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Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting

Last night we had a massive ice storm, which caused us to cancel our weekend plans in Chicago with friends and family.  In the middle of the afternoon we lost power for about fifteen minutes.  Then again, around 4:30, the house went silent except for the sound of bits of ice hitting the walls and the occasional blast of wind.  Another fifteen minutes passed, then another, then another.

Without the ability to cook for ourselves, and still disappointed that we missed our evening out with friends, we decided to brave the elements and go out to dinner.  So many places were closed or without power that we ended up at a chain restaurant on the Coralville strip, which was packed with people in the same boat as we were.  Outside the ice turned to snow and started blowing harder and harder.

As dinner was winding down, a blue-green flash of light lit up the sky outside the restaurant.  Then another.  A loud exclamation of surprise and fright from the restaurant patrons followed each.  I told B it looked like the tripods were coming for us.

The undergrad girls next to us were freaking out, so I manufactured some b.s. about it looking like a transformer had gone down.  Oh, yes, I said, sounding completely knowledgeable, it looked the same as it had when the tornado hit in the spring.

Afterward we went back out into the weather and went home to the still-dark house, lighting candles and worrying how our eyesight would hold up if we tried to read in the dark.  But just as we settled in for a night trying not to freeze, the power came back on.

I was going to take pictures of the ice-covered trees and post them here, but this morning everything's melted except for the new layer of snow covering the daffodil shoots that had started to peek out of the ground after last week's heat wave.  I've decided that nature is a neurotic bitch, and I'm tired of cleaning up her messes.

What Kind of Poem are You?

Just for fun, I followed babelbabe's link and tried out the Poetry Personality Quiz.

It said I am a terza rima:

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile.
Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away
I let mine out, and chatter all the while.

I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day
Is any day that's spent without a friend,
With nothing much to do or hear or say.

I like to be with people, and depend
On company for being entertained;
Which seems a good solution, in the end.

I think I'm fairly offended by this.  I spend great swaths of my days alone and often  get cranky about people in general.  However, I am a bit of a chatterbox, I have to admit, since I just made my officemate late for class by complaining about how people who remember the good old days aren't old enough to remember that the days weren't that good.

If I would not be a terza rima, I would be a sonnet:

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled;
Not prone to overstated gushing praise
Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled
With overstretched opinions to rephrase;
But on the other hand, not fond of fools,
And thus, not fond of people, on the whole;
And holding to the sound and useful rules,
Not those that seek unjustified control.
I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least,
I think I am, and usually I'm right);
And when more ostentatious types have ceased,
I'm still around, and doing, still, alright.
In short, I'm calm and rational and stable -
Or, well, I am, as much as I am able.

Which is more like it.

Project--Ten Books That Break POV

So I'm teaching a course at the UCLA Online Extension this term in novel writing, and today's discussion of a student's work got me thinking about books that use both third and first person point of view to tell the story.  Rarely do you see a good one pull this off; the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Gina Frangello's My Sister's Continent.  In this case the third-person sections consist of the first-person narrator imagining what has happened to her twin sister, who has disappeared.  But as to others, I have to admit, I'm stumped.

So I thought I would ask you, dear lurkers, to de-lurk and tell me if you know of another one.  That doesn't suck.  If we can get ten I will be suitably impressed.

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

So a momentous thing occurred today: I finished my first new short story since I graduated from the Workshop nearly four years ago.

I don't consider myself a short story writer, because I recognize the brilliance of a good one and rarely see such brilliance in my own.  I'd rather honor the short story by not submitting my own sad little efforts in that arena to public scrutiny.

But this story was different.  It's only seven pages long, but a voicey, almost stream-of-consciousness thing shouldn't be too long anyway.  The character came to me during a particularly rotten patch with my novel, when I wanted to be writing something--anything--else.  But as much as I loved the character's voice, I couldn't think of an ending for the story until recently.

It's not "done" done, as I know there's something wrong with the ending, but at least now it has an ending.  I find revising a lot easier when I can see why my initial instincts were wrong.  And they're always, always wrong the first time.

The same goes for life, since tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  Like many women, my first love was a jackass, a deadbeat, an idiot.  I couldn't see how wrong he was for me until we were already "on the page."

The second time, at least, I got it right.

Thank God for revision, in all its various forms.

Overheard in Iowa: At Four a.m.

Me (after our lovely new weather radio, purchased after the tornado tore through our neighborhood, went off at 3:45 in the morning for a winter storm warning): You'd think the National Weather Service would realize some snow and ice aren't worth scaring the crap out of people in the middle of the night.

Brando: Yeah, there should be special settings--one for Nuisance and another for Imminent Death.

Lost City Radio

This week my friend and former classmate, Daniel Alarcon, releases his first novel, Lost City Radio.  Go out and get it, and then come back here and tell me how much you loved it, because you will.

Selling Ourselves

I haven't yet met a writer who has a streak of perfect luck when it comes to attendance at readings.  Every author has his or her own "empty room" reading story.  My own happened last July, on one of the hottest Saturdays of the year.  A small branch library in a large, wealthy Chicago suburb kindly set up an event for me, complete with books for sale from the local independent.  When the time came to read, though, there were only four people in attendance--my mom and dad, the lady from the bookstore with her wares, and one straggler who was enjoying the air conditioning.  I read one scene and got the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

The problem is that unless you're Stephen King or Nora Roberts, readings can be poorly attended events.  (If you're one of those rare creatures who has never read to a nearly empty room, however, don't post here.  I don't like you and, in the words of Anne Lamott, will wish for bad things to happen to you.)

Publishers know how hard it is to get people to come to readings.  The book tour is a dying phenomenon. 

For all these reasons, I love this idea.  A Tupperware party for books!  Why didn't anyone think of this before?