The time when I rave maniacally about the LIBRARY BOOK SALE!
We just got home. I loved the new Friday preview night. I now have the Harry Potter books in hardcover now...as well as 10 more books I couldn't live without...and I am only $25 poorer.
Highlight:
FINALLY found The Time Traveler's Wife, as had sadly lent out my own copy, never to be seen again...
Lowlight:
Still no Geek Love to be found...just gave in and ordered it from Amazon.
Poetry section really sucked this time, but oh well. I'm ready for wine and dramatic readings from my finds.
Oh, and it's page 234, to you.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
214
Is the lucky number of today. 214. More than twice the length of my master's thesis. Which took 3 years to write. This has taken 3 weeks. What is up with the universe?
This whole process is causing me to have to eat a lot of my words. I have always been seriously against the notion that stories come from some other universe that the writer somehow taps into and "channels" the characters onto the page. The whole, "Sorry Hannibal is so gross, but that's just what he did and I had to write it," school of thought. Are you a writer or are you some sort of clairvoyant?! I used to say.
Uh, some sort of clairvoyant it is.
This weekend, as I approached 200 pages, I got overexcited and forced a scene that wasn't totally together. I kind of knew it, and then I read a really interesting article about love stories, and how once the main characters are finally together, writers tend to lose their minds briefly, and everyone falls out of character and does insane stuff, or suddenly the writer forgets that sitting around thinking about feelings is not the same as having a plot.
So I thought about it, and I knew there was something not so excellent about this scene and I got up in the morning and rewrote it. And it still wasn't right. There were things I had liked about the original version and I was trying to preserve them which just wasn't going to happen. Kill your darlings, indeed. So on the third try it came out well, and took the story in a direction that I had hoped for but had not yet figure out how to do...so that was nice and put me back on track. I'm messing with some epistolary stuff now...
This is the most fun I've had in years.
In other news, I talked to my friend Jennifer this weekend and she reported that she is reading Wonderful Tonight, the Patty Boyd story. I asked her if I could borrow it when she was done, as I am a huge Beatles fan and very interested in some of her story and lots of her photography.
But the whole point of this story is that Jennifer always likes to tell me that she has read one book in her life and that it was Helter Skelter. Causing me to make lots of jokes about how once you've read Helter Skelter, you've read everything. Everything else is just a rehash. So it's kind of great that she's lending me a book. Even though I'm not reading right now, which is still really weird to me.
Furthermore, when I came home from walking tonight, stinky and dripping with sweat, I opened the door and smelled fire. I started to yell for Thomas, until I noticed that the fire in question was candles and that the dining room table was set with a tablecloth and flowers and wine and that Thomas had made me a lovely romantic dinner of lobster bisque, salad, steak, zucchini and shrimp. With strawberries for dessert. And everything matched and he used all our lovely dishes. And the flowers--they were bright red spider gerbers, and I couldn't have picked a better vase for them myself.
So all is well. And that is all until my next page update. :)
This whole process is causing me to have to eat a lot of my words. I have always been seriously against the notion that stories come from some other universe that the writer somehow taps into and "channels" the characters onto the page. The whole, "Sorry Hannibal is so gross, but that's just what he did and I had to write it," school of thought. Are you a writer or are you some sort of clairvoyant?! I used to say.
Uh, some sort of clairvoyant it is.
This weekend, as I approached 200 pages, I got overexcited and forced a scene that wasn't totally together. I kind of knew it, and then I read a really interesting article about love stories, and how once the main characters are finally together, writers tend to lose their minds briefly, and everyone falls out of character and does insane stuff, or suddenly the writer forgets that sitting around thinking about feelings is not the same as having a plot.
So I thought about it, and I knew there was something not so excellent about this scene and I got up in the morning and rewrote it. And it still wasn't right. There were things I had liked about the original version and I was trying to preserve them which just wasn't going to happen. Kill your darlings, indeed. So on the third try it came out well, and took the story in a direction that I had hoped for but had not yet figure out how to do...so that was nice and put me back on track. I'm messing with some epistolary stuff now...
This is the most fun I've had in years.
In other news, I talked to my friend Jennifer this weekend and she reported that she is reading Wonderful Tonight, the Patty Boyd story. I asked her if I could borrow it when she was done, as I am a huge Beatles fan and very interested in some of her story and lots of her photography.
But the whole point of this story is that Jennifer always likes to tell me that she has read one book in her life and that it was Helter Skelter. Causing me to make lots of jokes about how once you've read Helter Skelter, you've read everything. Everything else is just a rehash. So it's kind of great that she's lending me a book. Even though I'm not reading right now, which is still really weird to me.
Furthermore, when I came home from walking tonight, stinky and dripping with sweat, I opened the door and smelled fire. I started to yell for Thomas, until I noticed that the fire in question was candles and that the dining room table was set with a tablecloth and flowers and wine and that Thomas had made me a lovely romantic dinner of lobster bisque, salad, steak, zucchini and shrimp. With strawberries for dessert. And everything matched and he used all our lovely dishes. And the flowers--they were bright red spider gerbers, and I couldn't have picked a better vase for them myself.
So all is well. And that is all until my next page update. :)
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Hello
I'm on page 160. This thing is now almost twice as long as my thesis.
Because I'm off writing (wheee!) please accept this strange video of a dude eating salt, and also accept that I know this person and he works for Thomas. And also that that is really salt, not sugar in the salt container.
Because I'm off writing (wheee!) please accept this strange video of a dude eating salt, and also accept that I know this person and he works for Thomas. And also that that is really salt, not sugar in the salt container.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
When You Really Mean It
This is a hilarious snippet from my sitemeter:
Apparently, someone found this blog by searching for "toilet "broke the toilet" toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet"
Because, you know, maybe typing the word over and over again will make the search engine work faster.
Apparently, someone found this blog by searching for "toilet "broke the toilet" toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet"
Because, you know, maybe typing the word over and over again will make the search engine work faster.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Glory
Still totally loving Heroes....what an awesome show. Really excellent storytelling and pace. It's everything I hoped Lost would be but isn't--actually answering a few of the questions that it raises.
In other news, for the first time in years, I'm not reading anything. There's a big stack of books beside my bed, but I haven't cracked a spine in two weeks. But this is the thing: I'm writing. You all!!! I'm writing!!! Which means I can fill my blog with exclamation points!!!
I'm almost 100% sure it's a novel, and those of you who know me know that I thought that was impossible for me. I'm blazing through 10 pages a day, on average, and I haven't taken a day off yet. Lately, I find it hard not to talk about it. In line at the grocery store, I want to tell the cashier lady, "No, I don't have an MVP card, but did you know I'm writing a novel?"
I was talking to Awesome Lauren (she's been promoted from Good Lauren) about this the other day, and she made me realize that this probably happened because I'm so damned sick of thinking and writing about myself. I bored myself into writing about other people. Perhaps I'll try to be more boring all the time.
The thing about all this is, what I'm doing is not particularly publishable, even though I think it's good. It's very derivative among other things. But I kind of just don't care. I feel like what I'm doing is teaching myself how to write a novel and loving the hell out of it. And let me tell you: there are days at school when I'm very happy to have my lower-brain busy composing, while my upper brain says, "Shhhhhhhh. Get back in your seat. Shhhhhhhhhh. Get back in your seat," like 300 times. Which is what happens when your class is predominantly made of 6 year olds.
Last week a 5 year old gave me the finger. I'm not kidding. Thomas asked me if I gave it back to him. It almost would have been worth it, just to see the look on the kid's face.
In other news, for the first time in years, I'm not reading anything. There's a big stack of books beside my bed, but I haven't cracked a spine in two weeks. But this is the thing: I'm writing. You all!!! I'm writing!!! Which means I can fill my blog with exclamation points!!!
I'm almost 100% sure it's a novel, and those of you who know me know that I thought that was impossible for me. I'm blazing through 10 pages a day, on average, and I haven't taken a day off yet. Lately, I find it hard not to talk about it. In line at the grocery store, I want to tell the cashier lady, "No, I don't have an MVP card, but did you know I'm writing a novel?"
I was talking to Awesome Lauren (she's been promoted from Good Lauren) about this the other day, and she made me realize that this probably happened because I'm so damned sick of thinking and writing about myself. I bored myself into writing about other people. Perhaps I'll try to be more boring all the time.
The thing about all this is, what I'm doing is not particularly publishable, even though I think it's good. It's very derivative among other things. But I kind of just don't care. I feel like what I'm doing is teaching myself how to write a novel and loving the hell out of it. And let me tell you: there are days at school when I'm very happy to have my lower-brain busy composing, while my upper brain says, "Shhhhhhhh. Get back in your seat. Shhhhhhhhhh. Get back in your seat," like 300 times. Which is what happens when your class is predominantly made of 6 year olds.
Last week a 5 year old gave me the finger. I'm not kidding. Thomas asked me if I gave it back to him. It almost would have been worth it, just to see the look on the kid's face.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Cartoon Physics
Thomas and I took all our change to the coinstar on Friday night. We made 122 dollars and went promptly to Best Buy to get the first season of Heroes on DVD. Neither of us had ever seen an episode before, but we'd heard that it ruled.
This morning, as we were watching the second episode, and we were whispering things to each other like, "Ok, so I guess we're to understand that it runs in families" as we figured out the rules to this alternate universe, I was suddenly reminded of a poem I love by Nick Flynn, called
Cartoon Physics, part 1.
Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies
swallowed by galaxies, whole
solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning
the rules of cartoon animation,
that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries
will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down--earthbound, tangible
disasters, arenas where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships
have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump
you will be saved. A child
places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
and drives across a city of sand. She knows
the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
and who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn
that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall
until he notices his mistake.
This morning, as we were watching the second episode, and we were whispering things to each other like, "Ok, so I guess we're to understand that it runs in families" as we figured out the rules to this alternate universe, I was suddenly reminded of a poem I love by Nick Flynn, called
Cartoon Physics, part 1.
Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies
swallowed by galaxies, whole
solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning
the rules of cartoon animation,
that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries
will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down--earthbound, tangible
disasters, arenas where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships
have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump
you will be saved. A child
places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
and drives across a city of sand. She knows
the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
and who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn
that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall
until he notices his mistake.
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