There’s nothing like doing something incredibly stupid in public to wake you out of a funk. A beautiful day today. Breeze, sun, the leaves are doing their brief turn before they crumble to brown and hang onto the trees until spring comes and buds shoe them off. During lunch, I paid more attention to a poem composing itself in my head than I did to what I was putting in my mouth. By the time I had to leave my apartment, I was flying out the door with my purse in one hand and coffee mug in the other.
I live about ten minutes from my office, depending on traffic, and by now, the car can drive itself, and this afternoon, I let it. I was thinking about the binding of Isaac and the banning of Ishmael, how the two boys, as adults, might discuss their father. How it seemed that a few of Abraham’s tests, though difficult for him, might have been more difficult on others. Imagining how the conflicts could be worked through in a poem, it was enough to keep from giving my full attention to those little piddling everyday things, like putting the car in park, taking the keys out of the ignition, and walking back to reopen the office. And so, without realizing quite how I had done it, I was standing outside of the car, purse in one hand, setting my coffee mug on the roof, and looking for my keys. Which were not in my purse, either of my hands, or on the roof of the car. A peek through the windshield proved that the keys were still in the ignition.
Ah, pure genius. Since I am the only employee, I had to call my boss to let him know that I would not be able to open the office until I found a way to get my keys out of the car.
As things turned out, I was granted a two-hour lunch break, as it took the locksmith another hour to get to the parking lot where I was jovially leaning against the car, reading the current issue of The Writer’s Chronicle. And what was more, I got to be watched as every person who had lunch on the square left to go back to their jobs and everyone who worked on the square came back from lunch. Whether they were actually staring or not, wondering what the crazy lady was doing loitering in the parking lot, it sure felt like every person was looking.
But what of it? That’s the precise reason I always keep reading material in my purse, and I got to jot down a few notes about my impending poem, but did not finish a draft. Yet. The moral of the story? Don’t lock your keys in the car, dummy.
There are more lessons to learn. Such as how to fit a smaller narrative arc within a larger one. Say, for example, that one is writing a comic book series called Ex Machina, a particular part of the series which has been collected into the graphic novel Dirty Tricks, and within this section there is a story about a renegade dubbed Trouble that falls quite flat without reaching its potential. The showdown between Hundred and Trouble just kind of happens. And that’s that. No addressing her obsession or Hundred’s own shift in objectives, both of which are built up, and when the climax comes—well, suffice to say that the constructing of the subplot was more trouble than it was worth.
Granted, writer Brian K. Vaughan always has multiple story lines working and the graphic novel is an artificial anthology of those lines, but even so, a plot should not just die, it should end with at least a little satisfaction. If not for the characters, then at least for the readers. Don’t lock your keys in the car, dummy.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Doogie Howser Should Never Have Pierced His Ear
In fourth and fifth grade, Doogie Howser, M.D. was my favorite television show. I remember the synthesizer theme music, the newspaper clips declaring the even younger Doogie graduating from college and medical school, and then the now ancient seeming computer screen with text being typed onto it. I did not have a crush on Neil Patrick Harris like I did on Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) and later Leonardo DiCaprio (also Growing Pains), but on Doogie Howser. Doogie was a funny, sensitive genius. My mother did not approve of the show, because it was too sexy, so I made sure not to let on how much I loved it, or it would be nixed from our TV rations, going the way of Blossom and Head of the Class.
It was not so much that I wanted Doogie Howser to be my boyfriend, but that I wanted to be him. I wanted to be a genius. When I read about kids who skipped grades, I wanted that to be me. I watched a lot of PBS before I started kindergarten, and I was obsessively jealous of the kids on Sesame Street who already danced ballet or played the piano. What could I do? I could jump rope, roller skate, and I knew how to make friendship bracelets. But none of these things made me a genius or a prodigy.
What really ruined it for me was not PBS or Doogie Howser, M.D., but a movie my teacher in the gifted program showed us called Little Man Tate. Being in the gifted program meant that we were smart enough that our teachers noticed, had us tested, and then our IQs were high enough to distinguish us from the rest of the public school masses. My school district did not believe in allowing kids to skip grades, because they were worried about social development, but they had no problem holding kids back. So, instead of allowing us to be really challenged, we were pulled out of class once a week and put in a room with other bored misfits, and given little projects that they hoped would entertain us enough to keep us out of trouble.
Little Man Tate, I suspect, was not really meant to keep us out of trouble, but to occupy us when the teacher had nothing planned. It also covered two weeks of sessions, which worked out well for her. Not sure how the movie struck the rest of the group, but it made me ache with jealousy. The kid was reading before he could speak in complete sentences! He was taken away to the exciting world of college! What was getting hit in the head with a globe compared to being a child prodigy? Why would Jodie Foster consider keeping her son from being exploited, if it would help him reach his full intellectual potential? Being emotionally damaged or stunted seemed more inevitable than a threat: I knew no one who was normal.
Besides, being a little weird was cool.
The painful truth was that I did not learn to read, play the tuba, or build robots before the age of two. It was excruciating to admit, but I was not a child prodigy. I did, however, continue to believe that I would blossom young. Convinced that I would publish a book before the age of seventeen, I began numerous novels that carried on for a couple of pages, finished a few stories, and hundreds of angst-filled poems. When I turned seventeen without a book of my own, I thought twenty would be my year, then twenty-five, and then thirty. Now, I am thirty, and still have not published a book. I have completed a manuscript of poems, another of short stories, and am working on both a memoir and a novel. I write every day, or nearly every day, and consider myself a professional writer. I’ve publish a handful of poems and a short story. I send out work regularly and submit my poetry manuscript to book contests.
Truly, I believe that I am a hard worker and a good writer, and that at some point, it will happen for me. I do not intend to give up. That does not make it any easier to be thirty without a book. Many of the writers I admire, such as Lorrie Moore, say that they gave themselves the thirty deadline. Those writers, however, met the deadline. At this moment, I have no more deadlines. Just soon. Keep working, and it will happen soon enough.
A.S. Byatt, though arguably a genius, does not put forth as impressive an effort in Angels & Insects as she does in Possession and The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. Angels & Insects is comprised of two novellas, “Morpho Eugenia” and “The Conjugal Angel.” Both are set in England, in the past, and contain a certain amount of betrayal by lovers.
“Morpho Eugenia,” the tale of an explorer stuck in civilized country due to lack of money who falls in love with a woman he assumes is civilized, feels like a Gothic romance set in a castle, though it is actually set on a large estate, and the characters are not royalty.
Edgar Alabaster spent the last several years of his life in the jungle, studying insects. He finds a patron, marries his daughter, and still pines to explore. Here is where things get weird and Gothic. Not to spoil too much, but before there were vampires, people still had weird fetishes and sexual practices. The overabundance of description and philosophy, however, manages to take all of the fun out of the perversion.
“The Conjugal Angel,” though including ghosts and spirits, is also a bit dull. The overuse of quoted poetry stilts any excitement in the plot. Lilias Papagay, a widow with no inheritance, has fallen into the trade of medium as a way to support herself, and has been lucky enough to find consistent customers, among them Emily Jesse, sister of Alfred Tennyson, whose fiancé died on her many years before, and she has since married another man.
Lilias just happens to have an assistant who is the real deal, which is where problems in the story eventually arise, as while people like to play at contacting the dead, they do not actually wish to hear the truths of the dead.
A rather dull story that could have been fun, something more akin to Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, but “The Conjugal Angel” overuses Tennyson’s poetry.
An interesting read, but time would be much better off spent reading Byatt’s Possession. Byatt’s first book, incidentally, The Shadow of the Sun, was published before she was thirty. If you are counting.
It was not so much that I wanted Doogie Howser to be my boyfriend, but that I wanted to be him. I wanted to be a genius. When I read about kids who skipped grades, I wanted that to be me. I watched a lot of PBS before I started kindergarten, and I was obsessively jealous of the kids on Sesame Street who already danced ballet or played the piano. What could I do? I could jump rope, roller skate, and I knew how to make friendship bracelets. But none of these things made me a genius or a prodigy.
What really ruined it for me was not PBS or Doogie Howser, M.D., but a movie my teacher in the gifted program showed us called Little Man Tate. Being in the gifted program meant that we were smart enough that our teachers noticed, had us tested, and then our IQs were high enough to distinguish us from the rest of the public school masses. My school district did not believe in allowing kids to skip grades, because they were worried about social development, but they had no problem holding kids back. So, instead of allowing us to be really challenged, we were pulled out of class once a week and put in a room with other bored misfits, and given little projects that they hoped would entertain us enough to keep us out of trouble.
Little Man Tate, I suspect, was not really meant to keep us out of trouble, but to occupy us when the teacher had nothing planned. It also covered two weeks of sessions, which worked out well for her. Not sure how the movie struck the rest of the group, but it made me ache with jealousy. The kid was reading before he could speak in complete sentences! He was taken away to the exciting world of college! What was getting hit in the head with a globe compared to being a child prodigy? Why would Jodie Foster consider keeping her son from being exploited, if it would help him reach his full intellectual potential? Being emotionally damaged or stunted seemed more inevitable than a threat: I knew no one who was normal.
Besides, being a little weird was cool.
The painful truth was that I did not learn to read, play the tuba, or build robots before the age of two. It was excruciating to admit, but I was not a child prodigy. I did, however, continue to believe that I would blossom young. Convinced that I would publish a book before the age of seventeen, I began numerous novels that carried on for a couple of pages, finished a few stories, and hundreds of angst-filled poems. When I turned seventeen without a book of my own, I thought twenty would be my year, then twenty-five, and then thirty. Now, I am thirty, and still have not published a book. I have completed a manuscript of poems, another of short stories, and am working on both a memoir and a novel. I write every day, or nearly every day, and consider myself a professional writer. I’ve publish a handful of poems and a short story. I send out work regularly and submit my poetry manuscript to book contests.
Truly, I believe that I am a hard worker and a good writer, and that at some point, it will happen for me. I do not intend to give up. That does not make it any easier to be thirty without a book. Many of the writers I admire, such as Lorrie Moore, say that they gave themselves the thirty deadline. Those writers, however, met the deadline. At this moment, I have no more deadlines. Just soon. Keep working, and it will happen soon enough.
A.S. Byatt, though arguably a genius, does not put forth as impressive an effort in Angels & Insects as she does in Possession and The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. Angels & Insects is comprised of two novellas, “Morpho Eugenia” and “The Conjugal Angel.” Both are set in England, in the past, and contain a certain amount of betrayal by lovers.
“Morpho Eugenia,” the tale of an explorer stuck in civilized country due to lack of money who falls in love with a woman he assumes is civilized, feels like a Gothic romance set in a castle, though it is actually set on a large estate, and the characters are not royalty.
Edgar Alabaster spent the last several years of his life in the jungle, studying insects. He finds a patron, marries his daughter, and still pines to explore. Here is where things get weird and Gothic. Not to spoil too much, but before there were vampires, people still had weird fetishes and sexual practices. The overabundance of description and philosophy, however, manages to take all of the fun out of the perversion.
“The Conjugal Angel,” though including ghosts and spirits, is also a bit dull. The overuse of quoted poetry stilts any excitement in the plot. Lilias Papagay, a widow with no inheritance, has fallen into the trade of medium as a way to support herself, and has been lucky enough to find consistent customers, among them Emily Jesse, sister of Alfred Tennyson, whose fiancé died on her many years before, and she has since married another man.
Lilias just happens to have an assistant who is the real deal, which is where problems in the story eventually arise, as while people like to play at contacting the dead, they do not actually wish to hear the truths of the dead.
A rather dull story that could have been fun, something more akin to Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, but “The Conjugal Angel” overuses Tennyson’s poetry.
An interesting read, but time would be much better off spent reading Byatt’s Possession. Byatt’s first book, incidentally, The Shadow of the Sun, was published before she was thirty. If you are counting.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
You Say You Want to Run a Marathon, Well, You Know--
So, way back in February, I announced to some that I was in training for a marathon, and that was true for quite a long time, until all of those pesky holidays came one after another in September and managed to alter my schedule. Then I slacked off a little in October, mostly with the excuse that I was “busy.” As if revising a poetry manuscript and sending it to a million different book contests is time consuming or something.
But I’m back on track! And have decided that the best way to stay on track is to even more publicly announce that I’m training for a marathon, so if I get lazy about it, I subject myself to public humiliation. In addition, this will be a good way to track my progress. I’m going to start out slow and use the time to build up my miles and learn to pace myself. Yesterday I ran two miles in thirty minutes on the treadmill. The treadmill is not my favorite way to exercise, but it is helpful to help my body learn what a fifteen minute mile feels like, what a ten minute mile feels like.
While I do not particularly favor the treadmill, I do enjoy running outside, especially through the woods. The term most people use for my passion for running long distances is insane. As a friend of mine put it, in real sports, running laps is a punishment. For me, with my poor ability to judge depth perception and lack of peripheral vision, running is the only sport, and distance the only option. Anything under a mile isn’t worth running. Plus, running has some of my favorite aspects—competition, working by yourself, and not getting pummeled in the face by a ball you didn’t see coming.
Wish me luck on my renewed goal of training for an as yet unnamed marathon. If I get brave enough, I might even post my weight loss!
In the meantime, another graphic novel for your consideration, Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, written and illustrated by Reinhard Kleist, translated from the German by Michael Waaler. All the drawings are in black and white, which allows Kleist to do a lot of work with shadows. Rarely is Cash pictured in full-light, so the majority of tonal work is done by shading. The shading, however, must have been quite tricky, as the print uses only one shade of gray. To be clear: the entire comic book is black, white, and a single shade of gray.
Kleist uses the device of an outside character, Shirley, who is serving a sentence in Folsom prison, to tell Cash’s story. Shirley is a convict and a huge admirer of Cash’s, which he demonstrates by sharing the singer’s life story with another inmate. The device seems unnecessary and a bit underused. By the end, it drops out completely, with Cash as the narrator. It’s a difficult method of storytelling, since Cash is a more compelling character than Shirley, and not enough work is done to make Shirley sympathetic or heroic.
After Walk the Line, it’s nearly impossible not to compare any media about Cash to the biopic, especially since the movie was well-made and well-acted. The media of film and graphic novel are quite different, but both pieces follow a similar path through Cash’s life. I See a Darkness, however, does concentrate on one aspect of Cash’s life that the movie, with all its emphasis on Cash’s relationship to June Carter Cash, does not: the music. Kleist discusses Cash’s experimentation with different genre of music and his manipulation of his own persona on stage. While he depicts Cash’s difficulties with Vivian Liberto, he does not delve into the romance between Cash and Carter, which is a major focus of the movie. The tone of I See a Darkness is much darker than that of Walk the Line.
A note on the translation—having done a nominal amount of translation work, myself, I know how difficult it is to convey both meaning and tone, especially when working with idioms from another language. While I have not read the original German, Waaler fully utilizes the illustrations, so that speech and exposition are sparse.
A recommended read, and a purchase for those who are interested in music or biography.
But I’m back on track! And have decided that the best way to stay on track is to even more publicly announce that I’m training for a marathon, so if I get lazy about it, I subject myself to public humiliation. In addition, this will be a good way to track my progress. I’m going to start out slow and use the time to build up my miles and learn to pace myself. Yesterday I ran two miles in thirty minutes on the treadmill. The treadmill is not my favorite way to exercise, but it is helpful to help my body learn what a fifteen minute mile feels like, what a ten minute mile feels like.
While I do not particularly favor the treadmill, I do enjoy running outside, especially through the woods. The term most people use for my passion for running long distances is insane. As a friend of mine put it, in real sports, running laps is a punishment. For me, with my poor ability to judge depth perception and lack of peripheral vision, running is the only sport, and distance the only option. Anything under a mile isn’t worth running. Plus, running has some of my favorite aspects—competition, working by yourself, and not getting pummeled in the face by a ball you didn’t see coming.
Wish me luck on my renewed goal of training for an as yet unnamed marathon. If I get brave enough, I might even post my weight loss!
In the meantime, another graphic novel for your consideration, Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, written and illustrated by Reinhard Kleist, translated from the German by Michael Waaler. All the drawings are in black and white, which allows Kleist to do a lot of work with shadows. Rarely is Cash pictured in full-light, so the majority of tonal work is done by shading. The shading, however, must have been quite tricky, as the print uses only one shade of gray. To be clear: the entire comic book is black, white, and a single shade of gray.
Kleist uses the device of an outside character, Shirley, who is serving a sentence in Folsom prison, to tell Cash’s story. Shirley is a convict and a huge admirer of Cash’s, which he demonstrates by sharing the singer’s life story with another inmate. The device seems unnecessary and a bit underused. By the end, it drops out completely, with Cash as the narrator. It’s a difficult method of storytelling, since Cash is a more compelling character than Shirley, and not enough work is done to make Shirley sympathetic or heroic.
After Walk the Line, it’s nearly impossible not to compare any media about Cash to the biopic, especially since the movie was well-made and well-acted. The media of film and graphic novel are quite different, but both pieces follow a similar path through Cash’s life. I See a Darkness, however, does concentrate on one aspect of Cash’s life that the movie, with all its emphasis on Cash’s relationship to June Carter Cash, does not: the music. Kleist discusses Cash’s experimentation with different genre of music and his manipulation of his own persona on stage. While he depicts Cash’s difficulties with Vivian Liberto, he does not delve into the romance between Cash and Carter, which is a major focus of the movie. The tone of I See a Darkness is much darker than that of Walk the Line.
A note on the translation—having done a nominal amount of translation work, myself, I know how difficult it is to convey both meaning and tone, especially when working with idioms from another language. While I have not read the original German, Waaler fully utilizes the illustrations, so that speech and exposition are sparse.
A recommended read, and a purchase for those who are interested in music or biography.
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