Monthly Archives: July 2013

Aside

A Light Bulb Going Out: The Weird Way I Cured My Writer’s Block

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

On Friday, I had a bit of a meltdown. It had been a hectic week, I was jealous about the successes my writer friends were posting on their Facebook pages, and when someone honked at me for no reason on the ride home, it was the last small indignity to push me over the edge.

I had been sitting in the downstairs bathroom for about 10 minutes with the lights out, feeling sorry for myself, when my husband poked his head in the doorway and astutely said that this did not seem like normal behavior, and that he had deduced that probably something was bothering me.

Obviously there was more than one problem on my mind that evening, but one of the things that came out in my tearful rant in the bathroom was that I was in the worst stretch of writing my current story: unsure of the ending, doubtful of the characters, hearing the disdainful voice in my head that pops up to suggest I scrap the whole thing. I knew taking time to get productive writing done would make me feel better, but all my inner negativity made it harder than usual to get my butt in the chair and do it.

So I wrote in the bathroom while Andrew made dinner. Silence is good. Privacy is good. Even darkness was good that night (that’s right, I sat in my powder room for 25 minutes typing by the glow of the laptop only!). I realized that in the depths of my self-conscious stretch, what I needed in order to function creatively was to feel like no one would be able to tell if what I was writing was bad. Being in a quiet space where no one could ask me how it was going (or know not to ask by my expression) helped ease my nerves. In the dark, I could even, oddly, pretend the room was truly empty–that I wasn’t even there–and use that to confuse my inner critic into silence. I felt a little silly, but by dinnertime, I had almost 400 words written.

Tonight I’ll be back in my usual spot for writing, but I’m filing away the weird trick of literally shutting myself away and turning off any other distractions–even the lights.

Let me know if you try a dark writing session, or if you have other weird rituals that help you shake off a block!

What I’m…Publishing!

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

My schedule says you’re due a book review, and I’ve got a juicy one I’m excited to talk about, but we’re going to have to interrupt the posting schedule for some fun news. I’m proud to announce you can now check out “Doll Baby,” the first story from Room Full of Strangers, at Monologging, a “Local-Global Collaborative Magazine” founded by another writer in my graduating year.

“Doll Baby” tells the story of two sisters: Sarah, a nurse who has indefinitely postponed her independence to care for her ailing mother, and Amy, fragile but free, who brings a lifelike doll to dinner with disastrous results.

Jeff Barken and I worked closely together in the last year of the program, critiquing each other’s work, disagreeing on several aspects of writing and the writing process, but always engaged in the discussion and interested in hearing a different perspective. You’ll find information on his book at Monologging as well, along with stories and essays from writers in Baltimore or across oceans.

So go check out “Doll Baby,” the wonderfully eerie photo that illustrates it, and the rest of the mag!

The Art of Storytelling

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Art, Stories

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I’m a fan of museums as creative inspiration. I’ve been enchanted by statues in the Louvre, photography, and lavishly embellished pen cases, and I even spent the last summer session of grad school trying to find the voices of a room full of beautiful women at the Walter’s.

This year, I am spending some time wandering through the American Visionary Art Museum’s featured exhibition, The Art of Storytelling: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth. It’s like they knew I was coming.

As you walk up the stairs, you’re greeted by Beatrice Coron’s intricate cutout images. The tableaux look to me something like a Day of the Dead celebration reimagining Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Skeletal black-and-white figures work, eat, dance, and climb over branches or through tunnels, depending on whether the world holding them is a web, globe, or tree.

Picture from the Baltimore Sun review

Picture from the Baltimore Sun review

One of my favorite pieces is Mars Tokyo’s Theaters of the 13th Dimension: You walk around a podium, opening doors to see a tiny scene. It’s fun to write a prompt based on one that speaks particularly to you, or imagine a novel that could capture each moment in turn.

My other favorite art “story” is Debbie and Mike Schramer’s amazingly detailed fairy houses. As big as the Barbie Dream House I played with as a kid and oh-so-much cooler, the house is made of wood, glass, moss, dandelion fluff, flower heads, wire, lichens, stone, and other found things, coming together in a house that looks more like it grew than was built. This piece fascinated me especially because I felt the artists’ presence as characters in the story so strongly. Why had they built fairy houses? Who exactly were they hoping to invite? Was it his or her idea to include a music stand? An outdoor reading nook? Whose favorite books are those on the shelf?

Picture found at cauldroncraftminiatures.blogspot.com

Picture found at cauldroncraftminiatures.blogspot.com

The exhibit is open until September 1, so there’s plenty of time to catch it if you happen to find yourself in the Baltimore area. If you do, be sure to check in and let me know which pieces caught your imagination!

I’d also love to know: which museum exhibits (current or past) have inspired you?

Self-Publishing: The Problem of In-Between

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Books, Goals, Publishing, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

I’ve reached a stage I’m sure is common to many self-published authors: the decision of whether to invest in a second print run. I had a great first response to Room Full of Strangers. Between book sales and trades with the other writers I graduated with, my initial supply of 100 copies has dwindled to fewer than 20, which I am thrilled about. However, 20-odd is still a stack of copies, and I’ve reached out to the obvious circles of friends, co-workers, church family, and so on. I do have a few ideas up my sleeve to put my book out there, but the question, “Is it enough?” is a tough one to face.

Arguments for: shows greater faith in book, eliminates ‘limited copies’ as an excuse to avoid readings

Arguments against: it would cost about 3/4 of the money I made from book sales so far, I don’t have a concrete plan for how to sell an additional 100 copies

I haven’t made a decision yet, so I’ll put it out there: what would you do in my place? (Or, if you’ve published and marketed your work, what did you do?)

What I’m Reading: Mr. Palomar

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Books, Reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

An easy mistake readers and writers make is confounding serious literature with serious subject matter. Death, devastation, relationships torn apart–these are the meat of literature, right? A man overwhelmed by the selection in a cheese shop, or trying to figure out where to look when passing a woman tanning topless? Fluff.

Until, that is, you see how Italo Calvino does it. Mr. Palomar is a series of essays, stories, and meditations featuring the eponymous protagonist, a man with a deep internal life and a certain level of, shall we say, nervous intensity in his day-to-day habits. The book is divided into three sections, progressing from internal meditations to more narrative pieces featuring some interpersonal interaction and ending in a section that considers its subjects on a wider historical/metaphysical/sociological plane.

I thought all of the stories were lovely, although don’t expect even the narrative stories to stray too far from Mr. Palomar’s head. In any particular piece, Mr. Palomar doesn’t do all that much: he takes an evening swim, watches a gecko in his living room, runs an errand to the butcher. The beauty is in the way his interpretation of the grander meaning of an act or place transforms the ordinary, and in Calvino’s lightness.

When I say lightness, I do mean humor, but almost tangentially. The real “lightness” is more that Calvino has a way of saying things that may be profound or perfectly silly without working too hard to define how the reader should take it. It’s a “maybe this is so” approach–you’re not pressured into accepting its gravity, but you also don’t get the impression that nothing matters. Mr. Palomar approaches life with an open mind as far as that goes, ready to appreciate meaning anywhere. When he passes the topless woman over and over again, trying to determine which way is the most polite to look (staring at her may be intrusive, but perhaps not looking is an insult to feminism via a rejection of the worth of female physicality?), it’s hilarious. When he considers the other swimmers in the water, all of them reaching toward the reflection the setting sun casts and seeing it as directed at them alone, it’s more contemplative.

I’d love to try some of the techniques out for myself. My stories are typically dark, even when they’re funny in places, and I love dialogue as a way of moving a story forward. I’m trying to capture more lightness in the story I’m working on now, and to see potential to show beauty or meaning through characters’ thoughts and actions, or even the surrounding environment, rather than concentrating on dialogue.

My Ideal Bookshelf

08 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Books, Reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

I found a coffee-table book on my last library visit called My Ideal Bookshelf. The idea is simple: ask artists, chefs, writers, architects, designers, musicians, and other creative spirits to put together a small sample of the books that have had the greatest impact on their lives. There’s no strict limit on number of books–just keep the list short enough to let the books stand or stack together on a short shelf, perhaps half the length of your standard IKEA fixture. Each page spread features an illustration of the books and a brief explanation by the person in question of why he or she picked them. The result is lovely: a lively sort of dialogue begins to unfold, even though the people featured throughout the book may never have spoken to one another.

Some books appear on shelf after shelf; some are famous and many I’ve never heard of. One chef chose a book whose spine was ripped off entirely, with thicker lines of glue on the binding-cloth to show where the connection between book and cover used to be. The cookbook had belonged to her grandmother and was full of notes in the margins. Junot Diaz’s shelf balanced Lord of the Rings over books on torture and race relations. In many cases, it was easy to see how the books people chose had shaped their own work, but there are surprises as well.

Of course, as soon as you crack the spine you want a notepad to start a to-read list, and it’s a matter of pages before you start daydreaming your own bookshelf. A few of mine that would make the list:

  1. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. The beauty of the language thrilled me at 13, and as I’ve gotten older, Bradbury has still caught me with his enthusiasm for people, his disregard for genre pigeonholing, and of course the lyricism throughout his writing.
  2. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. People tend to love or hate this one. I love it for making an obsessive, consuming love into both the redeeming quality and downfall of two barely likeable people.
  3. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, by Deb Perleman. I started reading the blog at 19, before it was even about cooking. Over years, I began to understand the deep vein of creativity that lies in making food. Now, cooking, and especially baking, is a hobby and a way to work out my creative kinks. I also credit Smitten with introducing me to artichokes, but that’s another story for another time.
  4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. Reading this book is what led to me meeting my husband, but if that wasn’t enough, I’d list it here for its irrepressible playfulness and as a reminder that flying by the seat of your pants can lead to good writing and a lot of fun.
  5. The Little Prince, by Antoine Saint-Exupery. Because it’s true, and beautiful, and makes me cry no matter how many times I’ve read it.
  6. Childcraft, because this is the collection of poems my father read to me.
  7. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Latin magical realism in general has proven to me that magic does have a place in canonical ‘literature,’ something I had hoped but had a hard time believing.
  8. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories, by Flannery O’Connor. I wish I was her. I love the way the grotesque and the spiritual come together, and the way she saw her writing as a way of communicating her idea of God. She inspires me technically and reminds me to aspire to do more than entertain.
  9. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. Diaz doesn’t apologize or slow down his writing for anyone. It keeps his writing smarter, and also more intimate because of the way he assumes you know what he knows.
  10. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, because it feels like a gift.
  11. Of Mice and Men, by Steinbeck. Steinbeck is able to write short novels that don’t feel forced into economy of language. There is still description and beauty, but the story and characters are kept so tight and clean that a slim little book can tell what others couldn’t do in 400 pages.

The beauty of an “ideal bookshelf” is that it can change over time. I’d love to hear what’s on your shelf right now, or what I should consider adding to mine.

Room Full of Strangers, or Fresh Beginnings

01 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

This past semester was a game-changer. At the beginning of this year, I “finished” assembling a manuscript of seven stories to submit as my graduate thesis and my first self-published book. Over the next few months, I worked with a brilliant editorial group of other authors-to-be, critiquing each other’s stories, offering design suggestions, and pouring more than one glass of wine to get through the stress of the most demanding four months of our academic career.

I cut one piece from my collection, changed endings and beginnings, and pushed even deeper into the heads and hearts of my characters than I had realized I could. For design, I took inspiration walking around the city that has become so much more familiar to me in the past 4 years, and a serendipitous moment of light and shadow striking rowhouses on St. Paul Street became a cover and a home for six short stories about choices and relationships, the moments we feel suspended in a bewildering space where we are strangers even to ourselves.

My book, Room Full of Strangers, has been out for two months to the day, and I am down to the last 20 copies from the first print run!

To celebrate the jump from MFA student to grad and the publication of my first book, I am relaunching this blog, with a few fun changes: I’ve freshened up the design and added a page where you can take a look at (and order) Room Full of Strangers. I’m also excited to announce a new weekly posting schedule:

Mondays: Writing life and the creative process. A mix of nuts and bolts, updates on what I’m writing and how it’s going, and more abstract or big-picture thoughts on how to incorporate an active creative life into the everyday.

2nd and 4th Fridays of the month: What I’m Reading returns with books that will make you think and (hopefully) jump-start your creativity.

A final note: Publishing a book and then trying to rustle up a blog audience is the opposite way to go about things, so my very first step on this relaunch is wrong! (Incidentally, there’s a fun article about writers and failure here–if I’m failing, I’m in good company). So let’s not think of this as a blatant plug for my shiny new book. My ultimate dream for this website would be to make this a fun hang-out spot for writers and any other creative types to talk shop, read good books, and get good work done. I hope this becomes as much your space as mine.