New Website and Blog

Hi there.  Sorry for the absence.  Life with a small child restricts my time so much that only the necessities get my attention.  I’m in the process of launching a new website and blog called Everyday Curiosities. I’m writing on reading, writing, running, cooking and health, and more, as well as compiling resources on those topics.  Please follow me there!

Overload and Overhaul

For months now I’ve been trying to find a way to overhaul this blog.  It’s not serving the purpose that it was when I started it in 2008, so I’ve been trying to figure out where blogging fits in with my life right now.

Some say blogs should have a clear focus and a narrow subject.  Running blogs work well.  The personal blog is great for friends and people with similar interests.  I read literary blogs for obvious reasons.  But I like a variety of things.

So I think I’ll change up the categories, pick four or five subjects and stick to those.  The blog will include the things that interest me most, but it won’t be a strictly one-subject blog.

The last few weeks I’ve been trying to limit my internet time because it’s like an addiction.  But I need a way to keep up with my favorite sites without wasting time.

I’ve had about a zillion things on my mind these days and I hope to write some narrative posts in the near future.  I ran my third half marathon yesterday, the first one in almost three years, the first postpartum.  Then my cat went away this morning.  I can’t bear to write the actual words.  The grief has thrown off my week, and there are several deadlines I need to meet.  So that’s that, I guess.

Who Me? (Creative Contribution and Salinger)

John Fox of BookFox has presented perhaps the most interesting and intelligent thought to come out of the responses to Salinger’s death.

For any of us who have ever wondered “Who am I to think I have something to say/contribute?” he offers a perspective that not only grants permission to create but also asserts that it’s your duty.  I’ve often thought maybe I’m narcissistic to think anyone would ever want to read something I’ve written.  That kind of thinking only gets in the way of the creative process and production.  In the past I’ve agreed with Flannery O’Connor that writing programs might encourage too many people, which just sounds awful, but a lot of people don’t take writing seriously enough and then think that they can and even deserve to be published.  Case in point:  people who say they like to write but never read.

But that’s veering off into tangent-land.  Consider this:

…art kept only for oneself is selfish. As human beings, we don’t exist in a vacuum, we exist in communities and societies that rightfully demand dues. It’s not an option to give those dues, it’s a duty.

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered that perspective, but I think I wholeheartedly agree.  It turns art into an enterprise focused on other people, on communication and connection, instead of turning inward, hoarding, and cutting oneself off from society/community.  Then one’s art is not about how talented the person it but rather what the art can say and how it can connect people.

It does remind me of the biblical idea that God entrusts everyone gifts/talents that should not be squandered.

So, I say, take this as license to go out there, work hard, hone your talent, and give back to your community!

Point Omega

Hopefully Don DeLillo’s upcoming book is better than Falling Man.  I’m still excited.  Read about it here and check out an excerpt here.  Read a recent short story here.  If I haven’t already, I highly urge you to get your hands on a copy of Underworld.  If you’re daunted by the size of the book and would rather start with something smaller, try Libra.  I think White Noise is taught in a lot of college English survey courses, so most young people are familiar with that book, and while it’s good, too, Underworld and Libra are my favorites.  I had the wonderful opportunity to take a seminar course in college with a brilliant professor who has written about DeLillo and other postmodern authors, so if you like literary theory and/or philosophy, I’d suggest reading Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation alongside Underworld.  (Just writing about it makes me want to pull it off the shelf, reread it, and then reread DeLillo’s books.)

Year in Review

The great thing about the changing of the years is the opportunity to look back at the old and forward toward the new.  I love reading reviews from other people and especially reviews of the year’s reading.

All of my post-college years have been full of transition and this one was no different:  family expansion, a move, job upheavals, church stuff, and so on.

Our son

We told our family and friends we were expecting a little person. Our insurance finally cooperated and we were able to receive care from midwives and deliver at a birth center.  Brennan was born.  He’s been healthy and more than we could have ever expected.  We’ve had to adjust to parenthood.  I’ve never had a truly life-changing event until his birth.  Sure, other things have affected me and certainly changed my life, but not in the same way.

Moving

We moved to a different apartment within the same city.  We thought we were getting a great deal:  a large, two-bedroom by some lakes, just minutes from downtown, close to the trails in the foothills, all for $150 a month less than our previous one-bedroom.  But no.  Let’s see:  terrible communication and property management, though it’s the same company that managed our other apartment; stolen car right from the parking lot; four or five hours locked outside with a newborn in the dark and cold with no way to get in; the smell of smoke inside our apartment; a zillion annoying things that go along with an old building.  Needless to say, we will not renew our lease.

Church

We tried a different church for a while, then another, though Ryan’s ever-changing work schedule coupled with just one car has made attendance and involvement in any church nearly impossible.  I mourned the loss of a church (same church, different direction) I had attended and started to get involved in for a few years after college.  I’ve had my same restlessness with every church we’ve tried.

Running

Ryan ran his first marathon.  I got to be excited for and slightly jealous of him.  I ran slowly through pregnancy, took the requisite six week layoff after childbirth, started up slowly, and finished off the year with a ten mile run.  It felt like forever until I could run normally again, and, though my pace is still slow, I’m back to 25 miles a week and hope to get that up in preparation for a fall 2010 marathon.

Writing

I picked up some new freelance work and have started to find my stride with that.  I took some great short story workshops and now have a handful of rough drafts to work with.  I brushed up on the basics of fiction writing and filled in some gaps from my undergraduate workshops.  I had planned to apply to MFA programs but at the last minute decided it wasn’t the right time (again), and so maybe I won’t get my MFA just yet, or ever, but I’m okay with that for now.  There’s a great writing community in Denver and that’s enough for me right now.

2010

I have high hopes for 2010.  It seems like the first year to really settle into living and adjust without too many transitions.  Ryan will probably (hopefully) have a new job with regular and/or normal hours, and we don’t know where we’ll live come March, but wherever we land, I’m confident it will be good.

This will be the year of running for me.  I hope to PR in several distances since my current ones are so old (5k-2003, 10k-2007, half marathon-2007).  I hope to stay injury-free and run several half marathons and my first marathon.  Most importantly, this year I plan to run consistently.  None of this good week, bad week, seven days in a row, seven days off nonsense.

I’m nervous about writing for 2010, but I think once I get going, I’ll be fine.  I want to polish some stories and send them off to journals, but my fear of failure and perfectionist tendencies might get in the way.  I hope to build on past freelance work and figure out the right rhythm for working at home with a child.  When we can afford it again, I’d like to take more workshops.  Oh, and I’ve noticed how much my grammar lags now that I don’t proofread full-time.  I definitely hope to brush up on the basics and really master the rules.

My reading slowed this year, so I’m excited to pick up the pace and read more intentionally in 2010 with the 52 book challenge.

Living in Lakewood has isolated us from most of our friends, so I hope in 2010, wherever we live, to make a better effort with friendships.  I feel like jumping on the parenthood boat has put us in a different place than 95% of people we know, but I don’t see why I can’t salvage and rebuild connections.

We tried a new (for us and for them) church this month, and I think it might be a place we can stay and plant roots.

And, of course, there will be plenty of family time, I hope.  The word family has new meaning now, even though I still feel like a child myself.  If the pace slows a bit for us, it’ll be a good time to focus on marriage and to learn more about how to raise a son.

So, I suppose that was not as short as I anticipated, but there you have.  I hope 2010 brings everyone great things.

Neglected Blog

How I’ve neglected this blog lately.  I hope to post more regularly in 2010.

For now, take a look at this challenge and consider joining the fun.

NaNoWrimo 2009

For some reason, November rolls around each year and I can’t resist.  Of the many years I’ve attempted the 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month, I only succeeded in 2007.  I hated what I wrote so much that I’ve never looked at it since.  Sure, the idea of NaNoWriMo is to write a quick draft, a bad draft, anything to get the words on the page.  Edit later.  However, I actually care about the quality of what I write, and would like to go through all the drafts it takes to finish a book one of these days.  That’s never going to happen if I don’t like what I’m writing.  There has to be some kind of standard for the first draft.

So I thought NaNoWriMo didn’t suit my writing habits.  I was going to focus on revising one of my short stories right now.  But I got pulled in to the excitement.  I started writing something completely different.  I don’t know if I’ll finish this year or if I’ll like what I write, but I’m hoping at the very least to establish a new routine, to figure out how to make use of the spare moments in my day.

For those of you who are procrastinating, check out this Colson Whitehead essay about the novel.

This video with Ira Glass is also fitting, not to mention inspirational.

Freelance Reminder

It helps one to remember freelance basics.  Here’s a list from Mike.

 

Look for a post soon about the weekend with Lorrie Moore!

Year End Reading

I don’t know how my experience compares, but the first weeks of motherhood just doesn’t allow for much time or mental capacity to read.  I’ve barely read a word since August.  When I realized I had read at least one book a month for the last three years, and that I was in danger of not finishing one for September, I pushed through to finish Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs.  Not exactly the way to read a book by a phenomenal author, especially when said author had not published one in over 10 years.

So I’ve realized I better make an effort to read and intentionally pick out which books I’d like to finish.  Here’s my list for the rest of 2009:

• Infinite Jest – I started it with the Infinite Summer group, but I could not finish it by September 21.  I thought 90 days would be plenty and I’d finish early.  Now I’m just hoping to finish it before the end of the year otherwise I’ll have to chalk it up to a third or fourth failed attempt.
• 2666 – At this point I don’t even want to finish the book, but I’m too stubborn not to.  I’ve read all but the last 200 pages and it’s been close to nine months since I’ve last read a decent chunk of it.  I realize that I can’t give an accurate review of the book since I’ve probably forgotten much of what I’ve read.
• Once the Shore – I read most of Paul Yoon’s stories earlier this year, but had to return the book to the library before I could finish the last few.
• Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned – Wells Tower’s debut story collection received a lot of hype, and though I’ve only read a handful of the stories here, I don’t think they’ve lived up to it.  But because I’m stubborn, I’d like to finish the last few (Notice a pattern here?).
• Girl Trouble – I’d looked forward to Holly Goddard Jones’s debut collection since I read one of her stories earlier this year (or late last year?).  She’s talented and I’ve loved the few I’ve read.  But I haven’t picked up the book since its September 1st release.
• Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing – Another collection I’ve been meaning to read.  Lydia Peelle is an amazing short story writer, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this collection, if only to reread “The Still Point.”

If I get through those books, I’d love to start some Faulkner (Light in August), Gogol (Dead Souls), Cheever, Carver, Munro, Welty, and some religious/spiritual writing (such as Thomas Merton) and Jewish-American Fiction.  It’s been a while since I’ve read the Russians, and I do love them.  Right now I can’t contain my reading excitement, but I also can’t muster up the concentration to get started.  Until then, I’ll watch the Broncos continue their winning streak and maybe catch up on some One Story issues during half time.

Stories on Stage

For a few months I’d been looking forward to Stories on Stage on September 26 at the DCPA.  They featured four short stories, all performed by actors:  Rachel Fowler reading Lorrie Moore’s “You’re Ugly, Too,” Frank Corrado with Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain,” Lauren Klein performing Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and Elgin Kelley reading contest winner Kendal Muse’s “A Message by the Sarge.”  The theme was “Nobody Likes a Smartass.”

It was amazing!  The concept is brilliant:  a cross between a fiction reading and a play.  The actors read the stories, like you’d see at a reading, but because of their talent as actors, the stories came alive as if a full set of actors with props performed on stage.  I was giddy at the prospect of hearing three stories by writers I admire all in one evening.

Rachel Fowler’s rendition of “You’re Ugly, Too” created a different idea of the characters in my mind.  Like Life is the only adult book by Lorrie Moore I haven’t read yet, so I read the story just the week before the performance.  Immediately I noticed the absence of the second person and word play as compared to her other stories.  Sure, there’s some word play but not to the same extent as there is in the other ones.  It was great to hear the character’s voices and Fowler’s interpretation of them.

Frank Corrado had the perfect voice for “Bullet in the Brain.”  He spoke in a deep, resonate tone that echoed the violence in the story.

But Lauren Klein’s performance of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” was nothing short of phenomenal.  Her voices for the characters, especially the children, John Wesley and June Star, were hilarious and sad just like O’Connor’s stories themselves.  At first I was disappointed to see that they chose such a widely canonized story of O’Connor’s and not another one.  I’d read it in half a dozen classes in high school and college, and a handful of times since then.  It’s a great story, but I was afraid that since I was so familiar with it, that I’d accidentally tune out.

Instead, Klein made the story new for me.  I’ve loved O’Connor’s work for what’s been called the “Southern Gothic,” as well as for the quality of tragic humor and the way she flips things around, making the faithless characters almost heros and showing the pious characters for what they are.

And maybe because I read through all of her stories (though it took at least a year), I became numb to the power in them.  And maybe I experienced the story on a deeper level now that I have a child.  Before I felt like the family got what was coming to them.  Now I don’t like them, but I feel the terror and the shrieks coming from the forest.  Now, I cringe at the outcome and how simply the men and the Misfit commit their crimes.  Before I didn’t think too much of the Misfit, but now I had hope for him.  I could see the “moment of grace” offered to him, his almost acceptance of it, the unlikely manifestation of grace through the conversation with the grandmother, and then his ultimate rejection of it and choice to continue with a life of crime, and the utter hopelessness of that choice.  I am just in awe of how O’Connor can create characters, all of them so unsavory, and then allow the reader such a contradiction of feelings.  She manages to show the complexity of people and grace and sin.  Those words, so cliché on paper, so powerful in reality.

Suffice it to say, I highly recommend checking out Stories on Stage and, as always, Flannery O’Connor.

Oh, and here‘s a YouTube video of the actors.