Maybe it should feel like work

After a predictably rough holiday season, with more personal and political gloom in the air, I've started writing a new story. For the past several weeks it's seemed like I didn't know what I wanted to read or write, so this feels like a breakthrough of sorts. We were driving past a house that had a widow's walk on the roof, and that made me think of "The Turn of the Screw," though a brief search of the text suggests the strange man in the story appears atop a tower, not on a widow's walk as such. Anyway, that, in turn, made me think of the framed narrative, in which the narrator recounts a story someone else told him. It's also a device H. G. Wells and other old-school science fiction authors often use, and I decided I wanted to try it to tell a ghost-type story.

Also, checking my records, I saw that I had received some rejections recently that included invitations to submit something else. I used to get so excited about those; now I sort of think, "meh, maybe, if I get around to it." But today I responded to a few of those. (It also depends on whether I have something to send, but in this case, I did.)

My point here is that I do not feel particularly inspired or energized by any of this. It feels like something I have to do, or ought to do, because I'm a writer.

But maybe that's how it's supposed to feel. I should know by now that inspiration and joy and energy are only sometimes part of the writing experience. Just as often it feels like going to the dentist. And maybe that's how you know that you've truly taken on this vocation.Whether you're rewarded or not, you do it, because that's what you do.  

It's a new morning...meh.

Yet more proof that there is no single process for writing a novel

While I was writing my first novel, I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for books on "how to write a novel." Most of them concentrated on the early stages, like getting inspiration, while offering tips on how to find time and/or make a habit of writing, so you could produce the seemingly vast quantities of material required to constitute the finished product.

This was well and fine, but I already had inspiration. And, at that time anyway, I had enough time and self-discipline to create enough material. What I wanted to know was something like--how do you build a plot? Do you outline or not? What if the outline changes every day? How do you know if some thread is worth pursuing or not?

The short answer to all these questions, I discovered later, is "Don't worry about it." Not only does everyone have a different process, I suspect that everyone has a different process for each book. There are many maps; all can get you home.

For example, in the past, I've thought it a bad idea to show my writing group (or anyone) chapters as I wrote them. I thought it best to wait till at least one full draft and probably one revision was done, so that I knew what I was doing before receiving critiques. I didn't want to spend all my time second-guessing and revising; I needed to keep moving forward.

But now, here's why I think the opposite can be true. When you are still planning and plotting and inching forward, chapter by chapter, showing people chapters as you go can give you a good idea of what's coming across, what's interesting, what's likely (though not necessarily) going to cause trouble, which characters they "get" and which they don't.

The risk with this approach is that you may want to immediately start revising the previous chapters based on this feedback. And then you'll never write more than fifty pages--rather, you'll write the same 50 pages 20 times and then (if you're me) collapse in frustration. 

But if you can just *take note of* the feedback, say in something called a "notebook," and keep going, that feedback can provide guidance for moving forward. Not absolute direction--you are not handing control of your manuscript over to anyone else--but guidance. What do you need to keep an eye out for as you move forward? What *might* this interesting but still-unformed character turn into and contribute? What plot twist might readers absolutely never accept unless you do it extremely, extremely well? In the early going of my latest venture, this has proven extremely useful. Maybe it wouldn't have been for another novel, but for this one, I think it's only helping. And the encouragement to keep going is damn essential.

This is all to say, as many have said before me, there is no one way or right way to write a novel. Whatever keeps you moving forward is what you need to do.

What? Oh, yeah, I'm still around.

Yes, yes, I'm around, and everything is mostly the same. You know. Working. Editing a new novel that's about to go out on sub. Chewing my fingernails to the nub over the election. Worrying about life stuff. Writing songs about Bigfoot for a choral performance. Eating. Drinking. Sort of sleeping. Oh, and tweeting. Lots of that.

Haven't had much to say in the long form lately (obviously) (as if a blog were "long form," good lord, how far have we fallen). But that will probably change as I climb out of the abyss of an odd summer and into a suddenly busy but more routine fall.

I like routine. Here's to more of it.

Why is writing so difficult? No, really--why?

It's the perennial question for those of us who call ourselves "writers." We supposedly need to write as much as we need to eat and breathe. Maybe more so. We don't even care if anyone ever sees what we create, let alone likes it. (This is a lie.) Writing is our identity, our passion, our reason for being. And yet, as often as not (at least for me, so I suppose I should say the "we" is royal here), we dread sitting down to do it. We do not want to. Our inner toddler begins kicking and screaming, maybe vomiting a little for good measure. If we manage to quiet this monster--or if we can endure him or her screaming in the background--we can get something done. And then we hate what we've written.

Why is writing so hard? Why do we hate what we love so much? And is there anything we can do about this?

If I knew the answer, I would tell you. I promise. But here are a few thoughts I have at the moment.

1. Writing is exhausting.

I'm closing in on the first draft of a new novel, and instead of feeling excited and exhilarated, I feel increasingly drained. Though I'm only actually "writing" for an hour or two every day, my head buzzes continually with ideas, corrections, doubts, aha moments ... It's like the Buddhists' "monkey mind" turned into a giant gorilla and running amok. I am burning glucose in large quantities. I feel dizzy and not entirely in control. I don't really like this feeling.

2. Writing is uncertain.

In fact, like faith, it's the opposite of certainty. Even as I put a word on the page, I think, "There's a better way to say that. What is the better way? Should I say that at all? Maybe I want to say something different. What should I say instead?" If it doesn't happen right away, it will happen as soon as I stand up to make a cup of tea, or--invariably--once I turn the computer off. Related to #1, above, writing means coexisting with constant doubt. Doubt fastens itself to me, like a twin conjoined at every point from head to toe. I drag doubt around.

3. Writing is exposure.

Even if no one ever sees your work but you, putting what's in your mind onto a page or screen makes the internal external. That means it can be seen, and, worse, interpreted. Maybe I think I'm saying A, but someone else thinks I'm saying B. And B is a very bad thing, which reveals my profound incompetence, wickedness, naivete, and general fraudulence. I don't want to face these things in myself, let alone allow anyone else to discover them. Why on earth am I doing this?

4. Writing is unrewarding.

Yes, I know, writing is its own reward. So is persistence. So is growth. But wouldn't it be much nicer if, after you wrote 500 words, your computer dispensed $500 into your damp and trembling palm? Or you received 500 prestigious awards? 500 compliments? Something?

5. Writing is self-indulgent.

I also know the arguments against this one. The world needs art, the world needs novelists. Although you're not directly feeding the hungry, or building a wall around Donald Trump, you're helping to create empathy and understanding--and increasing your own capacity for both. But shouldn't I really be building that wall right now? What was I doing while the U. S. descended into fascism? Finishing my satirical novel?

From all the think pieces I've read on this very topic, I've concluded that none of these issues can be solved. Again, like a Buddhist, we must just acknowledge them and press on. It's just that it's all rather disappointing. I thought this was supposed to be fun.

Well, sometimes it is.

Recipes return! Vegan split-pea and fakin' bacon soup

I used to post more recipes than I do now, mostly because I got in a kind of cooking rut this past year. But now, just in time for the Bay Area's unprecedented spring heat wave, it's ...

Vegan split-pea and fakin' bacon (or fake cured meat of your choice) soup!

2 tbsps olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
salt and pepper (smoked salt if you have it)
4 cups vegetable broth
4 cups water
2 cups dried split peas
3-4 medium carrots, diced
2 large or 4 small potatoes, diced
1 package tempeh bacon (e.g., Fakin' Bacon) or similar fake cured meat

Heat olive oil in stock pot. Saute onion till transparent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, salt, and pepper, and saute another minute. Add broth, water, and split peas. Bring to boil, then simmer 30 minutes, partly covered. Add carrots and potatoes, and simmer another 30 minutes, till potatoes and carrots are tender. Add "bacon."

That's it!

No photos, it's kinda ugly. But good!!

What did I see today?

A few months back, I published a piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books about Yuri Olesha's memoir in fragments, No Day without a Line. At the end, I suggested that I planned to try the same experiment: keeping a notebook--offline--in which I wrote every day. The purpose was not only to recover a purer experience of writing in the midst of constant distraction, although that was part of it. I wanted to write in a way that placed me in a larger context than just inside my own head. I wanted to record, for better or worse, "the times."

I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats, wondering: How's it been going? Did she do it? Has she written every day? What are those little handwritten gems really like? Answers: So-so. Yes. No. I was amazed how quickly I regressed to my previous journal-writing habits, which is why I gave up the practice in, oh, 1995. The thing became, far more than I had hoped,  Compendium of Complaints. A Litany of Laments. A Chronicle of Cranky. It's not that I ever intend these pieces to be published in this form (unlike Olesha, who was ultimately writing for publication). It's the ease with which I tumble into the black hole of solipsism as soon as I believe no one is looking.

On one hand, I obviously need some space for blowing off steam, and perhaps writing it is better than dumping it on, say, one's husband night after night. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that "venting" is really all that helpful in and of itself. And the writing it produces is altogether useless.

What to do? The solution I've come up with is, no matter what I've written previously, before I close out the daily blurb, I ask myself: What did I see today? This is a variation on one of Olesha's fragments. And it forces me to think of something, even something very small, that I've observed. Often I find myself writing about it at some length. For example, yesterday I recalled seeing, during my daily walk around the neighborhood, a film crew setting up on someone's lawn. Why? I don't know. But then I began recalling details, like a man entertaining a child (his daughter?) by placing her in the driver's seat of his car. I presume he was trying to keep her out of the film crew's way. But who knows?

Anyway, I would have entirely forgotten about that if all I'd allow myself to do was grouse. Just a suggestion for those of you seeking a way to get words on a page.



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Writing and being still

I was very glad to see this piece in last Sunday's NYT, on writing when you're not actually writing. I've said something similar, but I didn't realize it was, you know, a thing. The author, Silas House, calls these various imaginative practices "being still." He also emphasizes that this isn't just an artistic method but a way of being in the world.

The piece lined up, perhaps coincidentally, with that Sunday's Modern Love column. The writer, Teresa Link, describes her former husband's inability to comprehend that she was actually doing something (writing) when she was sitting in a riverbank, outwardly doing nothing.

I do wonder how many creative people are shamed out of the very work they hope or need to do by these kinds of misunderstandings. Often--at least in my case--we ourselves don't realize that we're working. We ourselves think we are being lazy, just daydreaming or brooding, when we're actually doing preliminary work to writing or painting or dancing or whatever. Both authors convincingly remind us of the extent to which first-world cultures, the US in particular, celebrate visible, physical, even frenetic activity. If you're a writer, that means you at least should be throwing down actual words on some actual document (digital or otherwise).

Which is probably why novice writers are usually advised to write every day, write x number of words every day, and don't get up until you've done it. You are lazy! You need discipline! Famous Author got up every morning at 3 to write, before preparing her children's breakfasts and then heading off to her job as CEO of Everything! And you can't even cough out a thousand words? Why, you forty-seven-percenter / slug!

Yes, I've used the thousand-word axiom myself, and found it quite helpful, especially at overcoming the dreaded Internal Editor. But I don't think we need the guilt that comes with "not producing," especially when there are other ways to be a productive writer. You just need to get the thing into words at some point. If the daily routine is not possible or functional for you--or not always--that could very well be just fine.

Is silence golden?

Insert usual excuses for not blogging here.

Plus:

I have been wondering lately about this whole imperative to say stuff on the Internet as often as possible. Where does this very recent, overwhelmingly powerful requirement to write in public come from? I think it's safe to say it comes from corporations, whose need to draw "eyeballs" to advertisements intersects powerfully with 1) the human need for connection and attention generally, and 2) writers' need to write and be read specifically.

Caveats:

1) This is not necessarily bad. There's a real discipline to rapid, public writing--which is still evolving, and whose shaky tenets many, many people don't practice. But still, discipline is good. Learning to write both reasonably well and reasonably fast is good. And who will finance this sort-of-real/sort-of-fake form of publication for aspiring writers, if not the makers of dangerous diet pills and fly-by-night, for-profit colleges?

2) My ambivalence about the compulsion to write is neither a satisfactory excuse for not writing, nor an indication I intend to give up blogging, or tweeting, or anything else.

3) I'm just saying.

What am I saying? I'm saying that last week I had in mind a post about the Ronco Rhinestone and Stud Setter, which was inspired by a pair of jeans I'd just bought at a thrift shop. They are Michael Kors, very nice, $14, but until I brought them home I was not fully aware of the large amount of studs adorning the front and back pockets. Normally I'm not a fan of adornments on jeans; I'm sure these will make my life a living hell if I forget and wear them through an airport scanner or if I happen to amble past a giant magnet. Also, they reminded me of Barbara Stanwyck in The Thorn Birds, stomping around the ranch with her dentures and bowed legs. By which I mean, too much stuff on jeans is either for 1) very young people or 2) old people trying to look young. Neither of which I 1) am or 2) wish to be.

But then the Sikh temple shooting happened, on the heels of the Aurora shooting, and those are just the awful happenings I happened to be paying most attention to, thanks to the Internet. A breezy post about the Ronco Rhinestone and Stud Setter had to be out of the question for at least a period of time (how long? Is now OK?). But was I supposed to say something instead about the shootings? Does saying something mean you are automatically more concerned than if you say nothing? I started to feel like the better move was to say nothing. Or, rather, that speaking just for the sake of speaking was not helpful. I don't know what *is* helpful. But maybe the traditional "moment of silence" is more than just a mask for "let us pray," when you're not supposed to say that publicly. I'd like to think it also means: let us shut our traps for just a second. Let us pause. Let us not jump and react and flail our arms and demand attention. Perhaps only silence is as enormous as certain events, and speech is too small a thing in such circumstances.

So there. I said something about saying nothing. You're welcome, Internet.

Riffing and dwelling

I have *so* not been blogging. Obviously. As I recently learned from a highly scientific test, I am a creature of routine (but no less fascinating for being one!). When my routine is thrown off, say by lots of paying work, which, I hasten once again to add, is a very, very good thing, I start dropping regular tasks faster than famous young movie stars shed their spouses.

But this situation has allowed me to reflect, again, on the topic of how to write when you don't have time to write. It now seems to me that there is a benefit to being away from my writing. I don't mean taking a break from it; I mean being physically away from the text, which, in my case, resides on a computer. Because my other, paying work is on the computer, by the end of the day, I am really interested in being in a different room, if not a different county, from the screen. And that's when I've started to dream up ways to enhance my second novel.

My particular problem as a writer is that I actually write too little in early drafts. As Ann Patchett once said, my writing is like "concentrated orange juice," which needs water. I cram what should be extended scenes into summaries, asides, or complicated metaphors. Usually I am so enamored of these summaries and metaphors that I need someone else to point out the problem to me.

But going back and staring at the text doesn't always inspire expansion. The lines on the screen start to look like the wires of a chain-link fence. Whereas when I'm (say) lying on the sofa, or cooking dinner, or playing with the cats, I can start imagining how I might untangle a tight knot in the narrative. I can "feel" places where the story seems jammed up, and start playing around with dialog, images, etc. The stakes feel a lot lower, and the space for exploration a lot more open. Before I know it, I have written a scene. Then it's just a matter of sitting down and recording it, and which point even more ideas start to occur to me.

I made a note to myself on top of my notebook. It consisted of two words: Riff and Dwell. This is what I need to do in my writing--open up spaces to riff and dwell. And being physically distant from the writing itself, I find, is often a tremendous help.

"I am the laziest ambitious person I know."

I very much enjoyed Tim Kreider's piece on busyness in yesterday's NYT. Mostly because it validates me, and the many hours I spend draped on the couch, with or without a cat on my sternum. I am valuable! I have insights, not despite but because of my staggering capacity for sloth! Lazy ambitious people, unite! Oh, never mind. It's too much trouble.

Only one little question nags at me. I used to spend equal if not more amounts of time in a very similar mode (couch, semi-dozing state, though no cat back in those days)--and it was a sign of depression. I do sense a difference in my current way of doing nothing, but the difference isn't quite clear enough to make me feel 100% confident in my new laziness. I suppose, in depression mode, my mind was actually racing and obsessing, rather than drifting and dreaming, as now. I also had a feeling pointlessness, of just wanting the day to be over--of lying low, till the storm that was the day passed--which I don't have now. I like my days.

Still, I continue to suspect my idleness. And I continue to admire the busy, even though Kreider suggests a great deal of busyness is an expression of fear. Idleness can be fear-driven, too.

But hey, at least I wrote a blog post about it!

Instead of fiction, fennel

Not really feeling the literary life today; not sure why, but allow me to compensate by talking about fennel! It's awesome! Yeah, that stuff that grows in huge clumps along the freeway here in Northern California is just the best thing ever, roasted or sauteed. Nor does one need to park precariously on the shoulder and start hacking away at those bushes. Turns out they sell it at the grocery store, minus the coating of car exhaust (one hopes).

My fennel feeling started with this recipe from Bryant Terry's The Inspired Vegan* for Savory Grits with Sauteed Broad Beans, Roasted Fennel, and Thyme. It's vegan, and it's easy, and you should definitely make it either before or after you buy the book.**

So I used the bulbs for that, but hung onto the stalks and fronds, not sure what I was going to do with them, until just now. I just chopped up the stalks and fronds, and sauteed them with some garlic, walnuts, salt, and pepper, and served over penne pasta for a quick and delicious lunch.

No photos, because I'm a lousy food stylist.

*a much-loved holiday gift from Amy and Doug!
**the only part that might slow you down is that to make the creamy grits properly, you have to soak raw cashews overnight before pureeing them. But they're actually delicious in their own right, for smoothies and other uses, and well worth making. And if you don't remember to make these ahead of time, heck, just make polenta with some vegan margarine, even though Terry seems to frown on this...



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Staying in touch with your writing

Over the last few weeks I've been fairly consumed with editing work. Which is good! Very, very good! But it has left me a tad depleted on the verbal front, not to mention reluctant to spend any more time in front of a computer screen than necessary. So I didn't work on my novel that much.

However, this wasn't the same kind of hiatus that I've allowed to happen in the past, because I recalled some advice I read years ago. I really wish I could remember who wrote this, but the gist was, even if you can't actually write, find a way to "stay in touch with your writing." So I decided to do that. At least once a day, for maybe fifteen minutes, I thought about my novel--specifically, the point where I'd left off on my revisions. I did this while making dinner, or just before going to sleep. I tried to fully inhabit that place in my novel, without rushing off to take notes or open the file on the computer. So as not to overload the experience with layers of worry, I told myself I'd recall what I'd imagined when the time came, and that the important thing was to be in that place, if only for a few minutes every day.

That seems to have worked. Later in the week, and yesterday, I found an hour here or there to actually open the file and work. And unlike in the past, when I just shoved my own work completely aside in favor of the paid stuff, I was able to dive right back in. I did remember what I'd thought of (and expanded on it). Also, I suspect that setting aside the anxiety about not writing actually helped me find time to work. I accepted that I might only have an hour, or less, but that I could still do something with that time. I didn't spend time lamenting the time I didn't have.


In short, I think worrying about not writing is worse than simply not writing. This doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing enterprise, i.e. either you have four hours a day to work, or you have nothing. Writing can happen in the interstices. So find a way to stay in touch. That's my advice for today.

A small accomplishment, overblown

I'm short on time and brainpower this week, so I'll just show you this picture--

--which is of me at Pt. Reyes, just before I free-climbed that rock wall in the background.

Yes, well. I didn't climb the part that's over the water. Also, the same feat was achieved by many others, including women notably older than me, children, and at least one small, fluffy dog.

Still.

Stories without consequences

So like just about everyone else I've been watching Downton Abbey. I've now watched every episode, always a day or more late, since we don't have TV, only the Internet.* I can't say I have Downton-mania, exactly. I don't love it or hate it. Most of the characters leave me cold, and I've conceived an outright loathing for Mr. Bates that I can't explain. Even Maggie Smith's well-delivered witticisms seem forced. When the camera turns to her, I sit up with a chuckle at the ready, and am always a little disappointed with the zinger.

Yet I keep watching, because, I think, of the storytelling itself. More precisely: because of what seems to be very flawed storytelling. I have never seen a show in which huge plot points so often turn out--thus far, anyway--to have such minimal consequences. I guess the rest of what I have to say involves spoilers, so stop reading if you really don't want to know what's been happening. But, just of late: Only one minor character dies in the war, and his widow never loved him anyway. A major character is paralyzed for life, feels a tingle, and is dancing by the next episode. Same character's betrothed dies from the Spanish flu so that he is free to marry the woman he really loves. Headstrong daughter runs off with chauffeur, causing Lord Grantham to withhold his blessing and his money until...he doesn't anymore and everyone hugs. Lord G embarks on an affair with a maid, who then decides she ought to resign for the good of everyone, and leaves. Lady G gets deathly ill and then better within ten minutes.

So: no real freakin consequences. Or, not yet. If everything comes around again in some ingenious interweaving of these previously pallid storylines, I suppose I will have to print out this blog post, spread it with Earth Balance, and eat it. I will be especially delighted if (SPOILER) Mr. Bates really did kill his wife and has to do real jail time for it--even though he would be blameless because his wife was so purely, inexplicably evil. The bottom line is, these episodes feel like first drafts.

I've had the same problems in the first draft of my second novel. Now that I'm revising, I can see how often I wanted to leave my options open as I felt my way along. I could see plot lines heading a particular way, but realized that if they went too far, that character would no longer be around for the rest of the story--and I might still need him or her. So there's this repeated phenomenon of minor consequences for what seem to be major events or threats or screw-ups. The characters, Wile-E-Coyote-like, bounce up after being crushed by anvils, and then wait around to see what else I've got for them to do. At least when writing a novel you can, theoretically, revise once you get to the end, and do so more than once. Perhaps you don't have time for such with series television. You have to get it right the first time, which would be a pretty scary assignment. No wonder Lost went off the cliff.

*Which does not make us more virtuous than those who have TV, at least not anymore. I waste far more time in the Internet than I ever did watching TV.

What is writer's block?

I've told people that I never get writer's block. I always seem to be able to write *something,* if not something interesting or good or important. This is what blogs are for, writing *something.* And now that I am in revision mode with novel 2, getting *something* done is even easier. All that is required is staring at the printed (not blank!) page and making some sort of change. Or not! Because maybe I'll just keep what's already there, and keeping counts as revision! I am thinking! I am deciding! This is real work!

However. I am beginning to get a hint of what classic, cigarettes-bathrobe-wild-haired-baggy-eyed-cocaine-haunted-hotel-ax-murder-type writer's block is like. I have been trying to come up with "ideas" for some new short stories, which I hope to start on when this next round of revision is over. I have done about three pages on two different stories, and finished a full draft of another. But all of them just seem hollow. That's the best word I can use to describe them. They are words wrapped around a nonexistent core. I don't enjoy reading them or thinking about them. They feel like imitations of stories.

Well, Robert Olen Butler would say that having "ideas" for stories is my first problem. It means I'm coming at the problem intellectually rather than "from where I dream." And I suspect that is an issue. I'm writing about things I don't really care about. That is, I'm working from "concepts" that I think are "interesting" rather than from emotions that I don't fully understand (or accept). Even though some of my more successful stories have always seemed to me rather aloof, even arch, I'm starting to realize that there's some strangled cry of personal anguish within them. You can't fake that shit. You can't borrow someone else's personal anguish or conjure it up out of abstractions. In other words, at some point, you have to--metaphorically!--open a vein. Find an untapped agony mine, and then, maybe, make it funny.

The holiday season will probably help with this.

The 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Prize

If you haven't heard of it, the Bulwer-Lytton prize is given annually for *intentionally* bad writing--specifically for the "opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."

This year's winner is Sue Fondrie, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. The judges note that at 26 words, hers is the shortest winner in the history of the contest, "proving that bad writing need not be prolix, or even very wordy."

Inspirational words about writing to compensate for incipient crazy cat-lady behavior

Our cat Zee spent yesterday in Kitty ER. She is OK now--this was apparently a flare-up of a chronic intestinal condition, if by "flare" you mean...well, you can get the picture. That picture includes, at least for the moment, a special diet, which means I am spending this morning keeping Bella away from Zee's food and Zee away from Bella's (formerly Zee's as well). Obviously the simple solution is to only feed them at certain times and then *put the food away,* but they are so plaintive and manipulative that it seems easier just to get up every 10 minutes and chase somebody into another room. Did I mention that the special diet smells?

So for today's post about writing, I will simply refer you to this nice piece on procrastination by A.L. Kennedy:

I have, in my professional life, met numberless writers who seemed paralysed by their own desire to write, who had intelligent and reasonable excuses for not starting, not committing, not getting on with it, who could trump any arguments or suggestions I might make towards putting anything on paper. It is nice to win arguments, but not if it means you deny yourself the chance to do something beautiful and intensely alive.

Space colony art from the 1970s

Commissioned by NASA.

I love these for the same reason I love the NASA logo itself, the one known as "The Meatball." It's the goofy more-is-more graphic optimism of the early space age. (I don't love the alternative logo, known as "The Worm," which has fortunately been retired.)

Of course I'm biased, since my dad worked for NASA. He was at the research center now known as Glenn, formerly Lewis. They used to have "For the Benefit of All Mankind" spelled out in begonias in front of the building.

The new novel is napping

On Tuesday I finished the first draft of my second novel. In contrast to the first one, which took six-plus years, this one took less than a year.

One reason is that I had the voice for the new novel in my head right away. It's first person, alternating between past and present. Knowing this meant that a lot of point-of-view problems, as well as tone and mood problems, never arose. First person is quite limiting in other ways, and it didn't work for my first novel; but it seems that if you at least know who's talking and why, you can go a long way.

Another reason this one went relatively quickly is that I've learned to tolerate some remarkably egregious flaws in a first draft. These include:

• A character who, Schrodinger's cat-like, is both alive and dead throughout the first half of the story. I couldn't decide which had to be the case, so I just kept writing till it became clear.
  
  
• Another character who becomes three different people during the course of the story. When she first appeared I had one idea of the role she would play, but she evolved out of that. By the end became both the motive for the storytelling (the "narrative occasion," always an issue), and a fully worthy love interest for the narrator.
  
  
• Not knowing who the killer was until the last paragraph. Maybe still not knowing.
  
  
• The usual instances of overwriting, underwriting, and especially substituting summary for scene. God, why must there be scenes? Why can't everything be summary interspersed with occasional dialog?
  
  
• Massive doubts as to whether the story even begins to make sense on any level.

What all this means, of course, is that revising is going to be a lot of work. But before that is the required cooling-off/baking/resting period, in which I ignore the novel for approximately two months so that I can tackle revisions with a new perspective. I'm shooting for July 1.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: During the next two weeks blogging may be lighter than usual, and/or unpredictable, due to work, travel, and family issues.

Two poems for Thursday

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I cut in front of you
in the parking garage
and took the spot
you thought would be yours

Forgive me
I am usually not quite such an asshole
but I was hungry and late for my haircut
and your giant black Expedition filled me with self-righteousness

-----

YOWL

I saw the best chairs of my condominium destroyed by cats.