Say It Five Times Fast: NaNoWriMo

Over the past couple years I've read several articles about NaNoWriMo and been tempted. Now, I notice Lisa is likely to sign up this year, and I too am tempted.

I've been writing enough that there's at least a chance I could actually get out 50,000 words in a month. My problem is that I'm only maybe a fourth (perhaps not even that much) of the way through the novel I started writing for my class. And yet I'm within just a few pages of having written all that I'm allowed to turn in for that class now, too, so I'm already in a precarious position vis a vis continuing to work on it.

So far, the experience of taking a class to self inflict a deadline has worked. But when the deadline goes away, I can't swear I won't lose track again. Already I spent one night this week revising a completely different story I had written back in January.

So, it would be perfect to work on the current thing for NaNoWriMo ... but that's against the rules. And it's one thing to maybe get started a little early, but getting a 13,000 word head start is a bit much. More to the point, there's a new idea I've had over the past couple of weeks that would be perfect for the "dash one off" format. But I worry it would absolutely kill the momentum for this other one which has otherwise been going along so well.

Hm. This wouldn't really be a problem if it hadn't now been nine years since the last time I finished a whole novel. In all that time, I'm probably as close now to finishing one as I have been in all that time, so I'd really like to not fuck it up. We'll see.

Best Day Of Her Life?

I'm really surprised that Erin has never posted this picture on her own blog, because I know how very excited she was that day when she met Dave Matthews and had this picture taken. Maybe she was embarrassed about those tattoos? Anyway, now I'm sharing it with you all.



And, no, I have no idea who that is on the left edge of the picture. No idea at all.

So, I'm not entirely sure what happened next because there was quite a crowd jostling to get close to Dave, but the next picture has Dave making this face:



Not to be accusatory, but ... just exactly where were your hands, young lady?

You To Thank

So this morning we had a little office meeting to acknowledge those who this month are having birthdays, or anniversaries with the company, or anything else worth note. At the end of this brief meeting, Jeff (not technically a supervisor of mine in any way, but also sort of the guy in charge of the office) says we're going to do a Halloween-inspired trivia quiz. And, as fate had it, the topic was scary movies.

To be honest, these were questions that were easy enough that I probably could have answered most of them years ago, before I ever met all you dear horror-movie-loving friends of mine (ie, match the serial killer to the movie franchise, what state did Blair Witch take place in, etc.). But, a few I certainly wouldn't have known if it weren't for knowing y'all (ie, the movie with the line "Have you checked the children?" is called When A Stranger Calls.)

Anyway, I kicked serious butt in this trivia challenge, and so I got ... Jeff? "Uh, actually I don't think we have a prize yet. I was going to run to Target and get something Halloween-themed at lunch, but we moved the meeting to the morning." He promised my prize would arrive in the afternoon. I figured anything fun Halloween decoration from Target would be good.

So after lunch Jeff and one of the other supervisors (female and, again, not actually one of my supervisors) presented me, very excitedly I might add, with my prize.

A t-shirt that reads: I'LL MAKE YOU SCREAM AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS.

This is an episode that reveals a number of interesting things about my office. For example, planning a contest but forgetting to plan the prize is rather indicative of all our business practices from the top down. Then there's the shirt itself. Now, I happen to like the shirt. Not necessarily something I would buy for myself, but something I'll gladly wear. I like the Halloween theme and I like the double entendre.

Ah, but that double entendre. Does anyone else wonder if giving an employee a t-shirt with what seems to me a not entirely obscure sexual suggestion is the tiniest bit inapporpriate? Again, it's me and it takes a lot more than that to offend me. But I'm left wondering: Were the people who bought the shirt unaware of the double entendre? Or were they just willing to risk a sexual harrassment charge if I turned out to be offended?

It's all a big mystery to me. But at least I got a free t-shirt. And I have you all to thank.

So ... thanks!

While we're on the subject of cheeky t-shirts, here are two that I enjoy:

It's time

My iPod has been on its last legs for some time now. It pretty much has no battery left at all, so I can use it only if there's a power source available. But I've been waiting, and waiting, enjoying how the new versions just keep getting better and cheaper.

But now, my friends, I think the time has come.

Strangely, I miss this, too

Every time I start to try to sell Diana on moving to Denver - the city, the scenery, the seasons! - the season have to come along and actually be, um, season-y. This is my parents' front yard last night:



And the back:



What else?

I seem to have been blogging a lot lately, but I don't know if it's been especially good blogging. Too cerebral, too serious. But one or maybe two people mentioned they thought the blog was funy and ... ack! Performance anxiety, blog style.

Does anyone remember when TV shows only went into syndication after they weren't airing new episodes anymore? It was one thing when Law & Order became unbiquitous on cable, at least it had been around long enough to feel like an old show. Same with The Simpsons. Then Friends went crazy with two syndicated episodes every day. But this is too ridiculous: TNT now has both Las Vegas and Cold Case in syndication. These shows have only been around for - what? - two seasons? Crazy.

And nevermind the fact that Las Vegas (yes, I'm basing this assessment on having watched all of about half of one episode) is one of the truly worst shows ever.

Nip/Tuck is also on now, but I'm saving it to watch with the girls tomorrow night. It made the cover of EW before the season and it was also in this week's "Must List," but ... I haven't honestly thought very highly of season three so far. Watching it last week, I realized that it’s not really a question so much of whether the show has jumped the shark, but how long ago it happened. Does anyone else remember when it was a show about plastic surgeons who happened to have some crazy stuff going on in the periphery? Now it’s a show that is desperately trying everything the writers can think of to continue to shock us (Transvestites beating someone up and pissing on him? Gratuitous shots of man ass? Threesomes? Foursomes?), oh, and also these people just happen to be plastic surgeons.

It was always a show that required a lot of suspension of belief. But now it’s just getting desperate, and that’s too bad. Of course, the show went places in the first season that a lot of shows would need four or five seasons to get to, so maybe it’s no surprise that the writers are struggling. Pity though. Hope it gets back to a more typically Nip/Tuck level of insanity soon.

I made it up. I made it all up.

A girl in my writing class (one of the more talented ones, sadly) says she doesn’t really like being a writer, but that she doesn’t feel she has much choice. I understand where she’s coming from: I don’t think I have a choice about being a writer. Even if I actually stopped writing I think I would still see the world as a writer, the same way a painter looks at the world as a painter, etc. But for the most part, I like being a writer. I like being effortlessly good at something some people find difficult. I don’t mean that in a cocky way: I have no talent for music whatsoever and I hope that all you musicians out there feel lucky for being effortlessly good at something I (and many others) struggle at. And I like that this talent is useful in many different ways: it helped when I was in school, it helps in the working world, in addition to being a good hobby. But still, I think I understand her frustration. A lot of people have written a lot about the misery of creating art, and I might get to that point in another post, but to me, the main thing is this:

What I don’t particularly like about writing is the tendency of readers to look for “truth” behind the “fiction.” It’s an interesting thing to do as a reader, and I’m guilty of it, as well, although I have found that ultimately I am more pleased as a reader to read something without considering the extent to which it is “true.” For example, I might not dislike John Irving’s new books quite so much if I hadn’t read in countless interviews and reviews of the books that it’s to a very great extent an autobiographical novel. I would be able to recognize Irving in it either way, but it’s more comforting to think that certain scenes of abuse in the book came from his imagination rather than his actual childhood.

Of course, nothing goes into a book that didn’t in some way come from the writer. A reader might extrapolate metaphors or hidden meanings that an author never dream of, but the basic plot and the word choice and the tone is all from the author. I think that’s what ultimately makes me insecure.

For example, I don’t seriously worry that anyone will read the story I’m currently writing about a petty thief and decide that I must be a kleptomaniac myself. (Some people might get that impression, but it’s so patently untrue that such suspicion doesn’t worry me.) All the same, if I can portray the character convincingly and make readers believe that his descriptions and methods of theft are in fact possible, then it follows that I am able to think like a thief whether I’ve stolen anything or not. It’s not such a pleasant thought.

In a different book (one I like a lot more), John Irving wrote: “one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.” I try to take that to heart. But if I were to write a novel about a man having an extramarital affair, could I blame my wife for being uncomfortable with that? If I were to write a story in which a married couple stalks a college aged “friend” of theirs, could I blame Erin for being apprehensive?

I could not. Because, while I’m reasonably confident that Bret Easton Ellis has never committed a murder, I know that every despicable thing that happens in American Psycho came from his imagination. Thinking isn’t doing, and to a great degree we all probably have terrible thoughts that we never share – but read American Psycho and then tell me that it wouldn’t be just a little awkward to hang out with a guy knowing that he was not only capable of imagining those things, but also willing to share those imaginations.

Years ago, I found I was profoundly affected by such self-censorship. I’m better at dealing with it now. I find I’m comfortable writing just about anything. When I’m writing well I fall into the character’s world and pretty much everything else vanishes. I no longer find myself unable to write a sex scene out of the fear that one day, inevitably, my mother will read it. The problem is that later, I might be disturbed by what I wrote and tempted to change it. Or, the part of my brain that is always thinking about the story (Irving says: “If you’re a writer, the problem is that, when you try to call a halt to thinking about your novel-in-progress, your imagination still keeps going; you can’t shut it off”) might move the plot in a less disturbing direction. And then there’s always the, “Well, I’ve written this story now, but I’m pretty much never going to show it to anyone” problem.

Still, it’s not all bad. When I hand in an assignment to my class I’m more nervous that they’ll think I’m as crazy as my character than that they’ll just think I’m a bad writer. So at least I have some confidence in my actual ability. No one said it would be easy, which is what we’ve all been trying to tell the young lady in class who is on the verge of giving up.

And now for something completely different.

Here’s a joke that was forwarded to me at work, and yes it is stupid but it reminded me of Diana:

This guy is in line at the supermarket when he notices a hot blonde behind him. When she sees him looking at her she smiles and waves with a kind of friendly recognition.

He is taken aback that such a good-looking woman would be waving to him, and although she seems somewhat familiar he can't place where he might know her from. He says, “Sorry, do you know me?”

She replies, “I may be mistaken, but I thought you might be the father of one of my children.”

His mind shoots back to the one and only time he was unfaithful.

“Oh my God," he stammers, “are you the stripper from my bachelor party that I had sex with on the pool table in front of all my friends while your girlfriend whipped me with some wet celery?”

“Um, no,” she replies, “I’m your son’s English teacher.”

Ba-dum-dum!

Hi. It’s October, so that means it’s time for me to recommend some books I think you should read. Not that it’s something I typically do every month or even every October, but just ... y’know. Because. Actually both books are fall / October / Halloween themed, so I guess that’s something. Ah, don’t you just love it when I start writing stream-of-consciousness? Yeah. Me neither.

The first book is The Night Country and it is by a guy named Stewart O’Nan. Now, Stewart O’Nan is a prick, but I mean that in the nicest possible way. The way I see it, a writer can either write formulaic crap and publish a novel every year or so, or a writer can be important and literary but you only can squeeze out a whole new book every 3-5 years. That’s just the only fair tradeoff. Except here’s Stewart O’Nan, who writes and publishes a book pretty much every year ... and they’re all freaking good. That’s just not fair, people.

Everything I have read by O’Nan is good, but there are a few of his books that make me especially crazy. As I’ve said before, I can pay a writer no greater compliment than jealousy. Usually it’s abstract: I’m jealous of Toni Morrison’s talent and voice, but I have no desire to write like her. But O’Nan’s books are all very familiar. He writes with a plain voice that reminds me of my own writing and he often writes stories that I might write, if only the idea had come to me first. This is true of A Prayer for the Dying and Snow Angels, both of which are books that I love dearly and hate because I feel like I could have written them, but he just got there first.

Two years ago, O’Nan published The Night Country, yet another book that made me feel that way. It’s a ghost story but it uses ghosts more like Shakespeare did than the way Stepehn King does. (Did I mention Stephen King was one of O’Nan’s mentors? How is that fair?)

In the book, it’s Halloween and the one year anniversary of the night a group of teenagers went out driving and all but one ended up being killed in an accident that an overzealous young police officer may or may not have helped cause. The ghosts of the dead children are haunting the living – the friend who survived, the cop, their parents – but really they are not haunting so much as observing. It’s a bit like Alice Sebold’s Lovely Bones but more immediate. The ghosts are sometimes angry, sometimes sad, sometimes jealous. Some want the remaining friend to die. Some want the cop to die. At least one of them just doesn’t want to be a ghost anymore.

It’s a dark story, sometimes almost heartbreaking, but often countered by the ironic voice of the teenage narrator. Also, the mystery (not only of what will happen but of what happened the year before) drives the story and makes the short book a very fast read. I highly recommend it to you, even as I wish I could share it with you with my name on it instead.

And I don’t say that lightly. Snow Angels and A Prayer for the Dying felt like books I could write. But The Night Country was a book I was already writing in my head when I read it. I had somewhat recently read the aforementioned Sebold book as well as another book narrated by the dead called Hotel World by Ali Smith. I was in the mood to write a book narrated by the dead. I had the idea of a car crash, and I’m always tempted to set books around holidays, Halloween being the most appropriate for a ghost story. With all that, it was almost creepy for me to read The Night Country. It’s not a perfect book, though it is good. But even the things that aren’t great in it seem like things I might have screwed up if I wrote the story. So, I recommend it to you as a pleasant and not too long Halloween read: both because it’s worth your time and because reading it may actually reveal something about me, as well.

The other book I have to recommend is something very different from anything I would ever write. This is called House of Leaves and is by Mark Z. Danielewski, who is the brother of the singer Poe (remember "Hello" or "Angry Johnny"?) In fact, Poe's second album Haunted is sort of a companion piece to the book.

I recommend this one to you not because it is a great book (it’s been a while since I read it but I know there were parts of it I found tedious and some definite plot holes), but because it’s the only book I’ve ever read that has scared me.

I’ve read lots of horror, King, Koontz, Straub, Barker, etc, but the thing is that, really, books just can’t be scary. As a reader I can “fall into” a good story and be quite involved with it, but … it’s still just a book. Even as a kid, things in books just didn’t scare me. But this book, which I read when I was in college, scared the shit out of me.

Partly that’s because it plays to my fears. I’m just not scared of monsters, even in visual form something corporeal is something that can be dealt with. It’s not that scary (the girl from The Ring here being an obvious exception). What does scare me is the unknown. Things that don’t fit into reality. The impossible. So, The Mothman Prophesies freaked me out. And so did the House of Leaves book.

Part of why the book works is also part of why it drags at points. The book is supposedly a collection of all the materials that could be found relating to this mysterious case. So we read some boring letters and some pointless journal entries, and we read descriptions of some video tapes that were made. It’s a bit like Blair Witch but in book form.

The story revolves around this house that’s too big. The inner dimensions are larger than the outer dimensions of the house can account for. See, that’s creepy. The more the owners look into this strange issue, the more the house seems to grow. But only on the inside. See? Creepy. Soon they’re off exploring whole huge underground passages in the dark and doing all kinds of other incredibly stupid but definitely scary things.

This one, in all honesty, isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But in the end I really liked it. I read it in the midst of summer, often during daylight, during a happy time in my life. And it still freaked me out. So either this book is totally creepy, or I’m a big wuss. (No voting on that, please, at least until you’ve read the thing.)

all the world just stopped now

So I have been informed that “Pieces of Me” is a song by Ashlee Simpson. (I actually Googled this at first, just to make sure I wasn’t being toyed with. But it seems to be true. The Google experience has given me even more reason to hate her, however, as I now know that she spells her name “Ashlee.” Maybe that’s not technically her fault, but too bad.)

Maybe, like me, you live in blissful ignorance of Ms. Saturday Night and the majority of her music. Maybe you thought I was being cheeky? Maybe you didn’t notice I had changed the blog title at all. Or, maybe you recognized that whether the full line “pieces of me you’ve never seen” is part of Ashlee’s song or not (I didn’t really do that much research) it’s also a line from a Tori Amos song, which is where the title actually came from.

And OK, maybe it’s a little weird for a guy to take inspiration from Tori Amos, but … well fuck off. She’s awesome.

Still, I’m thinking of changing the name again now.

This Time Of Year

Some of you who live in parts of the country with seasons might think that a tribute to fall is well overdue. Those of you who live in Arizona might still think it's premature. But I had a lovely afternoon *, it's Friday, I'm home early, and I am thus inspired.

Fall is my favorite time of year. Halloween is coming, cooler temperatures are coming, it is a beautiful time to live in Arizona. I have whole playslists of "fall" music and I watch lots of "fall" related things, and ... yeah, I'm a dork. You know this. My favorite "fall" song is truly a song about fall and it's by Better Than Ezra and it's called "This Time Of Year."



There's a feeling in the air
Just like a Friday afternoon
You can go there if you want
But it fades too soon

So go on, let it be
There's a feeling coming over me
Seems like it's always understood
This time of year

There's a football in the air
Across a leaf-blown field
There's the first car on the road
And the girl you steal

So go on, let it be
There's a feeling coming over me
Seems like it's always udnerstood
This time of year

I know there's a reason to change
I know there's a time for us
You think about the good times
And you live with all the bad
You can feel it in the air
Feeling right this time of year

That first line has just always enchanted me. It's so right. What else can I say? I've always loved this song.

When I was a senior in high school, I actually got a chance to meet Better Than Ezra backstage at the Paramount Theater in Denver, on an afternoon before a concert they were playing on a weekend in early October. And they decided to play a couple songs for those of us who got to meet them back there and did just a fun, amazing little acoustic set and ended it with "This Time of Year."

Anyway, before starting the song, they said that they think of it as their "campfire" song, but since they play most of their concerts electrified and highly amplified it doesn't always feel that way when they play it. Then they played a quiet, acoustic, slower and almost sad version of the song that I will never, ever forget. Evereyone was singing along at first, but very quietly, and then louder and louder until it really was like a campfire singalong.

The thing is, I didn't always like fall. In a place like Denver that has seasons, fall means winter is coming and when I was in junior high and igh school and had a bit of depression, winter was the worst. By my senior year, I was beginning to really fall in love with fall. ** But something about the slow, quiet version of the song really hit something in me. I damn near ended up in tears, but didn't feel too foolish because there were people in the room crying. It was an emotional moment like that.

Later that night during their main set, the lead singer told a brief story about playing this song in a sad way and how he felt so awful seeing people feeling sad because of it. And they then proceeded to play a perfect, upbeat, loud version of "This Time of Year." It's a moment that has always satyed with me, and I never fail to think of that day when I hear the song.

So fall is coming. Good movies are coming to theatres. Apple cider is in the stores. Pumpkins and Halloween decorations are everywhere you look. Football is being played. Baseball has finally started the playoffs. It's October. It's fall.

I'm always just a tiny bit sad during fall in Arizona. I miss Colorado autumns. I miss trips to Estes Park to see the aspen changing to a brilliant gold and the elk bugling in Rocky Mountain National Park. I miss that crisp feeling in the air that we don't really get in Arizona until around Thanksgiving. I miss putting on heavy jackets and gloves to go to the movies and going to football games that start off warm in sunlight and end well after dark when it's chilly so you have to huddle together with a girl for warmth. I miss not wanting to drink apple cider unless it's warmed up.

But those feelings will reach our southern desert climate soon enough. This afternoon, I'm thrilled just knowing it's on its way.



* Our office won a contest this week and was rewarded by being able to watch a movie this afternoon. It was actually quite fun and I laughed a lot and got to leave about 20 minutes early and the afternoon I walked out into was sunny and the sky was blue and it was not too hot. And I was able to drink it in and think, Ah, the weekend.

** ba-dum-bum!

PS. When I first published this blog one of the books that showed up "from my library" on the side of the page was Stewart O'Nan's "The Night Country," which is a fall/Halloween book that I love and have long intended to write a blog about. I'll try to get to that soon.

it's 11:30 pm, do you know where natalie portman is?

Maybe I’m having a moment of selective memory here, but for me there really weren’t any two better movies in 2004 than Closer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both are movies that linger – I haven’t stopped thinking about them since the day I went to the theater. Beyond that, they don’t really have much in common. Both are about relationships, I guess. Though Closer is more about people interacting while Eternal Sunshine is more about our inner lives, our memories. I’ve been having the urge to sit down and watch Eternal Sunshine again lately, but tonight Diana turned on Closer before she went to bed, so I’m watching it all the way through for the first time since in the theater, I think. I own it, but it’s not really the kind of thing you’d watch on a summer afternoon. I’ve put in the DVD for a few scenes, but not the whole thing.

I’m struck by the pessimism of this movie, which is really just a kind of honesty, an open discussion of a reality we gloss over in day-to-day life. I am tempted to write that I do not know people who behave this way in real life, but in fact I do. I just don’t like to think about it. Still, it is reassuring to me to feel put off by these characters.

I’ve been in a dark mood lately. Not depressed, in which case I would probably embrace Closer’s ugliness, but dark. Maybe it’s my job, or Diana’s job. Maybe it’s the combined fatigue we all feel about our jobs. Do any of my friends really like what they do? I guess Robert doesn’t hate his gig, oh and Kane gets to make out with some German chick. (What’s that Trish? That should go in the “jobs that suck” column instead? Gotcha.)

Maybe it’s because October is here and I have decorated for Halloween and Corpse Bride is in theatres and yet ... it’s still ungodly hot. Fall is not really here in any meaningful sense. Maybe I just need a cool fall breeze on my face to brighten my mood. I tried to trick myself by breaking out “fall” songs and clothes and the like, but “This Time of Year” just really doesn’t work when it’s 99.

Added into this, to some degree, is the story I’m writing, which is an undeniably dark story. I tend to listen to “appropriate” music when writing and that’s starting to carry over to the rest of my day, as well. Gone from my speakers the last couple of weeks are the happy, carpe diem invocations of Dave Matthews Band or Jack Johnson. And that’s not unusual. DMB tends to be “summer music” for me, and I tend to listen to a lot of U2 and Pearl Jam in the fall and winter. But this isn’t like that. I’m listening to the really dark Tori Amos songs, and Nine Inch Nails, and Daniel Lanois. For God’s sake I found myself listening to Brian Eno yesterday. So clearly it’s getting a bit out of control.

I need to stop indulging it, I suppose. I went to the movies this week and saw A History of Violence, a dark and brutal movie. Strange how that didn’t help. But I have a thing about not really enjoying comedies when I’m by myself. Upside? There are still plenty of stupid comedies to be seen. 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers are still in theaters and that Waiting movie comes out ... son, I think? Plus Wallace and Gromit this weekend. And maybe not so much with the Closer before bedtime anymore.