Today I've divided my reading between Sven Birkerts' The Gutenberg Elegies and Lee Smith's The Last Girls. The latter is getting me through sessions on the exercise bike and is proving increasingly difficult to leave on the bike stand at the end of the ride. I'm not sure where the characters are heading, but the slow excavation of who they are and what they've become is the perfect accompaniment to an activity that used to be my own way of running around with friends and family (on a bike that wasn't stuck in place, of course).
The Last Girls is the kind of book that inspires me to hunt down how-to-write authors and beat them thoroughly about the wrists. It's not deathless prose, but then, neither am I. It's a good read and follows its own path to being that. I may not be sunk as deeply in it as I would be if I could read outside without chasing dogs away from the verbena, but I'm still in it far enough to look forward to getting back on the bike the next day.
The Elegies takes me straight into sadness. Reading the essays in this book makes me feel like I'm drowning in an ever-expanding puddle as soon as I boot up the computer and click on one of my favorite blogs. Mr. Birkerts caused me to realize today that after graduating with a degree in English, what I'd gotten out of the books I'd read is more of a thank-goodness-I-live-in-age-with-plumbing-and-women's-rights and not an iota of empathy for the human condition. What the heck happened?
I'm foundering. I used to love to read and I've read widely (if not classically); I've read enough to want to give some of those words back, to write myself into the narrative. Was it reading for number or reading for depth? If I haven't been reading well, then I've been...what? Skimming like a stone over a lake that is soon to swallow me?
Since I've never finished it, I've decided to try reading Ivanhoe aloud over the next several days--mostly to slow myself down and consider every word. Years ago, I promised myself that I'd read Dante's Paradisio if I ever made it to graduate school. I didn't. Instead of paradise, then, a verbal tour of a faux medieval forest at a walking pace.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Steam Vents and Vitriol
I have a blog, and I'm not afraid to use it. At least, I'm not afraid to use it to vent.
Here is where I lose my nerve. Exactly as I do when I'm writing, I suddenly start to consider how something will sound to a critic who speaks like my mother. Will it be nice? Is it really the smartest thing I could have said? And then, like magic, the story or the rant disappears into the ether. The tension remains. Not today.
I decided several years ago to give my writing a serious place in my life and I joined a writer's group. It went well for several years and then was hydra'd (split into two), hijacked, and is now defunct. I was fortunate to find another group that focussed on critiquing and continued to work and submit (we'll skip over the success ratio).
Then, the second group ran into a shoal of non-participation. That's neither suprising nor threatening, until the participating membership dwindles down far enough that one or two people missing a meeting derails the meeting. This is where we seem to be, with some members arguing for a fee schedule, some for a change of venue, and some for a combination of other solutions. I'm adamantly opposed to some of these options and may be stuck unable to "compromise"--that is, to preserve a dysfunctional system because some people don't want change.
Have I given myself enough time to verify that writing is no longer for me? Have I tried and therefore can stop without regret? Is the group worth fighting for if the membership has changed?
Here is where I lose my nerve. Exactly as I do when I'm writing, I suddenly start to consider how something will sound to a critic who speaks like my mother. Will it be nice? Is it really the smartest thing I could have said? And then, like magic, the story or the rant disappears into the ether. The tension remains. Not today.
I decided several years ago to give my writing a serious place in my life and I joined a writer's group. It went well for several years and then was hydra'd (split into two), hijacked, and is now defunct. I was fortunate to find another group that focussed on critiquing and continued to work and submit (we'll skip over the success ratio).
Then, the second group ran into a shoal of non-participation. That's neither suprising nor threatening, until the participating membership dwindles down far enough that one or two people missing a meeting derails the meeting. This is where we seem to be, with some members arguing for a fee schedule, some for a change of venue, and some for a combination of other solutions. I'm adamantly opposed to some of these options and may be stuck unable to "compromise"--that is, to preserve a dysfunctional system because some people don't want change.
Have I given myself enough time to verify that writing is no longer for me? Have I tried and therefore can stop without regret? Is the group worth fighting for if the membership has changed?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Just Another Excuse
I seem to be looking for reasons to not write. As I became caught up in giving comments for a group member who turned out to be more focused on the message, the act of writing itself started to make me angry. Today I discovered a book on how our entertainment culture is a flashing neon Joe's-Bread-and-Circus sign of the crumbling of America. I bought the book.
Instead of contributing to viable socio-politcal discourse, I can let my novel shrivel rather than become part of the distracting of America. There must be barricades around here somewhere...singing Frenchmen...no? The anger won't dissipate in sarcasm, of course. There is something uncomfortable about having someone else's ideas colonize your head, thinking about someone else's project with the same impotent irritation with which you view the political games being played. When there is a similar pretense of input, irony gilds the needle.
I dislike didactic fiction. Stories about certain topics will remain, at best, unread and unloved, if not actively anathematized. Careless gender classification (e.g., women's fiction) is the same as stereotyping. When do I lose my gender because of what I read (or think)?
Most often, it's not my job to bring these topics up; however, as part of a writer's group, they do come up. It is rarer still to encounter a political discussion that leaves me hanging over the side of the desk, vomitting ambition and story ideas and any hope for the future. Perhaps I'm allergic to fervor.
Instead of contributing to viable socio-politcal discourse, I can let my novel shrivel rather than become part of the distracting of America. There must be barricades around here somewhere...singing Frenchmen...no? The anger won't dissipate in sarcasm, of course. There is something uncomfortable about having someone else's ideas colonize your head, thinking about someone else's project with the same impotent irritation with which you view the political games being played. When there is a similar pretense of input, irony gilds the needle.
I dislike didactic fiction. Stories about certain topics will remain, at best, unread and unloved, if not actively anathematized. Careless gender classification (e.g., women's fiction) is the same as stereotyping. When do I lose my gender because of what I read (or think)?
Most often, it's not my job to bring these topics up; however, as part of a writer's group, they do come up. It is rarer still to encounter a political discussion that leaves me hanging over the side of the desk, vomitting ambition and story ideas and any hope for the future. Perhaps I'm allergic to fervor.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Stuck with Frito in Trotter's Field
I gave that first draft permission to suck, provided it was finished. I let the conflict off on the theory that I could backfill that in later. Then I gave myself permission to have a bit of time off from the draft, then a little more.
Suddenly, I'm staring at a draft with vanishing characters, double-named characters, misplaced conflicts, language that rises to self-parodying heights, yet more avoidance of conflict, and, finally, an ending that consists of a full stop without a resolution. Draft itself seems a rather formal designation for this shaggy mess of a fantasy that stole its setting from someone's sci-fi bedroom, all flashing lights and fake planets printed on cheap sheets.
A tiny voice is emanating from the draft. "Fix me...fix me," it squeaks. I could put it back in the drawer. No one has to know. There isn't anyone looking for this draft. No price is set for its redemption.
If it was fixed, if it was released...what would it say? Is it a forgiveable, much less a worthy, action to put something into the pool of ideas that has not much to say to the good of humankind? What if by some mischance it contains a bad idea that I don't recognize and that propagates forward?
I'm in a plywood headspace, a not-yet-finished place. Work is lurking around my ankles.
Suddenly, I'm staring at a draft with vanishing characters, double-named characters, misplaced conflicts, language that rises to self-parodying heights, yet more avoidance of conflict, and, finally, an ending that consists of a full stop without a resolution. Draft itself seems a rather formal designation for this shaggy mess of a fantasy that stole its setting from someone's sci-fi bedroom, all flashing lights and fake planets printed on cheap sheets.
A tiny voice is emanating from the draft. "Fix me...fix me," it squeaks. I could put it back in the drawer. No one has to know. There isn't anyone looking for this draft. No price is set for its redemption.
If it was fixed, if it was released...what would it say? Is it a forgiveable, much less a worthy, action to put something into the pool of ideas that has not much to say to the good of humankind? What if by some mischance it contains a bad idea that I don't recognize and that propagates forward?
I'm in a plywood headspace, a not-yet-finished place. Work is lurking around my ankles.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Recovering, Part II
Yet again, I'm back at the keyboard after a bout with something that pretends to be a cold but which I'm sure is working on moving up to flu or bronchitis. It could have been getting out in the cold (unusually so for Texas) or for going on a dusting binge in between getting out in the icy weather; however, it resulted in a relapse that I think I'm finally shaking off.
I've finished Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle-earth (TRtMe) and am working through another book on fantasy literature and trying to coddle my brain back into writing mode. TRtMe was fascinating in the specific linguistic discoveries and speculations that according to the author form the basis of the development of The Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien works. I came to this book through the Tolkien Professor podcast and am alternately grateful and jealous that students have the opportunity to take classes on these subjects.
In the filing that I finished recently there were entirely too many papers left over from my own university days and I was embarrassed to see in them the marks of the bored and uninterested student that I was at the time. Doubtless, I would not have benefitted from interesting classes when my brain was caught between the parental "study to get a paying job" and the personal "study so that you can get paid to work at something that interests you." As it turns out, neither came to pass.
Which doesn't bring us neatly up to date, but at least brings the maundering to an end. It's the cold, I'm sorry. More accurately, it's the lingering cold that won't move out of my lungs for love or money. At least it has brought my fussing with drafts to a end for now. I don't have any opinions at this point, just a childish craving for McDonald's. At some point, I'll have to wean myself from my need for fries. Perhaps after opinion starts to reassert itself and I manage to get a few more pages done.
I've finished Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle-earth (TRtMe) and am working through another book on fantasy literature and trying to coddle my brain back into writing mode. TRtMe was fascinating in the specific linguistic discoveries and speculations that according to the author form the basis of the development of The Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien works. I came to this book through the Tolkien Professor podcast and am alternately grateful and jealous that students have the opportunity to take classes on these subjects.
In the filing that I finished recently there were entirely too many papers left over from my own university days and I was embarrassed to see in them the marks of the bored and uninterested student that I was at the time. Doubtless, I would not have benefitted from interesting classes when my brain was caught between the parental "study to get a paying job" and the personal "study so that you can get paid to work at something that interests you." As it turns out, neither came to pass.
Which doesn't bring us neatly up to date, but at least brings the maundering to an end. It's the cold, I'm sorry. More accurately, it's the lingering cold that won't move out of my lungs for love or money. At least it has brought my fussing with drafts to a end for now. I don't have any opinions at this point, just a childish craving for McDonald's. At some point, I'll have to wean myself from my need for fries. Perhaps after opinion starts to reassert itself and I manage to get a few more pages done.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The Yogurt Lies Bleeding
The tiles are covered with yogurt gore, the remains of strawberry preserves and a few white smears where the spoon bounced to a stop. I caught the plate before it could fall to the ground and shatter, which is enough excitement for my recovering lungs. This past week I've been sleepwalking from the couch to the futon as I tried to sleep my way through a chest cold while watching endless hours of Hercule Poirot.
Today I am both vertical (yea!!!) and ready to speculate on whether I'm becoming too intemperate in my desire to rip first drafts to shreds or whether it's simply rude to ask for a critique of a first draft in the first place. In such a debate, of course, I would be condemning myself as much as anyone else, for I am certainly guilty of submitting ill-advised drafts for comment.
In these cases, I have found myself at a deadline point with something that I could have withheld and submitted later but found myself unable to resist trolling for comments and giving myself permission to further delay working on my draft while "waiting for comments." Instead of thinking of the time that my group would be wasting on doing for my draft what I should have done myself and of the violence that might be done to my story by letting a committee have a crack at revising it, I opted for the easy way to revision. Let someone else do the thinking.
My writing suffers every time I let this happen. For one thing, it gives me a wealth of similar comments that amount to the fact that I undertell a story in the beginning. I leave too much of it in my head and don't transfer enough of the logic to the page. This is good to know, but it is something that I might have discovered on my own as I worked through the drafts on my own. I also could have become more familiar with my own voice as I worked through the draft stages, rather than becoming familiar with other peoples' preferences for my work.
Early draft submittals are a shortcut to feedback that breaks down the author's own thoughts on how a story should go and may do violence to character development and story development. If a first draft is presented and the feedback is appropriate to the draft stage, the author may be tempted to stop working on an idea or redirect a story in ways that he or she may not have intended or wanted and may thus lose something of the drive and random creative energy that makes first drafts so exciting for the writer. If the writer doesn't maintain enthusiasm through the first draft, how will he or she maintain it throughout the difficult process of revision?
Revisions and multiple drafts can be a challenge. Understanding that drafts are necessary and that change may happen to the story as a result is a learning process that many writers have to go through. It has been difficult for me to get here and I've had some excellent example of hardworking writers from whom I could learn by observing their drafts. Early drafts and first drafts are the writer's imagination covered in muck cheerfully making castles in the sand. Later drafts are perhaps tree houses more suitable to welcoming other people to see the sturdiness of the writer's creation.
And if you wrote up your last D&D campaign...stick it your memory book and wait 20 years.
Today I am both vertical (yea!!!) and ready to speculate on whether I'm becoming too intemperate in my desire to rip first drafts to shreds or whether it's simply rude to ask for a critique of a first draft in the first place. In such a debate, of course, I would be condemning myself as much as anyone else, for I am certainly guilty of submitting ill-advised drafts for comment.
In these cases, I have found myself at a deadline point with something that I could have withheld and submitted later but found myself unable to resist trolling for comments and giving myself permission to further delay working on my draft while "waiting for comments." Instead of thinking of the time that my group would be wasting on doing for my draft what I should have done myself and of the violence that might be done to my story by letting a committee have a crack at revising it, I opted for the easy way to revision. Let someone else do the thinking.
My writing suffers every time I let this happen. For one thing, it gives me a wealth of similar comments that amount to the fact that I undertell a story in the beginning. I leave too much of it in my head and don't transfer enough of the logic to the page. This is good to know, but it is something that I might have discovered on my own as I worked through the drafts on my own. I also could have become more familiar with my own voice as I worked through the draft stages, rather than becoming familiar with other peoples' preferences for my work.
Early draft submittals are a shortcut to feedback that breaks down the author's own thoughts on how a story should go and may do violence to character development and story development. If a first draft is presented and the feedback is appropriate to the draft stage, the author may be tempted to stop working on an idea or redirect a story in ways that he or she may not have intended or wanted and may thus lose something of the drive and random creative energy that makes first drafts so exciting for the writer. If the writer doesn't maintain enthusiasm through the first draft, how will he or she maintain it throughout the difficult process of revision?
Revisions and multiple drafts can be a challenge. Understanding that drafts are necessary and that change may happen to the story as a result is a learning process that many writers have to go through. It has been difficult for me to get here and I've had some excellent example of hardworking writers from whom I could learn by observing their drafts. Early drafts and first drafts are the writer's imagination covered in muck cheerfully making castles in the sand. Later drafts are perhaps tree houses more suitable to welcoming other people to see the sturdiness of the writer's creation.
And if you wrote up your last D&D campaign...stick it your memory book and wait 20 years.
Friday, January 28, 2011
I Stab at the Heart of Your Draft, But Only Injure My Thigh
Lately, I've been priviledged to be able to watch a few novel drafts take shape in my writer's group. This is a fascinating prospect. Narratives shift and carve new tracks and characters separate from their creators and voices find their proper key and something that was a draft yesterday becomes a novel and I become a reader first and a commenter second. Amazing and then very, very cool.
However, to quote Practical Magic, "with the sweets, come the sours." I have a firm set of assumptions, beliefs, and graveyards that I whistle past as a person. When I am looking at pacing and characterization and the few grammar/style things I know, I sometimes run across something that shoves me from my comfort zone. I am uncomfortable and it feels "wrong." Although this is not a value judgment (i.e., it would be better if this moved quicker), my reaction is similiar enough that I find myself marking sentences and making suggestions to "fix" the discomfort.
It becomes more challenging when I'm faced with a novel that tends toward a conclusion that runs counter to my beliefs. How do I modify my responses so that I am looking only at the shape of the story and not at its content? There is about this a chill of academic remove that I have not yet had to develop. More than remove, however, there is the understanding of uncomfortable plots and themes such that they lose their discomfort.
The separation between the passion of one writer and reader and that of a different writer and reader is as difficult for me as that of separating myself as an intimate participant in my story from myself as a objective editor of that same story.
This is a skill that I could have mastered had I stayed in college. I should have stayed.
However, to quote Practical Magic, "with the sweets, come the sours." I have a firm set of assumptions, beliefs, and graveyards that I whistle past as a person. When I am looking at pacing and characterization and the few grammar/style things I know, I sometimes run across something that shoves me from my comfort zone. I am uncomfortable and it feels "wrong." Although this is not a value judgment (i.e., it would be better if this moved quicker), my reaction is similiar enough that I find myself marking sentences and making suggestions to "fix" the discomfort.
It becomes more challenging when I'm faced with a novel that tends toward a conclusion that runs counter to my beliefs. How do I modify my responses so that I am looking only at the shape of the story and not at its content? There is about this a chill of academic remove that I have not yet had to develop. More than remove, however, there is the understanding of uncomfortable plots and themes such that they lose their discomfort.
The separation between the passion of one writer and reader and that of a different writer and reader is as difficult for me as that of separating myself as an intimate participant in my story from myself as a objective editor of that same story.
This is a skill that I could have mastered had I stayed in college. I should have stayed.
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