Springtime sentences

"The morning swayed, as duplicitous as déjà vu."

"He parked beside a garden where three staked camellias stood as whitely upright as martyrs."

 

Lucy Barton on books and writing

From My Name Is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout:

Often I might hear the faint echo in the gym of the cheerleaders practicing, or the bouncing of a basketball, or perhaps in the music room the band would be practicing too, but I remained alone in the classroom, warm, and that was when I learned that work gets done simply if you do it. I could see the logic of my homework assignments in a way I could not if I did my work at home. And when my homework was done, I read -- until finally I had to leave.

... [L]ater in high school I still read books, when my homework was done, in the warm school. But the books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone. And I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone! (But it was my secret. ... I took myself -- secretly, secretly -- very seriously! I knew I was a writer. I didn't know how hard it would be. But no one knows that; and that does not matter.

Lucy after first meeting Sarah Payne, the writer who will become her teacher:

I like writers who try to tell you something truthful. I also liked her work because she had grown up on a run-down apple orchard in a small town in New Hampshire, and she wrote about the rural parts of that state, she wrote about people who worked hard and suffered and also had good things happen to them. And then I realized that even in her books, she was not telling exactly the truth, she was always staying away from something. Why, she could barely say her name! And I felt I understood that too.

Sarah Payne on a panel:

"It's not my job to make readers know what's a narrative voice and not the private view of the author."

Sarah Payne in a private conference with Lucy during a weeklong workshop in Arizona:

"Listen to me, and listen to me carefully. What you are writing, what you want to write," and she leaned forward again and tapped with her finger the piece I had given her, "this is very good and it will be published. Now listen. People will go after you for combining poverty and abuse. Such a stupid word, 'abuse,' such a conventional and stupid word, but people will say there's poverty without abuse, and you will never say anything. Never ever defend your work. This is a story about love, you know that. This is a story of a man who has been tortured every day of his life for things he did in the war. This is the story of a wife who stayed with him, because most wives did in that generation, and she comes to her daughter's hospital room and talks compulsively about everyone's marriage going bad, she doesn't even know that's what she's doing. This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly. But if you find yourself protecting anyone as you write this piece, remember this: You're not doing it right."

Lucy on lessons learned:

Sarah Payne said, If there is a weakness in your story, address it head-on, take it in your teeth and address it, before the reader really knows. This is where you will get your authority, she said, during one of those classes when her face was filled with fatigue from teaching. I feel that people may not understand that my mother could never say the words I love you. I fell that people may not understand: It was all right.

And:

Now I think of something Sarah Payne had said at the writing class in Arizona. “You will have only one story,” she had said. “You’ll write your one story many ways. Don’t ever worry about story. You have only one.”

Use the back door

Secretary

Sy Bassary is my imaginary secretary -- sleek, handsome, Algerian, with a razor wit and deadly charm. People are drawn to him and a little afraid of him.

He is also my driver. He drives so fast I have to close my eyes.

 

Image: Forza Motorsport

 

A few of my favorite books

Any Small Thing Can Save You / Christina Adam
A Box of Matches / Nicholson Baker
In Cold Blood / Truman Capote
Where I'm Calling From / Raymond Carver
Death Comes for the Archbishop / Willa Cather
The House on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros
The Hours / Michael Cunningham
The End of the Story / Lydia Davis
Slouching Towards Bethlehem / Joan Didion
The Book of Daniel / E.L. Doctorow
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon / Mark Doty
The Woman Who Walked into Doors / Roddy Doyle
The Brothers K / David James Duncan
As I Lay Dying / William Faulkner
I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere / Anna Gavalda
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams / Ellen Gilchrist
Mariette in Ecstasy / Ron Hansen
Our Souls at Night / Kent Haruf
Catch-22 / Joseph Heller
Tumble Home / Amy Hempel
The Secret of Cartwheels / Patricia Henley
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest / Ken Kesey
Still Life with Insects / Brian Kitely
Interpreter of Maladies; Unaccustomed Earth / Jhumpa Lahiri
The Red Notebook / Antoine Laurain
The Diviners / Margaret Laurence
To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee
Bobcat and Other Stories / Rebecca Lee
The Five Thousand and One Nights / Penelope Lively
Seeing Eye / Michael Martone
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination / Elizabeth McCracken
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? / Lorrie Moore
Beloved / Toni Morrison
The Moons of Jupiter / Alice Munro
The Call / Yannick Murphy
Emily, Alone / Stewart O'Nan
The English Patient / Michael Ondaatje
Nobody Calls Me Darling Anymore / Dannye Romine Powell
Gilead; Lila / Marilynne Robinson
Dusk / James Salter
The Loom / R.A. Sasaki
Burning Patience / Antonio Skarmeta
Just Kids / Patti Smith
The Grapes of Wrath / John Steinbeck
Abide with Me; Amy and Isabelle / Elizabeth Strout
View with a Grain of Sand / Wislawa Szymborska
Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life / Abigail Thomas
Slaughterhouse-Five / Kurt Vonnegut
Collected Stories / Eudora Welty
Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf

Ask Cartoon Girl | writing naked

Dear Cartoon Girl,

Once I wrote a short story. It really happened, but I pretended like I’d made it up. Then I took a nonfiction class and rewrote it as the truth. It’s about my high school boyfriend and me having sex and what happened afterwards.

When I read it to my husband he said, "You're not going to submit that to The Sun, are you? I mean, a story about you having sex? Do people do that?"

Besides suggesting that he branch out from American History and read some memoir and autobiography, what should I say to him about how I'm going to write my truths and try to share them with the world?

– Creative Exhibitionist


Dear Creative,

The answer to your husband's question is, "Yes, sweetheart. People write about sex all the time."

Of course, you and I know he didn't ask you his real question.  Maybe he wonders why you’re thinking about the old boyfriend. Maybe he's afraid your essay isn’t ready for publication and doesn’t want to say so.  Maybe he's afraid it will be published to great acclaim and your marriage will somehow be undone by your success.

What I think he's asking is, "Where does the nakedness end? Are you going to expose me?"

A fair question. But, let's be clear, it's not a question about writing. Nobody and nothing but your own heart can tell you what to write, as I hope your husband knows (and if he doesn't, find a kind, clear way to tell him; as a student of history, surely he'll appreciate your fascination with your past and how it's made you who you are).

I think this is a question about publishing. What happens when sharing your truths means exposing the truths of others?

I have friends who’ve written exquisite books they would not have dared to publish during the lifetimes of certain family members.  Others take an I’m-a-writer-first approach.  (Remember the Joni Mitchell line, "Will you take me as I am?"  Meaning, "even when I write sad confessional songs about you?")  I don't know what your priorities are, Creative; all I know is, when you publish – anything, but especially personal nonfiction – you should be ready to live with the consequences. Some people will take you as you are: a writer trying to make sense and meaning and, let's just say it, art of your life.  Some won’t, and of those, some will matter to you more than others.

Your husband, who matters to you, brought this up for a reason. Ask him what he’s worried about. Tell him what sharing your work means to you.  Maybe he’ll calm down and trust you.  Maybe you'll make a deal: you'll never expose his dangly bits without asking him first.

Whatever happens, I wish you good luck with The Sun. I have a feeling that once you've started publishing personal work, both you and your husband will get the hang of it.  Wink wink.

Love,
Cartoon Girl

Ask Cartoon Girl | shortcuts to inspiration

Dear Cartoon Girl,

Every night I ask my darling husband what he'd like for dinner and he sweetly answers, "I don't care." Should I quit asking or stop cooking?

-- Fresh Out of Ideas

Dear Fresh,

I like you.  You're funny.  Pithy like I wish I were.  Have you ever thought of starting your own column?

So, you have carte blanche in the kitchen.  (Can you tell I'm practicing to go to France?)  I'm guessing your husband eats whatever you cook, and is appreciative or at least uncomplaining, and that you're doing the cooking according to some division of labor you've worked out that seems, on the whole, balanced -- oui?

This, then, is purely a problem of inspiration, one well-known to writers as well as cooks.  How do we work when we aren't inspired? 

We turn to our Lists of Favorites.

In the room where I write I have a special shelf of books whose language is so crystalline and compelling I need read only a line or two and, voilà!, my own imagination is fired up.  James Salter, Amy Hempel, Angela Davis-Gardner, Wallace Stephens. 

In your kitchen, keep a list of your favorite meals, dishes that are fresh and tasty and healthy and quick and easy.  You can grab ideas anywhere -- restaurants, cookbooks, the newspaper, magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store (I'm a sucker for these), dishes your friends make, your own concoctions.

Use your favorites list to plan meals, keeping in mind what's in season.  Take it with you when you shop.  (If you don't have a garden or belong to a CSA, be sure your shopping includes a trip to the local farmers market.)  Buy enough ingredients for several meals.  If you're cooking something that makes good leftovers, cook extra.

Next, and no less important: tunes.  Keep a music player in your kitchen, and make a CD or playlist of your favorite songs.  Play it while you cook.  Play it loud.  Sing along.  Dance!  Have so much fun your darling husband gets jealous and wishes he were the one doing the cooking.

Finally, Fresh, if all else fails, consult the other list you should be making: favorite places to eat out.

Bon appetit!

Love,
Cartoon Girl