A Thousand Times Yes.

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Must a Novelist Read Mostly Novels?

I love math. I know this is strange coming from a writer, but it’s true. I think that, when so often mired in the vast gray area that is language and narrative, I find solace in the black-and-whiteness/wrong-and-rightness that math offers. I find elegant beauty in a spreadsheet, the way you can put in the numbers you have, arrange them just so, and find answers—real answers, correct, indisputable answers—to big questions. I love statistics and charts, and (while they can be interpreted in many ways to many ends) numbers themselves do not lie.

All of this is to say that I’ve come across some interesting numbers in my life as a writer and reader. As you may know by now, my preferred medium is the novel. I consider myself a novelist. While the vast majority of my life is spent on business writing, writing novels is my calling. It’s what I love the most; it’s what I do for fun. I do it even though I’m not making money on it.

Now, keeping in mind who I am as a writer, let’s consider who I am as a reader. Out of the last 30 books I’ve started and/or finished (and you can verify this for yourself), it breaks out the following way:

• 1 graphic novel (2, if you count Eric Drooker’s Howl here)
• 2 books of poetry (1, if you count Howl under graphic novels)
• 3 short story collections
• 7 novels
• 17 non-fiction books

And it is important to point out that, out of those 7 novels, I only finished 4. (I no longer finish novels that I am not enjoying by the midpoint. #YOLO.)

This list, of course, is limited to book-length material, but I also extensively read short works—essays, articles, scholarly papers, Supreme Court rulings—and I would estimate that, in recent record, 95% of this reading is non-fiction. (Though, I did recently read “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” and "The Extinctionists" on Instapaper.) The last new book I bought, which I am practically drooling to crack open, is also non-fiction. When I put on my stereo while I’m cleaning, I’m far more likely to listen to Radiolab than Radiohead (though, when I’m writing, I listen to Radiohead more than anything else…). If I want a quick bite of television, it will be a TED Talk before it’s a sitcom.

What does it mean that well over 50% of what I consume is non-fiction, that only 14% of my reading consists of novels that I actually finish?

This recent revelation is throwing me for a loop. Is it possible for a novelist to love something more than novels? Am I secretly a non-fiction writer? Have I been hacking away at the wrong destiny?

Here is my answer to these questions. I am a learner and a seeker. This is why I read; this is why I write. I am drawn to non-fiction because it gives me raw materials: information, facts, the stories of how real people lived and live. Fiction is the means by which I synthesize this information into the philosophies and ideas I want to explore. In The WarMaster’s Daughter, I tackled gender issues, war, religion, the meaning of “family.” My new book, Bugged, explores psychology, neuroscience, entomology, and medical ethics. Non-fiction inspires me with the patterns and anomalies of the existing world. It teaches me what we’ve collectively figured out, and where we still have incredibly complex questions.

On the other hand, the ideas in novels, by and large, are already synthesized. The author is asking questions in a particular way, making particular points, choosing which themes and ideas rise to the top. This offers intellectual and emotional pleasure; that’s why we read. However, it’s not the stuff that makes me want to push my fingers into the clay. To extend a metaphor, I find a set of paints much more inspiring than a painting. I love to experience a beautiful painting, but the only thing I can learn from viewing a painting is craft. The art comes from living and learning and synthesizing all the ideas that exist in the world. Van Gogh did not paint because he saw another painting; he painted because he experienced the world.

So what does it mean about me as a novelist that I don’t gorge myself on novels? I supposed I’d rather my readers judge that for themselves. I hope my books are appealing to the learners and the seekers out there; I hope they appeal to fiction and non-fiction lovers alike.

What about you, dear reader? When you take an honest look at what you consume above anything else, what is it? Does it surprise you? Is what you really like different from what you think you like? How does what you read affect what you write? 

Keep On Truckin'

I admit defeat: 1,000 words per day was an impossible goal for me. My job has become more demanding than ever, with my creative energy levels almost fully depleted by the evenings. (But that's another story.) So I've recalibrated to a much more sane 500 words per day. It sounds low when you compare it to, say, Stephen King's stated daily count of 2,000 words. However, King doesn't have a 9-5 with a 45-minute commute each way. I have about 4 hours by the time I get home from work till the time I need to be in bed, and in that time, I have to have dinner, do any necessary chores (dishes, laundry, vacuuming, bathing...), interact with my partner, and squeeze in any reading and/or writing I want to do.

I could probably write 1,000 words of crap, but I've already stated why I think that's a bad idea. In fact, I've also stated why I think it's a bad idea to work via word count at all. So why do I still have a daily word count at all (hypocrite!)? Why am I still keeping this chart?

1. I need the motivation. I need a goal, and I need to meet it. 
2. Words written are what show progress toward a goal; time spent does not. I need to SEE the progress.
3. It's pretty.

So maybe I was wrong before; maybe I was right but I'm not smart enough to heed my own advice. In any event, I still have a daily word count goal. And I'm finding that 500 words is perfect for me. I find that I can accomplish it even after a bad day at work, and that makes me feel satisfied and productive--key to keeping up a daily writing pace. I find that after a fairly calm day at work, I can accomplish twice my goal or more, and that makes me feel like the queen of the world. And it also means that when I have a particularly godawful shit day at work and can't do anything but pour myself a gin and tonic and stare at the wall, I don't lose much ground. 


So I'm making measurable, consistent progress, AND bonus: I feel good about myself. I'm about one-third through the book, and it's going to be exhausting as a marathon to get it done. Keeping myself feeling GOOD about myself and my writing each day, again and again, is the key to progress. Feeling accomplished without feeling overwhelmed is awesome. I know what burning out feels like. I don't, I can't burn myself out on the thing I love most in the world. 


The slope may be shallower, but the progress is still upward and onward. I'm aiming for publication by December 2012. Can I do it?

Progress

I'm behind, but mind the gap: the gap is closing.

Stuff Your Eyes With Wonder: Ray Bradbury Remembered

I am not one to get worked up over celebrity deaths. Seeing all the knee-jerk “R.I.P.s” on Facebook after a celebrity death, no matter whether banal or shocking, tends to make me smirk derisively. The R.I.P. reads much more like, “I heard about it first.” Or “I care suddenly about this person in a way that is not at all fake, really.”

So I was caught off guard today when I read about the death of Ray Bradbury and found myself with a lump in my throat. It’s not as if I knew the man personally. But what I felt was genuine sadness at his passing. You’ve probably noticed that even this blog, which I’ve been keeping for over 5 years, is named after a quote from Bradbury’s seminal work, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury’s writing has been more influential on me as a reader and as a writer than any other single author. And since I self-identify as a reader and writer above anything else, I feel this loss strongly.

I want to quote something from the introduction of my copy of The Martian Chronicles. Written by Clifton Fadiman 8 years after the book’s first publication in 1950, this intro was included with the 19^th printing of the book in 1967. 

“[The Martian Chronicles] is not exactly a classic, but it is a book that has lifted itself out of the ruck of its competitors. It sounds a truly individual note: nobody writes like Ray Bradbury.”

I couldn't agree more. I don’t think Bradbury is the best writer, but he is one of my favorites, and that’s what matters. Nobody writes like Ray Bradbury. I feel strong nostalgia for his writing because it was some of the first fiction I read as an adolescent that actually stuck with me, and I find that it has held up into my own adulthood. But I also feel another kind of nostalgia when I read Bradbury, a type of nostalgia that is essentially American—a longing for something simpler in the face of complications like war and technology. Bradbury came up in the dusk of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and he personifies a nostalgia for a time when the gap between science fiction and science fact was so much wider.

Further in, Fadiman nails the essence of the writer, who was at that time not yet 30 years old and would go on to write hundreds of short stories and ten more novels, including Fahrenheit 451—one of my top 3 novels of all time: 

“Mr. Bradbury has caught hold of a simple, obvious but overwhelmingly important moral idea, and, quite properly, he will not let it go. That idea—highlighted as every passing month produces a new terrifying lunacy: sputniks, super-sputniks, projected assaults on the moon, projected manned satellites—is that we are in the grip of a psychosis, a technology-mania, the final consequence of which can only be universal murder and quite conceivably the destruction of our planet.”

Oh, what the last six decades must have been like for Mr. Bradbury. “There are too many internets,” he said. “There are too many machines.”

In December 2011 (coincidentally the same month I published my first novel), Bradbury conceded to allow Fahrenheit 451 to be published as an e-book, despite his disdain for the medium (and the obvious irony given 451’s subject matter), provided that Simon & Schuster allow the e-book to be digitally downloaded by any library patron. Given the recent hubbub around the Big Six and e-lending, that is kind of a big deal.

What’s missing from much modern science fiction is not the imagination—I believe that part is alive and well. What’s missing is the morality. This was where Bradbury shined: rather than being an observer and a documentarian with a cold impartial eye to our “terrifying lunacy,” he chose a side. But he did it with beauty and grace and imagination, and that is why his work will last forever.  

Truly: rest in peace, Ray Bradbury. I hope with all the fibers of my writerly, readerly being that you passed away in a state of hope rather than defeat. May you now be in a place of wonder, light, and beauty that is worthy of your own brightest imaginings. 

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” 

–Ray Bradbury

Lucky 7 Blogfest

Rance Denton just tagged me over at The Action Prose for the Lucky 7 Blogfest. I'm so glad too, because, like Rance, I've been so busy writing, revising, marketing, and doing all sorts of authorly stuff, that SYEWW has been stalled. This is a great, fun excuse for a post. And the best part is that it doesn't take too much brain power, because writing, revising, marketing, and doing all sorts of authorly stuff doesn't leave you with much mental horsepower.

I have two simultaneous works in progress (to assuage my two different personalities, obviously), so I thought I'd treat you all to bits from both. The rules for Lucky 7 appear after the excerpts.

Excerpt from page 7 of Bugged:

Finally swallowing, he said, “You’re right. Not everything is different to everyone. Most sensation is linked to physiognomy. So barring some genetic anomaly, we basically see the same, smell the same, taste the same.” Swish, swish. “But of course, not you, Richard the Supertaster.” Sometimes he had to flatter Richard to make sure he was still listening.

“I can’t help it if I have access to thirty percent more taste buds than you.” Richard flicked his pink tongue out over his fat bottom lip. Ever the sucker for old fashioned flirtation.

“But there is so much about perception that isn’t actually linked to the physical sensory organs. Things that are linked to the intangible, emotions, gut feelings. You perceive fear, but that doesn’t always stem from physical stimuli. You can’t even always explain it. What scares you might be nothing to me, and vice versa.”

Excerpt from page 77 of [untitled] cozy mystery, to be mysteriously published under a mysterious pseudonym:

“Couldn’t he just be someone you know?” I ask. I take a sip of my drink and I actually like it. But it’s strong, really strong, and I promise myself not to have another. “I’m sorry. I mean, are you sure you want to talk about this?”

“Absolutely!” she says emphatically. “I confess I had ulterior motives to inviting you over. Sometimes, I just need to vent. And Maury’s pretty much put a gag order on me about the whole thing. He thinks media attention just fuels this guy. And Maury’s not the type of person you can sit down and have a heart-to-heart with.” She whispers confidentially, “I need a girl to talk to.”

Funny that both random excerpts are one-on-one dialog during the course of drinking alcohol. I hope I'm not becoming . . . samey. Seriously, though, these works couldn't be more different. Just a neat coincidence.

The way the Lucky 7 blogfest works is this: 1) If you’re tagged in a post by an author, you can choose to take part (which I hope you do!); 2) Go to page 7 or 77 of your current work-in-progress, go down to the 7th line, and post on your blog the next (approximately) seven lines! It’s as simple as that. 3) Remember not to cheat! Don’t pick a part you think will be engaging; don’t edit; just post it, show the raw, unedited truth of a writer’s first draft; and 4) Tag some of those writers you know would be wiling to show a bit of their creativity.

I'm tagging seven of my friends who write, and who I know--or hope--have a current WIP. I hope you'll respond on your blog or a Facebook note!

Kelly Leard
Jes Goodyear
Laura Bogart
Gavin St. Ours
Shauna Kelley
Jenna Morton-Aiken
Josh Munro

Virtual Interview

Sarah Allen just posed a list of questions for writers on her blog, so I thought I’d turn them into a virtual interview. It’s practice for when people actually ask me for my opinion, haha.

There were two types of questions: some about writing and some about marketing/networking. I’ll tackle the writing questions in this post, and go back to the marketing ones later.

-Plotter or pantser? And how do you specifically go about doing your plotting/pantsing?

I would say I’m a bit of a hybrid, with a heavy lean toward plotter. I blame my day job. In proposal writing, it’s mandatory that you be in compliance with what’s called the Request for Proposals (RFP) document. The way you get in compliance is to create outlines and checklists and plan, plan, plan. Basically, you have to put all your information in little (figurative) boxes that are laid out for you ahead of time—but it still has to be compelling, unified writing in the end.

From this, I’ve learned the value of having boxes to fill. Pre-planning your writing makes the writing go easier, and you can jump from box to box if you get stuck with one. Planning helps eliminate writer’s block.

I say with great caution that planned structure is your friend, because I know so many writers who think that “formula” is the other F-word. But structure can be as simple as the three-act structure (i.e., beginning, middle, and end) to the more complicated 15-beat structure (Word doc) from Save the Cat!. Sometimes I like to self-impose complicated structures to my writing as an interesting experiment. I once wrote a short story in the form of a sonnet, where I replaced the end-of-line rhyme with different characters’ POVs. It failed, but it sure was fun!

But I do think it’s dangerous to try to plot out specifically what happens, and this is where the “pantsing” comes in. If your characters are strong, they will develop wills of their own, and they won’t necessarily end up in the situations you want them to. So when you plan, it’s much better to plan changes and circumstances.

For example, you might say in your outline/writing plan, “at this point, something will happen that changes Cassie’s opinion about Bob.” Your characters of Cassie and Bob will show you what that event will be when you get there; but in order to move your plot and character arcs forward, you have to know that the change is necessary and figure out when it’s necessary. As another example, you might say in your outline, “Cassie is trapped somewhere and has to do something against her nature to get free.” This situation could be a million different things, from a literal trap to an emotional one. But this moment will be an important development in your plot and character arc.

-What is your writing schedule like? Morning? Evening? 3:47-5:02 AM?

I have a day job that can be very mentally fatiguing, and I spend a large chunk of my day writing—technical, not fiction. Unfortunately, I don’t always have the energy to write fiction before or after work and for this reason, I don’t write regularly.

Rather, I tend to rely on very condensed, very intensive writing sessions, such as National Novel Writing Month, the 3-Day Novel Contest, and planned vacations that I devote to writing. I also plan writing sessions with friends, where we get together and write for a couple hours. These types of gimmicks serve to force me to be very productive and to write very fast, often resulting in decent first drafts that I can then edit at my leisure.

For me (and certainly not for everyone!) writing works best in long, intense, consecutive sessions—living, breathing, eating the work for that period of time. Editing works itself out in the short bursts I can afford during the rest of my life.

I do dream of someday having a regular writing schedule, but nothing else about my life is regular or scheduled, so a dream it remains.

-Do you listen to music when you write? If yes, what music?

I do like music, but it’s very important that the music not be distracting, so I tend to listen to the same music over and over again until it becomes basically white noise. My favorite go-to album is Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, which I have listened to hundreds of times while writing.

Sometimes I use soundtracks from movies to write very intense scenes. The score from an action scene in a movie can really put you in the mindset to write a great action scene in your book!

-Do you have a daily/weekly word count goal, and what is it?

Because I write the way I do, goals fluctuate greatly. During NaNoWriMo, my goal is 1700–2000 words per day. During the 3-Day Novel Contest, I put out 7000–8000 words per day. When I write on my days off, I usually aim to get 1000 words down. I like round numbers.

-What character types are your favorite?

My favorite types of characters are the ones who I can’t wait to get to know. They’re the ones who never do what you want them to when you’re writing because they have minds and personalities of their own.

My favorite character recently has been the male lead from Secernere, Storey. Storey is probably one of the most complicated and compelling characters I’ve ever written. He’s a pacifist who is forced to facilitate violence in order that he can achieve peace for his country—and for his soul—in the longer term. Storey has become someone who I sometimes forget doesn’t actually exist, which is kind of sad because I think he'd be pretty awesome to hang out with.

A Glimpse of the Future

One of my beta readers, Jes, loaded up her Kindle with the draft of Secernere and sent me this shot last night. It makes me giddy to see myself in print--well, in e-ink anyway!

I Drew a Bunch of Pictures Last Night

I have this concept. I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But here are some concept drawings. We'll see where it goes...

The Beautiful Truth

I haven’t written in a long time.

I mean, yeah, I’ve written. I write every day. I’m a professional writer; I write proposals and manage communications for a small government contractor in Maryland. I even blog most days anymore.

But I mean wriiiiite. Fiction. It has always been, and always will be, my passion.

I lost my passion for writing briefly this past fall, when I was pulled into a three-month-long work project in Houston (which I’m sure I’ll get around to explaining one of these days) that zapped the living energy out of me, and left me with a wicked psychological hangover. I didn't do anything creative for quite a while after the project ended. (Mostly, I drank.)

But I was recently inspired. I had some way or another missed the previous two Three-Minute Fiction contests, but thanks to being a fan of NPR on Facebook, I got an early heads up this time around.

Stories for this round are supposed to be inspired by the rather uninspiring photograph they have on their website. It’s basically an open newspaper on a table inside a café, with the reflection in the café window of a man walking. So I looked at the photo for a while and thought about what it meant to me. I came up with a concept and let it roll around in my head for a while.

When I got off work, I started to write. I figured I’d get a few sentences down and see if they worked. That’s all you can really do when you’re starting.

I wrote four terrible sentences about a completely trite situation of a down-on-his-luck man in a coffee shop having a heart-to-heart with a bedraggled but kindhearted waitress. It may or may not have included wordplay surrounding the terms “sole custody” and “soul custody.” Ick.

So I left the file on my screen and got in the shower. That’s where the magic happens—and I don’t just mean getting clean. I’ve had nearly all my clearest and most powerful moments of inspiration when I’m either asleep or showering. It’s unsurprising; I know of many writers who have cited shower inspiration. You’re relaxed in the hot water, alone (ostensibly), naked (hopefully), and the shower is one of the few places in the world where you usually can’t be distracted by technology or media. (You’re not taking a magazine in there with you, and even crackberry addicts leave their devices outside the falling water.) These are perfect conditions for the freewheeling thought that leads to lightning bolts of inspiration.

It worked. I had a beginning, middle, and end; a moody setting; and two clear characters, as well as a third off-screen character who would be neatly summed up in one line of dialogue. I retained the central conflict from the original man-waitress failure.

I wrapped myself in a towel, sat down at my computer, and wrote the entire story from beginning to end before I even dried off.

For 3-minute fiction, you only have 600 words to work with (about a single-spaced page), so you have to be absolutely tight with every word. My first draft ran exactly 600 words. I did an immediate revision, making several changes, and still ended up at exactly 600 words. This was it. This story came out of me almost fully formed. Every word meant something more than just describing what was happening. The dialogue informed, entertained, and revealed character. The bare setting told a year’s worth of history without exposition. I even played around with some internal rhyme, alliteration, and rhythm, because I just dig that stylistic stuff.

If I sound like I am bragging, I am—it’s myself telling myself, “Nice job, sport.” I'm a writer for crying out loud. I need that confidence boost once in a while.

I got a second confidence boost when I sent the story to my uber-critical partner, (to whom I don’t show ANYTHING), and he said, “I like it.” (And he doesn’t like anything.) He made a few suggestions about punctuation (we’re both total punctuation nerds; I’m currently reading Dash of Style), but that’s it.

I had a total writer’s high.

Careful, however, not to ride that high to my own detriment, I put the story away until the next day. I pulled it out and read it again. It sang, just like before. I submitted it immediately before I had a chance to second-guess what I'd done and rework it into a hollow shell of its former self.
We’ll see what happens. I’m not confident in my chances of actually winning. The evaluation criteria for the contest include equal weighting for each “originality, creativity, humor, and quality of writing.” (I could write pages about my feelings on THAT bit of B.S…) Suffice it to say that my story is not funny, and it’s probably not all that original or creative. It’s just beautifully written. And it’s the truth. To me, that’s all successful fiction is: the beautiful truth.

So am I back in the saddle? I don’t know. I’m still in “art and craft mode” and I have quite a few unfinished projects that need tending before I start something new. My new “thing” is to finish projects I start. It’s going okay, and it’s narrowing my focus.

But whether or not I write anything more in the near future, it’s nice to know I still got it.

Mixed Blessing at MoMA

After I heard about the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art a few weeks back, I planned a trip with Chris to go to NYC this past weekend. I had earned a free hotel night from Choice Hotels after spending so much time in Houston this fall, and I found a hotel in SoHo, Manhattan where I could use my points. Chris suggested we take the Bolt Bus, which turns out to be less expensive than driving when you factor in gas and tolls. We never drive in NYC, so the bus really was the perfect option. And I would get to do a lot of sewing on the way up! The fact that it was Valentine's Day weekend was only incidental (we don't celebrate the commercialization of our relationship), but I completely forgot that it was also President's Day weekend. It didn't occur to me just how crowded the city--and MoMA--would be.

It turned out that Tim Burton was sold out for the weekend. Even after doing light research on the MoMA website, it was not obvious to me that we would need separate tickets to get in. There was no additional charge, so I thought we could just show up and go. Not so much.

I admit to crying for roughly 18 seconds when I saw the sign outside the museum that said, "Tim Burton exhibit is sold out for the day."

We decided to visit the museum anyway, since I had never been, and this turned out to be a mixed blessing. I was sad at missing the work of one of my major influences, but I do not regret getting to spend the time with some of the greatest pieces of modern art the world has to offer.

The greatest moments were seeing the major Rothko and Pollock works. They are simply astounding and breathtaking, especially if you stand close enough to them so that you can't see anything else in your field of vision. Seeing just two of these paintings was worth more than any number of pieces by anyone else--including the whole of the Burton exhibit.

However, the MoMA experience was a harrowing one; the museum is beyond crowded. Moreover, it is crowded with people who would rather have someone take a picture of them with a painting than actually look at it. It is crowded with people who think it is a good idea to snap a photo of Starry Night with their iPhone. It is crowded with people who are updating their Facebook status instead of capturing a sculpture on a sketch pad. The crowd at large made me feel sad for the state of humanity. Seriously, haven't these people heard of the internet? What were they trying to prove? It really is the epitome of narcissism if you think the only thing that can improve a photograph of a great work of art is you.

I admit to purposely walking in front of several people trying to take photographs. I also admit to purposely bumping several people, including the guy who stuck his blackberry in front of my face as I was trying to view The Persistence of Memory.

MoMA may have some of the greatest works available for viewing in the U.S., but I don't think the works on display are the singular experience a museum has to offer. I won't be going back anytime soon. I'll stick to the cavernous, relaxed, beautiful quiet of my neighborhood Walters Art Museum (which, incidentally, is free). I may have seen everything in it multiple times over, but I can walk to it and it is my favorite place in the city to just be.

Nevermore

Today is the 165th anniversary of the publication of "The Raven." That poem has been one of my greatest inspirations. Anyone who knows my writing knows I am a hardcore formalist, and I find the internal mechanics of The Raven to be astounding. The meter is precise. The rhyme scheme, both internal and end, is cyclical and haunting without being repetitive or grating.

I admit I probably heard it read out loud one too many times while I participated in Forensics in high school. But listening to Vincent Price read it brings the magic back.

Feng Sew

New View of My Work Area
Originally uploaded by Elly Zee

I’ve never put much stock in the whole Feng Shui thing, but I am now a believer that the arrangement of your room can affect your energy. Since I moved into my apartment in August of 08, my bedroom has been arranged exactly the same way. Sometime in 2009 (probably around NaNoWriMo time), I bought myself a desk, so I could really hunker down on my writing.

The desk promptly became a dumping ground for all manner of mail, clothes, paperwork, and anything I needed to get out of the way. My cats also liked to lay on it, so it was usually covered in fur, too.

Meanwhile, my dining room table had my sewing machine on it. Every time I wanted to dine on the table, I had to take down the sewing machine and set up the placemats and settings. Every time I wanted to sew, I had to move all the dining accoutrement (usually onto the desk…). It was becoming annoying. I stopped sewing so much. I started eating at the coffee table.

One day a few weeks ago, right after I’d scheduled the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch, I started thinking hard about how my apartment would look to a strange—especially to a stranger of the crafty mindset. And I realized it was set up all wrong for my needs.

The desk was in the darkest corner of my room, against a wall, with nothing pretty to look at. It was too close to the bedroom door, which could never fully open, and also too close to the front door, where I would enter looking to plop down my mail, laundry, or purchase on the nearest flat surface.

My bed was in the middle of the room, sticking out into the biggest space I have in the whole apartment, cutting it in half, and making either side of the room basically useless.

By the bedroom window, in the sunniest, prettiest area of the whole room, was a loveseat that I never sit on. It looks nice aesthetically (except when it’s covered in laundry), but I don’t sit around in my bedroom; I sit in my living room.

Because my desk was all but useless, my dining room table had become the only place to sit and sew or sit and type. But it, too, was in a dark area facing a wall. Nice for a romantic dinner; not pleasant for sewing curtains.

None of this made sense. Thankfully, the answers were all simple.

I moved the loveseat to the living room. It effectively “cuts off” my living room from my dining room. They are really the same room, but with the visual barrier of the loveseat, it’s like I now have a living room AND a dining room. It also gave me more seating for having lots of guests over (like the 11 people I was expecting for Stitch n Bitch).

I moved the desk to where the loveseat had been. Now I had the sun streaming in through the window and it immediately increased the energy level around the desk—as well as my desire to sit at it for long periods of time. I arranged a table behind it that could hold my printer when I was printing, or hold the new light box I had constructed for taking photographs. The light box needed to be near the window to catch the sunlight, and this was the perfect place. The desk was also now too far away to be a convenient place to stash any odds or ends. It now only holds crafting supplies and papers having to do with my creative writing.

Then, I moved my bed to where my desk used to be. The dark corner of a room is the best place for a bed—the place you want the darkest. I’m also loathe to stash anything on my bed, so it’s okay that it’s near the front door. It also leaves the middle of my room wide open. This makes me feel less cramped, but also provides a lot of floor space for laying out large pieces of material. I was also prompted to call my landlord and have her fix the light fixture in the middle of the room that had been broken for the better part of 2009—I suddenly needed it.

Since I’ve done this rearrangement, I’ve done more sewing, crafting, marketing, writing, and work than I ever had. I’m not drawn to the couch because I don’t feel like cleaning off the desk. I’m drawn to the sunny, organized creative nook I’ve made for myself.

There are additional notes on Flickr.

Ghost, Ghost, I Know You Live Within Me

As so often happens with my plans, they've changed. I was trying to go through the motions of classical study, including doing some master copies and self portraits and other sort of "standard" exercises, but I quickly got bored. I'm not sure when or why it happened, but I had a flash of inspiration over the weekend about a painting project I want to begin. No, actually, I do think I know why it happened. I've been playing the hell out of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and I think it has gotten into my brain.

The album, which grows more fantastic with each play, is a concept album about--or greatly influenced by--the life and death of Anne Frank. What has really been haunting me about the record are the images evoked by the lyrics. They are at once beautiful, but also unashamedly sexual and raw, sometimes violent, and always pure in their emotion. And if you put Anne Frank's face on all the "you"s and "she"s in the lyrics (it may not have been the intent, but it's difficult not to do so), there is an added layer of creepiness--the sexualization of a young girl. Even further: the sexualization of a dead girl. One could even take it so far as pedophilia, and almost abstract rape, because the girl cannot defend herself or enjoin herself with any of the images Mangum evokes. But I'm still never offended by the lyrics, perhaps because the passion is unashamed, unassuming, and guiltless. I think "haunting" really is exactly the right adjective to describe this album.

Here are a few of my favorite snippets from the lyrics:

And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
And your dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for

...

Now how I remember you
How I would push my fingers through
Your mouth to make those muscles move

...

Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine

...

Semen stains the mountain tops

...

Your father made fetuses
With flesh licking ladies

...

The movements were beautiful
All in your ovaries
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines
Smelling of semen all under the garden
Was all you were needing when you still believed in me

...

But now we move to feel
For ourselves inside some stranger's stomach
Place your body here
Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine

...

Probably my favorite:

And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes

...

So I think I was inspired to create my own images that juxtapose beauty with both overt and covert sexuality, in addition to praising ownership and guiltlessness over own's own sexuality. I'm also interested in the fine line between girlhood and womanhood. Anne Frank is 15 years old in perpetuity--a girl. That, in part, is what makes some of the sexual imagery on Aeroplane uncomfortable. But at 15, a girl is going through puberty (if she has not already finished) and is beginning to explore her own sexuality. Certainly today, many girls have lost their virginity by age 15 or 16. This is true whether or not anyone wants to publicly acknowledge it.

One of the first images that came to me was a pair of bare knees and hands clasping or grabbing at a skirt in some sort of strong emotion--distress, or desire--pushing it upward. I don't know exactly where this image came from, but in my head, it represented a lot of the ideas I wanted to portray. Unable to get this image, or the ideas evoked by the music, out of my head, I took some photographs last night that I plan to use as studies for a series of paintings I want to do. I think some of them work really well as just photographs alone, but I don't identify myself as a photographer so I have difficulty seeing any of them as finished works of art. I'll probably still go on to paint them, and then decide which works better.

I used high contrast and harsh light to achieve a more interesting visual effect, but there are obvious symbolic subtexts as well. In the costuming, I chose ultra-feminine pieces of clothing--lacy, airy pieces in muted neutral colors. Some of the pieces remind me of 1940s clothing, which may be part of the reason I chose them. The interesting thing about some of the pieces were that, though they were dowdy in cut (button to the throat, full sleeve, cut past the knee, etc.) they were made of sheer fabric. If nothing is worn beneath, the nudity of the figure is exposed. I also chose to crop off the face/head/identifying features of the subject. This isn't for the purpose of objectification; rather, I want these pieces to be intensely personal. But I also want to demonstrate the universality of the feminine dilemma.