I’ve written enough today. At least 957 words of the batch were acceptable. The rest: piddle. No, I take that back; there were 47 words in the novel revision I liked, even if they were distributed among 670. Decided on a stylistic shift today, and doesn’t that just sound like the life of an Artist? I rose late, had a strong small cup of coffee, read the journals, took a walk, came home, stared out the window for a while, stared at the blank page on the screen, considered how Proust must have done the same – well, not with the screen part. But did he have a typewriter? Let’s check wikipedia. Eh, too long. Wonder what the Victor Hugo page looks like. Can’t remember much about Les Miserables, except that I read the entire thing in the 80s; there was a long section with Jean Valjean on a boat. Or building a ship. Something like that. It would be a short story today – man escapes, uses his credit card 100 miles away, gets picked up, case dismissed because he had no priors and the jails are full. There’s an idea for a story. Write that down.
It’s time for lunch! A fine morning so far. If anyone asks what I did, I can just say “studied Proust.” Walk to cafe, past the mimes and buskers and colorful painters who are daubing a local landmark on a canvas; sneer at the tourists. Have a lunch outside, read the journals, become incensed by a review of a book because you hate the reviewer, and he got the chance to publicly hate the book before you did. There are three kinds of writers – the Hacks who churn out dreck, the Heroes you admire and you are certain would admire you if they read your work, and the Goodbuts, who are your foes. They are just where you are in the world, and they have their claques and toadies and friends, and they infuriate you with their seemingly effortless talent and productivity. Yet they lack something you have, and you are certain this rankles them. They’re good. But. Oh, he’s good at the facile analogy, but lacks depth. He’s good at humor, but lacks social consciousness. He’s good at describing life in all its kaleidoscopic confusion, but lacks a coherent worldview. He’s good at seducing the ladies, but he keeps charming the ones I want. Well, that’s not a Goodbut, but it’s one of the reasons you hate his review. All that word play. A German pun, for God’s sake; is that what it’s come to? That’s what they go for nowadays?
Lunch spoiled, you consider going back home to work, but there’s something that seems so unimaginative and predictable about sitting at your desk at 1 PM, writing. That’s what people in offices do. Nothing that was ever worth reading was ever written at 1 PM. You’re sure of this. It has the ring of an aphorism; file it away, deploy when the moment’s right. Perhaps a walk through the museum, or the library, or a movie. They nourish the soul through the eyes, help you realize the importance of the visual. You should write a screenplay some day. It’s got to be easy – just dialogue, after all. None of that prose. People have no idea how hard descriptive prose can be. Each paragraph is like chipping away at a block of stone with a tiny chisel until you get to the pebble at the center of it, and that’s your period. Then you start all over again.
You end up at home playing the Xbox. Games are a form of art. You would have to be an idiot not to realize that.
At four the sun slants in a way that reminds you of college afternoons, but you can’t quite say why.
Nap.
The evening is a blur – friends came over, you went out, you came back, you looked at the screen with the blank sheet, and thought about what you wrote the day before. Notes on a scene about childhood. Innocence, fraught with imminence – that’s what the notes say. You think: it would work better if the recollection is written in the present tense. Yes. Absolutely. When I write it, it’ll be in the present tense.
Bed.
The next day at the cafe when someone asks how the novel’s going, you smile: I decided on a stylistic shift, you say. I really think it’s going to make for a better book.
It might at that, if you ever wrote it.
NOTE: this is not my day. I waste time in completely different matters. But I did decide on a stylistic shift, moving the novel from present tense to past. This is probably stupid, but it feels right. The first half of the novel – now finished – is pell-mell, one week in high gear that runs straight into a big WTF that throws everything into confusion. There’s a pivot point at the start of the second half, and what I’ve written transitions from present to past to lead to a moment where the story begins to concern what happened before. The triple-punch finale will be present tense.
I’m not only considering incorporating “Falling Up the Stairs” into the arc of the story, but an unpublished novel I dashed off in 1995. This project is turning into the Lord of the Rings of Minneapolis.
Otherwise, how are things? Don’t ask. Please. Maybe ask me tomorrow. Today chomped the wax tadpole hard. I have some more Minnesota Vacation book for you to enjoy – no comment, since there’s not much to say; the unspoken emanations of late-50s culture say what needs to be said. It’s HERE.
An excerpt:
Turns out she’s a midget, or a castaway in the land of Giant Benches:
Which leads me to something else . . . which I’ll get to tomorrow, since it deserves more than I can give the subject at the moment. The novel awaits. The characters are standing around, smoking, checking their watches, waiting for me to hand them some lines. That’s the Artist’s Life: standing at the kitchen table at midnight, all the day’s paying duties done, banging out the next thing. ART is not a bonfire you dance around; it’s an ember you blow on when you have the time.
And that assumes that what I’m doing is ART in the first place. It’s just a story.
But if you’re wondering whether the Joe Ohio world manages to intersect with these books . . .
Well, yes. Of course.
Pass it along, if you wish
27 Responses to A stylistic shift
Host with the Most
Thanks for showing up this morning. As I mentioned on twitter, I was afraid you’d fallen up the stairs. A day without the Bleat is like… a Saturday. Without cartoons.
@Dave: “woo woo woo HONK! taketa taketa taketa CRASHtinkle wa-wa-wa-wahhhhh
the day is complete.
Reading of your writing travails today, couldn’t help but think of this 1954 George Plimpton interview with Ernest Hemingway in “Paris Review.”
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4825/the-art-of-fiction-no-21-ernest-hemingway
Minnesota Vacation Fun: “Everybody shut-up. We’re goin’ to the open-pit mine, if you want to or not. It’s here in the book, so we’re goin’.” “Kids, please let your daddy drive.” “Aw, ma, do we have to go to the open-pit mine, do we???” “Hey, I wanna go to open-spit mine.” “Helen, can’t you keep the kids quiets?” “Well, OK, Mr. Life-Of-The-Party, you’re the one who wanted to drive 50 miles out of the way to some mine or something.”
The statue picture at the Capitol building in the MN guide. . .no comment.
Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?
James, have a madeleine and chill.
Bob
Oh, and she’s BLIND. That’s what makes it art.
Bob
Hacks, Heroes, and the Goodbuts WBAGNFARB. Or Google+ Circles. Hmmm.
Oops…
Oh boy! A strip mine! Let’s go, kids!
It’s wrong to be reading my mid-day Bleat whilst engaged in a Skype video meeting?
Right?
Ok, then I’ll do better…
Today’s Bleat reminds me of the great Robert Benchley’s “How to Get things Done”
http://hackvan.com/etext/how-to-get-things-done-despite-procrastination.txt
Excerpt:
Walk to cafe?? Your spot at the boomerang pattern formica counter is losing its groove.
@Juanito: No, it’s not wrong. What else are we supposed to do with all of this extra screen space we get with these consarned stretched monitors? It’s even better with dual monitors … :}
@Spud: send it to me. all I got are 4×3.
wifey won’t let me use the new 52 inch LCD HD as a monitor.
How’d she get up on that piling to go fishin’?
Maybe she swam out at high tide? “Hellllp. Somebody please help me. I can’t get dowwwnnnn ….
Minnesota vacation: go for the strip mine, stay for the crappie fishing
http://www.bassinonline.com/crp-index.asp
@spud
Trust me, monitor space isn’t an issue…
http://twitpic.com/2ky2oy
Am I the only one who is slightly creeped out by the changing banner pic? Yes, I know it’s OGH’s quiet joke. But it’s like one of those paintings in a horror story where the figures move when you’re not looking. Sort of spooky…
Or more likely, it’s just an over-active imagination on my part.
“Turns out she’s a midget, or a castaway in the land of Giant Benches:”
I looked at the picture three times before I saw the forced perspective at work– her shadow disappears behind the hillock on which the bench stands. That’s why she’s sitting on the ground: the bench is too far away and facing a tree.
You’ve missed the point on the photos. She’s obviously an Andrew Wyeth model.
Apropos of nothing, I was always good with dialogue and descriptive prose. I just could never put it all together to make an interesting story.
Maharincess: and after she gets a little tug on that line the next frame will be just a straw hat on a piling.
Pretty cool to be allowed to read the inner mutterings of a writer’s voice, even with the hiccups.
The banner is making me think of the Doctor Who eps with the stone angels, starting with “Blink” as I recall.
i know for a fact Minnesota is beautiful, I’ve been there. But I must say, this brochure portrays the most boring state I have ever seen. Whoever did it should be…well…no need…
That guy in the picture at the top of the page, the one with the two hot dames. He’d better be careful. Too much excitement might give him a heart attack.
If anyone asks what I did, I can just say “studied Proust.”
Stealing my pickup line, eh, Lileks?
Cad.
When did all the grad students start looking like they are thirteen years old? Perhaps I will bewilder them with my daring 2nd person narration . . .
“MN fishing fun”, forsooth–fishing for sailors during Fleet Week, maybe.
Actually, w/that get-up, she looks like a chorine in some “down on the farm” number from a ’50s MGM musical who got left behind when they wrapped the location shoot, & went back to the soundstages in LA.