Bliss
Posted on | June 20, 2007 |
Have I mentioned that I’m having a divine time? I sat for three hours and wrote this afternoon after receiving brilliant criticism on the piece I am working on. I went to the beach yesterday, with a picnic: spicy fried chicken, pot stickers, salad, grapefruit soda, and a coconut & chocolate chip cookie. Then I watched the sun set over the water.
I heard Maxine Kumin read from her work, and oh, how my breath was lost somewhere as she read, like the flight of birds.
And I went to dinner with Pam and the class tonight. She is charismatic and analytical and forthright. She’s been in the Bronco’s locker room and interviewed Toni Morrison, and she can make a room of people laugh belly laughs repeatedly.
Here are a few things she’s said so far this week that I really want to remember:
On why she writes: “Writing is the way I honor the physical world. I think of it as a kind of prayer.”
On craft: “Sink the story into the metaphor. The challenge is how to sidle up next to the big things without becoming lecturers and making total fools out of ourselves.”¯
“There is nothing worse than trying to say something. You’ll always fuck it up. Keep it concrete.”
“You don’t have to tell everything. Let the concrete specifics stand in for the general.”
You cannot communicate depth using emotion word. ”Just read your seventh grade journal to see that!”
On Revising: by the fourth draft, “take out the things you needed to say to know, but now they can be removed.”
On fiction versus nonfiction: “Everything I write comes out of my experience. I hardly imagine anything.”
Do you know how freeing that was for me to hear? Do you understand how those few sentences made lots of things possible for me with writing, that I hadn’t imagined possible?
On audience; “You must believe your reader is as smart as you are.”¯
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June 21st, 2007 @ 12:42 am
Writing- release
One physical detail- hot coffee and a tori amos serenade before I go school(not really one, but….)
Movie and why- Breakfast at Tiffany’s … because it in itself is an excellent cure or salve for the mean reds.
Thanks for sharing your writing workshop experience… it has been fun reading and writing… I am living vicariously through your summer holiday as I am in the UK this year and I have to teach until the 21st of july….
jen
June 21st, 2007 @ 12:48 am
Writing = truth
One physical detail = In the evenings, the green smell of tomatoes evaporates the list in my head of work-like things to do.
Movie and why = The Chorus (Les Choristes) because the music is beyond beautiful, the story is poignant and heartbreaking and uplifting all at the same time, the characterization is intense, and it makes me think of my mother and all her efforts to teach children to sing.
June 21st, 2007 @ 12:57 am
Writing: flight
Physical: chaotic (like wildflowers)
Movie: In America
Why do their comments survive and mine don’t?
June 21st, 2007 @ 1:39 am
writing - it’s the answer to all the questions I have
physical - blister under my foot from wearing new sandals to the outdoor Elton John concert last night
movie - La Noiseuse. 4 hours of a man painting a woman, in French. Breathtaking.
June 21st, 2007 @ 7:35 am
writing- honouring
physical - need to stop holding on so tight.
Movie - Spirited away because it had so many unexpected corners filled with sudden oh my god that is beautiful details.
June 21st, 2007 @ 7:36 am
writing- honouring
physical - need to stop holding on so tight.
Movie - Spirited away because it had so many unexpected corners filled with sudden oh my god that is beautiful details.
June 21st, 2007 @ 7:50 am
writing - nourishment
physical - custard soaked french bread
film - Le Papillon (2002); because words were not wasted and the cinematography was magical (plus I’m a suckef for butterflies and wise older men)
June 21st, 2007 @ 9:07 am
writing= searching
physical= the huge bump on my right middle finger from holding a Sharpie or penicl for hours
movie= lately i can’t stop thinking about Capote- so moving and engaging
June 21st, 2007 @ 10:45 am
Writing: Outlet
Physical: Interrupted (constantly)
Movie: I haven’t seen many since I had kids….I usually go to movies for an escape from my own life, and to laugh….I can’t seem to think of any that really touched me.
June 21st, 2007 @ 11:11 am
writing = release
physical = short nails from all the bitting
film = pride & prejudice (the newer one) because so much is said in the silent pauses… the non-verbal communication makes my heart pound (like the shot of his hand, squeezing his fingers tight, right after she had gently brushed it against hers WOW)
June 21st, 2007 @ 11:32 am
writing = memory
physical = perched on the lintel to our balcony, surrounded by summer flowers while a rainstorm breaks overhead
film = dazed and confused. the short scenes, going nearly no where, are beautiful in their choreography
June 21st, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
writing = cathartic
physical = at the edge of a cliff … ready to jump
movie = I don’t have one right off the top of my head that sums me up … the last one I saw was The Holiday - a silly, girly escape that made me laugh after weeks of tears.
June 21st, 2007 @ 8:28 pm
writing= breath
physical= an amber dragonfly riding my slipstream while on my bike coming home from work.
movie=it changes, but for now “Stranger than Fiction”, so sweet and creative
June 22nd, 2007 @ 10:08 am
Life’s gotten in the way of blogging for me lately…good to catch up here. Pam Houston is one of my all-time favorites..went to a tea years ago in Marin where she read…saw her read at a bookstore around the corner last year (she teaches here). Sounds like you’re having a moving and inspiring time. Okay, your questions…
writing = knowing
physical = feeling 10 years old zipping around on my 30-year-old Schwinn
movie = “lost in translation” - the scene at the end when he whispers something in her ear as she’s crying…i lose it every time…reminds me of saying goodbye to the person i thought at the time was my soulmate when he moved to London…
June 22nd, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Huzzah!
I’m going to reconstruct, for the third time, my earlier post as the other two are lost (though the second was emailed, and I know I really need to let it go and get theeself to bed, but I really loved this post and really feel I need to say these things for others to see too).
First: Love Maxine Kumin. She’s one of my absolute, top ten, love love love her poets. She came to my university for a poetry conference, and I loved just listening to her speak of the act of writing poetry, of being a poet. She’s wonderful.
Second: Eep, with Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Russo, Alice Munro on your list… such a rich, rich reading list. I love it when I am with fellow writers and I find myself jotting down ideas, quotes, recommendations in the margins.
Writing: flight
Physical: cluttered, chaotic (like wildflowers)
June 22nd, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Huzzah!
I’m going to reconstruct, for the third time, my earlier post as the other two are lost (though the second was emailed, and I know I really need to let it go and get theeself to bed, but I really loved this post and really feel I need to say these things for others to see too).
First: Love Maxine Kumin. She’s one of my absolute, top ten, love love love her poets. She came to my university for a poetry conference, and I loved just listening to her speak of the act of writing poetry, of being a poet. She’s wonderful.
Second: Eep, with Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Russo, Alice Munro on your list… such a rich, rich reading list. I love it when I am with fellow writers and I find myself jotting down ideas, quotes, recommendations in the margins.
Writing: flight
Physical: cluttered, chaotic (like wildflowers)
June 23rd, 2007 @ 9:33 pm
What great quotes you have here. I’ll have to read them again slowly, but they make us move forward in our writing. My manuscript (novel set in Fiji) is with a publisher and he’s reading it for the second time, so I am hoping it can move forward.
w.
June 24th, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
writing: remembering
physical: finding love
movie: her majesty (it’s a movie that takes place in new zealand 1953 and is inspired by a true story of a young girl called elizabeth who is obsessed with the queen of england, also named elizabeth. when elizabeth learns that the queen of england is to visit new zealand she begins a letter writing campaign to persuade her majesty to come to her home town opening up dialogue of characters as well as endearing themes).
June 26th, 2007 @ 11:42 am
what writing means to me: synthesis
concrete physical detail about my daily life:
In the morning before I am even awake the color and position of sunrise light upon my walls reminds me what season it is
film I like & why:
Dead Man
Because it is a metaphor for one man’s passage as well as the morality of the industrial age, and because it so beautifully presents defects in the Myth of frontier, newness, the mythology that humans are separate from one another or separate from nature
June 26th, 2007 @ 11:55 am
Writing - Freedom
Physical - Stifling
Movie - Notting Hill
June 26th, 2007 @ 11:55 am
Writing - Freedom
Physical - Stifling
Movie - Notting Hill
July 7th, 2007 @ 12:00 am
and i thought you might like this:
i was in the audience of mary oliver not long ago and I asked her how much she tinkers with her work. She said each poem goes through 30-40 drafts before it’s done. Even then, she said, when she’s reading from one of her books, she often omits words which she wished she had taken out, words which still drive her nuts. I loved that, made me feel much, much better.
July 7th, 2007 @ 12:01 am
and i thought you might like this:
i was in the audience of mary oliver not long ago and I asked her how much she tinkers with her work. She said each poem goes through 30-40 drafts before it’s done. Even then, she said, when she’s reading from one of her books, she often omits words which she wished she had taken out, words which still drive her nuts. I loved that, made me feel much, much better.