French fries...they were treats. Vacation food. Something that one rarely got enough of, salty and straight out of the oil. Until of course, the day that one of the grandparents let me order the large size and then hoover up everyone else's leftover fries. Urrrggghhh. Not that one doesn't enjoy fries now (decades later), but one does remember too many with a wince.
I will assume that the latest book in the Twilight series was one fry too many for me. Although I enjoyed the first three, I didn't see now the last three could maintain that tension while allowing the main character to grow beyond the utter desperation of her own desire. Perhaps there is a story arc that doesn't involve using your friends or a way to wiggle my brain into the narrow confines of happy every after, down in the twisting caverns of a narrative idea that suddenly looms over the text. Maybe when one is younger, one is just used to everything carrying undertones of preaching and perfectability. Or maybe one skates along the surface and watches the colors flash out of the narrative and enjoys the story. However it is that I found my way into the first three, I stalled out 100 pages into the fourth, empty of desire to continue reading.
Despite the sorrow that comes with finding that the last chapter is one chapter too far, I find it fascinating just how narrative can both uplift and stop the reader cold. What is it that provides narrative with this? The story? The reader?
If it is the reader, then what does it profit a writer to do more than study grammar and spelling? How does story-telling become something that draws people into blogs and novels and movies?
Monday, August 04, 2008
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Spa Day, with Gerbils
While rushing through Wal-Mart yesterday, I happened to grab a handsoap that I hoped would be less harsh than what I had purchased last time. It was advertised as a "Spa" line, although beyond that it wasn't specific. When I happened to use it later, the aroma of cedar (a possibly unintentional aroma) diffused and clung to the hall bath. Just like the cedar shavings in the gerbil cages of my childhood. Nervous hopping rodents in need of relaxation in between being grabbed out of their cotton-fluff homes, what a perfect allegory for the work day. Now if only I could cedar-chip my office, perhaps we could eliminate...eh, probably not.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Roaches of the Sea
His royal oddness, The Pumpkin King, is cheerfully defrosting a ring of boiled shrimp for dinner. Now christened Roaches of the Sea, the shrimp will hopefully defrost prior to the brownies coming out of the oven. Aaahhh, the joys of "I'm Not Cooking" night. Roaches are a recurring theme, lately. While showering at my parents recently, a giant roach ran across my toes. My eyes were closed at the time (shampoo beehive) and the darn roach screeched like a girl at encountering a foot in the shower. Trust me. I was there.
I've never had a gecko run across my foot and, so far, they haven't succeeded in turning the oven into a functioning reptilian rocket. They alwso match these lovely ecru? bone? off-white? gecko belly? white walls. Tres chic. Skitter chic.
guten abend, my little skitterlings.
I've never had a gecko run across my foot and, so far, they haven't succeeded in turning the oven into a functioning reptilian rocket. They alwso match these lovely ecru? bone? off-white? gecko belly? white walls. Tres chic. Skitter chic.
guten abend, my little skitterlings.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Still Can't
Write, that is. Did okay for a day or so, but once that habit is gone, you're fighting inertia to get it back. I do, however, have plenty of reading material, so that's okay. Somehow, though, getting out of one good habit has led to challenges in others. Instead of finishing up my filing, I'm reading the a fascinating Firefly novel by Steven Brust (free from his website), compiled lectures from Joseph Campbell (blame EVERYTHING on Oedipus), and maybe a few other novels tucked in just for interest. One book is tempting me to raise geckos by telling about the author's struggles to raise ravens. I assume that geckos live on something other than roadkill and that they would adhere instead to a mutually beneficial de-bugging diet. I could crochet little leashes from embroidery thread and name them after cars (Chrysler, Mercedes, Cooper).
Why geckos? First, they already know how to get in the house. I think they are living under or around the stove, which no longer functions all that well and whose digital readout is going blank one glowing link at a time. I expect that it will eventually go completely blank, at which time I will realize that I can see through the plastic and that I'm staring at the Gecko Central. Perhaps then the entire gas range will blast off for kitchens unknown, crewed by largly translucent and completely silent sticky-fingered lizards who have grown tired of dealing with doors hidden by dog fur and large loud bipeds who slam plastic cones over them and toss them out into the humid darkness.
I imagine the entire sordid routine will be illustrated by the National Enquirer by way of Aardman Studios.
Sigh. And I still have writer's block that chimes to the clicking of the Eskie's toenails as he paces his room in confusion. Good night.
Why geckos? First, they already know how to get in the house. I think they are living under or around the stove, which no longer functions all that well and whose digital readout is going blank one glowing link at a time. I expect that it will eventually go completely blank, at which time I will realize that I can see through the plastic and that I'm staring at the Gecko Central. Perhaps then the entire gas range will blast off for kitchens unknown, crewed by largly translucent and completely silent sticky-fingered lizards who have grown tired of dealing with doors hidden by dog fur and large loud bipeds who slam plastic cones over them and toss them out into the humid darkness.
I imagine the entire sordid routine will be illustrated by the National Enquirer by way of Aardman Studios.
Sigh. And I still have writer's block that chimes to the clicking of the Eskie's toenails as he paces his room in confusion. Good night.
Friday, June 20, 2008
First, You Must Become As The Slamming Wind
On the way up from LJ this afternoon it poured. We knew it would be a hairy few minutes when we could see that the trees by the side of the road looked like they were in a shower, water coming down so hard it raised a mist around everything it pelted itself against. Thankfully, the person in front of us was a smart driver and we managed to make it through the worst of the rain going at a sober (not highway) speed. Most of the rest of the way it was clear, although it's thundering outside now and has been off and on since we returned.
The retriever believes this is a sign that he must crawl as close as possible to me and he braved the inflatable mattress pile (perfect height for filing and for meditating and for avoiding having a retriever sit on one) that he formerly found too wobbly. Last Wednesday, he'd wedged himself between the wall and an upright treadmill when it thundered while I was out. I spent several minutes searching for him only to end up in the other dog's room staring at one pitiful brown eye peeking out. It looked like we'd carelessly stuffed a dog in with the rest of our stuff. To get out (not as easy as getting in), there was another inflatable obstacle (exercise ball), a box of hanging folders (stuffed full), a night stand with lamp, and a couch. It was like watching dog ninja trials.
So, thunder turns Dog of the Thousand Naps into Dog of the Ninja Balance. It even, if you can believe it, makes him thinner. How did he get behind the treadmill?
The retriever believes this is a sign that he must crawl as close as possible to me and he braved the inflatable mattress pile (perfect height for filing and for meditating and for avoiding having a retriever sit on one) that he formerly found too wobbly. Last Wednesday, he'd wedged himself between the wall and an upright treadmill when it thundered while I was out. I spent several minutes searching for him only to end up in the other dog's room staring at one pitiful brown eye peeking out. It looked like we'd carelessly stuffed a dog in with the rest of our stuff. To get out (not as easy as getting in), there was another inflatable obstacle (exercise ball), a box of hanging folders (stuffed full), a night stand with lamp, and a couch. It was like watching dog ninja trials.
So, thunder turns Dog of the Thousand Naps into Dog of the Ninja Balance. It even, if you can believe it, makes him thinner. How did he get behind the treadmill?
Friday, June 06, 2008
Word Count
This is just a folderol that serves to exemplify word count. We are reading or typing, eating or snoozing or staring out at the Long Distance, our coats full and poofed in the cool shadows of the living room or his study.
Working thus, we are examining the silver grey afternoon light that should be hot and gold, dropped through the windows like pikes from the bare sky. Today, however, there are clouds. We have hoped for rain and we have received a bit of it, but not enough to do more that evaporate from the driveway and the street so that it looks clean but not wet.
Like ourselves after a shower, the hard ground betrays little of the water so lately poured over it, but the grass, like hair, keeps a few drops close to its roots. More showers may intervene. I am happy for the clouds and the coolness.
One dog has disappeared to his food. The other lays behind me, taking his food in crumbles from the bowls, grinding it by gulpful while looking at me. Why do I glance at him? Why does the reader chuckle to himself, deep in another scene that relates to neither the food nor the stares?
I glance back to see him, to make sure that the food is filling him and that he has not stopped because of the pain of old teeth or the lack of savour of the food shaped and consumed like dirt clods in his bowl. There is other food, softer food, that will appear later in the evening. He may not find much of that, however. At least the water is gentle and the bowl is full.
The break that is formed by the writing helps the words that have been read to find their places in my head. If they are not to remain they will drain out, perhaps in rhythms of typing or speech and then be gone. If they are to stay, they will wait to peer out during the writing that I will sometimes do.
In fact, this count of words itself is in service to that other writing, the writing that is intended for more eyes than those that are variously watching these appear or closed against the brightness. That writing has gone underground and has not found the ground or the slope or the hill from which it can filter again.
The fiction table has dropped and little stories flop about and wait for edits or for new ideas. Given enough time, they will silt into the filing cabinets and will be brought forth in time, relics of ideas that sparked against a particular moment and failed to catch.
Have any caught in recent memory? No, I don’t believe so. Some have been placed on paper but then I began this bout of reading. There were stacks and stacks of books that waited for me and once I pulled one from the tower it was as if I’d pulled a knocker on a gate that swung only one way—inward.
Inside the gate are stories of every hue, biography, fiction, literate short stories and silly fairy stories, half-done stories and full-grown ones. Between them and within them stretch hours cramped into a chair, neck folded almost to my chest so that I could see the words even after I had grown weary of holding that same head upright.
Some books were finished with relief. Biographies, we know they end like the classics, in death. The material of a life, however, runs in odd places and through the commonalities of time and away from them until you are within, not the skin, but the distant circle of the subject. At least, if the biographer is good and the person has come and gone in living memory. Relief, then, is not in coming to the end but in coming back to your life, to a little less of it, in which to act.
Relief comes also at the end of this exercise, as the margins of this page filled with ragged and indented thoughts delimit what might generously be done daily—693 words.
Working thus, we are examining the silver grey afternoon light that should be hot and gold, dropped through the windows like pikes from the bare sky. Today, however, there are clouds. We have hoped for rain and we have received a bit of it, but not enough to do more that evaporate from the driveway and the street so that it looks clean but not wet.
Like ourselves after a shower, the hard ground betrays little of the water so lately poured over it, but the grass, like hair, keeps a few drops close to its roots. More showers may intervene. I am happy for the clouds and the coolness.
One dog has disappeared to his food. The other lays behind me, taking his food in crumbles from the bowls, grinding it by gulpful while looking at me. Why do I glance at him? Why does the reader chuckle to himself, deep in another scene that relates to neither the food nor the stares?
I glance back to see him, to make sure that the food is filling him and that he has not stopped because of the pain of old teeth or the lack of savour of the food shaped and consumed like dirt clods in his bowl. There is other food, softer food, that will appear later in the evening. He may not find much of that, however. At least the water is gentle and the bowl is full.
The break that is formed by the writing helps the words that have been read to find their places in my head. If they are not to remain they will drain out, perhaps in rhythms of typing or speech and then be gone. If they are to stay, they will wait to peer out during the writing that I will sometimes do.
In fact, this count of words itself is in service to that other writing, the writing that is intended for more eyes than those that are variously watching these appear or closed against the brightness. That writing has gone underground and has not found the ground or the slope or the hill from which it can filter again.
The fiction table has dropped and little stories flop about and wait for edits or for new ideas. Given enough time, they will silt into the filing cabinets and will be brought forth in time, relics of ideas that sparked against a particular moment and failed to catch.
Have any caught in recent memory? No, I don’t believe so. Some have been placed on paper but then I began this bout of reading. There were stacks and stacks of books that waited for me and once I pulled one from the tower it was as if I’d pulled a knocker on a gate that swung only one way—inward.
Inside the gate are stories of every hue, biography, fiction, literate short stories and silly fairy stories, half-done stories and full-grown ones. Between them and within them stretch hours cramped into a chair, neck folded almost to my chest so that I could see the words even after I had grown weary of holding that same head upright.
Some books were finished with relief. Biographies, we know they end like the classics, in death. The material of a life, however, runs in odd places and through the commonalities of time and away from them until you are within, not the skin, but the distant circle of the subject. At least, if the biographer is good and the person has come and gone in living memory. Relief, then, is not in coming to the end but in coming back to your life, to a little less of it, in which to act.
Relief comes also at the end of this exercise, as the margins of this page filled with ragged and indented thoughts delimit what might generously be done daily—693 words.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Still Harping on THAT BOOK
It surprised me with good intentions and then waylaid me with examples of the "big" novels that I've never read. I'm not as widely read as I thought...and I'm embarrassed to say that I did read one of the examples because of the pink dress on the cover. It wasn't one that I enjoyed and I didn't keep reading the rest of the author's books. Still, the pink dress was lovely.
At least I've come to realize that in taste and inclination, I'm not a novelist. There is something in the best novelists that is interested in the wide and deep, the currency with which we pay for modernity or for whatever time in which we live. A novelist doesn't let cost or fears or other restrictions prevent her traveling or her listening in at Starbucks and watching the entire ebb and flow of a day. She relinquishes the structures of control to the extent that she rides the rails of the time or the place and the characters without steering them. This is a habit of perception that is not native to me, nor do I anticipate that it will become so.
Minor quibbles pile up--how often do I pick up a modern novel and become exhausted by the pace or by the way the author keeps beating up on his main character? If I disagree with your taste do I disagree with your premise? Do I want to read about a flawed, damaged, weatherbeaten character for a break? Maybe. Sometimes. However, I don't want to write them.
At least I've come to realize that in taste and inclination, I'm not a novelist. There is something in the best novelists that is interested in the wide and deep, the currency with which we pay for modernity or for whatever time in which we live. A novelist doesn't let cost or fears or other restrictions prevent her traveling or her listening in at Starbucks and watching the entire ebb and flow of a day. She relinquishes the structures of control to the extent that she rides the rails of the time or the place and the characters without steering them. This is a habit of perception that is not native to me, nor do I anticipate that it will become so.
Minor quibbles pile up--how often do I pick up a modern novel and become exhausted by the pace or by the way the author keeps beating up on his main character? If I disagree with your taste do I disagree with your premise? Do I want to read about a flawed, damaged, weatherbeaten character for a break? Maybe. Sometimes. However, I don't want to write them.
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