Writers of the Internet: Go Read This

Amber Sparks writes about the hyper-anxiety social networking can provoke in writers at Big Other. As my dear friend Jennifer says about the pitfalls of Facebook: "Compare and despair."

The comments after the article offer a pretty great conversation, too. I don't know Amber, but after reading this, I'd like to.

P.S. I got my very special rejection T-shirt for Christmas. Boo yah.

Warming up

It's a cold January morning, which I know without having to go outside.
The birds scramble around the near-empty feeders.
I'm drinking hot coffee from an orange mug.
Making plans. Lists.

Listing. Listening to:



"It would be this, it would be this."

I made no resolutions this year, so my January is freed up for hearing this song on repeat. May you enjoy similar small pleasures.

My Books of 2010: Lordy Lordy, Stopped at 40

Not a record-breaking year, my friends, but a good one for reading nonetheless. Following the last two years' tallies of 61 and 70 books read, respectively, I'm weighing in with a mere 40 for 2010. Now, if you counted the number of times I've reached for "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and a dozen other like-minded tomes, you would have a slightly different number. Along with the conclusion that I'm a trifle obsessed and anxiety-ridden. Yes indeed.

This year's list, the third annual, tells a story. It reminds me of what I was doing or what was going on while I was reading a particular book: mainly, preparing for the life-altering experience of becoming a parent. The other two years' spreadsheets tell their own stories, a record of highs and lows that soared and dipped like an out-of-whack barometer. (Find 2009's here, and 2008's here.) The 2010 list always will remind me of my pregnancy, and the birth of our son in October.

Some of my favorite reads this year included Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, which I devoured while sprawled out on the couch in January. Picture paddling a canoe up to the second floor of your house in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Not long after, I re-read The Stranger by Camus while teaching in the Humanities, and was reminded of my first reading, just after graduating from college. I was working a temp job as a receptionist for a phone company, saving money to go to Europe. I did not know how to pronounce Camus (Ca-MOO), or what I was going to do with my life, or why such-and-such boy had broken my heart, and so on. The Stranger, existentialism at its finest, flipped me on my ear, took me out of myself for a moment. And it did it again this year.

I read Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs while flying to/from California. Laughed out loud, then cried and tried to hide it by facing the window, until my friend handed me an in-flight napkin. You know it's a good book, she said, if it makes you laugh and cry within a few pages. I missed Moore's November reading at Butler U, sadly, when the baby was less than a month old and I was a huge wreck. The baby is now three months old, and I am much less of a wreck. I hope to catch Ms. Moore, one of my favorite living writers, another time.

Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake also topped my list of books this year. (You can read my interview with Bender in a recent issue of Guernica.) It was one of my pregnancy insomnia reads, along with Nami Mun's Miles from Nowhere. Those books will always remind me of the sun cracking through the sky, and I'd finally look up, surprised that night was over.

I finally read Tom Barbash's The Last Good Chance, a book I'd bought years ago when he gave a reading in Syracuse. I finished it a day before going into labor. I remember seeing the book on the coffee table once we were home from the hospital, and it seemed like another life, reading that book. It was. Barbash and I both worked for the same newspaper, The Syracuse Post-Standard, at different times. His upstate NY setting felt very real to me, as did the reporter's conundrums.

The last ten or so books on the list have been read while nursing the baby, pretty much the only time I have for reading right now. A couple of critically acclaimed literary novels fell short for me -- maybe I'm not in the right headspace for melancholy, brooding stories? -- while I voraciously read popular fiction like Kathryn Stockett's The Help. My friend Donna, who always has stellar recommendations, pointed me to Kate Atkinson's novel, When Will There Be Good News? Hilarious and dark, a literary mystery. Another by Atkinson, One Good Turn, patiently waits its turn on my shelf. Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply was another favorite this year: identity theft with thrilling and unexpected plot twists.

Break it down:

40 books
20 male authors/20 female authors (Weird. And unintentional.)
31 novels
5 nonfiction
4 story collections
2 re-reads
Author repeats: Ian McEwan (2), Elinor Lipman (2)

I'm heading back to work in a couple weeks, and balancing baby & the rest of life. We've got an excellent start on our home library of children's books. Not sure what next year's spreadsheet will be like, but I have a feeling 2011 will be the year of reading out loud.

Happy New Year.

Cabletown

I've taken up residence, it seems, inside my television. For the first time in my adult life, I have cable -- not counting basic cable, which we got for the reception, of course, and which included no fewer than seven public access government channels, featuring "Board of Zoning Appeals I" and "Board of Zoning Appeals II Fast II Furious." Which my husband and I actually watched, when we weren't tuned to our one fancy channel, TBS, for the occasional Seinfeld rerun. Zoning is hawt. You never know when a neighbor is going to request a carport variance, or when a lawyerly friend-of-a-friend shows up on screen to discuss parking plans to accommodate the new building going up downtown. The channels don't have rating systems, but it can get pretty racy at times, watching lawmakers shake sugar packets into Styrofoam coffee cups. Reheated drama straight outta the City/County Building.

But those viewings were mostly larks. Occasional bouts of latchkey youth aside, we've never really been TV people. We are readers and writers. We love books, newspapers, the backs of cereal boxes. We print out articles from the Internet for each other, we e-mail links. We tear out or dog-ear magazine pages and leave them around the house. We ensconce ourselves in novels and nonfiction, and history books (at least one of us, the one who is not me, loves history, and could be named an honorary member of the Greatest Generation.)

But one fateful day, as I was lightly crunching numbers, I realized it would be approximately $3 cheaper a month to bundle our services and have real cable. We were about to become first-time parents, and friends advised us of the life-saving powers of cable television. The sleep deprivation, they warned, would allow little brainpower. We needed mindless entertainment. And hey, the fourth season of Mad Men was approaching, which we usually watched on DVDs checked out from the library. We could have Mad Men as it aired? Um, yes, please.

What I had not factored into the bargain: the Kardashians. The Jersey Shore. Married to Rock. That wily old coot, Larry King. I was finally getting cultural references that had evaded me for years! I'm obsessed with Cash Cab. I WANT TO BE ON CASH CAB. Oh em gee, the Gilmore Girls repeats. I've spent far too many hours in Stars Hollow of late, as evidenced by my feelings of whimsy, my desire to banter wittily about relationships -- yours, mine, it doesn't matter. My husband arrived home from work yesterday to find me feeding the baby and watching yet another GG episode. Shhh, I told him. Mama's watching her stories. (He gets his stories too, in the form of the Military channel, where nine times out of ten, WWII bombers are flying through the black-and-white sky. I swear it's the same footage.) I've also noticed that no matter the hour, "Remember the Titans" is always playing somewhere.

Last year, I read 70 books. This year's been a little different, what with months of pregnancy fatigue and naps, followed by the arrival of baby boy, now 2 1/2 months old. I'm closing in on 40 books, not counting all the baby manuals I've read cover to cover. Could probably have squeezed in a few more books if I'd turned off the TV a little more. But you know what? Sometimes it's the brain that needs turning off.

Some days my skin is plenty tough

Other days, not so much. This makes me feel better:



And a handy link, in case you wanted to get it for me for Christmas.

A slice of lemon cake with Aimee Bender

I have an interview up at Guernica with writer Aimee Bender, whose recent book, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, was, as the critics say, un-put-downable.

I'm glad she and I completed this prior to October, when my bouncing baby boy was born. He is also, as the parents say, un-put-downable. Because he likes to be held. And he cries when he is not. Which makes interviewing people somewhat more challenging, to say nothing of toasting a bagel or checking e-mail. Remember all the bagels I used to toast, and all the e-mails I would check? Those were different times. Buttery, sticky-keyboarded times.

But we're learning. Becoming more dexterous with one-handed maneuvers. (As well as getting sucked into brainless cable television, an addictive, sugary phase I hope is temporary, but also kind of love, shamefully. More on that soon.)

So please go read about Aimee, who has this to say on dreams and art: "One thing that’s so key about dreams is they are reality and not-reality at the same time, and I think art is too."

Dreams! I remember having those, back when I used to sleep.

Here is the lovely Aimee Bender:


Author photo by Max S. Gerber

Vouched Presents Artifice Magazine Issue 2

There's a fantastic literary event in Indianapolis tonight: the traveling show that is Artifice Magazine is appearing at Big Car Gallery, with readings from writers who appear in Issue 2. Details are here.

And if you miss tonight's show in Indy, fear not. There also are dates set for Baltimore, D.C., NYC, and Cambridge, Mass.

Wish I could go to any and all of these readings; the Issue #1 reading last February in Chicago was a blast. Back then, I was secretly 8 weeks pregnant, and I think one or two friends at the party *might* have noticed that instead of wine, I was drinking Orange Crush mixed with nothing, falling asleep on my feet despite the raucous readings, and later, the dance party. (Or as I seem to recall Tim Jones-Yelvington calling it, the Dance Movie.)



And four short days ago, our beautiful baby boy arrived in the world. I know he'd love to check out Artifice #2 at Big Car -- he is a very literary fellow, I can tell -- but perhaps is a little too new (and unpredictable) right now. We'll just have to wait for Issue #3, and hopefully the tour will come back our way.

Collaborate to fabricate

Collaborate apparently is the one "ate" word that isn't in that one song by INXS. (I asked the computer. It told me so. The song's Mediate, by the way. At 98 we all rotate. Etc. Now try to get it out of your head. JUST GO AHEAD AND TRY.)

I'm new-ish to writing collaborative fiction, but thanks to Indianapolis literary guru Bryan Furuness, we currently have a project up at Ninth Letter along with writers Andrew Scott and Matthew Simmons. The premise: what would you do if you had use of a time machine for a day? I immediately loved the idea, feeling as strongly as I do about time travel and the potential mechanisms for such.

We all wrote our own contest entries for the Tempus Fugitive (c), which Bryan then assembled and submitted to magazines. In addition to corralling writers from across the land, Bryan also has been published by Ninth Letter's print edition, and his story, Man of Steel, will appear in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010. How cool is that? The answer, my friends, is very.

Check out all of the above if you're so inclined.

True confession time

Our confessional culture finally has come up with something more genuine than slickly scripted reality television "reveals," and it's coming to a stage near you. It's Mortified, a chance for people to dig up their adolescent writing, art, and media, then perform it on stage. It is described as a "comic excavation." Motto? "P.S. It Totally Likes You." There is a not-small part of me that wants to get on that stage and start telling about the time that I...um. I can't even say it. I AM STILL TOO EMBARRASSED.

So maybe "Mortified" is out for me. Still, confessing holds an allure and appeal. But I perhaps most enjoy the distancing mechanism of confessing lies: that is, writing fiction. In my fiction writing classes, sometimes we play the game Two Truths and a Lie. It's a first-week ice breaker, and each student tells three things, one of them false. But they're not allowed to reveal which is the lie -- at least not until the end of the semester. My point in playing this game is to show that it doesn't really matter what's true and what's made up, so long as it's convincing. Some students become madly curious to know the truth, and will try to ferret it out of the guy in the next desk. And sometimes that guy realizes it's a little fun to withhold, to build suspense around a great reveal. Also not a bad lesson to learn if you want to write fiction.

I always play along, too: it's no fair (or fun) to sit back and let students do all the work. I try to change it up each semester. This was one of my favorites, mainly because of the wild rumpus of a reaction from my students:

1. I was kicked out of Brownies in third grade.
2. I sang lead vocals in an '80s cover band.
3. I once was able to dead-lift/squat 225 pounds.

None of these things are mortifying, though, at least not to me, which is why I share them here. For true mortification, I need only return to my journals from junior high, high school, even college.
Plenty of writing, bad drawings, notes and letters from lost friends and lost loves. I rarely read them these days, yet I keep everything stored away in basement banker's boxes and Rubbermaid bins. I am a fan of preservation, not to mention containers and containment policy where confessing is concerned. I am also a fan of boxes with lids.

Maybe you are braver than I, or more of a confessor. By all means, have at it. Because even if I don't want to share, I completely want to snoop.

It's September! Please remember...

IN
Rhyming, but not stealing
Homemade decaf chai lattes
Reading soul-crushing allegories followed by lighter office romps
Being Prepared, a la the Boy Scouts
Toast. Yeah, toast.
Drafting something new: it's done when it's done
The new happy


OUT
Stealing, but not rhyming
Almost all caffeine (sniff)
Self-diagnosing at Big Al's Internet Health Source/Tackle & Bait Emporium
A whimsical "Que sera, sera" attitude
Page/word counts as measure of progress
The old sad