One More Slice

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

The Thing That Everybody Wants

Every meeting for the past couple of weeks, someone in my writer's group throws another log on the fire. Another "should," another rule, another "thing a novel must do." Add the pressure of every swallowed rebuttal, and this wisdom has turned to ash and coal without further transformation. What do these rules violate to the point of fury? For me, they call to mind Harrison Bergeron. I imagine narratives chained to the taste and preference of "everyone," forced to fill the engineered channel of a billion copies sold. Therefore, I , too, would be forced to choose from only those books in that same flat, wide channel.

This, of course, is foolishness. There are plenty of novels and short stories that are different, that don't follow a particular course. And there is no lack within the group, either, of fascinating stories. In fact, my reading has never been broader since I worked on my English degree. Even so, I am not every reader. My tastes veer sharply away from apocalyptic fiction, from blood and horror, from the cruelties that are part of humanity. I can't forego that, because they are my inheritance and humanity as well. Laziness and fear and the cowardice of action...these I couldn't avoid whether novelized or not. And then there are tropes, such as those of a romance, that lead to and from 'love' or 'treasure' on tracks no less stiff than those of your average rail yard. These, however, are my preferences only. They are important to me in selecting books, but not to a generic rule in fostering widescale enjoyment (not exactly a world-domination style evil goal, either).

I don't like rules for novels because my reading preferences are perhaps percentagewise not in the vast majority or even in the simple majority at times. Regardless of my own writing and my desire to become published, my stronger desire is to read and to have the opportunity to read those things that force their way into MY soul. Things that have not been flattened by the "should."

Good Parts of the Garden

It's the change of another season here--a few days that have previewed the heat of summer and a thunderstorm or two as well. Spring flowers (sweet peas, bluebonnets) have faded, leaving the blue to a few tiny Bachelor's Buttons that are just now coming up.

The Peruvian lily (left) is blooming, along with the Easter lilies. For some reason this year, the stalks are fairly short, a foot or so in most cases. I don't know what the vine behind the lily and to the left is. It came up in the same pot as the miniature pine tree and is slowly twisting its way between the other pots. So far, it hasn't bloomed and doesn't seem to be looking for a support, just running.

One miniature sunflower has come up, but it was covered in ants today. Too bad the zoo won't rent out anteaters. Most of the rest of the beds are covered in between-season weeds and the remnants of pansies. The sweet peas are slowly(!!) setting seed. This wasn't a perfect year for them, although they have now naturalized in part of the yard. More fertilizer and next year they should be better.

I'm hoping the bat-faced cuphea (left) will be around for the entire summer. This year it has a pot mostly to itself (except for that dark pink-spot plant). There is a double version of this at Home Depot that I am trying to resist--but I'm not sure if I'll be able to. It doesn't have the little faces, but the red frills run all the way around the purple tube.

I'm thinking about adding a pot of lilies, including the seeds that have sprouted on my windowsill, the Easter lilies that are escaping the brick border in the yard, the amaryllis seeds I brought from LJ, and possibly one of the Peruvian lilies if some of the other plants in the pot take over. That way, I'll have only spot that needs a heavy dose of water during the summer and I can move that closer to the house. If I do that, I may move some of the (never) blooming irises into a pot next door and beg for a fountain from the Master of All Household Improvements. This could be the year he gets his firepit...

The Special World

Skunk smell lingers in the corner by the gate and the dog races to the yellow leaves falling golden behind the fence. Here in the Special World, drops fall like footsteps in the green between the fences. A careful nose discerns hidden roots and a persistent set of puppy teeth uproots those slender wooden interlopers from the no-man's-land between the fences. There are other dogs behind the higher wooden fences, but I can't see them. Our office puppy can hear them, though. Like the birds and squirrels that creep and race through the shade in this corner of the yard, she is curious about their smell and their sounds. We remain here for a few minutes, glancing back at the back corner of the low building. It seems further away from us than it should, separated by a blank concrete pad that I could cross in five strides. When it rains again this afternoon, the bushes and trees will gossip in that percolating rhythm of water running down to the soft grass.

***

I have sinusitus of the writing lobe, the kind of blockage that begs for antihistamines and sleep. To keep that myself minimally active, I've been reading how-to books, starting with The Writer's Journey. It's both informative and precious, which is a perfect combination to keep me reading and goad me to stop and just get on with it. Just a few more pages and no more excuses...right?

Even the Gas Stations

Even the gas stations are beautfiul in The Woodlands. Under a generous
canopy, over the low top of the car, I can see 7-foot while oleanders,
topped by bright green oaks, and threaded and capped by pines. Against
the blunt, infinite blue the pines look dirty. There is nothing but
birds in the trees, maybe squirrels. Nothing to fathom in the blank
blue. Part of me expects to see a title scrolling across the sky, displaying the title of the next episode.

I just realized the sky was Brady Bunch blue.

Somehow, the conference call, the office dog, and the rest of it make more sense. Now, if only someone would hand me a script and the laugh track, we'd be good.

Lazy Weekend/3rd Draft Blues

It’s late, hours late for lunch, and my stomach is dreaming of edible art. One drumstick, fried, and one scoop of potatoes, glazed with translucent brown gravy. My mouth, agrees, thinking of the soft liquid salt of the gravy and the thick grainy cream of the potatoes. A single crunch through the thin skin and the soft meat beneath. Just enough food to taste, the way I used to get it on vacation with my grandmother. I don’t remember the restaurant; just that it was attached to a shop, like a mall or a strip center. It was dark, a cave of things Texan. And the genie of the cave, the spirit of that wide dark space, served fried chicken and mashed potatoes like a treasure on heavy plastic plates. No grease to the meat and stiff potatoes, real starch, like the uniforms must have had pressed into them.

I went from meal to meal when I was younger. Missing a meal left me shaky and sick, as did sleeping in the middle of the day. My physical schedule had a primacy that has left me, years later, with a general inflation of being as my metabolism has ceased its frenetic demands. That anxiety, the where, when, how of what it is to come, has been replaced by the demands of writing. Where shall I find a space to write? On this desk in which the papers and photos creep ever closer to the keyboard? When shall I write? During the morning, during work, in the crawl spaces of time during the day? How shall I write? As a fantasist, spinning cotton candy threads in place of good stiff Texas cotton?

The latest short story, Poolside, is on its third round of revisions. It's cotton candy rather sturdy denim. While I was driving home thinking about something else, it came out of nowhere, based on one glimpse of a gross pool many decades ago while on vacation. We didn’t stay at that hotel—a stressful peak in a much-delayed homecoming for my mother. Somehow, the memory encysted itself in that tension and now is a small narrative.

I haven’t worked on it every day, but I can feel a tiny knot of tension whenever I sit down the computer or pick up book and this is the intention to go back to the story. The story; however, is not important. While working on this story, I’ve either picked up or started to read books that I’ve had on writing and on the meaning behind the tropes and actions in fairy tales and fantasy in preparation for working on my novel. It’s overwhelming to think about all the things one has to do to make a psychologically truthful, eminently saleable book.

So, the short story lingers in the back of the desk, a small knot of tension that has no grand plot, not much to recommend it. It lurks, like a small animal, in the safety of the darkness, where the sharp beaks of point-of-view shifts can’t chew it up and spit out 3rd person bones, clean of narrative intrusion. I keep reading. A bigger animal will eventually become restless, and I will leap on the novel with all the sharp insight of a dozen books on writing and then we shall see what kind of structure it will leave.

Tomatoes in April

Well, after weeks of sitting on the driveway and staring at us as we came and went, the tomato plants have been moved to the backyard. Since I neglected to pull off the first set of blossoms, there are even teeny tomatoes on one of the plants. This is all to the good, because I'm looking forward to roasted tomatoes & feta and to curried tomato soup. After the stories about rice hoarding last week, I'm thinking we should have picked some additional veggies to the tomatoes for the garden. Not much space, though.

In addition to gardening, I've switched over from a sci-fi blog (the former Blisterpack Aliens) to a more fantasy-oriented one. This way, I have no excuse not to write at least one snippet a week. So far, there are only two official posts. It's hard to remain interested in a relatively quiet blog (note the gap in these posts). Actually, the consistent writing schedule is proving very difficult.

Anyway, this is just going to be brief--hopefully pics of sweet peas for next time.

Fruit of the Group...

Yea!!!! Split, the first book from my weekly writer's group has been uploaded to Lulu. We have come very close to meeting our deadlines for the 2007 project, which was to create a series of stories that dealt with dichotomies, either internally or across multiple works and publish it as a capstone to a very successful year for several members of the group. One of the best things about the group is that I have the chance to work with some very talented and dedicated people, which raises the standards that I've set for myself. Although I was frustrated earlier (Kevin claims it is entirely attitudinal), I think this is just the year that I'm going to have to develop a better work ethic. The stories that are important to me have to remain important to me when I'd rather veg in front of the TV, after a day of footling about at work, or, more importantly, when the laundry is singing it's siren song of 'come accomplish something concrete.' You have to reevaluate your standards when folding towels seems like a better use of time than finishing a short story. Honestly, you can use a towel if it NEVER gets folded. On the other hand, if I finish that online course in folding towels in monkey shapes, I'll never have to put them up either, just hang them around the house in amusing simian tableaux. Perhaps I should redo the house on a Victorian theme...oh wait, there was that writing thing.

Our new project is a series of short stories based on letters we exchanged at our last meeting. Again, I was a little non-plussed by the letter I received, but then a sarcastic and demanding narrative voice took over. Wow! So that's where all the British mystery lingo went. Apparently it went directly into my inner literary snob, Marcus, who looks like a young Gene Wilder and sounds like he reads too much mystery fiction. Oh, and he's handy at picking locks, because practical knowledge is sometimes more fun. It's weird to find out your inner Brit resembles Gene Wilder.

If you're interested in braving the dichotomous waters of Split, the link is http://www.lulu.com/content/1786971. Many of us have stories in this one and there are several great short stories (including a few contest winners) waiting for a few moments with a reader (probably not just before bed, however...). In fact, some of them might be lurking in a dark corner right now.

TTFN

How is a Rock Star Like a Safety Valve?

Two old rockers sit on a couch, one with a cup of hot tea...saw that one on VH1 yesterday. One of those typically awful clip shows with lots of inanity in between things that used to matter. These guys seemed happy, though. They weren't making excuses or scoring sarcastipoints. "It ain't opera" or some variation thereof was the stated attitude. They had a screaming good time, assumed their fans did too and that was that. What more was there to be said about any of the videos that had been shown? That the hair was bad and the music good? Cause I was too dumb to remember that about 80's? As if.

Having a good time and remembering that if you are a writer or artist that you may want your reader, listener, or viewer to have one too is a difficult proposition. Lately I've been hearing from a variety of sources that what I want requires work and that I will achieve what I work for. If that is working for another excuse to watch movies in the middle of the afternoon, so be it. I had a good time and that's all I can ask from that. On the other hand, if I want to be a writer that gets published, I had better get out in the trenches are started laying down that word count. And I get overwhelmed. Now, I'm thinking that one way around that is to stop taking everything as seriously as I have been. I'm not writing the great American novel. What makes your aspirations great? What makes them cheaper than the latest Wal-mart import? I don't know. If you have a few minutes and want to spend it with someone who just became the caretaker of a grub they believe to be a dragon, well then, have I got the story for you. There's a little bit in there about the discomfort some people feel about the way suburbs have covered the fields, but it's not a diatribe. I happen to live in a house on a former field and while I'm beginning to become anti-monoculture (grass) lawn, that's a fight for the neighborhood association, not for the story. After all, it's not Vonnegut and I had a good time writing it. Letting off steam takes it's meaning from a safety valve for a reason.

Chrissa :)

Shallows of Winter

It's cold...cold enough that the roofs behind us are lightly frosted, that the grass in the backyard is crisp and edged with a fuzzy, glittering outline of itself. The dogs seem to like it. Their coats are finally appropriate and it's kinda nice to be able to snuggle down in the blankets and let them settle in around me.

After spending most of my vacation reading as much as I could get my hands on--more non-fiction, oddly enough, than otherwise--I was reading an article in The Atlantic when I came across a poem about a real winter day in an arboretum and realized (not for the first time) that it's time to stop writing. That, in the midst of the constant yammering of books and TV (and blogs, heh heh), it's just time to shut up. I enjoy reading. I have several books spread around the house, waiting for me to pick them up and finish them...maybe to start them again in another season and read them again. So I don't need to add to the clammer of bad fiction, nor do I need to tell the story of some of the grayer areas of my conscience, any of the excuses or reasons that may have pushed me past a season of rejection letters and missed writer's group meetings. The truth is, I enjoy reading more than I do writing.

And, of course, one will need time during next week's warming trend to clean out the pots that one forgot to cover before the frost...

Dreaming of the Garden

I will soon have the best garden of the year--neat rows of seed packets that will look very promising spread over the card table in defiance of the fact that I have a tiny yard that is already full of re-seeding marigolds and zinnias and out-of-control photinas. At least the sweet peas don't seem to have been unduly troubled by the recent cold snap. Yea!!

This year, I'd like to finally have two barrels of small sunflowers that will give me enough for cutting to go with the gallardias and zinnias. I had great luck with the amarylis bulb that was supposed to go in a forcing jar but is instead sitting in a pot in the front room. Two sets of deep flowers and another flower stalk (a little pale, but hopefully okay) on the way. I think this will be the last flower stalk for the season and then it can rest or whatever through the spring. I love amaryllis because they remind me of my mom's front porch flower bed. Mom had a row of large plants that bloomed bright red or red and white striped. They were some of the only flowering plants that I remember her having when we were younger. I don't have a semi-shady spot to keep a bed outside, but I'm thinking of having a few pots indoors to go with the geraniums and ivy.

One New Year's resolution should be to keep the beds and pots clean this year. I tend to favor letting everything self-seed. This means that I have spots of zinnia and sweet pea and what I think are gallardias poking up through the grass, which doesn't really help when it comes time to mow. Another challenge for this year is the insane number of fire ants that have come to live in the pots out front. If you've ever read City--my ants are on their way to intelligence and world domination (based on expansion, if not glass boxes). Hopefully the dogs are on their way as well.

Within the next few months, pics should follow. Even if they're cribbed from the seed packets. :)

Chrissa