Exceptional Excerpt to conclude 2011

I haven't posted an exceptional excerpt lately and so I figure it's time, particularly as the year comes to a close. With that in mind, my last blog post of 2011 will be this, from Brian Morton's novel "Breakable You" that I'm finishing tonight.


"We wish for a symmetry of feeling, but we rarely get it. It is painful to be the one who loves more, and painful to be the one who loves less."


These two sentences, when I read them, made me stop and reread them, and I folded down the page. This is what is great about Brian Morton's writing. Such a simple idea, something everyone knows, but he says it perfectly and without masking the idea in fancy terms. No, it's easy. Rarely does one find his or her match. Most of us walk around in one of Morton's two camps, either loving more or loving less and dealing with the pain of where one lands. Here's hoping that 2012 proves Morton wrong. My wish is for that symmetry of feeling. Being rare doesn't make it extinct.

Happy New Years to you all!!

1,221

So, I got a ton of writing done today particularly given the amount of time I spent writing. If I had been able to put in another two hours, I may have well hit 2,000 words today but even so, I'm pleased with my progress.

Today's word from my writing: reflective

Not sure why I chose that word to share but, there it is. Now, I'm taking a break to finish reading Brian Morton's "Breakable You" I'm so happy to round out my 2011 reading with such a wonderful novel and writer.

CHEERS to all!

291

So, in the last hour I wrote 291 words and they were GREAT words tonight. A word used in this snippet is "wildflowers" and I'm noting it here because really, when is it NOT a good time to point out wildflowers when you can?

Week One Short Story Selections

So, I've already said I'm starting my year with the Robert Olen Butler short story "Moving Day" but, here is the list for the rest of week one.

Day Two: "What Ernest Says" by Sue Miller
Day Three: "A Find" by Nadine Gordimer
Day Four: "Mortals" by Tobias Wolff
Day Five: "The Angel is my Watermark" by Henry Miller
Day Six: "The Golden Apple of Eternal Desire" by Milan Kundera
Day Seven: "Epstein" by Philip Roth

Just choosing the stories has been a challenge. Now, it's time to read and blog about them and I'm up for it.

103 words and a plan for the year ahead...

Yeah, it's not much but 103 words is better than no words and besides, I got a chance to use the word "olfactory" this morning. THAT alone is worth noting.

Aside from my writing, I'm getting ready to embark on a challenge for myself of reading a short story a day in 2012. First up, the Robert Olen Butler short story "Moving Day" which I believe was the author's first published piece of fiction. I'll have a review for it on January 1, 2012 and then, on January 2, 2012, there will be another short story review. I'm still making my list but I'm excited about the chance to really study the craft of the short story and to also broaden my reading horizons as I finish writing this latest novel.

Silent Nights

I haven't shared any music on my blog so far but I think it's time to change that, particularly in my current state of a certain quiet in my life.

Aldous Huxley hit the nail on the head when he said:


“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

So, to that end, I offer Marble Sounds' "Come Here"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEUrVuP4D_g&feature=related


As the song says, I'm in no hurry...you don't have to worry...come here...

profoundly flawed

Like the exceptional excerpts I've posted here from time to time, quotes will occasionally strike me as not only worthy of memory, but profound for the ability of a given phrase to completely capture an emotion or a fundamental truth about life or love or loss and to capture it in an image that one can't quite forget. I stumbled onto this one today and thought I'd put it in my blog so I wouldn't lose it. It's rather perfect and powerful in its simplicity even if flawed as I'll explain following the quote.


"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken --and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived."

--Margaret Mitchell

I read this and I picture a vase falling from a mantle and resting in pieces in the floor. It is very true that the best thing to do with that vase is to throw the pieces away and replace it with a new one, particularly when putting it back together with glue would not not only require too much work, but when it would leave the vase looking damaged or irreparably fragile.

But, what if the vase is an antique, part of a set of World War I china that your grandmother's first love brought back from the war? It was unique and beautiful and it held its own on the mantle among the other flashier and newer pieces. It can't be replaced. It can't be. Mending it is all one can do...that is, if the vase is this kind of vase, the kind you won't likely find again even if a duplicate exists out there in the world. So you pick up those pieces and you glue them back together. You do this so others can see the scarred beauty of the vase. That way, no one forgets it was there once upon a time on the mantle and that it was glorious.

433

So...my life got in the way for a few days but I'm up this morning and I've written 433 words. Today was mostly dialogue but it was important dialogue. Here's a snippet:

“All brawn and no brains. Well, some brains, enough to know when to get out of the rain at least. Neither of them were ever any good at carrying an umbrella if you know what I mean.”

“Enough with the metaphors.”

“Metaphors are easier. Try using a simile sometime. It’s like…”


Anyway...that is enough on this portion of my novel. It's coming along nicely now. I hope to add some more later today but with Christmas fast approaching, I'm not sure when I'll have the time. If I can squeeze in even 30 minutes it will be worth it and I need something to be worth it these days.

up and coming

It's official. I'm now in a book club. I've joined a writing group. I've already booked reservations and tickets for three different literary festivals this coming Spring. I'll get to mingle with Margaret Atwood, Pat Conroy, Stephen King, Geraldine Brooks, and Jamie Ford to name but a few.

I've started crafting my 2012 reading list based on these authors to ensure that I'm ready for the talk, whatever talk it is that I'll have a chance to have with them about their writing, their lives, and their plans for future works. Having corresponded and shared with several novelists now over the past year, there is no question that I am inspired by these interesting and different voices and as much as I love to read...THIS IS MY WRITING YEAR!


And...I'm still actively writing on my sixth novel. So, I'm up and coming myself...it's not just events for me these days. My inner life is turning the corner and now my voice is what I'm looking for. My voice is what I must find.

544

I didn't get to write yesterday but I did manage 544 words this evening and I plan on getting in some more in the morning to make up for lost writing time. Even so, the words tonight were solid words even if there isn't a word I can point to that needs special inclusion in this post. This was more of an overall 544 words good feeling than a feeling about any of the individual words and that's okay. I'm still writing. It's what I can do.

a new word

Interestingly, while writing tonight on my work in progress, I went to my trusty thesaurus in search of a nice synonym for the word "nonchalance" because it just didn't seem to fit my character. What I stumbled onto was this word:

insouciance


Yeah, I hadn't heard of this word either. Turns out, and it may seem obvious from the way the word is spelled, that this word is derived from French word "soucier" which means "to trouble or disturb" which means that the word insouciance basically means "not toubled by" ie...nonchalant

Now why nonchalance is the word most people are familiar with and not this word is a mystery to me and one I'm not willing to spend more time on than I have just now in researching this new word in the first place. Even so, I'm at least putting this note in my blog since it's always nice to add a new word to my vocabulary and to the possibilities of what I can do on the page by using it.

(thought I'm totally not using it in my novel...no way, it't nothing my character would dream of using in a sentence :) )

Taking Notice

It was one of those things to take note of, the choice to use the spare upstairs bathroom at my sister's house, a bathroom that is bare except for the soap dispenser on the white counter, the toilet paper on the roll and a book resting on the top of the tank of the toilet...no hand towels or rugs even, just the soap, the toilet paper, and this book so of course, I noticed the book. It was the only thing that didn't belong there.

And this book looked familiar. It was an anthology of American Literature and I could have sworn it was my book but I couldn't be sure so I opened it up and there, on the back inside cover was my name, my maiden name. That told me the book was one I'd had during my first two years of college and the beauty of this book was that in the margins of so many pages were my words too. Comments, questions, references to other parts of the same story or poem or to other poets or authors altogether. There were question marks, asterisks, underlined passages and passages I'd stricken through. And while I'd folded down several pages in the anthology, there was only one bookmark. That bookmark was a small rectangle of blue cardstock that I vividly remember using at an old video store I worked in during college. We made our own post-its if you will from this blue paper and for me, I'd made a bookmark of it. Again, this was out of place in this book with mostly folded pages so, like the book itself, I took notice.

The page that was marked was an Anne Sexton poem "For My Lover, Returning to his Wife" and while I do not have a recollection of the poem as a whole from reading it before, I quickly read through the poem and found the passage that I am certain resulted in my bookmarking this one page in the middle of a thousand pages. It is the final blow as I like to call it, the slamming of the door at the end of the poem that did it for me, that does it for me still:


I give you back your heart.
I give you permission --
for the fuse inside her, throbbing
angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her
and the burying of her wound --
for the burying of her small red wound alive --
for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,
for the mother's knee, for the stocking,
for the garter belt, for the call --
the curious call
when you will burrow in arms and breasts
and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair
and answer the call, the curious call.
She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.



So I read this last night and I've thought about it some more today, about why this poem would come back to me now. But I see it. I took notice. I am a watercolor. I. Wash. Off.

78

I got in 78 words so far this morning after waking up LATE after being up LATE...long night here but a lovely night. It's nice to feel a little bit of me returning. I'll glady exchange a small amount of happy for less words. At least for now.

word used: appetite

This is another of my favorite words to say and to watch someone say. The eyes can never let the mouth be the only one that enjoys the saying of it.

:)

the mighty albatross

Stranger things have happened I assure you but, tonight, as I drove my sister home from the airport to visit family, I swerved on a small bridge to avoid a disturbingly large bird. Now, in rural north Florida, one expects to be on the lookout for deer or possum or the occasional wolf or bobcat but a bird of this size?

No.

No.


It was a strange and foreboding sort of event but as I've said, stranger things have happened. But, I am convinced it was an albatross and because I associate the bird with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I'm so glad I didn't actually hit the bird. I have enough going on in my life right now. I don't need something else dragging me down.


Seriously though, this bird was HUGE.

*shudders*

a "small town"

There are many Southerners who claim to have been raised in "a small town" but until you've been born in Graceville, Florida and raised in Bonifay, Florida, they wouldn't understand my definition of "small" and wouldn't comprehend why it irks me to hear so many claim to know what it's like to actually live in that kind of a world.

Born: Graceville, Florida, 1977, population less than 2,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graceville,_Florida


Lived: Bonifay, Florida, through 2000, population 4,078

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonifay,_Florida



I lived it, 20 years of it and I came out on the other side and I'm proud of my rural roots for the life it gave me and the life it pushes me to lead now. It's because I come from "a small town" that I am the writer I am, the mother I am, the lawyer I am. It's because I see opportunity and I know what it's like to not have it or to think you don't h ave it. But I see it now and I can't look back because I know what waits for me if I do.

1,358 and more research

Yes, the number above is correct...I was up at 1 am writing so these words are going on today's word count ticker...it was an emotional rollercoaster of a writing session that also involved some quick research that turned into a fascinating flashback about a time when my character harvested pomegranates. I'm extremely proud of my words from this morning for both the words themselves and for my ability to push through my own issues and the moment of those issues to make my story shine.

word from this morning: noose


This story is only just getting started.

Marcel Proust...yeah...I'm going there...

So, this French novelist is well known, blah blah blah...but he is more than that. He is one of THE most quotable phenoms to emerge from French literature or I'd venture, from literature...period. Here is an example that hits close to home these days:

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."

If I take this quote to heart, which honestly is hard not to do when one considers not only how accurate his statement is but how perfectly he puts it, I find myself searching for some sentiment to counter it, to convince myself that maybe he got it wrong and later corrected his statement after living life or experiencing love. But no, this is what we get:

"We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full."


Basically, what Proust is saying is that not only is it okay to grieve, but it is better to grieve and suffer than to be happy in that it's a choice to a certain extent. Mind over body. Some choose the body, others choose the mind. I wonder what Proust would have to say about the act of the choosing.

still thinking on this...but thinking on this is shaping what I'm writing tonight...maybe now is the time to throw in a little French for good measure

552 with excerpt

This morning was a good morning with 552 words. I LOVE what I wrote this morning and what it means to the story as a whole, how it moves the story along. Instead of posting just a word from the piece, today, I'm posting an excerpt that I feel is a sort of miniature turning point in the story:

When I reach the hospital, I pull into the parking lot of a neighboring party supply store. I get out of my car and I’m just starting to walk when a gust of wind rips a bouquet of green and orange balloons from the handle across the front door. Children scatter and jump, grasping for the dangling ribbons but only one small boy is successful. I watch him for a moment and imagine myself into his life, into the sort of innocent wonder and unadulterated abandon that compelled him to leap and reach for a drifting balloon in the first place. He doesn’t know it yet, I think and wish there was someone to tell it to, but he won’t always catch the balloon. Sometimes the strings just aren’t long enough.

307

a word for the morning: divert

307 words today...at least I'm still writing...

222

This morning there were 222 words in me. That I was able to put them on the page is astonishing given my last few days and lack of sleep. But, it is done.

One of those words: intermingling


Tonight, there will be more words, I hope. I'm approaching 30,000 now on my current work in progress. As long as I'm still moving toward a finished novel on a daily basis, I'm keeping at it and I won't quit for fear of what that means moving forward.


As the great Vince Lombardi said, "Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."

581

I've gotten in 581 words this morning and I've been writing for an hour and a half straight. While I could write some more this morning, I think I may instead snuggle up with a cup of coffee and two novels that I'm currently reading and try to knock those out before my girls wake up. Today is gingerbread house making do so I have to be prepared for full on kid time when it gets here. :)

In any event, a word I used today is: tenacity

This also happens to be one of my favorite words of all time and I'm glad it found a place in my novel today.

984

I got up super early today because I had to write. There was no way I could have stayed in bed. So, I hopped out of bed, made a pot of coffee and sat down at my laptop. I wrote the first 350 words that first hour. Then, I took a break and washed a sink full of dishes and cleaned up a little in my living room. Then, I sat back down and wrote for another hour and got out another 175 words or so. Took another break when my 3 year old woke up and I made her some pancakes and turned on her Saturday morning cartoons while she waited for my 6 year old to wake up. After that, I sat back down and now, I've written another 400 words or so, brining my total for this morning to 984 words and I'm very proud of the ones I got in this morning.

My word for the day that I used is: murky

:)

You gotta love the adjectives you can use to describe water...sooooo many possibilities!

120

I got in 120 really good words this morning...really good ones, and I managed to use the word "chromatograph" which makes me feel AWESOME on this fine Friday morning. Yes, it being Friday helps too.

Tonight, I plan on adding hopefully another 1,000 words to catch up for what has been a slow week for me.

Happy writing all!

an ebook virgin

I did it. It was my first time. I downloaded an ebook today and it felt FANTASTIC!!!!

Now...hopefully the book will deliver the goods and not disappoint. The novel is called "Fall of the Birds" by Bradford Morrow and it's a short novel which is all that I'm willing to commit to for the time being, at least online anyway. This may be a very complicated relationship I'm entering into with the electronic world but I'm ready to take the plunge.

I'll post later to share whether this experience was indeed mind-blowing!

73

Well, I only got in 73 words this morning but, since I got in another 77, I'll pretend I wrote 150 words this morning. Tonight, I need to kick it in gear. Even so, I'm happy I wrote something.

Word used today: quiet

talk about a word with layers and layers of meaning that can't really be replaced by a better word

:(

179

I got in 179 words this morning. Among those words was the word "funnel cake." It's good that I got these words in this morning or else I'd have craved one of the very things I wrote about. Just another reason that my early morning writing regimen is paying off.

Writing to lose weight...now there is a diet I can live by.

Getting My Pulitzer On

I just ordered Jennifer Egan's 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "A Visit from the Goon Squad" and 2010 winner Paul Harding's short novel "Tinkers"

Hopefully, I'll get my copy of "A Visit from the Goon Squad" signed in February by the wonderful Ms. Egan. For now, it's reading time.

100 Notable Books of 2011

I'm glad to see that Charles Baxter's "Gryphon" made it onto the list this year. I have my copy ready to go for my 2012 reading. It's never too late to return to this author's writing and it's been since this summer since I last enjoyed his work.

The link is here for anyone interested to see who else hit the top 100

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2011.html?_r=1

a writing sample

This is from my current WIP...the aimless wandering of a lost soul...but things are about to get better for her, my character's name is Madge. Madge is about to turn a corner...I can feel it:



Where I go when I can’t go to him is a silent place, a place that controls my emotions in a noisy and unpredictable way but that moves my body quietly from one room to another in search of empty coffee mugs that might still have a trace of his taste on them. It’s something like gravity, the way his absence magnetizes everything around me. I’m drawn to the comb in the bathroom drawer that reminds me of the way he says he wore his hair in the seventh grade, slicked back with Murray’s pomade because his mama said it made him look like Rhett Butler. I’m pulled into the closet where his shoes are unlaced as always, and I have to touch the tongue because I can see his fingers there now fussing with the leather to ensure a proper fit. The sink where he shaved and where he stopped shaving because I asked him to. It smells of the Old Spice he preferred over the kiddie stuff and I’m sniffing and sniffling because my body can’t let it go. My south to his north. My presence. Here. Now. His absence, a force I can’t resist.

daily

Someone once told me that writing daily is the key to writing...and it's not one of things that you really have to be told in order to know it but even so, knowing it and doing it are two different things.

So, I'm committing myself to every day, to writing every day and to reading every day as well because I don't believe one will hurt the other. I am going to come to my blog and log the number of words and also my favorite word from among them. It will challenge me to make sure I keep my story interesting and fresh and whether it's 47 words or 470, they'll be good words because I'm holding myself accountable.

So, with that said, this morning I've put in 421 words. One word that was used was "marshall" and I realize that doesn't give away much about what the story is about but that's fine. Every story is made up of one word added to another word until you have sentences that combine with sentences to make paragraphs. And, for the sake of daily writing, I'm happy with the word because it is on the page now. I just need to keep adding more words until my story is complete.

Doctor's Orders

For anyone who knows me, they'd know of my fascination with Dr. Seuss aka Theo Lesieg aka Theodor Seuss Geisel

Today, with everything going on in my life and with everything not going on in my life, this quote rings true and is something I need to hold onto:

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

This will be a struggle for me on many levels but I'm trying and lucky for me, I'm not a quitter.

Poe's sonnets

So, Edgar Allen Poe is not known for his sonnets. He only ever wrote 5 of them. But, a discussion of the one he penned in either 1840 or 1845 titled "Silence" deserves a spot in my blog for sure. And it's a lovely sad piece from Poe which is perhaps expected. But in my opinion, this sonnet loses its steam in the last few lines but is totally worthy of note for these:

There are some qualities--some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence--sea and shore--
Body and Soul. One dwells in lonely places,



This passage is packed full of depth and darkness and it makes me want to sit outside in the fading daylight and stare into the deep blue ocean while listening to the wind at my back on the shore. It reminds me of a novel I finished recently aptly titled "Ocean Sea" where the Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco beatifully paints the same picture through fable-like narratives, all of them focused on the sheer life force that is...the sea.

Living near the water, this passage of Poe's struck me when I ran across it today. So I shared it here to bookmark it for my future musing.

The Jew of Malta

Last night, while doing some reading, I was reminded of the class I took in college on Renaissance drama, ie, the non-Shakespeare class. We read a combination of Chrisopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson plays and after thumbing through my books, I noticed that I'd heavily highlighted and asterisked several sections from Marlowe's
"The Jew of Malta"

Notably, at the beginning is the telling phrase "there is no sin but ignorance" with which Machiavel introduces the play's leading man, Barabus.

I guess this was the 16th century Marlowe-esque prequel to today's "ignorance is bliss"

I'm not sure why this is sticking with me but it is. Does this mean it is sinful to be happy? No, that can't be. I think if you combined these two ideas you could say that it is sinful or dangerous to be blindly happy to the exclusion of reality. Now what one's reality is? That's a different post altogether and I'm afraid Mr. Marlowe can't help with that.

how can I explain it???

Coincidence: a remarkable concurrence of events without explanation


This needs to be broken down a bit for me to properly address the situation.


Remarkable: striking, noteworthy

Concurrence: simultaneousness

Explanation: a statement or account that makes something clear

hmmmm...yeah, I'm scratching my head too and here's why

In the fourth novel I wrote...the main female character is named Stephanie Friedman...and the novel centers around whether she will make a fateful flight back to her small town in Florida for a funeral...it's a long story but bear with me.

So, I'm in the Denver airport this past Friday and I'm waiting in the line for security when over the loud speakers I hear:

"Stephanie Friedman, please report to your gate. Your flight is departing in 5 minutes. Stephanie Friedman. Please report to your gate at this time. Your flight will be departing shortly."

I was floored. It was her name, the exact name and it was the setting, the exact setting in which my character found herself and which serves as the crux of the novel. Coincidence? Absolutely...without explanation? Maybe not. I'm looking at this as a sign to step up my efforts to get that novel published. At the very least, I'll have a great story to share with my readers once it's all said and done.


For now, I'm still mulling it over, finding it hard to believe even if I can fashion a hopeful explanation.

lunch break reading

I picked up my copy of "Weegee Stories" today to do some lunchtime reading. In this collection of short shorts, Robert Olen Butler captures the spirit of a woman's inner yearning for life and the accompanying struggle perfectly. While there is a lot more going on than just this, I feel this is a valid point to be examined and for me to document for my own purposes in dealing with these same issues.

For readers interested in what I mean, take a peek at "Christine Matheson" The narrator says at the conclusion of the short short, "let me live in my body and just paint" and it's briliant. It makes me want to pick up a brush and start.

Then there's "Dorothy White" where the narrator is enraptured with strong feelings and says "I am inside my body and outside my body" and while I'm not sure I see this sentiment in the photo itself, the sentiment still resonates from the story. It's as if she is saying, it's okay for me to scream every once in a while. It's okay if that's what it takes to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged. She is saying "look at me" but what she wants us to see is that she is engaging in the scream. The sound and tone and pitch and length of it don't matter. What matters is that she's done it.

In "Mary Simmons" the narrator starts "make me a pallet on your floor" and goes on to express her desire for this man she's set her sights on and it's sensual and stated in a way that a woman understands, in a way she thinks. It, like "Christine Matheson" encapsulates a sort of desperation that is subtle and almost always there in the way a woman needs.

This is shown perhaps best in the short short "Louise Brecht" which is a companion to the "David Brecht" one. Read by itself, "Louise Brecht" is heartbreaking...with lines like "weary I drift, my eyes puffy from crying, and I try to make out the trees in the dark and he used to kiss me under those trees", the reader is drawn inside the aching spirit of the narrator and all because she is mourning over the loss of a kiss or of the man who would kiss her that way. But...read alongside the "David Brecht" short, the image takes on a much darker and deeper portrayal of the misunderstandings that make women fight for their own inner lives even more. His ends with "I wish to hell I knew what this was all about" while hers ends with "you come home and you don't give me a kiss, you don't even say a word" This is also one where the photo that accompanies the story is perfect and memorable and in my opinion, the best of the collection.

Weegee Stories can be purchased online at http://www.narrativemagazine.com/store/book/weegee-stories

quotably noted

I discovered this quote today from a Brian Morton book entitled "Breakable You" that I've just ordered off Amazon.

“What you are is a complicated girl with simple needs. You need your books and time to read, and you need a few friends and you need someone-not to take care of you, but to care for you. If you have all those things, you'll always be alright.”


This is just lovely and I thought it needed a place to live on my blog so, here it is.

up early

It's amazing to me how clearly I think in the mornings when I'm up early writing. Is it that my house is quiet or that I have a sense of the day ahead of me? That I don't feel like I'm running out of time? Or is it that morning is where my words live?

The name of my blog hints at that but until this morning, I didn't think about my words living in a space other than in my mind and spirit. Today though, I feel like my words live in the morning and here is what my morning has given me so far:


“Don’t do this,” I say even though I know that sparing him won’t change how he feels. He’s always been annoyed with me trying to dull the pain by talking it away. That what the drugs are for, he’d say. Don’t waste one of your words much less a sentence on it.



Yes, this is out of context but this paragraph is something I'm proud of in and of itself and also for what it means to my story as a whole. Now...back to getting those morning words in.

Updated Reading

As promised, here is where I've been and where I'm headed with my reading as the year comes to a close:

READ:


23. A Moveable Feast-Ernest Hemingway
24. Silk-Alessandro Baricco
25. Swallow-DM Thomas
26. Seize the Day-Saul Bellow
27. The Pleasure of My Company-Steve Martin
28. Eleven Minutes-Paolo Coelho
29. Alleys of Eden-Robert Olen Butler
30. The Deep Green Sea-Robert Olen Butler
31. The Folded Leaf-William Maxwell
32. Venus in Furs-Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch
33. Starting Out in the Evening-Brian Morton
34. On Distant Ground-Robert Olen Butler
35. Sun Dogs-Robert Olen Butler
36. A Window Across the River-Brian Morton
37. Ocean Sea-Alessandro Baricco
38. Edisto-Padgett Powell

READING:

158 Pound Marriage-John Irving


TO READ:

Soul Thief-Charles Baxter
Master and Margarita-Bulgakov
Nemesis-Philip Roth

Change

I haven't maintained this blog like I promised I would but it's Thanksgiving Day and I can't help but want to find a space to thank all of the writers who have inspired me and moved me to write, to read, and to live.


From March through October, that person was Robert Olen Butler. Everything he wrote and still writes makes me want to write better, makes me want to experience life more. But, things change and people change and for those reasons, we go in search of new writers or new feelings to replace the old ones and we hope we aren't disappointed because if we are, the old feelings won't fade. It's like how many of Butler's characters, particularly in the Vietnam novels, go from woman to woman, proud of themselves for being faithful for the time that they're faithful, cherishing every moment even if only for a few days or a few weeks. It's their commitment to an idea or a person, the fact that the commitment can even occur, that seems to enliven his characters. From David Fleming searching for his lost son in "On Distant Ground" to Ira Holloway embracing his own martyrdom in "They Whisper," the characters love but they love in their own ways until they can't handle it anymore.

It's that way with reading and maybe it's that I'm getting fickle now that I've turned 34. Or maybe it's that I am trying to allow myself the variation that others so freely engage in. With reading, it's no different. So, because it's Thanksgiving Day, I thank Robert Olen Butler for waking the reader in me and for giving me the courage to read someone else now. I will update my reading list soon to reflect where his fiction fit into my life.


But, right now, Brian Morton is that variation person for me. I'm reading "A Window Across the River" and I'm once again blown away by how sensitive he is to the artist's predicament of how to maintain human connections without letting those connections alter one's art. Can an artist be true to himself and love at the same time? How does love shape what that artist can know and how that artist can express what he knows?

Since reading his novel "Starting out in the Evening" in September, a phrase from the novel has stuck with me and I can't shake it. It's this and I paraphrase:

"Loving someone is not about giving her what she wants, it's about giving her the extras."

On this Thanksgiving day, I'm grateful for Mr. Morton's writing. It's the extra something I've been needing and I recommend it for anyone else in search of the same.

Worth the Read

Speaking of great writing...here's a review I posted recently on Goodreads..I thought it needed to be here too as the sentiment definitely warrants repeating.


"The Deep Green Sea" by Robert Olen Butler

This book was absolutely amazing. The alternating male/female narrative really puts the reader into this very complex and compelling "situation" in a way that makes the reader uncomfortable and excited and anxious and angry all at the same time. It is a difficult novel to put down once you get started and the sensuality of this novel as a whole is, in my opinion, unmatched by anything else out there today.

bad blogger

Yes, I admit it, I'm a terrible blogger. It's official. However, this post will serve as my attempt to get back into it. So, to start things off, I'm posting my updated reading list which concludes with a Robert Olen Butler novel that I finished reading in the wee hours of yesterday morning.

I'll post more later but for now, this reading list will have to do and if anything, it will appease my sister who continues to ask me to tell her what I've been reading.


6. Lying Together-DM Thomas
7. The Lover-Marguerite Duras
8. Indignation-Philip Roth
9. Fair Warning-Robert Olen Butler
10. The White Hotel-DM Thomas
11. The Deuce-Robert Olen Butler
12. Countrymen of Bones-Robert Olen Butler
13. Cold Spring Harbor-Richard Yates
14. The Matisse Stories-AS Byatt
15. A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain-Robert Olen Butler
16. Ararat- DM Thomas
17. First Light-Charles Baxter
18. The Fourth Hand-John Irving
19. Beach Music-Pat Conroy
20. Wabash-Robert Olen Butler
21. A Small Hotel-Robert Olen Butler

words in, words out

Well, I've been reading so, I thought I should post a list to keep track as I've not hit the end of month three for the year. Mostly, I'm curious to see how WHAT I'm reading will shape WHAT I write this year. So far, I'm certain there is a correlation. My reading this year is as follows:

1. The Humbling- Philip Roth
2. The Easter Parade- Richard Yates
3. Blood Kin- Ceridwen Dovey
4. The Moviegoer-Walker Percy
5. They Whisper-Robert Olen Butler

Next on my list is a D.M. Thomas book that I found at a local used bookstore. It's titled, "Lying Together" and the reason I bought the novel, aside from the $4 price tag, was that the author, according to the jacket of the book, has translated the poetry of several Russian poets, including Yevgeny Yevtushenko (my favorite Russian poet since college) and wrote a nonfiction piece on another interesting writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. For that reason, my next read will be from Cornish novelist DM Thomas. I'm excited to try something new before I head back to Roth and Butler again because yes, I will be going back to them very soon.

Then, it will be back to writing but I'm rather looking forward to my little reading sabbatical.

back in the saddle

new words

that's what I'm doing today, or rather, trying to do

so far, I like my beginning, but, it's figuring out where to go from there that has me sitting in my chair, listening to the coffee pot percolating and to the sounds of change clinking in the dryer instead of thinking of new words to WRITE

listening has its benefits though...just yesterday my daughter told me about a dream she had where it "rained leaves" in her words

that gave me an idea and that idea has almost become a paragraph now and who knows, it might evolve into a short or even a longer work

still, it's putting the thought onto the page that I'm working on and today it is proving more than difficult

THIS is the start and it's where I'm already stuck:

Silverware was what you left until the end, in case you had to eat take out in a hurry while the movers loaded your furniture. At least that’s what Liza’s mom always told her in each and every one of their moves. Twelve of them to be exact. The last one, from Fort Rucker to Eglin. Alabama to Florida but Air Force Bases in the Southeast were pretty much the same. The process is what made it monotonous. Paper trails with no ends.

A Year Remembered

I didn't read as much as I wanted to last year. But, to keep track of things, I compiled a list of novels I read during 2010 so I can compare with this year's progress.

1. The Time Traveller's Wife-Audrey Niffenegger
2. Streetcar Named Desire-Tennessee Williams
3. A Widow for One Year-John Irving
4. Revolutionary Road-Richard Yates
5. Black Boy-Richard Wright
6. Lolita-Vladmir Nabokov
7. Professor of Desire-Philip Roth
8. Portnoy's Complaint-Philip Roth
9. Water for Elephants-Sara Gruen
10. The Dying Animal-Philip Roth
11. The Feast of Love- Charles Baxter
12. The Human Stain-Philip Roth
13. Blind Assassin-Margaret Atwood
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany-John Irving
15. Ghost Writer-Philip Roth
16. Disgrace-JM Coetzee
17. Zuckerman Unbound- Philip Roth
18. American Pastoral - Philip Roth
19. Prague Orgy - Philip Roth
20. Short Second Life of Bree Tanner - Stephenie Meyer
21. Girl with a Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
22. The Anatomy Lesson - Philip Roth
23. Bridges of Madison County - Richard Waller
24. The Breast - Philip Roth
25. Deception - Philip Roth
26. The Girl Who Played with Fire - Steig Larsson
27. Shadowplay - Charles Baxter
28. A Theft- Saul Bellow
29. Marry Me - John Updike
30. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest- Stieg Larsson
31. Sabbath's Theater-Philip Roth


2011 Goal: 52 novels

I've read three so far this year so, I'm on my way!