because I take their stories seriously, and they know I’m listening. Writing for them helps me with characterization quite a lot, because they’re driving the story so much that all I have to do is pay attention, and a thousand tiny details come forth with relatively little effort.
It also helps me with developing other characters. Since the secondary characters are all there because they’re a part of the protagonist’s life, I tend to see them from the protag’s point of view. How they respond to the main character, and how he responds to them, helps me understand both people better. The drawback, not surprisingly, is that this can make my secondary characters a bit flat at times. But hey, that’s why we have revision, right? I’m a big believer in getting the first draft down on paper and worrying about making it great on the next go-round or twenty.
Another thing I love about this approach is that the inspiration is all wrapped up with it. Whatever inner emotion makes this character so urgent, so insistent that I tell their story, tends to be one of the main themes. Even better, since that passion is innately contained within their personality, I typically don’t have to put a lot of conscious thought into the character’s motivation. It seems natural that the protagonist’s motivation and the story’s overall themes are linked in a necessary - indeed, inextricable - way. Granted, I may not fully understand that motivation or the themes until I’m knee-deep in the story, but I just keep trusting my main character and in time, all is revealed.
Focusing on telling this specific character’s story to his satisfaction helps me to hone in on the plot, too, even if I can’t see all the way to the end when I first start jotting down the scenes and images that occur to me. If I start to get lost, or bogged down, I can turn to the protagonist and say, “Sorry, what were we talking about? I got a little distracted.” In a very real sense, the protagonist is like a guide leading me along an unfamiliar trail through the forest. It doesn’t feel like I’m making up his story; I’m listening to it, asking questions, and writing as fast as I can.
01 June 2009
the marvelous world
(we now interrupt the story revision in progress to bring you the following poem...)
the marvelous world
stay beside me, love, for all my days and nights
hold my hands in yours, sing to me adventures
of heroes and true love and the marvelous world;
look in my eyes and tell me in wordless joy.
hold my hands in yours, sing to me adventures;
walk by my side and make me laugh to tears.
look in my eyes and tell me in wordless joy
of the infinite sky, the vast ocean dreaming.
walk by my side and make me laugh to tears;
when the storms come, I shelter in your arms.
the infinite sky, the vast ocean dreaming -
how they roil and rage, shine and sing.
when the storms come, I shelter in your arms.
we are safe in each other, fire and air in sacred flame;
how they roil and rage, shine and sing -
how the ancient earth envies our life together.
we are safe in each other, fire and air, sacred flame;
we are constant and changing, we are beauty and art.
how the ancient earth envies our life together;
the old stories are true, but never so true as now.
we are constant and changing, we are beauty and art,
heroes and true love and the marvelous world:
the old stories are true, but never so true as now.
stay beside me, love, for all my days and nights.
...And now, a little context.
There is an absolutely amazing and wonderful woman named Kate - well, I am sure there are a lot of amazing and wonderful Kates, but this one is superlatively so and has been one of my dearest friends for lo, these many years.
Three years ago, Kate read a poem I wrote at my wedding - called, perhaps unsurprisingly, true love. And now, at the end of June, Kate will marry an excellent guy named Andrew (I don't know him as well, but he seems fully worthy to be her life partner, and I can give no man higher praise than that).
To my great honor, Kate has asked me to read a poem at her wedding, preferably one that I wrote. She did give me the option to read something someone else wrote, but I love her very much and wanted to do something original as a gift to them.
So there I was, faced with the task of writing a non-cheesy poem about love, something that would deserve to be read at the wedding of one of my best friends. After about 83,000 attempts, I finally drafted the poem above. I've put it through a few revisions by now, but I have until June 27th to make it perfect, or as close to perfect as I can get it.
You can therefore see, dear reader, why your feedback is much needed and appreciated.
A word on the form - this type of poem is called a pantoum. As you may already know, pantoums are a type of poetry that originated in Malaysia. There is little structure besides the pattern of repetition of the lines - no set number of syllables or stanzas, no rhyme scheme, no scansion. It's one of my favorite forms of poetry; the repeating pattern creates this great tension, then the pattern of the last stanza provides a fantastic catharsis.
A word to the wise - should you wish to attempt your first pantoum, may I suggest you drive it with verbs. At least, that's the only way I can ever figure out how to make 'em work.
Anyway, please let me know what you think. Much obliged!
the marvelous world
stay beside me, love, for all my days and nights
hold my hands in yours, sing to me adventures
of heroes and true love and the marvelous world;
look in my eyes and tell me in wordless joy.
hold my hands in yours, sing to me adventures;
walk by my side and make me laugh to tears.
look in my eyes and tell me in wordless joy
of the infinite sky, the vast ocean dreaming.
walk by my side and make me laugh to tears;
when the storms come, I shelter in your arms.
the infinite sky, the vast ocean dreaming -
how they roil and rage, shine and sing.
when the storms come, I shelter in your arms.
we are safe in each other, fire and air in sacred flame;
how they roil and rage, shine and sing -
how the ancient earth envies our life together.
we are safe in each other, fire and air, sacred flame;
we are constant and changing, we are beauty and art.
how the ancient earth envies our life together;
the old stories are true, but never so true as now.
we are constant and changing, we are beauty and art,
heroes and true love and the marvelous world:
the old stories are true, but never so true as now.
stay beside me, love, for all my days and nights.
...And now, a little context.
There is an absolutely amazing and wonderful woman named Kate - well, I am sure there are a lot of amazing and wonderful Kates, but this one is superlatively so and has been one of my dearest friends for lo, these many years.
Three years ago, Kate read a poem I wrote at my wedding - called, perhaps unsurprisingly, true love. And now, at the end of June, Kate will marry an excellent guy named Andrew (I don't know him as well, but he seems fully worthy to be her life partner, and I can give no man higher praise than that).
To my great honor, Kate has asked me to read a poem at her wedding, preferably one that I wrote. She did give me the option to read something someone else wrote, but I love her very much and wanted to do something original as a gift to them.
So there I was, faced with the task of writing a non-cheesy poem about love, something that would deserve to be read at the wedding of one of my best friends. After about 83,000 attempts, I finally drafted the poem above. I've put it through a few revisions by now, but I have until June 27th to make it perfect, or as close to perfect as I can get it.
You can therefore see, dear reader, why your feedback is much needed and appreciated.
A word on the form - this type of poem is called a pantoum. As you may already know, pantoums are a type of poetry that originated in Malaysia. There is little structure besides the pattern of repetition of the lines - no set number of syllables or stanzas, no rhyme scheme, no scansion. It's one of my favorite forms of poetry; the repeating pattern creates this great tension, then the pattern of the last stanza provides a fantastic catharsis.
A word to the wise - should you wish to attempt your first pantoum, may I suggest you drive it with verbs. At least, that's the only way I can ever figure out how to make 'em work.
Anyway, please let me know what you think. Much obliged!
13 May 2009
Okay, mad props to @FictionMatters...
We now interrupt this story for random homage to tweeps & Vonnegut...
So I joined Twitter not too long ago. I'm loving the interaction with other writers, getting to read other folks' blogs, discussing craft & technique etc etc. It's wonderful - a lot like real-life writing workshops, except that you actually get to choose whose writing you read. :)
Anyway, one of my Twitter feeds is @FictionMatters, who deserves some mad props for two things. First, he used Star Wars to analyze successful development of a villain's character, and anyone who can use Star Wars to explain, well, anything is pretty much awesome in my book.
Second, he recently blogged a separate post on each of Vonnegut's 6 rules of writing. Let it be known that I am a HUGE Vonnegut fan. I adore the man. In fact, I started this entire blog because I was so upset when he died, and I needed a place to vent. And in addition to a wonderfully creative and unique perspective, Vonnegut was a damn good writer. So his rules - which I had seen before, sometime in my halcyon days of youth, and then promptly forgotten - are quite useful.
So, not to steal from Fiction Matters, but for my writing friends that aren't on Twitter (join! now!), here is the list. Talk about perfect timing - I plan to use these, especially #4, to help me with my revisions to 'Mississippi'. You can read a discussion of each rule at http://www.fictionmatters.com/.
Kurt Vonnegut's Rules of Writing:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
So I joined Twitter not too long ago. I'm loving the interaction with other writers, getting to read other folks' blogs, discussing craft & technique etc etc. It's wonderful - a lot like real-life writing workshops, except that you actually get to choose whose writing you read. :)
Anyway, one of my Twitter feeds is @FictionMatters, who deserves some mad props for two things. First, he used Star Wars to analyze successful development of a villain's character, and anyone who can use Star Wars to explain, well, anything is pretty much awesome in my book.
Second, he recently blogged a separate post on each of Vonnegut's 6 rules of writing. Let it be known that I am a HUGE Vonnegut fan. I adore the man. In fact, I started this entire blog because I was so upset when he died, and I needed a place to vent. And in addition to a wonderfully creative and unique perspective, Vonnegut was a damn good writer. So his rules - which I had seen before, sometime in my halcyon days of youth, and then promptly forgotten - are quite useful.
So, not to steal from Fiction Matters, but for my writing friends that aren't on Twitter (join! now!), here is the list. Talk about perfect timing - I plan to use these, especially #4, to help me with my revisions to 'Mississippi'. You can read a discussion of each rule at http://www.fictionmatters.com/.
Kurt Vonnegut's Rules of Writing:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
30 April 2009
Do I dare? and do I dare?
Oh, my. It's April 30th already? Interesting. Suddenly my intentions to revise 'Mississippi' in May seem a little more, well, I'll be kind to myself and say foolhardy, than they did in March.
Here's one of the problems, which just occurred to me: it's a hell of a lot nicer in May than it is in November, when I originally wrote it. And it's light out for a lot longer. I actually really enjoyed getting up early and writing, with the morning's lightening dark for company. When it's light out & I have lots of time before work, I always feel guilty for being the world's laziest gardener.
But you know, I think I can do it. The early dawns will help me get out of bed sooner, possibly. And I'll have a really good excuse for not gardening, so I won't have to feel so guilty. I think I'm going to take the plunge.
As before, I'll post my work on here as I go.
I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster nearly inched up to the top of the first hill...
Here's one of the problems, which just occurred to me: it's a hell of a lot nicer in May than it is in November, when I originally wrote it. And it's light out for a lot longer. I actually really enjoyed getting up early and writing, with the morning's lightening dark for company. When it's light out & I have lots of time before work, I always feel guilty for being the world's laziest gardener.
But you know, I think I can do it. The early dawns will help me get out of bed sooner, possibly. And I'll have a really good excuse for not gardening, so I won't have to feel so guilty. I think I'm going to take the plunge.
As before, I'll post my work on here as I go.
I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster nearly inched up to the top of the first hill...
22 April 2009
Woo hoo!!!
Sometimes it's the simplest words that say it best, n'est-ce pas? :)
I'm super-stoked - I've got a freelance gig with a new magazine! It's called Alegria Living, and it's beautifully produced. Plus, my assignment is really cool; I get to tour a wolf sanctuary! Should be pretty awesome. I'm a little nervous, but also have always wanted to get up close to a real wolf, without having the whole instant-bloody-death thing involved. So this seems like a good opportunity.
I'm hoping the article will go well and they'll give me more assignments in the future. In the meantime, I'm just psyched that they liked my work enough to give me this one.
I'm super-stoked - I've got a freelance gig with a new magazine! It's called Alegria Living, and it's beautifully produced. Plus, my assignment is really cool; I get to tour a wolf sanctuary! Should be pretty awesome. I'm a little nervous, but also have always wanted to get up close to a real wolf, without having the whole instant-bloody-death thing involved. So this seems like a good opportunity.
I'm hoping the article will go well and they'll give me more assignments in the future. In the meantime, I'm just psyched that they liked my work enough to give me this one.
07 April 2009
block this
Rrrrgh. I have the energy & time to write, but little to no actual creativity flowing. So frustrating. I've halfheartedly edited the start of a story, but to no avail. I've got a folder full of poetry with excellent criticism written all over it, but when I think about actually breaking into a poem, really taking it apart & putting it back together, I feel like I'm beating my head against an invisible wall.
I keep thinking about revising "Mississippi". I'm still planning to tackle it in May, but I'd sort of like to get some work done on the poetry - the ones trapped behind an invisible wall - and submit some of them to various places before I get back into the book.
I get so tired of my brain sometimes.
I keep thinking about revising "Mississippi". I'm still planning to tackle it in May, but I'd sort of like to get some work done on the poetry - the ones trapped behind an invisible wall - and submit some of them to various places before I get back into the book.
I get so tired of my brain sometimes.
05 April 2009
(snow inspired) or, my life in parentheses
So, yes, I realize the last several posts on here have followed this theme of snow. I am somewhat obsessed with snow, I admit it. And consequently am quite happy to have a snowy afternoon, the house to myself, a good beer (Boulder's Mojo Rising) and the time to write.
Ah, Nature, she is a fickle muse (a la the Tick: "Gravity, she is a harsh mistress"), much less dependable than music. When a story's influenced by a song, I can just play the song or create a whole playlist that supports that mood, like I did with 'Mississippi'. When it's location, I can travel to there (or I can't, and just don't work on that piece for a while). But when a story's weather-inspired, nature torments me in the worst way sometimes.
Once again I'm editing my snow-inspired story, and I think I keep getting distracted at the same place every time I go through it. It happened again today (well, I do have Braveheart on the TV, which is pretty damn distracting). But not before I noticed that (hey, is that Stephen Fry?) Right! Back to the blogging thing. Um, yes - got distracted, but not before I noticed that the story's rather disjointed over the course of a couple chapters. The problem is, since I keep consistently flaking out during that part of the story, I'm having a hard time fixing it. D'oh!
Evidently I'm in quite the parenthetical mood (you might expect me to ask if you noticed, but I give you more credit for intelligence than that).
Hmm... it stopped snowing. I could deal with fixing the difficult-to-fix thing another day. Tempting. (Plus, I'm kinda hungry.)
Here, have a poem:
Ah, Nature, she is a fickle muse (a la the Tick: "Gravity, she is a harsh mistress"), much less dependable than music. When a story's influenced by a song, I can just play the song or create a whole playlist that supports that mood, like I did with 'Mississippi'. When it's location, I can travel to there (or I can't, and just don't work on that piece for a while). But when a story's weather-inspired, nature torments me in the worst way sometimes.
Once again I'm editing my snow-inspired story, and I think I keep getting distracted at the same place every time I go through it. It happened again today (well, I do have Braveheart on the TV, which is pretty damn distracting). But not before I noticed that (hey, is that Stephen Fry?) Right! Back to the blogging thing. Um, yes - got distracted, but not before I noticed that the story's rather disjointed over the course of a couple chapters. The problem is, since I keep consistently flaking out during that part of the story, I'm having a hard time fixing it. D'oh!
Evidently I'm in quite the parenthetical mood (you might expect me to ask if you noticed, but I give you more credit for intelligence than that).
Hmm... it stopped snowing. I could deal with fixing the difficult-to-fix thing another day. Tempting. (Plus, I'm kinda hungry.)
Here, have a poem:
what to do
what to do when the words won’t come?
I could tie my tongue around a tree and
climb it. I could tear out my eyes
replace them with prisms
refract – reflect –
a new point of view.
All the noises blend into harmony at one
point.
Can’t pin it on a map, no signs mark this road
so I hope to trip over it, flip a page
glance up at just this instant
see it hesitate, flash out of view –
not even a color, just a sense of color light refracted,
gone. I stand breathless struck & ringing
01 April 2009
hibernation
Exhausted; haven't been sleeping well lately. Tough to get a good night's sleep when you dream about work all night. But I'm not (for once) getting on here to bitch. I just keep having the first couple lines from this poem run through my head. Considering that it's springtime and supposed to snow later, it seemed like a fitting one to post.
...Okay, so I started this yesterday, and then didn't have the poem available to post. Here 'tis. I'm still tired & it's supposed to snow again tomorrow, so the relevance remains...
hibernation
tired, so tired, and this does not end here.
no, it never ends here. rows of small lead
weights attached themselves to my bones.
now they sway and clink whenever I move;
I walk as if under water. as if air were a force
I must reckon with. as if it drips and flows,
the task of inhale and exhale too much.
summer ebbs; I place myself in the quiet river
every day, offer myself to the water
asking for a baptism. like a frog I want
to shed my skin, emerge wholly new,
thrilled with wearing myself inside out.
I want to wrest myself from my skin, replace
my eyes, shed my hands and useless tongue.
let me hibernate, bury myself in the mud,
winter quietly; emerge rested, glad-eyed.
now deep in this waking dream, air sealed
within me, my mind draws pictures of spring
against my eyelids. I don’t want to get tangled,
caught half-born, eyes blinking, blinded.
the earth stirs around me, gathers herself, preparing;
she breathes in: my eyes open, I break from myself
I am free: alive: I can breathe –
...Okay, so I started this yesterday, and then didn't have the poem available to post. Here 'tis. I'm still tired & it's supposed to snow again tomorrow, so the relevance remains...
hibernation
tired, so tired, and this does not end here.
no, it never ends here. rows of small lead
weights attached themselves to my bones.
now they sway and clink whenever I move;
I walk as if under water. as if air were a force
I must reckon with. as if it drips and flows,
the task of inhale and exhale too much.
summer ebbs; I place myself in the quiet river
every day, offer myself to the water
asking for a baptism. like a frog I want
to shed my skin, emerge wholly new,
thrilled with wearing myself inside out.
I want to wrest myself from my skin, replace
my eyes, shed my hands and useless tongue.
let me hibernate, bury myself in the mud,
winter quietly; emerge rested, glad-eyed.
now deep in this waking dream, air sealed
within me, my mind draws pictures of spring
against my eyelids. I don’t want to get tangled,
caught half-born, eyes blinking, blinded.
the earth stirs around me, gathers herself, preparing;
she breathes in: my eyes open, I break from myself
I am free: alive: I can breathe –
31 March 2009
Ava revisited
I've had this little idea percolating in my brain for a few weeks now, and just last night I decided it was time to graduate it to a medium-sized idea. Or possibly more. Yes, I think it's getting to be about time to edit my novel.
(If you're new to this blog, I wrote a book - on here - in November as part of the NaNoWriMo.) I think May would be a good month for the editing project. April is a whole day shorter, and I really wouldn't be able to work on it until April 5th. It's hard to give up five days on a project of this size.
I don't know why I feel so strongly about blitzing through the editing of this in a month. Of course, it won't exactly be blitzing - at least, not at the level at which I wrote the damn thing. 62,000 words in a month; sheer insanity. I really found the concrete (and unforgiving) timeframe to be a big help when I was writing the story originally, so I guess I'm just hoping I can force myself to be super-focused and productive again.
There will probably be a lot of cringing going on as I reread it. I just posted it raw, almost zero editing, chapter by chapter. I'm sure there's some terrible writing in there. Equally sure, however, that there's some pretty decent writing somewhere in there too... If you want to check out the raw version, here's chapter 1.
(If you're new to this blog, I wrote a book - on here - in November as part of the NaNoWriMo.) I think May would be a good month for the editing project. April is a whole day shorter, and I really wouldn't be able to work on it until April 5th. It's hard to give up five days on a project of this size.
I don't know why I feel so strongly about blitzing through the editing of this in a month. Of course, it won't exactly be blitzing - at least, not at the level at which I wrote the damn thing. 62,000 words in a month; sheer insanity. I really found the concrete (and unforgiving) timeframe to be a big help when I was writing the story originally, so I guess I'm just hoping I can force myself to be super-focused and productive again.
There will probably be a lot of cringing going on as I reread it. I just posted it raw, almost zero editing, chapter by chapter. I'm sure there's some terrible writing in there. Equally sure, however, that there's some pretty decent writing somewhere in there too... If you want to check out the raw version, here's chapter 1.
30 March 2009
dream, dream, dream
Holy stress, Batman. We're less than a week away from our biggest annual event at work, and I keep expecting to wake up and find my hair turned silver overnight.
It's days like this - especially grey, windy, lightly snowy mornings like today's - when I dream intensely of not having to work. Wake up, ensconce myself on the couch with a blanket, my soda, some breakfast, and the laptop, and spend the entire morning writing. What I wouldn't give to just have time in the day to focus for hours on my craft. That is my ultimate fantasy.
Instead, I write in my head as I drive to and from work. I write in my head while I'm at work, too, when things aren't too hectic. Unfortunately, right now they're rather too hectic. In fact, what am I doing blogging?! Okay, okay, we all need the occasional break, just to stay sane if for nothing else. Maybe I'll take another five minutes and write a haiku, just to feel like my creative life isn't totally demolished by the harsh vagaries of reality. (Who, me? Melodramatic?! Scoff.)
(early) spring haiku
clouds cover the sky
budding trees pause and shiver
the wind howls cruel threats
It's days like this - especially grey, windy, lightly snowy mornings like today's - when I dream intensely of not having to work. Wake up, ensconce myself on the couch with a blanket, my soda, some breakfast, and the laptop, and spend the entire morning writing. What I wouldn't give to just have time in the day to focus for hours on my craft. That is my ultimate fantasy.
Instead, I write in my head as I drive to and from work. I write in my head while I'm at work, too, when things aren't too hectic. Unfortunately, right now they're rather too hectic. In fact, what am I doing blogging?! Okay, okay, we all need the occasional break, just to stay sane if for nothing else. Maybe I'll take another five minutes and write a haiku, just to feel like my creative life isn't totally demolished by the harsh vagaries of reality. (Who, me? Melodramatic?! Scoff.)
(early) spring haiku
clouds cover the sky
budding trees pause and shiver
the wind howls cruel threats
27 March 2009
Snowday
Well, I don't really get a snowday, but I'm going in a little late so I can work on my story for a few more minutes. I've been revising the children's story that I only write when it's snowing; last night, I got to Chapter 10, but it's only halfway through the page count.
I also decided it could really use a last chapter, since I previously wrapped it up pretty fast. Honestly, I think I just wanted it to be over with; but with the perspective of time I see it could stand some expansion.
So, a lot of work still to be done on this one. It's funny how rarely one really gets to finish a work of writing.
I also decided it could really use a last chapter, since I previously wrapped it up pretty fast. Honestly, I think I just wanted it to be over with; but with the perspective of time I see it could stand some expansion.
So, a lot of work still to be done on this one. It's funny how rarely one really gets to finish a work of writing.
13 March 2009
grey day
I'm always so happy when it's nice and grey out. I know most people like sunshine, but give me rain and snow any day. Even just overcast is better than sunshiny, in my world.
So this morning it's grey and lightly snowing, which makes me quite happy, even though I have to go to work instead of sitting at home and writing. I have a story I only work on when it's snowing out; I'm sure I've mentioned it on here before. So many of my stories I can only write in certain settings, like the pirate story I can really only work on at the beach. I think that environmental factor has a lot to do with the songs that influence my work, too.
I succeeded in getting up early this morning and writing. I hated to stop, though. I was working on the story for my dad, largely because I didn't realize it was snowing out, or I would've worked on the snow story instead. Regardless, it felt good to start making time for my creativity again.
There's something about this morning that feels so much like the morning I wrote 'San Felipe aubade'. An aubade is a poem you write for your lover upon waking with them. It's a lovely type of poem - not surprisingly, it originated in France. This one happens to rhyme, but I like the fact that there are no real structural requirements for this form, just the quality of waking with your lover. I wrote this years ago when we were down in this little seaside town in Mexico, in a tiny little cabana on the beach.
San Felipe aubade
Sleep we here awhile, love,
the thunder low and long
rumbles ‘cross the morning
like a half-forgotten song
you pull me closer, love
although you slumber on
your arm an anchor ‘cross me
as wave and thunder thrum
the sea sings to the sky, love
white clouds blanket round
December rain washes waves
holding the patient ground
the sea recalls the words, love
the thunder lows the song
the morning drowses lazily
sleep we sweet and long
So this morning it's grey and lightly snowing, which makes me quite happy, even though I have to go to work instead of sitting at home and writing. I have a story I only work on when it's snowing out; I'm sure I've mentioned it on here before. So many of my stories I can only write in certain settings, like the pirate story I can really only work on at the beach. I think that environmental factor has a lot to do with the songs that influence my work, too.
I succeeded in getting up early this morning and writing. I hated to stop, though. I was working on the story for my dad, largely because I didn't realize it was snowing out, or I would've worked on the snow story instead. Regardless, it felt good to start making time for my creativity again.
There's something about this morning that feels so much like the morning I wrote 'San Felipe aubade'. An aubade is a poem you write for your lover upon waking with them. It's a lovely type of poem - not surprisingly, it originated in France. This one happens to rhyme, but I like the fact that there are no real structural requirements for this form, just the quality of waking with your lover. I wrote this years ago when we were down in this little seaside town in Mexico, in a tiny little cabana on the beach.
San Felipe aubade
Sleep we here awhile, love,
the thunder low and long
rumbles ‘cross the morning
like a half-forgotten song
you pull me closer, love
although you slumber on
your arm an anchor ‘cross me
as wave and thunder thrum
the sea sings to the sky, love
white clouds blanket round
December rain washes waves
holding the patient ground
the sea recalls the words, love
the thunder lows the song
the morning drowses lazily
sleep we sweet and long
12 March 2009
I'm still here...
I've got that snippet running around my head from a Talking Heads song, the one where David Byrne sort of growls out, "I'm still here... I won't go away... well I'm still hangin' 'round askin' you questions 'cause I still wanna get LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAID!" Just seems like a great setup for the start of a story.
Not that I need a new story to work on, 'cuz lord knows I have quite a few hanging around waiting to be finished. But y'know, you've got to seize inspiration whenever it wanders through. With both hands. And your teeth. And possibly jump on it. Depends on how fleeting it's trying to be, really.
So, anyway. I've had a hard time getting back on a consistent schedule so I can be more creatively productive. Used to wake up early in the morning, every morning, and write for a couple hours before work. Lately, though, the Kitty Alarm Clock seems to be set to permanent snooze; he's no longer rousting me out of bed every morning at 5:30. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Most people would prefer to not have their cat wake them every morning at 5:30, and I would be one of them, generally, but early morning's really the only time I can ever count on for my writing. Sure, I write mentally all day long, but that's less helpful than actually setting words to paper (or digital characters onto a word processing document - so unromantic).
I'm dealing with boatloads of stress at work right now, so you'd think now would be a bad time to start making time in my schedule for other priorities. But I think this will actually work out better; if it's important to you, it should be important no matter what else is going on, and it'll provide some much-needed stress relief from all the blah blah blah work blah blah blah mayhem.
So, I guess this means I'll have to start, like, setting an alarm clock. Or something. *heavy sigh*
So tempted to start outlining that new story idea. Or work on one of my existing stories. Too bad I have so much work to do. Better get back to it!
Not that I need a new story to work on, 'cuz lord knows I have quite a few hanging around waiting to be finished. But y'know, you've got to seize inspiration whenever it wanders through. With both hands. And your teeth. And possibly jump on it. Depends on how fleeting it's trying to be, really.
So, anyway. I've had a hard time getting back on a consistent schedule so I can be more creatively productive. Used to wake up early in the morning, every morning, and write for a couple hours before work. Lately, though, the Kitty Alarm Clock seems to be set to permanent snooze; he's no longer rousting me out of bed every morning at 5:30. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Most people would prefer to not have their cat wake them every morning at 5:30, and I would be one of them, generally, but early morning's really the only time I can ever count on for my writing. Sure, I write mentally all day long, but that's less helpful than actually setting words to paper (or digital characters onto a word processing document - so unromantic).
I'm dealing with boatloads of stress at work right now, so you'd think now would be a bad time to start making time in my schedule for other priorities. But I think this will actually work out better; if it's important to you, it should be important no matter what else is going on, and it'll provide some much-needed stress relief from all the blah blah blah work blah blah blah mayhem.
So, I guess this means I'll have to start, like, setting an alarm clock. Or something. *heavy sigh*
So tempted to start outlining that new story idea. Or work on one of my existing stories. Too bad I have so much work to do. Better get back to it!
05 March 2009
the dragon story
Much stress at work; so much so that I'm working from home today because I'm sick but I can't take any time off with this workload.
So, naturally, it's the perfect time for me to get back into the short story for my dad, right? Right. I don't know why, but just now I had this random flash of not-quite-inspiration, more like just a sense of it finally being the right time. We'll see. I really do have to keep working right now, though. I hope in its current fevered state, my brain's capable of subconsciously writing it for me while I deal with other stuff, so I can just sit down later and have the story flow.
So, naturally, it's the perfect time for me to get back into the short story for my dad, right? Right. I don't know why, but just now I had this random flash of not-quite-inspiration, more like just a sense of it finally being the right time. We'll see. I really do have to keep working right now, though. I hope in its current fevered state, my brain's capable of subconsciously writing it for me while I deal with other stuff, so I can just sit down later and have the story flow.
In the meantime, here's a poem I wrote years ago that I've always rather liked. I don't think I've posted it before.
pen & ink
write all over me. write
on my eyelids.
write on my teeth.
write on my stomach.
write on my lips.
write on my palms.
write on my tongue,
my back, my breasts,
write on my bones.
and then
slowly
read me aloud.
02 March 2009
blah.
Part of me wants to post this blues poem I wrote for my man the other day. Another part of me is being all self-censorial. And all of me is dying for 5:30 to roll around so I can get out of work and into the rest of my life.
I joined Twitter today, which is probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, since I'm already easily distracted & quickly addicted to random time-wasting Internet sites. But my god, what a concept. Considering that I have to restrain myself from updating my Facebook status 20 times a day, it seems like the perfect outlet for me. So, if you simply can't get enough of my random & varied thoughts/poems/whatever, go look for 'annthewriter' and follow me. :)
You know what I want to try next? A blues sonnet. No no, a crown of blues sonnets. That would be wild. I have a feeling you have to drink a lot of whiskey to write that, though, and I'm really more of a beer girl, myself. Hmm.
I joined Twitter today, which is probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, since I'm already easily distracted & quickly addicted to random time-wasting Internet sites. But my god, what a concept. Considering that I have to restrain myself from updating my Facebook status 20 times a day, it seems like the perfect outlet for me. So, if you simply can't get enough of my random & varied thoughts/poems/whatever, go look for 'annthewriter' and follow me. :)
You know what I want to try next? A blues sonnet. No no, a crown of blues sonnets. That would be wild. I have a feeling you have to drink a lot of whiskey to write that, though, and I'm really more of a beer girl, myself. Hmm.
Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss
This morning when I logged onto my computer, the Google art was Seussian in honor of the great man's birthday today. We have a lot for which to be grateful to Dr. Seuss, not the least of which are Loraxes and star-bellied sneetches and the 500 hats of Bartholomew whats-his-face.
Seven years ago, when I was a reporter in Arizona, I covered an elementary school's celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday with a school-wide green eggs & ham breakfast. Very cute. I wrote the article as a poem, Seuss-style, of course. It was my favorite thing I published while working for that paper.
Unfortunately, it's somewhere floating among my archives, and I cannot find it right now. But I do remember the last stanza, so here is my rather abbreviated birthday wish for the good Theodore:
So lift up your glass,
and let's all give a cheer
for the man who taught us
to be silly without fear.
Seven years ago, when I was a reporter in Arizona, I covered an elementary school's celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday with a school-wide green eggs & ham breakfast. Very cute. I wrote the article as a poem, Seuss-style, of course. It was my favorite thing I published while working for that paper.
Unfortunately, it's somewhere floating among my archives, and I cannot find it right now. But I do remember the last stanza, so here is my rather abbreviated birthday wish for the good Theodore:
So lift up your glass,
and let's all give a cheer
for the man who taught us
to be silly without fear.
28 February 2009
Peggy-O revisited
This morning I went back to my outline of Peggy-O and messed around with it a bit more. Honestly, I don't even feel a need to expand it anymore. It's pretty much a story already, albeit a very short one.
Peggy-O
A river of army, pouring down through the foothills along the dry, dusty road, weary men placing one foot in front of the other, following the twitching flanks of the horses through the hot, humid morning. A tall man at the front of the column, surveying the land.
A woman, pale and distant as the moon, her arms languid in the afternoon heat. A window, taller than she. A pause, a glance out; a glance up.
A ball to welcome the officers. Women arrayed in the same palette of colors as the houses lining the streets. The women whisper and bob and smile and dance. The officer crosses to the woman, escorted by her brother, who introduces them. The officer bows low over her hand. She says little; wonders if he can hear her heart thudding against her ribs.
“Margaret,” she replies, and her mouth curls up into the slightest smile. He asks her to dance. She’s afraid to look him in the eye; she has a hard time looking away again.
A walk along the creek. He holds a branch aside so she can pass through. She reminds him of a mourning dove. She might fly away at any moment. He takes her hand; she faces him, reluctant, not looking him in the eyes. His hand is callused; she has never felt such roughness. But he is so gentle. She looks up at his face. He kisses her.
Later that night, after dinner, her mother drops a hint. “Won’t it be nice when those military men move along,” she drawls casual, watching her daughter’s face like a hawk, but from the corners of her eyes. “So charming, but most of them don’t have a penny to their name.” Margaret rises, puts down her book with the excuse of a headache, goes to her room.
Only one candle lit in the room. She paces, pausing often in front of the open windows, looking out at the night sky over the city. A tap on the windowframe; she startles, then rushes over to open the window higher. He sits on the windowsill, removes his boots, lands light as a cat and bows. She smothers a laugh, glances towards the hall. They sit on the sill together, talking quietly, holding hands, late into the night. She lets him steal an occasional kiss.
“We’re moving on in two days,” he says. He asks her to marry him, his eyes intense but unafraid. She turns her face away, looks out over the city. She tells him she cannot, that her mother would be angry if she married a poor soldier. He turns her face toward him so he can see her eyes. “Peggy-O,” he pleads. She bites her lip, tries to blink back tears.
The next morning; she is calling on friends with her mother. They pass in the street. The captain bows; Margaret nods, can’t meet his eyes. They don’t speak.
That night, she again pleads a headache and goes to her room. She pushes up the window and sits on the sill, wrapping her arms around her knees and leaning her head against the windowframe. She hears quiet footsteps, and turns her head; he is coming. She puts her feet down, sits up straight, looks ahead. He walks up to her, doesn’t even sit down next to her. He just kneels at her feet.
He talks in a low, urgent voice, pleading the cause of love. She looks sad but resolute. He is holding both her hands in his. He cannot understand why she would forsake love for duty to her family. She gives him a sharp look. “Are you not a soldier?”
“I am more than a soldier,” he replies. He stands.
She stands, too. “I cannot marry you, William, though it may break my heart,” she says, her hand light on his cheek as the feathers of a bird. One last kiss. He leaves without another word.
An army cot, a thin, spare form under a ragged blanket. The sustained gasp of shallow breath. His fingers clench, lips mouth silent words.
Months later; another ball. A group of young officers chat with Margaret’s brother. He asks after William; they grow solemn. “Died on the march, just wasted away,” says one. “A bitter shame.”
Peggy-O
A river of army, pouring down through the foothills along the dry, dusty road, weary men placing one foot in front of the other, following the twitching flanks of the horses through the hot, humid morning. A tall man at the front of the column, surveying the land.
A woman, pale and distant as the moon, her arms languid in the afternoon heat. A window, taller than she. A pause, a glance out; a glance up.
A ball to welcome the officers. Women arrayed in the same palette of colors as the houses lining the streets. The women whisper and bob and smile and dance. The officer crosses to the woman, escorted by her brother, who introduces them. The officer bows low over her hand. She says little; wonders if he can hear her heart thudding against her ribs.
“Margaret,” she replies, and her mouth curls up into the slightest smile. He asks her to dance. She’s afraid to look him in the eye; she has a hard time looking away again.
A walk along the creek. He holds a branch aside so she can pass through. She reminds him of a mourning dove. She might fly away at any moment. He takes her hand; she faces him, reluctant, not looking him in the eyes. His hand is callused; she has never felt such roughness. But he is so gentle. She looks up at his face. He kisses her.
Later that night, after dinner, her mother drops a hint. “Won’t it be nice when those military men move along,” she drawls casual, watching her daughter’s face like a hawk, but from the corners of her eyes. “So charming, but most of them don’t have a penny to their name.” Margaret rises, puts down her book with the excuse of a headache, goes to her room.
Only one candle lit in the room. She paces, pausing often in front of the open windows, looking out at the night sky over the city. A tap on the windowframe; she startles, then rushes over to open the window higher. He sits on the windowsill, removes his boots, lands light as a cat and bows. She smothers a laugh, glances towards the hall. They sit on the sill together, talking quietly, holding hands, late into the night. She lets him steal an occasional kiss.
“We’re moving on in two days,” he says. He asks her to marry him, his eyes intense but unafraid. She turns her face away, looks out over the city. She tells him she cannot, that her mother would be angry if she married a poor soldier. He turns her face toward him so he can see her eyes. “Peggy-O,” he pleads. She bites her lip, tries to blink back tears.
The next morning; she is calling on friends with her mother. They pass in the street. The captain bows; Margaret nods, can’t meet his eyes. They don’t speak.
That night, she again pleads a headache and goes to her room. She pushes up the window and sits on the sill, wrapping her arms around her knees and leaning her head against the windowframe. She hears quiet footsteps, and turns her head; he is coming. She puts her feet down, sits up straight, looks ahead. He walks up to her, doesn’t even sit down next to her. He just kneels at her feet.
He talks in a low, urgent voice, pleading the cause of love. She looks sad but resolute. He is holding both her hands in his. He cannot understand why she would forsake love for duty to her family. She gives him a sharp look. “Are you not a soldier?”
“I am more than a soldier,” he replies. He stands.
She stands, too. “I cannot marry you, William, though it may break my heart,” she says, her hand light on his cheek as the feathers of a bird. One last kiss. He leaves without another word.
An army cot, a thin, spare form under a ragged blanket. The sustained gasp of shallow breath. His fingers clench, lips mouth silent words.
Months later; another ball. A group of young officers chat with Margaret’s brother. He asks after William; they grow solemn. “Died on the march, just wasted away,” says one. “A bitter shame.”
27 February 2009
for abigail
So I just had to tell a former coworker that my baby died (in so many words) in front of about five people I really didn't know. I've gotten pretty good at this; I try to be kind to people because they're always so shocked and embarrassed at having brought it up.
Then I went into my office, shut the door, cried, and wrote a poem. Really, how do non-writers deal with grief? I can't imagine.
It's been 29 weeks today since I delivered Abigail stillborn. Only two things got me through those first few weeks after her death: my husband's love and my writing. Every morning I'd wake up knowing I had to face another long day without her, and I'd write for hours, then read it to Ben. It was the only thing that could ease the pain.
And yet I never posted any of the poems. I don't know why. I guess I was just waiting for the right time. Which is to say, now.
Here are two of my favorites, in order of favoritism.
Songs for Abigail
VI
Still the bells and muffle the drums;
with solemn step the parents come.
With weeping hearts and lowered eyes
they curse the day that Abigail died.
Let the trees shed their leaves in the summer field
Let the autumn harvest refuse to yield
Let the birds fold their wings and forsake the sky
The world must be broken, that Abigail could die.
Tell the mourners in a somber throng
To quiet their cries and swallow their song
Let the silence beg the question why,
of all that is possible, Abigail should die.
Stop the waves on the ocean’s shore
Stop the seasons’ changes evermore
Stop the sun in its eternal sky
Let the world mourn that Abigail has died.
III
It’s rained every day since you died.
As if the world weeps with us
and the clouds could swaddle our grief.
A hollow place in the world
echoes with your absence
the space where you should be, and aren’t.
I can almost feel on my pinky finger
where your grip should curl, and surprise me
with its strength. But your hand lies motionless.
It is hard to believe our hearts can keep beating
when yours is silent forever.
That was not the miracle I expected from your birth.
Then I went into my office, shut the door, cried, and wrote a poem. Really, how do non-writers deal with grief? I can't imagine.
It's been 29 weeks today since I delivered Abigail stillborn. Only two things got me through those first few weeks after her death: my husband's love and my writing. Every morning I'd wake up knowing I had to face another long day without her, and I'd write for hours, then read it to Ben. It was the only thing that could ease the pain.
And yet I never posted any of the poems. I don't know why. I guess I was just waiting for the right time. Which is to say, now.
Here are two of my favorites, in order of favoritism.
Songs for Abigail
VI
Still the bells and muffle the drums;
with solemn step the parents come.
With weeping hearts and lowered eyes
they curse the day that Abigail died.
Let the trees shed their leaves in the summer field
Let the autumn harvest refuse to yield
Let the birds fold their wings and forsake the sky
The world must be broken, that Abigail could die.
Tell the mourners in a somber throng
To quiet their cries and swallow their song
Let the silence beg the question why,
of all that is possible, Abigail should die.
Stop the waves on the ocean’s shore
Stop the seasons’ changes evermore
Stop the sun in its eternal sky
Let the world mourn that Abigail has died.
III
It’s rained every day since you died.
As if the world weeps with us
and the clouds could swaddle our grief.
A hollow place in the world
echoes with your absence
the space where you should be, and aren’t.
I can almost feel on my pinky finger
where your grip should curl, and surprise me
with its strength. But your hand lies motionless.
It is hard to believe our hearts can keep beating
when yours is silent forever.
That was not the miracle I expected from your birth.
22 February 2009
exorcism
Nothing like writing for getting those inner demons out. Actually I wrote a couple new poems tonight. One came in a fit of frustrated boredom - I was restless & aggravated & casting about for something constructive to do - and lo and behold this line popped into my head and I sat down & wrote a poem. I still need to sleep on it, but maybe I'll post it tomorrow morning (if it doesn't suck).
Anyway, it definitely feels like one of those nights where I have an overabundance of creative energy. When my writing starts seeking ways to come out, sometimes it can go in odd directions. Hence the following pantoum, which is tonight's other new poem. I love pantoums; the challenge is really worth it, when it works. It's a form of poetry that originated in Malaysia. The really badass poets will make theirs rhyme, but the crucial thing is the pattern of line repetition.
Anyway, it definitely feels like one of those nights where I have an overabundance of creative energy. When my writing starts seeking ways to come out, sometimes it can go in odd directions. Hence the following pantoum, which is tonight's other new poem. I love pantoums; the challenge is really worth it, when it works. It's a form of poetry that originated in Malaysia. The really badass poets will make theirs rhyme, but the crucial thing is the pattern of line repetition.
Caught
I roam from window to empty window
a restless ghost caught in currents of thought.
I wait for snow that will not fall
count endless minutes in the night.
A restless ghost, caught in currents of thought
I trace invisible patterns on the windowpane
count the endless minutes in the night,
narrow my eyes against the sun’s next rising.
I trace invisible patterns on the windowpane
my fingers fret and fold the blankets square;
I narrow my eyes against the sun’s next rising
try to will the ongoing, ever-deepening night.
My fingers fret and fold the blankets square
I place useless objects in a useless order,
try to will the ongoing, ever-deepening night
to stay firm, hold fast, but it slips through my hand.
I place useless objects in a useless order
wait for something to make deeper sense at last,
to stay firm, hold fast, but it slips through my hand,
leaving me restless and thoughtful again.
I wait for something to make deeper sense; at last
there are only a few final truths left to face.
They leave me restless, thoughtful again
watching the clouds, backlit by a half-moon.
There are only a few final truths left to face.
I wait for snow that will not fall
watching the clouds, backlit by a half-moon.
I roam from window to empty window.
I roam from window to empty window
a restless ghost caught in currents of thought.
I wait for snow that will not fall
count endless minutes in the night.
A restless ghost, caught in currents of thought
I trace invisible patterns on the windowpane
count the endless minutes in the night,
narrow my eyes against the sun’s next rising.
I trace invisible patterns on the windowpane
my fingers fret and fold the blankets square;
I narrow my eyes against the sun’s next rising
try to will the ongoing, ever-deepening night.
My fingers fret and fold the blankets square
I place useless objects in a useless order,
try to will the ongoing, ever-deepening night
to stay firm, hold fast, but it slips through my hand.
I place useless objects in a useless order
wait for something to make deeper sense at last,
to stay firm, hold fast, but it slips through my hand,
leaving me restless and thoughtful again.
I wait for something to make deeper sense; at last
there are only a few final truths left to face.
They leave me restless, thoughtful again
watching the clouds, backlit by a half-moon.
There are only a few final truths left to face.
I wait for snow that will not fall
watching the clouds, backlit by a half-moon.
I roam from window to empty window.
Before I got into the pantoum, I thought I'd work on some previous poetry & settled on one that's been nagging at me. It still needs some work, but after messing with it for the last hour, it's gotten a lot closer.
I used to be beautiful
Long did I laugh in my days of youth
and I danced like the wings of the air.
I trusted the promise life whispered,
trod the twists of my path without fear.
“You’re beautiful,” strangers would say
as if in a dream, caught off guard.
I moved in joy, sang to the wind;
blithe and blind to Time’s vagaries.
Then my daughter, my first child,
died in my womb.
And suddenly
I was not the golden leaf shining bright
but a faded skeleton crumbling into winter.
And I was no longer beautiful.
I was invisible.
For who is left to mourn
but what is left behind.
A skeleton, crumbling
to invisible air.
Long did I laugh in the days of my youth
and the world lived for beauty, and I
loved the living of it. But the dying,
the dying of beauty is a hard thing.
And what was left behind, in Time,
you would not want to see at all.
I used to be beautiful
Long did I laugh in my days of youth
and I danced like the wings of the air.
I trusted the promise life whispered,
trod the twists of my path without fear.
“You’re beautiful,” strangers would say
as if in a dream, caught off guard.
I moved in joy, sang to the wind;
blithe and blind to Time’s vagaries.
Then my daughter, my first child,
died in my womb.
And suddenly
I was not the golden leaf shining bright
but a faded skeleton crumbling into winter.
And I was no longer beautiful.
I was invisible.
For who is left to mourn
but what is left behind.
A skeleton, crumbling
to invisible air.
Long did I laugh in the days of my youth
and the world lived for beauty, and I
loved the living of it. But the dying,
the dying of beauty is a hard thing.
And what was left behind, in Time,
you would not want to see at all.
19 February 2009
livin' the blues...
So I was talking blues poetry tonight with my friend Grant, who's this amazing blues musician, and coincidentally this morning I was working on my favorite blues poem that I've written; it's been on my mind all day. Anyway, after percolating on this for some 14 hours, I think it's just time to post this poem and get it out of my system.
Okay, this is pissing me off - in the line 'south west north east', there's supposed to be a lot of space between the words, but blogspot keeps removing the additional spaces. Grrrrr... I hate auto-formatting.
wandering hermit crab blues
ann went down to the river
to get herself a lover.
ann thought it might be fun
to find one that didn’t run.
so. now ann crouches in a cluttered room
sees herself sweeping out kids with a broom.
ann cringes to watch the artistic wife
of her lover, her love, in a realistic life.
ann’s legs are hurtin and feet dust-bit.
ann’s eyes are tired of all this bullshit.
ann’s been walkin a long fuckin way
ann’s gonna get to a crossroads someday.
south west north east
space upon space piled in between
ann closes her eyes and sees what you mean.
her heart will slow its jumps apace
ann just wants to touch your face.
just want to see if that skin and bone
ain’t the doorway to my new home.
ann hangs her head and admits
a salty hermit crab she is.
scuttles about from shell to shell
careless sometimes; always means well.
too drawn by hidden rooms inside,
by tattooed colors, ocean-dyed,
she moves on in and sets a spell
till cramped legs make her shift
or she stumbles, takes a step amiss.
whether shell shatters, grows
out of fit or she outgrows it,
time comes, there she goes –
tattooed on this crustacean mind
every home my heart did find
time-scarred spirals I’ve had to flee
I leave them – yes. They stay with me –
shattered, perfect drops of shells
shards of mansions I knew too well.
Okay, this is pissing me off - in the line 'south west north east', there's supposed to be a lot of space between the words, but blogspot keeps removing the additional spaces. Grrrrr... I hate auto-formatting.
wandering hermit crab blues
ann went down to the river
to get herself a lover.
ann thought it might be fun
to find one that didn’t run.
so. now ann crouches in a cluttered room
sees herself sweeping out kids with a broom.
ann cringes to watch the artistic wife
of her lover, her love, in a realistic life.
ann’s legs are hurtin and feet dust-bit.
ann’s eyes are tired of all this bullshit.
ann’s been walkin a long fuckin way
ann’s gonna get to a crossroads someday.
south west north east
space upon space piled in between
ann closes her eyes and sees what you mean.
her heart will slow its jumps apace
ann just wants to touch your face.
just want to see if that skin and bone
ain’t the doorway to my new home.
ann hangs her head and admits
a salty hermit crab she is.
scuttles about from shell to shell
careless sometimes; always means well.
too drawn by hidden rooms inside,
by tattooed colors, ocean-dyed,
she moves on in and sets a spell
till cramped legs make her shift
or she stumbles, takes a step amiss.
whether shell shatters, grows
out of fit or she outgrows it,
time comes, there she goes –
tattooed on this crustacean mind
every home my heart did find
time-scarred spirals I’ve had to flee
I leave them – yes. They stay with me –
shattered, perfect drops of shells
shards of mansions I knew too well.
(alice said)
Mad props to Soham for all the inspiring feedback she gave me on my poetry. I've been doing some more revision, and while many of the poems are still a bit too raw to post or re-post, (alice said) is ready for her turn. Granted, I didn't revise it much.
This is perhaps one of my all-time favorite poems that I've written - top five, anyway. I wrote it during my senior year of college, when I was completely freaking out about my life, and pretty much on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I actually feel that this poem prevented said breakdown, which is probably a very good thing. ; )
(alice said)
pick a place and start.
doesn’t matter where;
far too much to really
do anything. so i start
with the little things.
put aretha on the stereo.
kick some clean laundry
across the floor. hang my coat
on a chair besieged by books.
no space to vacuum the piles
left by off-kilter ashtrays.
sit down and
write a letter to myself:
hey babe. haven’t seen you in a while.
i hear about you sometimes, almost by
accident, and i just wonder:
what the fuck are you doing with yourself?
i’m sorry i threw the sink at you.
come home. i miss you like hell.
didn’t sign it though.
she knows.
she feels me think about her.
week later
got a postcard back
having a fabulous time, no idea
what i’m doing. does it matter?
yeah; just like her.
didn’t sign it either.
she’ll be back.
* * *
this morning another postcard
portrait of a woman on it
hair auburn, head turned
to one side. you can only see
one of her eyes
but what an eye.
it read
(it was hard to read)
coming home soon
not quite sure how – or when –
please please please
don’t go anywhere
shit i miss you, i’m going crazy out here
crazy i’m going crazy i’m fucking crazy i –
i hear the refrain play in her head
like it’s my own. start cleaning
to make it stop. she doesn’t know to do
stuff like that, doesn’t know how to stop
the head-hamsters of doubt and desire
that run their wheel all night all night –
you don’t know her like i do
when she can’t see the floor for the clutter
she forgets there’s a floor. she’s just like that.
thing about her is though
feet never quite touch the ground anyway.
* * *
put the postcard on my wall
portrait side out
dreamed last night
the auburn woman spoke to me
alice said (her name was alice)
“honey, when are you gonna chill out?
sometimes I think you haven’t learned shit.
remember when you knew
how to wait? honey
(she looked me right in the eye then, both eyes,
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t tell you what color they were,
her starched ruffled collar gasped as she turned
right in the eye she looked me)
lemme tell you something.
she always comes back.
girl, this is just life.
you two can’t walk far in this world
without running into each other.”
This is perhaps one of my all-time favorite poems that I've written - top five, anyway. I wrote it during my senior year of college, when I was completely freaking out about my life, and pretty much on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I actually feel that this poem prevented said breakdown, which is probably a very good thing. ; )
(alice said)
pick a place and start.
doesn’t matter where;
far too much to really
do anything. so i start
with the little things.
put aretha on the stereo.
kick some clean laundry
across the floor. hang my coat
on a chair besieged by books.
no space to vacuum the piles
left by off-kilter ashtrays.
sit down and
write a letter to myself:
hey babe. haven’t seen you in a while.
i hear about you sometimes, almost by
accident, and i just wonder:
what the fuck are you doing with yourself?
i’m sorry i threw the sink at you.
come home. i miss you like hell.
didn’t sign it though.
she knows.
she feels me think about her.
week later
got a postcard back
having a fabulous time, no idea
what i’m doing. does it matter?
yeah; just like her.
didn’t sign it either.
she’ll be back.
* * *
this morning another postcard
portrait of a woman on it
hair auburn, head turned
to one side. you can only see
one of her eyes
but what an eye.
it read
(it was hard to read)
coming home soon
not quite sure how – or when –
please please please
don’t go anywhere
shit i miss you, i’m going crazy out here
crazy i’m going crazy i’m fucking crazy i –
i hear the refrain play in her head
like it’s my own. start cleaning
to make it stop. she doesn’t know to do
stuff like that, doesn’t know how to stop
the head-hamsters of doubt and desire
that run their wheel all night all night –
you don’t know her like i do
when she can’t see the floor for the clutter
she forgets there’s a floor. she’s just like that.
thing about her is though
feet never quite touch the ground anyway.
* * *
put the postcard on my wall
portrait side out
dreamed last night
the auburn woman spoke to me
alice said (her name was alice)
“honey, when are you gonna chill out?
sometimes I think you haven’t learned shit.
remember when you knew
how to wait? honey
(she looked me right in the eye then, both eyes,
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t tell you what color they were,
her starched ruffled collar gasped as she turned
right in the eye she looked me)
lemme tell you something.
she always comes back.
girl, this is just life.
you two can’t walk far in this world
without running into each other.”
18 February 2009
Lucky 100
Aw, look, it's my 100th post on this blog. I should have dancing elephants or something.
I keep giving this URL to people, largely to force myself to keep posting some work. A lot of my writing has been happening in my head lately, as I rush about trying to keep up with the day job & the rest of life. It's so tempting sometimes to throw it all over and just run away and write, but how would I eat? This is really the problem.
Anyway, I've been working with the manuscript suggestions my friend gave me. I tried to convince myself to focus on the short story for my dad, but it's just not flowing at all, so I'm going back to what is flowing. I'm finally starting to figure out that all things come around if you give them time and keep paying attention, so I know the short story will happen eventually. But lord knows this poetry manuscript's been a long time coming.
I feel like I should post a super-stellar poem in honor of post #100, though I've posted most of my favorites already; still, here are two more for you to chew on.
hearth-keeper watches
young it’s cute, devilishly cute
licking at edges, testing
the joy of burning.
fully alive it roars, dancing
the edges of the Firebird’s wings
ruffling in the eager wind.
old it dwindles proud, glowing
savoring the embers of its glory
licking again, but deep within its core now
tasting its own joyous heart.
hearth-keeper reflects
I can feel the flames
dance in my eyes.
when I tend the fire
I become immortal
breathe the scent
of sweet, dry bark smoldering.
wait for the young tongues of flame
to seep through the cracks of the sacred logs
all logs are sacred
upon the hearth.
every time I shift
glowing logs
I marvel
how just a few inches’ turn
brings forth leaping
hungry
flame
I keep giving this URL to people, largely to force myself to keep posting some work. A lot of my writing has been happening in my head lately, as I rush about trying to keep up with the day job & the rest of life. It's so tempting sometimes to throw it all over and just run away and write, but how would I eat? This is really the problem.
Anyway, I've been working with the manuscript suggestions my friend gave me. I tried to convince myself to focus on the short story for my dad, but it's just not flowing at all, so I'm going back to what is flowing. I'm finally starting to figure out that all things come around if you give them time and keep paying attention, so I know the short story will happen eventually. But lord knows this poetry manuscript's been a long time coming.
I feel like I should post a super-stellar poem in honor of post #100, though I've posted most of my favorites already; still, here are two more for you to chew on.
hearth-keeper watches
young it’s cute, devilishly cute
licking at edges, testing
the joy of burning.
fully alive it roars, dancing
the edges of the Firebird’s wings
ruffling in the eager wind.
old it dwindles proud, glowing
savoring the embers of its glory
licking again, but deep within its core now
tasting its own joyous heart.
hearth-keeper reflects
I can feel the flames
dance in my eyes.
when I tend the fire
I become immortal
breathe the scent
of sweet, dry bark smoldering.
wait for the young tongues of flame
to seep through the cracks of the sacred logs
all logs are sacred
upon the hearth.
every time I shift
glowing logs
I marvel
how just a few inches’ turn
brings forth leaping
hungry
flame
30 January 2009
out, damn retrograde! out!
So, I have actually done some writing since Dec. 20th, I just haven't posted it on my blog. Nor is there very much of it. But what little I have, I'm pretty darn excited about, because the inspiration just hasn't been there for me over the last month or so. Plus, I'm getting paid for some freelance articles, which is always fun.
Personally, I like to blame Mercury in retrograde, which generally screws up communication and has been doing so since Jan. 12th-ish. So glad it is over in two more days; perhaps related to its waning influence, I have actually sat down and written the last two mornings. Hooray! It's been about as easy as digging saltwater taffy out of my brain, but at least I've done it.
I actually managed to complete a sort of outline of Peggy-O, which is thrilling; the story's been rattling around in my head for years, but I always get bogged down in the details. I finally decided to just write what I saw when I hear the song, since that's what's compelling me to tell the story anyway. It only took a page and a half. Now I can go back and try to flesh it out more fully - but that's a later project. Really, Peggy-O was just nagging at me to be dealt with before I launched into the next project, which is a children's story that was my dad's idea. Of course, I also have a lot of fantastic & recently received constructive criticism on my poetry manuscript, so I want to work on that too, and a couple of friends have read or are reading my NaNo book and are motivating me to edit that as well.
So I guess you could say I'm not lacking for things to do. I've got so much other stuff to do for work & my volunteer work that I always feel short on time... but sort of like working out (not that I would be terribly familiar with making time for working out, but I hear other people say this), when I do make the time to write I feel so awesome about myself & my life. Much more awesome than when I'm slacking on my writing.
Anyway, time to get ready for ye olde day job.
Personally, I like to blame Mercury in retrograde, which generally screws up communication and has been doing so since Jan. 12th-ish. So glad it is over in two more days; perhaps related to its waning influence, I have actually sat down and written the last two mornings. Hooray! It's been about as easy as digging saltwater taffy out of my brain, but at least I've done it.
I actually managed to complete a sort of outline of Peggy-O, which is thrilling; the story's been rattling around in my head for years, but I always get bogged down in the details. I finally decided to just write what I saw when I hear the song, since that's what's compelling me to tell the story anyway. It only took a page and a half. Now I can go back and try to flesh it out more fully - but that's a later project. Really, Peggy-O was just nagging at me to be dealt with before I launched into the next project, which is a children's story that was my dad's idea. Of course, I also have a lot of fantastic & recently received constructive criticism on my poetry manuscript, so I want to work on that too, and a couple of friends have read or are reading my NaNo book and are motivating me to edit that as well.
So I guess you could say I'm not lacking for things to do. I've got so much other stuff to do for work & my volunteer work that I always feel short on time... but sort of like working out (not that I would be terribly familiar with making time for working out, but I hear other people say this), when I do make the time to write I feel so awesome about myself & my life. Much more awesome than when I'm slacking on my writing.
Anyway, time to get ready for ye olde day job.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
