Counterbalance

Shifting

 

I've been caught in a whirlwind of goodness and not so goodness and there's so much going on I've been unable to stop and think.  For the past two days I've been sick and had to settle down.  A wonderful thing has happened as a result: glimmers of a story (that until now have appeared in quick bursts of half-memory, half-make-believe only to fade as soon as I re-focus back on the insanity of my working life) have become concrete. I'm mining past moments to tease it all out, but it is happening.

I must work again today - despite the holiday. Crazy/un-fun deadlines press down on me and add a tension to my shoulders I cannot fully describe.

But - it is happening.  I must stay in this zone and allow this story to unfold. I must believe that a day is coming where I can focus only on this. Until then, I will be at one end of counterbalance, far from the fulcrum. (Image via.)

Reader-Writer Moment #366

"The thing is not to write what no one else could have written, but to write what only you could have written. I recently found this fragment in one of my old notebooks. The person who wrote that couldn't have known what would happen: how time can hold itself against you, how a voice hollows, how words you once loved can wither on a page."

                                    -from The Boat by Nam Le

Six. Six. Six.

I can't tell if I'd like to read this or if I'd just like to look at it. Color me intrigued.

When a Book Brings It All Home, Literally

I put off reading Felicia Sullivan's The Sky Isn't Visible from Here for a long time. Which seemed odd to me. Very odd.

I know Felicia and was so excited about her book coming out that I'd pre-ordered it on Amazon months before it was available. Months. I was then so thrilled to see it at a local independent bookstore, that I picked it up, before my Amazon copy arrived.  Then, days later, the Amazon copy arrived.  This left me with two brand-spanking new copies of a book that I simply couldn't wait to read.  And they sat. And they sat. And they sat.

I read other things. Other books. Other articles. I even read "work" books on marketing strategy and being an influencer and how to have effective confrontations & crucial conversations. Really. I also cleaned my house in a way that it hasn't been cleaned in two years. I cleaned out my closet (I got rid of shoes!), I re-organized my kitchen drawers and I cleared away three-months worth of mail.  In short: I did the unthinkable to avoid Felicia's book.

Such a strong reaction - such an intense desire to avoid something - was curious and I'd like to say I didn't know why, but I damn well did: my mother (wow, here goes, I don't think I've ever said this here, among you) was an alcoholic. She died when I was 18. Cirrhosis of the liver.  Was my childhood dramatic in ways it shouldn't have been? Yes. Was I forced to be the adult when I was just a kid? Absolutely. I knew, knew, knew that Felicia's book would detail similar situations, would conjure up my own past as she examined hers. I tried to avoid it for as long as possible.

Then one day - two weeks ago - I got up the courage to just open it. "A page," I thought. "Just one. Maybe two. And then you can do a few more tomorrow.  Just start the thing already."  And so I read the first page. And the second. I was off and running.  I had to set the book down several times. I had to wipe away tears a few times.  I laughed. I nodded knowingly. I marveled at the things Felicia went through that were so outside my experience all I could do was admire her courage. But mostly? It felt wonderful to be in the company of someone who had figured out the very things I've been trying to figure out. I felt vindicated in a way I've not been vindicated before - even through years of very excellent therapy (which I highly recommend to all, alcoholic mother or not!) 

I was afraid to read this book for another reason as well: so much of my own struggle to complete a novel has centered around this issue for me - do I deal with my mother or don't I? Do I write the memoir and get it out of my system so I can move past it? Do I weave the experiences into fiction? Or do I ignore it entirely? Yet when I ignore it entirely, I get blocked. Stopped. Entirely flummoxed because I feel like a big chunk of my life experience and the many insights it has given me, are cut off, unavailable, not on-tap for me when I'm in my writing mode. As I look at the Writing folder on my computer desktop of stories and half-completed novels (yes, they're electronic, despite the fact that it seems every writer has their stuff neatly printed in a drawer - who are you, I ask?), 80% of them are either directly about my mother, tangentially about my mother, or they have gone off-kilter by trying to avoid my mother altogether.

It is safe to say that Felicia's book was akin to a ticking time bomb in my newly cleaned and organized home. I didn't want to read it until I was ready to revisit my past and how that past has colored the present.  Felicia's experiences are vastly different from my own. Yet, a few bigger themes, a few larger life conclusions resonated with me and have helped me move forward in a way I hadn't expected. Felicia's courage to face her own particular demons has inspired me to face a few of mine.

I cannot tell you what it would be like to read Felicia's book without this experience, as I wear different glasses than you. And you. And you. It is quite safe to say that these glasses are not rose-colored. I have read fine reviews of the book by those who have not had similar experiences (or at least those who have not yet confessed to them) and was thrilled to know her book has been met with such praise. 

What I can tell you is this: The Sky Isn't Visible from Here had an incredible effect on me. Felicia's writing - so witty and biting and bittersweet all at once - sings. It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. In fact, I've got a copy to spare if you're so inclined...

When Blogging Isn't Writing

Here's the thing: it is my firm belief that if you want to be a fiction writer (and I've decided that I really, really do) you have to actually write. Not just blog. Not just think about writing. Not just talk to other people about writing.  You must put the words on the page every day.

Getting to this point, where I'm putting words down on the page every day, meant clearing out all the noise, all the clutter.  In short, it meant: stop blogging.  The blogging used to get me into my creative flow, with a blog idea leading to a story idea and a story plotline inspiring a blog post. It worked. I was productive. I liked what I was writing - on the blog(s) and the book.

Then something happened.  It all became too much. It felt like a job. I was blogging blindly - without inspiration - and no fiction writing was getting done. No words were making it onto the page every day. I could have soldiered on, but I had to be honest with myself. If a published story or book is the goal (even if that goal is never achieved or is only to be achieved in the distant, distant future), the blogging must be kept in check.  The blogging cannot take the place of writing and when it stops being an effective way to inspire more writing, something has to give.

I didn't want to stop blogging. It hurt, viscerally, to step away from it all. To not only stop writing blog posts, but to stop my incessant reading of other blogs. But it was oh so necessary to find my voice again. And, to be honest, I've not even found it yet. Or at least not all the way. But I'm closer. Much closer than I was when I stepped away from the blogging.

And so - this is my tentative step back into the blog waters. But there will be new rules (as yet to be defined) put in place to ensure that the blogging never usurps the fiction writing.

What If I Never Write a Novel?

Wrestling with the big, existential question has sucked the life out of me the past week. I'm not sure when it occurred to me, but sometime in the past eleven days, I had what at first seemed like a breakthrough idea: what if I'm a non-fiction writer at heart, not a fiction writer? A weight was lifted. Of course! Non-fiction! Makes sense, right? I blog. I write essays. I pseudo-report for LAist (I would never pretend to be a proper journalist, much as I try to adhere to journalistic standards and ethics in reporting). Ah, yes, non-fiction.

So. Much. Easier. Than. Fiction. (At least for me.)

Moments after this seemingly brilliant, albatross-removing concept presented itself before me, another thought darkened my door: "but...so does that mean...i'm not...ever going to write a novel?...and if not, well, what does that mean? am i okay with that?...because...i don't think i'd be okay with that...oh my god...never write a novel?...but, well, there'd be less pressure...less fretting...that would free up a hell of a lot of time and worry to do something else...but what else...what else matters this much?..."

I've been imagining what my life would be like without the desire to write fiction. I've been trying it on, seeing how it fits. And so, it has been silent here. As I sort out (for the umpteenth time) if I have it in me to slog through it all, to keep moving forward, even though I feel like sandbags weigh my ankles down with every step. As I tell myself again and again "If you were really meant to be a novelist, wouldn't you have written one by now?"  It's a familiar refrain. I saved you the many blog posts about it because, well, you've heard it all before. This is hardly new territory.

Glimmers of hope:

• There Will Be Blood - I almost cried upon leaving the theater last night, not because the story moved me as much as it moved others, but because I was in the presence of so much greatness. That is storytelling. That is character. That is how more films could, and I'd argue, should, be made.
• The Wire - I'm not watching Season 5 yet (no TV), but am re-watching Seasons 1 - 4. Not new information, I know. But, damn. Such good writing I am both ashamed to call myself a writer and inspired to be better.
• Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor - I'm re-reading some of the stories. Not all of them do it for me, but my goodness when they do, it's like I'm watching greatness unfurl before me.

And so, I wrestle. More soon.

When Writer's Writers' Dream of Imaginary Phenoms

Stephen Dixon's protagonist Meyer, in the middle of a writing funk, thinks he's hit upon an idea for a story:

A boy. Something about a boy. And a bookstore. Got it, he thinks, and starts typing: "A boy in a huge bookstore was signing copies of a book of short-shorts and prose poems he'd written. He looked to be around twelve or thirteen. He was sitting behind a table stacked with copies of his book and more were in opened cartons on the floor. There were fifty or so people, all of them adults, waiting on line with copies of his book. Al, who'd had a few stories and poems in literary magazines the last twenty years but never a book published, walked up to the table and took a book. 'If you want that signed,' someone said, 'you have to get to the end of the line.' 'I just want to look at it; I don't want to buy it,' Al said. It was published by a major publisher. The jacket copy began with 'A youthful masterpiece, unlike anything ever written.' There were blurbs in back by well-known serious writers. One called the kid 'The real thing, besides being a literary phenom. The future of American literature is assured.'" Enough, he thinks, this is going nowhere, and he takes the two sheets out of the typewriter, tears them up with the poem he tried writing before, drops the pieces into the trashbasket under the table, and re-covers the typewriter.

The Best Spoof Ever

One thing is painfully clear through all this WGA strike madness, in which the AMPTP won't budge: these writers are damn funny, damn talented and can whip up really good stuff in record time. Such is the unique talent of screenwriters (which is why the should, ahem, be paid properly for their work) and there is much to learn from them.

But before I bother to learn from them, I'm simply laughing a great deal because of the fabulous spoof site they created: www.amptp.com (instead of www.amptp.org.)

Go. Read. It will be the most fun you've had all day. I promise.

On Writing, Litblogging, and Talking with Writers Who Astound Me

I've been in quite a funk. I've started and stopped more books in three weeks than I ever have before. I've also started and stopped more fiction (bits of a story, stray sentences of maybe a novel) than I ever have before. Adding to the push/pull of it all: I'm also going through this on the design side of my life...the "day job" side of me. The side I am never able to fully integrate into the writer side of me, and yet it saps the same creative energy each day, leaving me with little imagination left for writing. Real writing. Of the fictional type. 

In short, I've been feeling inadequate. Mediocre. Not sure if it makes sense to continue adding to all the noise - the blog noise, the fictional noise, the design noise. Someone, somewhere, will say it better and sooner than I. This is where my internal monologue is stuck. Why bother, I ask myself. I'll read a snippet of fiction so good that I'm simply in awe. I can't compete with that. Or can I? I read litblogs daily and marvel at the output and timeliness and wit. I can't compete with that. Or can I? I meet writers so lovely and interesting and well-read. They have so much to say that they've not yet said. I can't compete with that. Or can I? I've not sorted all that out yet, but two quotes I've read this week have me feeling better about the state of things. While each quote is brilliant alone, when placed together, they perfectly sum my feelings as of late:

"All that day [Darya Alexandrovna] had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing."
              -Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Via)

"A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and immediately it becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it's halfway to being just like every other bloody book that's ever been written. But the best must never be allowed to drive out the good. In the absence of genius there is always craftsmanship."
               -Robert Harris, The Ghost (Via)

The best must never be allowed to drive out the good. The reason I write at all - the reason I read - is because words can illuminate, comfort, and revive the soul in a way that few art forms can. For now, I'll assume the "good" and try to keep up with the best. Time will tell if it's a fool's errand.

Chandler on Cultivating a Writing Practice

A snippet of Freeman's book keeps coming up for me, again and again. Raymond Chandler offers his thoughts on how to develop a writing practice that delivers results.  It is so simple and so...perfect:

"I believe that all writing that has any life in it is done with the solar plexus. It is hard work in the sense that it may leave you tired, even exhausted. In the sense of conscious effort it is not work at all. The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn't do anything else but write. He doesn't have to write, and if he doesn't feel like it he shouldn't try. He can look out of the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor. But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks. Either write or nothing."