epic love stories

Wow, somehow it became February. Thank the gods I don't have to post about food anymore. I'm going to post about love instead.  And chocolate. (Contest below!)

What's everyone doing for Valentine's Day? I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on one of those fancy prix fixe reservations at a swanky restaurant for me and my guy - because, how often is VD on a Saturday? (Actually, duh, we know the answer to that  - give or take a leap year.)

So, aside from the possible foie gras torchon and bon bon-popping, I'll spend part of the day as usual: hammering away at the keyboard, and living in the dream of my novel-in-progress (which is, for now, Empress Chronicles II).

The air is certainly thick with love in February, and it's making me a tad sentimental. For a while, maybe five, six years ago, I had this tagline emblazoned on my website. Do you remember it?

Somehow it disappeared or got rolled over by the Mac truck of updates, quickly and unaesthetically rendered in favor of "call to action" - you know, the whole "buy, buy, buy" thing.

Well, I'm here to say, I stand by that statement, the love story one, and I'm hoping to swim my way back to it in 2015. I want to embark on a journey of love. The epic saga of heartbreak and humanity.

I have a good start. For one, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond recently called me up to opine on one of their Dear Sugar Radio topics. The theme was "deal breakers" and the particular advice-seeking letter involved the dilemma of "alive boyfriend jealous of dead one." Give it a listen, let me know what you think.

The invitation to chat with the Sugars made me think about my very favorite love stories. Lately, I've been on this Liane Moriarty kick. I love all of her books. They're funny, true, and accessible. But in another chamber of my heart dwells the "epic saga" type love story, and I'm sort of ashamed to admit, my top three of this sort are all written by men:

McEwan's Atonement, Stegner's Angle of Repose, and Spanbauer's I Loved You More. That's the answer for the "if you were deserted on a desert island with only three books" question. Yikes! Do I have to revoke my vagina? I hope not. I mean, I also love, love, love other ones written by women. Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, for instance. And J. Courtney Sullivan's, Maine.

In the car yesterday with my buddy Teri Carter, driving back to the airport from our week long writing retreat in the desert, we revisited a conversation we'd had the night before. There'd been this question posed: "If you suddenly were given the chops to write an amazing example of any type of book, what territory would you conquer?" I'd dashed off the idea of a Lorrie Moore type smart, literary short story collection, but on deeper thought, in the car, I amended my answer to: the ultimate epic love saga.

When I think about lasting impact and the sort of story that moves through my bones and settles in my heart for the long haul, stories of love and loss that don't tie up in the romance trope of "happily ever after," are sacred to me. I just finished writing a book that, I think (I hope!) conveys an alternative to the typical girl-gets-boy ending, but my appetite is whetted for more. More!

As Tom Spanbauer recently said in an interview, "I have to have a dream. I have to have a dream, and for me the dream is the next book, and if I don't have that dream it just turns into ordinary drudgery."

I feel that too, do you? What are your favorite epic tales of love? Share yours in a comment below, and on February 14th I'll randomly pick a winner, and send you a box of bon-bons from Alma Chocolate!

imitative fallacy. again.

I'm reposting this blog entry because, given the google searches that drive people to let's talk about writing, "imitative fallacy" tops the list. So, without further adieu, here's a recycled tidbit, originally posted two years ago.

The summer before last I went to Salt Lake City for the Writers at Work conference. In workshop with Steve Almond, I was introduced to the term "imitative fallacy." Until then, I'd always called the concept, "A boring story about a boring man." It was a Dangerous Writing caution: you must avoid falling into the trap of adopting the narrative tools of your narrator when telling a story—unless your narrator is a gifted story teller. It's up to the writer to craft a compelling story, even if your main character is an idiot. Or, in the case of Stairway of Love's Fifi, an emotionally disconnected scientist.

Part of the challenge I'm facing is because, like Fifi, I'm sort of a geek. I'm not as smart or as educated as Fifi, but I think I share with her the tendency to cause glazed eyes when I go off on one of my conceptual epiphanies. In workshop a few weeks ago, I shared a first draft of a critical scene at the end of the novel's first act. There's a lot going on in the scene, four people all doing something different, and the anticipation of an important family gathering. But something goes amiss, and in trying to unpack the tension leading up to that something, I'm trying to shine the light on an activity that serves as a metaphor for the whole first act. The activity is boiling live lobsters. But, remember, this is a laboratory scientist boiling these lobsters, so it's fitting to engage in some of the character's unique sensibilities while she's boiling these creatures alive.

Even though she's cool as a cucumber while reporting the killing of the lobsters, I need to show how her body betrays the coolness. I need to demonstrate that she's not heartless lest the reader be too turned off to care about her. I have to mitigate imitative fallacy by revealing, somehow, Fifi's broken heart—or at least her discomfort, while still letting the reader know she's a nerd:

These lobsters will take fifteen minutes in the boiling water before their antennae pull out with ease—the old Watch Hill litmus test. But they remain alive in that boiling pot for the first of those minutes. And that’s why I do what I do.

In the lab, we call this the Kevorkian Rapid Unconsciousness Method. K-Rum. Disable the frontal ganglion. Ice pick to the forehead.

I reach into the rubbery pail and grasp the first victim. Lou, I name him. A slimy handful, this big boy. His eyestalks wag like Egon’s tail. I look away as I set him on the cutting board and reach for the large brass nail and hammer. I am horrible. A monster. But my dying cousin wants a lobster dinner tonight, so that’s what she shall have. Lou-the-Lobster is wriggling his ten little legs. His experience of the air must be like being drowned. A person’s horror at being held underwater against her will. A maneuver like this requires a little anesthetic. The Beefeaters bottle—a Watch Hill kitchen counter staple—glistens in the spill of sun through the transom. A half dozen highball glasses still remain in the cupboard and offer themselves up, I like to think, eagerly.