February 16, 2007

Don't give me no jazz

What a nice day I’ve had, the sun shining through the windows and the cold shut out by the walls. Since September, I’ve been working on the second draft of the story that will be defended as my Master’s theis come April. I’ve worked with the new draft by starting fresh and retyping each chapter with the first draft as a guide, making changes as I see fit and then going over it again (and again after that upon feedback from my advisor). And I’m getting toward the end of my story, and though the ultimate end has stayed the same, so many details have changed. And so I’ve thrown out (most of) the first draft from this point on. And it’s wonderful really, to work with these characters I’ve come to know so well and put them in fabulous places I’d never before considered. To be template-free, and let my imagination take over. All toward the same destination, of course, but I aim to make the ride more interesting than it was the first time around.

Now rereading To Kill a Mockingbird, which is rumoured to be even better than it was when I read it last in grade eleven. In periodicals news, The Walrus was really wonderful this month, and Vanity Fair arrived today.

And it is now the weekend. The Doering-Lui’s will arrive for dinner at 7:00. Tomorrow’s plans include long-awaited fish and chips, Kensington Market, and a search for a DS game on which I will be a trusty sidekick.

February 16, 2007

Fierce

Upon a recommendation, I read A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins and found it so illuminating. I don’t really believe you can learn fiction from a book (except books of fiction, of course), but I’m right in the middle of my big project and reading such a guide at this stage is quite practical. Shines light on what might be wanting, and made me think of a few things I never even considered. And then I can go right to my story and apply what I’ve learned. The book also dealt with matters of structure I’ve been grappling with. My aim is to have my story done by the end of this month so that I can spend March dealing with it as a whole. Though this aim would be more achievable if February were just a bit longer. Though if February were any longer, I would probably lose my mind.

On lending books— most people who know me know me well enough not to even ask. Lending out a book fills me with terrific anxiety and I don’t feel better until it’s back in its home. Because as much as I love books as objects, I love my library as an entity even more. When I prune my shelves, however, I always make sure I give away the discards. I have a moral objection to profiting from books. I feel that karmically I will benefit somehow by spreading that love– whether to a college book sale, or a friend.

Now reading Ladykiller, which I would sum up as “fierce”.

My Valentines Day haul was ace: I got a box of Celestial Seasonings Tea. I gave Stuart a grapefruit. And I also made him a chocolate treat from a recipe in Globe Style (“Triple Chocolate Attack”), though I made plenty and got to enjoy as much as he did.

February 11, 2007

Epigraph

The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner? -Jacob’s Room

January 28, 2007

Glimpses

There had to be something more than this, Gail knew. All around her, she was permitted glimpses of the most marvelous things— the tops of blooming gardens behind tall walls, a sudden pagoda in the midst of a residential block, orange fish swimming far below a layer of ice in the castle moat. A tall blue building the next street over, windowless and featureless, except for its shimmering neon sign. It was a pachinko parlour, Joe said, which was a gambling game, and if Gail ever walked by when someone was going in or out, she got a sense of the overwhelming light and sound inside until the doors shut again and that whole universe disappeared.

January 9, 2007

Shift

I’m about midway through the second draft of my long project, and I’ve decided to shift from first person to third. I’m not convinced it’s the right decision, but I have to try it out and see. And so I am going through my story carefully, changing all the ‘I’s to ‘she’, and no doubt missing quite a few. It’s good though, because at this point in my work, it’s effective to go through the entire story carefully and see how its functioning as a whole. Changing the narration forces me to go through it carefully. I also have a feeling that it will make my narrator more likeable.

January 3, 2007

Short

I’ve taken a one-week break from my long project to write short stories– two or hopefully three. Concurrently, I’m reading Cathedral and listening to my new Badly Drawn Boy CD for inspiration.

January 2, 2007

A tricky business

Now, chewing gum is a tricky business, and so ultimately disposable and therefore dispensable that in a troubled economy it’s usually one of the first sectors to suffer. I worked in Product Development under Great Mind Peter Davenport who, with his knack for innovation, had been charged with maintaining the vitality of the Gollingham Gum brand throughout the economic down-turn. In addition to typing, my work with Peter involved the chewing of prototypical varieties of gum throughout the day and subsequently completing thorough surveys regarding their tastes, textures and flavours— long lasting or otherwise. I grew awfully fond of the new peppermint, and I credit Peter for saving what was left of the Gollingham economy with it.

December 15, 2006

The Ledbetter Serial Arsonist

Before we left Toronto, I had promised postcards home— to Caroline, my friends and even to my mother. But there were no postcards of Ledbetter in existence. You could buy postcards in Ledbetter, at the old train depot museum, but they were actually postcards of the Grantville Town Hall and the Grantville Floral Clock. They used to sell Ledbetter postcards some years ago, I learned from the woman in the conductor’s cap who staffed the museum. But then the postcards ran out and they never restocked, and so many buildings had burnt down by then anyway.
“Have you heard about our arsonist?” the woman asked me.
She led me over to the display in the corner which told the story of serial arsonist Randall Hicks who had destroyed over fifty buildings in Ledbetter over a more than twenty-year spree— from garages and sheds to the Town Hall and Public Library. Hicks was an accountant and a careful arsonist. Only one person was ever injured in one of his fires; a clear case of wrong place at the wrong time, he had been robbing a store Hicks had targeted. And no one had ever managed to catch Randall Hicks either. He’d turned himself in in 1966, one day after his father died, saying he would have done this years ago if it weren’t for the shame it would have brought his dad.
“And that’s why we don’t have postcards anymore,” the woman told me, so I picked up five of the Grantville Floral Clock.

December 7, 2006

Footnotes

If my academic career were to continue beyond next Friday, I would require some sort of rehabilitation program for my addiction to footnotes. I suspect this is a common graduate student affliction, but it feels personal to me. I wonder how we ever got along without them. Moreover, I wish I could scatter them throughout my conversations. Not my fiction so much; I think that’s not clever anymore. But yes, if I could find a way to talk with footnotes. I think it would cut down on the number of times I change topic within a single sentence.

December 6, 2006

Difficult

From this article, via Maud Newton.

Marilynne Robinson says “Expect [writing] to be difficult. If you don’t encounter difficulty you’re probably not doing it well enough.”