Pull Me Out

"Pull Me Out" by Bebo Norman

"Well this could be all about just letting go, or this could be all about just holding on." 

I have loved this song since the first time I heart it years ago.  And every word feels very present right now as I still feel like things are flying apart for me.  I am still very hurt by the betrayal of my leaders, but is it really the right choice to just give up and run away?  Shouldn't I be trying to wrestle with my hurt and humiliation to get to a place where I can carry on like I was before doing good work I enjoy (less of it moving forward due to some other changes they're making)?  Can I keep up with those changes. (I don't think so.)  I don't have a clear idea of what the right choice is.  I feel very stuck, and I want someone to pull me out.

That's what I was feeling a couple months ago.  And then there was this email that said they needed someone with my expertise who maybe would like to move to Canada for a year.  And it felt like maybe that was how God was reaching down here to help pull me out.

Maybe it was, but maybe it wasn't.  Maybe it doesn't matter.  Maybe I just have to trust that God will be with me regardless of my choice.  And that there is a good ending on either path.

"There is happiness for those who accept their fate.  There is glory for those who defy their fate." - Princess Tutu anime

Stay tuned.

2014 book party: ending the year on a more organized note

I am finally organizing my nonfiction.  This is much more intense than organizing fiction because I can't just put it all in alphabetical order by author.  I have to group things and then try to guess how my future self will search for them.  Where should the research books on pain go?  Next to the comedy books, of course.   

Philosophy - science - history - literature - aesthetics OR aesthetics-philosophy - science - history - literature?  (Actually aesthetics - philosophy - literature - history - science, in case you're curious.)   

Unread theology/philosophy next to general unread nonfiction?  Or should the read theology / philosophy go next to that?  Organized by last name?  Can't remember author names of some books.  Do those by title and mix in with authors I know.   

Separate narrative from essays / general nonfiction?   

All the poetry and books on writing go to the closet bookshelf in the library; they're hanging out with all the graphic novels and anime, so they're obviously having a good time.   

Why do I have two copies of Basic Theology?  

 Why on earth do I still have two racquetball books, and should they be moved to be with the comedy books at this point?   

And there is only one row tall enough for the big art books, so that throws everything off unless I remember what SIZE the book is.   

It's a really fun way to end a year, for sure: rediscovering the books I have yet to read and the ones I read and liked enough to keep.  And trying desperately to exert enough self control to finish organizing before settling down to drool over the Pre-Raphaelite art book or a beloved new Christmas book that is whispering my name . . .

Happy New Year a bit early.  I'll likely be asleep when the main event happens. : )

The wasp diaries, Conclusion/Epilogue

With the aid of some extremely toxic wasp killer, my painting, my broom, my shoe, and a lot of hands-shaking-in-mortal-fear that somehow did not manage to dislodge the damn wasp (thank goodness, but was it growing ROOTS or what?!), I almost killed it and then, like the coward I am, left it to suffocate and die in agony in the hallway while I ran into my room and locked the door. 

Yes, I did cry a few hysterical tears. 

No, I did NOT stuff anything under the gap in the door because even though my imagination gets a little feisty sometimes, I didn't really believe that it would claw it's way down 10 feet of hallway and into my apartment and then lie on the floor outside my bedroom door, stinger up, so that I would step on it with my bare feet in the morning. 

Yes, I did keep checking the hallway every time I absolutely had to use it to make sure the thing was 1) still there and 2) dead. 

Eventually, it was.  But I still couldn't bring myself to retrieve the corpse and flush it down the toilet.  Because of reasons.  That are not rational at all. 

THE END. 

For now . . .

5 more things I learned from NaNoWriMo 2012 (2)

1. Once-in-a-lifetime Studio Ghibli film on the big screen marathons make daily quotas difficult.
2. But not impossible over the course of a month so long as you don't get too far behind or let yourself give up after getting somewhat far behind.
3. Thanksgiving break can be a good time to catch up.
4. I have a lot more work to do if this raw material is even going to possibly reassemble itself into something novel-like for next November's draft.
5. There are enough things to write about that I should never run out of ideas for things to draft.

5 things I learned from NaNoWriMo 2012 (1)

1. If I wanted to know whether I'm capable of more sheer output (quality not considered) than I currently produce, the answer is YES.
2. Pre-planning or at least pre-drafting and free-writing are helpful.
3. They make the vomiting of draft material onto the page that much easier.
4. Maybe I should do my reading research in October.
5. Because for some reason it was hard to read as much as I wanted and write as much as I'd committed to on the same days in November.

good tragedy

I love a good (fictional) tragedy.  I've even been accused of liking them too much.  But I've realized something recently about my insistence on following a tragedy through to the bitter end: the reason I love tragedy is because I love redemption.

Unless you spoil the book for yourself, if it's well-written, you don't necessarily know whether it's going to end in tragedy or whether there will be some sort of successful attempt at redemption.  Many times, there's a crappy and unsatisfying happy ending that has nothing to do with redemption.  Sometimes I don't care because I want the happy ending. 

Other times, I feel cheated.  Why did I emotionally invest in this story and its characters if their ending was fake and unearned? 

Sometimes if it's just the ending that fails at redemption, I still like the story because the ending is not everything in a story, but I usually need some time to recover from the let-down of the ending before I can again think happy thoughts about the journey to the ending.

I can't tell you how much I love a solid ending that feels real and true, where the redemption is earned by blood, sweat, and tears.  Some call these endings bittersweet, and I like that idea.  The bitterness of the tragedy doesn't just go away, but all the sweetness in life is not lost.  Of course, technically it's not a tragedy if there's any sweetness to the ending (at least not classically speaking), but I have to say I would rather read The Sparrow than Hamlet or Oedipus Rex. 

I wonder if this is enough to get me kicked out of the Unofficial Society of People Who Have Studied Literary Fiction.

That said, I do love a good tragedy, too.  The sweetness of redemption might be sweeter if it's known that the tragedy of failure was a real possibility and a definite reality for other characters in other stories.  Maybe grace is amazing not only because of redemption but because not everyone experiences it.

Any thoughts?

When the storyline diverges

Did you ever read Dune by Frank Herbert?  It's kind of a sci-fi classic, but I never finished it.  I got stuck in the part where the main character started to see all these diverging futures, and it made him a little insane.  I can kind of understand that because I'm dealing with no more than three, and it's wearing me out.

In one most likely future, I stay here with my current job but purchase a decent condo or townhome to move into when my lease expires this summer.  (Other variations involve extending my lease 3-6 months and going after the perfect short sale home and possibly getting a roommate or subletting from someone else/moving in as someone else's roommate while looking for that short sale home, thus necessitating two moves in the space of a year, which is . . . problematic.)

In the other future, I get a job elsewhere, and I have to purchase a condo or townhome in another state to move into this summer at the same time as I start the new job.  House hunting from afar is . . . difficult.

The timing is bad/good because I think I'll likely end up moving at the same time either way, so there will definitely be packing, and I can get a head start on that.  See?  I can be positive!

The closer I get to the divergence, the more I feel like I'm living two lives.  I have to put all my eggs in both baskets because there will be serious repercussions and difficulties if I neglect one or the other.  I thought I was having enough trouble trying to fully commit to one life.

Well, Paul (if that was your name) I think with your tons of future vision diverging paths, you were entitled to a little bit of insanity.

Why writing memoir is hard

I really admire people who can pull off a successful memoir (success = skillful execution) because I don't know how they do it.  I am long-winded by nature (I think in multi-volume, epic plots and can't do much with short stories to save my life).  It is extremely difficult for me to figure out how to take, say, a 450 page spiritual autobiography and turn it into a svelte 200 page memoir. 

How do you know when to start?  How do you know what to cut? And most importantly, how do you know when to end it?

". . . You're searching, Joe,
For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings--there are no such things.
There are only middles."

-"In the Home Stretch" 

by Robert Frost

 

I read that and blessed dear departed Mr. Frost again.  He was amazing.  He puts things in words I've been wanting to say but can't until I stumble across a new (to me) poem.  Did he ever write a memoir?

Anyway, that quote explains the reason why it's so hard for me to write a good, succinct, complete memoir.  I don't feel like things ever end/stop in my life, and I'm not at the place yet where I can see enough of the bigger picture to see how to craft a stopping point that I am comfortable with (comfortable = no "if I leave that out, it feels dishonest" moments).  

 

I'm not sure where things begin, either, but that's a lesser concern because I feel like it's the ending I need to stick first.  All my other questions can be answered and addressed if only I know where the end is.  

 

Maybe this is some subtle form of procrastination, but I don't think so because anything that generates hundreds of pages is obviously not afraid to get work produced.  

 

Maybe this is why it's easier to write an autobiography when you are old (or have it written for you after you are dead).  Death is an ending it's hard to argue with.  However, I don't think it would solve the problem of knowing when to begin if you wanted a short work.  :)  Sigh.

Content to be in the middles, 

Tmia

To sequel or not to sequel: The Phantom Goes to New Jersey?

If you didn't know, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Phantom of the Opera now has a sequel. It's called Love Never Dies.

Since I've only ever heard the soundtrack out of order, I am not exactly certain what's going on with the story, but there is a son mentioned, and I find that icky. (Not the idea of children and stuff, but the indication is that this may not be Raoul and Christine's son, and I always kind of wanted her relationship with the Phantom to be 100% Platonic . . .)

I loved how the original ended. I just did. Now that there's an official sequel, that ending I love full of mysteries trailing off into imagination and delicious tragedy leads to somewhere I don't want it to go. Hrm. Irksome indeed.

What are your thoughts about sequels (in general or this one in particular)?

To kill or not to kill

I am being a big, huge coward right now.  I am not only not writing a story I really want to write but am actively avoiding even thinking about it because someone in the story does something that is worthy only of death, and I just don't want him to die. 

It's not that he doesn't deserve it, and it's not that I feel sorry for him.  He's an adult who made his own choices, and he chose to betray everyone who loved him.  I just feel bad for the people who must pass judgement on him.  They are the ones most cruelly betrayed because they really love him.  To ask them to condemn and execute him is really hard on me.  (It's like that bit in Barrayar.)  But coming up with any other outcome seems fake and forced and thoroughly unfair. 

He doesn't want pardon; he wanted to betray everyone and then die.  It's not that he hated them.  He was mostly trying to get back at someone else entirely, but he had to go through them.  He's consumed by bitterness.  His revenge plot was thwarted (yes, I think he was relieved about that, but despair can warp you).  You can't leave dynamite like that sitting around for so many reasons both general and specific.  The only appropriate ending in this fantasy world is death.

But I still want pardon, somehow, or mercy or grace that isn't forced but flows organically from the plot, the story, the characters, the world.

I really need to just start writing and see what happens, but I'm afraid I know how this ends.


Have you ever read a book like that, where you start liking people and suspecting that things just won't end well, and you drag your feet reading it?

Plotting from left field

I'm watching this show right now where the plot keeps twisting and turning.  There's a lot of conflict and fighting and philosophy and moral quandaries and horrible, awful tragedy.  The plotting is pretty brilliant.  Every so often, things start lining up so that you can see a future that doesn't involve characters dying horribly or living miserably.  Then, something screws it all up beyond repair, and things get worse. 

It's kind of brilliant but dangerous.  It has that feeling of thrill, like what you feel when you think it would be fun to run down a hill and realize part of the way down that gravity has taken over.  You want things to end well, but you don't know if they can (or if you can hold on until they do).

One reviewer mentioned that this tactic is dangerous because it can't be kept up indefinitely.  Maybe people will only watch until they think there's no more hope for anyone's happiness?  I guess it's different if you go in knowing it's all tragedy and that the ending will leave a lot of people crying, but many people won't even start a show like that because they don't like that feeling of hopelessness and fate/destiny.



What do you think?  Will you start a show or book if you don't know how things will end up in terms of tragedy? 

How to fail successfully (or, at least, artistically)

I have been thinking of how to tell the story of a failure with a happy ending.  I can think of all kinds of stories about those who start out winners, experience a period of being losers, then overcome that to become winners again.  I can think of plenty of stories about those who start out low and pull themselves up somehow and end up high.  I can't really think of any books where the protagonist keeps trying and failing that are ultimately uplifting and not cheesy and unrealistic.

Can you think of any?

It's true that I'm not very widely read, so maybe I've never come across anything that fits this description. It's also true that I have an extremely spotty memory that's getting worse the longer I go without good sleep, so maybe I have read some great examples and just can't remember them. 

Any help you can give would be appreciated on both a personal and artistic level.  :)

How to begin an ending

I just finished reading a fantasy series that was firmly grounded in the real world, and at the end, I was crying.  I'm pretty sure I wasn't crying just because it turned into an alternate history series. 

Alternate history "What ifs" are difficult to pull off, and I think maybe the twist shouldn't have worked in this particular case because the series was so well-grounded in the time period, and it used foreshadowing and built momentum for the inevitable ending so thoroughly that I should have felt let down when history changed, but I didn't.  Instead, I felt a keen sense of loss because the alternate history the books ended on didn't happen in the real world, and I wish it had.  I look forward to rereading the whole series knowing the ending to see if that changes how I read as I go along. 

Some books and series don't have much reread value once you know the end; others do.  Sometimes it's because the writing is so excellent, the ending didn't really matter that much.  Sometimes the characters are so great, you just want to spend time with them again.  Sometimes, though, you read because the momentum of the plot propels you toward the ending, and once you reach it, that's all.  Now you know what happened and can go on with your life.

I've been observing this as I'm trying to figure out how to start a particular story.  In the end, someone dies, but it's not the person you spend most of the book thinking it will be.  In most western (genre) fiction, spoiling the ending means saying who dies or who did it in the beginning.  If you know that, why read the book? 

I've heard and viewed and read alternate arguments about Japanese storytelling (novels, anime, manga).  Knowing what happens in the next episode or at the end of the book doesn't matter to them; it doesn't spoil things, necessarily.  How things lead up to it are equally if not more important. 

I've been considering starting the novel with the end, partly in deference to my sister, who wants to know who makes it to the end so she can avoid getting attached to those who don't, but partly because I don't want to be accused of one of those crappy twist endings that irritate modern readers so much.  Other people argue that if I tell it well enough, it shouldn't really BE a surprise, but since I'm the sort of reader who never thinks ahead to try to figure things out, I would be surprised unless I'm so obvious about it that it's lame.  Sigh.


So, any books you really liked reading but will never read again because you know the end?  Any that have particularly great reread value even if (maybe because) you know the end?