White whales and secret shame

My friend Katie is worried she doesn't read enough books each year, but does the quantity matter if you're tackling the literary equivalent of Mt. Everest?

The Washington Post book critic is asking about readers' literary challenges. His are staggering accomplishments (Beowulf in Old English, anyone?). While I'm proud that I'm a dedicated reader, I don't feel obligated to tackle long, arduous works just to make a point. I need to enjoy the process, too. 

When I think of books that I've struggled with, Faulkner comes to mind. In high school, I waded through The Sound and the Fury; I wonder  if I attempted a re-read now, would it go any smoother?

There are books I've given up on -- Seeing, by Jose Saramago, is one. The long paragraph structure, the lack of character names, the endless sentences. The promise of a later payoff in the bookwas not worth my pain. 

Do you have a white whale, a book you just couldn't get through? What's your shame? Or maybe you'd rather brag about the one that you conquered, owned, dominated and now brag about to your literary-type friends. So... which is it?

How to Write and What to Read

While I was in Ireland, our rental house had a small library with travel guides, discarded paperback mysteries, and a few old gems. I was mightily tempted to steal a book called How to Write and What to Read (written by Richard Ferrar Patterson and W. Kersley Holmes), but my husband shamed me into leaving it in the house. Still, I snapped some images of a few pages so I could consult some of the words later. Today, I share a tiny snippet contained in that book:

"We cannot all be Shakespeares; but we can all learn to express ourselves; for who knows what, in the course of our lives, we may be called upon to express.

"Words and sentences are the writer’s tools, and as most of us have to be writers at some time or another, if only writers of notes to our friends, or applications for posts, we must learn how to make those tools serve our purpose."

Did you read...

A reader's wishlist

It Chooses You
by Miranda July
We've already talked about this book, but a friend told me she finished this in a day.

The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides 
This was the book club selection last month at work, but I'm always in the middle of some other book when they have their meetings. No matter -- now I have several recommendations from co-workers that this is a good read.

Food Rules
by Michael Pollan and Maira Kalman
I've already told the Hubbs that I want this book, because hello? Food writing + illustrations by Maira Kalman. Yes.

Lucky Peach
The first issue on ramen had recipes, travel stories about hitting up noodle shops in Japan, and a panel of chefs ranting about the modern food scene. If you love No Reservations, you want a subscription to this magazine. NOTE: This is a food magazine for readers and adventurers, not for people who want 30-minute-meal ideas. (Not that there's anything wrong with a 30-minute-meal recipe -- I use variations on them all the time -- but don't look for it here.)

Remedy Quarterly
I've never seen this magazine in person, but based on the gorgeous design and the website, I want it. For example, there's a recipe for a "red, white and yellow bowl" that cures hangovers. You just top steamed rice with two eggs, some sriracha and scallions. Doesn't that sound easy and tasty?

 The Gentlewoman
Not only do I want to read this magazine, I want to become the effortlessly cool, chic, creative women that are featured within its pages. British, printed on thick paper, with beautiful black-and-white photography. 

PS - Also, everything on the New York Times "best books" list. 

Confessions from an Anxious Mind: A NaNoWriMo Writer's Story - Final Day

I'm currently sitting just shy of 20,000 words; 33,000 away from a blue ribbon finish, but 12,000 words farther than I made it last year. I'm going to make a concerted effort to pump up the volume of words in the remaining 8 hours.

However, I still have two items to take away regardless of how many words I finish with: 1) the group behind NaNoWriMo, the Office of Light and Letters, does fantastic things throughout the year to help writers and champion the future successors of the written word with their Young Writer's Program (which, incidentally, contributed a Dare Machine to NaNoWriMo that led me to construct one of my favorite passages of my story). 2) I have a lot of groundwork laid for a story and characters I'm supremely interested in continue to work through. I'm going to spend some time after I send in my final manuscript for word tally really breaking out a working outline to give more structure and guidance to this project.

Confessions from an Anxious Mind: A NaNoWriMo Writer's Story - Week 3

How to go about adjusting expectations? I wasn't as able as I expected to freeze my life; in fact, my commitment recently increased, so setting aside space to write has been a Tetrisian time-management challenge. I've spent much of the last week falling asleep with my fingers dangling over the keyboard, waking up with streams of nonsense garble all over my computer screen. I've decided to play fair and delete those unconscious sentences, even if they contribute to my overall word counts, and am currently sitting just above 15,000 words.

So, the expectation-setting. 50,000 words, the ultimate goal and what would launch me into the upper pantheon of WriMos is more daunting than anticipated and trying to accomplish that will just produce more negatively impacting anxiety. I've pulled back to striving for 30,000 words, a more reasonable endgame with just eight days to go, and more exciting a trial for the upcoming holiday weekend.

My story has begun to take shape, too. It's flattening out into chapters and sections, the characters have purpose and conflict, and the vignettes tying the central plot together seem relevant and interesting to the themes of family, upbringing and identity I'm exploring with this novel. So bring on Turkey Day and I'll stuff myself full of words and motivation to push forward to my (revised) goal.

Heat from the King

Stephen King--who gets pegged too narrowly as a "horror" writer--is chipping in to help his fellow Maine residents (Mainers? Mainiacs?) with their heating bills this winter. Salon says: Three cheers for an example of philanthropy in this economy. And I say: Isn't it nice to hear about a writer who is not only wildly successful but also thoughtful with his generosity?

Don't quit your day job

Writer's Digest has a funny round-up of "The Oddest Odd Jobs of 10 Literary Greats." The you'd-never-guess-it prize goes to JD Salinger, who was a cruise ship entertainment director.

Writers love to grumble about how it'd be so nice to "just write" for a living, instead of working as a (bartender, coffee barista, corporate shill, teacher, fill-in-the-blank). Even for those lucky enough to write and edit in their daytime work, the writing is often less-than-glamorous items like crime briefs, press releases, corporate memos or newsletters. No matter how much you want to sex it up, a newsletter is a newsletter is a newsletter.

But I say, take pride in that day-job! It may lead to your next great short story, or if nothing else, a better understanding of how the common man (or woman) lives. These experiences and observations fill our stories with quirky details and rich character.

Photo of JD Salinger from Wikipedia, credited to Lotte Jacobi.

The poem stuck in my head

The Paris Review has a new series, called "The Poem Stuck in My Head." In each column, the writer explains a poem that they can't stop thinking about.

Today, the poem stuck in my head is actually song lyrics, after reading this article about Courtney Love.

I want to be the girl with the most cake
He only loves those things because he loves to see me break
I fake it so real, I was beyond fake.

Confessions from an Anxious Mind: A NaNoWriMo Writer's Story - Week 1

I had a plan. I was going to start at 11pm on October 31st: harvest some plot ideas, plant some seeds of character and reap some stalks of subject matter so that I could chow down on the fruits of prose come midnight. But even the best laid plans–and this was not one of them–can go awry, and so it ended up being 12:30am on November 1st when I launched full-force into my National Novel Writing Month endeavor. Which is actually more true to the spirit of NaNoWriMo, working in the moment and removing the bonds of self-censorship.

In that first sprint, I employed nearly 400 words, inventing less than 1% of them. After 3 days, I am now perched at 3,200 of the eventual 50,000 I hope to acquire. Currently, I don't have any significant plot developments, no real "story" to speak of–it's mainly character sketches and small moments, which is suitable coming from a short story background and having consumed that medium as a reader for the past few weeks. But that is the appeal of NaNo: freedom to write the way you want with the impetus to write more of it. I'm braving the impending storm of brain fatigue and laptop eyestrain, and I look forward to sharing more of the ongoing madness.