July Reading
Novels
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
On a Night Like This by Ellen Sussman
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Freshman Lies by Linda A. Cooney
Freshman Guys by Linda A. Cooney
Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
Alternatives to Sex by Stephen McCauley
Short Stories
Notable Nonfiction
Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride by Michael Wallis
The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz
“The Lion and the Mouse” by Jill Lepore
Hibernating
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
I have a couple of great novels to recommend this month. I really enjoyed On a Night Like This and Someone Like You. The latter is a YA book that made me wish that someone was writing YA like this when I was a teen. I think I would have read more.
On the other side of that coin, I tried Twilight and I simply could not finish it. It didn’t help that I kept playing Buffy DVDs as I was reading it. I really wanted to like it because I’ve been getting more into YA lately (more on that later) and I’m usually up for a good vampire tale, but this book lacked the character development that I need to really pull me into a story. And so, permanently hibernating it is.
How Do You Sleep?
I have not been sleeping well this week. I’ve had insomniac tendencies for as long as I can remember, but lately they’ve gotten out of control. It’s very annoying. On Monday I woke up at 4:50 to take Hubs to the airport. I thought that I would come back and go back to bed after that, but, my mind had other ideas. Apparently 6 o’clock in the morning is a stellar time to be thinking about the central conflict of the novel, and well, the fact that there isn’t one yet.
Last week I made an attempt to go to bed early (11 p.m. is early at Casa Chicklit), ended up sleeping for two hours and then was up the rest of the night while Hubs slept soundly.
Crazy as it is, I think I’d feel a little bit better about these insomnia episodes if I managed to get something done during them. It never works that way, though. While my mind (at least part of it) is happy to be awake and working in the middle of the night, my concentration does not follow through and I often find myself bouncing between web pages or meandering around the house.
Despite all my whining, I realize that my sleep habits suck and I need to do something to fix them. So starting next week I’m going on a strict bedtime and wake up time. I’m also going to make a point of no TV or computer (eep!) two hours before bedtime. I’ve heard that helps, so I’m willing to try. What else should I be doing? And in the meantime, know of any good cures for insomnia?
‘Fess up Friday: The Whiny Edition
Writing: Got in two good days of writing. I spent the rest of the week frustrated because I still have no freaking clue where this novel is going. I have no plan, no outline, no nothing. So on Thursday I decided to hell with the outline and the plan, there’s always revision. So my new plan is not to have a plan. I’m just going to write instead. And once I came up with this plan, the writing started going a lot smoother again. Still, not such great progress for the week.
Revisions: Zilch. I really, really need to get back on this.
Submissions: Thirty five markets are holding two of my stories hostage.
What I’ve been doing instead:
- Reading submissions for a magazine that will launch in the fall. That’s time consuming, but not all bad. I usually set aside four hours one day to work on this and so far it’s been a lot of fun.
- Taking kitty to the vet. Earlier in the week there was some drama with our tabby cat. It seems once we get one of our cats healthy, the other decides it’s their turn for some attention and so off to the vet we go.
- Seeing Mamma Mia! I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It’s a romp. I don’t recommend seeing it if you are looking for greatness. A lot of the cast cannot sing and it delves to a level of cheesiness that is only possible by combining ABBA and musical theater. However, it’s so much fun. I smiled throughout the movie and I can’t remember the last time that happened.
Happy weekend!
From the “I Wish I’d Written This” Department:
Margo Rabb’s “How to Tell a Story.”
Even though it’s not possible that Margo and I were in the same MFA program, this story feels so true to my experience (right down to the sentiment/sentimentality lecture) that I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that she was sitting right next to me all that time.
I discovered the story years ago, just before my third year in the program. I thought it was so dead on that I sent copies to classmates with the subject line, “OMG! Is she talking about us?!” In the years since, it has served as a reminder that I’m not the only person who had an F’ed up MFA experience. There are plenty more of us out there, and God Bless us all for surviving it.
‘Fess Up Friday
The week in one word: Ugh.
Writing: Well, maybe I do my best writing on the weekend. I’ve only managed about a thousand more words since Tuesday, bringing the non-tome to somewhere around 6,000. I feel a little direction-less. I’m wary of outlines, but I finally sat down and wrote out a rough one this morning around 4:00 a.m. (Yay, insomnia!) There are still lots of blank spaces in the outline and other vague notes (my personal favorite being “something bad happens”), but I have to leave some mystery for myself, don’t I?
I’m employing all sorts of tricks to get myself through this process. The first trick is convincing myself that no one will ever read this. In all likelihood, that’s not a trick, but a truth. On the other hand, if I honestly believe that *I’m* going to be the only audience, then what’s the point? It’s an interesting balancing act, and one that makes me more neurotic by the day.
Revision: Didn’t do any.
Submissions: Still nothing. What the hell, universe?
Overall: I feel really discouraged this week. I’ve come to terms with the fact that, unlike a lot of my former classmates, I have no interest in writing Great Literature. I want to write books that people enjoy reading, but I’m even questioning my ability to do that. Add in a handful annoying reviews and a general fatigue with literary elitism and you have my week in a nutshell.
On a completely unrelated note: I started running again a few weeks ago. I still swear that the only thing that got me through the first two years the MFA program were the nightly runs with my friend Tara. She was a marathoner and managed to get me from not running at all to running 3+ miles a night. It was a very peaceful time for me. It was a chance to clear my head from the day and focus on my silly daydreams. In those days, it was my chance to think not about what I should be writing but about what I wanted to write.
I still run from time to time, but haven’t done so on a regular schedule since I got my first desk job. I want to build my endurance back up, so I’m trying the Couch to 5K running program. I’m hoping running brings back that sense of inner peace.
Linkage: Free Books!
Hey y’all, free books are being given away over at Hey Lady! Whatcha Reading? Go enter the contest! I am, because obviously I need more books.
5,000 Words Down . . .
…approximately 65,000 more to go.
I finished the first chapter of this thing on Monday morning. I’ve decided I like it better than writing a short story. For instance, at about 5,000 words in a short story, I’d be panicking about wrapping it up. Five thousand words is more than most lit journals will publish. Five thousand words is also usually outside of my comfort zone.
By the way, it should be noted that this is 5,000 words of crap. I’m okay with that. I just have to keep telling myself it’s a first draft and I’ll fix it later.
I’m twittering my progress here. It’s a protected twitter feed, but if you’d like to keep up, drop a request and I’ll add you.
‘Fess Up Friday
Le w00t! This entry marks the one month anniversary of ‘fessing. It’s the little victories that make me happy.
Writing: Better than last week. I had three days of productive writing this week. (Today is looking good as well.) As announced, I’m working on something bigger than short stories for a while and I’m actually kind of enjoying it. Also, being that this big thing is a first draft, I’m allowed to write whatever kind of crap I’d like and not think about it. This is harder than you’d think. For one thing, as I’m going along typing, mostly I’m thinking “OMG that sentence sucks.” and “Seriously?! Three years of writing workshops and that’s the best word you can think of?” But I have to tune those suckers out and just keep writing. And so far, that’s going well.
I am disappointed that I’ve completely slacked off on my freewriting. I need to find a way to do both.
Revision: Not happening. Too much energy going into writing.
Submissions: Still nothing. One market has currently held my manuscript hostage for 240 days. I have every intention of querying them next week to see whether or not they even got my story, but this market lists no email address. Hope their mail situation isn’t totally screwed.
Linkage: What Makes Bad Fiction
Ward Six writer J. Robert Lennon recently posted a list of what makes fiction bad (in his opinion) and invited others to share their complaints. I tried coming up with my own list of complaints, but could only think of one:
Fiction that puts artiface or style over the story. There’s a book I started reading recently that had an unusual narrator. That part didn’t bother me, but this narrator was frequently interrupted by vague poetic observations that were usually written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. These observations were so intrusive, they kept pulling me out of the world of the story and reminding me that the author was trying something very clever. I hate that. I like to be lost in a story. I like to forget that a novel even has an author, so if the story is mainly a conduit for the style (instead of vice versa) it’s going to leave me cold.
Anyway, I encourage both readers and writers to check out the original list and the discussion that follows. I think we can all benefit from being able to talk about why we don’t like a novel or story instead of simply saying that we didn’t like it.
…Wherein It’s Wednesday
(With many apologies to hujhax).
Here’s what I’ve been up to this week:
1) Writing a $#@! novel. This week I finally sat down and wrote the first three pages of a story that has been dancing around in my head for years. I’ve never considered myself capable of a novel. I’m still not sure I consider myself capable, but short stories aren’t quite doing it for me right now, so might as well try something else. We’ll see how that goes.
2) Moving my butt. Hubs and I signed up for a gym last week and I’m proud to announce I’ve gone three times so far. I think this will be good for my writing. Exercise stimulates my creativity. Or so I’d like to think. During my first 2 1/2 years in the MFA program I ran two or three miles daily. When the exercise sloughed off, so did the writing. Call me superstitious, but it’s worth a shot. Also, routine = good.
3) Reading The Bell Jar. I think I missed the age window for really loving this book. I imagine in my teens or twenties I would have thought it awesome, but the old, cynical me is less impressed. This makes the second book that I’ve inadvertently screwed up for myself by reading it later than I should have. A couple of years ago I finally got around to reading The Catcher in the Rye and discovered that Holden Caulfield is a whiner. I have a similar feeling about Esther. When I sit down to read it, much eye-rolling ensues. However, it’s short and a quick read, I’ve less than 75 pages left, and I’m committed to getting it over with. After that, I’ll take my teen angst with a side of cheese in the form of Freshman Dorm thankyouverymuch.
4) Going to photography class. I have serious doubts about how well I’ll learn my camera in a classroom setting, but I’m trying anyway.
5) Playing Singstar. Hubs edged out my top score for “Material Girl.” Vengeance is mine.
