Was That a Sign of Spring I Saw?

Posted on January 17, 2008 by lalber

After a great writing session, look what I saw flowering in the midst of icy snow flurries! Almost too gloomy to see, but these flowers look like springtime to me. I call them a dirty trick to play on this hapless, sun-deprived scribbler. Still, I enjoyed the sneak peek and inspired a walker with her Great Pyrenees to admire the dainty pink blossoms also.

These blossoms reminded of my 2003 trip to Paris. I lucked out with a glorious April. Blooms everywhere!

I snapped this photo at an undersung but fabulous museum, Musée Rodin. Priceless art in a gorgeous formal garden: one of my favorite outdoor hanging-out spots.

However, my top pick was the Place des Vosges, a perfect old world square with a perfect grassy park. I spent many an hour picnicking and writing there. In fact, here’s a quote from A Writer’s Paris by Eric Maisel, a pretty little book that’s a must for any writer visiting Paris:

What is the magic of this place? The wrought iron lamps are certainly beautiful, as are the low wrought iron fences shaped like bent twigs. The placement of the fountains is right, the arcades that surround the square are right, the red brick mansions are right — it is all right, but I don’t believe the square’s allure is only about golden proportions. It is the ethic, the cultural imperative. Here you are encouraged to sit and write and people-watch, to adjourn to a neighboring café and write and people-watch some more, to pass an entire day this way…The Place des Vosges supports your artistic nature. About how many places can that be said?

Verbal Vomiter

Posted on January 14, 2008 by lalber

Over the weekend the sun revealed itself, I received several healthy doses of vitamin D, and I bought myself a bouquet of lilies. This morning, I stumbled out of bed and proceeded to write with zero fuss. There must be a correlation.

The writing went well, but rereading the pages just now, I’m unsure how much I’ll keep when I start revisions. Especially a bit of description that might slow down the scene. But that’s okay. During revisions I might cut the description entirely — or cut the surrounding text and move the description to a better spot in the story. Who knows? I don’t — yet.

Thinking about this reminds me of a woman I met at Baker & Spice on Saturday. I noticed her journal when I sat myself down with my bread pudding. She filled the pages with petite script that I could tell was legible. Her words marched in straight lines with no cross-outs, corrections inserted between the lines, or scribbles in the margins.

Along with her tidy handwriting, I also noticed cool pasted-in items such as ticket stubs and postcards. When I commented on this she mentioned that she rarely writes because of writing anxiety, which (if I understood her correctly) prevents her from writing anything down unless it’s perfect.

Me, I’m the opposite. I call myself a verbal vomiter, and my journals are messy like my first drafts. I suppose my tolerance for messiness allows me to be okay with the pages I wrote today. I can let them go for now, because I know I’ll tidy them up later. As a verbal vomiter, I end up with lots of material to work with, that’s for sure.

In fact, I’m basking in the glow of validation. The book I mentioned on the My Current Reading List post, A Perfect Mess, coins the phrase useful mess. Yes!

My Current Reading List

Posted on January 11, 2008 by lalber

I promise I didn’t set up this photo of my nightstand in all its bookwormy glory. So many books, so little time to read them all!

I’ve decided that 2008 is my year to shrink the ever-growing piles in half. To start with, I’ve pulled out ten books that I will read over the next few months. If worthy, I will then transfer these books to my bookshelf. These will be nonfiction rather than fiction.

Why nonfiction?

Because I’m a compulsive novel reader. Reading is part of my job as a novelist (nice rationalization), but I bet I also inherited this tendency from my mom. In any case, I’ve noticed that obsessive novel-reading complicates my first-draft writing efforts. For one thing, my brain runs amuck with too many ideas anyhow; I can do without the possible influence of other writers’s prose stylings or cool plot points on my storytelling.

Also, I often ruin my sleep patterns by reading until two (or later) in the morning. This results in morning grogginess, distraction, grumpiness — not good for my creativity. I accomplish my best first-draft writing in the mornings so obviously I need a fix.

To this end I shall henceforth read nonfiction until I complete my first draft. Here’s my reading list, in no particular order:

* A PERFECT MESS, The Hidden Benefits of Disorder — How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place: I bought this yesterday as part of a New Year’s effort to be kinder to myself.

* ALMANAC OF WORLD HISTORY: I began reading this National Geographic book eons ago because I’m daft when it comes to history. Didn’t pay enough attention in school, I guess. Too bad I don’t remember what I previously read, but my bookmark shows that I got to “Colonizing New Worlds, 1455-1857.”

* THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN, A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: Dictionary — a writer’s best friend. How could I not be interested in this tale?

* READING LIKE A WRITER, A Guide For People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them: Self-evident. Also, the author, Francine Prose, is smart smart smart.

* THE GOLDEN RATIO, The Story of Phi, the World’s Most Astonishing Number: I must have inherited a pinch of geekiness from my genius dad’s side of the family…

* EUDORA, A WRITER’S LIFE: Pure curiosity about novelist Eudora Welty.

* IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY: Because the author, Bill Bryson, has a great reputation. And because I like a well-written travel book. And because I’m a wanderer at heart.

* THE BOTANY OF DESIRE, A Plant’s-Eye View of the World: Research for my first novel (a.k.a. my practice novel) in which one of my characters was an amateur botanist instilled in me a huge respect for all that is botanical and for nature writing in general.

* SALT, A WORLD HISTORY: I like revisionist historical perspectives. They’re fresh and could be fodder for fiction.

* BUTTERFLY COOING LIKE A DOVE: This is a gorgeous book — an odd mixture of art, nature writing, and literature — written by Miriam Rothschild. I’ve held on to it for years because Jackie Onassis acquired and edited it. Many a day I observed her gorgeous self strolling past my desk at Doubleday Books (where I also worked but as a plebe).

And my bonus book: EAT, PRAY, LOVE, which I will borrow from a friend — because so many people have recommended it and because it was apparently the must-read popular nonfiction book of 2007.

Aaaah, books — heaven.

Happy New Year, a Little Late

Posted on January 8, 2008 by lalber

I’m back and officially ready to start the new year. The head cold I mentioned turned nasty indeed. I spent most of last week in bed after my sister and nephews returned to California (on the 3rd). This week, my priorities include reacquainting myself with my writing routines.

In truth, I’m anxious because I haven’t written in a few weeks. This is my usual reaction when my routines crumble. Right now, the tension is helpful as an antidote against winter inertia. Weather-wise, January is my heart of darkness. Holiday socializing and errand-running and family stuff propel me through December. But now?

All I can say is that you can’t take the California out of the girl. Sunlight is good. January is a pain in the neck. Interestingly enough (at least to me), now that I live in the Pacific Northwest I find that my most vivid holiday memories are bathed in sunlight.

These memories begin with my childhood home, which was built into a steep hillside above Tennessee Valley, with my elementary school nestled on the valley floor and a quaint cemetary dotting the opposite hillside. The Kirkland family’s homestead with neat white fences and grazing horses also sat opposite. Beyond the school, the Godino family also owned land — and a Shetland pony that I adored. They were the last family along the valley floor before the horse stables and the anise-scented trail that led to Tennessee Valley Cove. The pebbly beach sat on the cusp between the San Francisco Bay and the vast Pacific. These days, the area is integrated into the Marin Headlands recreational area with trail signage and port-a-potties and hikers-bikers-runners in their yuppie gear. In those days, it was a wilderness that I roamed at will.

This was my little universe, a universe over which I often gazed from above a layer of fog that had seeped over the hillsides and pooled in the valley. I was in the same grade as a Kirkland daughter and a Godino son, and I could pick out the street halfway down my hilly neighborhood where several other schoolmates lived: Kathy, Nancy, Kim, Kristi, Robin, Melissa, Julie, Mike.

Best yet, the eastward view from my house led my eye past the old-fashioned grave markers toward receding layers of a larger world: Strawberry Point, the Bay, Angel Island, the Oakland and Berkeley hills on the opposite shore. I’m convinced that this perspective beyond my little universe — plus the freedom to wander hills with nothing but sea-salt laden wind, tall grass, and my dog for company — was pivotal to my development as a writer. I could imagine anything as I gazed past the edge of the continent. And I did.

But back to the holiday memories: On Christmas mornings, my sisters and I woke before dawn. From bed, I watched the horizon lighten over my world with purple shimmers. Soon enough, the fog layer turned into a vibrant canvas in pinks and oranges before the sun finally revealed itself and a frost-sparkling morning. By then, it was time to wake our parents. Our living room sported a wall of picture windows. The memories are as simple as this: Sunlight drenched us as we opened presents.

In the here and now, it’s only 2:00 p.m. and the rain puddles already reflect orange from the garage light across the street. It’s a still, gray day. The stream next to my building is more like a river, and water gurgles fountain-like over a portion of tree trunk that floated from who knows where. The sound is comforting.

Choosing to Believe

Posted on December 29, 2007 by lalber

I spent most of today in bed reading and sleeping. I had a feeling that galavanting around in the snow yesterday with my much-adored nephews would send my head cold over the edge. I’d been maintaining a minimal head cold all week in an effort to shore up my energies for little Trevor and Andrew’s first visit to real live snow. Their first snowball fight, first snow angels, first snowman. We had a blast. This was also the first year they were old enough to fly up from California with my sister for the holidays.

Today I’m paying for all the fun, but I don’t mind. I choose to believe that my body is clearing itself of toxins just in time for the New Year. This choosing-to-believe bit is something I do with myself. It’s like Steve Martin wrote in a recent New Yorker essay:

Through the years, I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.

Despite my kvetching on this blog, I’m actually an optimistic person. And besides, delusions are fun. For example, I experienced my first snowy Christmas this year — with actual falling snow! Firsts are good at any age, and I chose to believe that the snow was a good omen for 2008.

Especially for my writing. I’m full of plans for using my time more wisely, finishing my current novel, and traveling back to Ireland for research. A bright and shiny start to 2008! Delusions are great — charge myself up enough and the delusions will become moments of valid inspiration and action. Maybe this is what Steve Martin meant in his essay.

Hey, How’s Your Novel Doing?

Posted on December 20, 2007 by lalber

It must be the time of year, because I’m feeling extra annoyed. Just now, the Mysterious Mr. M sent me an email in response to Monday’s post. He empathizes with my rejection agitation because he’s currently in search of a literary agent and received a thanks-but-no-thanks letter from an agent he liked.

In this agent’s rejection letter, she mentioned that editors are running after legal thrillers, zombie detectives, and urban fantasies (which means what exactly?). So, I’m annoyed on his behalf and extra annoyed at the moment because his email got me thinking about a conversation I had earlier this week.

This conversation mimics dozens upon dozens that have come before it, and it goes something like this:

Person I haven’t seen for awhile and don’t know well: “Hey, how’s your novel doing?”

Me: “Uhm, well, I finally landed an agent not too long ago and…”

Person, smile faltering: “Oh, I thought for sure your novel would be published by now.” (Or some variation of this theme with the unsaid thought: How hard could it be?)

Me, in my head: !!$#!%&!!!!

It’s true that hundreds of thousands of books are published each year. What outsiders to the publishing industry don’t understand is that the number of publishing slots available for debut novelists is tiny, in large part because book publishing is like any other big business: going after the surefire money as often as possible. Not huge on risk-taking, those multinational multimedia conglomerates.

Plus, seems like everyone with a computer is writing. Agents are inundated with crap, and even if a talented newcomer makes it out of an agent’s slush pile — not a given — he or she is likely to get rejected anyhow because of market trends. This is Mr. M’s current plight.

I’m one of the lucky ones who made it past slush and into the hands of an agent who believes in my work. And I do mean it when I say “lucky” because, given talent, sometimes it’s only luck that differentiates the published from the unpublished, or the agented from the unagented. (Actually, with some books talent was obviously not a factor, but this is a rant for another time.)

I don’t bother explaining all this to people who ask, “Hey, how’s your novel doing?” Instead, I sometimes want to wonder aloud why in the realm of creative pursuits, it’s considered easier to become a working novelist (by this I mean no day-job needed) than, say, a working painter or a working musician.

Frankly, I think we creatives who are truly going for it must be a crazy bunch. But we gotta do what we gotta do, right?

Agitated at Kodi’s Coffee & Cafe

Posted on December 17, 2007 by lalber

I didn’t finish writing my daily five pages today because as the morning wore on, I felt more and more agitated. Restless. Possibly even a smidge neurotic. I was trying not to think about the latest batch of rejection letters my literary agent lately received from editors.

I don’t think I’m reaching for the stars here. I know my novel is worthy of publication. It’s just that I have no control over market trends and, frankly, luck. It’s disheartening that my novel’s fate rests on whether my agent happens to send the manuscript to the right editor at the right time. There’s just no predicting. She’s savvy, and she’ll contact the next batch of editors after the holidays; meanwhile, I gotta let go of that over which I have no control.

But, agitation happens despite my good intentions.

Mental health requires me to leave my apartment and go among people when I’m agitated. I most often hit my favorite WiFi cafe, Kodi’s Coffee & Cafe. I chat with the owner, Bruce (who is friendly with Denis Johnson, National Book Award winner!) and the other regulars. Then, I often take Kodi, the coffee house’s mascot, for a walk to the dog park.

Kodi loves me. I’m his Aunt Lisa, and the moment I enter the coffee shop he’s right up against my leg. Believe me, this is balm for an agitated heart. The dog park also calms my nerves. My brain empties in a most satisfying manner while I watch the dogs mount each other, sniff behinds, and run around like spazzes. I laugh alot. By the time I return, I’m a sane person again.

At the moment, I’m still a bit distracted, feeling sorry for my rejected manuscript…poor thing. It only wants to see itself in print. On the other hand, I’m sane enough that I’ll now finish my allotted five pages.

Success and Scrutiny

Posted on December 10, 2007 by lalber

Novelist B– is a prolific writer and has much insight into the publishing world. A few years back he told me something that has stayed with me. He said that the more successful you are, the more people feel compelled to drag you down. (I hereby shatter B–‘s anonymity so that you can check out his websites: here and here.)

Literary award season just passed us by, and I read two items that reminded me of Bob’s observation. The first item concerned Dorris Lessing, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Here’s what I read on the Guardian Unlimited website:

In response to learning about Lessing’s win, a literary critic told the Associated Press that “although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable … fourth-rate science fiction.”

Ouch! We’re entitled to our opinions, but I wonder if this critic had ever thought to say such a miserable thing about Lessing’s prose before she won the Nobel Prize.

And then there was the article from the November 8th, 2007, issue of The New York Times entitled “Congratulations on the Book Award, and Welcome to the Scrutiny.” Anne Enright won the Man Booker Prize — Great Britain’s top literary award — for The Gathering. Soon afterwards, she wrote an essay about a child’s abduction, and, boom, what happened then but that a few ogres trumped up one sentence from the essay thereby giving the impression that Enright blamed the parents for the crime.

I ask you, would anyone have bothered quoting Enright out of context and ripping her a new one if she hadn’t just won the Booker?

The sad part is that I’m not immune to scrutinizing my fellow novelists. In fact, yesterday my reading group met, and I along with four sassy lassies dumped on this month’s reading assignment. In a big way. We roasted that poor novelist alive.

As I finished my coffee and fingered up scone crumbs, and as the group’s conversation turned towards 40th birthday parties and housing prices, I couldn’t help feeling like a hypocrite even though the novel was ill-conceived, not to mention so boring that I set it aside for the previously mentioned chick-lit succubus murder mystery (sad indeed). I imagined some future reading group lambasting my literary baby.

When I mentioned my imaginings to the Sassy Lassies, they laughed. They could imagine it also. Yeesh, so it starts already, does it?

I’m Bleary Today

Posted on December 6, 2007 by lalber

Last night V– and I went to one of her favorite watering spots, an Italian restaurant called Gino’s, where we bellied up to the bar and ordered our dinner. (Gino’s does a mean Caesar salad — just the right amount of anchovy…) This was our holiday outing, and we drank too much. In part, I blame the good-looking bartender because he gifted us an after-dinner port. This, after much wine and a Spanish coffee. We had fun.

But today, being bleary, I’m also highly distractable. My eyes itch because I didn’t sleep well. I’m just glad that Mysterious Mr. M once again got me out of the house for a writing session at the Fireside Coffee Lodge. I bet I’d be back in bed right this second if not.

Just now, my distractability called out for me to write a quick blog entry to get a whiny something out of my system. After this post, I promise I’ll get back to the new scene I’m writing. It goes like this: Mr. M brought me a book he thought I might get a kick out of reading. I flipped this novel’s pages to check the publisher, the acknowledgments, and the author bio. The novelist looks all of 25 years old. Also, looks like this might be her first novel.

This novel is a chick-lit (think: wry and trendy-like youthful female voice) succubus murder mystery. Succubus! Meaning: lots of sex. Mr. M said this was a trashy novel. This got me thinking about Chelsea Cain’s cheesy thriller, Heartsick, with its sexy female serial murderer.

Here’s the whine: Must I write a chick-lit succubus murder mystery to get a novel published? Or a sexy female serial murderer thriller? Do I have to stretch the genres in that particular way? Do I have to follow the latest literary trends? Do I have to have sex scenes, which in my opinion are the most boring things to read?

Do I have-ta?

Okay, done whining. Now I can concentrate on the current scene, which I’m enjoying, actually. No sex, but there’s a death in the backstory and currently a teenager who only ever wanted to meet his biological mother. I like this youth. His name is Toby. So now I write.

Lisa the Writer

Posted on December 3, 2007 by lalber

Yesterday I got to thinking about how I describe this blog as my Lisa-the-Writer blog, not my Lisa-the-Single-Girl blog or my Lisa-the-Domestically-Impaired blog. You’d think this theme would limit me, but it doesn’t.

For example, yesterday kicked off the holiday season with three social activities: an annual brunch, an open house, and a potluck dinner. Apparently, a day featuring nothing writer-related, right?

Nah. Especially when you consider that we writers can generate mini-worlds out of nothing in particular.

For example, I could detail a conversation I had with K– and J– during brunch (peach blintz, Black Forest omelet, German pancake, sigh) about how blogging could get in the way of my real writing, which could then lead to a discussion about procrastination and distractions…

Or, I could spin a tale about the holiday open house at Baker & Spice in which I ran into many fellow regulars who are real-life characters. There’s The Professor, who is writing his treatise on the theory of everything and who sometimes balances on one foot. There’s B–, who loves his stockings and has nicer legs than I do. There’s BigD, the philosopher fantasy writer who knows how to pluck a chicken. There’s the barista who said she was “addicted to cadavers” (once again: context is everything) and who wouldn’t mind being a fictional character — but only if I renamed her Genevieve and gave her red hair…

Or, I could ponder a point of language that was brought to my attention during the holiday potluck when R– asked: Why is it plastic toy, iron horse, steel bridge, but wooden chair? Why isn’t it wood chair? Asked while looking at me, the writer, for insight. I could only shrug, unfortunately, but it roused my writer-geek curiosity…

In truth, saying that I write a Lisa-the-Writer blog is almost the same as saying I write a Lisa-the-Person blog. Obviously, I’m not only a writer; on the other hand, I am rather single-minded these days.