Writing Retreat

If you follow along you know I’ve been planning to take a few days for a personal writing retreat. I’m so close to finishing this draft of my novel. I want to lock myself in a hotel room with a about thirty cans of Starbucks espresso shots and a dozen or so Trader Joe’s hummus wraps and just write until it’s done.

At first it was going to be this week. But then I got busy with work and started talking over the details with Daniel and we decided it would be better if I did it the last weekend of the month (make Memorial Day a 4 day weekend and go then). But then yesterday we got to talking again and it seems like I had it right the first time. My sister-in-law is getting married the weekend after memorial day weekend, and there may be fun happenings leading up to that. Also, we have friends in town for memorial day weekend, and I’d like to see them.

So I did some calling this morning. I talked to my favorite, most wonderful client to see if there were any big projects starting up this week (there aren’t). I called Staci at Affordable Honda and found out the civic should be drivable by the end of today. I don’t have any appointments or meetings. In fact, this week, from tomorrow through Friday, is looking like the perfect time to disappear for a bit. The only trick is the hotel reservation. The place I’m staying doesn’t take calls until 3pm, so I don’t know yet if they have room for me this week. I hope they do, but really, if they don’t I might just book a room at any old Motel 6. It really doesn’t matter where I’m at. My only hope was to be in the desert, since that’s where my story is set. Also, it needs to be cheap.

So I won’t know for a few hours exactly where I’ll be, but it’s looking like this is it. Yeah! And then the panic sets in. Holy shit. You mean I actually have to finish my novel? Yes, that’s the whole point – set aside time to get through this final stretch. It is as scary as it is exciting. I’m pretty sure I know what needs to be done. I’ve been plugging away at it, a few hours a week, for months – years even.

So I guess I just need to not psych myself out. Just go and revel in the freedom to write, write, write. No schedule to keep. No laundry that needs doing. No meals to prepare. Just me and my hummus wraps. And cookies. Lots of cookie.

I’ll write a blog post when I get home Friday to let y’all know how it goes. Wish me luck.

Score One For Focus

In March I blogged about needing to focus my efforts as a writer. I was trying to do everything, and the result was that I was succeeding at nothing. I took a long, hard look at my goals for this year and decided to cut some projects loose. It was hard. I feel like I could live three hundred years and not have time to write all the stories I want to write.

Since then I’ve been working on the novel and my business. Both are going very well. My favorite client has been sending all kinds of work my way, and I’m nearing the end of a draft on the novel. Life is pretty simple. I sit down at my desk in the morning and check in on the work that clients need done. Some time shortly after lunch I switch to the novel and spend an hour or so on it. Then, from about 3 on, I do whatever needs attention most. If there’s no more paid work that needs to be done, I write query letters, pay bills or even read a little. It’s awesome.

It’s true, I could use one more client like my favorite client – I’m not quite where I want to be as far as yearly earnings go, but considering I only started this business last January, I’m feeling pretty good about it. And that’s not something I would have said in March.

So my little experiment in focus is going swimmingly.

At the end of this month I’m taking it to the extreme. I’ve booked a hotel room in Mojave for four days and I’m going to lock myself in it and finish this draft of my novel. I’m close, I know I am, and writing just an hour or so a day feels painfully slow. I’m hoping when I emerge at the end of this long weekend I will have a version of my story that I’m finally ready to let people (other than my writing group) read.

Exciting times.

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?

And Then One Day…

My girl loves stories. Not just before bed, but any time of day, all day. As we march up the stairs for breakfast each morning she usually says “momma, will you tell me a story?”

I usually respond that I need coffee first, but she will eye me like a hawk, and as soon as I’ve got that mug in hand she will repeat the request (and repeat, and repeat), until I start spinning the morning’s yarn.

Lately, my stories have all been about carrot and sandwich. They have had some great adventures. They hitch-hiked across country to visit our friend Jacqui in Virgina, they opened a dry cleaning shop, and fought pirates for treasure on Carrot’s private island (that he bought with his riches earned through dry cleaning).

It’s a fun ritual, even if sometimes I don’t feel up for it first thing in the morning, but the thing I love the most is what I’ve learned about my girl’s sense of story. When I’m setting up the story sometimes I get to rambling. I’ll tell what carrot is wearing, or what trouble sandwich is having with his wife, or whatever, and when it’s gone on too long my girl will say in a loud voice “and then one day…”

Brilliant.

I know she’s just bored and wants me to get on with it, but really, she is illustrating one of the core principals of story telling. You open on a world with a status quo, and then one day something upsets that status quo and viola – you’ve got a story.

Even kids get this, and yet, I feel like a lot of writers struggle with it. I’ve heard young writers talking about telling a “true” story where nothing contrived happens, or worse yet, where nothing at all happens because that’s life, man.

Bah, I say. If that’s life, then my four year old is living it better than you.

Is it Really Only Wednesday?

Both my kids seem to have some sort of stomach thing going on. I’ve been thrown up on so many times that I might stop showering afterwards and just wait til the end of the day when I can wash it all off at once (okay, not really). I’ve changed sheets 3 times in the last 8 hours, and the washing machine can’t keep up. The whole hose stinks of stomach acid. I’m exhausted, cranky, and slow. So this is parenthood.

I kept my girl home from school and am waiting for the doctors office to open so I can call and ask when I should worry. Hopefully this will all pass quickly. She’s watching Ice Age while I try to get a little work done, and frankly, I think she’s loving being sick. I remember loving it when I was a kid – stay home with mom, eat lots of yummy soup, watch movies – what’s not to like? Being (or acting) sick always seemed like a small price to pay.

Anyhow, assuming I can find any time, I’m plugging away at the novel today. I’m trying to look at it scene for scene. What I’m finding is that as I wrote it, I put scenes in some places that aren’t really scenes. That is to say, nothing happens. Still, as I look at the overall structure, I think my instincts were right, there needs to be SOMETHING in the places I put those scenes. Now I just need to figure out ways to bring in conflict and or revelation so that the scenes aren’t just place holders, but actually serve to move the story along.

I’ve been dying to re-read Winter’s Bone, but I can’t find my copy. I hate that. I remember the structure of that book being really satisfying. No long flashbacks or rumination, and yet you get the sense that you really know the main character. I want to look again at how he did that.

Anyhow, I’m rambling. Check back Friday when I have (hopefully) gotten some sleep and can present my thoughts in a more organized fashion.