I’m writing a short story in future tense. Here are some built-in problems with the tense choice: wrinkled chronology (i.e. inserting back-story and not losing the reader is tricky); authority (is it all a dream, or did this really happen?); intimacy (distance in tense = distance between reader and writer).
At workshop last night I got some great ideas on how to minimize the above issues. For instance, attend subjunctive mood with clarity of purpose, and treat back-story with overt syntactic decisions e.g. make it clear if the character is speculating by using words like “perhaps” or “maybe,” and be careful how I use “will” vs “would.”
Here’s the current opening sentence: Mid-morning, Pedersen will fish the Razr out of toilet with the full scoop of his hand.
The camera hovers, but at an ironic distance. Playing with tense, pov and the shifting camera, just to inform the level of intimacy I’m attempting, I could write:
Yesterday, Pedersen fished the Razr out of the toilet with the full scoop of his hand. Boring and flat.
How about: I fished the Razr out of the toilet with the full scoop of my hand. Problematic. Immediately by choosing first person, I realize I have to make the sentence less self-conscious and foreground the object. Maybe: The Razr’s slimy silver case felt like a bar of nearly-spent soap in my hand as I pulled it from the toilet.
Intimacy attained! And there’s enough of a hook for the reader to lightly wonder about the phone in the toilet. But, still, pretty typical.
So, what does future tense buy me? Suspense? And more than that, perhaps the invitation to suspend disbelief? In order for that to pay off, I have to figure out a way to close the gap between Pedersen and the reader. Here’s where Chuck had a great suggestion. Why didn’t I up the ante? Show Pedersen in some sort of moral dilemma using the phone, and what’s on the phone, as a costly conundrum that might cause the reader to ask: What would I do in this situation?
I know this means nothing, since I haven’t revealed the plot…. Perhaps I will at a later post.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
me and lucinda in the dugout
Back at the dugout. Back to corporate com. Back to croutons and non-dairy creamers and online professional management tools, oh my!
I’ve got the new lucinda williams cd blaring out my laptop speakers trying to ream out a low-grade headache. I’m wandering around my to-do list, resisting 100% attention to anything in particular. In short, I’m fucking off.
More and more I find my capacity for long-stretch deep-thinking waning. Perhaps I have a blooming work ethic crisis? Perhaps I should delete this right now because I’ll forget I’m posting it and should I ever be Googled by a potential client, there I’ll be in all my slackerness.
I know what it is. It’s how I used to get after a summer of partying and fun and late nights. How I’d find myself back at a desk in a room listening to a teacher hammer abstract concepts into the wall of my brain case when I’d rather be fishing. (Except I gave up fishing at 14. It’s a metaphor.)
Lucinda is singing about not wanting to talk to anyone. So apropos.
So, I’m having a stoopid day. A day of half-assed non-attempts to engage. Should I just indulge it? Too bad the sun’s no longer shining. Spring drizzle doesn’t quite beckon the same way a blue sky does.
I should be in 19th century Vienna with Sisi and Ida. Or I should be working on my short story in progress, “To Open: Break Tamper Evident Seal Here.” Or I should be revisiting Unkiss Me.
Lucinda just sang: “You can’t light my fire so fuck off.” Hm.
These days of creative vacillation. These late mornings of driftiness. Writers can be so passive aggressive with themselves.
I’ve got the new lucinda williams cd blaring out my laptop speakers trying to ream out a low-grade headache. I’m wandering around my to-do list, resisting 100% attention to anything in particular. In short, I’m fucking off.
More and more I find my capacity for long-stretch deep-thinking waning. Perhaps I have a blooming work ethic crisis? Perhaps I should delete this right now because I’ll forget I’m posting it and should I ever be Googled by a potential client, there I’ll be in all my slackerness.
I know what it is. It’s how I used to get after a summer of partying and fun and late nights. How I’d find myself back at a desk in a room listening to a teacher hammer abstract concepts into the wall of my brain case when I’d rather be fishing. (Except I gave up fishing at 14. It’s a metaphor.)
Lucinda is singing about not wanting to talk to anyone. So apropos.
So, I’m having a stoopid day. A day of half-assed non-attempts to engage. Should I just indulge it? Too bad the sun’s no longer shining. Spring drizzle doesn’t quite beckon the same way a blue sky does.
I should be in 19th century Vienna with Sisi and Ida. Or I should be working on my short story in progress, “To Open: Break Tamper Evident Seal Here.” Or I should be revisiting Unkiss Me.
Lucinda just sang: “You can’t light my fire so fuck off.” Hm.
These days of creative vacillation. These late mornings of driftiness. Writers can be so passive aggressive with themselves.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
AWP update
There were over 300 seminars, lectures, readings and receptions to choose from at AWP this year. I attended ten, and they were pretty much the same ten. In a candy store the size of Disneyworld, I reached for my favorite confection again and again and again. And I say this without remorse or regret. No shrugged shoulders. Not one smack of palm to forehead.
It’s been confirmed (once more) that the possibilities, the vagaries, the enormously generous plain of consciousness—as opposed to the words and ideas themselves—is why I do this thing. This writing thing.
I therefore cannot report on the AWP at large, for I wasn’t present at the cross-section of poets, prose writers, teachers and lit critics. Not one homage did I attend. Not one Writing Program hullabaloo. Oh sure, I had them circled in my program, but when it came time to sit in a banquet chair in front of a panel of experts, I found myself crawling back for more genre-bending, literary nonfiction-loving, lyric essay-lauding Geek Speak.
The electric passion of a writer who explores his subject and material without allegiance to normative literary boundaries is a drug to me. David Shields, Nick Flynn, Steven Church, Michael Martone, Brenda Miller, Judith Kitchen—these are my heroes. Their common refrain approaches the anti-brand in its commitment to artistic integrity.
Shields went as far as to define the function of art as an attempt to bridge the gap between separate consciousnesses. He expressed that literary nonfiction is a framing device to foreground thought, producing clear thinking about mixed feelings. Lucid deconstruction which results in nurturing active reading.
As a writer who often has a hard time locating my own writing on the genre wheel, I appreciated the emphasis on loyalty to serious and unflinching exploration of material above pedantic allegiance to facts and formalized story-telling.
Borrowing from poetry, the idea of enjambment—of juxtaposing one thing with another in a way that’s unique to a particular consciousness—as an invitation to the reader’s deeper thought patterns and sensibilities encourages, in my humble opinion, a fundamentally intimate connection with the audience.
So with a 6:35 flight tomorrow, I’m tucking myself in early—all done with AWP Atlanta, and happily sated with my version of bliss. I’m counting on some vivid electric dreams tonight.
It’s been confirmed (once more) that the possibilities, the vagaries, the enormously generous plain of consciousness—as opposed to the words and ideas themselves—is why I do this thing. This writing thing.
I therefore cannot report on the AWP at large, for I wasn’t present at the cross-section of poets, prose writers, teachers and lit critics. Not one homage did I attend. Not one Writing Program hullabaloo. Oh sure, I had them circled in my program, but when it came time to sit in a banquet chair in front of a panel of experts, I found myself crawling back for more genre-bending, literary nonfiction-loving, lyric essay-lauding Geek Speak.
The electric passion of a writer who explores his subject and material without allegiance to normative literary boundaries is a drug to me. David Shields, Nick Flynn, Steven Church, Michael Martone, Brenda Miller, Judith Kitchen—these are my heroes. Their common refrain approaches the anti-brand in its commitment to artistic integrity.
Shields went as far as to define the function of art as an attempt to bridge the gap between separate consciousnesses. He expressed that literary nonfiction is a framing device to foreground thought, producing clear thinking about mixed feelings. Lucid deconstruction which results in nurturing active reading.
As a writer who often has a hard time locating my own writing on the genre wheel, I appreciated the emphasis on loyalty to serious and unflinching exploration of material above pedantic allegiance to facts and formalized story-telling.
Borrowing from poetry, the idea of enjambment—of juxtaposing one thing with another in a way that’s unique to a particular consciousness—as an invitation to the reader’s deeper thought patterns and sensibilities encourages, in my humble opinion, a fundamentally intimate connection with the audience.
So with a 6:35 flight tomorrow, I’m tucking myself in early—all done with AWP Atlanta, and happily sated with my version of bliss. I’m counting on some vivid electric dreams tonight.
Friday, March 02, 2007
atlanta
In the interest of balance I played hooky from AWP for three hours and walked uptown to Piedmont and the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Blue skies, 70 degree temps and all that Southern architecture between the hotel and the garden.
When I asked the concierge if it was possible to walk there, she sort of squished up her face in surprise. “I mean, are there sidewalks all the way?” I said.
“um, yes. But it’s a little, um, far.”
“Two-and-a-half miles?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Cake. It completely escaped me to ask if the walk was safe—for a woman alone in broad daylight, how could it not be? It never occurs to me, actually, to consider the discomfort, danger or lack of wisdom—beyond being nailed by a vehicle—in walking anywhere. Living in Portland, where I have always felt 100% safe on foot, walking anywhere in the city is a usually only accompanied by the question: to bring an umbrella, or to not bring an umbrella?
Walking the first mile or so from the hotel gave me pause though. Not because it was any more or less dangerous than Portland, but because, in my geo-centric arrogance, I forgot that when Dorothy’s not in Kansas, things look different. She doesn’t necessarily blend into the culture and the story and the archetype. Dorothy, in her yoga pants and tailored jacket and pale, freckled skin was the oddball-on-the-street.
And—the initial dozen or so blocks I encountered zero women walking alone. There were several pairs of women, and a few groups of women, but no solo female venturers. I started to feel really self-conscious. I started to notice my whiteness, too. There were no white people on foot. Not one. That shouldn’t matter, right? Is it racist to be so self-conscious about one’s whiteness? Especially as I walked toward a boisterous group of African American men. I averted my eyes in nervousness. In racist nervousness. Then I thought, “No, I’m not going to keep looking at the ground, because I’m being rude and projecting all this discomfort and, y’know, fuck it. I’m just going to smile, like I would smile at anyone I passed in Portland. I’m going to give that group of African American males my biggest Portland smile.” Which I did. And they smiled back. There were six of them, and five of those guys smiled benignly. Just one of them did a lude thing with his tongue, but maybe (I told myself) he had something in his mouth he was trying to get rid of.
It seems sort of shameful to be this uptight and reflective about walking in a city where my color and probably my standard of living is anomalous. Especially on the heels of having attended a seminar where one of the panelists talked about the profound grace of connecting to the consciousness of another human. I don’t always want that connection, after all. Sure, when I’m reading a book and someone’s spilling it, yeah, that’s nice. But not when I’m walking down the street. Walking down the street I tend to fear confronting the consciousness of my fellow man. Particularly when I’m sucked up into my own flawed consciousness.
Okay, so I had to confront my flagrant racist, narcissistic self, and, once in the Garden, yet another flaw unfolded—my Philistine-like indifference to one of nature’s most cherished flowers. The Atlanta Botanical Garden boasts a world-renowned orchid collection and the current exhibit in the exalted greenhouse has combined this with an internationally acclaimed artist’s delicate, detailed glass orchid sculptures. The script calls for oohs and aahs when you enter the greenhouse—the perfect white blooms, the magenta ones, all set against tropical plants and mist and humidity and all that’s missing is a Phillip Glass score.
Instead, I found myself drawn to the gnarled tree trunks and hanging willowy tendrils of foliage. The humming tropical insects and chirping birds and overwhelming fecundity—so sensual and Southern and succulent. The collections of glass and real orchids set out like my Grandmother’s crystal under display cases or peeking from behind signs that, in faux whimsy, begged the viewer not to touch by deliberately crossing out those verbs of tactile invitation, well, I trotted right by ‘em. Too much perfection for this gal. Makes me nervous.
So—where does that leave me? If I’m too nervous to sidle up next to Southern humanity, and too unappreciative to be awed by exotic spectacle, am I a lost cause? Am I a faker in an authentic land? Am I just an old gal immune to new tricks?
That said, I completely get that Georgia is a ripe peach. There’s so much life, so much history, so many stories. I hate to think I’m getting in the way of channeling the stories. That’s why I came, after all. For the stories.
When I asked the concierge if it was possible to walk there, she sort of squished up her face in surprise. “I mean, are there sidewalks all the way?” I said.
“um, yes. But it’s a little, um, far.”
“Two-and-a-half miles?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Cake. It completely escaped me to ask if the walk was safe—for a woman alone in broad daylight, how could it not be? It never occurs to me, actually, to consider the discomfort, danger or lack of wisdom—beyond being nailed by a vehicle—in walking anywhere. Living in Portland, where I have always felt 100% safe on foot, walking anywhere in the city is a usually only accompanied by the question: to bring an umbrella, or to not bring an umbrella?
Walking the first mile or so from the hotel gave me pause though. Not because it was any more or less dangerous than Portland, but because, in my geo-centric arrogance, I forgot that when Dorothy’s not in Kansas, things look different. She doesn’t necessarily blend into the culture and the story and the archetype. Dorothy, in her yoga pants and tailored jacket and pale, freckled skin was the oddball-on-the-street.
And—the initial dozen or so blocks I encountered zero women walking alone. There were several pairs of women, and a few groups of women, but no solo female venturers. I started to feel really self-conscious. I started to notice my whiteness, too. There were no white people on foot. Not one. That shouldn’t matter, right? Is it racist to be so self-conscious about one’s whiteness? Especially as I walked toward a boisterous group of African American men. I averted my eyes in nervousness. In racist nervousness. Then I thought, “No, I’m not going to keep looking at the ground, because I’m being rude and projecting all this discomfort and, y’know, fuck it. I’m just going to smile, like I would smile at anyone I passed in Portland. I’m going to give that group of African American males my biggest Portland smile.” Which I did. And they smiled back. There were six of them, and five of those guys smiled benignly. Just one of them did a lude thing with his tongue, but maybe (I told myself) he had something in his mouth he was trying to get rid of.
It seems sort of shameful to be this uptight and reflective about walking in a city where my color and probably my standard of living is anomalous. Especially on the heels of having attended a seminar where one of the panelists talked about the profound grace of connecting to the consciousness of another human. I don’t always want that connection, after all. Sure, when I’m reading a book and someone’s spilling it, yeah, that’s nice. But not when I’m walking down the street. Walking down the street I tend to fear confronting the consciousness of my fellow man. Particularly when I’m sucked up into my own flawed consciousness.
Okay, so I had to confront my flagrant racist, narcissistic self, and, once in the Garden, yet another flaw unfolded—my Philistine-like indifference to one of nature’s most cherished flowers. The Atlanta Botanical Garden boasts a world-renowned orchid collection and the current exhibit in the exalted greenhouse has combined this with an internationally acclaimed artist’s delicate, detailed glass orchid sculptures. The script calls for oohs and aahs when you enter the greenhouse—the perfect white blooms, the magenta ones, all set against tropical plants and mist and humidity and all that’s missing is a Phillip Glass score.
Instead, I found myself drawn to the gnarled tree trunks and hanging willowy tendrils of foliage. The humming tropical insects and chirping birds and overwhelming fecundity—so sensual and Southern and succulent. The collections of glass and real orchids set out like my Grandmother’s crystal under display cases or peeking from behind signs that, in faux whimsy, begged the viewer not to touch by deliberately crossing out those verbs of tactile invitation, well, I trotted right by ‘em. Too much perfection for this gal. Makes me nervous.
So—where does that leave me? If I’m too nervous to sidle up next to Southern humanity, and too unappreciative to be awed by exotic spectacle, am I a lost cause? Am I a faker in an authentic land? Am I just an old gal immune to new tricks?
That said, I completely get that Georgia is a ripe peach. There’s so much life, so much history, so many stories. I hate to think I’m getting in the way of channeling the stories. That’s why I came, after all. For the stories.
we interrupt the AWP conference
..for shameless self-promotion. My golfing article is on-line (and in the print version of) The Northwest Women's Journal.
Yup, I golfed. And I plan to again. I think. But not today. Today I’m going to absorb more AWP and, if I stick to plan, go explore Atlanta a bit, ‘cause it’s a sunny day—the tornadoes and thunderstorms of yesterday are long gone, and I could use a good walk.
Yup, I golfed. And I plan to again. I think. But not today. Today I’m going to absorb more AWP and, if I stick to plan, go explore Atlanta a bit, ‘cause it’s a sunny day—the tornadoes and thunderstorms of yesterday are long gone, and I could use a good walk.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
AWP day one part two
I am with my people. Yay! The stew of language lovers, wordsmiths, intellectuals and freaks. AWP has ‘em all.
So. Attended an interesting seminar this afternoon with the catchy title: Losing the Linebreaks. It was a forum of poets dealing with their guilt at having written (and been paid for writing) nonfiction. Scandalous!
I’ve attended the inverse of this seminar many times. It’s called “How to steal from poets and approach the lyric register” or “How to put soul into your prosaic prose.” Nonfiction writers huddled above the magic lamp, looking for their turn to rub it and witness the Genie of Verse. O, the enjambment! The cadence! The obtuse-yet-profound!
Genre-bending from the poet’s perspective is a lot more sober. (As one would expect.) The seminar took on a bit of a support group tone with panelists wringing their hands in Faustian angst: “How to we deal with the guilt of it all—writing accessibly?”
The through-line was, of course, Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Similar sentiment bespake in my earlier post, yes? And then, heavens, what if you actually enjoy it? Writing for the mediocre reader? What then?
I found the seminar amusing, and, in turn, delightful. One panelist in particular, Jennifer Hecht, summed up the quantitative nature of writing time thus: “You’d make more money if you gave that afternoon of poetry-writing to prose.”
Ay.
(And, as a side note, she also, as a devout atheist, had the most interesting pro-religion statement ever: “Its value is in being the repository for behaviors that allow people to transcend.” Okay, okay, maybe she was my favorite because she’s a scientist-historian sorta empiricist and I’ve got this fabulous science teacher boyfriend and I’m totally prejudiced in favor of the scientific explanation for everything all of a sudden. Whatever.)
At one point during the seminar a disgruntled audience member stood up and begged to differ after a panelist seemingly dissed the personal essay as “easily replicated” and therefore never under consideration for publication in the small press she edits. That’s when it got fun.
You got the purists standing up: “make sacrifices in other ways, stay pure with your writing. Don’t sully the well with normative drivel.” And then, in response, the few non-poets: “What makes you think writing poetry is harder than writing prose?” Food fight at AWP! Can’t wait ‘til tomorrow!
So. Attended an interesting seminar this afternoon with the catchy title: Losing the Linebreaks. It was a forum of poets dealing with their guilt at having written (and been paid for writing) nonfiction. Scandalous!
I’ve attended the inverse of this seminar many times. It’s called “How to steal from poets and approach the lyric register” or “How to put soul into your prosaic prose.” Nonfiction writers huddled above the magic lamp, looking for their turn to rub it and witness the Genie of Verse. O, the enjambment! The cadence! The obtuse-yet-profound!
Genre-bending from the poet’s perspective is a lot more sober. (As one would expect.) The seminar took on a bit of a support group tone with panelists wringing their hands in Faustian angst: “How to we deal with the guilt of it all—writing accessibly?”
The through-line was, of course, Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Similar sentiment bespake in my earlier post, yes? And then, heavens, what if you actually enjoy it? Writing for the mediocre reader? What then?
I found the seminar amusing, and, in turn, delightful. One panelist in particular, Jennifer Hecht, summed up the quantitative nature of writing time thus: “You’d make more money if you gave that afternoon of poetry-writing to prose.”
Ay.
(And, as a side note, she also, as a devout atheist, had the most interesting pro-religion statement ever: “Its value is in being the repository for behaviors that allow people to transcend.” Okay, okay, maybe she was my favorite because she’s a scientist-historian sorta empiricist and I’ve got this fabulous science teacher boyfriend and I’m totally prejudiced in favor of the scientific explanation for everything all of a sudden. Whatever.)
At one point during the seminar a disgruntled audience member stood up and begged to differ after a panelist seemingly dissed the personal essay as “easily replicated” and therefore never under consideration for publication in the small press she edits. That’s when it got fun.
You got the purists standing up: “make sacrifices in other ways, stay pure with your writing. Don’t sully the well with normative drivel.” And then, in response, the few non-poets: “What makes you think writing poetry is harder than writing prose?” Food fight at AWP! Can’t wait ‘til tomorrow!
AWP day one
I’ve been at the AWP conference for, like, 24 hours so far and half that time I’ve been “working.” Such a dilemma this when-to-illuminate-the-off-duty-sign question.
I’m here to immerse and absorb and ponder, but am pre-occupied, as always, with paid client work. As a project-oriented independent contractor with hourly billing, every time I illuminate the don’t-flag-me-down sign I’m just saying no to my ever-increasing mortgage payment!
Apropos to this, one of the two, count ‘em two, seminars I’ve attended thus far included a “balancing your writing against other concerns” component. One of the panelists—the token purist—said, “There’s always going to be the need to make money, that’s a given. If you’re really a writer, you make time to write.” Period.
A few years back my friend Monica Drake and I pitched our “Fueled by Distraction” workshop to AWP. They declined. But they shouldn’t have. I think I need to revisit some of the materials we used to demonstrate how to use the distractions presented by every day concerns as fuel (as opposed to barriers) to satisfying creative work.
Paramount to the success of this method, as I recall, is how to mine nuggets of possibility from quotidian detritus. I’m talking how to turn a library overdo notice into a short essay. Or how you can, say, leverage negotiating tactics employed when aligning the needs of a client with the aesthetic concerns of a graphic designer into lovely, conflict-ridden dialogue! Maybe the workshop should be renamed: How to step out of your busy life and become God. Hm.
More later…I have to go absorb.
I’m here to immerse and absorb and ponder, but am pre-occupied, as always, with paid client work. As a project-oriented independent contractor with hourly billing, every time I illuminate the don’t-flag-me-down sign I’m just saying no to my ever-increasing mortgage payment!
Apropos to this, one of the two, count ‘em two, seminars I’ve attended thus far included a “balancing your writing against other concerns” component. One of the panelists—the token purist—said, “There’s always going to be the need to make money, that’s a given. If you’re really a writer, you make time to write.” Period.
A few years back my friend Monica Drake and I pitched our “Fueled by Distraction” workshop to AWP. They declined. But they shouldn’t have. I think I need to revisit some of the materials we used to demonstrate how to use the distractions presented by every day concerns as fuel (as opposed to barriers) to satisfying creative work.
Paramount to the success of this method, as I recall, is how to mine nuggets of possibility from quotidian detritus. I’m talking how to turn a library overdo notice into a short essay. Or how you can, say, leverage negotiating tactics employed when aligning the needs of a client with the aesthetic concerns of a graphic designer into lovely, conflict-ridden dialogue! Maybe the workshop should be renamed: How to step out of your busy life and become God. Hm.
More later…I have to go absorb.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
embroidery, embellishment and maybe a little arrogance?
Friday I attended a robust seminar on the opportunities and pitfalls of literary nonfiction. I’ve visited these rooms before: my graduate degree is in creative nonfiction. The “contract with the reader” spiel is deeply ingrained in my personal protocol.
The presenters: Lauren Kessler, Mary Roach, Erik Larson and Ted Conover, were stalwart practitioners of the conscious and deliberate choice to keep the “f word” at bay. And by “f” word, of course I mean fiction. The dark side. The lie that tells the truth truer.
Oppositional to this stance is the “in service of the emotional truth” argument, where embroidery and embellishment, as well as the construct of composite characters and wrinkled chronology in the design of creative nonfiction serve to build the story-telling arc, duping the reader into a more absolute truth than he might get by following the real trail of breadcrumbs. But then, that’s why God invented fiction, right? Let’s discuss.
Fiction writers have a history of being suspicious of memoirists, biographers and creative nonfiction writers who fondle the truth with the tools of fictional story-telling. Especially since it’s long been acknowledged that nonfiction sells quicker than does literary fiction. My two years at Antioch LA were replete with incendiary debate about this:
CNF writer: Okay, so I didn’t exactly have a sink full of dirty dishes on the day in which the scene is set, I did the next day…so what’s the big deal?
F writer: The big deal is that you’re lazy. You have a point to make, and you bend the truth to make it. Work a little harder to make that point and stay on the side of truth, or make a different point.
As a person who’s written plenty of both types of prose, I can say that I’ve straddled the fence on this for years. Reason being, both types of writing rely heavily on narrative fashioning. I’m not talking about straight journalism or biography here, I mean the more blurry-edged land of literary nonfiction: memoir, essay, and immersion journalism. Because the lens we use is flawed with our own sensibilities, we remember dialogue, scene and events through a multi-textured filter. It’s impossible, as human beings, not to have at least a modicum of an agenda as we process our lives. So we take this flawed raw material, and then put it in the narrative machine to make it into a story. And that’s the point at which we have to develop a serious bullshit meter for solipsism.
But it ain’t that easy. Part of the addictive magic inherent in writing is getting these little peeks at God. Or what you think is God at the moment of the witnessing. This process often leads the creative nonfiction writer away from “what about” to “what if.” The dark side. Staying firmly fixed in “what about” demands an enormous amount of discipline. It can be a huge buzz kill. “What if” is the sexy idea that comes a calling, and in fact, is one of the reasons most of us do what we do. It’s the line of flight—the sweet spot, the muse.
The night before this seminar, I went to Arts and Lectures where Suzan-Lori Parks regaled us with her personal journey to “entertaining all of her far out ideas.” Turns out, she was derailed as a high school student. Dissuaded from literary pursuits because she was a crappy speller. Now, I’m not taking anything away from this woman’s delightful performance—she had the audience in her palm, but, she drifted into a somewhat (I believe) unconsciously dismissive stance as she submerged into the “we writers are freaks, God bless us” space. I know that space, and I’ve been playing that card for years. We are often at odds with the normative world when we try and squeeze some juice from society’s value machine. It becomes a compensatory thing, this alignment against the corporations, the man, the rules of the road. But part of her back-story was that she briefly turned to science as a “fall back.” Her anecdote was embroidered with the vision of her (she’s a dread-locked, free-spirited, hand-gesturing speaker) having to suffer through chemistry lab: the white jacket, the goggles, etc… The audience at this point was supposed to be appalled at how an off-the-mark, insensitive comment from a high school teacher nearly caused her to live a life completely opposite of the creative, fabulous literary one she eventually pursued.
Just so happens that I had a companion at this event. My new squeeze: a chemist. A man who chose to be a scientist and a teacher (another profession Parks briefly dissed during Q & A), and is in no way the embodiment of the “type” she was setting up as the antithesis of everything fabulous.
I really don’t know if I would have been uncomfortable had it not been for the fact that I’d dragged the unsuspecting boyfriend to this event only to have him glimpse a little bit at the underside of my world. Would I have even acknowledged that slip into solipsistic lip service if I didn’t have him as a filter?
Words are powerful. Stories are powerful. Wordsmithing carries a certain amount of accountability. We are treated to, and like to think that we offer, occasionally, those peeks at God. But sometimes we’re merely offering peeks at our own untended, unmitigated and unevolved dark sides. Fictional or not.
The presenters: Lauren Kessler, Mary Roach, Erik Larson and Ted Conover, were stalwart practitioners of the conscious and deliberate choice to keep the “f word” at bay. And by “f” word, of course I mean fiction. The dark side. The lie that tells the truth truer.
Oppositional to this stance is the “in service of the emotional truth” argument, where embroidery and embellishment, as well as the construct of composite characters and wrinkled chronology in the design of creative nonfiction serve to build the story-telling arc, duping the reader into a more absolute truth than he might get by following the real trail of breadcrumbs. But then, that’s why God invented fiction, right? Let’s discuss.
Fiction writers have a history of being suspicious of memoirists, biographers and creative nonfiction writers who fondle the truth with the tools of fictional story-telling. Especially since it’s long been acknowledged that nonfiction sells quicker than does literary fiction. My two years at Antioch LA were replete with incendiary debate about this:
CNF writer: Okay, so I didn’t exactly have a sink full of dirty dishes on the day in which the scene is set, I did the next day…so what’s the big deal?
F writer: The big deal is that you’re lazy. You have a point to make, and you bend the truth to make it. Work a little harder to make that point and stay on the side of truth, or make a different point.
As a person who’s written plenty of both types of prose, I can say that I’ve straddled the fence on this for years. Reason being, both types of writing rely heavily on narrative fashioning. I’m not talking about straight journalism or biography here, I mean the more blurry-edged land of literary nonfiction: memoir, essay, and immersion journalism. Because the lens we use is flawed with our own sensibilities, we remember dialogue, scene and events through a multi-textured filter. It’s impossible, as human beings, not to have at least a modicum of an agenda as we process our lives. So we take this flawed raw material, and then put it in the narrative machine to make it into a story. And that’s the point at which we have to develop a serious bullshit meter for solipsism.
But it ain’t that easy. Part of the addictive magic inherent in writing is getting these little peeks at God. Or what you think is God at the moment of the witnessing. This process often leads the creative nonfiction writer away from “what about” to “what if.” The dark side. Staying firmly fixed in “what about” demands an enormous amount of discipline. It can be a huge buzz kill. “What if” is the sexy idea that comes a calling, and in fact, is one of the reasons most of us do what we do. It’s the line of flight—the sweet spot, the muse.
The night before this seminar, I went to Arts and Lectures where Suzan-Lori Parks regaled us with her personal journey to “entertaining all of her far out ideas.” Turns out, she was derailed as a high school student. Dissuaded from literary pursuits because she was a crappy speller. Now, I’m not taking anything away from this woman’s delightful performance—she had the audience in her palm, but, she drifted into a somewhat (I believe) unconsciously dismissive stance as she submerged into the “we writers are freaks, God bless us” space. I know that space, and I’ve been playing that card for years. We are often at odds with the normative world when we try and squeeze some juice from society’s value machine. It becomes a compensatory thing, this alignment against the corporations, the man, the rules of the road. But part of her back-story was that she briefly turned to science as a “fall back.” Her anecdote was embroidered with the vision of her (she’s a dread-locked, free-spirited, hand-gesturing speaker) having to suffer through chemistry lab: the white jacket, the goggles, etc… The audience at this point was supposed to be appalled at how an off-the-mark, insensitive comment from a high school teacher nearly caused her to live a life completely opposite of the creative, fabulous literary one she eventually pursued.
Just so happens that I had a companion at this event. My new squeeze: a chemist. A man who chose to be a scientist and a teacher (another profession Parks briefly dissed during Q & A), and is in no way the embodiment of the “type” she was setting up as the antithesis of everything fabulous.
I really don’t know if I would have been uncomfortable had it not been for the fact that I’d dragged the unsuspecting boyfriend to this event only to have him glimpse a little bit at the underside of my world. Would I have even acknowledged that slip into solipsistic lip service if I didn’t have him as a filter?
Words are powerful. Stories are powerful. Wordsmithing carries a certain amount of accountability. We are treated to, and like to think that we offer, occasionally, those peeks at God. But sometimes we’re merely offering peeks at our own untended, unmitigated and unevolved dark sides. Fictional or not.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
wedding expansiveness to minimalism
My second love, after writing, is anthropology. The cultural kind, not the digging for bones kind. I remember taking a class once on indigenous tribes, and I wrote a paper comparing the warring aspects of these tribes to modern day football games. I was trying on objectivity, divorcing myself from editorial content, staying with the facts, only the facts.
I like this sort of dispassioned writing: analyzing trends, customs, practices and norms from a sort of scientific perspective. Keeping emotion and judgment out of it. I explored this type of writing through the lens of fiction when I practiced minimalism. "Recording angel," was the way we put it in Tom Spanbauer's class. Get as small as you can. Search for God via a trail of inquiry that propels itself by observation, not subjective discernment.
My day job, conversely, is all about agenda. It's an overt attempt to connect emotionally with the customer by massaging the senses. There is a much more brash and expansive approach to this writing, psychologically. You want to be where the action is. Finger on the pulse. Resonance and Zeitgeist.
The process by which I create "successful" ad copy refutes everything I strive for in my art. It's goal-driven and chirpy. It asks something of the audience. The relationship this sort of copy has with objects is inverse to the relationship objects have with minimalism. Simply presenting objects is the way into the subconscious in minimalistic fiction. In ad copy, the subconscious is played as a way to gain perceived value for a particular object.
On the subject of popular culture's relationship with advertising, The Oregonian's TV columnist Peter Ames Carlin had a spot-on harangue on the hype and crusade displayed by Sunday's Super Bowl extravaganza.
Advertising is an amazing reflection of culture. An anthropological study without parallel. Art, if you follow this hypothesis, could be viewed as study of the anti-culture. A response to the emotional whacking we sign up for just by getting out of bed each morning.
My own personal belief is that to be a healthy member of this world, you need a firm foot in both camps. You need to understand, and, yes, immerse yourself in, to a certain extent, the normative playground. But you also have to know how and when to pull yourself out of the frenzy. Become an anthropologist. Think for yourself. In order to do that, it's become increasingly essential for people to read fiction and poetry, see plays, go to the galleries, and, especially, pursue some sort of creative engagement of their own.
I like this sort of dispassioned writing: analyzing trends, customs, practices and norms from a sort of scientific perspective. Keeping emotion and judgment out of it. I explored this type of writing through the lens of fiction when I practiced minimalism. "Recording angel," was the way we put it in Tom Spanbauer's class. Get as small as you can. Search for God via a trail of inquiry that propels itself by observation, not subjective discernment.
My day job, conversely, is all about agenda. It's an overt attempt to connect emotionally with the customer by massaging the senses. There is a much more brash and expansive approach to this writing, psychologically. You want to be where the action is. Finger on the pulse. Resonance and Zeitgeist.
The process by which I create "successful" ad copy refutes everything I strive for in my art. It's goal-driven and chirpy. It asks something of the audience. The relationship this sort of copy has with objects is inverse to the relationship objects have with minimalism. Simply presenting objects is the way into the subconscious in minimalistic fiction. In ad copy, the subconscious is played as a way to gain perceived value for a particular object.
On the subject of popular culture's relationship with advertising, The Oregonian's TV columnist Peter Ames Carlin had a spot-on harangue on the hype and crusade displayed by Sunday's Super Bowl extravaganza.
Advertising is an amazing reflection of culture. An anthropological study without parallel. Art, if you follow this hypothesis, could be viewed as study of the anti-culture. A response to the emotional whacking we sign up for just by getting out of bed each morning.
My own personal belief is that to be a healthy member of this world, you need a firm foot in both camps. You need to understand, and, yes, immerse yourself in, to a certain extent, the normative playground. But you also have to know how and when to pull yourself out of the frenzy. Become an anthropologist. Think for yourself. In order to do that, it's become increasingly essential for people to read fiction and poetry, see plays, go to the galleries, and, especially, pursue some sort of creative engagement of their own.
Friday, February 02, 2007
committing to a romance
Here’s the thing: I have the emotional infrastructure to pull off commitment to a project, but the attention span of a hummingbird. Bright colors? Fragrant interjections? I’m the queen of short ‘n sweet. Which is why I have such a patchwork career life, I ‘spose.
Ugh. It's one of those art-and-life conundrums!
Thursday, February 01, 2007
freelancing and the dangers of deadline joie de vivre
The life of a freelancer can be a little Beat the Clock at times—particularly at COB on deadline day. It’s a little like preparing a Thanksgiving meal: you gather, prep and cook, everything motoring along, until you realize that all the side dishes are ready, but the thermometer in the turkey leg reads 125º. Or you forgot cranberry sauce. Or, oops, you just dropped the dang apple pie. There it is, on the floor in smooshy clumps.
That’s when you reach into your back pocket for two things: experience and faith. Experience: you bring out more crackers, cheese and wine until your turkey’s cooked. And, because you always have extra pies, one less is no big deal—or decide on plan B: canned fruit for dessert! (Everyone’s so full after the meal it doesn’t matter anyway—especially if you’ve kept the wine glass full.) Joining experience is that little voice that cries out, it’s all good! (i.e. faith), despite evidence to the contrary.
And so it is with deadline day. One thing experience tells you is that the clock ain’t gonna stop, and last minute crises will occur, necessitating the Murphy’s Law-esque formula: divide the time you think you have by two, and subtract 25 minutes from that. Then, you call in favors from your muse. The lightning bolt of insight or the Good Transitions Fairy.
I now have several monthly writing gigs, each with its own indelible deadline. The last half of any given month is a crazy juggling act, and the first half is crash-and-burn time. And like many freelancers, I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to the chemicals that arise from frantic, last minute ace-in-the-hole-seeking. Trouble is, the excitement raises the bar on joie de vivre expectation, and makes the quotidian workhorse of slowly tapping out a novel almost insufferable.
I guess what I’m admitting to here is that unless I mitigate the mania with a little bootstrap discipline, those novels are going to grow cobwebs in my hard drive. I've got to start pulling meat off the carcass and make some turkey soup. Or something.
That’s when you reach into your back pocket for two things: experience and faith. Experience: you bring out more crackers, cheese and wine until your turkey’s cooked. And, because you always have extra pies, one less is no big deal—or decide on plan B: canned fruit for dessert! (Everyone’s so full after the meal it doesn’t matter anyway—especially if you’ve kept the wine glass full.) Joining experience is that little voice that cries out, it’s all good! (i.e. faith), despite evidence to the contrary.
And so it is with deadline day. One thing experience tells you is that the clock ain’t gonna stop, and last minute crises will occur, necessitating the Murphy’s Law-esque formula: divide the time you think you have by two, and subtract 25 minutes from that. Then, you call in favors from your muse. The lightning bolt of insight or the Good Transitions Fairy.
I now have several monthly writing gigs, each with its own indelible deadline. The last half of any given month is a crazy juggling act, and the first half is crash-and-burn time. And like many freelancers, I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to the chemicals that arise from frantic, last minute ace-in-the-hole-seeking. Trouble is, the excitement raises the bar on joie de vivre expectation, and makes the quotidian workhorse of slowly tapping out a novel almost insufferable.
I guess what I’m admitting to here is that unless I mitigate the mania with a little bootstrap discipline, those novels are going to grow cobwebs in my hard drive. I've got to start pulling meat off the carcass and make some turkey soup. Or something.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
on being a grasshopper
This week I learned how to Hoop. I learned that Hooping is a verb, that HoopShine is a business and that I have an Inner HoopGirl. It was refreshing to learn that I have an Inner HoopGirl, but it led me to analyze, a bit, my capacity for fun. And also, question what exactly “fun” is, and whether or not I actively seek it, or just receive it when it comes my way.
One thing I did know about myself before going to Hoop class is that I’m a grasshopper (as opposed to an ant). My grasshopperliness manifests in work-avoidance, impulsiveness and spacing out when I should be paying attention. That’s on the con side. On the pro side, being a grasshopper means I’ve kept wrinkles and migraines and alcoholism at bay better than many gals my age. Being a grasshopper also, I believe, has served to fuel an overwhelmingly optimistic outlook and a faith that there’s more shinola than shit in the world.
Now, this might sound like a contradiction to my last entry where I blathered on about hating New Age platitudes that feed complacency, and gosh, I guess it is. Sort of. You see, I wasn’t born a control freak. (Nobody is.) When I look at childhood photos of myself I realize that I was a daydreamy girl from the word go. A spacier expression you will not find. I was born a grasshopper! Drawn to hedonistic, sensual practices: horseback riding, rolling around in the grass. Napping under the sun. Playing guitar, reading books, painting, inventing, writing…such a happy grasshopper was I.
Somewhere along the line though I realized that my grasshopperly ways had to be mitigated with industry. With adolescence came a bolus of diminished self-worth, and very, very gradually, I started to become an ant. I became, in young adulthood, a very proficient little ant. I filled my days with hard work and made list after list after list. I got pretty dang tense, too. One day I looked around and suddenly I was in a colony of ants! Yuck! Just like that, I started being a grasshopper again.
This idea more than anything explains my role in relationships. When I start feeling too ant-like, I crave the company of grasshoppers, and once the grasshoppers overwhelm me with their Peter Pan spritely sloth and selfishness, I revert back to my ant shell, marching once again toward that anthill of industry—and self-hatred.
Now I’m not suggesting that ants are bad, Good Heavens! We’d all be swallowed up or bashed apart in the entropy of it all but for the ants. No judgment. But, I never will be an easy ant, and I have a hard time accepting that I’m a grasshopper. Which is why I need to continue explore my Inner HoopGirl.
I’m at the beach right now, after a couple hours of playing in the sand, watching my son and his friend recreate an abandoned driftwood fort I’m back in the house with my tool of industry. I brought my new Hoop, though, so maybe I should put this thing away and search for that HoopGirl.
One thing I did know about myself before going to Hoop class is that I’m a grasshopper (as opposed to an ant). My grasshopperliness manifests in work-avoidance, impulsiveness and spacing out when I should be paying attention. That’s on the con side. On the pro side, being a grasshopper means I’ve kept wrinkles and migraines and alcoholism at bay better than many gals my age. Being a grasshopper also, I believe, has served to fuel an overwhelmingly optimistic outlook and a faith that there’s more shinola than shit in the world.
Now, this might sound like a contradiction to my last entry where I blathered on about hating New Age platitudes that feed complacency, and gosh, I guess it is. Sort of. You see, I wasn’t born a control freak. (Nobody is.) When I look at childhood photos of myself I realize that I was a daydreamy girl from the word go. A spacier expression you will not find. I was born a grasshopper! Drawn to hedonistic, sensual practices: horseback riding, rolling around in the grass. Napping under the sun. Playing guitar, reading books, painting, inventing, writing…such a happy grasshopper was I.
Somewhere along the line though I realized that my grasshopperly ways had to be mitigated with industry. With adolescence came a bolus of diminished self-worth, and very, very gradually, I started to become an ant. I became, in young adulthood, a very proficient little ant. I filled my days with hard work and made list after list after list. I got pretty dang tense, too. One day I looked around and suddenly I was in a colony of ants! Yuck! Just like that, I started being a grasshopper again.
This idea more than anything explains my role in relationships. When I start feeling too ant-like, I crave the company of grasshoppers, and once the grasshoppers overwhelm me with their Peter Pan spritely sloth and selfishness, I revert back to my ant shell, marching once again toward that anthill of industry—and self-hatred.
Now I’m not suggesting that ants are bad, Good Heavens! We’d all be swallowed up or bashed apart in the entropy of it all but for the ants. No judgment. But, I never will be an easy ant, and I have a hard time accepting that I’m a grasshopper. Which is why I need to continue explore my Inner HoopGirl.
I’m at the beach right now, after a couple hours of playing in the sand, watching my son and his friend recreate an abandoned driftwood fort I’m back in the house with my tool of industry. I brought my new Hoop, though, so maybe I should put this thing away and search for that HoopGirl.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
alignment
Everything’s connected. Law of Attraction. Manifest your destiny. I’ve always hated that crap. That New Age babble. The reason I’m averse has to do with my wholesale impatience with limited accountability and anti-intellectualism. My thinly veiled intellectual elitism not-with-standing, self-helpy, NewAgey platitudes reek of laziness to me. Complacency. And, under certain circumstances, nobody demonstrates laziness and complacency more than moi—so yes, I’m responding to my shadow in a very j’accuse sorta way, too.
But there’s another side to all that, and it has to do with control. I’m just going to say it: Hello, my name is Suzy, and I’m a control freak. The very idea of “let go and let God” makes me want to smack someone. I’m a great believer in life being about puzzle solving. Or not solving, per se, but working toward solving. The “going” as one of my writing teachers once put it. In making connections that invite light through the cracks, one must engage, on a bunch of different levels—and I’m just now beginning to get that many of those levels aren’t visible, or readily accessible. Ergo, God.
Some beautiful choreography this last week demonstrated this for me. The various hap-hazard writing projects in which I’m immersed held hands for a brief glimmer. Yoga folks play this out in Kundalini, a way to tap into connectedness through stillness. Catholics solemnly shuffle up to Communion. Quakers take turns talking in the context of resonant association. In astronomy, they call this sysygy. For me, my articles and stories presented to one another, drawing from a communal bath of some sort. History, fitness, love, dance, horseback riding, community. These themes begged, built and borrowed from one another, often creating time in the zone. The muse of it all. A very productive week.
And, none of it felt controlled. I had three whole days of not wanting to smack anyone, even!
But there’s another side to all that, and it has to do with control. I’m just going to say it: Hello, my name is Suzy, and I’m a control freak. The very idea of “let go and let God” makes me want to smack someone. I’m a great believer in life being about puzzle solving. Or not solving, per se, but working toward solving. The “going” as one of my writing teachers once put it. In making connections that invite light through the cracks, one must engage, on a bunch of different levels—and I’m just now beginning to get that many of those levels aren’t visible, or readily accessible. Ergo, God.
Some beautiful choreography this last week demonstrated this for me. The various hap-hazard writing projects in which I’m immersed held hands for a brief glimmer. Yoga folks play this out in Kundalini, a way to tap into connectedness through stillness. Catholics solemnly shuffle up to Communion. Quakers take turns talking in the context of resonant association. In astronomy, they call this sysygy. For me, my articles and stories presented to one another, drawing from a communal bath of some sort. History, fitness, love, dance, horseback riding, community. These themes begged, built and borrowed from one another, often creating time in the zone. The muse of it all. A very productive week.
And, none of it felt controlled. I had three whole days of not wanting to smack anyone, even!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
who tells the story?
Had a very helpful workshop last night—a brainstorming session regarding the narrator of my historical tale. Turned out Chuck (Palahniuk) was the only person able to make shop, so the two of us put our heads together. I read the opening chapter, first person, Elisabeth, set in Bad Ischl the morning after Elisabeth turns the Emperor’s head, and dashes her older sister’s plans to marry the guy.
I thought the opening was pretty expository, but in keeping with the genre in terms of voice and tension. Chuck, I think, found it too expository and self-conscious, and suggested immediately that I choose someone else to tell Elisabeth’s story. A lady-in-waiting or a boot-polisher. Someone of lowly status. I, of course, resisted this. Initially. When I outlined the book a year-and-a-half ago, I thought Sisi’s loyal lady-in-waiting, the Countess Marie Festetics, would be the perfect narrator, but then it became problematic because she didn’t come on the scene until the Empress was well into the marriage, and she doesn’t really have an obviously compelling story in her own right. How to tell all that romantic, tumultuous engagement/wedding stuff? With Elisabeth a mere 15 years of age when betrothed, there was a real opportunity to set an arc point if I told that part of the story through her naïve point-of-view.
But, said Chuck, remember how successful Amadeus was because it was told through Salieri’s pov? Naturally, he’d bring up the success of one of my favorite movies!
In Amadeus, the story of Mozart is compelling because it is told through the vengeful voice of his nemesis, who, confined to a loony bin, offers a filter with its own tensions and arc.
Then there’s the very successful “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” wherein Vermeer’s model tells the painter’s story, and her part in it.
Yes, yes, Chuck is absolutely right. Damn it! I have to tell the story from an alternate pov, through someone with her own story and risks and agenda.
That person, it turns out, is Ida Ferenczy, Elisabeth’s Hungarian “reader” and best friend. Ida comes on the scene in 1864, a very politically auspicious time for the Austrian empire. And Ida, who is a Hungarian woman just up a notch from peasantry, turns out to be the liaison between Hungary’s political aspirations and the Hapsburgs’ ultimate role in the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ida is taken into Elisabeth’s confidence, and becomes her inseparable girlfriend, as well as instrument of clout.
The trick will be to pace the backstory in without glaring seam, as Ida isn’t around for the first ten years of the Imperial marriage. I have a few ideas about this, but I think I need to begin with an obvious opening scene, Ida and Elisabeth upon their first meeting, when Elisabeth is still completely iconic and “at the height of her beauty.”
I thought the opening was pretty expository, but in keeping with the genre in terms of voice and tension. Chuck, I think, found it too expository and self-conscious, and suggested immediately that I choose someone else to tell Elisabeth’s story. A lady-in-waiting or a boot-polisher. Someone of lowly status. I, of course, resisted this. Initially. When I outlined the book a year-and-a-half ago, I thought Sisi’s loyal lady-in-waiting, the Countess Marie Festetics, would be the perfect narrator, but then it became problematic because she didn’t come on the scene until the Empress was well into the marriage, and she doesn’t really have an obviously compelling story in her own right. How to tell all that romantic, tumultuous engagement/wedding stuff? With Elisabeth a mere 15 years of age when betrothed, there was a real opportunity to set an arc point if I told that part of the story through her naïve point-of-view.
But, said Chuck, remember how successful Amadeus was because it was told through Salieri’s pov? Naturally, he’d bring up the success of one of my favorite movies!
In Amadeus, the story of Mozart is compelling because it is told through the vengeful voice of his nemesis, who, confined to a loony bin, offers a filter with its own tensions and arc.
Then there’s the very successful “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” wherein Vermeer’s model tells the painter’s story, and her part in it.
Yes, yes, Chuck is absolutely right. Damn it! I have to tell the story from an alternate pov, through someone with her own story and risks and agenda.
That person, it turns out, is Ida Ferenczy, Elisabeth’s Hungarian “reader” and best friend. Ida comes on the scene in 1864, a very politically auspicious time for the Austrian empire. And Ida, who is a Hungarian woman just up a notch from peasantry, turns out to be the liaison between Hungary’s political aspirations and the Hapsburgs’ ultimate role in the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ida is taken into Elisabeth’s confidence, and becomes her inseparable girlfriend, as well as instrument of clout.
The trick will be to pace the backstory in without glaring seam, as Ida isn’t around for the first ten years of the Imperial marriage. I have a few ideas about this, but I think I need to begin with an obvious opening scene, Ida and Elisabeth upon their first meeting, when Elisabeth is still completely iconic and “at the height of her beauty.”
Sunday, January 14, 2007
the empress
I’ve been pondering, ruminating and scratching my head as how to spend my passion lately. Passion for the page, that is. I have two novels in the works, and seem to have stalled out on both of them. And I’ve just now discovered the reason why I’ve lost momentum for my current projects. In a word: plot.
Though I have little problem diving into scene, character and dialogue, the idea of weaving a satisfying story out of these elements has always left me at a loss.
Conversely, when the story already exists, as in journalism or a creative nonfiction piece, I seem to be more successful teasing the strands into coherency. Ergo—dilemma du jour.
Years ago, on a month-long stay in Prague, I revisited my birth city, Vienna, and strode down a vague and foggy memory lane. The summer before last I followed it up with a more detailed and strategic visit. This visit included a tour of Hofburg which stimulated an interest in the life of Empress Elisabeth, a controversial figure in late 19th century and fin de siècle Vienna, when the Hapsburgs were going tits up.
While there, I outlined an historic novel based on the Empress's unhappy to marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph, which included one of the most tempestuous mother-daughter-in-law relationships ever. It’s the Princess Di story a hundred years earlier, back when monarchy were more than mere figureheads.
Empress Elisabeth (called Sisi by her family and beloved subjects) was known as “The People’s Princess” (sound familiar?) and was scorned by Viennese uppercrust and revered by peasants—particularly those in Hungary, a country she favored above Austria and its stifling court-prescribed routines. Her husband, the emperor, held her in high esteem, but that didn’t stop him from indulging openly in myriad infidelities. Meanwhile, Sisi became obsessive, anorexic and crippled by vanity, turning her back on most things “royal” in favor of unpopular charity events, rest cures in spa towns, and horseback riding. And, to give the only fitting ending to a story chock full of scandal, war and family dysfunction, Sisi was assassinated. (by a precursor to the paparazzi, perhaps?)
Anyway, this is, you must admit, a plot to die for. I’ve unearthed my notes and research materials, and the project is well underway. I’m channeling Elisabeth, and I’m telling this Bohemian Empress’s story through the lens of fiction, using all the goodies I’ve amassed lo these 15 years of studying the craft. I know that you all wish me luck!
Though I have little problem diving into scene, character and dialogue, the idea of weaving a satisfying story out of these elements has always left me at a loss.
Conversely, when the story already exists, as in journalism or a creative nonfiction piece, I seem to be more successful teasing the strands into coherency. Ergo—dilemma du jour.
Years ago, on a month-long stay in Prague, I revisited my birth city, Vienna, and strode down a vague and foggy memory lane. The summer before last I followed it up with a more detailed and strategic visit. This visit included a tour of Hofburg which stimulated an interest in the life of Empress Elisabeth, a controversial figure in late 19th century and fin de siècle Vienna, when the Hapsburgs were going tits up.
While there, I outlined an historic novel based on the Empress's unhappy to marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph, which included one of the most tempestuous mother-daughter-in-law relationships ever. It’s the Princess Di story a hundred years earlier, back when monarchy were more than mere figureheads.
Empress Elisabeth (called Sisi by her family and beloved subjects) was known as “The People’s Princess” (sound familiar?) and was scorned by Viennese uppercrust and revered by peasants—particularly those in Hungary, a country she favored above Austria and its stifling court-prescribed routines. Her husband, the emperor, held her in high esteem, but that didn’t stop him from indulging openly in myriad infidelities. Meanwhile, Sisi became obsessive, anorexic and crippled by vanity, turning her back on most things “royal” in favor of unpopular charity events, rest cures in spa towns, and horseback riding. And, to give the only fitting ending to a story chock full of scandal, war and family dysfunction, Sisi was assassinated. (by a precursor to the paparazzi, perhaps?)
Anyway, this is, you must admit, a plot to die for. I’ve unearthed my notes and research materials, and the project is well underway. I’m channeling Elisabeth, and I’m telling this Bohemian Empress’s story through the lens of fiction, using all the goodies I’ve amassed lo these 15 years of studying the craft. I know that you all wish me luck!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
sweating in the cold, cold city
Beautiful blue skies here in Portland today! A dusting of snow and happy home-from-school kids, so intstead of burying myself in client work, I'm engaging in bits and pieces. Blog-writing being one.
I am quite pleased with the inaugural Sweat in the City column, which will appear monthly in the Northwest Women's Journal. It should be online soon, but meanwhile, I took the liberty of testing our new scanner and reproducing the hard-copy herein.
Here's the essay, featuring me in my pj's, reading Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.
Lazy, phlegmatic and happy enough...but, what has plagued me most of my life is the way low energy encourages more of the same. Though sipping wine and sinking into a good book while a fire (particularly a fire produced by igniting a fake log) glows sleepily in the background is comforting and inviting, it tends to encourage flacidity as opposed to vibrant, energized spark.
I'm happiest when I'm producing. In particular, I'm happiest when I'm producing something I didn't set out to produce. In order to reach the point where the muse takes over, or the zone, or whatever you wish to call it, endorphins must be part of the mix. Those byproducts of sweat, elevated heart rate, and neurology that's been bolstered by physical engagement.
Take the other day. My head pounding with the endpoint of free-floating anxiety, I was dying to nap. Instead, I went to Pilates. It was sooooooo hard to not talk myself out of going. A Nike moment for sure, where I made myself not think about it. Five minutes into the Reformer (after the dreaded 100s and before the knee stretches), my headache dissolved. I left the studio an hour later refreshed and invigorated and full of enough energy to actually follow up on client business that I'd been dreading. And I did so with a smile in my voice instead of the bitchy tone I would have had had I not worked out.
So, enough proselytizing. Happy writing, and happy moving.
I am quite pleased with the inaugural Sweat in the City column, which will appear monthly in the Northwest Women's Journal. It should be online soon, but meanwhile, I took the liberty of testing our new scanner and reproducing the hard-copy herein.
Here's the essay, featuring me in my pj's, reading Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.
Lazy, phlegmatic and happy enough...but, what has plagued me most of my life is the way low energy encourages more of the same. Though sipping wine and sinking into a good book while a fire (particularly a fire produced by igniting a fake log) glows sleepily in the background is comforting and inviting, it tends to encourage flacidity as opposed to vibrant, energized spark.
I'm happiest when I'm producing. In particular, I'm happiest when I'm producing something I didn't set out to produce. In order to reach the point where the muse takes over, or the zone, or whatever you wish to call it, endorphins must be part of the mix. Those byproducts of sweat, elevated heart rate, and neurology that's been bolstered by physical engagement.
Take the other day. My head pounding with the endpoint of free-floating anxiety, I was dying to nap. Instead, I went to Pilates. It was sooooooo hard to not talk myself out of going. A Nike moment for sure, where I made myself not think about it. Five minutes into the Reformer (after the dreaded 100s and before the knee stretches), my headache dissolved. I left the studio an hour later refreshed and invigorated and full of enough energy to actually follow up on client business that I'd been dreading. And I did so with a smile in my voice instead of the bitchy tone I would have had had I not worked out.
So, enough proselytizing. Happy writing, and happy moving.
Monday, January 08, 2007
aonther one bites the dust
Today a good friend of mine stopped by my office unexpectedly to deliver the devastating news that his partner of 14 years is unhappy in their relationship and wants to move out.
“All around me,” he said, “long-term couples are splitting up. Just never thought it would happen to us!” And then, because the guy still had an ounce of irony in him (but just an ounce), he said, “Why couldn’t it be something simple, like cancer. Something that would bring us closer!”
I hate when my friends split up. It’s a more intense version of the oh dear! I feel when I notice that a restaurant or shop is closing its doors. Even though I was born in a German-speaking country, I don’t think I cotton to the Schadenfreude too easily. I tend to take the failures of others personally. Evidence that the world is one big rug waiting to be slipped from underneath, sending victim after victim ass-over-teakettle.
I asked my friend (who’s a successful, published writer) if he was unable to write during this crisis. He looked at me as though I just asked him if he’d bought a 357 yet, with which to blow his brains out.
What he answered would have been exactly my answer a year ago when I left my long-term relationship. “It’s the only way I know how to be with this. I’m writing like crazy, but fictionalizing the situation. Exploring all of this through fictional characters is the only way I know how to get through it.”
And, it must be said, this sort of writing is not journaling, exactly. One doesn’t write what he knows, or write feelings down and attempt to parse them and parse them until an epiphany leaps up and grabs the jugular. No. It’s about inching through the morass in the dark, following a mostly-hidden depth of inquiry, and banishing anything anything that presents as an epiphany. What you’re looking for is the thing that scares the shit out of you. You’re blindly whipping your stick back and forth to arrive at the monster. Shame, basically. An epiphany subverted. Something you’ll turn away from at first.
Writing fiction is the only way I know to court clarity. It’s the lonely heart’s version of 12-Stepping—giving your story up to a power greater than yourself. A character who you keep following through that dank chasm until the walls spread a bit, and granules of light mix with the pitch.
“All around me,” he said, “long-term couples are splitting up. Just never thought it would happen to us!” And then, because the guy still had an ounce of irony in him (but just an ounce), he said, “Why couldn’t it be something simple, like cancer. Something that would bring us closer!”
I hate when my friends split up. It’s a more intense version of the oh dear! I feel when I notice that a restaurant or shop is closing its doors. Even though I was born in a German-speaking country, I don’t think I cotton to the Schadenfreude too easily. I tend to take the failures of others personally. Evidence that the world is one big rug waiting to be slipped from underneath, sending victim after victim ass-over-teakettle.
I asked my friend (who’s a successful, published writer) if he was unable to write during this crisis. He looked at me as though I just asked him if he’d bought a 357 yet, with which to blow his brains out.
What he answered would have been exactly my answer a year ago when I left my long-term relationship. “It’s the only way I know how to be with this. I’m writing like crazy, but fictionalizing the situation. Exploring all of this through fictional characters is the only way I know how to get through it.”
And, it must be said, this sort of writing is not journaling, exactly. One doesn’t write what he knows, or write feelings down and attempt to parse them and parse them until an epiphany leaps up and grabs the jugular. No. It’s about inching through the morass in the dark, following a mostly-hidden depth of inquiry, and banishing anything anything that presents as an epiphany. What you’re looking for is the thing that scares the shit out of you. You’re blindly whipping your stick back and forth to arrive at the monster. Shame, basically. An epiphany subverted. Something you’ll turn away from at first.
Writing fiction is the only way I know to court clarity. It’s the lonely heart’s version of 12-Stepping—giving your story up to a power greater than yourself. A character who you keep following through that dank chasm until the walls spread a bit, and granules of light mix with the pitch.
Friday, January 05, 2007
unkiss me: the edited excerpt
Here is the edited excerpt of unkiss me.
As previously discussed, I've decided that the momentum of the novel rests in its unflinching dissection of the characters' preoccupations with sex and worthiness, their capacity for finding love despite this, and a peek at how, as voyeurs, we've developed new media for legitimizing our obsessions.
As previously discussed, I've decided that the momentum of the novel rests in its unflinching dissection of the characters' preoccupations with sex and worthiness, their capacity for finding love despite this, and a peek at how, as voyeurs, we've developed new media for legitimizing our obsessions.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
some leonard cohen lyrics
"Anthem"
By the Genius, Leonard Cohen
The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.
I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.
Ring the bells that still can ring ...
You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
By the Genius, Leonard Cohen
The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.
I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.
Ring the bells that still can ring ...
You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
Monday, January 01, 2007
silence
Ah, the first day of a new year. All the possibilities: redemption, promises, optimism, fresh starts. All the salads I’ll eat. All the crunches I’ll struggle through. All the pages I’ll write.
The pages I’ll write. Yeah.
Yesterday, I capped off a month of pure indulgence with more of the same. Starting at dawn after a night of far too much fun, I delivered some friends (complete with a vomiting child) to the airport, then—off to my daughter’s pet sitting job (she’d trundled off to the beach for New Year’s leaving her responsibilities to her co-dependent mama) to walk two tugging Jack Russells (it took them far too long to do their collective businesses), followed by some preparation for a photo shoot involving a golf club and many, many golf balls I could only sometimes hit, and mostly badly, to a 3 ½ hour hike with my best pal, followed by dinner that was far too delicious, and then back to those tugging Jack Russells and their reluctance to shit (I think they figured out that once the diaper-genie smelling poop bag comes out, it’s back to the utility room in the townhouse).
That was yesterday. What a fabulous day. I crawled into bed around 11, and once the fireworks started—reds and whites and blues exploding out my bedroom window—I dozed off, blissfully alone. Got that? Blissfully alone. Truly.
So. Today. I staved off the impulse to give into my desire for Twinkies, and their dark cousin, the Ring Ding, in favor of several English muffins liberally spread with cream cheese. Topped off with a pot of French roast. I curled up with The Road in an easy chair and four hours went by in a flash.
I took in an afternoon film, The Painted Veil, which was a terrific redemption movie. I wandered around downtown Portland with no destination in mind. I did the laundry and answered a few e-mails. But, aside from when walking the constipated Jack Russells (during which I let out a few audible f-words as they twined their leashes around me repeatedly), and phone calls to each of my children, I spoke with nobody the whole day. Almost a monk-like experience.
The best part about not talking is that I had more time for listening. Terry Gross reran her interview with one of my favorite songwriters, Leonard Cohen, who is unflinchingly honest and articulate about passion, yearning and regret. And I could almost hear Cormac uttering some of the breathtaking gems in his book, such as “This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man’s brains out of his hair. That is my job.”
It’ll be great if I can commit to writing more consistently satisfying prose, but, who the hell knows, right? I’ll take what I can get. And today it was the space and time to treat myself to the words of other artists.
The pages I’ll write. Yeah.
Yesterday, I capped off a month of pure indulgence with more of the same. Starting at dawn after a night of far too much fun, I delivered some friends (complete with a vomiting child) to the airport, then—off to my daughter’s pet sitting job (she’d trundled off to the beach for New Year’s leaving her responsibilities to her co-dependent mama) to walk two tugging Jack Russells (it took them far too long to do their collective businesses), followed by some preparation for a photo shoot involving a golf club and many, many golf balls I could only sometimes hit, and mostly badly, to a 3 ½ hour hike with my best pal, followed by dinner that was far too delicious, and then back to those tugging Jack Russells and their reluctance to shit (I think they figured out that once the diaper-genie smelling poop bag comes out, it’s back to the utility room in the townhouse).
That was yesterday. What a fabulous day. I crawled into bed around 11, and once the fireworks started—reds and whites and blues exploding out my bedroom window—I dozed off, blissfully alone. Got that? Blissfully alone. Truly.
So. Today. I staved off the impulse to give into my desire for Twinkies, and their dark cousin, the Ring Ding, in favor of several English muffins liberally spread with cream cheese. Topped off with a pot of French roast. I curled up with The Road in an easy chair and four hours went by in a flash.
I took in an afternoon film, The Painted Veil, which was a terrific redemption movie. I wandered around downtown Portland with no destination in mind. I did the laundry and answered a few e-mails. But, aside from when walking the constipated Jack Russells (during which I let out a few audible f-words as they twined their leashes around me repeatedly), and phone calls to each of my children, I spoke with nobody the whole day. Almost a monk-like experience.
The best part about not talking is that I had more time for listening. Terry Gross reran her interview with one of my favorite songwriters, Leonard Cohen, who is unflinchingly honest and articulate about passion, yearning and regret. And I could almost hear Cormac uttering some of the breathtaking gems in his book, such as “This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man’s brains out of his hair. That is my job.”
It’ll be great if I can commit to writing more consistently satisfying prose, but, who the hell knows, right? I’ll take what I can get. And today it was the space and time to treat myself to the words of other artists.
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