Ah the monthly salon.
Once a month, I gather with my writing/knitting friends and we have a salon. We take turns reading our work out loud and offer constructive and thoughtful words about writing. I both hate and love it.
I hate it because I hate deadlines. I hate having to prepare for things. I write best when I have no set dates, when no one is expecting anything from me. I like it that way. Unfortunately, if I want to have a real writing life, that ain't gonna work. I also, have a little bit of stage fright. Even though they're my friends--best friends in town--I still get nervous. And let me tell you, the shot of whiskey and or tequila I treat myself to before reading is not really appropriate for these nights.
I love it because my friends are awesome. They say kind things and they make me feel like a real writer. They are as dedicated to the craft as I am and they believe in my talent. What's not to love? Also, I leave those ladies after hearing their extraordinary works in progress and I'm inspired.
Today I've been doing my least favorite thing. I've been editing. Yep, I'm editing the story that will NEVER be done. at least I think it will never be done. It feels like it will never be done. I thought I'd finish up with it today in time for submitting it to a couple of places, but....that's not happening. Which is fine. I really want this piece to go out and be as good as I can make it Once it gets there, I'm sure (I hope) it will find a home. In the mean time, back to editing.
Last two things, one book related and one knitting related.
I'm working hard on my February Lady sweater. I still hope it will be done in time for my trip to NYC next week. So far, it looks good and that makes me happy.
And...I'm reading "The Vagrants" by Yiyun Li. SO GOOD. And, last week I went to hear Adam Haslett read from his new novel. It was a great reading, though I felt bad for the guy who tried to make a snarky Marilynne Robinson comment. She was in the audience. I picked up Haslett's collection of short stories but I have no idea when I'll actually get to them. The "Tower of Books" it tall ya'll. Real tall.
One more thing. And this is totally a vanity moment, and one that will probably never happen again (well, it happened the night f the election, so I'll tell both stories). Last week I was buying a very necessary Red Velvet cupcake and the girl behind the counter called me by name and said she was at a reading I'd given. I believe she used the word legendary. Though, she could have been talking about the cupcakes.
This happened once before, the night of Obama's election. I was leaving a big celebratory party downtown and a very inebriated young man hugged me and said "Go Obama!" Then he said, "I loved your reading." The two did not deserve to be in the same breath, but it was flattering just the same.
I'm done. Back to knitting and editing, the only two things I'll be doing until the weekend.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Food and Fiction
One of the happiest days of every month is the day my Real Simple arrives. It's truly joyous. What I love most are the recipes. Every month, for days I pour through the magazine and pick out delicious things to make for dinner. Nothing is ever too complicated, but in the end, it's always yummy.
For the last three days, I've been making dinner from recipes found on RealSimple.com The first day was a variation on a couple of recipes, basil and garlic beef with heirloom tomatoes and an arugula and parmigiano with a lemon, olive oil dressing. Yesterday, I made the Paprika spiced pork chops with spinach (minus the raisins). Tonight, chicken wrapped with prosciutto, with arugula salad and broccoli. As you can see, I've been eating rather well. And eating well, makes me feel, well, good.
But I haven't written in two weeks and that is making me feel not so good. Part of this is due to the fact that I worked the entirety of spring break, and it was exhausting. The other part is what I like to call, story exhaustion. I'm just tired of looking at it. At all of it.
I think the main problem is that I need to learn how to look at it in a different way, and I also need to address the insecurity that surrounds my writing. I always think my work is too simple. That it's not compelling enough to get an agent or literary magazine editor's attention. And so, I go through long periods of time where I don't want to write, where I get tired of the words on the page. I find myself in a place where my characters annoy me and their troubles are trivial. (Never mind the fact that I created those troubles and their personalities etc.) Because they're so simple, I get bored.
But, today, while I was making lunch, I realized something about the kind of food that I like to cook: It's simple, but it's full of flavor
The truth it, storytelling is a fairly simple thing. Everyone does it, but some people just do it better. What makes a story "good" is the same thing that makes a piece of chicken taste "good". When it comes down to it in the kitchen, it's all in the seasoning, the method of cooking, and the freshness of the ingredients. On the page, it's the flair of the language, the narrative structure, the freshness of the material. And both can be clearly complex, with a variety of ingredients or multiple story lines. In fact, I think we often think of complex as being a good thing, as being better that which is simple. But you know what? Give me plain old salt and pepper any day. Aren't those the foundations of any good recipe? The basics. And I need to get used to the fact that I like the basics.
Of course, I also like good olive oil and coffee.
UPDATE: Went out for dinner after the Adam Haslett reading (He was great! I picked up his first book and can't wait to read it.) and had an awful bowl of chicken chilli at a restaurant in town. Sent it back. First time I have ever sent something back for being gross.
For the last three days, I've been making dinner from recipes found on RealSimple.com The first day was a variation on a couple of recipes, basil and garlic beef with heirloom tomatoes and an arugula and parmigiano with a lemon, olive oil dressing. Yesterday, I made the Paprika spiced pork chops with spinach (minus the raisins). Tonight, chicken wrapped with prosciutto, with arugula salad and broccoli. As you can see, I've been eating rather well. And eating well, makes me feel, well, good.
But I haven't written in two weeks and that is making me feel not so good. Part of this is due to the fact that I worked the entirety of spring break, and it was exhausting. The other part is what I like to call, story exhaustion. I'm just tired of looking at it. At all of it.
I think the main problem is that I need to learn how to look at it in a different way, and I also need to address the insecurity that surrounds my writing. I always think my work is too simple. That it's not compelling enough to get an agent or literary magazine editor's attention. And so, I go through long periods of time where I don't want to write, where I get tired of the words on the page. I find myself in a place where my characters annoy me and their troubles are trivial. (Never mind the fact that I created those troubles and their personalities etc.) Because they're so simple, I get bored.
But, today, while I was making lunch, I realized something about the kind of food that I like to cook: It's simple, but it's full of flavor
The truth it, storytelling is a fairly simple thing. Everyone does it, but some people just do it better. What makes a story "good" is the same thing that makes a piece of chicken taste "good". When it comes down to it in the kitchen, it's all in the seasoning, the method of cooking, and the freshness of the ingredients. On the page, it's the flair of the language, the narrative structure, the freshness of the material. And both can be clearly complex, with a variety of ingredients or multiple story lines. In fact, I think we often think of complex as being a good thing, as being better that which is simple. But you know what? Give me plain old salt and pepper any day. Aren't those the foundations of any good recipe? The basics. And I need to get used to the fact that I like the basics.
Of course, I also like good olive oil and coffee.
UPDATE: Went out for dinner after the Adam Haslett reading (He was great! I picked up his first book and can't wait to read it.) and had an awful bowl of chicken chilli at a restaurant in town. Sent it back. First time I have ever sent something back for being gross.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
February Lady Sweater and a book
One of the lovely things about knitting is that, when you can't find something to accompany your perfect outfit, you can make it. I have a job interview(s?) coming up and let's be honest people, I'm not really a suit wearing kind of lady (that's right,lady, not girl, I'm almost 30 people!). I have this vision of the perfect interview outfit: black knee length flared skirt, a simple white shirt and a cardigan with a cute pair of black flats. (can you see my color palette?)
Seems simple, right? Sadly, I'm having a hard time finding the perfect skirt. I'm either going to try and get my friend to make one for me or switch to pants. The shirt is probably in my closet somewhere. And the cardigan...well...I wear a black cardigan every day. It's starting to look a little rough. So I went through the Cascade 220 (Peruvian wool) wall at work and found a nice muted green yarn and made some plans to cast on the February Lady Sweater a pattern based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Baby Sweater. My friend Ann who made one last year, looked at my color choice, scrunched up her face and said, (in a voice that I swear sounded like my mother's when I tell her I don't mind being single) "I just wish you would wear more color."
After mulling it over for a couple of days, I decided to go with a nice heathery purple, which is a color I love and don't wear too much of. Hopefully, I get it done by April 1st or 2nd which will be just enough time to block it. Here's a picture of Ann's sweater. I jacked it from her Ravelry page.
Seems simple, right? Sadly, I'm having a hard time finding the perfect skirt. I'm either going to try and get my friend to make one for me or switch to pants. The shirt is probably in my closet somewhere. And the cardigan...well...I wear a black cardigan every day. It's starting to look a little rough. So I went through the Cascade 220 (Peruvian wool) wall at work and found a nice muted green yarn and made some plans to cast on the February Lady Sweater a pattern based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Baby Sweater. My friend Ann who made one last year, looked at my color choice, scrunched up her face and said, (in a voice that I swear sounded like my mother's when I tell her I don't mind being single) "I just wish you would wear more color."
After mulling it over for a couple of days, I decided to go with a nice heathery purple, which is a color I love and don't wear too much of. Hopefully, I get it done by April 1st or 2nd which will be just enough time to block it. Here's a picture of Ann's sweater. I jacked it from her Ravelry page.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Purl Soho
Oh dear....I have to be in NYC the second week in April and I think this will require a trip to Purl SoHo...Oh the things I will buy. I've already decided: good food and yarn instead of bad men and alcohol....well, maybe some alcohol. I finished my Jared Flood Beaumont Tam. I'll post photos when it's nice and blocked. I need project suggestions and a reason to buy the yarn I already know I'm going to pick up.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Beaumont Tam by Jared Flood
Just a picture so you can see where I am with this project. I am LOVING the results. The photo was taken by my good friend, Manal Abu Shaheen who is a brilliant photographer.
Monday, March 15, 2010
New Hat!
Every couple of months, I get tired of my hair and I march myself down to the local beauty school and pray they have a Black girl on staff who can blow my hair out. Currently, I'm sporting a curly afro. But this is not hair that goes well with all the cute little berets that I've knit. On Saturday I started Jared Flood's Beaumont Tam. I'm about 25 rows away from finishing. It's my first adventure with Fair Isle knitting (where you knit with both hands) and I'm excited about in the way knitters are excited about these things. I took a picture of the project! And because I haven't written in a couple of days, I took a picture of the tam in progress. It's sitting on some of the books from my binge last week.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Today I....
bought books. I mean, I went on a book binge. Mostly to celebrate the fact that my tax return (completely by two 20 years olds at the Uni) was done incorrectly and when corrected it almost doubled!
Here's what I got:
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (I saw her read from this book last year and she was awesome and the books sounded awesome)
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (this one has been on my list for a while)
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese (been looking at this for a long time)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Larsson Stieg (I read a long article about him and this trilogy in the NY Times, sounded interesting enough and it was the first time I saw three paperbacks on the buy two get one table)
The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison (Went to her reading last week and it was great. I'm really looking forward to this read)
Irreplaceable by Stephen Lovely (Impulse buy but he's a local guy and I like to show my support)
The Seamstress by Frances des Pontes Peebles (okay, I already bought one in paperback but I gave it to my friend's mom. Clearly I liked it enough to want to own a copy. It's really, really, good.)
And, I got hair products!! Lot's of Pantene for curly-headed girls and some fancy organic stuff that I thought I'd try out (and it was buy one get one)
Okay. Now I need to go clean my house and maybe fine places to put these books. Its not like there's room on my shelf...
Here's what I got:
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (I saw her read from this book last year and she was awesome and the books sounded awesome)
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (this one has been on my list for a while)
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese (been looking at this for a long time)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Larsson Stieg (I read a long article about him and this trilogy in the NY Times, sounded interesting enough and it was the first time I saw three paperbacks on the buy two get one table)
The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison (Went to her reading last week and it was great. I'm really looking forward to this read)
Irreplaceable by Stephen Lovely (Impulse buy but he's a local guy and I like to show my support)
The Seamstress by Frances des Pontes Peebles (okay, I already bought one in paperback but I gave it to my friend's mom. Clearly I liked it enough to want to own a copy. It's really, really, good.)
And, I got hair products!! Lot's of Pantene for curly-headed girls and some fancy organic stuff that I thought I'd try out (and it was buy one get one)
Okay. Now I need to go clean my house and maybe fine places to put these books. Its not like there's room on my shelf...
Friday, March 5, 2010
Reading Like a Writer or some Bullshit Like That (and then some)
Forgive me, I'm going to be all over the place in this post. This has been an interesting writing week. Too many thoughts and no interest in writing several posts.
1. I'm beginning to think this going to an MFA program and spending a significant time thinking about story structure, has ruined reading for me. Or maybe it's just that I am becoming a more discerning reader? My friend M. and I had this conversation in the parking lot of a corporate bookstore after we went to Red Lobster (In Iowa, this passes as seafood. And who am I kidding, cheddar bay biscuits rock). M said (I'm paraphrasing, she'll correct me if I'm wrong) that if a story is good enough, she doesn't think about craft issues. Happy All the Time is the last book I read that made me feel that way. I'm always thinking things like "Would Ethan say the POV was deep enough?" "Did the author take a real risk here? Or is this ending a bit of a cop out?"
These are the questions I ask myself when I edit and maybe I should train myself to stop applying them to the books I read. Or maybe I should just read better books. Maybe I should just finish my book...
2. I just finished an edit of a old story. Finally. I've been working on it for three weeks and while I am certain I still have more to do to it, I'm going to send it out into the world anyway.
3. I've been thinking about books on craft. Are they useful or not? I've found that every time I sit down to read one of the many I have (Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, This Is The Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley, The Art of Fiction, John Gardner) I usually just want to write instead of reading about writing. Bret Anthony Johnston's "Naming the World" is very useful and always with me when I write.
4. I went to the gym last night and went to town on the cardio machines. 55 minutes I was a sweaty, gross mess. But I felt so good!!!
And finally...
5. Yesterday I wanted to kill off the main character in my novel. I mean kill him before he even hit the page kill him. I woke up yesterday thinking about the dream I had in which my main character, a 17 year old boy, was reading his opening chapter out loud....I shouldn't really call him the main character. I'm not writing a novel, novel. It a novel in stories. I guess. Anyway, as a character he can, at time, dominate. This time, he was trying to dominate me. What he wanted was for me to somehow turn all those pages I have into a first person narrative that was all about him, him, him.
My initial reaction was to tell him to fuck off. But now I can't get that idea out of my head. I have a writing date today, and because my writing dates are mostly about coffee, vegan cupcakes*, and gossip, I don't mind turning this one over to him I'll give him 1,000 words.
*I do not condone vegan treats on a regular basis, I like butter and eggs (perhaps too much). However, there happens to be a lovely cafe in Iowa City that is perfect for writing and they just so happen to cater to the non-dairy sorts.
Okay, one more.
6. I'm going to have a homemade latte to go along with my German breakfast (salami, cheese and crusty wheat bread) while I listen to the Milli Vanilli channel on Pandora and edit my Statement of Educational Philosophy.
1. I'm beginning to think this going to an MFA program and spending a significant time thinking about story structure, has ruined reading for me. Or maybe it's just that I am becoming a more discerning reader? My friend M. and I had this conversation in the parking lot of a corporate bookstore after we went to Red Lobster (In Iowa, this passes as seafood. And who am I kidding, cheddar bay biscuits rock). M said (I'm paraphrasing, she'll correct me if I'm wrong) that if a story is good enough, she doesn't think about craft issues. Happy All the Time is the last book I read that made me feel that way. I'm always thinking things like "Would Ethan say the POV was deep enough?" "Did the author take a real risk here? Or is this ending a bit of a cop out?"
These are the questions I ask myself when I edit and maybe I should train myself to stop applying them to the books I read. Or maybe I should just read better books. Maybe I should just finish my book...
2. I just finished an edit of a old story. Finally. I've been working on it for three weeks and while I am certain I still have more to do to it, I'm going to send it out into the world anyway.
3. I've been thinking about books on craft. Are they useful or not? I've found that every time I sit down to read one of the many I have (Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, This Is The Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley, The Art of Fiction, John Gardner) I usually just want to write instead of reading about writing. Bret Anthony Johnston's "Naming the World" is very useful and always with me when I write.
4. I went to the gym last night and went to town on the cardio machines. 55 minutes I was a sweaty, gross mess. But I felt so good!!!
And finally...
5. Yesterday I wanted to kill off the main character in my novel. I mean kill him before he even hit the page kill him. I woke up yesterday thinking about the dream I had in which my main character, a 17 year old boy, was reading his opening chapter out loud....I shouldn't really call him the main character. I'm not writing a novel, novel. It a novel in stories. I guess. Anyway, as a character he can, at time, dominate. This time, he was trying to dominate me. What he wanted was for me to somehow turn all those pages I have into a first person narrative that was all about him, him, him.
My initial reaction was to tell him to fuck off. But now I can't get that idea out of my head. I have a writing date today, and because my writing dates are mostly about coffee, vegan cupcakes*, and gossip, I don't mind turning this one over to him I'll give him 1,000 words.
*I do not condone vegan treats on a regular basis, I like butter and eggs (perhaps too much). However, there happens to be a lovely cafe in Iowa City that is perfect for writing and they just so happen to cater to the non-dairy sorts.
Okay, one more.
6. I'm going to have a homemade latte to go along with my German breakfast (salami, cheese and crusty wheat bread) while I listen to the Milli Vanilli channel on Pandora and edit my Statement of Educational Philosophy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)