The first cup of tea

Tea is pretty much my only vice. On the mornings I don’t go to the gym, I love to wake up at 5am, meditate for a little while (half an hour does wonders for me) and then head down the stairs into my dark living room, walk across to my tiny kitchen, flip the dim light on above the stove and put on the kettle. It’s so peaceful–everyone is asleep, I have a bit of time to myself and the day still has so many possibilities. (On an ideal morning, I don’t check my email first thing–it feels awful to be reminded that at 5am, you are behind already!)

I slept in this morning. I’m having my first cup of tea now and looking out my sliding glass doors at the fog that has settled over Mountain View today. It’s been very cold here lately (forties–even thirties some mornings!) but I’m cozy inside with my Earl Grey. Time to turn off this laptop and read.

 

Help with writer’s block

A former writing teacher of mine last year sent out a link to a Stanford webpage featuring tips to help boost writing productivity. The page lists productivity problems–procrastination and avoidance (do I really need to change the kitty litter just when I sit down to write???), negative self-talk (I should have a PhD in this, with a minor in perfectionism), mental health conditions (not fun, but I believe mental instability produces the best material–I would move this category to the “writing tips” section of this webpage), etc.

If you are having writing trouble, check this page out–and bookmark it. If the words just flow out of you freely, I’m very jealous–but you may want to bookmark the page anyway, if for nothing else than to feel smug.

 

The Brothers Karamozov

I finished reading The Brothers Karamozov today at Gold’s Gym. (I read while I’m on the stairmaster.) I don’t feel as sad as I did when I finished War and Peace last year. I was a bit lost for a few days though–my first time reading that epic novel had come to an end–it was kind of like losing my virginity, except that Tolstoy was much more satisfying.

But onto Dostoevsky. I loved this book. A lot of Dostoevsky’s ideas in B.K. came from his own life, such as his arrest and near-execution for involvement in a utopian society. He described the experience in a letter he wrote to his brother that same day:

“Today, December 22, we were driven to Semyonovsky Parade Ground. There the death sentence was read to us all, we were given the cross to kiss, swords were broken over our heads, and our final toilet was arranged (white shirts). Then three of us were set against the posts so as to carry out the execution. We were summoned in threes; consequently I was in the second group, and there was not more than a minute left to live. I remembered you, my brother, and all yours; at the last minute you, you alone, were in my mind, and it was only then that I realized how much I love you , my dearest brother! I also succeeded in embracing Pleshcheyev and Durov, who were beside me, and bade farewell to them. Finally the retreat was sounded, those who had been tied to the posts were led back, and they read to us that His Imperial Majesty granted us our lives…”

What Dostoevsky learned from this near death experience serves as one of the main themes in B.K. : “Brother, I’m not depressed and haven’t lost spirit. Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external.”

Wow. Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. I think I need to repeat that to myself several times a day.

Who do I read next? Gogol maybe??? I wish I could learn Russian–then I could read Pushkin (he apparently doesn’t translate well to English–even Nabakov couldn’t do him justice). I need to find a book club for people obsessed with Russian literature. I wonder if one exists online…

 

A poem for the new year

A friend of mine–he wants to remain anonymous–no worries there with my blog ;p–wrote this poem on New Year’s Eve while we sat in a donut shop. I was working on a short story and he needed a break from his Cormac McCarthy book, so he whipped this up. I wanted to post his poem but he wouldn’t give it to me, until today. Here it is:

New Year’s Eve–2009

Was everything fine in two thousand nine?

If you tell me your year, I’ll tell you mine.

It’s the very last day; you must be quick,

Unless the whole idea just makes you sick.

Did ups and downs come in equal measure?

Back breaking work and the sloth of leisure?

Did you manage to roll with the punches?

Driving and shopping and power lunches?

I was alright if you don’t factor in

The handful of times I succumbed to sin.

Times when my pledges of New Year’s resolve

Quickly unravelled and promptly dissolved.

Today is the day I’ll promise anew

To refrain from things I’ll probably do.

The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.

My attitude bad? My outlook too bleak?

Well, perhaps it’s all too much for my brain.

Too many strictures can drive you insane.

It should be enough to just pledge my best,

And let the chips fall regarding the rest.

“Two thousand ten” has a magical ring.

The promise of hope a new year can bring.

“This year will be different,” I always say

The year before, on the very last day.

 

Wasn’t Chekhov that Commie from Startrek?

I’m thinking about entering Slate’s contest: Can you write like Sarah Palin? I’m always going on about how badly my writing is going, but I don’t know if I can write this badly:

“As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on.”

and

“I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier.”

–from Going Rogue, Sarah Palin’s ghost writer

This is so unbelievably poorly written, I don’t know where to start. If I brought this to a writer’s workshop, my fellow writers would say something like, “What a great use of diction to characterize your narrator as a naive, high school girl filled with silly romantic notions and bad poetry.”

The flowery, incomprehensible nonsense I’ve quoted above reminds me of the bad poetry written by Emmeline Grangerford in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec’d

And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
‘Twas not from sickness’ shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly,
By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.

My boyfriend made some great edits to the Palin lines:

“I walked happily through the forest.”

and

“It smelled of Autumn.”

What a huge improvement. These edits remind me of some advice Chekhov gave novelist Maxim Gorky:

“It is intelligible when I write, ‘The man sat down on the grass’; it is intelligible because it is clear and does not impede the reader’s attention. Conversely, I will be unintelligible and tax the reader’s brain if I write: ‘The tall, narrow-chested man of average build, who had a short, red beard, sat down on the green grass, already trampled by passersby; sat down noiselessly, timidly, and fearfully glancing around him.’ One’s brain cannot grasp this at once, yet fiction must be grasped at once, on the spot.” –p 37, The Making of a Story, Alice LaPlante, Norton 2007

After all, Palin’s memoir is fiction, isn’t it?

 

“Dulce et Decorum Est”–A poem for Veteran’s Day

Growing up in Canada, as a young girl, I had to memorize in school the World War I poem “In Flander’s Fields.” I read it last night for old time’s sake. It’s pretty good but I prefer this following poem by Wilfred Owen, another young soldier from World War I who doesn’t candy coat the horrors of war with a bunch of patriotic rhetoric.

If you aren’t familiar with the poem, the last line in Latin translates to “How sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.”

Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

How to write

1.  Read. Read Shakespeare; read Tolstoy; read Dostoevsky. (Avoid paperbacks bearing a Cyclopsian ‘O.’ Of course, if Oprah someday wants to showcase your book, don’t be stupid.) Read Ulysses. Understand Ulysses. If, after having fully understood Ulysses, you still feel you have anything to contribute, you have the ego of a writer and may proceed. If reading great writers leaves you in a paralyzed state of utter despair, don’t read so much. Actually, you probably shouldn’t read at all. Reading may stunt your creativity. Reading may stifle your voice. Reading may cause you to unconsciously plagiarize entire passages.

2. Buy a nice notebook. Hemingway preferred the Moleskine which bookstores everywhere still sell today. Ignore the fact that last year, the small Italian maker of these notebooks sold over two million of them in the U.S. alone to other would-be-writers like yourself.

3. Choose your material. If you were not fortunate enough to have been born to alcoholic, religious fanatic parents (Catholics have the upper hand here) with mental illness flourishing throughout all branches of your family tree, don’t worry, you can just make up stuff. If you are one of the lucky ones, squeeze out every sordid detail you can. Don’t worry about offending people. The more accurately you render the horrific behavior of others, the less likely they will recognize themselves and they should have been nicer to you anyway. If you lack dysfunction, seek out abusive relationships or adopt any of a number of vices.

4. Write every day. Write first thing in the morning when you wake up refreshed, before the day messes with the muse. You will still have a clear mind (unless you’re one of the lucky ones and hung over–see #2) and maybe you will have just dreamed the entire ending for your difficult novel and can basically transcribe it but don’t bank on it. Or, write at night before bed when you can reflect on the hectic events of your day. If you’re too tired, just put it off until the next day.

5. Revise your work. When revising, incorporate as many literary devices as possible. Here is a partial list: accentual verse, accidental verse, blanket verse, budapest, anapest, anastrophe, apostrophe, catastrophe, authorial intrusion, authorial perversion, controlling metaphor, limp metaphor, dead metaphor, uncalled-for, connotation, denotation, ovulation, diphthong, boythong, oolong, oo rhyme, slant rhyme, perfect rhyme, imperfect rhyme, internal rhyme, eternal rhyme, dramatic rhyme, dramatic monologue, undramatic monologue, ungrammatic monologue, epiphany, elegy, eulogy, urology, romance, rising action, rhythm, climax, siesta, sestina, ionic major, ionic minor, ironic rancor, narrative, objective correlative, objective misgive, objective fallacy, pathetic fallacy, phallic fallacy, post-modern, post-mortem, addendum, conundrum, humdrumdum.

6. As a destitute writer, find a way, any way, to support yourself. On the surface, prostitution may seem degrading or maybe even immoral if all of that Catholic hellfire crap really stuck but just think of the wealth of material you will be able to mine for your art. (For more on prostitution, see # 1.)

7. Prepare yourself for rejection from publishers. Contact old lovers from affairs that ended like a category five hurricane. Get back together. Or, try to establish a relationship with your crack dealing father (or mother) who deserted your family of seven when you were ten years old. Not only will these exercises toughen you to rejection, they offer the added bonus of providing you with rich writing material. Again, if you are one of those unlucky ones whose life flows on an even keel, be creative. You can always apply for jobs for which you are completely unqualified, better yet, completely over-qualified. Constant rejections from needle-dicked teenage fast food restaurant managers, suspicious of your MBA, should help you fine tune your rejection coping skills.

8. Don’t think. As you write, temporarily put all writing advice out of your head.

 

You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin. But You Can Be Too Happy.

Forget about low carbs, low fat and the low results that follow. For lifelong weight management, you need the first ever low serotonin diet, the Sera Low Weight Loss Program™. Throw out your calorie counters and fat burning pills along with your exercise equipment. But don’t just take our word for it.

“When I am depressed and miserable, the last thing I can think of is eating. If I find my jeans are getting a bit too tight, I just pick a fight with my husband over a hot button issue, like childcare, housecleaning, or the herpes he caught from a prostitute on a business trip. Then I get so upset, I can’t eat for a couple of days. I am the same size I was 20 years ago in high school and my friends all hate me for it! The Sera Low Weight Loss Program™ really works!”

Lisa Ross, New York City, size 0

“Sometimes, when things are going well and I am happy, I get more pleasure out of the many joys of life such as food. Then I become complacent about my weight. With the Sera Low Weight Loss Program™, I have learned how to sabotage my career and derail healthy relationships so that I can keep that edgy feeling in the pit of my stomach and not want to eat ever again.”

Angela Ross, Miami, loses up to 8 pounds a week when necessary

When life is good, we tend to sock on the pounds. Just look at recently wed couples. We have all seen them, walking down the street together, arms entwined, stealing kisses and giggling incessantly, making everyone around them sick. But while they are busy playing googly eyes with each another, they often neglect their waist lines and pile on the pounds. The same thing can happen when your career runs smoothly. Sailing along from college to that first job and successfully climbing up the corporate ladder without experiencing any job uncertainty also adds to your overall happiness. With exercise, ironically, you will lose weight slower than with the Sera Low Weight Loss Program™. Just think about it. When you exercise, your body creates endorphins, adding to your overall feeling of well being. Sure, you may lose a bit of weight. But if you have a lot of weight to lose, and you want to lose it fast, you don’t want to feel happy. You want to feel depressed and suicidal. You want to try the Sera Low Weight Loss Program™. If you follow some of our steps, not only will you lose your appetite, you will actually have to force the food down!

Here are just a few pearls of wisdom the Sera Low Weight Loss Program™ offers that will get you on the road to bone rack thin:

Your Career

Find a job that you hate or are completely unsuited for. When you find that job, don’t communicate effectively with you coworkers or your boss. Instead, hold grudges, never speak up and either give everyone the silent treatment or blow up and tell them exactly what you think of them and their stupid, only-a-complete-idiot-would-come-up-with-such-BS ideas, without holding back whatsoever. Do as little work as you can without getting yourself fired. Warnings and bad performance reviews work almost as well as flat out firing to keep you on edge. (If you find that you don’t get enough of that nervous I-think-I-am-getting-an-ulcer feeling in your gut from these suggestions, then you may consider messing up enough to get yourself fired after you have sent in all 8 EZ payments to the Sera Low Institute™.) Make lots of enemies at work. Participate in company politics and create some of your own. The great thing about your career is that it can spill over into the most significant area of your life, your personal relationships. By working eighty hours a week at a job you hate, you will not only neglect your loved ones but generally be in a bad mood on those rare occasions when you are around them.

Personal Relationships

If you are gay, date someone of the opposite sex. If you are straight, date someone you are not attracted to. But more importantly, marry someone you hate. And most importantly, have children with him/her. If one child can create enough tension to last eighteen years, imagine what two, three, four or even five can do! You will be thin and svelte for the rest of your life! You will be so miserable you may even have a breakdown that requires a trip to the mental hospital where they will have to force feed you with a tube! As at work, do not communicate properly with your partner. This will create a lot of tension and the pounds will just fall off. And stay off! With the Sera Low Weight Loss Program ™, you can keep track of every infraction your partner has made against you since you met—not just in your head, but on your hard drive! The Sera Low Weight Loss Program™ comes with an electronic ledger so you can literally keep score of your relationship. Fill this in regularly, study the full color graphs and charts that our Sera Low Spreadsheet™ creates, and while your resentment increases, your appetite will decrease proportionately. Just think of it. You will never have to diet again.

 

Everyone has a story to tell

I met a friend at Peet’s today, another graduate from the SFSU creative writing program, to draft a plan for a writer’s group. The place was packed at 9am on a Monday morning. Everyone is in shock that Monday has arrived once more, time to roll that boulder back up the hill. The guy who waited on me was about 55, round glasses, bulging eyes, gray hair mixed in with a dull non-definable darker color. He jutted his head out towards me–I wasn’t sure if he was hard of hearing or just focusing (it was really loud in there, with all those fabulously successful Palo Altans who hadn’t downed their first of many cups of caffeine). As he brewed my tea, I wondered how he wound up working at Peet’s at this stage of his life. Was he the franchisee? (Am I sexist for wondering this? If a woman his age had served me, I would have thought “empty-nester” and that would have been the end of it.) What was his real career? From which high-tech company had he been laid off? Is he independently wealthy and just works at Peet’s twice a week so he can still converse with “regular” people?  I wondered if people are rude to him. He snapped the plastic lid on my scalding hot paper cup and handed me my tea and an extra tea bag. “For your earthquake preparedness kit,” he said. Everyone has a story. I wonder what his was. Maybe I’ll have to make it up.