The apple boy took my baby.
Friday we handed over a good chunk of money and bought a new mac, and almost suffered too much guilt over the money to enjoy the new toy–but enjoy I did. And will again, one presumes. I took the new mac and the old to the apple store to have them transfer things I don’t know how to deal with and after I answered questions and filled out a form, they took both my macs away! Shock! I had no idea they’d separate us. My electronic world, my novels, my photos, my novels, my music, my novels, in the hands of apple geniuses, which did not comfort me.
Of course I know writing can be done with a pen. Of course I know that life is lived outside a computer screen. Of course I know that I will get my macs back. Of course. And didn’t I, just the other day–Friday, in fact–attempt to tell the world about an artist who made art from prison scraps? Sigh…
Even writing this, I borrowed a laptop from a friend. Oh, the way we entwine these things into our lives. To be fair, I had to borrow a computer from somebody because I was being paid to do some editing work and the deadline was tonight. “The apple boy took my baby” was not going to wash as an excuse to a grad student stressing out about her dissertation.
But as my husband said, “Now you can get some art done. Read. You know, not work.”
What?
What is your excuse?
A bit of news from The Economist (August 4th 2007)–
The paintings of Htein Lin, a former Burnese dissident who has given up politics for art, serve as something of an antidote to the regime’s propaganda. ….Mr Htein Lin’s comrades were executed,,,[he] himself was tortured. …A military tribunal slung him in prison. ….Throughout all this upheaval, Mr. Htein Lin tried to keep painting. In the jungle he was reduced to sketching in the sand with sticks. [In prison] Brushes, paints and paper were not allowed. At first, he used his fingers to spread dye from the prison factory over empty food packets. Gradually, however, he discovered that the lungyis (sarongs) of the prisoners’ uniforms made the best canvases, while almost anything, from the lids of toothpaste tubes to the wheels of cigarette lighter could be used as brushes. Sometimes, he carved stencils out of bars of soap; at others…he applied his improvised paints with a syringe.
So, what is your excuse for not creating something today? What prison are you in? What tools do you think you don’t have? Go paint, go draw, go write that book. Go!
Can you imagine…?
I’m reading The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers and loved this..
Can you imagine how lucid our thoughts will be once we’ve liberated them from the arts?’ Smyke demanded. ‘Once we’ve swept our soiled brains clean of senseless dross? Can you imagine how much more time we’ll be able to spend on the things that really matter in life? No, of course you can’t. You’re an author.’
Have you read this novel? For the love of books, you should.
Now, where was that again?
Inspired by Green Pepper Press, Simple Blog Writer, and Beyond the Map, I thought I’d give this idea a try even though it makes me feel a little too self-obsessed. But what writer isn’t? Anyway, you should give this exercise a try, too (and let me know if you do).
Where do I come from?
I come from humidity, cattails, and orange groves. I come from the state of serial killers and con artists and refugees. I come from cow pastures and tourist traps and strip malls and motels selling discounted tickets. I come from sunshine and thunder storms and hurricanes and sink holes and muck fires. I come from alligators, snakes, frogs coming out of the bathtub drain and spiders keeping me out of my room.
I come from a father who taught himself to read and write, who laughs no matter how angry anyone else ever gets, and who tells bad jokes. I come from a father who never explained anything but who read bedtime stories even as it pained him to read. I come from a cook and a carpenter and a fisherman. I come from a man who can kill a rat with his bow and arrow. I come from a man who never lacked for a date or for a wife but never both at the same time. I come from a father who never frightened me but who didn’t protect me either.
I come from a mother who died. I come from a mother who was abused and unhappy. I coem from a mother who kept her promises and never condescended. I come from a mother who told the truth, who made art, who took photographs, who wrote, and who loved dragons and wolves. I come from a mother who fought back and who always asked, why do you think that? I come from a woman who changed, who overcame, who graduated with honors. I come from a woman who finally had a chance to climb out of years of poverty. I come from a mother who terrified me but who protected me and fought for me.
I come from a terrible marriage, a divorce, a custody battle, an angry step-mother. I come from being too tall and too skinny for boys to pay attention to. I come from whole weekends left alone in an empty house with a field, an orange grove, and a lake for company. I come from books and art and a desire to escape. I come from knowing my life is my own but can change at any moment. I come from a place I would never change but would never go back to.
It almost sounds romantic put like this, but it seemed so normal at the time.
Selective Blindness
Book reviews are great. Whether in The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, or someplace online, I love to read reviews. Back when I had time for such things, I read NYTBR from cover to cover. I read reviews for books I didn’t want to read. I’ve always wanted to be able to say to someone, no matter what title they throw out, “Hey, I’ve heard of that.” Part wanting to show off and part wanting to connect.
A bad review never turns me off from something I already I wanted to read, but a good sometimes gets me to take a look at books I never would have touched otherwise. Do they influence you?
But I never want to write one. Stories suck me in and steal my judgment. Every book I read is wonderful, and if it isn’t, then I know the author is trying really hard and who can say anything mean? Having written books, I know the effort and bits of soul that go into creating them. Slinging stones is not my thing. Of course, if you only write raves, you aren’t taken seriously (and for some reason this is bad).
Perhaps the day will come when one of my books will be out in the world and maybe, just maybe, it will get reviewed (nevermind how unlikely that actually is), and how will that feel? Silly to worry about something that is not happening, but it was on my mind as I did a public reading of sorts this weekend.
At the Thank-God-It’s-Over party for NaNoWriMo I read a scene from my novel. The readings were for cheerleading and support, not criticism (rightfully so) but it is no easy thing to put yourself out there. These blogs are the first steps to putting work out there (wherever there is) and while validation shouldn’t be necessary, it certainly helps. You can say that criticism isn’t personal, you can say you shouldn’t worry what other people think, you can sya a lot of things about the unfortunate and unnecessary need for validation, approval, adoration, or whatever, but I have yet to figure out how not to go blind when showing my work to somebody. Every time I read my work out loud, my vision narrows like looking through a telescope backwards and everything else is in a void.
But I’ve always had selective blindness–the kids who didn’t want me on the team? Didn’t see them. The man who exposed himself in an alley? Didn’t see him. The friends who came to help when my mother died? Didn’t even see them. Hey, when I was in the same room as kd lang, I dind’t even see her and there were only five people in the room. So, I guess, if you have something negative to say, put it on paper and I’ll never know. Paper? What paper? I don’t see any paper.
the nutcase look
If you tell people you have four blogs, they will look at you as if perhaps they should be talking to someone else. You know the oh-my-god-i’m-talking-to-a-nutcase look. Well, just for the record, I’d like to say that I don’t really see it as four separate blogs. I see it as one blog won’t do everything I want it to do so I’ve had to improvise. That, and I like picking templates.
Shakespeare or Mom?
My four-year-old son asked, “Dad, what is history?” Dad said something about things in the past and then he said something about the kinds of books daddy likes to read. In fact, he had a history book close at hand and showed it to him. “This is Shakespeare. He was a writer in the past.” Our son thought about this, and he asked, “Can Shakespeare write as good as Mom?”
ha-ha!
Later I said to him, “I heard you and dad talked about Shakespeare.” He nodded. “Is Shakespeare dead?” “Yes.” “Can he write as good as you?” “Better. He’s the best writer in the world,” I replied. And my child asked, “Why? What does he do when he writes?”
Well, can you answer that?
artophobia
I suppose artophobia could be the fear of going to art museums and being asked what you think about a particular work. It could be the fear of someone in need of a poster asking, “Hey, can you draw?” Or it could be a fear of art teachers in peasant skirts.
But for the moment, artophobia means the fear of showing someone my work. Yeah, it’s a bit silly since I’ve got art on flckr and I’ve agreed to do an art show next year (now, there’s a panic attack I can put on my calendar!). Nonetheless, I agreed to do this take a gift and pass a gift on to five more people (only got three to take me up on it, by the way–clearing of throat here) and I’ve frightened myself.
Why on earth did I agree to send strangers art? Why did I think this was a good idea? I have no idea what kind of art they like. Art is tricky. You can’t just give art to someone. But there you go–that’s what I’ve done. Or am about to do.
After much useless angst, I decided on what to make, finished putting the pieces together this evening, and am going to the post office tomorrow. These little art works (and they are little) will travel north to other homes, and after that? I have no more idea what happens to art after it leaves my house than I know what happens to people after they die. Maybe they just disappear. Maybe they get hung on walls. I don’t know.
Anyway, I’ve got two spots left in the art afterlife. Like something? Just make me a promise
Loony and Addicted
Some ideas you talk about with your friends and family; some you don’t. Some of us ask for suggestions and opinions because we want the person to agree with us and tell us we’re right. Actual suggestions and opinions are not desired unless they’re cheering us on.
Anyway, I’ve been writing the lake belle blog and the belle weather blog in the voices of characters from my books and stories. Okay, great, and wonderful–I’m happy with them even though they exhaust me and I don’t know if they work. But it’s the writing in first person all the time that is killing me. I long for a narrator, that voice to look over the scene and reveal more. So I’ve got another experiment, and if it fails, so what? I’ll simply hit the delete key, drink more coffee, and move on to something else (and maybe hope no one remembers).
Yes, I’m a lunatic and an addict, but I’ve created a fourth (yes, fourth) blog that is, thank the writing gods and goddesses, written in the third person–The Red Moon. To start there is an excerpt from the current NaNoWriMo novel posted (not the same excerpt on my NaNo profile), and I’ve got a couple short descriptions of characters. My goal (for what it’s worth) is to create a full world, something akin to an alternative universe, I suppose (but without the hobbits). All the blogs will be related, connected, and overlapped–and who knows what will happen next…(aside from me pulling my hair out and my husband thinking I’ve gone too far).
“You’re all the time thinking. Don’t you know anything?”
My dad loved asking me this question, and now I ask it of myself. I’m thinking about where my novel is going, where the fiction blog is going, and what do I do next? The only thing I know is to keep writing…it’s those pesky details that keep getting in the way.
I’m also thinking about a radical change over at the lake belle blog…this year’s NaNo novel took many magical turns and fairy tale twists and I want to put that in the blog, but I don’t know if I should or if it would work or why I’m worried about doing something I know I want to do. Why does writing so often feel like dancing naked on the castle stairs after all your friends have gone home but plenty of other people are there?
