Category: musings

R.I.P. William Sleator

Singular author William Sleator  has passed away.

As a teen I read and re-read and re-read certain books. One of those was “House of Stairs” by William Sleator. It’s a science fictionish tale of a group of teens who are subjects in a behavior modification experiment. This book, for me, encapsulates one the most fascinating aspects of science fiction/fantasy. It explores the  question of how people will behave in unusual, even unprecedented situations.

I think this is why I tend to prefer “soft” science fiction. For me, the draw is not technology, it’s people. I love Ursula K. LeGuin for her anthropological approach. Ray Bradbury is another favorite in this area. I know some people are dismissive of genre fiction as “not serious” or something, and William Sleator was double-labeled, because he was also considered a young adult author. But I’ve read widely and eclectically throughout my life, and in my opinion, if you want fiction that explores the human psyche, you could do worse than picking up a book by Sleator.

Hmm…maybe it’s time for another reading of “House of Stairs.” I haven’t visited it in years.

The Anxiety Dreams of Writers

Right now I have 21 pieces of work – 4 stories and 17 poems – out for consideration. I know responses tend not to come in the summertime, so I’m bracing myself for rejections piling up like autumn leaves in two to three months.  Last night, I dreamed they all came at once. Every single submission was rejected on the same day, but it was all in one form. Sort of like the common application for colleges, I suppose, except there weren’t even multiple copies. It was one sheet listing everything I’d sent out everywhere and next to each entry was a red rubber stamp with the word “REJECTED” in all caps.

I woke up and mused on the fact that my unconscious has not yet adapted to the reality of most rejections happening by email now.

 

 

Dear Maeve Binchy

Dear Maeve Binchy,

Upon reading the first couple of chapters of Minding Frankie, I feel compelled to stage a a dialogue intervention.

Americans do not “take posts.” We “get jobs.”

Also we do not “fancy” anyone. We might “like” someone, or “like like” someone, or one of us might be “in love with” someone, or be “hot for” someone. But we don’t send emails talking about “fancying” another person.

You’re great at the relationship between characters stuff, but  perhaps you should get some help for your American dialect problem.

That’s all for now.

Mother’s Day Thoughts

One of my most memorable events in mothering happened when my daughter was around four months old. It was one of those fall days where people whose internal thermostats run hot are still wearing shorts and t’s, while those who run cold are wrapped up in their woolens.  And I had errands to do, including one to the post office.

I dressed my baby in pants, long sleeves and an adorable little sun hat that she kept snatching from her head and I kept putting back on because she was bald and pale and needed protecting from the sun. I set out on my jaunt around town, ready to bask in the adoring looks directed at the most beautiful child in the world, who happened to be with me.

Here comes the part at the post office.  I parked, removed my daughter from her car seat, and turned around to find myself face-to-face with an older woman, all bundled up, who met me with a scold “That baby’s going to freeze on a day like this. You should have it in a blanket.” I muttered something about how she usually let me know if she was uncomfortable and made my way into the building.

Stamps bought, mail mailed, baby riding on my hip, I made my way back out of the building. Only to encounter a man who felt compelled to instruct me on the dangers of overdressing a baby on such a warm day.

Thanks for the message Universe. As a mother, anything and everything I do is open to criticism from everyone I encounter. Therefore, my best bet is to use my own judgment and develop a case of selective hearing loss.

It has been my observation that mothers in general receive a lot of criticism. But most of the ones I see are doing their best, despite the slings and arrows. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers who are soldiering on: from the mom soothing her crying infant in the grocery store, to the mom struggling with how much and how best to support her grown child who lives 1,000 miles away.

That one passage in a novel

  

    I felt the starched walls
of a pink cotton penitentiary
closing in on me.

*********

Novels are long and have plots and story arcs and subplots and things. But sometimes one single sentence or passage from a novel will stick with me for years.

Sometimes it’s because the language is poetic. In To Kill a Mockingbird, when Scout Finch’s aunt comes to stay, she tries to turn Scout into a little lady. Scout explains her situation thus: “I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me.” As a lifelong tomboy, this sentence speaks to me loud and clear.

Other times I’ll remember a passage that made me think about the universe in a new way. At one point in my life, my favorite book was Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I’ll never forget the nanny, Old Golly, proclaiming “There are as many ways to live as there are people in the world.”

A few years later I discovered Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that remains on my favorites list to this day. It not only shook up my thinking on gender, but also on political boundaries, when one of the characters asks a not-so-simple question:
“How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply?”

Finally, I have to admit I’m a sucker for scenes where a character quotes Shakespeare and pulls it off. I like this especially when it comes from an Average Joe type character, such Barnaby Gaitlin in Patchwork Planet by Ann Tyler. Barnaby goes through a bit of character development during the course of the story. Without giving spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read the book, there’s a scene where he recalls one poem he learned in school that he understood, a Shakespearean sonnet. He turns to another character, saying “Haply I think on thee.” You’d never predict the words coming from his mouth early in the book, but it so works by the time he says it.

Yeah, novels are long and there are big things in them: plots, story arcs and so on. But attention to detail is still important. Paying attention to getting the right words in the right order at the right place. It matters.

Poem of the Day, April 5

So far, I’m meeting my goal of writing a poem a day. Okay, I haven’t put any words down yet today, but they’re percolating. I’ll have them written before bed.

Here’s yesterday’s poem.  It’ll likely be rewritten a few times.

 

Geography by Disaster

Fukushima, Chernobyl
Geography learned by disaster
I look at an atlas
When people die
When buildings collapse
When leaders shoot their citizens
In the streets
When the fallout might land here

In tonight’s news I’d like to hear
About a place where today
Tulips bloomed
Fish swam in clean water
Families hiked
Women and men went to jobs
While children learned math
And have this continuation
Of life be amazement enough
To capture my attention

 

To Do Lists

I was sorting through some of my poems, and came across this one I wrote in 2006.

To Do Lists

To be done before vacation:
Catch up all laundry
Make sure the grass is cut
And the bills are paid
Clean out the van

Upon returning:
Write a novel
Land a book contract
Transform my chronically messy house
into an aesthetically inviting
gathering place for the group of very hip
writers of which I will be a central figure
But first:
Clean out the van
Do the laundry
Pay the bills
And mow the yard

**

I’m still working my way through the line items. But I can check mark “write a novel.” And I’m making efforts at some of the others. Some photo evidence from the past year:

 

I still have a distance to go, however. One step at a time.

 

People Do Still Read

Despite the predictions made ever since the advent of television, my observation is that people do still read books. I work in a library, so I’m in a position to see this. Our circulation numbers go up every year. Okay, part of those stats come from dvd check-outs. But our book circulation is going up, too.

One thing I’ve noticed is that movies don’t necessarily supplant books. It’s not an either/or question, whether to see the movie or read the book. A lot of people do both. With the recent release of the movie, True Grit, our library suddenly has a waiting list for the book. The same thing happened with Shutter Island. When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, P1 showed up in theaters, we were left with a couple of nearly empty shelves in the “R” area of children’s fiction, as patrons were interested in all of the books in the series.

My anecdotal evidence suggests we are not living in a post-literate society and are not going to be any time soon.

Bibliophile’s Ultimate Holiday Gift

Are you looking for the ultimate holiday gift for the bibliophile in your life? How about…

http://www.dbrl.org/files/RFP-2010-12-bookmobile.pdf

Wouldn’t it be cool to own a bookmobile? I believe in some alternate universe, I do own one. I travel the continent in it. I have a writing space set up in it. I drive from book signing to book signing, reading to reading. And I can sell my books right from the bookmobile, which incidentally sounds a lot like the Batmobile, something that makes it even cooler.

Sadly, I feel the need to tack a cautionary note here: Please don’t anyone think it would be cute to contact the seller if you aren’t serious about buying. The intention of this post isn’t to create harassment for anyone.

Rejection Letter

A friend just had her novel accepted for publication after 30 rejections. Thus, I’m inspired to try at least 31 publishers, if need be, before giving up. Two down. I feel moved to share the more recent rejection letter of the two. I don’t know why, but expect it to happen again. Maybe as an experiment in how many different ways rejection can be phrased.

So here it is, hot off the email:

Dear Author,

“My partners here at Pointless Pothole Press* have looked at your proposal for the novel _ _and we have decided not to ask to see more of the MS. There is no particular reason, and we agree that your idea is interesting. We are a small press, and we need to keep the number of MSS we look at manageable. We are currently considering a number of other proposals.Thank you for considering Pointless Pothole Press.”

Two things strike me. The first is the phrase “There is no particular reason.” Uh….whuh? The second is the way he can’t bring himself to write out the word manuscript. It reminds of me of my grandma always calling toilet paper “TP.”  Sort of like a manuscript is something necessary, but you don’t discuss it in polite company.

On to number three.

*Not the real name of the publisher.