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.

Maurice Sendak is Cool

As I’m busy today with some freelance work I’m just going to share this and say how very cool I think Maurice Sendak is. Sometimes I wish I were a cranky, old, (highly successful) writer. It’s good to have goals.

All Weeks Should Be Like Last Week

It was a great week. If you follow my Facebook page you were privy to the final count down as I wrote the last pages of my Northern California book. I finished up the first draft on Wednesday night and celebrated with my guy over a dinner of take out burritos and champagne. Ahhhh, victory.

As I was toasting, an email arrived asking me to write a piece for Yes! Magazine. It’s just a few hundred word assignment, but it’s on a topic I’m passionate about (organic farmers battling Monsanto), and I was just really psyched to have and editor contact me about writing a (paid) piece.

Then Thursday night I met with my writing group. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – they’re awesome. There were two big take aways that night. One was the idea of Admin Mondays. One of my group members more or less devotes Mondays to taking care of crap that builds up (like scheduling appointments or following up on that credit card fraud thing, or blah blah blah). That way when those things come at you during your writing week you can just put them aside until Monday. Love it.

The other inspiration was a member of our group who is working on her first novel (as most of us are). Her new years resolution is to write every day, even if it’s just a little. Her book is really coming along, and talking with her just reminded me that it’s so important to keep moving on big projects. So Friday I pulled out my own novel and read it front to back. It’s at about 190 pages now, but I haven’t touched it since August.

Even though reading it was encouraging (it’s not half bad), I’m finding it so hard to get back into it writing it. Like so many times before I’m reminded how writing is like exercise and if you don’t do it for a long time, it’s really hard to get back to it. But it’s not like I haven’t been writing. I just haven’t been writing on that project.

It was an awesome week, and I’m way ahead of my new years goal of finishing the Nor Cal book by the end of January!

Now if I could just get back into the novel…

Back In the States

We’re back.

Actually, we (the kids and I) got back from Indonesia on the 13th. I took a couple days to unpack, wash everything and repack for a trip to my dad’s in Northern Idaho. We spent a week there, came back home on the 23rd, did some crazy last minute Christmas shopping, and bam – Christmas. Daniel made it home around noon on the 25th (direct from Batam and jetlagged all to hell), but we were all here (including his folks, my sister-in-law, her guy, his parents and my mom) for a lovely day together.

I felt like I was holding up pretty well, given everything I juggled over the course of a month, but as the craziness wound down I started picking fights with Daniel. I was feeling anxious about the fact that I hadn’t written anything in weeks. Five weeks, actually. FAR too long.

Turned out, all I really needed to do was ask Daniel for  day to catch up on some writing. After a stupid fight this morning he graciously took over all the kid duties (and doodies) so I could lock myself in my office and do some writing.

It took about an hour to get back in the swing of things, but now it’s flowing. So far I’ve written three pages in my Northern California book. I had originally hoped to finish it by now, but set aside that goal when we got on the plane to Indonesia. Still, I only have 25 pages to go. I’m seriously thinking about staying up late the next few nights and writing my ass off to see how close I can get to finished before the 1st. I doubt I could get 25 pages done in four days, but maybe…?

I also caught up on my Digging Deep blog. My partner in crime on that one was understandably a little miffed when I told her, out of the blue, that I just wouldn’t have time to post, so it feels good to get back on that horse too.

And then, of course there’s the novel, and oh, yeah, a screenplay I’m thinking about all the time lately. Sometimes I just feel like I’ll never reach the finish line on anything ever again. Which is why it would be nice to finish up the Northern California book as planned.

Oh well. In any case, it’s good to be back.

Here are a few photos, just for fun.

The view from our hotel in Batam

Monkey in Singapore

Visiting the set with Daniel

Snowball fight with Grandpa and Nana in Idaho

Sleigh ride in Idaho

Now back to the writing.

The Vegetables

As has become my Thanksgiving tradition on this blog, I’d like to share a poem by Hafiz.

The Vegetables

Today

The vegetables would like to be cut

By someone who is singing God’s Name.

How could Hafiz know

Such top secret information?

Because

Once we were all tomatoes,

Potatoes, onions or

Zucchini

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!