PART III

Branching Out, Branching In

I realized that if I were going to be a good fiction writer I'd have to dig in and start using my imagination. As soon as I made a conscious effort to invent, my writing process got a lot easier and a hell of a lot more fun. I'd come home from work every day, pop in that disk, and write like a fiend. I'd take a break every 90 minutes or so, have a glass of wine and a cigarette and read what I'd written so far, thrilled at how everything was coming together. A story was beginning to take shape; a story about a woman named Jordan who was sort of like me but not really, a woman who had fallen for a guy who was sort of like Mr. Ex except funnier, more neurotic and much more compelling...especially now that I'd given myself permission to really create.

During this time I made a point to seek out and read as many books on writing as I could find. And there are a lot of good ones out there, ones that helped me to become (over time) a significantly better writer. I studied up on characterization, on plotting, on dialogue. I devoured time-honored classics like Bird By Bird, Writing Down the Bones, and of course The Elements of Style. I also found a goldmine of information in lesser-known gems like (the invaluable) The Art of Compelling Fiction, The First Five Pages, and one of the best books on novel writing in the history of ever, the simplistically titled but absolutely brilliant You Can Write A Novel (before you even think about writing a novel, buy that book. SERIOUSLY!).

I also began reading more fiction than I had in years. I'd always been an avid reader, but I now had a vested interest in learning about what made good fiction work, to pick apart the author's brain and try to see the process from the inside out. I had a second job working in a library at the time, which turned out to be a very handy way to feed my new obsession. I went through the stacks and re-read some of my all-time favorite novels like The Rachel Papers, Going All the Way and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, all works that are essentially about a protagonist's self-discovery through heartache (a theme I suspected was beginning to take hold in my own novel). I also revisited classics I hadn't read since high school--Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby were a few--and was surprised at how much more I enjoyed them the second time around. I also discovered others I'd never bothered to pick up like This Side of Paradise and Lolita (the former was amusing, the latter completely blew me away). I also read lighter pop fiction like Postcards From the Edge (SO much better than the film), Bright Lights, Big City (ditto), Bridget Jones' Diary, and Steve Martin's Shopgirl. It was in that library that I first stumbled upon the brilliance that is Nick Hornby, first through About a Boy and High Fidelity, then later through How To Be Good and A Long Way Down. Between all the how-to writing books and all this wonderful fiction, I felt like I had my own personal cheering section in my head, inspiring me to write more, to write better, to take my novel all the way.

NEXT TIME
PART IV: GETTING MY GROUP ON

PART II

Sex, Drugs, and More Sex

Revelations From the Mornings After

I'll be honest--I put "sex and drugs" in this post title mainly to get your attention. Although Thanks, That Was Fun and the story of its writing centers on a whole shit-ton of the former and quite a bit of the latter, it has more to do with how I processed the experiences I was having while writing this novel. And a lot of this processing occurred on "the morning after," or, rather, LOTS of mornings after.

So....I'd been pounding away at this story for about a month. I had roughly fifty pages worth of dialogue and random scenes involving Jordan and sketches of characters that would later become Genna, Iris, and Dean. And--aside from a paragraph here and there--most of what I wrote was absolutely wretched. I didn't realize how awful it was at the time, thankfully so, because I probably would have trashed the whole thing and gone back to surfing for vintage concert t-shirts on my shitty dial-up internet connection. But I printed out those pages and showed them to my friend S. over a late night dinner at Denny's. She was nice enough to read what I had written, laugh politely over a few witty sentences, and say "Wow, this is pretty good. I didn't know you could write."

And that was enough to keep me going.

It was around this time that I became involved with an ex-boyfriend. I knew on some level that this relationship was doomed to fail yet again, but I was desperately infatuated with this guy and he fulfilled my deep hunger for companionship and sex. He was also inadvertently giving me material for my book, something that I realized one night while we were at a dinner party with some of his friends. This guy--let's call him Mr. Ex--was recounting something that happened to him at work that day. It was a really dumb anecdote, and, as Mr. Ex's friends howled with laughter, my antennae went up and I thought "Aha! I've got to remember this. I'm going to use this guy and his lame-ass story and the crappy way he's telling it and his friends' drunken fawning in my book. This will make a fantastic scene!" So I furiously took mental notes and the morning after I went home, sat down at my computer, and began to recount the scene as vividly as my hungover brain could recall it. I pounded out the events of the night on my keyboard, struggling to capture every word, every nuance, everything that I thought was significant and telling about Mr. Ex and his friends and the booze-soaked dinner party. I got it all down on the page, marveling all the while at my own brilliance and wit, the way I was able to take a real-life scene and transform it into art.

When I went back and read what I had written, I was dismayed to find--like Mr. Ex's annoying friends and his anecdote and the dinner party itself--the scene I'd written was completely dull and pointless. I was puzzled. I saved the writing on my disk and put the scene on the back burner for a few days. Then I went back and tried to fix it. I tried to make it funny. I tried to make it sizzle. I tried to make it sing. I couldn't. And that's when I had probably the most important revelation of all: when you write fiction, you make stuff up.

That's what fiction is. It's fabrication, it's fantasy, it's lies.

NEXT TIME:
Part III - Branching out, branching in.

Part I:

The long, strange trip commences.

The story of how I came to write this book is a long one, but I'll try to keep it concise and interesting. It all began in the final days of the last century.

I had just had a very unsatisfying date with a guy who would--in the novel--become the Elliott character (loosely based, , of course). The guy was a co-worker of mine, and I'd liked him for a while. We'd been flirting for several months and I'd been dropping hints to let him know I was interested. When he finally picked up on it and asked me out I was elated. How did the date go? The first chapter should give you an idea.

Needless to say, I never went out with the guy again. I had to interact with him periodically at work, and it always made me supremely uncomfortable. Our single botched date had killed off any lingering attraction I had for him, and he seemed to feel the same way. Still, I was embarrassed and more than a little bitter at how it had all played out.

One evening I grabbed my journal and took to my bed to hash it all out on the page. I scribbled furiously for a few hours, then stopped. I went back and read what I had written, thought for a minute, then turned to a blank page and started over. This time, I began writing about the date in the present tense, as though it were happening now, in real time. I also began to alter the narration. I was using my own words, but I wasn't the one doing the talking. I was using a voice that belonged to me, yet wasn't mine. It was a character. I gave the character a name. Jordan. The guy she was on this disastrous date with wasn't the same guy I that I knew. It wasn't a real guy, it was a character. His name was Elliott, and together he and Jordan helped me write the first chapter of my book, right there in my journal in sky blue ink.

A few days passed. I went to work, I socialized, I did all the usual activities that filled my time when I was twenty-six years old. But I couldn't stop thinking about these two people I had just met, the ones who now resided in my journal--Elliott and Jordan.

Especially Jordan.

One day at work I had an idea. I rushed home, grabbed my journal, and sat down at my ancient desktop computer. I took out a floppy disk and typed out that story, the one I'd started in my journal. But when I finished transcribing the story, I didn't stop. I kept writing. I created a character. I created a life. I created a bigger story, one that started with Elliott and Jordan and went on from there, went on and on and on and on to something bigger, something that I hadn't foreseen. After a solid month of sitting down at my computer every night after work and typing furiously, I had a startling realization.

I was writing a novel.

Coming next time....
PART II: sex, drugs, and more sex. The saga continues.

FREAKY PANDA!



Yes, that's a "panda," although I'm pretty sure only in the anime sense. Anyway, I kinda dig it.

Oddly appropriate excerpt from the Geoff Dyer book I am reading:

This is a ripped, by no means reliable map of some of the landscapes that make up a particular phase of my life. It's about places where things happened or didn't happen, places where I stayed and things that have stayed with me, places I'd wanted to see or places I passed through or just ended up. In a way they're all the same place--the same landscape--because the person these things happened to was the same person who in turn is the sum of all the things that happened or didn't happen in these and other places.

Yeah. What he said.

Road To BATON ROUGE!



Highway sign for Jehovah Java, a cafe just outside the town of Transylvania (not kidding) Louisiana.

We stopped to use the restroom, but I didn't try the coffee. I was afraid to.

Riverboat on the Mississippi

The Big Easy!

Old Man River statue by Robert Schoen.
The inscription reads: A Man with a Past / Arms reach empty handed / God to a city in Love / with Water

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Duran DURAN!

Yep, that's Simon Le Bon performing with the boys at Epic in Minneapolis. I was THAT close!

Mural Monsters: 22nd & Hennepin

I need this T-shirt.
Anyone...? Anyone...?

Yes, I do need it.
I really do.

Found on a St. Paul sidewalk.

Cut me some slack--it was 4:00am.

Me on BBC Radio 5 interview yesterday.

The link will only be live for a few more days, so if you're interested in hearing it check it out NOW!

Here's a second link in case the first one doesn't work. The interview is listed under 1/4/11, which may look like January 4, 2011 to us Yanks, but it's actually April 1. You know how the Brits are.

;-)

Ready for some META?

This blog post helped to bring Simon Reid to justice. I wrote that angry rant about discovering Simon's deception nearly three years ago, in August of 2008. This was at the tail end of a bout of crippling depression where I could barely be arsed to get out of bed. And I didn't know this at the time, but Simon had fled to England and was already at work on a new relationship with an Englishwoman called Jo. After feeding her some of the same lies and then running for the hills--taking with him thousands of pounds he'd "borrowed" from her--Jo googled Simon's name and found my blog, then contacted me. I offered her my condolences and told her I'd be willing to help however I could. I didn't hear anything more about his UK exploits until last summer, when Nicola and Laura--two of Simon's latest conquests--also found my blog. They were understandably concerned, as they were both currently in a relationship with the bastard.

And then the women decided to do something AWESOME.

Jo, Nicola, Laura, and a fourth woman (who has declined to be interviewed in the press) invited Simon over to Laura's house, where they were all waiting to question him...along with a journalist friend brandishing a video camera. They gave him a wicked little "surprise" party, then sat him down so they could grill him for four hours (God I'd LOVE to see that entire video!). At the end of it all the women called the police, and--long story short, Simon Reid is in jail in the UK for 30 months after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud.

The week that Simon was carted off to the slammer, the story absolutely BLEW UP in the British tabloids. Jo, Nicola, and Laura gave interviews and appeared on the UK breakfast television show This Morning before flying out to NYC to appear on The Today Show with Yours Truly so we could all tell our story.


I know--crazy, right?

Anyhoo, I had a fabulous time in NYC, and it was awesome to meet the three of them. We hit it off right away (Jo, Laura, Nicola, and Kate, who was along for the ride) and we had a blast shopping and sight-seeing in Manhattan. The moral of this story? Simon Reid still sucks, but I've met some lovely new friends because of him. I guess every cloud does have a silver lining, even a dark, toxic, polluted cloud of a human being like Simon Reid.

I posted the Today Show video shortly after returning from my trip (it's no longer available online--BOO!) but here are some other links to the story that are still live.

Article from The Daily Mail (Alan Partridge's favorite newspaper!):

Shout-out to Maggie Flecknoe, pop culture commentator, stage and voice actress (and fierce Texas chick!). This is Maggie's take on our story:

Damn, what a whirlwind! SO yeah...things have been happening. It's all good though!

In spite of it all...
Thanks, That Was Fun

Maine Monument, Central Park.

And coming soon...a REAL blog post! With words and everything!

At the John Lennon memorial in Central Park.

Laura gets her portrait sketched in Central Park.

In the lobby of the ridiculously glamorous Essex House NYC (our hotel!).

Sexy face!



Stuck in an elevator at The Essex House. It was awesome, especially the free dinner the hotel paid for to placate us after our ordeal. Score!

About 10 minutes before our live segment. Do I look nervous?

Another image from backstage. What a wonderful scary surreal exhilarating fantastic whirlwind of a day!


I'm still on an adrenaline high.

Girl Power!

Backstage at the Today Show. Left to right: Me, Laura, Nicola and Jo.

Me and the girls on the Today Show, 17 March 2011 discussing Simon Reid!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Me on the TODAY SHOW on 3/17/11

That's me (far left), and (l-r) Nicola,

WOW

I can't divulge many details at this time but suffice it to say that things are blowing up in a BIG way over the Simon Reid debacle from a few years back. We're talking international coverage kids!

Thank you, dear readers, for all of your support.

Stay tuned. This revolution WILL be televised.

Peace. x

Self portrait 3/13/11

This one is for Juliette...

Sweetest video EVER! I luvs Charley xx

The view outside my office.

Winning!

Is this the manliest 'stache ever?

A few words about the 365 Photo Project...

Well, I haven't kept up with this every day like I planned. It's amazing how complicated even a seemingly simple project can become. But even if I don't post every day, I'm determined to take this project through 365 days--a year's worth at least--even if those 365 days take longer than a year to get through. And yes, I will be adding a genuine post (with words!) here and there, cause words are my thing.

Good advice.

Gorgeous Emilio, porcelain lovecat model.

Moon over Minneapolis.

It's a full moon kids! Time to do some howling.

Bookends

Audrey and Alice, holding down the windowsill.

Third verse, same as the first.

And we wait for spring to come...

Pawwwwws!

I could do a series of photos featuring nothing but kitten paws. I love cute kitten paws!

Collage and Decoupage

A table top I decorated last summer. It was a project I did to celebrate turning 37.

Lolita (age 37)


A record breaking--ehrm, CD breaking--photo.

Playing catch-up since I've missed the last few days. My bad.
Without further ado, get ready for...

Head Trip!


See monkey.


This is your brain.

The snow actually melted about a 1/2 centimeter today. Can Spring be far behind?



Dare I dream?

And a white porcelain lovecat watches over us all.

It's a miracle!



I think I can make out a faint image of Jude Law in this here candle.
All hail St. Jude!

Every girl feels a little dirty sometimes...

Posting once a day is HARD sometimes, y'all!

Ask Adam. He'll tell you how it is.



Mystery lady says good night for now...


'Night lovelies!

Project 365 -- Yesterday's and Today's



There's a little anatomical rubber man in my office. I gave him a crystal to hold, because he needed some bling.




Dog walker outside my office on a snowy afternoon.

I was fascinated by the story of Vivian Maier, the unknown Chicago street photographer whose work was "discovered" just a scant few days after her death. While I'm not as serious (or as good) a photographer as Maier obviously was, I do enjoy taking photographs and her story inspired me to start a photo project of my own.

For the next 365 days, my goal is to take one photograph a day and post it here. I'm not cataloging anything earth-shattering, just things I happen to see and capture with my Kodak digital camera (bought in 2005 for $100, now hopelessly out of date).

Here is the first image of Project 365.

This photo was in no way posed or set up; it just happened. (As anyone who knows cats can testify, it's damn near impossible to "pose" a cat.) My cat Audrey this morning; she happened to be draped across a copy of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. I thought it was amusing.



By the way, I'm halfway through Cat's Cradle and I'm loving it.

I'm gearing up for a more substantial post, but in the meantime I need to share this little nugget of CUTE.

While I love almost anyone who loves cats, men who genuinely love cats are a bit harder to come by than female feline fanatics like myself. That makes this Wisconsinite even more adorable.

Thank you Ron Venden. You and your sweet little Almond make me smile.

Awwwww YEAH!!!!

Had to post this in honor of my most favorite-est band in the whole entire universe. Yes, these men have the power to turn a 37-year-old woman into a squealing hysterical 13-year-old. Can I say how much I love this song? They sound better than they have in 20+ years. They sound like themselves again, and I'm sooooo glad they've stopped trying to force hip-hop and R&B elements into their songs in order to appeal to the youngsters. Everyone who loves Duran Duran (youngsters, oldsters, etc.) love them because of their unique sound--as heard on Rio, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, Notorious, etc.--and NOT evidenced since 1990. (Okay, The Wedding Album was successful but not one of their stronger efforts, IMHO.)

Whatever. These are the men I know and love. I'm glad they're back.

Here they are.

A joyfully obligatory post to celebrate 01.01.11

Instead of making resolutions for the New Year, I've come up with a ritual.

Try this:

- Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center, length-wise.

- In the first column, make a list of of negative things in your life that you are ready to let go of.

- In the second column, make a list of new, positive things that you seek to welcome into your life this new year.

- Take a pair of scissors and cut the list along the dividing line.

- In a (fire-proof!) ceramic bowl, carefully burn the first list--the one itemizing the negative things you're ready to let go of.

- Dispose of the ashes in the trash or scatter them outside and let the wind take them away.

- Take the second list --the one itemizing the positive things you want to welcome into your life--and place a red candle on top of it.

-Light the red candle once a day for seven days, til it burns out. (I'm probably legally required to say this: never leave a burning candle unattended, natch.)

The last step:

LET THE SUNSHINE IN!



Happy New Year To ALL!

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!



I predict these two will have no problem getting pussy now that this video is a hit. Men who like cats are HOT!

Received this cheerful little news item in my inbox today:

Man accused of conning two girlfriends out of £18,000



A man has appeared in court accused of swindling two girlfriends out of £18,000.

Simon Reid, aged 44, allegedly borrowed money from women claiming he could pay them back using his business interests in the US.

But prosecutors claim that he had no such assets.

Reid is charged with two counts of fraud by false representation.

He allegedly obtained £17,000 from one woman between August 31, 2008, and August 1 this year, and another £1,000 from a second woman between December 31 last year and August 1.

Reid, of Embankment Lane North, Prince Rock, Plymouth, indicated "no plea" to both charges.

Soo Jackaman-Hall, prosecuting, said: "The defendant entered a relationship with four women and told them that he had businesses and assets in the US. He obtained money from them, saying he would pay them back with the proceeds of the assets. The sum total of what he obtained was £18,000."

But she claimed that there were in fact no assets abroad.

Magistrates ruled that the case was so serious that it would have to be heard at Plymouth Crown Court.

Reid was released on unconditional bail to appear back before magistrates again on January 19 next year.

Don't drop the soap, asshole!

Got a Simon Reid tip/sighting? Email simonreidtips@gmail.com

Found the following note, carefully printed in my handwriting on an index card and stuck between the pages of a long-forgotten book. It was obviously a quote I'd copied from somewhere, but I don't know the source. It's rather beautiful, though.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between her work and her play, her labor and her leisure, her mind and her body, her education and her recreation. She hardly knows which is which. She simply pursues her vision of excellence through whatever she is doing and leaves others to determine whether she is working or playing. To herself she always seems to be doing both.

An excellent thought, no matter where you are on your creative path.

Oh, good Lord.



There are a several dozen things about this video that make me stabby. Somehow, I've managed to narrow them down a bit:

1.) The sheer hypocrisy of "Do as I say, not as I do" -- a disorder that I think we can safely call The Palin Syndrome. In fact, I'm all for campaigning to get it listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

2.) "B-Palin"

3.) "Sitch"

4.) "Oh snap!" (Did I fall asleep and wake up in 1998, and no one bothered to tell me?)

5.) These two will not be fading into obscurity anytime soon, will they?

Oy.

Post-election day blues, and I find this sentiment extremely apropo:



More updates later, my sweets. Love to you all.