I am returning to school in an hour, and a very large, loud part of me would rather not. It's four degrees there. Four. Degrees. There is almost nothing to look forward to in my classes: my favorite classes are being taught by very nasty people; my favorite professors are teaching courses which titles make me cry (and crying, in four degrees, is a mistake). I have to start math again. Some of my favorite schoolmates are leaving for their semester abroad, and a whole crop of new people are returning, and who wants to uproot relationships and start plant new ones when the ground is frozen solid and you've just settled in. It's very much safe to say that while I belong no where else but here, this school is not what I dreamed it was for five years (five out of seventeen? Almost a third. A whole third of my life, devoted to this place.)
And with that said, I'm going to stop talking about school and start talking about dreams.
Dreams are silly things. I once dreamed my English teacher bounced across Australia on a giant inflatable strawberry, not even making that up. A lot of times, on American Idol and Oscar award speeches, people talk about living their dreams, and that's silly too. You don't live dreams. You live life. Dreams exist entirely independent of reality; the dreams we sleep through have absolutely no bearing on reality, and the same is true for those dreams people talk about in interviews right before they thank their personal Lord and Savior, which happens right before I vomit. Dreams are good for one thing, and one thing only: having something to refer to when things seem not worth it, and having something to slip into when the day has been long and difficult (the use of separate clauses might make that look like two different things, but I promise you, they're the same).
Dreams don't light Broadway stages and they don't feed families of four. If you find yourself living your dream, you have done something very wrong. If your dream is attainable, you severely lack imagination. I don't say this out of bitterness, I say it entirely out of hope. Imagine if I pulled up to school in September and it was everything I dreamt it to be. Imagine if it was at all what I dreamt it to be. Dreams are horizons; when we reach them, it's time to plug off our noses and jump off the end of the earth. When we live our dreams, there is nothing left. There is no personal satisfaction and there are no personal saviors; but dreams are very real, and so are Gospels. Simply because I am not living my dream I get the full satisfaction of being alive; right now it's in a dissatisfying frozen wasteland, but hell, so was The Call of the Wild.
This all coming from a woman who hasn't slept in nights, so take with a grain of sand.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
I have a question.
Very little writing progress, but I have a few new pairs of pants, most of the Christmas decorations are down (don't judge, I get around to things... eventually), and (speaking of) I've finally started to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So far, productive.
So here's my question. I've been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series (which is the proper name for the Game of Thrones books, who knew) for a few weeks now; I'm four books in, and I can honestly say that I do not actively enjoy it. The reading, I mean. It's painful, it tears my soul into pieces, I've cried several times at the thought of going on to the next chapter, if I don't blast this fourth book out by Tuesday I will die trying to juggle my need to academically perform and my aching desire to get the hell through with reading, and when people ask me if I would recommend this series, I do not. These books are not for those looking for light reading. These books are not for the faint hearted. These books are especially not for those who'd avoid sacrificing friends, productivity, and personal hygiene all to read.
These books are absolutely wonderful.
Here's the heart of it (I could write essays on How I Came to Read These Books and Why I Didn't Want to and Here's What I Think About Each Individual Point, but we'll skip it for now): the writing, though not sheer brilliance on its own, serves as a direct chute into the world building, plot development, and the many, many characters. George R.R. Martin is a master of all three, and a good writer to boot; this series combines all the thrill and indulgence of a beach-read paperback, the world building and epic qualities of a Tolkienesque high fantasy, and the complex, compelling characters of the best literary novels out there. I force myself to stay awake when I should be sleeping because six chapters down the line is a character I simply can't wait until tomorrow to read. I have fallen asleep mid-reading because it's four in the morning and I didn't mean to read that long when I sat down at eleven at night two days ago. So why do I not enjoy reading these damn books?
Because they are so brilliant. Because Martin is so brilliant. Because you don't realize how invested you are in the world, how intimate you are with the characters, how involved you've become in the plot until you're a few hundred pages into the first book --- and as soon as he has you, Martin knows how to rip the rug from under your feet. He sticks his literary foot out as you're running through the pages and you never see it coming and then you're flying through the air and landing square on your tailbone and in a lot of pain.
Most important of all: the characters. There are so many. They all have their own inclinations and motivations and dignity that I can't remember reading in a book before. I can't remember the last time I got three books into a series and one character who I wanted to swat out of the books like a mosquito changed everything in a few pages right at the very end. I can't remember the last time I felt the weight of a character's decision and torn by their choice. I can't remember feeling so empty when a character was lost --- and then not triumphant but terrified when they returned. I can't remember watching a character grow up and then realizing how much I miss their childhood, how badly I want to carry them back to when all they had to do was play in the dirt and sing stupid songs that didn't rhyme, until I remember that when they were children I couldn't wait to see how they grew up and I actually feel responsible for what they've endured.
I don't remember reading these things, but I do recall living them. The humanity captured in the characters, the reflection of our world in that castle-clustered, knight-and-dragon littered one that Martin created, the way the plot unfolds in real time and space and yet it's all contrived --- reading these books is like living a second life on page. It's frightening. It's tiring. It's a little intimidating and a whole lot of gut wrenching. Some might say it's a waste of time but for argument's sake we'll say it isn't, because we all like reading here. We'll call it beautiful that it is possible and unbelievable that Martin can do it. So here's my question: do we read because we enjoy it, or rather for those arguably higher, unarguably more painful things, like exploring the human condition and considering life in all its forms, the highest towers and the deepest dungeons, the best, the worst, and the in-between? Which leads me to my second question---
Depending on the answer, what does that mean for our writing?
So here's my question. I've been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series (which is the proper name for the Game of Thrones books, who knew) for a few weeks now; I'm four books in, and I can honestly say that I do not actively enjoy it. The reading, I mean. It's painful, it tears my soul into pieces, I've cried several times at the thought of going on to the next chapter, if I don't blast this fourth book out by Tuesday I will die trying to juggle my need to academically perform and my aching desire to get the hell through with reading, and when people ask me if I would recommend this series, I do not. These books are not for those looking for light reading. These books are not for the faint hearted. These books are especially not for those who'd avoid sacrificing friends, productivity, and personal hygiene all to read.
These books are absolutely wonderful.
Here's the heart of it (I could write essays on How I Came to Read These Books and Why I Didn't Want to and Here's What I Think About Each Individual Point, but we'll skip it for now): the writing, though not sheer brilliance on its own, serves as a direct chute into the world building, plot development, and the many, many characters. George R.R. Martin is a master of all three, and a good writer to boot; this series combines all the thrill and indulgence of a beach-read paperback, the world building and epic qualities of a Tolkienesque high fantasy, and the complex, compelling characters of the best literary novels out there. I force myself to stay awake when I should be sleeping because six chapters down the line is a character I simply can't wait until tomorrow to read. I have fallen asleep mid-reading because it's four in the morning and I didn't mean to read that long when I sat down at eleven at night two days ago. So why do I not enjoy reading these damn books?
Because they are so brilliant. Because Martin is so brilliant. Because you don't realize how invested you are in the world, how intimate you are with the characters, how involved you've become in the plot until you're a few hundred pages into the first book --- and as soon as he has you, Martin knows how to rip the rug from under your feet. He sticks his literary foot out as you're running through the pages and you never see it coming and then you're flying through the air and landing square on your tailbone and in a lot of pain.
Most important of all: the characters. There are so many. They all have their own inclinations and motivations and dignity that I can't remember reading in a book before. I can't remember the last time I got three books into a series and one character who I wanted to swat out of the books like a mosquito changed everything in a few pages right at the very end. I can't remember the last time I felt the weight of a character's decision and torn by their choice. I can't remember feeling so empty when a character was lost --- and then not triumphant but terrified when they returned. I can't remember watching a character grow up and then realizing how much I miss their childhood, how badly I want to carry them back to when all they had to do was play in the dirt and sing stupid songs that didn't rhyme, until I remember that when they were children I couldn't wait to see how they grew up and I actually feel responsible for what they've endured.
I don't remember reading these things, but I do recall living them. The humanity captured in the characters, the reflection of our world in that castle-clustered, knight-and-dragon littered one that Martin created, the way the plot unfolds in real time and space and yet it's all contrived --- reading these books is like living a second life on page. It's frightening. It's tiring. It's a little intimidating and a whole lot of gut wrenching. Some might say it's a waste of time but for argument's sake we'll say it isn't, because we all like reading here. We'll call it beautiful that it is possible and unbelievable that Martin can do it. So here's my question: do we read because we enjoy it, or rather for those arguably higher, unarguably more painful things, like exploring the human condition and considering life in all its forms, the highest towers and the deepest dungeons, the best, the worst, and the in-between? Which leads me to my second question---
Depending on the answer, what does that mean for our writing?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
My novel is a Dalmatian.
And I can't spell Dalmatian.
Anyway.
This draft is coming up in spots. Some are big, splotchy spots. Some are short, spotty spots. Some are wibbly-wobbly spots connected by smaller, speckly spots. It's spotted. One, it's spotted by narrators. So far, I've had five characters narrate. Three characters narrate one chapter. Ask me how I did it. Go on. Ask. Or shake your head, that's a perfectly rational response. Truth be told, I have no idea how I did it. I want to believe I didn't do it, it just sort of happened, and that relieves me of a bit of the shame that comes when I go back and read this draft. Provided I ever finish. Two, it's not coming up chronologically. It's divided into three chunks. I have bits of the second chunk written, along with the snout beginning of the first chunk, and the tail end as well. Then there's a long weird not-prologue-prologue chapter that's already a small mountain of pages, but only the beginning, the end of the middle, and the beginning of the end are written, but not what comes in between, nor the end. Ask how that happened. Ask.
...Don't ask. It's a scary, scary happening that I can't say I did on purpose. I've operated my entire writing life under the believe that writers write books from start to finish, but that's not how this one is working out. If it is working out. I'll get back to you on that.
More coffee.
Anyway.
This draft is coming up in spots. Some are big, splotchy spots. Some are short, spotty spots. Some are wibbly-wobbly spots connected by smaller, speckly spots. It's spotted. One, it's spotted by narrators. So far, I've had five characters narrate. Three characters narrate one chapter. Ask me how I did it. Go on. Ask. Or shake your head, that's a perfectly rational response. Truth be told, I have no idea how I did it. I want to believe I didn't do it, it just sort of happened, and that relieves me of a bit of the shame that comes when I go back and read this draft. Provided I ever finish. Two, it's not coming up chronologically. It's divided into three chunks. I have bits of the second chunk written, along with the snout beginning of the first chunk, and the tail end as well. Then there's a long weird not-prologue-prologue chapter that's already a small mountain of pages, but only the beginning, the end of the middle, and the beginning of the end are written, but not what comes in between, nor the end. Ask how that happened. Ask.
...Don't ask. It's a scary, scary happening that I can't say I did on purpose. I've operated my entire writing life under the believe that writers write books from start to finish, but that's not how this one is working out. If it is working out. I'll get back to you on that.
More coffee.
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