Artistic Interpretation

I met an icon last night.
I was at an art gallery and got to chatting with Shepard Fairey. You know his art, even if you don’t know you know. He worked with the Sex Pistols on their posters, designed the Obama “Hope” poster and most famously (at least in my book) is responsible for the Obey Giant posters that are found all over the world as street art.

Anyway, we were at an event for my daughter’s kindergarten, that was hosted by Fairey and his wife in their gallery. So naturally the talk turned to art. I told him about how I had thought I wanted to be a visual artist when I was in college, but that my work lacked any real artistic instinct. I could render an image, but after years of that I finally asked the question my mom had been posing all my life – what’s the point in drawing like a photograph? Art is about interpretation. Color, form, shape, shadow. You have to bring something to reality, something more than reality, to make art.

Needless to say, I was not telling Shepard anything he didn’t already know, and we didn’t chat very long, but the conversation brought my head back to this idea I’ve playing with lately. What makes literature, as an art, good? Metaphorically it’s still about color, form, shape and shadow, but unlike visual arts, there’s a lot more room for spot-on rendering. So you might think this was the reason I was drawn to writing as an art form. You’d be wrong.

As much as I struggled with letting go of reality with my paintings and drawings, I have no such hang-ups with my stories. The first story I ever published was a coming of age story told from the perspective of an apple. The novel I’m working on now is set on an ostrich farm, which lends itself to all kinds of unusual imagery. I’m keeping it solidly rooted in reality, and it’s a very human story about a young girl dealing with the loss of her grandfather, but the setting gives it a whimsical, fun, ALMOST magical feel.

I don’t know why I feel free to push boundaries with my writing that I never could break free of with my painting. Maybe it’s that I feel more anonymous. A story is told by a narrator,  which gives a step of removal that to me has always felt like a buffer of safety. Then there’s the “it’s fiction,” forcefield. I can be as offensive as I want, as raunchy, or prim, or whatever, and if anyone has a problem with it I can just say “hey, it’s fiction, if you don’t like it, don’t read it.”

In any case, I’m really embracing this idea of loose rendering. The key, I think, is to figure out what you really want to say, and then let everything else just fall where it may. Who knows, maybe my ostriches will be singing, sock-wearing, modern dancers by the time I’m done with them. As long as my main character has the journey I want to her to have, the rest is artistic window dressing.

Minstrel Fiction

Good news! The arm has healed enough that I am no longer hunting and pecking. Yes, my arm aches a bit at the end of a work day, but it’s so good to be typing for real again, I hardly even care.

(Go, go gadget fingers!)

During my hiatus, I’ve been thinking a lot about styles of fiction. I’ve been reading “The Sense of An Ending,” by Julian Barnes, and it falls into a sub-genre that I call couldn’t-possibly-be fiction. That is to say, it’s so convincingly told that I often find myself checking the cover again to see if perhaps I missed the part where it says “memoir.” I felt the same way about “Middlesex.”

This is in contrast to books I internally categorize as minstrel fiction. I used to be really into these types of stories, particularly the ones by Tom Robins, who is a master of this sub-genre. Theses stories are fantastical and fun. They often have inanimate objects with opinions, and waitresses on great journeys. My absolute favorite was “Jitterbug Perfume.”

Minstrel fiction still holds a big ‘ol place in my heart because the stories always seem to me like tales you might hear around a camp fire, stories like my family tells. They always have a solid objective. They’ll make you laugh. They are not subtle. In fact, at least when my family tells them, they are often exaggerated to make a point. (Why be accurate when you can be passionate?)

Couldn’t-possibly-be fiction still only holds a sliver of my heart. Its abiding characteristics are an undeniable realism, comical self awareness, and the feeling of complete honesty. These are not stories told around a camp fire so much as they are glimpses into what it means to be human. They make you laugh AND cry. They are usually written with impeccable prose, but often have no obvious point and tend to ramble. These are the books I read because I feel I should. And I do usually enjoy them, just not as much as their fantastical counterparts.

And that’s the part I’ve been going around on in my head. If these couldn’t-possibly-be fiction books are so great, why do I fall so much harder for the minstrel fiction? It’s a style thing, right? I like a good yarn. Nothing wrong with that, but there is a line. I don’t usually care for bodice ripping (which is about 180 from couldn’t-possibly-be fiction on this little internal spectrum of mine), but I do love a good Jack Reacher novel now and then. So I guess I fall in the middle.

The reason I’ve been contemplating all this is that I’m nearing the end of a draft of my novel. (Sweet.) I know I’ll have at least one more pass to make on it after this, but it’s feeling good. Good enough that I might even let some trusted folks read it soon. It’s a yarn, no doubt, but I also hope to tell it with grace and style. That is to say, I want the prose to be beautiful, but I also want it to be a page turner. Am I asking too much? I don’t think so. The million dollar question is: Can I pull it off?

Pause

Last Sunday I fell and fractured my elbow.

Since then my left arm has been in a sling and I’ve been hunting and pecking and it’s making me CRAZY. To go from 60-70 wpm to this painfully slow method of typing is a jarring adjustment.

So for the next few weeks I’ll be saving all my patience for work I need to do, and my dear blog will be on hold.

Check back next month or follow me on Facebook. I’ll be sure to let you all know when I get back to it.

Til then.

Focus

It’s taken me about a week to process last Thursday.

The USC Women’s conference was pretty great. There was the usual amount of thanking sponsors and other junk that went on for far too long, but the swag bag was fat and the speakers were actually quite stunning  They really got me thinking. One in particular, a former USC Basketball player, who now coaches after playing all over the world, got my synapses firing. “I’m in it to win it,” she said over and over.

Later that night I met with my writing group. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – they’re amazing. Not only with the feedback, but with the moral support. I’ve been struggling with where to put my energies. If you’re in it to win it, you have to focus and work on being the best you can be at your chosen craft (be it basketball or fiction).

So I took all the things I heard last Thursday (bot the general advice on success from USC and the specific advice on writing from my superb writing group) and mulled them over in my brain.

The word that kept coming back was focus. Right now I’m a business writer, a fiction writer, a science writer, a travel writer, a food writer. I blog, narrate and edit. Everything I do is writing, but I’ve realized that to progress further in any one of those efforts, I will need to focus. But where to focus?

For the answer to that I went back to my new years resolution list. The things I prioritized in my goals were the business writing and the fiction. The first because it pays the bills, the second because I love, love, love it (and it might someday pay my bills). So I’ve begun the effort of focusing.

I passed on a new food writing gig, painful though it was, and spent the time on my business writing. I even signed up for a refresher course on my copy editing skills, since I have a client in the que who needs a lot of copy editing and I intend to be do the best damn copy editing she’s ever seen.

Focus. That’s what it comes down to. You can’t win everything. If you’re in it to win it, you have to focus.

At least, that’s the theory I’m running with this week.

USC Women’s Conference

I‘m going to this USC Women’s Conference tomorrow.

The emails I got sold it as a chance to discuss “professional development, women’s health, personal wellness and financial strategies.” Honestly, I’m not really sure what to expect.

The basic truth of it is, these types of networking events are key for anyone who works alone, from a home office.

As a freelancer, I have no water cooler, and online social outlets are just not the same as meeting people face to face.

So I’ve filled the wallet with business cards, and I’m off.

I’ll tell you all about it on Friday.