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 That anxiety, the where, when, how of what it is to come, has been replaced by the demands of writing.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

Warm and Merry Holidays

This morning a thunderstorm moved through. It began quietly, but the retriever can hear the thunder long before I can and was curled up in my lap not long after the sprinkles started. We passed a few minutes of silence while I read and he watched the weather through the window. Then, the storm rolled over and the thunder was audible and lightning visible, even to me. The retriever started to shake and cry, and the magazine was laid aside as I tried to calm the pup. There is no explaining thunder to a retriever. He continued to shiver as the storm staked out a place over the house to drop a few electric pronouncements. Soon, 80 lbs of dog had shifted from my lap to my left shoulder, his haunches in the crook of my left arm and his trembly middle wedged up against my ear.

At this point, I closed my eyes and rested my head against his side. Despite his nerves, he's a comfortable dog, like a warm furry pillow when the storms curb his restless flopping. I could see the Christmas tree over his back and I was reminded of what I had been thinking about yesterday. We don't have kids (except for the dogs) and we are both several decades away from the rickety Christmas movies projected in an elementary school cafeteria that really helped to draw in the mystery of the holidays. The clicking of the filmstrip and the fact that every class was allowed to sit together, the cold linoleum under us, as we watched angels searching for the what they could give for Christmas. How, I wondered, could I understand or even begin to ponder that miracle now? What is the access point for holding that wonder again in my heart? It was then that I understood the meaning of the filmstrip--I could not so much as ponder as welcome the miracle in. As a child it was easy to give up myself to the season, the joy and mystery and wonder. I didn't need to be told how to do it or even told that I should do it. I didn't need to be told that you can't ponder or hope to contain something like the Christmas story. Not unlike the trembling retriever, the joy of the season is something that you must support by giving yourself to it.

It's difficult to remember, when you are used to having to control your own schedule and expected to learn and continue to process things, that some things must be stepped into and experienced in order for you to understand them. You don't so much understand them as they take you, your heart or your time or your soul, and allow you to be part of them.

I missed Christmas this year--never let it in while I let myself stress about other things. Even now, I feel the tidal pull of New Year's goals and next year's planning catching at me. Today, however, I'm going to sit down and watch the lights on the Christmas tree and curl up with my puppies.

Merry Christmas.