All the things.

What did I do today?

ALL OF THE THINGS!!!! (Thanks to Allie Bosh and her AWESOME BLOG of awesomeness for the picture. See the link. See her blog. Allie Bosh Wins the Internet)

 

And now I am so *tired*. And I just looked at my stupid planner. And tomorrow? You guessed it.

 All of the things. All over again.

But I can do it. Because I am awesome.

 I AM DOING IT RIGHT NOW LOOK HERE AT EXTRA BLOG POST FOR NO REASON BUT BECAUSE I'M TIRED AND DOING THINGS AND READING WAY TOO MUCH HYPERBOLE AND HALF TONIGHT.

Regular human-type blog post coming on Friday.

Know why?

BECAUSE I AM DOING ALL THE THINGS!!!

On Appetite

On Fat and Appetite

I was at my local public library branch of a Thursday evening, which is part of my general routine. The (long suffering) Husband goes out to DnD, and we walk out together and I go to the library. I was making my way toward the folklore section and encountered a patron from my own library. For the purposes of this blog post, I feel that she should remain anonymous, so the only identifying characteristics I will give her are the ones most important to this story. She is, frankly, one of my favorite patrons. She is old enough to be my mother. She is very intelligent, a wide reader, and one of the most elegant women I’ve ever met.

And this is what she said to me. (I paraphrase) “Now that we find ourselves outside your library, we meet as friends not just patron and library clerk. So let me ask you something….why don’t you think about losing some weight?”

I feel that I must interject at this point. I am, what is known as “A Big Girl”. I have always been a Big Girl. I’m not ready for my own special on Discovery Health or anything, but it is very rare for me that I am not the Fattest Girl in the Room.

She continued, “It’s just that you’re so intelligent…so well-read ….”

I interrupted her. “Thank you so much, Patron X. I appreciate the concern. I know it is kindly meant.”

And it was. Really, it was. This woman was definitely not trying to make me feel small. (Funny, that. Being told I am Too Big actually made me feel Small.)

But she went on. To tell me about the dieticians at the hospital, and things you could do to lose weight. I repeated my line. “Thank you so much, Patron X. I know it’s kindly meant.”

And still she did not stop. Finally, without meaning to, tears sprang to my eyes and I held up my hand. “Thank you, Patron X. But people have been talking to me about this since I was eleven years old –“

And I didn’t have to finish. She backed off. Immediately. And probably went away concerned that she had upset me.

She did.

But it was kindly meant. It is always, always kindly meant.

But you see it is exactly what is meant that concerns me. Maybe she meant that since I am so intelligent and well-read, that it is somehow distasteful that I not also be beautiful. Perhaps as such an elegant woman herself, she in fact found it illogical or perhaps even immoral that I am not beautiful.

I am not, as it happens, beautiful. But neither was Scarlet O’Hara, according to Margaret Mitchell. (Vivien Leigh is another story.)  But, much like Scarlet, I do have sometimes at my command a force of charisma that can make you think that I am. But still, I felt somehow offensive to her, something broken, something to be fixed with a couple hours on the treadmill and some low-fat salad dressing.

And when I told her I’d been talking about this since I was eleven years old, I was telling the truth. Some of my earliest memories are of adults in my life (well-meaning, kindly adults) talking to me with concern about my weight. Every bite of food that went into my mouth was scrutinized, every packet of sugar in my tea, every drop of salad dressing. “Do you really need that?” was the constant refrain.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about all the weight gained and lost, about all the grapefruits consumed and the years spent swimming in shame.

And then several years ago I made a very serious decision. I would no longer have such a strained relationship with my food. I would just eat it. And I could continue to love it if I wanted to.

I’m not talking about eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream watching reruns of House. That’s actually the opposite of what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Appetite.

I’m talking about loving real food. Sauces enriched with egg yolk, biscuits hand made with real butter, pasta with olive oil and cheese. Crisp brown roast chicken, with little potatoes cooked in the rendered off fat in the pan. Fish crusted with nuts and seared smoky in the pan. Homemade macaroni and cheese. I put half and half in my coffee. I enjoy a little chocolate or a little pastry almost every day.

Is it because I hate myself? Because I had a troubled childhood? Or because it fills some kind of a void inside me?

No. It is because I have appetite. Not just have an appetite for food. I have an appetite for paintings and performances. For the fur on a cat’s belly. The shape of a dog’s snoot. For books and movies and bright colored frocks and gloves and hats on a regular day. I have an appetite for sex and conversation and color and languages. For Stephen Sondheim and Shakespeare and old black and white movies where everyone smokes. I have an appetite for success and meaningful work and making things grow.

I will not be ashamed of my appetite. In any form it may take.

I think there are many people with weight problems that stem from psychological problems. Many people use food as a crutch, as an addiction, as a way to fill a void. But I reject the widely held idea that every overweight person is somehow damaged, and if they could get over their trauma, they would be able to stick to their diet. Sorry. I mean, their “lifestyle change”.  This lifestyle is one without any of the great things I mentioned above. Or if they are not completely absent, they are so changed (fat-free cheese, biscuits made of whole wheat flour and yogurt, etc) they are unrecognizable. Or else they are so rarified, because they are “bad” they become fetishized. I reject this. I reject this completely.

I refuse to reject my own appetite.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I had ever truly inhabited a thin body. If I had a memory of being gamine and rangy, a memory of being truly beautiful, then maybe I would feel like there was something lost to be found regained. But that is not my story. In many ways, I am grateful.

I have, what I like to call, a kind of reverse body-dysmorphic disorder. These poor women (usually women, anyway) with eating disorders,  look at their frail 70 pound bodies in the mirror and see only a fat person. I, however, walk around in the world…well, like I’m cute. Like I’m normal. Like I may not be really beautiful, but that’s not really that important.

Until, that is, someone approaches me with a suggestion on how I might be happier, if only I would lose some weight. However kindly meant it was, I only hear one thing.  “You are not enough. Make you like me. How dare you be that way? What is wrong with you?”

And I did feel small, but for only a little while. When I remembered my appetite.

Regarding Getting There

Gentle Readers,

I know I've been away for some time. But rest assured, I have been working hard at all sorts of good things.

One of the things I've been doing while away, is, like all of us, getting older. This past Sunday, with a quiet pop, I turned 40. And today, inspired by Sugar’s “Tiny, Beautiful Things” column I am writing what I would say to myself in my twenties.

First. You are fat. But nobody cares but you. Sometimes, it’s like what they say about smoking in Dead Again, “In this life there are people who are smokers and people who are non-smokers. You just have to find out who you are and be that”. You are a smoker. And you are fat. This does not mean that you are not beautiful or desirable or worthy of love. However, it might be a good idea to lay off the processed foods, and go in for good cheese and egg yolks instead.

That guy you met at Target? The one without a fancy education, without artistic ambitions or hipster tendencies? That one. That’s the one. This is the man who will show you what love really looks like when the lights come on.

Work a little harder. Try a little more. Stop feeling so superior to your menial jobs at the temp agency, the health food store.  It is not some tragic act in your Artist’s Bildungsroman. It just *is*. You are not too good for this. No one is.

You will not go all the way crazy and not be able to get back. Know that when you are lost in that maze, the story is your red thread. Remember that your Crazy is King Shahryar. You are Scheherazade. Just keep the stories coming, and you’ll stay alive.

I know you have a fancy education. I know you have an MFA. I know that every adult in your life since memory began has given you the signal that you are somehow special, meant for something, talented, gifted. Come closer now, because this is important. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU GET ANYTHING. You will not get anything because you are special and talented. The desert is littered with the bleached bones of special and talented writers with fancy educations. Please. Please. I beg you. Learn to work. Learn to really, really work. Because by the time you get here, you will be sick with all the time you wasted being sick.

 I know you’re working on an experimental novel, but I can tell you that it goes nowhere because you gave it nowhere to go. Remember why you got into this in the first place. Remember your library books. Remember Nancy Drew and Poe and Horror Comics. Because I can tell you, I know what you’re writing now. And you will be very surprised.

But then, I know that you won’t hear any of this. Even if I showed up in the Tardis with the Doctor himself and told you. You just have to find your own way here. And you will. And it was all worth it.

Breaking News, or All the Tea in Holland Park

Readers, the world is changed.

My world is changed.

It is official. Contracts have been signed. I have an agent. A lovely, skilled and competent agent.

Now I know as well as the next person that this does not mean the book has sold, and even if it does that I might not languish on the mid-list, no matter how capable my agent nor how well-written the book. But to have someone...someone with NO vested interest in my emotional well-being (like friends or family) to say that they really, really Love The Book? That they will Do Work to help it, that they believe in it enough to take it on in this way? To partner with it, with me?  That alone makes me think that I have not been up the wrong tree all this time. I have not been wasting my time. And that alone is worth All the Tea in Holland Park.

And it feels, finally … wow. This is really hard to put into words. I spent most of the day yesterday with my brains coming out of face. I walked out the door to meet Walter for coffee right after the call  and I left with no keys and no bus pass. I had to put a five dollar bill in the RIPTA bus. My body went in and out of shock as we sat at the Wayland Square Starbucks and I drank an Iced Americano and ate a Cake Pop. (delicious) And I did what I always do. What I can only do.

I narrated. I told the story. Over and over again. To Walter. To Amy Budd. To Allan. And in telling the story it became more and more real (as things often do with me). Then when the story stopped, I felt the swell of adrenaline again.

Restless and fitful, I wanted to see people last night. But after a cup of tea and some chicken nuggets, I ended up passing out on the sofa in front of the Good Parts of Sherlock Holmes. (Yes, the Guy Ritchie. Don't judge me.)

And this morning I get up, read in bed a little while and continue to be restless and fitful. I have all this excess energy, or headspace, or something – all that had been going to Querying, Worrying, Waiting for an email, the phone to ring, all that energy going to despair that it Would Never Happen and now….well, it looks like I’ve got a free morning.

And I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I think I may soak in the tub.

This will pass, I’m sure. And my overwhelming feeling now is one of wanting to Get To Work.

Let's get to work, shall we?

But first, a tub.

Okay, Internets. Enough already.

Everywhere I look I see someone else telling me how impossible this all is. Impossible for a first time writer to get an agent. And if you do get an Agent, they won’t be able to sell your book and they’ll dump you in six months.

And if they do sell it, you’ll have to do all your own marketing by way of Social Networking. And don’t forget that you can’t just advertise or shill your books, you have make a personal deep connection with all 80 gazillion followers because we only buy things from people we have a personal connection with.

 And don’t forget that bookstores are all going out of business and books are going to be museum pieces by this time next year anyway so why bother? Self published e books are the way to go.

But of course, this is also impossible without doing the Publisher’s work all on your own. And all that overwhelming publicity, layout, editing, cover art – don’t forget that this cuts into your writing time down to next to nothing. And it really doesn’t matter because books are only worth .99 anyway. (Cat Valente has already written, quite articulately,  here, about why this is problematic.)  And don’t forget that you’re probably not going to sell any self-published e-books anyway. J.A. Konrath and Amanda Hocking have already gotten there, so there is No More Room.

No Room. No Room. No Room.

This is all I’ve heard for weeks. Hundreds of Internet Chickens crying “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

I’m sorry, Internet. But I just can’t listen to you anymore. You have officially become hysterical. Internet, you are Faye Dunaway in Chinatown throwing your head back and forth crying “Mydaughter!Mysister!” You might need to be slapped.

On one blog, we’re told Writing is a job and to treat it as such. Professional correspondence and web presence, putting the hours in, networking, etc.  On the next, we’re told not to expect to ever get paid. I’m supposed to do it because I love it. But if I don’t get paid, it’s not a job. It’s a hobby. (A tedious one. Like knitting. Says Marge Piercy)  

I hear the same crap about teachers, and that makes my skin crawl, too.

Now I understand why they say this. If my job were sitting in an office reading somebody else’s “surefire blockbuster” take on Stephanie Meyer or Robert Parker, I would certainly go out of my way to discourage it. Publishing a novel is no winning lottery ticket for millions of dollars. But isn’t there something between J.K. Rowling and Dying in Poverty? Is there some kind of shame in wanting to make a living (however modest) doing something that we don’t just “feel passionate about”, but something we are actually Good At Doing? Is this actually impossible?

If  it’s impossible for a new writer to get an agent or a book deal, why is it that I keep seeing new books by new writers on the New Book Shelf of the library every week?

If people are no longer reading books, why do I see so many people doing JUST THAT on public buses and subways?

Books and stories aren’t going anywhere. People actually do have to write them. And if the competition is fierce, let it be fierce. Maybe if I put more energy into Becoming More Awesome (as Catherynne Valente often says) instead of worrying about e book royalties and social networking I would not be tearing out my hair.

Things are changing, certainly. But I wholeheartedly reject the notion that writers are the ones making candles while Edision just starting selling light bulbs. For .99. On Amazon. Books are not going to become marginalized, something to see only in museums, at least not for a while. Sure, on a long enough time line, everything’s life expectancy goes to zero. But for now, let’s just Calm the Fuck Down.

You guys keep freaking out if it makes you feel better. Me? I’m off to try to Become More Awesome. I’m off to Write a Better Book. I’m off to read some of the great books out there. Some of them by first time Authors. (See list below) And I’ll write up more proposals and query letters and keep on trying. Because there is NO WAY that the *real* reality of the situation matches the hysterics that I’m seeing.

Some Good Books:

Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne M. Valente

What I Didn’t See by Karen Joy Fowler

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan

On Fear, or How Long Until the Monkey Funeral?

Readers.  You should know that usually I am quite brave about things.

She pauses, jack-rabbits up from the desk. First her sweater, then coffee, then another cigarette. She is uncomfortable with monologue. Even here, she must narrate.

Not necessarily about things like Mean People or Strangers or Big Hipster Parties. These things do frighten me, quite correctly, I think. I mean brave about my life. While I certainly don’t live in a commune, my lifestyle, for some, is unconventional. I don’t work in a cubicle. I don’t have a car or use credit cards. I do not have, nor want offspring. These are very deliberate choices I have made, in order to facilitate my Writing.

She pauses again, wondering at the capitalization of that last word. Wonders if it is too pretentious.  Thinks of the Theater/Theatre question. Decides to leave it.

Yes, it is a risk for me, for my family (childless though it may be, it still is one) – for me to only work part time at the divine Providence Athenaeum in the hopes that one day I’ll sell my books and  be a Real Writer. A Professional Novelist. Most days, I am brave about this risk.

But that day is not today.

I have manuscripts out at three highly reputable agents. (I haven’t even been waiting that long which makes this reaction even more ridiculous) As of now, I have only received one “No”, and that was from a long-shot agent – an agent that I couldn’t believe even wanted to see a Partial manuscript in the first place.

 And yet.

 And yet. I have allowed this to spin out into my ultimate failure as a writer, as a person. This no means they will all say no. And I will have to start over again. With another book.

And while the idea of working on another book as an Agented Author thrills me, working on another book as an Un-Agented Author, at least today, makes me feel positively ill. I will get over this feeling, certainly. And certainly if I have no agent at the end of this process I will write another book. They are just feelings, after all.

She doesn’t understand the use of the word “just” in that last sentence. Lights a cigarette. Leaves the sentence intact. Has a flash of Crazy telling her that an Agent might see this post, see the narration about cigarettes, and decide that they don’t want to work with a smoker. The Crazy is pretty loud today.

And what’s worse, I feel terrible for feeling terrible. I’m supposed to be so brave, with my defiance of convention, with my

Here she drops off, stares out the window. In the distance, the buzzing of some yard work. Her view, the parking lot of her two bedroom apartment. The sunlight brightens and swells, and this chafes her, as it does not match her mood. The icy spring snow yesterday did a better job of that.

…with all my “believing in myself” and “Acting Like It” and “Working Hard” and “Being More Awesome”.  But today I wonder when “Believing in Myself” turns into Norma Desmond style Delusion. How long until the Monkey Funeral? How long until the wire cigarette holder and the “comeback” script of Salome?

Trying to find a way out of this maze, I turn to other writers. And I keep thinking of Louisa May Alcott who said, “I shall take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.”

Or something.   

Something about this post leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Is it unprofessional to complain, to admit fear and weakness? Even if it’s not unprofessional, does this really add to any kind of conversation about writing or reading? Then why doesn’t she just Shut the Hell Up? Do either of these questions matter, as no one is even reading this?

She takes another drag from her cigarette, and a long pull of cold, four-hour-old coffee. She imagines her hands around Fate’s throat. She imagines shaking her, hard. She imagines the tinkle of a few coins spilling from beneath Fate’s coat. She imagines using them to pay for the monkey funeral.

On Reading and Pleasure

            The first thing for you to understand, Reader, is that what I read now is not what I read then, and this is due in large part to the nature of my job.  And because books cross my hands at the Circulation Desk I would not normally see, the job has expanded my reading circle in ways I did not expect. This included Popular Fiction, something that as a Serious Student, and then a Serious Writer and Scholar, I had no use for.  

Then, on a lark,  I took home a copy of Barbara Michael’s The Master of Blacktower. I was feeling a bit sick (or maybe just a bit sad), so I took it straight under the covers with a large cup of tea and box of mini cupcakes. This book is, by no means, Great Literature. The Jane Eyre tropes were apparent, as they are in much of Romantic Suspense, and while the writing may not have been beautiful, it was seamless and invisible. The plot was far-fetched, but it was so ridiculous and it was paced so well, I was just pulled along. And it was fun.

Really, really fun.

            Fun, remember? Remember Fairies? Remember Kissing? Remember Pirate Ships and Space Aliens and Werewolves? Remember, guys?

            As children the adults in our lives – our parents, librarians and teachers – went to great lengths to find books that we would actually like, to make sure that reading became something fun to do, something we would want to do, so that … well, to ensure that we would be Readers. And then we grow up and become adults and all the Pirate Ships and Fairies get put away leaving us with what? Couples going through a harrowing divorce. People sitting across the table from each other dealing with their Alcoholism and Not Telling Their Father How They Really Feel. And any book that might contain a character or a situation that would Not Be Possible In Real Life, all too often gets shoved in the children’s room, whether that’s appropriate or not. Because , if it’s not Something Real, how could a Real Adult be interested in it? N’est pas?

            It all makes me so bored I feel like I’m going deaf.

            And the books that give us something else, that might give us something exciting, like a murder or zombies and an airship or a tragic romance are dismissed, noses are wrinkled, hands are waved in front of faces and people say, “Oh, I don’t read those kind of books.”

            I’m not talking about excusing bad and sloppy writing.  But I just don’t understand why a crappy ‘GENRE’ novel is somehow so much crappier than a crappy Literary novel. I also don't understand why the use of an established structure demeans the book. We don't say this about Sonnets, for example.  And for that matter, I don’t understand why Literary Novels don’t see themselves as a genre, why they too often take themselves so seriously, why they feel the need to take 50 or 100 pages to ”teach us how to read it”.  There are “literary” novels I enjoy, but most of these end up using some of the same structures and tropes at work, in say Mysteries or Adventures. And some of the “genre” books I’ve most enjoyed use a level of language or an innovation of structure often seen (or at least attempted) in Literary Novels.

            What are the books that have been the Most Fun for you? Do you even think about books this way? What’s the last book you read that really surprised you? Or do you shy away from reading books altogether, because you’re afraid that you’ll be bored?