Rawther ironically, the most useful piece of advice I've gotten from Butler's From Where You Dream is solidly stylistic. The white hot center doesn't enter into it. HORRORS.
I found it in Chapter 8, the Anecdote Experience, where Butler is doing a sharp bit of on-the-fly editing for his writing students as they try to describe a personal experience. It takes some brave writers to get up there with him, I gotta say. I wish I could say I'd have the courage to but....UM.
OKAY. MAYBE IN A MINUTE, PROFESSOR.
Anyway, it was a little revealing I think to hear Butler walk the walk like this. It made a lot of his WHITE HOT CENTER stuff concrete. And one piece of that advice really jumped out at me. You've all probably read this chapter and everything by now but I thought it deserved it own little bloggy spotlight:
ROB: Let his face turn to you. Let me see his face in the moment.
SANDRA: He is not surprised to see me.
ROB: OK, you have just analyzed his face. He's not surprised to see you. We're not seeing a not-there; what are we seeing?
SANDRA: He's looking as though he was expecting me to walk in.
ROB: You just analyzed it again. What do you reading the face? Because the little girl standing there perhaps rightly analyzes the look on his face, but what is it that's on the face she sees that leads her to that analysis? That's what we're after.
SANDRA: That's abstraction?
ROB: That's abstraction.
As I see it, there are two mad nuggets of advice here. The first is very important, and overarching: write through your characters, not at them. Let them tell us what they see and what they feel -- don't speak for them! LET YOUR PEOPLE GO, ETC.
But secondly, more specifically and
(I think) much more helpfully....DON'T WRITE WHAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. WRITE HOW IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. I've already been catching myself with this. "She looked like she was trying to lift the rock." How can someone look like they are not doing something Laurel be more specific. Course, this isn't to say that this is never right, or useful. I mean, I think in negative actions all the time. But that's my own internal narration, like my character's internal narration. It is not THE LITERARY VOICE.
Ahhh jeeze, I went on for way to long here. What a surprise. In any case, tell me your thoughts! Is this bullpoo?
Saturday, November 3, 2007
FYI, your intructor and his best friend, live, Tuesday (not Monday, as I previously may have told you)
(I'm just getting back to the blog after a haywire couple of weeks, and look forward to reading your posts this weekend - jb)
Writing Butterfield, the undergraduate writing community at UMass, proudly presents:
"Bo's Arts, The Powerpoint Presentation!"
UMass MFA candidate Jamie Berger will read from his book,
"Bo's Arts: Visual Interpretations of a Soft Dog".
The evening will include a Powerpoint presentation about
the making of "Bo's Arts"
and the art in the book
and the dog who led to the art show in San Francisco that led to the book that led to the Powerpoint presentation!Mr. Berger will also discuss a new, groundbreaking genre: Powerpointalism!
Bo (the dog!) will be at the show, and both author and dog/muse will field your questions.
All this takes place on Tuesday, November 6th at 7pm in Butterfield Hall (room 007)!
The event will be catered -- free food!!!!
For more information, please call 413-577-0546.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Instead of saying answer you should say questionment.
did anyone not get that the thing that I posted below (Mourning) was about someone who died and not something like a breakup?
Side note 1: you know you are a lit nerd when your favorite kind of gift certificate is to Amazon.com and you have memories of spending most of your Christmas money on books.
Side note 2: I'm posting one of my favorite poems below. Ironically enough, I saw it on the 1 train in New York one day on my way to work.
A Little Tooth
by Thomas Lux
Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all
over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.
Side note 1: you know you are a lit nerd when your favorite kind of gift certificate is to Amazon.com and you have memories of spending most of your Christmas money on books.
Side note 2: I'm posting one of my favorite poems below. Ironically enough, I saw it on the 1 train in New York one day on my way to work.
A Little Tooth
by Thomas Lux
Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all
over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
When My Brain Left Yesterday
My brain seemed to leave yesterday, sometime during the hockey game, and all that was left was my heart, and it was trying to make up for the empty space inside of me by pushing itself into my throat. It only made things worse.
And this morning, amid all of the uncertainty, the only thing I wanted to know, but couldn't remember, was what was the poem I gave to my Dad for his birthday years ago-because my brain left, and my heart is working double-duty, and it only makes it worse, because hearts don't think.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
And this morning, amid all of the uncertainty, the only thing I wanted to know, but couldn't remember, was what was the poem I gave to my Dad for his birthday years ago-because my brain left, and my heart is working double-duty, and it only makes it worse, because hearts don't think.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden
Friday, October 19, 2007
flimsy concrete
has anybody else noticed that when it rains, Lederle and the FAC look like they are made out of wet cardboard?
i think that this is the cutest, most whimsical architectural quirk about UMass.
i think that this is the cutest, most whimsical architectural quirk about UMass.
Mourning
My computer crashed just as I was about to finish this. I cannot describe my frustration. Finally, I can write cathartically about something so important, and my computer crashes and I lose it.
Sigh.
Anyway, I'd like to request comments on it. People's reactions. Thanksabunch.
Mourning
~~~~~~~~
This is semi fiction.
It's kind of like a semi-autobiography. Maybe it's not exactly how things happened. Maybe it's something that you wish happened. Maybe it's something that happened just a little bit differently in your life. Maybe it's a few things, all mixed together, intermingling like the feelings in your head, and it's not exactly true, but it means so much to you.
You say "pie" when you hang up the phone because it's too difficult to say "bye," and it is really time to go now, it's been time for so long, you really have to be going, so "I miss you" and then in a small unwilling voice, "pie." And you tell yourself, I've only met this person once, a really good once, but it was only just once. But then you tell yourself, it was good, it was so good, I haven't felt this connected in years, I haven't lost myself so completely in anyone in so long. Maybe ever. And then you tell yourself that it helps so much with the other thing, with the death. And now you're having a conversation with yourself. But really, it's a conversation with her still. You're always having a conversation with her in the back of your head. The only time it really stops is when you see her again and you're talking to her for real. It's better than you remember. It's better than you remember because your memory can't hold it, can't contain it. But you don't need your memory to hold it because every time you talk to her, every moment in between when you even think of her, you feel it in your chest. It moves you. It moves you so much that it feels like your guts are actually shifting in concert with your heart. It moves you so much that when you do talk to her again you have to say "pie" because you can't say "bye."
I knew her for five years of my life. Five years of drifting back and forth. You can look at it two ways: I had a series of relationships, and saw her in between. Or, I saw her off and on again, and had a series of relationships in between. Really, it's both of those, and neither. Really, talking about it like this is missing the point.
It's two weeks now. Two difficult weeks. The other thing is helping. And it's the first time you can talk about her, even just a little. You miss little things about her, because you've known her for so long and so intimately. You can tell when you haven't spoken for months and you're hanging out again, you can tell exactly what's going on, the subtext is familiar and good. When she's touching her hair that way, it means she's hoping you'll kiss her. And a thousand other tender little things.
And in your mind you have a map of the landscape. It's not a topographically correct map. It doesn't have all the mountains or all the rivers or all the the towns. But you can see it clearer than you can when you try to think of one of those. It only exists in your mind. It's all the places that ever meant anything to you together. That place you went that time in the summer when you were young that you kept coming back to, exploring, mapping together, claiming. All the sites you saw and sounds you heard and things you said and things you did together. This used to be a wonderful thing. She always used to be there on this map, at a distance. You always used to be able to think that someday you'd find each other again against the backdrop of a chaotic life, even if just for a while.
I believe that all change is good. I try to. I try so hard. I tell myself that all change is good. I tell myself that I should be happy for all these wonderful memories. That I should be happy that she's so important to who I am now. That I'll take it all forward with me. And now I'm having a conversation with myself. But really, it's missing having a conversation with her. Will I always be talking to her in the back of my head? Will how good it was fade from my memory?
I think back to that time before I left. She told me that after those four weeks, those four glorious weeks, she was mine then. She was moving her hips to the music I gave her, and thinking about me all the time, wanting to spend lazy afternoons making love, wanting to be with me. I was moving to New York to leave everything behind, to start a new life. She told me, so much after the fact, when it wasn't important anymore, not in the same way at least, but so important in this other way, she told me that if I'd stayed, she would've been mine heart and soul. And I told her that if she'd told me that, if I'd suspected even just a little, I would've stayed. I've never meant anything more. And she cried a little, and I cried a little, and that's one of the last things I ever said to her.
Sigh.
Anyway, I'd like to request comments on it. People's reactions. Thanksabunch.
Mourning
~~~~~~~~
This is semi fiction.
It's kind of like a semi-autobiography. Maybe it's not exactly how things happened. Maybe it's something that you wish happened. Maybe it's something that happened just a little bit differently in your life. Maybe it's a few things, all mixed together, intermingling like the feelings in your head, and it's not exactly true, but it means so much to you.
You say "pie" when you hang up the phone because it's too difficult to say "bye," and it is really time to go now, it's been time for so long, you really have to be going, so "I miss you" and then in a small unwilling voice, "pie." And you tell yourself, I've only met this person once, a really good once, but it was only just once. But then you tell yourself, it was good, it was so good, I haven't felt this connected in years, I haven't lost myself so completely in anyone in so long. Maybe ever. And then you tell yourself that it helps so much with the other thing, with the death. And now you're having a conversation with yourself. But really, it's a conversation with her still. You're always having a conversation with her in the back of your head. The only time it really stops is when you see her again and you're talking to her for real. It's better than you remember. It's better than you remember because your memory can't hold it, can't contain it. But you don't need your memory to hold it because every time you talk to her, every moment in between when you even think of her, you feel it in your chest. It moves you. It moves you so much that it feels like your guts are actually shifting in concert with your heart. It moves you so much that when you do talk to her again you have to say "pie" because you can't say "bye."
I knew her for five years of my life. Five years of drifting back and forth. You can look at it two ways: I had a series of relationships, and saw her in between. Or, I saw her off and on again, and had a series of relationships in between. Really, it's both of those, and neither. Really, talking about it like this is missing the point.
It's two weeks now. Two difficult weeks. The other thing is helping. And it's the first time you can talk about her, even just a little. You miss little things about her, because you've known her for so long and so intimately. You can tell when you haven't spoken for months and you're hanging out again, you can tell exactly what's going on, the subtext is familiar and good. When she's touching her hair that way, it means she's hoping you'll kiss her. And a thousand other tender little things.
And in your mind you have a map of the landscape. It's not a topographically correct map. It doesn't have all the mountains or all the rivers or all the the towns. But you can see it clearer than you can when you try to think of one of those. It only exists in your mind. It's all the places that ever meant anything to you together. That place you went that time in the summer when you were young that you kept coming back to, exploring, mapping together, claiming. All the sites you saw and sounds you heard and things you said and things you did together. This used to be a wonderful thing. She always used to be there on this map, at a distance. You always used to be able to think that someday you'd find each other again against the backdrop of a chaotic life, even if just for a while.
I believe that all change is good. I try to. I try so hard. I tell myself that all change is good. I tell myself that I should be happy for all these wonderful memories. That I should be happy that she's so important to who I am now. That I'll take it all forward with me. And now I'm having a conversation with myself. But really, it's missing having a conversation with her. Will I always be talking to her in the back of my head? Will how good it was fade from my memory?
I think back to that time before I left. She told me that after those four weeks, those four glorious weeks, she was mine then. She was moving her hips to the music I gave her, and thinking about me all the time, wanting to spend lazy afternoons making love, wanting to be with me. I was moving to New York to leave everything behind, to start a new life. She told me, so much after the fact, when it wasn't important anymore, not in the same way at least, but so important in this other way, she told me that if I'd stayed, she would've been mine heart and soul. And I told her that if she'd told me that, if I'd suspected even just a little, I would've stayed. I've never meant anything more. And she cried a little, and I cried a little, and that's one of the last things I ever said to her.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
writing about music
"you, you're a history in rust" by do make say think is just plain amazing. I mean, the individual songs are great... but I just finished listening through it the entire way for the first time in the five days that I've had it. After the last song faded, something seized my heart, and I could not move or speak or do anything: it was as if the happiest moment in my life had just brushed up against my chest, surprising me completely, stopping me, breath held, just before tears rushed to my eyes.
That is one good album.
As a multi-instrumentalist myself, I know that creating music with moments like that is difficult, let alone making an entire album have that effect. I feel like this difference can be likened to the difference between a really good short story, and a really good novel. I've been trying to quantify what I like about some writing more than other writing lately,and the best that I've been able to come up with is the idea of things that aren't said explicitly but are nonetheless received. For instance, throughout the album, there are little moments... for instance: a really pretty instrumental section coming to an end with people making funny noises with their mouths. Only you don't realize that it's people making these noises. And then all of a sudden they stop, and they laugh good-naturedly in the one second of silence before a guitar picks up the melody again. It shows the humanity behind the music, but it fits so perfectly. This is a poor example...
Also, of supreme relavence: http://xkcd.com/304/
That is one good album.
As a multi-instrumentalist myself, I know that creating music with moments like that is difficult, let alone making an entire album have that effect. I feel like this difference can be likened to the difference between a really good short story, and a really good novel. I've been trying to quantify what I like about some writing more than other writing lately,and the best that I've been able to come up with is the idea of things that aren't said explicitly but are nonetheless received. For instance, throughout the album, there are little moments... for instance: a really pretty instrumental section coming to an end with people making funny noises with their mouths. Only you don't realize that it's people making these noises. And then all of a sudden they stop, and they laugh good-naturedly in the one second of silence before a guitar picks up the melody again. It shows the humanity behind the music, but it fits so perfectly. This is a poor example...
Also, of supreme relavence: http://xkcd.com/304/
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