Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Dogs in Stories, More Yoga, and The Egg Timer
Okay, so there are actually a frikkin ton of books with dogs in them. But not Dylan Thomas' autobiography, Life of a Dog, which I haven't started reading yet. But I've been told by a reliable source there isn't a dog in the whole shebang.
I read Mikhail Bukalov's "Heart of a Dog", and found it totally inspiring. It's a fantastic satire and really helped me with my own work. But other things sort of propelled me forward.
1) I went to a group where I spent three minutes talking about what my flaws are. I'm fragmented. I mean I write in fragments. A woman in the group who is a journalist said journalists write the middle of the story before they write the beginning or the end. This made me feel a little better but still...lazy. Yep, that's me.
2) The egg timer. Which I bought for someone else but used last night. I only got 330 words out in 30 minutes. But I used it for 20 minutes this morning and wrote 1,330, not including the 330 words from last night. I wrote from the beginning. Fantastic.
3) I am a creature of routine when I need to get something done. So I've decided I will structure my writing. Let's see if I stick to it.
I plan to get up at 8 am Monday - Friday, write until 9h30, then get ready for yoga. Yoga means I'm not free again until 13h00, so after a quick lunch (I am trying to get healthy for my heart), I'll write in my blog about complete crap.
Like for instance, I watched Harold and Maude again the other night. It has always been one of my favorite movies. Maude is such a kick. A real character. You wish you had a grandmother like her, and her antics on film feel like stories you tell because you knew her personally or knew of her.
I've always considered one of my greatest assets as a writer that I'm observant. I notice everything. I listen to six conversations at once at a party. I know when a couple at a cafe are fighting and why. I notice faces and the color of someone's scarf. Details are important to making characters jump off the page and into the reader's heart.
I'm also a very visual writer. I give my characters and my settings a real visual aspect. I want you to know what their faces look like in various states, what they're wearing, what the tree behind them looks like. Paint a picture with words.
And, I'm a poet at heart. Maybe I don't write sonnets anymore, but I love poetic devices and use them in prose. My writing has emotion to it. I feel and dream along with the characters I've created.
So back to this whole having started from the beginning. My pup is coming to life and she's fantastic and she's got a fantastic little story going on and I'm awfully excited.
Btw, I did create a kick ass playlist on Deezer which sure helps a lot.
Read more >>
I read Mikhail Bukalov's "Heart of a Dog", and found it totally inspiring. It's a fantastic satire and really helped me with my own work. But other things sort of propelled me forward.
1) I went to a group where I spent three minutes talking about what my flaws are. I'm fragmented. I mean I write in fragments. A woman in the group who is a journalist said journalists write the middle of the story before they write the beginning or the end. This made me feel a little better but still...lazy. Yep, that's me.
2) The egg timer. Which I bought for someone else but used last night. I only got 330 words out in 30 minutes. But I used it for 20 minutes this morning and wrote 1,330, not including the 330 words from last night. I wrote from the beginning. Fantastic.
3) I am a creature of routine when I need to get something done. So I've decided I will structure my writing. Let's see if I stick to it.
I plan to get up at 8 am Monday - Friday, write until 9h30, then get ready for yoga. Yoga means I'm not free again until 13h00, so after a quick lunch (I am trying to get healthy for my heart), I'll write in my blog about complete crap.
Like for instance, I watched Harold and Maude again the other night. It has always been one of my favorite movies. Maude is such a kick. A real character. You wish you had a grandmother like her, and her antics on film feel like stories you tell because you knew her personally or knew of her.
I've always considered one of my greatest assets as a writer that I'm observant. I notice everything. I listen to six conversations at once at a party. I know when a couple at a cafe are fighting and why. I notice faces and the color of someone's scarf. Details are important to making characters jump off the page and into the reader's heart.
I'm also a very visual writer. I give my characters and my settings a real visual aspect. I want you to know what their faces look like in various states, what they're wearing, what the tree behind them looks like. Paint a picture with words.
And, I'm a poet at heart. Maybe I don't write sonnets anymore, but I love poetic devices and use them in prose. My writing has emotion to it. I feel and dream along with the characters I've created.
So back to this whole having started from the beginning. My pup is coming to life and she's fantastic and she's got a fantastic little story going on and I'm awfully excited.
Btw, I did create a kick ass playlist on Deezer which sure helps a lot.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Things I Want to Research
I did yoga yesterday for the first time in months. So after a night of odd dreams, I woke up in the head of my character.
My limbs are stiff, especially my thigh muscles in the back. They feel so tight and short that I walk a few inches shorter. I ease myself down on to the toilet seat and do my business. There isn't much left in me. This morning I drained myself for a good three minutes, all the while imagining my bladder was about the size of a red hot air balloon on the field of my torso slowly deflating until it became as flat as a puddle.
Muscles are like elastics when they're sore. I try to get up and my thighs snap me back down. I try again. I spread my legs wider for leverage and make it. I am moaning internally because the house is empty and there is no one to hear me.
There is actually a debate between doctors and scientists about how many muscles we have in our body. There are 650 to 885 muscles. The debate exists because there are three specific muscle groups: skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscles. Then they are categorized between voluntary and involuntary. Today I would classify my muscles even further since none are voluntary and therefore I feel today's addition of a category would be coaxable and non-coaxable muscles.
For instance take my hips. I got two joints in each hip for the price of one. You would think this "hypermobility" as it's called would be a good thing. But in order for my hips to open up, I've got to rotate them in a certain way. Sort of like winding a clock. I have to move my leg in a big circle and roll the hip out. What was ideal for horseback riding proves disastrous for yoga because I've got to keep the hip flat and then keep my leg stiff and all kinds of things all at once.
I've been reading a book, FUP, by Jim Dodge. It got me to thinking about farming in general. When I was little I had a garden. I grew cucumbers, peppers, green beans, tomatoes, watermelons, and yellow melons. I remember planting the rows, tending to the various vegetables. Watching how they all grew differently but not understanding why.
In my book the main character starts out as a farmer. He won't have much time to farm however. Truth is he's just a vehicle, a distraction. The main characters of my book are a woman and a dog. Truth be told, it's really about the dog who is based on my dog Suiza.
One of the unique things about Suiza is when you walk with her down the street. She walks before you, never beside you. She's always anxious to get to the place she wants to get to - but she waits for you. You lag behind and she waits for you to catch up. It's something not only I've always admire about her, but one of my friends who babysat her once also commented on.
Dogs are extremely sensitive to emotions. When I'm sad or out of sorts, it's always Suiza who knows. I think because I gave her so much affection as a pup, she has come to rely on it. She hugs me, cuddles next to me and is always protecting me.
It might seem odd to some people to dedicate a book, basically create a book to praise your dog, but I manage to pull it off, it will become clear why. I won't be the first nor the last - man's best friend has been written about time and again. So a new way. I must find a new way to write about this furry thing that came into my life full of joy and lessons and made me feel whole.
Read more >>
My limbs are stiff, especially my thigh muscles in the back. They feel so tight and short that I walk a few inches shorter. I ease myself down on to the toilet seat and do my business. There isn't much left in me. This morning I drained myself for a good three minutes, all the while imagining my bladder was about the size of a red hot air balloon on the field of my torso slowly deflating until it became as flat as a puddle.
Muscles are like elastics when they're sore. I try to get up and my thighs snap me back down. I try again. I spread my legs wider for leverage and make it. I am moaning internally because the house is empty and there is no one to hear me.
There is actually a debate between doctors and scientists about how many muscles we have in our body. There are 650 to 885 muscles. The debate exists because there are three specific muscle groups: skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscles. Then they are categorized between voluntary and involuntary. Today I would classify my muscles even further since none are voluntary and therefore I feel today's addition of a category would be coaxable and non-coaxable muscles.
For instance take my hips. I got two joints in each hip for the price of one. You would think this "hypermobility" as it's called would be a good thing. But in order for my hips to open up, I've got to rotate them in a certain way. Sort of like winding a clock. I have to move my leg in a big circle and roll the hip out. What was ideal for horseback riding proves disastrous for yoga because I've got to keep the hip flat and then keep my leg stiff and all kinds of things all at once.
I've been reading a book, FUP, by Jim Dodge. It got me to thinking about farming in general. When I was little I had a garden. I grew cucumbers, peppers, green beans, tomatoes, watermelons, and yellow melons. I remember planting the rows, tending to the various vegetables. Watching how they all grew differently but not understanding why.
In my book the main character starts out as a farmer. He won't have much time to farm however. Truth is he's just a vehicle, a distraction. The main characters of my book are a woman and a dog. Truth be told, it's really about the dog who is based on my dog Suiza.
One of the unique things about Suiza is when you walk with her down the street. She walks before you, never beside you. She's always anxious to get to the place she wants to get to - but she waits for you. You lag behind and she waits for you to catch up. It's something not only I've always admire about her, but one of my friends who babysat her once also commented on.
Dogs are extremely sensitive to emotions. When I'm sad or out of sorts, it's always Suiza who knows. I think because I gave her so much affection as a pup, she has come to rely on it. She hugs me, cuddles next to me and is always protecting me.
It might seem odd to some people to dedicate a book, basically create a book to praise your dog, but I manage to pull it off, it will become clear why. I won't be the first nor the last - man's best friend has been written about time and again. So a new way. I must find a new way to write about this furry thing that came into my life full of joy and lessons and made me feel whole.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Book List: Modern Library Writers Workshop by Stephen Koch
I've owned this book for months, I lend it and then someone else tells me that there is this index of books the writer, Stephen Koch, recommends. WTF? I didn't know that.
It's divided into categories, and a few are hard to find indeed, so I'd recommend looking here: Abe Books Online and then of course the usual list of suspects.
The Ancients:
The Poetics, Aristotle
I found a copy online, and he specifically recommends Chapters 5 through 14.
On the Sublime, Longinus
Craft and Confidence:
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande
The Traditional Modernist Texts:
Aspects of the Novel, EM Forester
The Craft of Fiction, Percy Lubbock
Writers of Writing:
The Paris Review Interviews
Letters to a Fiction Writer, Frederick Busch
On Becoming a Novelist, The Art of Fiction, and On Moral Fiction, John Gardner
Memoirs and Manuals of the Craft:
Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury
How to Write a Novel, John Braine
Narrative Design, Madison Smartt Bell
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith
On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft, Stephen King
One Writer's Beginnings, Eudora Welty
Publishers and Editors:
The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, Betsy Lerner
Notebooks:
A Writer's Notebook, W. Somerset Maugham
Of all the books on the list, the one I most highly recommend (mostly because I've read it) is A Writer's Notebook by Somerset Maugham.
Maugham claimed he never made a note he did not plan to use professionally. Other writers say they make notes but never consult their notebooks. This is completely dependent on what type of writer you are.
I for one keep several notebooks, I categorize them. I keep little markers for things I'm certain I'm going to use. I blog, I keep Google Docs - I basically make a massive amount of notes and I know other writers who do the same.
But a notebook for the book you are working on is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. You never know when the inspiration will strike you. I specifically carry a smaller sized Moleskin so that I can write when I'm on the metro without throwing my elbows into the weary traveller beside me.
So read, but not too much.
Write. It's the only way to be a writer. Write. Today. I'm starting write now...
It's divided into categories, and a few are hard to find indeed, so I'd recommend looking here: Abe Books Online and then of course the usual list of suspects.
The Ancients:
The Poetics, Aristotle
I found a copy online, and he specifically recommends Chapters 5 through 14.
On the Sublime, Longinus
Craft and Confidence:
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande
The Traditional Modernist Texts:
Aspects of the Novel, EM Forester
The Craft of Fiction, Percy Lubbock
Writers of Writing:
The Paris Review Interviews
Letters to a Fiction Writer, Frederick Busch
On Becoming a Novelist, The Art of Fiction, and On Moral Fiction, John Gardner
Memoirs and Manuals of the Craft:
Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury
How to Write a Novel, John Braine
Narrative Design, Madison Smartt Bell
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith
On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft, Stephen King
One Writer's Beginnings, Eudora Welty
Publishers and Editors:
The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, Betsy Lerner
Notebooks:
A Writer's Notebook, W. Somerset Maugham
Of all the books on the list, the one I most highly recommend (mostly because I've read it) is A Writer's Notebook by Somerset Maugham.
Maugham claimed he never made a note he did not plan to use professionally. Other writers say they make notes but never consult their notebooks. This is completely dependent on what type of writer you are.
I for one keep several notebooks, I categorize them. I keep little markers for things I'm certain I'm going to use. I blog, I keep Google Docs - I basically make a massive amount of notes and I know other writers who do the same.
But a notebook for the book you are working on is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. You never know when the inspiration will strike you. I specifically carry a smaller sized Moleskin so that I can write when I'm on the metro without throwing my elbows into the weary traveller beside me.
So read, but not too much.
Write. It's the only way to be a writer. Write. Today. I'm starting write now...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Guardian Book List
Why the Guardian gave so much weight to what Norweigans read in their book clubs, I have no idea. But it's The Guardian, so we should take it seriously.
I like to read lists people compile of books one should read. Mostly because I've read a lot and it makes me feel good about myself, like when a girl not as pretty or smart or funny or generally as awesome as you hits on your boyfriend right in front of you. As you can tell this happened recently, but I found this book list a few hours ago, so I suppose I should get over the thing with the bitch who hit on my boyfriend. As the great musical philsopher Lily Allen once said on her freshman LP effort, "you're not big, you're not clever"...anyways moving on.
Here is the entire list, with books I can't wait to get me mitts and me's eyeballs on.
Bold = Books I Want to Read
Italics = Books I have read and actually recommend
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays.
Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs
of Hadrian
I'm very much into book lists at the moment, so stayed tuned for more...
Read more >>
I like to read lists people compile of books one should read. Mostly because I've read a lot and it makes me feel good about myself, like when a girl not as pretty or smart or funny or generally as awesome as you hits on your boyfriend right in front of you. As you can tell this happened recently, but I found this book list a few hours ago, so I suppose I should get over the thing with the bitch who hit on my boyfriend. As the great musical philsopher Lily Allen once said on her freshman LP effort, "you're not big, you're not clever"...anyways moving on.
Here is the entire list, with books I can't wait to get me mitts and me's eyeballs on.
Bold = Books I Want to Read
Italics = Books I have read and actually recommend
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays.
Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs
of Hadrian
I'm very much into book lists at the moment, so stayed tuned for more...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Waitress, I'd like to Uh Duh!
They say there are only two important aspects to writing: 1) Read good books and 2) Practice.
I think that is good advice. But rather a bit light.
I'm constantly searching the web for advice from other writers. When this bores me, I look for famous couples where both participants were writers and find out how in 90% of the cases one or both writers went batshicrazy (head in oven, duels, and other acts of insanity). I assure you it's far more amusing.
So what do you do when you follow 1&2 with a religious regimine and yet, can't write? See, I'm not having this problem. I'm having a...how the hellbitch do you actually put everything together?
What should happen when?
Which day would you rather read a book about?
Tricia woke up at 7 next to a guy she picked up from an all night gin joint. She had a cup of coffee, leaving him in bed. She ran a load of laundry. She swept the hall. She then went out to the pharmacy for aspirin. She returned at ten and shook the stranger awake. He did not stir. After several moments she phoned the ambulance. She paced the corridors of the emergency wing of the hospital until she saw her best friend Gina arrive, obviously distraught over the heart attack of her husband.
Or...
Tricia returned at ten and shook the stranger awake. He did not stir. After several moments she phoned the ambulance. She paced the corridors of the emergency wing of the hospital until she saw her best friend Gina arrive, obviously distraught over the heart attack of her husband.
One starts with action.
The other starts with mundane shit.
I think I'm ready to work on my outline for my new book now...
Yay.
Read more >>
I think that is good advice. But rather a bit light.
I'm constantly searching the web for advice from other writers. When this bores me, I look for famous couples where both participants were writers and find out how in 90% of the cases one or both writers went batshicrazy (head in oven, duels, and other acts of insanity). I assure you it's far more amusing.
So what do you do when you follow 1&2 with a religious regimine and yet, can't write? See, I'm not having this problem. I'm having a...how the hellbitch do you actually put everything together?
What should happen when?
Which day would you rather read a book about?
Tricia woke up at 7 next to a guy she picked up from an all night gin joint. She had a cup of coffee, leaving him in bed. She ran a load of laundry. She swept the hall. She then went out to the pharmacy for aspirin. She returned at ten and shook the stranger awake. He did not stir. After several moments she phoned the ambulance. She paced the corridors of the emergency wing of the hospital until she saw her best friend Gina arrive, obviously distraught over the heart attack of her husband.
Or...
Tricia returned at ten and shook the stranger awake. He did not stir. After several moments she phoned the ambulance. She paced the corridors of the emergency wing of the hospital until she saw her best friend Gina arrive, obviously distraught over the heart attack of her husband.
One starts with action.
The other starts with mundane shit.
I think I'm ready to work on my outline for my new book now...
Yay.
Holy Crap, It's Been a Long Time
It's been a long time since I've blogged. Here is a recap...
In April I...
Sat around with a figurative thumb up my ass.
In May I...
Sat around with a figurative thumb up my ass.
In June I...
Drank a lot of champagne, and thought maybe I'd write a book.
In July I...
Met a boy...
In August I...
Decided the boy was worth getting to know better, especially since he isn't fazed by my being 21. Again. For the tenth time.
This is my long delayed absence explained. Deal with it.
Read more >>
In April I...
Sat around with a figurative thumb up my ass.
In May I...
Sat around with a figurative thumb up my ass.
In June I...
Drank a lot of champagne, and thought maybe I'd write a book.
In July I...
Met a boy...
In August I...
Decided the boy was worth getting to know better, especially since he isn't fazed by my being 21. Again. For the tenth time.
This is my long delayed absence explained. Deal with it.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Booker Prize announced in 5 Days, Tickets Still Available
As I am not a citizen of the great Commonwealth (ironically wealth not properly in the possession of actual commoners, thanks Thatch), so I will never be elligible for the Man Booker myself unless Hugh Grant, Clive Owen, or Mr Darcy agree to marry me (finally); but I thought I'd let you know the prize shall be announced shortly.
You can still buy tickets apparently and more importantly, for you UK writers who are in London, you can get the inside scoop thanks to the exhibit, 40 years of the Booker, being held at the V&A (also known as the only museum in London Madame Mimi can be found in).
I haven't read any of the books on this year's short list, in protest of their excluding Rushdie from the shortlist this year. Yes Salman, I was behind you 100% with guns blazing to win your second Booker (Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers and the Best of the Bookers for Midnight's Children). I'm a bit bitter that this hasn't happened. Any book with the word enchantress in the title deserved to go all the way.
You can still buy tickets apparently and more importantly, for you UK writers who are in London, you can get the inside scoop thanks to the exhibit, 40 years of the Booker, being held at the V&A (also known as the only museum in London Madame Mimi can be found in).
I haven't read any of the books on this year's short list, in protest of their excluding Rushdie from the shortlist this year. Yes Salman, I was behind you 100% with guns blazing to win your second Booker (Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers and the Best of the Bookers for Midnight's Children). I'm a bit bitter that this hasn't happened. Any book with the word enchantress in the title deserved to go all the way.
The sky is dark and grey with clouds who give no hope of rain. The brittle boned dead armies of the grass perish before a dusty dirt moat that surrounds a decrepit castle.
This is a castle that has been injured by time. The roof is open and exposed, caved in like a fractured skull. The spiral spine has broken steps and missing vertabrae. The eaves hangs about its face like an uneven beard framing a mouth whose front door is loose on the hinges.
Sitting on its sagging and distended tongue is a girl in a dress of white embrodiered with dark red flowers, perhaps peonies because peonies would suit her exotic looks, but they are most likely tight lipped roses. She is sitting showing plump thighs and well-shaped calves and ankles. Her knees are bent and flawless. She is cradling a child in her empty arms, gently patting its buttocks in the cup of her delicate porcelain hand as she hums from behind a veil of her jet black hair.
She thinks she is dead because she sees that the barley is still high, because the sheep are stenciling their hunger into the grassy hillside. She thinks she is dead because the baby birds over her head are sending their demands into the sky and their poor mother in her hurry has dropped all her shopping except for one lone earthworm who had suffered such a shock that he was as slack as a piece of string in her clutches.
She was one of the great prides of the Shin family. Like all the Shin women she was beautiful. She would, like her elder sisters and her mother add another parcel of lands to the great Shin farm by marrying well. She would bear many children; boys who would grow into mythic men and girls who would bloom into rose hipped goddesses.
She was still so young and yet, promise clung to her like dew. Already she would singlehandedly increase the size of the Shin family farm by double, enough to make the farm almost a kingdom of its own. Her main suitor was the only son of the hard-working Chung clan.
In a year they would have married, but Shin grew impatient with each meeting. She had desires beyond land and increasing fortunes. She was quite innocent. She did not know where her desires would lead her.
This is a castle that has been injured by time. The roof is open and exposed, caved in like a fractured skull. The spiral spine has broken steps and missing vertabrae. The eaves hangs about its face like an uneven beard framing a mouth whose front door is loose on the hinges.
Sitting on its sagging and distended tongue is a girl in a dress of white embrodiered with dark red flowers, perhaps peonies because peonies would suit her exotic looks, but they are most likely tight lipped roses. She is sitting showing plump thighs and well-shaped calves and ankles. Her knees are bent and flawless. She is cradling a child in her empty arms, gently patting its buttocks in the cup of her delicate porcelain hand as she hums from behind a veil of her jet black hair.
She thinks she is dead because she sees that the barley is still high, because the sheep are stenciling their hunger into the grassy hillside. She thinks she is dead because the baby birds over her head are sending their demands into the sky and their poor mother in her hurry has dropped all her shopping except for one lone earthworm who had suffered such a shock that he was as slack as a piece of string in her clutches.
She was one of the great prides of the Shin family. Like all the Shin women she was beautiful. She would, like her elder sisters and her mother add another parcel of lands to the great Shin farm by marrying well. She would bear many children; boys who would grow into mythic men and girls who would bloom into rose hipped goddesses.
She was still so young and yet, promise clung to her like dew. Already she would singlehandedly increase the size of the Shin family farm by double, enough to make the farm almost a kingdom of its own. Her main suitor was the only son of the hard-working Chung clan.
In a year they would have married, but Shin grew impatient with each meeting. She had desires beyond land and increasing fortunes. She was quite innocent. She did not know where her desires would lead her.
Taking a few pages from Henry Miller
I recently got my mitts on a book by Henry Miller with an appendix that originally appeared in an article entitled "Pour Une Bibliothèque Idéale".
I decided to compile my own list, in no particular order.
The Books that Have Influenced Me the Most
1. Miguel Angel Asturias, Mulatta and the Fly
2. Jean de la Fontaine, Fables et Contes
3. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
4. Edith Hamilton, Mythology
5. Jerzy Kosinski, Painted Bird
6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude
7. Yusunari Kawabata, A Thousand Cranes
8. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
9. Miguel de Unamuno, Mist
10. Isabel Allende, House of Spirits
11. Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
12. FUP, Jim Dodge
13. Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials Trilogy
14. JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit
15. C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia
16. Oscar Wilde, A Picture of Dorian Gray
17. Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
18. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
19. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night
20. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
21. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
22. George Orwell, Animal Farm
23. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
24. W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories
25. W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
26. Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
27. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
28. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
29. Alexandre Dumas Pere, Le Comte de Monte Cristo
30. Alexandre Dumas Fils, La Dame aux Camelias
31. Aesop's Fables
32. Jose Saragamo, Blindness
33. Margueritte Duras, La Douleur
34. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
35. Cervantes, Don Quixote
36. Lady Murasaki, Tale of the Genji
37. Stendhal, La Chartreuse de Parme
38. Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
39. George du Maurier, Trilby
40. Zola, La Ventre de Paris
41. Kate Chopin, The Awakening
42. Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
43. Anais Nin, Delta of Venus
44. Anais Nin, The Complete Diaries
45. Khaled Hosseni, The Kite Runner
46. Boccaccio, The Decameron
47. Homer, The Odessey
48. Plato, The Symposium
49. Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
50. The Perfumed Garden
51. Federico Garcia Llorca, Feder
52. Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Voyage au bout de la nuit
53. Ovid, Metamorphoses
54. Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
55. Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking
56. Albert Camus, La Peste
57. A Thousand and One Nights
58. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
59. Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach
60. Michael Bond, Paddington Bear
61. E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
62. Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
63. Thomas Malory, La Mort d'Arthur
There are many more, but I guess I'll stop there for now...
I decided to compile my own list, in no particular order.
The Books that Have Influenced Me the Most
1. Miguel Angel Asturias, Mulatta and the Fly
2. Jean de la Fontaine, Fables et Contes
3. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
4. Edith Hamilton, Mythology
5. Jerzy Kosinski, Painted Bird
6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude
7. Yusunari Kawabata, A Thousand Cranes
8. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
9. Miguel de Unamuno, Mist
10. Isabel Allende, House of Spirits
11. Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
12. FUP, Jim Dodge
13. Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials Trilogy
14. JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit
15. C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia
16. Oscar Wilde, A Picture of Dorian Gray
17. Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
18. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
19. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night
20. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
21. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
22. George Orwell, Animal Farm
23. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
24. W. Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories
25. W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
26. Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
27. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
28. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
29. Alexandre Dumas Pere, Le Comte de Monte Cristo
30. Alexandre Dumas Fils, La Dame aux Camelias
31. Aesop's Fables
32. Jose Saragamo, Blindness
33. Margueritte Duras, La Douleur
34. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
35. Cervantes, Don Quixote
36. Lady Murasaki, Tale of the Genji
37. Stendhal, La Chartreuse de Parme
38. Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
39. George du Maurier, Trilby
40. Zola, La Ventre de Paris
41. Kate Chopin, The Awakening
42. Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
43. Anais Nin, Delta of Venus
44. Anais Nin, The Complete Diaries
45. Khaled Hosseni, The Kite Runner
46. Boccaccio, The Decameron
47. Homer, The Odessey
48. Plato, The Symposium
49. Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
50. The Perfumed Garden
51. Federico Garcia Llorca, Feder
52. Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Voyage au bout de la nuit
53. Ovid, Metamorphoses
54. Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
55. Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking
56. Albert Camus, La Peste
57. A Thousand and One Nights
58. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
59. Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach
60. Michael Bond, Paddington Bear
61. E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
62. Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
63. Thomas Malory, La Mort d'Arthur
There are many more, but I guess I'll stop there for now...
The Inner Child Outs Exuberence
It always amazes me where used bookshops keep their children's books.
While Calvino and Joyce, Miller and Faulkner, or Rabelais and Proust get prime front of store spots; E.B. White, Jean de la Fontaine, and Roald Dahl get stuck at the dead end of narrow alleyways lined with tall bookshelves. A passage so cramped I began to understand how dental floss must feel.
Still, now that I'm embarking upon the great endeavor of writing a children's book, I wanted to scope out some of my lesser-known competition. What I didn't expect was that the journey would remind me of what I loved to read when I was a child.
When I was seven years old my father took me to Paris where my parents unofficially "lived" since they traveled so much for work. My first memories of the Eiffel Tower, The Arc Triomphe, or any other major tourist site are most easily recalled from the much later age of 9, when I was soooo grown up that my only interest in Paris was MTV and that I could buy Madonna cassettes to bring back to Africa with me.
Only one vivid memory has stayed with me all these years. My first trip to Shakespeare and Co. where I bounced on the bed much to George Whitman's delight, unaware that while I feared bedbugs they didn't really exist unless you let them bite you, you were safe - except they did exist and I was in my childish ignorance probably scaring them for once. After a good jump, my father bought me my very first English book, The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White.
Thanks to Madonna and a stint of schooling in the States, I eventually did read the book in its original language; but before I could read in English I stared at the very simply illustrated book cover and imagined what might be happening inside the book I couldn't read. In my mind the swan holding the trumpet under his snowy feathered wing played in smoky jazz joints and incited soldiers to charge forth towards victory - each time I glimpsed at the drawings inside I made up a story and upon seeing real swans refused to believe that they didn't all have a trumpet stashed away under their wings and that only stagefright (a condition I thought plagued all swans) kept them from honouring me with an impromptu concert, even when I gave up both of the ends of my baguette to encourage them.
To see this book again, now that I am older and have read some of those grown up books, gave me such a feeling of joy. It seemed in that childish place in my heart that book was still vibrating with its story. Despite all of my fanciful imaginings the story I didn't imagine brought back all the stories I had. I saw again what I described to my father as the special neck exercises the swans did in order to be able to play long notes; me mimicking the motion as I circled the desk in his study.
It might seem like a strange idea to take your child to a book store in Paris, but don't let the language barrier stop you. If the cramped alleyways seem troublesome, turn it into part of the adventure.
Your stay in Paris might be a week or two, but a good book is a journey that takes a lifetime.
While Calvino and Joyce, Miller and Faulkner, or Rabelais and Proust get prime front of store spots; E.B. White, Jean de la Fontaine, and Roald Dahl get stuck at the dead end of narrow alleyways lined with tall bookshelves. A passage so cramped I began to understand how dental floss must feel.
Still, now that I'm embarking upon the great endeavor of writing a children's book, I wanted to scope out some of my lesser-known competition. What I didn't expect was that the journey would remind me of what I loved to read when I was a child.
When I was seven years old my father took me to Paris where my parents unofficially "lived" since they traveled so much for work. My first memories of the Eiffel Tower, The Arc Triomphe, or any other major tourist site are most easily recalled from the much later age of 9, when I was soooo grown up that my only interest in Paris was MTV and that I could buy Madonna cassettes to bring back to Africa with me.
Only one vivid memory has stayed with me all these years. My first trip to Shakespeare and Co. where I bounced on the bed much to George Whitman's delight, unaware that while I feared bedbugs they didn't really exist unless you let them bite you, you were safe - except they did exist and I was in my childish ignorance probably scaring them for once. After a good jump, my father bought me my very first English book, The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White.
Thanks to Madonna and a stint of schooling in the States, I eventually did read the book in its original language; but before I could read in English I stared at the very simply illustrated book cover and imagined what might be happening inside the book I couldn't read. In my mind the swan holding the trumpet under his snowy feathered wing played in smoky jazz joints and incited soldiers to charge forth towards victory - each time I glimpsed at the drawings inside I made up a story and upon seeing real swans refused to believe that they didn't all have a trumpet stashed away under their wings and that only stagefright (a condition I thought plagued all swans) kept them from honouring me with an impromptu concert, even when I gave up both of the ends of my baguette to encourage them.
To see this book again, now that I am older and have read some of those grown up books, gave me such a feeling of joy. It seemed in that childish place in my heart that book was still vibrating with its story. Despite all of my fanciful imaginings the story I didn't imagine brought back all the stories I had. I saw again what I described to my father as the special neck exercises the swans did in order to be able to play long notes; me mimicking the motion as I circled the desk in his study.
It might seem like a strange idea to take your child to a book store in Paris, but don't let the language barrier stop you. If the cramped alleyways seem troublesome, turn it into part of the adventure.
Your stay in Paris might be a week or two, but a good book is a journey that takes a lifetime.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
ARGHHH
I'm focusing on other things right now. To be honest, the rise and fall of my crush with BFO has me down in the dumps. I'm an attractive girl. I'm interesting. I keep repeating this to myself like a mantra but it doesn't help explain why. I'm not even looking for Mr. Right. I'm not looking for Mr. Right now either.
I want a passionate relationship full of good sex and cosy nights with wine. Not in a romantic way. I want intensity. I thrive on it. The humdrum routine of boy meets girl, girl cooks dinner, boy comes home from work and talks incessantly about work isn't for me.
I know I could be that cookie cutter CEO's wife. But I don't want that. I don't want love either. I don't know what I want.
I think I need to go somewhere. Soon. But where? Obviously not Australia.
Read more >>
I want a passionate relationship full of good sex and cosy nights with wine. Not in a romantic way. I want intensity. I thrive on it. The humdrum routine of boy meets girl, girl cooks dinner, boy comes home from work and talks incessantly about work isn't for me.
I know I could be that cookie cutter CEO's wife. But I don't want that. I don't want love either. I don't know what I want.
I think I need to go somewhere. Soon. But where? Obviously not Australia.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Oh God
I was up until 5:30 in the morning, writing.
This wouldn't be a bad thing, I'm all for sacrificing sleep on the altar of the Muse, no matter when she demands it. Except that the boyfriend decided to wake me up at 9 am to ask me if I wanted to turn off the television and maybe take my cramped fetal position to the bed as I'd yet again fallen asleep on the sofa.
But staying up until the wee-er hours of the morning can do good things. I read the first seven pages of Isabelle Allende's "House of Spirits", saw Albert Finney do a remarkable portrayal of a grown, sexy, entirely fuckable man who acts for breathless moments so like a child throwing a temper tantrum that his performance made you feel perverted and dirty for having just a moment before wanted to screw his brains out, and perfected my Cher imitation after six continual plays of "Jesse James".
And then I listened to some of the things I said. I have some of my best sentences in my talking with others. Sometimes I think I should record myself full stop, all-the-time. I'm a fucking genius in the shadow of a tall lanky boy with an accent. I'm like a machine gun fully loaded with witty ammo, my throat a gold-plated chamber, and no bullet ever had it so good. I think about some of the shit I've said to get a man into my knickers and wish that my brilliance had come foresight included. After thought of the non-post-coital kind isn't as fun really.
But somewhere between the end of the Nuggets vs The Lakers playoff game (see yesterday's post for my full confession) and waking up on the sofa I realized two things: 1) That I should try to write with a few different voices to see what the result is and 2) That I might have inexcusably wrote my own version of Orwell's Animal Farm except instead of animals I've got a bunch of Orwellian vegetables on my hands and I'm wondering if my story has gone to pot of the green THC enhanced sort.
The more I think of it, the more I want to bitch slap Hunter S. Thompson for making me believe drugs were good for writers. Needless to say I'm doing some of my own loathing right here in Paris France you lying motherfucker.
Motherfucker is one of my favorite words. I'm glad I used it today because really, it's the little things that keeps me going. Motherfucker makes me want to watch Tarrantino movies. It makes me want to cut my hair into a pageboy, slick it down with pommade, and frame my face with fingercurls. Then, I'll lay down in a squeaky bed with a spring like a knife in the back in a little six room hotel in Monmartre, turn to my lover and in my zick French accent say, "I vould like a amburger, mon chéri, mon puce." We'd rush down to the street, me in a wifebeater under a black Chanel dress without bra or panties to find a place to devour blueberry pancakes and drink cafè au laits brought in cups big enough to boil socks in. We'd sit close and whisper, and it'd be all the more harder for me to scream in the instant he's hit by the delivery boy on his moped and instantly killed.
But then the scene will cut to a man in an dark alley. He's monstruous with a voice as big as God. His shoulders are so wide you're almost certain the brick walls of the alley are flexing to accomodate the bulk of his muscles. He's the kind of man a moped would prove invincible. It'd crush itself against the wall of his chest like a Coke can and its little wheels would roll around as if they had instead belonged to a tricycle. Cigarettes never got wet in the rain for him, oh no! And a few scenes later he'd be my lover and we'd be on foot in the maze of the Marais streets, my breasts unbound and bouncing - the delicate mousseline soie of my little black Chanel dress tattered and ripped up exposing a sweaty and quivering expanse of thigh. A few doors short of his grimy apartment, we'd find ourselves unable to stop ourselves, the smooth stone of the building facade rubbing up and down my back as we fuck with sensuous tango inspired movements.
Later on over bad instant coffee in his hell hole of a home he would find a soft spot in that hard muscular body for me and confess his secrets, but my reluctance to confess my own will weave a less fragile fabric of a story than my dress. I'll look down at the lip of the mayonaise jar I'm drinking espresso from, unable to meet his eyes. In the next scene I'll be in an all night bar on the rue des Martyrs pushing a guy's skull through a jukebox for trash talking my favorite Rosemary Clooney song. As the jukebox short circuits from the damage, I'll reach towards his mouth and grab the still lit Gaulois from his lips and smoke it without using my hands as I pay the check and walk out into the sunset.
All the while you'll be wondering what's my secret. Then you'll see me, entering a grand entrance of a bourgeois building. I stop to dig through my mailbox and pull out a pair of faded Levi's with the buttonfly that I shimmy into. Next a bra that unsnaps in the front to be worn under a crinkled Cure t-shirt from their tour for the album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. I'll brush my hair with thirty strong even strokes from root to tip until it's as slick as wet grass. You'll be with me every step of the five flight climb of stairs where I will open a heavy wooden door, reach down to caress a large excited to see me black dog, and stand up to kiss a handsome and rather thin man in a suit and tie lovingly and wish him a nice day.
Don't judge me yet motherfuckers! How do you know if in this particular piece of Tarrantino, that maybe perhaps during the process of getting through words to film that he didn't strike up an acquaintance with a volume of short stories by O'Henry and this isn't the twisted sort of ending you were expecting? See, motherfuckers! How do you know if the man I'm kissing after having had at least two men in me in one day isn't my brother?
Well, this has been fun. But Hunter S. Thompson, I still owe you a bitch slap.
This wouldn't be a bad thing, I'm all for sacrificing sleep on the altar of the Muse, no matter when she demands it. Except that the boyfriend decided to wake me up at 9 am to ask me if I wanted to turn off the television and maybe take my cramped fetal position to the bed as I'd yet again fallen asleep on the sofa.
But staying up until the wee-er hours of the morning can do good things. I read the first seven pages of Isabelle Allende's "House of Spirits", saw Albert Finney do a remarkable portrayal of a grown, sexy, entirely fuckable man who acts for breathless moments so like a child throwing a temper tantrum that his performance made you feel perverted and dirty for having just a moment before wanted to screw his brains out, and perfected my Cher imitation after six continual plays of "Jesse James".
And then I listened to some of the things I said. I have some of my best sentences in my talking with others. Sometimes I think I should record myself full stop, all-the-time. I'm a fucking genius in the shadow of a tall lanky boy with an accent. I'm like a machine gun fully loaded with witty ammo, my throat a gold-plated chamber, and no bullet ever had it so good. I think about some of the shit I've said to get a man into my knickers and wish that my brilliance had come foresight included. After thought of the non-post-coital kind isn't as fun really.
But somewhere between the end of the Nuggets vs The Lakers playoff game (see yesterday's post for my full confession) and waking up on the sofa I realized two things: 1) That I should try to write with a few different voices to see what the result is and 2) That I might have inexcusably wrote my own version of Orwell's Animal Farm except instead of animals I've got a bunch of Orwellian vegetables on my hands and I'm wondering if my story has gone to pot of the green THC enhanced sort.
The more I think of it, the more I want to bitch slap Hunter S. Thompson for making me believe drugs were good for writers. Needless to say I'm doing some of my own loathing right here in Paris France you lying motherfucker.
Motherfucker is one of my favorite words. I'm glad I used it today because really, it's the little things that keeps me going. Motherfucker makes me want to watch Tarrantino movies. It makes me want to cut my hair into a pageboy, slick it down with pommade, and frame my face with fingercurls. Then, I'll lay down in a squeaky bed with a spring like a knife in the back in a little six room hotel in Monmartre, turn to my lover and in my zick French accent say, "I vould like a amburger, mon chéri, mon puce." We'd rush down to the street, me in a wifebeater under a black Chanel dress without bra or panties to find a place to devour blueberry pancakes and drink cafè au laits brought in cups big enough to boil socks in. We'd sit close and whisper, and it'd be all the more harder for me to scream in the instant he's hit by the delivery boy on his moped and instantly killed.
But then the scene will cut to a man in an dark alley. He's monstruous with a voice as big as God. His shoulders are so wide you're almost certain the brick walls of the alley are flexing to accomodate the bulk of his muscles. He's the kind of man a moped would prove invincible. It'd crush itself against the wall of his chest like a Coke can and its little wheels would roll around as if they had instead belonged to a tricycle. Cigarettes never got wet in the rain for him, oh no! And a few scenes later he'd be my lover and we'd be on foot in the maze of the Marais streets, my breasts unbound and bouncing - the delicate mousseline soie of my little black Chanel dress tattered and ripped up exposing a sweaty and quivering expanse of thigh. A few doors short of his grimy apartment, we'd find ourselves unable to stop ourselves, the smooth stone of the building facade rubbing up and down my back as we fuck with sensuous tango inspired movements.
Later on over bad instant coffee in his hell hole of a home he would find a soft spot in that hard muscular body for me and confess his secrets, but my reluctance to confess my own will weave a less fragile fabric of a story than my dress. I'll look down at the lip of the mayonaise jar I'm drinking espresso from, unable to meet his eyes. In the next scene I'll be in an all night bar on the rue des Martyrs pushing a guy's skull through a jukebox for trash talking my favorite Rosemary Clooney song. As the jukebox short circuits from the damage, I'll reach towards his mouth and grab the still lit Gaulois from his lips and smoke it without using my hands as I pay the check and walk out into the sunset.
All the while you'll be wondering what's my secret. Then you'll see me, entering a grand entrance of a bourgeois building. I stop to dig through my mailbox and pull out a pair of faded Levi's with the buttonfly that I shimmy into. Next a bra that unsnaps in the front to be worn under a crinkled Cure t-shirt from their tour for the album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. I'll brush my hair with thirty strong even strokes from root to tip until it's as slick as wet grass. You'll be with me every step of the five flight climb of stairs where I will open a heavy wooden door, reach down to caress a large excited to see me black dog, and stand up to kiss a handsome and rather thin man in a suit and tie lovingly and wish him a nice day.
Don't judge me yet motherfuckers! How do you know if in this particular piece of Tarrantino, that maybe perhaps during the process of getting through words to film that he didn't strike up an acquaintance with a volume of short stories by O'Henry and this isn't the twisted sort of ending you were expecting? See, motherfuckers! How do you know if the man I'm kissing after having had at least two men in me in one day isn't my brother?
Well, this has been fun. But Hunter S. Thompson, I still owe you a bitch slap.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Anthony Burghess
Today I bought The Kingdom of the Wicked. I almost didn't because my only concept of Burghess is entirely from Kubrick's film based on his novel A Clockwork Orange. But I wanted to read something he had written as ACO is one of my favorite films. So I bought it.
I regret it already. The very first paragraph is the author talking to you. It feels preachy and insinuates you are too un-cool to get him. I'm hoping the novel will redeem itself later on.
But this goes to show how important beginnings are. If this book had been full retail price, I wouldn't have bought it. I would have opened it up and read that first paragraphy and perhaps never attempted a read of anything Burghess wrote. I know many people whose opinions I respect who insist he is a brilliant author. Still, I might never have known this if I had read that first paragraph before going to the till.
Beginnings prove to be everything.
So I've decided to start keeping track of books with good beginnings, to do a bit of personal research, and to see if I can cut the mustard with my own beginnings. Otherwise, my career as a writer might end before it ever umm, well you know.
Read more >>
I regret it already. The very first paragraph is the author talking to you. It feels preachy and insinuates you are too un-cool to get him. I'm hoping the novel will redeem itself later on.
But this goes to show how important beginnings are. If this book had been full retail price, I wouldn't have bought it. I would have opened it up and read that first paragraphy and perhaps never attempted a read of anything Burghess wrote. I know many people whose opinions I respect who insist he is a brilliant author. Still, I might never have known this if I had read that first paragraph before going to the till.
Beginnings prove to be everything.
So I've decided to start keeping track of books with good beginnings, to do a bit of personal research, and to see if I can cut the mustard with my own beginnings. Otherwise, my career as a writer might end before it ever umm, well you know.
Lebron James
Yes, as in the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA player Lebron James. I'm quite a fan of basketball.
So I'm watching the Cavs vs. The Wizards. Gibson throws back a ball at James, who leaps up as if he legs are actually flesh covered springs, palms the ball, and dunks it so powerfully, I think I heard the china shake in the cupboards. And this is hours AFTER the games has already aired, in another country.
Overrated someone dare call this exceptional version of a man, a man that proves by his existence alone that evolution is a continual process in the human race. James had a grace normally accredited to prima ballerinas, not 6 foot 9 inch, 250 pound, NBA basketball players. He is science. He manipulates physics and masters geometry by proving that there is not angle from which he cannot sink a ball into a basket.
But despite this impressive physique, he is still a boy. You see it in his eyes. He has an innocence and he is an everyman. So confident in his skill that he willingly gives away a shot that could easily be his, because he believes in teamwork.
Today, I created a character in my head and only I, and now any one who ever reads this will know that the source of my inspiration was Lebron James. Many would never believe that this champagne chugging, Chanel wearing, aspiring writer would ever watch a basketball game.
Well now you know one of my secrets. Sorry it's not a dirtier one.
Read more >>
So I'm watching the Cavs vs. The Wizards. Gibson throws back a ball at James, who leaps up as if he legs are actually flesh covered springs, palms the ball, and dunks it so powerfully, I think I heard the china shake in the cupboards. And this is hours AFTER the games has already aired, in another country.
Overrated someone dare call this exceptional version of a man, a man that proves by his existence alone that evolution is a continual process in the human race. James had a grace normally accredited to prima ballerinas, not 6 foot 9 inch, 250 pound, NBA basketball players. He is science. He manipulates physics and masters geometry by proving that there is not angle from which he cannot sink a ball into a basket.
But despite this impressive physique, he is still a boy. You see it in his eyes. He has an innocence and he is an everyman. So confident in his skill that he willingly gives away a shot that could easily be his, because he believes in teamwork.
Today, I created a character in my head and only I, and now any one who ever reads this will know that the source of my inspiration was Lebron James. Many would never believe that this champagne chugging, Chanel wearing, aspiring writer would ever watch a basketball game.
Well now you know one of my secrets. Sorry it's not a dirtier one.
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