Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Fictionalizing Real People
Here is an article in the Guardian that deals (somewhat) with the ethics of representing real people in fiction. This is particularly interesting for me right now because I currently am working on several things that are based on real people, one of which involves fictionalized scenes from the life of composer, John Cage. The author of the piece, Meg Rosoff, dismisses the subject with a "do what you want, but do it well" kind of position, but to that I would add that he who writes about real people also needs to be aware of the work's political ramifications. Whatever one chooses to say is fine, but to represent real people without giving any thought to how it makes them look, or what that representation says about them seems to me irresponsible. Praise them, burn them, put words into their mouths or take words out... anything goes, but do be aware of the work's relationship to the lives it represents.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
News Update
It's been a while since I posted any personal updates about what's going on with me writing-wise and otherwise. So here's a brief list of things:
1) I finished the first draft of The Man-Eaters of Tsavo today!!!! It is the novel I've been working on for the past four months or so. In it's current (rough) form, it weighs in at about 95,000 words, making it my first legitimate novel manuscript. Right now I'm going to put it aside for about two months, get it out of my head, then come back to it after that time and read it with fresh eyes for the revision. I'm not sure whether I want to work on it as a part of my graduate coursework or not. Still deciding whether a novel is something that should be workshoped. But anyway, that brings me to item number two...
2) In another month or so I'll be packing up my belongings and moving with Shannon to Colorado, where I will be studying fiction at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I've been meaning to post this last bit of news for quite some time, but the delay between when I found out about my acceptance there and when I finally heard from all of the other schools I applied to was so long it sort of lost its motivation. I'm really excited though. I was also offered a teaching assistantship, and just found out that the course I will be teaching is Intro to Creative Writing, which is a huge relief because before that I assumed it would be Freshman Comp or something like that. So yay!
3) I've got a couple of old stories I'm going to return to, revise, and then begin circulating in fiction competitions, so more news on that will be coming in the next few months. It's crazy how many ideas occur to you when you are bogged down by one single project. Since beginning work on MET I've probably had about ten solid story ideas occur to me, and it's taken real discipline not to put it aside and pursue some of these other ideas. My palate is clean though now, and I can start sifting through that backlog of ideas. One thing I'm planning on doing is returning to my first novel attempt, The Body and the Blood, and revising it back into a novella that I will then go on to self-publish and make available through a website I'm going to start designing soon. So lots and lots of stuff! Stay tuned for more details. I'll try to post stuff like this more regularly and not fall so far behind!
Best Wishes,
Nick
Friday, June 11, 2010
Narrative Pleasure = Right v. Wrong
In this Slate article Kathyrn Schultz interviews Ira Glass from This American Life about "wrongness", and how it sub-textually drives each of the stories they do on the show. In it, Ira discusses the collision of expectation versus reality as a narrative convention, and even as a creative discipline. At one point, he's talking about a story he did on The Onion's brainstorming sessions, in which it is not uncommon for them to come up with about 600 headlines, only 16 or 17 of which they actually end up using. That means that they are willing to be wrong 583 times in order to be right 17. He goes on:
"It kind of gives you hope. If you do creative work, there's a sense that inspiration is this fairy dust that gets dropped on you, when in fact you can just manufacture inspiration through sheer brute force. You can simply produce enough material that the thing will arrive that seems inspired. "
It's an interesting idea; one that I probably agree with about 90 percent, but then, the whole interview is interesting and, though it deprives you of Ira Glass's signature voice, I highly recommend that you check it out in full.
"It kind of gives you hope. If you do creative work, there's a sense that inspiration is this fairy dust that gets dropped on you, when in fact you can just manufacture inspiration through sheer brute force. You can simply produce enough material that the thing will arrive that seems inspired. "
It's an interesting idea; one that I probably agree with about 90 percent, but then, the whole interview is interesting and, though it deprives you of Ira Glass's signature voice, I highly recommend that you check it out in full.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The New Name
I've been thinking about renaming this blog "The Island of Misfit Stories," to acknowledge the fact that generally the stories I post here have been rejected by at least six legitimate publishers beforehand. I cannot post anything here that I hope to publish elsewhere because nearly all publishers want first rights to the work. So usually I end up circulating each of these guys for about five months before I give up, curse the literary establishment's lack of vision, then put the stories up here instead. That's how this blog began: as a way for me to imagine that somebody is actually reading my work.
Originally I named it "Error: You Are Being Redirected" on a whim, because when I try to come up with real--that is, appropriate--names for things, they usually end up being terrible, cheesy, and obvious. When titling works-in-progress, provisionally I assign them either stupidly obvious titles, or off-the-wall absurd ones. Although eventually, if the work means anything to me, I will want to give it a name that suits it. The title, after all, is the reader's first impression of a piece.
(*Side Note*: My poetry professor in college, Sandra Meek, used to have a thing against poems announcing themselves as 'Untitled'. It's like meeting someone for the first time and, instead of introducing yourself, grabbing them by the shoulders and shaking them... which maybe is a good thing sometimes. But even then, you wouldn't introduce yourself as 'Untitled' first, would you? Would you?!)
As I was thinking about the idea of naming, I remembered an old religious essay I once read back in my more pious days by George MacDonald, titled The New Name. It was from a collection of Unspoken Sermons, and I remember this one grabbing me because of its unique conception of Heaven, and what it means to abide with one's Creator. MacDonald argued (imagined is perhaps a better word) that the first thing that happens once one enters Heaven is that s/he is given a white stone with a new name on it, one that "no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it" (the sermon is based on a verse from Revelation; 2:17). This is not a name like any we've received before, like Nick or Error: You Are Being Redirected. This name would reflect who we are, interiorly and exteriorly. Presumably it would be more than just a word, in the same way that 'eternity' is more than just a long time, but I think the point, the powerful thing about the sermon, is the idea of having nothing withheld; no secret to keep or mystery to ponder. To me, it sounds like everything I long to experience in writing; that is, an embodiment of what I am and what I fail to understand about myself. My personal Truth, in a word.
I'm not sure what the linguistic implications of this idea are. It does seem to suggest that, at the metaphysical level, there is a 1:1 relationship between an object and its name, whereas at the non-metaphysical level, there is often a dynamic relationship between words and the objects they signify (see Edward Said); often the name a person or thing is given actually influences that person or thing's behavior.
But to return to the point...
A long time ago--back when I was still selling cable door to door--I was talking to this old woman on her doorstep. Having by that point determined that she would not be changing her cable provider that day, somehow we fell to discussing how I was a writer, and I even told her about this blog (please comment if, by some deranged miracle, this is you and you actually checked it out!). Anyway, I told her the blog's name and her response was, "Oh my, that's really clever! Because then your site will pop up whenever somebody searches for the wrong thing!" This had never occurred to me before, and of course, once I thought about it I realized it was a fallacy, unless somebody out there is actually searching for error messages. But the paradox (which, let me emphasize, was by no means intentional) struck me as oddly appropriate. If you are reading this, after all, it is because for some reason, whether you stumbled upon this blog or know me personally, you sought out the unsought. You are reading what nobody else seems to want to read, and believe me, the fact that you're reading it is appreciated.
The moral of this story:
Sometimes words that begin as bullshit can, in the end, prove meaningful. Compelling even. That is a profoundly positive idea for me.
Originally I named it "Error: You Are Being Redirected" on a whim, because when I try to come up with real--that is, appropriate--names for things, they usually end up being terrible, cheesy, and obvious. When titling works-in-progress, provisionally I assign them either stupidly obvious titles, or off-the-wall absurd ones. Although eventually, if the work means anything to me, I will want to give it a name that suits it. The title, after all, is the reader's first impression of a piece.
(*Side Note*: My poetry professor in college, Sandra Meek, used to have a thing against poems announcing themselves as 'Untitled'. It's like meeting someone for the first time and, instead of introducing yourself, grabbing them by the shoulders and shaking them... which maybe is a good thing sometimes. But even then, you wouldn't introduce yourself as 'Untitled' first, would you? Would you?!)
As I was thinking about the idea of naming, I remembered an old religious essay I once read back in my more pious days by George MacDonald, titled The New Name. It was from a collection of Unspoken Sermons, and I remember this one grabbing me because of its unique conception of Heaven, and what it means to abide with one's Creator. MacDonald argued (imagined is perhaps a better word) that the first thing that happens once one enters Heaven is that s/he is given a white stone with a new name on it, one that "no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it" (the sermon is based on a verse from Revelation; 2:17). This is not a name like any we've received before, like Nick or Error: You Are Being Redirected. This name would reflect who we are, interiorly and exteriorly. Presumably it would be more than just a word, in the same way that 'eternity' is more than just a long time, but I think the point, the powerful thing about the sermon, is the idea of having nothing withheld; no secret to keep or mystery to ponder. To me, it sounds like everything I long to experience in writing; that is, an embodiment of what I am and what I fail to understand about myself. My personal Truth, in a word.
I'm not sure what the linguistic implications of this idea are. It does seem to suggest that, at the metaphysical level, there is a 1:1 relationship between an object and its name, whereas at the non-metaphysical level, there is often a dynamic relationship between words and the objects they signify (see Edward Said); often the name a person or thing is given actually influences that person or thing's behavior.
But to return to the point...
A long time ago--back when I was still selling cable door to door--I was talking to this old woman on her doorstep. Having by that point determined that she would not be changing her cable provider that day, somehow we fell to discussing how I was a writer, and I even told her about this blog (please comment if, by some deranged miracle, this is you and you actually checked it out!). Anyway, I told her the blog's name and her response was, "Oh my, that's really clever! Because then your site will pop up whenever somebody searches for the wrong thing!" This had never occurred to me before, and of course, once I thought about it I realized it was a fallacy, unless somebody out there is actually searching for error messages. But the paradox (which, let me emphasize, was by no means intentional) struck me as oddly appropriate. If you are reading this, after all, it is because for some reason, whether you stumbled upon this blog or know me personally, you sought out the unsought. You are reading what nobody else seems to want to read, and believe me, the fact that you're reading it is appreciated.
The moral of this story:
Sometimes words that begin as bullshit can, in the end, prove meaningful. Compelling even. That is a profoundly positive idea for me.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Story: New Look
He started telling people weeks in advance what he was going to do. To those whom he’d known the longest, he mentioned it with the least affect, knowing, somehow, that they would be the least interested. “Really?” they would say with a false note of enthusiasm. And sensing that he was still waiting: “Why?”
The girls at work were his favorite. “What? Your hair? No way, you can’t!”
He smiled.
“Guys with long hair,” Marissa, the girl in the station adjoining his said, “They’re just… rare, you know?” She seemed to falter here, and he loved her for that. “It works on you,” she said in summation.
It had been two years since his last haircut. He’d started growing it during a period when he and his girlfriend, Nora, were split up, and when they started seeing each other again eleven months later, the mane he wore seemed to symbolize all the ways he had changed during their time apart. The ways he had matured and the habits he’d grown out of. Nora loved his new look—everyone did—and silly or not, somehow it managed to promise them a new beginning, one absent the flaws that had originally driven them apart. It occurred to him only some time later that during the entire time they’d been apart, he had not been with a single other person.
Three more of his coworkers stopped by after lunch to see if the rumor was true. Two tried to talk him out of it, and one just grasped his locks with a forlorn expression on her face before continuing on her path toward the coffee pot, which he could see had been refilled.
“I’m ready for a change,” he explained to the group gathered at the beverage station.
“You’ll keep the length though, right?” asked Shelly. “I mean, you won’t cut it all off.”
He shook his head. “The way I see it, if I’m going to have long hair, I’ll have long hair. If not—” He made a snipping motion with his fore and index fingers. Theresa, the office coordinator, stared unbelievingly at him for a moment before lifting her hand dismissively and walking away.
At 5:24 pm he drove home with the windows down. Sounds from the street filled his car; the decompression of a bus’s breaks, the static beat of a portable radio on the corner. In the morning time, these were things he struggled to overcome. Every sight and sound somehow seemed to conspire against his one wish, which was to get to work so that he could perform his job and be done with it. In the evening it was different. The hurriedness of the city did not feel like part of a sickness, but something for him to sink back in to. He could feel himself relax the more things outside seemed to whir, disseminated by the variety of forces acting upon his senses. The buzz of commerce, pulse of traffic, the homeward trek of all the other nine-to-fivers out there somewhere in the process of “winding down”.
Nora was waiting when he got home. She arrived home from work an hour before he did, though she left an hour earlier in the morning. She was finishing her first glass of wine when he entered.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, and continued to grin. He took off his jacket and laid his handbag (which she referred to as his “murse”) on one of the bar chairs. Under a pot of water he could see that the stove was lit, and on the counter a board of chopped parsley rested beside a box of pasta.
“What is it?” she persisted. He could tell by her demeanor that his silence was making her excited. In truth, he had only told the girls at work to get their reaction. He hadn’t actually been decided until just this moment.
“I’m going to cut my hair.”
“Off?”
“Off.”
He watched her eyes lift and scan the terrain above his forehead, along his shoulders. She would not know it, but it was for her that he was doing this. In the months they had been back together he had begun harboring an illicit sense of vanity, fueled, at least in part, by the attentions of the girls at work. They petted him and made comments, seemed only to be encouraged by his modest appeals. The flirtation had culminated at the company Christmas party while Nora was chatting with his manager, Theresa, and Joanne, his office crush, followed him into the bathroom, claiming to have gotten the girls’ and the guys’ mixed up. Nothing happened. At least, nothing substantial. But it was enough to make him reconsider the kind of relationship he wished to cultivate with the women at work—and with women in general, who were not Nora. The haircut was his solution.
“Are you sure?” she said, still scanning his features, and his expression dropped. “Not that I don’t think you’d still be beautiful,” she said, moving closer. She was holding him now. “It’s just, I don’t remember how you looked without it, is all.”
“I was attractive before I had long hair,” he assured her.
“Oh baby, I know. I remember.” She buried her face in his neck.
“And there have been others who can vouch for it.” This statement caused her to stop, and he waited to see what she would do. She pulled back and looked at him, a slight smirk on her face, which faded as she assessed whether or not to believe him. He wondered if she did believe him. She let go.
“Well, it’s your goddamn head,” she said, evidently not in the mood to humor him. “Do whatever you want to with it.” She moved toward the kitchen and he bowed, defeated, before offering to help with dinner.
***
It was important to him that she believe things about his sexual history that, in fact, were not true. She’d been his first, and barring a few adolescent occasions upon which he’d made it to second, and even third base, there really had been no others. He did not believe in the mysticism associated with one’s first, especially since the novelty was on his end alone. Nora had been with other guys, he knew, and that fact created some issues for him.
There was a part of her that always seemed withheld, mysterious; one which, oddly enough, gave her leverage on a range of issues from sexual positions to grocery supplies. Initially he’d responded with fear. He was jealous, needy, and in general, required a great deal more assurance as a lover than she felt able to offer. But that was before their separation, his maturation, and the confidence he’d gained with his new look.
He began to view the girls around him, particularly those who seemed interested, as a kind of dowry forgone. Deep down he believed somehow that Nora owed him a sexual experience with someone other than herself, for edification, for balance, and if nothing else, so that he might know how unique she was. He didn’t expect to find anything better, per se—the difficulties they experienced together sexually, he understood to be givens—but there was something incomplete, he thought, about an experience that could not be judged relatively.
Despite what sense of entitlement he felt though, he knew that it would never happen, and had decided it was for the best. He loved Nora, and was lucky to have her. He had been given a second chance after things appeared to have been over between them, and that kind of luck could not be measured against something as trite and abstract as sexual curiosity.
The following day at work, the processions of mourners continued to pay their respects. At one point, his coworker, Matthew, leaned over the boarded partition which separated their work stations. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said. “I always thought it made you look like kind of a pussy.” Matthew had tried growing his hair out the previous summer, but had given up by mid-July. He was easy to forgive.
On her way to lunch Joanne too stopped by to see him, and he felt instantly uneasy. She stood behind his chair rubbing his shoulders and lamenting his decision, insinuating the impact it would have on her daytime fantasies. He did not react, but accepted her behavior for what it was: dated. His mind was made up. What difference did it make now, how close they came to a line that would never be crossed? In 24 hours it wouldn’t matter; would be like a dream one forgets upon waking.
He spent his own lunch at his computer, surfing images of Edward Norton, Collin Ferrell, and Leonardo Dicaprio. Since most employees left the office during break, he did not feel bad using the printer for personal business. He printed five pages, each with three images on it, and stuffed them into a copy of GQ he’d stolen from the lobby. When it was time to leave for the day, he rose holding the mass of inspiration haplessly under his arm, hoping that his coworkers would notice and make one last attempt to dissuade him. But they did not. A rumor had begun circulating that their office was switching campaigns, from cable to office supplies, and the threat of having to learn yet another product line all but trumped his own concerns.
He sighed, and left the building feeling as though a light had gone out. Take a deep breath, he told himself. You’re not a child anymore.
***
When he came into the apartment he could hear Nora in the kitchen around the corner. She heard him too, and began to speak: “Baby, I’m really sorry.” He stepped into the room and saw that she was stooping before the refrigerator, placing something into one of the produce drawers. He wondered if she noticed that he was later than usual, then saw the empty bottle of wine looming on the counter like an hourglass. She was slow standing.
He imagined she wanted to talk about the other night, how she should have been more supportive. He would tell her that it was Ok, that it didn’t matter anymore because he had finally sanctified himself to their relationship. He now wore proudly the skull-cap of male responsibility and was ready to “grow up”, as she’d so often encouraged.
She turned, and her hand moved toward the sink faucet before she lifted her eyes. They were uncomprehending at first. Both of them felt suspended. In that moment everything seemed suddenly new: their apartment, him, her. Objects looked familiar, but absent of association. A near-lifetime of connections unmade in an instant. Anything was possible. They spent some moments in that freshness and he forgot all about what he’d hoped to accomplish. Forgot his intention, and did not know any longer what he expected of her. Finally though, the rapture lifted, his expression dropped, and he watched with horror while, softly, she began to cry.
The girls at work were his favorite. “What? Your hair? No way, you can’t!”
He smiled.
“Guys with long hair,” Marissa, the girl in the station adjoining his said, “They’re just… rare, you know?” She seemed to falter here, and he loved her for that. “It works on you,” she said in summation.
It had been two years since his last haircut. He’d started growing it during a period when he and his girlfriend, Nora, were split up, and when they started seeing each other again eleven months later, the mane he wore seemed to symbolize all the ways he had changed during their time apart. The ways he had matured and the habits he’d grown out of. Nora loved his new look—everyone did—and silly or not, somehow it managed to promise them a new beginning, one absent the flaws that had originally driven them apart. It occurred to him only some time later that during the entire time they’d been apart, he had not been with a single other person.
Three more of his coworkers stopped by after lunch to see if the rumor was true. Two tried to talk him out of it, and one just grasped his locks with a forlorn expression on her face before continuing on her path toward the coffee pot, which he could see had been refilled.
“I’m ready for a change,” he explained to the group gathered at the beverage station.
“You’ll keep the length though, right?” asked Shelly. “I mean, you won’t cut it all off.”
He shook his head. “The way I see it, if I’m going to have long hair, I’ll have long hair. If not—” He made a snipping motion with his fore and index fingers. Theresa, the office coordinator, stared unbelievingly at him for a moment before lifting her hand dismissively and walking away.
At 5:24 pm he drove home with the windows down. Sounds from the street filled his car; the decompression of a bus’s breaks, the static beat of a portable radio on the corner. In the morning time, these were things he struggled to overcome. Every sight and sound somehow seemed to conspire against his one wish, which was to get to work so that he could perform his job and be done with it. In the evening it was different. The hurriedness of the city did not feel like part of a sickness, but something for him to sink back in to. He could feel himself relax the more things outside seemed to whir, disseminated by the variety of forces acting upon his senses. The buzz of commerce, pulse of traffic, the homeward trek of all the other nine-to-fivers out there somewhere in the process of “winding down”.
Nora was waiting when he got home. She arrived home from work an hour before he did, though she left an hour earlier in the morning. She was finishing her first glass of wine when he entered.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, and continued to grin. He took off his jacket and laid his handbag (which she referred to as his “murse”) on one of the bar chairs. Under a pot of water he could see that the stove was lit, and on the counter a board of chopped parsley rested beside a box of pasta.
“What is it?” she persisted. He could tell by her demeanor that his silence was making her excited. In truth, he had only told the girls at work to get their reaction. He hadn’t actually been decided until just this moment.
“I’m going to cut my hair.”
“Off?”
“Off.”
He watched her eyes lift and scan the terrain above his forehead, along his shoulders. She would not know it, but it was for her that he was doing this. In the months they had been back together he had begun harboring an illicit sense of vanity, fueled, at least in part, by the attentions of the girls at work. They petted him and made comments, seemed only to be encouraged by his modest appeals. The flirtation had culminated at the company Christmas party while Nora was chatting with his manager, Theresa, and Joanne, his office crush, followed him into the bathroom, claiming to have gotten the girls’ and the guys’ mixed up. Nothing happened. At least, nothing substantial. But it was enough to make him reconsider the kind of relationship he wished to cultivate with the women at work—and with women in general, who were not Nora. The haircut was his solution.
“Are you sure?” she said, still scanning his features, and his expression dropped. “Not that I don’t think you’d still be beautiful,” she said, moving closer. She was holding him now. “It’s just, I don’t remember how you looked without it, is all.”
“I was attractive before I had long hair,” he assured her.
“Oh baby, I know. I remember.” She buried her face in his neck.
“And there have been others who can vouch for it.” This statement caused her to stop, and he waited to see what she would do. She pulled back and looked at him, a slight smirk on her face, which faded as she assessed whether or not to believe him. He wondered if she did believe him. She let go.
“Well, it’s your goddamn head,” she said, evidently not in the mood to humor him. “Do whatever you want to with it.” She moved toward the kitchen and he bowed, defeated, before offering to help with dinner.
***
It was important to him that she believe things about his sexual history that, in fact, were not true. She’d been his first, and barring a few adolescent occasions upon which he’d made it to second, and even third base, there really had been no others. He did not believe in the mysticism associated with one’s first, especially since the novelty was on his end alone. Nora had been with other guys, he knew, and that fact created some issues for him.
There was a part of her that always seemed withheld, mysterious; one which, oddly enough, gave her leverage on a range of issues from sexual positions to grocery supplies. Initially he’d responded with fear. He was jealous, needy, and in general, required a great deal more assurance as a lover than she felt able to offer. But that was before their separation, his maturation, and the confidence he’d gained with his new look.
He began to view the girls around him, particularly those who seemed interested, as a kind of dowry forgone. Deep down he believed somehow that Nora owed him a sexual experience with someone other than herself, for edification, for balance, and if nothing else, so that he might know how unique she was. He didn’t expect to find anything better, per se—the difficulties they experienced together sexually, he understood to be givens—but there was something incomplete, he thought, about an experience that could not be judged relatively.
Despite what sense of entitlement he felt though, he knew that it would never happen, and had decided it was for the best. He loved Nora, and was lucky to have her. He had been given a second chance after things appeared to have been over between them, and that kind of luck could not be measured against something as trite and abstract as sexual curiosity.
The following day at work, the processions of mourners continued to pay their respects. At one point, his coworker, Matthew, leaned over the boarded partition which separated their work stations. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said. “I always thought it made you look like kind of a pussy.” Matthew had tried growing his hair out the previous summer, but had given up by mid-July. He was easy to forgive.
On her way to lunch Joanne too stopped by to see him, and he felt instantly uneasy. She stood behind his chair rubbing his shoulders and lamenting his decision, insinuating the impact it would have on her daytime fantasies. He did not react, but accepted her behavior for what it was: dated. His mind was made up. What difference did it make now, how close they came to a line that would never be crossed? In 24 hours it wouldn’t matter; would be like a dream one forgets upon waking.
He spent his own lunch at his computer, surfing images of Edward Norton, Collin Ferrell, and Leonardo Dicaprio. Since most employees left the office during break, he did not feel bad using the printer for personal business. He printed five pages, each with three images on it, and stuffed them into a copy of GQ he’d stolen from the lobby. When it was time to leave for the day, he rose holding the mass of inspiration haplessly under his arm, hoping that his coworkers would notice and make one last attempt to dissuade him. But they did not. A rumor had begun circulating that their office was switching campaigns, from cable to office supplies, and the threat of having to learn yet another product line all but trumped his own concerns.
He sighed, and left the building feeling as though a light had gone out. Take a deep breath, he told himself. You’re not a child anymore.
***
When he came into the apartment he could hear Nora in the kitchen around the corner. She heard him too, and began to speak: “Baby, I’m really sorry.” He stepped into the room and saw that she was stooping before the refrigerator, placing something into one of the produce drawers. He wondered if she noticed that he was later than usual, then saw the empty bottle of wine looming on the counter like an hourglass. She was slow standing.
He imagined she wanted to talk about the other night, how she should have been more supportive. He would tell her that it was Ok, that it didn’t matter anymore because he had finally sanctified himself to their relationship. He now wore proudly the skull-cap of male responsibility and was ready to “grow up”, as she’d so often encouraged.
She turned, and her hand moved toward the sink faucet before she lifted her eyes. They were uncomprehending at first. Both of them felt suspended. In that moment everything seemed suddenly new: their apartment, him, her. Objects looked familiar, but absent of association. A near-lifetime of connections unmade in an instant. Anything was possible. They spent some moments in that freshness and he forgot all about what he’d hoped to accomplish. Forgot his intention, and did not know any longer what he expected of her. Finally though, the rapture lifted, his expression dropped, and he watched with horror while, softly, she began to cry.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
A Writer's Self-Perception
The fluctuations in my attitude towards my work have become something of a cliche to me. Some days I finish writing and am convinced that what I've written is genius (or at least that there is the seed of genius in it), while others, I think it is crap. Much of that occurs relative to other people's work, depending on what I am reading and how I perceive my own work in relation to it. I was just talking with a friend last night though, and mentioned how it's the stuff I haven't read that is most intimidating to me.
Nothing is more discouraging than to come across some friend-of-a-friend's profile on facebook, who's work I've never read, and to see tons of publication credentials right above a list of favorite authors I have never even heard of. It's in those moments that I feel I must lack some crucial element of what it means to be a contemporary writer, emphasis on contemporary. I worry then that my tastes are outdated, my sense of what's important is cliche. There is no greater fear for a writer (and perhaps for artists in general) than to think you are creating something new and significant and finding out that it's not, and it's not. I imagine other artists sneering around me and it makes me so sick and fed up that I put my nose down and decide to write exactly what I want to write just to spite them, which ultimately leads me back to one of those extremely positive/genius moods, and thus the cycle continues.
It is comforting to observe that such feelings of disappointment rarely come upon me when I am reading something that I actually enjoy. The better the work is, the more inspired it makes me, and the more it encourages and contributes to my own process. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Writing the kinds of books you yourself would like to read? Most moods of discouragment occur while I'm scratching my head over something I don't like, trying to figure out why, if I don't like it, it still is popular. All kinds of Unknowns start to press in around me, and I find myself repulsed by my own work without really understanding why. Maybe my not liking certain kinds of work means that I am behind the times, and maybe it means I'm ahead of them. As with all superficial considerations, the only thing to do is put your head down, accept that there's no way of knowing, keep writing, and see.
Nothing is more discouraging than to come across some friend-of-a-friend's profile on facebook, who's work I've never read, and to see tons of publication credentials right above a list of favorite authors I have never even heard of. It's in those moments that I feel I must lack some crucial element of what it means to be a contemporary writer, emphasis on contemporary. I worry then that my tastes are outdated, my sense of what's important is cliche. There is no greater fear for a writer (and perhaps for artists in general) than to think you are creating something new and significant and finding out that it's not, and it's not. I imagine other artists sneering around me and it makes me so sick and fed up that I put my nose down and decide to write exactly what I want to write just to spite them, which ultimately leads me back to one of those extremely positive/genius moods, and thus the cycle continues.
It is comforting to observe that such feelings of disappointment rarely come upon me when I am reading something that I actually enjoy. The better the work is, the more inspired it makes me, and the more it encourages and contributes to my own process. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Writing the kinds of books you yourself would like to read? Most moods of discouragment occur while I'm scratching my head over something I don't like, trying to figure out why, if I don't like it, it still is popular. All kinds of Unknowns start to press in around me, and I find myself repulsed by my own work without really understanding why. Maybe my not liking certain kinds of work means that I am behind the times, and maybe it means I'm ahead of them. As with all superficial considerations, the only thing to do is put your head down, accept that there's no way of knowing, keep writing, and see.
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