The Elephant's Child

Working.

A Special Thanks.

Thank you to those who took the time to call me, to email me, or to speak to me on Facebook about my post of a couple days ago.  Many encouraging words were sent my way and I so appreciate them.  Putting things aside has been a very difficult decision for me to make, and a very sad one. 

I hope that after a few weeks or a month or two I can open up my files and my drafts and start writing again, but for now, I am trying hard not to think about that too much.  For now, though, I'm getting caught up on sleep, taking care of little things around the house, and getting ready for the Triduum. 

 

It Is With Regret

It's with regret and sorrow that I am facing archiving everything I've written so far.

24,806 words.  Lots of scenes and parts that I love, that I feel very good about having written, excerpts which many people have told me are good writing, but little in the way of a solid story yet. All these parts are mostly disconnected; they're only connected by the fact that they happen to the same characters.  I know a little of what will happen to these two people, but I don't know all of it. For weeks, I've been slowly adding a little here and a little there to expand and extend the scenes and sections I have already started, but I cannot find the bridges that link everything together. 

To find those bridges, I need time. Time alone, time to let my mind wander, quiet time. All things which are impossible right now.  A free afternoon once a month isn't going to cut it.  A 20 minute walk a few times a week isn't going to cut it (and I can't walk now anyway because I have, once again, injured my ankle.)

I sit and stare, I pick and pluck, and then, just when I finally get a whole sentence written, my family needs me.  Or SK interrupts. Or it's time to make supper.  Perhaps some can write in ten and fifteen minute chunks; I cannot. I have tried, tried to point of insanity.  To get two or three hours of uninterrupted work time, I have to stay up way past eleven o'clock at night, and that's not good for me; I get exhausted and depressed and sick if I don't get enough sleep. Working in the evenings cuts out the very little time I already have with my husband. There is no money to pay a babysitter; there is no family nearby to watch my child for free.  For many very good reasons, giving up homeschooling is not an option. 

So, although I love this story, and I love the characters in it, and although I have a bunch of people awaiting a finished book, although I know what I've written so far doesn't completely suck, I can't work on this anymore. The frustation is too to overwhelming. It will be easier, I think, to just stop work than to continue being annoyed, angry, frustrated and in tears that I'm making no progress.  And I cannot justify the time I am spending on it, producing nothing. It would be a different thing if all this time and energy were putting food on my family's table or clothes on my kid's back, but it is not. 

A few friends are going to help me get a printed draft; one will print it, one will bind it. It will be good to go over, in print, what I've already written.  If nothing else, I'll have something tangbile to hide in the back of my closet. 

It should be something like 100 pages... it'll stand as the longest single document I've ever written.  My longest college papers were something like 15-20 pages.  

Best case scenario?  I'll be able to come back to the story in a few weeks. But honestly? I'm doubtful. I don't see my childcare, home and financial circumstances changing any time soon.  

I didn't become the architect I went to school for. I didn't become a poet, something some people thought I would do. I thought maybe at least I could write this one book. But I'm not sure that's going to happen, either. 

 

Plain Sentences.

Previously, my biggest creative writing endeavours have been of poetry. 

In poetry, there are no plain phrases. Every sentence counts, each word, each space, line break, punctuation mark. 

But when writing a book, there are plain and ordinary things:  He said. She said. It was cold outside. My mother looked proud. In fact, if you get fancy with some of these sentences, you sould like a dolt.  "... she said breezily."  (i.e. "If I have to tell you, I've failed."  You should be able to "hear" how she said it by what she said and by how whomever she said it to reacts.)

I'm fighting this, with writing this book.  I rebel at these simple sentences.  But they're neccessary; they belong in the text. and to embellish them would of course be wrong.  To eliminate them, as I would do were I writing a poem, would remove the sense of what I'm writing. 

I ate supper with my mother. There was sunlight on the trees.  These are sentences free of adverbs and adjectives. They're completely stripped clean.  And yet, in the hands of one of my favorite authors, Chaim Potok, they become coruscant and ethereal.

"After breakfast, I said..." In fact, it is hard to pull stunning, soul-stirring excerpts from his books of because he uses these plain sentences so often. And yet, his books are not plain. In fact, I can think of no other author whose writing is so shimmery; the words hang in the air like a whisp of silvery smoke long after you close the book's cover.  

Writing this book that I am to write is teaching me many things.  The necessity of ordinary sentences is one of them. 

 

The House on Old Road.

The gate was gone. That was what she noticed first.  "I suppose it was taken for scrap," she said out loud.

"Missy, metal all gone during war, to be sold."

"Thanks, Joe. Do you think I can walk in?"

"I go first, Missy, ya?"

"Ok. Go-come, ya." Joe walked into the yard, towards the concrete stoop of the house. Katie could see vestiges of the concrete driveway, concrete on which her feet had walked barefoot so many times.  It looked strange now, all broken.  Weed grews through cracks in the slab, but Katie could still make out the curve of the edge that bordered the mango tree.  It's still here.  Miraculously. For twenty years, as this war had raged and stilled and raged again, as she'd gone to college, then started a job, trying to block this all out, burying it all so that she could bury the guilt of it all as well, this tree had been here, still growing. Making mangoes year after year, feeding fruit bats and neighborhood children alike.  Katie walked to the tree  and laid her head against the bark, prentending for a moment that she could hear a sticky, whispery voice. If only I actually could. Would this tree remember us?  She felt a tickle on her hand.  Ants.  She shook her hand briskly, knocking them to the ground, then ran her hand through her hair to check for ants there.

Isa was standing at the pillar that had at once held the gate's hinges.  The bouganvillea Katie had loved so much as a child towered up above his head. 

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm fine. I just got some ants on me. I should have remembered that there are always ants on a mango tree."

Meet The Ex-Wife.

“I thought you wanted me to finish my beer.” Katie threw him a big, innocent smile, then raised her glass to show him that there was still about half a glass of her beer left yet.

“You’re a slow drinker.”

“Maybe I enjoy tormenting you.”

“Hmmph.” Isa leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. Katie twisted in her chair, moving her feet from the porch wall to Isa’s lap. He laid a hand across one of her feet, absently rubbing his thumb along her ankle bone. “I wish I had come when my uncle was here. I would have liked to see your Liberia. And maybe I would have have met you instead of my first wife.”

“I doubt we would have met, even if you had. I didn’t go to the clubs or to the beaches where the Lebanese kids hung out. My path wouldn’t have crossed yours. Besides, I was eight that year.”

Isa laughed. “Right. Eight. I keep forgetting how young you are.”

“I don’t feel young. I feel old.”

“You’re not. You can’t be old because I’m ten years older and I’m not old.”

“So was your first wife so bad, then?”

“She was high maintenance.”

“Ha! I’m high maintenance.”

“No, you’re not. Not like she was. And you're a good screw.”

“She wasn’t?” 

“Sex for her was a chore. She always found a way to make me pay.”

“It shouldn’t be a transaction between married people.”

“I know, but it was. She went shopping the day after. Always.”

“That’s kind of sick.”

“Eh. It’s over now. Well, almost over. I still have to sit for the legal flaying of my assets.”

“Will it be that bad?”

“Probably. She always liked the E9 even though she couldn’t drive it; she'll try to say I crashed it on purpose. If I can hang on to M and the Seven, I’ll be happy. She’ll have to be satisfied with taking the insurance payout. Maybe she can buy a shoe.”

“A single shoe?”

“She always did like really expensive shoes.”

Katie burst out laughing. “Well, there you go. Look at my sandals,” Katie said. “Cheap. Forty bucks.”

“Yeah, I don’t get the shoe thing with women. At all. Although maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to cast aspersions. My driving shoes were over three hundred dollars.”

“That’s crazy.”

“They’re Italian.”

“Oh. That makes it sane how?”

"They’re like a Ferrari, overpriced, drop-dead gorgeous. My shoes have lower maintenances costs than a Ferrair, though.” Isa shrugged.  "I like good shoes. They’re more comfortable. However," Isa pointed his finger at Katie. "I only have one pair."

 

For Readers Who Like the Story I'm Writing.

I thought you'd like to know that I learned something this week. 

This week I learned

that Isa has an ex-wife.  

That is all. 

 

Inertia.

Inertia is the death of creativity.

You have to keep moving,

keep making.

So much of making art

is muscle memory,

keeping your routine…

Take half an hour every day and make something.

No matter what.

No holidays,

no sick days.

Don’t stop.

-Austin Kleon

(An Aside.)

It's becoming clear I need to rethink what I'm doing with this blog.  As my deep thinking is being slowly consumed with Katie and Isa's story, there's just not much brainz left for the things I used to blog about.  

I think a once weekly update on how the book is going, notes on the process of learning to write, and occasional excerpts from the writing I've been doing is probably all I can manage for now.  

If you've been a long-time reader here, thank you.  I hope you don't mind my several-months' obsession with writing a story... a novella... a book?  Whatever.  If you do mind, well, you've since drifted away and aren't reading this anyway.  ::evil laugh::  

 

 

 

At the Dunes.

    Katie slipped her feet out of her sneakers. “I can’t wear shoes in sand, no matter how cold it is.” She pulled off her socks. “My feet don’t stink, I promise.” Straightening out the socks, she laid them neatly alongside her clogs in the footwell of the Seven. I really should try harder to be neat.

    “That’s fine,” Isa said. “I’ve got a brush in the trunk to clean up after. Shall I get the blanket?”

    “Yeah, that’d be good. It looks windy."  Katie next tucked her purse up above her shoes out of sight. “On second thought, can I put my purse in the trunk? I think it’d be safer there.”

    “Good idea.” Isa exited the car and Katie met him at the trunk. The wind was fierce, and Katie could feel the bite of it through her coat. Isa pulled out a wool blanket. “It’s got moth holes in it, sorry. It’s pretty old.”

    “It’s perfect,” Katie said, taking the thick, red blanket from him and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Mmm. I love wool.”

    “It’s from Scotland. My parents bought it on their honeymoon. It was in the Seven when my father. . . when I took ownership of the car.” He closed the trunk a little too firmly. “Come, let’s walk.”

There was a little sand on the sidewalk, but scrub grass alongside it, and Katie moved to the grass to walk. Just a hundred yards or so from where they’d parked was a walkway down on to the beach proper. Katie led the way down the shallow timber steps onto the sand of the beach. At the bottom of the stairs, Isa buttoned up his coat and turned up his collar.

    “I love coming up here, especially in winter. The emptiness is good. Very good,” he said.

    “It’s definitely bleak. It’s been so long since I’ve been on a beach.” Katie took a deep breath. “It doesn’t smell like the ocean, but I suppose it’ll do. Which way should we walk?”

    “I always go east first.” They turned to their right and began walking, going slowly in order to be careful of the uneven surface and bits of trash and a random stick here and there. After about ten minutes of walking in silence they came to a bench anchored in the sand at the line where the sand and the scrub grass met. Katie sat down bracing her body with her hands on the edge of the bench, her feet dangling. Isa sat beside her, on the edge of the bench, his legs stretched out in front of him.

    “I always wanted to visit the desert,” Katie said. “There was desert in Mali. My roommate my first year was from Mali, and I always wanted to go home with her over break and see the desert. But I never got the chance. It just never worked out.” She was quiet for a moment, as was Isa. He’s sure not the chatty type. But for some reason Katie couldn’t quite puzzled out yet, the silence that fell so often between them didn’t feel strained. He doesn’t seem uncomfortable with the silence, she realized. Most of the awkwardness that came with dead air comes from people squirming. He doesn’t squirm. In fact, he was perfectly still, watching out over the water. She admired his stillness. She tried to imitate it; she folded her hands on her lap, straightened her back a bit, and stopped her foot from digging in the sand.  She lasted about thirty seconds before she had to move and she stood up suddenly.  

    "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at sitting."