Final NaNo Update

This was supposed to go up on the blog yesterday, but some time-bandits nabbed Camille and me and wooshed us off to Orlando to solve some problems and get some Christmas shopping done. So, blogging didn’t happen.

If we’re Facebook friends or you look at the full blog on a website you probably already noticed that I won NaNoWriMo. But here’s the “official” announcement.

I am a 2011 NaNoWriMo Winner

with a grand total of

50,406 words

Greetings from NaNoWriMo

I actually finished on November 27th. And then I didn’t know what to do with myself for a couple of days. I must be learning some really good habits from my friend Jenna because I already had my next goal lined up before I finished NaNo (reading 15 books before 12/31) so I didn’t lose too much time in my indecision.

I finished the fourth book I’ve read since I decided to do 15 so that leaves 11 in 31 days. The challenge comes in with the fact that I’m teaching LG updates the first three weekends of the month… so that will take up a lot of my time (preparing for it and such). But I think I’ll be able to swing it. I’m going by the library today to pick up a butt load of books and I’m really excited about it. I have 7 books waiting for me there and the one I bought from Inkwood a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, back to NaNo… Of course the most obvious question I get after telling people about doing it, or finishing is: when will I get to read it? And to most of those questions I kind of shrug, wince a little bit, and respond, “Never?” I mean it’s in a VERY ROUGH form at this point… the way they encourage you to keep up the word pace is to throw editing to the wind… and I mean, I wasn’t able to do that entirely… but I know there are inconsistencies and such in it that I need to work through.

However, I have decided to share at least one part of it that I wrote at the end. Writing the end was probably my favorite part of the whole process (not because it was almost over) but the last 10,000 words or so really started to become the thing that I wanted to write… and I realized I like to write these terribly sad things much more than anything else. One of the last nights I was writing I was actually in the living room by myself crying as I wrote. My poor main character had just found out that her best friend and boyfriend were in a car accident and as a result were in comas at the hospital. She didn’t know yet (I did) that one of them wasn’t going to ever wake up.

A couple of nights later my favorite part to write just sort of fell into my head as I was doing something else entirely. I sat down and about 4,000 words just poured out of me. That was a bizarre experience, let me tell you. I think that was the most in one sitting I had written during the whole thing.

So, once I do a little reworking of that section… make sure it makes sense to other humans beside myself I’ll plop it up here to share with you. Until then I’ll tell you about what I learned from NaNo. When I started I had no real idea what I would be doing. I had a vague plan of what I wanted to maybe happen other than just hitting that 50,000 word mark. And I didn’t think I would get too much valuable experience out of it. And boy did I underestimate that.

See, I’m generally crippled with fear. There are a lot of things that I just think I’m not good enough to do, so I never try. I wasn’t the most confident kid when I was younger and these pieces of my personality have morphed into a strange sort of adulthood for me. I’m still afraid to try things. And even when I switched to English as my major I never thought I’d write anything of note. I saw it as a way to be surrounded by things I enjoyed: reading and writing. And when people ask me what I want to do I tell them I want to own a bookstore, not that I want to be a writer. It’s hard for me to admit that. I read so many books and I suffer from an insane need to compare. I often think, “I will never write anything like that.” And thus I don’t even try.

I wasn’t even trying.

And then NaNo popped up and it seemed like just as good an idea as any and I learned that it’s okay to write a bunch of silliness I will probably never use for anything because it all chalks up to practice. And here I am with a bank of way over 50,000 words (including the blog and other projects I worked on during November) and I feel like I might actually get to the point where I can do this.

It reminds me of something I read once that Ray Bradbury said. He talked about his love of certain famous authors that came before him. He used to wander the stacks in the library and see great names like Dickens and Poe and Hemingway and think… if only I can run along like a lapdog to their fame then I will be happy. I’m trying to shift my thinking… I may never write the perfect great novel. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

So Personal Growth through NaNoWriMo for the win! And almost 1,000 words for you to read on this lovely Friday morning.

Peace.

birds & songs & thinking

I have a confession to make: I sort of miss non-fiction. I hated, loathed, detested, and abhorred non-fiction in high school. Then in college I started reading spiritual non-fiction; a little Rob Bell, a little Shane Claiborne, a little Erwin McManus. I was easily tricked into this genre because I was used to reading Bible Studies and, of course, my Bible. And then Into the Wild blew up (because of the movie) and John Krakauer entered my world.

I was a little behind. I’ll admit, but whenever I find something I enjoy I track down everything else that person has done and devour it. So, along with Ray Bradbury and Frank Delaney, I credit John Krakauer with giving me the courage to start telling stories. And I realized this morning as I began to process how I would review Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott that I miss reading non-fiction. The last non-fiction I read was Talking to Girls about Duran Duran back in May. It taught me a lot about 80s music and how being a teenager hasn’t really changed since the 80s. Actually, I take that back… I read Love Wins and reviewed it here.

Anyway, I’m in the mood for some non-fiction that will wrinkle my brain a bit – teach me some things about the current political environment or a certain demographic or challenge me spiritually. So, I’d appreciate any suggestions in that vein.

So, on to Imperfect Birds (in my head I keep thinking Delicate, Imperfect Birds which is a mash-up title with this short story). Imperfect Birds is a family drama by Anne Lamott. Wikipedia tells me that her novels often deal with the themes of being a single mother, alcoholism, depression, and Christianity. All of these things are present in Imperfect Birds with some teenage angst and drugs to boot.

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

Though I’d heard of Traveling Mercies (but never read it) Anne Lamott didn’t really enter my world until I saw this quote

Anne Lamott via www.goodmorningandgoodnight.com

I shared it on Facebook and then one of my friends whose opinion I respect said that she “love love love”d Anne Lamott. So I figured, what they hay, I’ll read me some Anne Lamott. And this was her most recent novel.

It’s sad. Which seems to be a theme in the world of Literature. And fresh off the heels of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which ends quite bitter-sweetly, I felt the weight of Imperfect Birds more than I was ready for. Also, it freaked me the geek out about the future of raising a teenager. (And maybe helped me understand, to a small degree, my mother’s concern about me being out late at night).

I would equate this reading experience to getting an unabridged view into your neighbors’ lives. It’s not fantastic. At points it was actually rather tedious. But there are moments of the fabulously mundane breaking through to reveal the deeper story. These cracks offer a glimpse of the story that is about more than an apparently sitcom-ready family. The stay-at-home mother is a recovering depressive alcoholic, the step-father feels detached because he was a late addition to the family, and the seemingly straight-A, successful student is actually addicted to a myriad of drugs and an expert liar.

I want to write something sort of like this. Not so real that people have no interest because it’s like looking in a mirror. But real in the sense that she collides spiritual thoughts and experiences with an otherwise fairly secular family. And without overt religiosity or Christianese she expresses the hope of redemption.

It ends on a hopeful note. The seeds of healing and truth planted. It’s a tired hope, though, because that sort of healing and truth takes so much work. I think reading this book is what has made me miss non-fiction so much. It felt so real, so heavy, that I figured if I’m going to read something like this it might as well have actually happened.

Maybe I’ll give A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius a second attempt. Or maybe I’ll just go throw a frisbee. Or obsessively check the weather. I mean take a look at this forecast:

the weather via www.weather.com

What are your plans for this strange Tuesday in the October of 2011?

Flashback – Dandelion Wine

It’s fitting that I’m reviewing this book today. It is, after all, officially Fall now. And though I know several of my friends greatly enjoy this time of year because it means that we can wear scarves and drink spiced hot drinks I find myself despondent over the close of Summer. I wish I had my own collection of Dandelion Wine stockpiled in the basement to keep away the Winter Blues. Little bottles of liquid sunshine; reminiscent of the bygone days of Summer.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

This is actually the first complete collection I read. It introduced me to a wonderfully “down-home” Bradbury. The premise of the collection is set in 1920s Green Town, Illinois and young Douglas Spaulding in particular. The name of the collection is described in Douglas’ words as: “Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered.”

It’s a beautiful, fantasy filled romp through the last days of childhood. And though the time period was some 80 years before I read it, I felt connected to the story. It brought me back to the year we lived behind my grandparents in a camper. We planted rows of vegetables that we ate almost straight out of the ground. We had a fire every night and roasted marshmallows quite often. My bed was the couch and we had a little barn storage unit that was our closet. We were right on the edge of the woods and every day I would sneak back there and try to walk around as quietly as possible. I also remember eating a lot of cornbread. I learned to drive the 3wheeler then. I know now that it was a rough spot financially for my family, but I loved every minute of it. It was like an adventure all the time. (And it could be why I’m fascinated by Airstreams and want to live in one).

This idyllic, rural setting pulled at me. I rediscovered some of the memories of my childhood. And vicariously experienced some of the more terrifying tropes that are popular in small town fiction. There is a dark scary ravine that shatters one child’s understanding of invincible parents. Much about the children’s lives hinge upon the availability of ice cream. There’s also a surreal element established by the technology of machines that are built or used in the town. Douglas and his brother Tom continually reveal a magical understanding of the world and occasionally older people in the town reinforce this idea (mostly their grandparents). The main element of the story is Douglas’s slow awakening toward adulthood. Some of the things he learns are too heavy for a child to be burdened with, and Bradbury saves him, but allows the reader to experience the sadness.

What sounds and smells pull you back into Summer? In Florida it’s virtually Summer year-round, but there are certain things that make it clear that the freedom of Summer is actually upon us. What’s your favourite part?

Dandelion Wine is packed to the brim with nostalgia, melancholy, and wonder all wrapped up in vividly developed characters and a realistic setting. Several of Bradbury’s other collections revisit Douglas and Green Town. There’s even a sequel: Farewell to Summer. As with any Bradbury novel Dandelion Wine met with some harsh criticism. However, it completely captured my imagination.

I believe reading Bradbury has taught me the most about being a writer. He opened my eyes to the fact that you can learn to be a writer by reading other writers. I do not mean copying those authors you admire, rather reading them in order to discover the elements that make a story click together. That’s at least what I think I’ve been learning. It is definitely a major motivation in reading all that I read.

The week of Bradbury has finally concluded, I believe. I can’t promise I won’t talk about him again. But I’ll try to let enough time pass. I’m off now to listen to my new Thrice album and keep people safe as they swim. You enjoy your Friday. And maybe check out the Marksmen show tonight. That is, if you enjoy good music.

Cheers!

Flashback – The Martian Chronicles

The first official day of fall is not until September 23rd so I find myself in a dilemma. Most of my “book reviews” have gone up under a Summer Reading heading. Now I’m curious if I should immediately switch to a General Reading sort of heading as soon as the 23rd hits or still categorize everything I’ve finished before Sept. 23rd as Summer Reading. Ah, the bothersome details of the life of a blogger. These are things you probably don’t even notice about the posts’ categories. Oh well. If you have any sort of feedback, feel free to share. For now I’m going to discuss another book I read a few years ago.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Let’s take a gander at that beautiful artwork, shall we?

1984 Grand Master Series Edition

If you click that picture it takes you to a pretty cool post showing the evolution of the cover art from its original publication date of 1950 until 2009. The 1984 version is pretty much my favourite. There’s also a graphic novel version of this collection.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: The Authorized Adaptation by Dennis Calero

I only just discovered this version. I may look into it a bit further since I do love this collection so much. Earlier this summer I made a foray into the world of Graphic Novels (which made Pam pretty excited) and I have a bit more patience for them than I did before. I’m a fan of the sedate in my entertainment.

Anyway, now that I’ve given you about five billion pictures to look at let’s talk about the collection. Hmm, where to start? Okay, I’ll be honest I most assuredly did not want to read this book when it was first suggested to me. I even went so far as to read just the first short story and half of the second and claim I didn’t like it. Accordingly I gave it back to the friend who let me borrow it and attempted to distract her from her Bradbury conversion of my imagination. (Turns out my kryptonite was Dandelion Wine). Once I read DW I decided to give The Martian Chronicles another go. I’m so glad I did.

Here are the things I love the most about The Martian Chronicles in no particular order

1. It is unapologetically frank about human nature, specifically our tendency to destroy almost everything we come in contact with. Granted, I believe that the created universe is naturally in a state of decline with or without humanity’s intentional help. However, this book takes some of the lessons learned by great explorers of Earth’s history (Columbus, Vespucci, Marco Polo, etc) and provides quite literally an alien landscape that makes the “history lesson” palatable.

2. Sort of continuing on that theme Bradbury does not assume that the future propels humanity into either Brave New World extremism or conversely, the horror of 1984. He treats the future as though it will be pretty much typical of 1950s America. The man is 91 years old and I don’t know what fortune-telling witch he met as a child, but he is for the most part correct. (More so than say, Zemeckis. Regardless, I still expect a hoverboard in four years). In The Martian Chronicles he acts as though racial tension and Communism will still be the major threats of the everyday American’s reality.

3. Perhaps my favourite stand-alone short story of Bradbury’s belongs to this collection. It’s called “Night Meeting”. I wrote about it a little over a year ago here. I think it is my favourite because it deals with the fickle nature of time. Time is one of those things that completely fogs up my brain. I just don’t understand it in a broad sense. I understand how the day to day stuff works. But anything outside of my limited perception? No way, dude. It’s just too big a thing for me to really understand. Too many grey lines. Too many things humans just can’t quite figure out. I love what Bradbury did with this short story. It reminds us that even the vivid civilization right in front of us is a fleeting one in History’s scope.

I could go on and on forever about this collection. Chances are, if you know me in real life, or work with me, at some point I have gone off on some tangential Bradbury monologue and The Martian Chronicles featured heavily. For some more basic information you can read about the book here. I most definitely endorse this collection. Read it. You won’t regret it. I plan on using it to trick any possible future sons I have into loving to read.

On a related note one of Bradbury’s space themed short stories “The Long Rain” (which is actually in The Illustrated Man) is about an attempt to colonize Venus after the colonization of Mars. It’s pretty bleak. But again, fascinating. And reminded me a bit of the torrential rains we deal with here in Florida sometimes.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by too much Bradbury, never fear. Tomorrow will be all about puppies. Maybe.

Cheers!

Flashback – The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

I would be hard pressed to tell you which of the three collections I’ll talk about this week is my favourite collection. But The Illustrated Man does sell itself hard. The premise for the story itself is fascinating to me. Several of the short stories in the collection appear in other collections as well. So when I read The Illustrated Man it felt odd to recognize them. However, given the new premise for the collection I felt as though I was given an opportunity to read them for the first time all over again.

In this collection the “main character” traveling one night comes across a man tattooed completely from head to foot. There is only one space on his back that is not filled in with ink. It supposedly tells the future.

The unnamed narrator looks at all of the Man’s tattoos and the reader gets to vicariously experience some of Bradbury’s most imaginative stories. “The Veldt” gives me chills to this day. “The Fox and the Forest” has a great Hemingway sort of feel to it. “The Exiles” breathes life into some of Literature’s most beloved characters (and some of Bradbury’s favourite authors). Can you tell that I was completely fascinated by this collection? I absolutely loved it.

Apparently Bradbury received mixed reviews for the framing and the collection of the stories. However, I found them wonderful. Each story chosen demonstrates Bradbury’s ability to span genres, to make the future appear acceptably foreign yet relatable as it actually is, and completely creep the reader out. They are parts horror, fantasy, science fiction, and parable. Wonderful fodder for the imagination. Reading something by Bradbury puts me on a high for several days.

You can read a bit more about the collection here. Now, this book was made into a movie which I attempted to watch once. But it was filmed in 1969 and had far too much brown in the scenery. I didn’t make it much past the first five minutes or so. However I’d like to give it another go and since I’m keeping my Netflix/Qwikster account I’m sure that will be possible. Plus this poster is really freaking cool.

The Illustrated Man, the movie

  Tomorrow we’ll talk about the second collection I read: The Martian Chronicles.

Summer Reading – Short Stories by Ben Loory

Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory

I found a review of this collection on Goodreads ; there were some vague references to Ray Bradbury and that was enough to pique (I always accidentally say this word as “pee-kew” instead of peak) my interest.

I became a fan of short stories about three years ago when I first came across Dandelion Wine and The Martian Chronicles. Discovering Bradbury’s collections are what spurred me on to attempt some writing of my own moreso than anyone else I’ve read. It was after reading “The Veldt”, “There Will Come Soft Rains”, “The Fog Horn”, and the list could go on forever I realized that being a “real writer” didn’t mean only churning out Dead Russian-sized perfect novels. It was liberating to experience a complete story encapsulated in such a small package.

It’s been a good year for short story cycles. First there was James Franco’s Palo Alto: Stories which I reviewed here. And then this collection jumped across my radar and I flipped.

Readers, meet Ben Loory. A man who has written a little bit of everything in almost every genre that counts. Mostly short stories from what I’ve seen so far. And it’s obvious that this dude was paying some sort of homage to Bradbury. Loory’s collection features angsty teenaged extra terrestrials, man’s search for meaning in an alienating environment as well as giving face to some of the things modern man fears the most: chaos.

I greatly enjoyed his short stories. One of my favourites was about a man who experiences a great adventure when he illegally gets his hands on a medieval sword. The rest of his life is spent pining after that experience and he loses his wife, his friends, and eventually his sanity.

Another that stood out greatly to me featured a skeptical man desperately trying to understand God. His story does not end happily either.

It’s a tragically sad collection. Only a few of the stories have what you could typically call a “happy ending”. Which might be why I enjoyed the collection so much. It’s nostalgic in a way that makes you wonder at the plausibility of nostalgia. The stories are rife with a realistic magic that’s not interested in making the main characters happy. It made me think of a child approaching the world with wide eyes, only to discover that the paint has faded, and what looked fabulous only seconds before has turned into some drab sideshow. You can read one of his stories called “Bigfoot” here.

I wholeheartedly endorse this book. Especially if you feel as though you don’t have time to read. A collection of short stories is a great way to get back into the swing of things. They’re sort of connected, usually by theme rather than characters, and broken down into bite-sized chunks perfect for a half hour’s rest.

Again I apologize about yesterday. Look forward to my unabashed celebration of Ray Bradbury’s career tomorrow.

Cheers!

Another Reason I Love Ray Bradbury

“America” by Ray Bradbury

America: an ode to immigrants

We are the dream that other people dream.

The land where other people land.

When late at night

They think on flight

And, flying, here arrive

Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.

Refuse to see

We be what all the world would like to be.

Because we have within this scheme

The obvious dream blind to us.

We do not mind the miracle we are,

So stop our mouths with curses.

While all the world rehearses

Coming here to stay.

We busily make plans to go away.

How dumb! newcomers cry, arrived from Chad.

You’re mad! Iraqis shout.

We’d sell our souls if we could be you.

How come you cannot see the way we see you?

You tread a freedom forest as you please

But, damn! You miss the forest for the trees.

Ten thousand wanderers a week

Engulf your shore,

You wonder what their shouting’s for,

And why so glad?

Run warm those souls: America is  abd?

Sit down, stare their faces, see!

You’d be the hoped-for thing a hopeless world would be.

In tides of immigrants that this year flow

You still remain the beckoning hearth they’d know

In midnight beds with blueprint, plan & scheme

You are the dream that other people dream.

Happy 4th of July. Let’s keep America that hoped-for thing

Ghost Road

There’s a story I read once in The Martian Chronicles that Ray Bradbury wrote. A short story set on Mars that deals with ghosts. The beauty of this collection of short stories is that none of them actually feed into each other, making them different than chapters in books, yet they do sort of build on each other. So, before this story happens Man from Earth has sent several groups of astronauts to Mars. In all their expeditions the men either go crazy or are murdered by the Martians. By the time the third group of explorer-astronauts arrive the Martians are extinct. I believe it was some sort of virus that wiped them out.
So, man conquers Mars, builds his own empire from the ruins of theirs. The Martians civilization centered around the beautiful flowing waters that ran through their cities. They had almost a Venetian look to them. By the time Man enters the scene the waters are dried up and gone. Mars is desolate. Soon, regular people from Earth come to settle on Mars because Earth is over-crowded and polluted.
Thus our story begins with a man driving on one of the ancient highways on Mars. He’s speeding through the desert late at night, not expecting to come across anyone else. I imagine in my mind Highway 50, which my friend Adam told me is called the Loneliest Road in America. The sort of highway you pick up phantom radio signals from 50 years ago when you’re driving in the middle of the night. I think that’s what Bradbury might have been inspired by.
So, this man driving along meets two other headlights coming toward him. Intrigued by this he pulls over and waits for them. The other pair continue toward him and as they approach he sees a vehicle completely alien to him. Out steps one of the extinct Martians. They are both confused by the sight of the other. In the distance the Man sees the ruins of a great city; the Martian sees it lit up and beautiful, waiting for his arrival and a celebration. They talk, the Man tells the Martian he must be a ghost because his kind no longer exist. The Martian tells the Man that cannot be possible, he remembers hearing ancient stories of men who came from another place.
An ordinary timeline is set on it’s ear. At the conclusion of the short story one is uncertain of who is actually the ghost. It’s one of those concepts that adds more wrinkles to your brain.
I remembered this story today as I was driving. My little sister in the passenger seat was playing DJ and she picked Dashboard Confessional’s “Hands Down” right as we started driving on Bayshore Boulevard. For almost four years I travelled down this Boulevard on an almost daily basis. This was a few years ago now, so almost every time I drive on it now I’m overcome with nostalgia. But, this time, the feeling was very much more intense. You see “Hands Down” was on one of the few CDs I had when I started driving, so it got a lot of airtime. As we rounded the curves this morning I almost caught sight of a green VW Jetta in my blind spot, windows down and sunroof open, housing a girl a few years younger, totally alive in that song. Or in front of me I could see a beat up BMW, hand out the driver’s side window bobbing in the air current with the song. I drove alongside the ghosts of myself. This girl, unsure of the next few years, but loving this drive, hugging the curves of the boulevard with her German-made, tight suspension. Did she come before me, or will she come after me? I feel like, had we three had our own roadside chat, we would dispute the timeline. I know 17 and 20 come before 23, but as I get older the things that were the truest about my 17 and 20 year old self become obvious to me as the things truest about myself now.
I feel as though I’m always writing the same story. One that leads back to where it started. But life sort of flows like that doesn’t it? It’s the sensation you get when you visit someplace totally new, that you’ve been there before; that gas station looks the same, that street corner echoes another. Pieces of the familiar spring up and surprise you, make you feel a little more secure. bring peace.