It's definitely one of the hardest lessons, one I never seem to quite grasp fully, and it's been on my mind lately, as there have been a lot of changes at work in the last few weeks.
But today it home even harder. I was sitting at my computer, working on a scholarship essay, fiddling with iTunes and the new "genius" part of it (which for whatever reason, could make me playlists yesterday but can't today), and I clicked on an old favorite song by Chris Cornell. Then on this sidebar thing, it listed all these similar songs (of course in hopes I'd buy them), and I realized that he has some new music out.
I listened to it, barely. Wow, was it ever terrible. I mean just beyond my worst expectations (which were pretty low after Carry On). If I'd ever heard that crap on the radio, I would've changed the station in a second. I got all the way through one song (Long Gone), or should I say, it was the first one I played so I forced myself to sit through it. It was a very, very long five and a half minutes.
It's just incomprehensible to me. It was bad enough with Carry On (and the last two Audioslave albums, and to some extent, the first). I just couldn't reconcile that sort of fluffy, insubstantial music with no depth or soul with the Chris Cornell in the days of Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Euphoria Morning. Hearing this newest incarnation of the man is just too much. I felt sick to my stomach.
Chris Cornell, probably more than any other musical artist (except maybe Maynard and Tori), has touched my life with his music. It's hard to put it in words that don't come off as tired cliches, but Chris' music reached me at a difficult time and accompanied me through so many years. I owe a lot of my most treasured friendships to that man - because of an online forum I started going to in early 2000, based on talking about his music. There was so much raw emotion in his words, so much fucking poetry in the way that man wrote lyrics. His songs were so rich and meaningful and unique and gorgeous and deep.
Some of my very favorite snippets as examples:
"You say that midnight opens its arms to me"
from "When I'm Down," Euphoria Morning
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Orcas Island Writers Festival
The first annual Orcas Island Writers Festival ended a few days ago. It was awesome. I'm already looking forward to the next one.
I'm so glad I went, too. I almost didn't. I haven't really written much in awhile, and have felt like work takes over my life. But I had put in for the time off back in April or something, so I said what the hell and signed up. I thought if nothing else, at least I'd have a few days away. The festival was held at Moran State Park which is a good drive from my place, so I stayed overnight in one of the cabins during the festival.
The festival blew my expectations out of the water! The instructors were EXCELLENT! A lot of them teach at Vermont College of Fine Arts which has a low-residency MFA writing program. In the mornings, we had small workshop groups. I chose the non-fiction track, and so each morning, our small group gathered to very thoroughly discuss our work. Each of us had to submit a ten-page sample of our writing before the festival, so we spent considerable time each morning, working with a few people's work each day. It was great. I forgot how great it is, not only to get feedback on your own work, but to work as a group on others' stories. You learn so much. I felt so engaged, like my inner artist was engaged in a way it hasn't been in so long. I was exercising my writing muscles. It was great even to go over some of the basics of story arc and point of view. I didn't realize I was so hungry for this sort of thing. But oh was I ever! It fed my soul, and my soul has been a bit starving as of late.
So our group looked at my piece on the last workshop day. I submitted the first chapter of my book, which I've worked on extensively. I have to say (and I think I've said before), that for the last, well, year or so, I've felt kinda flat, numb, disinterested feelings about my manuscript. It doesn't really excite me anymore. So I thought, what the hell? I also picked the non-fiction track (as opposed to another workshop which was for memoir/fiction), partly because the instructor and some of the people in the group were male (in the mem/fiction group, it was all females). It may seem silly or even arbitrary, but almost all of the places where I've shared my work - other writing circles, friends, classes I've been in - have been all women. I feel like I have a pretty diverse sampling of female responses to this particular piece of work, and I wanted to see a more mixed-gender reaction. I'm glad I did. I left feeling more confident that my story could have a more universal appeal, which was good. I also got great feedback on what worked in my piece, what was effective.
And I got some great ideas for how to change it. I've actually been thinking recently of reshaping and re-visioning the whole project in a major, major way, and this workshop pretty much confirmed that for me. I felt like I got a real sense of where the real juice of the story is, what needs to come in and be included and what I can draw out and yeah, I would just sit there at different points during the weekend with all these thoughts, ideas and inspirations coursing through me.
I also got to rethink another book idea I had in mind. I realized the starting point was a totally different place, and really saw how perfectly that would work. It was like reframing the whole thing. And because of that, I had passages just swirling in me throughout the whole time.
I thought a lot about story structure. In our workshop group we talked about the typical pyramid of a story - the introduction, rising action, climax, denouement, ending. I kept thinking of The Kite Runner, because it's such a perfect book in that way, it has all those elements so clearly. And because I just love thinking about that book anyway. With my other favorite, The God of Small Things, it's so much more murky (and that story weaves in out of time, so if I think about, in chronological order the events of the book probably do follow that arc, but the telling doesn't, not really).
Then in one of the afternoon sessions (these were lectures and mini-classes), Karen Fisher, author of A Sudden Country, said she thinks of story structure in another way. She thinks of it as the story starting out in stability, you enter the world of the story, then there's a destabilizing event, either by ambition, wanting something, or by some sort of loss. Then follows a period of resistance - either a character is resisting something, or the world is resisting them. Then they face the inevitable, or the bottom, etc (analogous to the climax in the other structure system), and then a period of acceptance. Well this description of story structure also perfectly fit The Kite Runner. I just got such a clear picture of it, using that book as a tangible example. And from there could clearly extrapolate to a book I want to write. It just makes a lot of sense.
Another thing we talked about a lot in workshops and afternoon sessions was about reading like a writer, which is something I think I sort of do, but have never been taught to do, looking at good writing and really looking at it, getting into what makes it so good, what the author did to make it so effective. I think I do some of that just by nature of being a writer and reading a lot. I mean, my LENGTHY post on here about The Kite Runner isn't really a review, not really, it's more a writer's appreciation and noticings. I want to go back to the passages from that book that I quoted in my post (there were several), or to the passages I've makred in White Oleander. I want to re-read The God of Small Things again, even though I just reread it a few months ago when I was in Hawaii, because it's just so good. The writing is so fucking good it's unbelievable. And there are so many just mindblowing things about the story structure. Oh God, I'm getting all jazzed up just thinking about it I'm getting up, walking around, thinking about it. That book is SO FREAKIN' GOOD I can hardly stand it. Some of the most gorgeous prose ever. All these great little things that Arundhati Roy does with the writing. And the end, oh the end. Yes, I want to reread it, specifically to read it like a writer, really dig into it and analyze what makes it so good, learn from it.
I'm still DYING to post about that book. I especially want to discuss the end, the choices she made in writing it that way, in the name of the last chapter (which still, years after my first reading of the book, gives me full body shivers), and on what note she chooses to end it and all the implications. I lent it to a friend actually, who was leaving to work on a six month cruise and needed some reading material. I wish I hadn't. I love my friend Holly, and I'm glad someone else will read the book, but I realize I wish I hadn't parted with it. And it hasn't even been two months yet! So, someday, I will post about it. I just feel I couldn't really do it justice without the book here. Anyway I am anxious to dig into that book again and read it in a slightly different way.
I've gotten a bit off-track, as usual. I'm taking a screenwriting class starting in a week or two. I'm going to base it on a short story I wrote a bit ago, which was based on a dream I had about writing this story (now that I think about it, the dream might have also involved it being for a screenwriting class, I just put that together, weird). I'm a little nervous about the fact that my two main characters are on acid during part of the story, since I don't know how that'll fly in some of the writing circles of the island, but after one of the readings at the festival (each night a handful of authors/instructors read their work), I'm inspired to NEVER hold back. So that should be an interesting class. On an un-writing note, I'm also taking an anthropology class this fall, on comparative Islamic cultures. I'm really looking forward to that too. My mind is just craving something like that.
Currently Reading:
Dave Eggers' What is the What? - I'm only a few chapters in. It's very good, harrowing in many places, immediately draws me in.
Currently Listening:
"Fast Car" - Tracy Chapman - this is not a random iTunes pick like usual in this section. I am sort of obsessed with this song. In some other post, I totally want to write about this song the way I want to write about books. There are so many great lyrical things she does in this song. It's also heartbreaking.
I'm so glad I went, too. I almost didn't. I haven't really written much in awhile, and have felt like work takes over my life. But I had put in for the time off back in April or something, so I said what the hell and signed up. I thought if nothing else, at least I'd have a few days away. The festival was held at Moran State Park which is a good drive from my place, so I stayed overnight in one of the cabins during the festival.
The festival blew my expectations out of the water! The instructors were EXCELLENT! A lot of them teach at Vermont College of Fine Arts which has a low-residency MFA writing program. In the mornings, we had small workshop groups. I chose the non-fiction track, and so each morning, our small group gathered to very thoroughly discuss our work. Each of us had to submit a ten-page sample of our writing before the festival, so we spent considerable time each morning, working with a few people's work each day. It was great. I forgot how great it is, not only to get feedback on your own work, but to work as a group on others' stories. You learn so much. I felt so engaged, like my inner artist was engaged in a way it hasn't been in so long. I was exercising my writing muscles. It was great even to go over some of the basics of story arc and point of view. I didn't realize I was so hungry for this sort of thing. But oh was I ever! It fed my soul, and my soul has been a bit starving as of late.
So our group looked at my piece on the last workshop day. I submitted the first chapter of my book, which I've worked on extensively. I have to say (and I think I've said before), that for the last, well, year or so, I've felt kinda flat, numb, disinterested feelings about my manuscript. It doesn't really excite me anymore. So I thought, what the hell? I also picked the non-fiction track (as opposed to another workshop which was for memoir/fiction), partly because the instructor and some of the people in the group were male (in the mem/fiction group, it was all females). It may seem silly or even arbitrary, but almost all of the places where I've shared my work - other writing circles, friends, classes I've been in - have been all women. I feel like I have a pretty diverse sampling of female responses to this particular piece of work, and I wanted to see a more mixed-gender reaction. I'm glad I did. I left feeling more confident that my story could have a more universal appeal, which was good. I also got great feedback on what worked in my piece, what was effective.
And I got some great ideas for how to change it. I've actually been thinking recently of reshaping and re-visioning the whole project in a major, major way, and this workshop pretty much confirmed that for me. I felt like I got a real sense of where the real juice of the story is, what needs to come in and be included and what I can draw out and yeah, I would just sit there at different points during the weekend with all these thoughts, ideas and inspirations coursing through me.
I also got to rethink another book idea I had in mind. I realized the starting point was a totally different place, and really saw how perfectly that would work. It was like reframing the whole thing. And because of that, I had passages just swirling in me throughout the whole time.
I thought a lot about story structure. In our workshop group we talked about the typical pyramid of a story - the introduction, rising action, climax, denouement, ending. I kept thinking of The Kite Runner, because it's such a perfect book in that way, it has all those elements so clearly. And because I just love thinking about that book anyway. With my other favorite, The God of Small Things, it's so much more murky (and that story weaves in out of time, so if I think about, in chronological order the events of the book probably do follow that arc, but the telling doesn't, not really).
Then in one of the afternoon sessions (these were lectures and mini-classes), Karen Fisher, author of A Sudden Country, said she thinks of story structure in another way. She thinks of it as the story starting out in stability, you enter the world of the story, then there's a destabilizing event, either by ambition, wanting something, or by some sort of loss. Then follows a period of resistance - either a character is resisting something, or the world is resisting them. Then they face the inevitable, or the bottom, etc (analogous to the climax in the other structure system), and then a period of acceptance. Well this description of story structure also perfectly fit The Kite Runner. I just got such a clear picture of it, using that book as a tangible example. And from there could clearly extrapolate to a book I want to write. It just makes a lot of sense.
Another thing we talked about a lot in workshops and afternoon sessions was about reading like a writer, which is something I think I sort of do, but have never been taught to do, looking at good writing and really looking at it, getting into what makes it so good, what the author did to make it so effective. I think I do some of that just by nature of being a writer and reading a lot. I mean, my LENGTHY post on here about The Kite Runner isn't really a review, not really, it's more a writer's appreciation and noticings. I want to go back to the passages from that book that I quoted in my post (there were several), or to the passages I've makred in White Oleander. I want to re-read The God of Small Things again, even though I just reread it a few months ago when I was in Hawaii, because it's just so good. The writing is so fucking good it's unbelievable. And there are so many just mindblowing things about the story structure. Oh God, I'm getting all jazzed up just thinking about it I'm getting up, walking around, thinking about it. That book is SO FREAKIN' GOOD I can hardly stand it. Some of the most gorgeous prose ever. All these great little things that Arundhati Roy does with the writing. And the end, oh the end. Yes, I want to reread it, specifically to read it like a writer, really dig into it and analyze what makes it so good, learn from it.
I'm still DYING to post about that book. I especially want to discuss the end, the choices she made in writing it that way, in the name of the last chapter (which still, years after my first reading of the book, gives me full body shivers), and on what note she chooses to end it and all the implications. I lent it to a friend actually, who was leaving to work on a six month cruise and needed some reading material. I wish I hadn't. I love my friend Holly, and I'm glad someone else will read the book, but I realize I wish I hadn't parted with it. And it hasn't even been two months yet! So, someday, I will post about it. I just feel I couldn't really do it justice without the book here. Anyway I am anxious to dig into that book again and read it in a slightly different way.
I've gotten a bit off-track, as usual. I'm taking a screenwriting class starting in a week or two. I'm going to base it on a short story I wrote a bit ago, which was based on a dream I had about writing this story (now that I think about it, the dream might have also involved it being for a screenwriting class, I just put that together, weird). I'm a little nervous about the fact that my two main characters are on acid during part of the story, since I don't know how that'll fly in some of the writing circles of the island, but after one of the readings at the festival (each night a handful of authors/instructors read their work), I'm inspired to NEVER hold back. So that should be an interesting class. On an un-writing note, I'm also taking an anthropology class this fall, on comparative Islamic cultures. I'm really looking forward to that too. My mind is just craving something like that.
Currently Reading:
Dave Eggers' What is the What? - I'm only a few chapters in. It's very good, harrowing in many places, immediately draws me in.
Currently Listening:
"Fast Car" - Tracy Chapman - this is not a random iTunes pick like usual in this section. I am sort of obsessed with this song. In some other post, I totally want to write about this song the way I want to write about books. There are so many great lyrical things she does in this song. It's also heartbreaking.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Our World is a Sad, Sad Circus
Sometimes it's just hard to really fathom that things that are going on in the world are actually real and not some twisted circus. I'm going to get political here, which I've tried in some ways to abstain from because I hate conflict, but fuck, I just can't help myself.
First off, I have wanted to say something about impeachment for awhile now. I know Congressman Dennis Kucinich is introducing articles of impeachment every month, and I support that. I don't understand why so many leading democrats are against it, but they are. I've heard Obama, Nancy Pelosi and others speak out against impeachment, and the reason I seem to hear the most is that they don't want to engage in a payback sort of game (presumably for Clinton's deal), and that they want to focus on getting Obama elected and faring well in all the coming elections.
Fair enough, I suppose, on the last account, but it all basically boils down to, they're afraid of how it will make them look. It's such ridiculous, near-sighted and faulty reasoning to me. I mean, Bush and his administration are committing war crimes. Innocent people are dying. Just today I heard about NATO troops accidentally killing children in Kabul. This comes only weeks after the biggest civilian killing in Afghanistan since the war began. And then there's the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who've died, who are living as refugees, or who've had their homes and families destroyed. And the American soldiers dying unnecessarily, for a war that was never warranted in the first place. Oh and then there's the interrogation torture, the suspension of the bill of rights for prisoners who are mostly probably innocent. The outing of Valerie Plame's identity. The forged Habbush letter. The litany of lies and deception that led us into this occupation of a sovereign nation. The Iraq veterans and conscientious objectors saying they were forced repeatedly to violate the Geneva convention. The lies, corruption and crime are rampant. People are DYING because of this administration. LOTS of people. There are clear crimes. If this doesn't warrant impeachment, what the fuck does? These crooks are running amok and obviously feel accountable to no one, definitely not to Congress or to the public, and I think it's the job and the duty of Congress to press a lot harder for more serious investigations, and to take action. It makes me as a citizen feel (again) like the Congress is failing their duty.
And on account of wanting to look good, secure elections? That's bullshit. How can this shit, which is pretty superficial, outweigh the lives lost and the crimes committed? How could anyone (but a politician of course) think it's more important? It's beyond my realm of understanding, and I'm glad, because I'm pretty sure it means I'm still human. As far as looking or feeling bad, I think the idiots who thought it was worthwhile to try to impeach someone over lying about a blow job should feel like petty, vindictive idiots, because it's so, so immaterial compared to the real tragedies that are going on now.
And the circus continues.
Now, another thing that's gotten me riled up is Mr. McCain's VP choice. It's funny, I was walking home from work the day he was supposed to announce his choice, and I kept thinking that he would probably pick a black man (to compete with everything historic that's happening with Obama, perhaps), and instead he picked a woman, maybe trying to get some of the Hillary supporters. I already think she's a nutjob, just as full of circus-like contradictions as much as anyone. She calls herself a pro-life feminist for one thing, and if that's not oxymoronic, what is? Also, I have to ask this: How can someone be so pro-life, and believe in the sacredness of all life, be so anti-life at the same time? She has fought to keep polar bears off the endangered species list, and supports drilling in ANWR - aren't the polar bears' lives sacred? And the caribou? And all the ecosystems in ANWR? I just don't understand how someone could be so blatantly contradictory.
I suppose it comes from a feeling of human life being supremely superior to all other life, which is just self-centered and short-sighted anyway. I mean, even if I was going to be completely human-centered here, thinking our existence is so much more warranted and important than all of the lives of all the organisms that came before us, human life, even from that perspective, take it down the line a century or two - we can't sustain human life if we destroy our landbases, the food, ecosystems, water, etc we depend on to survive. Even from a "humans only matter" viewpoint, it's better, for our species, in the long run, to conserve and protect our environment and to live sustainably. It's also better to not over-populate the planet as massive rates like we are, a problem that is not helped by people who oppose abortion and also oppose sex education.
Are there no politicians out there who think beyond their next election? Who actually look at the bigger picture and into the future?
The third completely contradictory and crazy thing that's got me just dumbfounded is the crazy police shit going on in MN for the RNC. Of course, I wouldn't really expect anything different, but still, it's disgusting. There are all these raids on peace groups, planning peaceful activities (including one group doing a peace picnic, wow, that really sounds like terrorist activities to me). It's crazy that some of the people targeted are police watch groups (which given the state of things these days, and the fact that a handcuffed and restrained man was tasered to death not too long ago, are pretty necessary). So the people documenting and watching out for police brutality are getting brutalized by police. Oh, and journalists. Several journalists have been arrested and detained. I was listening to Democracy Now! this morning, and two of their producers and their host, Amy Goodman, had been arrested. One of the producers, Nicole Salizar, had a camera on while she was being arrested. I was listening to the audio broadcast and couldn't see it, but hearing it was enough to rattle me. It sounded brutal, there was some serious screaming. Why are the police targeting journalists?
Our country is out of control. It's like some circus gone so horribly wrong that no one seems able to stop. And the ones who actually could possibly do something about it, continually fail to do anything meaningful. Sometimes it's just hard to believe this is really reality, but it is. Sometimes I just can't wait to visit other countries and experience something different, just see what it's like somewhere else, get out of the bubble and really connect with other cultures.
I'm reading Dave Eggers' What is the What? which only fuels this feeling.
Currently listening:
The only song really appropriate for this post is probably Tool's "Aenema"
First off, I have wanted to say something about impeachment for awhile now. I know Congressman Dennis Kucinich is introducing articles of impeachment every month, and I support that. I don't understand why so many leading democrats are against it, but they are. I've heard Obama, Nancy Pelosi and others speak out against impeachment, and the reason I seem to hear the most is that they don't want to engage in a payback sort of game (presumably for Clinton's deal), and that they want to focus on getting Obama elected and faring well in all the coming elections.
Fair enough, I suppose, on the last account, but it all basically boils down to, they're afraid of how it will make them look. It's such ridiculous, near-sighted and faulty reasoning to me. I mean, Bush and his administration are committing war crimes. Innocent people are dying. Just today I heard about NATO troops accidentally killing children in Kabul. This comes only weeks after the biggest civilian killing in Afghanistan since the war began. And then there's the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who've died, who are living as refugees, or who've had their homes and families destroyed. And the American soldiers dying unnecessarily, for a war that was never warranted in the first place. Oh and then there's the interrogation torture, the suspension of the bill of rights for prisoners who are mostly probably innocent. The outing of Valerie Plame's identity. The forged Habbush letter. The litany of lies and deception that led us into this occupation of a sovereign nation. The Iraq veterans and conscientious objectors saying they were forced repeatedly to violate the Geneva convention. The lies, corruption and crime are rampant. People are DYING because of this administration. LOTS of people. There are clear crimes. If this doesn't warrant impeachment, what the fuck does? These crooks are running amok and obviously feel accountable to no one, definitely not to Congress or to the public, and I think it's the job and the duty of Congress to press a lot harder for more serious investigations, and to take action. It makes me as a citizen feel (again) like the Congress is failing their duty.
And on account of wanting to look good, secure elections? That's bullshit. How can this shit, which is pretty superficial, outweigh the lives lost and the crimes committed? How could anyone (but a politician of course) think it's more important? It's beyond my realm of understanding, and I'm glad, because I'm pretty sure it means I'm still human. As far as looking or feeling bad, I think the idiots who thought it was worthwhile to try to impeach someone over lying about a blow job should feel like petty, vindictive idiots, because it's so, so immaterial compared to the real tragedies that are going on now.
And the circus continues.
Now, another thing that's gotten me riled up is Mr. McCain's VP choice. It's funny, I was walking home from work the day he was supposed to announce his choice, and I kept thinking that he would probably pick a black man (to compete with everything historic that's happening with Obama, perhaps), and instead he picked a woman, maybe trying to get some of the Hillary supporters. I already think she's a nutjob, just as full of circus-like contradictions as much as anyone. She calls herself a pro-life feminist for one thing, and if that's not oxymoronic, what is? Also, I have to ask this: How can someone be so pro-life, and believe in the sacredness of all life, be so anti-life at the same time? She has fought to keep polar bears off the endangered species list, and supports drilling in ANWR - aren't the polar bears' lives sacred? And the caribou? And all the ecosystems in ANWR? I just don't understand how someone could be so blatantly contradictory.
I suppose it comes from a feeling of human life being supremely superior to all other life, which is just self-centered and short-sighted anyway. I mean, even if I was going to be completely human-centered here, thinking our existence is so much more warranted and important than all of the lives of all the organisms that came before us, human life, even from that perspective, take it down the line a century or two - we can't sustain human life if we destroy our landbases, the food, ecosystems, water, etc we depend on to survive. Even from a "humans only matter" viewpoint, it's better, for our species, in the long run, to conserve and protect our environment and to live sustainably. It's also better to not over-populate the planet as massive rates like we are, a problem that is not helped by people who oppose abortion and also oppose sex education.
Are there no politicians out there who think beyond their next election? Who actually look at the bigger picture and into the future?
The third completely contradictory and crazy thing that's got me just dumbfounded is the crazy police shit going on in MN for the RNC. Of course, I wouldn't really expect anything different, but still, it's disgusting. There are all these raids on peace groups, planning peaceful activities (including one group doing a peace picnic, wow, that really sounds like terrorist activities to me). It's crazy that some of the people targeted are police watch groups (which given the state of things these days, and the fact that a handcuffed and restrained man was tasered to death not too long ago, are pretty necessary). So the people documenting and watching out for police brutality are getting brutalized by police. Oh, and journalists. Several journalists have been arrested and detained. I was listening to Democracy Now! this morning, and two of their producers and their host, Amy Goodman, had been arrested. One of the producers, Nicole Salizar, had a camera on while she was being arrested. I was listening to the audio broadcast and couldn't see it, but hearing it was enough to rattle me. It sounded brutal, there was some serious screaming. Why are the police targeting journalists?
Our country is out of control. It's like some circus gone so horribly wrong that no one seems able to stop. And the ones who actually could possibly do something about it, continually fail to do anything meaningful. Sometimes it's just hard to believe this is really reality, but it is. Sometimes I just can't wait to visit other countries and experience something different, just see what it's like somewhere else, get out of the bubble and really connect with other cultures.
I'm reading Dave Eggers' What is the What? which only fuels this feeling.
Currently listening:
The only song really appropriate for this post is probably Tool's "Aenema"
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