a fizzle on Friday

After that rant yesterday, I began work on an essay that was half done, and sat for six hours rewriting, shaping, adding, moving a line from here to there.  The deadline for the CBC Literary Competition is tomorrow; I've entered before, though not for a few years, and have been shortlisted three times.  A deadline is a very good thing for a freelance writer.  So I wrote and rewrote till after midnight (taking a break for Jon Stewart), felt good about the work, printed it and went to bed.

Reread it first thing this morning.  It doesn't work.  Way too big, once again - I cannot resist the panoramic sweep, the vast vista, rather than the small, telling moment that, explored in detail, actually means much more.  I am cramming in one of the huge stories of my life; the reader is exhausted by far too big a story to fit into a 2500 word essay.  And other stories I've considered for the competition are too small.  If you're entering a competition, you have to choose a  story that fits the allotted word count.

So is that six hours - plus the many other hours spent getting the piece underway - wasted? Well, for this year's competition, yes.  For my life as a writer, not at all.  I've got the basis of a much bigger piece and have learned yet again to slow down, shrink the scope, focus.  And all that work with words is pure pleasure.  What else would I have done with my evening?  Well, if someone had given me a ticket, I could have seen Prokofiev's War and Peace at the Canadian Opera, that would have been a great use of my time.  I could have gone for a long walk or visited a friend.  Instead I wove words.  The tapestry isn't ready for viewing yet.  But it will be. 

Today is bright and not so cold, so I'll go out and get my face in the sun.  And then I'll sit down with the bloody thing and start again.  Or maybe start another.  Back to the loom.   

How I Write, by Beth Kaplan

This is what happens to me when I sit down in the morning, after breakfast and coffee, to write: if I’m not in the middle of a project, I cast about for ideas.  I try to relax and think, okay, what matters most right now? What should I tell about?  Some important anecdote?  No, some lesson.  Usually, it’s a lesson – life is about learning to relax; let your children go; diaries are important.  I start to formulate a story about how I used to be in a mess but fixed it, whatever it is. 

 

Then I realise – sometimes after the story is well underway - no, stories shouldn’t be lessons.  So I rethink.  But by now something has interrupted – for example, right there as I was writing “lessons”, my tenant came into the kitchen practically on top of me and started doing distracting things, so I had to close the computer and walk away till he was gone.  There’s a phone call, there’s email, someone’s at the door – Jean-Marc as he’s walking by stops in to say hello, Dave appears in the garden and needs me to consult with him, the homeless guy wants work – the mail arrives and there’s something to be followed up or a New Yorker to flip through, just flip through to see what’s in it, mind, I won’t stop to read it now because I’m working.  But first there’s laundry to put in, dishes to wash, groceries to get, one of the kids calls, my mother calls and talks for almost an hour, the cat has peed on the carpet, the raccoons have scattered garbage all over the yard, plants need to be watered and pruned, the garden and birdfeeder need tending, some bit of officialdom needs to be seen to, Wayson calls and says let’s have lunch. Not today thanks, I say, I'm working. I eat a bit more, wash, get dressed – while getting dressed, become preoccupied with a skirt – does it need to be hemmed? Let’s pin it and look.  This pair of beads that should be shortened, who does that, let’s look in the Yellow Pages – and mmm, should do more laundry, need underwear, or maybe I should buy some, put it on my list, where’s the list?  These shoes need to be stretched, this sock drawer needs to be organised, that lightbulb is burned out, find the list.  And while we’re at it, let’s take the tweezers to the facial hairs and do a thorough job, fifteen minutes of close inspection.  And as I pass by the kitchen table there are two newspapers waiting to be read, the comics at least.  More coffee.  A snack involving yogurt.  Check TV guide – nothing on tonight, as always.

 

And let’s not forget Google and Safari, things to look up – flights to price and book, names to check on, information to seek, the New York Times always interesting and informative. Students emailing work that needs to be read and often edited.  Then back to creative work.  Where was I?  Oh yes, what’s meaningful now?  What stories do I love to tell friends?  A story about my past – being in the theatre.  What it was like to be in the theatre, that’s a good story.  I pick up the pen to start.  But – I have diaries, tons of diaries. Shouldn’t I check in the diaries first?  There will be such valuable research material in there, authentic, vibrant.  I’ll just check in the diaries.  Where are they, the ones for my acting life?  Let’s look.  Hmm, here are ones about the kids, that’s another important story.  Oh my God, I’d forgotten how lonely those days were.  Divorce, the worst thing … No, theatre, we’re looking for …

 

It’s noon, time to go to the Y.  Quick, jump on the bike, get to the Y, do the class, shower, on the way home drop into Doubletake, the secondhand store around the corner, right on the way.  Get home, if I’ve bought something at Doubletake try it on, make and eat lunch.  Listen to messages.  My mother, definitely now if not before.  The kids.  A good friend needs a hand, needs advice, has an idea about tonight. 

 

Sit down again.  Just do it.  An idea comes, and a line.  Two lines – a paragraph.  Two paragraphs, and it’s time to go back and fiddle with them, make them better.  Half an hour writing the two paragraphs, and half an hour to rewrite them until they flow well.  I will only realise later that they’re dull – that when I sit to write I lose my natural, energetic, lively voice and turn into someone pedantic and stiff.  I suck the juice out of my own material.  I read other writers endlessly, admire their natural voices and flow, but when I sit to write, I turn into someone boring.  

 

And now it’s five sharp – time for the first glass of wine.

P.S. I'm exaggerating, of course.  But you get the general idea.      

words are now

It's 7.50 p.m. and I'm waiting to hear what Obama has to say at 8 o'clock.  While I wait, the computer's on my lap like a purring cat, and I am reading blogs, including the always interesting Andrew Sullivan's.  He wrote a column about why he writes a blog, and finishes like this:

"In fact, for all the intense gloom surrounding the news-paper and magazine business, this is actually a golden era for journalism. The blogosphere has added a whole new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new generation to nonfiction. It has enabled writers to write out loud in ways never seen or understood before. And yet it has exposed a hunger and need for traditional writing that, in the age of television’s dominance, had seemed on the wane.

Words, of all sorts, have never seemed so now."

putting the champagne on ice

Only a few more days until the world changes, my friends.  Let us pray that Al Qaeda does not decide to get involved in the American election.  A neighbour suggested we gather on November 4th and drink a lot of champagne.  That's the best idea I've heard in ages.  

It's winter already, not even November - white pellets of hail or snow tumbling down as I write.  It feels colder when you're not ready for it - I hadn't even taken my winter coats out of storage yesterday, but there was such a bitter wind, I went back home and got out one of my warmest, with a giant hood.  Strange to be dressed like an Inuit at the end of October.  Time to take special care to fill the bird feeder.

We had an extraordinary class at Ryerson this week - midway through the term I give an assignment to push writers to be brave with their stories, and they all came through.  One after another, powerful, beautiful stories.  I marvel, as I always do, at the painful secrets we all carry.  

Many of the stories, as usual, were about fathers - absent, neglectful, distant, judgemental, abusive fathers, and one wonderful father tragically dead too young.  I tell classes that if I want to make people cry, I ask them to write about their fathers.  Because in general, so much is unresolved with Dad - Mum is there, for better or worse, and believe me, I've heard about plenty of terrible mothers, bad parenting is not the exclusive territory of men.  But at least she and her flaws are familiar.   So many of us didn't know our fathers well, had never really talked to them, had no way of telling them or asking for any kind of truth.  And sometimes that void haunts us forever. 

This financial meltdown is quite something to watch - articles in the paper about living frugally, buying second hand clothes, not using your car - well, some of us have been living that way for a long time, so we barely notice that there's anything different now except that food prices have gone up.  I've been an actress, a wife and mother, a single mother and a writer - so there was only one period, briefly, when I had a husband with a real job and we were actually solvent. Even then I often bought second-hand clothes, though in a designer resale store, not Goodwill which I frequented after my divorce.  Now the nearby Goodwill and Doubletake stores are more crowded than usual.  People are discovering the joy of poking through other people's castoffs for something that more or less fits, doesn't smell or have noticeable holes.  And of course, for the occasional treasure - "I can't believe someone gave this away!"  Like my Chanel purse ($3.00) and Balenciaga ballgown ($18.00), which I am longing for a place to wear.

I would never complain about living outside of the mainstream.  Here I am on a bitterly cold morning, on the sofa under a blanket with the crabby cat at my feet, writing to you.  There is no money from this activity, not one penny.  I cannot even really afford to live in my house.  But I have managed for years, somehow, and so have most of my friends.  

Though it's harder to be outside the mainstream, or outside at all, when it's so cold.  

 

My Own Private Editor

A new calm settles into our Canadian lives, or at least into mine - I heard our Prime Minister on the radio this afternoon and didn't rush to turn him off.   The next excitement: the U.S. election, which looks as if it will have an extremely happy ending.  Someone sent me pictures of Obama with his children, bending to listen gravely to one daughter, grinning that spectacular grin while driving a bumper car with the other ... 

If Hollywood had invented him, we wouldn't believe him.  In fact, Hollywood did, or New York - remember when "The West Wing" depicted a brilliant, accomplished, hard-working, plainspoken, left-wing outsider, a Latino, running to replace the heavenly Jed Bartlett as president?  "If only," we all sighed, or at least I did.  And only a few years later, here he is, and he's almost too good to be true.

He will inherit such a phenomenal mess - why does such a fine man want that job?  

Well, no more obsessing about politics: back to work.  I regularly check out the periodicals for writers at my local magazine store (while also pawing furtively through the fashion mags and today through Brad Pitt's pictures of the mother of his children in "W" - how close to those plump lips can the camera go?  Find out in "W" but here's a clue: pretty damn close.) The new issue of "the Writer" magazine was titled "MEMOIR - FIND THE RIGHT APPROACH" so I bought it and am reading an article about structuring your memoir.  The problem with writer's magazines, and with all the great books about writing too, is that those of us in permanent avoidance mode can spend lots of time reading about writing instead of actually writing, and still feel as if we're working.  As I am right now.

Only joking.  It's Sunday, my reading day - I actually take a day of rest, at least from writing, in order to read.  Last week I also took a break from my own memoir - for which I am trying to find the structure - to work on a shorter essay I pulled from my files.  It's about my life as an actor, and I did a first draft five or six years ago.  I'm not sure if it's harder to take the bones of an old piece and pull it apart, or to start fresh, but this time I did the former.  

After a few drafts, I did what I often do when a new piece reaches a certain stage - I emailed it to my friend Margaret Davidson, an editor who lives in Vancouver.  What a valuable gift she gives me each time she reads.  Just mailing it off helps - as soon as I've sent it, I read it again, trying to see it through her eyes.  And then a response comes, often within the hour, with her thoughtful analysis of what I'm trying to do and where I'm going wrong (and, once in a while, where I'm doing something that works.)  This time she sent it back with giant chunks highlighted in orange which she suggested I cut, and other parts underlined in blue which needed fixing.  And I agreed with every cut and fix.  

Many drafts to go, but I've had a great boost.  A student told me last week that she'd always thought you should just get on with your writing and not need an editor's help.  But at last, she said, she realised that there was nothing wrong with needing an outside viewpoint.  Not only is there nothing wrong with it, but it's essential.  We often have no idea how much good editors have helped cut, shape and refashion famous manuscripts, propelling them to success.  

Here's to the unsung heroes of the writing trade: the editors.  Thanks to you all, and thanks particularly to Margaret, my very own set of intelligent eyeballs attached to a precise and invaluable brain.