Send my apologies to Miss Austen and my ex-boyfriend.

In case you didn’t notice, two days ago marked the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. For me, it felt like everyone in the world had something to say about it and how much they love Austen and her (arguably) most famous novel. Given that, it only seems appropriate that I should add my voice to the fervor of adoration for a woman whose work I’ve literally grown up with. I don’t really think it adds anything significant to the discussion and praise, but my reflections on how Austen has been weaved so seamlessly into my life encouraged this post.

I hope you’ll forgive me for being two days late.

Starting Something New

I’ve expended a lot of mental energy on the beginnings of the writing process this week, as it seems inspiration has finally struck. I’ve been doing a lot of reading – a lot of research, and my bookmarks tab has been filled with references on Greek mythology, topographical maps of the Southeastern United States, the geneology of common last names for several countries, and population statistics for the counties of Kentucky. Perhaps none of these things really make sense laid out in a list, but they’re all coming together as individual parts into a workable plot that I hope someone will be interested in reading.

It has been a really long time since I’ve started something new. In my writing, I’ve always stuck to short stories and micro fictions that don’t span lot of words. It’s the inherent perfectionism and second-guessing I have as an editor that tends to stunt progress on anything longer than shorts. I will start writing with the entire story arc in my mind, jump back and forth with the scenes that come clearly to mind, and then later have trouble connecting them all together. I start changing things and write myself into a corner I cannot get out of. And then I abandon what I think is actually a good idea for far too long in a notebook or a Word document that I’m too scared to go back to because of my previous failure.

I know this isn’t the best way to write a story, I do. Which is why I’m trying to do it properly this time, plan it out, outline the thing and try to make it work with my habit of sporadic scene-writing. And maybe, since I’m trying to do better at sharing my process with people, it will encourage me to actually produce something they can read.

So, anyone interested?

She covered herself with night

and drifted through the house on soundless feet. She went through all the rooms and in the dark her presence echoed against the floor and the walls and the ceilings as if they were all blank and empty. She danced naked in front of the windows and no one stopped to watch her because they were all asleep and thinking of nothing. She talked to someone who wasn’t there in the sitting room where all sorts of formal conversations took place, saying things she had never said aloud before. She pulled the sheets from her bed and stalked the shadows in makeshift garb, a pretty young thing whose veneer of strong calm had cracked and who was afraid to admit she could be anything less than composed. She hid away her memories in a box and burned them in the bathtub and washed the ashes down the drain. She collapsed on the stairs and sobbed for an uncountable number of minutes and the house in shades of blue wept with her.

When the sun came up the next morning she stood in the kitchen with a smile on her face.

(Inspired by this song.)

I burned your letter today,

the one I attempted to write

to document the depth of my feelings,

but couldn’t bring myself to finish for all my tears –

it’s gone now.

I used an entire box of matches,

hid in the shades of the trumpet vine

growing on the steps outside,

and tried to make the little book set fire.

When it caught, I felt nothing.

No pangs of regret in severing this last connection.

The pages shriveled up and turned to ash.

The words were lost in the flames, and as they burned,

I felt free finally.

No more tears, no more dwelling on you,

on us.

No more feeling suffocated

by the letter encased in that book.

I tossed the used matches in the grass

and left the remains on the shady steps.

What remains of my love for you,

I suppose, is left to the whims of the wind.

This means that I can move on,

I hope.

As much as you consumed me,

as much as I love you,

as much as I am still dependent on you,

The burning of that letter

seals the reality of the thing.

I am alone,

and I can still be happy.

-May 17, 2010

On the Writing Journal

I have the habit of writing ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ letters in the journals I keep, as if they were acquaintances who turn into close friends and not inanimate objects I project myself onto. I don’t really know of any other way to begin and end the time I’ve spent with a journal; it only seems fair to acknowledge the sacrifice it has made for the sake of my art and my personal intimacies. Over the time I keep it, it becomes part of me, like an extra limb or an extension of my mind. I feel the least I can do is recognize it for what it evolves into, an imprint of me as I was for an unspecified duration of time.

Perhaps that is why I continue to write everything down first rather than adapt to the easy convenience of the keyboard. I let my wrist cramp, my right middle finger grow its callous, and my fingernails impress painfully on my palm for the (perhaps pretentious) belief that this way is more honest, more pure. Physically writing feels more personal to me, a hybrid of my pre-adolescent habit of diary-keeping and the day-to-day snatches of plot that fill my head up now. What is written out on the page becomes permanent, unobliterated by cursor or slash marks or sheer will of mind. For better or worse, it’s there, a reference for a future self to steal from or ignore. I can choose to look at it again, recall the moment, the context, the feeling. Despite the vagueries, so much can be gleaned or remembered from a select word or phrase which otherwise seems obscure to those who lack context. For that, I so relish having the choice to keep my journals shut against time and eye.

Or, I could open them up again after a while and take on the role of the “objective” reader. The process, the development of the art, is the part I love best. The spontaneity of writing in the moment, the transcription into another medium, the rearranging and deletion and addition of words and phrases to craft the ideal written image. The determination of what is good and what is not, what is worth sharing and what to never allow past the first draft. This power is why I continue to fill up journals and let them accumulate on the bookshelf as if I, the private and secretive author, deserve my place among the public literature.

It’s my ego, hidden away on pages of books that no one will read.

 

So this is farewell, old friend…

I am finally at the last page.

There is more to be said,

more to be shared,

but there is no more space here to put it.

You are finite,

despite all of the promise your empty pages held.

And they carry three years’ worth

of memories,

of poems,

of stories,

of emotion locked away.

I cannot regret this bond.

I will always keep you with me,

look back on what we shared,

take from you new inspiration

in these old words.

You hold part of me now,

a version of me as I was and will not be again.

A record.

A truth.

I’ve reached your end, and must start anew.

So goodbye.

My Ideal Bookshelf (Part Two)

(Sorry for the poor quality. My editions are not very colorful and I was working with the camera on my phone.)

So I attempted to explain the reasoning behind each of my choices for my version of The Ideal Bookshelf, but it got repetitive after a time because, unsurprisingly enough, I chose many of them for the same reasons. I also have the tendency to get too wordy when explaining simple concepts. So enjoy, instead, a short essay which is my attempt to condense my thoughts into a readable format. It doesn’t cover how I feel about all of the works I chose, but I’m hoping that putting this out here will encourage someone to strike up a conversation and ask, because I feel I could talk for days.

My Ideal Bookshelf

So a while ago I stumbled across this article on My Ideal Bookshelf. I read it, enjoyed it, and moved on. Then I stumbled upon it again, and with my resolutions in mind and this blog waiting for posts, I decided I’d share it with you guys. My Ideal Bookshelf can be explained a lot more easily with this quote, so consider the link to the original article tl;dr (except it’s really interesting and has some great inspirational quotes so you should read it anyway).

“In 2007, artist and illustrator Jane Mount began painting “portraits of people through the spines of their books” — those aspirational bookshelves we all hold in our heads (and, ideally, on our walls), full of all the books that helped us discover and rediscover who we are, what we stand for, and what we’d like to become. A kind of book spine poetry of identity.In 2010, she paired with Paris Review writer Thessaly La Force and the two asked more than a hundred of today’s most exciting creators — writers, artists, designers, critics, filmmakers, chefs, architects — what those favorite, timeless books were for them.”

So while I am by no means one of today’s well-known or exciting creators of art, I thought it would be fun to  do one for myself. So here you go, my “ideal bookshelf”:

Grendel, John Gardner

Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

The Awakening, Kate Chopin

Miss Julie, August Strindberg

Turn of the Screw, Henry James

Ploughshares, ed. Seamus Heaney/“Adagio,” Seamus Dean

The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare

The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O’Brien

(Note: As the writing of explanations to each of the works I’ve shared took way too long, I’ve opted to put them in another post. So enjoy this one and take a while to stew over the works I’ve chosen.)

New Year’s Resolutions

I missed it when the clock struck midnight. Wasn’t paying any attention; missed the countdown to zero. Oops.

But today, the morning after the quiet celebration, I refuse to miss out on the somewhat obligatory listing out of my New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never made it through an entire year successfully (who has?), but perhaps 2013 will be a year of more than one change.

So, here it is, in all it’s (non)glory:

1. I resolve to write every day. Even if it’s bad. Even if it’s not a lot to put on a page. I constantly call myself a ‘writer,’ but I rarely ever finish what I start. I leave it half-formed and let it sit and stale in the air for a while. So I resolve to write, and I resolve to finish what I write so I can actually call myself a writer one of these days.
2. On that note, I resolve to read. The past few years have left me with little energy to read the kinds of books I want to read. Instead, I’ve exhausted myself on books I have to read. Now that I have the time, I resolve to take up the neglected books that have been sitting on my “To Read” bookshelf for so long.
3. I resolve to travel. Somewhere, anywhere. I want to save some of my money and go somewhere I’ve never been before.

Simple enough resolutions, I think? Certainly do-able.